One More Unfortunate

by Kaitlin Queen

  When the Roman Catholic church loomed up on his left, he realised that this was another of his unplanned routes which turned out to have been planned by some part of his mind all along. He turned left at the top of the lane and shortly he turned sharp right into Manor Lane.

  He almost had the courage to walk straight past, but he didn't.

  She answered his knock with a sudden smile of recognition, before the gates came down. She let him into the hall and cut off his apologies by saying, "Early morning. Your time of day. I'm glad you came. Really."

  They went through to the kitchen and she hung his wet coat on the corner of the door. She poured him tea without asking and they sat, quiet for a time. "You had a hard day yesterday," she said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  He could have just sat and watched her. Sipping at her tea, holding the cup in both hands. Instead, he said, "Not so bad. I went out to Colchester to talk to Trevor Carr."

  "Of 'Trev and Mandy'?"

  He nodded.

  "Did he tell you anything you didn't already know?"

  "About himself, yes. I was jealous of him before I saw him yesterday. Jealous of where he is in life."

  "No more?"

  He shook his head. "He told me Betsy was having an affair with Jerry. It was under my nose all the time and I missed it. I suppose I knew that Jerry was like that, but Betsy..."

  "I knew," said Karen. "Not about the two of them. About Betsy. If you'd paid more attention to him at his party you'd have seen it too. It wasn't just me he was after, it was anybody in a skirt who was under about forty-five." She smiled, wryly. "His wife was watching him, too. She kept interrupting him when he got into full flow. Never a cross word but I expect a few things were said afterwards."

  "Even his apology, at his birthday party," said Nick. "None of it was genuine, he was just covering his tracks. I never thought he'd lie to me like that."

  Suddenly, Karen stared at him. "You don't think he had more reason for lying, do you? 'Covering his tracks,' you said."

  Nick shook his head. "He can't have killed Jerry," he said. "He was in the cabin, arguing with Caroline. I don't have any reason to doubt that." The thought still disturbed her, he saw. He took her hand, across the table. "It's okay," he told her. "He's a cheat, that's all. A shabby womaniser."

  He saw immediately that he'd chosen the wrong words to comfort her. Now she was upset for a different reason. "I'm sorry," he said. "But you've nothing to fear. Really."

  He rode in her car into town and they parted with a quick kiss outside the office of Merrywell and Taylor. They had arranged that he would meet her here after work, too. He could no longer tell if she was still upset at the thought that Betsy might be a murderer who had tried to chat her up, or by his own clumsy attempt to comfort her. At least he could make her feel safer, he thought, if nothing else.

  ~

  He met her after work, determined not to make any more clumsy gaffes. No mention of adultery and broken marriages, no talk of murder.

  "Hi," she said, crossing the road to where he sat on a low wall waiting. "Where am I going to take you?" She seemed relaxed this afternoon, more confident in his company.

  They went to the restaurant where they had first shared lunch. As they ate, Karen asked Nick about the jobs he had had. "What's it like, being paid to be the hard man?" she asked him.

  "Not glamorous," he said. "Ninety-nine per cent of the time it's the most boring thing you could imagine."

  "And the other one per cent?"

  "Not so boring," he said. He changed the subject. "You like seafood?"

  She nodded. "We used to go to a place in Oxf—" and then she caught herself and stopped.

  "With your ex-husband?"

  She kept staring at her plate. "I lied," she said. "He's not my ex-husband."

  For a moment his head spun with competing thoughts, then he said, "But you're separated, right? He still lives on the other side of the country, doesn't he?" She nodded twice. "You're going to get divorced, then, aren't you?" He didn't really see the distinction: they'd split up. That was what mattered. He looked at her. "You are going to get a divorce, aren't you?"

  Slowly, she nodded, and when she looked at him her eyes were glittering with tears. "He asked me back," she said. "Three months ago. He wanted things to be how they had been before his affair."

  "It doesn't work that way," said Nick. "You said no."

  She shook her head. "I went back. Just for a weekend. It was Hell. We kept fighting. I couldn't trust him at all. I left on the Sunday morning and he broke down. He even threatened to kill himself."

  "I'm sorry," said Nick. He didn't know what she expected of him: should he hold back, or should he go to her? "What did you do?"

  Now she gave a little half-laugh. "I did the most awful thing," she told him. "I said, 'Go on then. It'll save a lot of paperwork and solicitors' fees.' And then I drove back to Bathside. I called him that evening because I felt so guilty and do you know what? She answered the telephone."

  ~

  Over coffee, they talked about murder. Neither of them seemed to be thinking very straight and for a long time they simply covered old ground.

  Eventually, Karen said, "He must have had a reason."

  "Hmm? Who's that?"

  "Andrew Gayle. Jerry's little brother. He must have had a reason for suspecting you."

  Nick sighed. "It was a fairly open secret that the police arrested me, when they only took statements from everyone else. Jerry's father knew. From the family's point of view, the police arrested me and then let me go because there wasn't enough evidence against me."

  "Do you think that's all it took to provoke them? You said they'd have killed you..."

  "The family had made another appeal on the TV that day. Everything had been stirred up again. You can picture it: a group of young lads, drinking together, arguing and working each other up. Eventually it becomes a question of saving face—they had to do something."

  "So they set up this girl "—she gave him a sharp look as she spoke "—and trapped you. Hardly spur of the moment."

  "So what are you saying?"

  "Well. What if Jerry had said something which Andrew had later misinterpreted? She might have argued with her killer a day or two before he attacked her. And, entirely unconnected, you were new in town and she'd just met you again. You said yourself that she was often vague about things: maybe she'd mentioned both events close together and after she was killed Andrew had half-remembered and put it all together wrong?"

  "You don't think it's a random psychopath, then?"

  She looked at him hard. "If it is, then there's nothing we can do. If it isn't, then you seem to know as much as anybody else about it all—maybe you can put it all together..."

  He took her hand and stood. "Okay," he said. "You'd better pay the bill."

  "What? Why the hurry?"

  "It's your idea," he said. "So just pay up and come with me. Time to see the wild side of this town."

  ~

  They went out to Karen's car, parked in the lane behind her office. She tossed him the keys and he started it up, surprised when it caught first time. He backed out onto Station Road, then drove across town until they reached Coastguards' Parade. They passed along the top of Cliff Gardens, then dropped down towards the sea.

  The Gryphon was a large pub, set back a little from the road, facing out to sea. It was one of the older pubs in Bathside and its current owners seemed to be running a losing battle against the fabric of the building. Their half-hearted efforts to halt the decay—a little paint, some polish, a few tired prints of Victorian seaside scenes—did little to relieve the tired air of roughness that pervaded the place.

  It was Matthew Wyse who had warned him not to go near the Gryphon. "He virtually lives there," he had said, referring to Jerry's hothead brother.

  Now, Nick parked Karen's Astra in the car park. "Shall we have a drink?" he said.

  They went into the pub. It was an old-fashioned place, the air
thick with smoke and beer and body odour. Nick took Karen's hand and led her to the bar. In her pin stripes she looked out of place and a number of people stopped what they were doing to stare. Nick squeezed her hand and asked what she wanted to drink.

  "Two small orange juices," he said, when he had attracted the bar maid's attention.

  It was a noisy place, full of loud laughter and sudden shouts and the background thump of music. Some bikers had taken over one end of the bar and there were helmets and studded leather everywhere.

  "Nice," said Karen, sipping at her drink. "You certainly know how to charm a girl."

  He spotted Andy Gayle at a table by the juke-box. A small woman with glasses and long, golden earrings was with him, looking bored as he talked and laughed with friends sitting nearby.

  Eventually, Gayle noticed him, betrayed by an occasional wary glance.

  After a few minutes, Nick caught his eye and nodded. He took Karen's hand again and led her across. Sensing her apprehension, he said, "If they attack me, just grab a chair and hit anyone who comes near, you hear?" She gave him a sharp look, which he chose to read as a good sign.

  He took two stools and they sat at Gayle's table without waiting to be invited. Jerry's brother looked awkward and Nick saw that he had a black eye. Gayle was clearly unsure how to handle the situation: he knew he'd been wrong, but his mates were here, and his girl. Nick realised he'd chosen the wrong place to confront him.

  "Didn't do a very good job of it, did you?" said Nick in an amiable tone. "Five on one. Should have been easy. Just make sure you get the facts right next time, okay?"

  Gayle started to speak, but was silenced by a quick look from his girlfriend. Nick had thought at first that his black eye had come from the fight, but for a moment he wondered if it was the girl—angry with him for getting in trouble with the police? It was a nice little fantasy.

  Gayle started again. "Okay," he said. "What do you want?"

  "I'm not looking for trouble," said Nick. He eyed Andy Gayle's friends at the neighbouring tables. He recognised at least two faces from Sunday night—one of them had his arm in a sling, Nick noted with satisfaction. "And if I was looking for a rematch I'd hardly come here, would I?"

  "So what is it?" Gayle's tone was surly, as if he realised he was trapped: he wouldn't fight, because they were with their girlfriends; he couldn't run because he just couldn't; and he could never apologise, even if he wanted to.

  "I want to know why," said Nick. "What made you set me up like that? I know you'd have gone a lot further, if you hadn't been interrupted." Another sharp look from the girlfriend. "So why did you pick me out?"

  Gayle glared at him. "What do you think, mister? You were nicked. You pestered the old man. Sticking your nose in, weren't you? Just like you are now. Everyone said it was you that did in my sister. What were we supposed to do?"

  "Lets get it straight," said Nick. "Do you still think it was me?"

  Andrew Gayle twitched in his seat, as if he was about to throw himself over the table at Nick. "Do you think you'd still be breathing now if I did?" he said. He took a deep drink from his pint.

  "It wasn't anything Jerry said?" asked Nick. "We thought Jerry might have mentioned something that you reinterpreted later. Can you think of anything that was bothering her?"

  "What is this?" Gayle drank some more beer. He shook his head. "Donna, here—" he nodded towards his girlfriend "—said something about Jerry mentioning you one time. Said you were back in town. Said you'd been after her at school. She used to come in to the Co-op where Donna works and jaw at her sometimes." Nick looked at Donna, but she was staring resolutely into her half-pint. "Look, what are you after?"

  "I just want to know what happened."

  Andy Gayle shook his head slowly. "No you don't," he said. "I tell you what you want and that's to keep your fucking nose out. Right? Right?"

  This time the look from Donna didn't calm him and Nick knew he'd pushed things about as far as he could. He stood, knocking his stool over by accident, and for a moment he thought Andrew Gayle was going to go for him again.

  He stared him out for several long seconds.

  He sensed Karen at his side and he took her cold hand in his. They turned and walked slowly out through the crowd, everybody following their progress to the door.

  Outside, the rain had returned. They hurried to the car and got in.

  "You okay?" asked Nick. Karen nodded, and he started the engine and turned out into the road.

  ~

  He parked outside Karen's house. "Will you come in?" she asked him, as they stood at the wrought-iron gate.

  He shook his head. "I have things to do," he said. "Will you be okay?"

  She nodded. They kissed, and Nick knew that she wanted him to stay with her. He backed away. "Can I come back later?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Look after yourself," she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. "Me?" he said, and then he turned and walked back out of Manor Lane, aware of her eyes on his back.

  He went down past the school, then right along Low Road towards Long Meadows Estate. In about ten minutes he reached Avocet Close. The lights were on in Betsy's house.

  He walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

  When the door opened, Caroline looked out at him, a pair of large spectacles propped on the bridge of her nose. "Is Marcus in?" he asked.

  "No," she said. "He's at a meeting of the Round Table. Was there something...?"

  "I wanted to talk to him about the night Jerry died," he said.

  "I thought so." She opened the door wider and he went inside. She was wearing a shapeless old track-suit and had tied her hair in a scarf so that she looked twice her real age. "He said that's all you seem to want to talk about. 'Obsessed' was the word he used."

  They sat in the living room, cavernous without all the people of Betsy's party.

  "I was arrested for it," said Nick. "I'd say my curiosity's a pretty natural response." He looked at her and he felt a strong urge to wound, to tell her about Betsy's affair. She had disliked him as soon as they met. They were opposites. Different worlds, from different ends of the universe.

  He satisfied his mood by bluntness, instead. "What was he doing on Sunday evening?" he asked, adding cruelly, "When the second murder took place."

  She hated him for that. "He was here," she said. "With me."

  Suddenly he felt sorry for her. It was perverse the way his reactions kept flipping like this. He disliked her and her petty ways, but for a moment there he had sensed what it must be like to be Caroline, in Caroline's house, with Caroline's cheating husband.

  "Just the two of you?"

  She glared at him. "We stayed in," she said. "Together. Just the two of us. We had a Chinese takeaway, which we both went to fetch in my car. We had fried seaweed and butterfly king prawns. We had braised duck and something with pork and we had chow mein because Marcus detests anything with rice. We washed it down with a bottle of Chablis. We had Beverley Craven and Alison Moyet on the stereo—"

  "Okay, okay," said Nick. "I get the picture."

  "We had sex. Here on the living room carpet." Nick looked down inadvertently. "I missed everything after 'All Cried Out'." As if the song title had triggered it, she started to sob. "Believe me," she said, spacing her words out for effect. "We ... actually ... had ... sex. I'd remember a thing like that."

  Nick went across to the doorway and paused. "You don't need to take my advice," he said. "But I'd kick the shit out of your house. You're worth better than Marcus."

  A car pulled into the drive as Nick shut the front door. Betsy climbed out, said, "Nick," in an over-boisterous way. He was just one of the boys, his manner said. "What are you doing here? Are you going to come back in?"

  "No. Thanks." Nick walked down the path. "It's okay. I've just talked to Caroline. We were just discussing your sex life." He left Betsy spluttering by his car, and walked off around the corner into Blue Jay Way.

  Chapter 20

 
Nick Redpath pulled his favourite brown leather jacket tight about himself and walked. Alone with the night, thinking.

  The wind gusted haphazardly, tugging the leaves from the trees and spitting them into the road. The rain came in sudden, short showers and then was gone.

  Life moves on, nothing ever stays the same.

  The water tower rose up on his left. He passed it, and came to the short row of terraced houses where Karen lived. It was after eleven and the only light he could see came from her bedroom window. For a moment, a shadow passed across, behind the net curtains. Then it was gone and he was not sure that it had not simply been another gust of rain-laden wind.

  He walked on, along Manor Lane.

  He felt drained, jaded. He didn't feel ready for more complications tonight. He wasn't ready for the explanations, or the effort it took to judge the right thing to say. He remembered Trevor Carr's awkward phrase: all this doing the right thing stuff, and now he understood it. Tonight, he simply couldn't be bothered.

  He needed to be on his own.

  He walked back through town, working his way through the events of the day, trying to get it all straight. Eventually he came to Cliff Park and turned left down Pattricks Road until he reached his house at the far end.

  When he got in he dialled Karen's number and she answered on the second ring. "Me," he said. "Sorry. I won't be back tonight. I'm drained."

  "Are you all right, Nick? You sound..."

  "Yeah," he said. "Just... I had a kind of a showdown with Betsy and Caroline. It takes a lot out." It seemed he hadn't avoided the complications, the explaining, after all.

  "Do you want me to come over?"

  "No. I'm okay. Just need to sort myself out. Sorry."

  "Will you meet me for lunch, then? One o'clock at the office?"

  He agreed. It was the easiest thing to do.

  ~

  In the morning, he walked right down into Eastquay, to Trinity Pier, Ha'penny Pier, Elizabeth Wharf. He passed the Portakabins where Ronnie Deller worked, went out past the Sailing Club to walk along the Prom, separated from the town by the Town Green where every summer of his childhood a paltry travelling funfair would set up.