Ten Year Stretch

by Martin Edwards

  This detective—randomly selected from Google search results—was no Sherlock Holmes. He sounded not remotely intrigued by the mysterious disappearance of my boyfriend. He sounded, rather, keen to get me off the phone. He explained with a yawn in his voice that I had to pay up front—six-hundred-fifty pounds plus VAT—and that he couldn’t do anything that was in contravention of the law: he couldn’t tap phones, hack into e-mails, break into homes.

  I did my best to conceal my frustration. ‘Why the hell not?’ I nearly screamed. I had been misled by books and movies in which maverick heroes break every rule that stands in their way.

  I asked the yawning detective if he thought he could help me. ‘No idea,’ he said cheerfully. I asked if he could ensure that no one would ever find out I’d hired him. Oh, yes, he assured me—he could certainly do that.

  There was no progress of any kind in the week that followed. I was frantic—cursing myself for not having demanded regular updates. After a week of silence, I e-mailed the yawning detective, asking for news. He replied within minutes. I was delighted, until I read his message: ‘His colleagues reckon he’ll be out of the office for the next two weeks or so. His PA, Donna Crompton, might know more. Have you tried ringing her?’

  I felt like punching the wall. The e-mail told me nothing that the auto-reply hadn’t. It had even mentioned Donna Crompton as the person to contact in his absence.

  And two weeks ‘or so’ was bad news. I’d been thinking, ‘He’ll be back at work after a fortnight. I can find him then, if not before.’

  So disappointed I could hardly breathe, I bashed out an angry e-mail: ‘No, I haven’t rung his PA. Have you? Have you rung his family/friends? Please send details of what you’ve done so far. Have you tried his flat? The mail sits on a big table in the communal hall area. Get in there (maybe follow someone else in?) and you’ll see if he’s been picking up letters, or if there’s a big pile waiting.’

  As I typed, I thought: I shouldn’t have to tell him this. He’s a detective, for Christ’s sake. All right, so he’s not fictional and can’t break the law or work magic, but he could at least have the right attitude: ‘I will not rest until I uncover the truth’. His motto seemed to be the opposite: ‘I will rest until I don’t uncover the truth.’

  After four more days of silence, I rang him. ‘I told you,’ he said impatiently. ‘He’s off work for a bit. Why don’t you wait and see if he turns up in a few weeks?’

  ‘Can you check hospitals?’ I asked, seething.

  ‘Not really,’ came the bored reply. ‘I mean, if I knew he was in hospital and which one, I could ring them, but I can hardly phone every hospital on the off-chance, can I?’

  I was about to start wailing in frustration when a banging on my window startled me. I turned, and…no, it couldn’t be.

  My heart hammered as I stared like an idiot. Either my missing boyfriend had reappeared, or else someone with his face was looking in at me. Smiling apologetically.

  There was no doubt. It was him: Jonathan.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. I could hear him clearly through the glass. ‘I got cold feet. The good news is…they’ve warmed up again.’ There was a bunch of roses in his hand.

  I turned away from him, let him see the phone at my ear. So he wasn’t dead, wasn’t in a coma, wasn’t lying unconscious in hospital. Why hadn’t he texted me? In the time it took him to get here, he could have sent a hundred texts—could have spared me half an hour of panicking about worst-case scenarios.

  I decided he could wait until I’d finished on the phone.

  ‘Look, if this guy wants to contact you, he’ll get in touch, won’t he?’ asked my suspiciously rubbish detective with a chuckle.

  Suspiciously rubbish. As in, actually laughing at me, his paying client. Yet, until that moment, I had not been suspicious, only crushingly disillusioned.

  Jonathan banged on the window again. I ignored him.

  Still on the phone, I opened my laptop and typed the detective’s name and the word ‘scam’ into the search box. Dozens of results appeared: ‘Do not trust Tom St Clare, aka Thomas Brankin. He is NOT a detective. He’s an unemployed ex-chartered surveyor who can’t hold down a job because he lies to everyone he meets. He’ll leech your money, find out nothing, and taunt you for as long as you let him. THIS MAN DESTROYS LIVES.’

  Tom St Clare is a pathological liar. I am an ordinary liar who deceives only when it makes sense to do so. I have not told my fake detective that Jonathan came back, or tried to. At least three times a day, I ring and bombard him with insane, obsessive questions (Have you tried this retro vinyl shop? That pub? That bookshop? The bike repair warehouse? Jonathan might have popped in/walked past/bought something/had a puncture). I disguise my caller ID, so Tom can’t avoid me. He’s starting to sound scared of me. Good.

  I could forgive the lying. I can’t forgive his abject failure, when I urgently needed him to solve a mystery. No mercy for that. Especially since, as it turns out, he is a fictional detective.

  Blue and Sentimental

  John Harvey

  For Anna and Lucy

  Kiley hadn’t been to the Vortex in years. A celebration of Stan Tracey’s seventy-fifth birthday, December 2001. Bobby Wellins joining the pianist on tenor sax, the two of them twisting and turning through ‘In Walked Bud’ before surprising everyone with a Latin version of ‘My Way’ which, for the duration of its playing and some time after, erased all thoughts of Frank Sinatra from memory. Now both Tracey and Wellins were dead and the Vortex had moved across East London, from Stoke Newington to Dalston. A corner building with a bar downstairs and the club room above, which was where Kiley was sitting now, staring out across Gillett Square, waiting for the music to begin.

  The call had come around noon the previous day, just as he was leaving the flat, his mind set on a crispy pork banh mi sandwich from the Vietnamese place across the street from the Forum. The 02 Forum, as it was now less fortunately called, Kiley old enough to wish for things to be left, mostly, as they were.

  ‘Am I speaking to Jack Kiley?’

  He’d assured her that she was.

  ‘You find people who’ve gone missing?’

  ‘Once in a while.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too encouraging.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  There was a silence in which he guessed she was making up her mind. If he moved the phone closer, he could hear the faint rasp of her breathing.

  ‘Can you meet me?’ she said eventually.

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow afternoon? Somewhere around four? Four-thirty?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘You know the Vortex? It’s just off…’

  ‘… Kingsland High Street. Yes, I know.’

  ‘I’ll see you there.’

  She rang off before he could ask her name.

  Out in the square a group of elderly black men were sitting quietly playing dominoes, oblivious to the cries of small children and the bump and clatter of skateboarders negotiating a succession of mostly successful pirouettes and arabesques.

  Behind Kiley, the musicians who had been arriving, haphazardly, for the past ten minutes or so, stood chatting, shrugging off their coats, freeing instruments from their cases, starting to tune up. On stage, the drummer finished angling the last of his cymbals correctly and played an exploratory paradiddle on the snare. With the concentration of someone threading a needle, one of the saxophone players fitted a new reed into place.

  Gradually, the composition of the ensemble took shape: rhythm section at the back, piano off to one side; three trumpets; two, no, three trombones; the saxophones, five strong, down at the front of the stage, one—the baritone player—leaning back against the side wall.

  The leader stepped forward, called a number from the band’s book, signalled with his hand: four bars from the piano
, then four more and the sound of fifteen musicians filled the room.

  Smiling, Kiley eased back in his chair.

  The repertoire mixed original compositions with new arrangements of the tried and tested; after an extended workout on ‘Take the A Train,’ Kiley got up and made his way to the bar.

  Only one woman sat alone amongst a scattering of couples and a dozen or more single men; smartly yet casually dressed, dark hair swept back, Kiley wondered if she might be the person he was meeting, but when he passed close by her table she gave no sign, and by the time he’d paid for his beer she’d been joined by a stylishly bearded thirty-something energetically apologising for being late.

  Back at his seat by the window, Kiley saw that a woman wearing a bottle green apron over a brightly patterned floor-length dress had stationed herself behind the domino players and was busily cutting hair, a short but steadily lengthening line of clients waiting their turn. A quartet of youths crisscrossed the square on scooters, revving noisily, while on stage the band strolled its way into the interval number, a slow rolling blues that climaxed all of ten minutes later, electric guitar ringing out over a volley of brass.

  As the applause faded, the musicians began to set their instruments aside, the taller of the two tenor players unclipping her saxophone from its sling before crossing the room.

  ‘Jack Kiley? I’m Leah Temple.’

  Kiley reached out his hand. He’d noticed her before, one of four women in the band: piano, trumpet, tenor, and alto saxophones. Tall, auburn hair tied loosely back, she had a way of holding her instrument off to one side when she played; long fingers, large hands. The right or wrong side of forty-five.

  ‘Let’s go and talk downstairs,’ she said.

  The bar was deserted, not yet open for the evening. Leah pulled a stool down from one of the tables and angled it back against the window, waiting for him to do the same. Eyes that had shone green in the lights, he could now see, close up, were flecked with grey.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘The music?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I like it. You’re good. All of you. But then you don’t need me to tell you that.’

  She smiled. ‘Not bad for a rehearsal band. Afternoons like this, about the only time we can get together. Most of the guys have got regular gigs, pit bands in the West End, sessions. Some of them even get paid for playing jazz.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Once in a while.’

  For a moment she looked out into the square. Several of the other musicians were standing outside, sharing a joke, smoking.

  ‘Look, the reason I rang you…’ She left it hanging, fidgeted a hand back through her hair. ‘I’m sorry, I’m feeling really stupid about this.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘I just feel I’m…I don’t know…making a fuss about nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as the type.’

  She smoothed her hands down her jeans, deciding. ‘It’s my partner.’

  ‘Who’s missing?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, I think so. Maybe.’

  ‘How long since you saw him?’

  ‘Her.’

  ‘How long since you saw her?’

  ‘Ten days now. Eleven, more or less. That doesn’t seem long, I know.’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘I had this gig at Ronnie’s. Upstairs. No big deal. Ellen was going to meet me there but she never showed. I didn’t think too much of it at the time. It wasn’t exactly unusual. But then, when I didn’t hear from her, and she didn’t answer her phone, reply to my texts, that’s when I began to get worried.’

  ‘You’re not living together, you and Ellen?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  Kiley smiled. ‘It usually is.’ How long had he and Kate Keenan been not living together, living together, barely speaking?

  ‘She’s got a place in Camberwell. I went round there, of course. No sign. No one else in the building had seen her going in or out. Not for days.’

  ‘You’ve got a key?’

  Leah shook her head. ‘There never seemed a lot of point. If we were together, it was usually round mine.’

  ‘How about where she works?’

  ‘Freelance. There’s a shared work space in Southwark where she rents a desk. She’s not been there, either.’

  One of the musicians knocked on the window and gestured upstairs.

  ‘I can explain more later,’ Leah said, ‘if that’s okay? If you don’t think I’m wasting your time.’

  ‘As long as we can eat while we talk. All that music, gives me an appetite.’

  The second set was mostly originals, only a driving version of ‘Rockin’ in Rhythm’ reminding Kiley of an Ellington LP, long mislaid, he’d bought for next to nothing in the early seventies—worth a small fortune now, thanks to vinyl becoming newly fashionable.

  Just before the finale, the bandleader called Leah front and centre. ‘We’d like to feature Leah Temple on a slower number from the Count Basie repertoire, first recorded on the 6th June, 1938, with Herschel Evans on tenor. “Blue and Sentimental.”’

  Kiley didn’t know Evans from Adam, but to his barely tutored ears, Leah sounded a lot like Lester Young.

  Session over, Leah guided them to a Turkish ocakbasi restaurant just off the high road, where she recommended the mixed kebab with a side order of grilled aubergine and peppers. She wasn’t wrong.

  ‘So,’ Kiley said, ‘tell me more.’

  Leah skewered a piece of lamb with her fork and dipped it into the chili sauce at the edge of her plate. ‘We met just over a year ago. A&E, where I work.’

  Kiley’s face showed surprise.

  ‘What? You think I make a living from music?’ She laughed. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

  ‘So you’re what? A doctor? Nurse?’

  ‘Nurse practitioner.’

  Kiley nodded as if he understood the distinction.

  ‘Ellen was brought in with quite serious injuries. Cuts, abrasions. What turned out to be a dislocated shoulder. She’d had an accident on her bike on the way home. Some idiot opening his car door without looking. Usual story. Ellen swerved to avoid it and got sideswiped by a lorry. Could have been a lot worse.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘She was in quite a bit of pain. A little out of herself after the gas and air. Even so I thought we had some connection. It wasn’t until she came back in again a week later, pretending she’d lost her way to the orthopaedic clinic, that I realised I’d been right.’

  ‘And the rest was what? Plain sailing?’

  ‘Hardly. I was just coming out of a relationship, not sure if I wanted to get involved again so soon.’

  ‘On the rebound.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And Ellen?’

  ‘Married for twenty-five years. Two kids, one just finishing university, one starting.’

  ‘You said complicated.’

  ‘Ellen had never been in a gay relationship before, never even thought about it.’ She grinned. ‘Well, maybe she’d thought about it.’ The grin broadened into a fully fledged smile. ‘The real thing, she said, was a revelation.’

  ‘To her husband as well, I daresay?’

  Leah leaned back a little in her chair. ‘I kept trying to get her to tell him, Derek, come clean. When finally she did, all too predictably, he went crazy, screaming and shouting, calling her all the names under the sun. Told her if she didn’t get out of his sight he wouldn’t be held responsible for what he might do. She came to me, which, of course, he must’ve known she would. By the following day, he’d changed the locks, put her stuff out in boxes on the drive.’

  ‘Still, she didn’t move in?’

  ‘Not permanently, no. My place is pretty small. We’d have had to
get somewhere together. But Ellen said she needed somewhere of her own, time to sort things out. Twenty-five years, it’s a lot to walk away from. And now Derek’s stopped threatening to beat her black and blue, he’s been moving heaven and earth trying to persuade her to move back in. Texts, phone calls, e-mails. Says he’ll forgive her. Forgive her, mind! Wants them to give it a second chance. At one point he even started waiting for her after work, following her home.’

  ‘Stalking, sounds like,’ Kiley said. ‘She could have gone to the police, got a protection order. Domestic violence.’

  ‘She didn’t want to do that. Thought it might make him angry all over again. It was a risk she didn’t want to take.’

  ‘She was frightened of him, then? Physically, I mean?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

  ‘He’d hit her before?’

  ‘No. At least, not as far as I know. And, besides, it wasn’t just that. There were the kids to consider. Not that they’re kids any longer. Boys. Not even that. Eighteen and twenty-one. Both taking their father’s side, apparently. The older one won’t speak to her at all.’

  ‘All that pressure, must have been hard for her to withstand.’

  Leah nodded. ‘I know. Pressure from me, too.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I’ve got this chance to go to New Zealand. In a year’s time. Hospital in Wellington. Promotion. More responsibility. I want Ellen to come with me.’

  ‘And she’s what? Not keen? Uncertain?’

  ‘I think she likes the idea of spending time in New Zealand well enough…’