Jo swallowed, with difficulty.
‘Killed his only brother,’ Anna continued, stony-faced, ‘trapped him in an abandoned fridge and then left him there to die. Totally cold-blooded.’
Jo struggled to hide her dismay, ‘But he was only…’
‘Seven. That’s way too old for accidents. He was the kind of child who’d pull the wings off butterflies. Probably broke into churches and stole the collection with his mates. Played on the organ. Pissed in the vestry. That kind of thing.’
Jo wriggled on her seat. She peered over at Arthur, agonisedly –Nothing
Anna sipped on her drink, ‘His father was a seaman. Always away at sea. Mother didn’t clamp down on him nearly hard enough if you ask me…’
Jo inspected her beer bottle. She didn’t want an argument.
‘And obviously –from the Force’s point of view –if people didn’t feel the need to Follow,’ Anna rolled her eyes expressively, ‘then there wouldn’t be…’
She sucked on her cigarette, disapproval oozing from every orifice.
Jo stared back at her, bright with embarrassment.
‘When he arrived on Wednesday,’ she continued, ‘they contacted us straight away…’
‘Sorry?’ Jo butted in.
‘Pardon?’
‘They contacted the force?’
‘Meaning?’
‘You said they contacted the force?’
‘Yeah,’ Anna nodded, missing the point (on purpose, was it?), ‘but he was clever. He stayed over on the far side –Northwick, Westwick, Salting. No roads. I mean we’re happy to go out on surveillance, but we draw the line at hanging around in the middle of a freezing field all day just to watch some arse-wipe catching a rabbit and taking a shit in a ditch…’
Jo winced, sympathetically.
‘He was spotted on the rubbish dump at one point. Somebody reported him. He was catching seabirds apparently. We thought we might be able to detain him on it for a while, but he got out of there too quick and always went for the unprotected species. He’s a cunning little twat. Survived out of jail for this long, let’s face it.’
‘Apart from…’
‘The first two convictions. Of course. But that’s what made him. The publicity. Eddie says he walks the perimeter every day,’ Anna continued, then she paused, speculatively, ‘although I guess you must know that already if you’ve been…’
‘No,’ Jo jumped in. ‘No I don’t know anything. I was only in town this morning and I came across… uh…’
Patty
‘… This… This boy asked me for a handout for his train fare home. I took him for something to eat… the Wimpy. That was…’
‘Oh the boy,’ Anna nodded. ‘Yeah. Eddie said everybody kept going on about some boy…’
‘He Follows. He lives in Derby. I think he has an outstanding care order, so…’
‘Eddie said he thought you might be involved from some kind of weird, environmental standpoint. Wesley likes to project that whole… you know. The Green thing. But we couldn’t figure out…’
‘Oh God no,’ Jo demurred, ‘I…’
‘Well that’s something at least. Because he’s honestly –and I have first-hand experience of this –he’s a total bastard. Very messed up. Very nasty.’
Jo was staring at Anna with a kind of wild unfocussedness. Anna frowned at her, impatiently, ‘Are you…?’
Jo blinked, ‘So how come… what was… why did you have to speak to him this evening, then?’
Anna shrugged, coldly. ‘Just police business,’ she drained her glass, ‘but he’d better watch his back. He steps out of line and we’re gonna take real delight in nabbing him. I’m not kidding…’
Jo nodded, mutely. Not approving. Not disapproving.
‘He was down in Camber before coming here. Did you know that?’
Jo shook her head, ‘No I…’
‘The hypocrisy of the man. He went to Rye. The town. They have a port there. And they know for a fact that he changed the signs on the river. They have signs near the port stating that members of the public shouldn’t feed the gulls –the gulls mess on the boats and some of them are feral. This gull apparently attacked a child and nearly severed its finger…’
Jo frowned, gently, ‘I hardly think that a gull would…’
‘Oh yeah. I forgot,’ Anna laughed, ‘you’re into all that natural history crap. Well anyhow, he changed the signs. Replaced them. And nobody could tell for a while because he’d done them exactly the same, and everyone who used the port regularly was taken in. You know?’
‘So what did they…?’
‘Oh stuff about how tourists were at liberty to feed the birds if they wanted and that the people who thought they could dictate on this matter because they owned a boat or sat on a council were deluded. That animals possessed universal rights. The sky is free. You know… Just the same bollocks as always. Really petty. He’s such an unreservedly small-minded little fucker. I think that’s actually what I hate most about him.’
Josephine nodded. She sipped on her beer again.
‘He’s mentally deranged. And that hand of his. When I spoke to him earlier he lifted that hand and put it on his cheek…’ Anna re-enacted this gesture, her nose wrinkling up in distaste, ‘I know it doesn’t sound like much but it was actually really… It was disgusting. He fed that hand to a bird apparently. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s just part of the myth.’
Jo shrugged.
‘I mean, sure, he stole that woman’s pond in 1989. Some deluded little tart he was shagging. That was true.’
‘Shit.’
They both turned around. The thin man had spilled his drink. A glutinous, bloody-coloured mess was rapidly spreading over the counter. The barman was scowling. Jo blinked. Anna paused for just a second and then continued talking, ‘She was a recruitment officer for a major bank. He applied for a job there but didn’t get it because of his…’
She lifted her hand.
‘So then he tracked her down and had sex with her. She asked him if he’d help her fix her pond –install a new water purifier. But he objected –for some fucked-up reason –and the next thing she knew, he’d stolen the damn thing. An antique pond. No trace of it left. All the fish just left on the verandah swimming around in glass bowls. A lawn laid over where the hole had been. Really, really psycho stuff. I read the police notes. Scary.’
‘I think the theft was intended to be… to be symbolic,’ Jo muttered.
Anna gave Jo a warning look. ‘Afterwards he released some eels – can you believe it? From a pie and mash shop in the East End. Bow… In actual fact that might’ve been before. I forget the proper order of things… But they tried to prosecute. Couldn’t find him for about eighteen months after. He was walking to the coast, alongside the river. There was much less access then. He’s obsessed by the Estuary, although he hails from Gloucester, originally.’
Jo nodded.
‘All tiny misdemeanours,’ Anna persisted, ‘petty felonies. But –and now get this, Josie –he won’t pay child support for his own kid. Has to be hauled up in front of a court. Claims he’s penniless. Even after the book and all that other stuff. Cash off the internet. Sponsors and what-not. And let’s not forget the deal he must’ve struck with those confectionery people. No money, he says. He is warped. He is seriously messed up.’
Anna paused for a long drag on her fag. Jo tried to fill in the gap, ‘Yes. But I don’t suppose it’s…’
‘They know for a fact, for example,’ Anna continued, ‘that he broke into the Soane’s Museum in London, repeatedly. I was reading this today on my print-out, just before the machine went down… And that’s another thing. Apparently there’s some kind of…’
‘The… Sorry… The Soames Museum?’ Jo interrupted.
‘Oh God, yes. It’s in High Holborn. London. Some strange architectural Museum. They had a real problem with pigeons soiling the sandstone building so they got a trap set up inside this atrium thingy –I dunno.
It’s complicated. All totally above board, though. They had one bird as bait, to lure the others. It was nothing… ’
Anna waved her hand around in the air to dissipate the cloud of smoke hanging in front of Josephine’s face, ‘But Wesley decided to break in and set the birds free. Literally three bloody birds maximum. Pigeons. And he really messed the joint up. Not just the once, either. He did it several times. And this place was virtually impossible to access, which I suppose he deserves credit for –oh Christ, just listen to me. They had to hire a full-time guard. And he still broke in again. He definitely wasn’t working alone in that instance. They don’t think he was working alone…’
Anna threw her cigarette onto the floor, stubbed it out with her heel and glanced around the bar, catching the eye of the tall, dark-haired man Jo had part-recognised earlier. The man with the ponytail. Slick-looking. Big. Raincoated.
‘Fucking Bo,’ Anna muttered. ‘Tennis Ace. Dyslexic. Premature ejaculator. Oh bollocks. He’s coming over. Don’t mention a word of what we’ve been discussing. He’s become a journalist since we were all at…’
‘Anna, Anna, Anna.’
The ponytailed man kissed Anna on her neck, pushing his hands around her waist, from the back. But even as he was caressing her he was staring –tight-eyed –at Josephine across her shoulder. He had an agenda. It was manifest.
‘Fuck off, Bo,’ Anna chided, elbowing him in the chest when he didn’t instantly relinquish his grip on her.
Bo took this in his stride, letting go, crouching down and sliding his broad hand across her leg instead. He unleashed a flirtatious part-smile part-sneer in Jo’s direction (he thought he was Gary Numan with bigger muscles and a little more hair –or Brian Ferry circa Love Is The Drug), ‘I don’t know if you realise this,’ he stage-whispered, ‘but anything you say to Anna here, even in casual conversation, may well be taken down as evidence and used against you, later.’
Jo’s expression did not change. Her face remained as smooth and uncomplicated as the pale shell on a hen’s egg.
‘Hang on…’ he paused for a second, ‘weren’t we at school together?’
He was still staring at her intently.
‘And didn’t I actually see you Following earlier?’
‘Jo’s working at Southend General,’ Anna curtly intervened, knocking his hand from her knee, ‘where she’s making great strides in the gynaecological department. She’s heading an environmental sanitary product campaign. You may’ve read about her in the local press.’
‘No way,’ Bo was smirking, ‘you’re fucking with me.’
Anna shrugged at Jo, apologetically, ‘He’s not terribly clever, and he doesn’t read much, either. Only the sport, which he writes, very badly. And sometimes, I suspect, not even that.’
Bo swigged on his beer. ‘Anna and I dated for a while,’ he told Jo, burping, ‘but I dumped her. She’s still smarting.’
‘His penis is the size of my little finger,’ Anna continued, unabashedly, ‘same thickness, same length. His biggest muscle is his tongue. And he never put that to much good use, as I recollect.’
Bo smirked on, defiantly, while Anna inspected her smallest digit. ‘I’m actually being ludicrously overgenerous,’ she sighed, ‘that’s so typical of me.’
Bo honed in on Jo again, totally unconcerned by Anna’s assault on him, ‘I did see you Following. You were in the Library earlier.’
Jo said nothing.
‘Playing with the big boys now, are we, Bo?’ Anna snorted, ‘trying to grub yourself up a piddling exclusive for your pathetic little Canvey rag? Oh Diddums…’ she chucked him under his prodigiously square chin, ‘that’s so sweet.’
‘You wished you knew what I know, Officer,’ Bo snapped, draining his bottle with a swagger, every inch the cool hack-sleuth.
‘Meaning?’ Anna gazed down at him, sympathetically.
‘Just what I say,’ he placed the empty bottle next to Jo’s stool, almost touching her ankle with his hand before slowly drawing it away, ‘I have a contact.’
‘Who?’
‘You’ll need to beat that information out of me.’
He winked at her.
‘Ted. The estate agent,’ Anna sighed. ‘No beating necessary.’
Bo rocked back on his heels.
‘How the…?’
‘Oh come on. You’ve been breaking his balls since all that graffiti rubbish with the Turpin girl. And I saw him tonight with Wesley. He’s right up to his puny, ginger neck in it.’
Jo suddenly stood up. Her coat fell to the floor. ‘I need…’ she put her hand to her face, her cheek, ‘I must… I need the toilet… Here…’
She thrust the untouched beer at Bo and launched herself off –like an ill-constructed canoe hurtling down a particularly treacherous stretch of white-water –towards the Ladies.
‘Was it something I said?’ Bo murmured, grabbing Jo’s coat and lounging against her stool to swig on her beer. He looked around him, cleared his throat, then casually slipped his hand into one of her front pockets, withdrawing some car keys and a couple of sweet wrappers.
‘I didn’t see you do that,’ Anna warned him, lighting up another cigarette and tossing the empty packet onto the floor.
Bo pushed his hand in again.
‘Tell me,’ Anna asked him, exhaling a little self-consciously and then turning her face into the light, ‘do you see anything… anything out of the ordinary… just…’
She touched her cheek, where Jo had touched hers only a minute before, and where a good hour earlier, Wesley had touched his.
‘Just there?’
Bo frowned, drew slightly closer, adjusted his angle so as not to cast her in shadow, and stared.
Twenty-four
All he needed was a pen and some paper to prove his point to her.
Ms Katherine Turpin (the female in question) was wedged tightly (and inexplicably –and no one dared ask why, exactly) between her fridge and her kitchen cabinets; bottle in hand, fag on her lip, flat on her arse and maintaining the constant –if physically unfeasible –angle of 63 degrees.
She’d consumed the best part of a litre of apricot brandy and she hadn’t even peed yet (or expressed the slightest urge –Wesley couldn’t for the life of him work out how she’d managed it; her bladder must’ve been fashioned from industrialised rubber) but she was still successfully projecting (due, in the main, to her scabrous barrage of vocal comebacks) a perfectly passable simulation of trenchant clear-headedness –
Trenchant
– Wesley smiled –
That was her
That was Katherine
One wing had fallen off (the wire emerging from beneath her bra-strap, concluding in a lethal point ten inches behind her, etching random diagrams into the cupboard’s pale melamine) and she was sitting squarely and heavily on what remained of the other.
Ted had picked up the fallen wing and was holding it on his lap –sometimes tucking and straightening, sometimes just stroking. Wesley was flitting around between them like a lunatic gnat; hypothesising –self-justifying –scheming –cooking.
The heron’s cadaver was now plucked and cut, the breasts (and every other passably edible scrap) seared in fat, thrown into a stewing pot with thyme, bayleaf –Wesley carried his own fire-dried supply in his rucksack –a spoonful of Marmite and a litre of water.
In her fridge –when he’d chanced to look, hoping for something healthy or hearty as (he erroneously believed) would befit a part-time sprout cultivator –he found only her extensive collection of high quality organic chocolate (plain, some flavoured with lavender, cardamom, chilli and juniper).
‘Fairtrade,’ Katherine told him, raising a single, imperious finger above the door which eclipsed her, ‘I get it posted.’
Wesley casually scrutinised a finely-embossed wrapper. ‘Whizz-o,’ he murmured.
‘Huh?’
She squinted up at him (looking like a Greek marble sculpture after a very major earth tremor), ‘Seventy fuck
ing percent pure cocoa solids. Organic.’
Wesley gave the chilli bar a tentative sniff. He withdrew, grimacing.
‘Beat that.’
He just smiled.
‘Give it here.’
Katherine put down her brandy, took the cigarette out of her mouth, looked around for an ashtray, couldn’t find one so pushed it clumsily through the bottle’s lip. Its burning tip fizzed out quietly inside the two remaining inches of liquor. She reached out her hand, then suddenly changed her mind.
‘Is there a cup?’ she asked. ‘Or a mug? Teddy?’
Ted looked up. A blue mug of water sat on the table at his elbow. He drained it and passed it to her.
‘Thanks.’ She tipped the last few remaining drops out onto the floor, conducted a fastidious inspection of the mug’s interior and then vomited cleanly into it. She filled it to the rim, stopped, to order, then passed the mug back to Ted again, wiping her mouth on the pale curve of flesh inside her right arm.
‘Chocolate,’ she instructed loftily.
Wesley held out the bar. She took it, unwrapped a corner and nibbled on it, daintily.
‘I’m the man who became a social outcast for sleeping inside the body of a horse,’ Wesley told her, ‘and even I could teach you a thing or two about the social graces.’
Ted felt the mug’s enamel warming, inexorably, beneath his finger-pads. His gorge rose.
‘Where’s… where’s Saks, Ted,’ Wesley suddenly switched tack, ‘is it far from here?’
Ted stood up and walked over to the sink. ‘It’s just…’ his voice shook a little as he removed the washing up bowl, carefully tipped the contents of the mug down the plughole, and then turned on the tap to rinse it, ‘a couple of doors down from the Agency. Opposite the Leisure Centre. It’s an American bar. They sell food and… and… and beer.’
‘Of course. Now I remember.’
‘You slept inside a horse?’ Katherine was gazing up at him. ‘Was it dead already?’ She was obviously unfamiliar with this story.
‘I found the animal,’ Wesley explained, bored. Why all these explanations?
(He didn’t want to backtrack any more, he longed to consolidate. Why did nobody ever want to consolidate with him? The repetition was so… so dull, so boring… so repetitious.)
Behindlings Page 25