The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  I weaved Jo and Brownie past umpteen doorsteps and front room windows, the curtains all closed, and down one of the narrow alleyways that criss-cross the streets, until we got to the right road. Aunt Edie answered the door wearing a floral dress that was pulled to bursting point across her bust.

  ‘What the Dickens?’ she said.

  I raised my hands, like she might shoot me. ‘You’re up.’

  ‘I’m always up. What with my knees.’

  ‘I lost my phone. Can—?’

  ‘Don’t think you know how to use a phone. What the devil? You look like something the cat dragged in. Is this your fella?’ She eyed Brownie hopefully, despite the blueish tinge around his lips and the fact he was wearing girls’ trousers and flip-flops. Honestly, Aunt Edie’ll try and marry you off to anyone.

  ‘This is Brownie. He needs …’ I tailed off. Where to start?

  ‘Well,’ said Aunt Edie, cuffing the back of my head, ‘what you standing there for? Kettle’s on. You look like you could do with something warm and wet inside you. Well I never. The lot of you.’

  She took a quick look up and down the street before bustling us into the front room. The aroma of freshly baked parkin wafted down the hallways. I’ve never once been to this house when that smell hasn’t been there, warm and earthy. My eyes ached at the memories.

  ‘Sit tight. Let me go and tell Flora I’ll ring her back,’ Aunt Edie said as she disappeared out of the door.

  ‘It’s not five o’clock yet,’ said Jo as she collapsed into the armchair by the fire.

  I felt my shoulders sag. Crossing the threshold to Aunt Edie’s is like stepping back in time to a world that is safe and simple. The furniture has been polished daily for the last forty odd years. And not with spray polish. I can still remember the feel of the soft wax against the ripped-up squares of cloth she uses for dusters.

  ‘God, what a night.’ I tried to roll my shoulders to get rid of the cricks.

  Brownie crossed to the window and pulled the curtains closed.

  ‘We were set up,’ said Jo.

  ‘I came looking for you—’

  Jo shook her head. ‘The door opened.’ She raised two fingers, gave us the peace sign. ‘Two guys. One grabbed me, the other put a bag over my head. They walked me straight through the house and out the back door. I swear to God they were waiting for me. Martha set us up.’

  ‘Jo—’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Brownie, wheeling round from the curtains to face Jo.

  ‘They rang her,’ she said. ‘When we were in the car. I heard them say “We’ve got her”.’

  ‘How do you know it was Martha?’ I asked.

  ‘Who else could it’ve been?’ Jo kept her gaze on me. ‘She’s the one that sent us round there. She gave us the bloody address.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ said Brownie.

  Jo stood up. She was about two feet shorter than Brownie but there’s something about the way that Jo stands that always seems to give her the height advantage. She put her hands on her hips, stared right at Brownie, unflinching. ‘She fucking did.’

  ‘She wanted you to find me.’

  Jo’s brow furrowed, like she didn’t quite understand why anyone would want to find Brownie. In his current attire, it had to be said, he wasn’t much of a catch. ‘So why’d she tell them I was coming?’

  ‘She didn’t,’ said Brownie, again. We waited for him to expand, to give us the proof that underpinned his assertions. He continued with less confidence. ‘She’s not like that. She’s loyal.’

  I frowned at Brownie. I knew it wasn’t the time to challenge him, but he’d changed his tune. I put a hand on Jo’s arm. ‘Jo,’ I began.

  She shook me off. ‘I’m not buying it,’ she said. ‘Martha gives us the address, we go round and they’re waiting for me. There’s a car out back, engine running. I’m telling you, they knew I was coming.’ She picked at a fingernail, and I noticed that only a few flecks of red nail varnish remained. ‘Can’t wait to hear her side of the story, the next instalment of total bullshit.’

  ‘Jo.’ I watched Brownie collapse into an armchair.

  ‘She’s a lying, conniving—’

  ‘Jo.’ I raised my voice to gain her attention. When I got it, I didn’t know what to say, so I blurted the words. ‘Martha’s dead.’

  ‘Two-faced … What?’

  ‘She’s dead.’ My stomach swirled as I said the words aloud for the second time. I could still taste the wet damp of the bathroom.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Murdered, I’m pretty certain. Saw it with my own eyes.’ I glanced across at Brownie. ‘We both did.’

  Jo sank into Aunt Edie’s sofa. Well, as much as you can sink into something that feels like it’s made out of breeze blocks. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Now then, pottymouth, I’ll have less of that language,’ said Aunt Edie as she bustled back into the room, having covered up with her trademark pink nylon housecoat. ‘You know what day it is.’

  Jo frowned.

  I mouthed, ‘Sunday’ at her before turning to Aunt Edie. ‘Sorry, Aunt Edie,’ I said.

  She crossed the rooms and opened the curtains. ‘Now, look at the state of the lot of you. Tea’s brewing and then it’s breakfast. No arguments.’

  Jo frowned again. For the first time since I’d seen her at the train station I realized how knackered she looked. Bewildered. I wanted to hug her, but I have to wait for Jo to initiate that kind of thing.

  Aunt Edie settled herself in the armchair by the fire. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what’ve you got fresh?’

  We stared at each other and silence mushroomed. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I told you we were starting our own business.’

  ‘Finding people.’ Aunt Edie tutted. ‘In my experience, people that disappear should be left to disappear. No sense raking over old coals.’

  ‘What if someone’s disappeared because someone’s made them disappear?’ asked Jo. ‘What if they want to come home but they’re too scared?’

  ‘We could all use the chance to start over.’ Aunt Edie glanced at Brownie.

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘But—’

  ‘You disappeared,’ she said to me. ‘You left to go and study at university. Start again. Not everyone has that opportunity. Some people have to slink off.’

  I was saved from replying by a knock on the front door. My heart thudded at the sudden noise. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’ll be Gordon,’ said Aunt Edie.

  ‘At five in the morning?’

  ‘Welcome to Insomniacs Anonymous. I’ll tell him he’ll have to come back.’

  She hauled herself up from the armchair.

  ‘Who’s Gordon?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ I said. I crossed to the window and peered out, but the angle was too tight, and I couldn’t see anyone.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Brownie, and I turned back round to see him pacing the lounge. His lanky frame nearly reached the ceiling. It’s not often I get this close to men. I grew up in a woman-only household. The only man I had any contact with was Bert the Perv, my mum’s next-door neighbour, and I spent much of my adolescence making sure I was never alone in a room with him. His heart was in the right place, but his brain wasn’t.

  Men are big, take up too much air space. I flinched at Brownie’s proximity, glanced at the door.

  He spoke to Jo. ‘She was straight, so let’s get that sorted. I’m the fuck-up.’

  ‘Listen, Brownie,’ I said, guiding him to the armchair Aunt Edie had just vacated. ‘The person whose fault this is – is the person who killed her. You have to be tough.’ I handed him my packet of tobacco. ‘Make me a fag.’

  ‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ said Jo.

  ‘Trust me. She is,’ I said. I saw the dark tendrils floating around her face, the white bloated face, the unseeing eyes. I blinked.

  ‘You actually saw her?’

  ‘Yeah. We both did. That’s why …’ I tilted my head in Brownie’s direction. His atten
tion was on the cigarette papers in his hand.

  Jo seemed to get my point. She lowered her voice as I took a seat on the settee next to her. ‘How?’

  ‘We went to her flat. He’s got a key. She was in the bath.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Stone cold.’

  ‘How d’you know she was murdered?’

  ‘People don’t just die in the bath.’

  ‘Er, Whitney Houston? Bobby Kristina Brown?’

  ‘The flat was clean.’

  ‘Your Bollywood woman,’ Jo continued. ‘What’s her name? Something Kapoor?’

  ‘Martha got into the bath of her own free will. She’d had half a glass of wine. Left her clothes neatly folded in the bedroom. There was a dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. It was damp, all round the neck.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I figure she got out of the bath to answer the door, and whoever it was killed her, then dumped her body back in the bath.’

  ‘And hung up her dressing gown?’

  ‘She left us, went home, got a bath. Getting ready to go out. It was six when we left her.’ I glanced across at Brownie and whispered to Jo. ‘We could have been the last people to see her alive.’

  ‘When did you, you know, find her?’

  Brownie passed me a roll-up. It was damp with his sweat.

  ‘We got to hers about eleven,’ I said. ‘It couldn’t have been her that Bernie rang.’

  ‘She might have been out, come back, got a bath before bed.’

  ‘The water was freezing. She’d been in there ages.’

  ‘Would you get out of the bath to answer the door?’ asked Jo.

  We don’t get many visitors, me and Jo, so that was a difficult question to answer. We often don’t get off the couch to answer the phone, and that’s in the same room. ‘Maybe she thought it was Brownie,’ I said.

  Brownie lit his fag. I handed him the ashtray from beside the gas fire. It gleamed in the light of the fire.

  ‘I thought he had a key,’ said Jo.

  ‘You don’t die taking a bath,’ I said, keeping my eye on Brownie. His knuckles looked white as he pulled on his thin roll-up.

  ‘Maybe she topped herself,’ said Jo. ‘She was broken-hearted.’

  Brownie jumped up and moved across the room to Jo. She made to get up out of the seat, but he shoved her, tipping her backwards into the settee. He loomed over her. ‘Shut up. Shut the fuck up.’

  ‘No drugs, no blades, no electrical appliances,’ I said, standing up to grab Brownie by the arm and pulling him away from Jo, back to the armchair. ‘No note.’

  Jo glowered at Brownie but did nothing. ‘You didn’t call the police?’

  ‘I was focused on getting you back.’ My voice rose in my defence as Brownie allowed himself to be seated. ‘And we need to work out what we’re going to do with this,’ I said, pulling the fat money belt of cash from around my waist. I dropped it down onto the coffee table. ‘How we going to explain that to the cops?’

  Brownie made a noise that sounded like puppies being run over. Jo and me both stared at him.

  ‘She gave you the cash?’

  I nodded. ‘How do you think she got it?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s a student, for fuck’s sake,’ said Brownie. ‘How’m I supposed to believe she’s got that kind of cash lying around?’

  He’d stood up again and I felt dwarfed. ‘Brownie. That’s my point. Where did she get it from?’

  ‘How the fuck would I know?’

  Aunt Edie barged back in with the tea tray. I noticed she’d applied lipstick since we’d arrived. ‘I didn’t know if you wanted milk, so I brought the jug.’

  ‘That’s great, Aunt Edie. You’re a superstar.’

  ‘You kids.’ She grinned. ‘And that’s a bad habit, young man.’ She nodded at Brownie’s roll-up. ‘No wonder there’s no meat on any of you.’ She hesitated and glanced at Jo.

  ‘Who’s Gordon?’ I asked.

  ‘Does my hair. And records things for me.’ She held up a plastic wallet with a DVD inside.

  ‘Does your hair on a Sunday?’

  ‘No. On a Sunday we do the crossword together.’

  ‘Ah.’

  My thoughts must have been obvious from my tone, because Aunt Edie rapped me on the knuckles with the disc. ‘Don’t get any funny ideas. He’s not that way inclined. Camp as Christmas. Not much good at the cryptic, either.’ She sniffed.

  ‘Are you sure about breakfast?’ Jo asked. ‘We don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  I marvelled again at Jo’s ability to read a person. Aunt Edie grinned. ‘Let me get the frying pan on.’

  When Aunt Edie left the room, I turned back to Brownie. ‘Brownie, it’s really important. If we knew where she got the money, we might find out who killed her.’

  ‘You think it’s about the money?’ asked Jo.

  ‘She gets twenty-four grand, stashes it in Brownie’s room.’

  Brownie hit the arm of his chair so hard the ashtray fell off and clattered to the floor. ‘She bleeding didn’t.’

  ‘You’d swapped rooms with Jack. Martha didn’t know that.’

  He stared at me, but right through me, like I was a ghost.

  I carried on. ‘The money disappears. She’s desperate to get it back. She thinks Jack’s taken it. She hires us to find him.’ I turned to Brownie. ‘She must have said something about where she got it.’

  Brownie picked up the ashtray from the floor and flicked his ash into it. He examined the roll-up in his hand and then stubbed it out. ‘We talked about all kinds of shit, never thought she was serious.’

  ‘Tell us everything you can remember,’ said Jo. ‘Maybe we’ll see something you can’t.’

  He raised his eyebrows at me. I tried to help him.

  ‘You said you told her you were in debt.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The night you got her to smoke heroin,’ I prompted.

  ‘You got Martha into smack?’ The disgust in Jo’s voice was obvious.

  I glared at her. ‘Go on, Brownie. Tell us what happened that night. Anything you can remember.’

  ‘I did, I kind of told her everything, about the dealing, about how I owe money.’

  ‘What did she say?’ I asked.

  ‘Lots. Ranting about how I should have told her from the beginning. Saying it was stupid to owe people like that money. Worried they’d hurt me.’

  Jo tucked her legs up under her. ‘Women.’

  ‘She said I needed to pay them off. I said, no shit, Sherlock.’

  ‘Did she have any ideas?’

  ‘I remember asking her if she had any rich relatives about to pop their clogs.’ He paused, glancing up at me. His eyes where rheumy like an old man, and I was struck by how worn out he looked. ‘She didn’t.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Jo. She turned to the tray that Aunt Edie had left on the small table by the side of the settee and poured the tea.

  ‘Shit,’ Brownie said. From the tone of his voice I knew he’d just remembered something. Something important.

  ‘What?’

  He rubbed his face and a look crossed it that made me think he was in pain.

  ‘I told her Jack’s dad was wadded.’

  Jo passed the first cup to Brownie. Aunt Edie had got out the Sunday best. Proper teacups and saucers. Brownie’s rattled as he held it. I took the saucer from him and he cradled the cup in his hands like it was a pot of frankincense, or myrrh or whatever it was the three kings carried. I wondered why it wasn’t burning the skin off his palms.

  ‘So?’ I said.

  ‘He is wadded,’ Brownie said.

  ‘I know. We met him.’

  He put his cup on the table, stood up, ran a hand through his hair. He bent slightly at the middle, hunched over. ‘Fucking hell, I think I told her.’

  ‘Told her what?’

  He lunged towards to the door.

  ‘Brownie.’

  ‘I need to … Shit.’

  I followe
d him into the hallway. He scrambled up the stairs but, from the smell, I guessed it was too late.

  I called to Jo. ‘Go stand outside the bathroom window, case he tries to do a runner again.’

  She didn’t look best pleased, but she did it. Aunt Edie appeared in the hallway, wearing her pinny.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Have you got any spare trousers? Men’s trousers?’

  She pulled a face.

  ‘Sorry, Aunt Edie.’ I pointed up the stairs. ‘He’s not been very well.’

  ‘I still have some of our Arthur’s clothes. I’ll have a look. The poor sausage.’

  I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to Brownie, Arthur or the breakfast she was frying up, but she returned with a pair of men’s suit trousers, a shirt and a pair of Y-fronts that weren’t new, but they were clean. I took them from her, climbed the stairs and knocked on the bathroom door.

  ‘Brownie, there’s some pants here.’

  The door opened a fraction, and I held out the articles of clothing. He snatched them from me, and the door closed again.

  When he came out, he looked beaten. The clothes hung from his skinny frame and made his piercings seem totally out of place. The trousers were soft brown fabric and they’d gathered round the waist, held up by a belt. The shirt was old and ironed to the point I could see Brownie’s nipples through the thin fabric. I helped him back down the stairs and onto the sofa like he was an old man. Jo must have heard us because she came back into the front room.

  ‘Come on, Brownie,’ she said, and her voice was softer. ‘You need to get it off your chest.’

  He scratched at the dog bite on his ankle, reopening the wound. A trickle of blood ran down his foot. ‘Can’t remember how we got to it now. I think she was trying to think up ways we could pay off the debt, and she was coming up with all kinds of scams and then one of us, can’t remember who, said if we knew something about someone, something they didn’t want known, then that might be a thing. And that’s when I told her about Jack.’