The Discourtesy of Death

by William Brodrick

  Timothy nodded, but he didn’t speak. His expression said he didn’t climb trees. He had a PlayStation.

  ‘And you can help your father, too,’ urged Michael, feeling out of step and lagging behind. ‘Help him manage. Do some of the things he has to do before he gets round to them. Things he doesn’t want to do. Think one step ahead of him. He’ll see the clean dishes and be grateful.’

  Timothy nodded again. He was in the scouts. He understood about a good deed a day.

  ‘And finally,’ said Michael, feeling strangely desperate, fearing he wasn’t reaching the boy, ‘I’ve got a present for you.’

  Timothy frowned his curiosity. ‘What is it?’

  Michael took the diary out of the paper bag and said, gently, ‘If ever you’re confused and unhappy, come talk to me, but if you can’t, put your feelings down on paper. Otherwise they’ll get blocked like leaves in the drain. No one will ever read what you write. It’ll help in the long run.’

  Timothy took the book, unable to hide his disappointment. He’d expected something with a lot of RAM. And Michael knew at once that the boy wasn’t going to use it; that just as he was too young for the crisis, he was too young to be properly helped. He was going to have to live it out for now, and deal with the consequences later. Michael made one last-ditch attempt to help his grandson.

  ‘Don’t bottle up your anger.’

  ‘I’m not angry.’

  ‘Okay, fine … but if ever you find yourself boiling up, go break the garage window … the one that’s already cracked.’

  Danny Carpenter had said just that: Michael, thumping cushions is recommended, but frankly, I’m not convinced. Get a hammer and smash some glass. It’s a fantastic experience. Then come and tell me what you feel. Michael hadn’t broken anything. He’d plumped up the cushions instead. Kept everything neat and tidy.

  ‘Granddad,’ began Timothy, ‘can I go now?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I did the same thing, thought Michael with a stab of remembered distress. I asked could I go. Danny had watched him leave, powerless to reach inside another man. He never did learn about that trail in the Blue Stack Mountains and the blood spilled at the end of it.

  Timothy was at the door, the diary under one arm. He turned round to look at his granddad and waved, his young face full of sudden emotion and warmth. He was a deep boy; a good boy; a boy whose feelings burst out like sunshine in winter. A boy of endless surprises. Michael waved back … they’d understood each other. When it came to making sense of boats sinking into sand, they were both secret travellers.

  Michael breathed in the damp, tasting the spores of decay. His faith in a better life on the other side of disappointment had been dashed. Jenny had struggled. She’d done her best. She’d waited for the tide to come in … but cancer had come instead. Cancer. Hadn’t she suffered enough? Didn’t she deserve some kind of response for her faith? Some reply that surpassed her monumental fidelity? Not cancer. Not another desperate crisis. Not a final crisis without a solution. Jenny had simply closed her eyes and smiled … she’d said a kind of tide had come in after all, and the words had broken Michael’s heart. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear to see his broken girl accept more suffering.

  But that was Jenny’s passage through life. Things could be different for Timothy.

  Soon, he’d be installed permanently in Lavenham. He would be leading a normal life – as normal as possible in the circumstances. He would leave behind the time of grief and confusion. His mother’s struggle and death. His father’s window-breaking and neglect. The embarrassment at school. The pity in the street. Michael would then be able to take the youth gently in hand. Tenderly guide him towards the life he might have had, if only … if only so much had been otherwise, beginning on that fateful Friday evening when Peter Henderson had bought Jenny a glass of Entre-Deux-Mers in a Soho wine bar. But first there had to be violence. The necessary calculated brutality that only Néall Ó Mórdha could fully understand.

  Michael went outside and opened the boot of his car. Taking a couple of toothpicks, he transpierced each sprout and fixed them like eyes to the round face of the cabbage. Then, carefully, he lowered the head into the plastic bag. Back inside the cottage, he used another toothpick to attach the handles of the bag to the top rear of the armchair, leaving the target lolling on the headrest. He then retrieved the Citroën instruction manual from the glove box – in lieu of the book that Emma had bought for Peter – and placed it on the armrest. The title, he was sure, would absolutely fascinate him. Standing at the door, Michael let a narrow shaft of Sunday light fall across the stinking room. Caught, like a night animal asleep, Peter lay in his comfy chair, his green, bulging eyes closed over by a plastic skin.

  This was the Killing House. The SAS had something similar in Hereford. A purpose-built training centre where the shoot-to-kill boys could go through the motions of close-quarters battle training.

  27

  Anselm stopped in his tracks, frowned and retraced his steps. He’d just closed the outside door to the kitchens – taking a short cut to the river and his route to Mitch’s wherry – when he’d noticed a brother monk on his knees by Larkwood’s flagging Fiat. It was Brother Wilfred, the community’s retiring Guestmaster. Finding human contact a bit of a trial, the Prior had put him in charge of meeting people, organising their stay and generally extending the warm welcome of the Gilbertines. Wilf had become, to his astonishment, a screaming success. Anselm walked over to his side.

  ‘She won’t start?’ he asked, obviously.

  ‘I haven’t tried.’

  Anselm persevered.

  ‘Wilf, the thing operates with a key. Stick it in the ignition and give it a turn.’

  ‘Not until I know it’s safe.’

  Anselm sighed. This was one of those thorny subjects: the nature of intercessory prayer – asking for help in the light of what we had to do first. There was a minimum, surely? And even then, with all due respect to God’s knowledge of the internal combustion engine, wasn’t this a matter for the likes of Vincent Cooper?

  ‘Wilf, give me the key.’

  The Guestmaster bowed low, peering under the passenger seat well. Coming to his feet, he looked around nervously.

  ‘Bede told me not to say anything,’ he murmured. ‘He says you’re raking over some old coals. That we all need to be careful. The whole community’s at risk. Because of you.’

  ‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’

  ‘Bede just taps his nose. Reckons the Prior might have picked the wrong man for the job.’ Wilf, always nervous and vaguely guilty, even when other people were at fault, writhed at breaking a confidence. ‘Reckons you’re a bit naive. Can’t see the dangers.’

  ‘What dangers?’

  ‘Bede just taps his nose. But he told me to check for a lunchbox under the car. He knows an awful lot of strange things, Anselm. I thought he was all gob and high blood pressure, but he knows how to make a bomb. He says you take a small tube and fill it with mercury … it’s called a tilt switch. Won’t tell me the rest, but he says when you drive on a gradient the liquid flows to the other end of the tube and completes an electric circuit which detonates a fuse and then … bang. You’re up there with Father Herbert who survived Passchendaele.’

  Anselm snatched the keys, started the engine and drove the Fiat back and forth, pressing the accelerator and flinging the gears as if his foot were on Bede’s head and his hand tearing at one of his arms. The car thoroughly rocked, he left the door open and ushered Wilf towards the driver’s seat.

  ‘It’s not that kind of case, Wilf,’ he panted, aping patience. ‘No one’s at risk. The old coals are cinders in the grate. Bede’s still smarting from the fact he never rose higher than junior librarian and van driver for a rural outreach project that dished up books like meals-on-wheels to the housebound. It was a good, important job, but he wanted more. He’s forever searching out new levels of importance. Tell him from me that he better check unde
r his bed. I learned a lot of bad stuff at the Bar. Things you can’t find out in books.’

  ‘Sorry, Anselm,’ mumbled Wilf, looking sheepish. ‘I suppose it’s me that’s naive.’

  ‘No, Wilf, you’re simply trusting. And you can trust me. No one is in any kind of danger.’

  Mitch had toasted crumpets and lathered them with butter and honey – Larkwood honey, Anselm’s honey. They ate quietly for a while, Mitch waiting for a report on the meeting with Doctor Ingleby.

  ‘He’d agreed to meet me because he wanted to find out how much I knew,’ said Anselm, at last. ‘He gave me Peter’s side of the story without reservation, as if to counter whatever I might have heard from Nigel and Helen. He was, at times, strangely clinical, as if he were detached, when he plainly isn’t. He cares for Peter. At the mention of his name, these curtains in his eyes just closed. He’s hiding something, out of affection. He’s frightened. Such is my guess.’ Anselm reached for a crumpet wondering whether to be slightly offended that Mitch had said nothing about the honey, its exceptional texture and subtle flavour. He waited a moment, and then gave up: ‘He seemed to give me a warning, too. Hinted that I might be out of step with my time; told me that I should leave matters well alone; that people might get hurt.’

  ‘Sounds like a familiar message,’ said Mitch, archly. ‘And it suggests he knew about the pact and was sure that it had brought Jenny peace of mind. Which is why he’d been prepared to endorse it.’

  Anselm agreed. ‘He came to Leiston very sure of himself. But that’s not how he went away.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The letter,’ replied Anselm, as if laying down an ace. ‘It really disturbed him. Because it points to murder rather than suicide. He hadn’t expected that and it left him a very worried man.’

  Mitch threw his napkin on the table.

  ‘That damned letter,’ he exclaimed, as if a rash had come back. ‘Why is it so bloody important?’

  ‘Because the author speaks for Jenny,’ replied Anselm, simply. ‘And because they came to me rather than anyone else, expecting me to fight tooth and nail, in the face of the evidence. As you once did. Twice did.’

  Mitch was stumped. Exasperated, he walked over to the notice-board.

  ‘We’ve got to find them,’ he mumbled. ‘We’ve got to find out why they’ll write what they think but won’t speak out … it’s got to be one of this lot’ – he was examining the photographs. After a moment his finger tapped the face of Emma Goodwin – ‘What about Jenny’s mother?’

  On first considering her features Anselm had seen more of a choreographer than a vet. An artist who carefully organised other people’s movements, not someone who castrated cats and put dogs to sleep. He’d then abandoned his own insight.

  ‘She’s supported him without fail,’ said Mitch. ‘She’s gone the extra mile … and in doing all that she was deceiving Peter. Telling him she and Michael were behind him all the way. What if she wants him accused … but not by her? Or Michael? What if she wants someone else to expose him, so that she can move in and pick up the pieces of Timothy’s life?’

  Anselm studied the sympathetic smile, drawn by her natural grace. This was a website photo. Bring your animals to me, she was saying. I’ll tend their wounds with loving care.

  ‘Doctor Ingleby thinks she resented everyone,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Peter, Helen, Nigel, Ingleby himself … even Michael.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Mitch very interested.

  ‘Because she felt displaced in Jenny’s suffering,’ recalled Anselm. ‘She’d liked to have been the bringer of deliverance in her daughter’s life but she’d ballsed up by loving wrongly. She was the wrong kind of doctor, too. Found herself on the far end of the settee with the cushion slipping off. She’s full of bitterness while everyone thinks she’s the cheeky joker at the party … according to Doctor Ingleby.’

  Mitch turned around.

  ‘She’s your author, Anselm,’ he said, confidently. ‘She hasn’t even told her husband. She’s already got Timothy in her own home. She wants to keep him there. Save the boy when she couldn’t save his mother. She can’t put his father down with a quick injection, but she sure as hell can get him banged away. She hopes to break the link between Timothy and his father. She wants you to do it for her.’

  Mitch reached over to the coat stand and shrugged on his sheepskin jacket.

  ‘Why not tell Michael?’ asked Anselm, surprised again by Mitch’s peculiar improvisations. ‘Why not write together, even anonymously?’

  ‘Because she’s moving him around like a pawn on the board.’ Mitch tugged at a scarf. ‘Michael served the coffee to keep the peace. He’s kept quiet about his daughter’s death for the same reason. Someone’s raking up the leaves at Polstead while Peter’s in prison. Did you see the neat lawns? I bet you it’s him, swallowing his rage. Keeping things tidy, while Emma … Emma wants one hell of a mess. She’s waiting for you to accuse him of murder. C’mon. It’s time to let her read her own words.’

  Mitch drove past the Spinning Mule and along the lane that led to the main road. Well back from the quiet junction, he slowed. A white net curtain was raised in a small, charming gate house, a cottage that had once belonged to the wool merchant by the Lark. A woman’s aged, smiling face was pressed to the glass. A thin hand waved and Mitch returned the gesture, striking his horn for added effect. He was in high spirits. Within the hour Emma would be exposed and the significance of the letter would be shattered. At the junction, Anselm spoke.

  ‘Turn right please.’

  ‘Her surgery’s to the left. Sudbury.’

  ‘I know. But I want to go to a village near the sea.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Hollesley. There’s a prison nearby.’

  ‘What? Now … before you’ve found out if Emma is trying to use you?’

  ‘Yes, because Peter Henderson is expecting me today and I don’t want to disappoint him.’

  Mitch pushed the gear lever into neutral and slumped back. ‘What else did Doctor Ingleby say?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Anselm. ‘But after he left me, I wondered where he might go if I was to think the worst of him. So I drove to Hollesley Bay prison on the coast. And, sure enough, there in the car park was the doctor’s Singer Chamois.’ Anselm reached over and pressed the right indicator down. ‘A prisoner has to book a visit in advance. But the doctor just turned up and used his influence. Whatever he had to say couldn’t wait. He had to bend a rule. And do you know what? He drove there in a classic car that made me think of Vincent Cooper. They’re all in this together, Mitch. Now, Peter’s had the weekend to think over what he wants to say and I’m ready to listen. As for Emma, she can wait. I don’t want to be harsh, but she’s had years to handle this crisis sensibly and sensitively. Fact is, she got cold feet.’

  28

  Michael tiptoed around the Killing House towards the rear door. That, too, had been padlocked but the bolt housing had been detached earlier that morning, to recreate the garden entrance back in Polstead. Leaning against the outside wall, he withdrew the Browning from behind his belt at the base of his back. With one hand he removed the silencer from his pocket. Slowly, quietly, head against the crack of the door, listening, he screwed the silencer onto the pistol. With his thumb he knocked off the safety catch. Arm cocked, the gun pointing upwards, he gently opened the door. He walked two steps to the imagined fuse box with the clip door. Going through the motions, his left hand slicing the air, he flicked up the trip switch, cutting the electricity to the house that Jenny had loved, the ideal home in which she’d hoped to die. Michael was already in darkness. There were twelve steps to the centre of the sitting room and the chair where Peter read his books on right and wrong.

  ‘Just think of Jenny,’ came Emma’s torn voice from Lavenham on the day he’d left for Holland.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Keep her face in mind.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She deserves to see him when �
� when you put him down.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She deserved someone much better. She deserved a happier life. She deserved the dancing career that she’d dreamed about and lost.’

  Michael’s eyes had already adjusted to the loss of the light. There was no time to lose. Like anyone else plunged into sudden darkness, Peter would freeze for a moment. He would have the alert confusion of a man waiting for the light to come back on … as inexplicably as it had abruptly gone out. Michael had already counted to four …

  You can’t hesitate. You turn out his light.

  Liam had listened at the door to an IRA veteran breaking in a new recruit. He’d learned what had to be done to advance a cause, once you’d accepted that violence was necessary. He’d shared the unpalatable truth with Michael; and Michael had listened for the sake of Eugene. A few days later he’d looked Néall Ó Mórdha in the eye. He’d never forgotten the moment. It had given him a glimpse of eternity. Which is why, this time, Michael had planned to cut the power. He didn’t want to see Peter’s raised face and the light of false hope. Ultimately, it was distracting. He’d tried to step around the memory of Ó Mórdha by rehearsing with the trader in Southwold but in the end he couldn’t face the man down. His childlike incomprehension, so like Ó Mórdha’s, had kept a lingering tremor in Michael’s hand; and it had to go.

  … five, six …

  ‘People bring dogs to the surgery,’ explained Emma, close to his ear. ‘They’ve bitten someone and I put them down, quickly and painlessly. I have to. Because they might bite again. The thing has to go down. And, you know, when it’s lying there on the table, no longer dangerous, it looks peaceful; simply asleep. Grateful that it’s all over.’