by Paul Kelly
William rubbed his chin with his fingers as he looked at Fiona. It was as if he was making comparisons between Maya and the girl he thought to be her daughter, but Fiona was glad she had told him her news. It had weighed on her for some time, whether it was the right thing to do or not . . . but now with Maya gone, she thought that perhaps William would see her in a different light; see her as a person in her own right and not an appendage to the woman he adored ... but William took out his violin and began to play Chopin’s polonaise.
The news that evening announced that a young woman had been strangled near the local Town Hall and the police were anxious to trace anyone who had been near the scene that evening. They were also anxious to talk to her boyfriend, but he never surfaced and William wondered why ... Perhaps the lovely Lisa Frankland never actually had a boyfriend, or was that too strange to imagine; perhaps she was hoping that William would stay with her at the dance for the whole evening, but William had his doubts about that when he thought of how Lisa had treated him when she met him in the supermarket and the way she called him the hated name ... He knew in that moment when she spoke, he wanted to slap her face, but that would have defeated the purpose of his sweet talk ... for what he had intended to do to the lovely Lisa afterwards . . .
All had gone according to plan and William played happily on his instrument whilst Fiona wondered what was on his mind ... hoping it could be her…
“Are you working this evening, William?” Fiona enquired and he shook his head slowly without taking his eyes from his music sheet. “Perhaps we could go out somewhere to eat?” she went on, but William continued playing his Chopin piece and even Fiona wondered what was on his mind when his eyes looked so strange; stranger than she had known him to look before. Fiona was a little afraid, but she felt that her heart would resolve the problem and soon William and she would be more than friends.
“I have some more work to do on this piece,” he muttered with his biro stuck between his teeth and Fiona went into the kitchen to make the coffee, but when he knew she was definitely in the kitchen from the sounds of clattering dishes, he took out his little book to have a fresh look
“Strange,” he muttered, “very strange. Scarlet, William Joseph . . . I have never seen this name under S for sugar, when I looked there before ... Wonder why Maya stuck it in the back cover of her book and why there is no telephone number, only an address attached ... and with three little asterisk signs at the side.”
Fiona came in from the kitchen asking what William was talking about and he made an excuse he had been counting something on a paper connected to his work in the supermarket, but by this time he had resolved to visit Mr. Scarlet at his home address
“Good morning,” he said breezily to the lady who answered the door of the address he had found under S. in the little book. “Could I speak to Mr. Scarlet please?”
The lady looked strangely at him for a few moments, before she answered.
“I’m sorry ... Mr. Scarlet is no longer with us. I am Mrs. Scarlet and my husband died of a heart attack just three years ago,”
William didn’t know what to do or where to look when Mrs. Scarlet made her announcement but a few seconds later a little boy appeared at the door from behind his mother. He looked about fourteen and was wearing calipers . . . one on each leg.
“Go indoors Billy,” the lady said and ushered the little boy back into the house, but William pricked up his ears when he heard the name the lady called the boy.
“Is that William … William Joseph Scarlet?” he asked and the lady smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “called after his dad. Looks like him too, but he can’t walk properly you see.”
William commiserated and asked Mrs. Scarlet if she knew a Maya Broomfield and her face lit up when she said she did.
“Maya is our dentist and she’s been very kind to Billy. Took us both off for a holiday, three years ago to Scarborough, just after my husband died . . .Best holiday my Billy has ever had. She really spoiled him and I was ever so grateful. There is no way I could have afforded a holiday like that ... and it was for two weeks too.”
William looked past the lady as she stood in her doorway, hoping to catch another glimpse of his namesake.
“Did you know that Mrs. Broomfield passed away a short time ago …well about a year ago now,” he asked and Mrs. Scarlet drew in her breath as she touched her bosom with both hands.
“My God ... I didn’t know. My Billy will be so upset when I tell him. Are you Mr. Broomfield?” she asked and William looked down for a moment before he answered.
“Yes ... Yes, I am Maya’s husband,” he said and Mrs. Scarlet hunched her shoulders as she offered William her sympathies.
As William left the house, he knocked into someone coming from the other end of the street and he found himself concerned that others might be around when he was doing, what had to be done, although he was always very careful to check the scenes before he acted . . .
“Can you spare 20p for a cup of tea, Guvnor,” asked the man as he steadied himself, after his clash with William, but William ignored him and went his way, just as an ambulance careered past him followed by a police car at high speed.
“Give me a chance,” he said with a wry smile on his face, “I haven’t done anything yet …”
Chapter Twenty- Eight
WILLIAM TOOK ANOTHER LOOK at the little book where he had scored off so many names, but there were quite a few more that he had to deal with. He wondered what the men thought when he was about to send them to their Maker . . . or even better still … what Maya would have thought … but after a few seconds of dwelling on that, he sighed, rolled his eyes and grinned as he went to another page in the little book and he spotted the name Sharma; the Sharma that was included with the Ms. and he hoped he might be able to guess, if he couldn’t find, what the M. stood for when suddenly at the bottom of the page, he noticed, in very small letter. Sharma, Mumtaz, esq., “Sharma,” he read out aloud, like a teacher calling out the daily register, but no Mr. Sharma responded to his name. Maybe Mumtaz could be his surname and he would therefore be under the Ms in the book, he thought, but when he looked there, he could find no trace of a Mumtaz . . .
“Mumtaz Sharma,” again William called out aloud.. “We should meet, my friend ... and very soon.” With that he pulled out his Stanley knife and breathed over it before he polished it and wrapped it again in its scabbard.
“Is that Mr. Sharma’s residence?”
The tedious telephone task that preceded his ‘duties’ made him yawn until a high pitched voice answered to say that Mr. Sharma was not in at the moment but that he would be back very late that evening.
“Oh! I am so sorry. I have some important news for him. Is there any way I can speak to him urgently?”
“Yes, you can contact him on his mobile. He’s a cabby. The number is ... have you got a pen?”
“Yes.”
“The number is 07823441867 ... Got that?”
”Yes thank you. I’m most grateful and I am sure Mr. Sharma will be pleased with his news. Thank you.”
Meanwhile William gathered a few more names together from the book. It was quicker work than he had thought it might be and twice as interesting. Maya would be pleased, he thought as he considered how he was ridding her lovely body of all the scum that cluttered her beautiful life . . .
“Mr. Sharma ... oh Mr. Sharma …Mumtaz … I think we should meet because I am a friend of a lady who had been very kind to you; a lady by the name of Broomfield, Mrs. Maya Broomfield.”
Before William could utter another word, his mobile recorded the screeching of brakes, somewhere in the background before anyone spoke.
“Who the hell are you and how did you get my name?”
William grinned before he answered, but this time he had no intention of giving his identity to his propose
d ‘victim’ ... That just wasn’t necessary.
“My name doesn’t matter, but Maya was very kind to you and I think now it is time that you returned the favour, don’t you?”
There was a long silence apart from car horns sounding in the background.
“Favour…what do you mean by favour? Are you some sort of a pervert? If you’re looking for someone to fuck you mate, you’d better get stuffed elsewhere. I’m not into that kind of thing, Sweetie. ... Goodbye.”
William jumped as his phone clicked twice before it went dead, but he telephoned again and again and a third time until Mr. Mumtaz came back.
“I told you to …”
“No, Mr. Mumtaz, you don’t tell me anything,” said William, “It is I who am telling you. Now listen sharply and don’t make me loose my temper.”
William arranged to meet Mr. Sharma outside a pub in Shoreditch. … A public house address was always useful . . .
***
“Another pub murder . . .” William read in the newspaper the following morning … “MURDER . . . This time in East London and the police believe it is the work of a serial killer as the manner of killing is the same as it has been in the last few cases so recently. Murder by a sharp instrument where the jugular of the victim is severed ... The pattern is always the same.”
William listened to Fiona as she started to sing in the bathroom and he continued to eat his corn flakes. Life was getting so tedious and he thought of some ways to brighten it up a little.
“Eeni, meeni, mini mo . . . Catch a ... .Oh hello. Is that Mr. Moffat?
An effeminate voice answered his call on the other end of the line and William stood away from the mouthpiece as he considered what he should do next . . .the voice was nothing like he expected, but it definitely was male.
“Mr. Moffat? Is that the same Mr. Moffat who knows Mrs. Broomfield? Mrs. Maya Broomfield?”
Again as he had expected there was a long silence on the telephone before anyone spoke.
“No ... I think you must have the wrong number. I don’t know anyone of that name.”
William looked perplexed and for a moment he wasn’t sure what he should do. This had never happened before and he had contacted everyone he wanted to contact with very little trouble, if any.
“Is there another Mr. Moffat at your residence?” he asked with raised eyebrows, wondering what to expect next.
“Well there’s my father and my younger brother, but I don’t think my brother would know anyone by that name. Just a minute and I’ll ask him.”
William could hear people talking somewhere on the line for a few minutes before the effeminate voice came back to him again.
“No ... I’m sorry, my brother doesn’t know any Mrs. Broomfield. I didn’t think he would as he’s only nine, but my father might ... and he’s not at home at the moment.”
“Is there anyway I could get in touch with your father?” William asked and the answer he received quite shocked him into memories of the past.
“Well, he’s a bouncer at the Club Napoli . . . Do you know it?
“Yes ... yes, I think I do, thank you. I will get in touch with him there,” said William as he thought about his old friend Bingham, whom he knew had frequented Maya’s flat before he went to prison on the drugs charge and he had been a bouncer at the Club Napoli ... Wasn’t it a small world … A very small world indeed …
Two days later around ten o’clock in the evening, as he was about to go into the Club Napoli, a hand landed on his shoulder.
“I.D. please.” said the man with the rough hand. “Only members in here to-night, Sir . . .”
“Oh! I’m sorry ... I don’t really want to come in, but I was told I might meet a friend of mine here ... His name is Bingham, David Bingham,”
The man at the door looked strangely at William with his mouth half open.
“Bingham doesn’t work here no more,” he said sharply. “Who are you and why did you want to speak to David?”
William looked up at the sky and saw that a full moon slipped out from behind a dark cloud.
“He was a good friend of a friend of mine ... A Mrs. Broomfield,” he said and the man at the door went pale.
“I don’t know nuffink about Maya. I think you had better go now, Sir,” said the bouncer, but William had got the answer he had been waiting for . . .
“I didn’t tell you her name was Maya. So how did you know who I was talking about, Mr. MOFFAT?”
William said no more and the moon disappeared behind the cloud again as he walked off, wiping his Stanley knife with his clean, white handkerchief . . .
“Eenie, meeni, mini mo ... caught Mr. Moffat by the toe, he sang as he sauntered back to Fiona’s flat, resolved to remove another M from the little book when he got home.
“Not many more to go now,” he said “I think I’ll need a new blade on my Stanley knife. What a shame ... I hope they don’t cost too much.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
WILLIAM COULD HEAR THE SCHOOL BELL toll as he walked past St. Michael’s. It brought back so many bad memories that he wished he had never visited the place again and thrust his palms against his ears to avoid the din.
It took him a few painful moments to look at the place. It looked the same and he could hear the voices again; the voices that taunted and humiliated him in the not too distant past ... in the days before he met Maya and his face lit up when he thought of the lovely and happy times he had spent with her, only to be clouded by the sudden thought again of how … AND WHY she died …
“It’s not ... It can’t be ... It is. You’re William Bright aren’t you?”
William turned around suddenly to be greeted by his old Headmaster, standing before him with a scroll of some kind under his arm.
“G ...g ...g ... good morning, Mr. W ...W ...Walker . . .
The Headmaster looked sadly at William having remembered the last time he had anything to do with him and that was due to the supposed tragedy with some supposed murder or other, which turned out to be a fallacy and Mr. Walker raised his eyebrows with pleasure, accepting that William Bright still had his stutter.
“What are you doing now, William,” the Headmaster asked as he folded his notes and changed them to his other hand.
“I ... I’m still working at the s ... s ... supermarket, Mr. W ... W ... Walker,” he replied nervously, “ but I …h ... h ... hope soon to be enrolled at the R ... R ... Royal college of Music.”
Mr. Walker beamed a smile of approval and added that he always knew that William would do well with his music, before he shook hands with his ex-pupil and strode back into the school again, just as the bell stopped tolling.
“Nice to see you again, William,” said a young female voice from the back of the playground. “I remember you from the fifth form. Do you remember me?”
William screwed his face up in the sunshine as he shielded his eyes from the sunrays with his hand and scanned the face of the young intruder.
“I’m … s ... s ... sorry,” he said, “I don’t think I … r ... r ... r ... remember you.”
“Janine Mercer,” the reply came and gentle. “I’m teaching here now. Have been for the past six years or so . . .”
William looked closer and a smile broke out over his face as he suddenly remembered who this young woman was. She had been one of the nicer girls, he could remember and he didn’t think she was one of the gang of girls who made his life a misery.
“J ... J ... J ... Janine Mercer, why of course … I am so … s ... sorry I didn’t recognise you, but you are so ... well g ... g ... g ... grown up from those days gone by. I think you must have been in the …b ... b ... b ... brainier section of the school to have trained as a … t ... t ... teacher. I just work at a … s ... s ... s ... supermarket and even then, I don’t have anything …
s ... s ... s ... special to do there at all … only shelf packing.” William said and Janine smiled again.
“It takes all kinds and shelf packing is as necessary as anything else, William,” she said, “Have you met any of your old friends from school since you left?”
William lowered his head when she said that. He could hardly tell her that Lisa Frankland had crossed his path, could he ... especially if she already knew, as he presumed she would, that Lisa Frankland wasn’t in the land of the living any more.
“No ... no, I haven’t met any of my old friends,” he said politely, hoping that Janine would believe that he did have a few friends from his school days.
“You’ve turned out to be a nice looking guy, William and I hope I don’t embarrass you when I say that ...Got yourself a nice girlfriend, I’m sure,” she added as she looked at William to see his response, but William looked down when she said that and his face coloured red. “Tell you what,” Janine went on, having guessed that there was no girl in William’s life from the way he looked. “I have a list in my class of many of the pupils where were at school when you were here with us. You’ll probably recognise some of them, although I doubt if you’d know them now. They’ve all grown up into beautiful young ladies. There’s some telephone numbers on that list too as I remember. Hold on a minute and I’ll get it for you.”