Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid

by Rob Johnson

  ‘Probably?’

  ‘I just told you, I only saw it the once.’

  ‘Size?’

  ‘Medium?’ It was more of a question than a statement.

  Logan switched his attention to his colleague. ‘You’ve got all this down, have you?’

  ‘Yes, sarge,’ she said, vaguely waving her notebook as if in confirmation.

  ‘Right. Well in that case, we’d best be on our way… unless of course there’s anything else you can tell us.’

  Still with her back to them, Mrs Hawkins responded with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  ‘Fine. Thank you for your er… assistance. We’ll see ourselves out.’

  * * *

  DS Logan and DC Swann sat opposite each other at a corner table of The Hen and Chickens. For a Friday evening, the pub was surprisingly empty, although from the look of the place Swann wondered if it ever attracted more than a handful of the most committed of drinkers. It was one of those single storey, block-shaped buildings thrown up on the edge of housing estates back in the sixties, and the inside was overwhelmingly bright and smelt of stale beer and chip fat. She only hoped she wouldn’t need to find out what the toilet was like while they were there.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ she said.

  Logan took a long slug from his pint of bitter and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘We do what all good detectives are supposed to do. We investigate.’

  ‘You don’t think she was making it all up then?’

  ‘Possibly. But it’s still a murder accusation and not just some complaint about the neighbour’s dog fouling the footpath.’

  Swann picked up the photograph which lay next to her glass of orange juice. ‘Doesn’t look much like a murderer to me.’

  Logan almost choked on his beer, ‘Maggie, I really can’t believe you said that.’

  ‘All the same…’ She continued to stare at the picture of Trevor and Imelda Hawkins on their wedding day, posing for the camera in all their finery – she with a forced grin on her face and he looking rather more genuinely happy. ‘We’ve hardly got anything to go on. Even this photograph is years old.’

  ‘Six, to be precise.’

  ‘That’s a bit odd in itself, isn’t it? I mean, there were plenty of pictures of his brother and a fair few of his sister but only this one of Trevor. – Can’t be very fond of him.’

  ‘Well no. Turning in your own son for murder isn’t what you’d normally expect from a doting mother.’

  ‘Maybe inventing a story about Trevor murdering his wife is a way of getting back at him for the other son’s death,’ said Swann, flipping through her notebook for the name. ‘Derek was definitely the apple of mummy’s eye. – It’s classic. Favourite kid dies. Mum resents the other kid for still being alive.’

  ‘And shops him for a murder that never even happened?’ Logan drained his pint and set the empty glass down in front of him, gazing at it as he twisted it back and forth between his palms. ‘Look, I’ve no idea whether she’s made it all up or not, but like I say, we have to do something. Otherwise the old bat’ll put in some kind of official complaint. She’s just the type who would.’

  ‘Okay, Sherlock, so where do you suggest we start?’

  ‘First, you go and get me another pint.’ Logan gave her an exaggerated wink and slid his glass towards her.

  ‘So how come it’s my round again?’

  ‘Forgot to bring my wallet.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Swann got to her feet with a scowl and made her way to the bar.

  When she got back, Logan was leafing through her notebook. ‘God, your writing’s atrocious,’ he said without looking up.

  ‘So? As long as I can read it, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘I mean, what’s this supposed to say?’ He pushed the notebook towards her, keeping the tip of his finger on a point halfway down the page.

  ‘Married April 2007.’ She read the words aloud as if it was perfectly obvious what they said.

  ‘Oh I see. I thought it was “Maimed anvil soon”.’

  ‘Ha ha, very amusing.’

  ‘Seriously. And what’s this?’ He pointed to another phrase on the same page.

  ‘Er… ‘ She frowned as she stared at the words Logan had indicated. ‘Actually, I’m not sure about that bit.’

  ‘I rest my case,’ he said, picking up his pint and sitting back in his chair.

  ‘What the hell. We got so little out of her, I can remember it all anyway.’

  ‘Yeah? Okay then, off you go.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Good a time as any.’

  Despite claiming total recall, DC Swann still used her notes for reference as she began to summarise the story the old woman had told them: ‘Trevor Hawkins. Age forty-three. Married Imelda in April 2007. No children. Wife disappeared October 2011—’

  ‘And Mrs H reckons our Trevor did her in and then—’

  ‘Got rid of the body. Yes, I know. I was just getting to that.’

  ‘And how does Mrs H know this?’

  ‘Because he told her.’

  ‘Figures.’ Logan spoke the word with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘Maybe he couldn’t live with his guilty secret any longer. Had to tell someone… someone he could trust not to turn him in.’

  ‘What? His mother? He must have known she was just as likely to rat on him as anyone else.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t want to admit to himself that she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Anyway, who else was he going to tell? Doesn’t sound like he had any friends to speak of.’

  ‘There’s a sister though.’

  Swann shrugged. ‘Estranged? Not speaking? Who knows?’

  ‘Too many questions and not enough answers,’ said Logan, then gulped his beer and only half-heartedly attempted to stifle a belch. ‘Come on. You’ve got work to do.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Trevor could hear voices. He was almost certain of it.

  He pressed his ear to the door once again. From somewhere along the corridor, he could just make out the sound. Two women, chatting and laughing. Every so often, the voices disappeared completely and then reappeared again a few minutes later, becoming gradually more audible each time. This was exactly the sound he had been hoping to hear for the past hour, and he prayed he was right about the people the voices belonged to.

  He sucked on the knuckle he’d gashed whilst trying to fix the broken toilet flush. Although he was fully aware of his severely limited plumbing skills, he’d felt morally unable to simply leave the unflushed loo for someone else to find. Nor had it been an option to call reception and get somebody to come and repair it as this would have revealed that he was illegally harbouring a dog in his room. To his relief, however, when he’d removed the porcelain cistern lid and balanced it on the edge of the bath, the problem had seemed fairly straightforward. The bolt which had become dislodged from the lever hinge lay at the bottom of the cistern. It was merely a question of retrieving it and replacing it in its rightful position.

  In hindsight, Trevor couldn’t understand why he had been quite so cavalier about the difficulty of the task in hand. He would normally approach any such job in the sure and certain knowledge that if it appeared simple at first sight, it would be bloody difficult, and if it appeared difficult, it would be totally impossible. In this particular case, it had taken him an inordinate amount of time just to retrieve the fallen bolt due to the narrowness of the gap between the flush mechanism and the side of the cistern. He’d been able to slide his hand through, but his forearm had become trapped when the bolt was only half a centimetre from his fingertips, so he’d searched the room for anything which might resemble a pair of pliers. In the end, he’d had to make do with the nail scissors from his washbag, and after several attempts, he’d managed to get the blades to grip the bolt firmly enough for him to ease it upwards through the water. On three occasions, however, the bolt had slipped from the grasp of the scissors and fallen ba
ck to the bottom just as it was almost within reach of his free hand

  When he had finally retrieved the elusive bolt, it had taken him a matter of seconds to insert it through the holes in the two parts of the lever hinge. He had realised that there was a small nut which would have secured the bolt in place, but since this also lay at the bottom of the cistern, he’d decided that he could still get the flush to work as long as he was careful. The first time he’d tested it, he was obviously not careful enough, and he had watched in horror as the bolt slipped from the hinge and sank rapidly down through the water.

  ‘Dammit!’

  Straightening up from his stooping position, he’d brushed against the cistern lid, and it had tottered for a moment and then fallen from the edge of the bath and broken into half a dozen pieces on the tiled floor below.

  ‘Dammit!!!’

  The noise must have woken Milly as she had instantly started barking to warn off the suspected but unseen intruder. Trevor had raced into the bedroom to find her standing on the bed, directing her attentions fixedly at the main door and in exactly the opposite direction to the bathroom.

  He had hissed at her to be quiet, and for once, she had obeyed, turning towards him with a quizzical expression, which might have been interpreted as: So no intruder then?

  After another half an hour of struggling, cursing and fiddling, the job was done. Gingerly pressing down the lever with one hand whilst simultaneously holding the bolt in place with the other, a gush of water had finally dispatched the contents of the toilet bowl on their long delayed journey.

  So, what to do about the broken lid? One solution would be to leave the hotel early in the morning before anyone noticed the damage, but Trevor was one of those people to whom guilt came easily, and he was always keen to avoid it whenever possible. The logical answer would be simply to own up and pay for the damage when he checked out, but the room was already costing him a small fortune, and he was reluctant to shell out any more of his redundancy cash.

  He had lain awake for most of the night, wrestling with the problem until a plan of sorts eventually began to evolve. But even when he was as satisfied as he could be that it might actually work, he had slept only fitfully. This was partly due to Milly’s snoring, but mostly to the Richter Scale grumblings from his empty stomach.

  Now, as he stood with his ear to the door, the women’s voices in the corridor reappeared, and this time he could begin to recognise occasional words and phrases:

  VOICE 1: … said to ‘im… think you’re… in ‘ere with… bloody joking…

  VOICE 2: … always… daft booger…

  VOICE 1: … shove it where…

  Trevor estimated that the sound of laughter which followed couldn’t have been more than a dozen yards away before it dissolved into silence. It was time to make his move.

  He checked that Milly was still curled nose-to-bum on the bed. The nose was twitching a fraction out of time with her lip, more rhythmically accompanied by a sotto voce whimpering, and judging by the spasmodic jittering of her feet, she was chasing rabbits or – more likely – a rapidly escaping cordon bleu cowpat. But whatever the object of her subconscious quest, the important thing was that she was deeply asleep and therefore less likely to wake up and howl like a maniac when she realised he’d gone. So far, so good.

  With his eyes fixed on Milly, he picked up his navy blue holdall and crept out into the corridor. He eased the door shut behind him and listened. He could no longer hear whimpering, but he breathed again when the expected shrieks of abandonment didn’t materialise.

  He looked to his left. Nothing. To his right, he could see one of those tall wire cages on wheels like they use in supermarkets, stacked with clean white towels and bed sheets. It was parked outside a room three along from his own. All was still quiet on the Milly front, so he advanced towards the cage, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to check whether anyone was watching. It occurred to him that this was faintly ridiculous since he hadn’t done anything wrong yet, but he carried on doing it anyway.

  As he came closer, the women’s voices became more distinct:

  VOICE 1: You think so?

  VOICE 2: No doubt about it.

  VOICE 1: Sharon?

  VOICE 2: Sharon.

  VOICE 1: Well, who’d have thought it?

  VOICE 2: Eee, there’s nowt so queer as folk.

  VOICE 1: ‘Cept thee and me.

  VOICE 2: And I’m not so sure about thee.

  The two women exploded into laughter, and Trevor hesitated for a moment outside the open door. He practised a smile, assumed what he hoped might resemble an air of confidence, and then strode into the room.

  ‘Oh,’ he said in feigned surprise as he set down his holdall and took in the view of the two women bent low over either side of the single bed.

  Neither of them missed a beat. They went on with their tucking and smoothing, and the older one with the badly peroxided hair said, ‘Sorry, duck. Thought you’d still be at breakfast. Won’t be a tick.’

  ‘No problemo,’ said Trevor and immediately thought: No problemo? No problemo? I’ve never said that to anyone in my life.

  At the same time, he caught the glance that the slimmer, dark haired one gave to Peroxide and it read “prat”.

  ‘No problemo, ladies.’ He couldn’t believe he’d said it again, and for want of something better to do, he wandered over to the window and looked out on the street below. In a shop doorway opposite, a dog was casually relieving himself over the prone body of some poor sod who clearly couldn’t afford these hotel prices.

  ‘I’ll just pop this over ‘ere, shall I, duck?’

  Trevor turned to see that Peroxide was dangling a black lacy bra from her fingertips, and without waiting for an answer, she draped it over the arm of a chair next to the window. The other woman had her back to him, but he could tell from the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders that she was struggling to control her sniggering. His face burned as a dozen unlikely explanations flooded his brain.

  ‘Er… yes, that’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s um… it’s my wife’s.’ Yeah, good one, Trevor, what with this being a single room in case you hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Course it is, lovie,’ Peroxide said with a smirk. ‘Anyway, we’re all done ‘ere now.’

  As the two chambermaids gathered up their various sprays and polishes and slotted them into a plastic carrier, Trevor wondered if they had him down as one of those blokes who gets off on wearing women’s underwear or whether they just suspected he’d had a woman in his room. He didn’t even care if they thought it was a hooker. Far better that than being taken for a transvestite.

  Still, no point worrying about that now. He had a job to do. The moment they closed the door behind them, he ignored the burst of laughter and snatched up his holdall. He knew he might not have much time. The real occupant could already be on his – or more probably, her – way back from breakfast. Not only that, but Milly might wake up any second and start howling the place down.

  Oh shit. The thought suddenly struck him that he’d forgotten to hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign outside his room. This had been an integral part of his plan to make sure no-one went in and discovered Milly, and now the chambermaids were only minutes away from doing that very thing. Even more reason to work quickly.

  He dived into the bathroom and was relieved to see the toilet was exactly the same as his own. Carefully – very carefully – he lifted the lid from the cistern. As he turned and placed it gently on the floor, his mind did a doubletake. What was that?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sandra sat eyeing the last piece of toast in the silver rack in front of her.

  Hell, it’s only half a slice. It’s not as if I’d be shoving down half a loaf. I mean, half a bloody slice. Get a grip, woman. You don’t even need to put much butter on it.

  Maybe you could just do the marmalade and forget the butter altogether. Yeah, that’s it. Marmalade. No butter. Well you’ll have to have marmalade at least ‘
cos it’s been sitting there for a while now, and it’s going to be as dry as the driest thing in Dryville on Saint Dry’s Day without something or other spread on it.

  ‘Would madam care for more coffee?’

  ‘Jesus,’ she said, snatching back the hand that was already reaching for the toast.

  ‘I’m sorry, madam. Did I startle you?’

  She turned to see a waistcoated and bow-tied waiter with a dome of a forehead and an absurdly pointed chin hovering above her with a china coffee pot.

  ‘Er… No. Er, no, not at all. I was only…’

  ‘Would madam like some fresh toast?’ said the waiter with a slight inclination of his head towards the lonely piece in the rack.

  He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t quite place him. In any case, he was obviously on to her with the toast thing. She could read it in his wide-set eyes, and what he really meant by all the madam this and madam that was: Okay, fatty, I can see you’re gonna scoff down every last scrap of food on this table, so why don’t I get you some more and you can have yourself a frigging party?

  ‘Excuse me?’ Her tone was indignant.

  ‘Would madam like more toast?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was miles away. Er, no. No thanks.’

  ‘Coffee?’ He tilted the pot towards her empty cup.

  Was it the chin or the heavy, dark eyebrows that made him seem so familiar? Or perhaps it was the mouth, which looked like it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to pout or sneer. But where had she seen him bef—

  ‘Of course,’ she said with a click of her fingers. ‘Quentin Tarantino.’

  ‘What?’ said the waiter, losing the ever-so-slightly-French accent in that one solitary word.

  ‘You know. Reservoir Dogs and all that. Kill Bill? Inglourious Basterds?’ Sandra beamed at him, delighted she had cracked the mystery.

  “Quentin” now stood erect and bristling. ‘No coffee or toast then,’ he said in a seriously Birmingham accent as he began to turn away.

  ‘No, no. Both. Bring it on.’ She sat back, flamboyantly folding her arms and staring at the lonely piece of toast, a beatific grin still spread across her face.