by A J Waines
Stranger on the riverbed
Something ice-cold crawled down my spine. River, water, darkness. This didn’t feel good at all.
I looked at several more pictures and then thought I heard a noise coming from outside.
Someone slammed the gate.
‘You can come up if you like, I won’t be a minute.’
It was Andrew.
I’d shut the front door and had the spare key in my pocket, but it was too late to switch off the light. I stuffed the sheet over the pile of paintings and crouched down behind the sofa.
A key rattled in the lock and someone came in.
‘Left the bloody light on,’ said Andrew. ‘Just wait here.’
Footsteps went up the spiral staircase. I could see another pair of feet waiting in the hall.
‘Got any beer?’ A male voice, unfamiliar.
‘In the fridge,’ shouted Andrew.
The feet backed away into the kitchen and I remembered to breathe.
Andrew came hurtling down the stairs and went into the kitchen. I heard more footsteps outside; it sounded like there were three of them now. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Andrew seemed to have found what he had come back for. I heard the sound of a can fizzing open, then another and I wondered who was driving. I was starting to get pins and needles in my legs, squatting on the floor.
Andrew laughed and then footsteps came my way again. Just switch the light off and leave, I silently begged. A figure crossed the room.
‘Not bringing all these then, Andy?’ A different unfamiliar voice.
‘No. I’ve got enough in the van. These aren’t ready yet.’ Footsteps came closer to the stacked paintings and therefore also to the sofa. I froze.
‘What time are we meeting Mel?’
‘Ten o’clock,’ said Andrew.
‘Better get cracking then. It’s a good two and a half hours.’
‘Yeah. Okay.’
The footsteps left the room and the light went off. Then I heard the front door close and the sound of footsteps on the back fire-escape. Then the back gate. I let out a long breath and propped myself up on the back of the sofa. Close shave.
It was only once I was half-way down the street that I realised I’d forgotten to take any more photographs. Some shots of the pictures and especially their macabre titles could have been useful, but I’d missed my chance. There was no way I was risking going back now. As soon as I was within sight of the Tube, I took out my phone.
‘Did you get my list of names?’ I said. It wasn’t what I’d rung to say.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Everyone you’ve ever spoken to in your entire life, I hope.’
I didn’t laugh. A silence hung awkwardly between us.
‘This is…a bit difficult,’ I stuttered.
I told DCI Madison about the pictures.
‘Right. We’ll run a more detailed background check on him.’
‘He knew about The Secret Garden… he knows a lot about me. And he’s been…how can I put it?’ I rubbed my left wrist, glad Brad wasn’t there to inspect it. ‘We split up because his drinking brought out an aggressive side in him.’
‘He hurt you?’
‘More emotionally than physically, but yes, you could say he laid more than a finger on me.’
I heard the beginning of an expletive followed by a muffled grunt, then silence. When he spoke again, he spoke slowly and deliberately, doing his utmost to stop himself erupting.
‘Why the hell didn’t you say something before? You keep doing this.’
‘I can’t believe it’s him, Brad - really - he doesn’t fit the profile at all.’
‘Who else should we know about? Who else have you forgotten to mention?’
‘No one. I’m sure that Andrew —’
‘Stay away from him.’
I told him I’d decided to take a trip over to Cambridge to see my aunt, to get out of London, so that wouldn’t be difficult.
My Aunt Joan was always known as Libby. It was some family in-joke about the way she’d always wanted to be a librarian, although with her cropped red hair and penchant for tartan miniskirts, she never came across as a typical librarian type - if there was such a thing. Like my mother, she’d been born in Cambridge, but unlike her, she’d never left. Never married either. She wasn’t the sort to sit about in the Mediterranean sun, so hadn’t shown the slightest hint of envy when my parents left for Spain.
I found her swinging in a hammock in the garden, the following afternoon. So much for my idea that she didn’t bother with the sun. Maybe she was starting to change her mind.
‘I’ve got the barbeque out specially,’ she said. It was the middle of October and the sky already had hefty clouds brewing in the distance.
‘Good idea,’ I said, trying to hide my reservations.
‘Come here and talk to me,’ she said.
I put my bottle of wine on the patio table and sat on one of the chairs next to the hammock.
‘Drive over, okay?’
‘Light traffic. No trouble, really.’
‘Should come over more often.’
Libby had started early with her hints about how little I saw of her. It was unfair, because she never came to London. I’d invited her several times to the theatre and for concerts, but she always turned me down.
I didn’t bother to respond.
‘Garden’s still looking good,’ I said.
It wasn’t, but I knew it was her pride and joy. With no husband, children or pets, plants had become the little darlings in her life.
‘How’s life in the big smoke?’
‘Hectic,’ I said.
‘Counselling going well? Lots of customers?’
‘Yes. Always plenty of unhappy people in the world, Lib.’
‘This a social call or do you want something?’ She’d never bothered too much with common courtesies. ‘It’s always good to see you, but I did also think I might draw on your great wealth of knowledge.’
Turn up the flattery, it usually did the trick.
‘Pour me a glass of wine and sweeten me up,’ she said. ‘You can light the barbie while you’re at it.’
I could see my visit was going to come at a price. Libby had never been one to turn down the chance to let someone else do the work. In that respect, she was the total opposite of my mother. Mum wasn’t happy unless she was expending her last ounce of energy helping someone. Libby’s virtue was that she didn’t beat about the bush. If I was going to get straight answers from anyone, it would be from her.
Once we’d shared half a bottle of wine and tried a few burnt chicken wings, Libby asked me what I wanted to pick her brains about.
‘It’s about the fire.’
‘What, the fire?’
‘Yeah, Luke’s fire.’
Libby swung down from the hammock and joined me at the table. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Just what you remember. What happened.’
‘You know what happened. The fire started in the kitchen. It was an electrical fault with the toaster. Place went up about two in the morning and poor Luke dodged the firemen and went back in to find Pippin.’
It sounded so straightforward.
‘Were there ever any doubts about how it started?’
‘No.’
Something about the speed of her answer didn’t ring true.
‘Were there newspaper reports at the time?’
‘I’m sure there would have been something in the local rag.’
‘Can you give me access to the news archives in the library, so I can check?’
Libby hesitated. ‘It won’t do any good. Why are you raking all this up again, now?’
‘Just want to know for sure.’ I wasn’t going to tell her that someone who claimed to be psychic had said the fire wasn’t an accident. Anything to do with the supernatural had Libby turning her nose up in disgust. ‘Can I take a look tomorrow?’
‘I can’t get you access tomorrow.’ She brushed some cr
umbs off her skirt and I realised she was avoiding my eyes. ‘We’ve got meetings all morning…and then an inspection.’
‘But, the library can’t be closed, surely.’
‘Well, no…not closed…but it will be difficult for me to get you into the archives.’
This wasn’t like Libby at all. It was starting to sound like a large dose of fobbing-off and she had me completely thrown. I didn’t know whether to come straight out with what I thought or play along.
I chose diplomacy. ‘Never mind,’ I said.
I had another avenue to explore.
When I went to bed, I caught my image in the free-standing mirror in Libby’s spare room wearing the long washed-out t-shirt I used as a nightdress. I stroked the hem and pressed it into my body. Luke’s t-shirt. The only one of his to survive the fire. I often wore it when I was away from home. It was one of few remaining means I had left of holding him close.
Even though it was nearly twenty years since Luke died, there were times when I saw glimpses of him in my mind’s eye as if he had only just walked out of the room. Vivid, bright scenes that filled up the white screen inside my head, flickering like home-movies. The unruly dark hair he refused to keep short, the dimples he loathed that gave him a touch of impudence, the recent walnut swelling in his throat that he was coy about. A grumpy, witty, intelligent, lazy sixteen-year-old - all manner of contradictions bundled up inside him. For years, he’d been the big brother I doted on.
I turned away from the mirror. At times like this the enormity of the loss hit me hard and afresh - not just losing Luke, but losing the family we were then. From the day of his death we each pulled away in different directions in order to cope. Instead of rallying as a family, it was as if we stood in separate corners of a room facing away from each other, not daring to look round in case we came face to face with more grief than we could bear.
Libby had left for work before I was up in the morning. She’d left a note:
Let’s meet for lunch at 1pm at The Anchor. It’s on Silver Street. C. U. there.
I went downstairs in my dressing gown and pulled out my laptop. I searched for ‘Norwich local newspaper’ and came up with two. I copied down the addresses. If I was quick, I should be back for our 1pm lunch date.
The roads were fairly clear and I arrived at my first stop, the Norwich and Norfolk Gazette at just gone 9.30am. The offices were small, with a reception desk just inside the front door. It smelt like a hairdressers. I tried to locate the source of the peroxide aroma, but it must have originated behind the scenes, from part of the printing process.
Posters of the paper’s high-points were laminated and stuck on the walls. The hot-air balloon disaster of 2004. The Duchess of York’s visit in 2007. Delia Smith saves Norwich City F.C. in 2005. Top stories.
A man appeared behind the desk, his sleeves rolled up.
‘Can I help?’
‘I’m a journalist in London,’ I said. ‘I’m looking into a story from 1990. Do your archives go back that far?’
‘1990 is before our time, I’m afraid. We set up in 2001. Nothing further back than that.’ He can’t have missed the crestfallen look on my face. ‘You could try The Norwich Echo. They’ve been around since the fifties. Their archives are at the Local Studies Centre. They might be able to help.’
I thanked him, my shoes squealing on the linoleum floor, as I spun round.
The Local Studies Centre was located in a much older building, which also housed an overflow of old books and periodicals from the public library. I climbed the steps and waited inside a dark foyer. A porter appeared with a parcel. He ignored me. Then a woman with glasses propped on her head came out of a rear door.
‘Are you being seen to?’
I repeated the same spiel I’d delivered at the first place.
‘You’ll need a Norwich library card or a pass,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ Stumped. ‘How do I get a pass?’
‘Have you got your journalist ID?’
‘Ah. You’ve got me there. You see, I’m freelance…on a commission for…Country and Home magazine. I’m not really attached to any particular paper.’
I surprised myself at how easily it slipped off my tongue.
‘Haven’t you got anything showing you’re a journalist?’
I made a show of looking in my bag, but I was running out of momentum. I put my empty hands on the desk. ‘I’m really sorry. I don’t think I have. You can take my credit card as assurance if you like, is that any good?’
‘We don’t operate like that, I’m afraid.’
I was about to turn away, when an idea occurred to me. I looked in my bag again, hoping I’d been less than my usual tidy self, lately.
I found it. ‘Will this do?’ I said, flattening down a creased sheet of paper. It was the email sent to me by Brad, that I’d used to view Aysha’s body at the police mortuary in Wapping. ‘It shows I’ve been authorised by the Metropolitan Police to investigate.’
Thank goodness I’d been preoccupied lately. Normally a note like that would have been ‘filed’ away by now. She took one look at the police logo and handed it back.
‘If anyone asks, I wasn’t the one who let you through, okay?’
She pushed a white card into a slot and the turnstile clicked and let me pass.
I walked down a dim corridor until I got to a large oak door. As I entered, the smell of furniture polish was so strong I could almost taste it. There was no one else in the room. Glossy oak tables ran in rows down the room and tall pull-out racks of recent copies of local newspapers lined the walls. Everything before January 2009 was on microfilm. I put my bag on a table and flicked through the boxes, searching for 1990. I pulled out the reel for the relevant year and slotted it into the machine, then scanned the dates in January. I was looking for anything after the 18th, the day our house went up in flames.
Then there it was:
Tributes have been made to a young boy who tragically perished in a house fire, as his name was officially released by police. Luke Grey, 16, was killed when a fire broke out in his family’s detached home in Thornwell Drive, Norwich, in the early hours of Thursday, January 18th. Mr Anthony Grey and his wife, Melanie, who both suffered no injuries, described their beloved son as ‘cheeky and fun-loving’. They also have a daughter, Juliet, 12, who was uninjured in the blaze. Luke Grey was taken by ambulance to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Fire chiefs confirmed investigations into the cause of the devastating blaze are still continuing, but they have no cause at this stage to suspect suspicious circumstances.
Maybe Libby had been right: the report looked straightforward. Perhaps Cheryl had got her psychic wires crossed. I decided to check the records for the next few days to see if there was any follow-up report, once the police had made a full investigation. I came across a small piece on page seven on the following Monday. As I read, I could feel small hairs on the back of my neck start to prickle:
Following an investigation into the fire at a family home in the early hours of Thursday, 18th January, police and fire chiefs gave the following statement: “The fire started in the kitchen,” explained DCI Molliner, “but we are concerned about the speed at which the fire took hold of the rest of the building.”
Luke Grey, 16, who died in the fire, had returned to the property to rescue the family dog. “We have clear procedures at an incident of this kind,” explained Colin Spencer, sub officer at Norwich fire station. “Sadly, the boy broke through the front line of fire-fighters and re-entered the property without our consent.”
DCI Molliner concluded with the following: “Our investigations are on-going,” he said, “as we are yet to be satisfied about the cause of the blaze.”
I then searched the frames every day, for the following week. I scanned each page on the machine, my pulse pounding in my head, but I found nothing more. I went through the pages again, together with all the papers from the week after that. I drew a total blank.
Libby was already inside The Anchor, sipping a port and lemon. I got my own drink and joined her by a window.
‘Had a good morning?’
‘I went to Norwich.’ I pulled out the copies of the two reports.
Libby clicked her tongue. ‘This just upsets people,’ she said.
‘The second report says the police weren’t happy about the way the fire started…’
‘We can’t do anything about it now.’
She waved a bag of cheese-and-onion crisps at me. I shook my head.
‘Do you remember any of this? Was there ever a follow-up investigation?’
‘Nothing else came to light. It was a tragic accident, Jules.’
I prodded my finger on the second clipping, still not convinced. ‘Something wasn’t right. You said it was the toaster. There’s no mention of that in the report.’
‘The newspapers probably turned away anything that came up later as old news. The police must have done an investigation. Nothing ever came of it. Case closed.’
‘What about Mum and Dad, would they know more about it?’
Libby rounded on me. ‘Don’t go digging all this up again with your parents.’ Her eyes were wild. ‘Don’t you dare upset them all over again. It’s over. Luke’s gone. Just leave it.’
I stared at my hands in my lap and let it drop. For the moment.
When I waved goodbye after lunch, I knew I wasn’t giving up that easily. I still had one more card up my sleeve, but I needed Cheryl to help me play it.
Chapter Thirteen
I’d just managed to get into the scorpion position when the doorbell rang. I was furious. It had taken me months of yoga practice to develop enough strength to hold the position and I’d finally achieved it. I was tempted to ignore the bell, but it rang again and broke my concentration. I rolled on to my yoga mat and stormed down the hall.