11:59

by David Williams

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, just… That was good, wannit, Marc?

  “Good?”

  “Kind of, yeah. I’ve never been in a police car before.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “First for everything eh, Marc? First for everything. Thanks.”

  “Oliver, I nearly got you arrested. I don’t think that would have pleased your mam much, would it?”

  “She likes detectives, though. She used to like Morse. That policeman wasn’t much good at detecting, was he?” Oliver chuckles in that phlegmy way he has. “I think he got the wrong end of the stick. That’s a saying, innit, you’re holding the wrong end of the stick. Are you going to tell them what we’ve found out?”

  “Who, the police? What’s to tell them?”

  “Dunno. Where Hassan got killed?”

  “They knew that already. I was just checking for myself. Just making a link.”

  Truth is, I haven’t told Oliver about Emmanuel and Stefan. I’ve only brought him along as a kind of treat, a way of saying sorry for having ditched him last time we met, and I guess as company for me too. I’ve told him nothing of my growing suspicion that Hassan’s death may not have been an accident, or that Emmanuel might have been somehow involved. It’s not that I’m assuming he’s incapable of taking it in – I swear I’ve stopped thinking of Oliver as a bovine – but I have no idea myself where I’m going with this. Besides, how can I tell him anything about my encounters with Emmanuel without giving him the rest of the sordid details? I’m not proud of some of the places I’ve been over the last couple of days. I recognise that Oliver still holds me up as some sort of hero, and if I’m honest I’m reluctant to disturb that. Anyway, he’s an innocent abroad and I’m not prepared to be the one to disillusion him about the ways of the world. We’ll have to proceed on a need-to-know basis. Christ, I sound just like Meg Reece.

  “Where would you like dropping off?” I say to Oliver, anxious to change the subject in case he pesters me with difficult questions.

  “Just wherever you’re going, Marc,” he says, blithely. “If you’re driving back to your place I’ll just get off there and walk the rest of the way. Unless the 19 bus comes along. We’re only two stops from you.”

  “Yeah, you’ve said. No, don’t worry, I’ll take you home. Just tell me which way to go after I’ve passed mine.” My offer has more than a tinge of self-interest - if I only take him as far as the flat I’ll either have to ask him up for coffee or be made to feel guilty watching him out of my window while he stands waiting for the bus.

  Ollie has the drop on me, though, because as soon as we pull into his estate – obviously still council-owned and even worse-maintained than the dross I’m surrounded by – he says, “Come in for drinking tea, Marc. Or coffee if you want, we have that, either-or.”

  “Well, very kind but…”

  “Come on. Mam’ll be chuffed to meet you, honest she will. It’s no bother. Not a bit of bother. There’s nothing spoilin’.”

  By now I’ve run out of excuses for standing him up, and so, if it pleases his mam… I park the car half on the stubby verge of a cul-de-sac Ollie guides me to, and follow him along the flagstones past a row of wheelie bins and spilt plastic bags to his back door. He presses his face briefly at the window next to the door, shading his eyes as he peers beyond the net curtains, then shoves a plump hand into the letter-box, fishing out a length of string with a key on the end that he uses to let us in.

  “Just me, Mam,” he calls out as we squeeze our way through a tiny back kitchen. “Guess who’s come an’ see ya.”

  The living-room we enter is no more nor less messy than my flat these days, just different-messy. Where my clutter is mainly plastic and paper – disordered piles of DVDs, computer games, dog-eared books and thumbed-through magazines – the Dunns seem to go in for mounds of soft materials – coats, rugs and unfinished ironing strewn across the back of the furniture or stacked on the floor. Where I have empty bottles and partly-crushed cans waiting to be gathered up for a rare visit to the recycling centre, they have torn-open family size packets of crisps and chocolate biscuits, here on the coffee table, and there between the ornaments on the old-fashioned sideboard, available for grazing.

  In the midst of this comfortable chaos is a creased old woman sitting deep in a faded armchair, the sort that belongs next to a roaring fire, though there’s no sign of a fireplace in the room, just a glimpse of radiator pipe sticking out from behind a sofa littered with jumble by the back wall. I say old, but when I get a closer look she’s not as ancient as her knitted cardi and thick tights make her out to be – probably late sixties in reality, though it’s hard to be certain because of the prescription dark glasses she’s wearing.

  “Hey, Mam,” Ollie calls her attention again. “Can you see who this is?”

  She leans forward with her hands on the arms of the chair as if she’s about to lever herself up to greet us, then decides against and sinks back into her seat. “You know I can’t make faces out in this light,” she says, surprisingly truculent.

  “You’ll recognise the voice.”

  Ollie whispers to me. “Say summat out loud. Bet you she can guess.”

  “What you want me to say?”

  “Anything.”

  Nothing original comes to mind as I clear my throat so I offer Ollie’s mam a few platitudes, smiling and trying to make eye contact past her shades so that she’ll warm to me. “Good afternoon, Mrs Dunn. I’m really pleased to meet you. Ollie… Oliver’s told me so much about you. I understand you like listening to the radio.” Giving her a bit of a hint, since Ollie’s so keen for her to find me out.

  “Telly’s a waste o’ time for me these days,” she says, dismissing the set in the corner with a flick of her hand. “Not that the wireless is much to crack on.”

  I pull a face at Oliver, letting him know how I rate his description of her as a super-fan like himself. He seems a little hurt by my expression and I immediately regret it, realising he’s mistaken my gurning for disrespect to his mam. I’m frantically thinking of something nice to say to compensate when she continues, “Your show’s all right, though. It’s Marc Niven, isn’t it?”

  Ollie lets out a quiet whoop like he’s just won a line on the bingo and nudges me, inviting me to marvel at the wonder that is his mother. I move nearer to her.

  “That’s right, Mrs Dunn. Thanks for listening.”

  “Hmmph.” She twists her face and turns her head away with a grunt that puts me in mind of a camel. Wherever Oliver gets his sunny disposition from it’s not from these genes. She straightens up in her chair and I fancy I can detect milkiness in her eyes behind the dark glasses as she speaks again.

  “Are they going to let you back on now they’re supposed to have cleared things up?” There’s an edge of disbelief in her voice that I imagine is connected with doubts she has about me.

  “How do you mean, cleared things up?”

  “With what they said on the news about the cousin, the babysitter.”

  I turn to Ollie for an interpretation, but he is looking as clueless as I am.

  “What you on about, Mam?” he says, but in a deferential tone as if he needs to convince her he’s not being cheeky. Nevertheless she clicks her tongue with impatience and sighs to let us know what a chore it is to explain.

  “On the one o’ clock news. They said a cousin of that girl, the coloured girl, was the one that phoned your programme. They had him on the news. Did it for a bit of fun, he says, cos he was bored with the babysitting. That’s it.”

  “Babysitting?” I say it more to Oliver, not just because I can’t make a connection with his mam but because she’s got me half-afraid to press her any further. Mrs Dunn sighs again.

  “He was in the house babysitting for her. That’s what gave him the idea.”

  Things are beginning to click into place for me. That would, after all, explain why the call was made from Amina’s number. Then Mrs Dunn throws e
verything up in the air again. She seems to shrug off her torpor at last and jabs a finger purposefully into the arm-rest as she says, “Tell you summat for nowt, Oliver. That wasn’t the same one that phoned in on Valentine’s Day.”

  “How do you know, Mam?”

  “Voice was different. He might have the same accent, lingo sort of thing, but this one on the news was a younger feller, not so deep down.”

  “Are you sure?” How could she be, comparing a voice she’s heard once today with one she heard once a week ago?

  “Sure as eggs.”

  Well, she recognised me without any real prompting, but… a reliable witness? Dunno. Clear-up or cover-up, I’ve got to listen to this item for myself. “What time is it now?” I say out loud, too full of a sudden sense of urgency to look at the watch on my wrist.

  “Nearly ten to two,” says Oliver, consulting his.

  “Is there a radio?” I start to say then, retreating from the foolishness of the question, “Any chance we could have the radio on for the two o’ clock news?”

  Ollie relishes the new excitement. Without even asking his mother for permission he rushes across to the radio on the sideboard and tunes in to the afternoon show, Kelly Coyle back in her usual slot. I’m momentarily distracted - trying to read the runes of the current political thinking from their presenter arrangements - while Oliver is seeking my attention for the matter uppermost on his agenda.

  “Tea or coffee, Marc? We have both. Or hot chocolate.”

  Appropriately it’s one of our own station mugs – a souvenir from one of Ollie’s many visits to my road-show – that I’m draining of not-so-terrible instant coffee when the two o’ clock news ends without a repeat of the item featuring Amina’s babysitting cousin. That’s hardly surprising; the shorter mid-afternoon bulletins tend to focus on the top news of the day, regional and national, and the little mystery surrounding my phone-in guests hardly compares to more bondage sex revelations from the minister’s ex-wife or the royal opening of the road tunnel, whatever the ghost-hunters want to make of it. That means I’ll have to tread water until the drive-time news programme, assuming they bother to repeat the clip at all. Too worked up to wait, I decide to take matters into my own hands. I ring in to Reception on my mobile, wandering into the Dunns’ kitchen while I wait for an answer.

  “Hi, it’s Marc. Can you put me through to Jim Swinton, please?”

  Talk about a pregnant pause. I can feel consternation vibrating down the line before Carol the receptionist says, uncertainly, “Oh, hi Marc. You know, I’m not sure if Jim is available to talk to you.”

  “What do you mean, not available? He’s in, right?”

  “Mmm, should be.”

  “Well, try ringing his extension and if he’s there he’ll pick it up.”

  “Well, it’s not that, to be honest. Just… only I think the position is that you’re not allowed access to members of staff, as it stands. That’s what we’ve been told.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. Jim’s a personal friend. You can’t stop me from talking to him.”

  “Just what we’ve been told, sorry. Mmm, you’ll have to take it up with HR.”

  “You bet I will. Put me through to Alice Winter.”

  There’s another pause, with Carol in an obvious dilemma, probably asking Julie sitting next to her what to do, then she comes back with, “Sorry, Marc, I’m not allowed. Best thing would be for you to send Alice an email. O-kay?” This last in a sing-song tone that means, ‘Sorry, I’m about to cut you off’, but before she gets the chance I stab my thumb in frustration at the red button on my phone.

  “Fuck!”

  I wheel round to see Ollie, halfway through a chocolate biscuit, glancing anxiously at his mam, though she seems completely unmoved by my cursing.

  “All right, Marc?” he says as I walk back into the living-room.

  “Not all right. They won’t even let me talk to Jim.”

  His features cloud over to reflect mine, but he can’t restrain his instinctive optimism for more than a moment. “Should I have a go?” he says, his round face lighting up with the idea like a clip-art symbol.

  I contemplate the radiant, guileless, shambolic Oliver while I weigh opportunity against my prejudices and my legitimate objections; I’ve had personal experience of his tendency to abandon English as spoken by the rest of us. Ollie positively glows under my inspection.

  “Better use your phone,” I tell him, thinking about the caller display on the switchboard. “You want to speak to ops room support. If anybody asks, say you’re a BT engineer.”

  Ollie nods enthusiastically, and scampers across to the sideboard for the telephone. It’s modern enough to be cordless, but has one of those expandable aerials emerging from the ear-piece like a field telephone or a transistor radio in disguise. He has the main number in his memory store, naturally, and soon enough he’s speaking to either Carol or Julie.

  “BT engineering,” I hear him say, which must satisfy them because next thing he’s winking at me and handing over the receiver.

  “Is that Jim?”

  “It is. Oh, Marc, is it? Thought they’d sent you to Siberia, pal.”

  “More or less, yeah. Your phone’s not bugged, I hope?”

  “Well, if it is, I’d just like to say for the record, Meg Reece is an arse-licking cunt, Neville Crawcrook is a cunt-licking arse, and vicey-versey. Exclusively available to demonstrate position sixty-nine for twats.”

  “I take it you’re on your own there, Jim.”

  “I am.”

  “Good. Listen, you didn’t happen to catch the lunchtime news, did you?”

  “About your hoax caller? Yeah, I heard it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, at least they can’t blame you now for ignoring a suicide call. And no ghosts involved, after all. Just an annoying little prick.”

  “There’s a school of thought my end that reckons the babysitter’s voice is different from the one on the night.”

  “Really? I suppose I wasn’t taking that much notice. Well, anyway… do you care? I mean, the babysitter story works out better for you, dunnit? You know, nine day wonder, mystery solved apparently, forget it, get back to where you once belonged.”

  Jim’s offering me a nugget of common sense here; why don’t I take his advice? The lid’s back on the can of worms.

  “It’s not as easy as that, Jim. There’s other things involved, other people… I’ve no idea what I’m even talking about, but I just know there’s something not right. I want to pursue it a bit further, anyway. No need for anybody else to know. Better if they didn’t.”

  “Fair enough. What do you want me to do?”

  “Do you think you could check the ROT of the lunchtime bulletin for me, when you’ve got a minute, on the quiet? Maybe have a listen to the Hassan clip again as well, to remind yourself. See what you think. Could you do that and ring me back?”

  “I can do a bit better than that. How are you placed around four o’ clock?”

  “Hanging loose.”

  “Could you meet me at Bells and Whistles?”

  “What’s that, a pub?”

  “Post-production place, back of The Quadrant. We use it sometimes for final mixes, they’ve got a much better desk than ours. I’m going to be there shortly, tarting some ads up. I’ll take both files along and we can have a listen, yeah?”

  “Sounds good. Thanks, Jim. You’re a star.”

  “I’ll leave the star business to you, matey. I’m happy under the radar. Just an oik, suits me. See you there.”

  I put the receiver down with a smile on my lips for Jim, and look up to see it magnified on Oliver, who is watching me, eyes shining. He leaves it a beat before he chirps, “Where we off to now, Marc?”

  Just after four o’ clock me and my shadow poke our heads round the door of Edit Suite C at Bells and Whistles, where Jim is already ensconced, cans dangling round his neck.

  “Come on in, Marc, I’ve got these set up.�
� If he’s curious where Ollie fits into the picture he doesn’t show it, just nods at him pleasantly and indicates a stool behind the two chairs ranged along the desk. “So, you want to remind yourself of what Hassan sounds like first, or go straight onto today’s clip?”

  “I’ve not heard the babysitter yet, so let’s have a listen to that.”

  A button lights up green under Jim’s outstretched finger and two waveforms appear in a pair of small windows above it, matching Kate Foreman’s speech patterns as she introduces the item.

  ‘Now, you may know we’ve been in the news ourselves over the last few days, following a strange incident when a man calling himself Hassan Malik rang our late night phone-in programme to send a Valentine message to a lady he described as his widow. That call sparked off a bit of a ghost hunt, and plenty of interest from our colleagues in the press. But now I can exclusively reveal that the mystery is solved. Earlier today I spoke on the phone to Anwar Malik, a cousin of the family involved, who admitted that it was him, not the late Hassan Malik, who made the Valentine’s Day call.’

  The insert Kate cues seems to be from a call on a mobile. Male voice, definitely British Asian.

  ‘Yeah, it was meant to be a joke, but it kind of backfired.’