by RB Banfield
“How do you come to that idea of him as the murderer, Gene?” asked Elbow.
“When have we ever had a murder in Gendry?” asked Gene. “Hardly never. This man turns up from the city, we never seen him before, doesn’t socialise, doesn’t say more than a few words here and there, or try to fit in with perfectly reasonable conversation, and next thing we know we’ve got a murder happening.”
“From the city,” agreed Elbow, like that was the only evidence that he needed.
“He’s doing lot of talking, too, last I saw him,” Two-Tooth said like he was only just realising it. “Talking to that Sophie girl. Those two went walking through town, almost kissing, they were so close. That can’t be right.”
“Kissing?” Gene asked as he leaned back from the bar and nodded with satisfaction. “Well, then, they can go finish their fancy conversation and whatever else they want to do, back in that city of theirs.”
“As I was saying to Elbow here,” said Two-Tooth. “City ways not needed in Gendry.”
“This is Gendry,” agreed Gene, “not the city. Gendry ways should stay Gendry ways, and I’ll fight to my dying days to protect it.”
They drank to that. A couple of times.
Craigfield’s room was left unlocked, the door a little ajar. When Sophie saw it she realised that if she took a little look inside then she would know, one way or the other, if she was right to be suspicious of him. No one else was there, on the entire top floor, but she double-checked anyway. Both her heart and mind raced as she hurried into the room and she found it exciting. She knew that she needed to add such emotion into her writing.
It came as a huge disappointment that his room was so tidy that it looked like no one was staying there. So much for her opinion that all men were untidy by nature. It confirmed for her the idea that something was not right with the guy. No man is that tidy, especially a married man all alone in a small town.
The more she looked the more she began to suspect she had the wrong room. Not helping the idea was the fact that two remaining guest rooms besides were just as sparse. The only trace that anyone had been in there at all was a few shirts hanging in the wardrobe. There was no trace of any laptop or papers to indicate that he had been writing. Then she noticed a small ball of paper behind the door. Feeling she was doing no more than tidying, she picked it up and unravelled it. An A4 with a few lines of blue writing, it had probably been roughly tossed away. At first she worried about looking at it, but then knew that she couldn’t resist. Her heart raced as she looked and saw it was upside down. As she turned the paper around the reality came like a slap to the face. It was her own writing, a few notes on where she wanted her story to go. The paper must have come from her room. She crunched it up even smaller and thrust it into a pocket, feeling stupid and embarrassed.
Exiting the room with nothing to help her, Sophie hit upon a better plan. The twins were already geared up by the police murder investigation, so a little subtle nudge in the right direction should not be too hard.
“I have come across a suspicious man,” she told the twins with an exaggerated serious manner that few ten-year-old boys could resist. “He may or may not match identities with a number of people being watched by Interpol, and yet he is here in our quiet town. I need to send out some spies to check him out. Do you know where I can find any?”
“We’ll do it,” Kerry or Jerry said without hesitation.
“You know we’ll do it,” said Jerry or Kerry.
“I’m not sure,” she hedged. “These spies need to be good. I don’t want just any spies. These ones have to be at the top of their game.”
“You know we’re good at spying,” said Kerry or Jerry. “There wouldn’t be anyone better in Gendry.”
“Or the city,” said Kerry or Jerry.
“That’s a big statement, young man,” she said. “The city is very big, very dangerous, and I’m sure has many spies in it, waiting for an assignment as special as this one.”
“Because it’s a true statement, it’s true,” said Kerry or Jerry.
“Who’re we spying on?” asked Jerry or Kerry. “What’s the assignment, ma’am?”
“Craigfield,” she said. “Find all you can on him. And-Don’t-Get-Caught. Seriously, guys, don’t let him see you, or know you’ve been there. And if by any chance you get captured, we never had this conversation.”
“You sound like you’re in a movie, Sophie,” laughed Kerry or Jerry.
“I have to talk like this,” she said. “It’s important to me. I want to know what he’s doing in town. What’s his job in the city? Is he really married, or is that not true either? And see if he has a car, and if it has any damage.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jerry or Kerry, “he won’t know we’ve been there. We’re that good.”
“And we know you have it for him,” said Jerry or Kerry.
She just about screamed at them for being so cheeky.
“Any dirt, we’ll get it,” said Kerry or Jerry, not realising what his brother said.
“And you’ll be pleased with your decision to use us,” said Jerry or Kerry.
“Never had an unsatisfied customer, ma’am,” said Kerry or Jerry.
She shook their hands in a formal manner and they ran away outside. It was only then that she realised that maybe she should not have done that, and made them party to her curiosity. Then she consoled herself in the knowledge that if Craigfield were harmless then nothing would come of it. And if he was a threat then they would have caught him before anything else happened.
She looked at the discarded page again, and laughed at the thought of him reading it. She would not have laughed had it been an actual page of her writing, since he would have seen a character with more than a few similarities to himself.
Max didn’t go back to his car, but kept waiting under the tree and watching Craigfield’s house. As the rain alternated from ever-present drizzle to the occasional hard drop, the evening turned to night and Max felt colder and colder. After two more hours he knew he had to do something; either go home or go do some confrontation. He gave himself a countdown, from ten to one, without knowing what he would do when he got to one but that it would be something. When he got to one he started walking to the house, amazing himself but not feeling scared. He opened the little gate and went through, then carefully up the little steps. The silly little knocker was lifted and tapped six even times, nice and assertive. He then heard the sound of someone moving toward the door. When it opened Max didn’t feel ready, but was instead drained of any of his confidence.
The tall figure of Craigfield seemed much taller to Max since he was standing a step below. He was slowly chewing a mouthful of his dinner and when he saw Max he was puzzled.
“Hi?” he asked as he picked something out of his teeth, “You’re Max Marshall, aren’t you?”
“You know me, do you?” Max asked, more forthright than someone would normally do after knocking on someone’s door.
“I know your wife,” he said like Max would be pleased to hear that. He then looked out to the street like he was expecting her to be there.
“I know you do. Very well, it turns out.”
Craigfield realised that Max was not being courteous. “What are you doing here, Max? Is there something you want?”
“You can’t see my wife anymore.”
Craigfield was now finished his mouthful. He rubbed his chin and looked Max up and down, seeing that he was way out of shape and no kind of threat. Then he took note of his crutch and didn’t try to disguise his disdain. “That’s really not up to you, I’d say.”
“Is she here?” Max asked as he went to move inside the house.
“That is none of your business, I’m afraid,” Craigfield said nonchalantly. He did not bother to look at him as he backed up and went to close the door.
Max took a breath and then started to recite some of what he wanted to say that moment. But he was too shaky and it came out wrong, with his voice getting too high pi
tched.
“My wife is not another woman of yours. Think you can take her? You weren’t at my wedding. I didn’t see you getting married, that was me. You think I put up with all that, and her, for all those years, for you to waltz in and play your games?”
“That’s good,” Craigfield said as he started closing the door. “You’re going to have to leave now, okay? Shut the gate on your way, would you?”
“Is she in there?”
“She’s not, so you can leave.”
“Jill?” Max shouted into the house. “I know you’re there. He’s no good for you. This creep’s no good. You can’t do this to me, do you hear?”
Craigfield re-opened the door and this time it was his turn to be aggressive. “Wait on,” he said with a stronger voice and a finger pointing at him. “If your wife wanted to leave you and come here, that’s up to her. You can’t go talking about me like that, especially in my house, right in front of me. All my neighbours can hear you. Who do you think you are?”
“You can’t have my wife, all right?”
“I will if she wants—not that I’m saying she’s here, but if she does, that’s that way it is, that’s the way everything is. Now get off my property before I hurt you.”
Max tried to use his crutch to stop the door closing. Craigfield reacted by smacking him in the face with a fist that felt like bronze. It came too fast for Max to even brace for it, getting him on his left cheek, brushing his nose. Max felt like his brain had been put into a blender. After the initial pain his nose started hurting more than his cheek, and that made his eyes water. But the shock of it was almost as bad as the pain; the realisation that this man had attacked him totally destroyed his confidence. He stumbled back from the door, dropped his crutch and gripped at a fence handrail to stop himself falling. As Craigfield’s door slammed shut followed by the click of the lock, Max felt foolish and humiliated.
“If I see you here again,” Craigfield called from somewhere inside with a very angry voice, “I’ll hit you so hard you’ll think that was just a love kiss.”
Max’s hands were shaking so much that he struggled to close the gate behind him. Then he gave it a kick, venting his frustration, and it swung away and then back to the fence, to make a loud click on the latch. Max fearfully looked back to the house, imagining Craigfield racing out and attacking him again. There was only the quiet rain. When Max was back in his car, safely out of anyone’s view, he couldn’t help crying.
As Sophie walked down the quiet street her footsteps echoed around the sleepy neighbourhood. She enjoyed the sound of it, since it was the only noise around. It was so different from where she lived in the city, where it felt that anything she did caused no noise at all. She wondered if her steps could be heard from the woods behind the houses, and as soon as she thought that she became scared. It was not far from where the body was found and the more she tried to put it out of her mind the more her fear grew.
There was no pathway in this part of town, only a dirt track bordered by the road and high weeds. It was only half after ten at night and yet most people were already asleep. Hardly any of the houses she passed had their lights on, and the ones that did only had one room lit. She knew people were nearby, and they would come to help should she call, but she still found the quietness unnerving.
She stopped and told herself to stop being silly. This was Gendry, the town where the worst crime one could do was not eat at Sal’s. No one should ever be scared in Gendry. She walked faster, happier with that thought. It was not a warm night but she found the cool air refreshing, free of the usual smog of the city. Free from crime, pollution, obnoxious people and traffic. Why would anyone leave?
A horrible screeching noise was coming from up the road, followed by the sound of a rushing engine. Sophie stopped walking before she realised she had. As yet nothing could be seen but Sophie still decided to move off the road and onto the dirt area. This time she could not control her fear. Then bright lights appeared, quickly silhouetting trees and houses. The roar of the pumping engine became louder, as did the squeal of tires. Sophie considered moving further away from the road, through thigh-high weeds and into the trees. Then a horrible thought came to her, that if she was hit and left in such weeds her body might not be found for days. Just like that other one.
Then the car started coming at her, changing direction without warning. Its bright lights flooded around her and she reached her hands out to stop the glare. The further she moved back the more the car seemed to be bearing down. She froze and bellowed out the first genuine scream of her life. At that moment the car violently swerved and threw up dust, blasting past her with contempt. The dust prevented her from seeing the driver or what type of car it was, or the plate, or anything at all. Then she started coughing from both the dust and exhaust fumes.
The car was going faster than ever as it disappeared around the next bend, with more screeching of the tires. Sophie continued on her way back to Susan’s and she couldn’t stop shaking. At least she held back her tears until she was safely inside the house. She couldn’t sleep at all that night. At two in the morning she wrote some notes for her novel in longhand, feeling inspired, and it was the best writing she had ever done.
There were two people Max expected to see at his door when the doorbell rang. One was Craigfield, come to finish him off with a display of senseless rage. The other was Jill. He had not seen or heard from his wife in two days and none of her family or friends had returned his phone calls. He was now at the point of not minding seeing either one, since he would know for certain where he stood. It was the silence that was difficult to take, as he waited for news that was probably unwelcome. He wondered if anything would return to normal, or if that was what he wanted anyway.
He was confused to see that it was Paul Evans, dressed in a business suit and looking hurried. It was like he had dropped in from work and was late in getting home. Paul gave him a look that he wanted to make it a quick visit and say as little as he could. He flinched his arm like he was resisting looking at his watch. When Max fully opened the door for him his expression became noticeably pained. He handed Max a letter without making eye contact, and then took two steps back.
“Max, I’m sorry I have to do this,” Paul said as he looked at the floor, “but Jill asked me to give you this. It wasn’t my idea, but I guess she didn’t want any confrontation. So just take it, read it, and see where you want to go from there. Again, sorry about it all. That’s all I’ve got, sorry.”
Max said nothing as he opened the letter. Paul shifted from foot to foot as he waited for him to read it, taking note of his reaction. Max guessed that it would all be reported back to Jill.
“I know you followed me to find out what was going on,” it read in Jill’s familiar messy handwriting, “and I’ll give you credit for that. But did you really think shouting like a child in the street was going to solve anything? What were you going to do when you caught up to him? Not think of that, did you? Not realise he’s younger and stronger than you? Perhaps now you’ll learn to know your limitations. You have many limitations but you probably already know that. I certainly do. From now on what you need to do is leave me alone to do my own thing. I need my space right now and you need to understand that and respect that. When I want you to know what’s going on I’ll tell you. And I will tell you when I’m good and ready to tell you. Until then I don’t want to see or hear anything from you. No visits to his house or yelling in the street or anything else that will embarrass me. Think you can do that? Stop causing trouble and we can get through this with at least some of our dignity intact.”
Parts of it were crossed out, which were from Jill changing her mind either about the sentence or spelling. Max finished reading and looked at Paul and expected him to explain it to him.
“She staying with you, is she?” Max asked.
“I can’t say,” he said defensively and was genuinely regretful to break that news. “I know it doesn’t say much; the letter. She thought it b
est if I came over to see you, give it to you, let you know what’s happening. She says you can keep living here in the apartment until you find somewhere else, but she may want it back in a couple of months.”
“Why’s she doing this to me? She tell you that?”
“That’s not in the letter?”
“If it is, I missed it. But you’d know that, since you’ve read it.”
“You know no man can get inside the mind of a woman,” Paul said with an uneasy smile. He was trying to be his buddy now. “I have a hard enough time trying to understand Sarah. What kind of a world would that be to live in, if we could know, anyway? Everyone understanding each other? Truth is, I don’t want my one knowing half of what I think. And then they go and say we can’t think of two things at once? Keep them thinking that, I say, if only to keep them from prying into what we really think.” He laughed, expecting Max to follow.
“What are you talking about?” Max asked with a small shake of his head and a few blinks.
“How’s your nose, anyway?” Paul asked, changing the subject, clearly worried about getting Max upset. “I heard he gave you a good tap. Blindsided you, did he?”
“Do you really care, Paul?”
Paul seemed shocked by that and didn’t respond. Then he went to leave, but then stopped to look back. “No, not really,” he admitted, more relaxed, more himself. “You’re right. I’m Jill’s friend, not yours. And I only get on with her because Sarah goes back a way with her. You know how it is, got to keep your wife happy, and do whatever stupid thing they demand of you. Oh, I guess you don’t do that. But now you do see why you keep them happy and follow every command, or this sort of thing happens. Tough luck, Max. See you around, then, I guess.”
He walked away but then stopped and thought he might be able to cheer Max up a bit with another comment.
“These things work themselves out,” he said, ignoring Max’s glare. “Just hang in there, okay? Ask yourself, what would Elvis do?”