by David Barry
‘It isn’ that.’
‘What then?’
‘Call it compassionate leave. She isn’ gonna make it, Terry. So I’ve gorra stay. It’s as simple as that.’
Terry sighed. ‘Listen, mate, this caper ain’t for two, maybe three, weeks. S’posing she snuffs it in the next couple of days?’
Evans’s jaw tightened. He brushed his hand several times hard against his close-cropped hair.
‘Gary, listen, I only meant...’ Terry started to explain, but was interrupted by a mobile phone playing an unrecognisable tune. He instinctively reached for his own phone which he had left in front of him on top of the bar, before realising it was Gary’s. Evans was already unclipping his phone from his belt and walking towards the door leading to the toilets to answer the call.
***
Lambert made a mock, exaggerated show of searching for his own mobile as he heard the phone ringing from the other side of the bar. It was a way to break the awkward silence into which they had both descended.
‘It’s OK,’ he reassured her. ‘I left it in the car.’
She shrugged and sniffed, and he wondered if she was going to cry. He cleared his throat gently before asking her, ‘So why did you come out here with me?’
She looked deep into his eyes, wanting him to see the bitterness and disappointment that would be with her now for the rest of her life. ‘Just searching for the mysterious Welshman I once knew.’
Perhaps it was delayed reaction from his father’s funeral, but Lambert, who was usually sensitive to the moods of others, chose to ignore the signals she was sending out and made light of the situation. ‘Mysterious Wales,’ he scoffed. ‘Wizards and witches. Fairies, superstitions and a load of bollocks.’
Helen smiled a cold, humourless smile of resignation. ‘Just as I thought,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing left, is there? Nothing to patch. Nothing to mend.’
As if seeing him for the last time, she cast her eyes over his lived-in face. He was ruggedly good looking, with an overtly masculine cleft chin, soft blue eyes and cherubic, sensual lips. She still found him attractive, and it angered her, knowing she was chained forever to the past.
‘I may have done many things,’ Lambert began, trying to sound remorseful. ‘Morally reprehensible, terrible things. And, God knows, I’ve treated you badly, but I just want you to know that I’ve never-never-done anything in my work that was dishonest. I’ve never taken any bribes or planted evidence...’
Irritated, Helen interrupted him. ‘Why is it so important to you, telling me this? Why d’you think it would interest me now?’
He shrugged helplessly. ‘I suppose I just want you to know that at least I’m not a complete and total shit. It’s important to me because of all the good times we had together. All the memories we share.’
‘Listen, Detective Inspector Double Standards, you’ve destroyed those memories. Killed them off. And I couldn’t care less if you get some poor bugger wrongfully arrested and locked up for life just to further your career. I’m not interested.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
Helen sighed deeply and looked at her empty glass. ‘Seeing as you’re driving, I’ll have another.’
Lambert felt he was being wrong-footed again. Why did Helen want to prolong this meeting if there was no hope of a reconciliation? Perhaps it was just so that she could put the boot in. Well, he decided, he would play along. He owed her that much. Wasn’t this restorative justice, where the culprit is confronted by the victim? Or was he just indulging himself, allowing himself to wallow in remorse?
As only we Welsh know how, he thought as he rose from the table.
He ordered another wine for Helen and a half of bitter for himself. He glanced at his watch. It was past two-thirty. He’d drunk two glasses of wine after the funeral and had just downed a pint of bitter. He calculated the units of alcohol, measured them against the time, and decided if he had another half he would be within the legal limits. Just.
Further along the bar, Evans rejoined his colleague, clipping his mobile back on his belt.
‘Bad news?’ Terry asked.
Evans ignored him and swigged back the last of his beer.
‘We’ve got loads of time, if you wanna change your mind,’ Terry persisted.
Evans shook his head. ‘I can’t make any plans. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you. Take it easy.’
He slammed his Budweiser bottle on the bar, hurriedly crossed towards the exit and collided forcefully with Lambert, causing him to spill his beer. He carried on walking, without bothering to apologise.
Lambert responded automatically. ‘Hey!’
But Evans was already out of the door.
Chapter 2
Morris James drove his Skoda carefully through Swansea, never going over twenty miles an hour. He was worried about Sadie. She’d been depressed lately. He was reluctant to leave her on her own. But she insisted that he did the usual weekly shop, which he always did on his own, and so he had driven down to Sainsbury’s on the Marina. He liked it down on the Marina. It was his little bolthole. Often, when he went to do the weekly shop, he would leave the car in Sainsbury’s car park, and before going into the store would permit himself half an hour wandering round the Marina, looking at the boats, or strolling along the beach by the observatory. But not today. Today he dashed straight into the store and bought the bare essentials, allowing himself no time to ponder the fancier produce. It had still taken him over an hour to get down there, park and do the shopping.
A Ford Escort drove too close behind him. Climbing a hill, the Skoda slowed to fifteen miles an hour. The pounding, pulsating beat from the Escort’s stereo aggravated the young driver’s frustration and he flashed his headlights and blasted his horn. But Morris James was unmoved by the action and merely tutted to himself. He turned slowly into his street and the Escort driver carried straight on, over-compensating on the acceleration now that the Skoda was out of his way.
The James’s ramshackle, two-storey, terraced house, was perched halfway up a steep street of similarly neglected houses, as if the neighbours had a pact not to outdo one another. Morris parked the car, leaving it in gear, and took the four bags of shopping from the boot, struggling to carry two in each hand to save himself a journey. As he pushed his key into the front door, one of the shopping bags tipped over, spilling its contents over the front step. Awkwardly, because his knee was giving him gyp, he bent down and picked up a chocolate Swiss roll and tub of margarine, and rescued a tin of baked beans as it started to roll down the step.
‘I’m back,’ he called out as he kicked the front door shut behind him. Another twinge of pain shot through his knee. He stopped in the dark hallway and listened, recovering from his exertions. Although he was only forty-eight, Morris James was out of condition and got out of breath easily. He was asthmatic.
‘Sadie?’ he called once more, before taking the shopping into the kitchen and starting to unpack. Again, not for the first time today, he felt there was something wrong. It was unsettling and it had to do with the silence of the house. Usually Sadie had the radio on. She liked listening to the Talk FM station, people airing their dirty laundry in public.
He listened to the faint tick of the kitchen clock, suddenly significant as it heightened the eerie feeling of pervading quiet in the house. He hurried back into the hall.
‘Sadie? Where are you?’
He rushed into the front room and stopped, his eyes immediately drawn to a glass tumbler precariously perched on a corner of the coffee table. His heart sank. He sniffed the glass and shivered. Then, with a frenzy bordering on mania, he began searching the room, pulling open drawers, scattering old newspapers and ransacking the bookshelves. He found what he was searching for under the seat of an old leather armchair. An empty vodka bottle.
‘Oh, Sadie,’ he moaned quiet
ly, suddenly drained. Wearily, he took the vodka bottle, went out into the hall and began to climb the stairs. He knew now what he would find. Ashamed of her disease, she always crawled away like a wounded animal to the small room on the top floor, a dusty room filled with junk.
His knee pained him as he climbed the first flight of stairs and he started limping. All he could hear was his own heavy breathing, wheezing asthmatically.
‘Oh, Sadie, Sadie,’ he began to blubber. The vodka bottle clattered against the stair rail. He rounded the corner of the first floor and started to climb the flight to the top. He stopped suddenly. The shadow which lay before him on the musty old stair carpet was black and menacing. He looked up. The vodka bottle slipped from his fingers and smashed into the hall below.
He stared at her legs, lifeless and still, dangling in the air.
He followed the line of her body upwards, hardly daring to breathe in the stillness of the afternoon. She had hanged herself, he noted, with the blue towelling cord from his dressing gown.
Chapter 3
The staff nurse smiled at Evans and nodded towards the mobile attached to his belt. ‘Is that switched off?’ He stared at her for a moment, trying to comprehend what she was asking him. ‘Your mobile,’ she repeated.
‘Oh, yes. Sorry.’ He switched it off then looked towards the green curtains drawn around his mother’s bed. ‘How is she?’
‘She’s comfortable. But we don’t think she’s got very long.’
Evans stared at her with sudden intensity. ‘Has she spoken? Said anything?’
‘It’s doubtful. But I’ve not long been on duty. I’ll ask sister, if you like.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Evans.
The nurse felt herself reddening and snatched a look at her watch. She licked the dryness from her lips and composed herself. Evans, noticing her discomfort, added in a softer, more apologetic tone, ‘Okay if I go in and see her now?’
‘Of course. Stay as long as you like.’
She tugged the curtains back gently and he slipped between the gap. He froze. He had been seeing his mother regularly like this for the past three weeks, but it was still a shock. It was hard to believe she was only in her mid-forties. She looked like an old woman: her hair white, her face emaciated and her head already a lifeless skull. He wondered if it was too late to tell her how he felt about her. Would she be able to hear him? Or was she too close to death?
‘Can I get you anything?’ the nurse whispered at his side.
He shook his head slightly without taking his eyes off his mother. He felt the curtains fall back into place as the nurse drifted quietly away and he eased himself into a chair beside the bed and took his mother’s hand. It was cold. Although it was stifling in the ward, her hand felt lifeless and frozen. He was used to death. But this was different. This slow, agonising wait.
A raucous, phlegmy cough, followed by a spitting sound, came from a bed nearby, and from a far corner of the ward an elderly patient demanded a bedpan. Evans felt angry. He had seen death at close quarters, staring it in the face. But it was a soldier’s death. It had its own righteous beauty. Not like his mother’s lingering, inglorious end.
He wanted to cry but all he felt was a sort of dazed numbness. He tried squeezing her hand to see if there was the slightest feeling, awareness of his presence, but there was nothing. He looked at her eyes, wondering if they might ever open again, flicker for just a brief moment, but there was no movement. They remained absolutely still. But as he watched, her eyelids began twitching rapidly and her lips began to move. He moved across the bed quickly and put his ear close to her mouth. Her lips were parched and cracked, like old leather. He felt a slight tingling sensation, the last clinging to life as a hoarse rasping came from somewhere deep inside her. She was trying to tell him something.
‘Mum. Mum. It’s me. Gary.’
He put his ear close to her mouth again and listened, feeling her lips moving. She knew he was there. She was speaking to him, telling him what he wanted to hear.
As he drew away from her, the tenderness he had felt a moment ago was gone. Now there was an icy glint in his eye, a ruthless determination behind his blank expression. He stood up straight, almost to attention, and spoke quietly.
‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’
He watched his mother, waiting, knowing she would die peacefully now. It took less than a minute. Her throat rattled. That was all. Followed by a final stillness. Then, without looking back at her lifeless form, he pushed his way through the curtains and left the ward, his Nike trainers squeaking across the polished floor.
‘Mr Evans?’ the staff nurse called after him. She watched his retreating figure marching purposefully away from her along the corridor. He was so obviously a squaddie, it was written all over him. And usually, those young soldiers were bad news. Still, he was not bad looking. Boyish good looks, falling just short of being stunningly handsome; his nose was perhaps just a bit too wide and his eyes were on the small side, sunk back into his face, giving him a slightly stark appearance. But quite fanciable. She and her friend Sylvia had discussed him in the staff canteen, jokingly sharing their sexual fantasies with unsuppressed intimacy.
With a sigh she moved towards Mrs Evans’s bed and parted the curtains. Right away she knew she was dead. She frowned as she thought about the son. Something told her that he had washed his hands of her, that he would not be returning to pick up her effects or make arrangements for the funeral.
Chapter 4
Lambert was distracted by a bluebottle hurling itself at the bare wall of the Interview Room. He wanted to get up and either kill it or let it escape. Anything to stop the manic, monotonous buzz. But he couldn’t bring himself to get up from the table opposite Morris James where they sat waiting for him to speak. Apart from the thud and buzz of the fly searching for light, and the occasional awareness of a motor bike or lorry accelerating streets away, the silence grew oppressive. Morris James seemed to be in a state of shock and stared into space, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Lambert glanced at his sergeant and sighed pointedly.
A big, solid, dependable man in his mid-thirties, Sergeant Tony Ellis looked like everyone’s idea of a rugby-playing Welshman. He had a jovial, avuncular face, broad flat nose, alert blue eyes and was losing his hair, which made him seem older than he was. Lambert, although only twelve years his senior, occasionally treated him like a surrogate son. It was something Ellis brought out in everyone. His parents had been killed in a car crash when he was in his late teens, and since that moment girls wanted to mother him and men tended to look after him. And he was equally caring and sensitive to the moods of others; he had an instinctive talent for understanding the most subtle and latent types of human behaviour and an ability to read the subtexts of most conversations. Now he became aware that Lambert was leaving the questioning to him. But for once he was at a loss, not knowing how to coax any information out of this pathetic little man who looked as if he should have been given medical help.
‘Mr James,’ he began tentatively. ‘Do you feel well enough to tell us what happened?’
James looked confused. His eyes darted about the Interview Room, searching the bare walls for inspiration or help. His eyes came to rest on the uniformed constable standing near the door, and this seemed to reassure him for some reason.
‘I couldn’t stand it no more, so I killed her,’ he told them, as if explaining something that was logical and simple.
Lambert exchanged a look with Ellis and said, ‘After you’d been shopping, Mr James?’
Morris James frowned, trying to work it out.
‘It’s not a difficult question, Mr James,’ prompted Ellis.
Lambert and Ellis waited in silence before springing another question. They were both tacitly aware of how the silence could do their work for them, a
llowing it to settle in the impersonal atmosphere like motes of dust drifting slowly down the sunlight. And Ellis knew it was the way his boss liked to begin all his interrogations, pausing to savour the dramatic moment, letting the suspect think he was in for an easy ride.
Lambert studied James carefully. The man seemed to be burdened by an invisible yoke across his shoulders. He was wheezing asthmatically and there was a snail trail surrounding his paper-thin lips. He was ordinary to the point of transparency. His clothes looked as if they had been selected at random in charity shops: a grey shirt with blue checks, too tight under the arms, and a polyester, maroon tie with small grey diamonds.
‘Did you murder your wife after you went shopping,’ Lambert repeated quietly. ‘Or was it before?’
James turned his head a fraction towards Lambert. ‘Hmm?’
The detective raised the level of his voice. ‘Did you murder your wife before or after you went shopping?’
‘I think....’ James began, then shook his head and lapsed into silence.
Lambert gave Sergeant Ellis a wearisome glance and Ellis took this as his cue to question the suspect again.
‘Mr James? Did you kill your wife before or after you went to the supermarket?’
James stared at him for a moment before replying. ‘I can’t remember. I think it was before. What difference does it make? I killed her.’
‘Did she put up a struggle?’ Lambert cut in quickly.
‘Struggle?’
‘Yes. Did she put up a fight?’
James thought about it then nodded. Lambert glanced at the tape recorder.
‘Is that a “yes”, Mr James?’
‘I suppose she must have done. I don’t remember.’
Lambert caught Ellis’s eye and shook his head. He put his finger on the tape recorder ready to switch off. ‘Right. Interview suspended at 20.32 hours.’
James looked surprised. ‘Is that it?’ He seemed disappointed when he saw the tape being switched off.