Laughing Boy

by Stuart Pawson

  I had beans on Ryvita for supper because the bread had green spots on it, followed by a chunky KitKat that I’d put in my pocket during one of the coffee breaks. Long time ago I heard this nature programme on radio about a beetle – a giant water bug – that eats frogs. It sneaks up on the frog and injects it with a poison and a dose of digestive juices. The frog dies as its innards are turned into some nutritious brew and when they are nice and runny the beetle draws them up, as if drinking some obnoxious milk-shake. To the observer, the frog sits there with its head out of the water, watching the world go by. I think its eyes glaze over, but I may have invented that bit. Then, quite unexpectedly, it sags and wrinkles like a deflating balloon as its insides are sucked from it.

  That’s the best way I can describe how I felt: as if my insides had been sucked out. It was raining and I wasn’t in the mood for a walk or jog. The house was a tip so I decided to do something about it. Two days’ washing-up would be a big help. Washing-up can be quite therapeutic, I’m told, and I was ready for some therapeuting. The Fairy Liquid was empty, but by squeezing the container under the hot tap I made a decent lather with the dregs.

  One of the mugs I washed had poppies on it. A girlfriend bought it for me for the office, but it was real china, much too good for there. Papaver somniferum, it said. One day, when I retire, I’ll learn the names of all the flowers. I’ll point out bedstraw and bugloss with the same authority that the average person has for daisy and dandelion. And the birds, too. Not obsessively, not enough to tell a willow warbler from a chiffchaff, but when I was out walking and I saw a silhouette against the clouds I wouldn’t be calling the humble buzzard a golden eagle.

  When I retire I’ll read all those books I’ve heard clever people discussing. The ones they thrust at us in school when all we wanted was Biggles and Roy of the Rovers. I’ll read poetry, learn whole chunks of it. Not Omar Khayyam or Roger McGough, but proper poetry. I’ll quote from Yeats and Keats whenever the opportunity arises, and I’ll remember which was which. I’ll mark the constellations as they cartwheel overhead, and have time to watch the spider weave its web. When I retire I’ll paint my masterpiece.

  And will I look back on the one big case where I failed? Yeah, almost certainly. It would dominate my thoughts until the end of my days.

  I didn’t have a clean shirt for my meeting with the assistant chief constable. All the decent ones were in the linen basket and I was down to the Ben Shermans with the floppy collars. I’d look like George Harrison in his heyday. Not the impression I wanted to create.

  I found the least-creased blue one in the linen basket and sniffed it. It was OK. I hung it on a hanger and wondered if the creases would fall out overnight. No chance, it’d have to be ironed. I looked at the clock but it was too late to take it to the neighbour who does these things for me. I put the other dirty ones in the washing machine, on the delicates cycle, and looked for the ironing board.

  Perhaps if I just did the collar and the front it would pass muster. He wouldn’t invite me to take my jacket off. I was spitting on the iron, wondering if it was hot enough, when the doorbell rang. I carefully stood the iron on end and went to answer.

  Chapter Eleven

  She was wearing jeans and a jacket over a striped rugby jersey, and in the gleam of the outside light her hair glowed like a maple tree in autumn.

  “Hello Charlie.”

  “Annette. I…wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I was passing. Thought I’d call.”

  “Good. Good. I’m glad you did. Come in.” I stood aside and let her pass me. “I’ll put the kettle on. You’ll stay for a coffee?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Come through into the kitchen.”

  I dried two mugs and spooned Nescafé into them. “Well, this is a surprise.”

  “I was in town. I’ve been to see the flat.”

  “I thought it was sold. The notice vanished.”

  “We took it down. It hadn’t sold and I heard about a relief teacher who was looking for somewhere for three months – covering for maternity leave – so I leased it to them.”

  “I wish I’d known. I thought you’d severed all your connections with Heckley. It made me sad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing for you to be sorry about. Just me being silly. I have a look whenever I pass that way, that’s all. I could have kept an eye on it for you if I’d known it wasn’t sold.” I was chattering, lost for words and finding all the wrong ones. “Have they left it OK?”

  “Not really. ‘Professional couple’, they said. I specified non-smokers and they didn’t mention the two toddlers and the dog. Nothing that you’d call damage, but more wear and tear than I’d make in a lifetime.”

  “It’s a dodgy business, letting property.”

  “So I’ve found out.”

  “Will you put it back on the market?”

  She heaved a sigh and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “So how’s the grand affair going? Are you a married woman now?”

  Another shake of the head. “No.”

  That was the lead question. “How are the children?” I asked, trying to look concerned, or disinterested, anything but what I was really feeling. What was it Maggie said? That she wouldn’t want to take on another woman’s children.

  “They’re fine. The kids are fine.”

  I fixed the coffees, hers with milk, mine black, and we sat at the table. “I haven’t any biscuits,” I said.

  “Coffee’s fine.”

  “And how are you enjoying teaching?”

  “That’s good, too. I’m enjoying it. I miss some things, the joshing, but it’s OK.”

  “I’m glad. I thought you wouldn’t like it.”

  “No, it’s fine. Better than I expected. What about you?”

  But it wasn’t fine. There was a sadness about her, a lack of spirit, that I’d never seen in her before. I gazed at her, studying her mouth and eyes. She caught me looking at her and held my gaze for a long moment, her cheeks pink. I’d forgotten how easily she blushed, and how my insides lurched whenever I saw it.

  “They made me acting chief inspector,” I told her, breaking the silence.

  “I know, I saw you on television. You didn’t look well. That’s why I came.”

  “I’m OK.”

  “No you’re not. You’re probably living on takeaways and working too hard.” She jumped to her feet. “And what’s this? Doing your own ironing? The great Inspector Priest actually ironing a shirt. I thought a neighbour did them for you.”

  “She does but I forgot to take…forgot to collect them. I’m seeing the assistant chief constable in the morning. It’s a review meeting. I think he’ll take the case off me.”

  “Let’s have a look.” She spread the shirt on the board, buttons down, and picked up the iron. Thirty seconds later she was holding up a perfectly pressed shirt for my inspection.

  “That’s smashing. Thanks.”

  “Any more?”

  “No.”

  “Where are they all?”

  “In the washing machine.” I pointed and we both looked at the porthole, filled with suds.

  “This has a mark on it,” she declared, pointing to the front of the shirt.

  “Where?” I stood up to join her.

  “There.”

  “I can’t see it.”

  Annette picked up a J-cloth and carefully rubbed the front of the shirt. “It’s come off,” she said. “Looked like ketchup. This wasn’t a clean shirt, was it?”

  “I’d only worn it for a couple of hours.”

  “Oh, Charlie.”

  I gave her my hangdog, sorry-I-ate-your-slippers look and she gave me her best school ma’am one.

  “Come here,” I said, holding my arms out, and she walked into them.

  I squeezed her until she couldn’t breathe and buried my face in her hair. She smelt of Camay, and something else. A perfume that was strange to me. I’d once asked her what it was but s
he wouldn’t say. Just laughed. They say it’s a sad woman who has to buy her own perfume. I’d never given her any but I doubted if she’d ever bought her own. It was her secret, her precious memory, and she didn’t want anybody else encroaching on it. I felt her relax and took it as a signal that my time was up.

  “That’s what I’m missing,” I said, dropping my hands to her waist. “A hug. It works wonders.”

  She nodded and turned away, reaching for her coffee.

  I said: “Let’s go in the other room, where it’s more comfortable.”

  The two girls had been brought up on the fairy stories, knew all about wicked stepmothers. They were all right, little angels, Annette told me, when Harvey was there, but when she had them to herself they made it quite clear that she wasn’t their mum, could never be their mum.

  Harvey, I thought, suppressing a smile. I’d never heard his name before. Wonder if he had big ears?

  I turned the fire on, made some more coffee, told her all about the case. Everything, even about the first three killings, and the interview we’d just given the strange Mr William Thornton. It was an excuse, as if I needed one, to go over it all again. Maybe I’d become a bore on the subject. One day, perhaps, when I went to the pub, the locals would shrink away from me lest I corner them and insist on relating my last big case: the one that got away.

  About ten past eleven, just as I was considering the sexual politics of the situation, Annette jumped to her feet and announced that it was work in the morning, she’d better be off. I helped her on with her jacket and walked out into the garden with her. In the shadow of the house I caught hold of her hand and pulled her closer. “Thanks for calling, Annette,” I said. “You’ve been a tonic.”

  We kissed each other, quite gently, on the lips.

  “Look after yourself, Charlie,” she said.

  We walked down the short drive, out into the street where her car was parked. “You’ve still got the yellow flyer,” I remarked, running a finger over the wheel arch of her Fiat.

  “Yep. Can’t afford another on teacher’s pay.”

  The indicators flashed as she unlocked the doors and I pulled the driver’s open. “So what will you do with the flat?”

  “I’m not sure. I ought to sell it, but a little bit of me thinks of it as an insurance policy. My safety net. I don’t know.”

  “Well, you know where I live.”

  “Yeah. Goodnight. Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Take care.”

  I watched her drive down the cul-de-sac and turn out into the main road, indicator signalling although there was no other car in the street. Her lights vanished behind the houses and I knew how Captain Bligh must have felt, abandoned in his dinghy, as the Bounty faded over the horizon.

  I rinsed our mugs, put a CD on and tidied away the rest of the crockery. Mary Black, The Moon and St Christopher. I turned the volume high and went upstairs to the bathroom. After I’d cleaned my teeth I found some clean clothes for the morning, checked the alarm and climbed into bed.

  It’s a sort of sleep, I suppose. You feel wide-awake, but the images flooding your brain are out of control, beyond your knowledge, out of context. I was facing a big rabbit behind a desk, buck teeth and whiskers stained with blood. His secretary was a little girl, a bandage round her eyes as she took notes.

  “Why did you do this?”

  “Because it seemed a good idea.”

  “Take that down.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  I opened a filing cabinet. It was filled with dead fish. I closed it again. Someone was watching me, pointing a camera. A body leaned against a wall, legs wide apart, grinning at me. “Hello Charlie. Looking for business?” I had to climb these stairs to escape, but each bend I went round brought me to the bottom of the stairs again, like in some M C Escher drawing. If I went faster I could make it round the bend before they changed … not quite … faster this time … faster still.

  I kicked the duvet off, woke up shivering, went to the bathroom for a pee. I dried my back on the towel and had a drink of water from the tap.

  When I was in bed again I pulled a corner of the duvet over me and lay on my back with my hands clasped behind my head. What was it Annette had said about the apartment? That it was her safety net, her insurance policy. Is that what I was, too? An insurance policy? Was tonight’s visit just her way of keeping up with the premium?

  Ah well, I thought, if that’s a price I have to pay, so be it. I was in a corner, with nowhere to run to, and my tanks were dry.

  I transported myself to a lake, in a canoe, with the sun rising from behind the Rockies and the mist lying across the water. New World Symphony from the orchestra hidden in the pine trees. I caught a small trout, brought it on board and unhooked it, but when I looked at my hands they were covered in blood. I leaned over the side to wash them and the lake turned crimson.

  Carcasses of cattle were burning. A great pile of them, falling out of the back of a white pickup. “Why did you do this?” the rabbit asked.

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Take that down.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Someone must have ordered it.”

  “Not me.”

  “It was a slip of the tongue.”

  “Why do you smoke Old Holborn?”

  “Because it makes me sick if I eat it.”

  “Well put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

  “A slip of the tongue?”

  “A slip of the tongue.”

  “Is that why you’re burning them?”

  “That’s right. They always give themselves away.”

  They always give themselves away.

  I sat up, leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, giving my brain time to clear. The digital clock said 01:13, its red glow spilling on to the pillow at that side of the bed. I pinched my ear, decided I was awake. I sat like that for nine minutes, going over it in my mind. They always give themselves away. Over it and over it. Over and over and over again. As the clock slipped to 01:22 I reached for the phone.

  It only rang twice. “Yes Charlie?”

  “It’s me, Dave,” I said.

  “I gathered that. Can’t you sleep, Old Son?”

  “No.”

  “It’s Charlie,” I heard him say, aside, then: “Neither can I.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Never mind. Look, why don’t we both go downstairs, make a cup of tea and continue this conversation from there? How about that?”

  “No. It won’t wait.”

  After a pause he said: “What won’t?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the case.”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  “How does this sound?” I replied, still wondering if I was missing something, if I’d overlooked a glaringly obvious piece of information that would immediately rubbish what I was thinking. “About a month ago a young couple called in the nick, just as I was on my way out. I spoke to them. They said they’d been walking the dog in the recreation ground on the Monday night, two days before Colinette was murdered. A white pickup went by. A big, noisy, white pickup.”

  “Mmm,” Dave mumbled. “We checked all the white pickups, Charlie. You went to interview the owner of the one seen in Nelson yourself. He was the gay guy, wasn’t he, with an alibi like the Rock of Gibraltar?”

  “Cross-dresser, that’s right, but hear me out.”

  “Sorry.”

  “OK. In Nelson three independent witnesses reported seeing a white pickup, and we eventually traced it and eliminated the driver from enquiries. But when Colinette was murdered nobody else saw a noisy white pickup, not on the Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.”

  “So…”

  “So what if there wasn’t one? What if our visitors saw one in Nelson when little Robin was murdered because they were there? They killed him. They needed an excuse to come into the police station, for bravado, to show how clever they are, so they reported seeing the pickup in Heckley, following our appeal, in the hope that
the one in Nelson had been reported. Spreading misinformation. Maybe the one in Nelson drove by as they did the deed, scared them.”

  “You’re saying that the murderers came into the nick, large as life, to show off. Would they do that?”

  “I don’t know. Sounds likely, to me. We’re talking about nutters, remember. Goading us has been part of the deal right from the beginning. Maybe I should ring Adrian…”

  “Whoa, Charlie,” Dave interrupted. “Before you wake half the county. Can you remember what they were called?”

  “No.”

  “Any idea who talked to them?”

  “Peter did in the nick, and he probably did the followup. Somebody else will have done a second followup. It’ll all be in the book, on the computer.”

  “It sounds good, Chas. It sounds bloody good, but it might look different in the cold light of day. Nothing’s spoiling, so grab a couple of hours and I’ll see you in the office at seven. How’s that?”

  “That’s fine…except…”

  “Except what?”

  “Except…that’s just supporting evidence. It’s not the real reason why I rang you.”

  A long pause, followed by: “So why did you ring?”

  “I think I’m going mad, Dave.”

  “No you’re not. Not any more than anyone else is. You’ve just got things on your mind, that’s all. It’ll pass, believe me.”

  “This couple.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I met them at the desk.”

  “So you said.”

  “When we did the first television appeal Les Isles did most of the talking. He was holding his pipe in his hand.”

  “That’s right. Made him look avuncular, or something.”

  “The last letter, the one after Norma Holborn, it said: ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it.’”

  “I remember.”

  “But it was addressed to me, not to Les.”

  “I know. We assumed whoever sent it confused you.”

  “That’s what we assumed, but we were wrong. Les left his pipe and tobacco on the windowsill in my office. I dropped them off at the front desk, asked for them to be posted them to him. That’s when I met this couple. They’re not confused, Dave – I was holding Les’s pipe in my hand as I spoke to them. That’s why they think I’m the pipe smoker.”