by Penny Kline
Eric pointed to the Noah’s Ark design. ‘Faye’s idea, an ark and a dozen or so pairs of animals. She thinks there’d be a market.’
‘Yes, I’m sure there would be.’ I couldn’t even imagine how much the set would cost. Two elephants, two giraffes, two hippos …
‘Making toys was Nikki’s idea,’ he said, rubbing at a small patch of oil with the toe of his boot. ‘I’d made a couple of things for Charlie and she told Faye about them.’
‘She and Faye were friends?’
‘Ever since Charlie was a baby. We had no money but that never stopped Nikki buying him stuff. Rattles, musical animals. If there was something shop soiled or broken Faye’d give it to her or let her have it cheap. She’s the one with the business sense.’
‘Faye is?’
He nodded, bending down to pick up a scrap of graph paper, then screwing it up and tossing it into a box of shavings. ‘Deborah just drifts about looking decorative. By the way, when you took Charlie to school did he say anything about my father? He wants him to stay the night but I’m not sure it’s a good idea, what d’you think?’
‘What do I think?’
‘Oh, come on, you shrinks always have an opinion. He sees my mother most weeks, goes to her house in Montpelier so she can take him to the shops and spoil him rotten, but he’s only seen my father a couple of times since they split up, and both times he was taken out on some trip. This time my father wants him to go to the flat.’
‘I suppose it’s up to Charlie.’
Eric moved his mouth irritably. ‘They met at the shop, my father and Deborah. I’d suggested he drop in and have a look at a horse, the first one I’d made for them, only I don’t suppose he ever got that far. It was love at first sight.’ He spoke the words with heavy sarcasm. ‘So as well as being prime suspect for a murder I’m also responsible for the break-up of my parents’ marriage.’
‘You don’t know that,’ I said, taking no notice of the prime suspect part. ‘If it hadn’t been Deborah it could have been someone else.’
His angry response was out of proportion to what I had thought a fairly innocuous remark. ‘That’s your professional judgement, is it? People only fall in love if they want to. Dad was already on the lookout out for a bit on the side and —’
‘I just don’t see any point in blaming yourself.’ I picked up what looked like the side of a doll’s cradle. ‘What kind of wood is this?’
‘What? Why d’you ask? If you’re really interested, which no one ever is, it’s called birch plywood. The ordinary stuff’s no good, its edges are too ragged.’
‘Where’s the rest of it?’
‘What? That’s a piece I discarded.’ He took it from my hand and threw it into the cardboard box, sighing heavily, then producing a hang-dog expression that presumably I was supposed to take as an apology for his bad temper.
‘Charlie showed me the stilts you made him,’ I said, ‘I like the birds’ heads on the bits where the feet go.’
‘Eagles, he’s got a thing about birds of prey.’ He allowed himself a brief smile. ‘Stilts have to be made out of something knot-free, beech or white pine. I keep meaning to adjust the footrests now his legs have grown longer. Did Charlie tell you we used to live in Brislington? In a crappy rented place with barely room to swing a cat. My father helped us buy this house, lent the money for a deposit then said we needn’t pay it back. See what I mean? Sold my soul to the devil.’
‘You’ve always worked with wood?’ I was thinking about Janice and the community spirit in her street in Brislington. When Eric and Nikki lived there had she known them both? If so, why not say so instead of talking in riddles?
Eric took a photograph down from the wall and for a moment I thought he was going to show me a picture of Nikki but it turned out to be a horse. ‘First one,’ he said, ‘a bit elaborate, no profit margin to speak of, but after a time you learn to work faster. I started off putting up shelves, stripping pine doors. Incidentally, is your front door still difficult to open?’
‘A bit. It doesn’t matter.’ Without thinking I lifted a chisel, then replaced it as if I had accidentally touched a valuable item in a museum. ‘My brother and I used to have a rocking horse, a dappled grey with a tail you could pull out and push things through the hole. I’ve no idea what happened to it, but by now the contents of its stomach must be of considerable sociological significance.’
He was looking at me but thinking about something else. Behind his steel-framed glasses his eyes were very piercing and very blue. The squareness of his face was accentuated by the prominence of his cheek bones, an indication of how much weight he had lost during the last few months?
‘Old horses are worth a lot.’ He was staring at me as if he had noticed my face for the first time. ‘Anyway, my father didn’t think too highly of having an odd-job man for a son — thought it would sound better if he could boast how I ran my own business. When I gave up my place at university he blamed Nikki, but that was only his usual way of trying to humiliate me, making out I hadn’t a mind of my own. Whatever some girl wanted I’d just fall in line.’
Birds were scrabbling on the roof. I thought about next door’s cat and wondered if Eric had seen Charlie’s rolled up notebook. If the dust was anything to go by, under the bed was a fairly safe place to keep it hidden, but perhaps Eric knew all about it and thought nothing of it, even approved of Charlie’s unsentimental view of the world.
‘When you lived in Brislington,’ I said cautiously, ‘did you know someone called Janice?’
‘Janice?’ He thought about it, running his finger along the edge of a shelf covered in tins of paint.
‘She’s one of my students, lives in Brislington, only from what I could tell —’
‘What could you tell?’ He took off his glasses and started cleaning them with a tissue. ‘The cops think I came back from Cheltenham that day, left the car God knows where, then crept back to the house, making sure none of the neighbours spotted me, and stuck a knife in my wife.’
‘Then what?’
‘How d’you mean? Oh, then I returned to the car, drove round for a bit, and finally came home when I thought enough time had elapsed for someone to discover the body.’
‘They can’t have any evidence or they’d have arrested you long ago.’
He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Doesn’t bother you then, living next door to the prime suspect. Call in at the shop next time you’re in the city centre, then you can tell me what you think of Deborah Bryant. It’s spoiled my father’s image, shacking up with someone virtually young enough to be his daughter. Solid, reliable GPs aren’t supposed to do that kind of thing.’
*
My last client, the one booked in for four-fifteen, had phoned to say she needed to change the time of her appointment. It was something she did most weeks, something we had talked about repeatedly, but on this occasion I was glad. Heather was in the waiting room, pinning a poster, about a self-help group for phobics, on the noticeboard.
‘Oh, there you are, Anna,’ she said, as if she had been looking for me all afternoon. ‘Any news about your flat?’
‘Haven’t even started on the repairs. Still being assessed by the insurance company, I expect. Anyway there’s nothing I can do, just stick it out and hope I’m back in by Christmas.’
‘But you’re all right where you are? Martin should have told you about the murder. If you ask me he did it deliberately, thought you’d do a spot of counselling in your spare time, give his friend some tender loving care.’
‘Eric Newsom’s not a friend. He’s never even met him.’ I picked up a very old copy of Hello, one of the magazines kindly donated to the waiting room by Heather’s next-door neighbour, and flicked through several pages of Fergie and her two daughters in their designer ski-suits. ‘D’you know a toyshop in Fish Street, Heather?’
‘Fish Street? Oh, it’s that posh one. Gorgeous toys that cost the earth. Going to buy something for the little boy, are you? That’s kind. Poor
little chap, imagine losing your Mum when you were only … How old is he?’
‘Six. Nearly seven.’
‘Shame. Off you go then. Lucky Mrs Sidebottom played her usual game of cancelling one appointment and making another. Sidebottom, what a name. Do you suppose people are affected by their names? If you’ve got a silly one it makes you act that way.’
‘Good theory.’ I replaced the magazine, told Heather I’d see her in the morning and left the building, hoping to avoid the worst of the rush hour.
Eric would be flattered I was visiting the toyshop so soon. Not that he would say so. The cagey, defensive expression hardly ever left his eyes, although when it did, for the occasional fleeting moment, he looked unbearably sad. Still grieving for his wife? Five and a half months was no time at all and he seemed the type who would have rejected all attempts to encourage him to talk about what had happened. I felt sorry for him, but my sympathy was tinged with a degree of concern that nothing was being done to help Charlie. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps his teachers had gone out of their way to help. Then there was his grandmother, who lived in Montpelier and spoiled him rotten.
Fish Street was short and cobbled with double yellow lines on both sides. Most of the shops sold antiques or bric-a-brac, but the toyshop was squeezed between a Greek restaurant that was closed during the day, and a jewellers. There were two windows, one either side of the door and the display in the one on the right seemed a little out of season for the end of September. Wooden boats had been arranged on a blue cloth representing the sea, and a black doll sat in a striped deckchair next to a china tea set with pretend cakes and sandwiches on blue and white plates. The left-hand window contained various expensive-looking outdoor games: red plastic racquets with white shuttlecocks, a child-size croquet set, and a wooden pinball game.
Inside the shop a group of French students, who looked too old to be buying toys, jostled each other as they moved between the shelves. As I watched, a tall, lanky boy, dressed in white jeans and a grey sweatshirt, lost his balance and fell against a display of angel’s wings and fairy wands. Smiling good-naturedly a dark-haired woman moved across to gather them up and return them to their shelf. She looked tired, and a little harassed, as if she was trying to make the students welcome but would be relieved when they left; then one of the girls paid for some kind of game in a box, and the rest of them started streaming out of the shop.
The dark-haired woman had picked up a doll and was trying to extract it from its cellophane wrapper without breaking her nail. I wondered if she was Faye Tobin or the other one, the one called Deborah who had gone off with Eric’s father? When I moved closer she looked up, smiling.
‘Packaging, the curse of the modem age. Can I help?’
‘Lovely shop, I was just having a look round.’
‘Feel free.’
I felt a little guilty. ‘Actually I think I ought to introduce myself. My name’s Anna McColl. I’m renting the annexe attached to Eric Newsom’s house. I just dropped in to see his rocking horses if that’s all right.’
‘Sure. Help yourself. The horses are down the end there but we’ve only one of Eric’s at present. D’you know if he’s making any more?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, thinking about the empty workshop. Empty apart from the rows of pristine tools.
‘I’m Faye Tobin, I expect he’s told you how I bully him. I asked if he could make us some Noah’s arks, and the animals of course, but he hasn’t been in touch for quite a while. How is he?’
‘He showed me a design for the ark,’ I said.
‘Oh well, I suppose that’s a start. I don’t know about you but I’d have thought the sooner he gets back into his old routine the better.’
There was no sign of Deborah Bryant. Perhaps she was in the stock room doing the accounts. Faye Tobin put up a hand to push up her fringe. It fell back at once but slightly to one side and I noticed how long her forehead was and how her eyes turned down a little at the edges, giving her a slightly mournful look, although there was something rather attractive about her. When I started moving towards the horses she followed, still holding the baby doll.
‘Just a temporary let, is it,’ she asked, ‘or has Eric decided to stay on in the house?’
‘My flat’s being repaired — after a fire. I live in Cliftonwood.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, of course, how silly of me, I mentioned the annexe to Martin Wheeler and he —’ She broke off, touching the horse’s bridle, then sliding her hand over the shiny leather saddle. ‘You’re a psychologist, is that right? Must be an interesting job but I imagine it could get you down after a time, all those anxious, depressed people. You know, if the police had found out who killed Nikki I think it might have made things easier for Eric.’
‘Yes, you could be right.’
‘You think so too?’ She picked up part of a wooden train, examining it to make sure it was all in one piece, then attaching it to the end of a row of carriages. Since the departure of the French students the shop had remained empty, but it was getting near to closing time and no doubt the place was crowded out at the weekend. I wanted to ask if her partner was taking the day off, but she would guess Eric had told me about his father, and might resent what she saw as my spurious interest.
‘The first horse Eric made sold the second day it was in the shop,’ she said, placing the baby doll next to a row of bottles, dummies and potties. ‘We all thought we were going to make our fortune but things never turn out that way do they? Ted dropped in to see it before it was delivered to the buyer and …’ She looked up, noticed my expression and realised I had no idea who she was talking about. ‘Oh, you don’t know Eric’s father, well why would you, although since you’re a psychologist I suppose I assumed you’d have met most of the local doctors.’
‘Bristol’s a big place.’
‘Yes, of course. How’s Charlie? I haven’t seen him since Nikki died. He was always so serious, so sensitive, like his father I suppose. You know, in a way I used to think Nikki being how she was probably had quite a good effect on Charlie, brought him out of himself. She used to drop in here now and again, after work, tell us about all the goings on at her office, who was getting married, who was having a baby.’
‘She worked quite close by?’
‘That office block with green windows. Insurance, financial services, something like that. Nikki was in the Personnel Department, seemed to enjoy the work, and the social side of it of course.’
‘She had a lot of friends at her office.’
Faye thought about this. ‘Some she liked, some she couldn’t stand. There was one she used to mention, someone called Ronnie. “I’ll have to go now,” she used to say, “or Ronnie’ll be breathing down my neck.” You know, I can’t help thinking someone must know something. D’you think it was really just one of those awful random killings, a mental patient let out of hospital, knocking on the door, asking for a drink of water? Poor Nikki in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ I said, disliking the way she assumed all psychiatric patients were dangerous, although since it was the dangerous ones that got all the publicity it was hardly surprising.
‘There’s a pub just down the road from here,’ she said. ‘The Night Sky. Nikki used to go there two or three times a week. “Just for a laugh,” that’s what she used to say. You see she was one of those people who like an audience. No, that makes her sound self-centred and I’d never have called her that. Gregarious, that’s the word. Staying at home with Charlie all day would have been torture for her. I’m sure the way she and Eric had arranged things was the best solution.’
A woman was backing into the shop, dragging a double buggy with squeaky wheels. Faye hurried to give her a hand, apologising for the weight of the swing doors, explaining how they had to keep them closed or all the warmth disappeared into the street. I moved towards the soft toy section and picked up a tiger with a cub in its mouth, then exchanged it for one of those dogs with a Ch
inese name and wrinkly velvet ‘skin’. I wanted to buy Charlie a present but if I thought about what Charlie would like it would have to be a computer game, preferably something with appropriate sound effects, thumps and splats to accompany the satisfyingly violent annihilations.
*
An unending stream of traffic thundered past, with more joining from two different directions. I decided to risk the evil-smelling underpass. My screams would be drowned by the noise and I could lie there for an hour before another pedestrian came through, but why get worked up about an underpass? Nikki Newsom had been killed in the safety of her own home.
The tiled walls were covered with the usual aerosolled graffiti. P. B. wanks. Lukes an airhead. B. R. F. C. kicks to kill. My fingers selected the car key from the bunch deep in my pocket. A knife was no protection — it could be wrenched from your hand and used against you — but so, presumably, could a key. A thin young man was loping towards me, with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. As we passed he mumbled something about loose change but with so little expectation that his request would be granted that he never even bothered to slow down. Running up the steps at the other side I recalled Faye Tobin’s comments about Nikki and how gregarious she had been and how the way she was had helped to bring Charlie out of himself. Had there been some kind of trouble between Nikki and Eric? It stuck in my throat to admit it but experience with clients had forced me to accept that fathers looking after the children while their wives or partners went out to work often led to serious difficulties in the relationship. Women never stopped complaining about the selfishness of men, but the new variety seemed even less acceptable.