The Calling

by Alison Bruce

  Two gulls flew overhead, circling and swooping. They looked as though they were flirting with each other, but he guessed they were more likely competing for carrion. Nothing was ever the way it seemed.

  A scrappy patch of hedgerow decorated with an occasional flower marked the start of the footpath. A clump of long-stemmed dandelions sprang from its base and swayed gently, with beads of dew clinging to their leaves.

  Clinging: an invention of Nature.

  For a moment Pete could have believed himself to be all alone in the world; insulated from everyone outside. He didn’t mind that, because solitude brought him comfort, but he also knew that there were few places where it was possible to be totally alone, and he watched as a murky silhouette on the coast path gradually materialized into a human form.

  For his own amusement, he imagined that he was watching Marlowe coming towards him through the mist. Amusement – he winced at such a poor choice of word. Amusement, yes, but not as in pleasure or entertainment, just as in passing time.

  As in filling the void.

  The figure solidified into a girl.

  Pete became aware of another distraction as the light, rapid clicking of a bicycle freewheeling along the road disturbed the morning quiet.

  A paper boy.

  He stopped his bike at the head of the footpath, and waved to the girl.

  Pete had never himself done a paper round: too much hard work before school, for his liking.

  The boy ditched his bike and darted back towards the third and fourth houses from the end of the row, and posted copies of the Daily Express and the Sun through the first and the Guardian through the second. He’d probably be finished in time to do a second round, if he didn’t dally too long with the girl.

  She reached the bike first, and the pedal rasped the ground as she dragged it upright; the only sound to intrude on Pete and his car radio. He watched intently. A joke, a smile, the brushing of lips. Romeo and Juliet?

  Another giggle passed between the pair and the girl tugged on his sleeve. The boy pulled her in tight and they nuzzled each other, exchanging private words.

  Pete sighed and sank back in his seat. He dropped his gaze as his thoughts returned to Marlowe.

  Marlowe with those deep, grey-blue eyes and such fragile pale skin. He had told her it was over and she’d vanished like vapour. He’d seen her once since, a chance encounter in the street. She’d recoiled like a frightened deer bolting from the hunt, and he realized then how much he’d hurt her.

  But, as he’d told himself so many times, some things are over for ever. You can’t go back.

  She would have been with someone else by then. Wouldn’t she?

  He closed his eyes completely, rested his head back against the door, and imagined his lips pressed against hers.

  The memory of their kisses made him tingle, as it always did during one of these spells. But today his senses were heightened, and his nerves jangled with the sensation that she was there.

  He flexed his fingers, reaching for her skin, for its velvet texture and gentle warmth. His nostrils succumbed to a memory of apple shampoo and rose soap, and for a fraction of a second he felt her again.

  That shook him and he jolted upright; he must have been dozing.

  He glanced around. Had he been spotted while lost in his wishful thinking? No, no one had witnessed his foolish puppy-dog expression.

  The only people in view were the boy and girl – Romeo and Juliet – now going their separate ways for the day, their backs towards him and their thoughts only on each other.

  He inhaled a deep breath, but the car smelt of pine air-freshener and dewy morning instead of Marlowe.

  He managed to conjure up an image of her china-blue eyes, but this time they reminded him that it had all been spoilt.

  Spoilt by her weakness, by the dark side of her personality that had drained him, had sapped his own energy.

  He had had to break from her before she broke him.

  The final bars of the Elvis song rolled from the speakers like the last ribbons of honey pouring from an empty pot, and Pete clicked it off before the DJ spoke again.

  He knew he’d hurt her, but she had hurt him too. And he still missed her.

  And that was why he’d never been able to settle with anyone since. He found himself continually making unfavourable comparisons. And, as a result, he always found himself feeling let down, and returning to the same inevitable feeling of empty desolation.

  By 6.15 the morning gloom had cleared, and a flotilla of fluffy storybook clouds skimmed across the pale blue sky. Pete drove back through Thetford Forest, picking small B-roads flanked by a disarray of new growth and bare dead wood. He opened his window, so the fresh smell of the woodland enlivened his senses. This was the proper England: twisting roads and medieval scenery.

  The smaller roads were darker and the daylight barely flickered through the branches. A wild deer grazed in a clearing; a muddy bay colour and hard to spot in its native home. The sky didn’t seem so endless now, but the forest did; a long way from Sheringham in so many ways.

  Pete parked in a gravel lay-by and sat there with the door ajar. For ten minutes he soaked up the silence, then he stepped from the car, to be met by the light rustle of trees.

  His head had cleared, as he slammed the boot. A faint path cut through the undergrowth, no more than a scrape through the soil traced by a giant fingernail. He breathed gently with the evenness of a man content with the world.

  A man on top of the world. He smiled. Something along those lines, anyway.

  With the whole world at his feet? Better.

  A dizzy, giddy buzz tingled in his head as he enjoyed his own good humour.

  The whole world in his hands. That was it. Not his whole world of course, but someone’s.

  He didn’t know her name, no doubt he’d see it in a newspaper soon enough, but to him she was just Juliet. Beautiful and ill-fated.

  He placed Juliet in a grassless patch at the foot of a tree. Not a pretty tree. A deformed tree buckled by old age and slow growth. It hung at a precarious angle from a forty-five degree slope, its roots digging like cats’ claws into the ground, holding it in place. Its stunted limbs stretched upwards, trying to overtake the taller trees, trying to find some sunlight.

  At the bottom of the bank, a ditch lay deep with fetid water, motionless except for the flies.

  She looked up at him, doe-eyed, shuddering, whimpering. They did that sometimes.

  So what?

  He felt a familiar surge of excitement; it fed his omnipotent high.

  He looked back down at her. His fingers twitched again. Her skirt was hitched up by the rope binding her wrists and ankles.

  He could see her smooth thighs and wondered about her underwear. Wondered about removing it.

  And then what?

  No, that wasn’t his game. Not at all. He straightened and moved away.

  He never looked back, but he thought about her on his way to his car. He paused to wipe his mouth. He had to, it was now watering so much.

  CHAPTER 61

  MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  Goodhew drove towards Julie Wilson’s flat, to meet her sister. Every detail of his only previous meeting with her had stayed fresh in his memory.

  He ran over it again and again. Had there been any signs that Julie had been so desperate? Or, God forbid, had he pushed her too hard somehow?

  He remembered her fear when she’d encountered him waiting outside her door. But that hadn’t been fear of him; he knew that much at least.

  Of who, then? Peter Walsh? She’d implied that he’d been a bastard, but clearly didn’t put him down as a killer. But would she have actually known?

  He remembered her sarcasm. She’d been so uptight that asking her about Pete had felt like tapping dangerously hard on a sheet of glass.

  Uptight but not depressed. Something must have happened after his visit to trigger this.

  He turned into her road and an involuntary shudder rattle
d through him. It was the waste that bothered him most about suicides. The universal response from family and friends: ‘If only we’d known, we could have helped.’ And the truth being that the suicide always caused more distress than the secret that triggered it.

  Goodhew knew he was being watched as he headed from his car across the footpath to Julie’s flat. The cul-de-sac bristled with twitching net curtains and with the hush that sweeps down and steals the usual day-today sounds when a tragedy occurs.

  The door of Julie’s flat stood wide open, so Goodhew knocked on the door frame. Beyond, a sandy-haired woman of about twenty-five knelt in the kitchen doorway, filling a small removal crate. ‘Nicole Wilson?’

  She was packing china and had already wrapped all but one piece of a Ports of Call dinner service in sheets of newspaper. She glanced up. ‘Come in.’ She picked up the final saucer and stood to shake Goodhew’s hand. ‘The cup’s missing,’ she remarked.

  Her hand trembled and the end of her thumb was pressed white as she gripped the china.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied.

  She nodded, averting her gaze to stare at the saucer. It was chipped. ‘I can’t bear to throw it out, but it’s no good, is it?’

  ‘What are you going to do with the rest of it?’

  She shrugged and shook her head. She then covered her face with her right hand, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Tears trickled across her palm and flowed down her wrist.

  Goodhew picked up a fresh sheet of newspaper and took the saucer from her. ‘Why not keep it all together for now?’ He carefully folded the paper around it and handed it back.

  She knelt again to tuck it in with the rest of the set, before pulling a tatty tissue from her sleeve. ‘Sorry.’ She looked up at him. ‘Go through and I’ll fetch drinks.’

  A pile of empty boxes stood next to the settee. Only two had been filled so far, and Goodhew flipped back their lids. One crate held the stereo; Nicole had pulled out the speaker leads and wrapped the cables in neat rolls. She’d laid the speakers flat on their backs and covered them with a tea towel to keep out the dust.

  The other box held some of Julie’s clothes, smoothed out and folded, item by item, so they could be unpacked ready to wear. Not that they would.

  Nicole came back with two cans of Coke. ‘This is all I’ve got.’ She nodded to the boxes. ‘I decided to pack up straight away. Mum and Dad were on holiday, and they’re being flown back right now, so I thought I’d get on with it.’

  ‘To save them the pain?’ A photo of Julie, Nicole and their parents lay flat but face-up on the top of the bookcase. Goodhew picked it up.

  She nodded. ‘They won’t understand why she did it.’

  ‘Do you?’ he asked, glancing at her sharply.

  ‘No.’ She held out her hand and he passed her the picture. ‘We all thought everything was OK, so this is out of the blue. What could be so bad as to make her do this? We just keep asking why.’ She wasn’t guarded in her thoughts, like her sister. ‘Why are the police involved, anyway? We’ve already been assured that there were no suspicious circumstances. Isn’t that true?’

  ‘Yes, it is, but I’d spoken to Julie shortly before her death about another matter, and I need to ensure that there is no connection between our conversation and her suicide.’

  He knew he had just made an unfortunate choice of words and, with a flash of hostility, she suddenly looked a whole lot more like her sister. ‘You mean you’re scared in case you said something to upset her? Were you heavy-handed with her?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He raised his hands in protest, and some Coke slopped into the rim of the can. He used his handkerchief to wipe its top and sides, then set it down on the carpet. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve explained myself very well. I’m actually investigating the death of Kaye Whiting.’ He paused but Nicole clearly hadn’t recognized the name. ‘You may remember the case: she was found in the water at a flooded quarry just south of Ipswich.’

  ‘I remember.’ She placed her can alongside Goodhew’s, and by the time she straightened again the colour had drained from her cheeks. ‘Julie showed me her picture in the paper,’ Nicole whispered.

  ‘What did she say about it?’

  Nicole thought for a second. “‘Awful, isn’t it” is what she said, I think. Why do you ask?’

  ‘We’ve had a variety of leads to follow, one of which was an anonymous caller giving us a name to investigate. We don’t know, at this stage, if it’s merely a hoax, so we’re keen to find the caller.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be Julie,’ she answered quickly, as if it was a reflex.

  ‘Why not? Something clearly upset her.’

  ‘I know. Saying it wasn’t her was my gut reaction, but I’m sure it’s right. But she wouldn’t have called and dropped someone in it. She was loyal. Always loyal.’

  ‘Even to people who didn’t deserve it?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. ‘We know Julie wasn’t the caller, but we thought she might know who was. I must also stress that it’s just one line of enquiry.’

  ‘Who are you investigating?’ she asked. When he did not respond, she insisted, ‘Who?’

  ‘It’s an ex-boyfriend, Peter Walsh.’

  Nicole sighed. ‘Oh.’

  ‘As far as I can gather, she went out with him for just about a year and was very upset when they split up. But that was some time back now, maybe a year ago. Would that be about right?’

  ‘They split up last summer, and she was more than upset. Destroyed, I’d call it.’ Nicole faced Goodhew unflinchingly, anger holding her rigid. ‘He treated her like dirt, and shattered her confidence. So do you know what she did?’

  Goodhew shook his head.

  ‘She just waited for him to come back. She hoped he’d come back and still want her. She said she couldn’t understand what she’d done wrong.’ Nicole clenched and unclenched her jaws. ‘I couldn’t get through to her that it wasn’t just her: he’d be the same with anyone.’

  ‘And do you know of anyone else he’s been out with?’

  ‘What, since?’

  ‘Or before,’ he asked.

  ‘Before Julie there was a girlfriend with a funny name. Marlon or something …? No, Marlowe, that was it.’ She grabbed Goodhew’s arm and pulled him towards the long sideboard. ‘I think there’s a photo of her somewhere.’

  Nicole opened and closed the first two of the six wide drawers. She opened the third and, as soon as she saw it brimming with an assortment of papers and greetings cards, she pulled it off its runners and scattered the contents directly on to the carpet.

  Goodhew picked up a small square Paddington Bear gift tag. ‘All my love, Pete.’ He dropped it back next to the pile.

  Nicole spread the pile of stuff more thinly with a sweep of her hand. ‘Let’s get stuck in.’

  Goodhew sat on the floor next to her and they sifted through the heap. Brown-edged petals of a dried red rose crumbled amongst the greetings cards. He found a birthday card, a Valentine’s card, a bracelet, some photos, a book called The Cross and the Switchblade, and several more gift tags. ‘Are these all from Peter Walsh?’

  ‘Souvenirs of a dead romance – except it wasn’t dead for Julie. Unrequited love, that’s what I think it’s called.’

  Goodhew spotted a print half hidden in the pile. It was an old black and white movie still: Robert Mitchum paddling in the sea with his suit trousers rolled up to his knees.

  ‘What about this?’

  ‘He bought it for her.’ She smiled. ‘I always liked it, even though it came from him.’ She pointed to a spare picture hook on the wall. ‘Julie used to hang it up there, above the video shelf, until quite recently. It was the last thing of his on display. I asked her where it had gone, and she said it reminded her too much of Pete. Said she’d been so stupid and naïve, but that was all she said.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘About a week before she died. I just thought she’d finally come to her senses.’ Then she sp
otted the corner of a photograph jutting from inside the book. ‘Ah, look, here it is.’

  She handed Goodhew a six-by-four snapshot of two people standing at a bar, both smiling and holding their drinks up towards the camera.

  ‘She pinched it from Pete’s house, because he always told her how she didn’t match up to Marlowe.’

  Pete was standing with his right arm around Marlowe’s waist. He looked happy and younger, and she looked younger too.

  Younger and happier than the moment when Goodhew had come face to face with her in the rain in Hanley Road.

  CHAPTER 62

  MONDAY, 4 JULY 2011

  Goodhew placed the cardboard box on the end of the desk standing in the far corner of the incident room. He shovelled everything else from the desktop on to the adjacent printer table. He unrolled a new pad of flip chart and ruled five columns on the first sheet with a chunky black marker. He needed to concentrate on nothing else.

  He was alone in the room, but WPC Wilkes and Sue Gully were chatting out in the corridor.

  ‘I think he was an actor,’ Gully said.

  Wilkes disagreed. ‘No, I reckon he was a character.’

  Goodhew crossed the room, pushed the door shut and was able to stop listening. He filled in a name at the head of the second, third and fourth columns: Marlowe, Julie, and then Paulette. It was the order in which Pete Walsh had gone out with them. The fifth column he left blank.

  Nicole Wilson had packed the contents of that drawer into one of her boxes for him, and he reached into it now and pulled out two photographs. He placed them side by side on the desktop.

  Marlowe and Pete. Julie and Pete. He’d fill in what he could about Paulette from memory.

  There was a quote that went ‘Know the victim, know the killer’. He wondered why it had suddenly sprung to mind. Were they all victims, and if so what was the crime?

  In the first column he wrote ‘date of birth’ and beneath that ‘occupation’, ‘appearance’, ‘address’, ‘education’ and thus continued writing other headings, till he finished with ‘hobbies’ near the bottom of the sheet.