Who Wants to Live Forever?

by Steve Wilson

  I felt a little awkward. All of my assumptions were just that: pure guesses on my part. “I’ve a few thoughts,” I said, “but they aren’t based on anything factual, so I’d rather not say, if that’s all right?”

  I wondered if she might be affronted at my refusal to answer, but, in total contrast, she leant forward and hugged me. “I’m so glad you said that. It’s nice to know that there are still people around who you can trust with your secrets.”

  “So you’ve got secrets, have you? Tell me more.”

  “Then they wouldn’t be secrets, would they? Perhaps when we get to know each other a little better, eh? Don’t you agree, Trish?”

  “Certainly,” came the reply. I hadn’t noticed her return with the drinks and wondered how much she’d heard — and seen. “Ethan can try and discover my secrets any time.”

  “That’s fine by me,” I replied. I smiled. Here I was, in a pub with two attractive women friends, and we were flirting together. A month ago, I would certainly never have thought that could happen. I wondered what Julie would think of her old dad if she walked in right now.

  “What’s so funny, Ethan?” asked Debbie.

  “Yes, share the joke,” added Trish.

  “Oh, it’s nothing really. Just life, I suppose. I was wondering what my daughter would think of me right now.”

  “I think she’d be very proud of you,” said Trish, leaning forward and hugging me. I realised that she must have seen Debbie’s hug a few moments earlier.

  The flirtatious nature of the evening continued, but I began to detect a slight tension between Debbie and Trish, and however hard I tried I was unable to break it. Even so, we had a pleasant evening, and I was sad as we said our goodbyes and headed for home in our separate directions.

  During the walk home, I pondered the nature of friendship. I was trying not to look too far ahead — it was silly to think in terms of wedding bells and happiness ever after — but I allowed myself to think about how the situation might be in a couple of months’ time. The course would be over then, whatever its conclusion was, but I would hope to still be in touch with my new-found friends.

  I doubted that Emma could ever be a close friend — there was just too big a difference in our ages for that to ever be seen as natural. Even though I would never think of her as anything other than a kind of daughter, I knew many people would not be able to accept such a relationship.

  When I thought of Gail, despite the fact that I had questioned the accuracy of her facts, I knew I would still like to be in touch with her. I suppose my curiosity was part fascination on my behalf, as I wanted to know just why she behaved the way she did, but that didn’t mean I didn’t like her for herself.

  My thoughts about Trish and Debbie were more or less the same as a week earlier. I would love to have them both as friends, but I had detected that tension during the evening. I remembered my thought about being a third wheel right at the beginning of the course. Was each woman now seeing the other in that way? I hoped not, because if they did I could see myself getting stuck in the middle of something rather unpleasant.

  ***

  As I had done the week earlier, on returning to my flat I read through all the factsheets concerning the murders as a means of taking my mind off the brewing tension between Trish and Debbie. I opened the notebook where I had scrawled the information about the first three cases and added Virginia Lee, 1944 to the list. Nothing jumped out at me; there wasn’t even an inkling of a Eureka! moment. All I had managed to ‘discover’ so far was that the murders took place in years that were divisible by eleven. Louise had told me to discard the Friday link, as that wouldn’t apply to future cases. If Julie could see me struggling to make sense of all this, she’d soon revise any thoughts she had about her super-sleuth father.

  That night, as I tried to sleep, my subconscious was invaded by disjointed images of the faceless killer mocking my attempts to catch her.

  Chapter Nine

  Emma — Tuesday 25th October 2011

  Tears rolled down Emma’s face as she looked in the mirror. This time, nothing she had done had been able to mask the bruising. Hardly surprising, really, for it had been the third blow she had received in the same place in under a month. Her skin might have been that of a woman three times her age.

  The first one had been bad enough, but she had defied Mike by going to the course when he’d ordered her to quit, so it was her own fault. Mike had only held off from giving her a more severe beating because he’d devised his scheme. He couldn’t see it through if she was too disfigured, could he? Gail had boasted about her lavish lifestyle, and he felt he was entitled to a part of it. Emma had been told what to do, how to entice Gail’s husband away from her, and how to ensure that Mike benefited from the relationship.

  How were they to know that Gail had been economical with the truth? Emma had done as she’d been told, and met up with the awful man while Gail was at the pub, only to find he had a job that was barely more rewarding than her own. She had allowed him to give her a little cuddle, but when she’d tried to pull away, she’d discovered how many hands he seemed to have; even an octopus would have been envious of him. To make matters worse, some of her lipstick must have smeared on his collar as she’d tried to fend him off. Thankfully, she’d managed to wriggle free before anything serious happened — she shuddered to imagine what that would have been like — but Gail had arrived home just as she was about to leave, and she hadn’t been given a chance to explain. Gail saw the lipstick smudge, put two-and-two together and hit her on the exact spot that was only just beginning to heal after the first blow.

  Again, Emma accepted that it was her own fault. What else could Gail have done? She had tried to reassure her that there was nothing between them prior to last week’s class, but she knew she was wasting her time. Bill, it seemed, had left her, and it was obvious who was to blame for that.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. She hadn’t told Mike at first that his plan wasn’t going to work, because she knew how he’d react. She waited until he was in a good mood, in the hope that he’d realise she wasn’t to blame. He didn’t. The beating he had given her was the worst she had ever received. It had been a week ago, right after the last class, and it had taken until today before she was able to get out of bed for more than a few minutes. Nobody had been to see her in that time — Mike certainly had shown no interest — and she’d had to survive on leftovers. She knew that she couldn’t go on like this.

  She looked in the mirror once again. “Right, girl,” she said, “it’s time to grab control of your life. Quit that dead-end job and leave this flat. Tonight. While you still can.” She had a friend who lived in a flat near to the airport. Mike didn’t know about her. She could go and stay there for a few weeks. That would give her the time she needed. She knew she’d have to move away from the area afterwards, but that didn’t matter. Anywhere would do. Anywhere that didn’t have a Mike.

  Chapter Ten

  Week 6 — Vickerstown — Plummeting

  Tuesday 1st November 2011

  Time seemed to slow down as I waited for the course to resume, and I was reminded again of how lonely I had been barely a month earlier. I hadn’t realised how much I missed seeing Trish and Debbie until I was on my own on the half-term Tuesday evening. I even found myself missing Gail and Emma, if only to witness their burgeoning dislike of each other. As well as wanting to see my friends again, I was impatient to find out what Louise had lined up for us next, as I tried to work out just where the course was taking us. That was the low point. I spent many hours on the phone to Julie during that first week.

  After that, things began to improve, and it wasn’t just because I knew in less than a week I’d see them all again. I took stock of myself, and didn’t like what I saw. For years now — long before the divorce — I had been a passenger in life’s car, letting it dictate the where, when, how and why. I resolved that it was time for change. From now on, I would become the driver, and take control. It
might lead me into some dead ends, but at least I could then try an alternative route. It was appropriate timing, too; as the clocks changed, so did I.

  Outwardly, nothing appeared different, but a new Ethan Hudson approached the college for the resumption of the course as November began. There was a surprise awaiting me when I took my seat at the table. “We’re down to just three now,” said Louise. “Gail rang to say she wouldn’t be able to come in any more as her husband has had to stay in Chicago longer than was expected, and — naturally — she’s staying out there to accompany him. The next day, Emma contacted me to say that she’s dropping out too, though she didn’t give me a reason. Somebody at the college must have given her my home address; it was most disconcerting when she turned up on my doorstep. Anyway, that’s done with now, so if you just bear with me a moment — I’ve left this week’s handouts in the car. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  “I won’t miss Emma at all,” said Trish. “She was better without Mike, but I still didn’t warm to her. And as for Gail — well, I suppose you can do what she does when you’ve no commitments, can’t you?” before adding, in an aside for my ears alone, “Funny, though, that I saw her husband working in the store again on Thursday last week. They do take this industrial espionage seriously, don’t they?”

  I nodded slowly. Gail’s story had never completely rung true, and I suspected she knew she was on the verge of being outed, so it was really no surprise that she’d chosen to leave the group. I wondered about Emma’s reasons for leaving. Had her involvement with Gail’s husband — if I was correct in my assumptions — played a part in the decisions of both women? It made no difference to me, though, for, even though I disagreed with Trish’s sentiments — I still liked them both and felt they could have been an asset to the group — following our after-class drinks of recent weeks, I now considered the three of us to be a close-knit trio. Where this would all lead to, though, was another question.

  It appeared that we were all on the same wavelength, as Debbie said, “There was something about Emma that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Whatever it was, I didn’t like her. Gail was better, but she still wasn’t really one of us. I see us as the three Musketeers, with Louise as our D’Artagnan.”

  “I hadn’t thought of us like that,” said Trish, “but I do think three’s company, more’s a crowd, so to speak. I did see Gail once, you know, when I was driving through Lytham after completing my lunchtime sandwich deliveries. And she wasn’t in one of the more exclusive parts of the town; anything but, in fact. I’m not a snob, far from it. I will associate with anybody, whatever their upbringing. But I can’t abide liars.”

  Louise returned before I could add anything to the discussion, but it left me with plenty to think about. “So,” she began, “we’re a small but select group. All along, I’ve felt that you three were the most attuned to my thinking. Let’s see what the four of us can achieve from the remainder of the programme.”

  “What murder is on the agenda tonight?” I asked. “It wouldn’t by any chance be from 1955, would it?”

  “Yes, it would, Ethan, but, before you start patting yourself on the back, things won’t always be as straightforward as you seem to think they are. For instance, the murder I want to investigate tonight took place on a Thursday, not a Friday. It was Thursday, November tenth 1955, and the victim was Thomas Brent, a worker in the Barrow shipyards. From the official reports, it appears that Brent fell from a first-floor window onto concrete, and died while he was being comforted by passers-by.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like a murder,” said Debbie, “unless you’re implying he was pushed.”

  “No, it doesn’t, does it? But there are some strange aspects about this case. To begin with, it was only a first-floor window. Brent was a physically fit man in most respects, and a fall of that nature would have injured him, perhaps broken a bone or two, but to kill him? I don’t think so. So I believe some other hand was involved.”

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning, then we can hear all the facts?” suggested Trish.

  “Yes, a good idea,” agreed Louise. “Brent lived at Vickerstown on the Isle of Walney, which is separated by the Walney Channel from Barrow, a journey of less than two miles across the Jubilee Bridge. And yes, we are once again moving outside the traditional county boundary, this time into Cumbria, but back in the 1950s Barrow was still part of Lancashire.

  “Brent worked in the joiners’ shop in the Barrow shipyards, which was an extremely noisy environment. Consequently, even though he was relatively young, he was almost totally deaf, and had suffered from tinnitus as a result of his deafness for many years. Nowadays, people recognise that this was due to the working conditions and the absence of ear protectors, but back then health and safety took a back seat.

  “Now, to his death. According to the witnesses, he fell from the window at about nine p.m., although it isn’t apparent if anybody actually saw him fall. What is clear is that he was lying on the hard ground and an Australian woman, Odea Shearer, was cradling his head. Harold Proctor, another who came to his aid, said he saw a wisp, or puff, of smoke come out of Brent’s mouth moments before he died, but the other three who were there — Violet Warren, Martha Sinclair and Albert Stilwell — were unable to corroborate this.

  “The ambulance arrived shortly after this, but Brent was already dead. It was in the investigations afterwards that checks on the house led to the conclusion that he had been knocked out of the window of the tiny box room when he opened it to let in some fresh air. The reasoning went that somebody else was in the house, opened the door, and inadvertently knocked him out of the window. He wasn’t wearing his hearing aid, so he never heard them, and it was just an unfortunate accident.”

  “But you don’t think so, of course,” I said.

  “No, I don’t. Of course.”

  “Why not?” asked Trish.

  “First of all, as I said, the fall should not have been enough to kill him. Secondly, why would he open the window wide on a cold November evening? Thirdly, if somebody accidentally knocked him out of the window, why didn’t they come forward and explain what had happened? The police had already concluded that it was an accident, so there would have been little or no consequence for the individual concerned. But most importantly of all, what happened to Brent’s hearing aid? He wasn’t wearing it when he was found, and it wasn’t in the house. Everybody who knew him swore he was never without it, as it was the only way he could keep the tinnitus at a bearable level.”

  “Do other people think this way?” I asked, slowly.

  “What do you mean, Ethan?”

  “Has anybody else investigated this case?”

  “Not to my knowledge, no.”

  “So what put you onto it, then?”

  “Because I was looking for it, that’s why — don’t ask, all should become clear eventually.”

  “So is that all there is for this one?” asked Debbie. Having heard her sad tale at our last meeting, I sympathised with her distaste for the macabre.

  “No, not quite,” answered Louise. “There’s the mystery woman again.”

  “Which one?” I asked, checking my notes. “Odea Shearer, Violet Warren or Martha Sinclair?”

  “There was no mystery about Violet or Martha. They were born and bred Barrovians. It’s Odea who is the enigma. She came over to England from Australia a few months earlier, bucking the general trend — in the fifties and sixties, you could migrate to Australia for as little as ten pounds, as the country tried to increase its population. There were still huge fears of a Japanese invasion, a legacy from the Second World War, and they figured that the only way to ensure it didn’t happen was to increase the population. British immigrants became known as the ten poundpoms.

  “So for Odea to go in the opposite direction was strange to begin with. And then, after the death of Brent, she is supposed to have returned to Brisbane. Although, once again, I was unable to find any record of her in either hemisphere.”r />
  “So you reckon she is like Eve Rhodes, Maeve O’Hara and the others?” I asked.

  “I think there is a link, certainly. Otherwise, why would I have mentioned her?”

  “But did anybody else see the link?” asked Debbie.

  “Not that I’m aware, no. I don’t think they did. But that might—”

  “So why are you right when everybody else is wrong?” interrupted Debbie. “Surely you have to accept that perhaps you could be mistaken. I’m not suggesting that you are in all of the cases, but you do appear to have made a very tenuous connection.”

  The discussion continued in a similar vein until it was time for our coffee break. As we sipped our steaming paper cups of hot liquid Debbie continued to present her case. “It’s as if Louise is finding conspiracy theories in everything she looks at. Any death at all, and she construes it as murder, and then tries to link it to other totally unrelated killings. I wonder if the whole experience hasn’t sent her over the edge a little.”

  “Perhaps it has,” answered Trish, “but, you have to admit, it’s led to some very interesting conversations.”

  “Yes, it might be interesting, but if what she’s telling us is all wrong, what’s the point?”

  “I don’t think she is wrong,” I started to reply, but just then Louise came over, and the conversation switched to a more specific discussion of the Brent case before we returned to the class.

  We spent a large part of the remainder of the evening discussing — and almost reminiscing in some cases, as I knew people who had made the journey — the emigration to both Australia and New Zealand during the 1950s and 1960s.