He comes around just as the train edges into Waterloo.
“Sleep well?”
“Yeah, ta.”
He then gets up and stretches his orangutan-like arms before grabbing the rucksack. The train squeals to a halt and the doors open.
“Cheers for the pint, doll. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Wait. Can I get your …”
He’s already out the door before I finish my sentence. That’s twice he’s walked away from me — twice more than I’d typically accept from anyone. However, something about Clement has got under my skin. He is intriguing, in a car crash kind of way.
I get up and hurry after him, but the platform is packed and the queue for the two functioning ticket machines bottlenecked. By the time I force my way onto the station concourse, he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Yeah. See ya, Clement,” I mumble under my breath. Without his full name or any way of contacting him, I’m not so sure I will.
Nothing else to do but trundle down to the Tube station.
I could go back to the office but I’m not in the mood. And if I’m in trouble for not turning up, I might as well go the whole hog and skip the entire day. I suppose I could head home and deal with the stack of clothes I left lying on my bed. At least I’ll have something to show for my day; not to mention I’d rather not have a dead man’s clothes hanging around any longer than necessary.
Decision made, I make my way to the Jubilee Line.
In an effort to boost my spirits, I spend the entire journey home thinking about where I might escape to, once I’ve sold the clothes. Morocco or Greece should be pleasantly warm this time of year, or maybe Malta.
I turn the corner into my road still undecided.
The building in which my flat is located is a red-brick Victorian end-of-terrace. With the coffee shop taking up the entire ground floor, the entrance to my flat and parking space are accessed at the back of the building via a scrubby patch of tarmac the estate agent tried selling as a courtyard garden. In reality, it’s a litter-strewn area where the coffee shop staff congregate for a smoke and the bins are stored.
As usual, the search for a door key involves a prolonged rummage in my handbag. One day I’ll get around to clearing out the unnecessary crap I carry around all day. I locate the key just as I reach the door.
I look up, and stop dead.
I’m not going to need the key after all.
10.
Half an inch ajar maybe — enough I might not have noticed.
Did I close it this morning?
I try to play back the scene when I left earlier but the whole episode with Clement has consigned prior memories to the deepest recesses of my mind.
Conscious my home might now be a crime scene, I push the door open with my foot and listen for any sound of movement at the top of the stairs. I count a minute in my head but all I can hear is traffic on the road out front.
“Hello,” I call up the stairs.
Seconds pass and there’s no response; not that I’d expect a burglar to appear at the top of the stairs and return a polite reply. I would, however, expect them to be spooked and make a swift exit. Unless they’re prepared to jump out of a first floor window, this is the only way out.
Do I go in or call the police?
I call up the stairs again. The same silence echoes back.
If I have been burgled, the perpetrators appear to have left. Perhaps it would be better to establish the facts before calling the police. I can’t imagine they’ll be too pleased if I simply forgot to shut the front door properly.
After a few seconds thought, I conclude it’s far more likely I’m a victim of nothing more than my own paranoia. I take a breath and march up the stairs.
The lounge looks exactly as I left it — untidy. Same with the kitchen. The spare bedroom houses a desk and a lumpy sofa bed, but no intruders. Finally, I check my bedroom.
I don’t own much in the way of jewellery and what I do own is of limited value. Still, seeing my jewellery box on the dresser in the same state I left it, brings a sigh of relief. I scan the rest of the room and nothing appears out of place. In truth, the only items in the flat worth stealing are Dennis Hogan’s suits, and they’re still piled on the bed as I left them this morning … I think.
Conscious of their potential value, I’m almost certain I carefully laid them out on the bed to avoid creasing them too much. Now, though, they look almost as if they’ve been thrown on the bed. There’s something else, too — the pile of boxes I neatly stacked up against the wardrobe. Three columns of four boxes? I’m sure I stacked four columns of three boxes.
Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, concern begins to mount. Is my memory going? You hear stories all the time of people my age, and even younger, developing early onset dementia. And while it’s not common, it does happen as I know too well. My maternal grandmother, Irene, was diagnosed in her mid-fifties and never made it to her fifty-eighth birthday.
Perhaps I’m being ridiculous — it’s more likely just stress. There would surely be other symptoms if there really was cause for concern. People forget things all the time, and I was in a hurry this morning. Maybe I’m just remembering how I thought I left everything, rather than the scene left by an unfit, middle-aged woman rushing around and stressing about being late for work.
Christ, I need that holiday.
Satisfied I’ve not been burgled, and I’m probably not losing my marbles, I pull out my phone and search for the second-hand clothes store.
A quick call confirms they’re definitely interested in purchasing any and all quality clothing, so I tell them I’ll pop in with my haul shortly.
Apart from the suits and the shoes, I need to check if there are other clothes stashed in the boxes besides the pullovers I found. It’s a task which doesn’t hold much appeal but if it helps fund a few poolside cocktails, I suppose it’ll be worth the effort.
I start with a quick trip to the kitchen and return with a dozen carrier bags to separate the items of value from those which will end up either in a charity shop or the bin. I then discard the lid of the first box, which happens to be the same box I’ve already checked. All three sweaters go into one bag, along with a couple of equally expensive shirts. The rest is just underwear, vests, and socks, which I bag up for the bin — nobody wants second-hand pants.
I open the lid of the next box and immediately drop it. Staring up at me, and cased in a silver frame, is a picture of my own face; or at least a slightly younger version of my face. I recognise the photo as it’s one I used for a profile picture on Facebook a few years back — and it isn’t the only one.
By the time I empty the box, I’m left with a dozen framed photos of Emma Hogan; all of which have been pulled from my Facebook profile.
The find is unsettling.
Did Dennis Hogan display them just to torment himself, or was he some kind of fantasist trying to pretend he was a proud father?
It makes no sense.
The third box only adds more questions when I unearth the scrapbooks Miles DuPont referred to. In chronological order, each of them is stuffed with newspaper clippings of reports and articles I’ve written — going right the way back to my days working for the provincial newspaper. I take a closer look at the first scrapbook which appears to cover my early career and contains age-tarnished slips of paper printed with some of the first words I ever had published.
I sit on the bed and spend ten minutes reading long-forgotten articles penned by a naive, but fiercely ambitious, young reporter. It’s an experience akin to reading old school reports and fills me with a mixture of nostalgic pride and perhaps a little sadness for selling out on that young reporter’s dreams.
Soon enough, though, the reason I’ve being gifted the chance to reminisce becomes more of a pressing consideration. I’ve unearthed what would appear to be the possessions of a proud, loving, and supportive father — not terms you would ever use to describe Dennis Hogan. Were the photos and scrapbooks his co
ping mechanism to ease a guilty conscience? I hope they didn’t work and he carried the burden of guilt until he drew his last breath.
My angst rekindled, I work through the rest of the boxes but don’t find much of interest or value. Part of me is relieved not to find any other items Dennis Hogan used to offset his guilt.
Once everything is bagged up, I stand back and assess my handiwork. It strikes me that my father shuffled off this mortal coil with very little to his name. Clearly he had money but owned very few material possessions. A pile of bags and boxes isn’t much to show for a lifetime, and immeasurably less than what he could have possessed if he hadn’t so abhorrently squandered the opportunity to be a proper husband and father.
I make another dozen trips up and down the stairs to load everything back into the car. I then double and triple check I’ve shut the front door before heading over to Maida Vale.
There’s an old saying: one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. This is apparent when I step through the door of ‘Loved Again’; the second-hand clothes shop.
I’m greeted by a tall, willowy woman who introduces herself as the proprietor, Penny. Rather than lug everything into the shop, Penny comes out to the car to inspect my wares.
“These are superb quality, and in exceptional condition,” she coos, inspecting the suits. I think I’d like to play poker with Penny.
We then shift everything into the shop where I have to stand around like a spare part while each garment is individually appraised. That process takes forty minutes but eventually Penny is ready to make an offer.
“How does fourteen-hundred sound?”
It sounds far too much for a load of old clothes.
“Oh, I was really hoping for a bit more. It’s for my father’s headstone, you see.”
Wherever my father is buried, and I don’t much care, I’d rather dance on his grave than mark it with a granite tribute. Nevertheless, it’s a useful bartering tool.
Penny taps away at a calculator. “I could push it to sixteen-hundred but that’s my limit I’m afraid.”
“Okay” I sigh. “That’ll go some way I suppose.”
If there is a hell, my ticket is already booked so I feel no guilt playing the part of a mourning daughter for financial gain.
Penny then counts out sixteen hundred pounds and we shake hands. I leave the shop with a handful of empty carrier bags and a purse stuffed with cash.
I throw the bags in the boot and resist the urge to scream with joy once I’m behind the wheel — just in case Penny is looking out of the window. The journey home is dominated with thoughts of sandy beaches and tight-buttocked waiters.
I pull into the parking bay and retrieve the carrier bags from the boot. Just as I’m about to slam it shut, I spot the notebook I abandoned earlier, lodged in the gap behind the wheel arch. I pick it up, intent on adding it to the rest of Dennis Hogan’s possessions destined for the tip.
Relieved at finding the door to the flat firmly shut, I head back upstairs. A coffee is definitely in order so I head straight for the kitchen and toss the notebook on the side.
As I wait for the kettle to boil, I hide my wad of cash at the back of a drawer. If I am ever burgled, I trust the intruder won’t look beyond the pile of old utility bills and other assorted crap I hide in the drawer when I can’t be arsed to find a proper home for it.
I turn my attention back to the still-rumbling kettle and the notebook lying on the side. With nothing else better to do while I wait I pick it up and flick through the pages. The content isn’t quite what I expected. Each page has what appears to be a hand-written surname at the top, and is divided into two columns. The left column is headed with the letter G and the right column the letter R, and both columns contain some kind of tally system — four vertical lines with a horizontal line struck through the middle to denote a total of five. Some of the pages have a tally of two or three; others have ten or eleven. Quite what the letters indicate is a mystery.
I flick through the whole notebook and there must be close to a hundred surnames listed across the pages. Perhaps Dennis Hogan was a bookie, and this was a way of keeping tabs on which punter owed him what. It’s a possibility and might explain his income, but still a stab in the dark.
With my curiosity piqued, I turn my attention to the name embossed on the front cover — Clawthorn. I can honestly say it’s not a word I’ve ever heard before but it could simply be the name of a stationery company. I grab my phone and google it.
The results are limited and there’s absolutely nothing relating to stationery. In fact, there’s not a lot relating to anything beyond random user profiles and geeky gaming forums. Whatever Clawthorn is, or was, it appears obscure enough to have escaped Google’s search indices.
I take a step towards the bin intent on adding the notebook to its contents. I don’t quite make it — my curiosity won’t allow an unanswered question to fester. As little as it matters, I kind of want to know what Clawthorn is, and maybe even what Dennis Hogan was keeping tally of.
I snap a photo of the front cover and three further photos of the inner pages, and post them on Twitter, asking my eight hundred followers if the name rings any bells.
Content the investigation requires no further effort on my part, I toss the notebook into my handbag. Caffeine is now my priority.
11.
“Yeah, babe. They’re like totally amazing threads for the modern girl.”
If Madison Marsh calls me ‘babe’ one more time, I’m going to hop in a cab, head to Essex, and punch her in the throat. I rang with the intention of booking an appointment with her PA, but now I’m embroiled in a mind-numbing conversation with the woman herself.
It’s too early for this shit.
“It sounds amazing, Madison. So, when would you like me to pop over?”
“Oh my God,” she gasps. “And there’s this dress with a lace bodice. It’s just so gorgeous — you’ve never seen anything like it in your life, babe.”
“I can’t wait to see it … maybe next Thursday, or Friday?”
“What about Wednesday?”
If I could do Wednesday, I’d have said Wednesday, you dumb fuck.
“Unfortunately I’m stuck in meetings all day Wednesday. How about the following week?”
“That’s totally cool, babe. Tuesday?”
“Great. Shall we say one o’clock?”
“Brilliant … I’m so excited, babe, and I know you’re just gonna love the clothes.”
I end the call before she gets a second wind.
Madison Marsh is a prime example of what happens when stupid people get rich. Her husband, Danny Marsh, earns seven million quid a year. Seven million quid for kicking a football around — what is wrong with the world?
After their fairy-tale wedding last year, which reputedly cost six hundred grand, the young couple moved into a ten-bedroom McMansion in Essex. Clearly bored out of her tiny mind, Madison felt she needed a respectable job — rather than her prior job of being photographed with her tits constantly on show. So, she’s now set up a clothing brand which is about to be launched on an unsuspecting public.
Given the choice, I think the public would prefer a chlamydia epidemic.
It would be fair to say my morning is not going well, and a far cry from the pleasurable evening I enjoyed yesterday; on the sofa in my pyjamas, browsing exotic holidays with a bottle of wine and a pizza for company — all courtesy of my unexpected inheritance.
Before I can make a decision on the destination of said holiday, I need to book some time off, and that means a conversation with Damon. With zero enthusiasm, I head to his office.
“Have you got a minute?” I ask, knocking on the already open door.
“Not really.”
“Fine — thirty seconds will do. I want to book some leave.”
He looks up. “Why?”
“Because I’m entitled to it.”
“Right,” he huffs. “You keep skipping out of the office like yesterday and
you’ll find yourself on permanent leave.”
“I was chasing a lead on a story.”
“You know the rules. Everyone attends the morning briefing without fail or excuse.”
“Point taken. Now, can I book that leave?”
His face painted with disdain, he turns to the computer monitor.
“When?” he grunts.
“Next month.”
“No can do.”
“The month after?”
“There’s nothing free until late July.”
“I don’t want to book anything during the school holidays. It’ll cost double, and every resort will be full of screaming brats.”
Disdain morphs to smug. “Not my problem. You should have booked earlier.”
“Actually, thinking about it, I quite like the idea of going away in September. And didn’t Gini just switch her leave from September to October?”
Fuck you, Damon.
“Fine, whatever. Now, get on with some work, will you.”
I leave him with a smile.
I’m not happy about waiting until September but I don’t want Damon to know that. It’s still five months away but the wait is preferable to taking a break in the school holidays. A fortnight of daily smear tests would be preferable to that experience.
I head back to my cubicle; content to have won the battle if not the war.
With all the motivation of a politician in July, I slump down in my chair and stare at the monitor. I have plenty to do but little worth doing. Rather than actual work, I decide a browse through Twitter might rile me into action.
I click the icon in my bookmarks and the Twitter page opens up. I expected to see a few notifications about my post from yesterday but there’s nothing — no comments, no retweets, and no likes. Either Clawthorn is as much a mystery to my followers as it is to me, or I’ve been summarily unfollowed by eight hundred people overnight. I click on my profile to check, and discover the tweet containing the photo of the notebook isn’t even there.
I think back. I definitely compiled the tweet but did I actually post it? I can’t remember but the evidence is clear to see, or not in this case. I grab my phone and tweet just the photo of the notebook cover, ensuring it’s definitely on my timeline. If I can’t take a holiday, I need to take up yoga or something — this stress is messing with my mind.
Clawthorn (Clement Book 3) Page 8