Mud Pie

by Emma Lee Bole

  Chapter Twenty

  Incident Room

  My mother got drunk at the drop of a hat-pin. She drank to pep herself up and she drank to help her sleep. When she was working, sporadically, she drank to wind up enough energy for the pickle factory or the cleaning or the tills: when she got home she drank some more to unwind again. None of the jobs lasted long. Drinking was the only occupation she never tired of, and at which she never failed.

  I stopped expecting anything else. I tried to stop caring, and nearly succeeded. Other people’s drinking didn’t bother me – except when they had charge of children: then, by unforgettable instinct, the huge, impotent rage would surge up in me again.

  When I realised AnneMarie had a vodka bottle in her handbag, the fury that swelled in my lungs had made it difficult to breathe. The following morning, walking into the bar to find Brendan slumped on the bench seat with a glass in his hand and the Macallan open on the table, it was all I could do not to scream at him and hurl the bottle into the fireplace.

  I laced my hands behind my back. The girls were safe at school, I told myself. No problem. Brendan was allowed a drink. So instead of screaming, I gently asked, “Are you all right, Brendan?”

  “Aye.” He stared at the smoking fire. His eyes were pink-rimmed, sleep-starved. “It’s just the funeral. You know.”

  “I know.”

  “She should have...” His voice tailed away into a sigh. Rhoda came in and tutted sharply at the sight of the bottle.

  “If you want a Scotch, what’s wrong with the blended?” she said severely.

  Then she looked more closely at Brendan. Sitting down beside him on the bench seat, she took the glass out of his limp grasp and replaced it with her hand. “Brendan, I know it’s hard. But drinking won’t help. It can’t bring anyone back.”

  “It’s like a big black hole,” said Brendan almost to himself. “Like a great empty pit’s opened up underneath the rugby club.”

  “Well, there’d be no surprises there, seeing who built it,” said Rhoda tartly. “But life goes on. It has to, Brendan.”

  “I know. It’s just… I don’t want things to change.” He looked up at her.

  “Oh, Brendan,” she said, more softly. “Don’t you worry. Nothing’s going to change. The club will be fine.”

  “It’s not the club I’m worried about.” I could hardly hear his voice, and Rhoda chose not to.

  “Just because they’ve cancelled the matches this weekend, there’s no need for anyone to panic,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “No.”

  “After all, there’s a lot of flu about.”

  “Niall says they’re cancelling because of Becki,” said Brendan dolefully.

  “Oh, well, he’d know, of course! Trust him to make a crisis out of a hiccup.”

  “No, but Stevo says the same.”

  Rhoda shook her head disbelievingly. “What a load of big girls’ blouses! Mind you, some of those mothers at the school gate are no better. They’re pulling their lads out of the mini-rugby, and sending them down to Macc.”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Safety concerns,” snorted Rhoda. “Not coming back until the killer’s caught. I’d say superstition, myself. Or squeamishness. I’ve got no patience with them.” She put a hand on Brendan’s shoulder. “It’ll all pass by, Brendan. People have short memories. They’ll come back.”

  “Not once they’ve defected to Macc or Congleton, they won’t.” Brendan stared gloomily at the whisky bottle. “Niall’s panicking. Says we’ll be way into the red if this goes on. He’s called an EGM next week.”

  “What’s an EGM?” I said.

  “Extraordinary General Meeting.”

  “Oh, well, that’ll solve everything,” said Rhoda acidly.

  “He is chairman, after all. Says if we don’t do something we might have to close down and sell up. The club might die along with Becki.”

  “Niall just likes to fuss,” Rhoda told him. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Will it, Rhoda? Really?” He gazed at her, mournfully appealing. Rhoda did not quite meet his gaze, but patted his cheek. When Brendan enveloped her in a hug, she only succumbed for a second before pulling away.

  “As long as you don’t empty that bottle,” she said warningly. “It’s time to open the doors now, Brendan. You can have a drink later. The bar towels need changing and I want all those tables wiping down.” The tables were fine, but it got Brendan onto his feet, if not quite steadily.

  Rhoda surveyed him for a moment, her mouth set, then put the cap firmly back on the Macallan. Turning to me, she said briskly, “Now then, Lannie, is that redcurrant sauce made?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Don’t be cheeky. Any of the caramel parfait left?”

  “About half. And I did an apple and cinnamon sponge, only we’d better call it something else.”

  “Delight,” said Rhoda. “Charlotte.”

  “Okay.” That reminded me. I felt for my phone.

  “I’ll go and chalk it up on the specials board.” Rhoda had been nicer about my cooking lately. I didn’t know why. But she seemed a little happier all round, less pale and pinched, and went so far as to smile at me occasionally. She even told me how much she’d enjoyed the lemon and ginger mousse, although I knew Brendan had eaten it.

  Whatever had gone on between her and Brendan on the day of the flood seemed to have been smoothly plastered over, but what cracks remained beneath, I couldn’t tell. I felt awkward with Brendan, kept seeing him with Becki in my mind. Becki sliding her arm round him, caressing him, while Rhoda waited in hospital corridors alone….

  It wasn’t like Becki even wanted him particularly. Could have been Hugh, or Frank, or maybe Niall, or any number of them. Good old Becki. Poor old Becki. Bloody hell, Becki… I tried to push the images out of my head, but Becki kept sneaking back behind the bar to cuddle Brendan when Rhoda wasn’t looking.

  Lunchtime was busy. It was a while before I could escape out to the car park to ring Charlotte. I retreated to the furthest corner, the only place with a decent signal, and perched on the stone wall.

  “Charlotte. How you doing?”

  “Lannie. I’m fine. I’m good.”

  She wasn’t. I knew at once from her voice.

  “What’s up, Charlotte? Is the shop okay?”

  “Yes. Well, yes and no. To be honest,” she said, “business is pretty dreadful since the fire, but that’s business for you. It’ll pick up.”

  “Of course it will.”

  “You can’t force people to buy buns, after all.”

  “I can,” I said. “I’ll come and wave a shotgun outside your shop.” Not good taste. I tried again. “Get a sandwich board and I’ll march it up and down Wilmslow Road for you.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Her voice was still flat. “And I’m worried about Hugh. He’s pretty down. Actually I even suggested he should go to his doctor, and get something to make him feel better, but he refuses point-black. He says he won’t touch any drugs these days, not even anti-depressants, although I think they might help him more than Tamara does. To be honest, I don’t think Tamara’s helping much.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, he needs a good strong shoulder, someone practical and steady.” I wondered if she meant me. “All she can do is bill and coo and flutter uselessly. And, Lannie, I...”

  “What is it, Charlie?”

  She sighed. “Oh, hell, I don’t know, just nothing seems to be working out.”

  “You’re not enjoying being back at home?”

  “I shouldn’t moan. I’m very grateful to Daddy and Jane for putting me up. It’s just hard when you’re used to having your own place. I don’t like being dependent again, and Jane is just so incredibly fluffy. I mean – she’s a lovely person, but my God. And Lannie, something you should know. I was going to ring you tonight.”

  “Why, what is it?”

  “Do you remember a Mark Jones from college?”

 
; “Jones, Jones. I can remember a few Marks but not Joneses. Why?”

  “A Mark Jones who used to know you in college rang asking if we knew your address. And Jane, who answered the phone, bless her little cotton socks, gaily said, oh yes, we know Lannie, she’s living down near Fylington now, in a house that belongs to someone who owns a reclamation yard. And she’s working at the rugby club.”

  “What? How does she know all that?”

  “You told her, Lannie, the night we went to Ute,” said Charlotte wearily.

  “Oh, shit. When was this call?”

  “Jane can’t remember. She just came out with it this morning. ‘Oh yes, that reminds me’ sort of thing. She thought maybe a week, maybe two weeks ago.”

  “Oh, Christ. Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m not sure!” snapped Charlotte. “She hasn’t got a clue. She’s got the memory of a hamster. If I’d found out sooner I would have told you, wouldn’t I? And anyway it might mean nothing at all.”

  “Of course it might. Sorry, Charlotte.”

  “It’s probably pure coincidence,” said Charlotte. “There’s nobody chasing you any more.”

  “No. Anyway, since they’ve got Becki, they’ll be assuming I’m dead.”

  There was a brief pause. Then Charlotte said cautiously, “Well, yes. As long as they didn’t see that thing in the paper.”

  “What thing?” I said.

  “In the Evening News. They’ve opened the inquest and adjourned it. There was a picture of Becki and quotes from her old boss: sorely missed and so on.”

  “Was there? We don’t get the Evening News down here,” I said, my mouth dry. “That means – oh, Christ, oh bloody hell.”

  “That means nothing at all,” said Charlotte sharply, “until the police find out who murdered Becki in the first place. Calm down, Lannie! There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “There’s everything to worry about.”

  “Well, at least nobody’s firebombed your pub!”

  There was a couple of seconds’ silence before I said, “Sorry, Charlotte.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. How is the police investigation going?”

  “They’re getting nowhere fast, I think. How long are you planning to stay at home?”

  “God knows. I’ll find another flat when things pick up, in a few months maybe. It won’t be Didsbury though. Might have to be Withington or Northenden. Look, Lannie, I’ve got to go.”

  “Can we get together soon?” We arranged to meet in a couple of weeks. I rang off, depressed that Charlotte sounded so depressed, and that I was the cause of it. I was responsible for all of them: Brendan, Charlotte, and Hugh too, all blighted by the deed done with my knife.

  Mark Jones. Had I known a Mark Jones? I quickly frisked my memory. There were too many faces. People had flitted in and out of college courses, but I didn’t remember a Mark Jones. Maybe I had come across him, but not remembered. In which case, why would he remember me? Was it worth telling Grimshaw? I didn’t really want to; I could just visualise his sceptical sneer.

  Nonetheless, once the lunches were over I made my excuses to Rhoda and caught the bus down to Fylington.

  I didn’t go straight to the incident room. First I pretended to look in shop windows, trying to fool myself that my real purpose was just an afterthought. But I couldn’t keep it up for long, and eventually sidled past the police cars into the parish hall.

  It was chilly and echoey, with a huddle of folding chairs and trestle tables under the high steel-beamed roof. Cables trailed across the floor. Charts and photos were pinned upon partitions. I glanced briefly: Becki’s face looked back, grinning. My stomach tightened. I had that old police station feeling of anxious dread, like exam time in the school hall.

  A fresh-faced young constable bade me sit and after an echo of murmurs Grimshaw appeared. He sat down on the folding chair opposite me, crossed his legs carefully, and leaned back to listen. Which meant I had to do all the talking. And Mark Jones sounded entirely stupid, like an excuse to make myself important.

  Though Grimshaw’s eyebrows were sceptical, his manner was smoothly pleasant.

  “If it was less than two weeks ago that he contacted Charlotte’s stepmother, the phone call can have no bearing on the murder. However, it’s easy enough to check if Mark Jones exists,” he said. “Just tell me the years you were at the college and we’ll get on to the admissions office.”

  “It’s a common name,” I said. “And she can’t remember when the phone call was.”

  “We’ll check with the phone company if we think it necessary.” His tone told me he thought it would be totally unnecessary.

  “I had a threatening letter as well,” I said, stung. “I told DI Cole. It was addressed to the Woolpack at Fylington, and posted in Manchester the Wednesday before Becki’s murder.”

  That caught his attention more. He leaned forward and looked at my hands expectantly. “A letter? Where is it?”

  “Well, Rhoda threw it away.”

  “Ah. Did she.” His voice went flat. “How useful.”

  I felt uncomfortable. “But she can vouch for the contents.”

  “Which were?” he said with exaggerated patience.

  I recited them as well as I could remember. “Rhoda read it too, because at first she thought it was for her.”

  “Now why would she think that?”

  “There was no name on it. No other reason.” Then I took a sharp breath and stared dumbly at Grimshaw while he sighed and leafed through a brown file on his desk, because it had just occurred to me that in fact there was a perfectly good reason why Rhoda thought the letter was for her.

  The reason was Becki. Brendan had an affair with Becki, which they weren’t too successful at keeping secret. How many people had known? How many of Brendan’s mates had seen him getting hell off Rhoda because of it, and had thought she was being too hard on him, refusing forgiveness? You were supposed to love him and look after him, not make him suffer...

  That letter could just as easily have been for Rhoda as for me. Any of Brendan’s friends might have written it. But I had no way of knowing for sure, and it filled me with irrational panic.

  “Oh Christ,” I said. “What?”

  Grimshaw raised his eyes briefly to the ceiling and repeated his question. “Have you heard from your brother at all?”

  “Karl? No, how would I? Why do you ask?”

  Grimshaw leaned back in his chair, studying the file on his desk. “According to the governor of Strangeways, he’s been writing a lot of letters lately. To family, various prison charities, solicitors. I thought you might have heard from your solicitor.”

  “I don’t have a solicitor. What’s he so busy about, anyway?”

  He looked at me from heavy-lidded eyes. “He’s considering an appeal.”

  “Is he? Shit.”

  “Wilford Nevis is already appealing. His hearing comes up soon.”

  “They won’t let him out, will they? Will I have to give evidence all over again?” I didn’t think I could stand that.

  “The appeal is against the length of sentence rather than the verdict. I don’t think you’ll be required.”

  “Good.” Another thought occurred to me. “But if he wins his appeal, how soon could they release him?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  Great. “How is the murder investigation going?”

  “Slowly. There’s still a small mountain of possible evidence to sift through.”

  “Still? You’ve had ages.”

  “Do you know how many interviews we’ve done?” he demanded in a flare of irritation. “And how many items of clothing and shoes we’ve had to check? And fingerprints and footprints?”

  “I gather you’re not getting very far.”

  He closed down again. “We are making good progress. Not many murder inquiries are solved on the spot, you know.”

  “But the longer it takes, the less likely it is.”

 
“Well, thank you for that insight, Miss Herron.”

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it? And you still suspect it’s somebody from the club?”

  “We’ve been able to rule a number of people out.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Well, I hope you’ve managed to rule me out,” I said, trying to be facetious. Mistake. Grimshaw leant forward, put his arms on the desk, and said,

  “You like being the centre of attention, don’t you, Miss Herron?”

  “No, not much.”

  He gazed at me coolly. “Did you enjoy standing up in court last year and giving evidence about your brother and his friends?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “The judge praised your courage and integrity. That must have made you feel good.”

  “Not particularly. It was my brother who was being put away.”

  The hardness of his stare was discomfiting. It made me feel that I must be guilty of something. “And you were the heroine,” he said.

  “Not in many people’s eyes.”

  “Oh, but you were. You didn’t have to go through all that. It was entirely your choice.”

  “So what are you getting at? Are you saying I murdered Becki so I could stand up in court and be the centre of attention again?”

  “Stranger things happen,” said Grimshaw. “Some people commit major crimes for very small and selfish reasons.”

  “Not me. I had no reason to murder Becki. I liked Becki.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure.”

  “But Becki could be abrasive,” said Grimshaw reflectively. “Becki dealt in drugs, which you don’t approve of. You’re prepared to take very strong action against drug dealers. And in addition, Becki had her eye on several of the players, including your good friend Hugh and at least one of the married members, Niall Egan. Did you approve of that?”

  “No, not really, but–”

  “Becki liked to flaunt herself. You don’t.”

  “I might.”

  He surveyed me with cold crocodile eyes. “I think you took a very dim view of Becki’s lifestyle.”

  I felt uncomfortable. He was too close to a truth that I was slowly discovering for myself. I had liked Becki fine, but I was liking her less as I found out more about her. If I’d known about the drugs a month ago, what would I have done?

  “Her lifestyle was none of my business.”

  “Just like Karl’s lifestyle was none of your business?”

  “That was entirely different!” I was getting hot and bothered. “All right! If I disapproved of Becki so much that I followed her outside and stabbed her, why wasn’t I covered in blood? And what about the goose?”

  “You used a binliner to protect your clothes. There wasn’t a wide blood spatter in any case. You then stabbed her repeatedly to make it look like the attack of a madman.”

  “She would have fought back,” I said.

  “You were a friend: she wasn’t expecting you to attack her. That explains why there was no sign of a struggle. And as for the goose – well, it just came scavenging round the bins and got in the way, didn’t it? And then got it in the neck. You don’t like the geese.”

  “Who says?”

  “But it provided a nice distraction, a bright red herring for the police.”

  “None of this happened. You know it wasn’t me.”

  “You have no alibi. Nobody was watching your movements. You could go out to the bins unnoticed. You did, when you found her body. Why not earlier, when the murder was committed?”

  “Because I’m not a murderer!”

  He was unmoved. “You know how to use a knife.”

  “Not on people! For Christ’s sake! I didn’t kill Becki,” I said. “I didn’t use a binliner or anything else. Have you found a binliner with blood on it?”

  “We have a number of pieces of evidence,” said Grimshaw tightly.

  “But none that count, am I right? No binliner, no blood on people’s clothes? If you’d found any on mine, you would have arrested me by now!”

  “If we’re short of evidence,” he retorted, glaring, “that’s not entirely our fault, is it, Miss Herron? What about that letter that you say you got? A pity you didn’t think to keep it safe – if it actually existed!”

  “Of course it existed!”

  “Well, of course. I beg your pardon.” His voice was sarcastic.

  “Would it make any difference?” I stared at him in indignation. “I don’t believe you’ve found a thing. You’re really desperate, aren’t you? You haven’t got a clue what happened, so you’re taking it out on me!”

  Grimshaw sat back and recrossed his legs. Calm and deliberate. “We’re looking at all the possibilities.”

  “Well, you’re a bit bloody late looking at this one, aren’t you? You should have arrested me right at the start. Do you want to do it now, or can I go?”

  Grimshaw’s eyes snapped. He started to say something sharp, then stopped and made an elegant gesture of release. I marched out smouldering like an over-heated chip pan. I could feel my face burning. Funnily enough, it wasn’t the suspicion of murder that hurt so much as the accusation of attention seeking. He’d decided I was addicted to showing off.

  The trouble was, maybe it wasn’t so far from the truth. I had a sneaky subterranean feeling that I might be addicted to being right. Jumping in with both big feet to prove my point. Not caring to think too hard about that one, I muttered, “As if I’d want your attention, you sardonic self-satisfied git.”

  And I was doubly annoyed because Grimshaw obviously still didn’t believe me. He had no faith in my mythical assassin from gangland.

  I stopped dead on the narrow pavement as Fylington’s rush hour meandered past: a post van, a bicycle, a pair of shopping trolleys dragged along by bent old ladies. I had just made an unwelcome discovery.

  Why the hell had I written my useless list? Why had I thought Becki’s drug habits worth reporting? Why was I afraid that the hate-filled letter might be meant for Rhoda? Why was I trying to pick apart the knotted relationships of the rugby club?

  Because Grimshaw wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe myself.

  Grimshaw thought that Becki was friends with her attacker. No sign of a struggle, he had said. I had a sickening, skulking fear that the murderer was somebody Becki had known well, somebody I knew too: someone I didn’t want it to be.

  Well, there was only one answer for that. Keep picking.