by Matthew Ross
‘Well, you must be so glad then,’ she said, squeezing me. ‘Congratulations.’ But I wasn’t in the mood for celebrating. I know I should have felt relief, but I didn’t. Instead my body shivered with icy cold anger, my skin was prickling and my nerves twitching. A normal person should be overjoyed their brother was back from the dead, but not me. I felt betrayed, humiliated, as if I was the victim of some cruel elaborate prank that the rest of the world was in on and now everyone’s laughing and pointing fingers at me.
Perry spoke, I found her voice calming, ‘We’ll never know how until you ever get to speak to him, but well… you know… how?’
‘Like I say, it was about six years ago.’ I placed the empty wine glass on the table, leaned forwards and nudged it to the centre with my fingertips while I composed my version of events in my head, ‘He’d got involved with stuff for Hamlet, working for him.’
‘Him again?’
‘We were all a little in awe of him back then if I’m honest.’ I twiddled the circular base of the glass, rotating it half a turn, piecing together what to say next. ‘We all thought hanging around with Hamlet gave us a bit of glamour, we never had to wait to get served at a bar, never had to queue outside a nightclub, doors were held open for us, we were like local celebrities. It was right before social media exploded, things weren’t filmed or reported every second of the day on people’s phones, so you could earn a bit of status being at the scene of the stories, especially after they’d got whipped up into legend by the gossips.’
Perry nodded, with a look that said she understood but didn’t get it, that was fine, different upbringings, different aspirations.
‘Trouble is, Hamlet doesn’t give it away for free. If you want the perks then you have to pay for it. Some way or other. Adam seemed to love it. He’d had a few jobs, he’d worked for the Royal Mail, he’d done some gardening, he was working as an estate agent of all things when he disappeared, but I got the impression that turning pro, going full-time with Hamlet was what he’d always wanted, and we ended up arguing about it.’
‘Why? Sounds to me like you were keen on it too.’
I reached for the wine glass but remembered I’d emptied it and the bottle too, so I twisted it another half turn on its stem; in the silent pause Helen Reddy serenaded me with some unfamiliar ballad.
‘I don’t know, maybe. But I was different. I’d get called in to do little jobs here and there, when he needed an electrical job done with no questions asked. And I was a lot younger, it was nice to get paid handsomely, have cash to flash around at the weekend. And I suppose it was quite nice feeling part of something secret and important.’
‘Important?’ she seemed surprised.
‘Probably not the right word, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it.’
‘No, I don’t think important is the right word at all. Significant, possibly, but definitely not important.’ Perry didn’t seem impressed, and with hindsight I couldn’t argue with her.
‘Anyway, Adam didn’t have a trade or any skills, he was just used by Hamlet for fetching and carrying and a bit of driving. Strange now I think about it, he was so proud of himself, thought he was as cool as cowshit, but made me swear not to tell Dad. He knew Dad wouldn’t approve. Dad always would say to us there’s no quick way to getting rich, didn’t that prove true this past couple of weeks for me.’
I noticed a space had opened up between Perry and me on the sofa, she had the look of someone that had wanted the truth only to wish it had remained a secret. But she could tell that, now I’d started, I needed to finish, that I’d bottled it up too long, and through just the gentle movement of her eyes urged me to carry on.
‘His behaviour started changing, I began to suspect he’d started using drugs, more heavily than just weekend partying. We argued about it. By then I was already trying to distance myself and get out of that whole environment.’
Perry got up and headed towards the kitchen without saying a word or looking back at me. I slumped back on the sofa, and ran my hands through my hair, this was a challenge and it felt like I was losing. Perry returned with two bottles of water, handed one to me, and asked me why I wanted to get out.
‘The more I saw, the less I liked it. The stardust, the glitter, it was all crap, it was a dirty ruthless business, I didn’t fit in there, I knew I didn’t belong.’ I twisted the neck of the bottle and took a long sip, the bubbles felt dry as they popped in my mouth. ‘We were at a party Hamlet was hosting in a room above one of his pubs. I needed the loo but it was occupied so I went downstairs, only to find that one was occupied too. Seeing as it was after hours and the pub was closed, I decided to go behind the bar to see if I could find a staff bathroom. I found it all right. But that was occupied as well, in this case by three blokes battering some poor sod to a pulp. I watched them slam his head against the edge of the toilet bowl three or four times, his eye was split, his front teeth gone, blood was sprayed up the white tiles, thick and the most vivid red I’ve ever seen. The guy looked like he’d checked out, they were just hurling him about like a toy, there was no resistance. The man nearest me leaned over and whispered “Get yourself back upstairs, there’s a good boy” and pulled the door shut. Like an obedient little sheep, I did as I was told.’
Perry looked shocked, and a little disappointed but I was beyond caring, I was happy at last to finally offload this canker I’d been carrying about for years.
‘That sounds awful,’ she finally said.
I took another sip from the water to avoid saying anything further. After consideration I decided to leave the story there, I didn’t know how she’d react if she heard the rest of it and I really didn’t want to find out. But that wasn’t the end of it. I went back upstairs and rejoined the party as though nothing had happened, didn’t say a word to anybody, and tried to lose myself in the darkness and music. Twenty minutes or so later the same man opened the door, letting in a rectangle of light through the doorway, and caught Hamlet’s eye on the opposite side of the room. I could see both of them from where I was. The man gave a solemn shake of the head, pursed lips. And I’ll never forget what I saw next. Green and red and blue lights pulsed in time with the music across Hamlet’s face as he slowly drew his extended finger across his throat. Across the room the man nodded as though saying “Message received”, the darkness was sucked back into the hole as the door closed, and he was gone. I have no doubt what the message meant, and what the man was instructed to do. All my life I’ve liked to think I was a good person, that when the time came, I would stand up and do the right thing. But I turned and ran the first time I was told to, and I sat back and watched the order being given and didn’t do a thing, never even told anyone, even now I can’t bring myself to admit my complicity. It was at that point I knew I needed to get away, this wasn’t the life for me.
‘Adam and I had stopped talking, and he barely spoke to Dad too which broke his heart. A few months later I get a phone call from a pub landlord in Gillingham complaining about Adam. He said Adam’s car was in their car park, been there for a couple of weeks and it was making deliveries difficult. I told him it wasn’t my problem.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said he’d tried calling Adam a few times to move it but he wasn’t getting any response, and then moaned that if he’s on holiday he was an inconsiderate dick and his car was about to be towed if it wasn’t moved pronto.’
The landlord hadn’t been exaggerating, it looked like it hadn’t been touched for a while, it was carpeted in sticky yellow dust dropped from the trees and the tyres sagged a little. I drove it home and left it outside my house where it sat untouched for a further four years, waiting like Greyfriars Bobby for its owner to come back, but no-one’s seen or heard from him since.
When he didn’t attend Dad’s funeral, that’s when I finally decided he was never coming back, and it was at that point I reconciled myself to being the last living person in my family, the end of the line. I sold the car at
the same time as I got rid of Dad’s stuff – apart from the sentimental bits now lying in pieces in my garage. I looked on it as making a clean break with the past, setting myself up as the sole survivor of the Poynter dynasty.
For years I’ve tried, with varying degrees of success, not to imagine Hamlet drawing his finger across his throat giving that same silent instruction about Adam, and now it appears he was alive all along. I’d reconciled myself to the thought he was with Mum and Dad, but now the wound had been ripped open and bled as raw as the day he disappeared. Where had he been, and why did he go?
43
Just after breakfast time, Uncle Bern helped me tidy the mess in the garage, and then we headed over to Harpo’s place. From the outside, it looks like what it is, an Airey House refaced in brickwork. Airey Houses were widespread in this area: cheap and quick to assemble prefabricated concrete panels making them the ideal Post-War solution to replenish the depleted social housing stock. They weren’t particularly pretty to look at but semi-rural ones such as Harpo’s, on the edge of the Medway boundary before you tip over the hill down to Maidstone, benefitted from having a lot of outside space.
Harpo had concreted over every available inch – front, back and sides – and then filled it with piles and piles of salvaged bits and pieces. Fabulous ornate terracotta chimney pots jostled for space beside a stack of tin baths, pallets of every kind of roof tile ran the length of the property, Victorian cast iron fire surrounds lived next door to 1960s glass blocks.
We parked the van on the front forecourt. I’d picked up some new infrared sensors designed not to be triggered by animals, so Fantastic Mr Fox wouldn’t keep switching on Harpo’s lights every time he took a short-cut across the yard. For what they cost, I couldn’t be bothered getting into an argument with Harpo about it, I’d simply swap them over and get gone, shouldn’t take an hour, and then we can drop back on to trying to earn a proper living.
Uncle Bern walked into the Airey House looking for Harpo. He doesn’t live here, I should have mentioned that. Harpo has a very nice bungalow almost directly opposite on the other side of the road, obviously there’s a good living to be made in junk. The Airey House is strictly business, downstairs front is his office and then downstairs back and all of upstairs is storage of everything that needs to be kept out of the weather: doors, handles, mirrors, plaster cornices, stained glass and so on, a Tardis treasure trove of old crap.
‘Harpo … Harpo … Harpo,’ Uncle Bern hollered at the top of his voice. Eventually he gave up, stood in the doorway and shouted for me this time. ‘He’s not here, does it look like he’s at home?’
I looked across my shoulder over to the opposite side of the road towards Harpo’s house, and I saw him waddling towards us clutching a half-chewed triangle of toast.
‘Bloody hell Bern,’ he said, between bites, every mouthful disappearing in to that nasty prickly infestation on his face, ‘I could hear you all the way over there in my kitchen.’
‘But could you hear us sitting on the toilet?’ asked Bern.
‘No,’ said Harpo, looking a little confused.
‘Because we could hear you.’ Bern laughed loudly at his silly joke, and I have to admit I did too. Harpo stood still in the middle of the road, feet apart like a Wild West gunslinger and raising both hands held middle fingers aloft, flipping up the bird in stereo. That’s when I saw him – behind Harpo, parked up on a grass verge five or six houses back, the silver Mondeo and yes, I could clearly see the man with the light bulb shaped head. He was watching me. I didn’t want to spook him so I turned my full attention to Harpo by walking to meet him, placing an arm around his shoulder and then heading back towards Uncle Bern in the doorway. My neck itched, eager to turn around. I hoped this pantomime was working and Light Bulb Head would stay put for now.
Hamlet had sworn that there was no police surveillance on me, who is this guy?
I swapped over the sensors, and Harpo seemed pleased. We shook hands on the forecourt and then I began to reload the van with steps and tools whilst Harpo headed home with Bern, promising him tea and toast. As he crossed the road, and as rehearsed, Harpo made a show of noticing the Mondeo, he gave Bern a nudge and pointed at it shouting, ‘Alan! Alan!’
Light Bulb Head looked up, startled. But before he could react, Harpo and Bern were at the car.
‘Alan, how are you?’ continued Harpo. Bern had positioned himself right in front of the car, his knees virtually touching the radiator grille much to the driver’s surprise, but much more of a surprise was the grinning Harpo’s revolting beard at his window coming towards him like a minge with yellow teeth.
Grinning and gesturing to lower the window, Harpo kept the act going, ‘Hello Alan, I thought that was you, didn’t I Bern? I’m not actually open this morning, getting some work done, but anything you need, as I think they’ve just about finished. You’ve finished, haven’t you Bern?’
‘Yep, all done, we’re finished.’
‘See, they’re finished. So, what can I do for you, Alan?’
The driver’s head flicked between Harpo and Bern and back again; he was confused, and as long as he was confused, he was distracted, and that suited me. I ducked down low, I don’t know why but that’s what they do in the movies, and hurried along the opposite footpath before crossing the road. I pulled hard on the door, throwing it wide open and jumped in the passenger seat at which point the driver, Light Bulb Head shrieked like a little girl, ‘Please don’t hurt me, take the car, take the cameras, just don’t hurt me. Please.’
With Bern and Harpo’s help, we escorted him back to Harpo’s office.
‘Sit him on that bench over there,’ said Bern.
‘Bench? That’s a genuine Victorian oak and velvet church kneeler in the Gothic style,’ said Harpo, at his most pedantic. ‘You break it you buy it.’
Light Bulb Head looked around bewildered but thankfully he’d stopped shrieking as it was beginning to get on my nerves. I leaned over him, and demanded he tell me who he is and why he’d been following me.
‘My name’s Graham. I’m a private investigator,’ we were informed, not to mention intrigued.
‘And why is a private investigator following me?’
‘I was hired by a man called French, he wanted you followed.’ Not a name I recognised, I was still none the wiser. ‘You’ve been sleeping with his wife, he wanted photographs, for the divorce.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, only to feel a nudge at my elbow. Uncle Bern was holding Graham’s digital camera. With his finger holding down a button, photos flicked past on the small screen in rapid succession, hundreds of them, all of me over the past week or so. I could feel my hands twitching again, the rage bubbling not far below the surface. I was surprised to find myself so angry at the thought of being spied upon.
Graham had clearly picked up on my mood, he looked as though he was about to burst into tears, with his lack of chin and round bald forehead it was like having a big baby in the room with us.
‘Are you really a private eye?’ asked Uncle Bern, ‘I thought they were all meant to be like Raymond Chandler, you know, rough, tough guys. No offence like, but you’re a bit of a wuss.’
Graham nodded in agreement, and stifled a sob. Bern and Harpo patted his shoulders to calm him down. Eventually he was in a fit state for Bern to coax the full story out of him.
‘Thirteen years I’d been with BT, hated it every bloody day. Then when they offered voluntary redundancy, I leapt at it, and got a tidy little pay off.’ Uncle Bern nodded appreciatively, Graham continued. ‘After a few months I got bored at home, needed a job, wanted to do something different.’
‘So, you became a private eye?’ asked Bern, by now he’d settled down comfortably for a chat and a natter, ‘How’d you get a job like that anyway?’
‘I saw an advert. Correspondence course, do it online. So, I paid the fees, did the course, and set myself up as a private investigator. Got this job, jealous husband, figured
how hard can it be?’
‘But I don’t know anyone called French, and I’ve certainly not been carrying on with any married women.’ I said.
‘You must have,’ Graham had a bit more force in his voice than I expected given his less than robust performance so far. ‘He was very clear in the brief. He said he’d employed you to decorate his living room and kitchen, and he’s totally convinced you were boffing his missus when he was at work.’
‘Decorating?’
‘Yes. That’s what you do, you’re a decorator, Tommy Davies.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m neither of those things.’
‘Yes, you are, don’t lie, it’s even written on your van, Tommy Davies.’
‘Tommy Davies is dead,’ I told him and took the camera from Bern. After a few seconds of bleeping I held it in front of Graham, ‘Look, you even took a photo at his bloody funeral.’
‘Oh. Is that whose it was?’ said Graham, sounding like he was beginning to catch up.
‘Didn’t you think to check?’ asked Bern.
‘You’re right, maybe I should have, but look—’ he took the camera from me, and flicked on several photos to show me sitting looking solemn in a pew, but Graham was pointing to the top corner of the screen at an elegant looking middle-aged lady in black two rows behind me. ‘That’s Yvonne French. I was convinced I’d caught you, so I didn’t bother checking anything, I was more focussed on getting you two together, but you avoided her throughout.’
‘That’s because I don’t bloody know her.’
‘Oh yeah, that’s right, you said,’ the crestfallen Graham was now fully aware of his epic fail.
‘How long have you been following me?’ I asked snatching back the camera, I jabbed my finger at the button and let it flick through frame by frame.
As I looked through the photographs, Bern began chatting, ‘You know, I think maybe you’re not cut out for life as a private eye, son.’ Graham looked up at him, held his gaze, and then nodded his sad agreement.