by Keith Nixon
Sylvia was Carslake’s personal assistant. Her hair and clothes were straight out of the 1950s. When Carslake was there, so was she, whatever the hour, whatever the day.
No fan of Gray’s, Sylvia believed he was a drag to Carslake’s career prospects. All she wanted for herself and her boss was a cushy job at HQ.
Gray ignored her glare as he strolled past her desk, a strand of gold tinsel stretched across the top of her monitor. He didn’t bother to knock on Carslake’s closed door.
Carslake was at his desk, writing, the scratch of nib on paper a dead giveaway. The DCI was a traditionalist.
“Take a seat,” he said. Carslake had a habit of speaking slowly and carefully, as if he were explaining things to a child or an imbecile. Hamson had often said it was sexist, but Gray didn’t take Carslake’s behaviour personally.
Gray closed the door and flopped down onto one of the cheap plastic seats facing his boss’s desk. The chair creaked in protest as he shifted around, trying to get comfortable.
People never really grew up. Behaviours learnt in the playground and classroom usually carried through to adulthood. Even the bloody chairs were the same, the teacher’s always more comfortable than the pupil’s.
The office was as bare as Gray’s fridge, giving the impression of only temporary residence. Carslake’s desk was empty, apart from an overflowing in-tray, an ink pot, and the folder in front of him.
Tidy desk, tidy mind was one of Carslake’s well-worn mottos. A filing cabinet lurked in a corner, flanked by a coat stand where a grey mackintosh dangled from a brass hook, and a bookshelf boasted a pair of official photos and some Christmas cards.
An overhead bulb threw out a thin, reedy light, softened and warmed by a lampshade – no doubt positioned by Sylvia. The cheap plastic blinds were open, revealing the same bland aspect of sea and sky that he’d seen from Arlington House, albeit at a shallower angle. Beyond the cards, Gray was glad to see no Christmas decorations had crept into the room. At least one other person round here was being sensible.
Carslake’s austere attitude was a way of separating home from work, to ensure one did not intrude too far into the other. Although it was impossible to achieve completely, a long and happy marriage and several children (now at university) attested to the relative success of his approach. Whereas Gray’s marriage had long since flushed itself down the toilet. There was no one left except his daughter Hope, and she was living God knows where. Wherever she was, she wasn’t interested in her dad.
Carslake let Gray stew for a minute while he wrote. Gray stretched out in the hope that minimising contact with the chair would provide more comfort. It didn’t.
“Paperwork, the curse of seniority,” said Gray in an attempt to break the silence.
Carslake, as if waking up to Gray’s presence, placed his pen carefully on the desk, and ran stubby fingers through sandy, slightly silvering, hair. He appeared fit and healthy, a good colour to his skin despite the winter gloom.
“Sarcasm becomes you, Sol.”
“I know. I’ve worked hard on it.”
“Little else, though.”
Gray wasn’t sure whether Carslake was joking. It felt more like a rebuke. One that was unfair.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” said Carslake. He stared impassively at Gray, his fingers interlocked and his forearms resting on the paperwork he’d been poring over. The DCI’s nails were nicely manicured, unlike Gray’s.
“I’m lost. What’s to explain?”
“A phone, with your number on it. At a crime scene.”
Feigning confusion Gray said, “It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else.”
Carslake sighed, gave a slight shake of the head. This time, Gray allowed the silence to stretch, and let Carslake be the one to break it.
“What’s going on, Sol?”
“I’ve no idea what you mean.”
“Who’s the suicide?”
Gray knew Carslake would be aware of all the facts as soon as they came in. He also knew that he was being probed, the DCI looking for chinks in his armour. “All I know is he was called Nick. I don’t think he’s been properly identified yet.”
Not by us, anyway.
“I don’t like this. There will be questions from upstairs.”
“There always are. But the thing is, Jeff, we work on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. So I’ll say it again, I don’t know the kid.”
Gray had backed Carslake into a corner. It was a case now of either being called a liar or producing some evidence which countered Gray’s claim and laid bare his deceit.
“Okay, Sol. I’ll take you at your word.”
Bad idea.
Gray stood. “I’d better get back to it, then.”
“Sit down, I’m not finished with you yet,” said Carslake. “Doctor Mallory ring any bells?”
“Not particularly. Who is he?”
“A private clinician retained by Kent Police. You were supposed to see him.”
“Was I?”
Carslake answered with a glare. “This is getting tedious, Sol. Cut the crap.”
Deciding to fight fire with fire, to draw attention from his bigger transgression, Gray jerked up out of the seat. He leaned over the desk, looming over the startled Carslake. “Why the bloody hell should I?”
These days they were equal only in age. Rank was something he no longer aspired to and there was a tension between the men.
“Because I’m telling you so, DS Gray. It’s how it works. I’m the boss, remember?”
How could he forget? Gray flopped back down in the chair.
“Sylvia said you deliberately avoided her whenever she tried to pin you down about the appointments.”
Bloody Sylvia, wreaking her petty revenge. “I’ve been busy, sir.” Gray could get all formal too.
“Really?” Carslake sounded unconvinced.
“Really.”
“Well, to avoid any further confusion another appointment has been booked for you.”
“My casework–”
“Can be put on hold for an hour. I want to see what Doctor Mallory thinks of you.”
“I can say what I’ll think of him.”
“You’ve never even met the good doctor. He’s new and I anticipate his opinion will be more balanced and professional than yours.”
“Ouch, that hurts.”
Carslake failed to see the humour. “It was meant to.” He moved around the desk and sat on one corner, perched above Gray. Thankfully Carslake refrained from swinging his leg.
“Why are you making me do this?” asked Gray.
“I have to, it’s procedure. My hands are tied.” Carslake sighed. “Look, Sol, you really need to pay attention to this. If you see a shrink, it means I can keep Professional Standards off both our backs should push come to shove again. Don’t you want that?”
“Everyone has bad days.”
“With your history you’re not even allowed average days.”
Gray tensed, saw the regret immediately slide across the DCI’s face, a half-formed apology on his lips. An uncomfortable silence fell across the office as the old wound briefly bled, never quite cauterised for either man.
“Once. I lost it once.”
“And the reason was understandable.” Carslake clicked his fingers a couple of times. “What was the reporter’s name?”
“Scully.”
“That’s it. There was plenty of sympathy for you. What he wrote was atrocious. But it can’t happen again. Times are different, emotions aren’t as raw, sympathy isn’t as forthcoming. I won’t be able to stick my neck out for you again.”
Gray remembered the disciplinary hearing and Carslake’s defence of him. He reasoned that Sylvia was right to see Gray as a risk. And Carslake was right to make him see a shrink. Carslake ran a hand through his hair once more.
“What I mean is, once your card is marked you have to be whiter than white. Which means occasional visits to the medical exper
ts, okay?”
“What’s brought all this on?”
Carslake sighed. “There’s no easy way to put it. We - no, I - have cut you a lot of slack over the years.” Carslake held a hand up when Gray opened his mouth to argue. “Just let me speak. We’re all sensitive to your past.”
“You can say it, you know,” bit back Gray. “Tom, Kate.”
“Quite. You’ve never been the easiest of people to get on with at the best of times and we all know when to steer clear, but there are limits.”
“Limits?”
“I’m getting feedback that your behaviour is more erratic than whatever is deemed normal for you.”
“Says who?”
“That’s immaterial.”
“Who?”
“More than one person. And no matter how much you press me, I’m not revealing their identities.”
“Bastards.”
“Nobody’s sticking the knife in, Sol. Look, why don’t you take some leave? Christmas is coming and you’ve got plenty of time accrued. Hamson can handle the suicide. Get out of the station, get out of Thanet and go somewhere quiet until you’ve worked through whatever it is that’s on your mind.”
The suggestion struck Gray between the eyes like a well-aimed arrow. There wasn’t anywhere he fancied going on holiday which meant he’d be stuck in the house alone. He couldn’t think of anything worse.
“It’s pointless, I’ll never be past it.”
“Nobody expects you to be.” Carslake shifted off the desk. Sagged into his chair. He leaned forward, his fingers steepled, and regarded Gray. He let the silence stretch.
“Nearly a decade,” said Carslake eventually. “Unbelievable how time slips by.”
“Not for me. Every day since then has felt like an eternity.”
“Understandable.” Carslake seemed a little embarrassed. Gray didn’t feel sorry for him. He should know better. “We’ve still got the here and now to deal with, and that means the doctor.”
“Mallory’s a quack! I’ll bet a week’s wages he has no idea what it’s like to be a cop, no matter how many diplomas he has on his walls.”
“Apparently he has a background in this sort of stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Stress.”
“For God’s sake, Jeff.”
Carslake sighed. “See Mallory, do what he says. Understood?”
“Not really.”
“You’re making it increasingly hard for me to look out for you.”
Gray didn’t trust his mouth and kept it closed.
“I assume by your silence you’ve taken the point?”
Carslake wouldn’t be taking no for an answer so Gray eventually managed a grudging agreement. Not that he had any real choice.
A reassured smile appeared briefly on Carslake’s lips. “Well, I’m glad we had this little chat.” He sat upright in his seat. “Now bugger off and see Sylvia on your way out.”
Gray did as he was told, closed the door silently behind him. Sylvia was holding a slip of paper in her left hand. Gray snatched it out of her fingers as he passed.
“You’re welcome,” she said. Gray grunted. The sound of Sylvia’s fingers tapping at the keyboard followed Gray like nails scraping a blackboard.
Halfway down the stairs Gray felt a vibration on his leg, and he heard the muffled but still irritating ditty. He dug around in a pocket for his mobile. The number was listed as unknown. Against his better judgement Gray answered and a familiar, unpleasant voice wormed its way into his ear.
“Good afternoon, Detective Inspector.” It was Ed bloody Scully.
“Sergeant.”
“Of course, stupid of me. I was getting ahead of myself. Unlike you.”
Gray ignored the insult and the reporter’s accompanying chuckle. “What do you want?”
“A quote.”
“Seriously?”
“No, don’t be ridiculous. I know you’d tell me to shove it.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you speak sense for a long time.”
The reporter laughed. “Don’t go repeating that, you’ll ruin my reputation.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“Now who’s lying?”
“Look, I’m busy. Spit it out or bugger off.”
“With pleasure. Have you got a name for the suicide yet?”
“No comment.”
“He looked so young. Such a pity.”
Gray knew he’d be a fool to ask, but he couldn’t resist. “What is?”
“That there was another kid you couldn’t protect.”
He gripped the mobile until his knuckles turned white. If the reporter had been within reach Gray would have ripped his head off. “The next time I see you…”
Scully was already gone, his laughter hanging in the air.
Five
Gray held his breath, and his temper, until he hit the car park. He shoved the access door hard. It slammed into the wall, the handle gouging a chunk out of the brickwork. The impact and accompanying bellowed expletive from Gray drew stares from a couple of hardy PCs sucking on cigarettes.
“What?” he spat.
“Nothing, sir,” replied the braver of the two women.
“Don’t you have work to be getting on with?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gray nodded as if to say get on with it then, walked the few paces to his car and slid inside. As he put the key into the ignition he checked his rear view. The women were stubbornly sucking down the last of the tar-laden smoke. They skimmed glances in his general direction, drawing the line at a direct stare, muttering between themselves. There was even the brief shake of a head.
Being talked about behind your back again, Sol.
Gray almost got out but stopped himself. They’d done nothing wrong. It was him.
He waited until they ditched the filters and returned to the station before he started the engine of his blocky Saab. It was a bit of a clunker, but always started and was cheap to run. Material objects no longer mattered to Gray. After a brief pause for traffic he swung out onto the road and began the drive home, which, on a good run, would take no more than a quarter of an hour, though there was no such thing as a straightforward route around here.
Just beyond the sprawling hospital grounds, where rough-and-ready Margate became genteel Broadstairs, a sudden impulse struck him.
Instead of going straight over at the Dane Court Road roundabout he turned left into the sleepy parish of St Peters. Not so long ago the village had teemed with life. But once the post office closed, most of the other businesses had slipped away too, one by one. It was like watching a once fit and proud person slide into decay and dementia.
It was the same story all over Thanet, the area which encompassed the three interlinked towns of Margate, Broadstairs, and Ramsgate on the eastern tip of Kent.
He swept by three- and four-storey houses (where the artist William Sickert, a Jack the Ripper suspect, had once resided), a rather good Chinese restaurant, a passable chip shop, and The Red Lion pub before taking another left and pulling in at the rear of a supermarket, about the only business generating any serious revenue round here.
He slammed the door shut and locked up using the key, as the battery in the fob was long dead. For a moment he leaned back against the car and stared at the flint–built church which brooded over the immediate surroundings. A crenelated tower, more like a castle than a place of worship, pushed up towards the heavens and looked over the vicarage and burial ground.
He progressed along a narrow tarmac path, as straight as any Roman road, away from the church, through the markers of the long dead.
He passed a war grave, kept scrupulously clean; then, a few yards further along, a looming angel minus its left arm; and beyond that a formal mausoleum, ringed by a rusty metal fence.
A police officer who’d been killed in the line of duty (shot), his fiancée following on not far behind (cause of death unstated), and a maritime disaster (only the wealthy honoured).
When he passed the tiny stones, the ones for children and babies, Gray looked elsewhere. It was too painful to see the lives of the young cut ludicrously short.
The cemetery had changed since his last visit; a slash and burn policy stripping away the shrubs that had sprung up between the corpses.
It was a shame. Gray had liked the place’s unruly appearance, a little life among the dead. A number of the subsequently revealed plots had been reclaimed by the greenery, roots bursting through marble and stone, ivy scarring the dedications. At least they’d had attention from something; touched by the organic. Now the dead were bare and forgotten again. Not even wilted flowers adorned the memorials.
A voice in Gray’s head told him to stop. He was at the stone. His eyes skimmed over the first few words. Katherine Gray. Kate. She’d passed on five years ago, but she’d been dead inside long before. As Carslake had said, it was incredible how quickly time passed. And yet how slowly.
There was a gravestone to the right of Kate's. Not for him, but for their son, Tom. She’d bought both plots, two graves, without Gray’s knowledge, after they were separated. By then she controlled her own finances. The joint account split down the middle, like everything else after their marriage, came to a shuddering halt. No divorce though, because she believed in the sanctity of the union, and so his surname graced the dedication. Now everything she once owned was his. Including these spaces in the earth.
It had been a critical argument between them – whether Tom was alive or dead. Gray wouldn’t give up until he saw proof; Kate said she knew he was gone. Gray asked how that was possible; Kate simply pointed to her chest and said it came from within. From God in her heart.
And where was that higher being when Kate chose to check out and move on?
That day, Gray had received a panicked phone call from her best friend, Alice. There was no note. He'd never know what finally drove Kate to end it all. But he understood what had started her inevitable slide.
Loss.
Gray couldn’t allow his eyes to reach the final letters of the inscription. He’d never done so in all the days and months after burying her. He turned, retraced his steps faster than the trudge that had brought him here, his heart pounding.
Gray sank onto a bench, facing a small square of land where the cremations were consecrated, a rectangular brass plaque for each life affixed to the floor or wall with undersized screws. Gray felt his heart gradually slow, his breathing ease from the fast, short bursts which had previously punctuated his lungs.