Over Your Shoulder

by C J Carver

  I strode down Craven Avenue, a quiet residential street just off the main road. Trees, shrubs, little clipped hedges fronting handsome red-brick buildings with crisp white paintwork. Arun Choudhuri lived in a period conversion flat that was, when I looked it up on Zoopla, worth around half a million pounds. Or was he renting? Not that it mattered because the area wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination cheap, making me wonder how much a caretaker got paid, or whether he’d found another job that paid a whole lot better. Maybe he’d just won the Lottery. Or maybe he’d got paid a shedload of money for signing that confidentiality agreement with the Mayfair Group.

  I walked up the path to the front door. Motion sensor lights flooded the area as I approached. From the lights shining upstairs and downstairs within the building, it looked as though everyone was home. I rang the bottom bell, marked Garden Flat: Choudhuri. I heard its trill deep inside the building. I waited. After another minute had passed, I rang the bell again. Still no response. I backed away a little, hoping for a glimpse inside, maybe to see some movement, but the blinds were drawn.

  One last time.

  I rang the bell again, firmly, letting it trill for a rude six seconds.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps he’d nipped out to the shops. To the pub, to see a friend around the corner. But why leave the lights on? Security?

  I stepped close to one of the windows and cocked my head, listening. I could hear voices murmuring faintly. The TV was on. I tapped on the window, nice and light, nothing threatening. Tap-tap-tap.

  Nothing.

  I took out my phone and rang him on his landline; the number I’d got from Helen and recorded on my recently called list. The phone inside the flat rang, and rang. He was either ignoring it or he was out, at least that’s what I hoped because a warning of something dangerous hovered at the periphery of my consciousness. Nothing solid, nothing I could put a finger on, but my unease grew.

  Stop being such an old woman and get your imagination under control, I told myself. A car passed then slowed, came to a halt. I heard it reverse into a parking space. A door slammed shut. An alarm beeped. Then quiet.

  Unsure what to do next, whether to wait a bit more or go home, I cautiously stepped to the side of the house and peered around the corner. The area was well lit and showed a little gravel path leading round the back. I didn’t want to trespass, and I was about to turn away when behind me a man said loudly, ‘Can I help you?’

  I jumped a mile.

  A young man stood on the front path. Smart suit, briefcase, black shoes. He was eyeing me suspiciously.

  ‘I’m here to see Arun Choudhuri,’ I said. ‘He’s not answering his doorbell.’

  The man looked at me, expression flat. My bruised face wouldn’t have inspired confidence and I wondered how to persuade him I wasn’t a wrongdoer.

  ‘He’s not answering his phone either,’ I added. ‘His lights are on. I was worried, that’s all.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘A friend. We spoke yesterday around this time. I expected him to be in.’ The young man’s expression didn’t warm, so I said, ‘My name’s Adam Boden.’ Having had the journalist look me up on the Internet, I’d decided to be more cautious. As I said the name, I stepped forward, offering my hand. Reluctantly, he took it. Gave me a nod.

  ‘Isn’t he usually home now?’ I said.

  He glanced up at the top floor windows. ‘I’m not sure. Ellie will know though.’

  ‘Could he be down the pub?’ I suggested. ‘The shops?’

  He thought that one over. A tiny frown appeared. He said, ‘Give me a moment.’

  I watched him open the front door and step inside, close it behind him. I moved to the front door, close enough to hear him knocking on a door inside and calling: ‘Arun? It’s me. Justin. Arun? Are you there?’

  Then, silence.

  A minute later, I heard the phone ring inside the flat. I guessed that the young man, Justin, was calling Arun.

  A handful of minutes passed before Justin returned minus briefcase but with two keys on a black rubber key tag. Spares, I assumed; they’d have one another’s keys so they could let people into each other’s places just as my family did for tradesmen, plumbers and such like.

  ‘Ellie says Arun’s always home now,’ he said. ‘She’s called his mobile, but he’s not answering that either. She thinks we should check. His front door inside is double locked so I can’t get in. I’m going to try the back.’

  My unease increased, and it must have shown because he tightened his lips.

  ‘You wait here,’ he told me.

  I waited until he’d vanished down the side of the house before I followed. I was about to turn the corner when I heard him say, ‘Oh Christ.’ His voice was filled with horror.

  I dived after him. He was standing motionless, staring through a window. But it wasn’t a window anymore. It had been shattered, the glass knocked out. Inside, a man’s body lay across a kitchen floor. A savage wound across his throat gaped open, a gash that spewed great clots and gouts of blood the colour of tar down his chest and across the floor. His eyes met mine but there was no expression. They were milky white.

  I’d never seen a dead body before. Let alone one that had been brutally murdered. He had the most beautiful hands, I noticed, elegant with long tapered tips, like a surgeon’s. Then the smell hit me. Rank and pungent, sickeningly sweet, I was reminded of rotting steak drenched in liquefied sewage. My gorge rose. I felt the blood drain from my head. My ears sung.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Justin said again. His skin had turned the colour of putty and I guessed mine had turned much the same colour. I quickly turned aside. Walked away from the stench. Gulped in clean air. I felt my stomach steady but my fingers were trembling. Fear tingled through my veins. The singing in my ears turned to a roar.

  I saw Justin reaching for his phone, patting pockets, muttering ‘Dear God’ over and over. I listened to him summoning the police, an ambulance, trying not to listen to the voice in my head screaming, Get out, get out, get out.

  ‘H-help’s coming,’ Justin stammered.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. My voice sounded as though it came from a long way away.

  Justin suddenly moved away. Strode purposely to the far end of the garden. Bowing his knees, he bent double. I heard him throwing up.

  I walked to the front of the house. Got out my phone and rang Susie. My fingers were trembling so hard they slipped the first time and I had to redial. I told her what happened. I wanted to ask what I should do, but didn’t want to put her in that position, let alone look weak, so I remained silent. When she didn’t say anything, I said, ‘Susie?’ For a moment, I truly thought she was going to hang up to punish me for my behaviour in the café earlier.

  ‘Wait, Nick. I’m trying to think.’

  I held the phone. Let her think.

  She said, ‘You say you gave this young man another name?’

  ‘Yes. Adam Boden.’

  ‘It could be a good thing, but it could be bad because the cops will want to know why.’

  I closed my eyes. In the distance, I heard a siren. My nerves tightened into balls of barbed wire. ‘They’re coming,’ I said. ‘I can hear them.’

  Silence.

  Then Susie said, ‘I wish I could help you, my love.’ She sounded tired. ‘But I don’t think I can. All I can say is that if you stay, you’ll get grilled by the police, possibly become a suspect, but if you leave you’ll have the police make you a person of interest.’

  I didn’t like either option.

  ‘What on earth’s going on?’ she said, but she didn’t seem to want me to reply. ‘What have you got yourself into?’

  ‘I’m trying to find Rob.’

  ‘I know. But this is crazy.’

  At the end of the street, I saw flashing blue lights reflected against windows. Part of me desperately wanted to leave, run away and forget I’d ever been there, but the law-abiding citizen in me was petrified it might make things worse and rive
ted my feet to the ground.

  ‘They’re here,’ I said.

  ‘Give me the address,’ Susie said. Energy suddenly filled her voice. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  I hung up and watched a patrol car pull up against the pavement. A uniformed constable stepped out and walked briskly towards me, his radio crackling. He reached me and said, ‘You found a body?’

  ‘Yes.’ I pointed to the side of the house. ‘Round the back. There’s glass everywhere. It looks like someone broke in.’

  The constable nodded. ‘Thanks for calling it in.’ He was in his late twenties, wiry, with short-cropped russet hair. ‘If you could wait here, I’ll talk to you in a moment.’

  Chapter 34

  The moment stretched to ten minutes, then half an hour. I watched two paramedics arrive but they didn’t stay long. Another patrol car turned up. By this time, news had spread and people were peering out of windows, a handful hovering on the pavement trying to get a look.

  The constable finally came over. ‘The DI’s arrived. He’ll want to talk to you.’

  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at a Mazda MX-5 where a man with dark curly hair was climbing out of the driver’s side. The passenger door opened, and my pulse hopped when I took in the man’s chunky build and big navy overcoat.

  DI Barry Gilder.

  His gaze was already fixed on me and I wasn’t sure, but even from that distance, I thought his expression was one of dismay.

  Both men came over. Gilder’s eyes swept over my bruised face as he said, ‘What are you doing here?’

  I wanted to ask him the same – his station wasn’t in this jurisdiction – but I decided to be prudent. ‘I came to see Arun Choudhuri.’

  Gilder turned to the curly-haired man. ‘I’ll take this one.’

  Curly-hair surveyed me coolly before walking away.

  ‘Why?’ DI Gilder said.

  ‘He was the caretaker on duty the night Tony Abbott died.’

  I watched a van pull up and two people stepped out. They were carrying protective suits and shoe covers, a couple of large, heavy-looking cases. They gave Gilder a nod before disappearing to the back of the house.

  ‘Who knew you were coming to talk to him?’ Gilder asked.

  ‘You,’ I said.

  His nostrils flared. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You could have worked it out.’

  He thought that one over. ‘Who else?’

  I didn’t know how much to tell him and opted for giving him more rather than less in the hope it might help build some trust between us. I told him about visiting the Mayfair Group. That I was attacked by four men who stole my briefcase and the lists. That Helen Flynn had been threatened by two thugs into not talking to me again. I finished telling him about Etienne, and the money Rob supposedly owed some Spanish men.

  Gilder looked at me hard. ‘Tell me, exactly what was your brother involved in?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ My tone was weary. The shock of seeing Arun Choudhuri’s body was taking effect and I was beginning to crash.

  ‘He still hasn’t contacted you?’

  ‘No.’

  A light tap-tap of a woman’s heels entered my consciousness. Susie, dressed in a tailored woollen coat and an A-line skirt with a sexy little flare. As she approached, Gilder’s head switched round. He watched as she came and stood next to me and gripped my hand. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  She looked at Gilder.

  ‘Hi.’ She put out her hand. ‘I’m Susie Ashdown. Nick’s wife.’

  They shook. ‘DI Gilder,’ he told her.

  She studied him with interest. ‘You visited Nick in his office, wanting to find Rob.’

  ‘Any idea where he is?’ the policeman asked her.

  ‘No.’ She kept looking at him.

  ‘He hasn’t contacted you at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘May I ask how well you knew him?’ Gilder asked.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Susie’s voice was smooth and if I hadn’t known it was a lie, I wouldn’t have heard anything to alert me otherwise.

  She added quietly, ‘I met Nick a year after Rob… vanished.’

  Which was the story we told everyone. It had been Susie’s suggestion, but even I’d seen the sense in not broadcasting the fact we’d met at Rob’s memorial. It wasn’t the most romantic of histories.

  I was opening my mouth to ask if maybe I could go now when the man with the dark curly hair reappeared. He glanced at Gilder then at me. ‘I’d like to ask some questions. Down at the station if you wouldn’t mind.’

  Once again, I found myself in an impersonal interview room but this time with two cops. DI Gilder and Inspector Hayden. After the preliminaries – taking down my date of birth, address and so on – the questions started, all revolving around where I was the previous night.

  For the first time I was glad I’d gone to the Chelsea Police Station because, apparently, the processes of decay gave a reasonable indication that Arun Choudhuri had been murdered the previous night, and although I couldn’t understand why they might think I killed the poor man, I was mightily relieved I had a pretty cast iron alibi at least for part of the evening.

  ‘After DC Doherty had taken your statement, you went home?’ the Inspector asked.

  ‘To Susie’s, yes.’ I gave them her address.

  ‘Did anyone see you? Aside from your wife?’

  ‘Er…’ I tried to replay that evening in my head. I could remember picking up my takeaway that some kind person had hooked onto the railings, then I walked past the harbour and let myself into her block. I pictured getting into the lift and pressing 3.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I saw Mrs Gabb.’ She’d had her usual moan about Susie’s newspaper, complaining that having The Sun lying outside Susie’s flat in the communal hallway brought the tone of the place down.

  ‘What time was this?’

  I hadn’t looked at my watch because I’d seen no need. ‘Around ten or so, at a guess.’

  Gilder made a note.

  ‘And you spent all night there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you give Justin Goodhew another name?’

  Exhaustion pulling at my eyelids, I made an effort to protect myself. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Arun Choudhuri’s neighbour says you told him your name was Adam Boden.’

  ‘I can’t think why.’ I shook my head. ‘But maybe he got confused. He got a huge shock seeing the body. He threw up in the garden. He was in one hell of a state.’

  The Inspector considered this for a moment. Then he gave a sigh and looked over at Barry Gilder and raised his eyebrows. Gilder gave a nod. And with that, I was allowed to go.

  Chapter 35

  ‘I’m sorry about Mark Felton,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

  Susie didn’t respond. Just took another bite out of her toast.

  We were in her flat, having breakfast. Tea, toast and marmalade. The most English of breakfasts. Raindrops spattered against the windowsills but otherwise the harbour was quiet. No rumbles of diesel engines of clatter of halyards. No rich playboys and girls going out on their yachts. Too grey, too wet. I could see our reflections, distorted by wriggles of rain. Where Susie looked fresh and rested, I looked haggard and bruised and ten years older.

  After we’d got back to the flat it had been just before midnight and we’d gone straight to bed. But where Susie had fallen asleep almost immediately, I’d struggled, haunted by visions of poor dead Arun Choudhuri and his wide-open milky-white eyes. He’d sounded nice on the phone. Polite. And genuinely sorry he couldn’t help me.

  I wondered if he’d had a family. If he had children, parents, brothers and sisters. Who would mourn him? Who would hate me for bringing a killer to his door? Because I didn’t doubt that’s what I’d done. Somehow, someone had guessed I was going to see him and had wanted to silence him before we spoke.

  Wo
uld he have told me anything? He’d told me he’d signed a bit of paper. A confidentiality agreement. I can’t break it.

  I’d lain next to Susie sleeping for an hour or so then got up and spent the rest of the night on the sofa, gazing out of the balcony window and listening to the rain rattle against the glass, my soul as bleak as any midwinter’s day and wondering if this was how Rob felt after he’d vanished.

  Now, I glanced at Susie, who was still ignoring me, still obviously pissed off with my behaviour in the café.

  ‘I was just so… frustrated,’ I told her. ‘It was like talking to a brick wall.’

  She sighed. Put her toast down. ‘I know, Nick. But considering he met you as a huge favour to me, you got more than most people would have.’

  I tried not to feel guilty. Had I jeopardised things for her? Disturbed the groundworks of her ambition? But no matter how I replayed it, I couldn’t have done anything differently. I’d needed to speak with Rob’s old boss, and Susie had – eventually – arranged it.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said sincerely. I wasn’t going to apologise again and Susie seemed to realise it, because she sighed again. I was relieved that the storm of anger she’d shown the previous morning seemed to have blown over. Another thing I love about my wife: she doesn’t hold grudges.

  ‘I haven’t seen him yet to apologise,’ she told me. ‘But I’m pretty sure he’ll be okay because if he was pissed off, he would have dragged me into his office for an arse-kicking by now.’

  I reached over and put my hand on hers, gave it a thank-you squeeze. I was forgiven. She patted my hand. Popped the lid back on the marmalade. Turned to look at me. ‘What’s next?’ To my surprise, a twinkle started. ‘I’m not sure if I should let you out on your own, you know, as your Batman cape is at the dry cleaners. Oh, and your Superman pants are in the laundry and–’