Hey, Sherlock!

by Simon Mason

‘Because I didn’t think it was serious!’

  And he went into his room and slammed the door.

  Lying on his bed, he tried to order his thoughts. It was hard: they kept flying off.

  He thought about sequences. Two of them. Joel, Damon, Amy. Garvie, Singh, his mother. Each sequence had its own rules; both had worked out to their logical conclusions. Questions had been given their correct answers. No mistakes.

  He thought about questions. If Singh was the answer, what was it his mother had asked?

  Then he thought about mistakes. Lots of them, in fact. Dr Roecastle thinking Amy had gone to a hotel. The police thinking Amy’s body was buried in the woods. Damon losing it with Joel in Market Square. He himself forgetting that Amy was at risk. But it turns out life isn’t all maths; there’s a special category of mistakes that are the best, most beautiful, most brilliant things that anyone could have done. Into that category he put Amy taking the gun off Damon. ‘I ain’t got no one else,’ he’d said. So she took it off him, because he needed her to, because she hoped to take away his pain and fear and give him love back instead. Who could call that a mistake?

  He lay there for a while longer. Then he got out his phone and texted Amy to say he’d see her at the funeral.

  47

  The funeral was at the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help – the Polski church – in Strawberry Hill. Apparently Damon had been baptized a Catholic. No one was sure if he’d been aware of the fact. There was a brief ceremony in the Gothically darkened building, then the burial in the little cemetery outside. Damon’s stepbrother, belatedly compassionate, had made available the family plot. It was five thirty in the afternoon, last service of the day.

  Attendance was minimal. There were three guys who looked like they might have been Damon’s friends from earlier days, two foster parents from Damon’s childhood, Singh and Dowell representing the forces of law and order, and Paul Tanner, who left white-faced and angry shortly after the service inside, ignoring Singh. Smudge and Felix were there, in borrowed black suits. Garvie and Amy stood back from the grave on their own. Amy was wearing a severe black skirt and jacket, and a black hat; Garvie wore a button-down shirt and chinos. They kept their hands folded in front of them.

  The priest recited a verse of scripture and said a prayer, the undertakers worked the silk straps, a handful of soil cracked on the coffin lid. The Lord’s Prayer was said. Then it was over, the priest moving back inside the church, taking the foster parents with him. A man manoeuvred a digger over and began to shovel earth into the grave.

  Amy kept her eyes fixed on it. She’d hardly looked at Garvie throughout the entire service. When he asked if she was OK, she turned to him and he saw how pale she was, her lips almost white.

  He said quietly, ‘Tell me this. What happened at the hospital?’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Because when we talked about it on the phone, I said “Concussion?”, and you said “That’ll do”. But it won’t, will it? There’s something you haven’t told me.’

  She turned away for a moment, and when she turned back her face was wet. ‘When he attacked me, I miscarried. That’s what they said to me at the hospital. Did you guess?’

  ‘I suspected. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  She put her hand out and squeezed his hand. ‘Somehow I needed him. And, for a moment at least, he needed me too. It’s enough. It’ll have to be. There’s nothing else.’

  Without saying anything more, she walked away through the tombstones and out of the wicket gate.

  Singh and Dowell had left. Smudge and Felix came over and said a few words to Garvie, then they left too. Apart from one other guy sitting on a bench, Garvie was alone in the cemetery. He smoked a Benson & Hedges and did his best to think of nothing.

  ‘Nice service, eh?’

  He looked round. The guy from the bench stood there, offering him a cigarette.

  ‘Wasn’t going to come,’ the guy said. ‘Glad I did though. Music always gets me.’ He was short, on the chunky side, with a smooth face and wiry brown hair, wearing a shiny blue suit, and he stood next to Garvie, looking at Damon’s grave, smoking.

  ‘Second funeral I been to in a month,’ he said after a bit.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Both young guys too. My age. First Joel, now Damon.’

  Garvie turned to look at him. ‘Joel Watkins?’

  ‘Yeah. Met them both on a youth offender programme. You know, back in the day. Only heard about Damon yesterday. I been off radar.’ He sucked in smoke. ‘Typical. Always the same, Damon, getting mixed up in stuff that didn’t have nothing to do with him. Know him well, did you?’

  Garvie shook his head. ‘Just through his girlfriend.’

  ‘What about Joel?’

  ‘Never even met him.’

  ‘Joel was always a bit of a dickhead, to be honest. But Damon was sweet. I liked Damon.’

  ‘I heard they were tight. Back then anyway.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Damon and Joel.’

  The guy looked puzzled. ‘Not really. Far as I remember, they never had nothing to do with each other.’

  Garvie paused. ‘So, what, they just hooked up this last month about the van?’

  ‘What van?’

  ‘The van Joel sold him.’

  The guy frowned again. ‘Bazza sold him his van. Joel didn’t have anything to do with it. Told you, Joel and Damon didn’t see each other.’ He went on: ‘Sad thing about the van was, Damon thought he was going to get a job with it.’

  ‘I remember him mentioning it.’

  ‘He was so happy, couldn’t stop going on about it, it was going to turn his life round. Said he’d actually been offered a job soon as the van was up and running.’

  Garvie thought to himself: why is it that the obvious questions are the last ones to get asked?

  He asked: ‘What job was that then?’

  ‘Dispatch.’

  ‘What company?’

  ‘Same place Joel was working, as it happened. Wasn’t Joel offered Damon the job, though. Like I say, they weren’t close. And Joel got the sack there anyway just after. Did you hear about that?’

  ‘Yeah. Caught skimming.’

  The guy made a dismissive noise. ‘Put-up job.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wasn’t Joel skimming. It was this other guy – the one who offered Damon the job. He’d been skimming for years, they all knew it. When he was found out he threw the blame on Joel, got him sacked. That’s why Joel went wild. Good job Damon never worked there, really.’

  Garvie thought about this. Thought again about the obvious questions that don’t get asked. He said, ‘This dispatch driver who offered Damon the job. He knew Damon then?’

  ‘Oh yeah, long time. Didn’t I say? That’s the point. Older guy. Damon looked up to him, took everything he said as gospel. I met him a couple of times, when we were on the Y.O. I think maybe he was Damon’s sponsor. Can’t remember. Everyone on the programme had a sponsor. Parent usually, but quite a lot of the kids didn’t have parents so they got some sort of guardian type through the council.’

  ‘And what was this guy’s name?’

  ‘My memory’s all fucked-up. Had a nickname of some sort. Emdee. Veepee. I don’t know.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Got a feeling he was ex-Services.’

  Garvie nodded. ‘Right.’

  ‘OK then, got to go. Good to talk.’ He held out his hand. ‘See you around. Not at another funeral, I hope.’

  Garvie watched him walk away. He phoned Smudge.

  ‘Smudge, mate. You’re friends with some of the drivers at One Shot, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can you give them a bell and ask them a question?’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘Remember PJ telling us about Joel getting sacked.’

  ‘Yeah. He was skimming.’

  ‘B
ut Joel blamed one of the other drivers. I’d like to know who.’

  ‘All right. Give me five.’

  Garvie stood at the side of Damon’s grave. The freshly piled-up earth was tawny as oranges in the gathering shadows. Amy had added a bouquet; it lay against the small wooden cross as sad as an abandoned child’s toy; there was no other decoration. Garvie stared for a moment, then turned and went down the path that led to the gate, and, as he left the cemetery, Smudge called back.

  ‘Here’s the news. And it’s a weird one. Guy I talked to knew exactly who Joel pointed the finger at. Everyone was talking about it. And you’ll never guess who it was.’

  ‘I’m sure I won’t.’

  ‘Go on, have a go. Just for a laugh.’

  ‘All right. I guess … PJ.’

  There was a sad silence at the other end. ‘You’ve gone and spoiled it. You’re always doing that.’

  ‘Sorry, Smudge. I’ll make it up to you later.’

  He looked at his watch. Seven thirty. He called Amy.

  ‘Garvie,’ she said, ‘I can’t do this any more. I’m sorry. I need some time not thinking about it.’

  ‘Just a few quick questions then no more, I promise. Do you remember talking to PJ? He said he’d never heard of Damon. And when we left, do you remember what he said?’

  There was a pause. She said, ‘He said he was sorry he couldn’t help us find him.’

  ‘Yeah. But we never said we were looking for him, did we? So how did he know he was missing?’

  She was silent.

  ‘You said PJ was so loyal and trusting he never even asked what you had in the box. Suppose that was ’cause he already knew?’

  She stayed silent.

  ‘PJ told us he was stoned in the back room when we were at Red ’n’ Black. Suppose he wasn’t.’

  ‘Garvie, what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying we thought it was over, and it’s not. Last question. This is important. Did you ever see Damon wear that HEAT beanie before?’

  She thought about that. ‘No. No, I never saw him wear it. That was the only time. Garvie—’

  ‘Finished. But, listen now. Stay home tonight. Don’t answer the door. Don’t answer your phone, not even if it’s me calling. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Enough. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  For a moment after he rang off he stood there motionless in the middle of Strawberry Hill shopping precinct. He called Abdul. No answer.

  Sighing, he turned himself round and began to walk north, in the general direction of Tick Hill.

  48

  By the time he reached the track signposted Childswell Garden Centre it was nearly nine, and green and pink light was leaking fast from the deflated sky.

  He was footsore but determined. He took out his phone and called his uncle.

  ‘Garvie? Where are you? I’ve just had your mother on the phone, worried about you.’

  Garvie turned away from the ring road onto the rutted earth road, and walked on between hawthorn hedges. ‘Just out for a stroll,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got this question.’

  ‘What question now?’

  ‘The HEAT beanie. You found traces of Damon’s DNA in it.’

  ‘You know we did.’

  ‘Anyone else’s?’

  His uncle hesitated, and Garvie heard noises of movement as if he was leaving one room and going into another. When he spoke again, his voice was lower and warier.

  ‘Obviously this is confidential information, not the sort of thing I can talk about freely. But yes, we found traces of DNA from three other individuals, all unidentified.’

  ‘Interesting. One of them will be Amy’s. Damon gave it her to keep the rain off.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Another will be mine.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did I forget to mention it to Dowell? I had to put the hat on for a bit.’

  ‘And what about the third one? Do you know that as well?’

  ‘Not yet. But maybe soon.’

  ‘Garvie—’

  ‘Thanks then. Catch you later.’

  He was properly in the countryside now. The ditches were full of nettles. The field on one side of the track was filled with shoulder-high rape seed, dried to a pink shade of beige. In the harvested meadow on the other an aftermath of bleached hay was strewn in small clumps like old wigs. Occasional noises broke through the stodgy hush: bird-gurgle in the hedgerows, the surf noise of traffic from the ring road and the occasional klaxon of a passing train. Far to his right were the houses of Tick Hill. To his left was the hospital where his mother worked, already silhouetted darkly against the sky. Ahead of him were more fields and woods.

  He trudged on.

  His phone rang. After a brief debate with himself, he answered it.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Where are you, Garvie?’

  ‘Here. Where are you? Eastwick Gardens?’

  Singh hesitated. ‘No. I’m still at work. Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t have chance to talk to you at the funeral this afternoon. I think it would be a good idea if we talked.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ He said no more but walked on quietly listening to Singh breathing at the other end, low and regular.

  ‘All right then,’ Singh said at last. ‘But, Garvie, you can call me at any time, about anything.’

  ‘You’re right, I can. In fact I got a question for you right now.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Remind me. What’s a smurf?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘A smurf’s a runner,’ Singh said slowly. ‘A guy with dirty cash. Money from a criminal deal, say. He goes into a casino, buys gambling chips with it, plays the slots for an hour or two, and at the end of the evening changes the chips back for clean untraceable cash. Basic money-laundering.’

  ‘It’s what was going on at Imperium?’

  ‘Among other things, yes. But why do you ask?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Catch you later.’

  Singh was saying something else but Garvie put his phone back in his jacket pocket and walked on.

  He was thinking of PJ. A peace-loving, weed-addled old hippy. An ex-Marine with traumatic combat experience. A quiet stealer of stuff at work, a persuasive blamer of other people. And for a while, the private chauffeur to the owner of Imperium casino.

  Garvie thought about these things.

  And then the most intriguing thing of all. Until his licence was withdrawn after a harassment charge, PJ had been official guardian to various young people, including, perhaps, Damon Walsh. Someone for Damon to trust.

  Was it true? Had PJ been Damon’s sponsor when he was on the Y.O.? Singh would be able to check. But Garvie wasn’t inclined to ask him. He knew someone else he could ask.

  He came to the end of the track and looked at the bungalow in front of him, a low, humped silhouette against the long, bland darkness of field behind. It was the only place out here so it must be the right one. Twilight had darkened to dusk; it was nearly night. Resting at the gate for a moment, Garvie looked back towards the city heaped up in the darkness like a smouldering pile of sparks. He listened to the breeze and insect-whine of traffic on the ring road below, and thought how the last thing Damon had listened to, up there on the multistorey roof, was breeze and distant traffic.

  He turned and went across the lawn past a barbecue cabin and stack of weight-lifting kit to the door.

  It was opened by a woman with a child on her hip, and she looked at Garvie, surprised, and the child on her hip stared at him too with the same surprise, and he nodded, to both of them, and said politely, ‘Have I got the right place for Paul Tanner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I talk to him?’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Will he be back soon?’

  She looked past him, towards the track. ‘Any minute now. I’m taking the kids to my mother’s and I’m waiting for the car so I can get off.’ Garvie saw bags in the hall beh
ind her. Children’s cries came from a room beyond. ‘What’s it about?’ she asked.

  ‘Kid called Damon. Just a quick question.’

  She nodded. ‘Paul’s very upset about him. He went to his funeral today. He’s angry with the police. He thinks they let Damon down.’

  She looked at her watch and sighed, and the child sighed too, and Garvie felt he ought to sigh as well, just to keep his end up. From a room at the end of the hall another child began to scream, and, apologizing, she retreated, leaving Garvie alone for a moment at the door.

  He stood there, thinking uncomfortably about PJ. He remembered his lantern jaw and tombstone teeth, his alarming smile, his frayed ponytail and big, knuckly hands. He remembered him twisting the fox’s neck in the woods, the look on his face as he did it.

  The child’s crying continued. Garvie gazed down the hall littered with toys and discarded children’s shoes. There were children’s paintings Blu-tacked to the walls, and a bookcase with picture books on the shelves and a family photograph on top, and at the far end, just inside the kitchen door, an overflowing laundry basket. He frowned.

  Slowly, not taking his eyes off it, he went down the hall and cautiously lifted the basket lid; and there lying on the top of the other laundry was a maroon hoodie.

  His brain shifted a gear.

  He saw three things very quickly one after another. Tanner’s face in the photograph with his moustache and short cropped black hair – matching the Pirrip Street kid’s description. The barbells he’d seen in the garden outside – equipment of a powerful man. Tanner helping out on the Y.O. – putting an arm round the young offenders. Three images falling into a row like cherries or bells in a fruit machine.

  When Tanner’s wife reappeared he was back at the front door.

  ‘I’m sorry he’s not here yet,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s keeping him.’

  ‘Maybe he’s popped into the casino,’ Garvie said, keeping his eyes on her.

  ‘More than likely,’ she said. ‘He’s there most days. Have you seen him down there?’

  ‘Yeah. Playing the slots.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what he does.’

  ‘Wearing that HEAT beanie of his.’

  ‘His lucky hat, he says.’ For a second she smiled and showed her gums. ‘He lost it, though. Just a couple of weeks back.’