PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - READ BETWEEN THE LIES

PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - EPISODE FOURTEEN

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I missed the funeral service for Charles ‘Buster’ Bill but made it in time for the wake held at his sister's home at 18 Winchester Gardens. I felt uneasy intruding on private grief.

  Nothing was private about a death, not in this part of Oxmarket, or in any other part come to that.  Curtains twitched at neighbouring windows, people spoke in lowered voices across the divide of a garden fence, and fewer televisions blared out the ubiquitous advertising game show applause.

  Winchester Gardens was part of an anonymous working-class district on the south-eastern outskirts of Oxmarket.  Along with the flailing local fishing industry, the district had fallen on hard times, but there was still a smell of pride in the street.  The gardens were tidy, the tiny lawns clipped like army haircuts, and the cars parked against the kerbs were old, but polished, showing no signs of rust.  Took it all in a moment.  For a neighbourhood like this, grief was sharing.  Everybody wanted his or her cut. Still, something stopped me lifting the door knocker and letting it fall.

  I had spent the morning writing up my final case report as a consultant for the Suffolk Constabulary.  Cowan had lived a complex existence running both the kennels and the massage parlour.  She had lived off immoral earnings and ‘Buster’ Bill had found out about Sabrina Muller.  That was why she had to kill them and carried out her plans with considerable finesse.  An ordinary scheme would have been content to work with one dog but training two German shepherds to kill on command then behave like obedient guide dogs was pure genius.  But people like her always made mistakes and hers was keeping a copy of ‘Buster’ Bill’s death on the DVD.  That was just egotistical.  The downfall of many a criminal.

  The door of 18 Winchester Gardens opened slowly, and a man peered at me, he ushered me quickly inside, laying a soft hand on my arm.

  “Come in, come in.  The women are in the living-room.  The kitchen’s through here.”  He nodded, then led me through a narrow hallway past a closed door. Behind which, there were sounds of someone crying.  The kitchen door at the back of the house, was opened from within, and I saw that seven or eight men had squeezed into the tiny back room. There were stale smells of cooking fat and soup and stew and fruit cake.  Above them wafted a more recent smell: beer.

  “Here you go, mate.”  Someone handed me a glass of beer filled to the brim.  Everyone else had one nestling in their hand.  They all shuffled from one foot to another, awkward and hardly daring to speak.  They had nodded at my entrance but now gave me little heed.  Glasses were replenished, and I noticed the worktop filled with beer cans and open wine bottles.

  “You’ve just moved into Magnolia Close, haven’t you?” 

  “Yes.  A couple of months ago. The wife used to meet Buster at the local table tennis club.  So, we’d thought we’d drop in.  He was a good player.  He never won a competition.  Always second.  Never had the proper winning mentality.”

  “See this estate, it was here all the trawler-men lived and died.  But these days, there’s too much coming and going . . .”

  The conversation continued at the level of a murmur.  I was standing with my back to the sink’s draining board, next to the back door.  A figure appeared in front of me.  “Another drink, mate?”  And my glass was refilled.  I looked around in vain, seeking out a relative of the deceased.  But these men looked like neighbours, like the sons of neighbours, the male half of the local community’s heart.  Their wives, sisters and mothers would be in the living-room with Isabella and Buster’s sister.  Closed curtains blocked out any light from what was left of the day: handkerchiefs and wine.  The bereaved in an armchair, with someone else perched on an arm of the chair, offering a pat on the hand and well-meaning words.  I had seen it all as a child with my mother, and as a young man with my father. I’d seen it with aunts and uncles, with the parents of friends, and more recently my wife.  On my way to the wake, I had laid flowers on Zoë’s grave almost as an apology for not visiting her as frequently as I should have done.

  My guide pulled me back to the present.  “Good of Michelle to look after Isabella, don’t you think?”

  I nodded, trying to look wise.  “That is Buster’s sister, I take it?”

  Eyes looked at me. “Yes. Be company for her.  Michelle’s going through her third divorce.  Didn’t you know that?”

  There was suspicion now, and I knew that I had either to reveal myself as a private detective, or else become more disingenuous.  These people, authentically mourning the loss of someone they had known, had taken me as a mourner too, had brought me here to share with them, to be part of the remembering group.

  “I’m just a friend of a friend,” I lied.  “They asked me to look in.”

  It looked from my guide’s face, as though an interrogation might be about to begin.  But then somebody else spoke.

  “Did you see any of her husbands?”

  “First two were a right funny pair, but I liked the third one.”

  “Yes,” someone said knowledgeably.  “He was a bass guitarist in a band, wasn’t he?”

  The conversation continued and I remained in the kitchen.  People came and went.  A man would finish his drink with a sigh or a clearing of the throat.

  “Oh well,” he’d say, “I suppose I’d better . . .” And these words, and a bow of the head, he would move out of the kitchen, timidly opening the living-room to say a few words to Isabella and Michelle before leaving.  I heard a voice which definitely Isabella’s wasn’t.  A high wavering howl: “Thanks for coming.  It was good you came.  Cheerio.”

  The women came and went, too.  Sandwiches appeared and were shared out in the kitchen.  Cheese, corned beef, ham.  White and brown bread sliced in halves.  I ate my fill, saying nothing.  I was biding my time.  I waited as the kitchen emptied.  Once or twice someone attempted to engage me in conversation, thinking they knew me from a neighbouring street or from the public bar of the local.  I just shook my head, the friend of a friend, and the enquiries usually ended there.

  Even my guide left, again patting my arm, and giving me a nod and a wink.  It was a day for universal gestures, so I winked back. 

  “I’ll just. . .”  I said after a while, motioning towards the ceiling with my head.

  “You know where it is?”

  I nodded. I’d seen all there was to see downstairs, and so knew the bathroom must lie upstairs and upstairs was where I was heading.  I closed the kitchen door behind me and breathed deeply.  There was sweat beneath my shirt, and a headache was starting to develop.    Then, with the kitchen vacant now, muggy with the smell of alcohol and body odour, I rinsed out my glass and stood it end-up on the draining board.  I walked into the hallway, gave my ever-increasing headache a two seven-letter worded title before I climbed the stairs.

  Four doors led off the landing: a large cupboard, filled with sheets, blankets, two ancient suitcases, an old television lying on its side; a spare bedroom, its single bed made up for Isabella.  Nothing interested me in any of the bedrooms, so I went into the clean bathroom, closing the door behind me.

  The bathroom did not have a window, so the only source of light came from three angled halogen bulbs. A quiet whirring extraction fan removed the air. There were two-bathroom mirrored bathroom cabinets fixed to the wall at two of the corners.  One held with hair and beauty products and the other houses for an unopened tube of toothpaste, new toothbrushes, all in different colours, and a small metal box that looked like it would hold antiseptic throat lozenges.  On closer inspection, I discovered it revealed a set of opaque contact lenses.  I removed one and held it up to the light.  A small pin-head of light shone through the centre of the lens, but you would be hard-pressed to see anything else through these.

  I replaced the lens and pocketed the box and after a second or two of reflection flushed the toilet, turned off the light and stepped out onto the landing where, taking hold of the bannister, started downstairs. 

  I wanted to keep things short and clear as the only piece of evidence found that implicated Isabella was in my pocket.  I felt vindicated, and at the same felt completely and utterly betrayed by her deception.

  I stopped at the foot of the stairs, paused, then knocked and pushed open the living-room door.

  As I had suspected, Isabella was seated in an armchair.  On the arm of the chair sat a woman in her forties, heavy but not without presence.  It was Buster’s sister.  The other chairs were vacant.  Teacups sat on a dining-table, alongside an unfinished plate of sandwiches, empty wine glasses, and an empty bottle.

  I sat in the armchair opposite them, and Isabella looked at me with the most crystal blue eyes I had ever seen, holding a cup and saucer with her left hand.  Her eyes were fixed on mine, challenging me.

  I removed the box out of my pocket and laid it on the palm of my hand and showed it to her.    “I believe this belongs to you, Isabella”

  An unnerving silence filled the room broken only by the ticking of the clock and the clank of dishes being washed in the kitchen.  Her initial welcoming smile fell away from her face as tears came and her mouth opened in a near-silent bawl.

The End