Laughing Boy Page 4

  “It’s nearly stopped. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.” He watched her step on to the pavement and heard the click of her high heels as she vanished round the corner. In another four hours he’d close the shop and try another assault on the battlements that the redoubtable Mrs Naseen had erected between them.

  Colinette gulped in the clean air, refreshing after the cloying odours of the shop. To the casual visitor they were exotic and romantic, stirring the tastebuds and evoking pictures only seen in TV travelogues. When you worked among them all day long they were nauseous. In eight minutes she would be home, just in time for a quick shower before Coronation Street with one of her mum’s steak pies on her lap.

  And on Friday, after he’d paid her, she’d be free of Mr Naseen with his curry breath and fat face that he liked to hold close to hers as they filled the freezer cabinets. Monday she would start at the health club, in a proper job that paid a wage and gave you a number you could quote when you applied for grants and student loans. Because in September…her heart gave an extra bump at the thought of it…in September it was back to college. Sports therapist.

  And just as suddenly she was sad. College was only possible because her dad had died in an accident at work, and his employer had made an out-of-court settlement that the union solicitor had said was the best they could hope for. Fighting for more, he’d said, asking for justice, could have taken ten years.

  The rain was coming heavier, and her feet were wet. She pulled the collar of her denim jacket up and lowered the front of the brolly until it was across the top of her vision, like the brim of a hat. A flurry of rain drummed against the stretched fabric and she tightened her grip on the handle. She’d reached the spot where, a year last Christmas, her life had changed, and she looked over the hedge into the recreation ground, as if she might see a remnant of her former self, or even the ring, glistening in the dark. Graham had been her boyfriend for seven years, since they met at high school. She was his lover at fourteen, engaged at fifteen – secretly at first – and still engaged six years later. Walking home from the cinema they’d had a row. Her parents were in so there was no chance of sex in her bedroom with its creaky bed, and Graham had wanted them to do it in the rec. Colinette objected and had hurled his ring, with it’s diamond and rubies that would have cost a normal working lad a month’s wages, out into the night. She smiled happily at the memory of what she considered the most decisive action she’d ever taken, and wondered if it was still there.

  A car came past her, fairly slowly, and Colinette’s footsteps faltered as it came to a halt thirty yards in front of her. As she approached it the driver’s door opened and she quickened her step again as a young woman got out. She was smaller than Colinette, slightly overweight and perhaps a little older.

  “Excuse me,” the girl said, “but have you any idea where Burntcastle Avenue is? I’ve been driving round in circles for the last half hour.”

  “You’ve found it,” Colinette told her. “On the left, in about two hundred yards.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief. I’ve an appointment at number 238 for seven fifteen. Fitted kitchens. Will that be at this end?”

  “No, at the far end. Um, two hundred and thirty-what did you say?”

  “Eight. Two hundred and thirty-eight.”

  “An even number. I live at forty-four, so it will be on the right-hand side of the road.”

  “Oh, that’s most helpful, thank you. Hop in and I’ll drop you off.”

  “It’s all right, thanks. I’m nearly there.”

  “Nonsense. Jump in. You look soaked already.”

  “Oh, OK then. I am a bit wet. Thank you.” She slipped into the passenger seat of the hatchback and basked in the comforting warmth of the car’s interior. The driver slammed her door and let the clutch in too quickly, spinning the front wheels. Colinette rocked backwards in her seat and then forwards, wondering if it was worth finding the seat belt for such a short journey. “Fitted kitchens, did you say?” she asked.

  The car was still accelerating as it passed the end of Burntcastle Avenue. “It’s a living,” the driver mumbled, to herself as much as to Colinette.

  “Cheese and onion?”

  “Plain, please,” I replied. Sparky juggled with the packets of crisps before tossing one at me. Nigel appeared behind him, three pints bundled together between his outstretched fingers, and gingerly lowered them on to the table.

  “Cheers,” I said, placing mine on a beer mat before I struggled with the crisp packet. We sipped our drinks in silence for a few moments, until I looked at Nigel and said: “It doesn’t suit you.”

  He fingered his chin, which carried several days’ growth of hair. “It’s only been a week.” Nigel came to me when he was on the fast track, and greener than a leprechaun’s socks. He was a college boy, from the south, and an easy target for the locker-room cowboys, but I took to him for some reason. I don’t know why, perhaps I saw a little of myself there, or what I would like to have been, and I steered him through the early days without damaging his reputation or self-esteem.

  And now he’d grown a beard.

  “You look like a rat peering out of a haystack,” Dave told him.

  “Thanks.”

  “What does Les Isles think of it?” I asked. Les is a superintendent at HQ, and Nigel’s new boss.

  “He said it’s the first time he’s seen one with teeth.”

  I turned to Dave. “What on earth can he mean by that, David?” I asked.

  “No idea, Charles,” he replied.

  We stuffed crisps into our mouths and sipped the beer. The Spinners is an old pub in the middle of town, and the clientele had changed in the years we’d been using it. Not long ago it catered for market traders and the local business people who needed a drink at the end of a long day. Once there was a bar in a corner room called the Oddfellows, restricted to men only. A small clique of salesmen used to gather there every evening to discuss the day’s business and delay returning to wherever it was they laid their heads at night, but they’d grown old together and retired or passed on. Now there was a pool table in the room. A burst of noise announced the arrival of a group of young men in sober suits and hysterical ties, probably from the Insurance Centre. They surged through the door, shaking the rain off their haircuts as they reached for wallets. Two young women followed, carefully folding umbrellas and leaning them against the wall.

  “Spritzer for you, Natasha?” the first youth to reach the bar called out over everyone’s heads, and one of the girls nodded her approval. If the men wore bright ties as a focal point, to draw attention away from their deficiencies, with the women it was short skirts. I watched her climb on to a barstool and cross her legs.

  “I think I’ve gone off this pub,” said Dave, whose back was to the bar.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I replied, groping for my glass.

  “So,” Nigel began, “you’ve disbanded the team and we’ll be getting our men back.”

  “’Fraid so,” I said.

  “Nobody in the frame at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why would anybody want to do something like that? A random killing. It seems so pointless.”

  “It’s whatever turns you on, Nigel. There’s some funny people out there, as you well know.” Natasha closed her eyes and pursed her lips to take that first sip from her drink. I tore my gaze away and turned to Dave. “I’ve had a word with NCIS,” I told him. “Asked them about other unsolved, apparently random killings.”

  “You think it might not be a one-off?” Nigel asked.

  “Dave wonders if it might be linked to the paperboy who was murdered over near Nelson, two weeks before Laura Heeley was killed.”

  “Poor little Robin. It’s worth pursuing, I suppose,” he said, unconvinced.

  “But meanwhile…” I announced, brightly, “he’s busy trying to organise some activity to boost our flagging morale, aren’t you, Sunshine? Any luck with it?”

  He pulled a pained
expression and shook his head.

  “What?” I asked. “Has lethargy tightened its grip on the brave forces of law and order we used to know and love?”

  He had a drink, opened his mouth to speak and closed it again.

  “Go on,” I urged.

  “Well…” he began. “I asked around, but nobody seems interested.”

  “Somebody must be,” I argued.

  “Well, they’re not.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I went down to the incident room at shift change and put it to them that we should organise something, preferably for charity, but nobody was keen.”

  “I’d have thought they’d be full of ideas,” I stated.

  “They’re usually an enthusiastic lot,” Nigel agreed.

  “Well I asked.”

  “And nobody came up with anything?”

  “No.”

  “Nobody at all?”

  “Well, only one.”

  “What was it?”

  “Big Geordie Farrell. He said he’d always had a hankering to learn Morris dancing.”

  “Morris dancing!” Nigel and I echoed in unison, and I added: “What did the others think of that?”

  “They all agreed. Said it was a good excuse to work up a thirst and have a piss-up.”

  “That’s true,” I confirmed, raising my glass to hide the grin I was having difficulty containing. Dave lowered his head and glared at me from under his eyebrows. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he growled.

  “Me?” I replied, struggling to adopt the expression of one of those baby seals just before the club bashes its brains in. “Me?”

  “You set me up, you bastard!”

  “How’s that, David?”

  “Bastard! I thought they were all a bit too eager. Well just for that you can get them in.” He drained his glass and plonked it down in front of me. “And another thing,” he continued. “We’re doing the Three Peaks, whether you like it or not.”

  “Oh no, not the Three Peaks,” I protested.

  “Not the Yorkshire three, the three biggest in England, Scotland and Wales.”

  “That’s nine peaks,” Nigel told him.

  “You know what I mean, clever sod: Scafell Pike; Ben Nevis and Snowdon. The fire brigade are pretending to do them at Heckley gala, running up and down ladders. We’ll do them for real, so start training.”

  I was laughing all the way to the bar. The youth who bought the drink for Natasha was standing next to her, shielding her from the attentions of the others, but she had twisted on her seat to listen to the words of wisdom that the oldest member of the group was regaling them with. I decided that he was the boss and that laddo didn’t have a chance. As I pushed between them she caught my gaze and held it for a telltale few seconds longer than propriety dictated. She was a young lady on the make, checking out the talent. You notice it most of all when you’re in the car. A woman is driving in the opposite direction. As she passes she glances across, slightly curious, to see what you look like. She probably doesn’t realise it, and would almost certainly vehemently deny it, but she’s interested and possibly available. The ones who are totally engrossed in and content with the life they are living go sailing blithely by. If you were wearing a purple gorilla suit with strobe lights they wouldn’t notice you.

  “Hello, ’Tasha,” I said, before she could look away. “Long time no see.” She blinked several times and laddo’s mouth fell open. They could have been a double act from a kids’ comic: The Owl and the Goldfish.

  As I returned with the drinks Dave was explaining the logistics of the venture to Nigel. “The idea is to do it in less than twenty-four hours,” he stated. “If you say three hours on Snowdon, four on Scafell and five on the Ben, that leaves twelve hours to drive about five hundred miles. QET.”

  “QED,” Nigel told him.

  “Pardon?”

  “QED. Quod erat demonstrandum.”

  “No,” Dave insisted, “QET. Quite enough time.”

  I winced as I set the glasses safely down. “Don’t encourage him, Nigel,” I protested. “Some of us have to work with him. Ever since Sophie went to Cambridge he’s been polishing the college doorknob on his way to work.” Sophie is Dave’s daughter, my Goddaughter, and we both take a keen interest in her studies. Last week it was Simon de Montfort and the foundations of Parliament. At about ten o’clock the other woman in Dave’s life, his wife Shirley, would come to give us a lift home.

  “What will you do,” Nigel asked, “if the foot-and-mouth epidemic isn’t over?”

  Dave took a long, deliberate sip of beer and I could tell that his mind was working overtime. He replaced his glass on the table, licked froth of his lip and said: “I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this, Nigel, but I know that you are a stickler for these things and that you’ve had a much better education then me – sorry, than I…”

  “You got a C in woodwork, didn’t you?” I interrupted.

  “Religious instruction, actually. I got an F in woodwork.”

  “I thought you were good at woodwork.”

  “I am, but Mr Gravesend took us for the exam and he had a speech impediment. He told us to make an egg rack, but I thought he said roof rack. I used more wood than all the other kids put together. Anyway, as I was saying, as you are such a bloody pedant about these things, Nigel, can I point out that people have epidemics, animals have epizootics.”

  “Ooh!” I said. “Ooh! Talk yourself out of that one, Nigel.”

  He bit his lip, then said: “I think I’d better get the next ones in.”

  I was still smiling as I looked across at Natasha. After a few seconds she glanced my way and I raised my eyebrows in salute. One day I’m going to learn how to make them work individually. I practise every morning, as I shave, but it’s harder than it looks. She returned my smile, just for a moment, until something behind me caught her attention.

  “Uh-oh,” I heard Nigel say, and Dave added: “Talk of the devil.”

  I looked round to see what the fuss was about. A man had entered the bar, a big man in uniform who dwarfed the doorway. He stood there for a few seconds, taking in the room, then wove between the tables towards us.

  “Bet he hasn’t come for his first dancing lesson,” Nigel said.

  “No, I don’t think he has.” I looked up at the figure as he loomed over me, and said: “What is it, George?”

  PC Farrell, better known as Big Geordie, placed a hand the size of a leg of pork on the table and stooped until his face was level with mine. “Sorry to disturb you, Boss,” he whispered, “but you’re needed. It looks as if there’s been another.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Down a lane off the Oldfield Road, just out of town.”

  “Woman?”

  “Young girl.”

  “Right.”

  We followed him out, oblivious of the three barely-touched drinks on the table and all the eyes, including Natasha’s, that watched us to the door.

  The hatchback reversed into the space outside the terrace house and doused its lights. The driver let his head loll back and reached across to take the hand of the woman sitting next to him. “Phew!” he exclaimed, and she squeezed his hand in silent agreement. Phew indeed. After a moment he felt into the car’s ashtray and retrieved his door keys. They both got out and after unlocking the front door of the house he turned to use the remote control to lock the car. The hazard lights flashed to confirm it was done and they entered their home. When inside he carefully dropped the latch and turned the key. The curtains in the front room were already closed, and a gas fire gave off a comforting hiss as it kept the room temperature up in the tropical eighties. The only illumination was from the fire and a pair of wall fittings that cast semi-circles of light on to the high ceiling.

  He led her into the room as if it were a new experience for both of them. She held back with feigned reluctance, like a schoolgirl who’d heard about men like this – not wanting to follow but
at the same time driven by a curiosity that had to be satisfied. He tugged her arm and she shelved her doubts, allowing herself to be led.

  When he was standing on the woollen rug in front of the fire he turned and undid the buttons of her coat. “Take this off, my darling,” he said, “or you won’t feel the benefit, afterwards.” She shrugged it off and he tossed it over an easy chair.

  “What about yours?” she said.

  “I’ll take that off, too.” His jacket joined hers and he placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging them with a rotary movement. “You’re good for me,” he told her.

  “We’re good for each other.”

  “That’s right. We’re a team.”

  “Shall I put some music on?”

  “It’s in the player.”

  The girl turned away and pressed the play button on a Sony music centre that stood on a sideboard opposite the fireplace. After checking that the volume was right she moved back to him and he replaced his hands on her shoulders. She rolled her head, swaying to the music, and murmured: “Mmm, that’s good, Timothy, that’s really good.”

  “What!” he exploded, pushing her away. “What did you call me?” His arm swept in a wide arc and his cupped hand cuffed her at the side of the head, the noise it made more violent than the impact.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, holding her hand in front of her face like the heroine of some 1930s paperback. “Don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me.”

  He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. “What did you call me?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Say it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “For calling you…calling you…”

  “Calling me what?”

  “For calling you Timothy.”

  “So what am I called?”

  “Tim. I forgot. Please don’t hurt me, Tim.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, you know that, don’t you?” She nodded, her head still stretched backwards by him, her white throat exposed. “But you’ve been a naughty girl, haven’t you?” She nodded again.