A Death to Remember (11 page)

‘
Nobody’s actually said out loud that it was.’

I
said it in a steady voice, but inside there was singing.

‘
It was said to me,’ he told me solemnly. ‘Out loud. There was much discussion about it, and how best to handle it.’

‘
They decided on the best way.’

‘
So now you know.’

Then
I realised how well he understood. It was not what
they
knew that mattered, but what I did. I grinned at him. ‘Now I know. Thanks, Bill.’

He
grimaced, and signalled for another beer in celebration.

‘
There was no bribe,’ he said when it arrived. ‘There was nothing that would have attracted a bribe. No statements. You’d got a withdrawal from George Peters...’

‘
Then why would I have gone to the garage, with no statement, and no accident to enquire about?’ I demanded.

‘
Relax, Cliff. Peters could’ve
told
you about an accident, even though it wasn’t his own. It’s your memory that’s off-key. You went there – curiosity, perhaps – with this fixation of a car running off its jacks.’

‘
Nudged. Peters said nudged.’

‘
Said?’

‘
Stated. In writing. I can
see
it, damn it.’

Porter
shrugged, gulped his beer, wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

‘
Don’t shout at me, Cliff. I’m doing you a favour. Making sense, if that’s what you want. There was no bribe, and it looks as though the man who assaulted you is dead. George Peters. So why concern yourself with a different accident, which didn’t involve you as a Social Security Inspector at the time? Let it lie, man. Didn’t they tell you at the hospital that your memory couldn’t be relied on?’

‘
They said that.’

‘
Well then...’

He
was trying to be kind. I sat quietly while he absorbed two more pints, thinking it over. It was all very well, but what we were talking about wasn’t a simple memory, it had been a vivid image of George Peters struggling with his left hand to use my right-handed oblique nib, and putting those specific words on paper.

‘
Want another?’ he asked.

‘
No, thanks.’

‘
Then we’d better go.’ He held out his hand for his keys.

‘
Don’t you think I’d better drive?’

He
grimaced. ‘I’m at my peak.’

I
gave him back his keys. He seemed elated, as though the beer had brought him to a point close to laughter. I was nervous, getting into the car beside him, but he seemed confident, and drove steadily back to town.

He
drew up in front of my Aunt Peg’s.

‘
I’ve got a witness, you know,’ I told him.

He
was lighting another cigarette. ‘Have you?’

‘
Charlie Graham. He was at the garage the evening Colin Rampton died.’

‘
Wrong accident,’ he said tersely.

‘
I’ve got a feeling. Putting two and two together...wasn’t that what you said? I think Graham saw a car backing up.’

‘
There was no car backing up.’

‘
George Peters certainly saw it.’

‘
There’s not a scrap of bloody evidence...’

‘
And we had a barney, me and Graham.’

‘
What the hell’s that got to do with it?’ He threw the cigarette angrily out of the window as I climbed out of the car.

‘
I don’t know.’

‘
Listen. I was just making suggestions. I wanted to help.’

‘
Perhaps you have,’ I assured him. ‘I just wish I could see how.’

He
drove away. I watched him go, realising it had started to rain. Help me? All he’d done was set my mind pounding. Aunt Peg looked at me with concern. ‘You’re not drunk?’

‘
You know I’m not.’

‘
Something’s the matter with you.’

‘
I’ll get straight to bed, if you don’t mind.’

‘
Let’s hope you’re in a sunnier mood in the morning.’

I
couldn’t smile. Pecked at her cheek, but there was no warmth in it, cheek or peck. Sergeant Porter had said there’d been no second car involved in Colin Rampton’s death. So – who’d invented it, me or George Peters?

I
wasn’t going to be able to check that fact with him.

7

In
the morning I rang the office and asked to speak to Nicola. The idea was to check whether the office had anything on Charlie Graham, such as his address. The telephonist said Nicola wasn’t in her room but she’d ring round, and while this was happening I realised I was no longer a member of the staff, just another civilian. She was not allowed to give out addresses to any-old-body who asked. I hung up quickly before they traced her.

I
took a bus into town. At the police station I was told that Sergeant Porter was out. I asked if anybody could tell me about my car, and I was sent up to see Chief Inspector Caldicott.

‘
Saved us the trouble,’ he said heavily, eyeing me as though checking I wasn’t too heavy for his chair. ‘We need a statement.’

For
all his vast forcefulness, he was polite enough. For all his politeness, he was suspicious enough. I was uneasy, and therefore made mistakes. He took me up on my mistakes gently but with persistence, checking and cross-checking until I wasn’t sure what I was saying and why.

I
explained my difficulties with my memory. He flashed me a free view of his National Health teeth, all sympathy. ‘Could be convenient, though.’

It
was two hours before we got round to the reason for my visit.

‘
Your car? I wouldn’t have wanted to go near it again, myself.’

I
hadn’t thought of that, but of course he was correct. Suddenly, I didn’t even want to see it.

‘
I need transport,’ I told him, while we waited for my statement to be typed up.

‘
We’ll have to keep it for a while. It’s all we’ve got.’

‘
Yes.’ It was all I had, too.

I
’d answered his questions as carefully as I could, but I’d offered nothing else. They already knew about the assault in the office car park, so that the present statement was confined to my picking up the car and the discovery of the black bag.

‘
You could hire a car,’ he suggested.

‘
I could do that, I suppose.’

‘
A week. Then you can have the Volvo back.’

But
I knew George Peters’ address, or rather, the address he’d had sixteen months before. I realised I should give them that information, but somewhere in the back of my mind was a thought I was trying to recapture, and I felt a reluctance to offer anything.

‘
I’ll keep in touch, then,’ I said, and after I’d signed the statement I walked out of the station and nearly ran to the bus stop. I’d wasted a whole evening, boozing with Bill Porter. I scrambled on to a bus, and each of its stops tore at my nerves.

The
shattered door in number 18 was the same, and the grey net curtains at I 7A still clung tenaciously to their pall of dust. The stairs creaked. There was no sign of Charlie Graham. I stopped at the door of 17C, not reaching for my credit card this time, but tapping gently.

There
was silence. The whole house might have been deserted, so deep was the silence, or I could have been surrounded by bated-breath interest. I tapped again, feeling a strange, taut confidence. There was movement inside. A soft voice spoke, so close to the inner surface of the door that the wood might not have been between us.

‘
Who is it?’

‘
A friend of your husband,’ I said.

Silence
again. Then a whisper. ‘A minute.’

When
she drew the door open she’d put on a short jacket, as though I’d called to take her out. I knew she’d just put it on, the way she was still moving one shoulder to settle it. But there’d been no need; she’d been wearing dark slacks and a blouse, with a cardigan over it. As I moved into the room I realised it was cold in there. She’d perhaps been dozing in the limp easy chair, and felt cool when I’d woken her. There was the remains of a meal on the table. She stood back, as though to hide them, making a small gesture to include the easy chair, frowning, tossing a hand quickly over her hair.

‘
Who did you say you are?’

For
some reason her voice quavered. I thought she was afraid of something. I sat in the easy chair, going down and down into it. The surface was warm. Maybe I’d been right with my guess.

‘
My name’s Clifford Summer. Surely you recognise me, Mrs Clayton. I came to your office sixteen months ago, to investigate an accident, and your husband...’

I
stopped. She’d plopped down at the table, facing her soiled plate and cup, the chair surface just happening to be in the right place when her legs gave way. Her lips had drawn up tight in a pucker of pain.

‘
Does he know I’m here?’ she whispered.

‘
No. Nobody knows.’ Which included the police, who’d have to know very soon.

She
was about my own age, but looked younger. Then older. The light wasn’t good. Outside it was settling in dull again, the clouds heavy with rain. I could not be certain of her expression. There was a certain fragility about her features, a doll-like rigidity which could collapse at any second. I recalled that I’d thought her, at that previous meeting, to be a good-looking woman. Not beautiful now, certainly, because something had harassed her into a deliberate withdrawal of expression. Her hair was near-black, with sparks of grey in it, her eyes dark and haunted. Her hands rested on the table surface like claws, tensed, prepared to strike in defence.

‘
I remember you, of course,’ she said dully. ‘Oh yes, I can remember you.’

‘
Tony told me you were not at home when they released him. He said you didn’t come to pick him up. He’s been worried.’

She
lifted her chin, her eyes on me. ‘Tony? You call him Tony? Since when have you two been friends?’

‘
He asked me to try to find you.’

She
gave a short, disgusted exclamation. ‘You’ve done that, right enough.’

Then
her eyes darted away from me, and back, and down at her hands. Her fingers were working restlessly.

I
sat back. ‘It wasn’t difficult. I wanted to talk to George, in any event, and I had this address…’

‘
It was you!’ she jerked at me.

‘
It was me. In the night, too. I’m sorry, I must have frightened the life out of you. But I’d been here in the daytime, because I wanted to see George, and confirm something with him.’

‘
He’s not here,’ she said to her hands, which confirmed what I’d guessed, that she knew nothing about the black bag in the Volvo.

‘
I know that. But the rent had been paid, hadn’t it?’

She
made no reply. The fingers writhed. She pouted at them. I spoke very quietly and gently.

‘
The rent had been paid, Mrs Clayton, otherwise they’d have stripped the room and re-let it. The word was out that your son hadn’t been around for a year or more, but it’s much the same as I remember it.’

I
had her attention. There was a stillness about her that told me that.

‘B
ut at that time I didn’t know he was your son,’ I went on evenly. ‘When Tony told me you’d gone away, and then I discovered George was your son...well, it was obvious, wasn’t it! You’d been keeping the room for him, for when he decided to come back. And when you wanted to find somewhere...somewhere to be where you could be quiet and think things out...what more obvious than this place?’ I beamed at her. ‘And here you are.’

She
raised her head and actually managed a smile, though the pain in it was almost more than I could face.

‘
I could offer you a cup of tea,’ she said, her lips drawing back from her teeth.

‘
Thank you, but...’ Meeting her eyes, I changed my mind. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’

She
stood up behind the table, leaning forward slightly with her hands gripping it, and suddenly I saw her again, in exactly the same attitude, but now the other side of the old desk in the office at the garage. The window was now behind her, just as it had been then, but my impression was of her right hand coming up from inside the top drawer of the desk, and her words were echoing down a long corridor of memory. ‘...
then
you’d
better
take
the
wages
book
...’ Which was open on the desk in front of her – and in her hand, from that desk drawer, there was a manilla envelope, which she was putting on the open wages book before slamming it shut. And Tony was beside her, eyes on me challengingly. He did not see her action. But I saw it.
And
I
was
meant
to
see
it
.

Then
she was moving away from the table, and the memory faded. Her voice was suddenly chatty, her movements, though, still stiff.

‘
I’m afraid it’s sterilised milk, if that’s all right. I can’t...haven’t been able to do much shopping.’

The
tiny cooker was on top of a narrow chest of drawers. It had two small electric plates, on one of which she put a tin kettle. I knew it would take ages to boil, and hoped I’d be out of there before it did.

‘
If that will be all right,’ she repeated.

‘
Yes, yes. Fine.’

I
levered myself to my feet and went over to the window, mainly to keep my face hidden. The view was over the kilns, with the turgid pool beyond them.

‘
You can see the garage from here,’ I told her.

‘
I know.’

‘
Tony’s lost without you. I hope you realise that.’

‘
I always did the books.’ Her voice seemed to come from a long way away. We were both having to make an effort. ‘He was always hopeless with the book-keeping.’

I
turned to face her. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

She
had taken the easy chair. From there she could stare at me, or, by turning her head a little, stare at the tin kettle. The ring glowed red beneath it in the darkened room. She ignored what I’d said.

‘
We always hoped George would come into the business, but then he got in with a bunch of no-goods and I couldn’t do anything with him. But when he left home I had to make sure where he was, so I paid the rent here and I could come and see him at any time. Have you got any children, Mr...Mr...’

‘
Summers. No, I haven’t.’ Watching her, considering the distress George had caused her, I was pleased that I hadn’t. It was a purely selfish reaction, and I was at once ashamed of it.

‘
He went away, you know,’ she went on steadily. The kettle tried to sing a little, but it died away. ‘Around that time. When you called at the garage. You’ll remember that, perhaps.’

‘
I remember.’

‘
George went away. That would be from shame, of course, his father getting into trouble like that. But I knew he’d come back here some day, and when Tony came out of prison...well, somehow it seemed the right time. So I came here to wait for him.’

I
’d noticed that she thought of Tony Clayton as George’s father. Perhaps Clayton had thought on those lines, too, and wouldn’t have hesitated before taking the blame for my beating-up. I moved round to the kettle and twisted it on the ring. It at once settled into contented song.

Something
she had said had set me thinking. I wondered how to lead round to the thought. ‘But no need for that, surely. Coming here, I mean. You could always have popped round and checked.’

Her
mouth was set in a firm line. ‘I wanted to be here when he came.’

‘
Not a word to Tony, though, no message or anything. He’d have understood.’

Her
lips puckered. For a moment one hand fluttered, as though rising to cover her eyes, then it fell back to her lap. ‘Tony has always been so good to him.’

‘
And the garage is doing so well. It’s come along fine, in only a year. Tony was very pleased. You’ve managed it – run it – better than he did himself. So...why run away?’

She
compressed her lips, but said nothing.

‘
But of course, you had Orton to help you. With the managing of it I mean.’

Then
I was ashamed of the implication. Any affair she might have been having with him was irrelevant.

She
merely nodded, a tiny, secret smile on her lips. ‘Michael has been very good to me.’

‘
I think you should go home now, Mrs Clayton.’

‘B
ut George might come back. It’s the time, with Tony coming out, and...’