A Death to Remember (16 page)

The
telephonist always left the Inspector’s phone plugged through to the exchange. She began dialling, and got her number. Vaguely I heard her telling somebody called Marsha she’d been delayed. She replaced the phone. ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘
I came to this building that night, as you have now. When we talked about it, there didn’t seem to have been a reason. There’d be no point in dropping in here just to leave my briefcase, and the money – which I’m sure I’d got but I still don’t know why – that wouldn’t have brought me here. But now I see. I came here to use the phone. I was going to ring somebody...but who? And why? Oh hell, Nicola, it’s even worse when I half remember.’

‘
But you’re sure of this?’

‘
What other reason could there have been, except to phone?’

I
’ll
use
the
phone
in
the
office
.

‘
Now what?’ she demanded.

It
had been almost as though I’d heard my own voice in my head. I had said those words.
I’ll
use
the
phone
in
the
office
. I shook my head, clearing it, leaving only a hum like a disconnected line.

‘
Yes,’ I said. ‘I came here to use the phone.’

I
was aware she was eyeing me with concern. ‘Where did you leave your car?’

‘
By the park.’

She
put off the lights and locked up, then walked me to my car. Very nearly, I felt, she put her hand to my arm to steady me. I felt old and uncertain as I got behind the wheel, but I did the correct actions in the right order.

‘
You see, I’m quite capable.’

‘
Keep in touch,’ she told me. ‘That’s an order.’

‘
Yes ma’am.’ I gestured, and drove away.

The
trouble with my aunt’s place was that there was only on-street parking. The street, one of the main ones out of town towards the west, was lined with solid and pretentious Victorian semis, built at a time when car parking had not been an issue. I left the car on the road, under a streetlamp.

Aunt
Peg, not sure if I’d be back or when, had a stew going. I knew before I reached the front door. She glanced at me as I walked in, but that’s all she ever needs.

‘
I knew it would upset you.’

‘
It’s all right. Stew, is it?’

‘
On the table in two minutes.’

‘
I’ll just wash my hands.’

I
ran up the stairs to my room, straight to the narrow wardrobe she called a tallboy. Inside was my one decent suit, two pairs of jeans and a pair of slacks, a brown sports jacket, a blazer short of two buttons, and my mac. I was wearing the anorak over the grey jacket of an otherwise defunct suit and a pair of baggy woollen trousers. There was no green Harris tweed jacket.

When
I went down again I remembered to kiss her on the cheek. She nodded, having noted the omission. The piled plate was placed in front of me, and she sat opposite before commenting.

‘
In a fair rush, weren’t you?’

‘
Something I wanted to check. Had to.’

‘
Hmm!’ She stared at her plate. ‘Too salty, do you think?’ I was expected to contradict. ‘Not a bit. It’s marvellous.’

‘
I could tell you every item in that tallboy.’

‘
You listened for the door! You crafty old auntie. I was looking for a green Harris tweed jacket.’

‘
There isn’t one. I could’ve saved you the trouble.’

‘
But there
was
one, wasn’t there? Before the incident.’ Between us, my battering was ‘the incident’. It made an attack with a heavy spanner sound more genteel.

For
a few moments she chewed placidly, head to one side as she thought about it. Then: ‘I
did
wonder what had happened to that. Certainly you had it, but it wasn’t in the parcel that nice sergeant brought from the hospital. I didn’t want to worry you about it.’

‘
I’m not worried.’

‘
And
that’s
a lie, to start with.’

I
smiled as well as I could with a mouthful of beef. ‘Not worried about the jacket. But one or two things are missing, and they might have been in the pockets.’

She
placed knife and fork on the plate and sat back, her serious ‘I’m listening’ attitude.

‘
Don’t let it get cold,’ I said.

‘
What things?’

‘
At the moment – all that’s obvious – it’s the registration form for the Volvo, and my driving licence.’

‘
Oh,’ she said, ‘then I think I know...’

‘
For heaven’s sake, auntie, eat your dinner. It’ll do after.’

As
well try to stop a charging rhino. Dabbing her lips with a napkin, she went over to her old Welsh dresser, opened a drawer, and came back with an envelope.

‘
I’ve always kept these for you, but you wouldn’t have carried them around with you, I’m sure.’

I
emptied them out beside my plate. The Volvo’s registration, my birth certificate, blood donor’s card, and my copy of the decree absolute. No driver’s licence. I would have been carrying that.

Gradually,
the detritus of my former life was coming together. But I was not getting anything like a clear picture of how the missing bits fitted into the outline.

Clearly,
with the meal finished, the washing-up done and the wiping by me, it was expected that I’d settle down in my uncle’s easy chair and doze in front of the TV set. Aunt Peg’s meals were always huge, her husband having been a steel erector, a large man with a mountainous appetite. I felt I didn’t dare to doze. I had an address that needed chasing up.

‘
You’re not going out again?’

‘
It could be urgent.’

‘
You’re tired. Sit down and rest.’

But
my mind wasn’t going to sit and rest. ‘I wouldn’t be able to relax. Don’t worry. It’s nothing strenuous.’

She
sighed, and slapped the arms of her chair. ‘Just like your father. No sense or reason in what he ever did.’

‘
He married your sister, didn’t he?’

‘
That’s what I meant.’ Her lips puckered. ‘He should have married me.’

For
a moment I gazed into one of life’s tragedies, and then it was gone. I touched the back of her hand. ‘Heaven forbid. You’re bossy enough as an aunt, heaven knows what you’d be like as my mother.’

‘
Get away with you,’ she said, so I went away.

It
wasn’t likely that Sergeant Porter would be on duty, but I tried the station. He wasn’t. The duty officer asked whether he could help.

‘
Not really. It’s a friendly chat I want.’

He
eyed me with uncertainty, then made up his mind. ‘Eight o’clock onwards, he’d maybe be in the Duke of York or the Mitre. Don’t tell him I said so.’

‘
Thanks. I won’t.’

It
was eight-twenty when I located him at the bar in the Mitre, laughing with a group of his mates. I ordered my statutory half and waited until he chose to join me at one end of the bar. It took ten minutes.

‘
Cliff? No good offering...’

‘
I’m fixed, thanks. Any news?’

‘
The date of death’s vague. Any time from a year to eighteen months ago.’

‘
Sixteen,’ I corrected. ‘I spoke to him on November the 16th.’

‘
So you did.’ He lifted his glass and stared into it. ‘At his place in Rock Street.’

‘
Why d’you say it like that?’ I asked.

He
lifted one eyebrow. ‘Your account was vague. No. Wrong word. Contradictory.’

‘
Damn it, Bill. You know about my memory.’

‘B
ut certainly he signed something on that day.’

‘
By “something” you mean that withdrawal form?’

‘
So it’s a fair assumption he was alive then.’

Our
conversation was in the form of light banter, but I detected a coolness about him. For a moment I hesitated. Then I plunged.

‘
Why’re you taking that tone with me, Bill?’

‘
You’re asking too many questions.’

‘
Then answer that last one.’

‘
I have. You’re showing too much interest in this.’

‘
It was my car...’

‘
It’s not that.’

‘
Then will you believe...I want to find out what happened that day. I’ve got to find out. Bits of memory...they’re just confusing the issue. To me it’s important, Bill.’

‘
He might not have died that day. Or do you know he did?’

‘
Not
him
,’ I said. ‘He’s your affair. It’s me I’m worried about. I’m no longer certain about my mental balance.’

I
hadn’t wanted to say that; it wasn’t what I’d hunted him out for. But for some reason I thought I could trust him. He drank beer, licked his lips, looked round for the barmaid.

‘
It’s not your brain I’m worried about, sport,’ he said. ‘It’s the rest of you. We’re moving into a new aspect of it, and it could be unhealthy.’

‘
I’m only trying...’

‘
They found something else on that arm of his, which is pretty well all they’ve got to work on. Tracks. D’you know what
they
are, Cliff?’

‘
An idea. You’re saying he was on drugs?’

‘
You’re not surprised?’

‘
Clayton told me he suspected that.’

He
banged the glass down on the bar with more emotion than I’d ever seen him use. It attracted the barmaid, frowning.

‘
Fill it,’ he said, not glancing at her. He put his face close to mine. ‘And you’re
still
sniffing around!’

‘
I don’t think the drug aspect’s relevant. Look Bill, I came here to ask you something, and you won’t let me say it.’

‘
Not relevant!’ He raised his eyes, grunted in disgust, and said: ‘Ask away.’

‘
That night. In the office car park. Were you there?’

‘
One of the first. I was on duty.’

‘
Got there before they took me away?’

‘
Yes. Didn’t I tell you how you were lying face down on the doorstep?’

‘
When they took me away – ambulance, I suppose – did you notice what I was wearing?’

‘
Oh brother!’

‘
What’s up?’

‘
It was pouring with rain, cold with it, the light rotten, and you lying there with your head bashed in, and all you can think about is your sartorial elegance.’

‘
Stop playing the fool, Bill. It matters.’

‘
How in God’s name d’you expect me to remember that?’

‘
Visualise it. Me lying there...Get the picture.’

‘
My memory doesn’t work like that. Names, numbers, lists, those I remember. Faces of villains I can picture, if I’ve studied their mug-shots.’

‘
Try.’

‘
Go away, Cliff.’

‘
Please.’

He
sighed. ‘All right. Shoes. You were wearing shoes.’

‘
Funny!’

‘
No gloves. Slacks, not jeans. I remember that. No hat. Pity. Could’ve helped you. Anorak – something zipped and padded, anyway. Shirt and tie, when they eventually turned you over. A cardigan or pullover. There, you see, I
can
do it.’

‘
Not all of it, Bill. The jacket. What jacket was I wearing?’

‘
You got more than one?’

‘
What colour, style, material…’

‘
You must be crazy. Anyway, you weren’t wearing a jacket.’

‘
I had on my green Harris tweed.’