A Death to Remember (17 page)

‘
If you know, why ask me?’

‘
When I left home, I had it on.’

‘
Well, you hadn’t then. I remember, there was a bit of a fuss about keeping you warm. One of the men – ambulance men – said something. No jacket in this weather. Something like that.’

I
believed him. His mention of the weather had revived another memory. I’d been cold, in spite of the anorak, walking from Pool Street Motors. Had I walked, then? Not gone for a bus, but walked? Possibly. That meant I’d had a problem. I recalled that much about myself. I’d always walked problems until they’d resolved themselves. Now I recalled cold hands. Cold, fumbling in pockets for keys. Keys that couldn’t have been there, because I’d left them in the car. Water was streaming from my hair down my face. What about the anorak’s hood? Ah yes, it zipped off. I didn’t use it in the car. Something else I’d left behind, the hood – at home? Perhaps. My mind raced, and nothing came together and made sense.

‘
We could find a table.’ He was eyeing me strangely.

‘
I’m not staying.’

‘
I’ll get you a brandy. Miss...’

‘
No. You know I’m not supposed to.’

I
don’t remember saying goodnight to him. I stood by the car. I was wearing that same anorak, without the hood. Then, feeling round the neck, I detected the broken zip, and remembered something else. It was nothing remarkable that I hadn’t been wearing the hood that night, because it had been torn off. I smiled at the simplicity of this solution, and stood, wondering when it had been torn off.

And
saw the picture clearly, Charlie Graham coming at me...no, not at Rock Street. I banished that background from my mind. Charlie Graham, whom I had at once recognised at 17C Rock Street, as a figure of aggression! Now I saw why. Charlie Graham was coming at me against a background shadowed in patterned metal. Clayton had said we’d had a right barney...

I
clung to the car’s roof for stability while I fought for the true image in my mind. Graham with his face distorted, one hand reaching for me, the other raised and clenched into a fist. We were in the repair bay at Pool Street Motors. The reaching hand was tearing the hood free...

The
image died. I was again in the car park behind the Mitre, no hood to the anorak, which I remembered peeling off as I turned from him, trying desperately to free my arms.

I
must have got into the car because I realised I was in the driver’s seat with the keys still in my hand. There had been a period without either the present or the past reaching my consciousness. My heart was pounding, and pain pressed behind my eyes.

Drive
home, I told myself. Drive home, you fool. But what I had seen was real and valid. Charlie Graham. I’d felt something between us, and Tony Clayton had mentioned a right up-and-downer, as he called it. So at least I had something from the near-present to validate the memory. But my mind shied away from it. Tentatively, I attempted to recapture the image, but my mind fired and died, like a car with damp leads.

I
knew what was the trouble. The image had revealed me as twisting free from the anorak, yet I was now wearing that same anorak. It was the jacket, which had been beneath it, that was missing.

I
reached forward and started the engine. Only one person could tell me the truth. Charlie Graham.

But
I did not dare to drive to his address. I was afraid that Graham would shatter this latest memory.

11

Pool Street Motors was not well enough situated to attract custom to its petrol pumps after the local factory workers had gone home. I didn’t expect to find it open. It wasn’t. The forecourt was dark, and the only sound was the flat, metallic thumping from loose sheeting flapping at the rear in the breeze.

I
drew in behind the pumps and got out of the car. As with the darkened room at 17C Rock Street, I hoped that quietly, on my own and free to concentrate, I could seize on the aura of the place and convert it into solid memories. Well...not hoped, exactly. Feared would be closer to it. I hoped for memories that could be proved to be valid, but feared that once again I’d have to face jumbled nonsense, skirting the truth but not probing deeply into it.

It
was no help that the frontage had been changed. Quietly, I moved round in the shadows, and nothing stirred my interest. Clayton had said I’d parked the Volvo, that day, over at one side. Out of the way. The only place this could be was now occupied by an air line outlet, at this time with its pressure gauge detached. I had the impression that I’d parked the Volvo there, yes, and backed up, edging into the corner. And left the keys in? I plunged my hand into my anorak pocket, and there were the keys to the Escort. I couldn’t remember taking them out, but it had been instinctive. Surely, with the Volvo it would’ve been equally instinctive!

I
looked round. Yes, there’d been a tatty hutment where the present self-service and pay office stood. I’d walked into there and asked to see the boss. They’d taken me through into the back.

The
back? The repair bay, that would be. I’d been told to walk through...there’d been a door just past the foreman’s office. I’d walked through and seen the men working, found the door at the side, then the outside staircase.

I
discovered that the new, open-woodwork fence, which formed the forecourt boundary, did not quite reach the wall of the neighbouring property. There was an eighteen inch gap, enough for even a bulky type like me to squeeze through, if I sucked in my stomach.

There
was an earth surface with clumped grass beneath my feet. Here, not much of the light from the street penetrated. I made my way forward cautiously, with one hand running along the corrugated iron wall of the tall service bay. I was searching for something, anything, that was familiar. My hand abruptly swung into space, and I realised I’d reached the far end of the building. I stood, allowing my eyes to accommodate, aware that in front of me should be a twenty foot flat surface, and then the open space with the scattered wrecks of plundered cars.

The
moon was racing from cloud to cloud. A brisk and cool wind met me head on. I saw scattered shapes, and as I explored farther with my eyes the moon caught the dead surface of the clay pool.

I
moved round the corner. Now the metallic thumping was loud. One of the big sliding doors was moving restlessly in its channels. If it was moving, it meant it was not fully closed. Or so it seemed to me. I felt along it, its vibrations communicating. There was a gap, six inches between the doors. There should have been a padlock between the hasps. I felt for it, and the moon suddenly shone free and showed me there wasn’t one. With both hands to the vibrating door, I heaved sideways, and it moved. There was a grating sound, and then I had two feet of dark space to slip through.

I
wasn’t sure whether my memory would recall anything if I had to stand there in complete darkness. I would have needed, I thought, at least ghostly shapes, in order to orientate myself. Fortunately, I had ghostly shapes. There was a small amount of light. It came as a dim glow from the small office in the far corner.

This
was the foreman’s office. Partly clerical. There the foreman would complete chits of work done and time spent, oil-blackened from his hands. Clayton hadn’t had a foreman...but he could have been his own foreman.

I
approached this metal shack cautiously. The door was open. Some of the light came from there, the rest from an almost-obscured window in its facing wall. There was no sound from it. I cleared my throat tentatively. Still no sound. The sliding door thumped. Inside the bay there was silence. I walked with confidence into the office, tapping the door on the way past.

Nobody
was there. The light was from a small anglepoise lamp on a long, narrow bench at the rear. Nothing was on the bench. In racks on the wall above it were the numerous, tatty car maintenance manuals that had accumulated over the years. There was a green metal chair, a green metal filing cabinet, and along one wall a row of coat hooks on which were draped years of the accumulation of black-stained overalls, which had gone way past sending to the laundry.

I
remembered them. I had sat facing them. On the same metal chair, yes. I had been speaking to Tony Clayton...no, Tessa, it had been. Not speaking to, listening to. Her tone was quite clear in my mind, intense, hurried. But no words came. There, I had sat. My briefcase had been across my knees, my notebook open on it. Still I could not hear what she was saying. Something about help. She needed help.
She
needed help. Personally. That much I knew, before the memory died.

I
reached forward and turned the head of the lamp, pointing it at the grimy window, then went out again into the dim expanse of the repair bay. The improvement was small, but it
was
an improvement. Gradually, I absorbed the scene.

There
was no sudden and blinding image, as I’d had before. It came together slowly, like a normal mind recalling the past. For some moments I did not appreciate the normality of it, and then the realisation flushed me with warmth. My mind was deliberately and calmly presenting me with fact.

To
my immediate left, tucked into the corner beside the office, was a dump for empty oil cans, old rags, leaking sumps and general filth. This much I knew, and I could keep free of it. I didn’t know why I knew, but the thought was that my feet would be insecure on that surface, so I moved father into the centre of the bay. Now the main hydraulic lift was to my left, raised, a vehicle on it. On the ground beneath it there were shapes. Part of the engine had been dismantled. Beyond it, along the wall, was a squat bulk of machinery. I didn’t know what that was – and then I did. Clayton had told me; the compressor and tank for the air supply on the forecourt. To my right, set back against the wall, was an electronic tester they used for tuning, in front of it the wheel rollers for the MOT test for braking. In the corner, beyond that, an empty space, where my Volvo had sat for sixteen months. Ahead, near the thumping door, there was a shape that had to be a car. A tiny red light against the wall, and a faint humming, told me that a battery was being charged.

I
stood, looking round. I filled the echoing space with movement and life and noise. Here I had stood, briefcase at my feet, and watched Clayton as he walked away from me to give instructions to one of his three mechanics.

I
had stood there before, in that exact spot, and I had groaned my dismay. I had come on an enquiry involving an accident to one George Peters, who had signed a statement...yes, damn it, there
had
been a statement. I had come there to confirm what Peters had said, that he’d had a car roll off its jacks and crush his arm.

I
was standing in a near-dark repair bay, the wind flapping a door, and otherwise silence. The picture was now very clear to me. I had walked into trouble, innocently, because I’d had no warning. I’d come there to confirm the details of an accident. This should not have provoked violence; I had never before been involved with violence in my work. Nevertheless, the image was clear, of Charlie Graham coming at me with fury in his eyes...fury provoked by fear. Why did I think that? Had there been anything for him to fear, in what I’d said? And yet, I had that impression distinctly. We’d been the other side of the hydraulic lift. Yes, between it and the wall. I’d been shouting, but that was not from anger, rather because of the noise being made by one of the men...

My
concentration was so absolute that the small side door could have been open for several minutes without catching my attention. But there was a change in the draught. I turned. The door stood beside the foreman’s office, and was open. Beyond it there was light, reflected down the outside staircase from the main office above.

‘
I’m afraid...’ I began in apology, but Tessa Clayton moved in and closed the door behind her as though we shared something secret.

‘
You shouldn’t have come here,’ she said, a strange intimacy in her voice.

It
was ridiculously like a meeting of lovers. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t know there was anybody here – didn’t see your light.’

‘
I was catching up on the bookwork.’ Her voice was cautious, searching. She was lying; she’d been in the dark in the office upstairs, otherwise I’d have noticed her light. ‘And what is it you want?’ she asked.

I
moved towards her. She threw a switch, and blinding light pressed down on us from floodlights high in the roof. She was wearing a crumpled skirt and a cardigan, and was peering at me as though she’d just awakened and was not sure where she was.

‘
Only to stand here,’ I said. ‘In the shadows, trying to remember what happened the last time I was here.’

‘
You must be crazy,’ she told me indifferently. ‘Why don’t you come in here?’

She
meant the foreman’s office. I wondered whether she was trying to keep me away from the main office. Then I wondered where the Claytons lived. There could not be living accommodation here, and yet, if she’d come from their home to check the books, where had she left her car? As I hesitated, she switched off the main lights, making the decision for me.

‘
I don’t mind,’ I said equably, following her into the foreman’s office. ‘I owe you an explanation. It’s all a matter of getting some help for my memory.’

‘
Daytime would have been better.’

She
was drawing out a stool I hadn’t noticed, from beneath an old desk below the window. Because she seemed to want me to, I took the green chair. We’d sat like this before, I realised, she and I. My heart quickened at the thought.

‘B
ut now,’ I said, ‘it’s night time. That’s better for memories, when everything’s quiet.’

‘
You frightened me.’

‘
I had no idea there was anyone around.’ I was trying to keep my tone casual. ‘I really do apologise.’

She
was strange, no anger in her voice at my intrusion, no aftermath of the nervousness she must have felt. But the fear I had detected at 17C Rock Street seemed still to be with her.

‘
You’re here alone?’ I asked.

‘
Tony brought me. He’ll come for me later.’

‘
Ah,’ I said. ‘After the pubs closed?

‘
So you see, there’s no time. Very little time.’

‘
To finish the books?’

She
smiled at my simplicity. ‘I very nearly shot you, you know.’

I
stared beyond her at the manuals in their rack, cleared my throat. ‘I startled you.’ I had to assume I’d misheard.

‘
Tony keeps a shotgun in a cupboard in the office.’

‘
Not loaded, surely?’ I tried for an easy laugh, but it nearly choked me.

It
’s leaning against the wall, just outside. I recognised you, you see.’

‘
That’s good. Otherwise...’

‘
That was when I nearly shot you.’

I
felt that reality was more of a nightmare than my moments of recall. ‘You’re not serious.’

‘
You made me a promise.’

‘B
ut surely...for a broken promise...and I can’t remember anything about it.’

‘
I don’t believe that. Anybody can say they forgot. But you didn’t forget. You simply let him die.’

‘F
or heaven’s sake! You’re not talking about George?’

‘
My son. You promised you’d use the phone in the office.’

I
’ll
use
the
phone
in
the
office
.

She
was still sitting there on the stool, leaning forward. Both of her were sitting there, overlaid, the present Tessa Clayton in her skirt and cardie, the other in jeans and a roll-neck jumper. It was the other who was leaning forward, beseeching me, pleading with me. I could feel my own sympathy and concern...and hear the protest I’d made.

‘
But
I
can’t
do
that
...’

‘
You
could
save
him
.’

‘
I’m
sure
you’re
exaggerating
.’