A Death to Remember (19 page)

‘
I tell you I’m not drunk. Write the number down.’

‘
Never mind numbers.’ He was becoming impatient.

‘
I’d like you to get out of the car.’

‘
And if I don’t?’ I felt a stir of anger, that he might deprive me of the number for ever.

‘
Then we’ll have to take you to the station, and do it there.’

I
got out of the car. If he expected me to be uncertain on my feet, he wasn’t disappointed. I was still not a hundred per cent with the present world. I had to clutch his arm. ‘It’ll have to be the station.’

‘
In the other car, sir, if you please. I’ll bring yours.’

‘
Then for Christ’s sake, let’s do it fast,’ I said, and plunged for the police Rover.

The
driver grinned at me. ‘Seat belt,’ he said. I grabbed it angrily.

‘
Let’s get going,’ I said, and he raised his eyebrows at me.

As
we started, I gestured to the red glow beneath his dash, above the hanging microphone. ‘Can you call ahead?’

‘
We can manage. Don’t worry.’

‘
Ask them if Bill Porter’s come in. Ask them...please. If not, try to get him. It’s urgent. I’m not drunk. I’m not crazy. Or perhaps it’d be better if we turned back to Pool Street Motors.’ I glanced at him, but he said nothing.

‘
I’ve just come from there. There was a woman, and she was talking about being frightened. She had a shotgun...’

‘
You saw it?’

‘
No.’

‘
Then we’ll go to the station. Bill Porter’s there.’

‘
Thank God for that.’

He
spoke a few words to his control, was answered with squawks I couldn’t understand, and hung up.

The
car leapt forward. I closed my eyes to the swinging streets, and concentrated. 259287

I
reached for my pen, found an old receipt, and wrote it on the back. Then I felt better, sat back, and suddenly became so weak that I almost passed out.

12

Bill Porter was waiting on the station steps. ‘Why don’t you let me go home?’ he complained, but I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him inside. There, in the duty office, I gabbled out a condensed version of what had happened. My eyes must have been wild, and my voice on the edge of hysteria, because he was staring at me with uncertainty.

‘
I didn’t believe her, Bill. I just couldn’t accept she’d given me a phone number...nor that I’d have phoned from the office. But now I’ve remembered a number, and if she was telling the truth about that...’

‘
Did you get the impression she was mentally unbalanced?’

‘
I thought that. But she said she was afraid. Maybe it was fear that caused it.’

He
grunted. ‘You didn’t see this shotgun she mentioned, though?’

‘
No.’ I thrust my receipt at him. ‘Call the number, Bill.’

‘
This is your fancy memory we’re talking about?’

‘
It won’t hurt you to call it.’

He
considered me for another painful moment, then walked over to the counter. I followed him slowly, feeling whacked. He used the phone, carefully dialling: 259287. He listened for a few seconds, then he held it out to me. I could hear the number ringing out.

‘
There’s no reply,’ he said unnecessarily.

‘B
ut it
is
a phone number.’

‘
Cliff,’ he said heavily, ‘you must have dozens of phone numbers tucked away in your memory.’

‘
I
saw
this one, clearly, in my mind’s eye.’

‘
In your mind’s eye?’ he said flatly, not trusting either the mind or the eye.

‘B
ill...ask the exchange whose is that number. They’ll tell you.’

‘
Want a bet?’

But
all the same he did it. I stood at his shoulder while he mumbled words, waited, mumbled again, then hung up. His face was expressionless when he turned back to me.

‘
It’s a phone box,’ he said. ‘At the corner of Rock Street and the Mecklin Road.’

I
breathed out fully and drew in a shuddering breath. ‘There you are then.’

‘
We’d better go and have a look.’

The
two men from the patrol car were standing in the doorway, chatting. Porter raised a finger. ‘You two had better follow me.’ And he walked out, me at his heels.

They
had my car in the yard at the side. I automatically moved towards it. He said: ‘We’ll use mine.’ I didn’t argue. I wasn’t sure I could have driven, anyway. I felt cold, right through to the bones, and my legs seemed to be moving stiffly. Twice I had failed her, once in not making contact with George Peters at the call box at the end of Rock Street, and again in refusing to believe her. She had pleaded for help, and I’d not been able to get away from her fast enough.

But
if
George
Peters
had
been
waiting
by
that
phone
box
for
the
call
,
he
could
not
have
been
the
one
who
attacked
me
in
the
office
car
park
.

‘
Can’t you go any faster?’ I mumbled.

The
patrol car swerved past us, and put on its winker and siren. We went faster. When we drew in behind the pumps at Pool Street Motors the siren was moaning down to silence. Then all was quiet. I lifted my head. Yes, the sliding door was still open, I could hear it thumping.

‘
How did you get in?’ Bill asked.

I
gestured to the far side. ‘There’s a gap.’

‘
There’s a gate this end, though.’

The
white, open-paling fencing was broken by a ten feet wide gate, opening into the yard behind. It didn’t look as though it was padlocked. Of course, there’d have to be a way to drive the cars round...‘I happened to be over there,’ I told him.

He
grunted, and gestured to the others. The gate swung open. I wanted to run ahead, but my legs hadn’t got a run in them. Bill Porter raised an arm to restrain me, just in case.

‘
Take it easy,’ he said.

I
led them to the sliding doors. One of the constables slid it open. The small light in the foreman’s office was no longer switched on. I found myself whispering.

‘
The switches are over in the corner, by that office.’ I was pointing into blackness. One of the men switched on a torch. It searched out the office. ‘There,’ I said. ‘And there’s a side door to the staircase and the main office above.’

‘
Saw it as we came past,’ Bill said. ‘No light up there, either. She’s gone home, Cliff. Tony Clayton came for her, as she said, and he’s taken her home.’

But
he didn’t sound convinced. We moved into the repair bay, the torch’s light dancing over the oil-black concrete floor ahead.

‘
I’ll get the switches,’ I offered.

‘
Careful,’ said the constable sharply.

His
torch flicked at the planks I’d almost tripped over coming out. I’d disturbed a couple, I recalled, but surely no more than two. The torch steadied on my feet. Each of the planks, which should have notched into the recessed edges of the inspection pit, was displaced and scattered beside it. I’d nearly walked into a six foot fall.

The
constable came to my side and cast the rays down into the pit. It was strewn with empty gallon oil cans and filthy rags. Lying face down amongst them was the woman I’d last seen in skirt and cardigan, beside her the shotgun I hadn’t seen. The back of her head was a pulverised mess.

‘
By God,’ whispered Porter, ‘you do find ‘em, don’t you Cliff!’

Then
he turned to one of the men, who hurried away. The other one took my arm, and we managed to reach the foreman’s office. He found the bench lamp switch, at around the time that Porter located the main switch by the side door and flooded the building with light.

‘
Just sit there, sir, if you will,’ said the constable, then he went away.

I
should not have been left alone with my thoughts. Bitter self-recrimination flooded over me, and I sat, huddled with it, trapped with it in the close confines of that office. The trouble was that Tessa was still there, still reaching for me with her voice, pleading for help. And time and again, as the memory tortured me, I was once more getting to my feet and walking away from her. Except that now I couldn’t get to my feet and walk away because I was trapped there. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to walk away from it, because the trap was not the constable’s calm and authoritative directive, it was my conscience.

A
policewoman eventually came and rescued me. She drove me away from there, fussing over me as though I was a baby, fastening my seat belt for me and driving carefully, as though speed would be too great a shock for my system. At the station there was no suggestion that I should take my car and drive home. At this thought I vaguely wondered whether I should phone Aunt Peg; it was surely getting late. But as we pushed through the growing activity in the outer office, and made our way to the canteen, I forgot about it.

She
got me a cup of tea and a sandwich. I hadn’t thought I was hungry. The canteen, open all hours, was nevertheless quiet, lights on only at one end. There was a cosy intimacy about it, a warmth. This I realised when the shaking ceased. I hadn’t noticed the shaking, but she had.

‘
There,’ she said. ‘Feeling better now?’

I
nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’

Then
she began talking to me, drawing me out, yet not a word related to what was in the forefront of my mind. She had her instructions. I was to be unfrozen.

‘
Why are we waiting here?’ I asked at one point.

‘
Chief Inspector Caldicott will want to see you.’

‘
It’s getting late.’

‘
Yes,’ she agreed.

It
was too much effort to look at my watch.

Eventually
I was taken up to Caldicott’s office. Probably he’d handled many witnesses in my condition, half in shock. His technique was simple. He ignored my feelings and stuck to the basics.

‘
From the beginning,’ he said. ‘What were you doing at Pool Street Motors?’

‘
I was trying to dig into my memory and get some idea of what had happened there...’

‘
Never mind your memory. You broke in. Why?’

‘
Not actually
broke
in. The main sliding door was open.’

‘
Take it from there.’

I
did. In detail. He had a tape machine recording our conversation. As long as I went on talking he did not interrupt, simply kept his eyes on me, boring in, unimpressed. He didn’t even say anything when I could not give a coherent account without mentioning my memory loss. When I came to an end he switched off the recorder and sat back.

Not
much wrong with your memory, there.’

‘
It’s just one specific day, sixteen months ago, and odd bits before then.’

‘
What’s a day between friends?’ He smiled thinly. ‘You make a fair statement, by the way. We’ll type it up verbatim.’

‘
I had umpteen years of experience in making out statements and reports. I can quote you the Judges Rules by heart, if you like.’

He
laughed, rising from his desk and walking round. ‘More than I can. I’ve got the stuff written on a bit of card.’

‘
Me too.’ I grinned at him. ‘I was just kidding.’

For
a moment or two the misery had drained from me. Caldicott was probably a very good policeman. But outside his office the mood was left behind. She was waiting for me, my policewoman. I saw that she was a good-looking woman in her twenties, not tall, smiling and pleasant but always with her eyes assessing me. She took me down, and into a waiting room with a bit of privacy.

‘
I’ve got to leave you now.’ It was an instruction. ‘You’ll be all right.’

‘
What am I waiting for?’

‘
The typist. Your statement. Then you can go home.’

Home,
I thought. Of course. I should have realised. Aunt Peg, I thought, as she smiled and left, I ought to ring her. That was when Nicola put her head round the door.

‘
Here you are,’ she said, closing it behind her. ‘You look lousy, Cliff.’

‘
What on earth...’ I got to my feet. ‘What’re you doing here? It must be...’

‘
It’s three in the morning.’

‘
Oh God, poor Aunt Peg, she’ll be worrying herself stiff.’

‘
Don’t worry...I called her. She
was
worrying, but when I told her you’d come across another of those bodies you keep finding, she said that was all right, then, and she could get to bed.’

Nicola
’s sense of humour. I tried a weak grin and took her hands, and suddenly I felt weak and ridiculously close to tears.

‘
Everything under control,’ I said.

‘
You
do
get yourself into trouble.’

She
turned away. We found ourselves chairs. I was able to look at her, feast my eyes on her. Her hair was untidy and there was no trace of make-up. The lack of discipline in her features was obvious, now. Her clothes had been thrown on, a blue jumper with pink joggers.

‘
You didn’t say,’ I reminded her, ‘why you’re here.’

‘
That sergeant sorted out my address and phoned me.’

‘
Oh?’

She
puckered her mouth and eyes at my blank expression. ‘You’d been asking for me.’

‘
Had I?’

‘
So he said. This sergeant. But he could have been telling lies.’

The
door opened as though he’d been listening outside and couldn’t stand the insult. Sergeant Porter slid in and closed the door quietly, found himself a chair without a sound.

‘
It wasn’t a lie. You asked for her.’

I
tried to grin at her. ‘That’s a relief. Proves I wasn’t crazy, and for a while I thought I was.’