Authors: Kevin Brooks
‘Yeah …’
‘But I still don’t
really
know anything about you. I know that your mother used to own this house, and that your wife was killed … and I know what you do for a living, but that’s about all.’ She sipped from her coffee cup, looking at me over the rim. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Mind what?’
She shrugged. ‘Me … you know …’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
She smiled. ‘You can tell me to shut up if you want.’
I looked at her, my heart beating hard with an expectation that I wasn’t sure I wanted. ‘What do you want to know about me?’ I asked her.
‘Anything, really … whatever you want to tell me.’
‘Like what?’
‘Tell me about your wife.’
‘Stacy?’
‘Yeah … Stacy.’ Bridget smiled. ‘Tell me how you met her.’
It was the smile that did it, I think. Bridget’s smile. If she’d been at all hesitant in asking me about Stacy, or if there’d been any trace of sadness or pity in her voice, I
probably would have made an excuse and tried to change the subject. But the way she asked, as if the memory of Stacy was something to be celebrated, not mourned or avoided or tiptoed around … somehow that made all the difference. And as I began telling Bridget about the summer of 1990, I realised that this was the first time I’d talked to anyone but myself about Stacy since the day she was killed.
‘I’d just finished my first year at university,’ I told Bridget, ‘and I’d come back home for the summer –’
‘What were you studying?’ she said.
‘Philosophy.’
‘Why?’
I looked at her. ‘I don’t know … I thought it’d be interesting, I suppose.’
‘Was it?’
I shrugged. ‘It was OK. I mean, to be honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing back then. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do with my life … my father was hoping that I’d join the police force after I’d taken my degree –’
‘The police?’
‘Yeah, well, he was a police officer –’
‘Really?’
I nodded. ‘And so was
his
father … so, you know, it was kind of a family tradition.’
‘So what does your dad think of you being a
private
detective?’
‘He’s dead now.’
‘Oh … I’m sorry.’
I nodded again. ‘Well, anyway … it was the summer of
1990, a Friday night, and I was having a drink in the Double Locks … you know the place I mean?’
‘Yeah, down by the river … it’s a nice pub.’
‘Yeah, so I was just sitting there, a little bit drunk –’
‘Were you on your own?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why? I mean, didn’t you have any friends or a girlfriend or anything?’
I shrugged. ‘I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, no. I had friends … I mean, I
knew
people. I just … I don’t know. I just liked being on my own, that’s all.’
Bridget smiled. ‘Fair enough. So you were on your own, a little bit drunk, and you were having a drink … then what?’
‘I saw Stacy. She was with a group of people who I found out later were teachers from the school where she’d just started working … I suppose it must have been a teachers’ Friday night out or something –’
‘Or an end-of-term celebration?’
‘Yeah … something like that. There were about a dozen of them – men and women, young and old – and they all seemed to be having a pretty good time. Stacy was at the bar with an older man when I first saw her. He was in his late twenties, early thirties, and I thought he was
with
her, you know …? The way he was standing really close to her, touching her arm, her shoulder, whispering in her ear … I thought they were a couple. But I still couldn’t take my eyes off Stacy.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Stunning … I mean, just really, really beautiful. Not in a
fancy, glamorous kind of way, she was just … I don’t know. There was just something about her. Her eyes, her face … everything. She was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen.’
‘Describe her.’
‘What?’
‘I want to know what she
looked
like. You know, was she tall, short, blonde …?’
‘Blonde, yeah. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin … she wasn’t tall.’ I looked at Bridget. ‘About your height …’
My voice trailed off and I lowered my eyes as I realised that my description of Stacy could easily have been a description of Bridget, and for some reason I found that oddly embarrassing.
‘So did you make a move?’ Bridget said, smiling. ‘Or did you spend all night just looking at her?’
‘Make a move?’
She laughed. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘if it wasn’t for Stacy, I probably
would
have spent all night just looking at her.’
‘So
she
made the first move?’
‘Yeah … I’d been watching her for about half an hour or so, when I suddenly realised that she was staring right back at me from the bar. So I immediately looked away, you know … I probably started fiddling with my cigarettes or a beer mat or something in a vain attempt to make out that I hadn’t been staring at her at all. But then the next thing I knew, I heard someone say, “Would you like to buy me a drink?” And when I looked up, there she was, standing right in front of me with an irresistible smile on her face.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said, “I’m sorry?”’
‘Very cool.’
‘I know. She didn’t seem to mind though, she just kind of cocked her head and looked at me and said it again, “Would you like to buy me a drink?” And this time I said, “Yeah, yeah, I’d love to buy you a drink.” And then I stood up and started going through my pockets, looking for some money, but all I had on me was a pound … one measly pound coin.’
Bridget laughed.
‘So then Stacy said to me, “Would you like to borrow some money?” And that was pretty much it.’
‘That was it?’
‘Well, it turned out that she wasn’t with the man at the bar after all, he was just a teacher at her school who’d been chasing after her ever since she’d first started working there … she didn’t even like him.’
‘But she liked you.’
‘Well, we spent the rest of that night together, and the whole of that weekend, and after that we were together just about all the time. It was … I don’t know. It was like I just didn’t want or need anything else any more … all I wanted was to be with Stace,
all
the time. That’s all that mattered.’
‘You loved her.’
‘Yeah … yeah, I did. I never even thought about going back to university, I just forgot all about it and moved in with Stace, and while she carried on teaching, I just took on any old jobs that were going, just to bring in some extra
money. I worked on a building site, I was a postman, I worked in a call centre … I even had a job at the crematorium for a while.’
‘Very nice,’ Bridget said, raising her eyebrows.
‘Yeah, well … I didn’t care what I did. As long as I was with Stacy –’
‘That’s all that mattered.’
I smiled. ‘Yeah.’
‘So then what?’ Bridget said. ‘You got married …?’
‘Yeah, then about eighteen months later we found out that Stacy was pregnant –’
I stopped at the sound of the doorbell ringing. As Walter started barking upstairs, I looked at Bridget. ‘Are you expecting anyone?’
‘It could be Melanie,’ she said. ‘A friend of mine. She said she might come over.’ Bridget looked at me, and I felt her hand on my knee. ‘I can tell her to go if you want.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s all right … I’d better get back to work anyway.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah …’
‘Maybe we can talk some more later on tonight?’
‘Yeah, that’d be good.’
The doorbell sounded again.
Bridget smiled, getting to her feet. ‘I’d better let her in. See you later, OK?’
I nodded, watching as she went back into the house and started yelling at Walter to be quiet. I lit a cigarette and sat there in the misty haze, trying to work out how I felt. I was slightly confused with myself for feeling OK about talking
to Bridget about Stacy, but I
did
feel OK about it, and I guessed that was all right. I was only talking to her, after all. It wasn’t as if I was
betraying
anything, was it? We were only
talking
…
‘Yeah, I know, Stace,’ I muttered. ‘That’s what they all say, isn’t it? We were only fucking talking …’
It’s all right, it’s fine. I like her
.
‘John?’ I heard Bridget say.
I looked up and saw her standing at the back door.
‘There’s a man here to see you,’ she said. ‘He says his name’s Bishop.’
When I went inside the house, Bishop was standing outside my door, doing his best to ignore Walter, who was sitting at the foot of the stairs snarling quietly at him.
‘I hope you don’t mind, John,’ Bishop said to me, glancing at Bridget as she followed me along the hallway. ‘But I let myself in. It’s a bit cold out there.’
Walter barked at him.
He glared at Bridget. ‘Is that yours?’
‘Sorry,’ she said, taking Walter by the collar and leading him up the stairs. ‘Come on, Wally, let’s go.’ She glanced over her shoulder at me, silently asking me if everything was OK.
I nodded at her. She nodded back and carried on up the stairs.
Bishop watched them go, waited until they’d gone, then turned back to me with the hint of a smirk on his face. ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘What do you want?’ I said.
The smirk disappeared. ‘I need to talk to you, John. And I’d rather not do it in the hallway, if that’s all right with you.’
I opened the door and showed him inside, and without so much as a word he made his way into the front room and
positioned himself at the window, standing with his hands in his pockets, peering out at the street. I followed him in, sat down on the settee, and lit a cigarette. He didn’t say anything for a while, he just stood there with his back to me, which I guessed was intended to make me feel anxious or offended or insignificant or something … but I didn’t care
what
it made me feel. I just smoked my cigarette and waited for him to say something.
Eventually, with a casual stretch of his neck and a better-get-on-with-it sigh, he reluctantly gave in to the silence.
‘So,’ he said, turning from the window. ‘Who’s the girl?’
‘Bridget Moran,’ I told him. ‘She’s my tenant.’
‘You own this place then?’
I nodded.
He looked at me for a moment, knowingly nodding his head, then he adjusted his tie and wandered over to a ramshackle shelf that spans the width of an alcove next to the double doors. The shelf is dotted with all kinds of bits and pieces: glass jars, a painted wooden spoon, a framed photograph of Stacy, a mouth organ, a clockwork crab, a stuffed bird, a candlestick … Bishop picked up the clockwork crab, wiped it free of dust, and turned it over to examine the workings. The clockwork shell looked wrong in his hands, like a child’s bauble in the hands of a giant. He poked at the crab’s feet, pronging a broken claw with his thumb, then he put the toy back on the shelf and looked disdainfully around my room.
‘Is she your only tenant?’ he said idly.
‘Sorry?’
‘Miss Moran … is she your only tenant?’
‘Yes.’
He grinned at me. ‘What’s the rent like?’
I didn’t say anything, I just looked at him.
‘Anyway,’ he said, sniffing again. ‘The reason I’m here … well, it’s about the Anna Gerrish case.’ He paused for a moment, put his hands in his pockets, and looked at me. ‘You know the body’s been identified, don’t you?’
I nodded. ‘It was in the papers last week.’
‘DNA results confirmed it was Anna. The forensic team are still working on evidence from the site, but because of the length of time the body had been out there, and the fact that it was half-submerged for most of the time, it’s been difficult to come up with any definitive conclusions. We know that she was stabbed to death, and we’re almost certain that she was killed at the lay-by, or very close by, but we can’t tell if she was sexually assaulted or not, and so far we haven’t been able to ascertain an accurate time of death. And it’s very unlikely that we will. But we’re working on the theory that she was killed on the night she disappeared.’
I nodded again, keeping my eyes on Bishop, my head full of questions I wanted to ask but couldn’t:
have you seen the CCTV footage? have you identified the car or the driver? have you talked to Genna Raven or Tasha? do you know how much I know? do you know that I know that you’ve got something to do with it?
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ I said, putting out my cigarette and lighting another. ‘You told me yourself, it’s nothing to do with me any more. It’s a police investigation. I’m not police. I’m not involved in any way, shape, or fucking form –’
‘I know what I told you,’ Bishop said coldly. ‘But things change, John. Things
have
changed.’
‘What kind of things?’
He paused for a second before answering, briefly looking away from me, and I wondered if this was the moment that I’d been half-expecting for the last two weeks – the moment when Bishop made his play and tried to implicate
me
in the death of Anna Gerrish. I hoped that it wasn’t, but I’d had plenty of time to prepare myself for it, so I wasn’t all that worried. I felt that I was ready.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Bishop took a breath and spoke calmly. ‘A number of human hairs were retrieved from under Anna’s fingernails,’ he said. ‘And some of these hairs still had the roots attached, which means that the forensic team were able to extract DNA samples from the cells. Of course, we can’t say for
sure
that the hairs came from Anna’s killer …’ He shrugged lightly. ‘But it’s fairly damning evidence.’
‘Have you matched the DNA?’ I said, my mouth suddenly dry.
Bishop nodded. ‘Forensics confirmed it this morning.’ He looked at me. ‘The DNA profile of the hairs found under Anna Gerrish’s fingernails is a one-in-a-billion match with the DNA profile of Anton Viner.’
‘
Viner?
’ I whispered.
‘It’s been checked and double-checked.’