Think Yourself Lucky (11 page)

"True enough, there's nothing wrong with that," David said, and also babbled "We're lucky to have one, those of us that have." He saw Mrs Robbins turning away, and was so thrown by having inadvertently used the blogger's name that he seemed to lose control of his voice. "Have you heard anything about Mr Dent round the corner?"

"Good lord above, what a noise. You'll be waking up the night shift." She gave her rebuke time to take effect before she demanded "What are you saying I should have heard?"

"Nothing at all," David was able to hope, "if there's nothing to hear."

If she looked suspicious, surely that couldn't be focused on him. "Then why are you asking after him?"

"I just thought I hadn't seen him lately. Nothing wrong with that, is there?" David immediately regretted adding.

"I didn't know he was a friend of yours."

"I wouldn't say a friend." This seemed unwise as well. "He's like you," David said. "A neighbour."

"It's a pity a few more of us don't care about them."

"I expect so." David was close to agreeing with whatever she said if that would move the conversation forward. "Anyway," he insisted, "as I say, I haven't seen him since I'm not sure when."

"You won't, either."

"Why?" Even if he had to be imagining any accusation, the word felt like an obstruction in his throat. When Mrs Robbins didn't answer at once he said "What..."

"He was cleaning out his gutters. He should have paid someone who knows what they're doing. We always do."

"I'm sure that's best," David said, which only postponed asking "What happened?"

"He fell."

"I'm sorry." He mustn't sound as if he was apologising, and he tried not to seem concerned in any questionable way as he said "Did anyone see?"

"See what, Mr Botham?"

"I don't know, do I? I wasn't there." Before she could question his vehemence David said "Did they see how he came to fall?"

"Nobody saw that I've been told." With a longer look at David than he cared for Mrs Robbins said "Someone heard."

"What?" He would have preferred not to be made to add "What did they hear?"

"They heard him shout and they heard him fall."

"I don't suppose..." David wished he hadn't said that, because now he had to say "You wouldn't know what he said."

"I didn't ask. How many other gory details would you like?"

"I don't like them at all. I'm just, I'm just concerned I didn't hear."

He had no idea if this made sense. Perhaps she could assume he meant he hadn't been informed about the accident. "Is it flowers," he blurted, "or a charity?"

"Is what? I don't understand you, Mr Botham."

"For the funeral, or have they had it already?"

"I hope nobody's that eager." Her stare might have been convicting David of the offence as she declared "He isn't dead."

"He isn't." In his confusion David almost said too much. "What is he, then?"

"He's in intensive care."

David hardly knew why he was asking "Do you know where?"

"I wasn't told. I expect I can find out if you really want to know."

David wasn't sure if he would like to learn why she was staring so hard at him. "Don't go to any trouble, but if you should hear..."

"I'll come over with the information." She let her gaze linger on him before she said "I don't mind saying you've gone up in my estimation, Mr Botham. I wouldn't have taken you to care so much about your neighbour when he isn't even close."

David felt he was being praised as somebody he wasn't, and retreated into his house. How relieved could he let himself feel over the news about Dent? As soon as he started to ponder it the relief gave way to bewilderment that could easily yield to panic There was far too much he didn't understand or want to understand. The computer screen had turned blank to save energy, but he could imagine it was saving up worse revelations for him, hiding them in the featureless darkness that was the net. He was almost at the computer when he wondered if the worst was to be found elsewhere.

He found he felt oddly resigned as he took out his phone, unless his emotions had grown too remote to grasp. He sank onto the nearest chair and looked up the number, and poked the key to call it before he could change his mind. In fewer seconds than he was prepared for a woman said "Transport police."

"I wonder if I could speak to somebody about an incident I think you'll have dealt with."

"I'll need some details, sir."

"Of course. I know. What it was, a gentleman, he was, he died in your lift at Lime Street Station the other week."

"I mean we need your details."

"I'm not from round here." For a panicky moment David was afraid his phone might betray the opposite, but could she locate him by his mobile? He seemed to have no option but to blunder onwards. "I'm," he said and heard himself improvising desperately. "I'm his nephew."

If he hoped this would gain him some sympathy, he couldn't tell whether it had. "May I have a name, please."

"He was my uncle—" At once David's mind was as blank as the screen of the dozing computer. He was about to shove himself out of the chair and find some way of disguising the reason for the pause while he looked up the name in the news report—perhaps he could feign a coughing fit, though wouldn't she also overhear him at the keyboard?—when he managed to make his mind work. "He was my uncle, obviously," he wished at once he hadn't bothered saying. "Uncle Donny. Uncle Don."

"I was asking for your name, sir."

"Oh, mine." Once again David felt as if his mind had fallen into the same mode as the computer, except that it was close to freezing with panic. He'd no sooner thought of a name than he let it out. "Luke," he said, which at least was nothing like his, not even by a letter. "Luke Sugden."

Silence met this, and he was afraid he'd somehow given himself away. Would a nephew have the dead man's surname? Apparently the woman was recording the information, because she said "And your address."

"Look, do you really need all this? I only want to ask a question. I haven't got much time." With a surge of what he supposed a writer might call inspiration David said "I'm just trying to put my mother's mind at rest. She's been worrying about what happened to her brother."

"I'm afraid we're required to take these details."

"Nineteen—" That was the number of his own house, and he made a wild bid to head off any further carelessness. "Nineteen Newless Way," he said.

"Nineteen nineteen Newless Way. And the postcode, please."

"We never use it. My mother doesn't believe in them. I honestly couldn't tell you." Was this how a writer might improvise? David felt more like a character at the mercy of his creator. "We're in Newcastle," he said, the most remote place he could bring to mind.

"Newcastle." He thought the lack of the accent had betrayed him until she said "Newcastle upon Tyne."

"That's the one. Now if I could just—"

"And may I take a phone number?"

"Take any you like and stick it wherever it fits." Though David refrained from saying that, his answer felt not much less out of control. "One two," he said, "two one, three, one one, two five..."

Were those too many digits or still too few? He'd tried to give the woman time to hint when she thought he should have finished. Now that he'd reached the end of the name he was transforming into numbers he heard himself asking "Is that all?"

"That should cover it, Mr Sugden. Can you tell me what your enquiry is?"

"As I say, it's my mother's really," David said, which felt like denying who he was. "She's convinced there might have been some kind of foul play."

"What kind?"

He would far rather not have put that into words. And hadn't the woman's voice sharpened, leaving politeness behind? "She believes he may have been assaulted," David said.

"What leads her to think that?"

"Look, I can't speak for her, can I?" He was close to giggling wildly at the thought that nobody else could. Before the woman had a chance to point out that he was doing exactly that, David tried saying "She's just got it into her head."

"You're saying she has no basis for it."

"I wouldn't quite say that." If he said too little the woman might wonder why he'd called at all or suspect him of withholding information. "It just doesn't sound like my uncle," he tried protesting. "We've never known him to have any trouble with his heart."

How likely was that, given Sugden's corpulence? Even if the woman didn't know his medical history, wouldn't she be able to guess from his appearance? David had to hold his breath until she said "Where does your mother think the assault took place?"

"She's got the idea it was in the lift."

The last word was barely out when David felt he'd strayed into a trap. He was struggling to think how to explain his answer when the woman said "Does she have some reason to believe someone had targeted him?"

"No, nobody. I mean, no reason. He'd no enemies we knew of, none at all." Yet again David felt he was denying too much. "And why she thought the lift," he said in haste, "because you've got cameras on the platform, haven't you. Or have you got them in the lift as well?"

"We don't give out data from the cameras unless we're seeking help from the public."

"You mean there is one in the lift." A pause brought no answer, and so David said "You're saying there's no need in my uncle's case. I mean, you're not looking for help." The silence that met this was at best inexplicit, and he had to say "Does that mean nothing showed up on the camera?"

He couldn't tell if he sounded too eager. Surely the woman would put that down to his concern for his relative, it didn't matter which one, but she said "You're still asking for data, Mr Sugden."

"Only for my mother. Just to give her closure." Even the fashionable jargon didn't seem to move the woman—and then David had an inspiration that felt reckless. "Now she's here," he complained.

"Perhaps we'd better have a word with her."

"I don't mean here. Not right here, not yet. I mean she's coming, coming up the road. She wouldn't have wanted me to make this call."

"Why not, Mr Sugden?"

"She doesn't like to trouble anyone." David felt he was reaching the end of his words, but he managed to add "Unless you tell me if there was someone in the lift with him she'll just carry on being troubled herself."

This time the silence was so prolonged that he was afraid the woman was waiting to hear if not speak to his mother. He was opening his mouth, though he'd no idea what he was about to say, when the woman said "You may tell her that your uncle died of natural causes."

David hoped the breath he let out wasn't too audible a gasp. "You're saying the camera shows he was on his own when it happened."

"That's correct, Mr Sugden. Please don't ask for you or your mother to be shown the footage."

"Of course I won't. I trust you. You've put a mind at rest. You've been very understanding," David said and hoped she hadn't understood more than he wanted as, having thanked her, he ended the call and sank back in the chair.

How relieved was he entitled to feel? There was still the problem of the blog, and he could see no explanation other than that he was somehow writing it himself. What tricks might his brain have been playing on him? Could he have heard about Sudgen's death and Dent's rail outside his house and then caricatured them online without knowing? Might the very act of writing have erased the memories both of the events he'd learned about and of the writing itself? The idea made his mind feel as unfamiliar and dangerous as it had the night he'd ended up in the moonlit field, but what else could make sense of the situation? There was no point in telling himself that he didn't recognise the voice of the blog—that he didn't think he had ever used some of those words. Perhaps this would at least mean nobody would associate the blog with him.

He was close to feeling tentatively reassured when a thought occurred to him. As he touched the keyboard of the laptop the
Better Out Than In
page rose from the darkness of the dormant screen, and he felt as if it had been lying in wait for him. He dismissed it and typed words in the search box, and then he held his breath. It came out along with a groan as he read the news item he'd discovered. While he'd never heard of Robert Thoroughgood, he couldn't pretend he didn't know who the man had been. Witnesses said he must have lost control of his mobility scooter, because he'd sped helplessly into the road in front of a van.

As David stepped down from the bus a wind brought a takeaway carton clattering towards him. No doubt the squeaky bivalve came from one of the food outlets that faced Stephanie's apartment across the dual carriageway—Cod Almighty or Nice With Rice or Fab Kebab or Curry In A Hurry that had started life as 24 Hour Chapatti People, though the carton was the wrong shape for Picka Pukka Pizza—but it reminded him of far too much. He found he was glad not to see anyone to blame for littering as he crossed the road.

The front of the apartment overlooked Newsham Park. Skateboarders and equally unlit cyclists were racing about the paths in the dark beneath the trees. As David reached Stephanie's gate he heard a scream, and faltered until it turned into girlish mirth in a park shelter. He hurried along the stone jigsaw of a path between rhododendrons restless as a swarm of beetles and let himself into the house.

The table in the entrance hall was strewn with multicoloured leaflets and the glum buff envelopes of bills, none of them addressed to Stephanie. On the ground floor the mournful strains of a string quartet were audible beyond the door identified by a rakish number 1, but the upper floors were silent. The wide stairs yielded the occasional carpeted creak as David tramped up to the third floor, which was faintly redolent of spices, an aroma that grew more pronounced when he unlocked Stephanie's door. "It's only me," he called as if he could be someone else.

He was on the edge of calling out once more when he heard movement in the kitchen at the far end of the hall, beyond the walls covered with framed postcards. Whenever David saw them he was touched by the precision with which she arranged these souvenirs of every holiday she'd taken with her parents. In a moment the door opened, giving him a view of knives ranked by size on a rack on the russet tiles of the wall. He couldn't help finding their gleams ominous, together with the oddly tentative progress of the door, until Stephanie appeared with a glass of wine in each hand and a bottle of Chablis under one arm. "Are we celebrating?" David said.