TWENTY-SIX

She had to tell someone. She had made a decision to keep quiet, partly because she could have imagined it, and partly because involving the police would not bring Noel back. Of course, Eddie was the real reason. I thought Noel was dead, but I think he was still alive. His lips moved and he said ...I thought he said... It was with her continually, all day and when she woke in the night, startled by what she thought had been sounds in the street, a fox or the students returning from a night out. But there were no sounds, just a deathly silence.

However much she tried to put it out of her mind, it refused to go away and after dithering for almost an hour, she left the house, and rang Gus’ bell. No reply so, having steeled herself, she would have to do it all over again, later. But halfway down the stairs, his door was flung open.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Jane. Are you busy?’ She was losing her nerve, would have to concoct a different reason for disturbing him. The rubbish bin that had been pushed over, scattering ready-meal containers across the road? No, someone had swept it up, probably Mr Cardozo, a public-spirited man who kept himself to himself.

‘Come in if you’re coming.’ Gus had disappeared back into his flat but left the front door open.

‘It could wait until later, Gus.’

No answer so she stepped inside, removed some photographic magazines from a chair with an orange cushion, and sat down.

‘It’s about last Saturday.’

Gus looked tired. ‘Thought it might be.’

‘I’m worried.’

He yawned, covering his mouth with both hands. ‘ What about? Afraid Eddie may have gone in for a spot of shoplifting?’

‘There was nothing in her pockets. I checked. But I suppose she could have eaten whatever she snatched.’

‘Need something to calm your nerves.’ He was standing by the glass-fronted cupboard that contained a selection of bottles, most of them half empty.

‘Nothing for me, thank you.’ Then she saw the concerned look on his face and relented. ‘All right then, whatever you’re having but only a dash.’

‘Medicinal.’ He poured whisky into a smeary tumbler. ‘If you want my advice, you’d do well to ignore the rumours and gossip.’

‘What gossip?’ Everyone she had spoken to, with the exception of Arthur, had accepted Noel’s death as a tragic accident. ‘What have people been saying?’

Gus made an enigmatic noise in his throat. ‘How’s Corinne?’

‘I’m afraid she’s not the resilient type. I’ve done what I can, but she seems in a state of paralysis, unable to make plans and obsessed with the fact that she wanted a baby.’ Jane felt down the side of sofa, discovered a pound coin and placed it on the coffee table, along with one of Gus’ cameras, an open packet of ginger biscuits, and a screwdriver.

‘Not much chance of that.’ He gave one of his familiar snorts. ‘Noel had the snip.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Vasectomy.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘A year or two back. Turned it into one of his funny stories. Had it done at some clinic, he said, and, while they were all recuperating they were given some lunch. Meatballs. Poor old sod, cut off in his prime. I’ll miss his —’

‘I knew you were fond of him.’

‘Don’t know about that, Jane. We had our differences, mainly about his loft conversions. Know you had a soft spot.’ He grinned. ‘What you thinking then? I could have done without the loft being turned into a building site but it’s hardly grounds for murder.’

Jane drained her glass, flinching as the whisky trickled down her throat. ‘Oh, Gus, I’ll have to tell you. When I found him ... he said something. I thought he did. He did.’

‘Go on.’

‘He said he’d been pushed.’

‘So he was still alive.’

‘Yes. I don’t know. I was trying to find a pulse. I thought ... I may not have done it correctly. I was so shocked, everything I’d learned went out of my head. I called for an ambulance and ... I knew I shouldn’t move him.’

‘He was dead.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘It was a long way to fall. Yes, all right, people sometimes survive a fall like that, but not onto rock-hard patio stones. So Corinne didn’t know about the vasectomy?’

‘She can’t have done.’

‘Unless someone told her.’ He put up his hands in mock defence. ‘No, not me. Not guilty.’

‘Did anyone else know? She’d talked to Brian about the best way to get pregnant, but obviously that was confidential.’ An image rose up in Jane’s mind. Corinne confronting Noel as he leaned over the balcony to check the paint. Why did you lie to me? You knew I was longing for a baby. All in an instant, a moment of fury, a crime of passion.

Gus shrugged. ‘Brian knew about it, the vasectomy. He arranged it.’

‘But he wouldn’t have told Corinne. Although he might have suggested she talk to Noel, in the hope he would confess, so to speak. It would have put Brian in a dilemma.’

‘Doctors must have plenty of those.’

‘Yes.’ Jane’s stomach hurt. The whisky or her lack of breakfast. ‘Corinne’s not as naïve as she appears. She could have guessed and tricked Brian into telling her.’

‘Want my advice, Jane?’ He offered her a refill, but she shook her head. ‘Leave well alone.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘Shock plays tricks. Shame it was you that found him. Should’ve been me. Would have been if I’d heard him shout as he lost his balance.’

‘I thought you were out, taking photographs.’

‘That’s why I didn’t hear. How’s Eddie? Does she know what happened?’

Jane shook her head. ‘Hasn’t a clue. No short-term memory and not much in terms of a long one.’ Not entirely true but Gus was making her feel nervous. ‘I’m worried The Spruces might refuse to keep her, although now they’ve increased her medication she seems calmer, at least I think she is.’

Gus returned the bottle to the glass cabinet. ‘Business matter to attend to.’

‘Another?’

‘Same one.’

And he had no intention of telling her what it was. More than likely he had a rendezvous with the woman from number twenty-two. Who was she? Did she feel the same about Gus as he obviously did about her? The thought that he might have a girlfriend had never occurred to her. He was too old, only a year younger than she was, but it was different for men.

Later, standing in her garden, pulling up weeds, she thought she smelled a bonfire. Large ones were not allowed but even small ones had a habit of getting out of hand. In the old days no one minded, but these days you were supposed to pay an annual charge for a green bin for garden waste. Or put your cuttings in the boot of your car and drive all the way to the tip. The last time she made a trip a spider must have climbed out of the garden waste and spun a web. It stretched from her driving mirror to the knob that turned up the sound on the radio.

Straightening up from her weeding, she saw a plume of dark, acrid smoke that looked like it was coming from Dave’s workshop.

Was he there? Where was Simmy? At home or with Arthur? Simmy never went to the workshop, not as far as Jane knew. Was Dave there? He could be at another auction.

Hurrying back through the house, she rang next door’s bell. No reply, so she banged on the door. Still no answer, so she set off towards the workshop, reaching it just as Dave appeared with a hand-held extinguisher. ‘What happened? Are you all right? How did it start?’

‘Burning some rubbish.’ The pockets of his denim jacket bulged with papers.

‘And a spark set fire to the shed?’

‘Never got a hold.’

‘You removed that in the nick of time.’ She pointed to a gas cylinder. ‘It could have burned to the ground.’

‘That what you’d have liked?’

‘No, of course not. What were you burning?’ She peered at the charred remains of a photograph. The top half of a dark-haired young woman, who was holding a baby. Dave’s dead wife with baby Simmy? If she was right, why had he chosen today to dispose of it? Had Simmy been poking about in the workshop, looking for clues? Why not let her have a picture of her mother? Perhaps it was a face people would recognise. Perhaps Simmy was right and she had committed a terrible crime. ‘I was worried you might not be here, Dave. Do you go to many auctions? Eddie used to like them. She collected pigs. Small ornaments and ... I was afraid it might set the fence alight.’

‘You didn’t call the fire engine?’ Dave glared at her, stamping out the remains of his bonfire.

‘No, but somebody else might have done. Where’s Simmy?’

‘You may well ask.’

‘Does she have other friends, as well as Arthur?’

He shrugged. ‘She’s thirteen.’

‘Yes, I know she is.’ Why was he determined to present himself as a negligent father? But as she moved away, a thought occurred. Did Dave think Simmy was responsible for the fire? Paying him back for refusing to take her on holiday or, more to the point, to explain what had happened to her mother.

Pausing outside her house, Jane decided to carry on to the shops, to the electrical shop, where she could purchase a smoke alarm. She had one, fixed to the wall in her entrance hall, but it had been there ever since she could remember and she had a feeling they needed replacing quite often.

The man in the shop confirmed her suspicion. ‘Every eight years is best.’

‘The workshop, just off Faraday Road, caught fire,’ she said, ‘but there was no serious damage.’

‘Dave’s place?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Friend of poor Mr McNeill. Used to come here most weeks, Mr McNeill did. You knew him, I expect.’

Jane nodded.

‘What happened, d’you suppose?’ He was checking the price of the smoke alarm. ‘He’d never have been silly enough to fall off one of his balconies. Something fishy about it, if you want my opinion.’

Waves of nausea travelled through her body and sweat broke out on her face and neck. ‘He could be ...’ Jane struggled for the right word. ‘Impetuous, not to say reckless.’

‘Even so, when it came to his loft conversions, he knew what he was doing. How’s his wife taken it?’

‘She’s not actually his wife.’

‘Very wise. Second marriages are always a problem where money’s concerned.’

So he knew Noel had once been married. Did Corinne know? Probably best not to mention it next time she saw her. Jane paid for the smoke alarm, nodding her thanks when he explained how the battery was included.

‘Goodbye then.’

‘Bye.’ He picked up a sandwich and took a bite. ‘Nobody saw anything then? What do the police think? Must have had to make the usual investigations?’

‘Yes, I expect so.’ The bell rang as she opened the door, then let it swing shut. What did the police think? With any luck, they had more important matters to deal with. A tragedy, but an accident. People who thought otherwise were simply trying to make a drama out of it because nothing like that ever happened in Faraday Road or the nice, respectable surrounding area.