Mrs Ellis has been relieved of her deceased husband’s retirement watch and that week’s pension. She doesn’t care about the money, but she’s distraught about the watch; hours after the crime was committed the soft folds beneath her rheumy eyes are still damp with tears.
‘He loved that watch. He never took it off. Do you think it’ll turn up?’
Distraction burglaries always depress me. The effect the crime has on elderly people like Mrs Ellis is heartbreaking and I want more than anything to nail the bastards that devastate their gentle worlds, but I only seem to make it worse. The truth is an assailant usually slips in unnoticed via an unlocked back door and goes through the house while their mate keeps the owner talking on the doorstep and they’re almost always wearing gloves.
‘Maybe.’ The reality is it’s long gone, but I don’t tell her that.
‘My son is on his way down from London, I could ask him to check the junk shops in town.’
‘It might be worth a try.’ It isn’t, but I can’t bring myself to tell her that, either – that most of this stuff is sold online now. ‘Can you remember if the man touched anything while he was here? His accomplice might have worn gloves, but I’m guessing the guy who knocked on your front door didn’t. It’s summer and he wouldn’t have risked you noticing and getting suspicious.’
A chink of hope brightens her.
‘No, that’s correct. He wasn’t wearing gloves. I’d have remembered.’ Her face falls. ‘But now I come to think of it, I don’t think he touched anything either. He had a clipboard and asked me lots of questions about my water usage.’
She looks at me like it’s her fault this vile lowlife didn’t touch anything.
‘OK. Not to worry. Maybe his accomplice left his gloves at home. Where did you keep your husband’s watch?’
Mrs Ellis leads me upstairs to a back bedroom. The door of a huge, dark wooden wardrobe is wide open; old clothes stored in plastic bags spill out onto the floor. The mattress has also been lifted and shifted to one side. I’m not surprised. I remain incredulous at the number of people who still stash cash under their beds.
‘The officer said to leave everything as it is,’ she says as an apology for the mess. ‘Harry’s watch was in that.’
She points at a red velvet box gaping open on the bed. Next to it are various boxes decorated in rose-patterned material spewing cheap pearls and paste brooches. It’s not a great start. Even in the unlikely event he wasn’t wearing gloves, I already know there isn’t a fingerprint to be had among this. I can’t dust material and the jewellery doesn’t have a large enough surface area to give me a decent fingerprint. It’s hardly worth digging out the aluminium powder, but I have to try. I’m about to open my case, when Mrs Ellis leans heavily against the bedpost. The enormity of what’s happened has hit her.
‘Fifty years with Williams Printers, Harry was. Man and boy. He loved it there. He wore the watch every day till he died. It was special to him and when he died it became special to me. Sometimes, at night, I slip it onto my wrist and pretend it’s him holding my hand. Silly, I know.’
My heart flips and I place my arm around her hoping I’m not being presumptuous, but she sinks gratefully into me. Her tissue-thin skin is too big for her and puckers loosely around her neck. She reminds me of a newborn chick that has tumbled too soon from its nest: frail and helpless, just waiting to be picked off by a couple of hawks. Even if she had realized what was happening, she couldn’t have stopped them. What it must be to be on your own in this world. At least I have Megan even if she is invariably glued to the latest Netflix series – which is how I had left her that morning, despite my gentle reminders that she was meant to be doing schoolwork. Still, I’d rather have her sulks and door-slamming than be alone like Mrs Ellis.
I hold the old lady tight in my arms until I feel her strength return.
‘It’s not silly at all. Look, why don’t we go back downstairs, and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. I’ll come back up and see what I can find here and then I’ll tidy up for you.’
Mrs Ellis nods and shuffles towards the door where she pauses to look back over her shoulder at the mess in her bedroom.
‘I feel such an idiot, falling for his lies. He seemed like such a nice young man and I don’t get to talk to many people these days. I was so pleased when he said he’d come in for a few minutes.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. These people are very convincing. It’s easy to be taken in by them.’
But suddenly she’s angry with herself.
‘Yes, but I, of all people, should have known better.’
‘What do you mean?’
She takes my hands in hers.
‘Dear, I was a police officer. One of the first WPCs in this area.’
‘Really? That’s amazing.’
‘My father was dead against me joining, but I was adamant. Of course, in those days we weren’t allowed to do much more than make the tea and do the filing.’
‘I’m sure you still caught your fair share of criminals.’
A twinkle returns to her eye.
‘I had my moments. I know it’s all science these days, but nothing beats the copper’s hunch and I had a pretty good one and’ – she waggles her finger at me – ‘once I had them in my sights, I never let go of them. I always saw it through to the end even when my colleagues said I was barking up the wrong tree.’
‘It sounds like you enjoyed your time in the job.’
‘I did. Very much. It was a long time ago, but still I should have realized what was happening. I should have seen those scoundrels for who they were, then I might still have Harry’s watch.’
She turns away and I watch her take the stairs, one step at a time, holding the rail and I find myself thinking about how easy it is to be deceived. We’re all susceptible to a smiling face, a confident manner and the offer of company. You don’t have to be ninety. I was just twenty-one when Sean strolled into my life promising all those things and I didn’t see through him. Not until it was too late.
People rarely are who they say they are.
* * *
The smell of fish paste is released into the cabin as he peels back the lid of his lunch box. The sandwich feels soft and mushy in his mouth, but he doubts he’ll have time to eat the orange. She’ll be here any minute.
The ambulance is parked in its usual lunchtime spot when they’re not busy, a lay-by on the edge of a new housing estate, just down from the Crown pub which backs onto Three Brethren Woods, a dense, steep wooded area edged by the trail beyond which lies the flat salty marshes of the estuary. It’s perfect in every way.
While he’s waiting, he retrieves his phone and rereads her messages. It’s all happened so fast he can barely take it in. And her, of all people. Never, in a million years, did he think she would ask to meet him, but it just goes to show you never can tell. Sometimes the ones you think are pushovers tell you to get lost and those you think you only have an outside chance with are surprisingly easy. That’s the thing with women. What they show on the outside is rarely what’s happening on the inside. He’s learned that from Trisha. Her brashness is just a cover. The truth is she’s terrified of being alone which is why she bites the hand off the first man that gives her a second glance. He shakes his head at the topsy-turviness of it all. Still, he really didn’t expect to land this one. There’s definitely something more thrilling about the ones that appear beyond reach. The ones who tell themselves they’d never fall for it.
He puts his phone away and finishes his sandwich, flicking the crumbs from his shirt. His watch reads 3.10 p.m. She’s late, but he knows she’ll be here.
He wonders if it’ll be as good as Janie, the girl on the quay? That had worked like a dream. He wasn’t sure at first. He never is. Each time there’s always a moment when he thinks it won’t work, that it’s over, but when he hovered his hand just over her forehead, it was as if someone had injected adrenaline straight into his heart. He knew then everything was going to be fine. He could relax.
In the back of the ambulance, on the way to the mortuary, he bent down to kiss her forehead and was startled by its iciness that exploded across his lips converting into a white heat that rushed his insides, nourishing him, reinvigorating him, reigniting him all at once. The dead have a coldness unlike any other, unyielding to the touch and yet possessed of magical properties.
She released waves of electric currents as he stroked her pebble-smooth cheek. It meant one thing only.
Yes, Janie was good, he couldn’t deny that, but this one would be better. He’s sure of it.
And there she is! Strolling towards him, a smudge of a smile on her face and a lightness underfoot that means only one thing. She’s excited to see him. He’s excited too.
She passes the ambulance, not bothering to glance in. That’s OK. No one ever does, but his own heart does a little jig at the sight of her.
Dusting stray crumbs from his uniform, he replaces the lid on his sandwich box and drops it on the seat next to him. He checks himself in the mirror and smooths his hair into place. He wants to look his best for her.
From underneath his seat, he pulls out a metal bar. There’s a plastic bag tied to one end, the end with Peter Benson’s fingerprints on it. It’s from the shed in his garden. Unbuttoning his jacket, he slides it inside his uniform. It feels cold and hard against his chest.
One last check in the mirror and he’s ready for action. People say he looks a bit like Daniel Craig, the chap who plays James Bond. Same eyes. Same colour hair. No wonder Jackie can’t believe her luck. Pity Danielle didn’t feel the same way.
There’s no one around when he gets out of the ambulance – the drizzle has seen to that – but he doesn’t linger, just in case, and swerves into a narrow path that runs down the back of the housing estate and towards Three Brethren Woods, towards her.