Authors: Cath Staincliffe
“It’s not about money,” Connie said, a frown furrowing her brow, “it’s about ...” she broke off, wrestling her emotions.
“I want to be straight with you,” I said. “It sounds like you want me to prove something suspicious about your mother’s death but from my point of view there’s really nothing to back that up and I wouldn’t be happy working for you with that expectation there. I’d be just as likely to confirm the inquest verdict. But I don’t think that’s what you want, is it?”
No one spoke.
“I’m sorry. There are other agencies, obviously, but can I suggest if you do approach anyone that you agree on a fixed number of hours and a fixed rate.”
There were plenty of rip-off merchants about who would milk the Johnstones for all they had.
Connie rose, avoiding eye contact. Patrick took the folder from her. The four of them walked up the steps and along the hall to the front door. Their shoulders were set and the air stiff with tension.
The teenagers walked down the path, Connie muttered a goodbye and followed. Patrick hung back. When they were out of earshot he turned to me.
“Will you not think this over, give us an answer tomorrow.”
I opened my mouth to refuse but he barged on.
“Connie had to identify her mother. She had to do it by looking at her hands. Things were that bad.”
Oh God. I didn’t need to hear this.
“Connie can’t accept it. The police did nothing. If we just knew more about those missing hours. Even if all you could do was fill in some of that last day, that would really help. It wouldn’t explain everything but it might tell us something of what Miriam was doing. We’d have a bit more of the picture. Surely, you could do that?”
That wasn’t what Connie had asked. I shook my head slowly.
“Aw, Jesus,” he cried out his voice strained. “Where’s the bloody harm in it?” He pinched the top of his nose near the glasses. Blew out. “Look, we’ll ring tomorrow. Think about it.” He pushed the folder at me. I took it. To refuse that would have been heartless.
“We’ll ring tomorrow,” he said again and turned away. He walked down the path pulling up his collar against the cold, his shoulders rounded, head thrust forward.
“Where’s the bloody harm in it?”
It’s only a few minutes walk home from the office. I rent the basement room from the Dobson family who occupy the rest of the house. When I first set up as a private investigator I wanted to have some separation between home and work; a cheap room to meet my clients in and store my paperwork. When I knocked on doors looking for a space, the Dobsons liked the idea of having a sleuth in the cellar. Not only did I pay them for that, I also regularly used their older daughters for baby-sitting when Ray wasn’t home to look after the children. Selina Dobson was obliging me that night. I found her on the sofa, between Tom and Maddie transfixed by a Pokemon cartoon. I thanked and paid her, once the programme finished, and set about making tea. Tagliatelle and tuna sauce. Just for the three of us; I knew Ray would be late back.
It was a blustery evening, the wind whipping the trees and shrubs about. A clatter from the back garden sent me out to investigate. Light spilt out from the lounge and the kitchen, illuminating an empty plant pot skipping over the grass. I caught it soon enough. A small maple I had in a pot had been blown over too. I moved that to the corner between the house and the fence we share with next door, to give it more shelter.
One or two stars glimmered dimly above but that was it. Starry nights are rare in the city. Not just because of the frequent cloud cover - Manchester aka Rainy City - but also because of the bright lights that illuminate the streets, the clubs and the buildings and drench the heavens. As I headed for the door at the side of the house I could hear more clattering, from above. I peered up at the house. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it seemed to be the wood that ran along the edge of the roof. Another job for the list. The old Victorian semi boasts big rooms, a big garden and big bills. To be fair, the owner who lectures in Australia pays for all the maintenance but it can take several weeks to come through and my overdraft suffers.
Ray and I have shared the house since Maddie was a toddler. Ray was a single-parent trying to find accommodation for himself and baby Tom, and I’d just got the tenancy of the house and needed someone to help fill it. We’ve become a sort of alternative family over time and people often mistakenly assume that Ray and I are living together in the Biblical rather than the practical sense. We sublet the attic flat and we’ve had a series of lodgers. Sheila, a mature student and divorcee, has been with us for a couple of years and we all get on very well. Ray’s mum, Nana Costello, a small, fierce Italian woman, lives nearby and is a frequent visitor to the house. She is a vociferous critic of some of our lifestyle choices. I’ve learnt to take her in my stride - just about.
During tea, Maddie and Tom re-enacted for me all the adverts for absolutely brilliant, must-have toys that were dominating the telly.
“And you can cut her hair off and make it grow,” Maddie said. For £29.99,I thought sourly. And then what? It hardly seemed the basis for hours of creative play.
“I want to do another list,” said Maddie.
“And me,” Tom echoed her.
“I’ll get you pens and paper.”
“You have to help us, though, with the spelling.”
“Or you could do a picture list - draw what you want.”
“Nah,” she said.
“You might only get one thing on the list,” I reminded them later. We were sat on the floor in their playroom, the fabulous gluttonous lists before us. “Or even nothing.”
“Or for my birthday,” Tom ever the optimist. “When I’m six. Like Maddie.”
“I’ll be seven by then, Dumbo.”
“Maddie,” I complained.
“Will Laura buy us presents?” She asked, still in infant school but already a fervent materialist.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“She is,” Tom said. “She told me.” Tom was passionately fond of his dad’s new girlfriend.
“When are we getting the tree?” Maddie demanded. “You said soon.”
“Maybe next weekend. We’ll have it up for a couple of weeks before.”
“Why can’t we get it now?”
“We don’t want it up too long.”
“Yes we do,” she said.
“I don’t - it feels more special if it’s only up for a couple of weeks. If we get it sooner it’ll be bald for Christmas.” I knew you could get trees that didn’t drop as much but they didn’t smell the same. And for my money the tree was the best bit of all.
After they were in bed I soaked in the bath then watched ER on the telly. They had Christmas every couple of months. Plenty of drama, families forced together or apart, nativity scenes, snow and loneliness. Families.
I looked briefly at the folder Patrick Dowley had left with me. It included official documents, the death certificate, the bill for the funeral, papers from the coroner’s office. There was a cutting from the
Manchester Evening News
- the announcement in the paper.
Johnstone, Miriam. Suddenly on 6th October. Beloved mother of Constance, Martina and Roland. She has gone home, bathed in love, rocked in the warm and gentle waters, and her soul is bright with joy. Arrangements to follow
.
A further clipping gave the funeral announcement and asked for family flowers only and donations to MIND, the mental health charity. The rest of the papers were notes that the Johnstones must have made. Names and addresses of people to notify, questions to ask the coroner, practical lists for the funeral. There was a photograph too, Miriam Johnstone, head and shoulders, smiling, her eyes bright, crinkles at the corners. Holding a glass. A party? A happy attractive woman. A fuller face than her children but a clear resemblance. I turned it over. It was dated the previous year. The picture was a million miles away from the image I had formed of a scared, depressed woman climbing the stairs to her death.
If she’d been like this on the Wednesday when her family last saw her I could understand more easily their refusal to accept the suicide verdict. Though it was the only plausible explanation. I’d sleep on it. Decide in the morning. This would be their first Christmas without her. A matter of endurance rather than celebration. Every aspect made poignant by her absence. One of the milestones of the grieving process. And would it be any easier to bear if I could tell them more about how she had passed her last day?
Ray was taking the children to school so I was at my office for nine. I switched on the convector heater to take the chill from the place and made coffee. The aroma of the drink replacing the faint smell of damp brick. There was no hint of Christmas here apart from the temperature and the utterly natural frosting on the narrow basement window. I liked to keep it uncluttered; practical and functional though I painted it in bright colours and hung one of my friend Diane’s abstract pictures on the wall. I suppose my office is the only space I have complete control over, even my room at home bears witness to Maddie who always seems to come into it carrying something and leave without it.
I looked again at the file on Miriam Johnstone. If I still said no what would they do? Try another agency? What could I offer? I sipped my coffee and thought. By the time my drink was finished I had made my decision and rehearsed what I would say.
I turned my attention to my in-tray. I’d two invoices to send out and a report to spell check and send off. I’d managed to get a reconditioned computer cheap from a contact on Ray’s IT course. I was gradually transferring my work from the machine at home which Ray had let me share. I switched on and waited for it to boot up. Then got going. Invoices and report done, I busied myself signing up for e-mail and Internet access with one of the companies offering free calls. No one else had grabbed
salk
as a user name and I gave myself the same thing reversed as a password. Easier to remember. I updated my address book and set up folders for my inbox. I emailed Ray at home as a test, as well as my friends to let them know my new address.
At eleven the phone rang.
“Sal Kilkenny Investigations.”
“Oh, hello.”
I didn’t recognise the voice.
“I got your name from the Yellow Pages. It says you do tracing and matrimonial work but I don’t know whether you could do what we require ... it’s not very straightforward.” She sounded quite businesslike though a little breathy. I wondered whether the ‘we’ was a firm or something else. I didn’t ask her name. Some people want a bit of confidential advice before committing themselves. Some want to remain anonymous until you’d agreed a contract.
“Tell me what sort of work you were thinking of and I’ll have an idea of whether we can take it on.” I was a ‘we’ too. Gave people the impression that I was part of an organisation, not a lone operative. Safer all round.
“I have a son,” she said. “He’s seventeen now and we’ve been having a lot of problems with him. He’s missing classes at college and he’s been disappearing for hours on end. Sometimes he doesn’t come back until the early hours. We’ve ended up having to drive round in the middle of the night looking for him. It’s an awful strain and the worst thing is that he won’t talk about it.”
Sounded like fairly common teenage behaviour. Did she want someone to act as a truancy officer or a counsellor? I listened.
“It’s affecting us all. We’ve other children too and it’s not fair on them. If you could find out where he goes, what he’s doing?”
“Report on his activities for you?”
“Yes. And find him when he goes off like that.”
“You say he won’t talk to you? Have you told him you might involve someone else?”
“Oh, no.”
I told her what I always tell people who want to investigate a family member, spouse or otherwise. “Try and talk to him again. Tell him what you’re worried about and see if he’ll confide in you. Ask specific questions - start with the easiest -
where did you go on Tuesday
is easier than asking him what’s wrong. Perhaps find out if there’s anyone else he would rather talk to: a friend or a teacher.”
“We’ve tried that,” she sighed.
“Okay. I ought to warn you that there is a risk that this could backfire - bringing me in. If your son thinks he’s being spied on it may drive him further away. He’ll see it as a breach of trust. Have you thought about that?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
“Don’t get me wrong, I can definitely take the job on but you might want to have another go at talking first. You could even tell him that you’re thinking of getting help from someone else because you’re so worried - that’s up to you. Then if we go ahead I’d report his movements to you and you choose whether or not to confront him with what we find.”
“Yes.”
“Has there been any trouble with the police?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Any drug use?”
“I don’t think so, nothing we’re aware of.”
“What do his teachers say?”
“That he’s very quiet, withdrawn. His work is sporadic.”
“Is there someone at the college with responsibility for pastoral care?”
“Yes and I’ve seen them. They said they’d try and have a quiet word with him but nothing’s come of it. They say unless Adam goes to them they can’t interfere. Although if his attendance drops too low he’ll be asked to consider whether to retain his college place.”
“Okay,” I leant back in my chair, “going on what you’ve told me we could keep tabs on your son for a set period of time and give you a report - verbal and written - on his activities. We cost the job at an hourly or daily rate. Is there any pattern to his disappearances?”
“No. Sometimes he skips college but he’s back for tea, other times he’s gone all hours. The first couple of times Ken drove round trying to find him but now he refuses to go, we just lie awake worrying.”
“Might he be with friends ... have any other parents said anything?”
“He hasn’t really got any friends. No one we see. He moved to the college in September and he doesn’t seem to have made any friends.”
So this wasn’t just a teenager getting drunk with his mates every so often and not making it home.