Some Kind of Fairy Tale (10 page)

“You’ll have your work cut out for you to find a chap like that,” he said.

That sort of remark would normally make me prickle. He was mocking me for being naïve but he had a way of softening it with a smile and with these lovely wrinkles around his eyes, so that I didn’t take the least offense. Plus, his experience was an attractive thing. He was so relaxed in his manner with me. Richie was always so intense, so full-on. Richie, or any younger man, for that matter, would be so focused on getting his hand down your pants that he would drain all the fun out of things. Whereas even though I knew this man had a fancy for me he was so enjoying the moment, and making me enjoy the moment, that he seemed to have no care or interest in what might happen next.

“What about you?” I said.

“What about me?” He knew exactly what I meant, and that I was trying to discover if he was married or had a girlfriend of his own somewhere. But he was teasing me.

“Are you spoken for?”

“Spoken for. What a lovely turn of phrase you do have.”

“It’s what we say around here.”

“And I’m not from around here.”

“Where are you from, then?”

“Well if I’m not from a
round here
I must be from a
round there
.”

I pulled up a straw of grass and threw it at him. “Cagey, ain’t ya?”

“I am.”

“So are you married?”

“Hahaha!”

“Is that a no?”

“Never found the right one. Been looking. I’ll know her when I find her.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight, then?”

“No, I don’t. You have to have a bit of agitation first.”

“Agitation?”

And then he started banging on about physics, which I must say is not the most romantic thing to set a girl’s heart racing. It’s
not a subject that much interested me before. I mean, I did do some physics at school but it didn’t exactly stir my blood. He started talking about molecules colliding and how only certain collisions have the energy to connect effectively and this is because only some of the molecules have enough energy at the moment of impact to break any existing bonds and form new ones. And then he looked at my face and he must have seen me with my mouth open because he laughed out loud and rolled around in the bluebells, laughing his head off and hugging his ribs as if they were cracking.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he said, and then he laughed some more.

I folded my hands in my lap and looked at the sky until his laughter burned itself out.

“Dear dear dear,” he said, recovering his breath. “Oh, dear! What I mean is this: you meet someone, you think about them. You’re already changing because of the way you think about them. You meet them again, you think about them some more, you’re changing again. And on it goes. You are changing right now. Before my eyes.”

“I am, am I?”

“Yes. Through meeting me.”

“Think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

“Maybe I do. But you know it’s true.”

And he looked into my eyes, and I looked back into his, and I knew what he was saying was true, and I thought,
I want to know more about you
.

“It was called courtship once upon a time.” I thought he sounded a bit melancholy. “Nowadays, sad to say, there’s none of that. You’re supposed to meet on the dance floor, rub up naked against each other for five minutes, and then on to the next person. Now, that’s just a knock; whereas what I’m after is an almighty collision.”

“So where is it you live?” I asked again.

He pointed vaguely to the west and told me he lived exactly on the county border, and I assumed he meant on the county border between Leicestershire and Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire. He said where he lived there was a stream and you could stand astride the stream with one foot in one land and one foot in the other. He
told me he had a house by a pool and that it had no electricity or television because he didn’t like those things. He said he preferred to live by the sun and the moon and by the light on the water.

“That’s beautiful,” I said. “Like poetry.”

“Perhaps one day you’ll come and see my house, Tara,” he said, smiling.

“I never told you my name,” I said.

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He got up and walked away from me. I thought he was perhaps offended, but he’d gone to fetch his white horse. After a moment he led the animal back through the bluebells toward me. There he stood holding the reins, just looking at me.

“Well, do you or don’t you?” he said.

“Do I or don’t I what?”

“Do you or don’t you want to see the light on the water?”

I was able to answer in a beat. “I do.”

I know I should have refused his offer. Then things would have been different. Then there would have been no trouble. But there are times in life when a door opens and you are offered a glimpse of the light on the water, and you know that if you don’t take it, that door slams shut, and maybe forever. Maybe you fool yourself into thinking that you had a choice at all; maybe you were always going to say yes. Maybe refusing was no more a choice than is holding your breath. You were always going to breathe. You were always going to say yes.

“Then up you get,” he said.

There was no saddle on the horse. There was just a dusty red blanket. He blinked at me, and smiled, and I got up and went over to the horse and he dropped the reins and locked his fingers together for me to step into the palms of his hands. Then I was up on the horse’s back, the big straw panniers swinging at either knee.

He led the horse through the bluebells and onto the bridle track. There he walked me through the woods without a word. After a while the track became a bit wider, and there he stopped
the horse and leapt up behind me. He reached for the reins and I could smell his manly smell again, and the smell of the horse.

He reached a hand in front and placed it on my belly and I felt a terrible excitement.

“Is that comfortable for you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “that’s comfortable.”

“Then we do go.”

I
t’s like a door opens in my mind. A big, creaking black door. Behind the black door is the possibility that my friend Dave of the West Midlands CID is right.

Maybe I lost it. Maybe I did something to Tara after all. There’s a horrible sound coming from behind the black door. It’s a low and distant wailing, but it starts off like a feeling deep in the gut and on its way up it turns into a sound.

Maybe I did it. I was angry enough. And I’ve been out of my head before. Me and Pete drank a bottle of vodka each one night,
speed-drinking, like we were trying to kill ourselves with it. We lost several hours that night. When we woke up we’d both got neither our shoes nor our shirts and we had vicious scratches on our bodies and bits of hedgerow in our hair. Neither of us could remember a damned thing about what we did. So where did that time go? The things we did must still be there, in a corner of the mind somewhere, waiting to be remembered.

And I look up and I see that they are all leaning in toward me, the coppers and my lawyer, waiting for me to speak.

“Get it off your chest, Richie,” says my friend Dave in a fatherly whisper. He sounds more like a priest than a copper. Loving. I can only just hear his words over the wailing. “I think you want to. I think you want to tell us. You’ll feel better if you do. Get it off your chest.”

And the wailing from behind this big black door stops suddenly. And I realize that this is the door to prison. The door bangs shut.

“What?” I say. “Get what off my chest?”

They all lean back. All four of them lean back, like it’s all a dance show.

I turn to my so-called lawyer. “What is he talking about? What does he want me to say?”

She bites her teeth together before turning to the policemen. “I think you’ve had your answer,” she says. “But could you put it straight. For the record.”

The sadness and compassion drains out of my friend Dave’s face. He sighs and looks like he’s really, really tired.

“Richie. Look at me, please. Come on, boy. Look me in the eye. Did you kill Tara?”

“You have got to be joking.”

“Just answer the questions
yes
or
no
, Richie,” says my lawyer. “It’s better for you.”

“Right. The answer is no. Now, can I go home?”

“Not yet,” says Dave. “Not yet.”

“Am I under arrest?” I ask. I’ve got this idea they can’t keep me unless they arrest me.

“Is he?” asks my lawyer.

“Right-o,” says Dave. “Richie Franklin, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Tara Martin.” And the rest of it. Anything you say. Held against you. And all that.

“Ridiculous,” says my lawyer. It’s the first time she’s spoken up for me. “You don’t even have a body. You’ve no idea where that girl is. She might have gone off with another boyfriend for all you know.” She turns to me. “Don’t panic, Richie, they can’t keep you here for long.”

“Well, we haven’t finished,” says Dave, standing up. “Do you want a cup of tea, Richie? I think we could all do with one.”

I say yes, I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.

“And I desperately need a pee,” says my lawyer.

“Come and show me where the tearoom is,” Dave says to the uniformed copper taking notes.

The uniformed copper looks up, puzzled. Then something dawns across his features. He says, “Oh, right. Sure.” And out they all trot, leaving me with the fat bastard. He of the squeaky voice.

When we’ve got the interview room to ourselves, fat bastard sniffs and then he fingers his collar again. “We know you done it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“See, what you don’t know, son, is that never mind what you’ve seen on telly,
nearwy
all murders is done by the husband or the
boyfwiend
. It always comes back to that. Always. You should
wisten
to Dave. He’s on your side.” Then he stands up. “I ain’t, though.”

And he walks slowly round the table.

I don’t even see the punch coming. His huge knuckles connect with my chin, lips, and nose all at the same time, and I think I black out, because I’m on the floor when I come to my senses and I can hear him hissing at me: “Get up you
wittle shite-hawk
, get on your feet.”

It’s all very well, him telling me to get up, but there’s a ringing in my ears and I can’t balance.

“Don’t think that
wying
on the floor is going to help you. That’s just a taster for what’s coming your way. You think I’m a cunt?”

“No.”

“You do. You think I’m a cunt.”

“No.”

“It ain’t me who is the cunt, Wichie. See, what I am is the
stoowyteller
. I know how all the
stoowies
work. ’Cos I’ve heard ’em many times over. You get so you know which ones to believe. Here’s one I know. Are you sittin’ comfortably? You get
Tawa
up the duff. She don’t want to keep it. You do want to keep it. Sometimes it’s the other way
wound
, but as often as not it’s the bloke as wants to keep it, ’cos that way he can keep his girl, see,
Wichie
? So we has a peek into her
medical wecords
. And she’s
got wid of it
. And she tells you. And you ain’t happy.”

“Liar!” I shout. “You’re a liar.”

“She tells you she’s
got wid of the baby
and you lose the plot, eh,
Wichie
? You lose it. You completely lose it.”

“You’re lying! She wouldn’t do that!”

“It’s in the
wecords
! Don’t make out you didn’t know!”

“You’re a fucking liar!”

He smiles at me. “No, son. I’m not a liar. I’m the truth. I’m the fucking
stoowyteller
here. What am I?”

“Fuck off!”

Next thing he gathers me up by my lapels and stands me on my feet. My knees buckle, but he easily holds me up with one hand. He places this huge polished black boot on my toes and presses down. That in itself doesn’t hurt; but then he punches me again, hard, and I go backward and I feel the tendons in my ankle tearing with my foot still trapped under his boot.

This time I scream.

No one comes.

He gathers me up a second time and sits me back on my seat. I’m hyperventilating and the pain in my foot is almost making me black out again. “Let’s do that again. What am I?”

“Sto-reh,” I gasp.

“Can’t hear you,
Wichie
.”

“Storyteller.”

He dusts me down and rearranges my collar and he chucks my cheek like I’m a crying five-year-old. “Calm down,
Wichie
,” he says, in his reedy voice. “Pull yourself together. Look at the state you’re in.”

He sits back in his chair and smiles at me. After a few minutes the uniformed copper comes in with a tray of tea in plastic cups. He looks at me and then glances at the Hulk and there’s just enough of
a pause to make me realize he’s clocked what’s happened. But he’s not going to say a word, I know that. We all know that. He lays the tray on the interview table, sets one of the plastic cups of tea in front of me, and reaches for his notepad.

I pick up the tea but my hands are trembling and it spills all over the place. I manage a sip. My lip is already fattening.