Something Wicked (8 page)

Andrew wriggled uncomfortably on the floor. His back wasn’t what it used to be, though that applied to most of his body parts. He wondered what the exact age was where you crossed over
from being naturally young, fit and athletic to being a creaky old sod with joints that objected to anything other than the tamest of workouts. It was definitely somewhere around thirty.

Jenny tap-tap-tapped her way around the keyboard, la-la-laaing under her breath. ‘No password,’ she interrupted herself to say, before continuing with ferocious speed.

Andrew pulled out the magic books and the photo of Nicholas with Lara from the tub and placed them on the bed. He had a rummage through the rest of the items: swimming certificates, ticket stubs
from gigs and movies, a few more photographs – nothing out of the ordinary. Andrew pushed the tub back under the bed and rearranged the shoes just as Jenny was spinning around in her
chair.

‘It’d take ages to do a deep search on his hard drive, but he’s not bothered trying to hide the things he’s downloaded. There are a few pirated films, some music, a bit
of porn. What you’d expect from a teenage lad, I’d suppose.’

‘Can you get into his email?’

‘He doesn’t have any mail client programs on here, but it would have been on his phone anyway. He’s probably got a webmail account. I checked to see if there were any
auto-logon details in his browser’s history but there aren’t. This isn’t the way people work nowadays.’

‘Shall we ask to take the laptop?’

Jenny held out her hands. ‘Up to you. I can keep going through it but I’d be surprised if there was much there.’

Andrew knew that if she thought it was a waste of time, then it would be.

‘What do you think in general?’ he asked. ‘You’re only a few years older than Nicholas.’

Jenny puffed out her cheeks and began twiddling her hair. ‘Yeah, but I liked all the school stuff. I read textbooks. My room was nothing like this.’

‘What about mates?’

‘I didn’t have a boyfriend at school because it didn’t interest me. I left all the other girls to fuss around. I hung out with a few people here and there but I’m not
that needy.’ She paused, chewing on the skin inside her cheek, head at an angle. ‘I suppose I don’t really hang around with people that often.’

‘What do you do after work?’

‘Dunno really . . . stuff. Watch TV, read, go walking around the city. There’s always something going on. I don’t really plan ahead that much.’ She flicked her hair
backwards and spun in the seat back to the laptop. ‘Anyway, if you’re asking what I think about the room, then it looks normal enough. He’s got a weird taste in films but so have
lots of people. You’re probably right that his mum hid everything under the bed because she didn’t want to look at it. Times are changing, though. If people want things to be known,
it’s all over social networks, or half-a-dozen other places. Searching people’s rooms will only get you so far. When I get back to the office, I’ll track down the pages of
Nicholas, his mates and Lara. That’s where we’ll find the real dirt.’ She stopped again as the laptop screen went black. ‘If there is any, of course. I didn’t
mean—’

‘I know what you meant.’

Andrew carried the magic books and photograph downstairs. Richard and Elaine were in the living room, watching a television programme about auctions. As soon as Andrew entered the room, Richard
lunged for the remote control, muting the show and looking up expectantly, as if Andrew and Jenny would have already found a vital clue.

Andrew thrust the books up into the air. ‘Can we take these? Obviously we’ll return them.’

The couple replied in unison: ‘Of course.’

Andrew indicated the book on top. ‘Did these belong to Nicholas?’

Richard answered: ‘We guess.’ He glanced sideways at his wife, giving away the fact it was her who had packed them away under the bed. ‘Kids go through phases, don’t
they? One month it’s all football, then it’s computers, or whatever.’

‘Did the police keep anything?’

Richard shook his head. ‘They returned it all a few weeks ago. I suppose that was the catalyst for me coming to you. That was the point where we knew they’d given up.’

Andrew bounced from one foot to the other, balancing the books between his hands, with Jenny apparently reading his mind and slipping her car key into his pocket. ‘I’m going to take
these outside,’ he said. ‘If you could show us the rest of the house afterwards, that’d be appreciated.’

A couple of minutes later, Elaine led Andrew and Jenny into the back garden. The day had brightened up but it was hard to tell as tall, swaying conifers bathed the lawn in a
dark horror movie-esque shade. If ‘Night of the Killer Chainsaw Bitches’ was going to have a sequel, then its location manager would struggle to find a better spot than this.

Andrew peered upwards but everything except for the tops of the neighbours’ houses was blocked, leaving a darkened, mud-soaked amphitheatre underfoot. The temperature was a degree or two
lower as well, with Jenny wrapping her arms around herself and Andrew trying not to shiver.

Jenny headed straight for the shed midway along the garden, its dark wood almost camouflaged in the murk. There was a twinkle in her eye as she turned. ‘I used to have a den in my
dad’s shed.’

Perhaps surprisingly, Elaine returned the smile. ‘Me too when I was a girl. Me and my friends used to keep piles of blankets in there and we’d sit around chatting and complaining
about boys.’

She took a key from her pocket and popped open the padlock, pulling the door aside and holding it open. ‘It’s fine for you to look around but Nicholas never spent much time here. He
preferred to go out with his friends.’

Andrew followed Jenny inside, feeling the noxious odour of creosote surging through his nostrils. The ultimate medicine for nasal congestion: sod those nose sprays, get sniffing fence paint
– although that probably wasn’t official medical advice.

Tools and plants lined the walls, with the wooden floor creaking through age and neglect. In the corner, a deflated football sagged pitifully, wedged between a mud-caked rake and an overturned
wheelbarrow. Jenny walked in a circle, running her fingers along the grain of the windowsill.

Andrew turned to see Elaine staring towards the ball in the corner. ‘Are you okay?’

Her voice cracked. ‘I don’t come out here very often. I remember when he was young enough to kick that ball around the garden.’

Andrew opened his mouth to reply but Jenny got in there first. ‘It’s normal for you to keep believing. A year from now, five years, ten years: you still believe he might return.
Hopefully we’ll be able to help you find some closure.’

She smiled meekly, not her usual smirk, but with her lips thinner and clamped together. Elaine bowed her head graciously but Andrew couldn’t take his eyes from Jenny, trying to remember if
those were the exact words he’d said to her only hours earlier.

Andrew and Jenny said their goodbyes and set off down the driveway. Jenny rounded her car and was touching the handle when she nodded towards the house next door. Andrew turned
to see a squat middle-aged woman wearing a knee-length skirt with legs so skinny, they didn’t seem large enough to hold her up. An oversized red jumper hung to her thighs as she bobbed around
the corner of the hedge, flicking her head to the side, like a robin with Tourette’s.

‘I’ll wait,’ Jenny said, opening the door to the car and getting in without needing to be told. Sometimes she was the right person to stick her nose in, other times she’d
rub people the wrong way. Instinctively they both knew the strange woman in the ridiculous jumper wanted to talk to him.

Andrew glanced towards the Carrs’ house, before sidling across the pavement, hands in pockets.

The woman had a sharp squawk to her voice. ‘You from the council?’

‘No.’

She huffed in annoyance. ‘Bugger. I’ve been complaining about those hedges blocking my light for months. I thought you might be ’ere to chop ’em down.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Soddin’ useless, that council lot. You phone ’em up and it’s press one for this, press two for that. By the time you finally get through to someone, you’ve
forgotten what you phoned ’em for. Two years ago, that’s when I first asked them about looking into the height of the trees. Then again a year ago, then every other month
since.’

Andrew nodded at the Carrs’ house. ‘Have you ever asked them about trimming the bushes?’

The woman waved him forward, lowering her voice. ‘Did you hear about what happened to their son?’

‘Go on.’

She started to reply and then stopped herself. ‘Who did you say you were?’

Andrew dug into his pocket for a business card. At one point in history, it would have been a sign of importance: ‘Ooh, he must have something about him if he can carry his phone number
around on a card.’ Now anyone could knock a hundred cards up at the nearest train station. It was the only way Andrew could remember his own number and email address though.

The woman took it, turning it over in her hand suspiciously. ‘Private investigator, eh?’

‘That’s me.’

‘What sort of things do you investigate?’

Andrew looked both ways and tapped his nose conspiratorially: ‘This and that.’

She opened her mouth, letting out a breathy ‘ahh’ and nodding slowly as she pocketed the card. ‘I’m Gloria,’ she whispered. ‘So you’re looking into what
happened to
you-know-who
. . . ?’

Andrew lowered his voice, playing along. ‘Did you know him?’

Gloria’s reply was an endless stream of babble, one word running into the next. ‘Oh, it’s awful isn’t it? That’s why I’ve not been over to talk about the
hedges. You can’t, can you? They’ve been through enough as it is – don’t need me banging on about their bushes. One minute he’s there, next minute he’s gone.
Whatever next? Are you going to find his body? His poor parents deserve that, at least. I was having tea with Mrs Tanning from number fifty the other week and we were saying how dreadful it all
must be.’

It took Andrew a few moments to take everything in. She’d somehow gabbled a stream of consciousness without answering the question.

‘What was Nicholas like?’

‘Oh, he was lovely – helped me in with my shopping once or twice when he was younger. He was ever so polite, a right little gentleman. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

Andrew wondered if anyone had ever said boo to a goose. Almost certainly not.

He looked both ways again, lowering his voice even further. Throw in a false moustache and an attaché case and he’d be all set for ‘Carry On Spying’. ‘Was there
anything,
you know
, out of the ordinary?’

It took less than a second for Gloria to drop the concerned neighbour façade. Her nose began twitching as if the bullshit she was spreading was real. ‘Well, it all changed about two
years ago when he went off to college. Before then, he’d say hello and give me a little wave. Even just a nod. After he started seeing that girl, well . . .’

Andrew was beginning to understand why Richard Carr wanted some privacy.

Gloria leant forward, licking her lips. ‘Between you and me, he changed overnight. Overnight, I tell you. No more waves or nods. You’d see them on the doorstep at night, whispering
in each other’s ears, giggling and so on. Then they’d be getting back all hours of the night. You should’ve seen how she dressed! I mean, I’m as liberal as the next person
but she’d have skirts up to ’ere, those sock things down to ’ere . . .’

Andrew somehow prevented himself from wincing as Gloria tugged up her own skirt to indicate – unnecessarily – what she meant. The attractiveness of a flash of thigh was a subjective
thing but when the thigh in question was riddled with bright blue veins and wobbled like an underset jelly, it was something Andrew could’ve done without.

Not that Gloria noticed. ‘Then they’d be arguing on the doorstep, ranting and raving—’

‘What did they argue about?’

The interruption temporarily threw her off her stride. Gloria stopped mid-sentence, mouth hanging open, confused. ‘Er . . . I dunno. They’d just be shouting. Who knows with kids
today? Probably drugs. It’s always drugs, isn’t it? That’s what they say on the telly. In my day, you’d have a sneaky fag on your lunch break but this lot nowadays,
I’ve read there’s this horse drug they’re all into—’

‘Special K?’

‘No, love, that’s the cereal, I’ve got that indoors. It’s ketamine-something. I mean, I ask you, who wants to act like a horse? I suppose it’d get ’em eating
their carrots but that’s no reason to start doing horse drugs. Next thing you know, they’ll be galloping around and jumping hedges.’

She giggled so hard at her own joke that a blob of snot flew out of her nose onto the red jumper. Andrew fake-laughed, one of the necessary skills if you spent your days humouring potential
nutters. Because of their nature, around ninety per cent of what nutters came out with was completely barmy, it was the other ten per cent you had to keep an eye out for. Unfortunately, picking the
ten per cent out from the rest of the nonsense was sometimes impossible. With Gloria, ninety per cent might have been underplaying it. Andrew was wondering quite how much of what she had to say was
going to be useful considering she was at least a few jokers short of a deck of cards.

‘Did you tell the police?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I told them everything, but they looked at me like
I
was the crazy one. Can you believe that? I told them to call around any time – ask me anything. They took my details
and I never heard from them again. It’s no wonder they couldn’t find him.’

‘I don’t suppose you ever overheard anything to do with him disappearing?’

‘Well, no . . .’

‘And you never saw anything suspicious?’

‘Only the postman.’

‘What about the postman?’

‘He just sort of hangs around, going up to everyone’s house. I mean, I know it’s his job and all that but it’s a bit convenient, isn’t it?’

Andrew realised his mistake. He thought by playing up the hush-hush thing, he’d appeal to Gloria’s gossipy side. What he’d actually done was encourage the fruitcakey side to
come to the fore.