The Sleeping and the Dead (22 page)

‘I don’t suppose you recognize him,’ Hannah said.

‘No. Why should I?’

‘He’s been done for dealing. He might have ended up in our place. If he did he never used the library. I wondered if you’d come across him.’

‘No. Look, why don’t we talk to him now? Once all the wedding guests turn up it’ll be impossible.’

‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’ Again she regretted starting all this. But Arthur was unstoppable.

‘Just introduce us. Leave the rest to me.’

The party would take place in a room Hannah hadn’t seen before, a large one-storey annexe built on to the back of the house in stone. It had a polished wood floor for dancing, a bar at one
end and a scattering of small tables around the walls. It was quite different from the rest of the hotel – more up-market working men’s club than country house – but she supposed
that in the winter the dos held here would make up most of the Spences’ income. Chris was setting up his equipment on a low stage. He was bending over so his T-shirt had ridden up his back.
He heard their footsteps and turned round.

‘Hannah Meek,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well. The police haven’t locked you up yet then?’

She blushed. She’d always known Chris was hostile. He’d thought her stuck up and prudish. But she hadn’t expected such an obvious display of rudeness.

‘Why should they lock her up?’ Arthur sounded interested, a bit amused.

‘Who are you?’

‘Arthur Lee. I work with Hannah.’

‘Oh? Where’s that then?’ He pretended to stick wires into sockets but his heart wasn’t in it.

‘I’m a librarian. I work in Stavely Prison.’ She threw that out as a kind of challenge but he didn’t seem bothered.

‘I never got there. Not a long enough sentence.’

‘Perhaps another time.’

He laughed. ‘Nah. I’m too old for that now. Didn’t Sal tell you? I’m settled. Content. I’ve got a lady. She’s expecting our kid.’

The kitchen door must have been open. Hannah could hear the clattering of pans. There were cooking smells.

‘What were you like then?’ Arthur asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When Michael Grey was murdered. You weren’t so settled then.’

He accepted that as a compliment. ‘We were all a bit wild I suppose.’ He paused. ‘Except Hannah. You never did wild, did you, H?’

‘What about Michael? Was he wild too?’

‘I never knew him that well.’

‘You didn’t know anything about him before he came to live here? You’d never met him before?’

‘How would I? He went to some sort of posh school.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Him or someone else. How should I know? Anyway, what’s it to do with you?’

Arthur ignored that, continued with the questions, sharp and impersonal.

‘What was he like? You were older than the others, more experienced. What did you make of him?’

‘He wasn’t the angel they all thought.’ It came out grudgingly.

‘One of your customers, was he?’

‘No,’ Hannah said. She glared at Arthur. ‘He wouldn’t.’

‘Come on, Hannah,’ Chris was fighting back. ‘You know as well as anyone that Michael Grey was hardly the perfect gentleman. Don’t you?’

She didn’t answer. She wanted to drag Arthur away, to drive immediately back to the coast, but knew there was no way he’d give up now. She’d have to stick it out.

‘Have the police been to see you yet?’ Arthur asked.

‘Of course they’ve been to see me. Anyone farts in this town, they knock on my door.’

‘What did they want?’

‘They wanted me to tell them about the party at the caravan site. The last time any of us saw Michael Grey alive. The party after the play. You remember the one, Hannah.’

‘Did you tell them?’ she asked.

‘Of course I told them. I’m a law-abiding citizen now. What else could I do?’

He smiled. His teeth were brown and uneven. Then he turned back to the large, black speaker.

Macbeth
had gone well. Everyone involved in the production felt the buzz, lapped up the success. Even Hannah, who was on the edge of it. It was a manic time. Exams were
only days away. People were up all night revising. You’d have thought it was the worst possible day for a party, but everyone had so much nervous energy and they felt like celebrating.

Hannah never knew whose idea it was to hire a room at the caravan site. Perhaps one of the cast was related to the manager. She thought it was something like that. She spent the afternoon at
home getting ready. On her own. She’d asked Sal to come round. Sal was better than she was at clothes and make-up. But Sal hadn’t had much to do with the play and anyway seemed to spend
all her free time with Chris. Years later Hannah would be able to remember the clothes she was wearing that night. She wanted it to be special. After the exams everyone would move away. It would
probably be the last time they’d be together.

She soaked for an hour in the bath, got dressed and looked at herself in the long mirror on the landing. She was wearing a long skirt with tiny green flowers printed on to a cream background. It
had a drop waist and she’d made it herself. There was nowhere in Cranford to buy clothes. It was the first time she’d worn it. A cream top with a gathered neck. A shawl which Sylvia
Brice had crocheted for her birthday. Jesus sandals. And masses of black eye make-up. The last throes of flower power, which anyway had come late to the town.

Then, just as she was about to leave, her mother threw a wobbly. Hannah should have seen it coming. It had been building for days – resentful comments every time she went out, tearful
self-pity when she returned.

Now Audrey blocked the front door, stood in front of it with her arms outstretched.

‘Don’t go.’

Hannah was panicking. ‘I must. They’re expecting me. It’s to do with the play.’

She didn’t say it was a party because Audrey would have played the guilt card – I never go out, you see your friends every day. That sort of thing. And Hannah had to go. During
rehearsals she’d hardly seen Michael. He’d seemed to be slipping away from her.

Audrey crumpled. Her knees buckled and her back slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor. She began to sob. The tears gouged drains in her face powder. Hannah could see the tops of
her tights and her knickers. Words came in muffled, snotty bursts.

‘I’m so sorry. You mustn’t mind me. I only want you to be happy.’

Hannah couldn’t leave her like that, though more than anything she wanted to ignore the tears, step over the body and force her way out of the door. She took Audrey’s arm and coaxed
her to her feet, settled her on the sofa and made her tea. She switched on the television. Immediately Audrey became absorbed in one of her favourite programmes.

‘I’ll go now, Mum, shall I?’

Audrey turned, waved briefly and returned her attention to the set.

They’d hired a minibus to take party-goers to the lake. Courtesy again of some anxious parents. A disabled lad had gone missing a couple of years before and for a while there’d been
a fuss about youngsters out on their own. Hannah was too late to catch it. She began to walk, sticking out her thumb for a lift every time a car went past. She’d never hitched on her own
before but now she was too desperate to think of all the adult warnings. It was still light and the road was busier than she’d expected – mostly families on their way back to the site.
They didn’t seem to see her. Each time a car sailed past she stared after it with loathing. Her sandals were new and a strip of leather cut into her toes.

Then, when she was thinking she’d have to walk the whole way, someone stopped. A young bloke in a rusting estate car. He was chatty and in the few minutes it took to drive the rest of the
way she found out he was visiting his girlfriend. She worked on reception in the site office and had been given a free caravan for the season. He was obviously smitten.

She heard the music as soon as she got out of the car.

‘Some party, that,’ he said, before driving off through the maze of caravans to find his love.

The party wasn’t in the bar, but in a room next to it, which sometimes held bingo for the older visitors and talent competitions for the kids. In natural light it would be gloomy, but
Chris had rigged up some coloured spots and someone had decorated it with balloons and streamers. It was full. The dancers jostled for space. The first person she saw was Mr Spence, who was dancing
with the fifth former who’d played Hecate. Some of the cast had dressed up in their costumes and hers was black, floaty and long. Ribbons of frayed black cloth trailed from her cuffs. Mr
Spence danced with his eyes half shut, his body twisting and swaying to the music. Hannah saw at once that Michael wasn’t there.

She didn’t ask any of her friends if Michael had been with them on the minibus. The music was so loud that her ears were already singing and the room was full of people she didn’t
know well. Boyfriends and girlfriends and stray hangers-on had gatecrashed. Sally was there, though her only contribution to the play had been to hand out programmes at one of the performances. She
was beside Chris, dancing on her own. She already seemed drunk. Hannah didn’t want to ask her about Michael. Chris would have made some sarcastic comment. He always did.

She went outside, walked down towards the lake where the noise of the music wasn’t quite so loud. She told herself that Michael might have gone for a walk on the shore, that he might be
waiting for her there. The sky was a crazy mix of colours. Violet streaked in the west with gold and grey. Soon it would be completely dark but now it was light enough for birds still to be singing
and she could make out the paler strip of sand and the reflection of the last light on the water.

They were lying on the spiky grass between the road and the lake. Jenny Graves, otherwise known as Lady Macbeth, was sprawled naked on the grass with Michael Grey, otherwise known as Theo
Randle. The picture had the quality of a photographic negative. The background was grey, their bodies milky. Michael’s hair was startling white, her black braid lost in the shadow. It
wasn’t a shock. She’d looked out for Jenny in the dancing crowd too and registered that she wasn’t there. Hadn’t even expected her to be. Throughout the rehearsals
she’d watched Michael and Jenny, his charm, her flirting. But Hannah hadn’t felt able to demand an explanation, because then he’d have told her, not using the exact words of
course, that he wanted her as a friend and an audience, not a lover. That is was Jenny Graves he’d write his poems for. Hannah stood for a moment staring, fascinated despite herself by the
entwined limbs, the panting, the moans, thinking in a dispassionate way – So that’s what happens, that’s what it’s all about.

Then she turned and ran. They must have heard her footsteps on the shingle but she didn’t care. She hoped Michael did hear, that the encounter would be spoiled for him. It serves him
right, she thought. Over and over again, spiteful and childish, a schoolyard chant. She stumbled back towards the music, not because she could face going back to the party, but because it was the
only way home. A figure was standing outside the building. He leaned against the wall rolling what she realized later was probably a joint. It was Chris. There was an outside light fixed to the bar
and she was caught in the glare of it. He saw her tears. He gave a mocking smile and beckoned her towards him. She turned away and hurried down the lane. She didn’t try to get a lift. By then
it was pitch black and she had more sense. And she didn’t want anyone to see her crying.

She was home earlier than her mother had expected. Audrey was still watching television, though she’d moved from the sofa to her usual upright chair and there was a plate with some crumbs
on the coffee table. The earlier panic was forgotten. She was touchingly pleased to see Hannah, who sat on the floor beside her to watch the end of the programme. She found herself making
allowances for her mother’s behaviour now, as she would with someone who was very old or very sick. Audrey seemed not to notice that Hannah was upset until they went upstairs together, then
she asked suddenly, ‘Are you all right, my dear?’

‘Of course.’ Audrey would be the last person she’d talk to about her troubles. What could parents know?

‘You should leave this place,’ Audrey said sharply. ‘As soon as your exams are over. I stayed far too long.’

‘Oh yes,’ Hannah said. ‘I will.’ She spoke as if it had been her plan all along but it had never crossed her mind before that evening.

‘Good.’ She shut the bedroom door firmly behind her, but Hannah still heard her repeat the word to herself. ‘Good.’

The next morning Michael phoned. It was Sunday and her mother was still in bed. Hannah hadn’t been able to sleep. She knew it would be him before she picked up the
receiver but she couldn’t let it go unanswered.

‘Hannah, I have to see you.’

‘No.’

‘You don’t understand. I’m scared.’ He did sound terrified, as if he’d just woken from a nightmare. But she told herself he was a good actor. ‘No one else
will believe me.’

She didn’t say anything.

‘There are things you should know. We should talk.’

‘Talk to Jenny.’ She knew it was petty but she couldn’t help it.

‘This isn’t anything to do with Jenny.’

‘And it isn’t anything to do with me.’

If Chris hadn’t seen her running away from the beach she’d probably have agreed to meet Michael. She wanted to see him. But Chris had seen her and she could tell from the way
he’d grinned that he knew about Michael and Jenny. He’d have told Sally. Hannah was proud. She couldn’t bear to be seen scuttling back to Michael after she’d been so
publicly betrayed. She wanted to help him but knew it was impossible.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as firmly as her mother had said the word ‘good’ the night before.

She was replacing the receiver when she heard him say goodbye.

That was the story she told Arthur as they sat on the terrace waiting for Porteous to arrive at The Old Rectory. It was quiet. The newly-weds and their friends hadn’t yet
arrived. It was the story they agreed she would have to tell the detectives.