DEAD SILENT. Neil White

what if I’m telling the truth, that he didn’t kill Nancy?’

      I leant forward. ‘To be honest with you, it doesn’t make a damn jot of difference.’ When she looked surprised, I added, ‘Whatever Claude says, an editor will shape it into ifs and maybes, just to protect the paper, because that’s the editor’s job. Mine will simply be to write the story.’

      ‘So you will write the story?’ she asked, her eyes brightening for a moment.

      I felt the smile creep onto my face, couldn’t stop it. ‘Provided that your story with Claude Gilbert comes out too,’ I said. ‘Full disclosure. Everything about your relationship.’

      ‘But I thought it would all be about Claude,’ she said, suddenly wary. ‘Everyone will hate me. I was sleeping with a murdered woman’s husband.’

      ‘Full story or no story,’ I replied. ‘You’ve told me that Claude Gilbert wants to come out of hiding. But what if he chokes and disappears, or if it turns out that I’m being conned, that this person isn’t Claude Gilbert? You’re my back-up story, and I’m not going into this without one.’

      Susie put her bag back onto her knees and gripped the handles as she thought about it, then she slowly nodded her agreement.

      ‘Good,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk in more detail now.’

      ‘And then what?’

      ‘By the sound of it, we do whatever Claude wants us to do.’

      Susie was about to say something when she looked towards the stairs. As I looked around, I saw that Laura had come into the room. Bobby stood behind her, uncertain.

      Susie gave Laura a nervous smile. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for coming so early.’

      Laura smiled back. ‘It’s okay. Are you here with a story?’

      Susie leant forward and was about to say something when she caught my small shake of the head, a warning not to say anything. She looked troubled for a moment, but then she sat back and remained silent.

      Laura glanced at me curiously as Bobby ran across the room, pulling on his school coat and grabbing his bag.

      ‘I’m taking him to school, Jack. I won’t be long.’

      I waved as they went, and when we were alone in the house once more, Susie looked at me and asked, ‘Do you keep secrets from her?’

      ‘Don’t you think I should keep this secret, for your benefit?’

      Susie thought about that, and then she nodded her agreement.

      My motive wasn’t to protect Susie though. It was to protect Laura, because she is a police officer, a damn good one, honourable and honest. If she heard the story, she would see it as her duty to pass it on. And what if Susie was lying? It would make Laura look stupid.

      But, as I looked at Susie and took in the determination in her eyes, I was starting to believe her, and I felt a tremble of excitement at the prospect of the story.

       Chapter Four

      Susie refused my offer of a lift back to Blackley, and so I took her into Turners Fold to catch her bus. As I watched her clatter along the pavement in her heels, a freshly-lit cigarette glowing in her fingers, walking into what counted as rush hour around here—pensioners shuffling to the post office and young mothers meandering home after the school run—I could tell that the big meet-up was going to be on her and Claude Gilbert’s terms. I wasn’t happy about that, but sometimes you’ve just got to roll with the early blows, because in the end the story will come out on my terms.

      Once Susie was out of sight, I dialled the number of an old friend, Tony Davies. He had been my mentor when I was a young reporter on The Valley Post, at the start of my career before the bright London lights pulled me in, and was now seeing out his days writing features for the weekend edition.

      ‘I need help on something,’ I said when he answered. ‘But I need to keep this quiet. Can you come to me? I’m outside. It won’t take long.’

      ‘Are you still in that red Stag?’

      I looked at the dashboard. A 1973 Triumph Stag in Calypso Red. Nothing special in the history of cars, but it had once been my father’s pride and joy, the sports car for the working man. ‘For now,’ I said.

      Tony’s phone went dead. I watched the people go by and waited for him to appear.

      Turners Fold isn’t large, just a collection of terraced streets and old mill buildings, some derelict, some converted into business units, disused chimneys pointing out of the valley. The town is cut in half by a canal and criss-crossed by metal bridges, and the predominant colour of the town is grey, built from millstone grit blocks, the modern shop fronts squeezed into buildings designed for Victorian England, when the town had hummed to the sound of cotton and was smothered in smoke, the air clean only when the mills shut down for a week in summer and the railway took everyone to the coast.

      But it was where I grew up, for better or worse, the town that gave me flattened vowels and a dose of northern cynicism. It seemed to me that Turners Fold deserved better than its lot, its life and character crumbling year by year, because it seemed like the only way to succeed was to leave. Just for a moment, I sensed the shadow of my father. He’d been a policeman in Turners Fold before he died, and he had walked these streets, known everybody’s name, or so it had seemed. What would he have made of Susie Bingham? Not much, was my guess. He had been absorbed by my mother, who was all curls and dark eyes, a natural beauty—although I have to fight to keep that memory, her final year tainted by the cancer that took her away.

      I had been back in Turners Fold a couple of years now, but I didn’t feel rooted there. Sometimes I looked for old faces whenever I was in town, old school friends or sweethearts, just to find out where they had gone with their lives, but it seemed like most of the people I saw were just worn down and wondering why their lives had turned out like they had. Then I saw Tony, a shuffle to his walk and a shiny pink scalp heading out of the Post building. He saw me and waved. I leant across the passenger seat to let him in.

      ‘You’re wearing a jumper, for Christ’s sake,’ I said to him. ‘It’s a bloody heatwave.’

      ‘Fashion is all about consistency,’ he replied, grinning, showing his buckled front teeth, the result of a bad rugby tackle many years before. ‘Like you, in this car. If you’re trying to remain incognito, this car isn’t the best way.’

      ‘My father cherished this car,’ I said.

      ‘I’m sorry, Jack, I didn’t mean—’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ I interrupted, smiling. ‘I’m thinking of getting rid of it anyway.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I want someone to look after it properly, like he did. A Sunday polish, a regular service. I don’t do that.’ I tapped the dashboard. ‘I keep it because it was my father’s car, but then I think what he would say if he could see how I drive it, how I don’t wash it enough.’

      ‘So what are you going to do?’

      ‘I’m going to sell it to someone who’ll treasure it like my father treasured it. That’s what he would have wanted.’

      Tony nodded quietly to himself. He had been good friends with my father and I knew that Tony still missed him.

      ‘So, what can I do for you?’ he asked eventually.

      ‘Claude Gilbert,’ I said simply.

      He flashed me a look, part amusement, part curiosity. ‘What about him?’

      ‘If I want to find out more about him, who would I speak to?’

      ‘You’re