Bright Spark (20 page)

       “I did
take the same exams, Rory.”

       “So do
some revision. Ok, sorry. Look. Yes, he could have done it.
We
don’t need
to know and
I
certainly don’t want to know.”

       “But
what if we’re somehow compromised? What if you’re about to take a big gulp from
a poisoned chalice?”

       “Have
you knocked back a few chalices of wine yourself, Sharon? I’m getting worried
now. About you.”

       She
paced another circuit of the kitchen, disorientated and loathing herself for
it. One afternoon had turned the detached professional into a needy amateur.
Nothing about the fake orderliness of the room consoled her, with its
half-empty fridge, oak-effect flourishes and unblemished social calendar.

       “Fuck
it. Firth may have found out where Murphy lived. Through me.”         “Tell me
you’re joking.”

       “It
might be nothing. I mean I always wrote to Murphy care of the prison. I don’t
remember telling Firth where he lived. But….”

       “But
what? Hurry up. Battery’s dying.”

       “But I
made the link. Discussed it with my mum. I even avoided visiting. Didn’t want
to bump into Murphy. Didn’t want him to know we were nearly next door
neighbours. But I scribbled the address on a file note.”

       “And
you let him see it?”

       “Of
course not. But Nigel told me he’d sort things out himself if I couldn’t. And
somehow, he might have done just that. Rory, just think about how this might
look if we get investigated. Pass it to another solicitor. You don’t need this
one.”

       “Sharon,
listen carefully,” said Rory, mustering the pained compassion he usually
reserved for ageing magistrates. “Paranoia, overwork and conjecture are a toxic
mix. Put your files away. Drink a bottle of wine. Take tomorrow off with my say
so. When the dust has settled, we’ll have a chat and work out what’s really
bothering you.”

       “Rory,
you’re a patronising arse.”

       “He
could have found that address in any number of ways. All the police have is a
weak, circumstantial case. If memory serves, we wouldn’t have been involved at
all if they’d bothered to investigate……”

       The
connection died; battery failure or a convenient simulation of it. She
considered throwing the phone at the wall, then remembered what it had cost
her, how many joyless hours it represented.

       Instead,
she turned the phone off, slipped it under the pink ribbon securing the topmost
of the files she’d brought home and heaved the entire stack into the
under-stairs cupboard, slamming the door behind it.

       “Sharon! What on earth is that racket?”

       For
half a second, she was fourteen again and fought down an urge to slam something
else in answer.  Instead, she ignored her mother, turning instead to the wine
rack and selecting a pricy Rioja. Did she really crave its toothsome sweetness
with memories of sun-parched earth and dark Demerara, or did she simply know
from experience that it was a safe and respectable way to get hammered in a
hurry?

       Nursing
an outsize glass, savouring her first ripe mouthful and relishing the sanguine
gloss of the wine and its tears of evaporating alcohol, Sharon wandered into
the lounge to find her parents enacting their usual tableau of suffering: Her
mother adjusting her father’s oxygen cylinder, checking the seal on his mask,
mopping his sweat-speckled brow, holding his hand, praising his ruddy
complexion with total belief and cooing assurances.

Her
mother had left the tabloid newspaper she religiously subscribed to lying open
on the sofa, displaying stock photos of hoodies and pregnant teenagers
alongside brightly coloured pie-charts and graphs of inevitable decline.

“What
was all that about, dear?” said Marjorie, glancing momentarily over her
shoulder. “Trouble at work?”

“Nothing,
mum. Just….nothing.”

“Isn’t
it a bit early for wine, dear?”

“The
day I’ve had, I’d say it was a bit late.” Sharon slumped heavily onto the sofa
and switched on the enormous LCD TV which seemed to make the whole room feel
smaller.

“Do
we really need that noise, dear?”

Her
father’s hand rose from the arm of the sofa, a claw of bloodless white. With a
quivering effort, he pulled aside the oxygen mask and let it dangle, hissing
into his ear.

“Her.
House,” he gasped, drawing breath between each word. “Sharon. So. Sorry. Know.
It’s. Your. House.”

“Stop
it, Tony,” chided Marjorie,

“Your.
Mum. Me. Grateful.”

“I
know, dad,” she said, stretching out her arm and squeezing his hand to leave
the memory of her warmth on his flesh. “You’re very welcome. You know that.”

“Fancy.
Glass. Myself.” He motioned weakly at her wine glass and tried to smile.

“No,
love. No, you can’t,” said Marjorie, checking the seal on the oxygen tube for
the fiftieth time that day. “It contra-indicates with your anti-biotics. You
know how poorly that would make you.”

“Get.
Drunk. Die. Happy.” His brow crinkled and something sparkled behind his eyes as
he winked at Sharon. It was as if the ghost of her dad had repossessed this
ghoulish doppelganger.

“Don’t
you talk like that, Tony. It’s just not fair.”

Marjorie
hooked the strap and replaced the oxygen mask firmly over his mouth and nose.
He let his hand drop palm-first in submission, closed his eyes and was absent
again.

“You
shouldn’t encourage him, Sharon.”

“Why
ever not?”

“He’s
got to save his strength.”

“What
on earth for?”

“He’s
not deaf, you know.”

“No,
but he’s practically mute, isn’t he?”

“Whatever
do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.
Forget it. Anyway, mum, do you need me to pop out and get anything for dinner?
I’m going to have to work tonight but the three of you should be as comfortable
as possible.”

“No,
dear.” Marjorie sat upright and crossed then uncrossed her hands as if finding
herself perched in a hard place. “You should never have taken on that case, Sharon. I mean, I heard you talking just now.”

“That
was nothing.”

“I
know, dear. But you’ve mentioned it before. Dale, next door to us, and that lad
you represent, the arsonist. Do you think it’s all connected?”

“No,
of course not. Look, shall I do a salad, maybe whip up something with pasta?”

“Asbestos.”

“Not
again, mum.”

“A
few harmless fibres. In our walls for years, generations nearly. Something you
just.” She shrugged. “Live with ‘til it decides to try and kill you. Course
your dad was a grafter. Building hospitals, shops, car parks, making this city
live again. Breathing all those silicates in. Shredding his lungs.”

“Mum,
I know all this.”

“I
know, dear. But that’s the problem. Don’t you see? You became infatuated with
the law when old Fitch won the claim for your dad. You got drawn in. I became
distracted. With the money. With Jeremy. With your dad. Should have stuck to
nursing. Always less personal there.” There was a quavering edge to Marjorie’s
voice now, laughter vying with tears.

“I’ve
asked before and I’ll ask again and one day I pray you’ll say yes. Mum, for
God’s sake, liberate that damn settlement money. Buy a big house. Hire some
help. Use it to get your life back.”

“And
I’ve said before and I’ll say again that the money has got to last for as long
as your dad and Jeremy are around to need it. The house is our home and we
don’t need to move. And as for hiring a nurse, who could be better than me?”

“Mum,
it’s been a really long day. Share a glass with me and let’s watch some trash
on TV.”

“It
was easier before Ethel and John moved out. They were our sort of people. And
so quiet. But these new neighbours…” Marjorie gasped and clasped her hand to
her mouth. “Oh my Lord, I am losing my marbles. It’s all changing again. Like I
was saying to you just now, it starts with asbestos. Then the claim. Because of
that, you’re a lawyer now. And because you’re a lawyer, an arsonist comes to
our street. Then we’re here in this state and the police are at my door.”

       “My
door, mum! My very own door, with my name on the deeds!”

She
took a breath, brushed the hair away from her burning forehead and clenched her
mouth shut.

“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just think you’re over-tired. You need time
away from caring for others.”

“Caring
for this man is my life.” Marjorie had stiffened. “You think because you’ve got
a career, and phone calls at two in the morning, and late hours and high
pressure this, that and the other, that you can judge the rest of us. Well this
is marriage, Sharon, this is what it costs. Not as simple as your hire-purchase
boyfriend scuttling off to his real family when it suits.”

“Mum!”
shouted Sharon, on her feet now, the wine somehow spilled and blotting into the
beige carpet at her feet, as if she were bleeding from a wound she hadn’t yet
felt.

“Stop.
Just stop. Why all this? Why now?”

Her
father’s fogged mask was muffling groans of protest. Sharon turned and walked
into the kitchen in search of kitchen roll. There were no arguments in her
family. There were no rules of engagement because they’d never needed any. Best
to concentrate on practical matters. Was salt the best thing to soak red wine
out of a carpet? Was petrol the best thing to burn the whole chiding, jibing,
burdensome mess to ashes that would blow away on the breeze and leave her free?

Would
the asbestos needles permeating her dad’s flesh make him fire-proof, cursed to
a perpetual half-life while his world burned and fumed and seared around him?

Jeremy
had added a cordon to his crime scene, a taut line of pink ribbon. He gently
rocked on a kitchen chair, apparently studying his handiwork. On the kitchen
counter, her thick, irreplaceable files, each one representing hundreds of
hours of toil, lay equally spaced and suspiciously free of rips, bulges and
post-it notes.

“Tidied
up for you SJ. Legal erroneousness much simplified. Sifted and sorted and
sequestered into logical symmetry. All better now.”

Silver
bubbles burst into being and beat for the surface of the ale to explode
silently in the musty air. That breath of yeast and malt, cigar smoke and
varnish, delirium and stupor, permeated the old bones of the snug bar. It
hardly mattered that the etched mirrors, horse shoes and signed photographs of
barely remembered footballers and snooker players had probably been picked up
on eBay and could well have been younger than Slowey. Old-fashioned boozers had
nothing to do with real life after all; this place was a bolt-hole, a refuge
from reality, a confessional without penance.

Slowey
propped his chin on his stacked fists and stared into the murky depths of his
third pint of the Friars Vaults’ guest ale, a subtler concoction than its name
– ‘Old Warlock’s Ball Breaker’ – suggested. This beer, he thought, is the one
for me. It and I have so much in common. Artfully crafted complexity; sometimes
sweet, sometimes bitter. Dark and moody; well, not compared to some but he had
his moments. Smelled like a sugary armpit; he couldn’t deny that after the day
he’d had.

“How
are we liking the guest ale, officer?”

Someone
was speaking to him, their bifocals joining the optics in a spangling
light-show. Maybe he should have stopped after his first pint. Maybe he should
have had a diet-lemonade. Barry, that was his name. Had to scratch around for
that detail. Slowey remembered the tonnage of yellow gold nestling in his chest
hair, and the perpetual knocking of his testicles like an Einstein’s cradle as
he bawled to his wife about the copper who’d been beaten up in the car park.
That had been twelve hours or a short lifetime ago. 

“Very
pleasant. Toothsome, in fact.” Slowey cursed.

In
his forebrain, the words had been clear and crisp, but they came out of his
mouth with the exaggerated care of a dental victim or a drunk.

“How
about that chef’s special then? Hungry? Anything you want from the board. We
owe you. Not many would have had the balls to tackle them thieving bastards.”

Slowey
wanted badly to snigger but instead glanced at his watch, willing it into
focus. Time must have galloped away from him and he’d only a vague idea how
long he’d been welded to the stool. Awake for thirty-six hours, give or take.
Bruised, battered, hungry and tetchy. Braced for yet more hours of plodding
work. He couldn’t have resisted the booze if he’d wanted to.

“Fuck
it,” he muttered, remembering his note-book which now lay on the bar soaking up
a slick of ale. “Sloppy, boozy bastard.”

“I’ll
come back.”

“No,
no.”

Slowey
forced himself to his feet, blinking as his brain sloshed around behind his
forehead, visualising Suzanne Murphy’s sawn-off skull and the grey, wrinkled
mass within weeping blood and cerebral fluid over the unpeeled face. He sat
down again.

“Bring
me the stodgiest thing on the menu. With extra stodge. And black coffee.”

“Is
that pint off, mate? You’ve gone green.”

“Pint’s
nice.” Slowey dragged a damp handkerchief across his brow and gripped the brass
rail in front of the bar tightly. “I’ve been acting green though. Probably time
I woke up a bit.”

An
hour ago, Barry had let Slowey install himself in the snug, promising to send
through anyone who might have anything useful to say about last night’s events.
So far, Slowey had only glimpsed three other living souls; Barry, his
vomit-supping bull terrier and the resident alcoholic, who wedged himself
behind his usual corner table, glazed, delicate and frantic, and drank pint
after pint as he worked off the tremors. 

Unfortunately,
the alcoholic hadn’t patronised the Vaults last night. He’d taken umbrage at
the notion of patronising a public house on the Sabbath; on the Lord’s day,
heavy drinking should be confined to one’s own parlour.

Slowey
read through his own notes, reviewing the snatches of interview Barry had given
him between tending to his dog, pulling pints and shouting at his blocked
pipes.

“That
fucking toe-rag son-of-a-whore was a card-carrying wanker. A bigger shit-soaked
pissing pig of a screw I have not met in my entire three-score years of fucked
up life. Good customer though.”

Barry
had plenty to say, some of it relevant and none of it clean.

Slowey
had supped his first pint left-handed while his right recorded the ramblings of
Barry. Murphy had been loud, leering and lary, unpopular with the regulars and
dreaded by the female bar staff. He wore his job on his sleeve and spoke to
anyone, loudly and at length, about “who he’d done with his fists and his
dick.” He’d had no obvious friends, just a handful of acolytes who either liked
his stories or didn’t have the nerve to ditch him.

“Could
be he’s offed his own kiddies, you know. I always thought he was bent. Evil.
You know, head full of pissed monkeys.” Barry had ruminated over a triple
measure of cheap scotch between assaults on the pipes with a wrench. “Good
customer though. Hundred quid a week easy.”

Barry
had also known Braxton, senior and junior, “rough diamonds but trouble-free
punters.” He hadn’t thought it odd that prison officers, brawlers, burglars and
drug users rubbed shoulders in what he’d called his “very broad church.”

On
the subject of saloon-bar contraband, Barry had become suspiciously adamant.
Given his customer base, Slowey wandered how well Barry enforced his
prohibition on drugs and stolen gear: “I won’t stand for any of that shite
under my roof, officer.” Then again, he had invested in a CCTV system; the
disconnected wires and jacks behind the bar and the blindly gazing camera
mounted on the ceiling testified to that. But every system had its blind spots.

Still
smarting from the loss of his new technology, Barry could offer no more help
with the dawn raid on his cigarette machines: “Cost me a fucking grand, that hard-drive
set-up. A grand! Should have stuck with video, then they could have just nicked
the tape. Still, at least you kicked shit out of one of them. Only kind of
justice these wankers understand.”

Barry
had drifted away every ten minutes to serve the alcoholic, knowing the man’s
poison of choice without having to ask, and gentling him with anodyne
small-talk while he counted out payment with juddering fingers.

Slowey
quickly gulped down the scalding black coffee that had appeared in front of
him, then sopped the spilled ale from his notes with a bar towel. Rolling up
the notebook and carrying it with him, he relieved himself at amazing length
against the echoing, metal urinals, then allowed his own reflection in the
mirror to sober him up a little more.

“You’re
back then, petal. There’s your dinner.” Barry had laid down a plate piled with
potatoes, multiple meat pies, vegetables boiled to pulp and steaming gravy.
“Get this stuck to your ribs, old son. If it don’t kill you, it might cure
you.”

“Good
man. Thanks a bundle.” To his surprised relief, Slowey found himself too hungry
to be nauseous. “Look, Barry, before you wander off, what about this fracas
last night then.”

“Handbags
at twelve paces, petal.”

“Elaborate,
Barry,” said Slowey, between scalding mouthfuls. A warm and gleeful feeling of
comfort was growing in the pit of his stomach, his body’s way of thanking him
for food almost worthy of the name. “Don’t be shy. You talk, I’ll eat.”

“Maureen,”
shouted Barry, leaning round a short doorway and looking up the stairs to the
living quarters. “Maureen. Watch the shop.”

Ignoring
the indistinct but irate reply, Barry jammed a tumbler under an optic, helped
himself to another triple and pulled up a stool of his own.

“Right
then. Sunday. Yesterday. That’s it. Busy night. Good take for once. Makes a
change, people getting off their arses to patronise their local innkeeper. It’s
all supermarket ciderpops and DVD’s and wee-boxes these days. Is social intercourse
a dying art, I ask myself. Never get an answer mind.

“Anyway,
Sunday before a bank holiday is always a good tickle. People realise they don’t
have to get up the next day, makes them think they should get pissed just to
make it worthwhile. Just me behind the bar again, Maureen tucked up with her
migraine or her historical novels. Always one or the other. Very sensitive
woman, that. Could be psychic. Headaches only come on when we’re going to have
a busy night. I should sell her to Lloyds of London.

“So,
place is heaving. Nice enough crowd. Lary, but mostly regulars. Throwing money
around. I’m like a blue-arsed fly, pulling pints, making change, shouting for
Maureen for what it’s worth. Then it must have been getting on for closing time
– and we observe licensing hours very strictly here, officer. There’s a ripple
in the crowd. They all stop yacking and gawp in the same direction.

“Then
I see your man Dale. Hogging the juke box like he always does. Plays a right
load of old shite, but it’s his money. You know, lots of ‘medallion man’
bollocks, little pimps drivelling on about their pizzles and jizzles and cribs
and bitches. Like Crufts in here some nights, just disrespectful. What would
Sammy and Dean think of it all now? I keep meaning to have a word with the
brewery. Gets you down. Anyway.

“Yeah,
so he’s there but he’s staring at this runt of a lad who’s just walked in.
Never seen him before but kind of familiar. This runty lad is talking to the
Braxtons, both of them. But they’re looking anywhere but at him ‘cause they’ve
twigged that Dale is about to go off on one. Don’t think they’re exactly scared
of him, but you know how it is, hyenas and jackals don’t mix too well.

“Anyway,
it’s quieter but it’s not exactly dead quiet and there’s still this hippity-hop
bollocks thumping away and I’m thinking about pulling the plug ‘cause I’ve
already called last orders anyway and I’m not racialist but I don’t want to
know about the street and bangers and huge fizzles and bitches, but ….where was
I?

“Oh,
yeah. I don’t hear every word, but Dale’s all pumped up, shouting something
about, “you cheeky little fucker,” then “I gave you fair warning.” Then something
that did not endear Dale to yours truly; ‘this is my place – get back to your
own shit-pile.’

“I
could see the way it was going so I shouted for Maureen to watch the bar but
she either couldn’t hear me or didn’t give a toss. Anyway, runty chap has
turned round by now and just stands there, getting taller, beaming at
something, head up high. Then it occurs to me – he’s staring at my camera. “Go
on, then,” he says. “Twat me again, you pig. I’ll have your money and your job
and your sweet little wife.” At least that’s what I think he said.

“So
that’s when Dale lost it. It all went a bit Wild West. Didn’t touch the runt,
mind you. Took it out on my property. Knocking over tables and chairs, glass
everywhere. I shouted at him to get out. Told him I’d phone the police. Pointed
out the camera. Told him it was wired in again and that he was being recorded.
Then some of the regulars shoved him out, but he’d lost interest by then. And
the runt was long gone. Fucked off while the fucking off was good.”

“You
know I’ll need to go through this again in excruciating detail, don’t you
Barry?” Slowey pushed away the almost spotless plate and dabbed his lips with a
paper towel. “Formally. Tidied up version.”

“You
write it, I’ll sign it.”

“Just
remind me, Barry. You said the camera was wired in again.”

“That’s
right. Cameras were attached to nothing at all for a few years. Then I got
myself a hard digital thingy last week. Mate wired it all in for me. Maureen
wanted it done for ages. Anything for a quiet life. And it keeps the brewery on
side.”

“So
let’s get this straight. When this fracas occurred, who knew your cameras
actually worked?”

“No-one.
Except Eddie who installed it. And he’s on a booze cruise in the Med. Regulars
always took the piss. Knew the cameras did nowt.”

“But
you announced it. When Dale kicked off?”

“Too
right.”

“Ok,
great.” Slowey spent a few seconds writing then underscoring something in his
notebook. “I’ll need names too. These regulars. Anyone else who saw this.
Particularly anyone who took Dale outside. I’ll need them pronto.”

“Well
I’ll scratch my head for you, but they all came straight back in. No lynch mob
in this town, sheriff.”

“And
this runty chap. I really need chapter and verse on him.”

“What,
like a book of photos or a police line-up?”

“That
kind of thing.”

 “Anything
to help, officer. You should be looking for Nigel Firth though. That’s his
name.”

Slowey
almost spat his coffee across the bar. “I thought you didn’t know him.”

“I
don’t know him, petal. Not in the full sense of the word. Not like I go dancing
with him or anything. But I recognised his face. He’s the arson feller. In the
papers a few years ago. Googled it to make sure. Want me to print it out?”

In
a heartbeat, the quiet gloom through the frosted glass of the saloon bar became
a sociable hubbub. A pot-bellied man in a skin-tight t-shirt bearing the words
‘ask me anything’ heaved a laptop and a pair of loudspeakers onto the bar.