Dying on Principle (11 page)

But I missed what he was saying. I was staring at the carpet, at his elegant shoes, at Clarke's scruffy boots, at my own neat flatties. And I saw a pair of black shoes on the stairs that led past the drama and music studios to the roof from which Melina had fallen. I didn't want to interrupt Chris but I needed to ask someone why a girl preparing to kill herself might want to remove her shoes first.

Chris, when at long last he'd shed Clarke, wasn't able to explain the shoes either. To do him justice, he didn't yell at me for forgetting them earlier, or for being unable to describe them except in imprecise terms.

‘You're sure they were there? Absolutely?'

I nodded. ‘I nearly fell over them. In fact, I arranged them neatly side by side. That was before I … And I can't remember seeing them since.'

‘Don't suppose you can,' he said, reaching for a file and running his index finger down a page. ‘No, the soco team didn't report shoes. And you know how meticulous they are – fine-tooth comb isn't in it. And –' he flicked through the file – ‘Melina wasn't wearing shoes, was she? When you – when we retrieved her body.' He closed the file and leaned on his forearms, looking suddenly tired. ‘How are you on artist's impressions of shoes, Sophie?'

I shook my head. ‘Maybe if I saw a similar pair … It's important, isn't it?'

He spread his hands. ‘We could show them to her parents, establish she had something like them. And then find out what's happened to the originals. That'd be interesting in itself. And I think we should get an automatic adjournment. To hunt for the person or persons unknown who unlawfully killed her.'

‘Her parents might know where she usually shopped,' I said.

The file again. Then he dialled a number. He let it ring and ring, but there was no reply.

‘Shopping,' he said. ‘Saturday, after all. Life must go on even when you've lost your only daughter.'

‘Church, more like,' I said. ‘Some fundamental churches follow the Jewish Sabbath tradition. Several of my black students at William Murdock couldn't go on theatre trips on Friday evenings, because of the Friday-dusk-to-Saturday-dusk dogma. And some of them would spend literally all day in church on Saturday.'

‘All that God-bothering!' said Chris. ‘Still, I'm sure He can cope. Question is, how do we sort out this shoe business?'

‘We leg it round town,' I said. ‘Any chain store that sells shoes.'

‘Specialist shoe shops?'

‘Mid-priced ones, perhaps. Melina didn't strike me as specially interested in clothes. Or is that just my way of saying I can't remember a single thing she wore?'

‘Marks and Sparks bra and panties,' Chris read from the file. ‘BHS slip. Boots tights. Blouse from Littlewood's. All bottom of the range. Skirt – they couldn't find a label. Well done, Dr Watson.'

I smiled: he looked happier again.

We were on our fifth shop.

‘Poor old Prince Charming,' Chris said, fingering yet another pair of black slip-ons.

‘Worse for him: at least we're poking round clean shoes. He was kneeling over sweaty feet.'

‘With his glass slipper. Don't even dare tell me it was a mistranslation and they meant rabbit fur. Leave me with my fantasies.'

‘You're the man who knew what a snib was,' I said. ‘You're the one they invented Trivial Pursuit for. Hang on!'

Over by the cash desk was a deep cylindrical basket of oddments – left ones only – in a variety of colours one might have considered unsaleable, apart from that black one near the bottom. I started to burrow frantically. A black shoe. Flat, with a little gold button on a mock flap.

Mine were, however, not the only hands in the basket. A middle-aged woman was digging too. I stuck my bag between my feet so I could use both hands.

I reached it first. Size 6. Miles too big for me even to pretend if it came to an argument. But there needn't be an argument, despite the other woman's longing looks. She must have been an 8 or a 9. I looked round and brandished it at Chris. It was plain sailing after that. Within five minutes he had acquired his evidence.

He clearly wanted to hug someone, he was so pleased, and I saw no objection, even if I made him wait until we'd left the shop. All too soon, however, the stoop of his shoulders reappeared, and a little furrow dug in between his eyebrows.

‘Sophie—'

‘I know. You've got to go and sort out the shoe business. Melina's parents.'

He nodded sadly.

‘There's always tomorrow, Chris.'

‘I don't like to let you down. It was my suggestion, after all.'

‘Chris, you put up with it when I have to wade through piles of marking. You're doing something more important than marking.' I smiled bracingly. Feeling like a mother trying to give a child a little treat even if it couldn't have a big one, I added, ‘I suppose you couldn't drop me in Selly Oak? I can live without a car, but life's too silent without a radio.'

He nodded. Right there, right in the middle of New Street, I hugged him. I'd never loved anyone so much that I resented every minute life tore me from him, and I couldn't imagine which hurt Chris more, being with me platonically or not being with me at all. And if I was tempted to go to bed with Chris just to make him happy – and in my present state of celibacy I'd have no objections to a nice, friendly fuck – I knew I cared for him too much to offer it. He wanted more than a leg-over. Wanted?
Needed
.

‘Maybe a quick sandwich too?' I prompted.

‘Better not. But I'll drop you off at Comet with pleasure. Hell, I'll hang on for you there – you won't be more than a couple of minutes, will you?'

Nor would we have been, except for the massive traffic jam that was currently garrotting Selly Oak. Just where the arterial A38 is at its most congested, where it crosses the Outer Ring Road, they built an enormous Sainsbury's. To try to ease the subsequent chaos, they then made it and its car park into a giant triangular island at the centre of a primitive one-way system. Comet and some other superstores were on the other side of the three lanes of stationary metal from Sainsbury's. We crept round two sides of the triangle, and now had to inch into the far lane to get into Comet's car park. I knew Chris ought to drop me and fight his way back to Rose Road. So did he.

I decided it for him. I let myself out. ‘Cut through Sainsbury's car park,' I yelled as I shut the door. ‘And phone me as soon as you can.'

This time they'd actually wrapped the bloody ghetto blaster before I reached for my purse and found someone had fingered it and I was completely penniless. Worse still, when I realised what had happened, there and then, right in front of all the people on the cash desk, I burst into tears.

‘At least my bus pass lives in my pocket,' I told Simon, phoning him as I'd promised. ‘But I was too late for the building society, of course.' Chummie had missed my chequebook, so I wasn't penniless, but I did rate pretty high on any scale of pissed-offness. Two hundred pounds, just like that.

‘You've reported it?'

‘Yes, to a sergeant at Rose Road so newly striped he didn't know my relationship with Chris. But, as he said, there wasn't much you could do against opportunist thieves, and the best thing I could do was remember not to carry such large sums of cash in future.'

‘How about I do you a stir-fry?' asked Simon. ‘And Sophie, I'll pay for a taxi or anything.'

Just then I didn't want to argue.

Simon's house was a stately Victorian semi in Moseley, a suburb which prides itself on being a village without the bourgeois element they condemn in Harborne. Certainly it is home to many of the artier of Birmingham's denizens, and the Midshires Symphony Orchestra coach makes a special stop there.

Simon shared his house with another bass player – a golf addict – and a rugby-playing trombonist. It couldn't be all that easy having gender problems in such hearty, indeed macho company. He also gave houseroom to a family of orphaned basses, which grew, it seemed, by the month if not the week. Some were so battered you couldn't imagine music ever being coaxed out of them; others had been oiled into a comfortable sheen. This week I found one in the downstairs loo – rescued, apparently, from a skip. I didn't tell him about my find in similar circumstances. Not immediately. There were other things to talk about first.

I poured myself a glass of red wine – Simon's father's a wine merchant – and sat at the kitchen table. It was covered not with vegetables and meat but with the innards of something electrical, a soldering iron and a variety of tools.

‘Another car alarm?' I asked mildly. The wine was very strong, and I was already woozier than I liked; I'd had no lunch and there was no supper in immediate prospect. I set the wine firmly to one side and picked up a screwdriver.

‘Microwave,' he said. ‘The magnetron's packed up.'

He passed me what looked like an old-fashioned radio valve, surprisingly bulky and heavy for what you expect to find in miniaturised technology. ‘That's the magnet there, see: that's what makes it so heavy. That's the business bit that does the cooking.'

‘Isn't it a bit risky, trying to repair things like this for yourself?'

‘What d'you mean,
trying
? I'm bloody good at it. Damn it, that's what my degree's in. Well, physics.'

I nodded. Music and maths were supposed to go well with each other. No reason why music and physics shouldn't.

‘Anyway, why shouldn't people take risks?' His voice was challenging, almost truculent. ‘That's what's life's about, surely? Taking risks.'

I couldn't argue with that.

‘You're talking to a risk-junkie here,' I said, reaching for the wine and topping up both glasses. He looked at me uncertainly. ‘But there are more serious risks than physical ones. Emotional ones. In fact,' I said, ‘I'm going to risk something right now.'

The kitchen went so quiet you could hear the hum of his soldering iron.

‘No. Look, Sophie, I'm really not – no, I don't want …' He flushed. ‘You see, I'm not—' He spilled some wine on the table and dabbed at it.

I passed him a tissue from my bag.

‘I've cocked this up,' I said. ‘I'm not here to invite myself into your bed. I'm here for a drink and stir-fry and maybe a bit of a natter.'

‘Oh?'

‘Well, that's what friends are for. And I hope we
are
friends. There's nothing I need more than friends,' I added, ‘after George's death.'

‘He was with the MSO, wasn't he? The principal bassoon?'

I nodded. The wine had made me emotional. Simon passed me some kitchen towel.

‘Were you very close?' he asked.

‘We loved each other,' I said simply. ‘We weren't lovers; it was more like brother and sister. It's good to have someone you can share things with, without sex creeping in all the time.'

I was telling the truth, neither more nor less, but I was being disingenuous, signalling that I was prepared to let our little flirtation atrophy without hard feelings. Perhaps the signals were too crude. He didn't speak, just switched off the soldering iron and started to gather up his tools. He put the microwave, minus the magnetron, back next to the cooker, and poured himself more wine, ignoring my nearly empty glass.

‘What shall we do about food, then?' he asked at last.

‘I'm in your hands,' I said, spreading mine. ‘No card, no cash, not to speak of. And no food. But I'll chop and peel anything you want chopping and peeling.' I could feel my smile was too bright.

‘Adrian called just before you arrived,' he said. ‘He wants to come round later.'

I prepared to be hurt and offended.

‘But I said I'd promised you a meal tonight. So he won't be round till quite late. I thought – I wanted – I need—' He broke off, gesturing helplessly.

‘You need a friend,' I said.

‘I hoped – you see, I really like you. But then along comes Adrian …'

At one level I think I was angry: had I been used as a sort of stooge to prove that Simon was straight? Surely to goodness that sort of pretence wasn't necessary in the 1990s! But how could I rage at a young man who seemed confused and disoriented to the point of tears?

‘Simon, love, we were friends in the first place. Let's go back to being friends.' I stood and held out my arms.

After a frighteningly long delay he came towards me and accepted my hug.

At last I pushed him away and poured some more wine. ‘What about this 'ere food, then?'

He looked at the electrical mess on the table as if he'd not been responsible for putting it there, shoved the lot into his toolbox, and then reached for his jacket. ‘Come on, we'll have a balti. And then I'll run you home and I'll see what I can do for your radio. Adrian'll just have to wait.'

Sunday morning was so fine and warm that I set my marking on hold and pottered around the garden. It was one of those days that made not having a car irritating. Not that I wanted to rush like a lemming to the coast; I merely wanted a large bag of potting compost and a load of bedding plants, and a bike was inadequate. If Chris phoned – as I rather expected him to – then I could no doubt inveigle him into doing the honours.

So when the phone rang, even though I found I'd left muddy footprints, I answered it in my sunniest voice. It wasn't Chris, however, but a voice I had difficulty placing. Richard Fairfax! Why should he want to speak to me? Come to think of it, how had he got hold of my number?

His voice rang with confidence; anyone would have thought he was one of my oldest friends. He wanted, he said, not to take up much of my time on this glorious morning, but merely to drop off some papers for tomorrow's meeting. And he'd be with me at about noon, if that would suit me.