Lucas (44 page)

All I was trying to do was watch
Inspector Morse
on the television. Is that too much to ask? I hardly ever watch the television.
Morse, A Touch of Frost, Wycliffe
, that kind of thing.
The Bill
, sometimes. That's all I watch, that's what I like. Detective stuff. Mysteries, murder mysteries. I love them. Especially Morse. I'm not too keen on the books, but
the television series is brilliant. Two hours each. Brilliant. What more could a budding murder mystery writer ask for? Two hours of twisting plots, red herrings, strange vicars, spooky murderers and good old Morse always getting it right in the end.

Now, with Morse, you have to really watch it. From start to finish. It's no good just having the television on in the background, watching a bit here and a bit there, you have to concentrate all the way through. Otherwise you won't have a clue what's going on. And if you don't know what's going on, there's no point in watching it.

So, Wednesday night. Eight-thirty. In the front room. The curtains were closed. A cold orange light was flickering behind the false coal of the electric fire. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the settee and Dad was in his armchair, drinking. I didn't know how many he'd had, but I didn't think it was that many because he kept on making stupid jokes about Morse, trying to be funny. Stage One. It was annoying, but I just sat there trying to ignore him in the hope that he'd get bored and shut up, or go down the pub and leave me in peace. But he didn't. He kept on. Piping up every other minute with his pathetic comments.

‘Look at the state of him! He's getting a bit fat, isn't he?'

‘Coppers don't drive Jags!'

‘No wonder he's so miserable, listening to that bloody awful music all the time.'

He just wouldn't stop. On and on and on. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't hear what was going on. I was losing the plot.

Then he started with his Lewis thing.

I expect you know who Lewis is, but, just in case you don't, he's Morse's sidekick. Sergeant Lewis. A bit of a plodder, in contrast to Morse's unconventional genius. Once or
twice in every episode Morse calls out Lewis's name: ‘
Lew-is!
' Kind of a catch phrase. For some inexplicable reason, Dad always found this hilarious, and whenever it happened he started calling out too, calling out in a stupid imitation-Morse voice: ‘
Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is!
' And then he'd laugh like mad at his own incredible wit. The first time he did it, it was almost amusing. Almost, but not quite. But after hearing it about a hundred times since, it just made me sick. Why? Why did he do it? Over and over again.
Why
?

So there I was, sitting on the floor, leaning towards the television, trying to keep track of what was going on. Morse was in his office, sitting at his desk, pondering, frowning, trying to work out whodunit. Dreamy music was playing in the background. Suddenly he sat up straight and blinked. Something had occurred to him. Something crucial. He got up and opened his door and called down the corridor for Lewis: ‘
Lew-is
!' And then Dad started. ‘
Lew-is! Lew-is! Lewis! Lew-is
!' He wouldn't stop. ‘
Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is
!' And all the time he was snorting with laughter as if it was the funniest thing in the world. On the television Morse was talking to Lewis, explaining his crucial idea, but I couldn't hear a thing. All I could hear was Dad's crazy braying in my ear: ‘
Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew
—'

‘SHUT UP!'

I'd got to my feet and was facing him across the room. ‘For God's sake, Dad, just shut up! It's not funny, it's pathetic. You're pathetic. Why can't you just shut your mouth and let me watch the bloody television for once?'

He stared at me, stunned. I stared back at him. He put his beer can down on the table. ‘
What
did you say?'

‘Nothing. It doesn't matter.'

My anger had gone. I turned away.

I sensed, rather than heard, the movement behind me,
and I turned just in time to see him bearing down on me with his fist raised above his head and drunken madness burning in his eyes.

My reaction was automatic. As I jumped to one side the downward surge of his fist missed my head by a whisker. Then, as his momentum carried him past me, I shoved him in the back. That's all it was, a shove. Just a shove. An instinctive defensive gesture. No more. I didn't hit him or anything. All I did was push him away. I barely
touched
him. He must have been off balance, I suppose. Too drunk to stay on his feet. Legless. I don't know … All I know for sure is that he flew across the room and smacked his head into the fireplace wall then fell to the hearth and was still. I can still hear the sound of it now. That sickening crack of bone on stone.

I knew he was dead. Instantly. I knew.

Do you see what I mean now, about
The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes
? If I'd never been given it for my birthday, if I'd never read it, then I'd never have fallen in love with murder mysteries. And if I'd never fallen in love with murder mysteries then I wouldn't have been watching
Inspector Morse
on the television. And if I hadn't been watching
Inspector Morse
on the television, Dad wouldn't have been sitting there shouting
‘Lew-is! Lew-is! Lew-is!'
like a madman and I wouldn't have got annoyed and I wouldn't have told him to shut up and he wouldn't have tried to cave my head in and I wouldn't have shoved him in the back and he wouldn't have hit his head against the fireplace and died.

The thing is, though … the thing is, if you look at it that way, if you follow that line of reasoning, then it was all his fault in the first place. If he hadn't been my father, you know, if he hadn't impregnated Mum, then I would never
have been born. I wouldn't have existed. And he would still be alive. It was
his
fault that I existed. He made me. I never
asked
to be born, did I? It was nothing to do with me.

But then again, it wasn't
his
fault that
he
was born, was it?

I don't know.

Does there have to be a reason for everything?

I knew he was dead. I could feel it. The air, the flatness, the lifelessness.

I stood motionless for a minute. Just stood there, staring, my mind blank, my heart beating hard. It's strange, the lack of emotion, the absence of drama in reality. When things happen in real life, extraordinary things, there's no music, there's no
dah-dah-daaahhs
. There's no close-ups. No dramatic camera angles. Nothing happens. Nothing stops, the rest of the world goes on. As I was standing there in the front room, looking down at the awkwardness of Dad's dead body lying on the hearth, the television just carried on jabbering away in the background. Adverts. Happy families dancing around a kitchen table:
I feel like chicken tonight, I feel like chicken tonight
… I leaned down and switched it off. The silence was cold and deathly.

‘Christ,' I whispered.

I had to check. Even though I knew he was dead, I had to make sure. I stepped over to the fireplace and squatted down beside him. An ugly dark wound cut into the bone just above his eye. There wasn't much blood. A crimson scrape on the fireplace wall, a smear on the hearth that was already drying. I looked closer. A thin red ribbon meandered down from the corner of his mouth and lost itself in the dark stubble of his chin. I looked into his lifeless face. You can tell. Even if you've never seen a dead body before, you can tell.

The appearance of death cannot be mistaken for unconsciousness. That grey-white pallor. Flat and toneless. Without essence. The skin sheenless and somehow shrunken, as if whatever it is that
is
life – the spirit, the soul – has been stripped away and all that's left is an empty sack. I looked into his glassy black eyes and they stared blindly back at me.

‘You stupid bastard,' I said quietly.

I lightly placed a finger on his neck. Nothing. No pulse. Then I loosened buttons on his shirt and lowered my ear to his chest, listening, without hope, for the sound of his heart. There was no sound.

I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I ring 999, call out the emergency services? They could have revived him. Just because someone's stopped breathing, it doesn't necessarily mean they're dead, does it? Why didn't you give him artificial respiration? You studied first aid, didn't you? Why didn't you try to save his life?

I don't know.

Why didn't I try to save his life?

I don't know. I just didn't.

All right?

Well, anyway, that's what happened. Make of it what you like. I don't really care. I was there. It happened. I know it.

After I'd made sure he was dead I went over and sat in Dad's armchair. Which was kind of an odd thing to do, because I'd never sat there before. Ever.

I sat there for a long time.

A long time.

I suppose I must have been thinking. Or maybe not. I
don't know. I don't remember. I just remember sitting there, alone in the evening silence, enshrined behind closed curtains, alone with the careless tick-tocking of the clock on the mantelpiece. I think that was the first time I'd ever heard it.

The harsh clatter of rain jerked me out of my trance. It was ten o'clock. I stood up and rubbed my eyes then went over to the window and pulled back the curtain. It was pouring down. Great sheets of rain lashing down into the street. I closed the curtain again and turned around. There he was. My dead dad. Still dead. Still buckled over, sprawled across the hearth like a broken doll. The buttons on his shirt were still undone where I'd listened at his heart. I stooped down and did them up again.

An image suddenly flashed into my mind – one of those chalk outlines that detectives draw around the murder victim's body. It amused me, for some reason, and I let out a short strangled laugh. It sounded like someone else, like the sound of laughter echoing in a ghost town.

I sat down again.

What are you going to do? I asked myself.

The telephone on the table by the door sat there black and silent, waiting. I knew what I
ought
to do.

Wind-blown sheets of rain were rattling against the window. The room was cold. I was shivering. I shoved my hands deep down into my pockets.

This was a sweet mess.

Then the doorbell rang.

It was Alex, of course. No one else ever came round to our house, no one except for debt-collectors and Mormons. And Aunty Jean once a year.

I let Alex in, closed the front door, and took her into the
kitchen. She looked wonderful. Her hair was bunched up on the top of her head, tied with a light-blue ribbon, and one or two fine black strands hung rain-wet and loose down the pale curve of her neck. Her face … Alex's face. It was so pretty. Fine. Perfect. A pretty girl's face. Her teeth were white as mints. She was wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing that afternoon at the bus stop – combat jacket, white T-shirt, old blue jeans. All wet through.

She put her bag on the table and wiped a mist of rain from her brow. ‘Where's your dad?'

‘In the front room,' I said. ‘Do you want some tea?'

I put the kettle on and sorted out the mugs and tea things while Alex sat down at the kitchen table, rubbing some warmth into her arms. ‘It's a bit cold in here, isn't it?'

The kettle boiled and I filled two mugs.

‘Enjoy yourself?' I asked.

She shrugged. ‘It was all right.'

‘Where'd you go?'

‘Nowhere. Dean was fiddling about with some stuff from the shop, tape recorders, computer stuff, I don't know.'

I fished the teabags from the mugs and threw them at the bin but they missed and splatted onto the lino. I added milk to the tea.

‘Alex?'

‘What?'

I put the teas on the kitchen table and sat down.

‘I've got a problem,' I said.

‘You're not pregnant are you?' she joked.

‘No.'

‘Sorry.' She stopped smiling. ‘What is it? Is it bad?'

‘It's bad.'

‘How bad?'

‘
Bad
bad.'

‘Oh.'

‘It's Dad.'

‘What about him?'

‘He's dead.'

And then I told her what had happened.

‘Show me,' she said.

I took her into the front room. She shuddered a little and wiped nervously at her mouth.

‘Cover him up, Martyn.'

I found a sheet in the airing cupboard and laid it over the body.

‘Come here,' she said gently.

I moved over to her and she put her arms around me. Her skin smelled of rain.

That moment, when she held me … it was as if nothing else mattered. Nothing. Everything would be all right. Her soft hand on the back of my head, the comfort of her body close to mine … everything else just faded away into nowhere. This was where I wanted to be.

But nothing lasts for ever.

Back in the kitchen she just sat there looking at me. Flecks of green dappled the brown of her eyes, like tiny leaves. I had to look away. My tea was cold. Everything was cold.

‘You have to tell somebody,' she said quietly.

The fluorescent strip light hummed and stuttered on the ceiling. A small puddle of rainwater had formed on the floor at Alex's feet, dripped from the sleeves of her jacket. The harsh white flickering light reflected in the surface of the puddle. It bothered me. I wanted to turn it
off. To sit in the dark. To do nothing.

‘Martyn, you have to tell somebody about it. You can't just sit here and not do anything. You have to call the police.'

‘I can't.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's too late.'

A frown wrinkled her brow. ‘I don't understand. Too late for what?'

‘They'll know.'

‘Who?'