Paradise City (29 page)

Vanessa puts her arm around her mother’s shoulders and leads her through to the kitchen where she slides out a chair and sits Carol down in it. She is about to put on the kettle when Carol stops her.

‘No, love,’ she says. ‘The police said not to touch anything.’

‘Oh, OK.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’ Vanessa says, but Carol can see she’s pleased.

‘Coming round. I’ve had a bit of a turn. Is Archie all right?’

‘Oh yeah. I’ve left him watching
Dr Who
on Sky Plus He’s happy as Larry.’

The doorbells rings.

Carol jumps. Vanessa rests her hand on her mother’s shoulder.

‘It’s OK, Mum, I’ll go.’

‘They’ve got here quickly.’

Carol stays put, staring at the surface of the fold-out kitchen table. It has scuff-marks here and there, little pitted scars of black where the laminate has worn away. She clasps her hands together tightly in her lap. She doesn’t want to leave her imprints anywhere in this house. She is irrationally worried that she will be a suspect.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ she says to herself, trying to marshal her own thoughts. She can hear Vanessa talking in the corridor, her words echoed by a lower, male voice, and then the murmuring conversational sounds are coming closer and closer and then the kitchen door opens and a police officer is there, dressed smartly in navy and silver, the thick serge of his uniform so close she could reach out and graze it with the tips of her fingers. The texture of the material reminds her of a toy she’d bought Archie one Christmas, a featureless doll to which you could stick felt accessories in blue, orange and green.

The policeman introduces himself but she forgets his name instantly. His face is kind: creases at the corners of his mouth, grey eyes that droop down at the corners. For some reason, she fixes on his shoes. They are black lace-ups, positioned flatly on Alan’s bluish green linoleum like a pair of ocean liners setting out to sea.

The policeman asks her the same questions as the woman on the 999 call and Carol answers as best she can.

‘Now, without going into the garden, Mrs Hetherington –’

‘Call me Carol.’

He smiles a nice smile. ‘Carol, then. Without going into the garden, could you just point out exactly where you’ve seen this – this – hand?’

She pushes herself up out of the chair. Vanessa offers her arm and Carol takes it, gratefully. Normally she’d be embarrassed by these tell-tale signs of age in front of a stranger but this evening she has no strength left to care what anyone thinks. She shuffles towards the glass-panelled doors overlooking the garden and points to the flower bed with her free arm.

‘It’s back there, just under the jasmine, next to the hydrangea.’

‘Is that the white flower?’ the policeman asks, smiling. ‘Not much of a gardener,’ he adds apologetically.

‘That’s right.’ There is a pause. ‘Alan spent hours out there,’ Carol says. ‘I always thought he loved gardening but now . . .’ She drifts off, leaving the thought unexpressed. But it continues to unravel in her mind. He could have been burying a body.

‘Mum?’ Vanessa says, concerned. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Mrs Hetherington?’

The room contracts around her. She makes it to the sink just in time, retching a stream of bile into the plughole.

‘Oh Mum, you poor thing. It’s the shock, I expect,’ Vanessa is saying to the policeman.

‘No need to worry at all,’ he says kindly. ‘It often takes people this way.’

‘Can I take her back home? We’re only next door and I’d like to get her comfortable.’

Carol, her head still bowed in the sink, feels a flare of irritation that they are talking about her as if she isn’t there.

‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she protests, her voice dimmed by the slight echo of stainless steel.

The policeman carries on talking over her. ‘That should be fine, miss. I’ll have to come over and ask her some more questions in a bit, if it is what we think it is.’

Carol unbends herself slowly, taking care not to stand up too quickly.

‘Sure,’ Vanessa replies with a confident nod of the head. ‘OK, Mum, let’s get you home.’

The policeman sees them out of the front door.

‘See you in a bit,’ he says as they walk down the small path onto the street. ‘You’ve done exactly the right thing, Mrs Hetherington, by alerting us so promptly.’

He nods at her. As soon as she is out of the house, Carol feels better, weightless with the relief of it.

Archie opens the door to them, almost as though he has been looking out for their return. He rushes towards Carol and gives her a big hug. She grips hold of him tightly and inhales the brackish smell of his hair.

‘There,’ she says. ‘No need to fuss.’

‘Did you call the police?’ he asks straight away and she is surprised that he knows instinctively this is what she would do. She thought she had hidden what was going on as best she could but Carol is always surprised by how perceptive children are. There’s no point in lying. No point in trying to conceal anything from them.

‘Yes, I did. And there’s a very nice man in uniform over there now taking care of everything so there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Archie, why don’t you put the kettle on and make Grandma a nice cup of tea?’

Carol smiles at her daughter weakly. ‘Just the ticket.’

‘And you go and sit on the couch and wrap yourself up warmly.’

Carol does as she’s told.

She settles down to watch the tail end of
Songs of Praise
and then the theme music merges into the plinkety-plonk of
Antiques Roadshow
. Milton leaps up and folds himself neatly into her lap. She strokes him, listening to the regularity of his purring, and she starts to worry that she has got it wrong, that it wasn’t a hand at all and that she has wasted police time. Because, after all, how would she know? The only dead body she’d seen was Derek’s. The only skeletons she knows about are the ones printed on children’s trick or treat costumes. And the idea that her next-door neighbour, a man she had invited into her own home, a man she had offered a plate of biscuits to, could be involved with anything so sinister seemed increasingly ludicrous. She lives in Wandsworth, for heaven’s sake! It’s a respectable part of south London. It’s the kind of place bankers and celebrity chefs buy their houses, the kind of place the Tory Party comes canvassing. It’s not the kind of place you discover a body buried in the flower bed next door. Who did she think she was? A character in
EastEnders
?

She titters.

‘What is it?’ Vanessa looks at her sharply.

‘Oh, I was just thinking that maybe I’d let my imagination run away with me.’

Vanessa shakes her head.

‘You’ve never let your imagination run away with you in your life,’ she says and Carol can’t help but feel affronted. I’m entirely capable of making things up in my head, Carol thinks, it’s just that I choose not to waste my time doing so.

Archie comes in with her tea. He hands it to her, taking great care not to spill any. She beams at him and he settles down on the carpet by her feet, snuggling close to her. It feels lovely.

As she warms her hands round the mug, a calmness descends. Carol turns back to the television screen.
Antiques Roadshow
is taking place in the grounds of a stately home that has recently been featured in a drama adaptation of a Jane Austen novel. The cameras pan back to display several long queues of sensibly dressed pensioners in kagoules and padded Barbour gilets, each of whom is waiting patiently bearing chipped pieces of Wedgwood and boxes full of paste jewellery they believe to be priceless heirlooms.

The presenter, a nice girl called Fiona who appears to be approximately half the age of the assembled crowd, is making a great show of how approachable she is and yet everything she says is somehow . . . well . . . a bit saucy.

Carol sips her tea and watches as Fiona leans over to examine more closely the saddle of a child’s antique rocking horse. She is wearing jeans that are fitted far too tightly, in Carol’s opinion, and when she bends, the pertness of her bottom seems almost obscene in comparison to the motley assortment of slack, greying faces in the background.

‘I can’t stand her,’ Vanessa says.

‘Really?’ Carol asks mildly. ‘I always think she seems quite nice.’

Vanessa snorts. It’s jealousy, Carol knows. Vanessa is for ever comparing herself to other women. The irony is she doesn’t realise her figure is just as good as any of those skinny Russian teenage models’ you see in magazines. Carol wouldn’t dream of telling her this, of course. She doesn’t want her only daughter to get a big head. Heaven forbid.

The doorbell rings again and Vanessa gets up and goes to the hallway, followed by Archie. Carol shrugs herself out of the blanket, displacing Milton who scowls at her and slouches onto the carpet. She pats down her skirt and glances at her feet, embarrassed that Vanessa has made her wear her silly fluffy slippers. She likes to look her best for figures of authority. Her mother had always told her to wear matching underwear in case she was in an accident and her knickers were on show to all and sundry. The thought of this had so mortified Carol as a young girl that she had never once, in all her adult years, worn a bra and pants in different colours. Derek had made fun of her for that. Told her she was ‘OCD’, like David Beckham.

The policeman is shown into the lounge by Vanessa. Carol sits straighter on the couch.

‘Hello again, Mrs Hether – I mean Carol,’ he says, with the same kind smile on his face.

‘I’ve had a look at the flower bed.’ He stops. ‘You were right to call 999. It does indeed look like a decomposed human hand.’

Vanessa gasps. Carol nods, just as she has seen Helen Mirren do in
Prime Suspect
. The confirmation of her judgement pleases her.

‘Archie, go upstairs and . . .’ Vanessa draws a blank. ‘Play on the computer,’ she adds distractedly.

‘Oh but, Mum—’ he starts. Something in his mother’s face convinces him not to push the point and he scampers obediently upstairs.

The policeman waits until he can hear Archie treading the floorboards above his head. ‘I’ve alerted SOCO – sorry, our Scenes of Crimes Officers – and they’ll be down shortly to preserve the crime scene.’

‘Crime scene?’ Vanessa says faintly.

‘Yes. We are treating this as a serious matter. There are necessary procedures to follow, as I’m sure you can imagine. But there’s nothing for you to worry about. Your mum did absolutely the right thing.’

He turns away from Vanessa, a little reluctantly, Carol senses, and focuses his attention on her.

‘What I need to do now, Carol, is to ask you a bit about your next-door neighbour, if you wouldn’t mind?’

‘No. Go ahead.’

The policeman takes out a notepad and pen. He flicks to a page scrawled with untidy writing.

‘You told me that Alan has been living at Number 12 for over a year, is that right?’

‘Yes, about fourteen months I think. He moved in sometime around Easter, I think. I remember that because we had a chat about eating too much chocolate. Silly really.’

‘Good,’ says the policeman. ‘And his surname is—?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Your neighbour.’

‘Oh.’ A blush rises up her neck. ‘Clithero.’

‘How old would you say he is?’

‘Oh goodness. I’d say mid-forties but I’m not sure exactly. It’s so difficult to tell nowadays, isn’t it?’

He jots something down in his pad.

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘The day before yesterday, when he came to drop off his keys. He wanted me to water his plants, you see, while he was away.’

‘Do you have any idea where he’s gone?’

She thinks back to when he came round. She shakes her head.

‘I’m afraid not. He came round and was a bit . . .’ She searches for the right word. ‘Edgy. Uncomfortable. Normally I would have asked him where he was going but I didn’t want to get into a conversation.’

The policeman cocks his head.

‘Why was that then?’

‘Like I said, there was something . . . off about him that day. I didn’t like it. Made me feel nervous, to be honest.’

Vanessa comes to sit next to her and puts her hand on Carol’s knee.

‘Do you know when he’s due back?’ the policeman asks gently.

‘He said he was going away for four days. So, tomorrow, I suppose.’

There is a fresh surge of nausea.

‘I don’t want him coming round here,’ she says and is surprised to find tears in her eyes. ‘I live on my own you see and I’m not able to . . .’

Vanessa hugs her close.

‘Mum, you won’t be on your own. Archie and I will stay with you for a few days.’

Carol starts to cry. It is the first time she has cried properly since Derek died, and even then, she hadn’t been able to find enough tears. She grips hold of her daughter’s hand, squeezing it tightly.