Pleasure and a Calling (34 page)

Her bunny-rabbit is never found, and is henceforth a mystery.

I
AM OUT OF SURPRISES
. There are no twists to come. What follows is a sort of epilogue, though I don’t especially wish to dwell on the fallout surrounding poor Zoe, who died exactly two years ago today (marked by a notice placed by her parents in this week’s
Sentinel
). There is one thing. In an almost comical turn of events, she came
this
close to taking DC Roberts with her – he being first on the scene and a man who will heroically take it upon himself to burst into a girl’s flat after banging on the door and front window, which according to neighbours had been curtained for two, three or even four days. He was on his knees almost as soon as he set foot in the place, or so the story went. If the uniformed officer accompanying him had not been so quick off the mark – having seen the danger for what it was (she had been a firefighter in the forces) and managed to drag him out – he would have been a goner himself, according to the paramedics who screeched in only minutes later. True to form, the
Sentinel
missed that particular nugget, preferring to direct its unerring powers of misinterpretation on lurid revelation – Zoe’s ‘loneliness’, her ‘dependency’ on prescription drugs and alcohol,
the discovery of her cat, dead in the hall (I can promise you she had no cat), its claw marks ‘allegedly’ visible on the inside of the front door.

Towards the end of that morning, DS Monks (he is now an inspector) arrived at the office to bring the grave news about Zoe, offering the footnote about Roberts with a proper lack of drama, as if gas poisoning were all part of the job. He was tight-lipped on everything else. I doubted then that he was entirely convinced by my helpful trail of breadcrumbs from Zoe to Sharp; perhaps it was his superiors who later found it as irresistible as it need be and instructed him to wind things up. Whatever their misgivings about Zoe’s involvement, it was enough to be able to announce that they were not looking for anyone else in connection with Sharp’s death. It took the national papers – the Sunday tabloids in particular returned in force – to spell out Zoe’s link with Sharp (if not quite with his death), describing her alternately as ‘spurned’ and ‘jealous’ or ‘smitten’ and ‘tragic’, between them pre-empting the coroner’s eventual open verdict on the question of whether Zoe had taken her own life (by the unusual method of asphyxiation by faulty boiler) while suffering from depression following the death of Sharp. This theory was partly predicated on the website history of Zoe’s laptop, which revealed recent research into the dangers of faulty heating appliances. Was it not possible, her father asked DS Monk (Zoe’s father made an admirable inquisitor) – indeed more than likely – that she was worried her faulty boiler
was
faulty but didn’t get further than looking up symptoms on the internet? Monks conceded that it was at least more than possible. One of Zoe’s book-group girlfriends came forward to confirm that there had been a passionate affair between Zoe and Sharp but that she had broken it off when she found out he
had lied about having left his wife. Had Zoe gone back to him in recent times? She could not say. I myself was able to give evidence that Zoe had displayed erratic behaviour that seemed to me consistent with a therapist’s report confirming that Zoe had been receiving treatment for a mild depressive disorder for some years, but the coroner, often to be seen adjusting her glasses, seemed unswayed one way or the other. Mrs Sharp, with negligible consideration for the feelings of the deceased’s parents, gave curt evidence to the effect that Zoe was just the latest in a string of her husband’s infidelities and was probably the woman in a photograph that she had given to the police, who had done
nothing
with it, though she admitted, on further questioning, that only her husband had been clearly identifiable in the picture. The coroner shared Monks’s reasonable doubt that the prospect of a visit from the police to discuss the binoculars found in the back of Sharp’s car would have been enough to trigger thoughts of suicide, since there could be a more innocent explanation for the binoculars being there (and indeed DC Roberts had turned up an old police caution for Sharp, who some years previously had been caught engaging in a ‘sex act’ in the back of his car). At no point did the court allow itself to consider fear of prosecution or profound feelings of guilt as possible factors in Zoe’s death (since no authority had proved her culpable or blameworthy), though the newspapers had given ample space to evidence suggesting that she may have been present at his death or shortly afterwards. After all, Sharp’s watch and wallet were found in Zoe’s underwear drawers (oddly, his phone was never found – a pity, because who knew what deleted directory and call details might have been retrieved by police computer experts?). A golf club was discovered under her bed, though the police could not say with certainty that it was
the murder weapon – and who could blame a girl living alone for keeping a golf club under her bed? Sharp’s leather holdalls were piled neatly, one upon the other, in the box room, but what did that mean? Nothing, conclusively.

The coroner stuck to the facts, leaving the town to its whispering. And what whispering! Had Sharp simply gone back to his old flame Zoe when his wife kicked him out, and then the next morning pursued some unknown urgent business at the Cooksons’ empty house, where he had met his death at the hands of some unknown assailant? Perhaps he had told Zoe he was going for a run – after all, he had been wearing a tracksuit – but then taken his car! Could Zoe have suspected some sort of double dealing? Had she heard of his affair with Mrs Cookson (I’m afraid this was fast gaining currency as hard fact), followed him and then angrily laid about the scheming bastard on the Cooksons’ patio with a golf club? Or perhaps Mrs Sharp had exchanged further harsh words with her husband that Saturday morning (he might well have returned home to talk some sense into her), followed him to the Cooksons, assumed the worst of Mrs Cookson – perhaps even rightly, and as far as the town was concerned, there seemed no reason not to – and continued their fight from the previous night, though this time perhaps Mrs Sharp had reached for a gardening hoe or similar deadly implement (a golf club seemed an unlikely thing to find in a garden). Some preferred to picture Zoe as the ‘spurned’ and ‘jealous’ woman in an alternative version of the above scenario – following the man who had refused to leave his wife for her and then killing him in a furious spasm of rage as he took his matching luggage out of the car with a view to lying low at this
new
lover’s house (i.e. Mrs Cookson, who in anticipation of Sharp being thrown out by his wife could
have furnished him with a key) while she and her husband were away.

I could go on. It was quite a puzzle. But the point now was that, the focus having shifted to Zoe’s inquest, the only people who doubted that Sharp had driven himself to the Cooksons and then been killed there were those who still doubted that it was a murder at all. Hadn’t even the police first thought the man was a drifter who had come to grief by falling down drunk over patio stones?

I went to both funerals (must they always come along in twos?). Zoe’s was loyally attended despite the attempts of police, court and newspapers to stain her character. Sharp’s attracted an inordinate number of young female students, who sat to the rear of the crematorium along with three or four dishevelled grown-ups with unshined shoes whom I assumed to be Sharp’s work colleagues. Abigail was thankfully nowhere to be seen; nor was Sharp’s brother. Mrs Sharp and her sister seemed to have turned up merely to demonstrate a determination to remain tearless.

Mrs Sharp had asked if I would go, though we had little to say afterwards. The one thing that surprised me (though perhaps it shouldn’t have) was how my antipathy towards Sharp had disappeared as rapidly as my ‘love’ for Abigail. That dawning reality was like waking from a frightening illness of the mind, a sort of madness. It wasn’t difficult to recognize the same illness in Zoe, whose infatuation for me had escalated into a willingness to cross lines. What sort of girl lures a man to dig up a forsythia with the cold plan to rob him of his house key? She said she wanted to help me. But what would have happened when she awoke from her madness?

Last Sunday morning, to mark the second anniversary of their daughter’s death, Zoe’s parents, family and friends gathered for a short memorial service at St Benedict’s chapel and laid flowers. Her younger sister, Emma, spoke of the nature of sisterhood and the human capacity for renewal. She is a teacher, married with a toddler, and is very different from Zoe. I wondered if she lived in town and on what street. I said that we all still missed Zoe terribly, and she said Zoe used to mention me often. Everyone from the agency was there except our new girl – another eastern European whose name is shortened to Tuni from something much longer. She is sweet and irresistible but ferociously competitive, which has made Josh raise his game. The bad news is that Katya is pregnant and may be leaving, notwithstanding the firm’s generous maternity provision. Her new husband, Evan, seems not to like me very much. I find that some men in particular are like dogs. I am a smell they can’t put their finger on, if I might be excused the unsavoury metaphor.

I can’t say I haven’t had one or two anxious thoughts about Isobel (speaking of people who don’t like me very much), who might well have surfaced to harass the police with the ‘coincidence’ of two young estate agents from the same firm dying in their own flats only seventeen years apart. But she kept her distance. She has responded to my recent enquiries after her health and the progress of young Elizabeth at her expensive new school with an unexplained picture postcard from the Lake District. This may be as cordial as things will be between us.

I’m sorry if this is beginning to sound like a family newsletter. Perhaps I just want to emphasize my feeling, in common with most people, that progress isn’t necessarily about change but about things turning out as we want them to. To this end I
should report that the house on Raistrick Road is now owned by Damato Associates (snapped up for the asking price via Worde & Hulme) and, like its neighbours, has now been converted to student flats. Katya shifted the Cooksons’ place at the edge of town with surprising speed, given its notorious new history. And, almost finally, a lovely Asian family has moved into 4 Boselle Avenue. I haven’t been to visit yet, but it is something to look forward to.

After the memorial service broke up on Sunday I spent a couple of hours at the Perettis’. They finally settled on a Victorian terrace not unlike Abigail’s place, but bigger and sunnier and featuring a modern annexe for Mrs P that looks down on the park from the other side of the river. From Jason’s ‘studio’ in the loft, with a decent pair of binoculars, you can see straight into Abigail’s old attic (though, as I have said, I have never sought pleasure in that sort of thing). It’s an ideal situation for us all. Mrs P has access from the rear to the living spaces of the main house, while the upstairs belongs to the boys. Today the pair of them were in London for a football match. They are season ticket holders and never miss a home game. Mrs Peretti was downstairs, cooking ahead for the evening meal. I love the way she chatters to herself and to the dog. There is never any danger of her coming up and Pippo – yapping excitedly round the kitchen – is too small to climb the steps. It does not quite deliver the thrill of full immersion (which I have yet to attempt after Abigail), but what more pleasant way to help pass an otherwise sober Sunday? I found a bag of toffee eclairs hidden in Mr Peretti’s desk, and sat down with a file of impenetrable letters from his solicitor, before sifting through a set of dramatic photographs of Jason taking part in some kind of live art exhibition. I still haven’t got to the bottom of what
Jason does (his studio is equipped mainly for working out and lying down). But there’s plenty of time. They are good people leading lives as interesting to me as to themselves.

Afterwards I walked back to my riverside apartment (reluctantly I have adopted the prudent habit of keeping up two dwellings, this one with a bed and recognizable furniture) following a circuitous route via the leafy streets of the north side. The afternoon still had plenty of warmth in it. Early summer is my favourite time, with its smells of creosote and mower fuel, the buzz and bang of carpenters, the clang of scaffolding going up and skips being filled. These people are the town’s engine, its living parts. Dressed in spattered clothing and trainers, they come and go to the DIY warehouses and construction wholesalers, arm themselves with hammers and drills. Occasionally I will see a face I know from somewhere but does not know me, fixed in its intention, its eyes set on some achievable future. What hopes, I wonder, charge their imaginations? Where do they think they are going? Where will they fertilize their eggs? Where will they die?