The Mushroom Man (23 page)

I walked the hundred yards home. As I unlocked the door I heard his engine cough into life.

The hospital has fairly liberal visiting hours, and they didn’t mind me calling in at any time. I was making toast for a quick breakfast before going there when the phone rang.

‘Is that Mr Priest?’ asked a female voice.

‘Yes. Who’s that, please?’

‘It’s Sister Williams, on ward B. Will you be able to visit Annabelle this morning, please?’

‘Yes, why? What’s happened?’ My heart was pounding.

‘Nothing to panic about, but she’s had a restless night and has asked me to call you. She wants to see you and is worrying herself into a state. I don’t know what it’s about, but she says it’s important.’

‘OK. I’m on my way.’

I poured my untouched mug of tea down the sink and grabbed my jacket. I wanted to race there, but I regularly hear of the results of such impatience and went with the traffic flow. I parked in the big car park, stuffed some money in the machine and ran to the hospital.

Annabelle was sitting up. Someone had done her hair and she was wearing one of her own nightdresses, but her face was lined with worry.

‘Oh Charles, I’ve been so worried about you.’

I bent forward to give her a kiss and she flung her arms around my neck, almost pulling me off balance. I extricated myself and sat on the bed, holding her hand.

‘Worried about me?’ I said. ‘You’re the one everybody is worried about.’

She sank back against her pillows. ‘I’ve remembered what happened,’ she said, the words tumbling out. ‘The man with the gun…’

‘Look,’ I interrupted. ‘We know all about him.
He’s a long way away now, so don’t you concern yourself about him. He won’t come here.’

‘But I saw him.’

‘You saw him? When?’

‘When he fired. He wasn’t shooting at me, Charles. He was shooting at you. It was you he was trying to kill.’

I stroked her long fingers. The wedding ring was made of silver wires, twisted together in a local design by some Kenyan silversmith. It looked so simple against her suntanned skin, its elegance representing everything about her that I loved. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘We have a good idea who he is. He’ll be arrested soon.’

She shook her head in agitation. ‘But you don’t understand. I saw him. He was wearing a man’s hat, a trilby, but I don’t think it
was
a he. I think it was a woman. A woman in men’s clothing.’

I couldn’t hide my incredulity. ‘Are you sure?’ I demanded.

‘No, it was just an impression. But that’s what I think I saw. Please be careful, Charles.’

A nurse came and put a thermometer in Annabelle’s mouth. ‘I will,’ I said. She couldn’t speak, so I told her that I had a bodyguard, that Sparky was following me everywhere I went and armed police were never far away. It wasn’t true, but hopefully it eased her mind.

The nurse read the thermometer and entered the
result on the chart. When she’d gone I said: ‘I understand you’re staying with Rachel to recuperate. It’s a good idea.’

She sighed. ‘Yes, I said I would. I’m not so sure about it being a good idea, though.’

‘I thought he was a doctor?’

‘He’s an osteopath. He manipulates the bank balances of the wealthy. Qualified by correspondence course with a college in Medicine Hat, Nebraska, or somewhere.’

‘Gosh. That’s worse than Nairobi.’

The old smile came back, enslaving all before it. ‘Not to mention Batley College of Art,’ she chuckled.

A frond of hair had fallen across her left eye. I brushed it aside and said: ‘Have you forgiven me for falling asleep on your settee?’

‘You really know how to make a woman feel wanted, Charles, but you are forgiven.’

‘Oh, you’re wanted,’ I stated. ‘Believe me, you’re wanted.’

It was a struggle, but I tore myself away. From home I rang the office, but nobody was in, not even Gilbert. I made some fresh toast and a pot of tea, but restlessness blunted my appetite. I carried breakfast through into the front room and placed it on a low table at the side of my favourite easy chair, in front of the gas fire. There was still nobody in the office, so I dialled Control.

‘Where is everybody, Arthur?’ I asked.

‘Hello, Mr Priest. Out on the job; we had three ram-raids last night. Plus I understand you have a couple off sick.’

‘Sick? It’s not allowed. What’s wrong with them?’

‘Virus going round. It’s called one-day flu.’

‘So they’ll be back tomorrow?’

‘No, it takes about a week to get over it.’

‘Well, why do they call it one-day flu?’

‘Don’t ask me, that’s just its name.’ 

‘I see. If anybody comes in, ask them to ring me at home.’

‘Will do. Do you want me to chase them?’

‘Er, no, I don’t think so. Bye.’

I finished the toast and tea. I was just reaching over to switch on Radio Four when the phone rang.

‘Priest!’ I snapped.

‘Hello, Charlie. It’s Gav Smith. I hear you were after me.’

‘Hi, Gavin. Yes, I was. Thanks for ringing, but I spoke to Mrs…Petty, was it? She answered my question.’

‘It’s Mrs Pettit, actually. Yes, she told me, but I’ve just had a look at the file and she didn’t give you the full story’

‘Oh, go on.’

‘She said Purley died of TB and pneumonia, but what she didn’t tell you was that they were
AID
S
-induced
. I don’t suppose it makes much difference,
but Don Purley had fullblown AIDS.’

‘Jesus, thanks. What was he doing – injecting?’

‘Probably, plus a bit of shirtlifting.’

‘Shirtlifting? Bet you didn’t put that in your report.’

‘Not in those words, so don’t quote me. Anything else?’

‘Yeah. His wife, Rhoda. What happened to her?’

‘Still in Heckley, as far as I know.’

‘We tried her name alongside the electoral roll and she didn’t show.’

‘Oh.’ He was silent for a few moments before he said: ‘What name did you try?’

‘Well, Rhoda Purley,’ I answered.

‘Hang on a second.’ I could hear the rustle of sheets as he riffled through the file. ‘Here it is. Name of spouse or partner – Rhoda Flannery. Common-law wife, as we called them in those days. They weren’t married.’

‘Bugger!’ I spat the word out. ‘You’ve been a little treasure, Gavin. Give me his release address, please.’

‘Forty-nine, Attlee Towers.’

‘Got it. I owe you a pint.’

‘You’re welcome. I know you don’t believe it but we are supposed to be on the same side, you know.’

I rang Heckley Control and spoke to Arthur again. ‘Bring up the local electoral roll,’ told him, ‘and check for a Rhoda Flannery. Then find out
what car she drives, please. I’m at home.’

He rang me back in a few minutes. She still lived at Attlee Towers and drove a 1988 Ford Fiesta, colour grey. Ah, well, I wasn’t far off. He told me the registration number. I grabbed my jacket and picked up Sparky’s radio from the hall table, where I’d left it the night before. The rain had started again. 

Attlee Towers is on the mean side of town. Once, rows of terraced houses stood there; two-up,
two-down
and back-to-back. No hot water, shared closets, and washing strung like bunting across the cobbled streets. But now people remembered them with affection, for there had been a sense of community that vanished when the bulldozers moved in. They’d been replaced by vertical warrens with unlit stairwells and cardboard walls.

There are four blocks on the estate, all named after giants of the Labour movement. It was a lot worse than I remembered: Attlee Towers was in its death throes.

It reminded me of some eccentric art gallery, with all the paintings on the outside, like a forerunner of the Pompidou Centre. Most of the windows and doors were covered by sheets of plywood, on which the graffiti artists had demonstrated their talents with enough stolen aerosols of paint to give Heckley its own private hole in the ozone layer. The wooden sheets were portrait-style over the doors,
landscape on the windows, and the artists had worked with a flair and urgency that showed in the results. Some of them were bloody good, but I’d never admit it in front of the Super. Here and there dingy curtains indicated an occupied flat.

Forty-nine is on the fourth floor, but it was a coincidence, not good planning. Four floors is about the limit of my endurance these days, but I didn’t trust the lift. The stairway was narrow and dark, and stank of urine. An empty drinks can clattered away from under my feet, the noise echoing unnaturally loudly as it rattled down the concrete steps.

Huddled on the landing of the third floor were two youths. They stared at me with blank expressions on their spotty faces. The air was pungent with the smell of solvent and one of them was trying to hide a plastic bag.

‘Put that where I can see it,’ I told him.

He made no effort to do so. I fished my ID from my pocket and held it in front of his nose. ‘Now!’ I yelled. He placed the bag on the floor, alongside where he was sitting.

‘OK, now let’s see what you’re using.’

He produced a tube of glue big enough to make a full-scale replica of the
Spruce Goose
. Half of it was gone.

‘Now you,’ I told the other one.

‘I ’aven’t got anyfing, mister,’ he said.

‘No? So open your jacket.’

He reluctantly unzipped his bomber jacket. I put my hand in the inside pocket and found a cylinder of lighter fuel.

‘How old are you?’ I demanded.

‘Fifteen,’ they replied, not quite in unison.

‘Well, if you keep on using this stuff you won’t make sixteen. Now get out of it.’

They sidled off down the stairs, backs to the wall as they looked up at me. As they vanished round the landing below, I shouted: ‘Stick together,’ after them, and immediately hated myself for it.

They inhale the lighter fluid – butane – by operating the valve against their teeth. It is under pressure in the cylinder and injects straight into the lungs, reaching the brain in seconds. It’s an act of desperation, with no safety margin between a good trip and an OD. I pressed the cylinder against the metal banister until it was empty, the tube growing icy in my hand as the pressure inside dropped and the smell of the gas nearly knocking me over. Then I squeezed the rest of the glue out. Neither container had a price ticket indicating which shop had supplied it.

The fourth floor. External corridors radiate out from the main structure, each with three flats along it. I chose the wrong one first: 44, 45 and 46.

Forty-seven, this was more like it. All the windows were boarded up and defaced.
Forty-eight
,
just the same. Window, door, window, all covered and spray-painted; but the design on the last sheet of plywood stopped me in my tracks.

It was a skull, done in red on a white background and edged in black. It was the artist’s
tour de force
, the prize exhibit in the gallery. He’d captured that grin that mocks the living surprisingly well, for the teeth were comprised of four letters. They spelt: AIDS.

Rhoda Flannery would have to pass that skull every time she went out, every time she came home. I edged by it, and found myself outside number 49.

All the curtains were closed. I knocked on the door. Something told me that nobody was in, the same myserious sense that tells you that nobody will pick up a telephone. It can be wrong, though. I hammered, again and again, but I couldn’t conjure her up.

Fictional detectives carry little bundles of bent wires that enable them to bypass the most sophisticated products of the lockmaker’s craft. Or if it’s a Yale lock they just slip a credit card in and
hey presto!
But this wasn’t a Yale. My own preferred method is to borrow a key.

It’s common knowledge that there are only about ten different keys for all the locks on these flats. An old customer of mine, called George Dunphy, lived in one of the other blocks. He was also an old-style
cat burglar; no bricks through windows for him. I radioed control and asked for his address. It took a couple of attempts as the radio was on the blink.

He was in. ‘Hello, George. Remember me, Charlie Priest?’ I said when he answered the door.

‘Mr Priest? Well, blow me down. What can we do for you?’

‘Well, you could invite me in.’

He lived in Bevan Towers, and the council had elected that this block should house the more responsible tenants. Attlee Towers was reserved for rent defaulters, immobilised travelling people and rehoused single-parent families. George led me through into a cosily cluttered living room. The gas fire and telly were at full blast, and Mrs Dunphy did not look pleased to see me.

‘I need to break into a flat, George, over in the Attlee block. I was wondering if you could help me.’

It wasn’t the most tactful way of putting it. ‘No, he can’t,’ stated Mrs Dunphy. ‘All that’s behind him.’

George gave me a look that said he’d love to, but his wife held more terror for him than any judge had ever done. ‘Well, Mr Priest, it’s like the missus sez. I ain’t done nothing like that for years.’

‘I know that, George. What I mean is: can I borrow your key? Or can you tell me how to get in?’

‘Oh, we can do that. Wait a minute, let’s see what we ’ave.’ He went to the sideboard and took an ancient biscuit tin from the cupboard. There was a picture of George VI and Queen Elizabeth on it, in their coronation finery. He tipped the contents onto the table.

It was a treasure chest. Hundreds, possibly thousands of buttons spilt out, in every design and material imaginable. Other items were mixed in with them, like marbles and foreign coins and campaign medals. I fingered a couple of medals.

‘Are these yours?’ I asked, with genuine interest.

He was rummaging through the pile. ‘Them? Yeah, they’re mine.’

‘Where did you get them?’

‘An ’ouse in ‘Eckley,’ he said, throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. I had to join in.

‘I was in the army nine years,’ he explained, wiping his eyes, ‘when they was needing ’em, not feeding ’em. This is what we’re looking for.’

He’d found a master key. The end was a simple T-shape. Soon he produced another two of slightly different designs. ‘One of them’ll get you in,’ he stated.

‘Great, thanks.’ I couldn’t resist asking: ‘Do you, er, want them back?’

‘Not me, Mr Priest. Been straight ten years now. You keep ’em.’ He nodded towards his wife. ‘But I’d love to come with you.’

I thanked him and left. Five minutes later I was trying the keys in the door of 49, Attlee Towers.

None was a perfect fit, so I tried them all again, using more force. One felt as if it was doing something, so I shook the key about in the lock and twisted harder. It worked, I was in.

I closed the door behind me, slid the bolt across and switched on the light. ‘Anybody home?’ I shouted, although I was certain the place was deserted.

The room was a dump. The dralon suite was thread-bare and the wallpaper bore black marks where the furniture had rubbed against it for years. Discarded clothing was flung about the place and a plate bearing the relics of a meal was still on the table. A well-used flypaper hung from the ceiling; didn’t know you could still buy them. I tried not to breathe.

Against the far wall was what I took to be a Welsh dresser. The shelves were filled with cheap little trophies and shields. I walked across to examine them. Most had been awarded to Rhoda, for her body-building exploits, but were mainly bronzes, with an occasional silver. Even at her chosen sport she was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. On the mantelshelf were several photos of the pair of them in various poses, bodies glistening like porpoises. They must have thought
they looked good, and that was all that mattered.

I started opening drawers and cupboards, not sure of what I was looking for. The dresser was filled with all sorts of household items, glass and crockery, some of it good quality. Nothing for me, though. A sideboard contained all the documents that we acquire and hoard in our passage through life: like insurance policies, old gas bills and the instructions for the microwave. The cupboards in it were stuffed with clothes, mainly woolly jumpers. I turned to a writing desk in the corner.

Like a professional burglar I opened the bottom drawer first, and when I saw the contents my stomach convulsed, as if it had been clawed by a polar bear. The drawer held a pile of newspaper cuttings, and smiling at me from the top sheet was the face of Annabelle. In a corner lay an unopened carton of shotgun cartridges. I’d found what I’d come for: Rhoda Flannery was the Mushroom Man.

I sat on the floor for several minutes, back to the wall and staring at the carpet. There were plenty of questions, but I couldn’t come up with any answers. God willing, when Annabelle was well I’d spend the rest of my time with her. Marry her, if she’d have me. And I’d leave the police force. All it offered was a front-row seat at a Greek tragedy, and I’d paid in full.

Outside it was raining again, or was it still raining? I stood in the doorway to the flats and tried to radio Control.

‘Priest to Control.’

No reply.

‘Charlie Priest to Heckley Control. Acknowledge.’

Silence.

‘I say again, this is Charlie Palooka with an urgent message to Heckley Control. Answer the goddamn radio, Arthur.’

I flicked the switch off and on and pressed the ‘speak’ button, but wasn’t even rewarded with a hiss of static. I’d have to use the mobile phone in the car.

As I stepped off the curb my left foot went into a pothole filled with water. It came over my ankle and filled my shoe.

‘Bugger!’ I cursed, shaking my soaking foot. ‘Bugger-bloody-damn!’

‘And fuck!’ I added for good measure.

‘Arthur, why can’t I reach you on my radio?’ I snapped, when he answered the phone.

‘Sorry, Mr Priest. We could hear you. You must have another faulty radio. The transmit button sticks in when it’s wet. What was all the cursing about?’

‘I stepped in a puddle. Up to my knee. I’ll have to go home to change my shoes. Look, Arthur, these radios should have been sorted weeks ago.’ I was
annoyed about it, and having one cold foot didn’t help.

‘We thought they had been. All the new ones were sent back and modified.’

‘It’s not good enough. I’ll have words with the supplier. A fault like this could cost someone’s life.’

‘You’re right, boss. Put it in your pocket, then it won’t get left in the car.’

I retrieved it from the glove box where I’d tossed it. ‘OK. Now listen to this. I want an APW broadcasting for Rhoda Flannery, home address: forty-nine Attlee Towers, Heckley; driving a grey 1988 Ford Fiesta. You’ve got the number.’

‘Will do, Mr Priest. What’s it about?’

‘She’s the Mushroom Man.’

‘Sheest! Are you sure?’

I ignored the question. ‘Suspect is armed with a shotgun, and very dangerous. On no account to be approached by unarmed officers. I’m outside Attlee Towers now. Can you have someone here as soon as possible? Oh, and inform Mr Wood.’

Five minutes later a local patrol car joined me, and said that an ARV was on its way. I pointed out Rhoda’s flat to them and gave strict instructions that they were to wait for the armed officers if she came back. I said I was going home to change my shoes and would then go to the station. It could be a long day.

I reversed the car into my drive, so I could make a fast getaway if anybody rang. It felt cold inside the house, and I was chilled through. The radiators weren’t on at that time of day, so I turned the gas fire fully on and pulled the easy chair closer. I kept my jacket on, but removed my shoes and socks so I could toast my feet. There was a draught on my neck, so I sank lower into the chair. When I’d thawed out I’d make a drink and a sandwich. Meanwhile, I’d just relax and let the others do the running around. It was out of my hands.

Well, I thought it was.

This was my parents’ house, inherited by me after they died. Dad was a do-it-yourself freak. He’d installed the central heating, years ago, and made a good job of it. Except for one small thing. In the hall- way, under the carpet, there is a trap door that gives access to the circulating pump. It creaks every time you walk over it. He’d tried to fix it and so had I, but without success. As I sat there, warming my feet, it creaked. Somebody was inside the house.

That was why it was cold: one of the windows was open. I reached out and picked the phone up from the coffee table alongside my chair. It was dead. I delved into my inside pocket for the radio, but just as I touched it the door flew open.

The ridiculous and the terrifying are sometimes just a hair’s-breadth apart. She was wearing a man’s
suit that was two sizes too large for her even before her body had been wasted by disease, topped off by a trilby hat. She would have looked as if she were auditioning for the Artful Dodger had it not been for the gaunt face, dotted with sores that would never heal because her immune system was gone. And the sawn-off shot-gun. The Dodger never carried a shotgun.

‘Who the hell are you?’ I said. I knew the answer, but would never have recognised her.

‘Put your hands where I can see them,’ she croaked, ‘and say a quick prayer, before I blow your fucking head off.’ Her voice was a cackle, like she had a throat full of eggshells.

‘It’s Rhoda, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘And you’re the late Charlie Priest.’ She pointed the shotgun at me. It focuses the attention like nothing I’d experienced before. Keep ’em talking, the book said.

‘Why?’ I asked. God! Was that the best I could do? ‘Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?’ Marginally better.

‘What explanation did you give Don?’ she hissed.

‘Don committed murder,’ I told her. ‘He knew what was coming; bore no grudges. It was my job to put him away, and I did it.’

‘He was innocent. He wouldn’t lie to me. You didn’t get him life, you gave him a death sentence.’ She was shrieking now. ‘Do you know what it was
like? A hundred men sharing a needle, passing it from cell to cell for a month until someone brought a new one in? He didn’t deserve what he got in there.’

I was hopelessly off balance, sprawled in the armchair with my arms dangling over the sides. I pulled my feet back against the seat as I spoke: ‘Nobody deserves that, Rhoda. Least of all you.’

‘What do you care? Look at this!’ she screamed, flinging her hat into the corner. The red mane had gone, replaced by a patchwork of weeping lesions. I felt myself recoil at the sight. ‘Well, we got it, whether we deserved it or not, and now you get yours.’ She levelled the gun at me.

‘What about the others, Rhoda? Did they deserve what they got?’

‘Ah! Them,’ she scoffed. The gun swung a couple of degrees away from me as she threw her head back and laughed. I drew my hands in, placing them on the chair arms.

‘Yes, them. What had they done to you?’

She could barely control her laughter, the gun waving about alarmingly, sometimes pointing at me, sometimes not.

‘Nothing!’ she declared. ‘They’d done nothing to me. Don’t you see, that’s what makes it so perfect.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’re the fucking detective. The
Top Cop
.’ She taunted me with the words. ‘Tell me, then, Mr
Top Cop
, what’s the perfect murder?’

‘Er, I don’t know. One that nobody knows has been committed, I suppose.’

‘Close, but not quite. One without a motive, that’s the perfect murder. I had no reason to kill them. You were just the next in the line. Four proper priests, then you. I was going to kill another person called Priest, just to sew things up, then I could die happy. Unfortunately that stuck-up bitch you go out with got in the way. That was a laugh when I found out she was a bishop’s wife.’ She chuckled and grinned, revealing brown teeth with gaps at the sides of her mouth. She reminded me of the skull on the window of number 48. I flinched at her words, but used the movement to curl my fingers over the ends of the chair arms. I was as poised as I’d ever be.

‘Rhoda,’ I said, as softly and calmly as I could, ‘there’s been too much killing. You’ve had a raw deal, but this won’t solve anything. You could have treatment. They’ve drugs now that could help you. Put the gun down.’

‘There’s no treatment for this!’ she cried, pointing at her head. She leant back against the wall and I could see that her cheeks were glistening with tears. ‘I said I’d wait for him. I had a job and a flat. We could still have had kids, that’s all I ever wanted. It wasn’t much, was it?’

‘Kids,’ I sighed. ‘That’s all I ever wanted, too. But it wasn’t to be.’

‘Still…’ she said, and the steel was back in her voice and the gun wasn’t wavering any more, ‘killing you will make me feel better for a couple of days.’

‘What about the first two? Were they really you?’ The words tumbled out and I wondered if any of our conversation was being transmitted. It would make riveting listening in the control room.

‘Ah!’ she snorted. ‘I saw a headline over someone’s shoulder. It said: ‘Priest killed. Was it murder?’ For a glorious moment I thought it was you. My heart leapt. I got off the bus a stop early to call at the newsagent’s. I wept when I read it was only some crumby vicar.’