The Sleeping and the Dead (35 page)

‘What was going on yesterday, Frank?’

‘What do you mean?’ He was defensive. He had the same unfocused look in his eyes as when he’d been talking to Porteous. She thought: But he can’t be scared of me. Frank
had always been the boss. He knew everything there was to know about running a bar. She’d been the dippy teenager who couldn’t pour a decent pint, who couldn’t get up in the
mornings, who turned into work with seconds to spare. He teased her and poked fun in a slightly flirty way which kept her wary. Something new was going on here which she didn’t quite
understand. The power in the relationship had shifted.

‘Well, it didn’t look as if you were being particularly cooperative,’ she said, carefully keeping her voice neutral.

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

‘Don’t you want to catch the bloke who killed Mel?’

‘I don’t think the chap that came in that night did kill her.’

‘How did you know that, Frank?’

He shook his head, a refusal to answer.

‘If you knew anything you should have told the police.’

An open-top bus rattled past. A party of kids on the top deck all held helium-filled balloons. Rosie imagined the bus rising slowly in the air, carried slowly out to sea. Frank took a mouthful
of sandwich, muttered something which she couldn’t make out.

‘What was that?’ Sharply. Sounding like her mother trying to teach him table manners.

‘I said I’ve had dealings with the police. I know what they’re like. They’d set
me
up given half a chance. Best policy’s not to say anything.’

‘Nobody’s saying you’d ever harm Mel. Why would you?’

He turned to her. Grateful, sad puppy eyes were focused properly on hers for the first time. ‘I’ve got a record. That’d be enough for them.’

She hadn’t known about the record. Again she looked at him in a new light. She wondered what he’d been done for and if he’d ever been inside. She imagined him in Stavely asking
her mother to find him books, then thought she couldn’t see him as the reading type.

‘But they’ll know you couldn’t have done it. You were working the night she disappeared.’

‘Only until closing time. I could have done anything after that. I live upstairs on my own, don’t I? Lisa won’t let the kids come to stay any more.’

Lisa was his ex. It was an old complaint. Rosie was irritated by the self-pity but she tried not to show it.

‘Did you go out?’ Rosie asked. She wanted to shake him. It was like speaking to a surly child.

He shook his head. ‘But if they make out I’m tied up in this case I’ll lose any chance I ever had of access.’

‘That’s ridiculous. The kids have nothing to do with this.’

Then she wondered if she’d been too hard on him. Frank doted on his children. Before Lisa started being awkward they’d come to stay at weekends. Rosie tried to understand what it
must be like for him, how lonely he must feel. Perhaps that was why he was good at his job. He made an effort with the staff and the customers because without them he’d have no one to speak
to. He ever talked about friends or other family.

‘Why did you say that about the bloke that came in here looking for Mel? I mean, how did you know he didn’t do it?’

‘He wasn’t the type.’

‘Come on, Frank. What is the type? You must listen to the news. Anyone can commit murder. Teachers, doctors, anyone. And if they find him, you’ll get the police off your back,
won’t you? There won’t be anything to get in the way of the access application then.’

He put his empty plate on the floor. ‘You’re a good lass, Rosie. I’ll miss you when you go to college.’

Oh God, she thought. A revelation. He wants to get inside my knickers.

‘I’ve got a lot to lose,’ he said.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This place. It’s all I’ve got.’

‘So?’

‘So people could make things awkward. With the brewery or the authorities.’

‘Has someone been threatening you?’

He looked at her with those eyes again.

‘For Christ’s sake, Frank. Go to the police. Get it sorted.’

‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘They always catch murderers, don’t they? No need for us to get involved.’

‘Yes, Frank, there is.’

But he hardly seemed to be listening. By now she knew exactly what was going on. Joe might not go for her heavy-bosomed, hippy look, but it appealed to middle-aged men. She fended off the
flattery and the clumsy approaches every day at work. She’d always suspected that Frank fancied her. Now she was certain. She pulled her chair closer to his.

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to see the police again. I can talk to them. I’ll say one of the customers remembered seeing the guy that night. Give me a
description, a name even. I’ll pass it on. That way we can find Mel’s killer and keep you out of it.’

He didn’t answer immediately, but she knew she had him hooked. It crossed her mind that it wouldn’t be much fun working with him after this. Then she thought, Sod it. She’d
just leave. She could do with a holiday anyway before she went to university. Her dad could pay up some guilt money.

She reached out and touched his arm and lowered her voice. She knew what a tart she was being, but found she was enjoying the role. The power thing again.

‘Please, Frank. I’d be really grateful.’

Rosie’s shift ended at seven. She tried to phone Hannah then. She was standing on the pavement outside the Prom, her hand cupped round her mobile, blocking out the sound
of the traffic. She’d wanted to talk to her mother ever since Frank had spilled out his story. In the end he hadn’t treated her as any sort of object of desire. There’d been no
groping, none of the usual crap about how lovely she was. She’d felt like his mother, for God’s sake, as he stumbled through his confession. She’d put her arm around him and told
him she’d make everything all right. And she believed that she could.

Rosie hadn’t liked to phone her mother while she was still at work. She didn’t want everyone listening in and she didn’t want Frank to know how important she considered his
information. Not that he’d been around much after their talk. She supposed he was embarrassed. At one point he’d gone to the flat upstairs as if the exchange between them had exhausted
him and he needed to rest. He looked as if he hadn’t slept properly for weeks.

She let the phone ring until the answerphone was triggered, then she remembered Hannah had said she’d be working late at the prison. She tried the work number but no one answered in the
library. A gate officer came on.

‘Sorry, pet. You’ve just missed her.’

She switched off the phone. Before starting the walk home she glanced back at the pub. Both double doors were wide open and she had a clear view. Frank was staring out at her. She’d left
without saying goodbye to him and she thought about going back in. It would have been pleasant to sit on one of the high stools on the right side of the bar, drinking a long glass of white wine and
soda, plenty of ice. But perhaps she shouldn’t lead him on. Anyway, he turned to serve a middle-aged couple, a big woman and a thin man, who had their backs to her. Something about them was
familiar. She hoped they were regulars, customers who were as near as Frank got to friends. As she crossed the road to walk past the infant school, she had the sense that everyone in the pub was
staring at her. Of course when she glanced back over her shoulder they weren’t even looking.

He must have been watching for her outside the Prom but there was always a line of parked vehicles along the road and she wasn’t aware of him until she reached the middle of the street
where Joe lived. It was still warm. The tar oozed black where a patch in the road had been mended. Somewhere in the neighbourhood there was a barbecue. The street was quiet. She could hear children
playing in one of the back gardens, the splash of water from a paddling pool, the occasional snatch of television through an open window, but no one was about. And until she got to Joe’s
house she took no notice of her surroundings. She was running scenes in her head. Rosie as heroine, giving the police vital information which would lead to the capture of Melanie’s killer.
Rosie talking to reporters outside court. Perhaps with Joe at her side.

That was when she arrived at Joe’s house. The attic window was open and she could hear the thump of his music. She thought his parents must be out or they would have made him turn it down,
then she remembered his saying he was looking after Grace that evening. At first Rosie didn’t think of going in. She couldn’t face listening to more delusions about Melanie and she
wanted to talk to Hannah. But she liked Grace. She’d always wished she’d had a kid brother or sister. Even now she was almost grown up Grace was passionate about animals. Rosie enjoyed
being shown the latest additions to the menagerie she kept in the garden – the motherless kittens, the baby hedgehog, the house sparrow with one wing. She stopped walking and looked towards
the house, tempted.

A small grey van came up the street behind her. It was moving very slowly as if the driver were looking at the house numbers. It had a wing mirror held on with black electrician’s tape and
a loose bumper which rattled as the van went over the speed bumps in the road. When it pulled up at the kerb Rosie turned to face it, expecting the driver to ask for directions. But instead of
winding down the window – it was a very old van and certainly wouldn’t have had electric windows – the driver got out. He was a young man, about the same age as Rosie. She
didn’t recognize him and he didn’t look as if he belonged in this street of wealthy professionals, even as someone’s black sheep. He was thin with cropped hair and a tattoo
running all the way down one arm. Still she paused, curious to see if it was someone who’d come to visit Joe. Joe had copied Mel’s habit of gathering up strangers and oddballs and it
wouldn’t have surprised her.

But he went to the back of the van and opened the door. She decided he was making a delivery and lost interest. She turned and carried on walking down the street.

‘Hey!’ He didn’t shout but his voice was urgent. She stopped. ‘Are you Rosie?’

‘Rosie Morton. Yes.’

He stood looking for a moment, squinting against the low, evening sun.

‘Morton . . .’ he repeated. ‘Your mam must be librarian at Stavely nick.’ As if this was a surprise, a new piece of information which needed consideration.

She didn’t like being rude but she didn’t want to encourage him. She continued walking. He covered the distance between them quickly. She didn’t hear him running, but suddenly
she could smell him, a strangely clean, chemical smell. He was behind her, so close that they almost touched, his bony chest against her shoulder blades. From a distance it would look as if he had
his arms around her. She turned back to Joe’s house but the sunlight was reflected on the windows and she couldn’t tell if anyone was watching. Still she thought he might be some weird
friend of Joe’s, and any moment Joe would come out and rescue her, save her from having to make a scene.

‘Get in.’

‘What?’

‘In the van. Now.’

Then he did have his arm around her. One hand stroked her neck, in the other, clenched as a fist, was a Stanley knife, only the blade showing.

‘Not a sound.’ The voice was almost caressing.

His head moved, turning quickly, his eyes darting up and down the street. In the distance an elderly woman in bowling whites stepped out into the road at the zebra crossing. He waited until she
walked away in the opposite direction. Joe’s music changed tempo, became more melodic. As if they were dancing, the boy moved Rosie to the back of the van.

‘Get in,’ he said again. Inside there was an old quilt with a faded paisley design. It was shedding feathers. She climbed in. He shut the door. The back of the van was a sealed unit,
separate from the front seats. Everything was black, except for a thin crack of brilliant light where the door didn’t quite fit. He started the engine and the rattle of the broken bumper
vibrated through her legs and her back. She opened her mouth to yell, but it was like a nightmare, when you scream and scream and no sound comes out.

Later she spoke to Hannah. She sat on the floor of a flat which was empty except for a sleeping bag and a portable television. As far as she could tell. She’d only seen
one room and the toilet. Her hands were tied behind her back, but the young man held her mobile so she could speak. The flat was on the second floor of a block on an estate she didn’t
recognize. It hadn’t taken them long to get here. Twenty minutes perhaps. He’d parked at the bottom of the tower block by a couple of skips, pulling her out of the van as if he
didn’t care if anyone saw. She’d had a few minutes to look around. There was a low building, some sort of school or community centre perhaps, and next to it a children’s
playground, which seemed surprisingly new and in good repair, though no children were playing there. There were giant hardboard pandas and chickens on huge black springs, with black seats and
handles, swings made from tyres, a wooden fort.

In contrast most of the flat windows were boarded up and beyond the tower blocks there was a building site, where a crane and a couple of diggers were marooned on the hard-packed earth. A woman
came out of the school. She had a bunch of keys like the ones Rosie’s mum used at the prison, and she locked up the building, pulling at the doors to check they were secure. She looked smart
and efficient and walked briskly round the corner out of sight. Her car must have been parked there because they heard the engine. She hadn’t seen them standing in the shadows. Even if she
had, she’d have taken them for a couple of lovers, mucking about. They hadn’t passed anyone else on their way up the stairs to the flat.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m not coming home tonight. Don’t worry about me.’

‘Where are you staying?’

She almost said Mel’s because it came automatically. Perhaps she should have done. Perhaps her mother would have picked up the mistake and somehow understood. But the boy wasn’t
stupid.

‘Laura’s,’ she said. ‘She’s having a party.’