The Dying Place. Luca Veste

       8

      Murphy wrote on the board under the details of Dean Hughes’s murder case. Adding the new information they’d gleaned that day, his last act before going home.

      He was going to be late.

      Someone had sent Sally Hughes a message. An envelope dropping through the letter box one January morning. No stamp or address on the front. Just one word.

       Mum

      Inside, a short note which explained how he was fine and was getting help with his problems. He’d be back soon, when he was better and ready to make something of his life. Not in her son’s handwriting, but typed out.

      She’d assumed he was at some kind of religious thing. Actually felt okay about it. Two words in her son’s handwriting … Mum and Dean. And a few kisses, she’d said. Murphy shook his head at the naivety of it all. Someone sends you a message saying your son is somewhere you have no idea of until he’s better. It was ridiculous. And all she had to show it was actually written by her son were two words in his handwriting.

      He guessed what the real reason was behind her supposed giving up. Apathy. It was a neat little explanation for everything. Meant she didn’t have to worry any more.

      Murphy slammed the marker pen back in the shelf at the bottom of the board. Looked at his watch and decided to make a move.

      It was becoming a ritual for Rossi to do this. Every time there was a death, suspicious circumstances or not, she went to her parents’ house. She’d thought she would have grown out of it once she’d gone through the process a few times, but the draw was still there.

      Rossi’s parents lived near the scene from earlier that morning in West Derby. Only a few minutes away really. She drove past the church – saw a couple of uniforms standing outside the entrance, keeping away any ghouls who wanted to have a poke around, but other than that, things had quietened down now. Only twelve hours on, and already people’s attention was being drawn elsewhere.

      She was putting off the inevitable. The questions, the judgements. Willing to go through it all, as usual. The lure of her mama’s food was a much more appetising thought, but she knew it came at a price.

      She parked up her car, turned off the engine but left the radio playing some bland pop song which she couldn’t help but enjoy. Rossi switched off the radio with a turn of her key and got out the car. She’d managed to get a parking spot, which was becoming more and more difficult these days. It was a mid-terrace house in a quiet road which seemed to contain every different type of house you could find. Opposite, four detached bungalows; further down, semi-detached housing; to either side, terraced houses which seemed to run the length of the street.

      She rang the bell, a snippet of Greensleeves emanating from within.

      ‘Bambina! Entare, entare. What is all this talk today? What is happening here in our beautiful city? You look hungry. Hai mangiato? Never mind. You eat now.’

      Laura was still standing on the doorstep, waiting for her mother to finish. It was always the same. Isabella Rossi – Mama – didn’t believe in easing into conversations.

      ‘I’m fine, Mama, bene,’ Rossi said, finally being allowed to step into the house and taking her jacket off. ‘I wanted to make sure you were both okay, that’s all.’

      Mama Rossi stood, her arms folded. ‘You check on us? We check on you! That is how it is. Now go through. Sit with Papa and I’ll bring food. Go. Sit.’

      Rossi did as she was told, moving through into the living room where her father was sitting in his usual chair, waiting for her to brush his cheek with a kiss before lighting a cigarette.

      ‘Come stai?’ Alessandro Rossi said, fiddling the cigarette between his fingers before flicking his Zippo and inhaling the smoke.

      ‘I’m fine, Papa. You heard about what happened at the church?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Looks like a bad one already.’

      ‘How young?’

      ‘Just turned eighteen,’ Rossi replied, moving back as her mama entered the room and placed a cup of tea in front of her, before hustling back out.

      ‘Terrible, terrible business. The whole city is changing. You should really be doing something about that,’ Mama Rossi said from the kitchen.

      ‘I’ll get right on that, Mama,’ Rossi replied, earning a smirk from her father.

      ‘He was eighteen. So an adult really, but still …’ Rossi said, lifting the china cup her mother always served tea in. Remembering why she never drank the stuff unless she was home. Not that it had been her home in a long time.

      ‘Bad, was it?’

      ‘It always is, Papa,’ Rossi replied, looking around the room.

      Papa Rossi leant back in his chair. ‘You need somewhere else to go.’

      ‘I like coming here.’

      ‘No. You come here to be a child again. A bambina running into the arms of her mama. You need something else. It’ll make it easier.’

      Rossi wasn’t sure about that. Even less so when her mama returned with pasta al forno, piled high on a plate. Parmesan cheese in a small bowl.

      No. This was still preferable to some bloke messing up her house.

      Murphy pulled into the driveway, spying Sarah through the front window watching TV. He left the car and watched her for a minute or so. She’d have heard him pull up but didn’t seem to react. He considered, not for the first time, if she enjoyed knowing he was watching her. Wondered what she was thinking, what she was so engrossed in that she didn’t turn her head and look at him through the window, breaking the reverie.

      He left the car, opening the front door to the house, smiling as the blaring noise from the TV snapped off. Murphy seemed to spend most of his life asking her to turn the bloody thing down, but she always waited until he wasn’t paying attention before gently increasing the volume, complaining she couldn’t hear it properly. Thankfully, the only neighbour they had was on the other side of the semi-detached house. Not that it mattered much anyway. Mr Waters. Eighty-odd and happy to let them get on with things.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Did you bring food with you?’

      Murphy shook his jacket off, his keys going on their own hook away from the door, so as to ward against car thieves apparently. Something about a fishing pole through the letter box.

      He walked into the living room, ‘Yeah, Indian,’ he said, seeing the chair for the first time. ‘Probably not enough for you as well though.’

      ‘It’s okay. We’ll make it spread, won’t we, Sarah?’

      Jess. Hanger-on, pain in the arse, third wheel, and his best friend. ‘Great. Don’t even be thinking about nicking all the bhajis though. Go and get plates.’

      Jess left the room, not before aiming a kick at his shins.

      ‘She all right?’ Murphy said, listening carefully for the sound of plates being removed, keeping his voice low.

      Sarah grimaced. ‘Problems with Peter again.’