The Runaway. Ali Harper
Talk about your privates to your heart’s content.’ She stared unblinking at Martin as she spoke.
I felt my cheeks burn.
Once Aunt Edie had switched the kettle on and her computer off, she buttoned up her coat and let herself out.
Martin loosened his tie.
‘Got off on the wrong foot there.’
‘Don’t worry. Her bark’s worse than her bite,’ I lied. ‘So, come on, spill.’
‘I want to hire you girls.’
‘Hire us?’
‘Women,’ said Jo.
‘I want to hire you women?’ asked Martin. ‘Really?’
Jo nodded and put her feet up on the desk.
‘OK,’ said Martin, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I want to hire you women.’
If I’ve got a weak spot, it’s lonely old men. You see them, shuffling round Morrisons, mismatched clothes, in need of a haircut. I can’t bear to think of them fumbling with the tin opener and being unable to reach out to people. Jo gives me hell for my sexism and it’s true – I don’t worry about women in the same way. I guess I think women have an advantage.
I knew Martin was divorced, that he lived on his own, but I didn’t like to think of him living with the ghosts of the disappeared.
‘You’re missing someone?’ I wondered who it might be. He’d never mentioned much about his private life.
‘Been thinking, since you solved that last case. You found the answer to something that happened seventeen years ago. You went back and found something we all missed.’
‘Couldn’t have done it without you,’ I said. ‘And the—’
‘Enough, already. Don’t need to be damned with your faint praise, thanks all the same. Never doubted my investigative skills.’ He fiddled with the clasp on his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. ‘But sometimes you got to wait till the window opens.’
‘Go on,’ said Jo, taking the paper from him.
‘Page thirteen.’ He pulled at his tie and loosened the knot. ‘Another one I never got to the bottom of. And this one nags me, buzzes round my head like an angry wasp. You know, when the 3 a.m. gets you?’ He looked to Jo and I found myself feeling resentful. I’m more than familiar with the early hours, thank you very much.
Jo read while Martin continued, ‘One that won’t let me lie. And I thought well, if you could have a go at it, maybe the time is right.’
‘The body?’ said Jo.
‘Let me see.’ I peered over Jo’s shoulder, saw a small article, only a few lines with the headline: ‘Police discover woman’s body in garden of luxury flats.’
‘It’s worth a crack, that’s what I’m saying.’
We heard the kettle whistle in the kitchenette out back. Martin Blink looked up at the clock. ‘Sun’s almost over the yard arm. You gi— women got a local?’
Martin doesn’t know about my issues with alcohol. Not that I’ve had a drink since the last case. And I try not to beat myself up too much about that one. Surely anyone in that situation, faced with the immediate prospect of their own death, would succumb to one last shot? Especially when it was one of the finest whiskies money could buy. So fine that when I close my eyes, I can still taste it.
But before that one slip, in extreme circumstances, it had been nearly a full twelve months since I’d given up drinking.
I know now that that’s the difference between the addict and the social drinker. To the addict, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last one, because they’re focused on the next. The social drinker can enjoy a drink, the one they have in their hands – as a self-contained event, an occasion all in itself. Which is a nice idea, but a single drink doesn’t exist for the addict. The addict is thinking about the future, about what will happen when the one in their hands runs out. To the addict one drink is only ever the start.
Addicts are people who have never experienced enough. Enough of what, I don’t know. Therapists would tell you they haven’t had enough love. I don’t know about that. I just know there’s never enough alcohol to get me out of my mind.
‘Well?’ asked Martin.
I nearly said no, but I caught the look on Jo’s face. And, I reminded myself, it’s good for me to be challenged. An opportunity to reassert my faith, my resolve. Least, that’s what the textbooks tell me.
I switched the phones over to the night-service and unhooked my jacket from its peg. ‘There’s The Brudenell,’ I said as Jo’s eyes lit up. ‘Just round the corner.’
The Brudenell is a social club but it’s not like your average working men’s club. For a start, nearly everyone in it is a student and probably not one of them has ever done a full day’s work in their lives – at least, not the kind of work that working men’s club implies. Recently, The Brudenell has been building a solid reputation as a kind of secret gig venue, with unadvertised performances by some big-name bands.
We were seated in the bar less than ten minutes after leaving the office, Martin and Jo both with pints – Landlord for Martin, lager and lime for Jo. I nursed a blackcurrant and soda. I can’t drink cola because the caffeine makes my heart race, and I’m never sure what else to order. ‘Let’s hear it then.’
He glanced around but it was still early, even by student standards. The closest drinkers were seated three tables away. ‘Trouble was no one was pushing for it to be solved. A body – young girl – young woman, a prostitute—’
‘Sex worker,’ said Jo.
Martin nodded and took a swig of his pint. The head of his beer left a foam moustache along his top lip. It suited him, matched the white of his hair. ‘Sex worker. Like it. Anyway, that was as far as they got. A body. A sex worker, they decided. No one ever came forward to claim her.’
‘Murdered?’
Martin popped a Fisherman’s Friend in his mouth and crunched. ‘She was dead. That’s about the only fact. Police decided it was suicide although they never found a note. Pathologist said somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-five. Autopsy showed she’d carried a child. Slip of a thing. Bruises that looked like she’d had some kind of fight, but they were old – not related to her death.’
‘Suicide?’ I know I’ve got an issue with suicide. To me, it’s selfish and passive-aggressive – a way of handing on your problems to someone else. It’s the easy way out. Jo gives me hell for my views but I can’t seem to change them. It’s like they’re ingrained in me. I took a sip of my blackcurrant and tried not to gag. ‘How she do it?’
He slapped me on the knuckles. ‘Not proved.’
‘Well, how’d she die?’
‘Poisoned.’
‘Poisoned? What, like an overdose?’
‘Strychnine – know how that works?’
I shook my head.
‘Starts with twitching. Facial muscles go first.’ Martin clenched and unclenched his fingers, balling his hand into a fist, then flinging his fingers back. He still wore his wedding ring and it squeezed the flesh of his third finger. ‘Spasms spread throughout the body, progressing to convulsions as the nervous system runs out of control.’
‘Weird way to kill yourself,’ said Jo.
‘Eventually the muscles that control breathing become paralyzed and the victim suffocates,’ Martin continued. ‘Stays