Cath Staincliffe - Crying Out Loud

Both the children had spending money to get what they wanted and we were also looking for new trousers and a winter top for each of them. I knew we’d make more progress getting the clothes first. Market Street was busy; hard to believe we were in the grip of a recession. Along the central area of the pedestrianized thoroughfare were men with stalls selling whistles and kites and hats with ear flaps. I heard the blues guitarist before we saw him, shielded with an umbrella, his portable amp blasting out ‘Buddy Can You Spare A Dime’. I gave Maddie and Tom fifty pence each to drop in his box.

H&M did a reasonable line in kid’s clothing and although everything took twice as long with buggy and baby in tow it was pretty straightforward. Maddie got deep-red corduroy trousers and a red and black striped fleecy top. Tom found some grey combat pants and a hoodie with sharks on that he thought was extremely cool.

Diane texted me asking how I was. Had she heard about Damien and remembered that he was who I’d been to visit? Or was she waiting for news about the situation with Laura and the baby? I texted back that I was OK and would ring later.

Like most children the kids wanted to buy toys with their spending money but Manchester didn’t really have a decent toyshop in the city centre. There had been a Daisy and Tom’s on Deansgate but it had closed and Toys R Us was out of town and required a car and browsing on an industrial scale. However there was a German market running in St Ann’s Square and we found toys and playthings in among the gingerbread and sausages and beer. Tom seized on a wooden frog that made a lifelike croak when you stroked its back with a wooden stick, and a jester’s hat with bells on that he thought would be good for pirates. Maddie bought a string puppet and a wooden hula hoop. Sorted.

They were flagging by then and the walk back to the train took for ever. Thankfully Jamie didn’t start crying for a feed until we were on the train. It’s a quick journey, eleven minutes, but her shrieks were enough to make ears bleed. I’d have given anything for a soother but if she was used to one surely her mother would have left one in the bag. I had made up a bottle of boiled water in case she got thirsty and tried to give her some but she screwed up her face tighter and screamed even louder. We were nearing our stop and I was busy gathering our bags and avoiding eye contact with the rest of the passengers, when the crying became more muffled. A rest at last? No, just Tom, standing there with his hand over her mouth.

An hour later, calm and quiet reigned and still no sign of Ray. I got through to Geoff Sinclair. ‘You’ve heard about Damien Beswick?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Not totally unexpected, though.’ He sounded a little breathless, reedy.

‘You think?’

He sighed. ‘The lad was damaged; it didn’t take an expert to see that.’

‘But he was never deemed to be a vulnerable prisoner? He wasn’t on suicide watch or anything?’

He grunted. ‘Don’t know the ins and outs of it.’

‘But this changes things,’ I said.

‘In what way?’ I heard the reserve in his tone.

Surely he could see that. ‘He retracted his confession at the end; he left a note. That makes his claim to innocence much more plausible, surely? And I saw him yesterday. I used some of those techniques, the cognitive interview techniques.’

‘Did you now?’ He didn’t try to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

‘Yes. There were things that he’d not remembered before and odd things that didn’t fit.’ I pictured the house in darkness, the unlocked door, the car – still warm to the touch. ‘I wanted to ask you: the man he passed, the one who never came forward – could it have been Nick Dryden? Charlie’s ex-business partner.’

There was a pause. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘could have been. Could have been the Count of Monte Cristo, an’ all.’

‘Had you an alibi for Dryden? Did you speak to him?’

‘No. The man had gone to ground.’

‘How hard did you look, once Damien was in the frame?’

The pause went on longer. I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark.

‘It wasn’t deemed to be a productive use of resources. I’d say that’s still the case,’ he said crisply.

My mind went back to the car. Charlie driving out there, too fast. He always broke the speed limit. His one flaw, according to Libby. A new idea came to me. Could he have upset someone with his speed? An encounter with another motorist turning to road rage. The other driver following him to the cottage. An altercation, a knife on the counter. I clutched at my head trying to concentrate, grasp the whole picture.

‘What if,’ I said to Sinclair, ‘and this is off the top of my head, Charlie had cut someone up on his way out there. He always drove too fast…’

‘Sounds like a fairy tale.’ He was dismissive. ‘An imaginary traffic incident, an imaginary unknown attacker. We work with facts, we follow the evidence.’

‘Who else had any motive?’ I asked. ‘Heather Carter, but she was with Valerie Mayhew all afternoon – unless she got Valerie to lie for her. They are friends. Valerie is… formidable,’ I chose the word with care ‘… but she’s straight as a die. I can’t see her flouting the law at all – not even a parking ticket. She’d risk her whole reputation.’

‘We could corroborate their accounts,’ Geoff Sinclair said flatly. ‘Phone records. There were calls made from the Carter house that afternoon. Third parties who could confirm that they spoke with Heather.’

‘Could she have hired someone?’

‘A hit man?’ he scoffed. ‘There were no financial irregularities, no lump sum payments to suggest anything like that, and no phone traffic between Heather Carter and persons known to the police. All these things were checked. We did our homework.’ Which put me in my place?

‘But maybe not on Nick Dryden,’ I countered.

‘I wish you luck,’ he said dryly and hung up.

I was in the drive, emptying the rubbish into the wheelie bin when Ray arrived back. I saw him first, head lowered so his black curls hung over his face obscuring his expression, hands shoved in his pockets.

I froze. He sensed me and looked up, his face bleaching. He walked down the drive and I stopped breathing, felt the blood slow in my veins.

‘Jamie’s not Laura’s,’ he said quietly, his face looking tired, old.

My heart bucked with elation. I gasped with relief. Why wasn’t he smiling? ‘So, it was all a mix-up?’ I asked him. ‘She never was pregnant?’

He blinked and stretched his head back, his Adam’s apple prominent against the column of his neck. ‘She was,’ he said and ran a hand through his hair. I glimpsed the paler skin on his wrist, the tracery of veins.

‘She was?’ I echoed, my voice wavering.

Ray looked down at the ground, nudged his shoe against a piece of loose concrete there.

‘Ray?’

A magpie screeched high in the eucalyptus tree, then I heard the clatter of its flight.

‘She has a boy,’ he said. He glanced up briefly; a look of sadness shadowed his features. ‘My son, Oscar.’ He swung his head away and I saw his nose redden.

‘Ray.’ I moved in towards him, releasing my hold on the bin bag but he shook his head. ‘Later. OK?’ He walked away.

I stared at the black bag at my feet, the stew of eggshells and packaging and scraps, the rubbish of our lives blurring in my eyes.

Waiting for the computer to boot up, I picked over Ray’s news, still astounded at the very fact of it. How could we not have heard? Manchester may be the country’s second city but it’s more an urban village than an anonymous metropolis. People talk, natter, gossip. Circles overlap. Everyone knows someone in common; six degrees of separation becomes three. Laura only lived a couple of miles away. How long did she think she could keep it a secret from Ray? Why did she?