Cath Staincliffe: Towers of Silence

He looked at me enquiringly, held out his hand. He had a bushy beard and moustache, grey and brown, like his hair which reached his shoulders and didn’t look as though it ever saw a brush. He had a furrowed, friendly face, a patch of broken veins making each cheek rosy, bright seaside blue eyes, a generous smile. With a plaid shirt, denims and cowboy boots he looked like a country and western fan. We shook hands. “Sal Kilkenny. If you could spare few minutes, I’d like to talk to you about someone who used to come to the centre?”

“Sure.” He turned to the women. “Can you start the windows?”

The small dark haired woman nodded quickly. “Yeah.” The girl beside her, dramatically overweight and with a shy demeanour said nothing.

“Spray a border right along the bottom. Up and down, like mountains. About this high,” he showed them. “We can go in the craft room,” he said to me.

Once seated he listened while I explained the reason for my visit. When I mentioned Miriam Johnstone his eyes softened and he nodded in recognition.

“It was completely out of the blue,” he said when I’d finished. “She was here that morning, smiling and joking, next thing…” He stroked his beard. “It’s hard for those left behind,” he had a soft edge to his voice, a west country lilt, like someone from the Archers . “I’ve worked for most of my life with vulnerable people and sometimes there’s no warning, nothing.”

“And Miriam had been well for some time?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Her death didn’t make sense then, still doesn’t now. I don’t think we’ll ever know what prompted her.”

I murmured my agreement. “I’m trying to find out where she went when she left here. Have you any ideas?”

“No. She usually went home for her lunch, she’d stay here on Tuesdays for the luncheon club. That’s a pensioners group, they have a hot meal in the hall. I could ask around at the Craft Club, you could come and talk to them yourself but it might be easier if I broached it first. It upset everybody and there are some people in the group who might find it very difficult to be reminded of it again.”

I asked him to do that and gave him my card. “I can pop back in, if you could ring me and let me know who I can talk to.”

“Will do.”

He accompanied me back into the foyer.

“Lovely ceramics,” I pointed to the still life.

He smiled, creases fanned the outside of each eye. “Craft Club’s own work. We get an artist in every so often for special projects.”

“Connie said you’d got Lottery money.”

“That’s what built this place. Before we had an old prefab. Leaked like a sieve, break-ins twice a week. All the money went into shoring the place up. And it wasn’t very attractive. Now we can concentrate on the activities.”

“You run the centre?”

“In effect but there’s a management committee of users and funders, they’re officially in charge. They employ me and we’ve Sharon half-time.” He nodded at the woman at reception. “This area was crying out for a decent place where people could meet. You can’t talk about community if there’s nowhere for people to gather.”

He was obviously passionate about the place.

“It’s great.”

“Have you signed our petition?”

“No.”

“The council are talking about cutting back on our core funding, just as we’re getting sorted out, we’re asking them to reconsider… if you…”

“Yes.”

He gestured towards Sharon. “Over here.”

I followed him across, read the text of the petition to make sure I agreed and then added my name and address to the list.

“Withington,” he noted. “I was there for a bit when I first moved here. Do you know Lausanne Road?”

“By the library?”

“Yep. But the lads next door were up all hours, drugs I reckon. I’ve got a nice place in Cheadle now.”

“Quieter,” I smiled.

There was a commotion at the entrance.

“That’ll be the Tai Chi group. Villains the lot of them.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” I smiled.

I made my way out against the flow of elderly people who were streaming into the hall and joshing each other in loud voices. Outside I waited while the two minibuses that had brought them turned and left, before I could drive out.

Had Miriam gone home for lunch that day? Her house in Heald Place was a few minutes from the centre. According to the police her neighbours hadn’t seen her that lunchtime but it was part of my job to double check the facts. It wouldn’t be the first time that a second look revealed new information.

“No, I bloody-well didn’t,” Mr Jones, Miriam’s neighbour, was emphatic and obviously disgruntled at being interrupted. He wore a stained sky blue pullover stretched tight over a large round belly and tweed trousers. He had several badly drawn tattoos on his fingers and forearms. He smelt rank.

“Did you know Mrs Johnstone?”

“Not to speak to.”

“Can you remember when you last saw her?”

“No, I bloody can’t.”

I was relieved to get away and took a couple of gulps of cold, damp air to replace the nauseating smell.

I tried the neighbour on the far side.

Mrs Boscoe invited me in and made me tea. Miriam had been a good neighbour ‘God rest her soul’. She hadn’t seen her that Thursday, she’d told the others, she’d seen her the day before, the Wednesday, just to say hello. Both getting home at the same time, coming down in stair rods so they didn’t linger. She missed her. Missed them all. Roland used to help her, anything heavy to move. Always polite. Brought them up so nice, Miriam did, not like some these days.

I left her my card in case anything else occurred. At the doorway she asked, “What is it you’re actually doing? Is it for the insurance?”

“No, for the family. I’m just trying to find out where she was that afternoon.”

“Oh. Well, if she had been home Roland would have seen her, wouldn’t he?”

“Roland?”

“I think it was Roland. He plays the music loud, rap music he calls it, but if it’s not late I don’t bother, you’ve got to get along with people haven’t you.”

“That Thursday, you heard it?”

“I think so,” she looked uncertain. Pulled a face in concentration. “It wouldn’t have been after then,” she rationalised, “what with…” she let the sentence hang.

“What time?”

She thought again. “The news was on, the lunchtime news. Because I had to turn the sound up. I remember that,” she dipped her chin decisively.

“But it could have been another day? The Tuesday or Wednesday?”

“You’ve got me thinking now. I couldn’t put my hand on the Bible and swear to it.” She looked anxious.

“Don’t worry. If you remember anything else just give me a ring.”

She promised she would.

“You never mentioned this before?” I asked her.

“It never occurred to me. It’s not important is it?”

“No,” I reassured her.

But I had the impression that Martina and Roland had been out all day. Had I just leapt to conclusions? And like Mrs Boscoe said, it wasn’t important. Or was it?

Next to the loathsome Mr Jones’ was a classic Manchester corner shop. Grills on the windows, plastered with adverts for cigarettes and the Evening News . Open eight till late. Prices might be higher but if all you wanted was a pint of milk, a loo roll, a can of dog food or ten Bensons then it beat the nearest huge supermarket hands down.

I introduced myself to the middle-aged Asian man at the counter and told him my business. “Very nice lady,” he said. “She got her papers here and my daughters are at school with Martina. We were very sad. Terrible thing.”