Cath Staincliffe: Towers of Silence

“That’s ages.”

“Well, you’re off to Ireland tomorrow…”

“Back Thursday, then Bristol, there’s a couple of nights after that, I don’t go to Iceland till the 20th.”

She survived by combining her own art work with commissions and running workshops and courses. She’d had a burst of success in the last eighteen months and was enjoying the chance to exhibit more widely and to develop new projects. The Iceland work sounded wonderful, a winter school entitled Ice, Glass and Ink. People were to spend Christmas week in the land of reindeers working on sculptures, stained and etched glass, print and paint with several European tutors. Diane was the Ink woman. In between classes there’d be the northern lights, skating and sleigh rides, and a traditional Icelandic feast for Christmas. Certainly sounded more fun than turkey and tinsel.

“I’ll ring you,” she said, “we’ll do one of those nights.”

In the hall she wriggled into a cycling cape and switched her bike lights on. Digger hovered nearby on the off-chance that a walk was coming. Futile hope. I could see he knew this too by the half-hearted thump of his tail. Ray equalled walkies, no one else. I held him back while Diane manoeuvred her bike out and down the steps. It was truly wet. Manchester does rain in a thousand varieties; this was the heavy sort, large, fat, plopping drops, drenching everything. Filling the potholes in the road, the gutters and the drains, saturating the grass and the gardens, drumming incessantly on the roofs and windows, making the red brick and slate slick and shiny, raising the level in the canals, swelling the banks of the River Mersey.

You can’t live in Manchester and not know rain.

I listened to it in bed. Heard the board by the roof rattling too. Tried to imagine living somewhere dry; East Anglia, the Sierra Madre, Nevada. Parched. Day after day. Clear skies. Wind and sand and dust, cracking and bleaching and desiccating everything. Wouldn’t you long for rain, crave a sky of leaden cloud, the deluge, the fresh scents after the rain had been? The cleansing power. Wouldn’t you pray for rain? Well, maybe.

First thing Monday morning my potential client, worried mother, rang back.

“I’ve tried to talk to him,” she said. “It was hopeless. ‘I’m all right’, that’s all he would say, ‘don’t worry’.” She sighed. “How can I not worry? I just can’t get through to him. I want you to find out what he’s up to.”

“Fine. I’ll need some more details.” I remembered she didn’t drive. “Is it easier if I come to you?”

“Yes.”

“This morning? Tomorrow?”

“This morning, yes.” Relief in her reply

“I didn’t take your name before.”

“Susan, Susan Reeve.”

“And the address?”

I recognised the street name. It was in Burnage, only a few minutes’ drive away. We agreed to meet in an hour’s time.

I packed my bag so I could go from my meeting with Mrs Reeve on into town. To the car park where Miriam had died. As well as paper, pens, copies of a contract, money and keys, I put in my mobile, the photograph of Miriam Johnstone, a camera and a small cassette recorder. I checked that I had plenty of my business cards on me too.

I drove up the road to the centre of Withington where my local shops are, parked behind Somerfield and went to get photocopies done of the picture. Every window shouted Christmas and even the pet shop was in on the act with a display of gifts for dogs, cats, rabbits and hamsters. The shops teeter on the edge of survival, partly due to the plethora of big supermarkets within a couple of miles but Withington, though it has its share of students who come and go, is a long-established community and there always seems to be just enough trade to keep the modest high street from closing down completely. The library sits at one end of the main drag and what used to be the local cinema at the other – until competition from the multi-screen complexes put it out of business. There’s a popular swimming baths nearby which the council are always trying to rationalise by shutting one of the pools and which the people of the area fight for fiercely. With a couple of parks in the neighbourhood and reasonable schools Withington has enough basic facilities to make it a good place to be with small children. Not much going for the older ones though and consequently there was always a lot of youth crime reported on the Old Moat estate, near to the village.

Adam Reeve’s home was in Burnage, another area with a rough reputation and the place where Oasis brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher grew up. A half a mile or so west of Withington and across Kingsway, the large dual carriageway, most of Burnage is a large traditional council house estate with pockets of privately built semis. Burnside Drive was private housing, the houses were an unusual design, chalet style roofs reminiscent of gingerbread cottages swept right down to either side of the ground floor bay window. The bottom half of the house was brick, the top rendered in cream and black, the roof red tiles. I parked outside the house and rang the bell. It echoed ding-dong inside.

Susan Reeve answered the door. Short and slim, long brown hair streaked with grey. She wore thick glasses which magnified her grey eyes. She had a long face, a sharp nose, a thin mouth with a cold sore on her upper lip.

“Come in. Would you like a drink?”

“Coffee, please. No sugar.”

“You don’t mind the kitchen,” she asked, “only it’s warmer in here at this time of day.”

It was. Warm and cheerful and shabby round the edges. A country feel with lime-washed wooden units, yellow walls with paper peeling in places, and apples and pears on the curtains. I sat at the circular pine table while she made our drinks. The only indication that she was partially sighted was in the fluid movements her hands made as she found and used mugs, coffee and milk. She had biscuits too. Home made.

“The twins made them,” she said. “Rachel and Rebecca. They’re seven and baking is this month’s fad.”

“Great.”

“I think it’s the mess they like,” she said, “plus the chance to eat biscuits all day.”

“So you’ve three children?”

“Four. Penny is eleven. We’re a bit cramped. You can only just get a bed in the little bedroom, that’s Adam’s. And Penny gets sick of sharing with the twins. If we could only build an extension but…” She shrugged.

I sorted out my pen and paper and told her I’d brought a contract along. Would she be able to read it?

She had a magnifying glass and scanned the print nodding when she’d finished. It wasn’t a complicated document but it served to establish that someone had hired me and would pay me the set rate. It also included a confidentiality clause and a disclaimer. So no one could start throwing lawsuits my way if my investigations opened up a Pandora’s box. It happens. God, it happens.

“I sign here?”

“And here.”

Formalities over, I turned my attention to her problem.

She’d told me most of the situation over the phone. I checked further details and established that Adam was at Parrs Wood Sixth Form College taking A levels in Geology, Geography, Spanish and English. His school career had started brightly and he’d been doing well on transfer to High School. He’d attended Burnage Boys but a prolonged bout of bullying had seen him move to Parrs Wood High for his GCSE years. He’d worked hard and achieved respectable grade. Things had deteriorated rapidly in the time he’d been in the Sixth Form.

“I’ve even asked him if he wants to leave. Get a job instead but he just shook his head.”

“I can follow him to college.” I was thinking aloud and trying to decide how best to allocate my time. “But presumably they can come and go as they please. I could be waiting there all day.”