Jim Kelly: Death Watch

‘That’s right, Andy,’ she said. ‘Just leave it.’ She wasn’t being kind, just dismissing him, as if he didn’t count, like naturally small man; a bigger man diminished, shrunk down. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and the muscles swung as he moved, as if they’d almost wasted away. Behind him the dancing boy with the cat mask had detached himself from the party and was standing still, waiting to see what would happen next.

In a cupped hand the man hid a smoking cigarette butt.

‘Andy is Bry’s dad,’ she said, as if he needed an excuse to stand in his own street. But she didn’t take her eyes off Shaw.

‘Bry? What’s up with Bry?’ said Andy Judd. The voice was Irish, but urban — Dublin or Cork.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked Shaw, ignoring him again.

‘Had Bryan ever broken his arm — here?’ Shaw touched his left radius in two places.

The blood drained from her face as she nodded. ‘Fell off his bike — that’s years ago. So what?’

But Shaw could see she was working it out. He gave her a few more seconds.

‘I’m afraid we’re pretty sure Bryan’s been involved in an incident at the hospital, Mrs Judd,’ he said. ‘I’m terribly sorry. He’s gone missing, and a body’s been found. It looks like very bad news. I’m afraid there’s every chance it’s him. I’d be prepared for the worst. We’ll have to try and find a match with his dental records — but that that was the detail that always spoke for itself.

Ally’s hands jumped, but otherwise she didn’t react. Andy Judd almost fell over, quickly rearranging his feet to steady himself, a hand stuck in his hair, trying to comb through.

‘Not Bry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No fucking way.’

‘Shut up,’ she said savagely, as if she’d been waiting years for a chance.

He looked at his feet, instantly diminished.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Shaw.

Her fingers jumped again and Valentine recognized the movement, so he offered her a cigarette. She fished one out of the packet of Silk Cut. Valentine leant forward and lit it for her. She looked pathetically grateful for the courtesy. In the harsh glare from the lighter Shaw could see she wasn’t going to cry; not tonight, not for a long time, and perhaps maybe never.

Andy Judd knelt stiffly beside her on the pavement, but he didn’t touch her.

‘If it is your husband you should know it would have been very quick. He wouldn’t have suffered,’ said Shaw.

Valentine nodded, joining in the ritual round of misplaced comfort. It might have been quick, but it sure as hell hadn’t been painless. He thought of the victim’s charred spine, the wide-open jaws.

‘Jesus,’ said Andy Judd. ‘Did…’ He looked at his daughter-in-law. ‘Did he do for himself?’ He wore a pair of soiled blue overalls and a bib of sweat had formed on his chest.

‘No, we don’t think it was suicide, or an accident,’ said

She looked up then, the hand holding the cigarette vibrating slowly. ‘Someone killed Bry?’

Andy Judd stood, touched his daughter-in-law’s head briefly like a blessing, then turning unsteadily, walked away towards the fire. As he passed the boy in the cat mask he took his hand.

‘Mr Judd,’ said Valentine, taking a step after him.

Ally held up both hands. ‘No, leave him. Please. I’ll answer any questions — just leave him.’

They watched Andy Judd rejoin the group around the fire, a discordant chorus of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ petering out, the figures in the crowd gathering round, forming a tighter knot.

Smoking three more of Valentine’s cigarettes Ally Judd told them the bare details of her husband’s last day alive. Her voice had gone flat, bleached of emotion, and Shaw guessed she’d slipped into the early stages of shock. As soon as they’d got the basics they’d get someone from family liaison to stay with her, and a doctor.

Bryan Judd had got up at ten, she said, and went to pick up his magazine from the corner shop on Carlisle Street. Country amp; Western News . It was usually in on the Sunday, even though Monday was the right day. He’d come back with bacon sandwiches from the van by the new docks and they’d shared them in the shop. That day one of the driers had broken down so he fixed that, then

She covered her mouth as if she’d suddenly remembered something shocking — but it was just the first time the fact that she was alone had really crystallized. She spread her knees, braced her hands on her thighs, and threw up on the pavement.

Valentine got on the radio for the doctor. Shaw put an arm around her. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’

She nodded. ‘There’s a sink at the back of the shop,’ she said in a whisper. ‘If the door’s locked, knock. Neil — Bry’s brother — he’s upstairs.’

The launderette was fetid, damp. A line of silent driers on one side, machines opposite, wooden benches down the middle.

The door to the kitchen at the back was reinforced with iron bars. He shook the handle, playing his torch beam on the lock, but it wouldn’t turn, so he knocked. Outside in the street he heard a cheer, and was thinking how out of place that was, when the floorboards over his head began to creak, then heavy footsteps marked a descent down uncarpeted stairs.

A key turned and the door opened, a young man blinking into the torchlight. ‘Dad?’ The voice was slurred,

Shaw held up the warrant card and spoke clearly. ‘Lynn CID. Your sister-in-law needs your help — she’s outside. She’s had some bad news. A glass of water?’ he asked, trying to look past him.

‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘I’ve been asleep.’ He rubbed his eyes. Shaw noted the stunted consonants, the flat toneless rhythm of the deaf.

‘Neil?’

He didn’t answer. The face held an echo of his father, but was much more delicate, a softer model, a more feminine version.

He stood to one side so that Shaw could see the kitchen in the torchlight. There was a metal sink, a pile of soap powder boxes, conditioner in catering bottles, a workbench and tools. Shaw ran the cold tap and filled a glass. They heard a bottle smash out in the street, then another, and a cheer. No. A jeer this time; angry and jagged. Neil Judd’s head jerked and Shaw guessed he’d picked up the vibration, the shock wave, of the noise outside. He fled through the moonlit launderette in his bare feet.

Shaw followed with the glass of water. But Ally Judd had gone. Valentine was on his mobile. The street was transformed by light — a red, brutal gout of fire already roaring like a flame thrower as it burst through the upstairs bedroom window of a house up the street on the same side.

The crowd in the street was melting into the darkness, retreating inside the Crane, or into the houses, leaving the street empty but strewn with debris — half-bricks, bottles, a few beer cans. Shaw ran out into the middle of the street to get a clear view. Andy Judd was stood in front of the blazing house with his daughter-in-law Ally. Then the downstairs window imploded and they all dived for the road, although Shaw had time to see a head within, glimpsed through the shattered glass, the mouth wide with a scream, quickly engulfed in smoke. But the scream remained, a constant, inhuman note, like a cat under the moon.

Andy Judd was throwing bricks through the shattered window, sobbing, his arms flailing at the flames; Ally was trying to catch at his hand and pull him back from the fire. Shaw ran to help her but the air pressure shifted, his ears popped, and he was knocked to the ground again as the front door imploded, releasing a tongue of fire like a Bunsen burner. By the time he was back on his feet he could see a light fitting melting in the front room, the hanging flex like a fuse, and beyond it the wallpaper peeling back in the heat. A shadow moved, an arm flapping at the corner of a burning curtain, the scream still sustained, cutting through the roar of the fire. The paint on the door was peeling because of the heat inside, the metal number 6 changing colour with the temperature.