Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

It's always someone else they want dead. "He might be," I replied. "Of old age."

I pulled into the nick car park and suggested we have a fairly early night. Dave said: "I could do another window frame round at the mother-in-law's, or I could cut the grass."

"You're spoilt for choices," I commented.

"Or…" he began,"… or I could nip into Leeds after tea and talk to Mr. Alderdice, former student at Leeds University and erstwhile friend of Duncan Roberts."

"Uh-uh," I said, shaking my head.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want your Shirley blaming me for you never being there."

"I can handle her. I'd like to find out about this punk bird, fast as possIt's niggling me."

"I know what you mean," I replied. "Fair enough, you see Alderdice and I'll have a word with Mr. Pretty. That'll be two names fewer to investigate. Do you want to meet in a pub afterwards and compare notes?"

"Er, no, if you don't mind. I know I said I could handle her, but there are limits."

When he'd driven away I locked the car and walked into the town centre and had a teatime special in the Chinese restaurant. I enjoyed it, all by myself, with no one to entertain or worry about. Maybe this was my natural state, I thought.

But I didn't really believe it. Back in the car I rang Jacquie and told her I was on my way to a meeting. We could grab a quick drink later, if she wanted. I moaned about my midge bites and she said:

"Lavender oil."

"Lavender oil," I repeated. "What will that do?"

"It's aroma therapy Lavender oil will cool you down and de-stress you, then you need aloe vera to soothe the damaged tissue. I'll show you, when you come round."

"Ooh! I can hardly wait," I said.

Watson Pretty lived on the edge of Huddersfield town centre, not far from where I did my probationary training. Not much had changed. The main difference was that now both sides of every street were lined with cars; some worth much more than the houses they stood outside, some rusting wrecks standing on bricks, awaiting the invention of the wheel.

The doctor's surgery was in the same place, but with wire mesh over the windows, and the greengrocer's was now a mini-market. I smiled at the memories and checked the street names.

He invited me in, speaking very softly, and told me to sit down. He was wearing pantaloons, a T-shirt with a meaningless message emblazoned across it and modest dreadlocks. He must have been fifty, but was refusing to grow up. The room was overfurnished with stuffed cushions and frills, and primitive paintings of Caribbean scenes on the walls.

At a guess, it had belonged to his mother. He was out on licence, so I knew he'd be no trouble. One word out of place and he could be back inside to serve the rest of his sentence. Well, that's what we tell them.

"I'm looking for a girl," I began. "A white girl with purple hair."

"I know no such girl," he replied.

"How about back in 1975? Did you know her then?"

"No, I not know her."

"You had a girlfriend called Daphne Turnbull."

"Yes."

"She died in a fire."

"Yes."

"And you didn't know a girl with purple hair?"

"Who is she, this girl?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. You remember the fire?"

"I hear about the fire, but I live in Halifax at the time."

He was a founder member of the Campaign for Simplified English. The first rule is that you only speak in the present tense. "With Daphne?"

I asked.

"We live together for a while, but she leave me."

"Why did she leave you?"

He shrugged and half-smiled. "Women?"

"Was her daughter, Jasmine, yours?"

"No."

I'd read the interviews with him and knew he had a good alibi, but he could have hired someone to start the blaze. At the time he'd been my definite number-one suspect, although I'd never met him. Now I wanted to eliminate him, but I still wasn't sure. I rarely have hunches and don't trust my feelings about people. Evidence is what counts. I quizzed him about his relationship with Daphne and kept returning to the girl with purple hair, but he was adamant that he didn't know her.

Talking about the fire didn't disturb him at all. It was just history to him.

I thanked him for his help and left. I'd parked at the top of his street and as I neared the car a woman came round the corner. There are some women you see and you think: Corf She's beautiful; and there are others who deprive you of even that simple ability. You gawp, slack-jawed, and realise you are flat lining but don't care, because this would be as good a time and place as any to drop down dead. Her hair shone like spun anthracite and she wore a white dress with buttons down the front. It was short, above her knees, and the seamstress had been very economical with the buttons. She turned to wait and a little girl with braided hair and a matching dress followed her round the corner, gravely avoiding the cracks between the flagstones.

I mumbled something original and amusing, like: "Lovely morning," and was rewarded with a smile that kicked my cardiac system back into action. In the car I gazed at the digital clock and wondered if there was any hope for me. It was seven forty-three in the evening. I sat for a few seconds, deciding whether to go through the town centre or do a detour, and started the engine. Neither. I did a left down the street parallel to the one Pretty lived in and a left and another left at the bottom of the hill. I pulled across the road and parked.

The woman and her little girl were now coming down towards me. Mum was tiring of the slow progress so she took her daughter's hand and led her for a while. They passed a few gateways then turned into one and mounted the steps. She knocked, the door opened almost immediately and mother and daughter disappeared inside. I stared at the door for a couple of minutes, long enough for a welcoming kiss and for her to settle in the easy chair I'd just left, and pointed the car homewards.

Oh dear, I thought. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

What would I do without Jacquie to come back to? She smiled and kissed me in a mirror-image of the scene I'd imagined forty minutes earlier.

We had coffee and shop-bought cake and talked about our days. One of her assistants was causing trouble and the rents in the mall were going up. I rambled meaninglessly about what went off behind closed doors in this wicked world we lived in.

"You're stressed out," she told me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm not very good company."

"How are the midge bites?"

"Agonising." I smiled as I said it.

She went away for a while and returned carrying a box filled with coloured bottles, like a paintbox. She placed it on the coffee table alongside me and drew a chair up directly in front of mine. "Prince Charles swears by lavender oil," she said.

"Right," I replied. "Right." If it was good enough for him it was good enough for Charlie Priest.

She lit three small porcelain burners about the room and turned the lights low. I relaxed. I had a feeling I was in for a treat. Jacquie sat facing me and took my hand. "First the lavender, to absorb all your stresses," she whispered. I watched her long fingers caress my wrists, her scarlet nails skimming my skin but not touching it. She did my fingers, one by one, and I discovered things about myself that I'd never imagined.

"And now the aloe vera," she said.

I breathed deeply and closed my eyes, and wished this could go on forever. She removed my shoes and socks and stroked my feet, fingertips and exotic oils mingling together so I couldn't tell touch from smell, pleasure from torture, arousal from relaxation. I stopped trying.

"This is where the problem is," Jacquie told me. She was massaging my neck now, harder than before, her thumbs probing muscle, searching for knots. "You're tight here." I let my head loll up and down in agreement. It could have been the most magical evening of my life, but it wasn't. She cured the itching and the stress; all I had now was confusion and frustration.