Хилари Боннер - No Reason To Die

Mrs Slade’s home turned out to be a flat above a chip shop in what Kelly reckoned must surely be the most unattractive part of a town, which, with its towering central buildings and lack of any discernible sense of identity, he considered to be altogether thoroughly unappealing.

Kelly rang the bell four times before Margaret Slade finally answered. He had felt it in his bones that she was inside. And he would have stood leaning on the doorbell for the rest of the day, if necessary. He wasn’t giving up. This was getting important.

The woman who eventually answered the door looked wan, pale and shaky, her wispy, obviously dyed, reddish-brown hair framing an unnaturally white face. It took Kelly five seconds to realise that she was drunk, even though it was still quite early in the day, not long after two in the afternoon. But this was not the sort of drunkenness you associate with closing time in a pub or the end of a wild party. This was the drunkenness of a seasoned alcoholic. And Kelly recognised it instantly. He’d had plenty of experience, after all. Alcoholism, he suddenly suspected, had been the mystery illness Craig Foster didn’t tell his parents about, and quite possibly hadn’t been told about himself by Jossy.

Margaret Slade looked at him with unseeing eyes, as he greeted her courteously.

‘I don’t buy or sell anything at the door and you’ve got no chance at all of converting me to any religion that’s ever been invented,’ she said. She stood holding onto the door and swaying very slightly along with it, as it moved on its hinges.

He grinned.

‘I’m not buying or selling, and I’m certainly not preaching,’ he replied.

‘Ah.’ He could see that she was finally focusing on him, albeit with some difficulty, as if considering the situation. She looked puzzled. ‘I must have paid the rent,’ she went on. ‘It goes straight out of my social.’

She frowned at him, in considerable bewilderment, it seemed. Kelly didn’t say anything.

‘And Michael’s just turned seventeen, he doesn’t have to go to school.’

She leaned a little closer to Kelly and he was engulfed in a cloud of stale alcohol. But he didn’t mind much. Kelly was a bit like a reformed smoker who gets at least some kind of kick out of inhaling other people’s smoke. It was sad, he knew, but even old and second-hand alcoholic vapours were not totally repugnant to him.

‘So, who the fuck are you?’ she asked. And then, before giving him the chance to reply, continued with: ‘I don’t know you, do I?’

Kelly shook his head. ‘It’s about you daughter, Mrs Slade.’

‘My daughter?’ The eyes went blank again, her mouth tightened. ‘I don’t have a daughter. Not any more.’

‘I know. I’d like to talk to you about her death—’

‘You’re from the army,’ Margaret Slade interrupted. ‘Well, you can fuck off. I hate the fucking army. I never wanted my Joss to join in the first place, and she’d still be alive too, if she hadn’t. I reckon. So go on, then. I’ve told you, haven’t I? Fuck off.’

She pushed the door as if she were about to shut it in his face.

‘No, Mrs Slade, I’m not from the army.’

Margaret Slade wasn’t listening. The door kept closing on him. Kelly put his foot in it. It was a total myth that journalists were always doing that. Kelly could only remember even attempting to do so just once before in his life, and as this time a small rather frail woman was leaning against the door trying to close it, rather than a large fit man, the process was at least not so painful as he remembered it being on the previous occasion.

He went for broke.

‘Look, I think there is a possibility that your daughter was murdered, Mrs Slade,’ he told her through the fast-closing gap between the door and its frame.

He knew he had no right to say that. Not yet, anyway. He had no hard evidence, just a hunch. But he was quite determined to get to talk to Mrs Slade properly. Or, as properly as her condition would allow. And he suspected that only shock tactics would work with her.

He felt the pressure on the door lessen. Margaret Slade eased away a little, releasing her hold on the door, and he took the opportunity to step inside, closing the door behind him.

‘So who are you, then?’ she asked.

‘I’m just a man who doesn’t like lies and cover-ups,’ he said, realising that he sounded rather trite and pretentious, but he couldn’t help it. And, strangely enough, it was pretty much the truth.

He explained to her straight away, and as best he could, exactly who he was and how he’d got involved.

‘This Alan Connelly, when did you say he died?’

‘Just four days ago.’

‘Four days ago,’ she repeated carefully.

‘That’s three, then,’ she went on, after a small pause.

‘I didn’t realise that you knew about Craig Foster,’ responded Kelly.

‘Craig Foster, the lad Jossy was going out with? I don’t know anything about him at all. What’s happened to him, then?’

‘He was killed just weeks after your Jocelyn. A training accident, allegedly. He died of gunshot wounds.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Margaret Slade sounded genuinely upset. ‘He was ever such a nice kid. He and Jossy had only just started going out together. I never met him before... before she died. But he came to the funeral, you know. And he seemed ever so cut up.’

‘Mrs Slade, if you didn’t know about Craig, then what did you mean when you said: “That’s three, then.”’

‘What?’ Now, Margaret Slade just seemed bewildered. Kelly could almost see her brain cells fighting their way through the alcohol. ‘Three? Yes. There was a lad who died at Hangridge a few months before Jossy, I think.’

She paused. Kelly was practically on the edge of his chair, but he said nothing. The news he had given Mrs Slade seemed to have sobered the woman up somewhat. But Kelly didn’t dare push her.

‘Neither Jossy nor Craig would have been there when it happened,’ she continued. ‘And, as far as I’m aware, neither of them even knew about it. The army tend to forget things like that, don’t they? They’re not likely to tell the new recruits about the ones who’ve come to a sticky end, are they?’

Kelly found himself sitting ever closer to the edge of his chair.

‘So what happened to this boy, then?’

‘He killed himself too. Or so they said. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but you begin to wonder...’

‘And how exactly did he allegedly kill himself?’

‘I don’t know. Do you know, I don’t think I ever asked. Now isn’t that extraordinary.’

Kelly didn’t think it was that extraordinary. He reckoned Mrs Slade’s brain would turn on and off according to the amount of alcohol swimming around in her system. She had appeared to be surprisingly lucid through most of their conversation, but then, so did a lot of alcoholics. He doubted she was very often capable of stringing facts together and coming to a conclusion.

‘Who are they ? Who told you about him?’

She looked completely blank.

‘I don’t know, really I don’t,’ she said. ‘It was after the funeral. Another soldier, I think. Not Craig. No, not Craig. Like I said, I doubt he ever knew. An older man. I made a bit of a fool of myself, you see. I’d had a couple, of course. But it wasn’t that. I just broke down that day. I blamed myself...’

She gestured around the flat. Kelly had been so caught up in what she was saying that he had barely taken anything else in. She seemed to be inviting him to look around, so he did.

The place was a tip. The floors were covered in stained carpeting, the walls were so murky it was hard to see what colour they had started out, and there was very little furniture. Instead, boxes were piled against every wall alongside tottering heaps of old newspapers and magazines.