Neil White: DEAD SILENT

She put her coat onto the back of the sofa. ‘I like your house,’ she said, looking around. ‘I’ve always wanted a house like this. Cosy and dark.’

I smiled to show that I knew what she meant. The windows to the cottage were small, like jail views, the sunlight not penetrating far into the room, only enough to catch the dust-swirls and light up the table in the corner where I write up my stories.

‘We like it,’ I said, putting a pad of paper on my knee, a pen in my hand. ‘And if we’re talking home life, where do you live?’

‘Just a small flat in Blackley,’ she said. ‘Nothing special.’ She went to get another cigarette out of her packet, and I noticed a tremble to her fingers. I gave a small shake of my head, and so she put the cigarette away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude, but I’m a bit nervous.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘Just tell me why you’re here.’

Susie smiled and looked embarrassed. The powder on her face creased and, as she showed her teeth, I saw a smudge of pink lipstick on the yellowed enamel. I’d guessed Susie’s age at over sixty when she’d first arrived, but she seemed younger now that she was out of the sunlight. She sat forward and put her bag on her knee. She looked like she was unsure how to start. I raised my eyebrows. Just say it , that was the hint.

‘It’s about Claude Gilbert,’ she blurted out.

I opened my mouth to say something, and then I stopped. I looked at her. She didn’t laugh or give any hint that it was a joke.

‘I’ve met Claude Gilbert,’ she said.

‘The Claude Gilbert?’ I asked, and I couldn’t stop the smile.

Susie nodded, and her hands tightened around the handles on her handbag. ‘You don’t look like you believe me.’

And I didn’t.

Blackley was famous for three things: cotton, football, and for being the home of Claude Gilbert, a barrister and part-time television pundit who murdered his pregnant wife and then disappeared. It was the way he did it that caught the public imagination: a blow to the head and then buried alive.

‘Claude Gilbert? I haven’t heard that name in a while,’ I said, and then I tried to let her down gently. ‘There are Claude Gilbert sightings all the time. And do you know what the tabloids do with them? They store them, that’s what, just waiting for the quiet news days, when a false sighting will fill a page, the same old speculation trotted out. Newspaper offices are full of stories like that, guaranteed headlines, most of it padding. Ex-girlfriends of Ian Huntley, old lodgers of Fred West, all just waiting for the newspaper rainy day.’

‘But this isn’t just a sighting,’ she said, frustration creeping into her voice. ‘This is a message from him.’

‘A message?’

She nodded.

That surprised me. From Claude Gilbert? I looked at her, saw the blush to her cheeks. I wasn’t sure if it was shame or the walk up the hill. The Claude Gilbert story attracted attention-seekers, those after the front-page spot, but Susie seemed different. Most people thought Claude was dead, but no one really knew for sure. If he was alive, he had to come out eventually or be caught. And anyway, perhaps the truth didn’t matter as much with the Claude Gilbert story. A good hoax sighting will still fill half a page somewhere, even if it was only in one of the weekly gossip magazines.

‘Wait there,’ I said, and shot off to get my voice recorder.

Mike Dobson peered into the bathroom, the door slightly ajar. The shower had been running for a long time, and he could see Mary through the steam, her head hanging down under the jets, her shoulders slumped, the water running down her body until it streamed from the ends of her fingers.

He looked away quickly, not wanting to be caught, and leant back against the door frame. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He glanced towards the bed, too large, cold and empty. Was middle-age meant to be this lonely?

But he fought the feeling, tried not to think about it. He knew it would end like it always did: a drive to the back streets, always looking out for the police, then over in an instant, a grope in his back seat, the crinkle of the condom, then quick release; forty pounds gone and just the shameful churn in his stomach as a reminder.

His wife must have sensed his presence, because she shouted out: ‘Close the door.’

He clicked it shut and then returned to the large mirror in the bedroom, a mock-gothic oval. There was a spotlight over it and he stepped back to button his shirt, a white collar over red pinstripe, and put on his tie, not fond of what he saw in the glare. His cheeks were sagging into jowls and the lines around his eyes no longer disappeared when he stopped smiling. He flicked at his hair. It was creeping backwards, showing more forehead than a year ago, and some more colour was needed—the grey roots were showing through.

He looked towards the window as the water stopped and waited for the bathroom door to open. He could see the houses just outside his cul-de-sac, local authority housing, dark red brick and double-glazing, most of the gardens overgrown, with beaten-up cars parked outside and a satellite dish on every house. He had grown up on that estate, but it had been different back then. He wasn’t sure when it had changed. Maybe the eighties, when a generation had got left behind and had to watch as everyone else got richer.

Mike enjoyed the view normally. His house was different, a large newbuild, five bedrooms, the showhome of an estate built on the site of a former warehouse, but they’d had no children, and so four of the bedrooms were either empty or used for storage.

The bathroom door opened. Mary appeared, a large towel wrapped around her body, her face flushed, her hair flat and darkened by the water. She looked down as she walked over to the dresser and started to rummage through her drawers, looking for underwear.

‘Don’t watch me,’ she said, not looking at him.

‘I’m not watching.’

‘You do,’ she said, her voice flat, emotionless. ‘You do it all the time.’

He felt the burn of his cheeks. She had made him feel dirty again. ‘I’m going downstairs,’ he said.

She looked at the floor, her hands still, her body tense, and he could tell that she was waiting for him to leave the room.

‘I’ll make you breakfast,’ he said.

Mary shook her head. ‘I’ve set the table already. I’ll eat when you’ve gone.’

Mike took a deep breath and left the bedroom.

The house was quiet as he walked downstairs. There was a window open and the curtains fluttered as he walked into the living room. Pristine cream carpets, lilies in vases, pale-coloured potpourri in a white dish. The breakfast table was immaculate, as always, with a jug of juice in the centre of the table, cereal in plastic containers and napkins in silver rings; his dining room looked like a seaside guest house. He heard a noise outside and saw a group of smiling children going to school, their mothers exchanging small talk or pushing small toddlers in prams. His house seemed suddenly quiet and empty.

He checked his watch. His first appointment was getting closer. What would Mary do? Another empty day. It had been easier when they were younger, clinging to the hope of children, a family, but that had faded as each month brought bad news. As they’d got older, all her friends had had children and built lives of their own. But they had remained as they were and every day the house seemed to get a little quieter. How had his life got to this?

But he knew why. It seemed like it all came back to that day, when everything had changed for him.

Don’t think about it, he said to himself. He closed his eyes for a moment as the memories filtered back, the familiar kick to the stomach, the reminder. Then he thought he saw her, just for a second, like someone disappearing round a corner. A quick flick of her hair, and that laugh, muffled, her hand over her mouth, like she had been caught out, her delight in her eyes.