Neil White - DEAD SILENT

Susie leant forward and was about to say something when she caught my small shake of the head, a warning not to say anything. She looked troubled for a moment, but then she sat back and remained silent.

Laura glanced at me curiously as Bobby ran across the room, pulling on his school coat and grabbing his bag.

‘I’m taking him to school, Jack. I won’t be long.’

I waved as they went, and when we were alone in the house once more, Susie looked at me and asked, ‘Do you keep secrets from her?’

‘Don’t you think I should keep this secret, for your benefit?’

Susie thought about that, and then she nodded her agreement.

My motive wasn’t to protect Susie though. It was to protect Laura, because she is a police officer, a damn good one, honourable and honest. If she heard the story, she would see it as her duty to pass it on. And what if Susie was lying? It would make Laura look stupid.

But, as I looked at Susie and took in the determination in her eyes, I was starting to believe her, and I felt a tremble of excitement at the prospect of the story.

Susie refused my offer of a lift back to Blackley, and so I took her into Turners Fold to catch her bus. As I watched her clatter along the pavement in her heels, a freshly-lit cigarette glowing in her fingers, walking into what counted as rush hour around here—pensioners shuffling to the post office and young mothers meandering home after the school run—I could tell that the big meet-up was going to be on her and Claude Gilbert’s terms. I wasn’t happy about that, but sometimes you’ve just got to roll with the early blows, because in the end the story will come out on my terms.

Once Susie was out of sight, I dialled the number of an old friend, Tony Davies. He had been my mentor when I was a young reporter on The Valley Post , at the start of my career before the bright London lights pulled me in, and was now seeing out his days writing features for the weekend edition.

‘I need help on something,’ I said when he answered. ‘But I need to keep this quiet. Can you come to me? I’m outside. It won’t take long.’

‘Are you still in that red Stag?’

I looked at the dashboard. A 1973 Triumph Stag in Calypso Red. Nothing special in the history of cars, but it had once been my father’s pride and joy, the sports car for the working man. ‘For now,’ I said.

Tony’s phone went dead. I watched the people go by and waited for him to appear.

Turners Fold isn’t large, just a collection of terraced streets and old mill buildings, some derelict, some converted into business units, disused chimneys pointing out of the valley. The town is cut in half by a canal and criss-crossed by metal bridges, and the predominant colour of the town is grey, built from millstone grit blocks, the modern shop fronts squeezed into buildings designed for Victorian England, when the town had hummed to the sound of cotton and was smothered in smoke, the air clean only when the mills shut down for a week in summer and the railway took everyone to the coast.

But it was where I grew up, for better or worse, the town that gave me flattened vowels and a dose of northern cynicism. It seemed to me that Turners Fold deserved better than its lot, its life and character crumbling year by year, because it seemed like the only way to succeed was to leave. Just for a moment, I sensed the shadow of my father. He’d been a policeman in Turners Fold before he died, and he had walked these streets, known everybody’s name, or so it had seemed. What would he have made of Susie Bingham? Not much, was my guess. He had been absorbed by my mother, who was all curls and dark eyes, a natural beauty—although I have to fight to keep that memory, her final year tainted by the cancer that took her away.

I had been back in Turners Fold a couple of years now, but I didn’t feel rooted there. Sometimes I looked for old faces whenever I was in town, old school friends or sweethearts, just to find out where they had gone with their lives, but it seemed like most of the people I saw were just worn down and wondering why their lives had turned out like they had. Then I saw Tony, a shuffle to his walk and a shiny pink scalp heading out of the Post building. He saw me and waved. I leant across the passenger seat to let him in.

‘You’re wearing a jumper, for Christ’s sake,’ I said to him. ‘It’s a bloody heatwave.’

‘Fashion is all about consistency,’ he replied, grinning, showing his buckled front teeth, the result of a bad rugby tackle many years before. ‘Like you, in this car. If you’re trying to remain incognito, this car isn’t the best way.’

‘My father cherished this car,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry, Jack, I didn’t mean—’

‘Don’t worry,’ I interrupted, smiling. ‘I’m thinking of getting rid of it anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘I want someone to look after it properly, like he did. A Sunday polish, a regular service. I don’t do that.’ I tapped the dashboard. ‘I keep it because it was my father’s car, but then I think what he would say if he could see how I drive it, how I don’t wash it enough.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to sell it to someone who’ll treasure it like my father treasured it. That’s what he would have wanted.’

Tony nodded quietly to himself. He had been good friends with my father and I knew that Tony still missed him.

‘So, what can I do for you?’ he asked eventually.

‘Claude Gilbert,’ I said simply.

He flashed me a look, part amusement, part curiosity. ‘What about him?’

‘If I want to find out more about him, who would I speak to?’

‘You’re two years too late with this,’ he said. ‘We did a special on the twentieth anniversary a couple of years ago.’

‘Maybe it deserves another run out.’

He looked at me, surprised. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve got an angle on this,’ he said, his tone suspicious.

‘There’s always a new angle.’

He shook his head. ‘I know you, Jack. I trained you, remember? You don’t chase fairy tales.’

‘I can’t tell you,’ I said. ‘Not yet anyway. I just want to check it out first.’

He considered me for a moment, ran his finger along his lip. ‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘If you really are looking into it, there’s only one man to speak to: Bill Hunter. He was the plod who found the body, but he’s retired now.’

‘Still living the case?’ I queried.

Tony grinned. ‘You can see it in his eyes that it’s the one case that still keeps him awake. He follows it like a religion, keeps every piece written about it, from hoax sightings to alternative theories. He’s not Claude’s biggest fan.’

‘The one that got away?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Where will I find him?’

Tony scribbled down an address. ‘But try the allotment plot just behind your old school first. He’s always there. We used it for the photoshoot a couple of years ago. You know, retired policeman tending his plot. And of course, the digging reference was subtle too.’

‘You reckon?’ I said.

‘There’s nothing new, you know that, don’t you?’ Tony said. ‘We rehashed everything for the anniversary, so I know the Post won’t be interested.’

I looked towards the Post building. ‘Is that place still surviving?’

Tony pulled a face. ‘Not really. The internet is killing us. There are rumours that we’re going to be taken over by one of the big groups, and we’ll just turn out the free papers from there.’

‘You deserve better than that,’ I said. ‘You’re a proper journalist. You taught me my trade.’