Kate Atkinson - Started Early, Took My Dog

‘Did you know Norah Kendall?’ she asked Harry Reynolds.

‘Oh, Norah,’ he laughed. ‘She was some woman. Good business head,’ he added admiringly. ‘It used to be a different world, didn’t it, Superintendent? Mucky books round the back and men in macs flashing the occasional schoolgirl. Innocence.’ He sighed nostalgically.

Tracy bit down on her response. She didn’t remember the innocence.

‘You can’t tell a good girl from a prostitute these days,’ Harry Reynolds said. ‘They all dress like they’re on the game, act like it too.’

‘I know,’ Tracy said, surprised to find herself agreeing with someone like Harry Reynolds. But it was true, you looked at young girls, crippled in heels, dressed like hookers, stumbling around pissed out of their brains on a Saturday night in Leeds town centre and you thought, did we throw ourselves under horses for this, gag on forced feeding tubes, suffer ridicule, humiliation and punishment, just so that women could behave worse than men?

‘They’re worse than the blokes these days,’ Harry Reynolds said.

‘It’s biological,’ Tracy said, ‘they can’t help it, they’ve got to attract a mate and breed and die. They’re like mayfly.’

‘ O tempora o mores ,’ he said.

‘Didn’t think of you as a classicist, Harry.’

‘I’m like an iceberg, Superintendent. I go deep.’ He bit into a scone with his shiny false teeth and ruminated. ‘Too many people on the planet,’ he said. ‘You cull deer, but you’re not allowed to cull people.’ It was an unfortunate echo of what Tracy had been thinking a moment ago. It sounded more fascist coming from his mouth than it had in her mind.

Had Harry Reynolds had people murdered? Tracy wondered. Possibly. Did that bother her? Not as much as it should have done.

‘I see our friend Rex Marshall finally found the eighteenth hole,’ Harry Reynolds said.

‘Not my friend,’ Tracy muttered, her mouth full of carbohydrate. ‘Not yours either, I wouldn’t have thought.’

‘Members of the same golf club,’ he said. ‘It’s like being in the Masons. Lomax, Strickland, Marshall, they all enjoyed having a round with yours truly. Even Walter Eastman in his day.’

‘I don’t know why I’m surprised.’ Tracy swallowed the last of the scone and said, ‘Harry?’

‘Superintendent?’

‘Remember 1975?’

‘Cricket World Cup came to Headingley in the June. Australians against us. England all out for ninety-three. West Indies beat them in the final. Say what you like about the blacks, they can play cricket.’

‘Yeah, well, apart from that. Do you remember the murder of a woman called Carol Braithwaite?’

‘No,’ he said, gazing out at his fish. ‘I’m afraid I don’t. Why?’

‘Nothing. Just wondering.’

The kid had already hoovered up her juice and two scones and was looking slightly more animated. Her silver tiara had tilted and her mouth was smeared with raspberry jam. The wand was resting on the sofa next to her. She made fists with her hands and then opened them up into stars. This seemed to be the ultimate sign of approval. She picked up the wand again, returned to duty.

‘Careful with that,’ Harry Reynolds said, smiling indulgently. ‘Don’t want you casting any spells.’

Courtney stared at him.

‘She’s a right chatterbox, isn’t she?’ Harry Reynolds said. ‘She’s all there, is she?’

‘Of course she is,’ Tracy said crossly. She dabbed at the raspberry jam on Courtney’s face with a tissue, to no effect. There were also archaeological remnants of tuna roll, doughnut and chocolate. Tracy realized that when she was in the supermarket again she would have to take it to the next level. Wet Wipes.

‘So… long time no see, Superintendent,’ Harry Reynolds said. ‘Both civilians now, eh? Another scone?’

‘No, thanks. Well, maybe. Go on then. Are you really out of the game, Harry?’

‘I’m over seventy,’ Harry Reynolds said. ‘My wife died since I last saw you. Cancer. I nursed her to the end, died in my arms. But I can’t complain, I’ve got a wonderful daughter, Susan, and the grandkids stay over all the time. I spoil them rotten, but why not? Used to be different in my day, a clip round the ear and bread and dripping for your tea if you were lucky…’

Tracy could feel herself nodding off. Wondered if Harry Reynolds would mind – wondered if he’d even notice – if she were to lie down on his bigger-than-a-cow sofa and have a little snooze.

‘… and, of course, they come every Sunday for a big roast, all the trimmings. I like to make a proper pudding – fruit pie, steamed sponge, jam roly-poly. Hardly anyone does that any more, do they? Yorkshire puddings – who makes them any more?’

Tracy could almost smell the scent of fatty roasting meat and overcooked vegetables. For a second she was back in the bungalow in Bramley, the dead air of Sunday mornings, her mother ‘partaking’ of a small schooner of sherry.

‘You used to think of Sunday lunch as an immovable feast,’ Harry carried on. ‘Time immemorial, you didn’t think it would be replaced by a pizza or takeaway from the Chinky. No wonder this country’s going to the dogs.’

Tracy bit into another scone to keep herself awake. She felt as if she’d accidentally wandered into the middle of a Werther’s Original advert. Did all criminals turn soft if they survived to old age? (Did police detectives? Probably not.) Maybe they could just move in with Harry Reynolds now that he’d transformed from career criminal into twinkly – albeit fascist and racist – granddad. How many bedrooms in this house? Four at least. Plenty. They could make themselves scarce at the weekends, or Courtney could stay and play with Brett and Ashley.

‘Is this your kiddy?’ Harry Reynolds asked. The tone was off-hand, pleasant, but suddenly there was less of the whole twinkling thing going on.

‘I’m here on business,’ Tracy said.

‘I thought you said you were retired, Superintendent.’

‘Different kind of business,’ Tracy said.

The shopping they had bought this morning in the supermarket was still in the boot of the Audi. Tracy imagined anything fresh in there slowly rotting, turning to mush in the plastic bags. It was mostly stuff to take with them to the holiday cottage. Self-catering – you always bought five times what you needed. No way was she cooking tonight.

‘Let’s go out for our tea,’ she said to Courtney once they were both strapped in the Audi. Courtney nodded, kept on nodding. A nodding dog. ‘You can stop now,’ Tracy advised her. The nodding slowed down. Stopped.

Before setting off Tracy listened to her voicemail, dreading bad news from Barry. Message one. It’s Barry,Tracy. There’s been a bloke down the station looking for you. Says you’ve been left money in a will by an aunt in Salford. I know you don’t have an aunt in Salford or anywhere else so I don’t know what his game is . Message two. Barry again. Says his name’s Jackson something or other. Mean anything to you? Give us a call . Message three. Claims he’s a private detective. Think he’s lying. He’s staying at the Best Western, the one next to the Merrion Centre. He gave me his card but I’ve lost it .

Nobody could invest the words ‘private detective’ with as much scorn as Barry. Jackson? Name meant nothing at all to her. Was he after the kid? Had he been sent to get her back? She was going to give him a wide berth whoever he was.

There was a grey Avensis flitting in and out of the rear-view mirror. Tracy was sure it was the same car that had been parked near them in the supermarket. She’d noticed it because of the pink rabbit hanging from the rear-view mirror. ‘Air-freshener bunny’. Bloody stupid thing, she’d been given one by her ‘secret Santa’ last year. Secret Santas and vice didn’t go together somehow. The Avensis disappeared from view. Could it be the Jackson bloke?