Kate Atkinson - Started Early, Took My Dog

‘Oh yeah,’ Barry said. ‘I can do something.’

As he climbed wearily back into his car, Barry wondered if the great and the good would be raising a glass to Rex Marshall before the night was over. Maybe before the ‘seventies disco’ started.

They’d all been there at that New Year do in the Metropole, Eastman in his pomp, Rex Marshall, Len and Alma Lomax, Ray Strickland and his odd little wife, Margaret, the Winfields.

Ian Winfield might still be alive. Barry didn’t know if anyone had heard from the Winfields after they decamped to New Zealand. He hadn’t thought about the Winfields in a long time. Kitty Winfield. Ian Winfield. He found himself falling down a long black tunnel and came out in the past. C an I get you anything, Constable? Barry, isn’t it?

Carol Braithwaite rising. Rising, rising.

1975: 21 March

Barry lit up a fag. He was sitting in his car outside the Winfields’ house. Very nice house. Barry couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live in a house like this, to live in Harrogate, the capital of northern posh. He should bring Barbara to Harrogate. If he could ever pluck up the courage to ask her out. He was going to ask her to go to the flicks with him. Barbara was very sophisticated compared to most of the girls he knew, always immaculately turned out. ‘She’ll spend all your money, a girl like that,’ his mother said.

He had no idea what Strickland was playing at. Rambling on about how his car was in the garage for its MOT so he didn’t have any wheels, could Barry pick him up? Barry didn’t see what was stopping him getting a taxi. Barry was off duty, just sat down to a big fry-up his mother had cooked for him. Wished Ray Strickland didn’t have his home phone number. ‘Not a squad car,’ Strickland said.

Strickland was waiting outside the flats in Lovell Park when Barry drew up in his old Ford Cortina. The Mark 2. A car Barry still remembered with affection over thirty years later.

Strickland was carrying a kiddy, asleep, wrapped in a blanket in his arms. He looked shaky, really shaky. He seemed to be in some kind of stupor. Alcohol, Barry assumed. Everyone knew that Strickland couldn’t hold his drink. Barry opened the back door of the Cortina for him. ‘Boss?’ he said, hoping for an explanation.

‘Just drive, Crawford,’ he said wearily, ‘Harrogate, the Winfields.’ Barry knew who the Winfield couple were. She was glamorous, used to be a model. Barry would give her one any time.

Strickland roused himself as they turned into the Winfields’ street. ‘It’s good of you to do this,’ he said as they came to a stop outside the house. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you kept this between the two of us.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me, boss,’ Barry said. No idea what the secret was, mind you.

‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ Strickland said to Barry as he climbed out of the car, kiddy still asleep in his arms. Again, Barry had no idea what it looked like. Barry watched him walk up the path, ring the doorbell.

He waited ten, fifteen minutes. The front door opened and Ian Winfield came out. Barry rolled down the Cortina’s window and Winfield said, ‘Can I get you anything, Constable? Barry, isn’t it?’ Smooth bedside manner.

Barry wondered what kind of thing was on offer. ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

‘Detective Constable Strickland will be out in a minute,’ Winfield said in the soothing tone you would use to a restless child.

Five minutes later and Strickland was back in the car, even shakier than before. ‘Take me home, Crawford,’ he said. ‘My wife’ll be wondering where I am.’

That was three weeks before they discovered Carol Braithwaite’s body in Lovell Park. They said she’d been lying dead for three weeks. Even Barry could do the maths. Strickland had killed her and taken the kiddy.

( Marjorie Collier’s living room/Int/Night )

Marjorie Collier

Who are you? What are you doing here?

First Thug

We’re looking for Vincent, where is he?

Marjorie Collier

I don’t know, I don’t know where he is.

Second Thug

Do you think we’re stupid, love?

Marjorie Collier

You can’t just barge in here like this. Get out!

First Thug

Not until we see Vince, sweetheart.

I suggest you get your blue-eyed boy

on the blower right now and tell him

his old mum’s going to be taking a trip

down the boneyard if he doesn’t get

back here double-quick.

Marjorie Collier

I will do no such thing.

I didn’t fight Hitler just to give in

to schoolyard bullies like you.

( She looks around, spots the poker by the fireside .)

First Thug (to Second Thug)

Game old bird, isn’t she?

Second Thug (to First Thug)

Stupid old bag, more like.

(to Marjorie) Don’t try and be a heroine, love.

Marjorie Collier (making a grab for the poker)

You don’t frighten me.

( They struggle. First Thug hits Marjorie and throws her to the floor. She hits her head on the fender .)

Not with a bang but a whimper. Director had handed her the script personally, features arranged sympathetically. A notice of execution. Poor old Marjorie Collier was coming to a sticky end. Sticky toffee pudding end.

‘Watch out, Till,’ Julia said as he approached. ‘It looks like he’s bringing you your invitation to board the death ship.’

‘Well, this is it, Tilly darling,’ the director said. ‘The end.’

Now it was Saskia who was treating her like an invalid. She had brought her up a mug of warm milk with honey in it and a plate of digestives, along with her own pashmina which she tucked around Tilly’s shoulders.

‘It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I know when I was killed in that awful car crash in Hollyoaks – my boyfriend was a psycho stalker who was planning on planting a bomb in the church at my funeral – remember that, who could forget? When I first read the script it gave me the real heebie-jeebies, but I was nominated for best actress in a soap, so it all turned out OK in the end. You’ll see, everything will be fine. And anyway, you could do with a good rest, couldn’t you? Not the RIP sort, obviously, just put your feet up for a bit, watch some daytime telly, treat yourself to a visit to a spa.’

Thank goodness Saskia finally ran out of steam and, making a vague gesture towards Tilly propped up on pillows, said, ‘Well, night then.’

‘Night,’ Tilly said, relieved to be able to remove her wig at last.

Saskia couldn’t hide her happiness at the thought of Tilly leaving, she’d already had a guarantee from the production staff that she would never have to share digs with anyone again, although there were rumours that she would be leaving soon anyway. Apparently she was ‘off to LA’ to try her luck. ‘Little fish, big pond,’ Julia said. ‘She’ll drown.’

‘Well, not drown , I hope,’ Tilly said. ‘Just splash about helplessly for a bit.’

Of course, Saskia was so cheerful because her boyfriend was arriving tomorrow night. Not the rugby player, apparently he was yesterday’s news (literally). The new one was ‘a civilian’, which was confusing because he was actually in the army, a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards.

‘Don’t you love a man in uniform?’ Saskia said to Tilly.

The closest Tilly had ever got to a man in uniform was in a production of HMS Pinafore , she’d had rather a nice singing voice in her early days. Funny, she’d forgotten all about that production. Wondered if she could still hit the notes. Saskia’s lieutenant was called Rupert and apparently he came from a very traditional background. This seemed to make Saskia quite anxious. ‘Well, naturally,’ Julia said. ‘Saskia’s a complete cokehead. She’ll never be able to hold it together. She’ll go for lunch at his ma and pa’s country pile and put on her Tara Palmer-Tomkinson accent and a twinset and pearls and then they’ll catch her snorting dope off their posh loo seat or one of their posh loo seats because I’m sure they have more than one.’ Tilly had trouble following Julia sometimes. She didn’t know if it was her poor shrinking brain, or just Julia.