Kate Atkinson: Started Early, Took My Dog

Len had known . He had known about that kiddy in the flat and left him there.

‘I thought he’d be found,’ Len said. ‘And then, I don’t know, it just became unreal.’ Attempted murder as far as Ray was concerned. He threw up his breakfast when he saw the state of the kid. If he had known he would never in a million years have left that kiddy behind in that place.

Ray had paid a visit to Carol Braithwaite at New Year. He’d been drunk, missing sex with Anthea, unwilling to go back to Margaret, sober and schoolmarmish in her cotton nightdresses. So he had gone to see Lomax’s whore. Never done that before, never been with a prostitute. ‘An uncomplicated fuck,’ he imagined Len saying.

Carol Braithwaite opened the door to him and said flatly, ‘I’m not doing business tonight, go and look somewhere else.’ She looked tired, old before her time. She was holding a little girl in her arms. It seemed wrong that women like her got to be mothers just by opening their legs to any man and his own wife couldn’t get a baby to save her life. He didn’t know at the time that the kiddy was Len’s. No sign of the boy.

‘Fuck off, why don’t you?’ Carol said.

He’d sent Barry Crawford home by then, of course. No hope of getting a taxi in the early hours of 1975. He’d walked all the way home, tail between his legs, and slipped into bed next to Margaret. Told her he loved her.

The worst thing wasn’t what happened to the boy, nor was it the fact that Len murdered Carol Braithwaite or that Eastman helped cover it up. The worst thing was that when Ray whisked the little girl away – stole her, really – and he was sitting in the back of Crawford’s Cortina he realized they were driving past his own house. There was a light on downstairs, Margaret waiting up for him probably, sitting there knitting, listening to the radio. She preferred the radio to the TV. He could have pulled into his own driveway, rung his own doorbell and given the best gift possible to his own wife. But he hadn’t done that, he’d given that little girl to Kitty Winfield instead. And the boy. He could have saved that little boy, brought him up as his own. Two chances, both lost.

Barry thought he would puke when he went into that flat. He hadn’t thought of anyone actually being dead in there, he just thought Strickland had taken the kid. But when he saw the little boy, he realized that he had been left behind that night. Imagined what his own mother would have to say about that. She loved kiddies, couldn’t wait for Barry to get wed and become a father. Eastman had called him. Told him to help clean up the mess. Didn’t say who had made the mess but it was pretty obvious to Barry that it was Ray Strickland.

She was sleeping peacefully. He watched the rise and fall of her chest. She was never going to wake up, never going to be Amy again. She would have hated to be here like this, would have begged Barry to put an end to it. The last thing you would ever wish for your child turned out to be the one thing you had to do. He took the pillow from beneath her head and held it over her face. ‘I love you, pet,’ Barry said. He tried to think of something else to say, something bigger and more important but there wasn’t anything, he’d said the only thing that mattered. He thought that she might struggle but she didn’t. The only difference when he took the pillow away was that her chest no longer rose and fell.

He felt empty of everything now. It was a good feeling. He checked his watch. Twelve o’clock. Ivan was getting out of Armley Jail at one. He’d better get a move on. Barry felt the heft of the gun in his pocket. He liked the feel of it, it put him in control. A Baikal. Gangland gun of choice. Modified in Lithuania, here you pay twenty times what you would for them there, apparently. He’d never actually seen one before. This one was courtesy of Harry Reynolds. All these old blokes who wouldn’t give up their thrones. Strickland, Lomax, Harry Reynolds.

He’d picked it up on his way over. Found Harry Reynolds fumbling with a black tie. ‘Arthritis in the thumbs,’ he said. ‘What do they say – old age doesn’t come by itself.’The house smelled of apple pie. Harry gave him the Baikal and Barry gave him an envelope. ‘Get that to Tracy, will you?’ he said.

‘You could have given it to her yourself if you’d been here earlier. She’s in the wind now.’

‘Good. How much do I owe you for the gun?’

‘Treat it as a gift, Superintendent Crawford. A thank-you for the neglect you’ve shown me over the years.’

He left Amy’s room and didn’t look back. How could you look back? You couldn’t. One to the head, one to the heart. Bang bang.

‘Ivan,’ he said. Ivan stared at him, deer in the headlights, for a moment Barry thought he was going to turn round and run away. Or thump on the door of the prison and beg the wardens to let him back in.

‘Barry,’ Ivan said.

There you go again, Barry thought, calling him Barry. He felt the gun in his pocket. Barry took his hand out of his pocket, stuck it out in front of him. Slowly and hesitantly, Ivan took the hand. Shook it.

‘I’m sorry,’ Barry said. ‘I was harsh. My daughter loved you, I should have thought about that more.’

‘You’re apologizing?’ Ivan said uncertainly.

‘That flash-drive you lost? Barbara found it down the back of the sofa after you and Amy had been round for lunch one Sunday. She had no idea what it was, of course, doesn’t know the first thing about computers. I knew it was yours, stuck it in a vase on the mantelpiece. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought, suppose that I’d mess you about. I didn’t know it had all your clients’ details on it, that it was important.

‘Barbara didn’t tell me what happened,’ he continued, ‘I just thought the business had gone down. She didn’t tell me why, thought I’d think you were even more of an incompetent pillock than I already did. Mind you, you are an incompetent pillock,’ Barry added. He wasn’t a man for unqualified grovelling. ‘But,’ he said, ‘you didn’t deserve what happened.’

‘None of us did,’ Ivan said.

Barry got back in the car and drove away. Not interested in a dialogue. He didn’t tell Ivan that Amy had gone for good. Ivan could start again. Barry couldn’t. But first he had a funeral to attend.

Rex Marshall’s funeral was in the crematorium. The place was stuffed to the gunnels with the great and the good come to say goodbye to him. The coffin was the centrepiece, his gleaming police medals laid out on top of it. Wreaths and bouquets all lined up at the entrance to the chapel. Barry caught the scent of freesias, turned him funny for a second. He could see Ray Strickland standing at a lectern giving the eulogy – ‘… a senior policeman who never lost the common touch, a man of the people…’ Blah, blah, blah . The usual shit. Ray hesitated when he caught sight of Barry standing in the doorway.

Overweight men in expensive suits, underweight women in the kind of clothes Barbara would like to be able to afford, they all turned to look at what had made Ray stop mid-sentence. Barry caught sight of Harry Reynolds in the back row. Paying his respects. Making a point of not looking at Barry as he barged into the chapel and, marching up to the coffin, rapped on it hard with his knuckles. ‘Knock, knock,’ he said, ‘is there anybody there?’ A murmur of distress rose up from the people closest to the coffin.

‘Just checking,’ Barry said to a stout woman who was clutching a photocopied programme for the service. He grinned at her and she shrank from him in horror. He wrestled the programme from her hands. Order of events. It was cheap and flimsy, like something an amateur theatrical company would produce. On the cover there was a photograph of Rex Marshall in his prime. Barry tapped the photograph and said conversationally to the stout woman, ‘He was a right bastard. But then takes one to know one, that’s what they say, eh?’