Rupert Thomson: Death of a Murderer

As he drove, he glanced at his mobile from time to time, but it stayed quiet. He followed a white van for several miles, the words greyhounds in transit painted on the back. Where was the nearest dog-track? He couldn’t think. The night was bleak and raw. Wind hurling the trees about. It seemed like an eternity since there had been any warm weather, but it was only November.

He yawned loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth. Usually, when he was working a night-shift, he slept from about nine in the morning until three or four in the afternoon, but that day, for some reason, he had woken at one, and even though he felt exhausted he couldn’t seem to fall asleep again. On going downstairs, he had found Sue in the lounge, fitting a photograph of their daughter, Emma, into a frame, and it was then that he told her what he would be doing. Hopelessly mistimed, no doubt, bungled, in fact, but he would’ve had to mention it sooner or later. They’d never kept too many secrets from each other — and besides, it was unusual, wasn’t it? It was like being part of history.

When Sue heard the woman’s name, her reaction was immediate and vehement. “Don’t go, Billy. Stay here, with me.” He was so surprised that he couldn’t think of anything to say — and she was already inventing excuses for him. “You could call in sick. There’s that flu bug going round.” But he hardly ever took time off because of illness — not like his old mate Jim Malone, whose nickname, tellingly, was “Virus”—and anyway, he didn’t feel he could let the sergeant down, not at this late stage. Losing her temper, Sue told him that he only ever thought about himself. He was pig-headed. Blind. She didn’t mind him sitting in a mortuary. He’d done that kind of thing before. What upset her was the contact with evil, the soaking up of some dark influence — the shadow that might cast over their lives. She had always been full of superstition, but where in the past it had been just one aspect of her character, a thread that zigzagged through her, an endearing quirk, now it had become the prism through which she viewed the world, and he began to wish he had dreamed up a decent lie for her, something out of the ordinary and yet believable — a prison riot, a strike, a demonstration. He had been caught off guard, though. He’d been too slow. Once again, she asked him whose body he would be dealing with, obviously hoping that she had misheard or misunderstood, and that he would come up with a different name this time, one that meant nothing to her. When he repeated what he had said, struggling to contain his irritation now—“I already told you, Sue”—she had tugged on his arm, reminding him, uncomfortably, of Emma, and there had been tears in her eyes, something that often happened if she was frightened. He didn’t respond, though, and she whirled away across the room. She stood facing the window, with her hands knotted at her sides. He could see the patch of fuzzy hair at the back of her head, the legacy of a car crash she’d had the year before, and there was a moment when a crack opened in his heart, and he almost went over and took her in his arms. All right, love. I won’t go.

It would have been so easy.

Later, when he was in the kitchen, making his sandwiches, she attacked him again. By that point she had worked herself up into a state of outrage. How could he possibly justify what he was doing? Why was he prepared to put his whole family at risk? What sort of person was he? He couldn’t believe the extent to which she had blown the danger out of all proportion, and yet she spoke with such conviction that he was beginning to doubt himself.

“All I’ll be doing is sitting in a room,” he said.

“Yes, but it’s her, isn’t it?” She wouldn’t say the woman’s name; she didn’t want it in the house. “What she did—” She shuddered. “It’s not healthy to be close to something like that. It’s just not healthy.”

Some thing, he thought. Not some one.

“But she’s dead,” he said.

She shook her head slowly, a gesture she would use whenever he was clearly in the wrong.

“I can’t afford to be superstitious, Sue, not in my line of—”

“I read something in the paper yesterday. Apparently, twenty funeral directors have refused to handle the body. Twenty funeral directors. Now why’s that, do you think? Are they superstitious too?”

“That’s different.”

“And what about the crematoriums? How many of them said no?” She let out a dry laugh. “I’ll be amazed if they manage to dispose of her at all.”

Billy sighed and looked away. In the next room, Emma was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, watching The Sound of Music, the volume turned up far too loud.

“Can you make it quieter, Emma?” he called out, but she didn’t hear him.

Well, perhaps it was for the best, he thought. At least she wouldn’t realise they were arguing.

“It’s not about superstition, Billy,” Sue was saying. “It’s about keeping your distance. It’s about not letting the wrong things rub off on you. You should know all about that. You’re a policeman.”

“I won’t see her,” he said. “I won’t even set eyes on her.”

Sue’s head snapped in his direction, as if he had finally come out with something truly horrific. Her lips tightened and then shrank, and she looked down at the kitchen floor. She seemed to be staring right through the tiles to what lay immediately beneath: the foundations of the house, the dark, damp earth — the end of everything.

“It’s my job,” he murmured.

In the lounge, Julie Andrews was singing that famous song about the hills being alive.

Not long afterwards he had to leave. Sue followed him outside, but she didn’t wave him off, or even say goodbye. She just stood on the gravel in her ribbed sweater, looking cold.

When he first met her, in the late eighties, her name was Susie — Susie Newman — and there was so much in that extra syllable, that hidden “z.” There was a kind of fearlessness. There was laughter. There was sex. Back then, she was always Susie, never Sue. At that point in his life, Billy had been a police officer for almost a decade. Thanks to Neil, a schoolfriend who had joined the force at the same time, he was called “Scruff”—Neil had caught him in the equipment room, polishing the badge on his helmet — but as nicknames went it wasn’t too bad, not when you considered that two of his contemporaries were known as “Vomit” and “the Perv.” For the first few years he had lived in “the Brothel,” the single men’s hostel located behind Widnes police station, but then, at the beginning of 1985, he had moved into a small flat of his own on Frederick Street. He had already failed the sergeant’s exam, but he’d taken it because you were supposed to, not because he wanted to, and he had long since decided that he was happy being a constable. In the early days he would go about on foot, calling in at various businesses and shops. Later, he would drive around in the area car. A lot of what he did was listen. It was the side of his job he liked best, this chance to mix with all sorts of people, to establish some connection with their lives. He liked knowing everyone, and being known.

One bright June morning he stopped at a local garage for his usual cup of tea. They had a new girl working in the office, and he decided to go in and introduce himself. Putting his head round the door, he saw that she was typing. He waited until she sensed his presence and looked at him, and then he stepped into the room.

“I’m Billy Tyler,” he said.

He asked her a few questions, nothing too personal. It turned out that her stepfather had found her the job. He ran a second-hand-car dealership in Stockport. Not just any old cars. Jaguars. Ferraris.