Rupert Thomson - Death of a Murderer

It’s no different, really.

“I just thought you might like to know,” Mary Betts said, “since you were once a friend of his.”

The funeral was in two days’ time, she said. She was sorry not to have given him more notice. He told her he would do his best to be there. Later that night, he phoned Maureen, his mother. She hadn’t seen Trevor since he was a little boy, she said, but she would try to attend the funeral, if only for Betty’s sake, her dear Betty Lydgate who had died some years before. At work the next day Billy applied for compassionate leave, claiming that he and Trevor had been cousins.

It was a four-hour drive from Suffolk, and he arrived at the church a few minutes late, but he was able to slip into a pew at the back without anybody noticing. The church was less than half-full. When the service ended, he remained in his seat, watching the mourners file past. There was Trevor’s wife, a big, dumpy woman with long hair and glasses, and there were the four children Trevor had talked about, at least three of them already in their teens. The church doors had been thrown open, and the faces of the bereaved were brutally exposed by the white autumn light. Billy could see shock and lack of sleep, but he could also see the strange, self-conscious, almost narcissistic sense of loss that often accompanies an unexpected death in the family. They walked down the aisle as if dragging heavy weights, and the youngest child, a boy, was looking from side to side, embarrassed by all the attention, but fascinated too. The man supporting the widow was much stockier than Trevor, and had more hair, including a closely trimmed beard and moustache, yet he was clearly recognisable as Trevor’s brother. These, then, were the other two bearers of the secret.

Outside, Billy caught up with his mother, who was searching in her handbag for a tissue.

“It’s a mercy Betty’s not here to see this,” Maureen said. “She would have been heartbroken. Heartbroken.”

The crematorium was only five minutes’ drive away, and this time Billy sat near the front, watching as Trevor’s coffin slid through a dark-blue curtain. The music played during its short and slightly jerky trip was a top-ten hit from the eighties:

Look at me standing

Here on my own again—

Billy remembered dancing to the song with Susie once, in a nightclub in Manchester, a slow shuffle of a dance during which they kissed non-stop. It had sounded oddly mournful even then, as though the singer was trying to convince people that he was happy when, actually, nothing could have been further from the truth. Now, in the context of a funeral, his plaintive voice seemed almost too much to bear, and Billy’s mother wasn’t the only person in tears.

No need to run, and hide

It’s a wonderful, wonderful life—

When the ceremony was over, the priest announced that refreshments were being served in a nearby hotel, and that everyone was welcome. Billy said goodbye to his mother outside the crematorium — she had to be getting home, she said, having always hated driving in the dark — and although he, too, had a long journey ahead of him, he decided to put in an appearance, if only to offer his condolences to Trevor’s wife.

The room they’d booked had green flock wallpaper and windows that gave on to a stagnant pond. There were plates of sandwiches and cups of tea laid out on trestle tables. There was a bar too. Billy bought himself a pint, then turned and looked for Mrs. Lydgate, but before he could single her out, the stocky man with the beard walked up to him.

“Billy Tyler?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re the policeman.”

“And you must be Trevor’s brother.”

“I’m Steve.”

After shaking hands, Steve Lydgate turned his eyes to the window, then took a deep breath and blew the air out loudly.

“I’m very sorry,” Billy said.

Steve looked at him again. “Did you come far?”

“I drove up from Ipswich.”

Steve nodded, as if the strength of one’s support could be measured by the distance travelled. “Listen, thanks for making the effort.”

It was Billy’s turn to avert his eyes. The room had filled up, with most people under fifty preferring alcohol to tea. You always get drunk fast at funerals. There’s that inappropriate hilarity, that giddy feeling of relief. It wasn’t me this time. It wasn’t me.

“I take it you know about Trevor…”

Billy studied Steve across the rim of his glass. “Know what?”

“He killed himself.” Steve took a gulp from his pint in exactly the same way that Trevor would have done, with a kind of ferocity, so much so that a speck of foam leapt up on to his cheek.

“Oh. I see.” Billy nodded slowly, sadly.

Steve was staring at him. “You don’t seem very surprised.”

Lowering his voice, Billy started telling Steve about his encounter in Huntingdon the year before.

“Trevor got upset that night,” Billy said. “He was haunted by what had happened to him, and he felt guilty too, but I didn’t think it would drive him to—”

“Guilty?” Steve said. “What do you mean, guilty?”

“He survived — not like the others. He was lucky.”

“Not that fucking lucky.”

Biting his lip, Billy stared at the floor. “That was tactless of me. Sorry.”

“If they ever let her out,” Steve said, “I’m going to kill her, I swear to God. I’m going to hunt her down and kill her. I’ll serve time for it. I don’t care.”

Only after his outburst did he seem to remember what Billy did for a living, and he mustered a defiant, self-righteous look, as if challenging Billy to arrest him there and then.

But Billy hardly noticed. An idea had just occurred to him for the first time. “Do you think Trevor was telling the truth?”

“What are you saying?” Steve said.

Had the woman— that woman — really taken Trevor home with her, Billy thought, or was there another interpretation?

“What are you on about?” Steve’s face was suddenly closer than Billy would have liked, and his eyes had hardened. “Why would he lie?”

Billy thought it wise not to go any further. In fact, it was possible that he had already gone too far. Trevor’s suicide only made sense to Steve if he believed the story his brother had told him, and believed it one hundred per cent. That was all he had to hold on to. For Billy to suggest that it might have been a fabrication, or even that Trevor might have been exaggerating, was disrespectful, if not downright insulting, especially on a day like today, and clearly Steve wouldn’t hesitate to defend his brother’s honour. Billy had already noticed Steve’s knuckles. They were red and glossy, blurred-looking, and Billy knew what that meant: Steve was someone who liked to hit people. Even as Billy stood in front of him, he could feel the violence. It came off Steve in waves.

“There’s Trevor’s wife,” Billy said.

Before Steve could speak or otherwise detain him, Billy moved away. Crossing the room, he introduced himself to Mrs. Lydgate as Trevor’s childhood friend and told her how sorry he was. He didn’t live in the area, he said, but if there was anything he could do…He talked about his friendship with Trevor, and the adventures they used to have.

“Happier days,” she said with a weak smile.

He nodded. “Yes.” And then added, “For all of us,” though he wasn’t sure why he’d said that, or what he meant by it.

Soon afterwards he left.

Only when he was on the road did he realise that he had never got to meet Mary Betts.

Sitting up straighter in his chair, Billy rubbed his face quickly, then forced himself up on to his feet. The mint-green mortuary doors, the tube-lights fizzing softly overhead…Memories kept coming, and none of them gave him any respite. If only he could just switch off. Christ. What time was it?