Rupert Thomson: Death of a Murderer

“It’s only for the summer,” she said. “After that, I’m thinking of travelling. India, maybe — or Thailand…”

Her eyes had gone misty, opaque, and he wanted to kiss her there and then. He wanted to kiss her eyes back into focus.

“Susie Newman.”

Standing in that poky office, with its threadbare carpet and its dog-eared girlie calendar, he had repeated her name out loud. She watched him carefully, and puzzled lines appeared on her forehead, though there was also the promise of a smile at the edges of her mouth. But he’d been in a kind of dream. As soon as she told him her name, he’d had the feeling that it was familiar. Not that he had ever heard it before. No, it was more as if he had been propelled into his own future, a future that included her, or even revolved around her. Her name seemed familiar because it was about to become familiar. It was a familiarity that hadn’t happened yet.

He didn’t mention any of this to Susie, though — not that morning, anyway. When he was twenty-eight, he had gone out with a girl called Venetia. He had been unable to conceal the extent of his infatuation, and it had spoiled everything. “I can’t breathe with you around,” Venetia had told him once. “You use up all the air.” Over the years he’d learned that sometimes it’s better to go slowly. When he finally told Susie about the feeling he’d had on hearing her name, it was two months later, and they were having a cup of tea in a place just round the corner from the garage, the Kingsway Hotel on Victoria Road. She let him finish talking, then she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked straight at him, her eyes so shiny that he could have been the first thing they had ever seen.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” she said.

He didn’t laugh, nor did he attempt to deny it; he remained perfectly serious, and his gaze dropped to the tablecloth. Though he had spent weeks trying to work it out, what he had just told her still perplexed him.

“I’ve never said it before,” he said. “I’ve never even felt it.”

There was a moment when nothing happened, nothing at all, but they both knew what was coming, so those few seconds were slow-motion and yet urgent, the slowness and the sense of urgency simultaneous but contradictory, delicious too, like ice-cream wrapped in hot meringue. At last, she put a hand on the back of his head and drew him towards her until their lips were touching. After the kiss, they remained an inch or two apart, looking into each other’s faces. He could feel the warm steam from his tea on the underside of his chin.

“Don’t go travelling,” he said. “Not yet.”

If you see the sugar factory, you’ve gone too far, Phil had said, but Billy left the Al4 at the Bury St. Edmunds East exit, and the hospital showed up on signposts shortly after. He went through several roundabouts, then up a quiet suburban road. Trees on either side, large houses. Bury wasn’t a town he knew particularly well. He had driven here one Saturday with Sue when Emma was a baby. They had spent an hour at a car-boot sale, and Sue had bought a bamboo wind-chime, which she had hung in their garden. On the first blustery day, though, their neighbours, the Gibsons, complained about the noise it made, and Sue had to take it down again.

He signalled left and turned into the drive, passing beneath the dark, flat branches of a cedar. The car-park was full. He waited, indicator flashing, while a woman backed out of a narrow space. Leaning close to the steering-wheel, he stared up at the hospital. It had been painted a curious mint-green colour, and modern bay windows jutted squarely from the façade. The place looked new, but cheap. It looked prefabricated.

Even from where he was, he could see the crowd gathered outside the main entrance. In his phone-call, Phil had mentioned the press, and how they had been camped in the hospital grounds ever since the news broke. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t expected, he had said; in fact, they’d thought it would be far worse. During the past four days, the police had talked to reporters on a regular basis, keeping them informed, but no one had been allowed into the hospital itself. Not that some of them hadn’t tried, apparently. One tabloid journalist had offered a nurse several thousand pounds in cash if she would smuggle him into the mortuary. They were after trophies, of course — a photograph of the corpse, a ring, a lock of hair. They wanted some kind of physical contact with the famous child-killer. They wanted to sense the power, the horror. They wanted a direct line to the unknown.

As Billy stepped out of his car, his foot caught in something and he looked down. The remains of a home-made placard lay on the ground, and though the soggy cardboard had dirt and tyre-tracks on it, the message was still legible. burn in hell.

Locking his car, he straightened his uniform and then began to walk towards the hospital entrance. Faces swung in his direction as he approached. Microphones appeared. A TV camera was pointed at him, its tiny red light glowing. At that moment his mobile bleeped, telling him that he’d just received a text. It was from Sue. Please come home billy. The fact that she’d used his name meant her anger had died down, but there was still nothing he could do. He switched the mobile off and slid it into his pocket. Ignoring the questions he was being asked, he pushed through the crowd. He didn’t open his mouth at all except to say “Excuse me.” One scrawny man in a parka took hold of his arm, but quickly let go of it again when Billy turned and stared at him.

On entering reception, Billy saw Phil Shaw talking to a woman in a pale-grey suit. Phil was wearing a suit as well, navy-blue, with a white shirt and a purple tie. There were dark smears under his eyes, and his skin looked blotchy, porous.

“You have any trouble out there, Billy?” Phil said.

“No, not really.”

“People seem to be behaving themselves — so far…”

Phil introduced him to the woman. Her name was Eileen Evans, and she worked for the hospital as an operations manager. If for some reason Phil was called away, she would be available to deal with any problems or enquiries. Billy felt Eileen’s cool grey eyes move evenly across his face.

A pass had been organised for Billy’s car, and he went outside and placed it in his windscreen. When he returned, Phil nodded at the constable on duty by the main entrance, then put a hand against the small of Billy’s back and steered him down a long, bright corridor. They passed a snack bar, then a lift. The walls were white, with just a tinge of pink to them. Sometimes there was a row of plastic chairs. The air seemed taut, almost rigid, as if the entire hospital had taken a breath in the early hours of Friday morning and was still holding it.

A garden appeared on Billy’s left. Built in an internal courtyard, Oriental in style, it had a pond with a miniature stone temple and a red wooden bridge. He wondered what Harry Parsons would make of it. Harry was a retired plumber who worked on the allotments behind Billy’s house. If Billy ever found himself at a loose end, he would go and see whether Harry was around. They’d talk about rainfall or the absence of skylarks or what a disaster the railways were — anything, really. Emma called him “Parsons.” “Morning, Parsons,” she would say, and he would tip the brim of his flat cap.

“You been keeping well?” Phil said.

“Fine thanks, sarge.”

“Sue all right?”

“She’s fine.” Billy paused. “The winter always gets her down a bit.”

Phil nodded, as if he, too, found winter difficult. “And your little girl? How’s your little girl?”

“She’s eight now.”