a few dozen bottles and cans, a couple of camping gas cylinders, three paperbacks, half a deckchair, a syringe, enough driftwood to build a replica of the Golden Hind, and a backpack containing one lady’s hairbrush, one condom (unused), twenty-four pence in loose change and a substantial quantity of sand. And no weapon.
At this stage of a homicide enquiry we should have been talking to the victim’s family, talking to his friends, establishing the patterns of his behaviour, his habits and routines and so on. In this case, however, we were a few hundred yards behind the starting line, because we didn’t yet know the man’s full name. No identification was found on the body, so we had no route to the next of kin, and there were no known friends to interview. We knew something of the pattern of his days – sleep, go for a walk, sleep – but that was the lot. So George Whittam decides to call in the press.
Within the hour Ronnie Houghton arrives at the incident room. For the past couple of years, after a decade in telesales and advertising freesheets, Ronnie has been reporting on the misdemeanours of our district’s druggies, shoplifters, joyriders and after-hours brawlers. He’s thirty or thereabouts but as eager as a twenty-year-old, and just as naïve. One day, he knows, he’s going to get the story that will bring him the big-money transfer to London and a national byline. Eyes twitching at the thought that this might be the big one, Ronnie absorbs the facts, or the selection of facts that George has judged it useful to broadcast at this point. When the battery of his tape recorder goes flat, one minute into the briefing, Ronnie switches to shorthand, scribbling as though he’s taking dictation from God Almighty. A minute later it’s over. Half a page of notes and that’s it. ‘OK. OK,’ says Ronnie, trying not to show his disappointment, perusing his scrawl. ‘OK. I’ve got all that. Got a picture?’ he asks, but of course we haven’t got a picture – that’s one reason he’s here. SHOCK DEATH OF LOCAL CHARACTER is Ronnie’s headline. ‘We’re appealing to the public for information. If anyone out there has a recent picture of Henry, we’d like them to pass it on to us,’ says Detective Chief Inspector Whittan (sic).
That’s on the Saturday, and the next day the Reverend Beal makes his contribution. Gas heaters beside the altar supply a dash of warm colour but no heat that’s perceptible to the congregation. The windows are trickling and the air has a taste like fog. Today, therefore, only the hardcore are in attendance, packed for warmth into the front four pews, except for young Michael Trethowen, also known as Mystic Mike, who’s occupying his traditional berth nearer the back, swaddled in the customary brown duffel coat. Beal moves things along as briskly as is decent, but he takes his time with the sermon. There must be a heater up in the pulpit. It’s a head-numbingly tedious recital on the theme of the new year, the hopes thereof, the challenges thereof, the responsibilities thereof, et cetera, et cetera. Towards the end of his oration he mentions the dreadful event. His voice drops to a hush of compassion, his face is the face of a man bruised by the sufferings of the world. He urges us to take to heart the lessons of Henry’s lonely life and lonely death, to think about what his death tells us about our society, to keep the poor man and his family (wherever they may be) in our thoughts, to pray that the killer be apprehended soon. All nod solemnly, thinking: ‘Amen to the last bit anyway.’ Alice, however, doesn’t nod when told to think of Henry, even though she’s had Henry in her thoughts for longer than any of them. She simply closes her eyes and meshes her fingers on her lap, and it’s as if she’s no longer listening to Beal but instead is in touch with the soul of Henry, or calling for him silently. Her face has no expression that you could describe. It’s perfectly still and beautiful, and distant, and almost frightening. It’s like looking at the face of a praying woman on a tomb from centuries ago.
Business concluded, the Reverend Beal takes up his station outside the door for the leave-taking. Shuffling his feet on the gravel, he shakes hands with them all, has a few words for everyone, and they in turn have a few words for him.
‘Lovely sermon.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And how is your daughter?’
‘Fine, thank you.’ A halo of breath hangs around his head. ‘Keep moving,’ he’s thinking. ‘Thank you and keep moving.’ It’s like prize-giving day without the prizes. But he singles out Alice for a lingering clasp and meaningful eyes, as if she has an understanding that the rest of them lack, or perhaps it’s just because she’s the wife of a man who, he suspects, hasn’t yet found a lodging for Christ in his heart. ‘A ghastly business. Ghastly,’ he says, with a three-second look of pity. Alice bows her head and says nothing.
Benjamin Kemp had nothing substantial to add to his original statement. With wide and watery eyes he stared aghast at Milo and the rug on which he was slumbering, as if the dog had brought Henry’s remains into the house and spread them out around him. ‘I saw him a few times, walking on the beach,’ said Benjamin, shaking his head disbelievingly. He kept scratching the back of his head and there was a tremble round his mouth when he wasn’t talking. Christine sat on the chair opposite, watching her husband’s quivering mouth, and there was no discernible affection in her eyes, none at all. She seemed embarrassed by his lack of backbone and annoyed by the trouble he was putting her to. Looking out of the window, she frowned at the falling rain, vexed by what the day was up to. ‘And what about you, Mrs Kemp?’ asked Ian, pretending not to have noticed the discordancy of the household. ‘Is there anything you can tell us about Henry?’ She blinked, frozenly amazed by the question. Why on earth should she know anything about the disreputable old codger?
Five minutes later she was showing us out. ‘I’m sure someone will be able to give you more help,’ she said at the door, in apology for her useless spouse.
We begin the house-to-house slog, to assemble the victim profile. One of the first calls is at the home of Mr and Mrs Fazakerly, whose home overlooks The Maer. Kevin Fazakerly is an independent financial adviser; Sophie, his wife, arranges big parties, conferences, weddings, business events and so on. Lucrative lines of work, evidently. The driveway is fancy brick, scrubbed clean as the day it was laid, and the front of the house – a sort of neo-Georgian mansion, but with extra-wide windows – is likewise immaculate. No salt damage to the paintwork and it appears that no seagull has emptied its bowels anywhere on this patch of real estate. Inside, as expected, it’s a show home: you’re tempted to touch the walls to check if they’re still wet. Instantly you know there are no kids. Sophie ushers us into the kitchen, which is not a lot bigger than a squash court. We sit around the breakfast bar, a little pier of top-grade Scandinavian timber. You could perform open-heart surgery in this room, with no risk of infection.
Kevin and Sophie are both in their mid forties. Sophie is wearing tight pale jeans and white socks and narrow little white trainers with very white laces, and up top there’s an odd bright-blue zippered cardigan thing, with the zip pulled right up to the neck. She’s as tightly done up as a parachute in a backpack, so you get the feeling she might inflate to three times her size when she gets undressed. When you look at Kevin you think of some fourth-division American golfer, runner-up in the North Dakota Invitational, 1986. His hair has a retro ruler-straight parting and sticks out at the front in a little horizontal quiff, and over his shirt he has this horrible salmon-pink floppy cashmere jumper. The jeans are a bit baggier than Sophie’s, but precisely the same shade. We receive the impression that they’ve got things to say on the issue of Henry. Tea is made, biscuits arranged on a plate that perhaps has been designed solely for this function: the Jan-Arne Simonsen Biscuit Plate, £100, plus postage and packing. It is suggested we carry our cups through to the living room. We troop across the acres of laminated floor. The living room is a little longer than the driveway and under-furnished with angular scarlet chairs and a pair of low-backed sofas, all of the same design.
Side by side on one of the sofas sit Kevin and Sophie,
