Mouse (23 page)

‘Why? She’s peculiar but harmless, is what I hear.’

Mrs Kimble folded her arms as if to fend off the cold. ‘I’m not so sure about that. I knew her mother and father, as much as anyone could know them. I was working for the town council when Mr Leach sat as a councillor. A strange man, quiet but determined but very domineering with it. He used to look at you as if he didn’t trust you. I don’t think he particularly liked women. His wife was the same; fragile, reserved, distrustful of everyone and everything, a regular reed of a woman, but we saw even less of her. For the most part they kept themselves to themselves, locked inside
Devereux
Towers
. Closed books all, you might say. They were very suspicious of anyone, unless they came from
London
, and even then only from select parts of the city. A queer old bunch, the Leaches. Did you know Laura Leach had been sent away to an institution?’

‘I heard something, yes. I don’t know any details. I thought it might just be a tall story to embellish the old tale of the Witch of Devereux Towers and all that.’ He gave a little laugh but his gran didn’t crack the faintest of smiles. ‘What are you saying, that she’s loopy?’

She gave a twist to her head and raised that knowing eyebrow again. ‘She was involved in the death of someone, what does that say about a person?’

‘Laura Leach? I’ve seen her; she’s a quiet, harmless little thing.’

‘Nothing about the Leaches is straightforward, Laura in particular. Her father tried to disguise the fact she’d been sent away, but things get out in a small town like this. And I heard it from a reliable source,’ she continued. ‘The man that died was a driving instructor, and because of it Laura was put into a mental institution for years. Work it out for yourself.’

He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Are you saying Laura actually killed someone?’

She shrugged. ‘Whatever happened she’s free now, isn’t she? But just be careful when dealing with her. I never did trust Londoners. All that prolonged exposure to traffic fumes has got to have an adverse effect on the senses, hasn’t it?’

It was here, in his study, where she felt her father’s presence was the strongest. She could almost hear his breathing. He had a distinctive, whining sound to his exhalations.

Everything in the room was exactly as he had left it. His large mahogany desk by the window, still laid out with pens and paper; his night-black telephone with its thick, brown cord; his family’s photographs lined up so that they faced his luxuriously padded chair, forever under his scrutiny. The bizarre and often grotesque wooden tribal masks watched her suspiciously from their place on the walls, as if they stood guard over the room in his absence. Statues, many carved in wood so black they looked like coal, stood in serried ranks on cabinets and above the fireplace, like an army of goblins from some mythical underworld. And interspersed amongst all this was her father’s collection of ancient weapons, both practical and symbolic. His Fijian war clubs, Zulu assegais, Australian aboriginal spears, South American obsidian knives, all designed to stun, to kill or to maim.

She shuddered when she remembered her father lifting down a Zulu assegai, purported to have been used at the battle of Rorke’s Drift in 1879.  He held the leaf-like blade close to her eight-year-old face.

‘See, Laura, this had special significance to the Zulu. Each of these objects is significant in its own way. Did you know that the British soldiers found massacred after the battle of Isandhlwana had been eviscerated- that is, disembowelled – by such weapons? Naturally, our Victorian forefathers put it down to an expression of extreme barbarianism on the part of the Zulu, evidence of their inherent savagery. But they did that to be kind. They slit open the bellies of the dead in order to release the souls, so that they could pass freely to the next life.’

Laura shrank back from the weapon. ‘Has that spear killed a man?’ she said, terrified.

‘Undoubtedly,’ he said matter-of-factly as he hung the short spear back on the wall. ‘The war clubs have staved-in people’s skulls, and the black obsidian knives have been used by the Aztecs to slice open the chest and remove the still-beating hearts of sacrificial victims.’

‘That is so awful,’ she said. ‘To kill…’

‘Sometimes people believe it is alright to kill, when if fulfils a greater object, a spiritual need, for instance.’

‘God says we must not kill,’ she pointed out.

‘And what if you do not believe in God?’

It was a concept she found difficult to grasp. ‘That’s plain silly!’

‘Not to some of these people,’ he explained. ‘They do not believe in our God. They do not abide by the teachings of our Bible, so to them it is not wrong. But it was right by their gods, by their beliefs.’

‘So if someone does not believe in God it is alright for them to kill?’ It was a logical conclusion for a child to make.

‘It is never as simple as that,’ he said. ‘There are times, even when we believe in God, when there is no option but to kill. At times of war, for instance. Or if someone is seeking to harm us.’

Laura Leach shook away the childhood memories, as best as she could because they seemed to hover around her head like a smoky cloud. She went over to his desk, sat in his chair. She looked at the short line of three framed photographs facing her. There was one of her mother. One each of Laura’s dead sisters. But there wasn’t a photograph of Laura on the desk.

Her father had taken every image of Laura from the house and put them in a pile in the garden and burned them.

*  *  *  *

He
hadn’t expected
to feel
jealousy. But Vince felt something
cold
scrape his stomach as he walked down the stairs
with an empty waste-paper bin in his hand. He stepped down
into the foyer, and he saw Edith chatting away with a young man. She had been busy re-stacking the sweets in the kiosk but was obviously finding the young man’s attention
infinitely
more rewarding.

Vince recognised him – Leonard Kimble had been to the Empire a few times, trying to secure free cinema tickets so he could write a movie review for the Langbridge gazette in return.
Caldwell
didn’t give out tickets that easily, but Vince reckoned the old place could do with all the publicity it could get so he’d give Kimble one or two of his own freebies. But in the end the reviews weren’t well written, and in fact were perhaps the worst thing he’d ever read in the
Gazette
and that said something. Leonard Kimble, Vince heard later, had only managed
to land
the job because his mother was related to the paper’s editor. Everyone in Langbridge was related to everyone else, he thought, in one way or another.

‘Hello, Vince,’ said Edith. ‘This is Leonard. He’s a reporter now. How exciting!’

‘We know each other already,’ said Vince unexcitedly.

‘Lenny was in the year above me at school, isn’t that right, Lenny? He was spotty then.’

Kimble’s face said he would have preferred to have kept that to himself. ‘Hello, Vince. How are things?’ he greeted.

‘On the scrounge for tickets again?’ said Vince.

‘Not today,’ he returned. ‘I need a bit of information.’

‘He’s writing an important article for the Gazette,’ said Edith, quite enthralled.

‘Important, huh? Have more chickens gone missing?’ said Vince. ‘Wait, don’t tell me – the swimming baths in
Glastonbury
will be having a change of water? Mercy me, whatever next?’

‘Very droll,’ said Kimble, brushing off the swipe. ‘There’s more to the job of Gazette reporter than reporting on missing chickens. Like there’s more to being a projectionist at the Empire than changing light-bulbs and emptying bins.’ He looked down at the bin in Vince’s hand.

Edith looked from one to the other of them. ‘I thought you two were friends.’

‘Acquaintances,’ Vince informed. He didn’t like the way Leonard Kimble had been eyeing-up Edith, staring at her chest, small though that might be. ‘What do you want, Leonard? We’re very busy here.’

‘What do you know about Monica’s disappearance? I talked to
Caldwell
and he’s not saying much.’

‘That horrible woman?’ said Edith. ‘Why do you want to write something about her?’

‘She may not have been your cup of tea,’ he said, ‘but she’s missing. I’d like to help find her, write something for the Gazette to jog people’s memories, that kind of thing.’

‘Well she can stay missing for all I care,’ said Vince.

‘That’s not very nice, Vince? Did you have something against her?’

He said bluntly, ‘I didn’t like her. End of story.’

‘Is that so?’ he raised an eyebrow.

‘She was going to try and get rid of Vince, get him sacked,’ interjected Edith. ‘She was a nasty woman. No one is sad that she’s gone.’

‘Had it in for you, did she, Vince?’ said Kimble.

‘Monica had it in for everyone, not just me.’

‘But you’re glad she’s gone?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Leonard?’

He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t mean a thing. My gran tells me Monica and
Caldwell
had a thing going on. You hear anything like that?’

‘None of our business is it?’ said Vince. ‘He can do what he likes.’

‘Imagine if his wife found out. He wouldn’t want that to happen, would he?’

‘Leonard, who do you think you are – Dixon of Dock Green or something? Leave it to the police.’

‘But that’s what all investigative reporters do, isn’t it, Lenny? Snoop around,’ Edith enthused.

Vince gave a grunt. ‘Not for the Langbridge Gazette they don’t.’

‘Monica used to do some cleaning work for the Leach family at
Devereux
Towers
,’ said Kimble unperturbed. ‘One of the cleaners said you had a crush on Laura Leach.’

‘What has that got to do with anything?’ said Vince, flashing a smouldering glare at Edith. He saw her shrink back to the Mars Bars she’d been stacking.

‘Just thought you might give me a few tips on how to approach her, that’s all. I hear she’s a bit strange.’ He laughed. ‘They used to say at school that she’d murdered her family and had them all walled-up somewhere. Maybe she’s done the same to Monica, who knows?’ He laughed again but no one was laughing with him and it petered-out into an embarrassed croak. ‘Just a joke,’ he said.

‘Well it’s not funny,’ Vince remarked caustically. ‘She’s a normal, nice woman, and I wish people would just leave her alone. Why do people always have to be so spiteful and vindictive?’

‘Where there’s smoke…’ said Kimble with a wink at Edith.

‘Meaning?’ said Vince.

‘She was closely involved with the death of a driving instructor years ago. That’s why she ended up in
Bartholomew Place
. You know what that is?’

‘Yes, I know!’ Vince snapped. ‘So she’s been ill, why must everyone assume the worst? A driving instructor’s death? That’s ludicrous! You don’t even know her – how can you say those kinds of things?’

‘I know her as much as you do, Moody,’ he returned. ‘You only know what you want to know. Anyhow, I managed to trace someone who actually worked there as a nurse. I’ll be speaking to her.’

‘I thought you were looking into Monica’s disappearance?’ said Vince. ‘Now you’re snooping into Laura’s past. What’s the connection?’

Leonard Kimble smiled. ‘One never knows what dirt one will dig up once one starts digging. You have to admit, it all sounds juicy, doesn’t it? Very Daily Mail.’ He deliberately turned his back on Vince and faced Edith. ‘Maybe we can go out for a drink together one night. Talk about old times.’ He made no attempt to hide the fact he was taking in the mound of her breasts.

‘Old times?’ scoffed Vince. ‘Like life in the nursery?’

Edith glanced at him. She turned to Kimble and said that would be nice and she’d think about it. Kimble left the Empire, whistling confidently to himself.

‘I really don’t like him,’ said Vince.

‘He’s harmless,’ Edith said. ‘He said he always fancied me at school. Said I looked pretty now, just before you came down the stairs. He didn’t know I was working here.’

‘You’re not falling for that, are you?’

‘’I never really liked him myself. He’s always been a bit strange and creepy. He got expelled from school for a while for groping the girls. After that I avoided him. All the girls did.’

‘You’re not going to go out with him then, are you?’

‘I wasn’t going to, and certainly not if you don’t want me to, Vince,’ she said, her large eyes blinking.

Vince said, ‘He’s all talk. He’s no more an investigative journalist than I am manager of the Empire. He’s full of hot air and wind, is all. I’d avoid people like that.’

She reached out and touched his hand. ‘But you will be manager one day, Vince.’