Towers of Silence (6 page)

I crossed to the Hall door. I looked in. It was a riot of streamers and lanterns in garish reds and golds, silver and green. A large Christmas tree stood at the far end beside the front window and at the back of the room sat a giant Christmas pudding. At the window two women held a tall step ladder as a man stretched up to attach more streamers above the glass. The trio turned as I came in.

“Hello,” I crossed the hall, my boots squeaking on the wooden surface.

“Eddie Cliff?”

“That’s me,” the man replied. “Nearly done.” He grunted as he reached to hammer tack the streamer in place. “There we go.” He came down the ladder.

He looked at me enquiringly, held out his hand. He had a bushy beard and moustache, grey and brown, like his hair which reached his shoulders and didn’t look as though it ever saw a brush. He had a furrowed, friendly face, a patch of broken veins making each cheek rosy, bright seaside blue eyes, a generous smile. With a plaid shirt, denims and cowboy boots he looked like a country and western fan. We shook hands. “Sal Kilkenny. If you could spare few minutes, I’d like to talk to you about someone who used to come to the centre?”

“Sure.” He turned to the women. “Can you start the windows?”

The small dark haired woman nodded quickly. “Yeah.” The girl beside her, dramatically overweight and with a shy demeanour said nothing.

“Spray a border right along the bottom. Up and down, like mountains. About this high,” he showed them. “We can go in the craft room,” he said to me.

Once seated he listened while I explained the reason for my visit. When I mentioned Miriam Johnstone his eyes softened and he nodded in recognition.

“It was completely out of the blue,” he said when I’d finished. “She was here that morning, smiling and joking, next thing ...” He stroked his beard. “It’s hard for those left behind,” he had a soft edge to his voice, a west country lilt, like someone from the
Archers
. “I’ve worked for most of my life with vulnerable people and sometimes there’s no warning, nothing.”

“And Miriam had been well for some time?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Her death didn’t make sense then, still doesn’t now. I don’t think we’ll ever know what prompted her.”

I murmured my agreement. “I’m trying to find out where she went when she left here. Have you any ideas?”

“No. She usually went home for her lunch, she’d stay here on Tuesdays for the luncheon club. That’s a pensioners group, they have a hot meal in the hall. I could ask around at the Craft Club, you could come and talk to them yourself but it might be easier if I broached it first. It upset everybody and there are some people in the group who might find it very difficult to be reminded of it again.”

I asked him to do that and gave him my card. “I can pop back in, if you could ring me and let me know who I can talk to.”

“Will do.”

He accompanied me back into the foyer.

“Lovely ceramics,” I pointed to the still life.

He smiled, creases fanned the outside of each eye. “Craft Club’s own work. We get an artist in every so often for special projects.”

“Connie said you’d got Lottery money.”

“That’s what built this place. Before we had an old prefab. Leaked like a sieve, break-ins twice a week. All the money went into shoring the place up. And it wasn’t very attractive. Now we can concentrate on the activities.”

“You run the centre?”

“In effect but there’s a management committee of users and funders, they’re officially in charge. They employ me and we’ve Sharon half-time.” He nodded at the woman at reception. “This area was crying out for a decent place where people could meet. You can’t talk about community if there’s nowhere for people to gather.”

He was obviously passionate about the place.

“It’s great.”

“Have you signed our petition?”

“No.”

“The council are talking about cutting back on our core funding, just as we’re getting sorted out, we’re asking them to reconsider ... if you ...”

“Yes.”

He gestured towards Sharon. “Over here.”

I followed him across, read the text of the petition to make sure I agreed and then added my name and address to the list.

“Withington,” he noted. “I was there for a bit when I first moved here. Do you know Lausanne Road?”

“By the library?”

“Yep. But the lads next door were up all hours, drugs I reckon. I’ve got a nice place in Cheadle now.”

“Quieter,” I smiled.

There was a commotion at the entrance.

“That’ll be the Tai Chi group. Villains the lot of them.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” I smiled.

I made my way out against the flow of elderly people who were streaming into the hall and joshing each other in loud voices. Outside I waited while the two minibuses that had brought them turned and left, before I could drive out.

Had Miriam gone home for lunch that day? Her house in Heald Place was a few minutes from the centre. According to the police her neighbours hadn’t seen her that lunchtime but it was part of my job to double check the facts. It wouldn’t be the first time that a second look revealed new information.

“No, I bloody-well didn’t,” Mr Jones, Miriam’s neighbour, was emphatic and obviously disgruntled at being interrupted. He wore a stained sky blue pullover stretched tight over a large round belly and tweed trousers. He had several badly drawn tattoos on his fingers and forearms. He smelt rank.

“Did you know Mrs Johnstone?”

“Not to speak to.”

“Can you remember when you last saw her?”

“No, I bloody can’t.”

I was relieved to get away and took a couple of gulps of cold, damp air to replace the nauseating smell.

I tried the neighbour on the far side.

Mrs Boscoe invited me in and made me tea. Miriam had been a good neighbour ‘God rest her soul’. She hadn’t seen her that Thursday, she’d told the others, she’d seen her the day before, the Wednesday, just to say hello. Both getting home at the same time, coming down in stair rods so they didn’t linger. She missed her. Missed them all. Roland used to help her, anything heavy to move. Always polite. Brought them up so nice, Miriam did, not like some these days.

I left her my card in case anything else occurred. At the doorway she asked, “What is it you’re actually doing? Is it for the insurance?”

“No, for the family. I’m just trying to find out where she was that afternoon.”

“Oh. Well, if she had been home Roland would have seen her, wouldn’t he?”

“Roland?”

“I think it was Roland. He plays the music loud, rap music he calls it, but if it’s not late I don’t bother, you’ve got to get along with people haven’t you.”

“That Thursday, you heard it?”

“I think so,” she looked uncertain. Pulled a face in concentration. “It wouldn’t have been after then,” she rationalised, “what with ...” she let the sentence hang.

“What time?”

She thought again. “The news was on, the lunchtime news. Because I had to turn the sound up. I remember that,” she dipped her chin decisively.

“But it could have been another day? The Tuesday or Wednesday?”

“You’ve got me thinking now. I couldn’t put my hand on the Bible and swear to it.” She looked anxious.

“Don’t worry. If you remember anything else just give me a ring.”

She promised she would.

“You never mentioned this before?” I asked her.

“It never occurred to me. It’s not important is it?”

“No,” I reassured her.

But I had the impression that Martina and Roland had been out all day. Had I just leapt to conclusions? And like Mrs Boscoe said, it wasn’t important. Or was it?

Next to the loathsome Mr Jones’ was a classic Manchester corner shop. Grills on the windows, plastered with adverts for cigarettes and the
Evening News
. Open eight till late. Prices might be higher but if all you wanted was a pint of milk, a loo roll, a can of dog food or ten Bensons then it beat the nearest huge supermarket hands down.

I introduced myself to the middle-aged Asian man at the counter and told him my business. “Very nice lady,” he said. “She got her papers here and my daughters are at school with Martina. We were very sad. Terrible thing.”

I repeated the questions that I’d asked the neighbours but he hadn’t seen her that lunchtime either. “Someone else was asking,” he said.

“The police?”

“No, asking if she’d be home for lunch, the day ... you know.”

My neck prickled.

“I said I had no idea. They say the shop is part of the community but I don’t know everybody’s goings on.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Did you tell the police?”

“Oh, yes. But I’d no name. It was a gentleman from her church, passing and wanted to say hello.”

My prickling subsided. “What time was it?”

“Late morning.”

“Before midday?”

“Yes.”

Miriam would still have been at the Whitworth Centre.

“I said she sometimes went down to the community centre and he could try there.”

The bell on the shop door announced two teenage girls. I waited while he served them with cigarettes. If Miriam’s visitor gone to the Centre first instead of calling at her home, how differently might that day have gone? But how was he to know her daily schedule? Who was this man from the church? Wasn’t it more common to ring and see if someone was going to be in before calling on them? I waited till the shop keeper was free and got a description of the caller. Middle-aged black man, grey hair, maybe had a moustache; that was as much as he could tell me. It niggled though, just the fact of him being there the day of her suicide. I needed to check him out, contact the church and see if they could help me identify him.

So I had established that none of the near neighbours had actually seen Miriam return home. That didn’t mean she hadn’t eaten lunch there. But there was a more straightforward way to establish that; by asking Martina and Roland what they had found on their return from school. In doing so I could also find out whether Roland was at home playing his music that day or whether Mrs Boscoe had got it wrong.

“I’ve invited my mother again,” Ray said as he cleared the table.

“And?”

“
I don’t know Raymundo, lottsa people, lottsa fuss. I don’t wanna be in the way
,” Ray mimicked his mother’s martyr act.

“She wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “As long as she’s home for the Boxing Day races.”

“She made seventy pounds last Saturday.”

“Blimey.”

“Mind you, she only tells me when she wins. We’ll have to do turkey though.”

“You do the turkey and I’ll make a veggie alternative.”

“Just for you?”

“I suppose. Something luxurious that I’d never normally eat.”

He moved the salt and pepper and wiped the big pine table down.

“So you don’t mind?”

“I’m fine. It’s Laura you should check with.” The acid remarks and general disapproval that Nana Tello had once directed my way now seemed to be reserved for Laura. I couldn’t fathom it. She’d spent the last years wanting to see Ray fixed up, wanting the prospect of a ‘normal’ family for Tom and now it was on the horizon (well, not beyond the bounds of possibility) she was daggers drawn about it. “You can’t not invite your mother.” I added. “The secret is to have no expectations, or only realistic ones. No nice presents, no delicious meal, no relaxed hours in front of the telly or playing games. Think of Christmas as a chore to be got through.”

“Who rattled your cage?”

“I’m not rattled, just resigned.”

“Cynical.”

“Pragmatic. It’s for the children, who will have consumed enough chocolate by breakfast to sink the Titanic and who’ll then be hyperactive and feverish till bedtime.”

I wondered what sort of Christmas Stuart and his family would have? We hadn’t talked about it, silently acknowledging that we weren’t established enough to be a part of each other’s seasonal plans. Would he have his kids for Christmas or would his ex? Would he be on his own or off to visit other relatives? I ought to find out. With Ray and Laura off work and able to look after Maddie there might be a chance of doing something special, a night at a country inn in the Peak District; long walks and home cooking.

“What do you want for Christmas anyway?” I asked Ray.

“Oh,” he groaned and began to load the dishwasher. “You don’t need to bother. We could just give the children things.”

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. “That’s the spirit.”

“Only ...”

“You’ve got me something?”

He looked sheepish. “Get me a CD then.”

“Who?”

“Surprise me.”

“Okay.” What on earth had he got me? And why so soon. I was curious and I felt a hint of excitement. Maybe it was something good, something perfect for me. There I was, letting my expectations get the better of me.

The doorbell rang and I went to get it, Maddie and Tom came out of the playroom to see who it was. A shaky, giggly version of ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ came from outside. I opened the door to two small boys, both with close cropped hair and tatty clothes. The smaller was missing his front teeth.

“Wait there,” I said.

I gave them fifty pence each.

“Fifty pence!” Maddie observed, when they’d gone. “They weren’t very good. Can we go carol singing?”

Oh, please no. Trailing round knocking on doors with Maddie coming all over shy. I knew who’d end up doing the singing. “Maybe when you’re bigger.”

“You keep the money, don’t you?” she checked.

“Some people do it for charity, to help other people.”

She thought about this. “You could give half of it to charity”

“You could.”

“Look,” Tom interrupted to show me his wobbly tooth. “I ‘an do ‘is,” he spoke with his mouth open and one finger pulling said tooth forward to expose the hole in his gum.

“Gross,” said Maddie.

He turned to give her a better look.

She covered her eyes.

“I bet it’ll come out soon,” I told him, “and you can put it under your pillow.”

“For the tooth fairy.”