The Vacant Casualty Read online

  ‘You see, I’m here to study cops. I’m just a lily-livered writer from the leafy suburbs but I want to get to know the real workings of the police force inside out. I’m working on a novel – a gritty crime novel that I hope to make into a series of novels. And then, perhaps, one day, a really great, hard-hitting TV series.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bradley, whose eye wavered from the young man to the report on his desk, his mind rapidly trying to calculate which of these to pursue first for the least disappointing outcome. He did not feel confident of either.

  ‘To have experienced police brutality at first hand – well, it will be very useful as a . . . a sense memory, if you will, when I’m writing. I’m Sam Easton.’ He offered his hand.

  The detective took it, looking as relieved as he was grateful, and drawing his chair in closer to his desk, he leant across once more and said confidentially: ‘You see, I don’t want to disappoint you, but I’m not really that sort of policeman at all. I was only made a detective last week. I’m just trying to live up to expectations.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sam dubiously. ‘Whose expectations, exactly?’

  Not even daring to point directly towards his fellow officer, Bradley indicated over his shoulder and Sam followed his gaze. There at the next desk sat that other detective, who had appeared to Sam no more than a terrifying blur. Now he had a chance to take him in. He was a bruising hulk of a man, bald and with sweat patches sprouting from beneath his arms. There was a Chinese food carton on one side of his desk, along with a half-eaten burger the size of a sponge cake. As Sam looked on, he gargled a hefty measure of brandy like mouthwash, and splashed the remains of the half-bottle into his coffee cup.

  ‘Detective Brautigan,’ Bradley whispered. ‘He’s a real policeman.’

  ‘Maybe I should be following him around, then?’ suggested Sam hopefully.

  ‘You wouldn’t survive a week,’ said Bradley. ‘None of his partners ever do.’

  ‘God DAMN IT!’ screamed Brautigan from the next desk, making them both jump. They looked around to find that he was talking into his telephone and staring down, eyes bulging, at a square open box that had just been delivered to his desk, his expression a mixture of fury and revulsion. When his voice at last broke forth, it sounded like a Formula One car coming out of a tunnel at full pelt.

  ‘I said JAM doughnuts! NOT RING DOUGHNUTS! Get it right next time or I’ll punch your fucking nose out through your arse!’ He smashed the receiver back into place so hard it snapped in half and, snarling, he pulled the line from the wall and tossed the whole pile of junk into a corner, where it landed on a heap of discarded telephones. Then he turned to the little old lady sat primly in the chair next to his desk and pointed at her with a finger trembling with fury.

  ‘You sure it’s a Pekingese you lost? God damn it, give me the truth!’

  The lady nodded mutely.

  ‘You better not be fuckin’ lying to me,’ he screamed, his voice becoming hoarse. ‘Okay, tell me – where did you last see the little motherfucker?’

  ‘Or, actually, maybe I would be better off with you after all,’ Sam conceded quietly.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Bradley. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. The eleven o’clock snack trolley’s coming round and he always flips out when that happens. I’ve got a missing person report to investigate and there’s only so much of him I can take.’

  ‘NO FUCKING CREAM BUNS!’

  Brautigan’s voice followed them down the corridor as they left.

  Chapter Two

  THE CAR JOURNEY to the little town of Mumford, just five miles over the hill, was spent in thankful silence. When they arrived they found a conurbation so small it consisted of scarcely more than a square with a large medieval coaching inn and a modest Town Hall at opposite ends, with two main roads running off it, and a small number of streets spreading away, boasting a smattering of twee-looking shops.

  They found Terry Fairbreath’s house down one of these quiet lanes, and waiting for them outside was Miss Mavis Ritter. She explained the situation in a good deal of distress and then showed the two men through the house. From the first moment the detective had no apparent compunction in including Sam in every step of the inquiry – whether out of hope for his assistance or sheer lack of the necessary presence of mind to ask him to remain outside, the young man could not tell.

  As Mavis had predicted, the house showed no signs of disturbance, and in fact after investigation of the missing man’s effects, all of which seemed to be in perfect order, they still had no evidence at all to show why he should have absconded so suddenly and completely from his life.

  Standing outside and thanking Miss Ritter once again for her assistance, Bradley asked if she knew who else of Terry’s acquaintance they might interview. She sneezed twice, as was her habit when being asked a question to which she did not immediately know the answer, and after elaborately mopping her face, said doubtfully that she did not know his friends, but that they might speak to the members of the Parish Council, of which he was a member.

  In fact, she said, looking at her watch (and sneezing once more), she understood that there was a Parish Council meeting going on this moment, at the rectory.

  The men were not much sooner informed of this than they were knocking at the rectory door.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Bradley as they waited to be let in.

  ‘About what?’ Sam asked.

  ‘About the Parish Council,’ said Bradley. ‘Do you think it might throw up some hints?’

  At being asked this, Sam started to have serious misgivings about placing himself with Bradley. For research into a novel about bumbling inadequacy, he was beginning to think, the detective might be the perfect subject. But for a brutal cop drama that dealt with real problems, he was coming over a little like a wet fish. As a young man who had grown up reading books and dreaming of being a writer, however, Sam knew a great deal about acting like a wet fish, and he felt a pang of sympathy. For his own selfish purposes, he wanted the detective to have a difficult case to crack, which he could be in on, but for this rather plain and simple man’s own self-esteem he wanted it too. He began to think about fictional detectives he knew, from whom he could glean some useful lessons to toughen up Bradley’s technique.

  ‘I’d say this might prove useful,’ he said. ‘You never know what matters get discussed in places like this.’

  The bell was presently answered by the vicar’s lady help, a hunchbacked woman who showed no sign of human intelligence, but who merely blinked and led them along a dusty corridor towards a room at the back.

  ‘Go on,’ whispered Bradley.

  ‘Well, you never know,’ said Sam. ‘In a little place such as this, the Parish Council can be a hotbed of secret motivations and simmering resentments that are generations old. The sort of thing that could lead to murder . . .’

  ‘Next on the agenda,’ a man’s voice intoned gravely from within the room as the door opened before them, ‘something that has caused deep division among us . . .’

  Sam and Bradley exchanged a meaningful look as they passed into the room and made their way towards some spare chairs at the back.

  ‘. . . the use of Rich Tea biscuits with our refreshments. I refer to Mrs Bloodpudding’s request for a change to Custard Creams.’

  The detective and the writer both looked rather depressed as a murmur of discord went around the room.

  ‘Bloody outrage,’ muttered a deranged-looking old man with a copper complexion and wearing half-moon glasses over an eyepatch. ‘We’ve been eating Rich Teas since 1964. Thin end of the wedge. It’s like Nazi Germany!’ and he smashed the table with his fist.

  No one paid any attention, and the second the old man realized this, he seemed to calm down completely and began munching away quite happily on the Custard Creams that were being handed round. The new biscuits met with a widely favourable reception. A vote was briefly counted and agreed upon before they moved on.

  ‘Next,’ sa
id the chairman, a handsome, expensively dressed middle-aged fellow with an easy manner, ‘the problem of how we should treat the tourists who visit and are seeking the, er . . .’ Here the man, who showed every sign of being a confident public speaker, suddenly stumbled on his words. ‘I notice we have visitors . . .’ he mumbled.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ barked the old duffer at his elbow. ‘What’s the problem with tourists, Selvington?’

  ‘Ah, this must be Lord Selvington. Owns half the country hereabouts,’ whispered Bradley into Sam’s ear.

  ‘Please, Major, some decorum,’ begged Lord Selvington. But the major looked like someone who possessed the magic trinity of bad hearing, an enjoyment of making a nuisance of himself and a dislike of decorum.

  ‘Don’t see the problem with tourists, Selvington,’ he said. ‘We rely on tourists. That’s why all our bloody shops are called Ye Olde Shoppe, even Ye Olde DVD Shoppe. I mean, it’s bloody ridiculous.’

  The other members of the council were now noticeably agitated at the major’s interruption, and were trying to shush him, while several others looked over their shoulders at Sam and Bradley, who remained mystified.

  ‘Ye Olde Hatte Shoppe,’ the major went on. ‘Ye Olde Booke Shoppe. Ye Olde Cakee Shoppe, that’s a bloody joke . . .’ At last the old man caught on that people were trying to quiet him. ‘Oh, I see!’ he said. ‘When you say tourists, you’re talking about people who’re looking for that famous woman who moved onto the h—’

  Here he was broken off by a shushing that suddenly jumped in volume until several people in the room were actually shouting – one artistic-looking man jumped from his chair and sang ‘LALALALALA’ at the top of his voice, then when everything was under control threw himself back into his seat and hummed tunefully as though it had all been part of the song that was playing in his head. The major was quietened, and a very uneasy silence descended on the room.

  Sam looked left and right, awkwardly, and scanned for an exit closer than the door he had come in through. He wondered if they had wicker men in this part of the world. He looked at Bradley, who was sitting back in his chair, with one leg over the other, his foot swinging happily as though nothing had happened.

  ‘I don’t know what the major refers to,’ said Lord Selvington stiffly. ‘But to put it baldly, yes, there are lots of misguided tourists in the town who are looking for the private home of a very famous author. Of course, we know this is nonsense . . .’

  As he said this, he could not help but cast a quick and meaningful glance towards the tall window to his left. Neither could the rest of the council – their eyes travelled as one to the view of the crest of the hill, topped by a tasteful detached house in pale stone, surrounded on each side by stands of trees, silhouetted by the bright afternoon sky and framed perfectly by the bay window. Their eyes all lingered on this charming scene for a moment too long, before drifting distractedly back to the business at hand.

  ‘. . . Er . . . Nonsense . . .’ said Lord Selvington. ‘As I said. There is absolutely no world-famous author of a series of fantasy novels that have been turned into major motion pictures, trying to live her private life (to which she is perfectly entitled) anywhere near here. And I’d say that to anyone. Er, please,’ he said, mopping his brow nervously, ‘what’s next on the agenda?’

  A lady on the other side of the table, the only member of the council unmoved by the distraction owing to her furious concentration on the minutes, peered down through her glasses and said:

  ‘Point three. Application by author Stephenie Meyer to build a huge mansion on the top of the hill.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ said Selvington. ‘Not another one. No, no!’

  The others seemed to join in with this sentiment, and the matter was quickly voted down.

  ‘Next,’ said the severe-looking lady with glasses. Then she blinked, and refused to read the minute out loud, passing it instead along the line to Lord Selvington.

  ‘Ah,’ said the peer awkwardly. ‘Bad news from the golf club.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said a round little man a few places along. ‘Not the Oldest Member again?’

  (‘I think this guy’s the mayor, the little chap,’ whispered Sam to Bradley.)

  ‘Is it the same trouble as last time?’ asked the mayor.

  ‘I dunno, what the fuck happened last time?’ chimed in the major, looking towards Selvington.

  ‘Oh, please!’ expostulated two of the ladies (who sat beside one another, dressed identically, and appeared to be twins), speaking at once.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it,’ whispered Sam into Bradley’s ear, ‘that the words “mayor” and “major” are so linguistically linked?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bradley.

  ‘I suppose etymologically they probably mean the same thing,’ Sam pressed, feeling he deserved a little more than this. ‘Interesting, don’t you think?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bradley.

  ‘I don’t suppose you mind if I stick my hand up my bum-hole and then smear it over your face?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bradley. ‘What?’

  ‘What has he been up to at the golf club?’ demanded the major, adjusting his eyepatch.

  ‘Well, he’s been getting his, er . . . well, his member out again. In the bar, apparently.’

  ‘Oh Lord! There wasn’t a party of Japanese schoolgirls being shown around like last time, I hope?’

  ‘Apparently no. It seems this time he was genuinely worried that he had something wrong with him and was trying to get attention.’

  ‘Well, of course he was trying to get attention, it’s the oldest trick in the book.’

  ‘Yes, but ironically it didn’t work. Everyone just pretended not to notice for two weeks . . .’

  ‘Two weeks?’ interjected the detective.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said the mayor, addressing the visitor directly. ‘They are rather used to this sort of thing, I’m afraid. And of course he was rendered speechless by pipe smoke and whisky, back in the nineties . . .’

  ‘Which was when he was only in his eighties . . .’ muttered the major.

  ‘So in a way he was the old boy who didn’t cry wolf. Apparently he was horribly infected – they got him into the operating room and lopped the thing off, and luckily there were still signs of life after the operation.’

  ‘In what, him or the penis?’

  ‘Moving on . . .’ said Lord Selvington. ‘If I could take us beyond scurrilous gossip, we have genuine issues to get to on these minutes, as we are all aware. Can we get through the frivolous stuff so that we finish before The Archers comes on this evening?’

  Sam smiled to himself at this remark, but was startled out of it by Bradley whispering urgently into his ear: ‘Oh God, we’re not likely to actually miss The Archers, are we?’

  ‘I think it’s unlikely,’ he whispered back. ‘I think he was being hyperbolic.’

  The detective was clearly panicked by this mysterious word, and, wanting to indicate that he knew what it meant, he grasped hold of the most vulgar misapprehension, jumped up in his seat and uttered, ‘How rude!’ loud enough to attract disapproving tuts from half a dozen councillors.

  ‘I just meant he was being a bit over the top,’ whispered Sam, trying hard to keep his temper, and therefore the volume of his voice, under control. ‘If you miss it, you can listen to the repeat tomorrow at two o’clock, for heaven’s sake. Or on Sunday. Or on bloody iPlayer. I won’t spoil the plot for you, I promise.’ Oh Christ, he thought. What the crapping hell am I doing here?

  ‘Minute seven: the employment of split infinitives in the council minutes,’ said the chairman. ‘Now this really is a problem . . .’

  At this moment Sam, who had been alternately swearing and blaspheming under his breath for several minutes, began to wonder quite seriously what his life was coming to. As a freelance writer he was not only unaccustomed to being stuck in a school-assembly situation like this where he was not allowed to move, or speak, or light a cigarette, but he was also comp
aratively unused to being up at two in the afternoon. And so – contemplating that if he got into a filthy mood at the beginning of a meeting which might very well last longer than Lawrence of Arabia then he would be in a terrible state by the end of it – he attempted to calm himself down with a cool appraisal of the members of the council.

  This was aided by a sheet of paper being thrust into his hand by a friendly lady councillor, who had taken pity on the newcomers and passed them a set of minutes each.

  Now, he thought, looking down the list. Who is who?

  ‘I’m hungry,’ whispered Bradley into his ear, with the spontaneous impatience of a child. ‘Do you think we’re allowed biscuits?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Sam said aloud, discovering after the fact (as happened to him too often) that he had involuntarily lost the temper he had been struggling to control. He strode across the room and stole a plate of biscuits from in front of one of the men before returning and plonking it on Bradley’s knee. This produced the sudden and unexpected reaction of someone beetling across to serve them both with a cup of tea – this person being the stark and expressionless old crone who had earlier let them in.

  The basic English cup of tea, Sam reflected as he took a grateful sip, was the one hot drink which was not drastically impaired by being made on a massive scale.

  Bradley picked up one of the biscuits and said, ‘Oh, Custard Creams. Wizard!’

  At once everyone in the room swivelled their heads to look at him.

  ‘She DOESN’T LIVE HERE!’ bellowed Lord Selvington. ‘Get it? Now, no more talk of wizards!’

  This startling outburst compelled Sam and the detective into silent obedience as the cups of tea were handed to them, and the meeting slowly resumed.

  SETTING HIS TEA down again, he muttered into Bradley’s ear: ‘This town had better have a fried chicken joint and a kebab shop or I’m going to have a conniption.’ Let him deal with that, he thought, as he picked up his copy of the minutes. Now, who were all these dusty old freaks?

  First name: ‘Major Simon Ernald Stuyvesant Eldred, MC’. Okay, that one’s easy.