‘It’s in my house, the fire… except it’s not,’ Alice said, coming out onto the landing and beginning to explain.
‘In your house? Then for Heaven’s sake, get Quill!’ Miss Spinnell shouted, gesturing impatiently with her good hand for her neighbour to go back into the burning flat. Alice explained again that it was a false alarm, that they were not all at risk of imminent immolation, and apologised profusely. Then she turned, intending to go back in, snatch her wallet and rush off to the Taj Mahal.
‘We’ve a window pole. That might do the trick and incapacitate the alarm,’ said Mrs Foscetti, jabbing an imaginary pole at an imaginary ceiling.
‘What’s happened to your face?’ Miss Spinnell asked, bemused, coming nearer and pointing at Alice, ‘you look like a darkie!’
‘Sshh’ Mrs Foscetti said sharply, embarrassed both by her sister’s use of the term, and her frankness in making such a personal comment.
‘A blackie…’ Miss Spinnell murmured to herself, ‘inky… a coalface,’ her voice petering out in thought.
Alice put her hand up to her cheek, and when she examined her fingers she found they were thickly covered in soot.
‘Listen,’ Miss Spinnell said mysteriously.
‘To what?’ her sister asked.
‘The silence…’
The alarm had switched itself off.
Once in the flat again, disconsolate that everything was going so wrong and desperate for something to eat, Alice washed her face in the basin, producing black smears on it as she did so. And while she was trying to clean herself, Ian Melville walked in, a huge bunch of freesias in his hand.
‘I’m so sorry…’ she began, knowing before she had even started speaking that as she explained all the mishaps, the candles going out, the burnt food, the alarm going off and everything else, all of them would, even in combination, sound inadequate, an insufficient excuse for a presentless, celebrationless birthday. Even pleading the pressures of a murder investigation seemed too tired, too weak an explanation in her own ears, never mind his. If only he had been on sodding time though, she thought, but it seemed a churlish justification, better left unexpressed. He had red paint on the side of his face, and, as was often the case, on his hands too.
‘So we’ve nothing to eat, eh… Sooty?’
‘I think perhaps you mean Black Beauty…’ she stopped, suddenly remembering that Black Beauty was a horse. She racked her brain to think of a suitable insult in return, but, drink-befuddled and exhausted, found all inspiration gone.
‘Perhaps we should be flexible, change the plan, and just have a bath instead?’ he said, smiling, his red fingers already hovering over the top buttons of her blouse. She nodded, only too pleased at the suggestion.
As she lay down in the warm water, letting it lap over her and beginning to relax, he disappeared, returning with a single candle. Just as he climbed in beside her, soap in hand, intoxicated by the thought of their evening together, the ring-tone of her phone shattered their peace.
‘Leave it,’ he said.
She looked at him and shook her head.
‘Please, Alice, just this time. It is my birthday. Please, please, don’t answer.’
‘I have to.’ It was pointless to explain. There would be nothing new to say, nothing that she had not said too many times before. By now he should understand.
DI Manson walked into his own front hall. He threw his overcoat over the banisters, his body aching, feeling work-soiled and drained. Glancing through the living-room door, he was dazzled by the blue and red lights blinking on the Christmas tree, then noticed a partly completed jigsaw on a tray on the coffee table. The radio was broadcasting a carol service from somewhere, and a woman’s low voice, emanating from the kitchen, was accompanying the choir in ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’. He entered the warm room, hoping that Margaret would be there and on her own, but instead he found one of her friends, singing to herself, busy removing his dinner from the oven.
‘Where’s Margaret?’ he asked, feeling too tired to face any food.
‘Upstairs with the girls.’
‘What’s she doing?’
‘Never you mind, love. Just get that down you,’ she answered, placing a plate of some green tagliatelle mixture in front of him. ‘I’ll keep you company, while you eat.’
He rose from the table, pushing the dish to one side, determined to see his wife and to rid his house of the coven that seemed to have taken up residence in it for the last few days. Suddenly, Margaret came racing into the room, his mobile clamped to her ear.
‘It’s Elaine,’ she whispered. ‘You left your phone in your coat. Here you are…’
‘Ma’am,’ he said, trying to force himself back into work-mode and summon some vitality from somewhere.
‘Go to Saxe-Coburg Street now. Someone from Criminal Intelligence has just been in contact. There’s been an incident there, a sort of break-in, I don’t have all the details, except that it’s an invalid’s house. I’ll tell you when I see you there, OK? Alice is already on her way. A constable’s just picked her up.’
‘Right,’ he replied, moving towards the door.
‘You don’t have to go now, do you pet? What about your tea?’ a concerned voice asked. But he did not feel the need to respond, because it was not Margaret speaking.
The man was chittering, trembling like a frightened dog, his whole body convulsed by continuous wave after wave of involuntary movement, as if it no longer belonged to him, but had been possessed by fear. Elaine Bell pulled up a seat opposite his wheelchair, looking into his anguished face, her eyes now level with his own.
‘Can you tell us what happened, Mr Anderson?’
He said nothing, then his lower lip jutted out as if he was about to burst into tears, and he gave a low, vulpine moan. His carer leant over him and took one of his hands in hers, squeezing it gently between her fingers.
‘Come on, pal, just tell them what you told me.’
The man nodded, lip still protruding, then began to speak, a slow babble of sounds issuing from his mouth, each word slurred and jostling with the next to form a single stream of incomprehensible noise.
Alice caught the DCI’s eye and Elaine Bell shook her head, her expression one of bafflement. Eric Manson was staring at the man’s mouth as if by looking at it for long enough, or hard enough, he might somehow acquire the art of lip reading. After speaking for a further thirty seconds or so, the man fell silent. His carer sighed and said, ‘See? Just like what I told the constable earlier. What a bastard! You wouldn’t believe it, would you?’
‘Sorry. Sorry…’ Elaine Bell replied. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t catch a single word he said. Could we try again?’
The invalid repeated his story, pausing every so often to look quizzically at the police officers, checking whether they could understand him. But again the noise that he made sounded entirely alien, reminiscent of a record playing at the wrong speed, far too slowly.
‘Dreadful, eh?’ the carer said, an expression of outrage on her face and her hands clenched pugnaciously on her broad hips.
‘Diane, perhaps, just for the moment, you could translate for us, tell us what he said?’ the DCI asked, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, desperate to find out what had happened and to be able to start the investigation.
‘Well…’ Diane began, ‘Ron said that he was in his bed – he goes early like, I put him into his bed – he was in it, nearly asleep, and he heard a noise so he opened his eyes. He’d had a pill…’
‘A sleeping pill, you’d given him a sleeping pill?’
‘Aye. He opened his eyes and saw a man in his room, prowling about like. Picking up his things, even had a wee go in his wheelchair, using the joystick and everything. Well, the man comes over…’
A strange honking sound drowned out her voice, as the invalid joined in, gesticulating excitedly and jabbing the air with his right hand. Just at that moment the spin cycle on the washing machine started up, drowning their words with a high pitched whine.