‘You mean another breakfast,’ said Dryden, slipping on the seat-belt by way of affirmation.
The Box Café – known more popularly as Salmonella Sid’s – was a greasy spoon hidden behind the riverside’s newly renovated façades. Humph stayed in the cab, to which an indulgent staff ferried his mug and plate while Dryden demolished a full English and completed a quick run through the downmarket tabloids.
He was at the bottom of the stairwell leading to Declan McIlroy’s flat at precisely 8.00am, his lips still stinging slightly from the heat of microwaved sausages.
Vee trudged towards him across the deserted car park. She wore Doc Martens with red laces and a tattered donkey-jacket with lapels to die for: badges included CND and Troops Out of Iraq Now. She brandished a printed list. ‘These are the residents who responded to the flier,’ she said.
Dryden read down, trying to remember if he’d seen a leaflet in Declan McIlroy’s flat. ‘Perfect,’ he said, stabbing a finger on the name Buster Timms. ‘Great hook: a man who lives next door to the latest victim of the killer winter.’
Vee nodded, her eyes hinting at disappointment. She liked Dryden, loathed his trade. ‘I’ll come with you; the field worker here doesn’t want the publicity. Pictures?’
‘Yeah – I’ll ring the ’toggy once it’s in the bag,’ said Dryden, jiggling his mobile by his ear.
The lift had been cleaned and was working, despite a dent in the aluminium back wall the size of a dustbin lid. A wind was blowing on the twelfth floor and the air was so keen that when Dryden put his hand on the safety barrier of the walkway his skin momentarily froze to the metal. He knocked on Buster’s door, then stepped back for Vee to make the pitch. Dryden turned his back on the door to look down on to the car park below: it held three vehicles, two cars which were necessarily stationary owing to a 100 per cent deficiency in the wheels department and a small white van which Dryden could not see clearly from above. It trundled to the exit and out of sight around the flats.
The door rattled open on a chain. Buster was still in his tartan dressing gown, with several layers of padding beneath.
‘What?’ he said, leering at Dryden.
Vee held up the Day-Glo yellow flier: ‘Hypothermia Trust, Mr Timms. You rang our number. We might be able to help warm you up. This is Mr Dryden – from The Crow– he’s going to put some of the advice in the paper for those we can’t visit. Would you mind?’
Dryden admired Vee’s doorstep technique, which he couldn’t have bettered.
Buster shrugged. ‘She’s just gone out – clinic for her eyes. Why not? I’ve met chummy before…’ he added, nodding at Dryden. Buster walked off towards his front room, the bow of the legs beneath the dressing gown suggesting childhood rickets. There was a hatch between the front room and the kitchenette and Buster was already making tea, a cloud of steam around him like dry ice.
Dryden knelt down before a five-bar fire. ‘What’s wrong with the central heating?’
Buster appeared with a tray. ‘We save that for the evenings. Keeps the bills down – that’s why she’s out, really; after the clinic she’ll go to that drop-in centre off the town square. Then there’s a new centre in the cathedral as well. Coffee, biscuits, she’ll be hours.’ He shrugged with unconcealed happiness.
‘The sister called,’ said Buster, nodding at the partition wall to Declan’s flat. ‘She’s taken a lot of stuff. Boxed the rest up. Left me his keys – all of them. Even the cupboard.’ Buster winked at Dryden. ‘It’s worth a look.’
Vee sat, taking out a fat Manila file from her satchel.
‘This isn’t gonna cost, is it?’ said Buster, eyeing the file and forgetting Declan’s flat.
Vee shook her head, taking the tea and turning aside the sugar bowl. ‘No. Not a penny. I need to do a heat audit on the flat. This electric fire, for example – it’s really very inefficient. You’d be better running the radiators for an hour in the morning… Can I have a look?’
Buster showed her the immersion heater and the gas boiler in a hall cupboard. She checked the windows, letting the cool air which slipped through the ill-fitting metal frames play on her lips.
Dryden wandered round, making an effort to collect the kind of detail that would bring the feature alive. The plastic Christmas tree with fairy lights unlit, the three cards on the mantelpiece, the puckered wallpaper in one corner of the ceiling where the damp had got through. A goldfish bowl stood on the bedside table, complete with underwater castle apparently without a resident. He flicked the bowl with his finger.
‘Belly up,’ said Buster from the doorway.
Dryden noted the slight sheen of ice on a family snapshot which stood framed on the window ledge.
Back in the front room Vee ran through the couple’s shopping list with Buster, trying to see if she could slip them on to the council’s meals-on-wheels service. That could save them enough cash to run the heating for longer, and stock up the cupboard with some soups, fresh vegetables and fruit. She did some sums on a pocket calculator, expertly summarizing their pension position and eligibility for winter fuel payments and the cold-weather bonus.
‘We might be able to get you a grant, Mr Timms – on top of the payments. It’s worth £2,500 – you could get double-glazing. And you know the hospital does sessions as well?’ she asked. ‘They do some very light physiotherapy – hot drinks. Just going would be good for you.’
Buster looked stoically unimpressed. ‘Your man did that already,’ he said.
Vee paused, sipping tea, thinking she’d misheard.
‘The doc. Called the other day with your flier. Did miracles with her shoulders, checked her temperature, pulse, the lot.’
‘And you?’ asked Dryden, catching Vee’s good eye.
Buster tucked the tartan dressing gown more securely around his waist: ‘He scarpered when I got home, I’d been down the bowls club. He was off then. Didn’t believe she was seventy-one, she said. Said she could run a marathon.’ Buster nodded, looking at them both. ‘Bit of a tosser, really.’
‘Did he visit Declan too? Next door?’
Buster’s eyes were wary now, sensing that something was wrong but unable to guess what to hide. ‘After us. I heard him knock anyway and he didn’t walk back past the door for an hour – maybe more.’
‘This was the night he died, wasn’t it?’ said Dryden.
‘I didn’t tell the police,’ said Buster, one step ahead now. He raised a hand to his forehead. ‘I just didn’t think.’
‘Don’t worry. I can pass it on if you like…’ offered Dryden. Buster pushed his teeth forward in a smile. ‘What was he like – the doctor? Not your own GP then?’
‘I only saw him for a minute, like – he’d done with her, and he said he had to finish his appointments. Bit odd, really. No tie or anything. But smart. About fifty, perhaps not. My age, everyone looks young. She said he had very strong ’ands, when he massaged her neck and that. Medium height – pretty solid. Don’t expect that, do you? Our one’s a streak of piss.’
‘How about his face?’ asked Dryden, knowing the police would press for more, even if they had already filed Declan McIlroy’s death firmly under suicide.
Buster pursed his lips. ‘Sorry, she had the TV on by then – Countdown, we never miss. Mousy hair? Dunno. Short, I think; shortish, anyway.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘She said he had lovely blue eyes, silly cow. He had a black bag too, and a clipboard.’
‘And he just knocked, Mr Timms?’ asked Vee, aware that the purpose of their visit had shifted. ‘No preparatory call? We insist on that,’ she added, looking to Dryden.
‘Nah. She heard this noise from the landing, someone going past… Bastard was halfway to Declan’s flat so she got him back, said we were needy. He said he’d planned to do us next but she told him we didn’t answer the door after dark.’