Heads I Win; Tails You Lose

Chapter 2-1

CHAPTER 2

I spend a lot of time thinking because I’m naturally logical and methodical and I like to plan; a belt, braces and piece of string person. I know this is irrational as no-one can plan for every eventuality but, nonetheless, I have to try because it’s all part of the game I set myself; the challenge; my reason to exist.

I cast my mind back over the years and visualise myself sitting on the stairs, my arms hugging my knees, folding in upon myself for comfort. I can just see my parents in our lounge, framed by the edge of the door and the wall; like a tableau of idyllic married life. They’d been drinking, they often did, and as always with them the booze raised voices and loosened tongues. It was then I discovered that I was a Mistake; an error of judgement; something to be marginalised and preferably ignored.

I didn’t understand it at the time; I was only six, so I went to Matt, my big brother. He looked at me kind of funny and turned his head away, then suddenly swung round, grabbing me and throwing me onto his bed, tickling and telling me I was so gorgeous he wanted to eat me! I giggled and squirmed and shrieked and the moment passed but its undertone, the sense of something wrong, of an unjustified unkindness, lodged deep in my subconscious. Like a festering boil it swelled as the years passed until I discovered the means to lance it. The game I play is my scalpel and I now wield it with ruthless precision.

I pour myself a large glass of Chenin Blanc and curl up on the sofa with my album memories of Matt. Closing my eyes I recall the afternoon I’d found the album.

A young girl, my world had irrevocably changed; my brother had recently died so, as a way of keeping him with me, I decide I will make an album of Matt’s life. I traipse round the usual book stores but lack of enough cash and the seeming sterility of new books soon has me making my way to my favourite bookstore; the second hand bookshop at the top of the hill.

Once a dwelling house of some standing, the former home of a local dignitary, its front two rooms are now filled floor to ceiling with shelves crammed so tightly it’s often difficult to extract the items you want.

Using my shoulder for leverage, I push against the resistance of the entrance door’s strong spring and stumble down the step into the shop, the jangling of the brass bell discordantly announcing my arrival. As the door wrenches itself free of my grasp it slams back into its frame, dislodging a shower of fine dust that floats gracefully in the sunlight before settling on every surface within reach, including me.

I stand for a second, breathing in the muskiness of aged paper, sensing the inherent dampness of the building brush against my warm skin and absorbing the fecund silence of millions of words caught between covers, waiting to be released once more into human consciousness.

I pass swiftly through the front rooms on my familiar route out into the back garden where, in summer, a round metal table and chairs and a couple of wooden benches allow customers to sit and browse for as long as they please. The garden rises quite steeply via a crazy-paved path to an outbuilding, little more than a glorified shed, but it holds treasures that have entranced me since Matt had first brought me here on my eighth birthday to choose my gift. It was only fitting that I should end my search here.

The outbuilding houses a miscellany of items that have mostly seen better days; dejected looking works with worn covers, dog-eared pages sometimes defaced with comments by previous readers but it was this that, to Matt’s amusement, I loved.

Browsing through these old, discarded tomes, I find thoughts scribbled in the margins, corners of pages turned down to mark points of interest, sometimes phrases underlined or highlighted and I feel I have a window into other minds; I observe without being observed. It’s a good feeling.

It’s the album’s cover that catches my eye; worn leather, the charcoal-brown of singed toast etched with a filigree of fine lines, like tiny veins. Under the caress of my fingers it feels warm, a living thing. I lift it to my nose and inhale the dust of years, its animal and human scent. Inside are black pages made of an absorbent substance, reminding me of blotting paper but more substantial; here and there photograph corner tabs remain glued to the pages, with occasional annotations in white ink, written in a beautiful copper-plate hand; sad reminders of someone else’s treasured memories.

‘Y’know, you could use a bit of Dubbin on that cover; real leather it is, high quality once. Just needs a bit of TLC to stop it cracking any further.’

The bookseller, his skin as crazed as the cover of the album, leans in toward me, his fingers gently brushing the album surface as he speaks.

‘How much is it?’

He takes it from my hands and turns to the inside back cover.

‘Five pounds.’

Carefully, I count out the coins from my purse.

‘Oh, I’ve only got four.’

My voice breaks in disappointment as I hold out my hand, the coins displayed as evidence. He looks at my outstretched palm, its contents shining in a shaft of light from the open door and reaching out, scrapes the coins toward him with yellowed nails; a chicken scratching in the dirt.

‘That’ll do, young lady.’

I turn, hugging the album to my chest and step out into the winter sunshine. As I round the corner, out of sight of the second hand book shop and its owner, I pop into the sweet shop and spend my salvaged pound.

I’ve been adding photos and cuttings to the album since my brother’s death. Matt, fifteen years old, holding me as a baby, looking for all the world more like a proud father than my sibling; Matt pushing me on the garden swing; Matt helping me balance on my first bike; Matt teaching me tennis; Matt always there; where my parents should have been and then …. No more photos, just newspaper cuttings with sensational headlines; grainy images that blur the chiselled line of his jaw and dull the startling blue of his eyes as though he was already drifting away from me, fading into that “long goodnight” from which there is no return.

I pour myself another glass of Chenin Blanc as I take some stir fry out of the fridge; it will go nicely with the piece of fresh salmon I bought on the way home. I find preparing food a relaxing, therapeutic activity, it acts as a balm to my over-active mind which at the moment is fixated upon Barry. I keep musing about how events can completely alter one’s perception of people.

For instance, Barry stands just over six feet; he has a shock of black, permanently tousled hair and the deepest, darkest eyes fringed with lashes that girls spend hours trying to achieve with layers of mascara. His skin has darkened to an attractive bronze by all the hours he spends outside and he has a lean, toned body that attracts all the college females, both staff and students, something to which I’m not immune myself.

Barry has been in my class for the past six months. Learning about art history is not his main subject, he’s actually on the Small Animal and Wildlife Course but under the ethos of our Principal, Paul Whitlow, all students are compelled to take a subject outside their main area of interest. The Principal apparently believes this will turn them into more ‘rounded’ members of society. Complete rot of course but who am I to argue.

Just why Barry chose art history became apparent one afternoon when he asked if I could give him some additional help.

Being new at the college I was keen to make a good impression and my desire to please over-rid my better judgement. As Barry and I sat in the empty classroom, his text book open on the desk before us, Barry moved his chair closer to mine and leant so close that his face was only inches away from my own. His breath smelt of sweet peppermint and his aftershave had a heady, musky base that elicited a slight fluttering of response deep in my belly.

‘You know, you have the most beautiful eyes.’

I look up into Barry’s face and calmly appraise him. ‘Thank you, Barry but you really shouldn’t say things like that. Now, what were you having difficulty with?’ I prodded the book.

‘Keeping my eyes off you, what else?’

‘I think you’d better stop, Barry, before you embarrass yourself.’

‘I’m not embarrassed. Are you?’

I pushed my chair back and stood, trying to assume some authority, which isn’t easy when you stand a diminutive five feet three. ‘Out, Barry,’ I said walking past him and opening the door.

He obediently rose from his chair and made toward me, ‘See you tomorrow,’ his smile both inviting and seductive.

I wasn’t surprised that Barry fancied me, most men do, especially as I look younger than my twenty-six years, but I was quite confident that I had the measure of him – just a cocky little oik trying it on – until now that is.

The morning after my lunchtime encounter with the tramp I arrive early for my class to find the room abuzz with excited chatter. This is a small group of only ten students and all but one are in a conclave of animated conversation.

‘So, what’s got everybody’s interest this morning?’

The group reluctantly break formation and take their seats.

‘Haven’t you heard the news?’ Terri Westacott leans forward on her desk, her long hair pooling on the surface in front of her, a shimmering cascade of barley yellow.

‘What news is that, Terri?’

‘The murder in Melsham Park.’

‘What?’ The surprise spills the exclamation from my lips and my eyes dart over to where Barry Mason is sitting. Immediately, I switch my gaze back to Terri but not before I catch a flicker of concern flit across Barry’s face.

Barry sits silent, his chair tipped onto its hind legs, but I sense his attention is focused in my direction.

‘I bet it’s that tramp that’s been hanging about the college grounds.’ This time it’s Stephen Blake who takes up the tale.

I swallow hard. ‘And what makes you think that, Stephen?’

‘Cos he’s not there this morning and he’s been hanging around for a couple of weeks now. Haven’t you seen him?’

I vaguely recall seeing a shadowy figure lurking near the woods that form the right hand boundary of the college grounds but I hadn’t associated it with the tramp that had so frightened me. ‘I think it’s a bit early to be surmising as to who it is but I’m sure we’ll all find out in time, once the police have completed their enquiries. Now, can we get down to some work please?’

There’s a resigned shuffling of bodies as books are tossed heavily onto desks.

I find it difficult to keep the lesson on track as my mind is racing. It seems I may have a murderer sitting in my class who may or may not know that I was a witness to his act. Cautiously, I observe Barry during the lesson. He seems unruffled by the earlier exchange but that could just be bravado.

A murder investigation will undoubtedly be instigated which will surely involve DCI Munroe. If the body in the park is that of the tramp, then I have a hold over Barry that could prove useful but I need to take time and think things through. Munroe has a daughter, Lily, on whom he dotes and she’s about Barry’s age. Maybe, if I can get the two together … a DCI’s daughter and a murderer. I can feel a slight smirk develop as the idea gels but first I need to find out more about Barry.

I can’t deny that the end of session bell is a relief and in my haste to leave I drop some of the papers I’m collecting up. As I bend to retrieve them a large pair of Nike trainers clamp down on top of them. Barry bends down to my level and looks straight into my eyes, a searching, penetrating stare. ‘I’ll help you with those.’ He gathers up the papers and hands them to me, holding on to them just a fraction longer than is necessary so that I have to practically tug them out of his hand. ‘Seems like it would be a good idea to stop going to the park for a while, yeah?’