Play Dead (11 page)

Poppy told the story yet again, unemotionally, as if explaining the plot of a serial episode to somebody who'd missed it. She stressed her unwillingness to swear that the man who started following her out of the park was the same as the one who'd been watching from under the trees. Mr Firth interrupted once to clarify a point.

‘Excellent,' he said. ‘Clear and concise. There's just one aspect I'd like you to expand on, Mrs Tasker. When you saw this man watching you, you say you and the other adults in the playground stared deliberately at him until he went away. What did you do then?'

‘Let Toby go on playing for a bit, then started to take him home. It was a bit early, but the atmosphere wasn't happy. We were all upset.'

‘And angry?'

‘Yes, of course, and frightened and shocked and everything else you'd expect.'

‘And did people express their anger?'

‘I suppose so … I know what you're trying to get me to say, and I'm not going to. It was just talk, just a gut reaction. You can't really believe that a group of ordinary women, in this day and age … I mean … and anyway, how did they find him, how did they know who he was? Do you know who he was?'

‘I can't tell you that at the moment. Look, Mrs Tasker, I understand what you're saying. That's what I think, too. At least, suppose I had to bet on it, I'd lay about twenty to one against any of your girls getting together and killing this man. Maybe I'd lay better odds against one of them telling her boyfriend, and him and some pals doing it, or at least setting out to teach him a lesson and it going wrong. But those are still possibilities I've got to look into. You follow?'

Poppy shook her head. She'd never met Big Sue's Trevor, a crass-sounding, beer-swilling, football-going van driver for a builders' merchant, by Sue's account. He sounded just the sort to get a group of his mates together for a lynching, and what's more he wouldn't understand the importance of the play centre to the women. He'd desecrate it without a thought.

‘You're an intelligent woman …' began Mr Firth.

‘I'm not saying anything.'

‘Don't you see that by refusing to tell me what was in fact said, and by whom, you are reinforcing the suspicion that much more was in fact said than would be normal on such an occasion? That you have, in fact, something to hide?'

‘I've nothing to hide. I just don't want to tell you. You'll have to ask the others, that's all. I'll tell you that I didn't say anything along those lines myself, but I certainly felt it. I tried not to, but I did.'

‘Very well. Put a note in, Bob, to the effect that Mrs Tasker is unwilling to say at this juncture what was said among those present after the man had left the playground. Now, Mrs Tasker, a point you've already raised—how would anyone know where to find the man? Did any of those present say or do anything to show they might have recognised him?'

‘No. I'll tell you that much.'

‘Are you sure? You answered very quickly.'

‘I'd already been thinking about it.'

‘You had? So the possibility of a connection was already in your mind?'

‘I didn't sleep much. And you'd pretty well asked me yesterday, hadn't you? I mean, just by suggesting some of us …'

‘All right. Now we'll move on to yesterday. I took you into the hut and asked you if you recognised the deceased. Carry on in your own words.'

It didn't take long. There wasn't a lot to say. By now Toby had exhausted the possibilities of the ruler and was attracted to the word-processor console on the table beside which Sergeant Caesar was sitting. Sergeant Caesar didn't notice his approach till he began to climb into his lap.

‘My do it,' said Toby.

‘Not now, sonny.'

‘My do it,' said Toby, slowly and loudly, like an English tourist coping with the stupidity of foreigners. The sergeant mimed helplessness.

‘Wait till you've got some of your own, Bob,' said Mr Firth, getting out a sheet of paper and a felt-tipped pen. Bring him over here, Mrs Tasker, and we'll see if the trick still works. What's this, Toby?'

Already he'd started to draw. Poppy picked Toby up and carried him across to watch.

‘What's this, Toby?' he said again.

Towards one edge of the page he had drawn a small, half-open book with a mouse on the cover.

‘Tory,' said Toby, wriggling, not interested.

‘Ah, but what's this?'

A cat had appeared, reading the book.

‘Miaow,' said Toby.

‘Aha! But what's this?'

A few quick lines turned the picture into the cover of another book, and then almost as rapidly a pig appeared, reading that book, only to recede into the cover of a still larger book, perused by an elephant, filling the page. The pictures had humour and fantasy, unsuspected in Firth's manner. But the trick wasn't over. He folded the paper in half, and in half again, several times, down to a book-like shape with the original book on its front cover. He turned it over and drew a quick cartoon of a small boy.

‘That's Toby,' he said. ‘And this is Toby's book.'

Poppy laughed aloud. Toby took the book, and finding that he couldn't turn the pages, carefully unfolded it. Mr Firth helped him fold it back into book shape again, letting him feel he was doing the work himself. He must have been a lovely father, Poppy thought. When the job allowed.

Toby studied the pictures on the front and back.

‘Mine,' he said, and tucked the book carefully into the pocket in the bib of his overalls. The telephone rang. Mr Firth answered, then put his hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Right,' he said. ‘Now Bob will take you next door and take a detailed statement from you. He'll check it with me, and then if we're all happy you can sign it. OK?'

They went next door and settled at a desk in the corner of the room. Toby gave signs of wanting to assist the police in all their activities, but he was tired now and consented to sit in Poppy's lap and let her read snatches of
But
Martin
to him while Sergeant Caesar was writing whatever she'd just said in slow long hand. He had his rusk, then orange juice, stimuli to which at this time of day he had acquired an almost Pavlovian response. At one moment he was sucking at his mug and pointing with his free hand at a detail of the pictures, and the next he had plunged into sleep. She strapped the inert lump into the push-chair and was able to give her full attention to Sergeant Caesar.

He wanted to know everything—who else had been at the entrance to the park, for instance, and the exact time of day, and how had she known and whether anyone else had used the crossing. She learnt not to leave things out—it took longer that way. Mercifully Toby, exhausted by his tantrum, slept almost two hours and woke only as Poppy wheeled him into Mr Firth's office. He had crapped in his nappy while waking, a recent habit, so she laid him out on the carpet and cleaned and changed him while Mr Firth was reading the statement through. The homely pungency she released was pleasing to her in that world of paperwork. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sergeant Caesar wrinkling his nose and averting his gaze with absurd male squeamishness, especially considering the really obscene horrors his work must sometimes confront him with. Mr Firth glanced up, repressed a smile, and went on reading. When he had finished Poppy initialled each page and signed the final sheet.

‘Well done,' he said. ‘I think that's all. I'm sorry it always has to take so long.'

‘There's just one thing,' said Poppy. ‘I don't know how it works, or who to ask, only when the poor man's buried I'd like to send a wreath. How do I … ?'

She stopped. Mr Firth and the Sergeant had glanced at each other and changed, their faces becoming professional, withdrawn.

‘It's all right,' she said hurriedly. ‘It doesn't mean anything. Only I was thinking last night, because of Toby, about him having been a baby once too, and being loved, and now no one even knowing or caring what's happened to him. It wouldn't be a wreath for him really. It would be for me, for all of us … I know it sounds silly …'

The weird moment had passed.

‘Not at all,' said Mr Firth, relaxing. ‘Just make a note, Bob, to see Mrs Tasker knows about the burial arrangements. Now, Mrs Tasker, what about a spot of instant lunch? There's a place just up the road if you've time?'

‘Oh,' said Poppy, startled, suddenly unable to think. She knew the place he was talking about, a tolerable-looking burger bar. Toby would adore the forbidden food. ‘Well, I mean yes, if you …'

‘Even policemen need to eat.'

He led the way out through the other room, pausing to check work progress with a WPC at a word-processor, and then on into the corridor using the door through which the woman who might have been Laura had come. They turned on, round the far corner, as she had done, so perhaps it was just routine, and she hadn't recognised Toby at all, had been a stranger …

Outside it was raining now. Rather than struggle with the push-chair cover for so short a distance Mr Firth held Poppy's brolly over Toby. The photographers, luckily, had taken shelter. The eatery was too noisy and crowded for talk, and Toby, thrilled by the adventure, made himself the centre of attention, studying how Mr Firth dealt with his hamburger and trying to copy him. Poppy had a tolerable cheese salad. Eating together is a way of communicating, she thought—safer than speech in some ways. They had a moment of privacy outside as she fixed the push-chair cover under the shelter of the awning.

‘I want to put one thing into your mind,' said Mr Firth. ‘We have very good reason to think that whoever was responsible for the body in the play centre must have known about the man's previous appearance there. This isn't simply because it may be the same man. There are other strong indications.'

Poppy nodded. The freesias, she thought.

‘So somebody must have told them,' he said.

‘Perhaps he told them himself.'

‘You think that's likely?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Well, if you have any further thoughts I hope you'll let me know. Ring me on this number.'

‘All right.'

Poppy pushed home beside the swishing traffic thinking not about anything to do with the young man's death but about Mr Firth's lost daughters.

4

There was a message on Janet's answerphone: ‘Hi, Poppy, if you're in. Big Sue, this is. Play centre's closed, of course, but some of us are meeting at Little Sue's after dinner if you'd like to come along. Nine, Linen Walk, that is. See you soon.'

By the time Poppy was ready to move again the rain was really teeming down, so she borrowed Janet's rock-climbing cagoule, which reached almost to her knees, and battled her way south. Toby discovered a new game in the watery environment. He would watch the pool of water forming on the top of the push-chair cover and when it was full he'd reach up and punch the bottom of its sag, producing an effect like an elfin depth charge. His first effort sluiced straight into Poppy's face, under the hood of the cagoule, but after that she learnt to watch for the moment of impact and turn her head away. This kept him happy for most of the journey but by the time they reached Linen Walk he was restless for new amusements.

Linen Walk ran east/west beside the Metropolitan Line viaduct. It was said to occupy a strip of land which had been used a hundred and fifty years ago by the local washerwomen to lay out their sheets to air. Now it was a terrace of pretty but jerry-built 1880ish houses with front gardens and a pedestrian passage between them and the blackened arches of the viaduct. In the front rooms every ornament, every piece of crockery on every shelf, trembled to the passing trains. You got used to them in no time, Sue said. During the last rail strike she'd kept waking up wondering what was wrong, and little Peter, who'd been sleeping right through, had started crying in the night again.

With the railway so close the houses might have been near-slums, a dingy blotch on the gentrification and prettification of the area, but they too had their coats of ice-cream-coloured paint, with the ornamental details picked out in white, and French-style number-plates by the doors. They changed hands frequently. There was always a ‘For Sale' notice or two on show. Young couples bought them because they were cheap, and moved on as soon as their salaries would support a higher mortgage. Apart from the railway, they looked decidedly attractive. No traffic ran past their front doors, and there was another advantage, hidden from the street. Behind each house a strip of garden ran north, the far wall being also the wall of the park, with a door directly through. A previous owner of number 9 had altered this arrangement by building a studio across the end of the garden, which Pete's three elder brothers used as a playroom during the school holidays. In term-time Peter, an afterthought by some years—his first name provided the P of the initials P.S.—had it to himself while his siblings were at boarding-school. It wasn't as large or well equipped as the hut in the play centre, but much better on a wet day than anyone else's house could have provided. Pete had largely absentee parents. They kept a yacht in a Turkish marina and seemed to spend most of their time there. Poppy couldn't imagine what they did for a living that would pay for that and keep several children at boarding-school.

Little Sue was a live-in nanny, small and brisk, with an East End accent she made no attempt to gentilify. The bond between her and Pete seemed to Poppy quite as strong as motherhood. She'd often arrive at the play centre not having bothered to bring the push-chair that short distance, carrying him on her hip and looking with her gamine build just like a figure in a Phil May low-life cartoon, eldest sister minding baby while mum went out to char. It was an old-fashioned­ nanny-child relationship, doomed to the traditional emotion-stunting traumas when in a few years' time Pete, in his turn, would be wrenched away to prep school.