Pleasure and a Calling (20 page)

And now what? My plan – and I’m afraid I had no other – was to dump Sharp at the Cooksons’ empty property, perhaps make it look like an accident. Why the Cooksons? Because I had the keys to their house in my pocket. And not
their
keys (which they had so steadfastly refused to part with) but
mine
, which I’d had on my wall since I sold the house for the previous owners sixteen years ago. I’d intended to drop in at some point during the week just for the hell of defying their attempts to keep us out. But now I had been presented with an opportunity that could hardly have been better served up by the Divine Provider himself.

T
HE
C
OOKSONS
’
WAS LITERALLY
the last house in town, a detached property at the furthest end of a picturesque access lane bounded by brambles, woods and fields. There was no through traffic. The two other houses on this stretch were themselves obscured by sturdy evergreens and set back from the road. I hadn’t forgotten that Katya had it in mind to erect a For Sale sign at the bottom of the lane, and I approached with caution. But the sign was already in place, fixed with a plywood arrow, as if to direct me to the house. Although it was Saturday, there wasn’t a soul in sight. I turned off the hill at the cricket club, and into the narrowing lane, the trees dappling the surface with shadow. It was a wonderful day, darkened only by the mischief I had in mind.

The property stood bright and empty. Out on the woodchip verge, two wheelie bins had been put out for the Wednesday pick-up. To the practised eye there is a stillness – an innocence – to a deserted house that shows itself to the world, as a happy duckling to a waiting fox. Even so, I paused for a minute or two, peering through the slim trunks of the silver birches and pines marking the property’s front border. The soft crunch of shingle
sounded beneath the tyres as I moved up the curved drive. At the top was a hammerhead turning space of finer gravel and a double garage with red doors came into sight. I had already decided not to enter the actual house. But to the side was a gate, accessible with the small iron key on the ring. I backed up, waited a moment, then got out. The key turned in the oiled lock. Inside, a crazy-paved path led to the Cooksons’ familiar broad patio, limestone edged with blunt slate monoliths. Beyond was a covered swimming pool, and beyond that a split lawn, shrubbery, and fruit trees stirred by the breeze. The plot was squared off by thickets of trimmed blackthorn the height of two men.

Sharp’s body had shifted on the journey, though his face was still covered. I was afraid, for a chilling moment, that he might still be alive – that he might suddenly leap out at me and grip me by the throat. I lifted the corner of the blanket. Some residue had leaked from his mouth on to the grey fibrous material that lined the car where his cheek was pressed.

I gripped two corners of the blue tarpaulin, judged his weight, then tugged. The torso fell heavily on to the gravel. I didn’t want to leave a trail of gravel up the path, so I took Sharp under the armpits this time and dragged him. I got him as far as the patio and laid him face up with his head towards the pool – as if he’d been walking backwards and tripped over the decorative monoliths and smacked his head on the paving stone. There was still no blood. It
could
be an accident. Sharp was unshaven; he was wearing a tracksuit. He could be a thief. Or not. I could have supplied him with a tyre iron – some tool for breaking and entering – but decided against it. He could be anyone, his purpose here baffling, nothing on him but a set of house keys. Even when the police identified him, it would be a mystery. Confusion, I had decided – or rather realized – was the best strategy. I wiped the
gate key on my shirt (Mrs Sharp still had my handkerchief, I remembered), pressed it against Sharp’s fingers and slid it into his pocket. Here was the start to a dozen detective stories. But where would it lead? It was as bad to have too many clues as no clues. The police would find dots to join but it would never make a picture.

I pulled the gate shut behind me without touching the handle.

Now I folded the tarp and the blanket, and dumped them in one of the wheelie bins on the verge. But what, you may ask, about the car? Should I leave it and risk forensic experts finding microscopic bits of Sharp in the rear luggage compartment? Of course not. First I took the car back down to the lane and parked it under the silver birches while I smoothed out the tyre ruts in the shingle. Then I got back in, with the idea of leaving it a little further down beyond the lane, near the cricket club where the road was wider. Now I rang the repossession people, gave my name as Sharp, and told them where to find the car. I placed their reminder card on the seat. I knew a little about the persistence and cunning of car repossession operatives. I had heard how they would patrol all day, lurking in adjoining streets, waiting for their moment to pounce. There was no doubt they would come and claim their bounty. It wasn’t beyond hope that the yellow truck loitering around Boselle could get here in ten minutes. By the time the Cooksons returned, the car could be platinum-valeted, resold at auction and be back on the road hundreds of miles from here.

But I’d no sooner pulled away than I had to hit the brakes. A car was slung at right angles across the lane, just after the bend at its narrowest part. The car was red and had a box-sign on top – a learner practising a three-point turn. I kept my distance. The driver, anxious at my presence, stalled the car. The instructor
would be telling him to relax and take things slowly. He would be telling him that we all have to learn and that other road users generally show forbearance with new drivers. There was no rush. I nosed forward a little. The learner started up the car again. The back of his vehicle lifted slightly as he released the handbrake. I could sense his nervousness. I knew he would misjudge the camber of the road. The car stalled again and rolled backwards before the brake lights flashed on in panic. A little more gas, the instructor would doubtless be advising. The driver started up the engine again, revved loudly and began his procedure anew. Under renewed pressure, the driver was now neglecting to release the handbrake at all, leaving the car straining like a chained dog.

A minute had passed. Perhaps two. From his side window, facing me, the instructor acknowledged my patience with a raised hand and a smile on this sunny Saturday. I lowered my head. The driver was reversing in juddering increments, but there was no room to pass in Sharp’s huge car. He stalled once more, restarted, and then at last began to edge forward. The lane seemed twice as long as I followed slowly at a distance. I had to get the car at least within sight of the cricket club.

At last we reached the end of the lane. The learner car indicated right, stalled once more at the junction and then chugged up the hill and out of sight. I pulled in at a spot just ahead of the junction, left the keys in the ignition and jumped out. I started to walk down the hill but then remembered Sharp’s phone. It was in the compartment between the seats. I went back, pocketed it and slammed the door again. But now I could see the yellow truck, turning up the hill. The trees here offered no feasible cover. Back along the lane was a dry-stone wall, a barred gate and open land. I clambered over the gate and waited,
ready to run. But there was no sound from the truck. I ventured a look. They had stopped ahead of the corner. Obviously they were wary. A skinny man appeared wearing overalls and a baseball cap pulled over his eyes. He saw the car and gestured to his unseen companion. He crept forward and peered in through the tinted window, tried the door, then leaned in to take the keys. The man in the baseball cap held the car keys aloft, signalling his colleague to turn round. I assumed he would then simply follow the driver in Sharp’s car, but instead they laboured to manoeuvre, first, the truck into position, and then the 4×4, all the time with an eye on the house, still perhaps expecting the owner to come out from somewhere, perhaps brandishing a shotgun or waving a fist. No doubt they had the law on their side and paperwork ready to be exchanged, but they were met with nothing except the indifference of the quiet lane and its slender trees, their leaves moving in the breeze. The man in the baseball cap slid beneath the car and within a few minutes they had winched the gleaming white giant car half aboard and rumbled away in a rising cloud of dust.

I set off for town along the public footpath across fields bright with the green of an emerging crop. I walked quickly, Sharp’s phone in one pocket, his wallet in another. His house keys were still on the ring. After half a mile I took the phone out. There were two voicemails. The first was from Mrs Sharp, the night before, in a state of barely suppressed emotion, telling him to be out of the house by the time she got back; the second was Abigail, made at just after one o’clock – fifteen minutes ago: ‘Hi, it’s me. I’m here, but where are you? I see you ate that second Danish! I knew you would. Do hurry. Lots of love.’

Her voice cut straight through me.

He had spent the night with her, of course. That’s where his
bags were. Perhaps still packed. The two of them had gone for a run in the morning. Then she had gone to the library, while he read the paper, waited till he thought his wife wouldn’t be in. Then he had folded down his back seats and gone back to Boselle to clear out the rest of his belongings – his books, his papers, his computer, his golf clubs.

But she was in my mind now, supplanting him. I knew I was close. I felt his wallet, heavy in my inside pocket, swinging against my heart as I walked. I increased my step on the descent via St Theobald’s. There was mud on my shoes – no doubt the distinctive sort that would add up in a detective’s mind alongside the footprints made by a particular sturdy English brogue in this field. My suit trousers were muddy and somehow ripped at the knee too, I noticed. These were details to be dealt with at leisure. For now I wanted to get home. I skirted the town centre, the alley behind Warninck’s bookshop, past Tiepolo’s bread and cakes. I strode past the library windows without a glance, then up the hill, past the Common to the little courtyard where my car sat. I unlocked the door to my flat. I was almost dazzled by the sunlight pouring through the net curtains, the familiar, comforting room gleaming with my keys, arranged like a map of the town across the walls.

I took out his wallet, expensive calfskin, doubtless bought by his poor wife. Banknotes, receipts, credit cards, college ID, a few coins transferred to the zipped purse for safekeeping while he was out jogging with Abigail. I further probed the compartment with my thumb and forefinger. I knew it was in there. I shouldn’t say I would have killed for it, but I had, and now here it was. I held it up, her key, an almost weightless chip of gold with a shiny red heart-shaped charm attached.

She was mine.