Rebuilding Coventry (14 page)

‘It’s
sodding ridiculous. Who did the autopsy?’

‘Roger
Skillet. Knew him at Oxford. He was a lazy sod then, and I doubt if thirty-odd
years in the provinces have improved his deductive skills. Still, it was good
of him to send me the papers.’

Letitia
had left her office in Tavistock Square at lunch-time the day before and tried
to buy an Action Main doll. However the sales assistant informed her that
Action Man was no longer manufactured, so Letitia rang around her non-pacifist
friends who still had young children. Eventually she tracked Action Main down.
He was now sitting amongst the debris and clutter on the kitchen table. His little
beret was tipped at a jaunty angle over his serious pink face. His hands were
crossed modestly over his asexual groin. Letitia had, in the name of forensic
science, removed his tiny camouflage uniform and Tom Thumb army boots.

‘He’s quite
sweet, isn’t he, husband?’ Letitia picked up the naked doll and waggled its
legs about. She spoke to it.
‘You
wouldn’t kill a big man would you,
sweetie? No, of course you wouldn’t. You’re too itsy-bitsy, aren’t you?’ She
turned to her husband.

‘Is Fox’s
body around?’

‘Yes,
he’s still in cold storage. Apparently his liver is of great interest to the
Alcohol Abuse boys. In fact, reading his report, I wonder how Fox actually
managed to function at all. Dreadful condition for a man in his late thirties:
lungs shot to hell, varicose veins, piles, furred up arteries, hammer toes,
thin skull, pea brain, brittle bones, dandruff, clogged up sinuses, polyps up
his nose, athlete’s foot, overweight, pyorrhoea, ingrowing toenails
…
small
contusion at the base of the skull, caused by our Action Man friend but no real
damage. I don’t think our Coventry did kill Mr Fox, Letitia. I think he
probably killed himself Apoplexy! … Heartsome news, eh?’

Letitia
hit her husband playfully on the back of the neck with the little naked
soldier. ‘Would you have bothered with all this if Coventry had been as ugly as
sin, husband?’

‘Probably
not, wife,’ admitted W.D.

24
Derek Wipes the Surfaces

One afternoon after work,
Derek Dakin saw the widow Carole Fox open the door of her council house and
shepherd her four little daughters inside. ‘Plucky little thing,’ he thought. ‘I
must go over and give her my condolences.’ Eight days had passed since her
cruel bereavement. Derek went to the bookcase and looked up ‘condolences’ in a
Victorian etiquette book,
Manners and Rules of Good Society by a Member of
the Aristocracy,
but there was nothing in it about the correct procedure in
which a meeting could take place between the husband of a murderess and the
widow of her victim.

‘Play
it by ear,’ thought Derek, and he left his house and crossed the road and
knocked on No 12. Four-year-old Kirsty Fox opened the door.

‘Is
your mummy there?’

‘Yes,
she’s on the toilet.’

Derek
told Kirsty that he would wait on the doorstep. A chain pulled upstairs, water
flushed and Carole Fox clumped down the narrow stairs. When she saw Derek she
flinched back as though Derek were about to fly at her with clenched fists.

‘You
frit me to death,’ she said.

Derek
winced; her local accent was very pronounced. Derek had almost succeeded in
eradicating his.

‘Mrs
Fox, I’d just like to say how very sorry I am about…’

‘S’all
right.’

‘You
must be devastated.’

‘What?’

‘Devastated.’

‘What?’

‘Devastated.’

Carole
nodded, thinking that it would get rid of him quicker if she agreed.

‘How
have the little girls taken it?’

She
lowered her voice. ‘I ain’t told ‘em yet, they think he’s on ‘is ‘olidays — in Penzance.’

‘Oh,
but didn’t they watch
…
? See? Weren’t they exposed to the sight of
.
. .
? What happened
…?’

‘Oh
yeah, they
seen
it, but they din’t know ‘e was
dead.
They was
used to seein’ ‘im lying about on the floor with ‘is eyes closed. ‘E was an ‘eavy
drinker, y’know.’

‘And
how are
you?’

‘Who
me? Oh, I’m all right; it’s peaceful without ‘im. Your wife done me a favour. He
wudda done
me
in before long. I ‘ated ‘im.’

‘Could
I step inside for a moment, Mrs Fox?’

‘Well,
I’ve not ‘ad a chance to clean up yet today,’ said Carole, as though Derek were
an inspector from the Ministry of Clean Houses.

‘There’s
something I must know.’

‘All
right.’

Carole
led the way into the living-room, kicking articles of clothing aside as she
went. The little Fox girls were sitting on the floor eating bowls of cornflakes.
The television was showing close-ups of open-heart surgery. Afternoon viewing.
Carole and Derek sat at a table at the far end of the room. Derek looked out at
the Fox garden — a brown and grey plot of earth which contained no living
plant. Wrecked dolls’ prams constituted the only border.

‘Do you
read a daily paper, Mrs Fox?’

‘Who
me? No,
‘e
used to, but I’ve got me ‘ands full with the kids.’ Derek
mentioned to Carole that the popular press were suggesting that her dead
husband and Coventry had been having an affair. Did Carole know anything about
these suppositions?

‘Who
me? As I say, I’ve got me ‘ands full. He went out every night but … they
say the wife’s the last to know, don’t they?’ Carole’s eyes flicked to the
television and she watched throbbing arteries until Derek spoke again.

‘I’d
like to do something for you, Mrs Fox.’

‘Who
me? What kind of thing?’

‘Dig
the garden
…
shelves
.
.
.
I’m very good with my
hands. And you’ll need a man about the house
now,
won’t you?’

‘Who
me? Why? I never ‘ad one
before.’

‘Are
you all right financially?’

‘Money?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m
better
off, now. I’ve got me social sorted. We’re better off all round, really.’

Derek
felt slightly cheated. There was a mini-packet of tissues in his trouser
pocket. He had expected to whip them out for the moment when the grieving widow
broke down. Mrs Fox’s perspicuity unsettled him. He decided she was in shock,
deep shock. They watched in companionable silence as a surgeon’s lackey
stitched up the chest cavity and made everything neat and tidy for the patient.
When the programme ended Derek went into the poorly equipped kitchen and made
Carole and himself a nice cup of tea. Then he tackled the washing-up and wiped
the surfaces down. It was the least he could do.

25
The Widowing of Dodo

Nobody in Cardboard City,
not even the stupefied alcoholics, manages to get a healthy eight hours’ sleep.
Dodo and I settle in our box at midnight but we usually wake at three o’clock.
There is nothing else to do then but share a careful cigarette and talk.

Dodo
told me how she was widowed three years ago. ‘Geoffrey and I were driving back
from the country; we’d been staying with Tobias Marrows-Callandine
…
lovely
house
…
listed Grade Two. Georgian or Saxon or something. Sixteen
unheated bedrooms,
foul
dog, wonderful lake — anyway we were tootling
along in the Porsche; I was driving,
very carefully,
over the
Hammersmith Flyover. We were laughing rather hysterically about the weekend:
poor old Marrows-Callandine had claimed that his wife was ill and couldn’t get
out of bed and do all the hostessing and stuff Naturally I volunteered to go up
and take her a tray — that sort of thing. Marrows-Callandine turned me down,
very emphatic he was. Said his wife had expressed the wish to be completely
ignored over the weekend. This was on Friday night, anyway, where was I?
. .
.
Yes
. .
. By Sunday morning I’m desperately searching the bloody
house for a fan heater. I ask you, middle of winter and
one
log fire in
the entire house. I go into this dark bedroom, put the light on and see Lucia
Marrows-Callandine lying in bed. She has two black eyes, a broken nose and four
missing teeth. Poor cow starts to whimper, says she loves Tobias and forgives
him; and could I bring her a Mars bar or something because she hasn’t eaten for
a day and a half.

‘Of
course I tackle Tobias on this and he says, “Poor Lucia, she had a tantrum on
Friday morning, dishwasher overflowed or something, and
she beat herself
up.”

‘So
Geoffrey and I were laughing at what the bullying turd had said. Then Geoff
reaches over into the back and picks up a bottle of Coca Cola. He lifts it to
his mouth, a cat runs in front of the car, I brake and the Coca Cola rams down
the back of Geoff’s throat, blood everywhere.

‘Geoff
died. Didn’t take long. My mother’s such a snob. I rang her from the hospital
to tell her the news. She said, “Coca Cola? My God, will it be in the papers?
Couldn’t you say it was Malvern Water?”‘

With
such stories we keep ourselves interested, though not always amused. I have
told Dodo nearly everything about myself— except my name and the fact that I am
a murderer.

26
Carole Fox’s Evidence

CAROLE:        It
were about five o’clock. I’d just put the lights on in the living-room.

CORONER:   
The room that faced the street?

CAROLE:        Yes.
I heard him come in. I could tell by the way he opened the front door that he
was in one of his moods. Then I heard ‘im goin’ mad ‘cos the doormat had got
caught under the door. Anyway he come in the living-room and he’d been
drinking.

CORONER:   
How did you know he’d been drinking?

CAROLE:       
Because he was drunk.

CORONER:   
Thank you. Carry on, Mrs Fox.

CAROLE:       
Well, the girls got out his way. They’re not daft — they knew there’d
be trouble; and he walked round the room a bit, finding fault, like he always
did. He shouted at me because the clock had stopped. Then he had a go because
the kids’ toys were still on the floor. Then he started going on about
Jennifer, she’s seven, saying that she wasn’t ‘is. She’s got red hair, you see.
The others are dark, like him. Then he got proper worked up and said
none
of
the girls was ‘is, ‘cos none of ‘em ‘ad ‘is nose; and he said that I’d got to
write down the names of all the men I’d been with.

CORONER:   
By ‘been with’, I assume your husband meant — men that you’d slept
with?

CAROLE:        No,
I didn’t sleep with any
…

CORONER:   
No, I’m sure you
…
carry on.

CAROLE:        He
fetched some Basildon Bond I’d had for Christmas, and a pen from the sideboard,
and he pushed me down on the settee and told me to write the names of these
men. All the time he was shouting about how I was a slag, and he knew I slept
with the meter readers who came to the ‘ouse.

CORONER:   
And your daughters were still in the room at the time?

CAROLE:       
Yes, they were in the corner, near the telly. They were too frit to
move or owt. Anyroad I were makin’ up men’s names and writing them down. To
tell the truth I were between the devil and the deep blue sea. If I
didn’t
write
owt he’d give me one for not doin’ as I was told, and if I
did …

CORONER:    Would
you like a moment
…
a glass of water .
. .
a tissue?

CAROLE:
No, I’m all right. Sorry, I’ve gotta ‘anky. He were goin’ mad, shouting as how
he’d go round and beat the . .
.
sorry, he said a swear word
…
out
of anybody on the list. He said I wasn’t fit to bear the fine name of Fox and
that I’d dragged him down and it were my fault he’d never got on in life. His
face were like a beetroot and his eyes was bulging out is ‘ead. I could see the
veins in his neck all sticking out and sort of throbbing. I thought, ‘Oh God,
Carole, ‘e’s goin’ to kill you!’ Normally, when he’s, like, in one of ‘is moods
‘e chucks stuff about …

CORONER:   
You mean he throws objects?

CAROLE:        He
throws owt. I’ve ‘ad more than
objects
thrown at me
.
. . anyroad
this time ‘e didn’t. So I knew I were really gonna get it; an’ I did. ‘E
started kicking me legs while I were sittin’ down. Then ‘e pulled me up by me ‘air
and started punchin’ me face. The girls, the girls … they
.
. . well
they …