Who Wants to Live Forever? (17 page)

“You can’t miss your course! It’s the last week, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, but I haven’t seen you for months, so that’s more important.”

“No, Dad. I’ll not let you miss it. It means too much to you. Besides, what would Trish say?”

“Or Debbie,” I muttered under my breath.

Julie hadn’t heard, of course, and she continued talking. “Anyway, I’ll probably be tired by the time I’m through on Tuesday, as it’s certain to be a gruelling day. And now Wednesday looks like it will be just as busy. I’d hoped to have some free time then, but my boss has asked me to help out with his presentation, so I’ll no doubt be working on that Tuesday evening. Between you and me, he’s hopeless.”

I was disappointed, but I tried not to show it. “It’s all good experience. As I say, carry on like this and you certainly won’t be a junior much longer.”

“That’s what I thought, too. But the best news is — I’m here on Thursday as well. I’m not involved with any of the conference sessions then, so my boss has said I can take some time off. He might be hopeless at his job, but he does have a human side to him. We can spend all day together. As your course will have finished, you can tell me how you solved the murders, Sherlock. Oh, and you can also keep me updated on Trish. And Debbie,” she added. So she had heard me!

“Will do,” I promised. “I really must go now — I don’t want to be late again. See you on the first. Oh, and by the way, I’ve done something you’ll be proud of me for. I’ve finally bought a mobile phone. I’ll text you later so you get my number.
And
I’ve bought a laptop. I’m finally on the Internet.”

“Huh,” she said, feigning annoyance, “you wouldn’t get a mobile when
I
asked you to, but you change your mind when you get a couple of girlfriends!”

“You know it isn’t like that. I’m still a bit bemused by all the options on it, but I’m trying. The same goes for the computer. Oh, and by the way, Debbie would like to meet you when you come to visit. Must go now. Bye.”

I put the phone down and let out a long, deep breath. I felt as if I’d taken the first step towards making a commitment.

***

“This week, we are talking about the events of 1978,” began Louise as the class started. A metaphorical light bulb sparked to life in my head: 1978, eleven years after the last case. And I realised that I had been right all along, although I had misinterpreted the information. It wasn’t that the murders occurred in years divisible by eleven, as I had first thought, but the time difference between them was the same. I couldn’t remember all the dates, but I knew each one was eleven years and a few months after the preceding one. So, inevitably, at some point the calendar would tick over onto a year that wasn’t divisible by eleven, but the pattern would still continue. Perhaps it was because Remembrance Day had been in everybody’s minds only a few days earlier — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the eleventh year of the new century — that the significance finally made itself known to me.

“I said, what’s up, Ethan?” repeated Louise, and I realised that I must have been gawping like a mindless child. But the smile on Louise’s face indicated that perhaps she
did
know what was going through my mind. I glanced to my left and right, but saw only puzzled looks on the faces of Trish and Debbie.

“To continue, then, now that Ethan’s jaw has returned to its normal position. It was another Thursday murder, as on April thirteenth Yasmine Bond was stabbed in Accrington. Yasmine was a twenty-two-year-old punch-card operator who worked at the college at Blackburn, which was about four miles away from her home. She was born in Iran — hence the spelling of her first name — and came to England with her parents three years earlier.”

“Is this another racial murder?” asked Trish.

“No, not this time, even though it was a tense time in East Lancashire in the late 1970s. It occurred a week prior to the tenth anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous and inflammatory Rivers of Blood speech, although the town hadn’t seen any racial trouble of any real significance since locals clashed with the Asian and Caribbean immigrants sixteen years earlier. So a racial motive was never really considered in this case.

“Yasmine’s parents worked at the factory over at Huncoat that produced the famous Accrington
NORI
brick, the hardest and densest building brick in the world — these bricks were used in the construction of the Blackpool Tower and the Empire State Building. Yasmine, though, wanted more from life than to follow in her parents’ footsteps, which was quite a brave thing to do for a middle-eastern woman, especially back then. She applied for the job at the college and was successful at the interview; she also enrolled on a part-time evening course in computer programming at the same location.

“It was Yasmine’s responsibility to key-punch the coding forms for the students undertaking full-time computer programming courses, transcribing from their coding sheets onto punched cards for processing on the ICL computer. There were two other punch-card operators, Sandra Furner and Vera Broad, both of whom were around forty years old. Sandra was the senior in the team, and had been working there for five years, whereas Vera had only been working there for a few months.”

“How many months?” I asked.

“Just under three, Ethan. Why? Do you think that is significant?”

“I was just curious, Louise. I want to get all the facts straight before I come to any conclusions.”

“Both women left shortly after the incident, distraught, no doubt, at the murder of such a young girl. They no longer felt safe at the college, although security after the event was so tight that it was possibly the safest place in England to be.”

“How did Yasmine die?” asked Trish quietly. “I know you said she was stabbed, but what exactly happened?”

“I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that nobody really knows what happened. Yasmine and her family lived across the way from the police station in Accrington, and Yasmine was at home sick. She had only been back at work a few days after the Easter break, and it seems that she caught a tummy bug, probably as a result of something she ate. When her parents returned from their shift at the factory, they found her blood-soaked body sprawled across the living-room floor.”

“So who were the suspects?” I asked. “No, don’t tell me, it had to be Sandra and/or Vera, both of whom conveniently left after the murder. Were they ever traced?”

“One question at a time, Ethan. There was a suspect, a very good one. One of the students, Paul Morrison, had failed an assignment that he had to complete for Easter, and he was about to be excluded from the course. He argued vehemently that it wasn’t his fault, saying that Yasmine had made a complete mess of typing up the data cards for his program, which meant that it produced totally incorrect results. He had even gone so far as to produce the original coding sheets — or so he claimed — but Yasmine said they weren’t the ones she had punched up, as she always signed her initials on each page as she completed it.

“Morrison, though, was adamant, and he swore he would take his revenge when he was discontinued from the course — as much for his attitude as his academic failure. So, when she became ill, her colleagues thought it was because of the stress of the threats, and when her body was found Morrison became the number one suspect.

“The problem was, he had an unbreakable alibi — he had been in police custody across the road from Yasmine’s house after being apprehended trying to throw a brick through her front window. There was a gap, though, of three hours, when he was at the station but unattended, and although nobody saw him leave and return, it was argued that nobody could say he
didn’t
leave, commit the murder and return. The police station was so badly organised that it was impossible to say one way or another, yet no case was ever brought against Morrison — other than attempted criminal damage — probably to save face for those police officers. But they didn’t arrest anybody else over the killing, and it remains an unsolved murder to this day.”

“So that’s the official story,” I said. “Now what’s your angle on it?”

“It’s back to your second question, Ethan. Were her work colleagues traced? It won’t surprise you to know that one was and one wasn’t. Sandra didn’t move very far, over to Nelson in fact; she had a family and couldn’t uproot totally. She said that they had all been threatened before by students who claimed their data punching was at fault when the programs didn’t work, although they had never expected it to come to this. Vera, who wasn’t married, and who had only recently moved into the area, was different. There was nothing to keep her there, and she left, but nobody knew where. And, as she wasn’t a suspect at all, nobody bothered to try and find her.”

The remainder of the evening followed a similar pattern to previous weeks, with to-and-fro discussions about the possibilities and probabilities, although I noticed that Trish and Debbie barely contributed two words to the entire discussion. I suspect they were extremely relieved when it was finishing time.

“Are you joining us for a drink again, Louise?” I asked as we collected our things prior to leaving.

“I will, but I can only stay for the one.”

We walked out of the college and stopped in our tracks. Standing right in front of the doors was Gail. “Have you just got back?” asked Louise. “We’ve finished for tonight, but I can give you the handouts for the sessions you’ve missed so you can catch up before next week if you like.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. But thank you anyway. I just came to…well, to apologise really. You see, I tried to be somebody I’m not. I haven’t returned from anywhere, because I haven’t been anywhere. The only time I’ve ever been ‘abroad’ is when I went to the Isle of Wight in 1970. That was where I met my husband, but he was no high-flying executive. He has had a string of dead-end jobs, and he’s been perfectly happy like that. It was my work that supported us, but now I’m retired — yes, I lied about my age as well — money has been much tighter, but he didn’t see the need to cut back at all.” She paused for a moment, but none of us could think of anything to say.

“In a way, my story-telling turned out to be a good thing. Remember Mike? Yes, I’m sure you all do. He believed I was a very rich person, and it seems he made Emma inveigle her way into my husband’s affections so they could con us out of our money. I found out about it and I’m afraid I did something quite unforgivable. I took it out on Emma. I actually
struck
her! I’ve never, ever done anything like that before, and I know I never will again. To make matters worse, it seems that she was as much a victim in this as I was. I was hoping she’d be here tonight so I could apologise.”

“We haven’t seen her for weeks,” I said. “She didn’t return after half-term either.”

“That makes sense,” said Gail. “My husband walked out on me for a few days; when he realised he’d have to cook his own meals and wash his own clothes, he soon returned, and I, like a fool, welcomed him home. Then Mike turned up on our doorstep. He tried it on again with us. He said Emma told him we’d no money, but he didn’t believe her. He also said she’d run off somewhere, and he suspected she was trying to cut him out of the deal. He tried to take us hostage — he told us he had a gun. That was when I realised how despicable my husband is. He pleaded for Mike to let him go, saying I was the one who had the money, but I never let him see any of it. He only thought of himself during the entire episode. It was the final straw after a lifetime of disappointments. It was just good fortune that a neighbour had seen Mike hanging around outside, looking suspicious, and she rang the police. Mike was arrested, and I decided to leave my rat of a husband. I’m going back to London tomorrow, but, as I said, I just wanted to put things right before I left.”

She didn’t wait for us to say anything, but just gave us all a small smile before leaving. The four of us looked at each other, but nobody knew what to say.

***

We began to discuss what had just happened as we walked to the pub. Despite our suspicions as the weeks had gone on, Gail’s revelations had amazed all of us. “All these secrets,” I said. “What good do they do anybody?” From the half-hearted nods of agreement, though, I wasn’t sure that the others agreed with me.

Once settled down with our much-needed refreshments, I asked Louise, “Where do you think this is all heading? I’m not saying it isn’t interesting, but is there a point to all this?” I was fairly certain I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear Louise’s confirmation.

“Oh, yes,” said Louise, her passion for the topic evident. “I still have two more episodes to relate to you, so it isn’t complete yet, but I’m
convinced
that something is going to happen this year. The only difficulty I have is in working out where, but if I can convert enough people to my way of thinking, perhaps I can avert another tragedy. I still feel responsible for the last one, you know. If I hadn’t lost interest after the John incident, I might…well, who knows what might have happened?”

“I thought you told us last week that you hadn’t discussed this with another group. From what you’ve just said about ‘converting enough people’, it seems that there are plenty who know about your theory,” said Debbie.

“Only
everybody
who’s ever met me. Well, not quite perhaps. But I do tend to harp on about this,
my pet project
as my colleagues call it. But I was telling the truth last week. Apart from John you’re the first people who have had a full-on exposure to it. You’re also the only ones, including John, who seem to have taken it seriously, and that’s probably more down to the fact that you’re my captive audience.”

“And what can we expect next week?” I asked.

“You’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out.”

“Go on, give us a hint. You’ve managed to spark our interest in all this. Don’t leave us hanging in mid-air and having to wait a week until the safety-net arrives.”

“That’s a curious analogy.”

“I know, but perhaps it shows how intensely keen I am to have something — anything — to work from.”