Death of a Murderer

2

“It’s just a job,” he told Sue as he left the house on Tuesday evening. “It’s a job, that’s all.” But when he saw her mouth fold down at one corner he knew that he had failed to convince her, and he, too, felt that his words had fallen short, that there was something basic, something significant, that he hadn’t managed to convey. He couldn’t delay any longer, though, or he’d be late.

He turned the key in the ignition with the door open on the driver’s side, hoping she might relent at the last minute and give him her approval — he hated leaving for work with an argument hanging in the air — but once he had fastened his seat-belt and shifted into gear he had to shut the door and ease the car out of the drive. What else could he do? Although she was standing only a few yards away, she still hadn’t said anything. Her head was lowered, and the brass coach-light on the porch behind her prevented him from reading the expression on her face. Indicating left, he pulled out into the road, and in less than five minutes he was on the A14, heading west.

As he drove, he glanced at his mobile from time to time, but it stayed quiet. He followed a white van for several miles, the words greyhounds in transit painted on the back. Where was the nearest dog-track? He couldn’t think. The night was bleak and raw. Wind hurling the trees about. It seemed like an eternity since there had been any warm weather, but it was only November.

He yawned loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth. Usually, when he was working a night-shift, he slept from about nine in the morning until three or four in the afternoon, but that day, for some reason, he had woken at one, and even though he felt exhausted he couldn’t seem to fall asleep again. On going downstairs, he had found Sue in the lounge, fitting a photograph of their daughter, Emma, into a frame, and it was then that he told her what he would be doing. Hopelessly mistimed, no doubt, bungled, in fact, but he would’ve had to mention it sooner or later. They’d never kept too many secrets from each other — and besides, it was unusual, wasn’t it? It was like being part of history.

When Sue heard the woman’s name, her reaction was immediate and vehement. “Don’t go, Billy. Stay here, with me.” He was so surprised that he couldn’t think of anything to say — and she was already inventing excuses for him. “You could call in sick. There’s that flu bug going round.” But he hardly ever took time off because of illness — not like his old mate Jim Malone, whose nickname, tellingly, was “Virus”—and anyway, he didn’t feel he could let the sergeant down, not at this late stage. Losing her temper, Sue told him that he only ever thought about himself. He was pig-headed. Blind. She didn’t mind him sitting in a mortuary. He’d done that kind of thing before. What upset her was the contact with evil, the soaking up of some dark influence — the shadow that might cast over their lives. She had always been full of superstition, but where in the past it had been just one aspect of her character, a thread that zigzagged through her, an endearing quirk, now it had become the prism through which she viewed the world, and he began to wish he had dreamed up a decent lie for her, something out of the ordinary and yet believable — a prison riot, a strike, a demonstration. He had been caught off guard, though. He’d been too slow. Once again, she asked him whose body he would be dealing with, obviously hoping that she had misheard or misunderstood, and that he would come up with a different name this time, one that meant nothing to her. When he repeated what he had said, struggling to contain his irritation now—“I already told you, Sue”—she had tugged on his arm, reminding him, uncomfortably, of Emma, and there had been tears in her eyes, something that often happened if she was frightened. He didn’t respond, though, and she whirled away across the room. She stood facing the window, with her hands knotted at her sides. He could see the patch of fuzzy hair at the back of her head, the legacy of a car crash she’d had the year before, and there was a moment when a crack opened in his heart, and he almost went over and took her in his arms. All right, love. I won’t go.

It would have been so easy.

Later, when he was in the kitchen, making his sandwiches, she attacked him again. By that point she had worked herself up into a state of outrage. How could he possibly justify what he was doing? Why was he prepared to put his whole family at risk? What sort of person was he? He couldn’t believe the extent to which she had blown the danger out of all proportion, and yet she spoke with such conviction that he was beginning to doubt himself.

“All I’ll be doing is sitting in a room,” he said.

“Yes, but it’s her, isn’t it?” She wouldn’t say the woman’s name; she didn’t want it in the house. “What she did—” She shuddered. “It’s not healthy to be close to something like that. It’s just not healthy.”

Some thing, he thought. Not some one.

“But she’s dead,” he said.

She shook her head slowly, a gesture she would use whenever he was clearly in the wrong.

“I can’t afford to be superstitious, Sue, not in my line of—”

“I read something in the paper yesterday. Apparently, twenty funeral directors have refused to handle the body. Twenty funeral directors. Now why’s that, do you think? Are they superstitious too?”

“That’s different.”

“And what about the crematoriums? How many of them said no?” She let out a dry laugh. “I’ll be amazed if they manage to dispose of her at all.”

Billy sighed and looked away. In the next room, Emma was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, watching The Sound of Music, the volume turned up far too loud.

“Can you make it quieter, Emma?” he called out, but she didn’t hear him.

Well, perhaps it was for the best, he thought. At least she wouldn’t realise they were arguing.

“It’s not about superstition, Billy,” Sue was saying. “It’s about keeping your distance. It’s about not letting the wrong things rub off on you. You should know all about that. You’re a policeman.”

“I won’t see her,” he said. “I won’t even set eyes on her.”

Sue’s head snapped in his direction, as if he had finally come out with something truly horrific. Her lips tightened and then shrank, and she looked down at the kitchen floor. She seemed to be staring right through the tiles to what lay immediately beneath: the foundations of the house, the dark, damp earth — the end of everything.

“It’s my job,” he murmured.

In the lounge, Julie Andrews was singing that famous song about the hills being alive.

Not long afterwards he had to leave. Sue followed him outside, but she didn’t wave him off, or even say goodbye. She just stood on the gravel in her ribbed sweater, looking cold.