Death of a Murderer

20

Billy zipped up his anorak, then walked out on to the road that ran past the front of the hospital. There were fewer reporters now, and they ignored him. They knew he wasn’t authorised to speak to them — and besides, he didn’t have anything to say. Since Friday afternoon the body of Britain’s most notorious woman had been lying under police guard in the West Suffolk hospital. That was all the news there was. In the morning Phil would brief the press on the details and timing of the funeral. He would inform them that he had arranged for the hearse to slow down on one particular bend in the hospital grounds so they could get the photographs they needed. In return for this concession, he hoped they would agree not to disrupt or in any way interfere with the progress of the cortège.

Passing Rheumatology, Billy followed the road down to the picnic area where he and Sue had had their conversation earlier. It was colder now, and the treetops stirred in the wind. He sat on the same bench, facing out into the dark. He had dozed off, perhaps only for a minute, but he had seen the two lovers. The two murderers. He had gate-crashed a Christmas party that was being held by the chemical firm that had employed them, the party at which they were supposed to have met properly for the first time, and the Beatles song that had been playing in his dream had stayed with him — its bright voices and its crisp, slightly gawky guitar:

When your bird is broken

Will it—

At that point, the needle had skidded across the record, and the music had cut out. In his dream he had imagined that someone had collided with the turntable. A moment of clumsiness or tipsiness. Now, though, half an hour later, he saw it differently. He thought it more likely that part of him had needed to stop the couple before they could go any further. He’d brought the whole thing to an end while they were still free of guilt. It was as if he couldn’t bear to see any more.

He leaned back, the edge of the picnic table pressing against his spine.

“It wasn’t like that,” came a voice.

He turned slowly. At first, there was only the table’s splintered surface, and the slender trunks of silver birches, and an unlit building just beyond…But then he saw a figure standing twenty feet away, half-hidden by the trees, a red dot glowing at about head height. Glowing, then fading. Glowing again.

“It wasn’t that dramatic.”

Oddly enough, he didn’t feel frightened, or even surprised. At some level, perhaps, he had been prepared for something like this — or else he was still in the dream’s soft grip, and normal reactions had no purchase. He looked back towards the hospital. Lights shone in the windows; a group of reporters huddled by the entrance to A and E. He thought about calling the control room on his radio. What would he have said, though?

“Do you like my suit?” came the voice again. “I got it from a catalogue.”

A Manchester accent — even after all these years…

He turned round again. She had left the shadows, and was standing on the pavement, under a streetlamp. The suit was a lilac colour, and her blouse was white with a scalloped collar. Her hair was a dull dyed brown.

“You must be cold,” he said.

She seemed to look at him steadily, then she began to laugh.

Rising to his feet, he moved off in the opposite direction, up the slope. The bones in his legs felt spongy. There was the smell of pine needles and damp bark. He took a deep breath. As he let it out, he heard her speak again.

“Everyone was dancing, not just us.”

When he reached the path that would take him down the west side of the hospital, he hesitated, then glanced over his shoulder. There was nobody under the streetlamp, or in among the trees.

There never had been.

There couldn’t have been.