Towers of Silence

Chapter Seven

First thing Monday morning my potential client, worried mother, rang back.

“I’ve tried to talk to him,” she said. “It was hopeless. ‘I’m all right’, that’s all he would say, ‘don’t worry’.” She sighed. “How can I not worry? I just can’t get through to him. I want you to find out what he’s up to.”

“Fine. I’ll need some more details.” I remembered she didn’t drive. “Is it easier if I come to you?”

“Yes.”

“This morning? Tomorrow?”

“This morning, yes.” Relief in her reply

“I didn’t take your name before.”

“Susan, Susan Reeve.”

“And the address?”

I recognised the street name. It was in Burnage, only a few minutes’ drive away. We agreed to meet in an hour’s time.

I packed my bag so I could go from my meeting with Mrs Reeve on into town. To the car park where Miriam had died. As well as paper, pens, copies of a contract, money and keys, I put in my mobile, the photograph of Miriam Johnstone, a camera and a small cassette recorder. I checked that I had plenty of my business cards on me too.

I drove up the road to the centre of Withington where my local shops are, parked behind Somerfield and went to get photocopies done of the picture. Every window shouted Christmas and even the pet shop was in on the act with a display of gifts for dogs, cats, rabbits and hamsters. The shops teeter on the edge of survival, partly due to the plethora of big supermarkets within a couple of miles but Withington, though it has its share of students who come and go, is a long-established community and there always seems to be just enough trade to keep the modest high street from closing down completely. The library sits at one end of the main drag and what used to be the local cinema at the other – until competition from the multi-screen complexes put it out of business. There’s a popular swimming baths nearby which the council are always trying to rationalise by shutting one of the pools and which the people of the area fight for fiercely. With a couple of parks in the neighbourhood and reasonable schools Withington has enough basic facilities to make it a good place to be with small children. Not much going for the older ones though and consequently there was always a lot of youth crime reported on the Old Moat estate, near to the village.

Adam Reeve’s home was in Burnage, another area with a rough reputation and the place where Oasis brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher grew up. A half a mile or so west of Withington and across Kingsway, the large dual carriageway, most of Burnage is a large traditional council house estate with pockets of privately built semis. Burnside Drive was private housing, the houses were an unusual design, chalet style roofs reminiscent of gingerbread cottages swept right down to either side of the ground floor bay window. The bottom half of the house was brick, the top rendered in cream and black, the roof red tiles. I parked outside the house and rang the bell. It echoed ding-dong inside.

Susan Reeve answered the door. Short and slim, long brown hair streaked with grey. She wore thick glasses which magnified her grey eyes. She had a long face, a sharp nose, a thin mouth with a cold sore on her upper lip.

“Come in. Would you like a drink?”

“Coffee, please. No sugar.”

“You don’t mind the kitchen,” she asked, “only it’s warmer in here at this time of day.”

It was. Warm and cheerful and shabby round the edges. A country feel with lime-washed wooden units, yellow walls with paper peeling in places, and apples and pears on the curtains. I sat at the circular pine table while she made our drinks. The only indication that she was partially sighted was in the fluid movements her hands made as she found and used mugs, coffee and milk. She had biscuits too. Home made.

“The twins made them,” she said. “Rachel and Rebecca. They’re seven and baking is this month’s fad.”

“Great.”

“I think it’s the mess they like,” she said, “plus the chance to eat biscuits all day.”

“So you’ve three children?”

“Four. Penny is eleven. We’re a bit cramped. You can only just get a bed in the little bedroom, that’s Adam’s. And Penny gets sick of sharing with the twins. If we could only build an extension but…” She shrugged.

I sorted out my pen and paper and told her I’d brought a contract along. Would she be able to read it?

She had a magnifying glass and scanned the print nodding when she’d finished. It wasn’t a complicated document but it served to establish that someone had hired me and would pay me the set rate. It also included a confidentiality clause and a disclaimer. So no one could start throwing lawsuits my way if my investigations opened up a Pandora’s box. It happens. God, it happens.

“I sign here?”

“And here.”

Formalities over, I turned my attention to her problem.

She’d told me most of the situation over the phone. I checked further details and established that Adam was at Parrs Wood Sixth Form College taking A levels in Geology, Geography, Spanish and English. His school career had started brightly and he’d been doing well on transfer to High School. He’d attended Burnage Boys but a prolonged bout of bullying had seen him move to Parrs Wood High for his GCSE years. He’d worked hard and achieved respectable grade. Things had deteriorated rapidly in the time he’d been in the Sixth Form.

“I’ve even asked him if he wants to leave. Get a job instead but he just shook his head.”

“I can follow him to college.” I was thinking aloud and trying to decide how best to allocate my time. “But presumably they can come and go as they please. I could be waiting there all day.”

I tried a biscuit. Crunchy and intensely sweet.

“I was wondering about that last night, about the money,” she said apologetically.” When we went to college about this they looked at his attendance record and the days that he went missing he hadn’t even been into registration.”

“So if he gets to college he stays there.”

“Seems so.”

“That helps. And these times when he’s not come home? Does that happen after skipping college?”

She nodded. “Yes, he just doesn’t come home for tea. And once or twice he’s gone off after tea. Won’t say where he’s going and stays out all hours.”

“Are there any problems at home?”

“No,” she said.

“Is your husband worried as well?”

“Oh, yes. He gets wound up about it. He tends to shout but that doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“He shouts at Adam?”

“Has done, but don’t get me wrong, he’s a very caring father. He’s tried talking to him but he gets the same response as I do. Of course he’s not here as much as I am so he doesn’t have to deal with it day after day.” Worry pulled her mouth down at the corners and she blinked a couple of times.

“He works away, you said?”

“Monday to Thursday, occasional weekends. He’s got an enormous area to cover. He’d like to be home more but it goes with the job.

“What about the bullying, at Burnage High.”

“That was awful. There were three of them and they just picked on Adam. We still don’t know why. We were in and out of school, meetings and letters. The school kept telling us it was sorted and then I’d find Adam in tears and they’d have got at him again. It was ridiculous. In the end we got him transferred. We should have done it sooner. Mind you he didn’t tell us for long enough. Him being the eldest, he’s always been very responsible, self-reliant, and I think he was trying to protect me, not that I need protecting.” She gave a sad smile.

“It must have been awful.” I imagined my Maddie being persecuted by bullies. How fiercely I’d want to protect her and how sick I’d feel if I failed.

“And now…” She shook her head. “It really is out of character. I think that’s what makes it so difficult. If it was Penny I could understand it. But Adam.”

“Okay. Time and money. I’ll leave you my mobile number and you ring me if Adam goes off after tea. In addition I’ll arrange my schedule so I can follow him from home some mornings and see if he goes into college. We’ll take it from there and we’ve agreed a ceiling of eight hours for now.”

She winced. Obviously the money was going to be hard to find.

“You can pay in weekly instalments if that helps.”

“It might,” she acknowledged, “thank you. I realise you might find out things that are… awkward for us, but at least now I feel I’m doing something about it instead of driving myself mad with worry.”

“He may be just testing you, taking risks, pushing the limits, trying to break away a bit. Being a teenager.”

“Yes. And I can deal with that, if that’s all it is. It’d be easier if he was slamming doors and coming in plastered and refusing to clean his room but…” she broke off and turned to me again, her eyes brimmed with tears. “It’s the secrecy I can’t bear, the secrecy and the silence.”