Death in Leamington (3 page)

‘
So, don’t be late, and don’t lose your head!’
I shouted after him. It was the phrase I’d just read on the poster. Later on, when I knew better who he was, I would see that this was somewhat prophetic.

I calculated that I just had time for one more circuit before it got dark, so turned and crossed the road again in front of the Spa rooms, retracing my earlier route down the path to the river by the Mill Bridge weir. Normally, I would have continued across the bridge and run back through the old town, but it was past 8.30pm and nearly dusk, which was when they locked the park, and I still hadn’t eaten. Instead, I decided to take the underpass towards the town that ran under the main park promenade. On approaching the tunnel, I saw immediately that there were two men sheltering within. They appeared to be sleeping rough; they’d built a small camp fire and one of them was bending over a few sheets of newspaper.

Despite their harmless appearance I still paused for a second before entering the tunnel. I couldn’t see very much of the detail of their features in the gloom, apart from the brightness of their eyes. I imagined they might be Tamils or from southern India at least. The way they were singing in unison made me think oddly of the funny elephants in a TV wildlife film that Carrie had been watching earlier that week, flapping their ears in perfect synchronisation. I had passed the elephant memorial moments earlier – three bronze beasts and a boy sitting on one of them, connected by crescent shaped concrete benches. Carrie had recently done a project on them; I had helped her to find this piece from a local history website and of course it has taken on a new significance for us now:

There was a sudden sharp glint of a knife. My mind shifted back from the elephants and focused firmly on the Tamils. One of them was using the knife to gut the fish and it unsettled me, despite their cheery song. Since an incident the year before in the park when a young girl was accosted walking back from the station, I had been much more careful about personal safety. However, they seemed occupied with their cooking so I decided to proceed through the subway. I did speed up though, running past them as quickly as I could. They smiled at me and nodded as I passed and I nodded back, feeling somewhat foolish at being afraid, but none of us spoke.

I emerged from the other side of the underpass but my adventures were not over; now there was a stray dog chasing me, which scared me more than the Tamils. It yapped at my heels and my heart pounded as I left it behind.

I had now met a wolf but no rabbit and was late but with no pocket watch. A modern-day Alice; I ran pretty well straight up the wide sweep of The Parade in a sprint, so by the time I reached the top of the hill I was really panting. It felt good and then I jogged the rest of the way home to cool down.

*

When I got to the flat, I discovered to my frustration that it had been invaded. Even before I descended the steps I could hear the impromptu jam session going on below. I opened the door and went to find the source of the noise. The kitchen table was now covered with Chinese takeaway in addition to the food I had left for my own supper. Eddie had been joined by two of his fellow ‘band’ members and Carrie was still up, singing along merrily with them in her pyjamas, food all down her top, the four of them jamming to some random pop song. Despite my glares, they started anew on Carrie’s current favourite song, the one she had been singing all day, words that are totally inappropriate for a seven-year-old, but what could I do? It was something about a girl crashing her car into a bridge. Clearly Carrie loved it even if I didn’t.

The noise was horrendous, and they were not exactly playing like guitar heroes: Hugh, as usual, was all over the place on the keyboards; Bas was in another world seemingly playing a different song on bass and Eddie, well Eddie was just playing guitar on Bas’s borrowed Fender. I gave them an earful and headed off in disgust for a shower.

‘But we’ve left you the bamboo shoots,’ was the pathetic excuse they shouted after me.

*

I went to shower and then returned to the kitchen wrapped in my dressing gown. It was still a mess despite my earlier protestations. I had to laugh in despair at the comic scene before me. I issued a set of stern instructions to ‘the band’ and after a few contrite minutes, in which the boys made a pathetic and incompetent attempt to clear up the kitchen, shooed them all out of the flat and they skulked off to the pub

I ate the bamboo shoots with a bit of goat’s cheese, the curry and the rest of the bottle of Sancerre. Wine solved a lot of things nowadays. I was half in despair, and half relieved to get them out of the house. I was thinking about Hugh. There was history there after all.

*

Hugh is a bit older than Eddie – and in fact he is also an old crush. My elder sister knew him from the Anglo-French society at school, which was generally an excuse for the boys’ and girls’ schools to get together for a not-so-innocent social under the vague supervision of a certain Miss Wainwright. Hugh used to live in the house at the corner of the street, No. 10 Clarendon Square, where Dottie’s university professor partner now lives. A group of my sister’s friends regularly met up there before going on to Wildes Wine Bar. I was too young for Wildes but remembered being invited as a trailing sister to listen to the first ever radio episode of
Hitchhiker
in the darkened sitting room on the first floor of No. 10. I sat next to Hugh and loved the way he laughed and joked and had a girlie crush on him after that. My sister probably got fed up at the way I flirted with him continuously, although for some inexplicable reason he continued to resist my charms. Even when I was older and wiser we never officially went out together, although we did enjoy a ‘moment’ or two.

I’ve never actually told Eddie this, but the only time I’ve ever seen Hugh really drunk was at his twenty-first party, and it was there that we had the nicest last dance snog in the basement of No. 10. I often smile at the thought when I walk past the house. I still fancy him a bit; he is always incredibly kind and considerate, although physically he has turned into a bit of a greying rugger bugger. He recently divorced after a difficult marriage but in my view he is the one that disproves the theory that all the best men are taken. I am now working on that too – and am determined to get him paired off soon.

Basil, or Bas, on the other hand, is quite another matter. More Eddie’s age, dentist, not much hair left and what he has is closely cropped. Nice eyebrows and well-built but in his case I’d definitely recommend leaving first ‘base’ to his guitar. I hear that he parties hard.

Of course, after my puppy-love crush on Hugh, there were other more serious boyfriends. The most significant of which was my relationship with Seb, also long before Eddie’s time. That was a bit more than a teenage crush; in fact it had gotten close to an engagement, before he died of a fractured skull in a motorbike accident in Germany whilst touring with friends. The true story of that accident is still drowned in the alcoholic haze of his comrades. I was devastated of course but am still friends with his mother, Lady Mary, and with Julia and Cordelia, his sisters, who semi-adopted me after the accident and whose basement flat Eddie and I now occupy. It was through them that I met Penny, who has since become their stepsister when her father recently married Lady Mary.

As for Hugh, we lost touch for a while when he went off to join the army. Years later when he returned to Leamington, we met again at a party held by Julia and Delia’s father, who had now moved into No. 6. I still remember Julia’s sweet excitement when she saw Hugh in the mirror in her father’s hallway. We had been playing a silly game where the first person you saw in the mirror was the man you’d have to try to seduce that evening. He was wearing full dress uniform for the soirée and he looked magnificent. Julia was unable to keep her eyes off him for the rest of the evening, but as far as I know nothing really happened. Since then he has been through a difficult marriage and a messy divorce. I have wondered recently if I can get Julia and Hugh together again, but I also have a couple of other potential ladies lined up for him. It is all getting very complicated. Sometimes I feel I need to write it all out on a bit of paper to avoid getting into a muddle with the Jane Austen-like complexities of these interrelationships and my own amateur match-making.

Curt Smith,
Getting Away With a Boys’ Night Out

Bas, Eddie and I escaped the wrath of Alice and decided to continue our evening with a quick pint in the Benjamin Satchwell, a pub on the Parade. The beer in the Satch was pleasant enough, but that night the bar was full of old timers venting about the day’s political events. The music there was almost as dated as the decor.

‘So when are we going to get you fixed up with a decent woman, Hugh?’ Eddie asked me, teasing again.

‘All the good women are already taken,’ I replied philosophically.

‘Well I think we need to do something about that,’ replied Eddie. ‘What do you think Bas, where can we find Hugh a good woman?’

‘I don’t know about a good woman, he just needs to get laid,’ Bas added helpfully.

*

Bas looked around the bar and commented that there was a distinct lack of talent, so Eddie suggested we move on to the Tennis Club, where there was a ladies’ tournament that weekend. I thought this was a great plan. Bas, however, had other ideas for the rest of the evening; he said there was a Quentin Tarantino theme night at The Willes Arms with a guest DJ – billed as Jack Rabbit Slim’s Twist Contest. He figured there were sure to be some hot girls there
.
Eddie quickly vetoed this idea on the grounds of bad taste so, much to Bas’s disappointment, we compromised instead on one of the busier town pubs. I tended to think of Bas as Eddie’s faithless friend; he had a reputation for partying hard. I’m not sure what that meant exactly, but I’d seen enough of his behaviour around women to know that Quentin Tarantino was not a role model to encourage. Anyway the women in question would turn out to be a bunch of Uma Thurman lookalikes. I was therefore also not confident that Bas’s idea of a suitable attachment for me (suitable generally specified as far as I could see in terms of the shorter the skirt and the smuttier the behaviour) would match my own romantic standards.

We got to The Red Lion just as things were beginning to really kick off. It was on the corner of one of the main crossroads opposite a couple of popular shot bars. The place was heaving with people, the Friday night crowds spilling out onto the street in the late summer evening. As we forced ourselves past the packed bodies, the shouting and laughter increased in intensity, drowning out any chance of a normal conversation. A group of girls were dancing to a Rihanna song (one that even I recognised) under the coloured lights that strobed from rotating lasers suspended from the ceiling. Bas pushed his way through the crowd and leaned over the bar. Like most places, he knew the barman there well. He caught his eye and ordered three beers and tequila chasers using a mixture of shouts and hand signals.

‘Well, Eddie, Alice certainly seemed upset with you,’ I shouted loud enough that Eddie had a chance of hearing.

‘Yeah you really got the death stare, bro,’ added Bas, helpfully again.

‘Yeah, well thanks guys, thanks for all the support. I guess I’ll have to sort it out with her later. Anyway I’ll take her out tomorrow, she’ll calm down soon enough,’ replied Eddie. ‘While I think about it, why don’t you guys come along too, we could invite some of Alice’s girlfriends as well and make a night of it?’

‘Ah, that does sounds romantic, but don’t you think she’d prefer something a little cosier?’ I suggested somewhat ironically.

‘No worries, I’m sure she’ll be cool if there’s a crowd of us,’ he replied without taking the bait.

‘Anyway, does she know anything about you-know-what yet?’ I asked.

‘Nope, she hasn’t a clue. It’s all going to plan so far; we’re all set for next month.’

*

We found a few inches on the edge of a bar table to lean on and looked around the crowd, searching for likely pick-up prospects. Although we were relatively regular midweek visitors, Fridays took on a completely different complexion in that pub. It was one of several frequented mainly by townies rather than students. It was already busy; the crowd seemed ten years younger than the mid-week regulars. Girls wore oversized heels and skirts six inches too short; some looked distinctly underage. Many of them were drinking cocktails before hitting the clubs; ogled in turn by groups of sixteen- to eighteen-year-old lads with tattoos, abs and fake tans hanging around the bar. I have to say that I felt distinctly queasy about being in such teenybopper company; there were very few women anywhere near my age.

‘Look at those idiots over there,’ Bas said, pointing to a group of smirking lads with gleaming white baseball boots and leather jackets. They were drinking Jägerbombs, their hair gelled back like reality-TV stars.

‘I just wish I was their age again.’

‘No you don’t, just look at them. They haven’t got a clue how to talk to birds, unlike yours truly…’ Bas flexed his shoulder muscles, cracked his knuckles and opened another button on his shirt to reveal more chest hair and a thick gold chain. ‘Look at those three girls over there, for instance, they look bored as hell with those idiots,’ he added, pointing to a group of twenty-somethings in the corner. ‘I bet even you could show them a move or two, Hugh.’

‘I doubt it Braggadocio – I’m old enough to be their father.’

We continued to watch, half-amused and half-appalled at the increasingly boisterous and noisy drinking games performed by the group of Y-chromosomes standing around the bar. Outside, one of the boys had pulled up his top to show off his steroid-induced abs to another bunch of passing girls on the street. His friend poured a drink on his stomach and he rubbed the liquid in like baby oil.

‘Fancy a feel then, later?’ the boy shouted at the passing girls as they threw him an admiring glance.

‘Heh Wayne, just get lost before I end you!’ the lead girl replied sharply, seeming to recognise him. Her mates giggled and his mates sniggered back. She threw a little more than a play punch towards his stomach from which he pretended to recoil in shock with a pained expression.

‘Heh, she
really
fancies you,’ her mates jeered.

‘Come on then, we’re off to the V bar if you’re men enough,’ she said, pouting her lips as she stroked back her hair and adjusted her skirt higher up on her hips. I had to turn away to avoid laughing.

‘For heaven’s sake, chill out guys, the night’s still young.
Save the fight ’til it’s over
,’ said Bas, but he was careful not to say it too loudly in case the lads heard him.

*

‘OK, so tonight is the night to find Hugh a soul mate; is it to be Spice or Sahara then, boys?’ Eddie shouted over to us.

‘I think I’m a bit past both of those,’ I laughed and added, only half-jokingly, ‘Is Rimini still going, or maybe Wildes?’ They rolled their eyes at me.

‘Actually yes, they both are, but they’re full of sad relics like you, replaying their youth and listening to Frankie and Abba, looking forward to a good mug of cocoa when they get home,’ said Bas, not quite getting my subtle irony.

‘OK, OK, don’t rub it in. At least I act my age.’

Clearly Bas had other ideas and was already sizing up a different group of girls in their early thirties who had just arrived and taken a free table in the corner.

‘This lot look more your age,’ he said, despite the fact that I was a good ten years older than any of them. It did not take him long to make his move.

‘Hey girls, I’m sorry to interrupt but would you mind if we joined you? We’ve got something to celebrate – my friend over here’s going to be in the movies. Let me get you some shots?’

I watched, amused as the slim pretty one amongst them, dressed to kill in a very tight pair of trousers, looked on in disdain and some alarm at the thought of being hit on by this bald, middle-aged man. To my surprise, Bas’s words were apparently not completely lost on her because she looked Eddie up and down, seemingly intrigued by his comment. I heard her mutter to her two friends.

‘What a loser, but his friend’s fit.’

I was of course more than aware that she was not referring to me and noticed with interest that Bas had already moved on from her and was in fact now deliberately ignoring her and concentrating instead on her two plainer but curvier friends, one of whom had mousey brown hair, the other bleach blonde brushed back locks. They were both plastered with heavy make-up.

‘Stop staring, you’re acting like a creep,’ Bas whispered to me, somewhat harshly I felt. ‘Relax and tell them about something you like doing.’

I felt myself flush and wondered what these girls would possibly want to know about army signals, rugby, security systems or even playing the keyboard badly.

*

I confess that I still find this middle-aged dating business a torture. I spent eighteen years in the army, the last ten of which I was married to a manipulative accountant I met on a tour of the Gulf. I belatedly realised that my own fidelity and devotion were not being reciprocated. In fact I was being routinely lied to and cheated on. I never found her in bed with another man like some of my soldier mates had with their wives but there were enough stories going round the mess that I should have been forewarned. In retrospect, the signs were probably obvious to everyone but me, I had just been too trusting, even naïve. Now divorced at last, I’ve had a series of short relationships but haven’t yet found anyone more permanent.

I am rapidly reaching my mid-forties and am somewhat at a loss on how to move forward in the love stakes. There are no children from my marriage, but a divorcée’s freedom is not quite the fun ride that everyone expects and I’m distinctly rusty at the dating game. All my old girlfriends are in long-term relationships. I’ve tried speed-dating, internet-dating and singles bars but I’m beginning to think that it is all too much like hard work.

*

Plucking up courage, I coughed and rehearsed my next line a couple of times in my head. Fortunately, before I had time to open my mouth, Eddie came over and joined us and, to my great relief, he, as usual, immediately became the centre of attention.

A tall red-headed girl dressed in black designer jeans, classy jewellery and a
Peace
top joined the group and greeted her girlfriends. She was in a completely different league from the others with a stunning figure. I didn’t see her face until she turned to talk with Eddie, who clearly knew her. Then it hit me that this amazing girl was none other than Alice’s friend Penny.

‘Hey Eddie,’ she said with confident eye contact and a broad smile that masked the slight hesitation in her speech. The other pretty girl with blonde curls frowned, realising Eddie knew her and that her attempts to get Eddie’s undivided attention had temporarily been thwarted.

‘Come on girls,’ the pretty one said rather shortly, ushering the other girls towards the ladies’ room. ‘I think we need to freshen up.’

‘Stay here and get some more drinks in, we’ll be back in a few minutes,’ the mousey one said, breathlessly touching Bas on the arm with a little too much familiarity.

‘He’s bloody hilarious,’ she whispered to her pretty friend as they walked away. Her friend just rolled her eyes at her. Fortunately Penny stayed with us.

‘Why do women always go to the bathroom together?’ I sighed.

‘To talk about you lot of course,’ said Penny, still smiling at Eddie, who now had her perching on his knee.

*

The other girls returned and we all drank another round of shots and then agreed it was time to hit the clubs. No one wanted to go to Sahara, ‘the music is just too cheesy’ the girls said. In any case, they added, it was normally full of acne-faced teenagers and had the most obnoxious bouncers in town. So we started off in the Cloud Bar across the street with Birds Nest cocktails and the DJ playing a selection of what I was informed by Eddie to be hip hop. Bas complained before long that the place was too full of students; this was true as there were a whole crowd of them gathered in a last fling before they returned to uni, so we decided to move on to one of the dance clubs.

There wasn’t much choice, having rejected Sahara and Rimini’s. It was a short walk up the hill to the club that had been rebranded Spice in its latest incarnation. The combination of the giggling girls’ heels, alcohol-unsteady legs, parked cars and other inebriated pedestrians meant that we made slow progress. There were many groups of youngsters marauding through the streets, watched over by bouncers and policemen at the main venues.

We walked around the back of some shops and through the multi-storey car park that backed onto the supermarket. There were only a few cars in the car park and the orange safety lighting there was far too dim to light all the shadows, creating a somewhat menacing atmosphere that dampened our high spirits. Of course, with my security training, I was naturally concerned and suggested we go back and stick to the street. But Bas said that seven of us, four of whom he knew were policewomen, should be enough to see anyone off. The girls’ heels clicked on the concrete as they giggled away. Bas and Eddie laughed with them, arms tight around the girls’ waists to steady the effects of the shots.

The pretty blonde had now regained the initiative vis-à-vis Penny and had Eddie to herself again, while Bas guided the other two girls through the parked cars. I wasn’t too impressed to see that the blonde girl now had her hands around Eddie’s waist. Penny dropped back a little to talk to me. I continued to be circumspect: that place had a reputation for drug-pushers and addicts. We followed a yard or two behind the rest of the group, with me nervously looking around for any threat.

I heard the ricochet echo of a car door slam at the far end of the car park. I turned and saw a man walk towards the boot of the black cab that was parked there. I could just make out the registration number in the gloom and made a mental note of it. He was short and tanned, with thick silver hair and gold-rimmed glasses, dressed in an expensive looking business suit and raincoat. He was speaking into his mobile. Another man got out of the driver’s seat of the cab and opened the boot of the vehicle. A turbaned Sikh – the minicab driver, I assumed at the time.