Past Mortem (20 page)

‘Hello, Paul,’ said Newson, noting that this was probably the first time in his life that he had ever actually spoken to this person. Man or boy.

‘Yeah. How’s it going, Ed? All right?’ Paul replied.

‘I know I cheated inviting Paul,’ Christine said, ‘because he was in the year above, but you don’t mind, do you, Ed?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘So,’ said Paul to Christine, ‘do you want a drink, then, or not?’

‘Oh, that’s all right, Paul. I
think
Ed was about to offer me one.

‘What? Oh, right,’ said Newson as Paul shrugged and turned away. ‘Um, can I get you a drink, Christine?’

‘I thought you’d never ask. A glass of champagne, please. It
has
to be champagne today.’

A table in the corner of the room had been set up as a bar. As Newson made his way towards it he found himself greeted on all sides. People seemed genuinely pleased to see him, something he had not really expected.

‘Ed!’ said a balding man with a pleasant face. ‘Graham Brooke. Remember me?’

‘Graham! Of course, of course…Didn’t your profile say you were working in New Zealand?’

‘Yes, that’s right. South Island.’

‘You’ve come a long way, Graham.’

‘No, no. I was back anyway. I’m afraid my mother died…You remember my mother. She worked part time in the library.’

‘Oh yes, of course,’ Newson lied. ‘That’s very sad, Graham. I’m really sorry.’

‘Yes, it’s been an awful shock. She was only fifty-nine, you see. Cancer, of course. It seems to claim so many of us, doesn’t it? The best of us, I sometimes think.’

‘Mmmm. Sadly.’

‘She fought it. It was amazing how she fought it. Like a tiger, I used to say. When it was diagnosed she said she wouldn’t let it beat her, and she was right, it didn’t.’

‘Oh, it didn’t? But that’s great! I misunderstood. I thought she was dead!’

‘Yes, she is dead.’

‘Ah.’

‘She beat it in spirit.’

‘Oh, right, that’s wonderful. Well done her.’

‘In the end she just said no to the treatment they were offering her on the NHS and fought it with the power of positive thinking. She gave it a name. She called it Candy, you know, instead of Cancer. She’d say, ‘Oh dear, Candy’s really giving me a hard time today, but I’m not going to let her get me down, I’m going to stand up to her. Candy’s not going to get the better of me, the minx.’’

‘And that helped, did it?’

‘Immensely. That and diet. Absolutely no dairy, obviously, that goes without saying, and only fruit and vegetables in season. It’s quite impressive, actually, because you can get a lot of good organic stuff in the big supermarkets these days, which has to be a positive development, don’t you think? I’m a member of the Soil Association, you know. Prince Charles is our patron.’

‘Look, um, I’ll be right back, but I promised I’d get Christine a drink.’

‘Oh, right. I never really spoke to her when we were at school.’

‘Hmmm. Right.’ Newson got to the bar, having failed to avoid catching Kieran Beattie’s eye as he stood alone against the far wall.

‘Um…two glasses of champagne, please,’ he said. A sweet-looking girl in a Hilton waistcoat reached into an ice bucket and fossicked for a bottle of Moët.

There was a pop as she opened it and everybody turned to see the flash git ordering champagne.

‘Pay well in the police, then, Ed? Ha ha,’ said a man who Newson thought may once have been Roland ‘piss stain’ Cuthbert.

‘Ha ha, yeah,’ Newson replied. ‘Gotta do it, eh? Yeah.’

‘Piss stain’, if indeed it was he, rewarded Newson with a raised glass. ‘Good work!’ he said. ‘Rock on, Tommy my son!’

‘Fifteen pounds, please,’ said the girl in the waistcoat.

‘Wow. Seven fifty a glass?’ Newson enquired.

‘Yes. It’s champagne.’

‘Yes, right, of course.’ He picked up the small flutes and started to make his way back towards Christine.

‘Ed? Ed Newson,’ said a woman, whom Newson knew had once been Sheila Keaton, a bookish, swotty sort of girl who had organized knit-ins for Oxfam.

‘Hi, Sheila,’ Newson said. ‘Don’t have to look at your tits to remember who you are, ha ha.’

‘Sorry?’ said Sheila.

‘The name tags,’ Newson said quickly. ‘I find them really embarrassing. It means you spend your time peering at people’s chests; you know, to find out who they are…Except, of course, I knew who you were, and not that I’d have minded anyway…I mean, peering at your chest…Happy to.’

‘Oh…good. Well. Any time.’

‘Ah, goodoh.’ Newson did not know whether this was a joke or not. He flicked his eyes down comically for a moment before looking up again. ‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘Very nice,’ and Sheila laughed loudly.

‘Same old Edward Newson. Always made us giggle. You’ve done well, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’m doing something I enjoy, which is important.’

‘Yes, you’re lucky. Not many people can say that they’re doing something they enjoy, can they?’

‘Can’t they? I don’t know. Aren’t you enjoying…um.’

‘Online travel. I assemble cheap flight packages for Lastminute.com.’

‘Oh, great. Well, that sounds interesting, all those exotic places…

‘I don’t go to them, I just assemble the packages and we sell them over the net. It could be toilet rolls or frozen peas.’

‘Yes…I suppose you’re right, but…Look, I promised this drink to Christine.’

‘Ah yes, beautiful Christine, eh? Still gorgeous. Good luck to her, I say. Some girls just have it, don’t they? You got off with her once, didn’t you?’

‘As a matter of fact I did. Long time ago, though.’

‘I remember it happening. Everybody was talking about it and Helen Smart crying in the loos.’

‘Was she?’

‘Yes, sitting in a cubicle sobbing for ages. I suppose it must have been a shock. We all thought you were an item.’

‘Well, we weren’t.’

‘We all thought you were.

Newson excused himself and began again to make his way back to Christine. He did not get far before he was stopped by two extremely well-groomed men who were rather self-consciously holding hands.

‘Ed?’

‘Hello, Gary. Long time no see.’

‘I suppose you could say that to anybody today, couldn’t you? This is Brad. I know we weren’t supposed to bring partners, but I decided sod that. Didn’t we, Brad?’

Newson sensed that perhaps Brad was not quite as enthusiastic about attending Gary’s grammar school reunion as Gary would have liked him to be.

‘I’m glad you came, Gary,’ said Newson.

‘I was a bit nervous after what I said on the web, blaming everybody for me getting bullied and all. I feel embarrassed about it now.’

‘It was perfectly fair,’ Newson assured him. ‘Yes,’ said Brad. ‘I told him he shouldn’t bother to see any of you bastards ever again.’

‘Brad! Behave!’ Gary scolded. ‘He’s more defensive for me than I am. No, really he is. Which is lovely, of course.’

‘Brad’s right, we were bastards. And I just want to say, Gary, that I’m sorry I stood by while Roger Jameson bullied you.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘It isn’t really all right. Bullies only get away with what they do because everyone else ignores it, and I’ve always felt guilty about ignoring what happened to you.

‘I never said anything when they called you ‘period head’, though, did I?’

But Newson knew that it had been different. He had not been a victim and Gary had.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I was really pleased to hear how happy you both are.’

Finally he found his way back to Christine.

‘Coo, a girl could die of thirst,’ she said, taking the glass he offered her. ‘Mmm, just
love
champers.’

‘Sorry, people were saying hello.’

‘Of course they were. Everybody’s talking about you, Ed. You’re the class success.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘No, really. You seem to be the only one of us who’s doing anything interesting, apart from me, of course. I mean, let’s face it, being a detective
is
pretty cool. That arsehole Paul Thorogood was pretending to be all distant and up himself, but I could see he was jealous of you. He used to think he was so great and what is he now?’

‘I don’t know. What is he now?’

‘A warehouse foreman at Tesco. Can you believe it?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘It’s not very cool, is it, Ed?’

‘In my experience, Christine, when you come down to it, very little is.’

Christine shrieked as if Newson had just said the wittiest thing imaginable. Newson thought her a ridiculous snob, but there could be no doubt that she was paying him a gratifying amount of attention. And she was right, people were certainly treating him differently from the way they’d done at school. On the status market his stock was trading much higher than expected.

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Christine. ‘Don’t go away.’ There was a chair behind Christine’s little admin table and she now stood on it, giving every man in the room the opportunity to appreciate the fact that her tanned legs were still slim and attractive and every woman the opportunity to be jealous.

‘Ching, ching, ching,’ she said, pretending to tap a glass. ‘Hi, everybody! Christine here! I just wanted to say a few things before we all get
too pissed!
First of all, it’s just
so
great to see you all here. Yay! And yah boo sucks to all the boring ones who decided not to come. All right! Now, for all of you who’re attending the concert I’ve got your tickets here and as you know they’re forty pounds each, but I would remind you that I managed to negotiate this room and the staff for free, so thanks for that, Cindy.’ Christine nodded at the girl behind the bar as if she was in charge of the Hilton’s hospitality pricings rather than being one of its wage slaves.

‘I should hope the room is free at four pounds a Heineken,’ said a voice from the back.

‘Well, that’s fine, Pete,’ Christine replied, ‘but if anyone thinks things could have been better organized then they’re welcome to tell me how.’

‘No, no,’ Newson said. ‘You’ve done great, Christine.’ He led a small round of applause and Christine smiled at him prettily.

‘Now look, everybody, the thing I really wanted to say was this. Obviously everybody here checks out the Friends Reunited site or else you wouldn’t be here, and so you all know that a few days ago a girl from our year, Helen Smart, posted up a notice and sent a circular email making some very unpleasant allegations against me and some of the other girls.’

Silence fell in the room. Nobody had expected Christine to tackle this situation so head-on. Newson understood and could not help but admire Christine’s nerve. She’d spent time and effort arranging this reunion, of which she clearly intended to be the star, and at the last minute some half-remembered nobody had tried to spoil it. If she ignored the accusations they would hang over the whole day and therefore ruin it. Somehow the boil had to be lanced and she had the
chutzpah
to go for it.

‘Now, what I wanted to say was this — ’

The door swung open and Sally Warren appeared with her huge stomach and baby buggy before her. Josh, for the moment, was quiet, having been rendered briefly submissive by the application of sweets and crisps.

‘
Hi, everybody!
’ Sally said as she barged her way in. ‘How
are
you? This is Josh! Hope you like kids…Oh…’

Only now did Sally notice Christine. ‘Wow, Christine, you look fantastic! Did I interrupt something?’

‘Well, yes, kind of. Hello, Sally.’

‘You mean you’ve started without me?’

‘Well, I was just — ’

‘You said one o’clock in your email, Christine. It’s only twenty past now. You could have given me a chance to get here, you know, at least waited till half past.’

‘I just wanted to say a few words, that was all.’

‘I have got a kid, you know. It isn’t easy.’

It was clear to Newson that Sally Warren was a woman on a very short fuse. Hardly surprising, he thought, considering the state she was in and the kind of volume that Josh was capable of generating.

‘Why don’t I get you a drink, Sally?’ Newson said. ‘I think Christine just wanted to get something off her chest.’

There was a general good-humoured ‘Woooaar’ at this from the men in the room. Christine reddened but did not let herself be thrown. Sally thanked Newson and said that she’d have a gin and tonic, and finally Christine was able to continue.

‘I was talking about Helen Smart and what she wrote on the internet. What I wanted to say was that it didn’t happen that way and I know that all the other girls will back me up. Yes, Helen could be a bit of a pain and I’m sure we teased her quite badly, which was wrong, but I don’t remember anybody ever actually attacking her, and certainly not with a…well, in the way she says we did. Anyway, as you know, Friends Reunited is self-regulating and so I’ve contacted the organizers and asked them to remove the note from the notice board because I consider it libellous, and they’ve agreed to do so. So that’s it, I’ll say no more about it. We’re all here to celebrate the class of ‘eighty-one to ‘eighty-eight, so I suggest we charge our glasses and drink to our decade, the one we grew up in, the best decade of the last century! The eighties!’