To Catch a Creeper (11 page)

‘Don’t you have a cleaner, Cathy?’ Janet, having no husband or children, can’t quite figure out the amount of work involved in caring for a family.

Dear Pimple, my Godsend. ‘Two hours a week. I’ve asked her to come more often but she’s got hundreds of jobs and it’d break her heart if I got someone else.’

‘She’s very possessive over her clients,’ Henrietta agrees.

‘Well, what about demanding your husbands help more?’ Janet pipes up again.

‘I might,’ I say, ‘if I didn’t think he was losing his marbles.’

Henrietta throws me a sympathetic look.

‘Talking of losing your marbles and possible suicides.’ Janet as usual hijacks our discussion and starts her own. ‘What about the guy living in Inderwick Road who committed suicide a fortnight ago.’

‘I never read about that,’ says Isobel.

‘Nor me,’ says Henrietta.

‘They’re obviously keeping quiet until the inquest. Anyway according to a friend of mine, the poor bloke hung himself. A big horse chestnut near the old racecourse in Ally Pally. Thought he had Parkinson’s disease.’

‘Thought?’ says Henrietta. ‘Didn’t he bother checking then, before he did the deed?’

‘No,’ Janet shakes her head, ‘it’s my friend, who didn’t know. Obviously the guy who hung himself knew. It could have been Motor Neurone, you see. My friend can be a bit vague at times.’

‘Poor thing. The man who hung himself, I mean,’ I explain. ‘Who cares about your friend?’

‘Well I do actually,’ Janet laughs, and we all join in.

That’s the thing about the WOWs. Just seeing them once a week, being able to have a laugh and a joke about stuff, puts all our problems into perspective and for a few hours at least we can air our gripes, belittle them and then push them to one side. We wake up Thursday morning, sometimes hung-over, but always with new insights into dealing with our troubles.

We do have a few taboo subjects. Not sex, that’s a free-for-all. But moral issues. For instance, smacking (to do or not do), politics (Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem/Green) and then the biggie, the MMR debate. The mothers whose children haven’t had the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine look smugly down at the MMR mothers, claiming to be better read and quoting articles from rebellious doctors, and the MMR mothers resent the non-MMR mothers because they think their children are parasitically riding on the backs of all their inoculated kids. Plus they don’t like the smug looks.

‘Hanging yourself though. Pretty damn desperate, isn’t it?’ says Henrietta.

‘Certainly is,’ agrees Isobel.

‘Terrible,’ Janet adds.

We all stare dismally at our plates, giving a reverential two minute silence for the guy with Parkinson’s (or Motor Neurone), before we start tucking into our food like starving famine victims.

***

‘I’ve decided to wear glasses to work.’ I inform the group halfway through my lemon sorbet. We’re onto puddings now. Henrietta went for the crème brulée with extra thick white chocolate and Janet and Isobel are sharing a big plate of rum truffles drizzled with plum sauce.

‘Your eyesight bad then?’ asks Henrietta.

‘No.’

They all set their spoons down a second, but I carry on eating.

‘I’m not having lenses in or anything,’ I address their blank faces and take another spoonful of sorbet.

‘What? Just empty circles?’ Janet guffaws.

‘No, glass. I’m having the glass, durr.’ How dim does she imagine I am?

‘That makes sense,’ says Isobel, puzzled. ‘
Not
.’

‘Pray, why?’ An amused expression fills Janet’s face.

‘To make me look more intelligent.’

‘Oh, Cathy,’ Henrietta takes my hand in hers, ‘you shouldn’t feel inferior.’

‘I don’t, I just feel…’ I cast my eyes to the ceiling thinking of the word, ‘…inferior.’

‘But why?’ Henrietta again.

‘Because this Honour, she’s so bright and clever and knows all these things about science and history and she has a million zillion letters after her name – Dip eds and BSCs and such…and…and I don’t.’

‘But don’t you think everyone feels a bit like that?’ soothes Isobel. ‘If you left school with CSEs you wish you’d got GCSEs. If you’ve GCSEs you wish you’d gone for A levels. And if you’vetons of A levels, you still wish you had a degree.’

‘I even feel inferior with my degree,’ Henrietta chips in, ‘because it’s only photography, not like history or maths.’

‘And mine was only a 2.2,’ Isobel adds.

‘And even though I managed a first in English my university wasn’t one of the redbrick universities,’ adds Janet, which somehow doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better. ‘Not Oxford or Cambridge or anything my parents would have wanted for me.’

Isobel nods. ‘You know, Cathy, Larry would say you’ve an inferiority complex as opposed to a superiority complex which he says are interlinked, because some people, in order to overcome their sense of inferiority, go to the other extreme and portray themselves as superior. Albert Adler 1870–1937. Or it could be Alfred?’ Now it’s her turn to stare up at the ceiling while she tries to remember exactly.

Tropicos’ ceiling has been the bearer of numerous eye castings.

We all wrinkle up our noses at the mention of her husband, Larry. Although apparently well-esteemed in the counselling world and overrun with clients clamouring to lay on his couch and bare their souls and possibly even their bottoms (according to Henrietta, who knows someone, who knows someone), at the same time he’s emotionally dense – as well as darn domestically lazy.

The lights are on upstairs as I walk down the garden path just after midnight. Looking up at the bedroom window I see Declan pacing again, but this time his mouth’s moving, like he’s talking to someone. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Then suddenly to my horror he drops to his knees, waggles his hands high above him like Al Jolson singing Mammy and my happy, wine-laden smile fades into the night air.

Chapter 10

I remove my jacket and sling it over the banisters, still a mite shaken by the sight I’ve just witnessed. What was he doing? Praying? Singing? And if he was, who could it have been to? God? Satan? Ghosty-woo-woo? Alien beings? I mean, I try to be tolerant of all faiths and none, nod along when people bring out their healing crystals/homeopathic remedies/new age quackery/photos of UFO sightings. I accept they believe what they’ve been told by their parents/gurus/shamans/priests/big brothers, whoever, and I also believe it’s their right to be free to believe what they wish to, and for all to be tolerant of those beliefs and not to judge or condemn. And it’s fine when it’s friends and acquaintances telling you their latest discovery of some new theory/religion/diet and trying to pull you on board, because you can nod and say, ‘Good for you, sounds interesting’ and then go home.

But I am home
. And I’ve no clue what this is about. I head to the kitchen, steam seeping from my ears as I consider it further. If Declan’s gone and been converted to some cult or other while I’ve not been paying attention, it’ll drive us apart, I know it will.

I open the kitchen door and my horizontal mouth now forms a downward semicircle.

I’d left home while everyone was still eating their supper, but were the dishes cleared away? No. Were the puzzles put back in their boxes, toys back in their cupboards? No. Not only that, but the latest acquisition to the household, Tic-Tac, has done a little mound of sick again, under the table (small mercies – at least it’s not been tramped through to the carpet)which no-one’s bothered to clean up and our dog, Custard, is busy trying to draw my attention to his empty water bowl. I mean, is it still all my responsibility?

Why couldn’t Declan at least have loaded the dishwasher instead of all that self-indulgent talking to himself and hand waving? Is he going to turn into lazy Larry, expecting me to do it all as I only work – pause for effect, bug both eyes like Isobel –
part time
. Resentment festers inside me as I rinse a saucepan under the tap. Part of me wants to go up and confront him. Ask what the Dickens he’s doing, but something else stops me. I’m tired, he’s tired, we’re both obviously stressed, last thing I need tonight is a huge row. Also I’m distracted by the sight of Mrs Baker’s letter, which I’d forgotten about. I leave the pans to drain and slice it open.

But it’s not from the daughter; it’s from the mother – Mrs Baker senior. As I read down the page, my tired droopy eyes spring open in horror.

‘HELP ME! ELEANOR’S UP TO SOMETHING. PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T LET HER KNOW I’VE WRITTEN THIS.’

I shudder as memories of my past come back to haunt me. Just my luck. Another neighbour with mental health issues. Her dementia obviously progressing fast. Christ, was it my lot in life to be continually badgered by the criminally insane? Why me? None of my friends have had freaky neighbours. Henrietta, for example, has a lovely family one side and a nice young couple the other. They all hold poker evenings and are really sociable, celebrating Halloween and Bonfire Night as a group. Even clubbing together to buy fairy lights for the street at Christmas. But then again, to be fair, I don’t have a husband who dresses up in ladies’ underwear every evening to go on midnight strolls. And who’s darn likely going to be arrested if I don’t do anything about it.

I swotted up a bit the other day after Henrietta snapped at me (all right I know she was making out that I was another of her late-paying clients but it still hurt to get so tongue lashed) and cobbled together a pink cardboard wallet folder full of newspaper cuttings plus everything I could find on the burglaries from the internet. It didn’t amount
to much. All I really discovered was a) he/she’s burgled about nine houses, so far only in the immediate area of Crouch End. No further east than Hornsey Railway Station or west than Etheldene Avenue, b) he always waits for the victim to be out, thankfully and c) the lone description of him is the lambswool coat, high heels and possible transvestite-like qualities, but then again that might have been Neil going on one of his late night walks or someone impersonating Neil on his late night walks.

I grab the file from the kitchen drawer, sneak past our bedroom and upstairs to the attic.

Where to begin?

I watched this Jack the Ripper documentary a while back and there was a bit all about geographical profiling. You do this incredibly complicated algebraic calculation, like Matt Damon in
Good Will Hunting
, with loads of X squared plus Ys in brackets, which you enter into this machine and press a button and like magic you get this graph with mountains and valleys and the mountains, which are light green, are the places where the burglar lives. It’s an American invention.

So how does it help me?

My thinking cap is placed firmly on my head and I pause in deep thought for a second before I start.

I need to write down, not speculation, not gossip nor hearsay, just plain old fashioned facts. Tangibles. Things that have been proven. I mean, if we were going for mere speculation, I might as well head straight down to Hermitage Road and handcuff Neil myself. If I was a policeman that is, which I’m not, obviously.

Right first things, first. I place my pink wallet folder on the desk and switch on my PC. Fact 1. Addresses where burglaries took place. I double click on Word and make a list, Nelson Road, Berkeley Road, Palace Road, Barrington Road, Inderwick Road, and for a micro-second I’m mildly excited as I think I recognise a pattern – they’re all roads – until I come across Park Avenue South, Nightingale Lane, Lyndon Gardens, Elder Avenue and bang goes that theory. At the end I’m left with nine locations where the murders…I mean burglaries occurred. I call this sheet Sheet No. 1.

Next I go to Google and print out a map of the local area putting a series of little blue felt pen dots in the streets the Creeper visited. And then I draw a large red circle around the circumference.

When I’m done I nip to Josh’s room for a ruler. He’s sleeping like a baby, dead to the world, one bare leg hanging off the edge of the bed, mouth open. I cover him over, kiss his sweet little forehead and creep back upstairs.

Next I make a series of lines for each co-ordination, Nightingale to Lyndon, Berkeley to Barrington, Nelson to Palace, etc. I’m trying to pinpoint, as accurately as I can, the exact spot where the murderer…I mean, burglar lives. Sorry, I don’t mean to confuse, obviously a murderer roaming the streets would be much more serious, but that documentary about Jack the Ripper was extremely gripping. Although gruesome.

For the next couple of hours, I busy myself in my work, tongue held stiffly out to the left to aid concentration as I erase things, start again, Tippex, draw. These have to be precision measurements otherwise it won’t be any use at all. Finally, three black coffees later (no I wasn’t trying to be hip, we’d run out of milk), I step back and peer down at what I’ve done. It’s rather beautiful, like a Spirograph. I went over the pencil marks with different coloured gel pens nicked from Sophie’s pencil case. Now the glittery area where they all meet… I peer down at it. And then I peer again.

And again.

I rub my eyes, check my figures, or rather road names, from Sheet No. 1 but the paper doesn’t lie. If my calculations are right, the Crouch End Creeper lives in – wait for it – Oakleigh Close.
My
street. Or rather
my
close. My breath sticks in my throat a second
before I force it out. This is dynamite. At the bottom of the sheet, which I call Sheet No. 2, I write my own algebraic equation – X = Oakleigh Close.

I extract another sheet from the printer, stare up at the shelf above my head, and take down an old lever arch file. It’s empty, so I pull off the label and can’t help but smile. Home Accounts – O’Farrell Household Budget – Declan’s writing. He made it for me with the intention I fill it up each week with print-outs from a snappy new accounts package he borrowed from his office so we could keep track of our spending. I tell you, it was a nightmare. He had me categorising everything such as gas, electric, shopping, and then sub-categorising, such as milk, marmalade, cereal, in the hope that I could economise somewhere along the line by buying less cornflakes or something but then our computer crashed, and I lost everything. And that was the last I heard of that. Thank God.