Who Wants to Live Forever? (10 page)

“Even at work, it was a predominantly male environment, and the few women who worked in the office were generally older, married ones. So, when I did meet somebody, I was usually pretty intense, as I always felt,
she’s the one
. That was probably because I was worried that I’d not get another chance. And, of course, such a level of intensity tended to push them away from me. I’m sure all guys go through this, but most of them do it when they’re in their early teens, and so they’ve moved past those blockages by the time they come to date in earnest.

“However, one day, when I was working at Guardian in Lytham, a new girl called Carolyn started at the office. She was very young and a bit nervous when she was assigned to my team — I was twenty-five by now, so had a fair amount of responsibility. I had to spend quite a lot of time with her, teaching her the routines and all that, and I found I quite liked her. I suppose because we were thrown together in a work environment, I didn’t get the chance to scare her off through my intense approach, and by the time I plucked up courage to ask her out on a date she already knew me quite well.

“I was still surprised, though, when she accepted my invitation to go to the pictures — I can remember what we went to see, and it doesn’t seem the best film for a first date. It was
The Exorcist
. Although it had been around for three or four years, I hadn’t seen it before. By rights, Carolyn shouldn’t have gone with me, for it was an X-rated film and she was only sixteen — she’d joined the company straight from school, just as I did. We didn’t think anything of it, though, as people didn’t seem to bother about age restrictions the same way back then. It’s just like smoking — in those days, I smoked, and so did Carolyn.
Everybody
I knew did, and had done since their early teens. It was the norm and people accepted it.

“Anyway, I’m digressing. I still didn’t know whether she fancied me or had just gone to the pictures with me as a friend. While we were watching the film, I glanced across at her and saw that her arms were resting across her lap. I moved across, intending to hold her hand, but she pushed me away, which didn’t augur well. However, afterwards she told me that she thought I was trying to steal her popcorn, and we had a good laugh about it. That broke the ice and we were a couple from then on.

“We married three years later — she was nineteen, I was twenty-eight — and suddenly, the shy girl who I had been dating blossomed into a beautiful woman. Everybody remarked on the change, and she became a very popular woman.
Too
popular, although I didn’t know it at the time.

“We bought a house in Lytham —
not
, I must stress, in the posh part — and had two children, Gary and Julie. Gary is twenty-seven now, and does a lot of charitable work. He’s out in Argentina at the moment on a project helping to educate under-privileged children, and I’m really proud of him. Julie lives with her husband Dave in Bournemouth, and I see her three or four times a year. It was one of the happiest days in my life when I gave her away at her wedding. Dave’s really nice. All of the Waltons are, in fact. It’s just a shame that they live so far away.

“Anyway, once they moved out, it was just Carolyn and myself. We — or at least, I — were blissfully happy for almost thirty years. And then I retired. Towards the end of my career, I moved into local government, still in an insurance role. I was responsible for checking that all of the schools in the area were fully up to date with their public liability insurance, but I was working for the county council rather than a company selling the insurance. I transferred all of my accumulated pension rights into the local government scheme, and then, when the opportunity came to take voluntary redundancy due to the first raft of cutbacks, I leapt at it. I’d been thinking about it for some time, as I was struggling with all the new technology — everything is computerised these days, and I just don’t seem to be able to get to grips with the online world. I took the VR, and it also meant I could take my company pension several years early. As well as the amount I receive each month, there was a nice lump sum and when I combined that with the redundancy payout, it gave me a sizeable nest egg.

“Now that I’d finished work, I found that I spent most of the time at home. I soon found out that things weren’t anything like I’d thought them to be. Carolyn, it turned out, had regretted tying herself to me at such an early age. When she blossomed after we were married, she considered leaving me, before realising that she was on my gravy train, and could have the best of both worlds. She took a string of lovers over the next quarter of a century, and it seems that Gary, Julie and I were the only people on the Fylde Coast who knew nothing about them. All my so-called friends knew, and not one of them felt that they ought to let me know. I empathised with you, Trish, when you told us your story. Friends! No doubt they were sniggering behind my back.” I took a gulp of lager, spilling some of it as my hands were shaking.

“When I did find out — and that was only because Carolyn told me because she was sick of my being in the house with her every day after I retired — I was devastated. She said she wanted a divorce, and sued me for unreasonable behaviour. I couldn’t believe it, but the solicitors could, and I found myself without a wife and home within a matter of months. Although the children were on my side, there was nothing they could do to change matters. From looking forward to a long retirement with the relative comfort of a nice pension, I now live in a small flat in Fairhaven because that’s all I can afford. And that, ladies, is my boring tale. I’ll bet you wish you’d never asked.”

I took another, deeper, swig of lager, trying to avoid looking at the two shocked faces that stared back at me. And then Debbie, followed closely by Trish, leant over and hugged me, and for the first time in more than two years I actually began to feel that things were going to get better. My only regret was that I had let so many good years go to waste.

“I’m so glad I came on this course,” I said. “I almost wish it ran
every
evening.”

“I know what you mean! It wouldn’t do for me, though,” said Trish. “I find it hard enough taking Tuesday night off, as it leaves me with a backlog of preparation. The only other night I could make is Friday, and they don’t run many courses on Friday nights.”

“Same here,” echoed Debbie, except substitute Saturday for Friday.”

“It was just an idle thought,” I said. “These Tuesday night get-togethers are more than enough for me.”

***

I walked home feeling like the proverbial cat that had got the cream. There had undoubtedly been flirtatious behaviour this evening, and I felt much closer to both women as a result, even though they were quite different. In some ways, the situation with Trish was similar to mine; we had both been in long and seemingly happy relationships that had ended fairly recently, and although Trish seemed to have come to terms with her new situation much better than I had, perhaps she, too, had seen the course as an opportunity for something other than education.

Debbie’s situation was different, in that her marriage had been anything but happy, and I could well understand her reluctance to have another long-term relationship. Even so, I felt that she considered me as a friend, and I was more than happy to be in that position and to help her if I could.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, as my mind refused to switch off, so I tried to find something to occupy it. I opened my documents case and took out the handout sheets that Louise had given us. I was looking for tonight’s papers, although not for any specific reason, but ended up looking through all three before I found the ones for the Scott shooting. And then I noticed something that ought to have been obvious right from the beginning. The poisoning of Enid Rodgers took place in 1911, the hammer attack on Len Phillips occurred in 1922, and Harold Scott was shot in 1933; there were eleven years separating each killing. And all of the murders occurred on Fridays.

Was that significant? At this stage, it was far too early to tell, even though Louise had told us to discount the Friday factor. Louise must be convinced that there was a link between the murders; otherwise, why would she be devoting an entire course to them?

The more I thought about things, the more unanswered questions there seemed to be. My mind was still too active to allow restful sleep, and when I eventually drifted off shortly before dawn, my dreams were filled with a faceless killer battling Trish and Debbie for my full attention.

Chapter Seven

Gail — Tuesday 11
^th
October 2011

Gail took a long, hard look at herself. She didn’t like what she saw. This was supposed to be a chance for her to
be
somebody, for once. Even if the persona she had adopted was an invented one.

Yet it had all started to unravel, possibly right from the beginning. There was something about Ethan. Somehow, he just
knew
. She wondered if he had known right from the very first lesson. But how could he have? She’d been so careful with her facts. You had to study well if you were going to pass yourself off as somebody you weren’t. She had spent hours making sure that she had all the information at her fingertips, so she could recite a detailed list that would convince anybody that she was an expert, whatever the topic. But, somehow, something must have gone wrong, and now they all suspected her for what she was.

So, what was she to do next? She could just stop going, but that would defeat the object. If she didn’t turn up, she’d have lost. And she wasn’t prepared to be a loser. Not any more. Tuesday nights were the only evenings where she felt alive, away from the drudgery of her everyday existence. She would have to swallow her pride and continue to attend. If anybody said anything, she would just say they must be mistaken. This course mattered to her, perhaps even more than saving face. Louise was going somewhere with it, and she wanted to know where that was.

She frowned. It was all her stupid husband’s fault. Why
wasn’t
Bill the success that she needed him to be? Then, she wouldn’t have to act out this fantasy. But no, he was happy just plodding along, as he had done all of their married life. He’d seemed so fab when she saw him at the Isle of Wight festival, just as Jimi Hendrix began to play. But then, she was just an impressionable twenty-year-old, so it was hardly a surprise that she’d been taken in by him. The stories he’d told her, the things he’d meant to do. All just cannabis-fuelled pipe dreams. Bill the husband was as dull as his name. But he was still
her
husband, for all the disappointments, and she was determined to keep him.

Which brought her round to Emma. She didn’t trust that girl one bit. Bill had vehemently denied anything was going on between them when she challenged him about it on the way home, and common sense told her that it was ridiculous to think that the girl could have the slightest interest in her husband. But she’d
seen
them talking at the doors of the college as they were leaving, and, although her first instinct had been just to keep him away from any of the group in case he revealed her secrets, when she saw the look on Bill’s face — one she recognised from several other occasions during the past forty years — she knew that he was considering a lot more than just telling her the time of day.

And there was that damning evidence from the week earlier. The telltale black lipstick smudge on his collar could only have come from one person. She knew it had been a mistake to go with the others for a drink; she knew she would pay for having the temerity to enjoy herself. All because she was trying to fit in and appear normal. She didn’t blame Bill. It was
her
fault. She would have to do something about that girl.

Chapter Eight

Week 5 — Bolton — Drowning

Tuesday 18
^th
October 2011

I rang Julie the following morning. I considered telling her about Trish and Debbie but decided to be economical with the truth, as now wasn’t the right time. “Sorry, love,” I began, “I was tired when I got home last night, so I just went straight to bed.”

“Out enjoying yourself after the course, were you?”

“No, it was nothing as exciting as that. It was more of a mental tiredness. I’ve not had to do a lot of thinking in recent times, and I think it’s taking its toll.”

“Oh? That sounds intriguing. Tell me what’s gone and stimulated your little grey cells, then. Is it the people on the course? Are they making you think?”

“In a way — but not the way you’re no doubt thinking,” I added quickly. “It’s the course that’s keeping me awake. Remember how I told you about the murder that we discussed a couple of weeks ago? Well, last week’s session was also about a murder, and so was last night’s.”

“I was right, then! Hercule Poirot to the rescue!”

I didn’t mention my Hastings moment; let my daughter, at least, think of me as the sleuth. I feigned annoyance. “Do you want me to tell you or not? Okay, then, stop being silly. It’s just that I’d expected the course to be so much different from this, but I have to admit I’m really finding it interesting. That’s why I was tired, because I’ve been trying to work out what the connection is.”

“So the killings are connected? Do you mean Lancashire had its very own Jack the Ripper? I don’t get it, though. Why do you have to find the connection? I know it was a hundred years ago, but surely the police will have investigated, even if they didn’t catch him?”

“It isn’t that simple. The three murders so far have all taken place in different decades.”

Julie paused for a moment before replying. “So they
can’t
be linked, can they? Unless you’re saying that the killer was perhaps in jail for another crime in between times. But that’s not likely, is it? They’re just three separate cases that you’re trying to bring together because you just enjoy being a sleuth. Admit it, Dad.”

“I might agree with you if I was the only one thinking this way. There’s something about the way the teacher is concentrating on these cases that convinces me she believes that they’re…”