Saturday 9 November 2013

Catching Up With Murder - Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN


“Fame at last, my turtle dove. You’ve made the tabloids three days running!” 
     Horton roared with laughter and passed the newspaper across the table. Cotter grabbed it and read avidly, soaking up the headline: KILLER FOUND DEAD AT BEAUTY BLACK SPOT
     The article went on to describe the discovery of Cotter’s precious Ford and the charred remains of a body, presumed to be Cotter, his widow having identified a wedding ring found in the wreckage. There was a wedding photograph of Jean and himself that made Cotter want to puke. Yet, he had to smile. They looked an unlikely couple, and sure enough, they were.
    “We’re home and dry, flower, home and dry,” Horton guffawed and attacked his cornflakes with renewed vigour.
       And so it proved to be. One or two people may have remarked that the vagrant who had set up home in the bus shelter must have moved on but, if they did, no one took much notice. Horton never spared him another thought. Occasionally, Cotter would have a nightmare in which the tramp’s face was pressed against the rear window of the Ford, its expression a stark mix of terror and accusation as the vehicle plunged over the cliff. He would wake in a cold sweat, only to let the rhythm of Horton’s breathing lull him back to sleep.
       That first year was an anxious time for both men, especially Cotter. To his surprise and delight, he found himself slipping into a Sarah Manners persona as easily as he did her clothes. He truly loved being a woman. Sometimes they would talk about going abroad and having the operations that would make his dream come true but, deep down, Cotter always knew it was a pipe dream. The job was not difficult and he discovered an aptitude for it. His staff, all female, comprised two part-time library assistants and a part-time admin assistant.  At first, he was terrified of making some obvious howler that would ensure they caught him out. So he kept his distance, adopting an air of managerial aloofness while making every effort to be pleasant. As time went by, he relaxed and they all got along famously.
     Much the same could be said for their role in the village. During that first year, they rarely went out except to the village shop or, now and then, to the pub.  It took most of that time for Horton to see to Aunt Phoebe’s affairs and take final possession of the cottage. He decided to let out the house in Barnet while continuing to commute daily. “Bricks and mortar, always a sound investment,” he told Cotter.
Horton was surprised by the size of the turnout for Aunt Phoebe’s funeral. A service was held at the local church, St Stephen’s. All manner of people sent flowers or wreaths and insisted on shaking him by the hand while offering condolences. Invariably, they would shower him with anecdotes about the old girl, none of which quite fitted his own picture of Aunt Phoebe. A sense of real regret that he hadn’t taken the trouble to get to know her better continued to nag at him for years.
Their first major crisis occurred when Cotter was taken ill with excruciating stomach pains one evening. These persisted well into the next day. “I need to see a doctor,” wailed the patient.
“Tough,” said Horton bluntly, “we can’t risk it.” Cotter nodded, clutching his stomach and groaning in agony.
They were lucky, and whatever was the matter with Cotter eventually cleared up of its own accord. In a few days, he was almost his old self again and Sarah Manners returned to work. The incident, however, gave both men serious food for thought. There would doubtless be future occasions when Sarah Manners would need to see a doctor. They discussed, fretted and argued about the various implications for weeks. Then Horton had a brainwave.
They had been arguing in the kitchen. Horton suddenly disappeared, returning a few minutes later brandishing a small wad of papers that he spread on the table. These comprised a somewhat worse for wear birth certificate, medical card and some minor documents, all in the name of one, Marc Phillips. “Identity number two for one, Ralph Cotter,” Horton announced with a broad grin, “and about to get us out of another hole.”
Cotter shivered as the face of the tramp they had murdered loomed into his consciousness, faded and loomed again, rather like the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll’s famous tale.
A few months later, Marc Phillips became the proud owner of a cottage in Monk’s Porter. Complete with a convincing and expensive wig that changed his appearance considerably, Cotter stood to mock attention for Horton’s inspection. “Will I do?”
“You’ll do. You’ll do very nicely,” said Horton approvingly and both men roared with laughter. “I don’t know, I’m sure...you weekend city folks with your country cottages. What are you doing for the countryside, that’s what I want to know?”
Over the next few days, Cotter registered with a local doctor and went out of his way to let his neighbours know that the cottage was an investment as well as the means to taking an occasional country break. They could not expect to see a lot of Marc Phillips. Their disapproval amused him. But they were not unfriendly towards him and several said they would keep an eye on things. “You never can tell,” said one man, “You get all sorts, you know, even in places like Monk’s Porter. Squatters, they’re the worst.  We get our fair share of bad lots just like you townies do...”
A year to the day of their arrival in Monk’s Tallow, they celebrated at the Fox and HoundsBy now, Cotter, as the local librarian, was acquainted with most of the villagers, even some of the townies who continued arriving in dribs and drabs to occupy a nearby private housing estate whose owner had sold up and gone to live abroad, much to the shock-horror and loudly voiced contempt of many who had farmed the area for generations. The two men let their hair down and quickly found themselves surrounded by hearty types whose capacity for sniffing out a free drink for miles annoyed Horton only marginally more than it amused him. Sarah Manners, though, was the centre of attention.
After the pub, the library beat even the village shop hands down as an epicentre for local gossip, a room at the back invariable pre-booked for anything from a poetry evening to Bingo. Sarah Manners, considered by some to be on the snooty side, ran her little empire like clockwork. She was friendly without being familiar, efficient without being officious, professional without being pompous. Slowly but surely, she became accepted if not exactly liked by the majority of villagers. They were more than a trifle wary of Horton but tolerated him for her sake.  His heavy build, bald pate and slightly down-turned mouth gave him something of an intimidating air and people were inclined to nod politely without taking the association any further.  Cotter, on the other hand, revelled in having what he would often refer to Horton as “a hand on the tiller” in the affairs of Monk’s Tallow.
It was on this particular evening that the two men formed a bond of sorts with the Bishops, Sam and Mary. Bishop, not unlike Horton, was a big man and not very talkative.  Mary always struck the casual observer as being completely the opposite. She was an attractive, engaging woman who exuded warmth and charm as well as turning heads wherever she went. She liked Sarah Manners. Like Sarah and Daz, she and Sam were relative newcomers to the village and Mary knew only too well that, while token acceptance here was all very well, it remained a far cry from being made to feel that you belonged.
As the crowd began to thin out and people drifted away in their various two’s and three’s, the four of them found themselves together at the bar and moved in on a table whose occupants were about to leave. Sam and Daz had discovered that they both liked to jog and enjoyed working-out as well as sharing an interest in Country and Western music. They chatted away almost animatedly while Cotter tried to ignore the heady fragrance of Mary Bishop’s perfume as she talked, in a very sexy voice, about this and that. He paid scant attention.  For him, she was the epitome of all a woman should be…intelligent, feminine and desirable. He began to feel increasingly inadequate. Until now, his self-confidence had been growing all the time. He had learned to relax and enjoy being Sarah Manners.  Hadn’t he spent hours practising and perfecting every nuance of body language?  Now it hit him like a sledgehammer that he could never hope to be in the same league as Mary Bishop. At the same time, he argued with his battered ego, he could and…damn it, he would learn a lot from her. For the moment, though, he was content to listen, soak up everything about her and be an apt pupil, choosing to disregard a stirring in his loins as inappropriate, irrelevant and unhelpful. Instead, he remonstrated jokingly with himself for being jealous.
During the years that followed, Cotter and Horton fell in with village life and were always glad to return to the cottage after any length of time away from it. Now and then, Cotter would accompany Horton to London. He would spend the day shopping and the pair would meet up later for cinema, theatre, a meal, whatever took their fancy. Sometimes he would go with Mary Bishop and the two would skylark around like a couple of dizzy schoolgirls.
Always careful to maintain a certain guard, Cotter nevertheless found himself adopting the Sarah Manners persona almost to the exclusion of all else. It seemed more and more that he was Sarah Manners. Ralph Cotter could easily have been a figment of his imagination but for the inescapable nature of his relationship with Horton.  Nothing had changed there. Or had it? He both feared and adored Daz, trusting him implicitly and relying on him to see them through no matter what. Yet, hadn’t there been the slightest shift?  The more Sarah Manners asserted herself, so Cotter became a fractionally more self-reliant. He liked to think so anyway. It added an exiting new dimension to the whole charade, a feeling that he was learning to take responsibility for his new, female self as well as the old. Being gay began to blur into a much larger picture.
 If Horton noticed any significant change in Cotter’s attitude towards him or their ‘situation’ he gave no outward sign. When they took a holiday to Majorca with the Bishops, he couldn’t help but notice how it was Ralph rather than Sam who appeared to take exception to Mary’s constant light hearted flirting with other men. He thought he understood. Cotter had to keep a certain distance at all times.  Pleased that Ralph had become such firm friends with Mary Bishop, Horton was under no illusion about the strain this must put on his friend and lover. But they had got away with it so far, so why not forever? 
 If anyone had been looking for Sarah Manners, they had certainly not turned up in Monk’s Tallow.  Horton rarely gave much thought to the woman they had buried years previously. Ralph was Sarah now.  The two were inseparable, one from the other, clearly distinguishable in his mind’s eye only when they played bedroom games, eventually letting an act of brute sex release all their pent-up frustrations. At such times, Horton reflected approvingly, it had to be as good as it gets. It was as if they entered a third reality and even had a pet name for it. They called it their animal kingdom. He chuckled. The image of a mouse balanced on a lion’s paw sprung to mind and the sound expanded into a low, satisfied belch.
It never occurred to Horton to ask himself whether it was Sarah or Ralph who was plainly jealous of Mary Bishop.
As their lives in Monk’s Tallow assumed a pleasantly predictable shape and hue, Horton and Cotter all but forgot their origins. After a few years, Horton took a job in Brighton, only a few miles away. Nothing untoward happened to disturb the status quo until the summer of 1998.
They were spending a lazy Sunday in Brighton and had been browsing The Lanes when a storm that had been threatening to break all day finally broke cover and the sulphurous skies opened. Horton and Cotter ducked into the nearest pub and soon got chatting to a couple from Essex who, among countless others, had driven down for the day. They whiled away a pleasant hour or so exchanging anecdotes and generally making inconsequential small talk. Before they knew it, the storm had eased and a broad ray of smoky sunshine was streaming through the lattice windows like a searchlight.
Belatedly, they introduced themselves and Horton was about to suggest they meet up again sometime when the man, called Greg, uttered a peculiar little cry, “Sarah Manners?  Strike me pink if I don’t know that name. I don’t suppose you ever lived in Edgware?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I hardly knew her myself but a friend of ours, Ruth Temple, once shared a flat with a Sarah Manners”. He turned to his wife. “Don’t your remember her telling us once, darling, how the Manners girl took off one day without a word and no one ever heard from her again? A queer business if ever there was one. I seem to recall she was a librarian too.”
“You’re right!” Karen exclaimed with growing excitement then looked suddenly doubtful. “Well, it was definitely a Sarah something-or-other. It could easily have been Manners, I suppose.”
“It was Sarah Manners,” Greg Hathaway repeated firmly.                     
“If you say so, dear, I’m sure it was.” She flashed her husband a bright smile.
“Was that you? Did you really run off like that?” Greg looked direct at the woman opposite. “Not that it’s any of my business,” he added half-apologetically.
Cotter froze.
“How long ago would that be then?” Horton tried to sound casual.
“Good lord, it must be getting on for a good twenty years.”
“Sarah was a teacher in those days, weren’t you, flower?  She got out in the end. Too much hassle. Being a librarian is heaven by comparison. Isn’t that so, my turtle dove?”  Cotter nodded dumbly. “It’s a small world but not that small, eh?” Horton managed a dry chuckle.
Greg Hathaway also laughed. “It would be stretching co-incidence,” he agreed.  His wife, Karen, on the other hand was watching Sarah Manners with growing curiosity. A haunted expression in the woman’s eyes belied her calm, smiling exterior. The smile, too, struck Karen as fixed, even false. Was she imagining it or did the lower lip quiver a fraction?  The notion, such as it was, came into her head and exited in the space of seconds.  Greg was demanding a pen and some paper. She rummaged in her bag and found both. They exchanged telephone numbers. The other couple, she thought, seemed less enthusiastic than they had earlier.
Cotter excused himself and hurried to the Ladies toilet. Once inside the cubicle, he bolted the door, sat down and broke into a frantic sweat. After mopping his face with an inadequate handkerchief and taking several deep breaths, he began to feel slightly better. He’d forgotten he ever knew Ruth Temple’s name until it slid, like a snake in the grass, off Greg Hathaway’s tongue.  So what, he argued?  It meant nothing, he told himself over and over, nothing at all. Besides, hadn’t Daz quickly put the geezer right?  He had to hand it to Daz, and no mistake. It was a stroke of genius, that, about being a teacher.
A full fifteen minutes had lapsed before Cotter recovered sufficient self-control to quit the cubicle, shakily re-apply his makeup at a long wall mirror and make his way back to the bar.
“Are you alright?” Karen Hathaway looked and sounded genuinely concerned. “I was all for sending out a search party but Darren here has been telling us you’ve got the runs.  Believe me, I sympathize. It happened to me only last week.  There are so many viruses about these days. I dare say they’re pouring through that hole in the ozone layer like nobody’s business!”
Everyone laughed, much the way people do when no one is entirely sure whether someone has said something funny or not.
Not long afterwards, after much hand shaking and earnest promises to stay in touch, the two couples went their separate ways.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Karen Hathaway turned to her husband. “Didn’t you find that a bid odd, the way Sarah dashed off to the loo like that when you mentioned Ruth’s name?”
“Not really.” He shrugged. “You heard. The poor woman’s caught a bug or something.  Let’s face it, if you’ve got the runs you have to run.” He laughed, grabbed an arm and chivvied her into the doorway of a quaint looking antique shop. Karen needed no persuasion but, all the same, made a mental note to mention their encounter to Ruth Temple the next time she saw her.
Back at the car, Cotter was on the verge of another panic attack.  The hatchback had been replaced years ago with a handsome Jaguar that Cotter would have said was classy and Horton privately considered a trifle vulgar.
“Pull yourself together, woman!” Horton snapped, “Whatever you’re imagining, it’s all in your head so forget it. It was bound to happen one day. I think we handled it pretty well, considering.”
“You were brilliant!” Cotter sniffed between gasps. He was close to tears.
“Trust me,” He slid a hand inside Cotter’s thigh and squeezed, “They’ll think no more about it.”
“Suppose they tell the Temple woman?” Cotter wailed, “They have our phone number!”
Horton grinned. “Silly me went and wrote it down wrong, didn’t I?”
“You’re incredible, Daz!” Cotter checked the burst of hysterical laughter that rose in his throat and began to relax.
“You nearly let me down there, flower.” Horton sounded stern and Cotter’s pounding heart missed a beat.
“Sorry Daz,” said Cotter in a small voice.
“You will be, my turtle dove, you will be,” Horton promised, “and you’ll be even sorrier once I get you home, you can be sure of that.” He flung his companion a knowing smile, recognizing the light in Cotter’s eyes for what it was, an unsubtle mix of fearful, gleeful anticipation.
...........................
As it happened, Karen Hathaway did not see Ruth Temple for several months. They literally bumped into one another in an Oxford Street store and hastened to the nearest coffee shop. After a much-enjoyed exchange of news and gossip, Karen was about to take her leave in the doorway and head off in the opposite direction when she suddenly remembered Sarah Manners. “Oh, I nearly forgot...”
Ruth listened intently. “Can you describe her?” Karen did her best. “It doesn’t sound like the Sarah I used to know,” she commented, “although that was some twenty years ago and people change...”
The more Ruth appeared to be considering the prospect, the more she began to exhibit signs of distress. Karen almost wished she had kept quiet. “Greg hardly knew your Sarah, of course. He only met her once, I believe. And it’s not an uncommon name, I suppose,” she added trying to be helpful. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it except, well, it was a bit odd the way she dashed off like that. Mind you, Greg says I have an over-active imagination at the best of times.” She giggled. “Look, Ruth, I must dash. See you again soon, yes?” and was soon swept out of sight by a motley crowd surging along the pavement.
Try as she might, Ruth was unable to shrug off the incident her friend had recounted with such vigour and no small air of melodrama. While she didn’t need to remind herself that Karen Hathaway was prone to histrionics, the seeds of curiosity had been sown.  She soon found herself wondering whether she should write to James. An image of James Morrissey came, unbidden, into her head. Ruth sighed. Even after all these years, it still hurt to recall the way he had dumped her for that shallow bitch, Sarah Manners.
Ruth bit her lip, remembering. Contrary to general opinion, she and Sarah Manners were never bosom pals, merely flatmates. They had got along reasonably well together, chiefly because neither could afford to pay rent on their own. Their tenuous friendship, however, barely survived Sarah’s betrayal with James Morrissey. He had called to see Ruth one evening and forgotten it was her night for an evening class in Art History at the local polytechnic. She had returned to find the pair of them canoodling on the sofa. After that, it was tacitly understood that James was now with Sarah and she, Ruth, might as well take a running jump for all either showed they cared. She bit her lip again and caused a spot of blood.  Had they really no idea how devastated she had been? Oh, she appeared to make light of the situation and pretend it was no big deal. But her heart was broken.
When she came home from a short holiday with friends and found Sarah gone, Ruth’s immediate reaction had been one of sheer relief. Then she remembered how they were already behind with the rent, panicked and went to call James. There was no reply, just a ringing tone. Then she remembered he was working abroad for a few weeks. (How could she have forgotten?) She promptly called her sister and asked to speak to her niece, Julie.  Although barely into her teens at the time, Julie has been mature for her age. Ruth not only enjoyed the girl’s company but had also discovered, on various occasions that, unlike her mother, she was gifted with a very sympathetic ear.
Julie Simpson had been as mystified as her aunt. Most of Sarah’s clothes were gone as well as her passport and other important documents that she always kept in a box on her dressing table. There was a typewritten note neatly placed in Ruth’s typewriter. It read simply, ‘Sorry’ and was signed ‘Sarah’, also typed.
“How can she do this? Apart from the rent she owes, poor James will be distraught. He’s completely infatuated with her,” Ruth confided to friends, including her niece.  Everyone delighted in speculating, of course. But no one came up with any answers.
Now, Ruth found pen and paper, sat down at a table by the window in her bedroom and started to write, ‘Dear James...” She paused. How could she raise his hopes like this?  He still had feelings for Sarah. Didn’t she know only too well, even after all this time? And it had to be a blind alley, surely? Karen Hathaway’s description could have fitted just about anyone. She ran her tongue across her lip and tasted the salty wetness of her own blood. She put the pen down and tore the sheet of paper into neat halves before getting up and ambling, pensively, into another room.
For a while she tried to read then watch television. But she could not settle. Sarah Manners was everywhere. She’d had an affected way of speaking, Ruth recalled, not to mention appalling dress sense and a passion for Country and Western music played as loudly as possible.  Certainly, Sarah was no one’s model of a librarian. As far as Ruth knew, she only ever read sloppy romances although she had scraped a degree in English Literature. “Why a librarian?” she had once asked her flatmate directly.
“It’s all I could come up with after university,” Sarah confessed. “…and why not?  It has to be a doddle, let’s face it. Besides, I remember a tutor saying how a library is a microcosm of contemporary society. So don’t knock it, okay?” she chided while trying, without success, to keep a straight face.
Years on, Ruth cocked an ear and fancied she could still hear Sarah’s peal of laughter.  How could she forget that sound? It had always reminded her of a pig squealing. James, though, once likened it to the music of angels. Both took offence when she had launched into fits of laughter.
Ruth sighed. It was never a good idea to hark back to times one would prefer to forget. Not for want of trying, she had never been able to dump Sarah Manners in some far corner of her mind and forget about her. She could picture her old flatmate now as clearly as if she were in the same room, fawning over people whenever she was out to make an impression or, more likely, needed a favour. Everything about Sarah had irritated her no end. Her untidiness had taken some putting up with, to put it mildly, as had her obsession with food contents. Sarah would devour the small print on every label.
Ruth sighed again. It was all so long ago and, to be fair, she’d probably have been a food neurotic herself if she’d had to contend with Sarah’s allergy to nuts.
She returned to the bedroom, sat down and wrote, ‘Dear James...’ 
 To be continued