Behindlings

He scowled, temporarily incapable of encompassing the complex landscape of his emotions verbally of fully encapsulating The Following and all its myriad implications.

‘I truly, fully appreciate the depth of your commitment,’ Josephine butted in, quickly snatching her opportunity, trying her utmost to sound sufficiently submissive, ‘I mean I know you’re quite the expert…’

‘There are some people,’ Doc rapidly continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard her, ‘who have Followed him even longer than I have, in terms of actual years, but none so intensively. There are many –especially since the big confectionery Loiter –who Follow him mostly at the weekends or perhaps for a day or two when they’re on holiday, and others who simply turn up, at the drop of a hat, whenever the fancy takes them. We call these people,’ Doc allowed himself a wry smile, ‘we call such people Fleas, because their… because their infestation is almost always very temporary.’

Josephine inspected her armless sundry –a rather unwieldy wodge of dough still tucked inside her cheek –all too fully aware of which horribly capricious category Doc had already slotted her into.

‘You see, to me, as yet,’ Doc observed, pushing home his point rather more blatantly than was necessary, ‘you are just another one of those people. Those Fleas. And while I would hate you to take this the wrong way, Josephine…’

(Her name. He’d remembered. He’d snatched it from the ether, quite arbitrarily.)

‘… I’d much prefer it if you’d refrain from questioning me or talking to me, bothering me or pestering me. Because any information I may have gathered is my information. I have worked for it. I have earned it. I use it as I see fit. I don’t…’ he thought hard about the word he needed, ‘disseminate. I do not disseminate it,’ he paused. ‘Well, I do, sometimes, but only when I want to, when I choose to,’ he smiled briskly (old teeth. Yellow teeth. Wonky). ‘I hope that settles things.’

The smile stopped (Doc turned it off in a flash –with a small click in his jaw –like the neat switch on a wall-socket) then he nodded abruptly and strode to the door.

Outside, Dennis dashed joyously forward until his elasticated leash stretched to capacity –like a horizontal bungee –and jerked him –ears flying, claws scrabbling comically –all the way back again.

Inside, Josephine grimaced, swallowed her cheekful of masticated doughnut, then savagely bit off the head from what remained of the torso.

‘You miserable old bugger,’ she muttered, her mouth still full, but a careful hand gently shielding it, for the sake of propriety. As she spoke, dark raspberry jam slowly oozed through one of the now-truncated armholes and trickled down stickily onto the front of her sweatshirt. She didn’t notice. Her wide hazel eyes were already swivelling, expertly, across the road, and fixing, hungrily, on the estate agency. There she saw the door swinging open, a blond man in a suit emerging, and just behind him, Wesley.

Four (#ulink_4c9a1d00-6b89-531a-b777-7f3df3845de6)

The beautiful yet unspeakably wronged Katherine Turpin lived in a bungalow just off the Furtherwick Road; a prime, centrally located Canvey address which conveniently situated the property at an exact halfway point between the town centre and the beachfront. Ted might easily have shared these salient details with Wesley as they covered the short distance together –on foot –between the agency and the address, yet for some reason he refrained from doing so.

In fact he failed to communicate even the most perfunctory of observations during their journey (no mention of the weather –it was foggy but still dry –no reference to the purported length of Wesley’s stay –as yet, indeterminate –no discussion as to the quality of local amenities –uniformly high) preferring, instead, to maintain an unswervingly ruminative silence.

Wesley tried his utmost to breach it, but to no avail. Twice he reiterated a rather tedious enquiry about the opening hours of the local library and its location relative to the property under scrutiny. Twice his question was left hovering in the air like an undernourished kestrel hopelessly scouring the scant grass of a busy central reservation whilst being perilously buffeted by speeding heavy goods vehicles.

This relentless taciturnity was in no way intended to imply either indifference or any want of geniality on Ted’s part. He certainly meant no harm by it. He was simply in a temporary state of absolute moral panic. His mind was unsuccessfully engaged in a pitiful attempt to comprehend the various pernicious ethical permutations of his present situation: the countless obligations and commitments inherent in his role, his duty, as the honourable curator, the careful doorman, the kindly overseer of Katherine Turpin’s home.

But even while his mind strove to consider the endless tortuous ramifications of his present inadvisable course of action, he still managed to maintain an image of external composure by dint of persistently jangling a huge bunch of house keys in his free hand, and feeling –if only briefly –just slightly comforted by their hair-raisingly discordant metallic clatter (the other hand, meanwhile, supported a very snappy, imitation crocodile-skin briefcase, containing, Wesley suspected –and correctly –nothing more than Ted’s driving licence, a free handout about a carpet sale and two back copies of The Southend Gazette).

Perhaps, Ted pondered anxiously, this infamous Wesley truly was a bad man? But who the hell am I to judge? he countered modestly, shooting a sneaky sideways glance at him. Wesley did not have an especially bad face. His profile (already scarred –perhaps permanently –by the ongoing assault on his delicate senses from Ted’s relentless key-shaking) was nevertheless reassuringly unhawkish, his skin unpocked, his eyes unhooded. He seemed at once friendly and unaffected but hearteningly reined-in. He was surely no wild man.

Clever? Possibly. Smart? Never. Physically speaking he bordered on the unkempt. He was rangy and casual in his old, olive green corduroy trousers (so well-scuffed at the knee that the fabric’s corrugated indentations had been smoothed clean away), a terrifyingly plain –in Ted’s eyes –brown, roundnecked lambswool jumper, with a cheap, scruffy, tweed jacket thrown over the top.

Each of his pockets was ridiculously full. They bulged, uniformly, reminding Ted –in essence –of his old school gerbil, a creature so dedicated to storage that the fullness of his pouches often rendered spells inside his compact mouse-house or runs on his exercise wheel an absolute inviability.

Wesley did not even wear walking boots (as Ted might quite reasonably have anticipated of a man in his line of business), but instead sported an exceedingly dirty pair of ancient black Hi-Tecs, the laces of which were knotted, frayed and extended to only two thirds of the available holes.

He was a sorry sight, Ted decided, but he did have a pleasingly round face: gappy teeth, snub nose, keen but bloodshot (and strangely unfocussed) anchovy-paste eyes. He needed a shave. He looked like he’d never troubled to brush his hair in his life. To the front it seemed fine, but at the back it stood up in a sleepy ridge like a misshapen muddy-brown tidal-wave.

A confident woman with a good vocabulary might easily have described his appearance as ‘tousled’, but Ted couldn’t really find it in himself to be quite so articulate or so forgiving. He sniffed. Wesley smelled of old milk, dirty dishcloths and tobacco. The fruity kind.

‘Will she be home by any chance?’ Wesley wondered out loud as they finally turned into the driveway (at this late stage hardly anticipating a reaction).

‘No,’ an active, genial presence suddenly re-ignited inside Ted’s eyes, ‘she works.’

Wesley started, glanced over briefly towards Ted’s newly-inhabited profile, then nodded. He felt almost relieved. He was finding some difficulty in recalling the exact details of what it was that he’d written about Katherine Turpin in the book –although there was one thing of which he was absolutely certain: whatever he’d said, it must’ve been necessary.

He had an unshakable confidence in the multifarious decisions made on his behalf by his former selves. How could a fundamentally decent and honourable man ever really seriously regret his past actions? How pointless would that be? How lily-livered? How inconsistent? How slack?

‘She works,’ Ted reiterated, ‘growing beansprouts on a farm. But only part-time. I have a key.’

‘A beansprout farm?’ Wesley smiled caustically. ‘How unique.’

Ted didn’t respond. But he was deeply perturbed by Wesley’s tone. Beansprouts? He pondered quietly, jangling his keys with a renewed determination. Beansprouts? Unique?

It was a pretty little property. A white bungalow, satisfyingly angular, with a small, friendly picket fence to the front, directly backed by a staunch and rather less welcoming row of well-tended shoulder-high evergreens. The garden was covered in a neat red-brick parquet. The overall effect was private, stately, and quite exquisitely anal.

‘Grand,’ Wesley said, peering around him intently. Ted stood on the doormat, struggling to locate the correct key. Wesley glanced behind them. The Old Man was following.

‘You went to school here in Canvey, Ted?’ Wesley asked.

Ted nodded, ‘Furtherwick Park School. We just walked past it.’

‘And what about her? What about Katherine?’ Ted finally selected a key. ‘Yes. But she was two whole years older.’

‘Two whole years?’ Wesley grinned. ‘Was she beautiful?’

‘Not exactly,’ Ted’s cheeks flushed a sharp bullfinch pink as he turned towards the door and shoved the key into the lock.

Wesley had teeth like a pony. Indomitable teeth. Very gappy. Very square. Very strong.

‘Did you have a crush on her?’

‘Everybody liked her,’ Ted mumbled, ‘if that’s what you’re getting at.’

Wesley chuckled and then half-nodded his concurrence, although this was patently not what he’d intended by it at all.

He looked behind him again. The boy-woman had joined Murdoch on the opposite pavement. They stood a distance apart. Murdoch was holding a pager. He was tapping into it with his large, slightly arthritic middle finger. Wesley scowled. It seemed improbable that Doc should’ve already made the Katherine Turpin connection…

But if he had? Wesley’s jaw stiffened at the thought. This possibility plainly jarred him.

Ted turned the lock, pushed the door, removed the key and entered.

‘By the way,’ he said, laboriously wiping his feet on a second doormat inside, ‘I hope you don’t have a problem with rodents.’

Wesley paused on the threshold and inhaled deeply. ‘Sawdust…’ he murmured, and then, just a fraction more quizzically, ‘brandy…?’

‘She keeps chinchillas,’ Ted explained, ‘in the lean-to behind the kitchen. I should’ve mentioned that back at the office.’

The bungalow’s interior belied the neatness of its exterior. Where outside all had been cleanliness and order, inside, all was mess and mayhem.

‘This woman is a slut,’ Wesley observed, stepping carefully over the doormat and calmly appraising the state of the hallway. ‘Perhaps you should’ve specified that back at the office.’

‘She’s an artist,’ Ted countered primly, slamming the door shut and then shoving a group of carrier bags up closer to the wall so that they could proceed unhindered. The bags clanked and tinkled. Wesley frowned. ‘What kind?’ he asked, bending over to peer inside one of them (it contained seven empty peach schnapps bottles). ‘A piss artist?’