The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

“Do you want me to put the registration into the system, DG05 … see what comes up?”

He nodded, “Yes, can do … let’s just sit here for a minute and watch for twitching at the windows. These little closes out in the sticks are all the same. Old men and women sitting watching each other’s every move. See who’s bought themselves a new hat. Nothing better to do with their time.”

“Look there,” he said after a minute, “to the left of Halom’s. There’s someone at the window already.”

“And there,” he added a minute later. “Two doors to his right. They’ve opened the top bit of that window so they can listen. They’re there as well.”

He waited a further minute before speaking. “Any second now, and we’ll see Halom standing there the other side of the window, dressed up like Norman Bates’ old mother in Psycho. You wait.”

“Registered to his mother, still Maureen Halom,” Carrie said after a minute or two. “The van. All clean … but a bit odd that, the old lady owning it … so how do you want to play this, guvnor? I’ve been thinking …” She stopped speaking, waiting for his response.

He thought and then replied, “Go on.”

“The bungalow is actually listed in the records as Lilac Cottage rather than number six … although it’s a bungalow and there are no lilac trees. So, on paper, we’re not to know, are we? That he’s at number six. I wonder whether we might start with the neighbours, asking for Mr Halom and then striking up a conversation with them after they’ve directed us to number six … get a bit of background on him, as it were? Have they seen anything strange? Out of place?”

Gayther shook his head. “We need to play this one straight, Carrie. Dead straight. Halom will know his rights … from what I’ve read of him, he’ll scream blue bloody murder if he finds out we’re being clever-dicky. And he will. Invasion of privacy. Slander. I want this all low-key, under the radar – until we’ve got something solid to present to Boss Man.”

She nodded and then said, “So we just, what, open the gate, walk up the path, knock on the door and when he answers it, we say … what? Hello, me old mate, tell me, are you The Scribbler?”

“Not quite, Carrie.” Gayther opened his car door, undid his seat belt and went to step out of the car. “That’s what we want to know, but there are ways and means, Carrie, ways and means. Come and watch. Watch and listen. Listen and learn.”

“Guv?”

“Yes, Carrie?”

“I’d, um …” She pointed at the plaster on Gayther’s forehead, “… take that off first if I were you.”

* * *

Carrie stepped out of the car. Followed Gayther as he pulled the plaster from his forehead.

To the gate. The path. The door.

Watched as he pressed the doorbell, struggling to unstick the plaster from first one finger and then another. Finally, he pulled it off and tucked it into a pocket.

He then turned back towards her and grimaced. Carrie was not sure why. It was a face to suggest he smelled something bad, rotten even. She looked at the faded brown door and dirty net curtains at the windows to either side and then down at the step. An empty milk bottle. Old leaflets tucked behind. And then she saw, on a folded-over tabloid newspaper to the side by Gayther’s shoes, a fat pigeon lying there, its neck broken, a thin line of blood from a nostril.

“Uurgh,” she said instinctively, under her breath.

She looked across at Gayther. Could see he was stifling a fit of laughter because of her unexpected reaction.

She looked away, biting her lip and digging a thumbnail into her index finger, to stop herself laughing.

For a minute or more, they both avoided each other’s eyes, their backs to each other. Gayther glanced down again at the pigeon, which looked as though it had just been killed. He wondered if Halom had done it or whether it was a gift from someone.

Carrie looked across at the van parked in the drive by the side of the bungalow. She thought it was about as grubby a van as she had ever seen. She moved across to check the front for any signs of damage and then, seeing it was all intact, the tyres.

He turned and looked over, steady at last.

“Anything?” he said.

“Below legal minimum this side.” She walked round the other side. “One’s above, just. The other’s worn on the inside quite badly.”

She came back and stood on the step next to Gayther.

“What do you think? Start with the tyres?”

Gayther hushed her down, leaning forward, listening at the front door.

The bungalow was quiet and still. The windows all closed. The curtains to the windows on the left, the main bedroom, thought Gayther, were pulled to. He checked the windows to the right, another smaller bedroom, and those were open. He could see through the frosted glass of the front door, watching for movement, the darting of a body from the main bedroom into the hall and away to the rooms at the back of the bungalow.

Nothing. But Gayther sensed someone was there.

In the main bedroom, just behind the curtain, listening too, waiting for them to go.

He rang the doorbell again, then clattered the letterbox with his fingers. Stood back, waiting. A minute passed. Then close to another.

There was movement from the bedroom to the left, the sound of coughing, a door opening and a figure appearing, through the frosted glass, in the hallway. A face, pressed close to the glass, looking out at Gayther and Carrie on the doorstep. Gayther could feel the man’s gaze upon him.

“Who are you, what do you want?” A rasping voice, from years of smoking, with a Suffolk accent. Harsh, defensive.

“Mr Halom? It’s the police, open up please,” Gayther asked politely but firmly.

A moment’s pause. Gayther waited for the man to swear at them, to tell them to clear off in