My Brother the Killer, page 11
Though years have now passed since the Old Man has lived with us, his brutality has desensitised us. Nobody ever mentions the stabbing again, like it never even happened.
* * *
One cold foggy night that winter, I bump into Stuart outside the Anchor, where we both drink pints of lager, despite the fact that I am still only 16 and he is 14 months younger. When I ask where he’s going, he says he’s on the lookout for Ginger Gordon, the redheaded kid who makes a habit of hitting and threatening both of us. Gordon is no bigger than me, but like most of the local neanderthals he’s not interested in a fair fight, and relies on his little gang to back him up.
I tell Stuart that I’ve just seen Gordon and his pals barely an hour ago, leaving the Toot.
You saw him at the Toot?
Yeah, I say. You’re safe as long as you stick to the Anchor.
Nah, I’m gonna put an end to this bollocks, for good.
Oh yeah? How you gonna do that?
With a cold smile, Stuart unzips his black leather bomber jacket and pulls it open to show me what he has tucked inside: a foot-long, stainless-steel axe, its blade gleaming with bright menace. I can tell by the way it sits against the nylon lining that it must weigh 10 pounds, maybe 12.
Let him start on me tonight, says Stuart. He’ll get a face full of this.
You hit someone with that, you’ll kill ’em.
That’s the fucking idea.
Stay in the Anchor, Stuart.
See you later, Al.
Later I’ll learn that Gordon had indeed started trouble when he exited the Toot and found Stuart leaning against a wall. He’d sneered and threatened to cripple my brother, a standard Tilbury threat. But then Stuart drew the axe and lunged at him with some lunatic roar, swinging for his head, and Gordon took off as fast as humanly possible and never looked back. I don’t know if Stuart had genuinely tried to hurt him, or merely wanted to scare him.
But once again, despite my misgivings, it works like a charm. Apart from dirty looks, Gordon never bothers either of us again.
We are learning all the wrong lessons.
9
Thursday 5 July 2001
17 days since Danielle’s disappearance
This morning my mother calls me in Paris and says the police want to speak with me. Would it be okay if she gave them my number?
Of course, I say. In fact, tell the police I want to speak with them, so maybe I can get an idea of what the hell’s going on.
The next morning I get a call on the landline from someone claiming to be a detective. I’m wary, because there’s always the possibility that my mother has been duped. Ten years earlier I’d sat at a desk in the Daily Star and watched as a news reporter, pretending to be a police officer, conned an unsuspecting punter into revealing personal information over the phone.
So now it’s my turn to be suspicious and evasive, wary of this disembodied voice claiming to be that of Detective Superintendent Keith Davies. I listen rather than speak, keeping my answers terse and lean.
Yeah, that’s me, Stuart’s brother. How’s Paris? Oh, very nice. Wasted on the French, haha.
He speaks in a warm and affable manner, eminently reasonable, exactly as I’d expect of some crafty hack. I notice the slightly lengthened vowels, the vaguely rural diphthongs. An Essex accent, but different from my own customised Estuary English. I’m thinking, Colchester? Maybe one of the villages around there? But then I become aware that he’s not asking the questions a tabloid reporter would ask – about growing up with Stuart, how I feel about the case, how it’s affecting me and my family. Instead, he’s telling me that he has been spending a fair bit of time with my brother lately, getting to know him quite well, actually.
He’s a good-looking bloke, isn’t he?
I stop pacing the room and press the cordless phone closer to my ear.
Go on, I say.
Yeah, quite handsome. And full of charm. Everyone says how charming he is, what a character. He loves to crack a joke, doesn’t he?
Beneath the matey tone he is clearly implying that my brother’s persona is a carefully constructed facade. It’s an insight that hits home. That’s exactly what Stuart’s like – too jovial by half. I remember the nagging doubt I’d always felt about his breezy manner – avuncular, you might call it – even while basking in its glow.
Now I know this is not some sly hack trying to blag a few quotes.
DS Davies says he’d like to talk to me in person about my brother. Is there any chance I could come to London in the next few days? He doesn’t want to sound pushy but this is important. There’s a missing 15-year-old girl who hasn’t been seen for almost three weeks.
And you believe Stuart’s got something to do with it?
I’m sure of it, he says. But what I want to know, Alix, is what do you think?
What I think, although I don’t say it, is that his use of my first name is a little too chummy, a little too forward. Is there an angle I’m missing? Am I being played? Paranoia crackles in the air. Perhaps Stuart is listening in to the call, and this is just a ploy to fuck with his mind.
You see, Stuart? Not even your brother believes you. Might as well take the deal and plead guilty. Sign here.
I’m not sure, I say. Maybe.
Have you spoken to him about it?
Not yet. I’ve tried calling several times but I haven’t been able to get hold of him.
Strange. I don’t think he’s got a lot of work on right now.
Yeah.
Well, I’ve got some information I’d like to share with you, but I’d rather not do it over the phone. I can come and meet you in Paris, if you like.
No, I say, I’m coming to London next week. We could talk then.
Oh well, I wouldn’t have minded a trip to Paris, but whatever works for you.
I tell him where I’ll be staying in Holborn and we fix a date so he can drop by and have a little chat.
Damn, he’s slick.
* * *
In the days before leaving Paris I check online for the latest updates. On the first day of July, Essex Police announce that their hunt for the missing teenager is now focused on a blue Transit-type van, seen in the area on at least two previous occasions. Both times, apparently, the male driver was seen parked and talking to teenage girls.
Stuart, I know, has a blue Ford Transit.
The police must know it, too. So what’s the point of putting out this information? Are they simply trying to rattle him, or do they believe there might be another blue Transit van out there, with another male driver talking to teenage girls?
A few days later I’m sitting at a table in a flat just off Kingsway, having a cup of tea and a chat with DS Keith Davies. A sandy-coloured man with a crop, his rusty facial hair is neatly trimmed into a raffish goatee that looks barely code-compliant. His sports jacket and check shirt with tie and slacks combo looks like something you might find if you googled ‘business casual for plain-clothes detective’. Within seconds, it’s clear that his patient and soft-spoken phone manner is the user-friendly interface for a relentless determination.
He asks how I’m holding up.
I’m fine, I say.
His cool hazel eyes flit around the room, consuming every detail.
Yes, he says. You seem to be alright. No worries then?
Of course. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?
I know your mum’s upset. How are the rest of your family taking this news?
Well, I say, as you can imagine, most of them are very disturbed. But my main concern is keeping my daughter’s name and photo out of the papers. It’s bad enough that she’ll have to learn about it someday, but I really don’t want her school friends to break it to her before we explain it, her mother and me. Or worse, have the tabloids write some shitty story about the other bridesmaid, the lucky one who narrowly escaped her evil uncle’s clutches. I’m resigned to the idea that sooner or later they’ll come for me.
I don’t think they’re really interested in you, says Keith Davies.
Well, I’ve already had half a dozen messages on my answering machine, mostly from The Sun.
They’ve got a job to do, you know that.
Indeed.
So, would you say you actually know Stuart?
What do you mean?
Okay, let me put it this way. How well do you know him?
He’s my brother, we grew up together.
So you know he’s been in trouble with the law, that he’s been to prison many times?
Of course. I’ve visited him in prison many times.
Do you know why he was in prison?
Yeah, mostly burglary, theft, stolen goods.
Did he tell you that?
I suppose so. Can’t remember. Maybe my mum? I was living in London by then, he was in Tilbury. He’s always lived there. Why?
So you don’t know about Stuart’s history of sexual violence towards underage girls?
What? No. He doesn’t have . . . I think you’ve got the wrong . . .
The first time he went to prison, in 1977, do you know what that was for?
Yes, handling stolen goods. He was working with a gang who were burgling local people’s houses, stealing televisions and hi-fi equipment.
No, he says, in the tone a parent might use with a child who claims the Earth is flat.
No?
No, that’s not it at all. Stuart was convicted of beating up a 16-year-old girl and stealing her purse. He hit her so hard that he left her with two black eyes. And then he sexually assaulted her before running off.
What?
That’s a fact. And that’s just the start of it.
For the next 10 minutes or so I fall into some kind of trance as he explains the ugly brutal crimes my brother has been accused of down the years. Some that he had been convicted of, others he’d managed to walk away from. None of which I’d known about.
Stuart used to live with you at one point, right?
What? No, never. Why do you say that?
Are you certain? You never shared a flat in the East End? Stepney, or Whitechapel?
No, definitely not. Who told you that?
I thought you lived there at one point. Victorian red-brick building, big courtyard?
Yeah, that’s where I lived, not Stuart.
Tell me about that.
Grove Dwellings, in Whitechapel. I was at art school. Most of us were. We squatted in these derelict buildings that had been condemned, but then we formed a housing co-op and got a local government grant. Completely rebuilt the place as community housing.
When was that?
Uh, I moved there in the late seventies and moved out in . . . what, 1985? But Stuart never lived there with me, he was always . . .
But as I’m saying these words, they catch in my throat.
Of course.
Long-sunken memories float up to the surface. Yes, he was there for a brief period. Not living with me, but as a short-term resident. Somehow I managed to get him membership of the housing co-op and temporary tenancy of an empty flat for a few months, before it was gutted and refurbished. He’d lived there with Debbie.
I look at DS Davies, wide-eyed.
How the fuck did you know that?
After Stuart was arrested, he says, and his photo appeared in the papers and on the telly, numerous women came forward claiming he had either assaulted or stalked or harassed them. All of them said this had happened when they were 14 or 15 years old.
Numerous?
We’re still working through the complaints, taking statements and trying to verify the timeline to make sure they’re credible, but we’re talking about something like 15, maybe 20.
Twenty? Holy fuck.
Could be more, he says.
And what about Grove Dwellings?
One woman said he’d taken her to an old Victorian brick building in the East End, near Whitechapel station. She didn’t know the street, but she felt sure she could find it if we drove around. It took us about an hour, but gradually she started to get her bearings, and as we were driving along Adelina Grove she said, That’s it.
For a long time I sit there, letting this sink in. I helped him get a flat, got my friends to support his membership and vote him in, helped him and his girlfriend move in, and according to an old diary entry I’ll find much later, even cooked dinner for them.
And yet, when his girlfriend wasn’t there and I wasn’t looking, he took a little girl there and abused her?
My stomach is starting to churn when another thought comes to mind. I already know the answer, but I ask anyway.
Is she dead?
He sighs and looks at me for what seems like forever.
At this point, he says, almost certainly. But we have to hope she’s still alive and act accordingly. You never know.
And you’re sure that it was Stuart? I mean, I know it looks like it must be him, but could it be someone else?
DS Davies shrugs and turns his palms up.
Stuart is the only real suspect we have, he says, and that’s not because we’re blinkered. After all, no matter what I think of him, no matter what I’ve dug up on him, I’ve still got to prove that he’s done it in order to get him convicted. There’s no point in me going after him without good cause.
It’s not just because he’s an easy pinch, then?
Not at all, quite the opposite. Because as I say, I’ve still got to find and provide the evidence that will prove he’s done it. Nobody’s going to take my word.
It’s just so hard to believe that he could . . . Fuck, this is so horrible, I don’t know what to say.
He tightens his mouth and nods slightly.
What was it like, growing up with Stuart? Your dad wasn’t really around much, is that right? Not a very nice bloke, either.
Did he tell you that, Stuart?
We spoke to your mum, remember? She told us a little bit about your early life, you and Stuart and your sister. But I’d like to hear it from you, if you’re willing to share it. Your side of the story. It might give us some clue about how to talk to him.
So I tell him about school, about how Stuart was always so beautiful, how I secretly loved him because he seemed to shine, because his voice was so pure and unselfconscious when he sang.
He’s a good looking bloke, isn’t he?
How we were fiercely loyal to each other.
And full of charm. Everyone says how charming he is, what a character.
How we grew apart and then he started going to prison, and I would visit him in prison because I didn’t care – I was still kind of proud of him, proud of the way he held his head high and mocked the system.
He loves to crack a joke.
10
The Ship, 1973
I can no longer see my father’s face. When I try to recall his features all that comes to mind is a passport-size black and white head shot, stapled to his worn and faded merchant seaman’s card. A 50-year-old memory of an image that was already two decades old. A tiny photograph of a 25-year-old sailor, posing earnestly for an official document, long before he disembarks at Tilbury and meets my mother. My father, but not yet my father.
The Old Man, as we siblings refer to him.
The Other Thing, as our mother calls him.
Whenever I recall the first time I saw that photo, I still feel the shock it sent through me, seeing him as if for the first time in all his stark malevolence.
I know this man. That thin black hair, greased and scraped back, those high pale cheekbones. I know that icy gaze, plunging into me.
Of course I know him. As I look at this photo the Old Man is sitting beside me, head back and drink to his lips, watching me from the corner of his eye. I have known that piercing gaze since I could sit upright, the ever-present lightning flash on my childhood horizon. But now, fixed between the real thing and the photograph, I realise how frightening he must appear to others, how his annihilating glare can electrify any space with menace, penetrate any psyche. Even in collar and tie he looks outraged, burning to pluck insult from an offhand remark, ever ready to pounce.
Be warned. If your gaze and his connect, you are never looking at him. Even if only for a split second, even staring out from this tiny photograph with its spidery hairline cracks, he is always looking at you.
And you had better look away right now.
Local people seldom ask me about the Old Man, because we all know the score: big fish in a little pond. If his name comes up, they talk about how nice he looks, always so smart and well-dressed. They never slag him off. His faults are legendary, but he still exudes some air of mystique. Even my mother, who will no longer say his name and almost spits whenever she refers to him – and then, only to say how worthless and cowardly and selfish he is – even she hasn’t managed to obliterate all trace of awe. Listening to her, I hear the echoing voids in her story, all the things she’s leaving out. Her unspoken words only magnify his presence-through-absence, his nautical voodoo.
Sometimes I wonder if she knows what I’m thinking.
Yeah, you hate him now, and you won’t even say his name, but you loved him once. So what magic did he work on you, how did he charm you into falling in love with him, into being his wife?
And I look at the photo again and realise: I can have eyes like this.
