The Narrow Bed, page 13
‘Chronological order might help us,’ I say, and launch into the story of my involvement with the little white books of Billy Dead Mates, starting with the stranger who handed one to me at a gig I did almost a year ago. As I speak, DC Gibbs’ pebbly eyes seem to stare harder and grow blacker and more intense with each new development. I can see how someone might rather confess to a murder they hadn’t committed than be on the receiving end of those eyes for a moment longer.
I tell him about Ward 10, Marion’s death.
He’s ready with a question when I finish, before I’ve had time to take a breath. ‘Where was this gig you did, where the man gave you the book?’
‘I told you: I don’t remember.’
‘You don’t remember? How can you not remember?’
‘I thought you might ask that, so I brought you this.’ I fish around in my bag and hand him a crumpled sheet of A4 paper.
He starts to read it aloud. ‘Shrewsbury, Theatre Seven, 2 February. Lowestoft, Marina, 3 February. King’s Lynn, Corn Exchange, 4 February—’
‘Can we fast forward through Skegness, Salford and Sheffield? At the risk of spoiling the reading experience for you, I end up, twenty-seven gigs later, at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff and that’s the end of my first 2014 tour.’
‘And at one of these gigs, this guy gave you a small white book very similar to that one’ – he points down at the table – ‘but you can’t tell me which?’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I normally do a longish tour – twenty-five to thirty gigs – twice a year. I have lists of where I’ve been, like that one, but going to so many places and performing the same routine in all of them has a weird effect on my memory. I can describe to you in detail the room we were in, the man’s appearance, our interactions, all of that—’
‘Good, because that’s what I’ll need you to do,’ says Gibbs.
‘Fine. I can picture the theatre in my mind very clearly, I just can’t tell you which it was. I tried Googling a few of the venues while I was waiting for you just now, but hardly any of them have pictures on their websites that show a big enough area of the auditorium, or the general layout – it’s pretty much useless trying to identify the place that way. A couple of things I can tell you: my husband came with me to that particular gig. Our marriage wasn’t in great shape at the time – we’ve since split up.’
‘Congratulations.’ If Gibbs is joking, there’s no sign of it on his face or in his voice.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Early in 2014, we were both still kidding ourselves that it could work, and one of the ways we thought we might salvage our relationship was for my husband to trail around after me like someone with nothing better to do, even though he has a full-time job. We called it spending more time together. It was totally impractical – why would he want to listen to me doing the same routine twenty times in one month, all over the country?’
Why would I want him there after each performance, killing my post-show buzz by saying darkly, ‘The same jokes in the same order, every fucking night. I stopped laughing after the fourth time. If I have to listen to it again, I’ll maim anyone within reach who laughs. I’m starting to hate laughter.’
It was supposed to be funny, I think. That’s what Gabe always said the next morning, when he’d swear he hadn’t meant any of it. Yes, of course I want to come to tonight’s gig. Why wouldn’t I? I’m looking forward to it. We agreed I’d be there for as much of the tour as possible, and that’s what I want to do.
‘So why did he go to all your gigs if that’s how he felt?’ Gibbs asks. ‘Why not watch the show once and leave it at that?’
‘Good question.’ I have a matching good answer, but it’s not one I’d better share with a policeman. It involves an illegal drug habit. ‘Look, my marriage isn’t the point here. I only mentioned Gabe was there that night because it might be useful. He might remember where the theatre was if you describe it to him – which town, I mean. He also moaned about how far away it was – he had to drive home afterwards and be up early for work the next morning. That narrows it down in terms of possible venues. Gabe regards anything more than an hour and a half as a long drive, so the theatre can’t have been one too close to Rawndesley.’
‘The two of you live in Rawndesley?’
‘Yes. Though not together any more.’
Gibbs nods. ‘I need to get all these details – your address, husband’s address, his work and contact details … You’re right: he might remember where the theatre was, so we need to talk to him. This white book you were given – I’m assuming you haven’t brought it with you. Do you still have it?’
I stand up, walk over to the table and open the bottle of sparkling water. No glass. I’ll have to drink from the bottle, which I suppose is no more undignified than using a suitcase as a footstool. Some spoilt prima donna I turned out to be. I decide to leave the pickled onion Monster Munch alone; I don’t fancy having to suck sticky crisp particles off my fingers in front of DC Gibbs. ‘Does it matter where the theatre was?’ I ask him.
‘The …’ He doesn’t want to talk about the theatre any more for the time being. He thinks he made that clear. ‘Does it matter? Yes. Obviously.’
‘It’s not obvious to me. Let’s say Gabe remembers and it turns out it was the Everyman in Cheltenham. That doesn’t tell us Billy lives in Cheltenham.’
‘It tells us he might. Or he might have strong links to the place,’ says Gibbs.
‘Purely because he’s at a gig there? I disagree. This is a man who goes round giving small white books containing lines of poetry to people he subsequently murders. His victims live in a range of different places, right? He’s presumably chosen each pair of friends in advance – and then, from what I’ve heard in various news reports, he goes to where they live to kill them. Has gun, will travel. So he could be from anywhere, and he came to my gig at wherever-it-was because I was there – not because it was where he lived, or near where he lived.’
‘And he gave you a little white book, but then didn’t kill you,’ says Gibbs pointedly, as if by still being alive I’m messing with the neat pattern. ‘Maybe because it was too near his home, and/or because you saw him.’
‘Didn’t kill me yet,’ I say. ‘He still might. Part of the reason I’m here is to try and make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘His four victims were all dead within a few weeks of being given a book. Also, if the man you met was Billy himself – if he handed you the book in person – that’s another big difference.’ Gibbs drags a chair away from the table and sits down. ‘You didn’t answer my question: where’s the book he gave you?’
‘I threw it away. Don’t look at me like that. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I’d kept it, but I thought he was just a weird guy. I had no idea he was a serial-killer-in-waiting. I chucked the book in the nearest bin, just as I would have if he’d given me a leaflet advertising conservatories or double-glazing. Or maybe I just left it on the table in the venue – I don’t remember. Either way, I don’t have it any more.’
‘How sure are you of the precise wording inside the book you were given?’
‘A hundred per cent. “Every bed is narrow”. I never forgot the words, because …’ I stop, having stupidly said too much. I’d rather not tell Gibbs this part of the story, and now I’m going to have to. ‘Something weird happened later that night – one of those funny coincidences, although at the time I was a bit freaked out and wondered if there was a connection. Though there was no way the two things could have been connected.’
‘Go on,’ says Gibbs.
‘I stayed in a hotel that night. The hotel was very near the theatre – no more than a two minute walk. I remember the route: leave the theatre, cross the road, head right, first left, walk along a bit, the hotel’s on your left. I can describe the hotel reasonably well, I think – one of those fusty three-star places where a really depressing wedding might happen – navy carpet with a fleur-de-lis pattern, that type of place.’
Gibbs stares blankly at me.
‘Sunday lunch carvery?’ I try harder. ‘Plastic rack on the reception desk stuffed full of leaflets advertising pantomimes, water parks, country houses?’
Still no facial expression from Gibbs. ‘But you can’t tell me which town or city the hotel’s in, or its name.’ He sounds unimpressed.
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Carry on.’
‘Do you remember on my list of terms and conditions, I specify bed size if overnight accommodation’s involved?’
‘How could I forget?’
‘No smaller than a king, I say. Well, this hotel decided to try and pretend that a bed smaller than a double was a king. I dragged the receptionist up to the room and made her look with her own eyes. The bed was about the size of the average sofa-bed, but she wouldn’t accept that because somewhere on her computer system, it said that the bed in room 21 was a king. That wasn’t my actual room number, I was just … you know.’
It’s hard to imagine a tougher crowd than DC Gibbs. I don’t know why I’m bothering to dramatise any of this for his benefit; he’s as receptive as a slab of stone.
‘It didn’t matter that the bed was on the small side, because there was only going to be me sleeping in it, but still …’ Why am I saying this? I’m fairly sure there’s absolutely no need, and it’s nowhere near true. The narrow bed mattered a lot. And even when I sleep alone, I like a big bed. If I have to travel halfway across the country and entertain hundreds of people, it’s reasonable to try to create conditions that make the experience bearable.
‘And this incident with the small bed in the hotel alarmed you because of the words in the book you’d been given that night?’
‘Yes, a bit. Not seriously. I just thought, “How odd. On the same night, a man hands me a little book containing the words ‘Every bed is narrow’ and I go to my hotel to find my bed there is way too narrow.” It was a funny coincidence. Peculiar, not ha-ha.’
‘Not really,’ says Gibbs.
‘Here’s something else that’s weird: I’m not Billy’s type. I don’t have a best friend, or any friends. All the evidence suggests they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Point is, I’m not part of a pair – yet the line of poetry in the book I was given is one of a pair with the one from the hospital noticeboard. They’re from the same poem, by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Verse one contains both lines: “Death devours all lovely things;/Lesbia with her sparrow/Shares the darkness,—presently/Every bed is narrow.” I wanted to ask you … did the two pairs of best friends Billy killed get lines from the same poem? As me and the cancer ward noticeboard, or as each other?’
‘As each other,’ says Gibbs. ‘First two, the lines came from a poem by a woman called Emily Dickinson. Second pair, the writer was an Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Both poems, like yours, were about death.’
‘And all three by female American poets whose first names begin with E.’
‘Do you think that means something?’ He’s not looking at me, and sounds as if he’s asking himself.
‘I’ve no idea. I mean, if you want American women poets who write about death, why not pick Sylvia Plath? She’s the obvious one.’
‘You’re the anomaly,’ Gibbs neatly summarises how I feel about myself most of the time. ‘The lines come in pairs. All Billy’s victims so far are pairs of best friends, but you don’t have a best friend. Yet you get a book containing a line that’s one of a pair. A man – maybe Billy, maybe not – hands it to you instead of leaving it in your bag or among your possessions, and then you’re not murdered weeks or even months later.’
‘No need to sound so miffed about it.’ I smile at him. ‘There’s still time.’
‘But you don’t consider yourself to be in danger, do you?’ This sounds like an accusation.
‘I believe I might be, yes.’
‘You don’t seem scared.’
‘I’m not.’ Not for myself. ‘Logically, it seems I might be on this guy’s list. Emotionally, I can’t really get far enough past the unpleasantness of witnessing a cancer death at close range to believe in these murders that seem so … well, sensational. Improbable. I know they’re real – I’ve heard about them on the news – but they don’t feel real.’
‘They do to the loved ones left behind.’
‘Yes, I’m sure they do. But I’m someone else’s loved one left behind – well, barely tolerated one, anyway – so my fears are elsewhere. You know what?’ I laugh. ‘This Billy stuff, for me … it’s a welcome distraction. Not that I want him to shoot me dead, but if I get to avoid what my grandmother went through, if I get to avoid spending any more time on a cancer ward, that’s quite a big consolation.’
‘Let’s go back to your no-best-friend claim. You’re sure there’s no one?’
I take a deep breath. If he doesn’t already think I’m crazy …
‘There’s no one. But …’
But the little white book on Ward 10’s noticeboard didn’t come from nowhere, for no reason. It wasn’t intended for nobody.
‘Billy might think there’s someone,’ I say.
As embarrassing experiences go, trying to explain to a police detective about your imaginary friend is up there with the best of them. Briefly, I’d entertained an idle fantasy about befriending the woman I’d met outside the hospital while Marion was dying: Faith Kendell. Her misanthropic world view had impressed me. I felt obliged to divulge to DC Gibbs that words on the subject of friendship had passed between us.
Friends are too much work – like houseplants.
I agree. Also like houseplants, they all die in the end. What’s the point?
If only someone would say to me, ‘I’ll be your friend, and I’ll expect no more from you than a dead houseplant.’
I’d say that to a prospective friend.
You would?
Yep. Wouldn’t be able to put in much more effort than a dead houseplant myself, so I’d accept being treated like one as a fair deal.
Mutual dead houseplant friendship – it’s an interesting concept. Unconditional acceptance of no effort on both sides.
Sounds like the way forward to me.
Could Billy have been listening? Even if he had been, it made no sense. He’d given me my white book nearly a year earlier, when he’d had no way of knowing that on 6 January 2015, I’d be at the RGI visiting my dying grandmother. So what was he doing there that day, with a white book containing a line from the same poem? He had no reason to believe I’d meet a woman outside the hospital whom I’d briefly consider befriending, before rejecting the idea. In any case, the ‘Death devours’ white book was pinned to the ward’s noticeboard before Faith and I had exchanged a single word. Try to put it together and it makes no sense. So why can’t I shake it from my mind?
Gibbs agreed it was ludicrous to imagine what I was imagining. The best way to prove how unlikely it was, I suggested, was to check Faith was all right, maybe offer her some protection. What harm would that do? Because, let’s face it, if that white book wasn’t intended for her, who was it meant for? There were no other candidates for the role of best friend to me on Ward 10 of the RGI that day. It had to have been meant for Faith – who, by the way, I’m sure would start to irritate the hell out of me if I ever got to know her better. I was already getting a bit sick of her by the time I’d finished giving DC Gibbs as complete a description of her as I could remember – small frame, black hoody, baggy jeans, very short brown hair, brown eyes.
Could Billy have pinned up that little white book on the board and then sent someone in that he’d lined up to befriend me artificially? This, I decided, was the single most ludicrous suspicion I’d ever had.
Still, I tried as hard as I could to persuade Gibbs that Faith Kendell might be in danger, not because I thought it was likely but because I believed there were no other possibilities.
Don’t ever think that, boys and girls. Don’t be as naïve as I was. There are always other possibilities and plenty of them – ones you couldn’t come up with in your most demented dreams. Or at least I couldn’t, and neither could Chris Gibbs.
Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse on the other hand – he was a different story.
Typed copy of handwritten letter received by Sondra Halliday on 4 January 2015
2 January 2015
Dear Mrs Halliday
I hope you don’t mind me addressing you as such. Your Wikipedia entry tells me you’re married to the chef Oliver Halliday, so it seems the obvious thing to call you.
I hope you enjoy the enclosed novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison. It is a work of genius in my opinion. You might wonder why I, a complete stranger, am sending you a book. It’s because I want to teach you. I don’t know if you’re capable of learning, but I have to try.
(“Why?” I imagine you asking.)
I have to teach you because the only other thing I want to do to you is kill you. Nearly every day, you are doing severe harm to the thing that matters to me most in the world. You have your cause and I have mine; they are not the same thing. They are, rather, stratospheres apart – and you’ve been lying about my agenda in order to further your own. I have an itch inside me, telling me that the only thing I can do to stop this is put an end to you. Then this thing I care about won’t be ruined.
At the same time, I would do almost anything to stop myself from killing you because it would be morally wrong. Unjustifiable. It would make me into something I could not bear to be: a person driven by hate and anger and desperation to become a murderer. That, too, would ruin everything for me, in a different way.
There are some dilemmas that one cannot resolve alone, so I sought help. I don’t expect you know what an Ishaya is, do you? Neither did I, but I was lucky enough to find one and she’s changed my life. Lane. She is the wisest, kindest human being I’ve ever known. She is, in every way, a truly good person. Instead of condemning me for wanting to kill you, which would have made me angrier and more bitter than I was when I first sought her help, she told me she admired my passion, my commitment to the things I held dear. She persuaded me that killing you would be quite wrong not by making me feel ashamed, but by telling me it was completely understandable that I might have murderous impulses.
