Being angry served no purpose now. He was dead. No one could do or say much to change that now. No way to bring him back and make things right. Make things how they should be. Some things couldn’t be changed. More to the point, he couldn’t let that bring him down. He had to move on and be happy. They had another child on the way after all. His child and no one else’s.
The bus stopped to let on another group of passengers. Alfie scowled, doing his best to make anyone think twice about sitting next to him. It didn’t work. He saw a figure swing into the chair next to his despite there being plenty of other seats available. He looked across, surprised to find a Black woman in the seat. Not the sort of person who would ever normally sit next to him. Tall for a woman, he thought, and strong-looking. Something in the way she carried herself, not just how she looked. For a moment he found himself feeling intimidated by her, squeezing into the other side of his seat, just slightly, before reminding himself he shouldn’t be the one feeling intimidated.
“You know, I do love this country,” the woman said out loud. Alfie looked at her, wondering if she could be addressing him, but she stared firmly ahead. She continued. “I love the variety. The opportunity. I love the way it looks to the future, despite always claiming to be anchored to its past. The lies it tells itself, so that it can move forward without too much trouble. I think it’s wonderful.”
She had an accent he couldn’t place. Something foreign. African, probably. One of a few options he’d gathered from the colour of her skin. She didn’t sound like any of them Jamaicans, or the other Caribbeans. Nor did she have the American accent that some of them had. The ones who had integrated.
“What?” he asked, not even bothering to hide his annoyance. Why on earth did she think he cared what she thought about his country. It wasn’t hers to remark on.
“I was just saying,” she turned to him and smiled. “That this country of yours, that offers you so very, very much. You must be proud of it. And you must cherish it. Don’t ever stop it being what it should be.”
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”
“The future and the way. When I grew up in Nyasaland, what they call Malawi now, it was all we heard of. How Britain was the centre of the world. Then I came here and saw it for myself. Saw how much more the people had here. How much more the women had.”
“Right. Well, yeah, thank you.” He turned, crossing his arms and shuffling lower in his seat like a child in a huff.
“Back home, when a man beat his wife so hard that she died, they would often be executed. That came from Britain. The laws that the colonisers brought with them. I liked those laws. They were good laws. I heard of a man who beat his wife to death with a stick for not sleeping with him. Him and a lot of others considered that adultery. But the law, the law that your country brought with it, that called him what he was. A murderer. A criminal.”
“Excuse me?” Alfie didn’t like the tone of the conversation now. Although it felt less of a conversation, more of a speech.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m rambling,” the woman turned and smiled courteously at him. “I merely wanted to say that any man who beats a woman is a criminal. In the eyes of the law, that is. In the eyes of a society that moves forward and acts as an exemplar for the rest of the world, they’re less than a man. They’re contemptible. Relics of the past that will be left well behind when their woman finds the strength to finally tell them: ‘No.’ And you know what, they always find the strength. Especially when someone is looking out for them. I just hope that any men who need to hear this advice, they heed it, change their ways and be better. They would be doomed if not. Some people cannot cope alone. It’s a death sentence.”
“Are you talking about me?” Alfie’s anger began to rise inside him, but what could he do? He could push her out of the way, then storm off the bus. Who would stop him? No one. He doubted anyone would even come over and offer to pick her up. But there was something in the way she spoke that made him stay riveted in his seat, gripped by her words.
“I would think for some men, some weak men, that a life alone would be a death sentence. And no woman, no self-respecting woman would take them on. Not when the word is spread from sister to sister: ‘This man isn’t the devil, but he is weak inside. His self-loathing controls him and makes him lash out in ways he shouldn’t.’ No one will want to be the sacrifice at the altar of that man’s vanity. No, they will let him rot alone. Suffer in the darkness of his soul as the world moves on without him. He will drink and starve himself to an early, miserable, lonely death. That is far worse than hanging from a noose if you ask me.”
“Are you threatening me?” Alfie tried to snarl, but it didn’t have the usual malice his voice could often carry.
The woman placed a hand on his. He didn’t move to take it away.
“No. I’m helping.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Not everything is about you. But you have a part to play. Be good when you get home.” She smiled once more, then stood. “It’s my stop.”
She pulled the bell, then walked calmly towards the rear of the bus. When it stopped, she got off, disappearing into the other people making their way along the street.
14.
Joseph did his best to try and forget about his chastisement earlier. His day had revolved around paperwork, an area of policing he really enjoyed. Finding leads that other people might not find buried in reams of statements, evidence and notes. At lot of the other officers looked down on it. Many of his colleagues were happier to be out on the streets, dealing with people. For him, this was proper policing. His forte. It helped to ease his awkwardness around Ray, enough at least to be able to do what he’d been asked.
Ray had tasked him with looking into the financial dealings of Gerald Trainer. Gerald’s room-mates had given enough vague details to allow them to piece together where they had bills. Nothing out of the ordinary. Rates. Utilities. The usual. His council rates had been the easiest to determine. The staff at Woolwich Town Hall had been admirably prompt in confirming that he had indeed been making the payments on time. Joseph had expected that request to take longer to come back to him. Woolwich Council was currently in the process of being merged into a new, larger Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. He had been certain that would slow the already notorious wheels of bureaucracy. But it had proved no impediment to whoever had been tasked with fielding the enquiry. Perhaps they were working hard to clear their slate as much as possible before the merger.
There hadn’t been any issues either when it came to his utility bills. The electricity had been supplied through a meter installed at the house and the gas and water had been kept up to date. The one thing that remained outstanding from Joseph’s records had been the rent. None of the men who lived with Gerald knew the name of their landlord. The few vague ideas that they had all came up short in the searches that Joseph had tasked out to WPC Small and her team, who worked on the floor below. WPC Karen Small held legendary status at the station. Jobs for WPCs primarily involved women or children that the police came across. A gentler hand in those situations often paid dividends. Ray had long since recognised however that there were few officers he’d met more adept and thorough when it came to chasing a paper trail as WPC Small. Therefore, when they needed something administrative doing, they turned to her. In this case, it had been her job to contact the Land Registry and set the bureaucratic wheels in motion. Now, she’d delivered them a result.
“The property is owned by a Mr Roger Barnes,” Joseph announced to Ray after finding the report in a pile of paperwork that had accumulated over the last twenty-four hours.
“Is he local?” Ray asked.
“Near enough. Has an address out in Welling. Are you wanting me to give him a call?”
Ray looked around at the office. “You can do but just let him know we’re on our way,” he said, standing. “I think it’s time we got out and about today. I’m feeling a little claustrophobic, how about you?”
Joseph would have been happy staying at his desk, surrounded by sheets of paper, but he knew that, whilst it had been phrased as a question, it wasn’t really. “Sounds good to me.”
Welling lay further east, heading out of the City of London and into Kent, although not for much longer. Much like Woolwich, Welling was about to find its location changed by the implementation of the London Government Act, moving it from Kent into the London Borough of Bexley. Joseph didn’t really understand what that would mean for the people of Welling. Did it matter if one day you woke up and your town, administratively speaking, had moved somewhere else? Probably not. Not in the grand scheme of things. All the same, someone out there would find a reason to be upset about it.
“You all right there?” Ray asked as he drove and Joseph realised he had been idly staring out of the side window.
“Yes, sorry. I was miles away,” he said, which was at least a partial truth.
“I get that. Stuck in the paperwork all day, it often makes me feel a little off colour.”
Off colour was one way of putting it. Joseph didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“You’re not sulking about earlier, are you?” Ray asked, with what sounded like a hint of disappointment in his voice, which only made Joseph even more insecure.
“No, of course not.”
“You can’t let criticism define you, you know?”
Joseph didn’t agree with that. If you didn’t let criticism define you, how could you ever grow? Not that he thought Ray would be particularly interested in having that conversation right now.
*
They found Roger Barnes’s office in the heart of Welling, on the first floor above an optician’s on the A207, which made up the main road through the town. They found Mr Barnes waiting for them outside the office. He shuffled over to them extending a hand to each.
