The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (life changing books txt) 📕

as many words. But the rattling of a chain at the door signalled its opening.

Halom stood there in front of them. Mid-fifties but looking older. Sunken-faced and skeletal inside his frayed-brown dressing gown. Cancer, thought Carrie instinctively. Veined and bony-legged, feet in incongruously feminine fluffy pink slippers. Halom looked at Gayther, coughing as he did so. He reached into his dressing-gown pocket and took out an off-white handkerchief, which he coughed phlegm into.

“Police, what do you want?” he said eventually, his words choking out. “I’ve told you I’m not letting you in any more without a warrant. Snooping and prying. It’s harassment. I’ve told you I’m through.”

“We won’t take up any of your time, Mr Halom. My colleague and I …” Gayther gestured towards Carrie, “… are just doing a routine enquiry relating to an incident near Dunwich on the first of October … van owners in the area … can you tell me where you were on the evening of the first? It was a Monday.”

Halom looked from one to the other. Then bent his head down again and coughed into his handkerchief. Gayther could see globs of white spittle, one left smeared below Halom’s bottom lip. Halom looked up sourly at them before speaking. “Wait here,” he said, pushing the door to. “This is not an invitation to come in. Stay there.”

Gayther watched through the frosted glass, Halom’s shape seeming to sway from side to side as he moved further away.

“What are your thoughts, guvnor?” Carrie asked quietly. “Would he have the strength to have killed Lodge?”

Gayther shook his head and put his finger to his lips. “Well, he’s coughing and spitting a lot … maybe for show … who knows?”

A wait, as if Halom might have slipped out the back and away, but then finally he was back, opening the door, pulling his dressing gown tighter around him and flicking through the pages of a pocket diary. “October … October … what was it … the fifth?”

“The first,” replied Gayther, correcting him. He saw Carrie’s expression but ignored it.

“Here,” said Halom, holding out the opened diary. “See for yourself.”

Gayther took the diary as Halom started another coughing fit. Skimmed down one side, then the top of the other and saw the date, the first, and the word ‘Bingo’ and the letters ‘GCP, GY, 6-10’ in the small space. “GCP?” he asked.

“Greys Caravan Park, Great Yarmouth. I do a cabaret Friday nights, bingo when I’m needed … if someone’s off sick … are you satisfied?” Halom coughed again, struggling for breath.

“Is there much demand for that in a caravan park at this time of year?” Gayther asked.

“The locals turn out for it,” Halom answered.

Gayther nodded at him. “Do you do the bingo a lot? Do they just call you in when someone’s off sick?”

Halom nodded back, “Now and then. Once or twice a month if someone phones in ill.”

Are you still working?” he added, gesturing towards Halom’s handkerchief. “What with … everything?”

Halom looked back at him, anger on his face.

“Not this week, no, nor last week, not until I’ve got rid of this bloody cough.” He hacked again. “Next week, hopefully. Is that it, then, are we done?” He looked from Gayther to Carrie and back again.

Carrie spoke up, “Yes, but we couldn’t help but notice, on the way in, your tyres … did you know three of them are below the legal tread?”

Halom turned his angry gaze towards her and she held it, thinking that deep down this was an angry man with a quick temper.

“You’ll need to get those sorted before you drive it again.”

Halom looked at her dismissively. But he said nothing and, after a moment or two, he turned back to Gayther and repeated himself, “Are we done?”

Gayther nodded his confirmation.

“Don’t come back.” Halom stepped back and shut the door in their faces.

Gayther smiled quietly to himself as he turned to Carrie and they walked away.

* * *

“Well, it’s not him then, is it?” Carrie half-stated, half-asked, as they drove away back through Wickham Market towards the A12.

“Why’s that then, Carrie?” Gayther answered as he accelerated the car through the town square.

“Well, he’s not well … on his last legs by the look of it … and he was at the caravan park that night, he’d have witnesses to that.”

Gayther searched in the door well for a half-eaten packet of polos he thought he’d left there. He rummaged a bit more without success. Then he tutted to himself and turned to Carrie.

“He doesn’t look good, I’ll give you that. But … it may not be more than a really bad cough. Man flu and all that. Men do suffer badly, you know. More than women. It’s worse than childbirth, I’m told.” She did not pick up on his teasing comment.

“More like cancer to me, guv. One of my uncles was like that towards the end … the lung cancer had spread. If he is dying, would he … well, would he be bothered enough to go to all the trouble of killing a witness even if he were up to it physically? It would hardly be top of his bucket list.”

“There’s the ailing mother, Carrie. Getting older herself. He might want to stay alive for as long as he can for her … and to protect his name … her name … if he died before her.”

“Yes, but still …” Carrie turned away, looking out of the car window across the fields.

“And the diary entry, Carrie,” he went on, “couple of things there. If you did kill someone, I think you’d want to cover your tracks. He could have made that entry before or at any time after in case someone came knocking. He could even have scribbled it in as he walked back to the door to show us the diary.”

Carrie said nothing, and just carried on watching the world go by. Something was troubling her, about Halom and his mother, but she couldn’t quite think what it was.

Gayther continued, “And he said