The free-flowing drinks last night had thankfully not ended in much of a hangover but he still felt dehydrated. He kept swigging his bottled water as he stepped off the train. Glugging it down like a baby lamb with milk.
He’d never been here, to Menham. But there were murals on the walls that were presumably supposed to give a good first impression. They depicted life in the industrial ‘old days’ here, but oddly, the people in the pictures had fish heads. Chimney sweeps, men in overalls, industrialists on trains, scientists with clipboards. They all had bug-eyed fish heads. It was like something from a Bosch painting. He assumed the artist was showing that Menham had maritime links, being close-ish to the Thames. Or perhaps the great sea god Cthulhu used to hang out here, and turned all the locals into amphibians. He’d have to ask.
Either way, Menham Station had a single-hatch newsagent selling something he hadn’t seen in years. Caramac. He bought one and greedily snapped bits off with his teeth as he headed up the steps to swish his Oyster card.
The street was flooded with autumn sun as he stepped out. Enough to make him squint, but not enough to warm him much. He saw a run of shops with Halloween stuff in the windows, including a huge mask of Frankenstein’s monster leering from a charity shop window, and a cafe that was belching out dubstep music. His nostrils flooded with the smells of exhaust fumes and chip fat. Locals wandered by chatting, with reasonably human-looking heads. It looked a lot more peaceful over the road where a large park stretched out behind the old iron railings. He watched the empty trees sway gently in the breeze, their dead, brown leaves dancing at the base of the trunk, like they were trying to climb back up and recapture their glory days.
The sudden blast of a car horn snapped him out of it.
Larry’s black Mazda loomed up on the kerb and almost crushed Matt’s toes into jam. He stepped back and the window slid down.
‘Gee whizz …’ Larry leant his head out, the swoop of his grey fringe flapping in the breeze. ‘Is it really you? … The actual one? Can you autograph this for me?’
‘Sorry, but I don’t sign old people’s body parts…’ He trailed off when he saw what Larry was actually dangling out of the window. A copy of the Daily Mail. It was folded back to show a picture of Matt looking at his most mean and gormless last night. One of those off guard shots the paparazzi do, of celebs halfway out of taxis, gussets showing, looking hammered. He recognised the moment. When he was pushing through the crowd, looking for Lucy. His expression looked furious.
He hopped in the car and tossed his bag in the back seat, noticing Larry’s little cross and rosary curled in the cup holder between them. He nodded to the newspaper. ‘Give me that thing.’
‘Congratulations. You made the heady heights of page thirty-six.’ Larry pulled away from the kerb, chuckling in that high-pitched bird sound he often made. ‘Or should I say the bottom right-hand corner of thirty-six.’
Matt folded the paper back and read out the headline. ‘Hobbs Hill Professor Says Murder’s Not Evil.’ He let out a long, lip-flapping breath. Then he read it through quickly. It was exactly the type of angle he expected. Alarmist, knee-jerk, hypocritical, and worse … annoyingly well written.
‘It says here I’m dangerous and …’ he ran a finger down the paper, ‘part of the subversive assault on traditional British values, which frankly I kind of like. Maybe I should put that on my business cards.’
‘Do that and they’ll burn you at the stake,’ Larry laughed but then his smile faded. ‘Anyway, you better turn to page four.’
‘Ack, don’t tell me. One-star book review?’ Matt started flicking the pages.
‘The victim. The case I need your input on.’
‘Oh …’ He slid the pages back with his thumb, like a bank-teller counting money. Then he hit page four and let it open. TERROR IN THE CLASSROOM
He saw a large picture of a school playground with police cars and two ambulances. Crowds of adults and children were huddled outside looking distraught. In amongst the text was a little shot of a living Stephanie Ellis, beaming up from the page. Her blonde hair sprang from her head in big, frizzy curls. She had Sideshow Bob hair – that was Matt’s first thought. Just over her shoulder he could see a seaside pier. A holiday shot. She was all bright-eyed with sea and arcades and ice cream dripping. The face of a teenager who happened to be in her thirties. Lots of teeth and lots of freckles. And beneath her, black ink pressed against white paper declaring her: DEAD
Matt quickly read it through.
Apparently ‘a much-loved teacher’, Mrs Ellis had recently ‘not been herself’. She’d been acting distant and confused at work. It never actually said the word ‘depression’, but there was a strong nudge-nudge-wink-wink vibe that she was going through something like it. At 3 a.m. yesterday morning, she’d taken her dog on its lead and had come into school for some unknown reason. She’d opened up, tapped in the alarm code, and let herself into her own classroom. Used her own key. Then she’d hidden herself and her dog in a store cupboard.
Turned out the dog didn’t like ‘such bizarre behaviour’ and so it had turned on her. The words THROAT TORN OPEN were in capitals. He read phrases like: ‘A freak accident’; ‘a terrifying experience’; ‘a tragic loss of
