sidelines, watching Charlie play football. My shoulders are canted forwards, as though I’m braced against a cold wind. Is it the beginning of a stoop?
I have been through the five stages of grief and mourning. I have denied it, ranted at the unfairness, made pacts with God, crawled into a dark hole and finally accepted my fate. I have a progressive, degenerative neurological disorder. I will not use the word incurable. There is a cure. They just haven’t found it yet. In the meantime, the divorce continues.
I wish I could tell you that I’ve come to terms with it now; that I’m happier than ever before; that I have embraced life, made new friends and become spiritual and fulfilled. I wish.
We have a falling-down cottage, a cat, a duck and two hamsters, Bill and Ben, who may in fact be girls. (The pet shop owner didn’t seem exactly sure.)
‘It’s important,’ I told him.
‘Why?’
‘I have enough women in my house.’
According to our neighbour, Mrs Nutall (if ever a name suited…) we also have a resident ghost, a past occupant who apparently fell down the stairs after hearing her husband had died in the Great War.
I’m always amazed by that term: The Great War. What was so great about it? Eight million soldiers died and a similar number of civilians. It’s like the Great Depression. Can’t we call it something else?
We live in a village called Wellow, five and a half miles from Bath Spa. It’s one of those quaint, postcard-sized clusters of buildings, which barely seem big enough to hold their own history. The village pub, the Fox amp; Badger, is two hundred years old and has a resident dwarf. How rustic is that?
We no longer have learner drivers reversing into our drive or dogs crapping on the footpath or car alarms blaring in the street. We have neighbours now. In London we had them too but pretended they didn’t exist. Here they drop by to borrow garden tools and cups of flour. They even share their political opinions, which is a total anathema to anyone living in London unless you’re a cab driver or a politician.
I don’t know what I expected of Somerset but this will do. And if I sound sentimental, please forgive me. Mr Parkinson is to blame. Some people think sentimentality is an unearned emotion. Not mine. I pay for it every day.
The rain has eased to a drizzle. The world is wet enough. Holding a jacket over my head I open the back gate and head up the footpath. Mrs Nutall is unblocking a drain in her garden. She’s wearing her hair in curlers and her feet in Wellingtons.
‘Good morning,’ I say.
‘Drop dead.’
‘Rain might be clearing.’
‘Fuck off and die.’
According to Hector, the publican at the Fox amp; Badger, Mrs Nutall has nothing against me personally. Apparently, a previous owner of our cottage promised to marry her but ran off instead with the postmaster’s wife. That was forty-five years ago and Mrs Nutall hasn’t forgiven or forgotten. Whoever owns the cottage owns the blame.
Dodging the puddles, I follow the footpath to the village store, trying not to drip on the stacks of newspapers inside the door. Starting with the broadsheets, I flick through the pages, looking for a mention of what happened yesterday. There are photographs, but the story makes only a few paragraphs. Suicides make poor headlines because editors fear a contagion of copycats.
‘If you’re going to read ’em here I’ll bring you a comfy chair and a cup of tea,’ says Eric Vaile, the shopkeeper, peering up from a copy of the Sunday Mirror spread beneath his tattooed forearms.
‘I was just looking for something,’ I explain, apologetically.
‘Your wallet, perhaps.’
Eric looks like he should be running a dockside pub rather than a village shop. His wife Gina, a nervous woman who flinches whenever Eric moves too suddenly, emerges from the storeroom. She’s carrying a tray of soft drinks, almost buckling under the weight. Eric steps back to let her pass before planting his elbows on the counter again.
‘Saw you on the TV,’ he grunts. ‘Could’ve told you she was gonna jump. I could see it coming.’
I don’t answer. It won’t make any difference. He’s not going to stop.
‘Tell me this, eh? If people are going to top themselves, why don’t they have the decency to do it somewhere private, instead of blocking traffic and costing taxpayers money?’
‘She was obviously very troubled,’ I mumble.
‘Gutless, you mean.’
‘It takes a lot of courage to jump off a bridge.’
‘Courage,’ he scoffs.
I glance at Gina. ‘And it takes even more courage to ask for help.’
She looks away.
Mid morning I call Bristol Police Headquarters and ask for Sergeant Abernathy. The rain has finally stopped. I can see a patch of blue above the tree-line and the faint traces of a rainbow.
Gravel and phlegm down the phone: ‘What do you want, Professor?’
‘I apologise for yesterday- leaving so suddenly. I wasn’t feeling well.’
‘Must be catching.’
Abernathy doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m unprofessional or inept. I’ve met coppers like him before- warrior types who think they’re separate from normal society, above it.
‘We need a statement,’ he says. ‘There’ll be an inquest.’
‘You’ve identified her?’
‘Not yet.’
There’s a pause. My silence irritates him.
‘In case it escaped your attention, Professor, she wasn’t wearing any clothes, which means she wasn’t carrying any identification.’
‘Of course. I understand. It’s just-.’
‘What?’
‘I thought somebody would have reported her missing by now. She was so well groomed: her hair, her eyebrows, her bikini-line; her fingernails were manicured. She spent time and money on herself. She’s likely to have friends, a job, people who care about her.’
Abernathy must be taking notes. I can hear him scribbling. ‘What else can you tell me?’
‘She had a Caesarean scar, which means children. Given her age, they’re probably school age by now. Primary or secondary.’
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘She was talking to someone on a mobile phone- pleading with them.’
‘Pleading for what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And that’s all she said?’
‘She said I wouldn’t understand.’
‘Well, she got that much right.’
This case annoys Abernathy because it isn’t straightforward. Until he has a name, he can’t gather the required statements and hand it over to the coroner.
‘When do you want me to come in?’
‘Today.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘If I’m working Saturday, so can you.’
Avon and Somerset Police Headquarters is in Portishead on the Severn Estuary, nine miles west of Bristol. The architects and planners were perhaps labouring under the misapprehension that if they built a police headquarters a long way from the crime-ridden pockets of inner-city Bristol, the perpetrators might relocate and join them. If we build it- they will come.
The skies have cleared, but the fields are still flooded and fence posts stick out of the brackish water like the
