Towers of Silence - [15]

“Oh. Well, if she had been home Roland would have seen her, wouldn’t he?”

“Roland?”

“I think it was Roland. He plays the music loud, rap music he calls it, but if it’s not late I don’t bother, you’ve got to get along with people haven’t you.”

“That Thursday, you heard it?”

“I think so,” she looked uncertain. Pulled a face in concentration. “It wouldn’t have been after then,” she rationalised, “what with…” she let the sentence hang.

“What time?”

She thought again. “The news was on, the lunchtime news. Because I had to turn the sound up. I remember that,” she dipped her chin decisively.

“But it could have been another day? The Tuesday or Wednesday?”

“You’ve got me thinking now. I couldn’t put my hand on the Bible and swear to it.” She looked anxious.

“Don’t worry. If you remember anything else just give me a ring.”

She promised she would.

“You never mentioned this before?” I asked her.

“It never occurred to me. It’s not important is it?”

“No,” I reassured her.

But I had the impression that Martina and Roland had been out all day. Had I just leapt to conclusions? And like Mrs Boscoe said, it wasn’t important. Or was it?

Chapter Tweleve

Next to the loathsome Mr Jones’ was a classic Manchester corner shop. Grills on the windows, plastered with adverts for cigarettes and the Evening News. Open eight till late. Prices might be higher but if all you wanted was a pint of milk, a loo roll, a can of dog food or ten Bensons then it beat the nearest huge supermarket hands down.

I introduced myself to the middle-aged Asian man at the counter and told him my business. “Very nice lady,” he said. “She got her papers here and my daughters are at school with Martina. We were very sad. Terrible thing.”

I repeated the questions that I’d asked the neighbours but he hadn’t seen her that lunchtime either. “Someone else was asking,” he said.

“The police?”

“No, asking if she’d be home for lunch, the day… you know.”

My neck prickled.

“I said I had no idea. They say the shop is part of the community but I don’t know everybody’s goings on.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Did you tell the police?”

“Oh, yes. But I’d no name. It was a gentleman from her church, passing and wanted to say hello.”

My prickling subsided. “What time was it?”

“Late morning.”

“Before midday?”

“Yes.”

Miriam would still have been at the Whitworth Centre.

“I said she sometimes went down to the community centre and he could try there.”

The bell on the shop door announced two teenage girls. I waited while he served them with cigarettes. If Miriam’s visitor gone to the Centre first instead of calling at her home, how differently might that day have gone? But how was he to know her daily schedule? Who was this man from the church? Wasn’t it more common to ring and see if someone was going to be in before calling on them? I waited till the shop keeper was free and got a description of the caller. Middle-aged black man, grey hair, maybe had a moustache; that was as much as he could tell me. It niggled though, just the fact of him being there the day of her suicide. I needed to check him out, contact the church and see if they could help me identify him.

So I had established that none of the near neighbours had actually seen Miriam return home. That didn’t mean she hadn’t eaten lunch there. But there was a more straightforward way to establish that; by asking Martina and Roland what they had found on their return from school. In doing so I could also find out whether Roland was at home playing his music that day or whether Mrs Boscoe had got it wrong.

Chapter Thirteen

“I’ve invited my mother again,” Ray said as he cleared the table.

“And?”

“I don’t know Raymundo, lottsa people, lottsa fuss. I don’t wanna be in the way,” Ray mimicked his mother’s martyr act.

“She wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “As long as she’s home for the Boxing Day races.”

“She made seventy pounds last Saturday.”

“Blimey.”

“Mind you, she only tells me when she wins. We’ll have to do turkey though.”

“You do the turkey and I’ll make a veggie alternative.”

“Just for you?”

“I suppose. Something luxurious that I’d never normally eat.”

He moved the salt and pepper and wiped the big pine table down.

“So you don’t mind?”

“I’m fine. It’s Laura you should check with.” The acid remarks and general disapproval that Nana Tello had once directed my way now seemed to be reserved for Laura. I couldn’t fathom it. She’d spent the last years wanting to see Ray fixed up, wanting the prospect of a ‘normal’ family for Tom and now it was on the horizon (well, not beyond the bounds of possibility) she was daggers drawn about it. “You can’t not invite your mother.” I added. “The secret is to have no expectations, or only realistic ones. No nice presents, no delicious meal, no relaxed hours in front of the telly or playing games. Think of Christmas as a chore to be got through.”

“Who rattled your cage?”

“I’m not rattled, just resigned.”

“Cynical.”

“Pragmatic. It’s for the children, who will have consumed enough chocolate by breakfast to sink the Titanic and who’ll then be hyperactive and feverish till bedtime.”