Manon looked at him and Mark had pointed his wine glass at the telly. ‘Anyone who says he wants a relationship with someone easygoing, doesn’t want a relationship with a real person,’ he said.
The bell rings above the door, which opens into a grey grimy place stacked with boxes of crisps, the usual humming fridge filled with sugar-laden drinks and corner-shop milk, racks upon racks of chocolate bars, sweets, fizzy pop and snacks of a more international flavour: Japanese rice crackers, Bombay mix, cashews and pistachios.
Behind the counter is a large woman of indeterminate age wearing massive Deirdre Barlow glasses. She has curly brown hair, cut short and with a fringe (a haircut with the whiff of a DIY job). She is struggling for breath over the fat. Manon shows her police badge, she doesn’t know why – habit, to give her the authority she feels she doesn’t actually have.
‘Can I ask you some questions?’ she says to the shopkeeper.
‘Fire away.’
‘Do you know this woman?’ Manon shows her the photograph of the blonde that was found on Jon-Oliver’s body. She is fairly certain the woman in the photo is the owner of unknown 618.
The shopkeeper looks at Manon. Pauses. It is clear from the weight of the silence and the pause that the shopkeeper does know this woman.
‘Is she a friend of yours, or a regular?’ asks Manon.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘I showed you my badge, I’m from Cambridgeshire Police.’
‘Yes but why are you asking about her? What do you want to know about her?’
‘This photograph was found on the body of a man who was murdered in our area,’ Manon says. ‘I have reason to believe her mobile phone was topped up here recently.’
‘You’d best come with me,’ the shopkeeper says, waddling out from behind the counter. ‘My name’s Birdie, by the way. Birdie Fielding.’
‘Manon Bradshaw,’ she says, while Birdie locks the shop door and flips the Closed sign.
Birdie shuffles around the packed aisles and pads her way to the back of the shop, taking a packet of custard creams en route. Manon follows her to a staircase, at the foot of which is a dark stain across the linoleum. The type of stain Manon has seen numerous times before.
Birdie pushes a rectangle of plastic matting with her foot to slide it back in place, covering the stain. She begins to climb the stairs; heavy stomps, breathless, saying, ‘If you follow me we can have a chat up here nice and quiet. Just a minute while I get my keys out. Ah, here we are. Come in.’
They enter a hallway papered with white-painted Anaglypta – Seventies striations – and brown carpet on the floor. The place smells homely and clean.
‘Through here,’ Birdie says.
The living room is the kind that should house two grandparents watching Countdown. Brown recliners and a sofa with ruffled seams arranged around the television; net curtains and glass figurines on the gas-fire surround. ‘Have a seat. I’ll just make you a cup of tea and then we can have a nice chat.’
Manon sits on the edge of the velveteen sofa, knees together, handbag on her lap. She pushes into it with a hand and feels about for her mobile, casting a glance at it out of habit, but it has not miraculously sprung back into life. She tries not to think about what she might do were she to need back-up, tells herself the worst she’ll be faced with here is some trans fats. The congestion about her middle – the size of the bump and its tightness – causes her discomfort. She needs the toilet, as always, but decides to wait for a bit.
‘Here we are,’ says Birdie, returning to the lounge carrying two mugs of tea. ‘I’ll just get us some biscuits.’
‘Nothing for me,’ calls Manon.
Once Birdie has heaved down into one of the recliners with an ‘ooof’, and has opened the packet of custard creams, Manon says, ‘So you know the woman in the photograph?’
Birdie nods. ‘Think so, yes. She didn’t look like that when I met her, mind. More of a Goth. Told me her name was Angel, though I didn’t believe her. She stayed here for a bit. Why’re you asking?’
‘We – I – think she might be able to tell us more about our victim, Jon-Oliver Ross, and who might have wanted to harm him.’
‘And you’re one of the detectives investigating his murder, are you?’ says Birdie, smiling at her with unnerving focus through those glasses, like two windscreens.
‘Sort of,’ says Manon. ‘How long did she stay here?’
‘Not long,’ says Birdie. ‘I can show you her room if you like. You’re the first to come, the first to ask about her, so you can go through her stuff.’
‘Where is she?’ Manon asks. ‘I was hoping to talk to her.’
‘Come through,’ says Birdie, getting up. ‘Over here.’ She leads the way out to the hall. Manon sets her tea down and follows. Birdie is nodding at the box room, adjacent to the kitchen. ‘That’s where she stayed. You’ll see her holdall in there if you go in. Like I say, you’re the first I’ve allowed in, so no one’s seen that, her holdall and that. It might be good for you to go in and perform an examination, so to speak.’
Something strange in Birdie’s sentence construction. In Manon’s experience, the more contorted a person’s grammar, the bigger the lie. You see this most clearly when you’re being dumped by a boyfriend who is lying about his reasons – leaving out the other person he’s shagging, for example. Manon has heard all manner of mangled verbiage from the mouths of lying gits.
Yet out of some mindless obedience coupled with curiosity, Manon enters the box room. She and Birdie are in its doorway, Birdie’s heavy breath at her shoulder. ‘Further in,’ Birdie says.
‘Look, I’m not very good at getting down on the floor,’ Manon says, taking in the dishevelled mattress at her feet. ‘It’s the pregnancy …’
‘Hold up, I’ll get you a chair,’ Birdie says, huffing and puffing out towards the small galley kitchen.
‘Why don’t I just bring it out to the—’
She is about to say ‘lounge’ when she turns to find the door to the box room closing and a key being turned in the lock.
‘Hey!’ Manon shouts. ‘What are you doing? Birdie? What the … fuck!’
Manon rattles at the door, heavy slams down on the handle. She bashes her palm onto the door itself. ‘What are you doing? Why have you locked me in here? Let me out! You can’t imprison a police officer. Do you know what you’ll get for this? Let me out right this minute.’ Thud, thud, thud. Rattling. Banging, bashing. A sharp arrow dart of pain right down the side of her bump, like a lightning bolt. Oh please God no, not this moment. Don’t let it be now, locked in here. Manon winces, clutches at her side with her hand. Tries to massage the pain away. It subsides. A one-off perhaps.