Death of a Murderer Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’d felt when he failed his sergeant’s exam.
    To begin with, Newman talked about a project he was investing in—a luxury resort on a Greek island—but gradually he steered the conversation round to Susie, and the fact that she was going out with a policeman.
    “‘Scruffy Tyler,’ they call him,” Newman told his colleagues.
    The two men laughed softly and nodded. This piece of information didn’t seem to surprise them in the least.
    “It’s ‘Scruff,’” Billy said, “not ‘Scruffy.’”
    “I still don’t get it,” Newman said. “How on earth did you two meet?”
    Billy did his best to ignore the slight. “Susie was working in a garage in Widnes,” he said. “It’s a place I often call in at when I’m—”
    Newman talked right over him. “Of course, I’ve seen her with all sorts,” he said, addressing his business associates again. “I mean, she’s not exactly particular.”
    Newman’s cronies leered at Susie, as if they too might be in with a chance of having her. Susie was staring down into her glass.
    For a few moments, Billy couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard. Then he took hold of his wine-glass, which was still half-full, and pushed it away from him into the middle of the table.
    “You ought to watch your mouth,” he said.
    “Oh dear”—Newman was talking to the two men, but his eyes were on Billy—“I think we could be looking at another case of police brutality.”
    A smirk on his face. On the faces of his colleagues too. One of them took a long, slow mouthful of wine, watching Billy over the rim of his glass.
    Billy reached for Susie’s hand. “Come on. It’s getting late.”
    Outside, he stood on the pavement, trembling. A cold wind, streets all red and grey. Manchester.
    “Sorry about that, Billy,” Susie said.
    He turned to her with a kind of desperation. “How could you just sit there?”
    She smiled at the ground. “That was nothing. You should hear some of the—”
    “No, don’t. Please. I don’t want to know.”
    Later, on the train, he said, “It’s not true, is it?”
    Susie was staring out of the window. “No,” she said. But she had put no effort into her answer, as if she wasn’t sure, or didn’t care.
    “Susie?” He leaned closer.
    When she turned to him, she looked desolate, her skin stretched thin and drained of all its colour. “No, Billy,” she said. “It’s not true.” She held his gaze for a moment longer, and then, finally, some humour crept back. “I’m not exactly a virgin, though, either…”
    The mortuary radiator clanked once, then gurgled. Billy reached out and put a hand on it, but it was no warmer than the last time. He shifted in his chair. After that awkward evening in Manchester, he had refused to have anything to do with Susie’s father. The man was only interested in making what they had seem grubby. If Newman ever rang up to suggest a drink or dinner—though based in the South of France, he was always travelling to England, it seemed, on business—Billy would claim to be working. “But you go,” he would say to Susie. “You go.” When she was offered a job in Suffolk and asked Billy whether he’d consider leaving the north-west, he surprised her by saying yes. He surprised himself too—he had never seen himself living anywhere else—but perhaps, in the back of his mind, he thought a move to the other side of the country would put them out of Newman’s reach. He worried about his mother being on her own—his older brother, Charlie, had moved to America the year before—but she made light of it, telling him that, after all, there were such things as cars and he could always drive up and see her now and then. Once Susie had accepted the offer, Billy requested a transfer to the Suffolk Constabulary—luckily, they had a vacancy for an officer with his experience—and by the spring of 1990 he and Susie were renting a neat modern flat in the centre of Ipswich.
    At first he missed the buzz of