Open Writing

Edna Franks lived in the end house. It was propped up by huge beams. The chimney stack swung away from the gable at a dizzy angle and threatened to fall at any minute. The street was unadopted and still cobbled. Patches of dirty grass, struggled through the cobbles. A slimy puddle with a dead cat in it graced the bottom of the terrace on some open land where housing had already gone. The whole street smelled foetid. The inspector and Khan knew it well.

Kathy Burton was the only child of Mrs Frank’s first marriage. It hadn’t lasted long. She’d gone out to work when her husband left her and had not re-married for some years. The kids from her second marriage were younger than Kathy. The eldest, Gary, was twelve, and already putting in regular appearances at the police station. He was a pupil at the school when Ibrahim Khan’s wife, Semina, taught.

“No wonder the poor kid got out of here as soon as she could,” muttered the inspector as they turned off the main road.

They trudged down the street, avoiding the piles of dog-muck and rubbish which fouled the pavement. Backyard lavatories stood open to the elements in the houses which were boarded up. Their pans kicked in and their doors long gone for firewood. Rubbish spilled out of the yards of those still occupied. Rotting couches, abandoned prams, hypermarket trolleys.

A mangy cur followed them barking the length of the street. Others joined it and snapped at their ankles, till Inspector Hartley turned and hoofed one, sending it away yelping. The rest then kept their distance.
It brought Edna Franks to her door. She recognised them and stood glowering. Her hands grimly knit under her apron. She still wore curlers though it was almost mid-day.

There was no need for them to show their I.Ds. As they entered her backyard she yelled, “If it’s about our Gary, he’s not in! An’ I’m saying nowt till I’ve seen my solicitor. I know me rights!”

She’d been a good-looking woman once, but had gone to seed. One of those adolescent beauties who fade by the time they’re twenty. At thirty they look forty. At forty, sixty - sans teeth, sans looks, sans everything except layers and layers of fat. And Edna had plenty of those.

She was huge! She stood in the doorway like a suma wrestler, wheezing through the chain-smoked cig in her mouth. Her hair was a brassy blonde, but she hadn’t made her face up. It looked very unwashed. She stood ready for battle.

Her legs were like tree-trunks, thick and mottled with being too close to the fire. She wore knee socks which had rolled down almost to her down-at-heel slippers. She took her hands from under her apron and crossed her arms over her well blessed bosom to make it quite clear they could not enter.

They heard a door slam behind her. “That’s her son doing a bunk,” muttered Khan as they walked up the yard. Inspector Hartley gave him chance to get clear then told her they’d come not about her son but her daughter, Kathy.

The hostility left her eyes. She unfolded her arms and said,” Is she all right? She’s not in bother, is she? Haven’t heard from her for weeks.”

Neighbours had come to their doors anticipating trouble, hoping to enjoy a blazing row. “You don’t want the whole street to know your business, Mrs Franks, do you?” he said nodding to the audience ranged behind.

“Nay,” she said. “The last thing I want is that bloody lot knowin’ my business. Yer’d best come in.”

They followed her inside. The mean room reeked of damp and rancid fat. She’d a chip-pan permanently on the go in the cellarhead kitchenette. The cooker it sat on was black and hadn’t been cleaned since the day it arrived.

She shuffled to the further end of the tiny room and shooed two cats off a broken down sofa which reeked of cat piss. Something worse was decomposing under it. As the detectives sat down gingerly, a bike resting against the back of the sofa slid down. It fell to the floor its back wheel spinning.

“The number of times I’ve told our Paul to leave that bloody thing outside,” she boomed. She’d a voice like a foghorn. She picked up the bike and propped it against a badly scratched sideboard. Then she dumped herself in a grotty armchair. The detectives had seen better furniture on bonfires.

They had to compete with the television the whole time they were there and the stench from some grey washing drying by the fire. Somewhere in the house a cat mewed incessantly.

“Well,” she said, stroking her shins. Worry had replaced aggression. “What about our Kathy?”

“She’s a friend of Rosie Adams?” began the inspector.

“Aye, They’ve allus been friends. Right from school,” she said, trying to read his face.

“And Rosie said she’s gone to London?”

“As far as I know,” said Edna. “Our Kathy’s never told me owt for years. Not since she left home. I wouldn’t ha’ known she’d gone to London if I hadn’t bumped into Rosie last week.”

There was a pause. The worry on her face increased.

“There’s summat up, isn’t there?”

“There’s summat I want to know about her, Mrs Franks,” replied Hartley. “I want to know if she ever visited Madame Marie. You know, to have her fortune told. Lots of lasses do.”

“Her what advertises in t’paper every week?”

“Aye. Clairvoyant and all that. Reads the stars.”

“She does more than that,” said Mrs Franks, and lowered her voice. “She does stuff I don’t agree wi’.”

“Such as?”

“They say she calls up the dead,” whispered Edna, screwing up her eyes. “I told our Kathy to stop goin’ near her. But she wouldn’t listen. Rosie Adams an’ her went together. Madame Marie had a hold on ‘em. An’ now summat’s happened, eh?”

“I hope not, Mrs Franks,” said Inspector Hartley. “I sincerely hope not. I just wanted the address of her flat.”

She told him. It was one of several bed-sits in a house owned by an Asian. Sgt Khan knew him well. He was a good landlord and had converted a large Edwardian house similar to the one Khan and his wife lived in.

The inspector questioned her further about Madame Marie. She told he she’d been in the fortune-telling business some years. Advertised each week in the local rag. He knew all about that, but this necromancy bit. That was new to him.

“There’s lots go to her to find out what’s happened to their late-lamenteds,” she said. “But what I say is let the bloody dead alone. I certainly wouldn’t want t’ buggers I’ve been wed to raised again! I had enough of ‘em in this life!”

She laughed loudly and Blake laughed with her. She offered them a cup of tea, but they decided to go. They’d been staring into the depths of a black-stained mug in the hearth all the time they’d been talking. Other unwashed mugs stood on the table along with a dirty jam pot and used butter still in its wrapper.

They moved to the door and before they left the inspector thanked her, asking if she’d let him know if she heard anything of her daughter. She said she would. When they were walking back down the yard, they heard her call out, “It’s all right, Paul. Yer can come in. They’ve gone now.” The outside lavatory door opened and Paul came out.