Little Fingers! (2 page)

You say that I
must write absolutely everything that I remember, exactly as I
remember it. Ideally, I should write about each memory as if it
were happening now, and view it from all angles - from my own point
of view, but also from those of others.

I should give
my every thought, no matter how embarrassing or libellous or
hurtful it would be to anyone. I must pour out a stream of
consciousness. My mental editor must be locked up in a broom
cupboard, and not allowed out. She will bang on the door and try to
kick it down, like a drug addict undergoing cold turkey. I must
resist. You want everything.

I agreed. I
know that I shall never rest until I have gained access to, and
pieced together, all the clues that I have subconsciously gathered
along the way. And, anyway, I have always wanted to write a story,
so this is a great opportunity. God has given me the script, so now
all I have to do is to discover what it is, and to write it
down.

You see, I
agree with you, Inspector. I too believe that there are things that
I have picked up, stray conversations, observations, intuitions,
that, when moulded together either by you or by me (or by both of
us together) will lead us to the murderer(s). It will be fun to
solve these crimes, won't it, as well as a relief. You are the
professional policeman. Now what we need is the gifted amateur
sleuth to come up with the goods, and I would love it if that were
me.

So I am going
to write, and to write, and to write, until “bang!” the truth will
explode out of me. I am looking forward to it. I have never done
anything like this before. It is an adventure, and I shall emerge
triumphant, and with a book on how I did it. A true life murder
mystery - it could be a best seller. I don't need the money, but I
fancy the fame.

I am not
planning on suffering while I do it. No white walls to stare at in
some dingy northern town like Wigan for me. I have set myself up
near Béziers in southern France. That may have upset you. You will
not be able to sit around for hours on end discussing every nuance
of my mind. There is something of a torturer-victim relationship
going between us. I don't object to it - they say that the victims
become quite dependent on their torturers after a time - but it
gets in the way of my task, to find out who murdered all those
people.

You may think
that I am running away, but what from? I have nothing to hide. I
have nothing to fear. Things are hidden from me, fearful things,
but with time and application I will force them out into my
consciousness. I am nothing if not determined.

Mary is
accompanying me on this sombre, if exciting, voyage of discovery.
Well, sort of. She gets to go and lie on the beach and generally
laze about, while I do all this writing in the garden, listening to
the cigales, smelling the rosemary, and squinting in the
sun.

Mary has
agreed not to read this, which means that there will be one huge
and growing secret between us, but that is her choice. She does not
want to inhibit me, and she feels that her catching up on what I
have written on a daily basis will inevitably release that editor
from the cupboard.

I love Mary.
She is so extraordinary, and compassionate, and gentle, and a warm
presence at all times, first thing in the morning, last thing at
night, when we are relaxed, even when we are stressed, when we are
dressed and when we are naked. Mary, I repeat even though you will
not be reading this for a long time yet, I love you. I love you.
Thank you for everything. You deserve the full thirty minute Oscar
speech all to yourself!

There you are,
Inspector, I am getting into the flow already, and I haven't really
started yet. Mary and I have just been into Béziers to stock up
with all the things I need to liberate my mind. We adore Béziers,
it is still unspoilt, it has beautiful churches including that huge
cathedral on the hill. There is a rather dishevelled broad
promenade in the centre, lined with trees and cafés, and with great
potential. There are streets of smart boutiques. We have bought
wine, we have bought cheese, we have bought bread, we have bought
tomatoes, and we have bought loads of chocolates from that charming
couple at the Jeff de Bruges franchise who have recently abandoned
their office jobs in the north to make a go of it here.

So, with this
idyllic backdrop of lavish gastronomy, the undiscovered version of
Aix-en-Provence, the pitch-perfect love and companionship of my
“wife”, let's kick this baby into action.

I promise you,
Inspector, you are going to be shocked. I have heard a lot. I will
not hold back, not on what I know you were thinking about me, not
on what I was thinking about you, not on any random thoughts I had
at the time, however dirty, or violent, or shameful. You have asked
for it warts and all, so here it is, warts, shit, unbridled passion
and all.

I hope it
leads us to your murderer. I'll re-phrase that. I hope it leads us
to the murderer(s) you are determined to catch. I hope we become
famous. I hope this technique becomes standard police practice for
use with talented and insightful witnesses who happen to want to
write a book (the “Blackburn-Frampton” technique). I hope that it
will continue to be as riotous as it feels now, starting
out.

Hang onto what
little hair you have left, Inspector. Here goes!

Mary is here
to defend me from the murderer when I discover him, although at the
moment she is looking about as threatening and as protective as a
Labrador, curled up reading her Côté Sud homes and décor magazine.
And if the murderer turns out to be her, I'm a gonner! Yikes,
Scooby!

* *
*

I was going to
start the story on a new page, but after two days, I am still
skirting round the clear open space.

Well, that is
not strictly true. I have typed a few lines many times and deleted
them again. So, I am faced with a clean new white sheet in the
centre of my computer each time.

Finally, I
have become impatient with myself. This is ridiculous. Just get on
with it, girl (I always laugh at that). I have to surprise myself
into starting.

It is weird
this nervousness of mine. I am not habitually a nervous person. I
am used to taking massive risks, both with other people's money and
once with my entire way of life. Why should it matter whether I
type a few things that nobody will ever see, unless I choose to let
them? If my thoughts are complete rubbish, I can simply throw them
away as we simply throw away nearly all our thoughts in our lives.
Every day we have a million thoughts that are stupid, banal, mean,
or absurd, and of those million perhaps we remember one, and then
only fleetingly. Only about once in every five years have I had a
thought that embarrasses me regularly, that rears up like a
skeleton out of a graveyard to shame me as I pass. And that is
invariably when I have placed that thought out into the
open.

The last time,
I was in a room talking to some people, and I was commenting on how
seldom people notice the supremely obvious. I turned to Richard and
said “You know, Richard, you could be sitting next to somebody most
of the evening, and you would never notice that they were bald.
Somebody would comment that your neighbour was bald, and you would
say, oh, I never noticed.” There was a slight hush around me, and
Richard looked rather embarrassed, and it was only then that I
realised that the person sitting next to him was indeed bald. He
took it in good part, but I spent the next three weeks intensively
wishing my faux pas back inside my head.

I have decided
to begin with the car crash.

I acknowledge
that the crash is not the start of the story, but it is why I
decided to live in Hanburgh. The real start of the story is my
mother, who was brought up there. However I would never had
bothered to go there if it weren't for the accident.

I was coming
down a mountain in the Alps, south of Grenoble. It was a stunning
mountainscape morning. I had been driving for hours, only stopping
to fill up with petrol, to drink coffee and to buy baguette
sandwiches (gruyère, salami and ham in that open sweetened bread,
as you ask). Actually, I did also sleep for about an hour in the
car as I was feeling exhausted. You may know that feeling too, when
you are so tired at the wheel that you begin to miss moments of
your life, and you think “Was I asleep?” On a motorway there is a
reasonable chance that the rat-a-ta-ta of the studs protecting the
hard shoulder may protect you. On a mountainside you are unlikely
to be so fortunate.

As I was
saying, I was driving this old left hand drive Mercedes 250 over
the mountain. It was 22 years old, and I had not had it checked
over. It had been pitch dark when I woke up, and then the skies
were lightening, and finally it was like the most beautiful dawn I
have ever seen, in late November, the fresh air layered over the
open meadows surrounding me. Heaven beckoned me. The sun came up,
and I put on my sunglasses.

I started to
descend the mountains, breaking carefully on each turn because I
was not used to driving up there. I was wondering whether I could
fill up with petrol shortly. The gauge had gone on the car, and I
feared I might be approaching empty. I had a spare 5 litres of
petrol in the boot, but a Mercedes 250 is a big car and chokes
through the fuel, especially with an out-of-condition
engine.

Cars
occasionally crossed me from the other direction, their occupants
feeling their way around the bends as much as I was. We were none
of us going fast.

Then, round
one bend, there were no more brakes. There was no warning. I pushed
my foot down on the brake peddle and it went flat to the floor. No
pressure; no resistance.

This is a
problem in any car, but an especial problem in a Mercedes 250 as
there is no handbrake as such, only a fourth pedal that ratchets on
the parking brake. The trouble is that this is one of the few makes
of car to be fitted with such a system, so applying it in an
emergency is not second nature. I eventually remembered it when I
found myself in mid air sailing over the bend and down about 200
feet into a village below, when of course it is no longer of any
great benefit.

It was at that
moment that I experienced peace. Gliding through the air, silence,
calm, the sun bouncing off the bonnet, the village clear below me,
beautiful, chalets with their long swept roofs, a spired church
with a cross. It did not feel that there was a fearsome distance
between the car I was sitting in and the village. I saw everything
arching very slowly. I let go of the steering wheel. In mid air it
is of no more use than the handbrake. I looked around. I was
probably going to die. Maybe I would live. I did not anticipate
being hurt, perhaps being a quadriplegic for the rest of my life. I
just thought that there was a straight choice - and not my choice -
between living and dying.

I was in a
coma for three months after that. Sometimes such decisions take
time.

* *
*

Chapter
2

After the
accident, and back on the streets, so to speak, everything was
shocking. I was numbed. I could not stand up without feeling faint.
I was continuously anxious and afraid.

In the
hospital, I had been protected. I had been given six weeks of
psychiatric help and psychological coaching by leading experts in
their field (after all, I was something of an experiment). I felt
really confident about returning to the world,
impatient.

Then, released
out into that world, all of my expectations were turned upside
down. It was like viewing a hotel from the kitchens and backstairs
when you are used to being a guest. My automatic reactions were of
no value. Worse, they were dangerous. They would lead me into
exactly the wrong direction. I was repeatedly battered over the
head with the difference from my previous life. I was running down
a red carpet that someone was pulling out from under me, and I was
barely keeping my balance.

During the
first few weeks, I would discover people staring at me.

However,
within three months, I had acclimatised.

I went back to
work in the City. That could have taken some explaining. I imagined
trying to explain it, and I found that I couldn't. I foresaw the
complete lack of comprehension, and to be honest avoidance, in the
eyes of the people I would try to tell that the old me had died,
and that the new me had come back all the hungrier after my
near-death experience, and I knew that any explanation would just
take up too many sentences for anyone to listen to, and demand too
much attention and courage, and that if they did listen and react,
it would be for all the wrong reasons. I would be labelled a freak,
never to work again. So, after fifteen seconds of rehearsal, I
stopped and resolved not to restart.

I let Mark
Findlay in on the secret, and he gave me a second chance. He also
surreptitiously cleared up on the old me.

I did well.
Exceptionally well. Better than before in fact, so Mark did not
lose out. Far from it, he made a killing. And he had a secret. Mark
loves secrets.

The strangest
experiences I had during those first few months took place in City
bars. They were recurring nightmares. This is a scene (only the
name of the man changes)………..