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THIRTY-FOUR
I don’t suppose I’d have remembered the incident if it hadn’t been for the post I stumbled upon during one of my late-night tumbles down the rabbit hole.
The blogger’s name was Emma Lowery. She used a middle initial, hoping perhaps that it would give her gravitas. I’ve noticed American politicians do the same thing. If an English politician did that, they’d be mocked mercilessly. The British invented the class system, but they don’t take kindly to airs and graces.
I’m digressing.
Point is, Emma Lowery presented an argument about Des which I’d come across several times before. The internet is the perfect mouthpiece for conspiracy theories.
Des wasn’t the only person people claimed had set Matty up. There are whole threads devoted to the question of whether the Night Strangler framed him up as payback for him helping police catch him. Never mind that the police have gone on record saying Matty wasn’t consulted about the Night Strangler before or after his arrest.
So, Emma Lowery’s argument about Des was nothing new, but she did raise something no one else had. A motive. The fact Des was obsessed with my mother, that she’d rejected him.
As far as I know, he never asked her out directly. Frankly, I doubt he’d have had the guts. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t reject him. And that he didn’t blame Matty for her lack of interest in him.
My mother was always on my case about not speaking ill of people, but I’m not going to pretend I liked the man just because of what happened to him. Or that I didn’t see what I saw.
I almost bought his act about being worried about Bailey, went so far as to question whether I’d misjudged him. Then one day, coming home from school, I saw him through the window, hitting the poor animal about the head with a rolled-up newspaper, calling him names. All for ‘shiteing’ on his carpet.
Liking dogs doesn’t make you a good person. As Nanna G was forever saying, Hitler liked dogs. But in my experience, no decent person is ever cruel to one. My mother could tell me I was wrong about Des Banister all she liked, but I had him pegged.
Matty didn’t think much of him either, though I suspect that was about his male ego as much as anything else.
‘There’s a cold wind blows every time that fella walks past,’ he said one time.
My mother shook her head, put on her exasperated face.
‘What’s he ever done to you?’
‘I’m simply calling a spade a spade, that’s all.’
‘Well, Des isn’t a spade. He’s a human being.’
‘Is he though?’
The three of us were walking on Parliament Hill, a Sunday afternoon in late August.
‘Need to make the most of the sunshine,’ Matty had said. ‘Summer’ll be over before we know it.’
He was right, both literally and metaphorically.
‘Anyone for a 99?’
He bought us cornets from an ice cream van, led us over to a bench by the running track– opposite it the bushes where Gemma Nicholls’ body had been found. The back of my neck prickled.
‘Can we find somewhere else?’
‘Good idea,’ my mother agreed.
Matty looked at us like we were a couple of clowns.
‘You’re not scared of ghosts, surely?’ he said, sitting himself down; arm stretched along the back of the bench, right ankle crossed over his left knee. ‘Can’t avoid this place for ever, ladies.’
It was typical Matty. He had a way of making you feel you were blowing things out of proportion, that your instincts were skewed.
We bumped into Des Banister on our way home. Bailey was with him, sniffing in the bushes around the track. Des was trying to pull him away, but the animal had picked up a scent, wouldn’t be deterred.
He spotted my mother, smiled brownly.
