The Trail Killer

Seventeen

And that summed the woman up entirely, Shields couldn't help thinking. Lee was little more than a pawn in her horrid, tiresome game. An excuse to wedge her foot between the gap in the front door, both figuratively and literally. Eight whole years after the divorce - almost a decade of merely being a former mother-in-law - she still couldn't resist poking that long, pointed nose of hers where she had no right to. Still couldn't shake that indignant expression from her face. Still couldn't stop blaming Shields for the screeching, blurry-eyed nosedive that continued to be her son's adult life.

Behind them, Lee had sloped a little disappointedly back towards the chirpy animal personifications of Johnny Morris. His brother's voice could be heard once more asserting that his own grandma was much nicer.

Irene was unperturbed, however.

"They're looking for someone down at the Co-op. You know, shelf stacker, check-out, that sort of thing."

A check-out girl, just as Gooch had said. Was that really going to be her destiny now, Shields wondered?

Oh, Irene was loving this - of that Shields had no doubt. An old-fashioned WPC she might have accepted - someone who helped lost children relocate their parents at the fairground, broke the terrible news to the families of car crash victims. But a detective involved in serious cases, someone tasked with using logic and deduction, asking difficult questions, advising on strategy and manpower deployments - no, no, no! All that had never washed with Irene at all. For her and Gooch's generation, a woman should either be a housewife or a check-out girl, as simple as that. Ambition was an anathema to be washed from a female brain right from birth.

"You're not going to invite me in, then?"

Shields grimaced in apology. "Was just about to put the boys' tea on the table, actually." Like hell she was. Hadn't even bothered looking in the kitchen cupboards yet to see what might still remain from the last long-distant supermarket run.

If she'd hoped it would be sufficient for Irene to utter her goodbyes and sod off back down the front garden path, she'd been hopelessly over-optimistic.

"Fed a load of lies to the Echo, they say. Defending that Paki murderer."

"You shouldn't use that word. In any case, he was from---"

"The nerve of you, putting Lee's future at risk all to defend a dirty lowdown bloody---"

"Not now, eh Irene! Not right bloody now, okay?"

With a sudden slam of the door, she blocked out the noise. The glare, the howl.

If only it was as easy to do the same with reality, she thought.

Just slam the door closed on it.

Draw the blinds. Tippex it out.

*

The grunts which escaped Bryan Dixon's lips as he lumbered the bulging bin bag down the stairs were more through emotional rather than physical exertion. The contents of the bag weren't actually all that heavy; instead, it was his heart which bore an anchor-like weight.

It came as something of a relief when, reaching the hallway, he heard the living room phone let out a sudden squeal. He was grateful to be able to rest the bin bag down onto the carpet, allow its contents - those folded summer dresses, spring and autumn jackets, winter scarves and mittens and woolly hats - to remain a few moments longer in the Dixon marital home.

"Hello?"

It was the familiar voice of Rose the secretary which crackled into his ear.

"Hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr Dixon."