Whodunnit? — an extract

Note on submission:

Below are the opening two sections of a piece entitled Whodunnit? A Play by Tom Butler as well as the closing section. Between the opening and the ending, a murder trial takes place, to which both the protagonist, Tom, and Jo Herman, a social worker, attend. The latter gives a testimony which particularly moves Tom due to its emphasis on understanding and forgiveness. Despite the two never meeting (until the very end), the protagonist develops a strange, psychological relationship with Jo. At the same time, Tom’s mental health declines and Jo’s marriage suffers in the aftermath of the trial which disrupts her job in the local council as well as her own self-esteem. She begins to provide private counselling sessions. Tom, meanwhile, is unemployed but decides to visit friends in Leeds, where he takes too many drugs. He decides to sign up for counselling sessions with Jo; he knows who she is but she does not know who he is. Tom suggests in the penultimate chapter that he has been writing down private conversations Jo has been having, in the hope of finishing a play he has been writing.

1. The Ram of Pride

A chill fell from the clouds. It wound down the Church spire, through the holes in the headstones then joined the footpath running through the graveyard. The trees, guarding the quiet of the dead from the high-street and its staggering, howling patrons, rustled, their branches tightening against the November night. The chill slid through the alley, under the gate, up the steps to the vicarage then through an opened window, to Mary, stretching against the kitchen counter. The route, though hidden, is a natural wind-tunnel. A soiled pot slipped into the sink. The chill circled the kitchen-diner, slipped down the back of Mary’s blouse, and traced the soft, white skin of her back. She shivered and opened her eyes.

A lovely evening, she thought. The wine glasses had been collected and glittered in the lamplight, their shadows casting residual, blood-red stains onto the wallpaper. Chris will already be asleep, poor thing. The thought produced a roll of the eyes and a conclusive, loving tut - the kind usually shared only with ones-self.

Never one to leave a job half-finished, Mary set about washing the remaining crockery. Half-cut tenderstem broccoli and reduced clots of gravy were swept from the plate by deft, practised movements of the hands. Mary had always liked her hands, free from the callouses and arthritis of her mother. Instead, hers were soft but expert, and they would gyrate and flutter as she searched for the correct word to use in conversation. Though she often praised her mother’s work-ethic and dedication to her children, Mary always experienced a secret sickness when she recalled her mother; she had had a cackle which betrayed her filthy sense of humour and occupation. Not long into her time at grammar school, Mary had realised the contradiction in her mother’s activity, learnt to condemn her for her liaisons with gentlemen who were not her father, often abroad with the forces. It was simply not consistent with her Anglicanism. ‘However the Roman Catholics choose to conduct themselves is their choice’, Mary had been known to pronounce as early as adolescence, ‘but a dedication to a protestant way of life requires a great deal of humility and constraint in the face of God’s love.’

No, Mary was proud of herself and what she had built: her husband, Rev. Christopher Peel, her daughter, and the community she loved. Thoughts of her mother were swept in her midnight fortitude as Mary gently but consistently scraped lamb residue from the baking tray. For the last time, she sang a Britten melody in a quiet, inaccurate warble, enjoying the macabre against the innocent marimba of dishwater droplets. The chill listened, waiting.  

Then Abraham bound the youth with belts and straps,

And builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretched forth to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him. Behold,

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not do so,

But slew his son…

2. For Them, You Painted Your Eyes

I am to learn of Mary's murder soon. Tonight I expect, in a newspaper report, at a bus stop. I can’t wait.

For now, join me on my ascent up Telegraph Hill. I have always liked it here so what luck, what a decision, that I am early for the pub. Recently, I have been arriving early to things. Such a predisposition has its drawbacks (time to reflect, mainly) but, equally, its uses. Just this very evening, for instance, I had predicted, by magic, the train schedule, sensing how it’s lawless comings-and-goings would coalesce. It’s clairvoyance - a blessing and a curse.

Up I walk, alone, of course. The smell is Autumn. The air is aggrieved as the cold invades by convection, crashing down harder and denser with every day closer to wretched, wretched January. January kills me, man, it always does.

But no, not now. Up, up I go to see it, up up, almost there, an ascent to that solace of Autumn in the city, yes: the sunset. Pastel pink, the sky is delicious and sweet but firm in its stasis, a strawberry meringue, coloured by the pollutants of petroleum and aerosols. This is London, baby - delicate. London’s an unrecognised old blues singer, the kind that makes the back of your throat hurt. I want to move to the city’s throbbing, traffic hum with my eyes closed.

There’s just me and this great urban nexus. There’s no family, no friends, nothing. I am alone. I am alone so I am free. I am free to freely free myself - I’m free! I’ll dance! Watch the flick of my wrist, my leap from one set of toes to the other. Watch me as I stoop but wait, oh wow, I’m stretching upwards, I’m stretching right, left, I’m stamping as I shake my hair. Free from what, exactly? Everything. Thought. Me. Watch me, Westminster. Watch me Earlsfield and Peckham, Clapham, Manor House and Finsbury Park. Ladbroke Grove, Chelsea, Stratford and Highbury - you are the only audience I want to, can, impress upon.

As the sun clings to a great expanse of terraced houses, revealing the shadows between rose-pink bricks and glass, I see a sepia prequel: my father’s side sitting around an out-of-tune upright in their terrace in the World’s End, singing timeless songs about love and money. I (a free-form, improvisational dancer) fit right in. I’m a Londoner.

‘Alright mate. What you doing?'

I jump. Urh! Oh. It’s just Danny. Danny’s Geordie. Danny don’t shut up. Danny describes himself as ‘content’. He’s a good mate of mine. ’Shit. Sorry. Thought no-one was around.'

'Right.' He snorts. 'Just having a dance on your own.'

'Yeah.' I’m shy. ‘Why are you early? You’re always late.’

He laughs. I wasn’t joking. ’Shall we go down then?'

‘Skehan’s?’

‘You alright?' I need a pint.

‘Same old, same old. Pub’s just down here, yeah?’

‘Best Guinness in South. Barlady’s a babe.’

‘What you been up to then?’ I will tell him when we get to the pub. Skehan’s is an old Irish boozer that serves Thai food. Understand it as an ethnographic study into the ever-more gentrified South London population. Strewn around round tables will be a mix of Millwall fans and young professionals who talk of their jobs in the media. The walls are wood-panelled and decorated with old instruments, leather pews and photographs of ‘70s sports teams. A general, loud chatter will be part-improvised but orbit around three main subjects: football, films and fucking. The white, weathered old soaks will address each topic with characteristic cockney cynicism. Examples -

Man 1:         The missus don’t put out no more

Man 2:         Michael Caine in ‘Zulu’ is proper fucking acting

Man 3:         Southgate is an ugly shopfront

The young, 18-34, a range of different skin-colours, shapes and sizes, will ignore the contemptuous glances of the regulars out of their own silent rage. Their opinions would clash with the elder patrons by their proclivity to abstract their opinions with irony and moralism. One girl with a slogan tee (read: ’Nah. - Rosa Parks, 1955’) will fall off a stool and hiccup happily ‘why doesn’t anyone love me?’ and her friends will laugh. She’s beautiful. She’s annoying. Danny will want to sit with them as he will no doubt know one of them. I will steer him away and find seats next to the pool table. Danny begins.

Danny:              I just finished that job off at the gallery space. Ellie’s show was sick, she’s doing well, mate. The money should see me okay for another couple of months. It’s fucking hard freelancing, let me tell you, don’t do it! Getting pretty regular work now though which is good. New house had mice but killed them all. Painted my room orange.

And so it will continue as we crawl around the pubs we know so well. He will monologue, detailing progress as we wash down seven pints with fourteen cigarettes. Positioning in the world. Alright girl! They’re all the same. Slurp, burp, same again? Yes, please, God, yes. When am I going to learn about Mary? Oh, sorry, what’s that Danny? You’re really happy with your new flat, despite the vermin? That’s great, really great mate, I hope you and your girlfriend who I’ve never met have a lovely time. Oi oi! Fuck off. What’s his problem? That’s cloudy, ask for a top-up. Nah seriously, I actually do, I wish you all the best. I’m just feeling embarrassed.

Danny: So how is everything? Where you living now?

Me:                   Back in the ‘burbs with the rents but planning to move out once I pay off this overdraft and get a deposit together. That’s right, in Sutton. Yeah yeah yeah, heard it all before, ‘it’s not really London.’ But it’s alright, it’s okay. Good for trains. I’ve been in working in ‘spoons for a bit. The alcoholics!, fuck man, how do they do it? Killing themselves. Hah, yeah, they always said it didn’t they - ‘don’t do a degree in the arts!’ But nah, it’s cool, look at you, you’re alright. Just gotta work out something to do. Be a runner at the BBC for a bit. Or something else. I don’t know.

I do know. I do. I foretold it. I end up here, at a bus stop, four times a week. The location changes but the scene stays the same. Horrid chicken shops taunt my IBS with their salty smell of frying skin. A homeless woman sleeps in her blankets and I want to wake her up and give her my money but I know I won’t. Lulled by tottering high-heel clips and yawning cars, the curtains of my eyeballs droop and threaten to fall. Scene. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, the stars will be out and I am forgotten in them.

Tonight, they’re out, rebellious as ever. They are spittle against time, a lump of punk-rockers’ gob sprayed against the inadequacy of chronology. Some are dead, but on they burn, like memories. Take me up, I pray, in a final hurrah for transience, so I can join them. I wanna be a star! I wanna be a star.

There it is. The newspaper. Spotlighted by a beam of streetlamp orange, the newspaper lies motionless, huddled against the chill. I walk over. I pick it up.

Carl Walsh, 63, and his lodger Felix White, 19, have been remanded in custody, accused of the murder of Mary Peel, 52, at her house in Sutton.

The pair were arrested just hours after Mrs. Peel was found dead by her husband, Rev. Christopher Peel, in the early hours of November 23rd.

Beneath the text is a photo of Carl and a photo of Felix. On top of their mugshots, lo-resolution and drained of their true colour, Carl has been given some glasses and Max some devil horns. It is not difficult to imagine them, however. Carl is a round man with a big, red whiskey nose. Beneath the black rings of his eyes, though, are quite elegant cheekbones, telling a story of a handsome youth, the vitality of which had been lost in years of living. Working-class. He has not shaved for a couple of days and, intriguingly for someone under the panic of a police-camera flash, there is a soft look of grief in his eyes. Felix’s eyes are green, almost yellow, I can see them glimmering, but a heavy brow buttresses them with an obstinacy - the dedication of an artist, perhaps. This is not the expected look of a 19-year-old, certainly not one who has yet to realise which haircut suits them, whose cheeks are still plumped with baby fat. The skin of both is snow white. They look cold.

I am cold. I am shivering. My fingertips hurt.

Mrs. Peel was a much valued member of the community and a shrine has been created in the graveyard of her husband’s parish church. A fellow member of the Mothers’ Union, Nicky Grimshaw, said in a statement, ‘We are all in a state of shock that something so terrible could happen to someone who dedicated her life to loving those around her.’

The accused were living together as part of a government scheme known as ‘CALA’ (the Campaign Against Living Alone) and had lived together for the past six months. The social worker assigned to their case, Jo Herman, was taken in for questioning but no charges have been made.

Jo Herman’s picture has been left alone and no mugshot has been used. Instead, her image has been taken from a work lanyard, and shows a woman in her mid-30s in a white blouse, mauve cardigan and a measured smile - forced, yes, but not uncomfortably so. Her skin is light brown, her nose is small but her lips are full and quite wide. Her hair is tied back tightly such that the full shape of her head can be seen: I think of an acorn. The image beams from the newspaper in its colour and its levity but, also, in her beauty. Because she is beautiful, no doubt about that. I look at the clean scoop of her chin, and I think of her husband and her children and how lucky they are. I bet they live in Herne Hill or Islington or Marylebone and have French toast for breakfast on a Sunday – no, Saturday - with blueberries and strawberries and squirty cream.

Herne Hill, Islington, Marylebone. Goodnight Westminster. Goodbye Earlsfield and Peckham, Clapham, Manor House and Finsbury Park. London, sleep tight. I’m going home now, away from you. I’ll be shooting back down south, back to Sutton, where I live, where I am from and where Mary Peel was murdered.

I will attend the trial. I know I must. Justice must be seen, after all, and something needs settling. Or unsettling. Unknowingness is terrifying. But I am, for the first time in a while, willing.

12. Obedient unto death

Jo Herman is sitting, expectant, in the ladychapel of St. Peter and St. Paul’s, the parish church in Mitcham, South London. She has a good relationship with the priest who allows her to conduct her counselling sessions here if the church is free on weekday evenings. Serene and serious, it’s an ideal place to have meetings, with the late-gothic architecture not so ornate so as to become intimidating. Equidistant between her home and that of her next client, the church was an obvious choice. One thing she had never liked, however, was a small statue of the Virgin which seemed to look at her, no matter where she sat in the small, side chapel. There is a look of love in the statue’s eyes, the familiarity of which makes her uncomfortable - it is too real. As such, she is trying to avoid it, looking down at her notes, rereading the information the client had provided her during their consultation phone-call.

The time is 7:09. He’s late, she thinks, and begins to look through her call log to find the correct number, when the doors creak open. I walk in. It has been a dazzlingly sunny day, albeit unusually cold for springtime, and the sun is not to set for another hour or so. The final rays of light are still strong enough to fully illuminate the stained glass, however, and Jo is painted upon with the full spectrum of colour. She looks quite beautiful, she always did, and the way she greets me, with a warm, appropriate smile and the offer of a drink, makes me conscious of what she must see before her. A stranger, hair unbrushed and t-shirt unironed, with ruddy skin and a slightly overweight face. I am nervous; she hears the way I laugh nervously, the way I check my rucksack is still on my back, and tells me there’s nothing to be nervous about. Offering me a seat, she thinks he is nervous because he is scared to address the pain within himself and she is correct. He has been in pain for a long time.

We talk. She asks me questions, about my family and my friends. She asks me about school. She is very interested in my time at school. I tell her that my school days were always quite easy – it was only after that things became a little more difficult to understand. When the indifference of the world started to become apparent. I tell her of a time during my university years, sitting in the kitchen of my house where the rent was too much, shivering in the depths of winter. I was drunk and thinking about a friend who had just lost his father. He was struggling to get by, he was sad. Everyone I know is sad. I was crying then and I am crying now. She says that it’s okay and gives me some quietness to weep within. I feel a lot better.

Looking at her watch, she says, “Our hour is almost up. Is there anything else you would like to talk about?”

I know what I need to do. I say, “Yes, there is actually. It’s embarrassing. But I must confess something to you.”

She says, “Oh. Right. What is it?” She looks about, locks eyes with the Virgin Mary, looks away immediately. She is worried. I reach into my bag.

“It’s this.” In my hand, trembling, is a small pile of paper. She looks to it and reads the title page: ‘Whodunnit? by Tom Butler.’ I think about not giving it to her. I really do. But I must, it’s important. It will help.

I pass the paper to her and it is at this point that I give up knowing what she is thinking, what she is feeling. I force myself to. She begins to read. As she flicks through random pages, her eyes widening at the sight of her own name, in recognition of conversations she had with her husband, with her children, the blood drains from her skin: she looks like glass. Terror shoots down the length of my spine, like drops of melting ice. No, I must let her be. If she freaks out, if she hits me, if she screams, that is what needs to happen. Do what you want, Jo.

It is silent. She looks up at me and we hold each other’s eyes for a moment. Hers are blue. Mine are blue. Brow furrowed, she looks like she is trying to calculate something. I’m sorry. She breaks her expression as she turns to the statuette. They’re exchanging a look I do not understand. Maybe she’s thinking about Anthony. Maybe she’s thinking about Carl and Felix. Finally, she fixes her gaze on me.

“I do not understand this. Really, I do not. To be honest with you, Tom, I feel uncomfortable, as if I do not belong to myself.” Is she angry? “I feel dispossessed, of course I do. Betrayed, almost - I don’t even know who you are.” She stands as she says, “But that is it, isn’t it? I don’t know who you are.”

I look down at my hands, open, ready to be rebuked. She closes her eyes, breathes.

“I’m going to do you a favour,” she says. She is calm. “I’m going to save ourselves. Save ourselves any more pain. I’m going to walk out the door and you are never to see me again. But not because I am scared, or because I have been betrayed, no.”

I don’t know what to say. As she stands, she looks tall, strong, like an oak tree.

“No. I will leave and you will not think of me because I understand that I do not understand. I never will. Some things our simply out of our control. I know that now, for sure. You have shown me. This,” she points to the paper, “doesn’t make sense. So thankyou.” She kneels down and clasps my hands in hers. She smiles and is as beautiful as anything. “I am going back to my husband, now, to my children, to my life. It is mine. That is the kindest thing to do, the most loving. I hope you go back to your life. Look after your parents, look after your friends, as much as you look after yourself.”

She rises. She takes up her belongings. She looks towards the door and, before I close my eyes, I see her for one last time: taking a deep breath. I am relieved.

Jo Herman is now walking out the door and out of my life. I will not follow her. 

I am in a church but, really, it might as well be anywhere. It might as well be any time. When I leave this place, it could be hot outside, it could be freezing. The air could be quiet, or it could be a howling gale. But I bet it’s cold. It is always cold.

But I must not care why. It’s nothing to do with me.