Sugar’s old police uniform hangs bathed in the half-shadow of a corner. It’s the one he wore as a ‘bobby on the beat’ before reaching the rank of detective. The uniform stands to attention on a black coat hanger that holds its shape perfectly, accentuating and sharpening its every line as if waiting for the day Sugar will wear it again. It looks so out of place in all this disarray, like the last soldier left standing on a battlefield. I scowl deeply. What’s his old uniform doing in here? Sugar had long since left the police force before I came into his life. Its presence puzzles me. He’s never explained the circumstances of his resignation. I have always assumed it was down to racism. He must have had a bellyful of the bile and got out.
So why keep this uniform? And in his private sanctuary of all places?
My gaze darts away and lands on a freestanding whiteboard that has pride of place near the disordered workspace. It’s a spider’s web of writing and arrows and lines in different-coloured pens, including words written sideways, others thickly underlined. It borders on manic, the product of a mind that won’t stop thinking and thinking tottering on the cliff edge of losing control. It leaves me feeling on edge too because it doesn’t fit with the controlled mind of the Sugar I know. There’s a large photo in the centre of the whiteboard . . . I peer harder . . . Yes, it’s a snap of another group of young women, two rows of them decked out in 1990s fashion cheerfully posing behind a desk. There’s a filing cabinet and copier machine in the shot too. Is this an office? In heavy marker Sugar has circled the faces of four of the women in the front row. He’s written a word across each of them.
Why would he do that?
Annoyance sets in because the light in here is too dim for me to read. My toes twitch, itch for me to take a step further into the room. However, I resist the urge to do it. Sugar has asked me not to go into his room and I’ve always abided by his rules. Always. Instead, I grip the doorframe and lean in.
The faces of the women in the photo become clearer. And now I see that the women whose faces Sugar has circled are all black. It’s so hard to make out their features. The face of one woman is almost obscured by her palm, blocking the camera from getting a shot of her face. What Sugar has written on each of the women I now see.
It’s their names.
Hope.
Amina.
Sheryl.
Veronica.
I rack my brains trying to think if I’ve heard these names before. No! They mean nothing to me. I wonder if these women have anything to do with the investigation that Sugar was discussing with the mysterious John Dixon at the funeral?
‘If I had proof you’d have no choice but to investigate? That’s right, isn’t it?’ Those were Sugar’s exact words to Dixon.
Is that why I feel a lingering unease in this room? If there’s one smell I know well as a doctor it’s that of death. I sense it in here. Putrid, rotten, the bloated gases of decay. I want to gag.
Breathing hard my gaze fretfully runs over the rest of the photo. The women in the back row, the desk . . . I freeze with shocked disbelief at what I see on the desk in the photo.
Urgently, I go to step inside . . .
A force yanks me violently backwards. My bones jar and reverberate as I’m slammed up against the hallway wall. By instinct, my arms raise defensively. I’m on the verge of lashing out – some of the bigger girls in the children’s care home taught me how to land a blow – when I realise who it is. Ronnie! Her fury makes her strong and threatening. A harsh panting rocks her upper body. In that moment I see what her bowed head at Mummy Cherry’s funeral hid from view; this lady is fierce. The readiness of her fists at her side confirm that she’s learned to fight to the death to survive.
I demand, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
She crowds in, even closer. ‘I think that’s my question.’ Her tone is scratchy, low. ‘What were you doing in there?’
Ronnie stabs an irate finger towards the open doorway. That rubs me up the wrong way. I’m not some alley cat who’s sneaked in and now needs to be shooed on her way.
I bristle, nostrils flaring. ‘Get out of my way.’
Ronnie doesn’t. Neither of us move. The air pumping out of us is noisy, stripping the house of its usual calm. Finally, she squares her shoulders and walks towards Sugar’s room. She closes the door with a care that’s the opposite of her anger. She takes out a key and locks the door, her fingers trembling.
Then she pulls up close to me again, hissing deep and fast, ‘What were you doing in Mister Sugar’s room?’