Young Writers Society

“Hello?”

“Oh good, you do know how to answer your phone when someone isn’t holding it up to your ear for you!” It was Josh.

“How did you get this number?”

“Honey, I’m a cop. It’s not that hard for me to find out somebody’s number if I want to.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “And why would you want to talk to me? All the fun we had yesterday?”

Josh laughed loudly. “Apparently a night of sleep has done you the world of good. You sound chipper. Anyway, I’m calling to tell you we figured out who the victim is. I’m heading to his family now. Wanna come?”

“Wanna… what?”

“Now there’s the Noah I know and love. Did you need me to repeat the question or did you just not understand it?”

“I understood it,” Noah bristled. “I just don’t understand why. As you pointed out so kindly yesterday, I’m not a cop. This is none of my business. I have nothing to do with this case. I fell on a guy by accident, got all his goop pulled out of my hair and now it’s done. You want me to come with you? What for?”

To his credit, Josh didn’t jump at his sudden appearance but he did look mildly startled. He reached over to open the door. “Took your time.”

Noah didn’t respond to that, but hopped up into the passenger seat and turned to look at him expectantly. He was due an explanation.

Josh looked him up and down slowly. “Do you always have wet hair?” he asked finally, “or is it just a feature of when you’re near me?”

“I’ve just showered,” Noah retorted. “You might like to try it sometime.”

“Are you inviting me to shower with you?”

Noah turned beetroot red. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Josh just laughed. “Put your seatbelt on,” he advised. “I don’t much like driving slow if I don’t have to.”

He did as he was told, and as soon as the buckle had clicked into place Josh had put the car into reverse, shooting backwards out of the space. He turned the car around with practiced ease, shot a quick wink in Noah’s direction (he wished he could get him to stop doing that) and pulled out into the steady flow of Saturday morning traffic.

“An investment banker?” Josh raised his eyebrows. “And you said he had no enemies?”

“No, I told you. He was loved by everyone.”

“Anything out of the ordinary?” Noah asked suddenly. Josh shot him a look of surprise but he didn’t tell him to stop, so Noah ploughed on. “Had he argued with anyone recently? Or stayed out later than usual.”

“No, I don’t think so.” His wife shifted in her seat. Noah noticed. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his as she continued. “We don’t talk a lot about his professional life. Or we didn’t anyway.”

There was a clattering noise from behind them. Noah glanced up. A teenage boy had entered the kitchen. He was the spitting image of Toby, and Noah knew instantly that this must be his son. He had the same dirty blond hair, though Toby’s was considerably neater and he had at least a foot of height on his son. At a guess, he would put the boy at around thirteen or fourteen. He groaned quietly. It had been hard enough telling Mrs Raymond that her husband was dead, it was immeasurably worse telling a teenage boy his father wasn’t coming home.

“Tox screen came back,” said Josh, still grinning stupidly. “There was some alcohol in his body, but nowhere near enough that he would fall off a pier into the sea. It was negative for drugs too, isn’t that great?”

“Uh, sure?”

“You idiot,” laughed Josh, but it wasn’t unkindley. “Sorry, I guess I’ve been doing this too long I just expect everyone to know what’s going on. That means his death is suspicious which means we’re treating it as a suspected homicide and I get to work it for real.”He paused, “hey, you know what? That also means you just found our first official suspect.”

“Oh, I guess I did.” Noah allowed a small smile to bloom on his face. He couldn’t help it. Obnoxious as he was, Josh’s happiness was infectious. “So what now?” he asked.

“Now,” said Josh. “We track down this murder threatening asshole and ask him a few questions about our friend Toby Raymond.”

The sparse morning traffic had turned into a steady thrum of cars whilst they were speaking to Toby’s family, and Noah had spent the past half an hour sitting firmly on his hands to avoid smacking Josh who couldn’t seem to stop tapping on the wheel or snapping his fingers to whatever tune was playing on the radio.

The smell of mid spring wafted in through the open window and the late morning sun was beginning to turn the creamy skin of Josh’s arm to a faint pink as he rested it against the side of the car.

With the fumes of the traffic and the warmth from the sun combined with the fact that Noah had slept badly that night, he felt his eyes getting heavier by the second and struggled to keep them open, shifting about in his seat uncomfortably. He could feel the beginnings of sweat pooling in his lower back and wished they were back in the Raymond’s house with its sprawling gardens and beautiful air conditioning.

“He’s not my friend,” Noah shot back. “And no, I didn’t fake it. I’m just tired from yesterday and I didn’t sleep well so…”

“Oh,” Toby almost looked worried. “Are you feeling better now?”

“A little, I guess.”

“Look,” he said matter of factly. “I know this isn’t your job, and I know you didn’t ask for this but I just want to let you know I really appreciate you sticking this out and finding out who did this to me. You met my family, right? You know how important it will be to them to get closure.”

Noah just nodded. What else was there to say? Toby was right, even if he was proving to appear at inopportune moments. He deserved peace and his family deserved to know what had happened to him that he hadn’t even made it to that conference. He sighed. Toby had been missing for three days and nobody had even known he was gone. “You really don’t remember anything else that might be helpful?”

Toby shrugged. “Memories of my death are pretty fuzzy. I think I must have repressed them. You’re a psychologist, right? Can’t you get me to unlock my memories or something?”

“I’m not a practicing psychologist,” Noah corrected. “I haven’t had to use any of my training in years. No, I can’t help with that.” He paused. “Your son said he heard some guy threatening you on the phone about a week ago.”

Toby looked sheepish. “I haven’t had a good year,” he mumbled. “The markets have been unkind to a lot of people and it’s been difficult. People have lost money. I don’t remember who threatened me but he hasn’t been the only one to do so… did Matthew really hear?”

“Well he was an investor,” said Noah. “I bet a lot of his job involved speaking to people on the phone.”

“It’s the twenty-first century,” contradicted Pearson. “Wouldn’t he have just emailed them?”

“Maybe,” allowed Noah. “But he set up this company on his own. He was old school, he would have wanted to give his clients the more personal approach. I don’t think he would have used email much if given the choice.”

Pearson looked between him and Josh. Josh smirked. “Good call, Noah. Ok, so the large amount of phone calls make sense, any chance in pulling out a suspect from the long list?”

“Well, we did some digging and there’s this one number here that only called our vic once or twice a month for about six months then six weeks ago the calls increased to almost twice a day. Then, last week, our victim stopped answering.” Pearson paused and looked up to check they were all listening intently. Apparently satisfied, he continued. “So Anders looked him up; his name’s Jimmy Barnes, and he’s got a record already.”

“For what?”

“B and E and an aggravated assault. Looks like he tried to break into his ex’s place and her new boyfriend weren’t too happy about it. Charges were dropped eventually though.” Anders handed Josh a photo and Noah leaned over to look at it too. A surly looking man stared back at him out of the picture. There was something almost familiar about him, but Noah couldn’t place him.

“He’s got a place just outside town,” said Pearson. “I’ve got the address for you already. Figured you’d want to get out there and question him as soon as you could. I was gonna offer to come with you but…” he looked Noah up and down and gave a snide sneer. “I’m guessing you’ve already got company.”

Josh ignored him. “Anything on the boat?” he asked.

The men shook their heads. “Wasn’t registered to any of the marinas down that stretch of the beach,” said Pearson. “But we’re still looking.”

Jimmy Barnes' house was not what Noah expected. He guessed it was a product of all the TV shows he couldn't help watching at all hours of the night, but he had always had it in mind that people with a criminal record consisting of things like aggravated assault were not the kind of people to have lawns the perfect shade of green and big shiny estate cars parked on immaculately pebbled drives.

Josh grinned at Noah as they walked up the steps to the front of the house. "You can't say I don't take you to the best places."

"Yeah, because that truckers cafe we stopped at for lunch was a real treat," Noah retorted.

"Hey, at least you didn't have to pay!"

"Neither did you, you just flirted your way into two free meals from that tall guy!"

Josh simply smirked, and rang the doorbell. They heard it chime tunefully inside the house. They waited, Noah taking the chance to look around the front garden.

“No answer,” said Josh, interrupting Noah’s thoughts about how he would decorate this garden if it were his. “Maybe he’s out.”

“Maybe.” Noah strained his ears. If he listened closely enough, he could hear the faint sounds of clanging and clashing. He glanced at Josh. “You hear that?”

Josh nodded. “Sounds like someone’s definitely here. I think perhaps they’re round the back. Come on, let’s go and find out.” He led the way to a half height painted gate. It was padlocked. Josh checked over his shoulder and then hopped it in one leap. Noah raised an eyebrow.

“Isn’t that breaking and entering?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Josh innocently. “Didn’t we just hear sounds of distress. I would argue that we’re going about a noble cause, trying to make sure that Mr Barnes is safe.” He held out a hand to Noah. “You’ve got long legs, this should be easy for you.”

Noah ignored the hand, and stepped over the gate, careful not to catch his jeans on the points of the gate. Josh shrugged and the two of them followed the path around the back of the house to where the clattering noises seemed to be growing louder.

The current noise was being made by Jimmy grunting and groaning as he threw himself against a heavy bookshelf that didn’t appear to be moving anywhere.

“Go and help him,” Josh nudged.

“I- what?”

“Go and help him. He’s more likely to be willing to talk to us if one of us helps him out.”

“You do it then,” Noah retorted.

“In these shoes? Please.”

Noah raised an eyebrow but shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He was fast learning that sometimes with Josh the path of least resistance was the best way forward unless he wanted to be caught in a circular argument for an hour.

“Toby. Raymond,” said Josh loudly. “Your investment guy.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jimmy shrugged out of his jacket, leaving just a white wifebeater underneath. He was a lot larger than Noah had originally realised, with broad shoulders and large muscles protruding from his arms. He was easily a good few inches taller than Noah, and towered over Josh even in those shoes. Noah took an unwitting step back.

Josh’s reaction couldn’t have been more different. Now he had stopped looking at Noah’s sweaty form and seemed unable to peel his eyes away from the form of Jimmy Barnes. His tongue came out and unconsciously, or so Noah assumed, wet his lips.

Noah rolled his eyes. This was their prime suspect in a murder investigation and the lead detective was looking at him like he was some kind of meat. No wonder Josh had been so insistent he come along and be involved in this investigation. He was surprised that anything got done in these cases as Josh just couldn’t seem to keep it in his pants. He cleared his throat. Josh ignored him.

“You remember Toby?” he prompted, when it became clear that Josh was too preoccupied to be asking any of the questions.

Jimmy grunted. “Yeah I remember him. Why? Is he in some kind of trouble? You gonna do him in for screwing someone else over?”

Do you think he did it?” Josh asked as they walked back towards the car.

“Why, because you want to ask him out if he didn’t?”

Josh gave him an offended look. “I can’t believe you would even suggest that, I am nothing but professional.”

“Yeah, totally professional checking out our suspect as we’re trying to work out if he’s a general low life criminal or the murdering kind.”

He smirked at Noah, but didn’t respond, getting back up into the car and cranking on the a/c. Its blast of warm air was an unwelcome addition to Noah’s already sweaty brow and he pulled a face in discontent. But the car was pretty new, and it soon switched to blowing a steady stream of cool air onto the inhabitants of the car, Noah sighing gently in relief. He was aware that he hadn’t answered Josh’s original question yet, but he honestly wasn’t sure what he thought of Jimmy Barnes.

“This is really sweet Noah.” She bit her lip. “But you didn’t have to go to all this trouble. It’s just dinner.”

“It’s dinner with you,” he said defiantly. “That means it’s worth the effort.” He caught sight of her serious expression, and swept a thumb across her cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the promise of food make you so serious before,” he joked.

It worked. She grinned back at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“You don’t?” he got a pan out of the cupboard and began preparing ingredients. “I’m pretty sure your usual reaction to food is jumping up and down for joy.”

“What exactly are you insinuating, Mr Taylor?”

“All I’m saying is you appreciate good food.” He chuckled at her and she stuck out her tongue.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s all you’re saying. Hand me some glasses, will you?”

He did as he was told, and she popped the cork from the wine with practiced ease, pouring a generous serving of the crimson velvet into the round glasses. She handed one to Noah and then hopped up to sit on the counter next to him, swinging her impossibly long legs as she sipped delicately from the ruby drink.

Before Noah could even say ‘come in’, Josh had walked across the threshold and thrown himself dramatically into one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. He spotted the leftover wine at the table almost instantly and, without so much as a word to Noah he jumped up, grabbed the wine and proceeded to drink straight from the bottle.

Noah didn’t really know what to say. For one thing, he was generally unaccustomed to having unexpected visitors, being the quiet antisocial being that he was. For another, the last time he had seen Josh he was being chewed out by his boss come father and what did you really say to someone after that without just making the situation ten times more uncomfortable than it already was.

He let the open door swing shut, and hurried around the table to clear away empty plates. Josh didn’t look ready to talk about whatever had caused him to turn up at their door just yet, and Noah needed something to busy himself with until he was, because he didn’t think watching Josh down the last of his fairly expensive red wine was going to be something he would enjoy.

Noah was painfully aware of the ticking clock above his head as he stacked the dishes in the sink and then poured over soap and hot water to stop the sauce from sticking. Seconds passed. Tick. Tick. Tick. Then minutes. Josh still didn’t look up from the bottle he was nursing and Noah was finding it increasingly difficult not to look at him.

“Woah it’s quiet in here,” said Astra, swanning in with a grin. “Do up my dress, will you Noah?” Then she spotted Josh, and stopped in her tracks, one hand still lifting the hair off the nape of her neck. Noah shrugged at her awkwardly and they both glanced back at Josh, who was gazing down into the now empty bottle of wine despondently, as if he had somehow drunk the thing that would have given him all the answers he needed.