TWENTY-ONE

September 1971

The days and weeks after Dodo's murder were the most painful of my life. I caught a train to Brighton and then wandered along the coastline for hours, walking through the night before finally stumbling into a tiny seaside bed and breakfast. The only available room was a small, maudlin chamber of mothballs and mould, with a narrow single bed, a wooden chair that had seen better days, and a bedside lamp. There was hardly enough space to squeeze in, but I took the room anyway. I was exhausted. I needed to sleep.

Thrusting a twenty pound note into the ageing proprietor's grubby hands, and writing my name in the register as Simon Gartside, I asked to be left alone until I came out again of my own accord. After locking my door and pushing the chair beneath the handle to bar all intruders, I collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

Twice during my slumber I was woken by a hammering at the door but simply rolled over and went back to sleep. Finally, after seemed like a lifetime in that cramped, fetid room, I emerged blinking into the hallway to find the owner standing outside looking anxious.

'Oh, Mr Gartside, you had me so worried. I didn't know whether to call the police or the undertaker. You seemed to be dead to the world in there!' she fussed.

Her words reminded me of the difficult task that still lay ahead. Pulling on a jacket I stumbled outside in search of a public call box. After walking for nearly a mile along the coastline I found a telephone that had not been vandalised. A call to Directory Enquiries secured the number of a local firm of funeral directors. We quickly arranged terms for Dodo to be collected from the police morgue in London and brought to south for a funeral. 'Will there be any relatives attending?' the undertaker asked.

'No, just myself,' I said, sadly. Dodo had once told me she had no living relatives, and two years living a transient existence on the streets, in hostels or psychiatric hospitals had left her with few, if any, friends. It did not seem right that such a lovely, happy person should be murdered and then buried forever with no one to mourn her, except me.

The funeral took place two days later at a small church on a hillside overlooking the sea. Dodo was buried in a grave atop the hill, with magnificent views out over the sea. Once the pall-bearers had left, I remained alone to say my own farewell. Afterwards I sat on a wooden bench looking out beyond the coast.

'It's a beautiful spot, isn't it?'

I turned to see a man walking towards me, carrying a single white rose in his hand. 'Yes,' I agreed hesitantly. The man was short and slightly dishevelled, with a sadness about his face that matched my own mood.

'Do you I mind if I sit here?' he asked. I just shrugged, so he sat down beside me on the bench. Together we watched the ferries and tankers sail by, a gentle autumn breeze shifting white clouds lazily across the sky. 'Do you have a friend here?' the small man inquired.

'Yes. I loved her very much.'

'It's always sad to lose someone you love. I seem to have lost so many of my loved ones. Yet, I like to think of death as not being an ending, but the beginning. The start of a new adventure. Who knows what lies beyond our own lifetimes?'

'I suppose you're right,' I mumbled, a single tear rolling down my right cheek. 'I'm sorry, I've got to go now.' I got up and began walking away, not quite holding back my tears. As I reached the cemetery gate I looked back, but the small man had disappeared from view. I was not sure, but I thought I could see a single white rose lying by Dodo's grave. Then again, it could have just been the sun in my eyes.

I turned away and walked on. Dodo was gone and nothing could bring her back. Worst of all, I knew her death was my fault and there was nothing I could do about it.

* * *

The next few weeks I spent wallowing in self pity and alcohol. Every day I would spend in the corner of a tavern, drinking myself insensible to forget what had happened. I blamed myself for Dodo's murder - believed I might as well have pulled the trigger myself. I was trapped in a destructive spiral.

Outside, the whole world seemed to be going through the same frenzy of self-destruction, lurching ever closer to a nuclear holocaust. I watched the evening news, hardly registering the growing international crisis because of my own problems. The escalating conflict between the Soviet Union and China was at breaking point, with troops massing on the border between the two superpowers. With fighting already breaking out in South America, pundits said a world war could start out at any time. Even this could not get my attention. But, finally, the world crisis snapped me back to reality, thanks to an old and familiar face.

It was an early evening bulletin on BBC3, and Alex MacIntosh was explaining about efforts to set up a new peace conference by Sir Reginald Styles. The dapper presenter was profiling Styles, who had a long and distinguished career in the diplomatic service and at the United Nations. Now Sir Reginald was using his twenty years of Foreign Office expertise to persuade the Chinese leaders to attend the conference.