Death Knock

“Are you looking for Ken?”

She’s sitting in the shadows of a front garden; crimson talons clutching a fag.

“Yeah…”

“Well you won’t find him, because he’s dead.”

I look at her, squinting in the afternoon sun. It’s said without malice.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re press?”

Again, neither the suspicion nor the hostility that often comes with it.

I nod. “I need to talk to his wife.”

She looks at me, benign.

“Well you won’t find her here. They moved out months back. It’s a terrible shame what happened to him, such a terrible shame. Five kids she has to look after – or is it six? He was a real hard worker; you wouldn’t meet a nicer family.”

The words are coming out deliberately; simple testaments to a dead father and blessed Manna for a reporter doing a death knock — the home visit that follows a car crash, an industrial accident; a murder.

“Can I ask your name?”

“Karen Smith.”

She says it with pride. Nothing to hide here. Her son has joined her in the front garden, tattooed, quizzical; calm:

“I knew them for years. They moved up to Reculver… I couldn’t say exactly where.”

“Would you be able to show me on a map?”

I fish an old A-Z out of the dusty car.

She stubs the fag out, standing up slowly.

“I’ll take you there. Talk to her; make her proud.”

They jump in a small family car, cigarettes burning and lead me to the widow.