29 Rutherford Street – October 2002

Sharon, the cockney pest control lady had given me a lift from the council offices, and we parked halfway along Rutherford Street. Considering we were in the heart of Westminster, all was quiet, yellow leaves lay in the road.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you darlin’ it’s pretty grim you know’

‘No, you have helped more than you could know.’ Part of me wanted her to come in but I knew I had to do this, there was no-one else. ‘I must get going’ I told her ‘my train is at 4.’ I glanced at her and rested my hand on her sleeve, ‘thanks.’

I entered the imposing four storey building looking for number 29. I climbed the stairs anxiously to the top where I found Nigel’s door. As I had got closer, I had been able to smell Sharon’s work and now that was hitting me in the throat and added to the dread I had inside. I tentatively put the key in the lock.

Nigel had lived in Westminster since the early 60’s but no family had been here that I knew of, so I was opening the door to the unknown. Nigel was a quiet, enigmatic man, intensively private but always immaculately groomed in Prince of Wales check suits which he wore with a selection of neutral cashmere sweaters. When he visited his mum and we were round for tea, I would get impatient as he took so long in the bathroom. I just wanted to get the battenburg eaten and get home for Doctor Who.

Now there was only me. I opened the door and took a deep breath. Even the chemicals Sharon had used could not hide the smell of Nigel, a sweet but toxic smell I already knew, like rotting meat mixed with pineapples and cheap perfume. The first thing I noticed was he had a worn red velvet door curtain just like his mum had. Over 40 years away from Norfolk but in some ways still there.

I looked round the room and was shocked how small it was. Just a single bed placed exactly in the middle and a small amount of furniture along on wall. No TV, just a technics sound system, a radio and one small brown chair. Crisp white Calvin Klein’s lay casually across the back of the chair, ‘better than mine I thought’. On the other wall a large print of a naked man which confirmed what I thought. I was pleased. I saw the window was open and wondered if Sharon had opened it or if Nigel had weeks before.

The council had removed the mattress with his body, but the bottom section of the divan was stained heavily and was still wet. You could make out the shape of Nigel’s head where he had lain undiscovered during the last two weeks of autumn sunshine.

The only other room was a narrow galley kitchen where fruit flies hung around and I began to see the dead maggots and flies which seemed to be everywhere. A baby belling oven, but no fridge, just like his mum and a tiny bathroom. I felt sad, where was the rest?

As the nausea took hold, I made myself get a grip and I went back to the other room to go through the drawers, just six of them, his life in six drawers.  Two had clothes, not to my taste. The third had paperwork which I put in my bag to sort out at home, a wallet had a fifty-pound note in which I put in my pocket. The fourth drawer had household nick knacks of no use to me. It was the last two drawers which took my time.

Literally hundreds of West End theatre programmes from the sixties up to now. All pristine and with a single ticket inside of where he had sat, always stalls near the front, seemingly alone. Ginger Rogers in ‘Mame’, Angela Lansbury in ‘Gypsy’ and so on. Then letters and photograph albums of Nigel on holiday in places like Syria and Lebanon, some with groups of well-heeled chic looking tourists, some with local men, mostly younger. And letters from the British Museum thanking him for information he had passed onto them. Then in a few slimline diaries, cryptic notes indicating clandestine meetings with ‘Jose’ and ‘Mario’. Then trips to the doctor, then blank pages and nothing.

I knew there would only be three of us at the funeral, but I felt jealous and angry. I wished I had half the life he had lived. A bitter tear fell on my cheek and I grabbed the best of what I could into the bags I had brought, putting Nigel’s life in some cheap sports bags. I couldn’t bear the maggots and flies anymore and decided I had to go.

I drew the curtain back on Nigel’s life and made a decision not to go back again. I put the key through the door.

It was now pouring with rain and I walked quickly to the end of Rutherford Street where a young homeless lad sat in the doorway of a café. He caught my eye and smiled. ‘Any change mate?’

I took the fifty pound note out and gave it to him ‘keep the change’ and I winked and hurried onto the coroner’s office across the road.