by Peter Hey
Jane couldn’t help thinking that making yourself clear in the first place was a more useful strategy. ‘I’m just glad we got there in the end,’ she replied.
‘And,’ continued Alan, ‘I’ve been through the work you did on my mother’s family. I’m very impressed. The Shaws really were rather important, weren’t they? Unlike the Ostels. Interesting mix. I’d sort of forgotten my original motivation and how fascinating this stuff can be. I stare at Cyn’s image every day and I guess I became fixated – if you know what I mean – on finding her. Anyway, I’m really pleased with all you’ve done. And we still have those DNA results to look forward to.’
‘Yes, with any luck they’ll come through soon. But, as I said before, they could either be really informative or disappointingly opaque, certainly as far as working out who your father was.’
‘My money’s still on the Cuban goatherd,’ said Alan with obvious humour in his voice. ‘Though I did recently find a photograph of Che Guevara with a similar hairline to me, and there was a certain likeness.’
Jane wasn’t sure if Alan was still joking. ‘I’ve only ever seen pictures of him with thick black hair,’ she said. ‘There are some grisly ones of his body when he’d been executed in Bolivia. He still had a full head of hair then.’
‘Ah,’ said Alan. ‘My turn to impart knowledge and information, even if it’s trivial. He needed a disguise to get across South America. He was trying to export Cuba’s revolution and was a marked man. Shaved a bald patch on the top of his head and dyed the rest grey. Apparently, even his old comrade Raúl, Castro’s brother, didn’t recognise him. But maybe if Che had lived beyond his twenties, he too would have had a permanently distinguished high forehead like me.’
‘Are you coming round to thinking Che could be your father, Alan?’
‘No, not really. I’m teasing. Though it might be nice to have a little link to fame, I guess. Being retired, you do sometimes wonder if you’re becoming anonymous.’
The cold bed
He woke early, as he always did. The light of morning was not yet framing the bedroom curtains, but he resisted checking the time. He might have one hour, maybe two, alone with his thoughts. Alone and cold. He had shifted position and felt the chill of the sheets next to him. The bed was so ridiculously large that one body could never hope to keep it warm. He’d bought it to indulge his wife, though he suspected she’d just wanted to sleep as far away from him as possible. His mother had warned against marrying someone so much younger. He should have listened. A man should always listen to his mother.
At sunrise’s first glow, he went outside to the double garage, the incongruous afterthought lumped onto the side of his house. The lack of architectural harmony still irked, despite the familiarity of a lifetime.
He swung open a set of ageing wooden doors whose lower edges were showing the first inroads of decay. Against a background of neatly ordered boxes, tea chests and rusting garden tools was revealed a long, low sculpture in metal, satin-sheened, rippling with power and unrelentingly black. It was a thing of beauty, and it pleased him. When people saw it, they knew he was someone, a man of taste and success. The sort of man a wife, or a mother, would admire and respect, and love, as much as he loved them.
The car unlocked itself as he approached. He climbed into the supplest of leather seats and widened his nostrils to take in their aroma, his eyes focusing on the start button as it pulsed red with the rhythm of a feline heartbeat. The engine fired into a growl that became a purr. He sat and listened and waited for warmth to begin breathing into a cabin panelled with yet more leather and the darkest burr walnut veneer. The ambience was famously that of a gentleman’s club, albeit one laden with buttons and screens and technology. He had often wondered whether a fatherless Midlands estate agent would be welcome in one of those places, whether the posh boys who’d mocked him at school would still be laughing and whispering behind his back. But now the tall, intimidating genealogist woman had found some decidedly blue blood in his past: members of parliament, military officers, knights of the realm, land-owning gentry, possible links to royalty itself. Surely that made him as much a gentleman as the next man? And he’d been acting the part for so long he could play it in his sleep.
The gear selector had emerged from the centre console, and it turned with a tactile, creamy smoothness as he selected drive and released the parking brake. The Jaguar slipped out into the crisp morning. He had not told the car where they were going. He did not need its help. The route was fresh in his memory.
His time was his own and the days were sometimes long. He loved to drive and he loved to sit and watch. He was good at watching. Like all only children, he was accustomed to the solitude of his thoughts. But his patience could be paradoxically short. Yesterday he had kept his distance; today he had determined to get out of his car. There were risks, but he was compelled to take them. His mind was at its most creative in those early, lonely hours. He had constructed a story, an identity, a reason. And he had a salesman’s charm. Perhaps he couldn’t always sustain it, but it would last long enough. The old lady had looked like a soft touch.
She would give him the email address. He knew it. Maybe he’d need to push, just a little, until she did.
Heads-up
The message said Alan’s DNA test results had arrived. Jane signed in to the website with a mixture of excitement and caution. Answers might be about to leap out at her, or they might choose to hide away in a forest of unfamiliar names and ever more distant relationships. Or, no matter how much she hunted, they might not be there at all. At least she had a good understanding of Alan’s maternal family tree. It would help her eliminate people whose shared segments of genetic code came down through his mother’s line. Those who were left were candidates for being on his father’s side. But how many relatives of a Cuban goatherd would have taken an ancestral DNA test? And how would you trace them if they had?
She had just opened the list of matches when her phone rang. She was tempted to let it go to voicemail, until she saw who was calling. A hierarchy of curiosity made her pick up.
‘Hi, Dave. How’s things?’
‘Hi, Janey. It’s, erm, what’s it called...? A courtesy call. Or a heads-up. Whatever it is, it’s off the record. I’m outside having a fag—'
‘Oh, Dave! I hate you smoking.'
‘Not your problem anymore, sweetheart.’
‘I know, but—'
‘Anyway, I’m out of the office, because this is not proper police procedure. It’s just a tip-off to… to someone who knows the ropes and isn’t going to drop me in it. Comprendez?’
‘Maybe I will drop you in it,’ said Jane, channelling her inner petulant teenager. ‘Because you’re smoking and I hate it.’
‘I’ve just put my fag out,’ lied Dave, blatantly. ‘Look, someone’s been beaten up and killed. It’s not my case, but I thought you ought to know.’
‘Why would I need to know? People must get beaten to death all the time on your patch.’
‘Well, nothing’s certain. There’s not much to go on. Just a few whispers here and there.’
‘Dave, spit it out. Are you saying it’s someone I know? In London? God! It’s not Tommy is it?’
‘No, it’s not Tommy. It’s not anyone you know. As far as I’m aware. But… it’s who did it. Or might have done it.’
‘Dave, have a drag on that filthy cancer stick and tell me what this is about.’
There was the sound of a soft kiss followed by a blow, and then Dave’s voice came back on the line. ‘The bloke who was killed was a gangland hard man. Big, nasty piece of work. His own mother probably thought he had it coming to him. It was outside a pub in west London, a dodgy pub on a dodgy estate. The sort of place where no-one sees anything. Particularly when they don’t want to upset the sort of friends – and enemies – this charmer would have.’
‘Go on,’ prompted Jane impatiently.
‘So, the DI assigned to the case isn’t losing sleep over it. His reso
urces are spread too thin with crimes people care about. But one of his sergeants has a snout who lives in the area. Usual toerag who’ll say anything for a twenty-pound note. Shop his best mate for a fifty. He reckons there was a face-off in the bar that went outside. The bloke who was killed had a pal in tow, and they were trying to lean on an oldish guy, old but another B U, who was—'
‘B U?’ cut in Jane with a frown. ‘My job slang’s a bit rusty. What’s a BU when it’s at home?’
‘Sorry, big unit. Actually, this one was more of an F B U. That’s—'
‘Yeh, yeh. I can work that one out, Dave.’
‘So, as I was saying, the B U they were trying to lean on was having a drink with a woman about the same age as him. The snout knows the woman – she lives round the corner – and says the word on the street is that the man she was with was her brother. Some people with long, long memories recognised him.’
Jane’s faculties sharpened. ‘Did he have an eye patch?’ she asked.
‘No-one’s mentioned an eye patch.’
‘Well, then…’
‘Jane, all I’m saying is that your dad’s sister was in the pub that night. She’s admitted it, but just says she was being chatted up by someone she’d didn’t know from Adam. She told him to piss off and has no idea what happened outside.’
‘From that one time I met her, it would take a brave man to chat up my aunt.’
‘That’s kinda what the DI said after he’d interviewed her.’
‘So why are you telling me this, Dave? Hoping I’ll grass on my own family? Should I expect a call from the investigating officer?’
‘No, Janey, of course not. As I said, it’s not my case and I don’t care whether it gets solved or not. And even if it was and I did…’ He left a long pause, as if hoping his sentiments would be communicated more clearly if left unspoken. He resumed in a more factual tone. ‘Border Control say your father did fly into Gatwick a few weeks back. And now he’s going to find it hard to get out of the country again. Look, I don’t know if he‘s been in contact with you, and I don’t want to know. But...’
‘But?’ Jane was struggling to keep the tetchiness out of her voice.
‘But, if he has – and if his involvement hasn’t been made up by an unreliable nark on the wacky baccy – your father’s a violent man and on the run. Now, killing some thug who’s started the fight isn’t the same as hurting your own daughter. I don’t believe for a moment he’d do that. Well, I don’t think I do anyway. But I just wanted you to know. Don’t get involved, Jane. Just be careful. Yeh?’
Jane took a deep breath before answering. ‘Thanks for the call, Dave. I do appreciate the fact that you... called. For what it’s worth, my father hasn’t been in touch. This is all news to me. Given he knows my background in the force, I suspect he’ll steer well clear of me. Like he has all my life.’
‘Okay. I’m sure you’re right. But, if anything happens. If you feel threatened in any way, you ring me. Day or night. You understand?’
‘I’m not your problem anymore, Dave. But thanks anyway. Thanks for the offer.’
The estate
Jane left the Mazda on the far side of the scruffy playing field, across the road from a shop whose graffitied shutters looked like they hadn’t been raised in months. She didn’t want to park outside the house itself as a bright-green sports car would inevitably draw attention from the neighbours. It would still be visible in the distance, and she could at least watch it being vandalised by the local yobbos, even if she couldn’t do much to stop them.
She considered taking the direct route across the grass, but it was largely mud so she walked to the corner and round.
She assumed the bell hadn’t been fixed since her last visit and gave two sharp raps with the knocker on the white UPVC door. After a short delay, it opened a crack, a face became visible and then the door was swung fully back.
‘Not today, thank you. Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it,’ said the solidly built, sixtyish woman with short, harshly dyed chestnut hair that emphasised the lined greyness of her skin.
‘Aunt Stacy, nice to see you too. You don’t want a row on your doorstep. I’m coming in for a chat. Just a friendly, family chat.’
‘I’ve had plenty of rows on this doorstep. And I warned you last time – I’ll happily give you a slap if you push me.’
‘And I warned you, I slap back. Let me in and let’s talk.’
The older woman stood firm. ‘And who would I be talking to? ‘My dear little niece who’s asking after her daddy, or a nosey ex-copper whose husband’s still in the filth?’
‘He’s no longer my husband and he’s shacked up with another woman. Come on, let me in.’
Stacy Jones hesitated and then stood back. Jane walked past her, down the hall and into the cramped sitting room with the bulky, old-fashioned TV set. The picture was on, but the sound was muted. She sat on the scuffed grey-leather sofa and waited until her aunt had lowered herself into the chair opposite. As before, everything stank of cigarettes. Stacy picked up a packet from the side table next to her and lit up. After a first puff, she broke the silence.
‘I wondered if you’d show up. Your old mates sent you, did they? Hoping you’ll soften me up and I’ll get all chatty? Naming names, remembering stuff? Well, I’m sticking to my story. I didn’t know the bloke in the pub, and I didn’t see what happened. End of.’
‘No-one’s sent me.’
‘So why are you here? Now? I told you before. I can’t tell you where your dad is, and you’re better off without the bastard. And if that was true then…’
Stacy left the sentence hanging and Jane raised her eyebrows, inviting her aunt to continue. The older woman glared back sternly.
‘I was told what happened,’ said Jane. ‘But I was very much warned not to get involved. And the Met are run ragged these days. They’ve got more important things to do than go into overdrive over the death of a... whatever he was... someone who’d made his own choices in life, someone who probably got what he deserved. Especially when it sounds like whoever did it could get off on self-defence.’
‘Self-defence?’ Stacy brought a hand up to her mouth as a laugh became a wheezy cough. ‘That arsey detective inspector told me it was some of the worst violence he’d ever seen. Blood everywhere. The bloke’s head had been smashed against the kerb. Over and over. Apparently. His little chum just got away with a busted nose. He was a lucky boy.’
‘I was told there were two of them, but I didn’t think they’d found the other man. How do you know he had a busted nose?’
Stacy took a long drag, then pushed out her lower lip and tilted her head back as she blew smoke up into the air. ‘I just heard, that’s all,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘Are you trying to trick me?’
Jane unconsciously clasped her hands together. ‘I give you my word. I’m not trying to trick anyone. I’m not here to pass information onto the police. I’m not here to solve a crime. I just need to know about… my father. I need to know what happened. It’s important to me.’
Stacy shook her head slowly. ‘Since when has the word of a Jones, our lot anyway, been worth shit?’ She sighed, expelling the last wisps of smoke from her airways. ‘But he didn’t give you his name, did he? Didn’t give you much else either. Okay. Let’s talk hyper... hyper…?’
‘Hypothetically?’
‘That's the word. Let’s say the bloke I was talking to in the pub wasn’t a complete stranger. Let’s say he was pouring his heart out to me, even though he should know by now I’m a cold-blooded old bag who struggles to give a shit. Let’s say he’d been living in Spain for a long time and had reached a stage in life where, I don’t know, he’d got some regrets. He felt he needed to do some things, but he’d ultimately bottled out.’ She brought her cigarette to her lips, but immediately lowered it again. ‘And for some reason, he thought the only person he could talk it through with was his sister. That’s a hypothetic sister, of course. But he’d been recognised
– he’s so big and ugly he’s hard to miss – and some people from his past sent over some prats to remind him of an old disagreement. Ancient history that should have been long forgotten. Only they didn’t send enough prats. Or the ones they did send thought they were dealing with an old has-been who would just roll over and take a polite kicking.’
Stacy finally took another hard drag, and her eyes stared distantly out of the window. Jane followed her gaze but saw just the playing field with a few indistinguishable figures in the distance. Her car was a bright flash of green beyond the duller shades of the patchy grass.
Jane turned her attention back into the room. ‘So what happened exactly?’ she prodded gently.
‘He always had a foul temper. But I think a man, a man like him anyway, reaches a certain age and.... I’ve seen it before. You’ve been the tough guy all your life, throwing your weight around, and then you get old. You look old and you feel old. Younger men, well, they’re getting taller and taller, aren’t they? It’s the diet or something. They look at you and they laugh. “What are you going to do about it, granddad?” He didn’t care about the little one. Well, he was relatively little. He got swatted away like a fly. But the other one… It was your father’s pride. He needed to show he was still the top dog, Billy Big Balls. And maybe there was something else. Maybe he was scared that, if he didn’t put the bloke down for good, he’d get up and young lungs, young muscle, would win out. Your father would be the one with his head caved in. I screamed at him to stop, but since when did he listen to me?’
‘So where is he now? Still in the country?’
Stacy tapped the ash off her cigarette. ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know. He’s still got some friends up north, and I guess he’ll be keeping his head down until it blows over a bit. To be honest, the police are the least of his worries. He’s crossed some evil bastards who didn’t like him in the first place. He’ll try to get abroad somehow or other. He kept moaning about the weather over here, hypothetically moaning that is. And, when he’s gone, you and I will never see him again. And that will be a good thing.’
