by Adam Millard
“I’m okay,” Tom said, wiping his hand on the seat of his jeans. “What I was going to say” —before I almost melted my fucking knuckles, he thought but didn’t say— “is that you’re a lifesaver. Thank you for the information, and for teaching me how to use this thing.” He motioned to the antiquated machine in front of them. “And would you do me a big favour?”
“If I can.”
“If Sergeant Wood—Trevor—does pay you a visit today, I’d really appreciate if you didn’t mention me. I want to surprise him, if I can.”
“My lips are sealed.” And Tom knew they would be; Margaret was a woman of God, it seemed, true to her word as well as her religion.
“Thank you.”
Three minutes later, Tom was heading for The Walnut Tree. It was early—far too early for alcohol, not that he felt like it anyway—but The Walnut Tree, like most places these days, opened early for breakfast.
Tom was desperate for a coffee.
One with sugar.
It was going to be a long day.
ELEVEN
October 25th, 2016
Redbridge, London
By the time Rebecca pulled up next to the kerb, Danielle was nervous as hell, for she had no idea what she was walking in on, what state Tom might be in. He’d sounded sober enough on the phone earlier, but that didn’t mean he would be now. A couple of hours had passed since their conversation—if you could call it that—and Danielle knew Tom had access to a surfeit of spirits.
As she and Rebecca made their way through the gate and up the short path toward the house, Danielle prayed, not for the first time that morning, that Tom hadn’t done anything stupid, that he was simply feeling remorseful and it had drove him to call her so early on a Wednesday morning.
“Won’t he be at work?” Rebecca said just before they arrived at the front door.
“I don’t think so,” replied Danielle. “Tom never needs an excuse for time off. If he went to see the psychiatrist yesterday, like he said he did, then I should imagine he’s taken the rest of the week as holiday, just to recover.”
Rebecca sighed. “How the other half live,” she said, sardonically.
Danielle thought about knocking, but then realised this was still her house, too. All her stuff was in there, including her mixed-up husband; there was no way she was going to knock on her own front door.
Still, as she pushed the key into the lock, turned it and eased the door open, she felt like a trespasser.
“Do you want me to go first?”
It was a strange thing for Rebecca to say, but Danielle knew immediately why she had said it. Do you want me to go first just in case? In case Tom’s lying in a pool of his own blood? “Don’t be silly,” Danielle said as she ushered her sister inside and closed the door behind them. Then she began to call out. “Tom? Tom? It’s just me. Is everything okay?”
No answer.
Danielle’s heart began to race.
Rebecca, seemingly bored by the whole thing, paced quickly down the hall and into the living-room. “Tom?” she said. “It’s Rebecca, your favourite sister-in-law.” She was, in fact, his only sister-in-law, and by far his least favourite.
Danielle caught up to Rebecca and they stood there in the living-room, staring around at the furniture as if trying to figure out if any of it was missing.
After a few seconds—seconds which seemed to go on forever, Danielle thought—Rebecca said, “He’s not here, but it smells like he was not too long ago.”
There was a stale smoke smell lingering in the air, and the ashtray on the coffee table was filled to overflowing. Danielle grimaced at the sight of it, for Tom knew how much she loathed him smoking in the house. He would never even consider it if she was there.
But you’re not, Danielle reminded herself. Tom had every right to smoke in his own house when she was staying with her sister for an unstipulated amount of time. So long as the mustiness was gone by the time she returned.
Danielle quickly realised that Tom was not home; not downstairs or up. She should have realised it the moment her key slipped effortlessly into the keyhole. If Tom was home, his own key would have been in the door, and her key would have met resistance.
“Where could he have gone to?” No longer concerned with the possibility that Tom was swinging from the rafters in their marital home, Danielle was now worried that he was sitting on the edge of a bridge somewhere, a few inches from the edge while he contemplated doing it.
“Could be anywhere,” Rebecca said. “Should we call his work? He might have gone in, sis…”
Danielle considered Rebecca’s words. “He might,” she ceded, reaching for her phone. “I just didn’t think he’d be up to it, after…” She trailed off as the call went through; waiting for a reply, she didn’t know what she would do if he wasn’t there.
“Michael & Michael,” a voice Danielle recognised as belonging to Bob Wilcott cheerfully announced. Bob was Tom’s boss; typical Estate Agent manager, all confidence and bluster. Danielle had met him once or twice on Tom’s work’s annual Christmas dinner, and to say she didn’t like him very much was an understatement.
“Hey, Bob! It’s Danielle. Tom’s wife—”
“Don’t tell me,” Bob interrupted. “Tom had a little too much to drink last night and he’s not going to be in today. He’s late as it is, and he knows we’ve got two viewings of the McKenzie place this afternoon.”
Danielle closed her eyes. Tom hadn’t turned up for work.
And he wasn’t at home.
Then where the hell was he?
“Actually,” Danielle said, “I was ringing to let you know that Tom’s not well. He’s not well at all today. He was up all night being sick. It might just be a twenty-four-hour thing, but he wanted me to tell you he’s sorry about not being able to make the McKenzie viewings.”
“Too sick to call and explain himself, is he?” Bob said. “I’ll have to cancel those two viewings now. Did he think about that? Did he think about the commission he was about to lose on that place? I’ll bet he did. Now I’m going to have to give it to someone else, and do me a favour, Danielle, since you’re his messenger.”
She was growing angrier by the second. How dare this prick talk to her like something he just trod in; how dare he put Tom down when Tom was having a hard time of everything at the moment. How fucking dare he!
“Tell him if he doesn’t turn up for work tomorrow, he can consider himself fired, okay?”
Danielle was about to argue Tom’s case when there was a click, followed by the monotonous drone of the dial-tone.
The sonofabitch had hung up on her.
“Sounds like a real nice guy,” Rebecca said. She must have heard the whole thing, which didn’t surprise Danielle as Bob Wilcott only had two volume settings: loud and louder.
“He didn’t show for work,” Danielle told her sister, though her sister already knew that, of course. “Where the fuck is he, Bec?”
“I think we need to calm down a minute here, okay?” Rebecca said. “Despite being a selfish asshole most of the time, Tom’s a sensible man. Maybe he decided to go see that head doctor of yours, what’s his name?”
“Kurian.”
“Yeah. If Tom’s feeling like shit at the moment, wouldn’t it make sense that he booked himself another session with Kurian Freud?” She smiled, seemingly pleased with herself for that one.
Danielle slowly nodded. Maybe Rebecca was right. Perhaps Tom had woken feeling a little crazy, or what if he’d had another one of those nightmares? If Tom had spent the entirety of last night being chased by imaginary ice cream trucks, wasn’t there a chance he’d decided to take the bull by the horns and called up Kurian to make an urgent appointment?
Swiping the screen of the phone in her hand, Danielle navigated to Tom’s profile and hit CALL. It rang, and rang, and eventually the answer machine kicked in: “Hey, this is Tom Craven. Leave a message, or don’t, and I’ll get back to you, or won’t.” It was a recording Tom had made yea
rs ago, when he’d been happy, when they had been happy. His voice had changed in the meantime; now it was tinged with melancholy and despair and, more often than not, a little fear.
Danielle waited for the beep before speaking. “Hey, Tom. Please call me as soon as you get this message, okay? Don’t do anything stupid. I love you.” She hung up.
“Heart-warming,” Rebecca said, sarcastically.
“Come on,” Danielle said, moving toward the hallway.
They left the house, and as Rebecca drove away, Danielle couldn’t help looking back, just in case Tom was watching from one of the upstairs windows, waiting for them to leave before getting on to the good cutting.
TWELVE
October 25th, 2016
Redbridge, London
Tom couldn’t help himself. He made it to three coffees before deciding he needed something a little stronger. After ordering a single malt from the bar, he wandered across to an empty table and sat down.
The Walnut Tree was teeming with old folk and the unemployed. It wasn’t so much as a ‘happy hour’ more of a ‘resigned despondency hour’. The atmosphere was steeped with misery as old men worked their way silently through the Times crossword, as much younger men wearing tracksuits and trainers plumbed what little money they had into one-armed-bandits. Occasionally the jackpot would drop, but instead of walking away, satisfied they had beaten the machine, in it would go again, until nothing remained. Tom had never understood the fascination with those damned machines. The games were often tedious—line up three fucking lemons, line up three 7’s, three cherries gets you your money back—and the chances of winning were slim. Even slimmer if you didn’t know what you were doing. As someone who fell into that category, Tom steered well clear.
Now the quiz machines he could really get behind. Those general knowledge trivia machines had become ubiquitous over the past few years, and Tom had been known to dabble when the mood struck him and he was feeling particularly clever. At least there was an element of skill involved with those games. Pop Trivia, TV & Film, History, all things Tom knew a little bit of something about. He seldom walked away without at least breaking even; many times he had even made it all the way to the jackpot questions, such was his general knowledge prowess.
The Walnut Tree didn’t have one of those machines, for that would mean getting rid of one of the money-stealers, the one-armed-bandits which stripped already destitute folk of what little they had left and sent them home to their wives or girlfriends without so much as a note explaining why the kids didn’t have any school dinner money next week.
Tom finished his drink and, leaving his jacket on his chair so that he kept the table, went to the bar to order another.
Upon returning, he set his drink down at the table and made his way outside, to where the filthy, the rotten, the cancer-ridden—or so the government would have you believe—crowded around a single ashtray underneath what looked like an old bus shelter. Mutterings of ‘Alright, mate?’ and ‘Shit weather, innit?’ were exchanged, and then Tom was smoking along with the rest of them, feeding his disgusting habit and trying not to make eye-contact with anyone in case it incited an unwanted conversation.
Some of the men were happy for such interaction. Tom listened as the smokers discussed the state of the country, how the Tories were only out to help the rich and to hell with the rest of the populace, how sexy Holly Willoughby was (especially on that programme with that unfunny northern muppet), and how, no matter which way you looked at it, the Russians were a terrible race of people. It was standard pub banter, not to be taken seriously. Even the vitriolic slights against the Russians were accompanied by jokes about vodka and President Putin.
Finishing his cigarette and managing to get through the whole thing without becoming party to the misogynistic and xenophobic dialogue, Tom went back inside to where his whiskey sat waiting.
Just then, as he settled back into the cushioned seat at his table, his phone began to ring. It was Danielle.
Part of him wanted to answer it, to tell her he was okay, just had a few things to take care of, but he knew she wouldn’t understand. He let it ring out, and a second later the phone beeped to announce a new voicemail message in his inbox.
He listened to it, sighed, and cancelled the call.
So, she was worried about him, after all. And here he was thinking he was all on his own, that his wife had left him for good and was probably already on the lookout for a decent replacement, one who would happily give her the child she so desperately desired.
Even though the message was short, Tom felt better for having received it.
He would call her later tonight, let her know everything was okay and that he was sorry he missed her call. His phone was dead, or something like that.
The fruit-machine to Tom’s right started beeping and spitting coins into the bucket. The player—a middle-aged man with a ridiculous comb-over and too-short trousers—punched the air with joy. Had he just been given the funds to pay this week’s rent? Had the machine fortuitously just prevented him from getting evicted?
Obviously not, for the man began feeding the coins back in, as Tom knew he would.
Checking his watch, Tom turned his attention to the double-doors across the pub, beyond which more smokers gathered to shoot the shit and put down whichever race or religion was today’s flavour of the month.
If Margaret the librarian was right, Trevor Wood’s arrival at The Walnut Tree was imminent. Tom began to wonder if he would even recognise the man who had once sat in front of him at Marcus Berry’s house with a look of bemusement etched across his face. Wood would be pushing seventy now, for it had been almost twenty-eight years to the day that Ryan Fielding disappeared, since the Ice Cream Man—
took him
—tried to run them all down as they knocked doors for sweeties. Things about the man would be different, not least the fact he was no longer a policeman. Thirty years could change a man. Wood’s hair would be silver by now, if indeed he had any left, and the man would undoubtedly be shorter. It was a common fact that most men lose an inch by the time they reach their seventies. Then, of course, there is the height lost through stooping over, through the myriad afflictions more commonly known as ‘bad back syndrome’ that people of a certain age are stricken with.
Shit, he might be five-foot-nothing by now, Tom thought. Coupled with the grey or no hair, the thinning lips and inevitable jowls, and Tom began to consider his chances of recognising the ex-copper as less than good.
His glass empty, Tom quickly fetched a drink from the bar, and it was as he returned to his table that the double-doors swung open and…
It was him. It was Trevor Wood—formerly Sergeant Wood— but he was shorter even than Tom had anticipated, for he was seated upon a mobility scooter. At the front was a white basket, and within the basket were a stack of books. Wood had been to the library, just like Margaret said he would, and now he was here at The Walnut Tree looking not much different than he had back in ’88. If he had walked in, instead of steering that electric contraption clumsily through the doors, Tom would have guessed the man had figured out the secrets of immortality or had a map leading all the way to the Fountain of Youth.
Shielding his face from Wood, Tom watched as the former copper traversed the tables and chairs peppered around the pub floor, apologising every now and then to those seated.
Nothing had prepared Tom for this. Why hadn’t Margaret warned him? Why hadn’t she told him what to expect?
Why the fuck was Trevor Wood riding around on a Geri-Jeep?
At the bar—when he finally made it—Wood didn’t even have to order. A drink just suddenly materialised in front of him, as if by magic. Tom watched as Wood fished around in his jacket pocket before replacing the full pint-glass with a stack of coins.
The table across from Tom had recently been vacated, though the staff of The Walnut Tree were apparently in no rush to clear away the empty glasses, the peanut packets, the free newspaper open to it
s Sudoku page. Still, it was the only free table, and Tom watched as Wood pointed his scooter in its general direction, not stopping even as people said hello as he drove past the tables they were seated at. It seemed, to Tom, that Wood knew almost everyone in the pub. Didn’t necessarily like any of them, judging by his indifferent countenance and the fact he blatantly ignored most of them, but knew them all the same.
By the time Wood arrived at the vacant table, much of his ale’s froth was in his lap, and he cursed as he wiped it away. Tom felt bad for the guy; something terrible had happened to him in the years since that fateful Halloween night in ’88, something which had resulted in his cruel disability, and it wasn’t just age.
Or it might be, Tom thought, watching Wood surreptitiously and sipping at his drink. That Wood didn’t look a day over fifty-five made it improbable—though not impossible—that Wood had simply succumbed to senescence more tragically than most.
Wood glanced his way, but there was nothing in it; no shred of recognition, no hint that the man sitting at the table across from him was anything but a stranger; just another jobless bum passing the time of day with cheap alcohol and scarcely edible food.
Tom was tempted to get up and leave, just put the whole thing down as a bad idea and go on with his life, but most importantly let Trevor Wood get on with his. Lord knows he looked like he needed a blast from the past like he needed a bout of septicaemia.
But Tom hadn’t spent the better part of the morning waiting for Wood to show only to get up and leave.
This was important.
I’m coming back…
This was inevitable.
Pop goes the weasel.
Tom slowly stood, picked up his jacket and drink, and walked toward Wood’s table, upon which the old man was now rearranging beermats as if it was the most important task of his day. It might very well have been. It might be the only important thing he does today, Tom thought.
In the next second, Wood had placed his drink down on one of the perfectly placed beermats and was about to start reading from one of his library books.
