by Val McDermid
‘So you think this manuscript is your fantasy poem?’
‘I don’t know. But it might be.’
‘Interesting.’ Matthew accepted a mug of tea from his father. ‘And where does Dorcas come in?’
‘Dorcas brought the manuscript to John, who didn’t want it in his house, not after the grief Isabella had brought him. So he told her to dispose of it. And that’s the last we ever hear of it.’
Matthew’s eyebrows rose. ‘So she either used it for kindling or hung on to it, is that what you’re saying?’
Jane nodded. ‘If it survived, it’s been a well-kept family secret. Always supposing they know what it is they’ve got.’
‘Anybody mind if I turn on the TV for the news?’ Allan said, hand poised over the remote control for the portable that sat on the kitchen worktop.
‘No, go ahead,’ Jane said absently, her mind still on her work. ‘I don’t honestly have high hopes, but I can’t just leave it like this. I have to try and find out what happened to Dorcas.’
Matthew began to say something but his mother spoke over him. ‘Of course you do. Will you go back to Carlisle next week?’
‘No point, I’ve looked through all the relevant material. My only hope now is that Dan can find something at Family Records.’
The news came on in the background, the volume loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to disrupt conversation. ‘That’s where you live,’ Allan exclaimed, reaching for the volume button on the remote. ‘Marshpool Farm Estate.’
All eyes swung round to the TV set, where the newsreader was giving the camera her best serious stare. ‘…two nights ago. Police are anxious to trace the whereabouts of a thirteen-year-old girl who had been living with her aunt in the flat where the murder took place.’ The screen changed and a school photograph filled the screen. Jane gasped. ‘Oh my God,’ she said.
The newsreader continued: ‘Tenille Cole has not been seen since fire ripped through the sixth-floor flat where the murdered man, Geno Marley, was found.’ The screen changed to the talking head of a police detective framed against the familiar grey concrete of the Marshpool. ‘We are very anxious to trace Tenille,’ he said. ‘She has not been seen since the shooting and the fire and we are extremely concerned for her welfare. We would urge her or anyone who knows where she is to come forward.’
Back to the newsreader. ‘The government has announced new measures to deal with…’ Allan muted the sound and turned to Jane. Her face was white and she clutched Gabriel so tightly that he had begun to whimper.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Matthew said, standing up and reaching for his son. ‘You’re scaring him.’
Jane handed Gabriel over without a word, her eyes wide and her teeth biting her lower lip. Judy took one look at her and hurried to her side, putting her arms around her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘That’s London for you,’ Matthew said. ‘If it’s not suicide bombers, it’s murderers. You’re not safe even in your own home.’
Allan shook his head. ‘Thank God you were up here, Jane.’
Jane let her mother hug her. ‘I knew it was bad, where you live,’ her mother said, her voice heavy with self-reproach. ‘We should never have let you take that flat. We’ll have to see what we can do about getting you somewhere else to live.’
Jane disengaged herself, patting her mother on the shoulder. ‘It’s not like that, Mum. Someone like me, I’m not at risk. This kind of thing, it’s contained. It’s people dealing with their own. Their lives, their world–it doesn’t touch mine.’
‘So why are you acting like you’ve just seen a ghost?’ Matthew asked, for once not unkindly. ‘What are you not telling us, Jane?’
She visibly pulled herself together. ‘I know Tenille, that’s all.’
‘That black girl in the photo? You know her?’ Her father sounded bewildered, as if an alien world had reached out and touched his own. ‘How do you know someone like that?’
‘You mean because she’s black or because she’s a teenager?’ Jane asked, showing a rare irritation with her father.
‘Because she’s mixed up with a murder, your father means,’ Judy the peacemaker said. ‘And it’s a good question. How do you know a lass who’s wanted by the police in connection with a murder?’
‘She’s not wanted by the police like you make it sound. They’re concerned about her,’ Jane said defensively.
‘Which is what they always say when they’ve got a suspect on the run,’ Matthew pointed out. ‘So how do you know her?’
‘She lives in the same block as me. We got talking one day and I discovered that she loves poetry. She lives with her aunt who doesn’t give a toss about her and she doesn’t get much encouragement at school so she comes round to my flat to borrow books and talk about poetry.’ Jane shook her head. ‘I can’t believe this.’
‘You’re saying she’s the one black kid on your sink estate who’s managed to keep her hands clean?’ Matthew sounded incredulous.
‘Oh please, spare me the parochial prejudice,’ Jane said, exasperated. ‘There are a lot of perfectly decent people, black and white, who live on the Marshpool. Frankly, given the lack of opportunities she’s had, I think it’s a miracle Tenille has turned out as well as she has.’
‘What? The target of a nationwide police hunt?’ Matthew snorted with derision. ‘She’s obviously got a whole other side to her life that you don’t know about.’
‘This is nothing to do with Tenille,’ Jane said impatiently. ‘The murdered man, Geno Marley, he’s her aunt’s boyfriend. Whatever trouble he brought in his wake, it’s nothing to do with Tenille.’ Jane turned away abruptly, not wanting her mother to see her face. Judy had always had a knack for spotting lies. ‘I’m going upstairs. I want to check this story out online, see what I can find out.’
‘Jane…’ her mother said fruitlessly as she left. Judy looked helplessly at Allan. ‘We can’t let her go back there. It’s bad enough worrying about her being blown up, without this.’
‘I don’t see how we can stop her. She’s a grown woman, Judy, she makes her own choices.’
‘Hasn’t she always?’ Matthew stood up and handed his son to Judy. ‘I need to be getting back,’ he said, gathering together the baby paraphernalia that accompanied him everywhere he took his son and packing it into his buggy. ‘Oh, and I’m off to Hadrian’s Wall with the kids tomorrow. Diane said she’d definitely be home in the morning if Jane wants to come down for coffee. Maybe you could pass the message on when she’s finished trawling the London underworld?’
But as he pushed his son downhill towards the village, it was not murder that occupied his thoughts. Dorcas Mason’s name had been a bolt from the blue. He’d have to check when he got home, but he was pretty sure he knew exactly where he could lay hands on Dorcas Mason’s descendants. If he helped Jane find her precious manuscript, he’d share in the glory. And it would put an end to her paranoid complaints that he was obsessed with getting at her. Deep down he was as tired of their constant fencing and bickering as Jane was. This could be his big chance to show he was a good brother after all. One she’d never be able to twist to show him in a bad light. The sunny smile lit Matthew’s eyes again and he began to hum softly under his breath as he walked.
The bus to Lancaster had been late, and Tenille had missed the connection that would have taken her to Kendal, the gateway to the Lake District. She had found a burger bar near the bus station where she was trying to spin out a cheeseburger and a Coke for as long as possible. But the skinny lad behind the counter kept staring at her. At first she wondered whether he’d rumbled her disguise, but as time crawled by and she had the chance to check out the rest of the clientele, she realised it was more likely because she was the only black teenager in the place. She’d always known that outside London there weren’t so many black people, but that hadn’t prepared her for feeling this conspicuous.
If she stuck out like a sore thumb somewhere like the burger bar, she realised that sleeping rough
was going to be an even tougher option than she’d thought. This was the kind of small city where the cops would know their regulars, and they’d know her for an outsider right away. If the cops in London had spread the word that she was on the run, it wouldn’t take even a dumb provincial cop long to suss her out.
Tenille stared down at the table. She’d been kidding herself that this was some kind of an adventure. But it wasn’t. It was lonely and scary and, no matter how hard she tried to forget it, Geno was dead. He was dead because of her.
All her life, her dad had been on the outside. She’d told herself she didn’t care, that she was fine without him. But now he was on the inside, and she couldn’t separate the confusion of feelings that created. Sure, she was proud that he’d shown her respect by dealing with the threat against her. But the other side of that pride was a horror at what he’d done and how he’d done it, leaving Geno for her to find like that. And now she was on the run because of something she hadn’t asked for.
Tenille felt a lump in her throat, like there was a piece of burger bun stuck there, refusing to go down. Everything was all fucked up. She was tired and miserable and she was probably in more danger out on the road than she had ever been from Geno. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have to be taking care of herself like this. Other people didn’t have this shit to deal with.
She rubbed her eyes, determined not to burst into tears under the harsh lights of a burger bar. She had to get a grip. Find something to calm herself down. She closed her eyes and summoned up the words.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk…
That was the way to go, she thought with relief. Let the words wash over her. Let them be the focus of her mind. Keats and Shelley, Coleridge and Byron. They would help her make it through the night. She wasn’t alone. She could get through this.
An hour’s drive away, Jane sat in front of her laptop, her head in her hands. Her mother had called her down for dinner, but she had made the excuse of an upset stomach. Judy hadn’t questioned Jane’s claim of a dodgy chicken sandwich in Carlisle; it played too neatly into her innate mistrust of any food that hadn’t been prepared by a card-carrying member of the WI.
There had been no sandwich, but Jane felt sick nonetheless. Her stomach had lurched at the newsreader’s words and, as they had sunk in, nausea had crept over her. Geno Marley was dead. Murdered. Shotgunned to death, according to one of the websites she’d accessed. Blasted into oblivion only hours after she’d alerted John Hampton to the threat the man posed to his daughter. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
This wasn’t what she’d wanted or expected. She’d thought Hampton or his muscle would have warned Geno off. Maybe roughed him up a bit to make their point. She hadn’t bargained for so extreme a response. She had blundered into a world whose rules she didn’t comprehend. She’d tried to prevent a crime, not cause one. And now she had blood on her hands, a man’s life on her conscience. Nothing in her past had prepared her for that weight.
Her first reaction had been to call the police. But as soon as she considered that, she knew it wasn’t an option. There was Tenille to consider. Why the police were after her was a mystery to Jane. Where was she? What had she done to make them so eager to find her? Bloody Matthew had been right. They didn’t issue appeals like that for the innocent. Somehow, Tenille was caught up in this. Jane couldn’t understand how, but she knew in her bones that going to the police would not help her friend.
Besides, she had no proof that John Hampton had killed Geno. If the cops started questioning him, he’d know who had put his name in the frame. Her big fear, now that Tenille’s name was in the public domain, was that the Hammer would consider Jane a potential weak link in the chain. He didn’t know anything about her; he might not trust her to stay away from the police. Given what she now knew him to be capable of, Jane didn’t think he’d hesitate to extract what he considered to be appropriate vengeance on her. And she didn’t want to die.
Jane shivered in spite of the comfortable warmth of her bedroom. She had saved Tenille. She just hadn’t bargained on the price of salvation.
There was an exhilaration and an intoxication in being free men upon an ocean that scarce an Englishman had ever seen. But these feelings were tempered by the burden upon me of finding a safe haven for my crew. The men who had supported me deserved to live their lives without threat of discovery, and to go back to Otaheite would have placed that liberty at risk. Every captain sailing in those waters knew it for a good, safe anchorage and too many ships put in there for it to provide a safe hiding place for so many of us. Even if the natives could have been persuaded to hide us, someone would have betrayed us by accident or intent. I spent many hours in the captain’s cabin, poring over Bligh’s maps and charts in my attempts to find a sanctuary place. My choice at last alighted on Toobouai, three hundred and fifty miles south of Otaheite. There we made landfall on 24th May. I had expected another island paradise. I could not have been more mistaken.
21
For once, waking in her own bed failed to lift Jane’s bleak mood. She’d slept badly, waking every hour in a thrash of tangled bedclothes and bad dreams. Images of Tenille, of blood and fire and smoke chased chaotic montages of her family and friends through the endless concrete galleries of the Marshpool. Guilt churned her stomach. Her eyes ached and her head felt thick and useless. But in spite of her expectations, the smell of frying bacon wafting up the stairs provoked a sharp stab of appetite. She hated herself all the more for her hunger.
Jane dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom. What was it about her parents’ generation? Nobody over fifty had a decent shower. What she wanted was a cleansing cascade of scalding water, not this feeble sprinkling. She understood that her desire was as much for the symbolic as the actual, but the knowledge didn’t make the experience any more satisfying.
Before she went downstairs, she decided to check her email one more time for a message from Tenille. There was nothing from her, but Dan had sent her a late-night email.
Hi, Toots
How are you doing? I wish I had some better news for you, but I’m afraid it’s a no-no. I spent most of today at the Family Records Centre, but I wasn’t able to make any progress on Dorcas Mason. I found the birth certificate that you already have, but after that, nothing. It’s as if she walked out of the Wordsworth house into oblivion. The only thing I can think of is that she was marrying someone from overseas. That would explain her disappearance from the records. Maybe she met a sailor and went off to live in France or Spain? I’m more than willing to go back on Monday and search some more, but, to be perfectly honest, the records here are not that difficult to work through and I’m really not sure where/how else I could usefully search.
Talk to you soon,
Love and hugs,
Danny Boy
‘Bugger,’ Jane said loudly. She’d been pinning her hopes on Dan, but he’d had no more luck than she had. Logically, she knew there was nowhere obvious left to look. But a core of obstinacy in her refused to let her give up. ‘I’ll think of something,’ she muttered.
When she walked into the kitchen, she found her mother was frying sausages; a covered dish of bacon was sitting on the Aga. Judy looked over her shoulder to give her daughter the practised scrutiny of a parent. ‘You look terrible,’ she said.
‘Dan drew a blank with Family Records.’
Judy swung round, her eyes concerned. ‘Oh, Jane, pet, I’m so sorry. I know you’d set your heart on this.’
Allan walked in as she was speaking. ‘Morning,’ he said, kicking off his boots at the kitchen door.
‘Jane’s had bad news,’ Judy said as she expertly divided the breakfast between three warm plates.
‘About that lass on the TV?’ Allan’s face darkened in a frown.
‘No, about her project,’ Judy said, her voice almost drowned in the rush of water from the tap as Allan scrubbed his hands. ‘Dan can’t f
ind any trace of that Dorcas woman.’
He glanced over at Jane. ‘Why not put the word out locally what you’re looking for, maybe someone will come up with something.’ It was a long speech for her father.
‘That’s a really good idea,’ Jane said. ‘I can get Bossy Barbara on to it, see what she can dig up through her local history contacts. I bet she’s on some obsessive Cumbrian genealogy weblist. Meanwhile, I thought I’d go out walking this morning. See if a stride up the fell can cheer me up.’
‘Oh, that reminds me. Matthew said Diane was going to be in this morning, if you fancied a coffee,’ Judy said.
‘Is Matthew going to be there?’
‘No, he’s taken some of the older kids across to Hadrian’s Wall for the day. He’s good about that, organising trips.’
With a gaggle of parents to do the hard work, Jane thought cynically. ‘I’ll pop in on her, then. Leave the walk for this afternoon.’
