by Knight, Ali
He was nervous, moving around the kitchen with no purpose, fiddling with a fruit bowl with a dried-up lemon in it, spinning a coin. ‘You still haven’t talked to the police about this witness protection issue. You need to see them right now. They are going to get seriously pissed off.’
‘What does 1824 mean?’
Angus frowned. ‘What?’
‘What does it mean? It’s a code you use for shipments, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘“1824 is no”. You were warning him that a can would have to be given up.’ There was a tense silence. ‘You knew him at school, didn’t you?’
‘Who?’
‘Christos. You’ve known each other all your lives. I wondered where the connection came from. It’s something Kelly’s first husband told me: he keeps people close, he knows them for a long time. I checked the records and you’re the same age. That got me thinking. Same year, it had to be school.’ Angus was staring at her, his expression impossible to read. ‘But you went your separate ways for a while, you to the south coast – I checked your employment file, you worked in Southampton, it’s where you cut your teeth, before you requested a transfer back to London. What were you prepared to do, to keep in with him? Ricky didn’t know you, but that didn’t mean you didn’t know Ricky. There were thousands of employees at the docks in Southampton, but I bet you made sure you knew the one you were going to impersonate. Tell me, you got a tattoo up your sleeve?’
Angus’s face was draining of colour. ‘You’ve lost your mind. You’ve got no evidence whatsoever, this will never stand up.’
‘Internal affairs will take a look, though, a long hard look. You sure love your paperwork. Well, I finally looked at the paperwork, at the volumes of trades. Malamatos Shipping began using the port of Southampton the year you started working there. After the Ricky Welch trial the volumes down there trebled. When you moved back to London, guess what? His volumes here grew exponentially.’
Angus scowled. ‘It’s academic now, he’s in a coma and probably won’t be waking up. The company will be broken up, he’ll die and I’ll get my life back. Unlike you.’
He lunged at the knife block, pulling out a carving knife and hurling it hard and fast at her. Georgie threw herself behind the kitchen table as the knife clattered away across the floor. ‘Ryan!’ She screamed as loud and as hard as she could and that’s when her brother kicked in the glass in the back door and, with Uncle Ed in tow, jumped on her boss.
Georgie got to her feet in a hurry. ‘I happened on Ricky by chance, but when he turned up in London you saw a golden opportunity: a way of getting rid of me and him in one go. You could kill my career and put him back in jail.’
Angus couldn’t talk because Uncle Ed had twisted back his arm and he was in too much pain. Georgie pulled up the sleeve on his right arm. There was no tattoo, but the faintest outline of one that had been removed. She could just make out the shape of a Celtic cross.
82
Three Weeks Later
Kelly stood in her high heels looking down at Christos. He lay beneath a tangle of wires and beeping machinery. A ventilator worked his chest up and down, a monitor was attached to his finger. His eyes were open, deep purple bruising under them refusing to fade. He stared back at her, blinking occasionally. It was hot in the room and she saw a trickle of sweat move down the side of his face. She wondered if he could feel its crawling, irritating passage. She lifted the sheet off his legs, exposing his feet that hung sideways at an odd angle. The forest of black hairs stood out against his waxy skin. She pinched his big toe. Nothing. She ran a nail across his instep. He produced not the merest flicker.
The doctor appeared at the door to the room. ‘Mrs Malamatos, perhaps we can talk outside.’
She turned away from her prone husband and followed the doctor into an office.
‘I can’t sugarcoat it, Mrs Malamatos, your husband’s condition is very serious. The trauma to the head was severe. He has been stabilised but he has also subsequently suffered a stroke.’ Kelly felt the cold, hard seat below her thighs, the floor through the soles of her feet. ‘We’ll just have to take it day by day.’ The doctor picked up a rubber band and began absent-mindedly twisting it in his fingers, performing the complicated, unconscious movements and coordination of muscles, bones, tendons and nerves that were entirely beyond her husband. ‘We need to wait for the swelling in his brain to reduce to see the extent of the nerve damage before we can work out what movement he may regain. I need to warn you that it might be extremely little. At present he can only blink. This is a sign though, that he hears and understands what is being said around him.’
The intonation in his voice didn’t indicate that this was a good thing. He paused, waiting for her reaction. ‘I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions.’
She leaned back, crossed her legs the other way. ‘Can I get the 29 bus to the ponds on Hampstead Heath from here?’
A team from internal affairs was clearing out Angus’s office, overseeing the removal of a man’s career, the dismantling of the piles of paper. It was all going into clear plastic bags and being labelled with a series of letters, numbers and slashes. Georgie, Mo and Preston stood watching from outside the door until Tina from personnel arrived and tried to shoo them away with pleas to let the team get on with their job.
They dragged themselves away, like reluctant bystanders from a car crash.
‘What, not even a little tear? I always thought you quite fancied him.’ Preston nudged Georgie in the ribs.
She gave him her best flying daggers look.
He grinned and shook his head in wonder. ‘You know what scares me a bit about you, Georgie? You don’t give a shit. I thought I was hard-hearted, but you …’ He tailed off. ‘You’re in a different class.’
Mo came up between them. ‘Anyone seen the stand-in boss yet? Cos I have. He drives a Toyota Prius.’ Georgie heard Preston groan.
‘Your information is only partly correct,’ she added. ‘She also rides a motorbike. A Moto Guzzi.’
‘It’s nearly five, there’s nothing to be done here now, it’s time to go.’ Mo leaned over and picked up his coat. ‘East End girl, goodnight.’ He held up a palm to Preston, who gave him a lazy high five. ‘I’ll see you all in the morning. Same shit, different day.’
Georgie picked up her bag, hearing the comforting clunk of the karabiners sinking to the bottom, and walked out of the door. She saw a shadow across the car park, indistinct in the bright lights being thrown from the customs building. She narrowed her eyes and tried to see through the darkness. A figure in a three-quarter-length coat stepped into a pool of light. It was Uncle Ed, standing and waiting. They looked at each other across the car park. She owed him, and he knew it. How he intended to exploit this situation to his advantage still wasn’t clear. But one day his demand would come.
Out on the Thames the deafening roar of a ship’s horn rumbled across the water, borne towards them on the tide. She could feel the ground shake with the vibrations as it made its way to port, bringing its secrets with it. Her climbing equipment rattled together in her canvas bag.
Uncle Ed smiled, his whitened teeth a hard line in his mouth.
83
The Wolf watched Luciana pad across the roasting sand to the bar. The heat haze made the banana leaves on the roofs of the long line of bars at the top of the beach shimmer. Luciana passed a small blond boy who was pointlessly running round and round while his mother glugged from a bottle of overpriced mineral water. Luciana put her hand out and tried to tousle the boy’s hair. It struck the Wolf, watching Luciana watching the boy, that she talked too much about children, thought too much about them, wanted them too much. He watched her watch the boy scamper away.
The deckchair was giving him backache. The beer Luciana was going to queue for would give him a headache. He felt a fag butt squish between his toes. A family with white skin going pink trailed past, bickering loudly, the father angrily swatti
ng his ankles, grains of sand flying in the flat, hard light. It was January, supposedly a new year, a new start. It didn’t feel like it.
He stood up suddenly, the whines of children from around the world cutting out the sound of the Indian Ocean. He picked up his rucksack, threw it over his shoulder and walked away.
84
Eight Months Later
The nurse who came every day was filling in the notes on the forms she had, resting her paperwork on the small side table in the hallway of the terraced house. ‘He’s stable, same as before. I’ll give him a bath tomorrow.’
‘OK. I’m sure he’d like that.’
‘We can make sure that sore on his thigh is healing.’ They both looked up at the snuffling noise coming from the kitchen.
‘Oh, Joe’s awake.’
The nurse followed Kelly into the kitchen. The back door was open and warm summer air drifted in from the garden. Kelly bent down to the Moses basket and picked up the sleepy baby. His head dropped on her shoulder.
The nurse leaned forward and stroked his cheek. ‘Such a poppet. What a sweetie.’
‘I know. He’s adorable. Thanks for coming,’ Kelly said as they walked together to the front door.
‘It’s my job, remember,’ the nurse replied, shutting her bag with a click and pulling it up under her arm. ‘I was going to tell you yesterday but I forgot: there’s a support group over near the precinct for those caring for severely disabled family members, if you feel you need that. You’ve got such a lot on your plate.’ She nodded at the baby just to emphasise the point.
Kelly smiled. ‘Oh, thanks for telling me but I’m managing just fine.’
The nurse looked approving. ‘I tell everyone back at the clinic that you’re an example to us all.’
‘Well, you’ve got to remember Christos’s no bother.’
They both laughed. ‘Shush,’ said the nurse, lowering her voice and looking guilty.
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘Well, do you think he can hear anything?’
Kelly turned towards the half-open living room door, patting Joe’s back as she did so. She could feel the warmth of his vital body beneath his babygro. ‘I’m convinced he hears everything. It’s why I always include him in family life. In my life.’
The nurse nodded. ‘And he can see his gorgeous son. That must help, even in a small way. It’s always better if patients can stay in their own homes. I’m sure he gets some comfort from the familiar. I’ll see you tomorrow, same time, same place.’
They said their goodbyes and Kelly shut the door. She walked back into the front room. The house had had to undergo substantial renovations since Kelly bought it, and this room was now Christos’s bedroom, with an ensuite bathroom with a hoist. The back of the house had a small living room and a kitchen that gave on to the garden, where the children played for hours on end, or scrabbled through the hedge to use next door’s trampoline. When they first came round the neighbours’ kids had been apprehensive of the high-backed wheelchair with the man in it who was twisted at a funny angle, and the machine that made the rattling noise every time he breathed in, but now they no longer paid him any attention. ‘He’s my very quiet daddy,’ Yannis was used to saying.
She opened the bay window. It was important to keep the place well aired, to enjoy the summer breeze. She sat on the windowsill for a moment and watched the nurse’s car pull away from the pavement outside. Her lips brushed the fresh softness of Joe’s fuzz on the top of his head. His hair was dark, like his father’s, but his eyes were blue – a hint of his mother. He nuzzled her neck, his little nose wet like a puppy’s. She held him high above her head as he giggled and stretched his little hands towards her, his face and heart wide open for his mother’s love. She looked up at the perfect child, her love for him exploding through every pore. She had asked Isabella at the hospital after he was born what her favourite name was. It was a tiny thanks for the great gift she had bestowed on the Malamatos family. Isabella had smiled and said, ‘Joe.’
Kelly sat him on the floor in a sunbeam and rubbed her bare neck, exploring the feeling of her fingers on skin. She’d kept her hair short and got her hairdresser to give her a more subtle blonde colour. She’d ditched the dark colours and lost the beret. Sylvie had been right about some things, it turned out. Now she preferred brights, she liked high heels. She stretched lazily and glanced at Christos in the wheelchair, parked to be out of the sun. A small dribble had formed on his immobile lips, she’d wipe that away later. The chair was motorised using a remote control, so she didn’t even have to push him. She sometimes changed his position, put him where she wanted him.
‘Christos, Joe and I are going out for a walk on the beach, then I’ll collect the kids from school and we’ll all come back later, OK?’
His eyes stared back at her. ‘Oh, and I think Medea is coming to visit on Saturday. You know how she loves to see the grandchildren.’ She often talked to him, playing out her dilemmas and her choices, making sure he knew what she was doing. Making sure he knew where she was taking the children, the decisions she was making for them.
Once the truth was revealed to Medea, the depths to which her son had gone to try to do away with his wife, she was stunned, and ashamed. She hadn’t known about the surrogate child, but the child was still her flesh and blood. She knew how valuable a grandmother could be to a family and her love for her son’s children, all three of them, was real. She had come to visit, her home cooking left behind this time. Seeing her playing with the kids softened Kelly’s heart to her former enemy. Medea had looked at her broken son, his head lolling uselessly in the wheelchair, tears in her eyes. ‘I have no right to expect anything, but I am here to help, if you need it. The more hands to raise children, the better. Kelly, you are this family, and under your guidance and protection may it continue.’
Her own mother was back in her life – Kelly’s new house was near her mum’s. They had taken long walks on the beach together, filling in the lost years, rebuilding the trust that had been lost.
Kelly felt the summer warmth on her back, relaxing and liberating, full of possibilities. There were obligations to being married. She had signed up to a duty of care. When word spread in the quiet street that she was caring for a husband who was ‘locked in’ after a terrible head injury, her new neighbours rallied round, invited her out, offered all kinds of help for her children and new baby.
‘You don’t understand,’ she’d say. ‘I feel blessed. Being together with a young family is the most wonderful thing. Christos used to say to me that he would never let me go. It was his vow to me. And so I felt it was only fair that I do the same for him.’
Her old friend Lindsey had come to stay with her kids, shaking her head in wonder at her commitment, a glass of wine in one hand, a fag in the other. ‘That’s what real love is, Kel.’ And she had raised her glass in her garden chair.
She picked Joe up again and he squirmed in her arms, wriggling and cooing. Love made the world a better place, for every member of her family. She watched a seagull land on the birdbath in the small front garden, its huge wings concertinaing as it snuggled in and bathed, droplets of water flying from its feathers like diamonds in the sunlight. She smiled as she watched it take off and soar away into the blue. Free.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Craig Sears for the sea tales, Andy Tomlinson for showing me what really lies at the top of St Pancras and how beautiful it is, Mandy Perry and the wonderful women who introduced me to wild swimming, editor Francesca Best and all the team at Hodder for their advice and guidance, my agent Peter Straus, and above all, Stephen Upstone, for putting up with me through it all, and for being able to fell trees.
cale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
