‘Your own fire experts?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And it’s them who’ve found evidence of arson?’
‘I’m waiting for confirmation.’
A pause. ‘Right.’
‘And I’m applying for an independent post-mortem as well.’
‘I see.’ Ray’s tone had become thoughtful. ‘When’s that going to happen?’
‘Don’t know yet.’
Another pause. ‘Well . . . Call me as soon as you need anything done, won’t you? I’ll get straight onto it.’
‘And Ray? Not a word to anyone.’
Ringing off, Hugh looked at what he had written on his pad: The hardest question.
It took the best part of an hour to search Meadowcroft, find what he could, and transport it back to the rented house. Sliding the funeral plans, letters of condolence, insurance and legal documents even further down the dining table, he arranged his haul in a semicircle. Phone bills and correspondence straight ahead, Lizzie’s notebooks in date order to the right, household papers to the left. Many of the papers were water- or smoke-damaged. Some were scorched, while others from the desktop and pigeonholes were plain burnt. He also fetched Lizzie’s handbag. He had looked inside it before, but now he gingerly removed the contents. Mobile phone. Black leather purse, one side burnt and brittle, the rest damp. Yield: thirty-odd pounds and a full complement of credit cards. Lipstick, compact, hairbrush, comb. Headache tablets. Indigestion tablets. Pens, lots of them. Sunglasses. Reading glasses. Receipts which fell apart in his hands. Scraps of what might have been shopping lists. No Filofax. And no sign of it at Meadowcroft either.
He tried the mobile phone but it was dead. He connected it to a charger and waited a few minutes before trying it again, but there was still nothing. He was starting on the notebooks when the front door sounded and Lou’s voice called hello. He called back and heard her and Charlie talking as they went into the kitchen. There was the slam of cupboards and the duller thud of the fridge door while they unloaded the shopping, then Lou came through.
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Hi, darling,’ he said, glancing up briefly. ‘You have enough money for the shopping?’
When she didn’t answer, he looked round to find her gazing at the table.
‘What’s happening, Dad?’
‘I’m going through as much stuff as I can. See what’s here.’
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Not too sure at the moment. Anything. Everything.’
She peered at a sodden notebook. ‘Can I help?’
‘No.’ Realising how dismissive this had sounded, he threw her a pale smile. ‘What I meant was it’s a bit of a one-man job at this stage. Later, when it comes to prising pages apart, then I’ll be glad of some of your patience. Where’s Charlie?’
‘Making a sandwich.’
‘Well, when he’s finished – no, no,’ he fretted, getting up and heading for the door. ‘No, let’s talk now.’
Charlie was hunched over the kitchen table, biting into a thick sandwich, the contents bulging out from the sides. His eyes flicked up to Hugh then his sister, then down to the table again. Lou stood behind Charlie, leaning back against the central island, while Hugh stationed himself in the middle of the room. ‘Listen, guys,’ he began, ‘I’m sorry but we’re going to have to delay the funeral. We probably won’t be able to have it till the end of next week, maybe the beginning of the week after. I know it’s not ideal. I know it means everything’s in limbo. But there’s no way round it.’
‘But why, Dad?’ Lou asked unhappily.
‘Some things are taking longer than we thought.’
Charlie abandoned his sandwich to his plate and sat back, shoulders hunched, arms folded.
‘But you said—’ Lou paused in confusion. ‘Yesterday you said there was nothing to stop the funeral going ahead.’
‘There wasn’t then. But we’ve had to put everything on hold, you see.’ Knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer, Hugh braced himself to say, ‘What’s happened is that we’re having to organise a second post-mortem. Using an independent pathologist. And that’ll take time, I’m afraid.’
‘Why?’ Lou breathed.
‘To make sure they got it right.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘To make sure they didn’t miss anything. On the cause of death.’
Lou flung a look at Charlie, as if for support, but he was staring intently at the table. ‘Who’s decided all this? Who’s this we?’
‘Well . . . when I said we I really meant me on behalf of us.’
Lou stared at him reproachfully, her eyes filling. ‘Why didn’t you ask us, Dad?’
‘It’s only just happened, Lou. This morning. And I am asking you. I’m asking you now.’
‘What’s only just happened?’
What a mess he was making of this. Taking a steadying breath, he said, ‘What’s happened is I’ve reviewed everything we know, all the facts, everything from the fire investigators, and as a result . . . well, I’ve worked out that Mum must have been unconscious before the fire started. It’s the only explanation for all the things that weren’t right in the house. For how she was found. For – well, everything. So the point is, if she was unconscious, there must have been a reason, something they may have missed. A bruise, something in her blood – whatever.’
‘But, Dad, if there’d been anything to find, they’d have found it already,’ Lou argued.
‘You say that, but pathologists vary a hell of a lot, just like doctors. There was a report only the other day saying that postmortems are often seriously substandard.’
‘What report?’
‘Can’t remember. It was in the paper somewhere.’
Lou closed her eyes despairingly. ‘Oh, Dad . . .’
‘There’s no such thing as infallibility, Lou. You should know that better than anyone. Apparently a lot of these pathologists work on their own, completely unsupervised. They get sloppy over the years.’
Lou dropped her head.
‘It’s the only way to find out what happened, Lou. Don’t you want us to find out what happened?’
Lou said in a muffled voice, ‘Of course I do.’
‘So . . .’ Hugh made a gesture of appeal towards Charlie, who gave him a depressed glance. ‘And if it tells us nothing new, then at least we’ll know there was nothing new to find. We won’t spend the next twenty years wondering.’
Lou pressed a hand to her eyes and gave a ragged gasp. Hugh reached out to comfort her but she gave a sharp shake of her head and made for the door. ‘I can’t bear it, that’s all,’ she choked. ‘I can’t bear it!’
‘Lou—’
But she was gone. They heard her run upstairs and into her room.
Hugh stood irresolutely, then sank into the chair beside Charlie. ‘God.’
Charlie murmured, ‘She’ll be okay, Dad. She’s just . . .’ He gave a slow shrug, a forward movement of the shoulders, a downward bow of the mouth. ‘You know . . . stressed out about the funeral . . . moving all the stuff she’s fixed up.’
‘I just wish . . .’ But Hugh wasn’t sure what he wished just then, except for an end to shocks and surprises, both received and inflicted.
Charlie said, ‘It’s got to happen, this thing?’
‘Yes, it does, Charlie.’
A sharp shrug this time. ‘Well, then . . . Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘Perhaps I should go up and talk to her.’
‘Leave it a while, Dad. She’ll be okay.’
‘Yeah?’ Bowing his head, Hugh gave his eyes a harsh rub and emerged blinking.
‘I got some stuff off Mum’s computer last night,’ Charlie offered tentatively, as if to test the temperature of the conversational water.
‘Any good?’
‘Um . . . Maybe. I dunno. She worked on three files that night. Modified them anyway. It was all Citizens Advice stuff.’
‘You’ve got the names of the fi
les?’
‘Sure. You want them now?’
Hugh gestured him to stay where he was. ‘No, no. Eat your sandwich. You need to eat. Can you get into the files?’
‘Sure.’
‘There wasn’t a password?’
‘I’ve always had Mum’s password. I installed half her software.’
‘Of course.’
‘Um . . . And I should be able to see what she added to the files, if that’s any use.’
Hugh thought about that. ‘I don’t know. It might be.’
‘Well, it’s no big deal to print them both off. Like, the modified file and the original.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Um . . . And it looks like she did her last work about nine forty. That’s when she saved the last file anyway. Nine forty-one, I think it was.’
‘You can tell all that?’
Charlie gave his slow shrug. ‘Sure. It’s basic stuff.’
‘Not to me it isn’t.’
Nine forty-one. Hugh imagined her shutting down the computer. Then what? A cup of tea? Some reading until the doorbell interrupted her? He had imagined the scene so many times that it ran like a film in his mind’s eye, the way she lifted her head in surprise, marked her page and put her book down before walking across the hall to open the door. Only the person or persons at the door remained unclear. Sometimes Hugh saw the hoodie, sometimes two yobs out to thieve and rob, sometimes a figure hiding behind a smile.
Charlie frowned at his sandwich. ‘Um . . . and then the clock stopped at twenty-three forty-seven.’
‘The clock?’
‘In the computer.’
Hugh sat up a little. ‘Because of the fire, you mean?’
‘Had to be. There was a system failure logged at the same time.’
‘Twenty-three forty-seven?’
‘Yeah.’
How long before this had the fire started? Hugh wondered. Five, ten, fifteen minutes?
‘For a system failure to register it means the computer must’ve been on standby,’ Charlie added, watching Hugh’s face to make sure he’d got the point.
But Hugh was already there. ‘And she hated things to be left on standby.’
‘She was always on at me about it.’
The film sequence which had started with Lizzie sitting on the sofa reading a book faded in Hugh’s mind. He repositioned her at her desk, working on her computer, conscientiously saving the open file when the doorbell rang, intending to return to work when she’d answered it.
‘Well done, Charlie,’ Hugh said.
Charlie had propped his head on one hand, a wave of golden hair obscuring his eyes. Now he glanced up, embarrassed but not displeased, and gave a jerky, diffident smile. He had never seemed so youthful, so flawless, with his hazel eyes, clear skin, sweeping eyebrows, the extraordinarily thick hair. Only his colour was unnaturally pale, almost anaemic.
‘Go on – eat your lunch.’
Needing no further encouragement, Charlie bit deep into his sandwich, while Hugh attempted to put some order in this new sequence of saved files and doorbells and wine glasses. Nine forty until roughly eleven forty. Two hours.
‘Could she have been working on a file later than nine forty? One she never got round to saving?’
Charlie struggled to swallow his mouthful. ‘Could’ve.’
‘It wouldn’t have shown in the system failure record or whatever it was?’
Charlie shook his head.
Hugh got up and stood in front of the kettle, not sure what he wanted, coffee, food or nothing at all. In the end he cut a slab of bread, mashed a banana over the top, added a skim of jam, and folded it over into a makeshift baguette.
Back at the table, he wondered if he should take the opportunity offered by this computer-forged harmony to ask Charlie how he was doing on the drug recovery front. The timing was never easy. Charlie was so sure, so focused when he talked about computers, and so unknowable, so touchy when it came to the rest of his life. The recovery programme was meant to be about honesty and communication, yet he seemed to entrust his thoughts to no one but a few fellow travellers in drug recovery and, occasionally, Lou.
‘Going to another meeting tonight?’ he asked lightly.
Charlie’s mouth was full. He nodded, but his eyes held a wary light.
‘With Elk?’
Another nod.
‘And your therapist? You’re seeing him soon?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’re doing all right, Charlie? You’re okay?’
It was like pressing a button, all the old defensiveness came shooting back. Charlie’s gaze hardened. His expression seemed to shout Don’t start!
‘Listen, when I ask about the meetings, it’s not because I’m checking up on you or anything like that,’ Hugh argued levelly. ‘It’s because I’m right behind you, and I want you to know it. Okay? Nothing else.’
Charlie nodded.
‘It’s the same when I ask how you’re doing. It’s not a roundabout way of asking how the recovery programme’s going. Well, it’s partly that, I suppose – it’s bound to be. But mainly it’s to know you’re all right, Charlie. That’s all. Just like I need to know Lou’s all right.’ When Charlie didn’t immediately respond, he prompted, ‘You understand?’
Charlie breathed, ‘Yeah.’
‘I know you’d rather talk to your mates. I know you think no one else understands. But Mum and I, we always tried our best to understand, Charlie, we really did. And—’
‘I know that, Dad!’ Charlie protested on a rising note. ‘I know.’
‘And I’m going to go on doing my best. But it’s hard when you don’t give me any sort of clue. When I don’t know what’s going on under the surface.’
‘Dad, it’s just . . . like, I don’t wanna offload any of my stuff onto you. Not when you’re stressed out already.’
‘I’d be less stressed if I knew you were okay.’
‘I’m okay,’ Charlie declared unconvincingly.
‘There’s nothing you want to talk about?’
Charlie looked uncertain and tormented by turns. ‘Not right now, Dad.’
‘No time like the present.’
‘It’s just . . . I’m sort of, you know, busy with computer stuff . . .’
‘I want us to be able to talk, Charlie.’
Charlie hesitated, as if he might yet be persuaded, when the ringing of Hugh’s phone sounded through the open door from the dining room. Thinking it might be Slater, it was all Hugh could do not to rush out and answer it. With an effort he brought his attention back to Charlie, but it was too late, the moment had passed, Hugh could read it in his face.
‘When you get back from your meeting then?’ he suggested.
‘I was going to hang out with Elk. Go to a movie or something.’
‘Tomorrow then?’
Charlie had a trapped look. ‘Okay.’
‘Maybe we’ll go for a walk.’ But remembering the failure of their last open-air conversation Hugh cancelled the suggestion with a gesture. ‘No, we’ll grab a coffee and escape the phone, shall we?’
‘Okay.’
Hugh gripped his arm encouragingly before getting up. At the door he paused long enough to ask, ‘Oh, and would you look at Mum’s mobile phone? I think it’s a goner, but could you check it out?’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s in here,’ he called as he hurried into the dining room.
He reached eagerly for his phone but there was no message from Slater, no message from anyone, just another missed call from Tom Deacon. He couldn’t face calling back. He wasn’t ready for more amateur therapy, or any other sort of therapy, come to that. He didn’t want to be told what he was supposed to be thinking or feeling, or what stage of the grieving process he’d reached. Anger suited him fine; it gave him a sense of direction. He certainly didn’t want Tom telling him that he needed to work through it. It seemed to Hugh that there was an essential fraud in the idea that grief was treatable, that by dis
gorging your most precious and painful thoughts your so-called condition would somehow improve. The idea stemmed from the modern conviction that everything should be fixable; and if it wasn’t, you found someone to sue. Well, there was never going to be a remedy for death and grief, that was for sure. But if you were lucky there was justice and, if you were luckier still, retribution, and the prospect of attaining them was therapy enough for him.
It was different for Charlie. He relied on therapy to stay clean, though Hugh sometimes wondered, probably unfairly, if for an addictive personality like Charlie therapy wasn’t just another form of addiction. Certainly no therapist was going to encourage Charlie to break free, not while Daddy was paying the bills. The one thing Hugh didn’t understand was how the constant revisiting of weaknesses and insecurities was meant to do anything for Charlie’s self-esteem. Wallowing in it, he’d once said to Lizzie: to be told he hadn’t grasped the basis of therapy, how the process helped people to identify and address issues in their lives. Hugh had enquired mildly if the issues really needed to be identified and addressed weekly at seventy quid a throw, to which Lizzie had argued with unassailable logic that the financial pain was surely preferable to the risk of Charlie going back on drugs.
Charlie wandered in and picked up Lizzie’s phone. He tried switching it on and, having no more success than Hugh, took it off to his room.
Hugh was looking through one of Lizzie’s drier notebooks when Lou came in swiftly and, looping an arm round his shoulder, pressed her cheek against his head. ‘Sorry, Dad.’
He kissed her pale, slender, child’s hand. ‘No, it was my fault,’ he said. ‘Did it all wrong.’
‘There was no right way to tell us, Dad.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’
Straightening up, she said in a no-nonsense voice, ‘Well, I am. Now, what can I do? I need something to do.’
‘Well, there’s a load of messages on the answering machine. And the family to call. Could you bear it?’
‘What shall I tell them about the delay?’
He hadn’t thought that far. ‘I don’t know. The truth?’
She shot him a look of dismay. ‘They’d ask all kinds of questions.’
‘Say it’s the coroner then. Say there’s a delay with the inquest.’
Unforgotten Page 26
