Unforgotten

by Clare Francis

  ‘And Granny? She wants to know when she can come and stay.’

  ‘Say we’d love to see her at the weekend.’

  ‘And Aunt Becky? She was talking about coming as well.’

  ‘No. Tell her . . . tell her there’d be nothing for her to do.’

  ‘And if she says she’s coming whatever?’

  ‘Put her on to me,’ Hugh said ominously.

  Lou took a long breath as if to prepare herself for the fray, before going into the hall and rewinding the messages. Disembodied voices were still issuing from the answering machine when Charlie came in with some printouts.

  ‘Here’s the three documents Mum saved that evening,’ he said. ‘And the earlier version of two of them.’

  ‘Thanks . . .’ Hugh was already skimming the first page. ‘And Charlie? Can you find out what documents Mum had worked on in the previous week or two?’

  ‘Sure,’ Charlie said, rising to the challenge. ‘So long as none of it’s in the corrupted sector of the hard disk.’

  ‘Oh. Could it be?’

  ‘It looks like it’s mainly a couple of programs that got fouled up. So . . . should be okay.’

  ‘Well, whatever you can find, Charlie.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The first file was labelled ‘CA/Kizito Paul/housing app3.doc’ and was an application letter to a housing association on behalf of a Ugandan asylum seeker and his family, presently in temporary accommodation. The letter was a page and a half long and appeared to be finished. The earlier version showed that Lizzie had made substantial changes. Was she satisfied with the final draft? he wondered. Well, she should have been. It was a well-crafted letter. Charlie’s pencilled note gave the time it was saved as 19.20.

  The next document was a report on Lizzie’s campaign to get Gloria James and her son moved away from the Carstairs Estate. The report, which ran to ten pages, was cumulative, starting with Lizzie’s first meeting with Gloria, covering eighteen months of referrals, psychiatric reports, phone calls, communications with local authorities, consultations with Angela Parfitt, and visits to Gloria’s flat. Hugh skimmed quickly through to the last page. The penultimate entry, dated the day of the fire, noted a conversation with a council official which confirmed an offer of a two-bedroomed council flat in the north of the city. The final entry, dated later that day, recorded Lizzie’s phone call to Gloria to give her the good news. What a rewarding moment it must have been for Lizzie after such a long, uphill struggle. He was glad she’d known about it before she died. This thought and the ones that came rushing after it brought a lump to his throat, a tightness in his chest, a sudden heat behind his eyelids.

  I want you back, he told her. I want you back now and for ever.

  Well, that’s not possible, is it? You’ll have to manage as best you can. And concentrate, please. Keep going. Don’t miss anything.

  But I’m so exhausted, Lizzie. Half the time I’m not sure I’m thinking straight.

  In that case you must get more sleep, mustn’t you? Remember what I used to say – it’s no good tossing and turning. You must learn to switch off at night. You must learn to let go.

  But night’s the hardest time of all.

  All the more reason to let go. I give you permission.

  ‘Easier said than done,’ he whispered aloud.

  He took a quick look at the time. Allowing for traffic he had ten minutes before he had to leave for the coroner’s office. As he started on the printout that Charlie had marked ‘Saved 21.41’ his mobile rang. Picking it up, he saw ‘Tom D’ on the display. He wavered for several seconds before putting the phone back on the table and letting it ring. ‘Sorry, old chum,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘you’ll just have to wait.’ After the allotted five rings the voicemail kicked in and the phone fell silent.

  The last file was labelled ‘CA/Jacobs John/request to be sectioned.doc’, and contained exactly what it said on the label, a letter on behalf of a mentally ill man who was asking to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The letter ran to four paragraphs. Halfway down the second paragraph there was a break in the text preceded by an unfinished sentence: At this point Mr Jacobs’ case notes were mislaid and

  And the doorbell had rung.

  Feeling a sudden drag of exhaustion, Hugh went through to the kitchen and made a strong coffee cooled down with a splash of cold water. Having downed it in three gulps, he put his head into the sitting room where Lou was on the phone. He made a questioning face to ask how things were going and she held out a piece of paper to him. It read Tom Deacon (2 calls). He mimed going out and she nodded.

  Pocketing his mobile, he pulled on the new padded jacket Lou had bought for him, grabbed his wallet and car keys and went out into a blustery wind. As he opened the car door his mobile rang. It was Tom. He got into the car and started the engine before answering.

  ‘Hi, Tom.’

  A pause. ‘You’re there, then.’

  ‘I’m in the car.’ Hugh unreeled his seatbelt, stretching it out to gain length before curving the tongue towards the buckle.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get you.’

  ‘I’ve been rather tied up, I’m afraid.’ The metal tongue wouldn’t quite reach the buckle and Hugh yanked at the reel to gain more length.

  ‘Not trying to avoid me?’

  Hugh hesitated, before gently clicking the buckle into place. ‘No, Tom. Just busy.’

  ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘Well, I’m still here. All I can say really. You know how it is.’

  ‘Got the kids with you?’

  ‘Not right now, no. They’re at home.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. You’ve got ’em with you.’

  Recognising one of Tom’s more abrasive moods, Hugh made no reply.

  ‘Keeping you going, are they?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s what kids do. Keep you going.’

  ‘Sure do.’ Aware of the time, Hugh began to search for his hands-free kit.

  A silence followed, which Tom didn’t seem inclined to break.

  ‘Hello?’ Hugh said after a while.

  There was a rushing sound as Tom breathed hard against the mouthpiece. Finally he said in a taut monotone, ‘Crazy how things get to you, how you look back and what seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen wasn’t so bad after all.’

  The hands-free wasn’t in its usual place, and it didn’t seem to be in the foot well either. Giving up, Hugh jammed the phone against his shoulder while he put the car into gear and drove off.

  ‘I used to think Bosnia was the worst thing that was ever gonna happen. Wasn’t too bad at the start. I thought, it’s war, this is what happens, this is what I’m trained to do, go up this hill, follow the stink that’s like no other stink on earth, start sorting through the bodies . . .’

  ‘Tom, listen—’

  But Tom was talking over him. ‘I thought, it’s not like it’s any of my mates who’ve bought it, not like Northern Ireland where some of the guys got to see bits of their mates plastered all over the road.’

  ‘Look, Tom, can we leave this till another time?’

  ‘But then it started to get to me,’ Tom went on doggedly. ‘We had to put yellow crosses on their foreheads. Or their feet if the head wasn’t in good shape. In among the women there were small babes. But it was the two-, three-year-olds that really got to me. Some, you could see the bullet wounds. Others, you couldn’t see how they died and you began to think they’d been buried alive.’

  Belatedly, it dawned on Hugh that Tom was drunk or high, or both. ‘Just stop it there, Tom. Okay? I really can’t talk now.’

  ‘Must’ve been the fourth grave,’ Tom continued as if Hugh hadn’t spoken. ‘Sipovo it was. Outside Sipovo. It was full of OAPs and kids. Crazy thing was, it was the OAPs that did my head in as much as the kids. Never worked that one out. Still can’t. OAPs!’

  Hugh had reached the T junction at the end of the lane. With fast-moving traffic ahead an
d a car coming up behind, he dropped the phone into his lap while he concentrated on finding a safe gap. Once onto the main road, he picked up the phone again and, hearing silence, prompted reluctantly, ‘Hi?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Traffic.’

  ‘So . . . the fourth grave was at Sipovo. Just outside Sipovo. It was full of OAPs and kids—’

  ‘I got that bit!’ Hugh interrupted, dangerously close to exasperation. ‘Look, Tom, can I call you back?’

  ‘No, you can’t!’ Tom answered furiously. ‘No! I’m telling you, and you’re gonna listen. You’re gonna fucking listen!’

  Hugh would have rung off there and then but for the certainty that Tom would call back and keep calling back until he’d got this off his chest. ‘Okay, Tom, but I’m driving and I don’t have a hands-free and I may have to put the phone down sometimes.’

  ‘So,’ Tom said, moving on tenaciously, ‘when I got back to the UK, that’s when the nightmares started. Did my head in. Saw the dead climbing out of the graves, yellow crosses on their foreheads. Coming after me, trying to grab me, pull me down. Saw the babes under the earth, half dead. It seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen.’ He gave a bitter snort. ‘Bit of a joke now.’

  Coming into the village, Hugh veered left into the only parking place available, a disabled bay outside the Star of India. Halting, he saw Mr Ravikumar in a window of the restaurant, fixing a menu to the glass. The top and sides of the glass had been overpainted to form an Eastern arch ornamented with elephants and stars, so that Mr Ravikumar appeared to be framed by a stage set of India.

  Tom was pressing on in a fierce monotone. ‘That’s when I got into dope. Not like before, at weekends and shindies, but all the time. Only way I could get through the days, let alone the bloody nights. And then Holly arrived. Changed my life, she did. Loved her to bits right from the start. With Matt, I hadn’t taken to him, not as a babe. Hardly seen him, for one thing. Screamed the whole bloody time. But once my little girl came along, it was like she stole my heart. I got my act together, cut out the dope and the worst of the booze, went to the doc for stuff to calm me down, got regular work . . .’

  Mr Ravikumar had spotted Hugh and was waving from the arched window. Hugh waved back and reached forward to turn off the engine.

  Another blast against the mouthpiece as Tom snorted again. ‘It was like I was being set up, of course, taken sky high just so I could be dropped as low as I could go. Like I was being taught that Bosnia didn’t come close to being the worst thing that could ever happen. But then you know what it’s like, don’t you, Hugh? To be sky high one minute, then low as you can go.’ There was an edge to Tom’s voice, a challenge or a warning.

  In the window Mr Ravikumar was smiling enquiringly at Hugh as if to ask after his health.

  ‘Sure,’ Hugh murmured as he mustered a brief smile for Mr Ravikumar.

  ‘Then so-called God in his so-called fucking wisdom decided he’d make me watch Holly die. At least you didn’t have to go through that, did you, eh, Hugh?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tom, pushing his point. ‘Only thing that stopped me from topping myself was the thought of getting some justice. What a joke. The only real justice would’ve been if that old man hadn’t died in the crash, if he could’ve been made to suffer like I’d suffered. But the case, the money – it was the next-best thing. That’s what I told myself. But then I got to realise the money didn’t count for anything without my boys. Got to love ’em like I loved Holly. Never thought I would, not like I loved Holly, but I did. Got to love ’em to bits. Broke me up whenever I had to take ’em back to Linda and that scumbag she took up with.’ His voice was rising and cracking slightly. ‘And then for once in my life I get a break. Linda wants to give ’em up, to let ’em come and live with me! My boys! All I’ve ever wanted – to have my boys at home with me! And I’m sky high. Sky high!’

  Hugh pressed his head back against the rest and exhaled sharply.

  ‘Oh, excuse me.’ Tom’s voice plunged sarcastically. ‘Not boring you, am I?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Tom. Go on.’

  ‘Not fucking boring you?’

  ‘No – you’re worrying me. Come on, what’s happened?’

  ‘You know what’s fucking happened – you went and fucked it up for me.’

  ‘Tom, whatever’s happened, it wasn’t me that told them.’

  ‘You shit.’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you listen? Why didn’t you fucking listen when I told you?’

  ‘Is it the family court? If so, there may be something we can do. It may not be as bad as you think.’

  ‘Not as bad?’ He gave a great gasp. ‘They’re taking my boys into care! My boys . . . into care . . .’

  Hugh sighed, ‘Oh, Tom . . .’

  ‘My boys . . . My boys . . .’

  ‘Look, I’ll get on to your lawyer in Exeter. See what we can sort out. I’ll do it now. Okay?’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you fucking listen?’

  ‘Tom . . .’

  But he had rung off.

  NINE

  Hugh operated the coded padlock fitted by the home security people and let himself in. As he peered into the gloom, the keen wind sent a dry leaf scurrying past him to settle on the fire debris which had been compressed into a hard patchy layer, like worn lino. The house was fusty with mould and damp and stagnant air, and he opened windows in the kitchen and dining room to create a through draught. Then, because he was early, he began a search of the kitchen drawers and cupboards.

  The previous evening he had eaten little, drunk more than he’d meant to, and slept fitfully if at all, disturbed by vivid nightmares which drove him out of bed before six to reread some of Lizzie’s notebooks and make toast and coffee and wait for the first glimmer of dawn. When at last the trees had begun to separate themselves from the sky, he had bathed and shaved and put on warm clothes. Downstairs again, he had drunk more coffee while he packed his briefcase with a notebook, Lou’s digital camera, his memo recorder and two of Lizzie’s water-damaged notebooks whose pages were melded together. Restless, with two more hours to kill, he had driven down to the village and bought a newspaper, more coffee and a bar of chocolate, and sat in the car skimming the news and working his way through the chocolate while he waited for his drink to cool. He had read three pages before he realised he had taken nothing in.

  And so he had come to Meadowcroft early and begun to search drawers and shelves he’d searched before, knowing there was nothing to find, but driven to look all the same. The drawer beneath the kitchen phone yielded a clutter of bills, receipts, promotional leaflets, and numerous slips of paper torn from the jotter pad, with suppliers’ names and phone numbers in Lizzie’s slanted handwriting. One marked ‘Labrador breeder’ must have dated from the time four or five years ago when they’d thought of getting a replacement for their much-loved Buster, parentage unknown but probably a mixture of Labrador and Doberman, who had died at thirteen. In the end they’d decided against another dog because the children were older and they themselves were getting too busy. Remembering Buster’s last summer, his determination to keep up on walks as the arthritis locked his joints, Hugh saw that it was the end of the untroubled years, the time before Charlie took to drugs, before Hugh’s parents died, before the intense pace set by Dimmock’s merger with Marsh & Co, before Lizzie got embroiled in campaigns against injustice. If they’d had worries Hugh couldn’t remember what they were. His father’s heart condition, certainly. Money, possibly, though not in any serious way. Most likely their greatest preoccupation had been whether to go skiing or save up for a more ambitious summer holiday.

  Coming across a petrol receipt, he wondered if Lizzie had ever bothered to claim a mileage allowance from the Citizens Advice, and if so whether she had specified the clients she was visiting. He slid the receipt into his notebook and scribbled a reminder to check with Angela Parfitt.<
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  He went into his study and sat at his desk, alert but directionless, and leafed perfunctorily through some old letters and bank statements. Once, when Lizzie was beginning to take on more work, he’d suggested they swap study areas, but she’d insisted there was no need, she had room enough. By the time her little desk in the living room was overflowing with papers and the floor lined with printers and scanners, she was too deeply ensconced there, in no mood for upheaval.

  The restlessness took him into the dining room to open a drawer at random, knowing perfectly well it contained cutlery. Wandering out again, he finally surrendered to the pull of the living room, though he managed to stay away from Lizzie’s desk for a good ten minutes while he went through a chest of drawers containing family memorabilia. The numerous photo albums, neatly arranged by date, seemed to have escaped the worst of the smoke damage, though they gave off an ominous hint of mould. The children’s school reports were more obviously damp, the covers stained and curling, while their kindergarten paintings were soggy along the edges. Finally, he went and stood in front of Lizzie’s desk. He’d searched it thoroughly and removed everything of interest, but this didn’t prevent him from taking a last look. All that was left was stationery and a collection of brochures, theatre programmes, postcards, business cards and old year-books. He went through them, flicking through the pages that weren’t stuck together. In a pigeonhole, wedged between some envelopes, he found a leaflet he’d missed before. It was damp and when he tried to prise the leaves apart they threatened to disintegrate in his hands. By starting from the marginally drier top corner and taking it slowly, however, he managed to unglue the leaves by a couple of inches to reveal a schematic map of the Carstairs Estate with a jotting in Lizzie’s handwriting giving the name ‘James’ and a block and flat number. He wrote down the address on the basis that he wrote down all information concerning the parts of Lizzie’s life he hadn’t shared, that, useful or not, it added to his bank of knowledge. The lower half of the leaflet was noticeably damper, the leaves stuck more resolutely together, and when he tried to separate them they began to fall apart. He was contemplating another attempt when he heard the sound of a car and abandoned the leaflet to the desk flap.