The Truth We Chase

by Carl Richards

  I interject, ‘was it black?’

  DCI Myddlewood replies. ‘It was.’

  ‘Jill said we were followed by a black car on the journey up to the Peak District on the day of her murder.’

  DCI Myddlewood continues, ‘...also on the Thursday, we have CCTV from a shop on the High Street... Game, Sett and Catch which clearly shows Jill’s ex-partner buying the exact same hunting knife used in the murder.

  As he is in the medical profession, we suspect he brought latex gloves with him, which explains why only your fingerprints were found on the knife, the knife you wrestled from his hand.

  It looks very much like, if he couldn’t have her, he was going to make sure no one else could either.

  Unfortunately, there is bad news, he managed to get the flight back to Newark the following morning, the good news, if you can call it good news, is that, at this moment in time he doesn’t know that we’re on to him.’

  ‘How soon before he is arrested?’ I ask.

  ‘No time scale yet, however, now we have all the evidence and two sets of positive identifications we will ask the American Authorities and the NYPD to detain him on suspicion of murder pending his return to the UK to face trial. Don’t hold your breath though, it’ll take some considerable amount of time.’

  There is a silent pause in the room.

  ‘Right Joe that’s everything, for the time being, make sure you look after yourself and let us know where we can contact you when you leave the hospital, so we can keep you updated and informed of any progress.’

  They leave the room, that was a lot to take in. In just under two hours I have virtually all the answers I need... but I am troubled... this feels like a whole different life.

  In my other life, I had been the one accused of Jill’s murder, I had been the one arrested and detained on remand in prison, I was the one released and on the run-in fear of my life... I was struggling to understand. Perhaps counselling would be a good idea after all.

  Chapter 34

  It is now the 29th of May 2000, physiotherapy is going well and I’ve started counselling. It turns out that, my whole other life whilst in a coma, was just my brain interweaving the inner workings of my mind, my emotions, my insecurities and the conversations that were taking place at my bedside into one immense dream.

  The Court case - that was a result of my insecurities, I had convinced myself that there hadn’t been any other witnesses to the murder of Jill and that I would struggle to prove my innocence.

  Luciana - I’d never been sure about Luciana - not even in the real world. On the Sunday before I came back here, the night I started seeing Ana, there was the dressing gown incident back in the apartment, then, she deliberately forced a situation between me and Ana by being on the bed with me when Ana arrived back from collecting breakfast from the local deli. All this was compounded with everything Jill had said about me being with the wrong person, and how I should be with Luciana not Ana.

  Sean the pub landlord - the therapist couldn’t explain this part because she doesn’t know the full story, but I know. Subconsciously I always suspected Sean was involved in the beating and disappearance of my real Dad, Mick, back in 1983, so it’s no wonder he made it into my coma dream. The connection of Sean visiting The Printing Press pub on the final night of my coma all makes sense now. It ties in with my meeting the ghost of Jill. Although my therapist tries to convince me that the ghost is just my brain dealing with my deep feeling of loss, I’ve convinced myself otherwise, to me Jill’s apparition was real and I now know where our Dad is buried.

  The whole purpose of this trip back home, apart from reuniting with Jill again, was to deal with our past. That past is now my present and if I’m going to have a future, I need to deal with this here and now.

  I ask the hospital staff to call DS Walsh and DCI Myddlewood.

  The next morning, they arrive, I tell them a half-truth about what I witnessed that Saturday night in August 1983.

  I tell them that I was returning from den building down in the woods when I heard a group of men approaching, being a child alone in the woods I hid in the undergrowth and watched as the group of men passed by, as they did I realised they were carrying someone. Being so young I thought they were helping a person who had been injured, but being back here as an adult and having this therapy, it has brought back memories of Jill and the story about how her Dad had gone missing. Now I realise it would have been around the same time.

  I continue... I watched the men veer off to the left and at the time I thought they were making their way up the path on Sandy Hill towards the village, however, I think I may have been mistaken.

  I ask DS Walsh if he could make arrangements for the pottery excavations in the woods near Wildgoose Heys to be checked?

  I get told they will investigate it and they leave.

  It is Thursday the 1st of June and I get a message that the Police are looking seriously at my request, on Friday morning the news breaks that the skeletal remains of a body have been found in a shallow grave in the woods.

  For only the second time in my life I cry, that body in the woods is my Dad, my real Dad. Finally, I can grieve, for both my Dad and my Sister together. Part of me is also relieved as I remember what Jill had said to me in my coma ...Dad is still there and until he is found his spirit cannot be released. I hope both Mick and Jill can both find peace now.

  It is now Friday afternoon and DCI Myddlewood enters the room.

  ‘I assume you’ve heard?’

  Gazing out of the window at the Town Hall clock, I nod.

  DCI Myddlewood continues despite not having my full attention. ‘Early indications are that the body we have found is male, making you our prime witness again! Aren’t you the Breathnach’s lucky charm?’

  It was a rhetorical question, so I don’t answer.

  ‘We’ll obviously need a statement about that night in 1983... but in the meantime I can inform you that the NYPD has visited the Hospital where Alex Grinshill works, he got wind they were in reception and he made good his escape and has gone to ground. Now, NYPD, as I’m sure you are aware, are very thorough. I don’t envisage it will be very long before they catch up with him.’

  I thank DCI Myddlewood and he leaves.

  It has been a day that has left me mentally exhausted so I stay in bed for the remainder of the afternoon into the evening - early into the evening, I drift off to sleep.

  I wake with a jolt; my heart is racing and I’m not sure why. I switch my bedside light on to see the time.

  As the light illuminates the room, I realise that there is a woman dressed in blue stood at the end of the bed, beyond her there is a man sat in a chair. I try to focus my eyes, as I do the woman and man fade away... and... I’m alone again.

  Was that it, was that my last visit from Jill and Mick?

  It’s seven minutes past midnight and now I’m too wired to sleep.

  The weekend passes with no actual news, just a flurry of journalistic assumptions.

  It’s now eleven o’clock on Monday morning, I’ve finished my physiotherapy and I’ve returned to my room for a rest. I can hear chatter from three females coming down the corridor, then from outside my door I hear... ‘Here he is, be gentle with him!’

  In seconds one extremely exuberant woman and another rather subdued woman, appear in my room

  ‘¡Hola! Cómo estás?’

  I can’t believe it, stood in front of me are Luciana and Ana! I manage to say ‘What... how...’ before I’m overwhelmed.

  Luciana makes her way to my bedside and kisses me on the forehead, Ana sits on the bed by my feet. Luciana, as usual, does the talking. ‘Jamal, released some money from your slush fund to get us here, he said you wouldn’t mind!’

  Luciana looks around the room. ‘This is nice, do you think we could fit another couple of beds in?’

  ‘You are insatiable.’ I say to Luciana.

  ‘...and you have a dirty mind!’ she retorts, ‘I was just thinking that the
hotel is costing us a fortune... what were you thinking?’

  I’m struggling with the reality versus my coma. The time I spent with Luciana in my coma was so vivid that I feel as if we have been in a relationship with each other.

  I look beyond Luciana to Ana. ‘Hello, you! Obviously, I’m sorry for everything, I know me and Jill being together, well... I know what it looked like; I can assure you it wasn’t... I promise.’

  Ana’s expression barely changes, ‘we’ll talk about it later,’ she says.

  Luciana sits down by my side... ‘So?’

  Confused, I reply, ‘So, what?’

  ‘So, did you read my letter?’

  ‘What letter Luciana?’

  ‘When I first heard that you were in a coma I asked if there was anything I could do. They said to me that I should write a letter about a subject that you love, so it could be read to you, in order to stimulate your brain. So, I wrote about the thing you love the most...’

  ‘Ice Hockey?’

  ‘Okay, maybe not the first thing you love then! I wrote to you about a business deal. My letter was about setting up a small bar and grill down in Avalon, on Seven Mile Island.’

  ‘No, I haven’t seen your letter.’ But then something comes back to me, that does sound very familiar.

  ‘I haven’t read anything, but...’ I ask Luciana to open a locker near my bed. ‘Is there anything in there?’ Luciana pulls out some papers, in amongst them is her letter. It has been opened at some point and probably read out to me whilst I was in the coma. She passes me the letter and I start to read it.

  ‘Well... what do you think?’ she says as I reach the end of the letter.

  ‘Sounds good, where is Seven Mile Island?’

  ‘Still in New Jersey just a bit further down, gorgeous beaches and it’s not a million miles away, so you can still make it to New York for your business meetings.’

  ‘So, it would still be the three of us sharing as we did in the Ironbound?’

  Luciana and Ana look at each other sheepishly before Luciana speaks. ‘Erm... probably not.’

  I look to Ana, her expression still hasn’t changed, then looking back to Luciana I ask. ‘Can I take it, that, it would just be the two of us then?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that, you see Ana has...’

  Ana interrupts, ‘I have other commitments and I’ll be staying in New York.’

  Luciana stands up, ‘I think I’ll go and get some food and drink for us, see you later.’

  For a few minutes Ana and I sit in silence before I apologise again. ‘Sincerely Ana, I’m so sorry for what has happened.’

  She just shrugs.

  ‘I guess, we are no longer we?’

  She nods, ‘I’ve met someone else.’

  For some reason I’m angry, I don’t know why, considering it’s my fault that we’ve split up.

  ‘Do I know him?’ I ask.

  ‘Her.’ She replies.

  ‘Okay... not what I was expecting.’

  ‘What were you expecting Joe, what part of any of this were you expecting?’

  ‘So, that explains our first night together at El Coca, the night we first got together and you did a disappearing act, was that because you were unsure?’

  ‘I guess it was, I care deeply for you Joe, I guess I mixed up my emotions.’

  It helps to hear that she cares about me, as I do about her. I smile at her, she smiles back.

  ‘Are you happy?’ I ask.

  ‘I am.’ She says, with a warm loving smile on her face.

  ‘Can I have a hug?’ I ask.

  She moves down the bed and puts her arms around me, as I do her, and we hug. As we start to separate, I kiss her cheek...

  ‘NO, NO, NO!’

  Luciana has just walked through the door... and got the wrong end of the stick!

  ‘Ana...NO!’

  Ana and I burst into laughter. ‘Chill Luciana!’ Ana says. ‘It’s just a friendly hug, nothing more.’

  ‘Does he know?’ Luciana asks.

  ‘Yeah he does.’

  ‘Praise the Lord for that! I couldn’t go through... Oh Luciana what am I going to do? I love him, I love her... I love him, I love her... over and over and over!’

  Ana’s still laughing, ‘It wasn’t like that!’

  Luciana raises her eyebrows at Ana. ‘...and what about you amigo, when will you be fit again?’

  ‘Official release date is the 3rd of July.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Luciana joins me on the bed again. ‘Back in time for the 4th of July celebrations?’

  That gets me to thinking, then I ask ‘do we still have our apartment?’

  Luciana looks puzzled, ‘Err, yes, why wouldn’t we?’

  In my head, thanks to the coma, it’s over a year on from Jill’s murder, not a few weeks which is the reality.

  Two days later Luciana and Ana are on their way back home, slowly but surely my body is healing, the Police have all the statements they need of me and I’m pretty much ready to go.

  Then on Friday, DCI Myddlewood visits me in hospital. ‘Morning Joe, the NYPD has located Alex Grinshill, but he won’t be answering any questions I’m afraid.’

  I respond angrily, ‘... that doesn’t surprise me the spineless wimp!’

  ‘...Let me rephrase that, it’s not that he won’t, Joe... it’s, that he can’t. NYPD dragged his lifeless body out of the river by East 72nd Street. Now, I don’t want to sound insensitive, but there is some good news if you glean any good from any of this situation. He confessed verbally to a colleague and he has also written a lengthy confession in the form of a suicide note; that, for us, will move our investigation on to its conclusion. We’ll now hand the case over to the Crown Prosecution Service and the Courts.

  The other news I have for you is more sensitive. Permission has been granted to allow Jill to be laid to rest, and, we expect likewise for Mick in the coming days.’

  DCI Myddlewood pauses to allow me time to take in all that information before continuing.

  ‘Her extended family want Jill to be brought back with her Dad, Mick, to County Clare. We have already started to make arrangements and are liaising with the family, one important thing to mention, they are keen for you to attend the joint funeral.’

  I take a moment before I reply, ‘please could you let the family know that I would be deeply honoured to accept their kind invitation.’ I struggle to talk about Jill and Mick as if they are just people that I know, but apart from a handful of people, nobody else knows they are my Sister and Father. It’s probably best all round if it stays this way.

  The funeral is set for Friday the 30th of June.

  Chapter 35

  It’s August 2001 and just over a year since my return to the States.

  Today, Luciana and I are preparing to leave our apartment in the Ironbound for the last time and start our new life down in Avalon.

  Standing in the bay window where the computer once was, I watch as the last few boxes are loaded into the van on the street below. As I turn from the window, I catch a faint reflection of myself in the glass door on the other side of the empty room, myself and... Jill. I see her quite frequently now, always dressed in blue and always smiling. My counsellor reassures me that I’m not going mad, apparently, it is a common psychological effect called a PBHE, post-bereavement hallucinatory experience. I smile back at our reflection and Jill fades away. I sit down on the floor under the window and take some time to reflect on the past eighteen months, it has a degree of nostalgia but is also tainted with a heavy heart about leaving all this behind. This apartment has been a catalyst for so much, it is the place that brought Ana, Luciana and myself together, it’s been a home to me, it’s where I first heard from Jill again and it’s been my base to make future plans. It has been all those things but now the future beckons and I need to move on, both geographically and mentally.

  I pick myself up off the floor of the apartment and walk towards the door, as I reach the doorway at the top of
the stairs, I have a flashback to that Sunday afternoon in April last year. I close my eyes as I picture the front door opening then slamming shut. I hear ‘Oi’ reverberate up the narrow stairs before my housemates make several attempts to clamber up them, then I watch, as the two, very happy, giggly individuals fall - half in, half out of the doorway.

  I miss those days and I miss Ana. I’ve seen her quite a few times, she’s happy, content and living in a loft on Little West 12th Street over in Manhattan. It serves as a reminder that I too, should move on.

  I make my way down, out of the front door and across the road to the car that Luciana is waiting in. We call into the Real Estate office to drop the keys off for the apartment and that is it, we’re off; a couple of streets later and we take the ramp up onto the New Jersey Turnpike and head south before joining the Garden State Parkway. We’re heading down to Cape May and towards our new life as proud owners of a beach bar and grill in Avalon, all thanks to Jamal. Jamal, as usual, has been an absolute hero, we topped out on all the investments, selling them high. My properties have been sold on to an investment consortium, the public housing properties managed by myself and the community cooperative are now owned, and managed in their entirety by the community.

  For the first time I actually have all the money that I’ve ever made physically in my bank rather than it just being figures on a piece of paper.

  I am as excited as a kid going on their annual holiday as we join the Garden State Parkway and now, we’re only two hours away from making that fresh start. Luciana, however, is more reserved, she has been living in Avalon on and off for a few months now, she already has a rental property and has been working alongside the current owners of the bar and restaurant so there is a smooth transition of the business.

  The plans for the bar and restaurant have thrown up an opportunity for me too. Initially, Luciana and I will be partners but the plan is for Luciana to take over more and more control as the business develops to the point where she’ll have bought me out. However, our short-term plan is to close over the winter period and refurbish the premises. This has put me in touch with a local building contractor, a father and son set up. Now, I’m not sure if I’m lucky, or if I am an opportunity magnet, but it turns out that the father wants to retire and the son, Josh, doesn’t want to take on the full business, he is happy to carry on as a tradesman, but doesn’t want to be a businessman.