I Let You Go

by Clare Mackintosh

  ‘What sort of dog is he?’ I ask.

  ‘A bitza.’

  ‘A Bitza?’ I stand up, keeping a careful hand on the puppy, who has relaxed now under Patrick’s gentle examination.

  Patrick grins. ‘You know: bitza this, bitza that. Mostly spaniel, I’d say, judging from these ears, but heaven knows what the rest is. Collie, maybe, or even a bit of terrier. They wouldn’t have been dumped if they’d been pure-breds, that’s for sure.’ He picks up the puppy and hands him to me to cuddle.

  ‘How awful,’ I say, breathing in the warmth of the little dog. He pushes his nose into my neck. ‘Who would do something like that?’

  ‘We’ll let the police know, but the chances of them finding out anything are pretty slim. They’re a silent lot, the folk round here.’

  ‘What will happen to this one?’ I ask.

  Patrick shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his scrubs, and leans against the sink.

  ‘Are you able to keep him?’

  He has tiny white lines at the corners of his eyes, as though he’s been squinting into the sun. He must spend a lot of time outdoors.

  ‘Given the way he was found, it’s not likely anyone will come forward to claim him,’ Patrick says, ‘and we’re struggling for space in the kennels. It would be a great help if you could give him a home. He’s a nice dog, by the looks of things.’

  ‘Oh goodness, I couldn’t look after a dog!’ I exclaim. I can’t shake the feeling that this has only happened because I came to Port Ellis today.

  ‘Why not?’

  I hesitate. How can I explain that bad things happen around me? I would love to have something to look after again, but at the same time it terrifies me. What if I couldn’t look after him? What if he got sick?

  ‘I don’t even know if my landlord would let me,’ I say, finally.

  ‘Where are you living? Are you in Port Ellis?’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m over in Penfach. In a cottage not far from the caravan park.’

  There is a flash of recognition in Patrick’s eyes. ‘Are you renting Iestyn’s place?’

  I nod. It no longer surprises me to discover that everyone knows Iestyn.

  ‘You leave him to me,’ Patrick says. ‘Iestyn Jones was at school with my dad, and I’ve got enough dirt on him to let you keep a herd of elephants, if you wanted them.’

  I smile. It’s hard not to.

  ‘I think I’d draw the line at elephants.’ I say, and immediately feel myself redden.

  ‘Spaniels are great with kids,’ he says. ‘Do you have any?’

  The pause seems to go on for ever.

  ‘No,’ I say eventually. ‘I don’t have any children.’

  The dog wriggles free from my hand and begins licking my chin furiously. I feel his heart beating against mine.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll take him.’

  11

  Ray eased himself out of bed, trying not to disturb Mags. He had promised her a work-free weekend, but if he got up now he could have an hour’s worth of emails done before she surfaced, and get a head-start on the Operation Break file. They would execute two simultaneous warrants on the clubs, and if their sources were to be believed, would find large quantities of cocaine in both, as well as documentation that would show the flow of money in and out of the supposedly legitimate businesses.

  He pulled on his trousers and went in search of coffee. As the kettle was boiling he heard footsteps padding into the kitchen behind him, and he turned.

  ‘Daddy!’ Lucy flung her arms around his waist. ‘I didn’t know you were awake!’

  ‘How long have you been up?’ he said, unpeeling her arms and bending down to give her a kiss. ‘Sorry I didn’t see you before you went to bed yesterday. How was school?’

  ‘Okay, I guess. How was work?’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  They grinned at each other.

  ‘Can I watch telly?’ Lucy held her breath and looked up at him with beseeching eyes. Mags had strict rules about television in the morning, but it was the weekend, and it would leave Ray free to work for a while.

  ‘Oh, go on, then.’

  She scuttled into the sitting room before Ray could change his mind, and he heard the pop of the television warming up, before the high-pitched tones of some cartoon or other. Ray sat at the kitchen table and switched on his BlackBerry.

  By eight o’clock he had dealt with most of his emails, and he was making himself a second cup of coffee when Lucy came into the kitchen to complain that she was starving and where was breakfast?

  ‘Is Tom still asleep?’ Ray asked.

  ‘Yes. Lazybones.’

  ‘I am not lazy!’ came an indignant voice from up the stairs.

  ‘You are!’ shouted Lucy.

  Footsteps stomped across the landing and Tom hurtled down the stairs, his face screwed up and cross beneath messy hair. An angry outbreak of spots ran across his forehead. ‘I am NOT!’ he shouted, shoving his sister with an outstretched hand.

  ‘Ow!’ screamed Lucy, tears springing instantly to her eyes. Her bottom lip wobbled.

  ‘That wasn’t hard!’

  ‘Yes it was!’

  Ray groaned and wondered if all siblings fought as much as these two. Just as he was about to forcibly separate his children, Mags came downstairs.

  ‘Eight o’clock is hardly lazy, Lucy,’ she said mildly. ‘Tom, don’t hit your sister.’ She picked up Ray’s coffee. ‘Is that for me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ray put the kettle on again. He looked at the kids, who were now sitting at the table planning what they were going to do over the summer holidays, their quarrel forgotten – for the time being, at any rate. Mags always managed to defuse rows in a way he had never mastered. ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘It’s called parenting,’ Mags said, ‘You should try it sometime.’

  Ray didn’t bite. Lately all they seemed to be doing was sniping at each other, and he wasn’t in the mood for another debate about full-time working versus full-time parenting.

  Mags moved around the kitchen, putting breakfast things out on the table; deftly making toast and pouring juice between sips of coffee. ‘What time did you get in last night? I didn’t hear you come home.’ She slipped an apron on over her pyjamas and began scrambling eggs. The apron was one Ray had given her for Christmas years ago. He had meant it as a joke – like those awful husbands who buy their wives saucepans or ironing boards – but Mags had worn it ever since. It had a picture of a 1950s housewife on it, and the slogan read, ‘I love cooking with wine – sometimes I even put some in the food.’ Ray remembered coming home from work and slipping his arms around his wife as she stood at the stove, feeling the apron crease beneath his hands. He hadn’t done that for a while.

  ‘About one, I think,’ Ray said. There had been an armed robbery at a petrol station on the outskirts of Bristol. Uniform had managed to bring in all four men involved within a few hours of the incident, and Ray had stayed in the office more as a gesture of solidarity to his team than out of any real necessity.

  The coffee was too hot to drink but he took a sip anyway, and burned his tongue. His BlackBerry buzzed and he glanced at the screen. Stumpy had emailed to say that the four offenders had been charged and put before Saturday-morning court, where the magistrates had remanded them. Ray tapped out a quick email to the superintendent.

  ‘Ray!’ Mags said. ‘No work! You promised.’

  ‘Sorry, I was catching up on last night’s job.’

  ‘It’s only two days, Ray – they’ll have to manage without you.’ She put a pan of eggs on the table and sat down.

  ‘Careful,’ she said to Lucy, ‘it’s hot.’ She looked up at Ray. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’

  ‘No thanks, I’ll grab something later. I’m going to have a shower.’ He leaned against the doorframe for a moment, watching the three of them eat.

  ‘We need to leave the gate open for the window-cleaner on Monday,’ Mags said, ‘so can you remember to unlock i
t when you take the bins out tomorrow night? Oh, and I went round to see next door about the trees, and they’re going to get them cut back in the next couple of weeks, although I’ll believe that when I see it.’

  Ray wondered if the Post would run a story on last night’s job. They were quick enough to pick up on the ones the police didn’t solve, after all.

  ‘That sounds great,’ he said.

  Mags put down her fork and looked at him.

  ‘What?’ Ray said. He went upstairs to shower, pulling out his BlackBerry to drop a line to the on-call press officer. It would be a shame not to capitalise on a job well done.

  ‘Thank you for today,’ Mags said. They were sitting on the sofa, but neither of them had so far bothered to turn on the television.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For putting work aside for once.’ Mags tipped her head back and closed her eyes. The lines at the corners of her eyes relaxed and she looked instantly younger: Ray realised how often she seemed to be frowning, nowadays, and he wondered if he did the same.

  Mags had the sort of smile Ray’s mother used to call ‘generous’. ‘That just means I’ve got a big mouth,’ Mags laughed, the first time she heard it.

  Ray’s own mouth twitched at the memory. Maybe she did smile a little less nowadays, but she was still the same Mags she’d been all those years ago. She frequently moaned about the weight she had put on since the kids were born, but Ray rather liked the way she was now; her stomach round and soft, her breasts low and full. His compliments fell on deaf ears, and he had long since given up on them.

  ‘It was great,’ Ray said. ‘We should do it more often.’ They had spent the day at home, pottering about and playing cricket in the garden, making the most of the sunshine. Ray had got out the old Swingball set from the shed, and both kids had messed around with it for the rest of the afternoon, despite Tom saying loudly how ‘lame’ it was.

  ‘It was nice to see Tom laughing,’ Mags said.

  ‘He’s not done a lot of that lately, has he?’

  ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Do you want to speak to the school again?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point,’ Mags said. ‘It’s nearly the end of the school year. I’m hoping a change of teacher will make a difference, plus he won’t be one of the youngest any more – maybe that’ll give him a bit of confidence.’

  Ray was trying to sympathise with his son, who had drifted through the last term at school with the same lack of enthusiasm that had concerned his teacher at the start of the year.

  ‘I just wish he’d talk to us,’ Mags said.

  ‘He swears blind nothing’s wrong,’ Ray said. ‘He’s a typical adolescent boy, that’s all, but he’s going to have to snap out of it, because if he still has the same attitude to school when he gets to GCSE year, he’s buggered.’

  ‘You two seemed to get on better today,’ Mags said.

  It was true, they had survived the whole day without arguing. Ray had bitten his tongue at Tom’s occasional back-chat, and Tom had cut down on the eye-rolling. It had been a good day.

  ‘And it wasn’t that bad, switching off the BlackBerry, was it?’ Mags said. ‘No palpitations? Cold sweats? DTs?’

  ‘Ha ha. No, it wasn’t that bad.’ He hadn’t switched it off, of course, and it had vibrated constantly in his pocket throughout the day. Eventually he had retired to the loo to sift through his emails and make sure he wasn’t missing anything urgent. He had replied to one from the chief about Op Break, and glanced at a message from Kate about the hit-and-run, that he was itching to go and read properly. What Mags didn’t understand was that ignoring the BlackBerry for a weekend would leave him with so much to do on Monday that he would spend the rest of the week catching up with it, unable to deal with anything else that came in.

  He stood up. ‘I’m going to go into the study and do an hour or so now, though.’

  ‘What? Ray, you said no work!’

  Ray was confused. ‘But the kids are in bed.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m—’ Mags stopped and gave a tiny shake of her head, as though she had something in her ear.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s fine. Do what you have to do.’

  ‘I’ll be down in an hour, I promise.’

  It was closer to two hours later when Mags pushed open the door to the study. ‘I thought you might like a cup of tea.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Ray stretched, groaning as he felt something click in his back.

  Mags put the mug down on his desk and peered over Ray’s shoulder at the thick sheaf of papers he was reading. ‘Is this the nightclub job?’ She scanned the uppermost sheet. ‘Jacob Jordan? Wasn’t that the boy who was killed in the hit-and-run last year?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Mags looked puzzled. ‘I thought that had been filed.’

  ‘It has.’

  Mags sat on the arm of the easy chair they kept in the study because it clashed with the sitting-room carpet. It didn’t really fit in Ray’s office, but it was the most comfortable armchair he had ever sat in, and he refused to part with it. ‘So why is CID still working on it?’

  Ray sighed. ‘They’re not,’ he said. ‘The case is closed, but I never filed the paperwork. We’re just taking a look through with a fresh pair of eyes, to see if we missed anything.’

  ‘We?’

  Ray paused. ‘The team.’ He didn’t know why he didn’t mention Kate, but it would be strange to make a point of it now. Better to keep her out of it, in case the chief did ever get wind of it. No need for Kate’s copybook to be blotted so early in her career.

  ‘Oh, Ray,’ Mags’s voice was soft, ‘haven’t you got enough on your plate with live jobs, without doing cold case reviews?’

  ‘This one’s still warm,’ Ray said. ‘And I can’t help feeling we were pulled off it too soon. If we could take another pass at it, we might find something.’

  There was a pause before Mags spoke. ‘It’s not like Annabelle, you know.’

  Ray tightened his grip on the handle of his mug.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You can’t torture yourself like this over every job you don’t solve.’ Mags leaned forward and squeezed his knee. ‘You’ll drive yourself mad.’

  Ray took a sip of tea. Annabelle Snowden had been the first job he had dealt with when he took over as DI. She had gone missing after school and her mum and dad had been frantic. At least, they had seemed frantic. Two weeks later, Ray had charged her father with murder, after Annabelle’s body was found hidden in the divan base of a bed at his flat; she had been kept alive there for more than a week.

  ‘I knew there was something odd about Terry Snowden,’ he said, finally looking at Mags. ‘I should have fought harder to have him arrested as soon as she went missing.’

  ‘There was no evidence,’ said Mags. ‘Copper’s instinct is all very well, but you can’t run an investigation on hunches.’ Gently, she closed Jacob’s file. ‘Different job,’ she said. ‘Different people.’

  ‘Still a child,’ Ray said.

  Mags took his hands. ‘But he’s already dead, Ray. You can work all the hours God sends and you won’t change that. Let it go.’

  Ray didn’t answer. He turned back to his desk and opened up the file again, hardly noticing as Mags left the room and went to bed. When he logged into his email there was a new message from Kate, sent a couple of minutes previously. He typed a quick reply.

  You still up?

  The response came seconds later.

  Checking to see if Jacob’s mum is on Facebook. And watching an eBay bid. You?

  Looking through the reports of burned-out vehicles in neighbouring forces. Here for a while.

  Great, you can keep me awake!

  Ray imagined Kate curled up on the sofa, her laptop to one side and a pile of snacks to the other.

  Ben and Jerry’s? he typed.

  How did you know?!

  Ray grinned. He dragged the email window to a c
orner of the screen where he could keep an eye on new messages, and began reading through the faxed hospital reports.

  Didn’t you promise Mags you’d take the weekend off?

  I AM taking the weekend off! I’m just doing a bit of work now that the kids are asleep. Someone’s got to keep you company …

  I’m honoured. What better way to spend a Saturday night?

  Ray laughed. Any joy on Facebook? he typed.

  A couple of possibles, but they don’t have profile pics. Hang on, phone’s ringing. Back in a mo.

  Reluctantly, Ray closed down his email and turned his attention to the pile of hospital records. It had been months since Jacob died, and there was a nagging voice in Ray’s head that told him all this extra work was a fruitless exercise. The piece of Volvo fog light had turned out to belong to a housewife who had skidded on ice and hit one of the trees lining the road. All those hours of work for nothing, and still they carried on. Ray was playing with fire, going against the chief’s wishes, not to mention letting Kate do the same. But he was in too deep now – he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

  12

  It’ll be warmer later in the day, but for now the air is still cool, and I pull my shoulders up to my ears.

  ‘It’s chilly today,’ I say out loud.

  I’ve started talking to myself, like the old woman who used to walk along the Clifton Suspension Bridge, laden down with carrier bags stuffed with newspapers. I wonder if she’s still there; if she still crosses the bridge every morning, and crosses back again each night. When you leave a place it’s easy to imagine life going on there the same way as before, even though nothing really stays the same for long. My life in Bristol could have belonged to someone else.