by Chris Simms
‘Another boat could push you.’
The old man turned to her and Jon looked down, unsure if it was really his daughter who had spoken.
She pointed. ‘One of those.’
‘A tugboat? Good thinking,’ the old man grinned, giving Jon a wink and then turning to his grandson. ‘Ben, which boat shall we ask for assistance?’
The boy strode to the edge and started surveying his options. Jon bent down, sensing an opportunity to coax his daughter into conversation. ‘Would you like a boat like one of those?’
She shook her head.
‘What would you like for your birthday, any ideas?’
She shrugged, her flow of words now dried up.
I know what you’d really like, Jon thought. A return to normality. Me living at home with you and your mum. ‘Well, why don’t you think while you eat your ice cream.’ He waited for the comment to sink in and eventually his daughter raised a questioning look. ‘You know. The one waiting for you in McDonald’s.’
The faintest of smiles appeared on her face.
The counter in the fast-food restaurant was crowded with customers and Jon looked about, spotting many other men just like him. McDads: indulging sons or daughters with treats before returning them back to the homes of ex-wives or partners.
He examined the garish menu board with its emphasis on child-friendly fare. What did they say about this place? One of the world’s biggest toy retailers. To get one, all you had to do was stuff some junk food into your face.
‘Yes, sir?’ The young woman behind the till beamed.
Jon raised his eyes to the ceiling hanging splashed with a photo of the latest dessert. ‘One of your ice-cream things with all the bits on top, please. And a black coffee for me.’
‘Any food with that?’ she asked without breaking her smile.
‘No. You’re all right, cheers.’
She rang it in, and after taking his money, turned to get the order ready. Jon glanced round, looking for a spare table. In a sectioned-off area to the side a kid’s birthday party was in progress, a dozen children shouting at a staff member as she tried to organise some sort of game.
He turned to the opposite side of the restaurant and spotted a couple of free stools at the wall counter. Their tray was slid across. ‘Thanks,’ Jon said, picking it up. ‘Come on, Holly.’ He was halfway across when his eyes were drawn to a familiar figure sitting at a nearby table with two spare chairs. No, Jon groaned to himself. It’s Dad. The older man was sipping at a drink, Jake seated beside him.
Jon looked at the little boy from the corner of his eye. Despite the fact he now lived with two loving grandparents, the son of his dead brother still had a sickly air about him. Testament to developing in the womb of a heroin addict who’d pursued her habit through virtually the entire pregnancy. The usual thought flashed up. Where the hell is Zoe now?
Since she’d disappeared the year before, he’d heard from her only once: a postcard from Dublin. She’d said she was heading over to Galway, trying to find an Irish friend called Siobhain who, while living rough in Manchester, had also been forced into working for the pimp called Salvio. Zoe didn’t know when she would be back, but the postcard ended with a row of kisses for Jake.
Jon wondered whether to join his dad. But he knew how it would play out – polite small talk for the benefit of the kids, but that curious mix of defiance and guilt never leaving his father’s eyes. Emotions, Jon guessed, that would probably be showing on my face, too. Why, he asked himself yet again, can’t we both just admit to our parts in the mess the Spicer family has become?
To his relief, they made it to the stools without Jake clocking them. But, as soon as he’d helped Holly up, she spotted her cousin. ‘Jake!’
The little boy’s head swivelled on his scrawny neck. ‘Holly!’ Feigning surprise, Jon looked across, catching his father’s eyes flickering over them.
‘Hello there, Holly.’
‘Grandad!’ She squirmed down off her seat and hurried over to Jake’s side. ‘What’s that?’
‘I got tiger.’ Triumphantly, Jake held up a plastic toy.
Aware he couldn’t sit apart, Jon lifted the tray and sidled over.
‘Alan.’
His father inclined his head in reply.
‘How’s Mum?’
‘She’s fine, yes. Taking part in a concert, so I’m looking after the little man, here.’
‘What’s she up to?’
‘Oh,’ he waved a hand. ‘A choir concert in the Hidden Gem.’
Jon nodded. The Catholic church tucked unobtrusively down a side alley off King Street. The outside gave little hint of the interior’s splendour. He searched his mind for something to say, but unspoken issues had robbed him of the ability to make conversation. ‘Jake seems well.’
His dad’s gaze settled affectionately on the young lad, who was now demonstrating to Holly how the animal’s jaw opened and closed. ‘He’s grand.’
Jon looked at him, too, thinking of the hovel of a flat he and Rick had rescued the boy from, over a year before. Finding his nephew might have saved the boy from death, but doing so had cost Jon his own marriage.
‘We’d better go,’ Alan announced. ‘Jake? Grandma will be home soon, time to go. Holly, you’ll come to play soon, won’t you?’
Jon stepped back as Alan got stiffly to his feet.
‘Yes,’ she replied. Jon saw her begin to pick at the seam of her pink trousers, as more members of her family started melting away before her.
‘Come on, princess. Your ice cream is turning gooey.’ Jon placed it in front of her then reached over to ruffle Jake’s hair. ‘See you about, mate.’
Just over an hour later, Jon was back at the front door of his old house, Holly standing silently at his side. The catch clicked and the door swung open to reveal Alice. She was wearing a fitted black shirt and brown trousers with a subtle check pattern, neither of which Jon remembered being in her wardrobe when he’d lived in the house. Her blonde hair had been cut short, barely to her collar. She looked well, skin smooth and radiant. Even the fine lines he’d noticed beginning to creep around the edges of her eyes during the months before he’d moved out seemed to have disappeared.
‘I’ve missed you!’ she exclaimed, dropping to one knee and stretching out both arms.
Holly stepped into her mother’s embrace, leaving Jon behind. He watched as the two of them rocked slightly back and forth, cheeks pressed together, eyes closed. He felt his fingers twitch with the urge to wrap his arms round the pair of them, just as he used to do.
A figure appeared in the hallway behind and he looked up to see Phillip. The guy was in a suit, angular frame making its shoulders jut out. Revulsion rose at the back of Jon’s throat and he forced it back down with a smile. ‘All right? Good hotel?’
‘Wonderful, thank you.’ A second’s silence then he gestured weakly towards the kitchen. ‘Just need to . . .’
Yeah, Jon thought, watching the other man retreat from sight. Make yourself scarce. You’re as welcome in my house as a gas leak.
‘So,’ Alice said, finally breaking contact to look into Holly’s eyes. ‘You had a nice time?’
Holly’s head dipped for a moment.
‘What did you have for tea?’ Alice asked brightly.
‘Pizza.’
‘Pizza?’
‘Yes, but Carmel forgot it was cooking.’ She gave Jon a look, the type of one she used before announcing a newly-found fact from school. ‘The food had gone to shit.’
Alice flicked a furious glance at Jon.
Bloody great, he thought, remembering the drunken couple who’d staggered past the entrance to Carmel’s apartment block.
‘She got that from these two—’
‘Holly,’ Alice said in an admonishing tone. ‘That’s not a nice word!’
‘Which word?’ she said, voice immediately beginning to wobble.
‘The one that began with “sh”. You’re not to say it. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘So,’ Alice’s voice had regained some cheer. ‘Did you watch a DVD?’
‘Yes, with Carmel.’
‘Just you two?
‘Yes. Daddy . . .’ She looked at him again, words petering out.
‘Daddy what?’
‘I got a call,’ Jon cut in to put an end to his daughter’s predicament. ‘Had to pop out for a bit. Fine though, wasn’t it, Holly?’
Her eyes slid to the floor. ‘Yes.’
Alice stood up, crossing her arms as she did so. Here we go, Jon thought.
‘Holly, why don’t you see what we brought you? It’s in the kitchen. Mum will be inside in just a minute.’
Holly now looked like she was on the verge of tears as Jon crouched down. ‘I’ll see you soon, princess. OK?’
‘Yes. Bye.’
They hugged briefly and she walked tentatively back into the house.
Alice pulled the door shut behind her. ‘You left her alone in a stranger’s flat? Burnt bloody pizza to eat?’
Jon paused, knowing a placatory response would be best. But anger surged through his arms, causing the palms of his hands to tingle. Fuck it. ‘Stranger’s? In that case, you’re doing the same thing, right now.’
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. This is her house – not some dodgy flat in some squalid part of the city centre.’
‘If Carmel’s a stranger, so is Phillip.’ He flipped the final syllable off the end of his tongue like it was a gob of phlegm.
‘I am standing on the front step,’ she hissed. ‘Not off somewhere else. Work call, was it?’
Jon toyed with the idea of lying. He knew it was the job that had forced them apart. A wedge that had worked its way so deep into their marriage, it could never be prised out. But even that might not have caused Alice to finish things. There were the broken promises, too. The way he repeatedly failed to give priority to his home life. His refusal to accept Alice’s claim that the deaths he investigated often grew more important to him than the lives of his family. ‘I had my mobile on the whole time – which was all of an hour or two.’
‘Hour or two.’ Alice’s voice was scathing. ‘Since when do your bloody work calls ever last just an hour or two?’
‘Since I make them,’ Jon snapped back.
Alice’s fingers drummed against her upper arm, eyes moving to the plastic bag by the suitcase. ‘What’s in there?’
‘Her pyjamas. We washed them, but Carmel’s tumble dryer isn’t working.’
‘She wet herself ?’
‘Yes.’
Alice stayed silent for a couple of seconds. ‘Have you thought any more about the divorce?’ Slowly, her eyes turned to his.
Jon shook his head. ‘I won’t let you do it. Not on unreasonable behaviour. I’ll fight you every inch. I was never unreasonable.’
‘That’s open to debate,’ she whispered, looking off to the side. Jon found himself staring at the side of his wife’s face; her eye, the corner of her lips, the strand of hair hanging over her ear. He shook his head. How did it ever come to this? ‘I was only ever doing my job, Ali. Locking up shit-heads. Finding the person who killed my little brother. Helping his son have a life that won’t end like his dad’s did. That’s all.’
She kept her eyes fixed on something further up the street, but he could see the skin at the side of her neck becoming red. ‘You weren’t there for me, Jon. When I needed you . . .’
No, Jon thought. Please don’t put me through this again. She took a sharp intake of breath and he guessed she couldn’t summon the will to dredge up those particular memories, either.
She sighed. ‘I haven’t the energy for this. Not again.’
Jon stepped back. ‘I won’t let you end our marriage, Ali. You can’t place all the blame on me.’
‘Fine. So we go down the living apart for five years route.’ She brushed something off the cheek he was unable to see. But when she lowered her hand, he saw moisture on her knuckle.
‘More uncertainty for Holly, as if she needs any more of that in her life.’
Or, Jon thought, angrily setting off for the garden gate, you could kick that shifty bastard out of my house and give me another chance.
The four people approached a little unsteadily, all speaking at once, their voices loud and cheerful. Jon glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten past eleven. Pub closing time.
Earlier, after spending the afternoon on the sofa watching telly with Carmel, Jon had glanced at the clock. ‘Bollocks. I have to bob back into the office.’
‘What, now?’ Carmel had asked.
‘I know. Crap, isn’t it? But the uniforms will have completed initial witness statements for that murder in Stretford by now. They need to be checked over and anything significant given to the indexers for putting in HOLMES.’
‘I thought you said it wasn’t urgent.’
‘Well, not in the sense of an innocent kid or pregnant housewife being butchered. But initial actions still have to be completed. It’s protocol.’
She’d hauled herself upright. ‘How long will you be? We’re meant to be going for a few drinks later.’
‘Not long. I can always catch you up, though. Circle Club, wasn’t it?’
The two couples were now almost adjacent with his parked car. He kept still, knowing that only by moving would his presence in the vehicle’s dark interior be betrayed.
‘Sal, he’s always been a tight bastard.’
‘No—’
‘Exactly! Biggest duty-free shopping centre in the world, isn’t it?’
‘No—’
‘So what did he bring you back?’
‘Not even a bottle of perfume.’
Three of them dissolved into incredulous laughter and the last member of the group finally got to speak. ‘No, bollocks to that. It’s a change of planes for me, that’s all. Not a bloody shopping expedition.’
‘He always says that,’ the girl with her arm around his waist complained, light-heartedly. ‘Never a moment to spare. Poor Terry, racing down causeways. Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, his feet hardly touch the ground.’
Their voices were getting fainter now as they moved further down the street. He watched their progress in the rear-view mirror then turned his eyes to his old house. In the seconds he’d been watching the group, the light in the bedroom he used to share with Alice had gone off. Now every window of the property was black. Braithwaite’s maroon Saab convertible was parked on the other side of the street, and as Jon waited on the slim chance the man was about to emerge through the front door, he gazed at the window of Holly’s room.
The curtains were tightly drawn, not even a hint of the night light he knew would be on showing round the material’s edges. A couple of minutes later and the front door still hadn’t opened. That’s it then, thought Jon. He’s staying over. No drive back to his house in Hale, no late-night diversion to Fairfield Street.
He studied the psychiatrist’s car, reflecting on how he’d recently run the registration through the work computer to see if it had shown up as a nuisance vehicle in any of Manchester’s kerb-crawling spots. Nothing. Despite the distinctive model and colour, none of the girls he’d spoken to were familiar with the vehicle either. None had noticed it prowling around or had been approached by a man fitting Jon’s description of Braithwaite. He considered his next move. Strangely, the Saab was still registered in Braithwaite’s estranged wife’s name. From what Jon had been able to glean, the couple had separated a year or so before and she’d moved into a posh little apartment in the middle of Wilmslow.
Why had the marriage hit the rocks? Jon wondered. He could understand why Braithwaite had stayed in the house: the annex was used for the man’s private practice. Jon had watched the expensive cars swinging in and out of the wide driveway. Wealthy Cheshire-types trying to cope with the stresses and strains of their high-pressure lives. Poor things.
He scratched a nail against the steering wheel, thinking of Carmel. Prob
ably in The Circle Club by now, chatting to her media-type mates about the punishing hours her boyfriend in the police worked. The knowledge of his deceit made him wince. The same lies, he thought. The same bullshit you fed Alice, using the demands of a non-existent case to let you roam around on your own private missions.
He thought about Carmel’s friends. Overly made-up women in expensive clothes. Skinny blokes in designer glasses, hair either a meticulously arranged mess or completely shaved off. He’d have to sit there, fending off their requests to hear about the dark and depraved goings-on in Manchester’s underworld. When no juicy stories were forthcoming, they’d bemoan how dangerous it could be in the city. The hassle of avoiding low-lifes looking for trouble. The desperate people, seeking respite from their shit lives through cheap pints and pills. Sad, they’d conclude, pushing aside their bottles of imported beer and heading off to the toilets for a quick sniff of coke.
Deciding he’d better show his face, he looked Braithwaite’s car over one last time then started the engine and began to pull out. It was now a total of three times he’d followed the man as he drove into the city centre for his late-night, passive observation routine. The guy, Jon thought, was building up to an approach. He could easily afford the services of any escort, but no. You want something else, don’t you? Domination, maybe. A sordid car park liaison with a malnourished addict. As Jon drove away, he glanced up at his old bedroom window, unable to prevent the picture of Braithwaite in bed with his wife. When you finally make your move, my friend, I’ll be there, dragging you out of your vehicle and bringing your world crashing to the ground.
Eight
Walking in from the car park, Jon nodded to some of the night-shift boys making their way home. ‘Morning, Dave. Busy night?’
‘Mad start then a piece of piss once we got past midnight. Just a suicide on the M60 near Denton shortly before five. A witness saw him jump from the flyover. We had all the lanes open again well ahead of rush hour.’
Suicide, Jon thought. Nice and easy. No suspicious circumstances there.
‘Oh – and thanks for picking up that job. The asylum seeker one over in Stretford.’ The man glanced back to the building.
