by Tim Weaver
‘What was?’
‘Everything. If the case had been a dog, you’d have put the fucking thing down. No motive, no DNA, vague witnesses, eleven thousand men with a name that might not even be relevant.’ He paused, shifting the cigarette packet around in front of him, opening and closing the lid. Eventually, he picked up the file and began to riffle through its pages again, flipping forward to another witness statement.
When he found it, he returned the file to me.
‘What’s this?’ I said.
‘About the only thing worth a damn.’
But I never got the chance to read it.
6
A second later, my phone began buzzing again.
It was Annabel for a second time. I glanced at Healy, then back to the phone. We were right in the middle of something, and I could see he expected me to let the call go to voicemail – but it was rare for Annabel to phone out of the blue, even rarer for her to press the issue like this. She was twenty-five, independent, completely self-sufficient, and because she worked with kids, in schools, in clubs, she was a big believer in routine and structure. If she was calling me, and she hadn’t mentioned that she would call me, something was up.
‘I’m going to have to take this,’ I said to him.
He frowned. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘It’s Annabel.’
‘So?’
‘So, I need to take it.’
‘Just phone her back when we’re done.’
‘I’m taking the call, Healy.’
His eyes flicked between the file – open on the page he’d selected for me – to the phone in my hand. ‘This is bullshit,’ he whispered, but loud enough for me to hear, and then started to slide out of the booth, propping a cigarette between his lips. Without another word, he headed for the exit. Outside, snow was falling like clumps of wet paper, hard and fast; a man from the motel – hood on, zip up to his chin – was desperately trying to grit the car park as wind ripped off the river. Healy emerged from the front, cigarette already lit, a pissed-off expression on his face.
I pressed Answer.
‘Hey sweetheart.’
‘Hey,’ Annabel said quietly.
‘Are you okay?’
‘It’s Olivia.’
I felt a moment of panic.
Olivia was her nine-year-old sister. Annabel and I had only discovered the truth about our relationship fourteen months ago – and while, biologically, Olivia wasn’t mine, the minute Annabel entered my life, they both entered my life.
‘What about her? Is she okay?’
‘I’m in Torquay,’ she said, her words a little smudged. It was clear she’d been crying. ‘At the hospital. We’ve had loads of snow here, and she went out on the sledge with one of her friends – just down to the field at the end of our road.’ Annabel burst into tears. ‘She hit a tree. She’s in surgery at the moment. I just …’ She faded out.
‘Okay,’ I said, trying to sound calm. ‘It’s okay.’
‘She’s got internal bleeding.’
My heart sank. Shit.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know who else to call.’
‘Don’t apologize,’ I said to her, my mind already shifting forward. ‘You did the right thing calling me.’
I paused, looking out of the window at Healy. He was halfway through his cigarette, its molten orange glow winking in the snow as he took another drag.
‘What have the doctors said?’
‘Nothing.’
‘They haven’t explained her injuries?’
‘I’m not sure they know yet.’ She stopped, sniffed, obviously trying to regain her composure. ‘They just said she had internal injuries and they had to get her straight into surgery. I don’t know what to do. What am I going to do if …’ She started crying again.
I tried to clear my head. There was just no way I could leave her in that hospital alone.
‘I’m setting off now,’ I said to her.
‘You don’t have to –’
‘I want to.’ I glanced out of the window. Healy was in the same spot, his gaze fixed on the man from the motel as he dragged a big bag of grit back towards the entrance. ‘It’s going to take me four hours, maybe longer, especially in the snow. But I want you to keep me up to date, okay? Phone me any time. If you can’t get answers from the doctors, you give me their name, and I’ll speak to them.’
‘Thank you.’
‘All right. I’ll speak to you in a sec.’
I ended the call, pocketed my phone and glanced at the file, open on the table in front of me. Healy had been directing my attention to another statement, this time from a witness called Joban Kehal. I grabbed a pen from my jacket and starred the page so I knew where to come back to, then I collected up the three pictures of the family that Healy had set aside and returned them to the case file. Taking the file and my phone, I headed out of the bar and into the narrow foyer.
Healy was already back inside.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said to him.
He stopped, frowning. ‘What?’
‘I’ll take this with me and read it when I’m down there.’
‘Down where?’
‘I need to see Annabel.’
‘You’re going down to Devon?’
‘Olivia’s been in an accident.’
The next part of his response had already been on his lips – What the hell are you going to Devon for when we’re right in the middle of something? – but, at the mention of Olivia’s accident, he stopped himself. His lips flattened, almost as if he were trying to hold the words in, and I could see his brain kicking into gear.
‘Is she going to be okay?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What happened?’
‘She was out on her sledge and hit a tree.’
He nodded. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah, well, I need to make sure.’
He glanced at the file. ‘You taking that?’
‘I’m going to read over it.’
‘While you’re driving?’
He said it flatly, but that didn’t mask the acidity.
‘She’s on an operating table with internal bleeding,’ I said. ‘Shall I just ignore that and sit here for another hour, or two, or three, talking about this file?’
‘You don’t think it’s important. I get it.’
‘Don’t twist my words. Are you actually listening to what I’m saying?’
I looked at him, waiting for a comeback.
I got nothing in return.
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘I’m going. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
As I headed out, he said, ‘Leave the file.’
I turned. ‘I’m going to look at it, okay?’
He shook his head, something shifting in his expression, and I understood. He wasn’t suggesting I leave it because I already had enough to think about. He wanted me to leave it because he was going to go off and work the case himself.
‘No,’ I said.
‘I already know everything in there, anyway.’
‘So why are you asking for it back?’
He eyed me. ‘Just give me the fucking file.’
‘Look,’ I said, biting my tongue, trying hard to keep the frustration out of my voice. ‘You’ve got that interview at the builders’ merchants first thing in the morning. Maybe concentrate on that for now, and then I’ll give you a call at lunch tomorrow and we can pick up where we left off with the file –’
‘I’m not going.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not going to that interview.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Exactly what I just said. I’m not going.’
I took a step towards him. ‘It’s a decent job.’
‘It’s store security.’
‘The money’s really good.’
He shrugged.
I rubbed at my forehead, trying to suppress my anger. ‘Can you just do me this one fa
vour? Please. I need you to go to this interview tomorrow because I know the guy who runs the company and he’s the major reason you’ve made the shortlist. I talked him into giving you a shot. He pulled strings to get you this interview. So if you don’t turn up tomorrow morning, it makes me look like a –’
‘I don’t care.’
‘I organized this for you, Healy.’
‘Then unorganize it – because I’m not going.’
I moved even closer to him. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing’s the matter with –’
‘I told you I would help you with this case.’ I held up the file in front of him. ‘I’ve just said I will look at it. I’ll look at it. Okay? How much clearer can I make it for you? But I need you to be in Deptford tomorrow for this interview. This job, you will have to seriously screw it up not to be in with a chance of getting it. Do you understand me? All you need to do is turn up there and say the right things.’
Over Healy’s shoulder, one of the motel staff was watching us from the counter, a disapproving look on her face, and I realized how loud I’d become.
I took a long breath. ‘I’ve got to go.’
Healy glanced at the file again and then opened both his hands out in a Do what you want gesture. It annoyed me, but this time I refused to rise to the bait.
‘I need you to be at that interview tomorrow,’ I said.
Before he could reply, I headed for the exit.
7
When my wife, Derryn, died of breast cancer in 2009, I gave up all hope of becoming a parent. But one moment of immaturity a quarter of a century ago, with a girlfriend I’d had at school, had eventually returned to the surface and changed my life.
For Annabel and I, the first six months of our relationship had been hard: there was a will to know one another better on both sides, but she was mourning the loss of people she thought had been her parents, and I was trying to come to terms with not only being a father, but being a father to a woman more than half my age. But as soon as I saw her in the hospital waiting room, I felt an indelible pull towards her, an obligation, a certainty that being here with her, and dropping everything at the motel, was the only choice I could have made. This was what a father did for his daughter.
Healy, of all people, should have known that.
It was hard to see Olivia in such a state, her tiny, nine-year-old body wired up to breathing apparatus, an ECG, a drip, bandages at her breastbone and along her right side. The staff were good enough to let Annabel and me stay and, overnight, we sat with Olivia on rotation: while one of us perched at her bedside, the other tried to get some rest in a faded blue nursing chair on the other side of the room. Fortunately, she held steady, and when we talked to the doctor in the morning, he said things were looking positive but there was a long way to go.
At lunchtime, I went to get us both some food and coffee, and when I returned, I found Annabel sobbing, the events of the previous day, and a long night of fitful sleep, finally getting on top of her. In fourteen months, I hadn’t seen her cry much, and not only because she lived two hundred and fifteen miles from me. The lies of her past, the loss of the people she’d thought of – and loved – as her mum and dad, a sister who had basically become like a daughter – those things had slowly set like concrete, and although she was never difficult or remote with me, she’d become phlegmatic, perhaps inevitably.
‘Sorry,’ she said after a while.
‘Why are you apologizing?’
‘I’m a mess.’
I touched a hand to her shoulder, and she took it in hers, using her other hand to dab at her eyes with a tissue. When she was done, I handed her a coffee and placed a pre-packaged sandwich on the edge of the bed.
‘Did I pull you away from something?’ she said.
I looked down at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A case. It’s just, you look tired.’
‘Do I?’
‘And I don’t mean from trying to sleep upright in a hospital all night.’ She smiled and I didn’t reply, hoping that would be the end of it. ‘Are you on a case?’
‘I’ve just finished one.’
‘Was it tough?’
‘No, it was pretty straightforward.’
It’s the last seven days with Healy that have been tough.
She started opening her sandwich packet. ‘I don’t mean to pry,’ she said. ‘Sorry if it seems that way. You just look like you might need a break from it all.’
‘Maybe we could all do with a break.’
She nodded, but I got the sense that this line of questioning hadn’t been put to bed yet. And I understood the reasons why: a few months before, she’d been dragged into a case I’d worked, and although neither she nor Olivia had been in any danger, it hadn’t seemed like it at the time. I felt a pang of guilt for that, for the fact it was still playing on her mind, and for what lay behind her asking: her need to be reassured that I wasn’t going to put them at risk again.
‘Everything’s quiet at the moment,’ I said.
I called Healy from the front of the hospital.
It was cold, snow thick on roofs and sills, on a patch of grass in the middle of a turning circle directly in front of me. I found his number in my address book and then paused for a moment, taking a breath, stealing myself for a fight. But I needn’t have bothered: after eleven unanswered rings, his voicemail kicked in.
‘Healy, it’s me. Give me a call when you get this.’
I hung up and headed back inside – but then the phone started buzzing in my hand again. On the display was a central London number I didn’t recognize.
I answered it. ‘David Raker.’
‘David, it’s Simon Quinn.’
Quinn ran the builders’ merchants in Deptford where Healy was supposed to have gone for an interview that morning. I’d met him five years ago at a charity golf tournament organized by a friend of mine, and we’d kept in touch – on and off – ever since.
‘Simon. How’s things?’
‘Yeah, okay,’ he said, but as soon as I heard the hum of annoyance in his voice, I knew what was coming: ‘I thought you’d want to know about your friend.’
‘Let me guess: he didn’t turn up.’
‘No,’ Quinn said, ‘Colm turned up.’
‘So what was the problem?’
Quinn paused. ‘The problem was that he was drunk.’
8
Healy finally called me at seven o’clock.
I was in the hospital foyer checking my emails, and as I looked at the display, at the number of the mobile phone I’d bought for Healy, I paused, trying to douse my anger. I’d been calling him all afternoon, had texted him, left more messages, spent ten minutes apologizing to Simon Quinn for wasting his time, and another ten defending Healy to him. It had become such an involuntary action, something I did so often, it was almost like a reflex kicking in.
‘It’s me,’ he said after I answered.
‘How is it possible to be drunk at nine in the morning?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Healy?’
‘I told you last night that I wasn’t going –’
‘You embarrassed me.’ A few people glanced in my direction, so I moved to a quieter corner. ‘Why couldn’t you just turn up and answer their questions?’
‘I did.’
‘Sober.’
‘Look, I went to that interview today like you asked, and I answered all their stupid fucking questions, and then one of them accused me of lying to her.’
‘About what?’
He sighed, the noise crackling down the phone line. It sounded like he might still be drunk, the edges of his words soft, his exasperation amplified.
‘About what, Healy?’
‘ “Why haven’t you included anyone from the Met as a reference?” ’
‘That’s what she asked you?’
‘Yep. So, I made up some story about it being a mistake on the CV, and she saw through it. She actua
lly sat there googling me during the interview, and then steamrollers me with all the details she found online about the day I got sacked.’
‘I told you to include Melanie Craw’s name on there.’
‘Craw? Is that a joke?’
‘She’s a DCI at the Met. She’s prepared to give you a reference.’
‘Craw was the one that fired me.’
‘Listen. I’ve spoken to her. I told you a week ago to put her name on your CV. I’ve told you every bloody day this week. Why won’t you just listen to –’
‘Don’t you get it? All these interviews, these morons I’ve got to pretend to be nice to – and for what? For some two-bit job in a builders’ merchants?’
‘Healy –’
‘We should be finding out who killed that family.’
That stopped me. The file was still in the back of my car, untouched from the day before. ‘I promised I’d help you, and that we’d find out what happened to that family. And I will. I’ll do that, Healy. But I also asked you to do two things for me in return. One of them was to let me help you get a job, and the other was –’
‘I bet you haven’t even looked at it.’
‘And the other was you had to stay off the booze.’
‘I bet you haven’t even looked at that file.’
I sighed. ‘Come on, Healy. My daughter is –’
‘Your daughter, your daughter – what about my fucking daughter? She’s in the cemetery now because some piece of shit took her from me. What about the daughters of Gail Clark? What about them? The arsehole who cut their throats is still out there somewhere, walking around without a care in the world.’
‘I told you: we’ll find him.’
‘Yeah? When are we going to do that?’
‘When I get back.’
‘Which is when?’
I tried to clear my head.
‘Which is when?’ he repeated.
‘I don’t know yet –’
‘Exactly. You don’t know yet. You’re sitting around in hospital with a girl that doesn’t belong to you, and another you didn’t even realize was yours until a year ago. I had to bury my daughter. I was there when she was born, I was there when she died, and I remember everything from the twenty years in between. You’re there because you think you should be there. You’re not there because you feel it. How can you? You don’t even know them. They’re strangers.’
