Father and Son

by John Barlow

  “Thought you’d got away from me?” he says, jumping out of the car as if he’s sixteen again, adrenalin coursing through his body.

  She seems a good deal less energised.

  “Come on,” she says, already walking, still rummaging in her bag. “I wanted to make sure we were alone.”

  “Jesus,” he said, taking long strides to keep up. “Couldn’t you just have said?”

  She stops, turns to face John, simultaneously locating a packet of Silk Cut in her bag.

  “We shouldn’t be seen together. That’s why I was waiting for you in the car park back there, to see if I could get away without being followed.”

  “But what have you done? The police following you? Why?”

  She takes a cigarette from the packet, then puts it back, as if even nicotine can’t help her now.

  “Are you sure they were police?”

  “Looked like it to me.”

  “Well, it’s not the police I’m worried about.”

  “Who then?”

  She looks around, down past the adventure playground, says nothing.

  “OK,” he says. “Do you like scones?”

  “This place was built with slave money, you know.”

  They’re sitting on the broad terrace that runs along the back of the house, looking out across the pristine, symmetrical gardens. “I guess if you made it big selling human beings, aristocratic splendour was the next logical step.”

  Their pots of tea are brought to the table by a girl whose traditional black and white waitress uniform is straight from another age, although her nose is pierced and she doesn’t curtsey when she leaves.

  “At least it’s a silver stud,” John whispers as she disappears. “Funny thing, much as I despise the aristocracy, I always reckoned I should have been born into the leisured classes.”

  “You were born into the criminal aristocracy, won’t that do?”

  “Not quite the branch I’d have chosen. Anyway, keep your voice down.”

  Jeanette is a little calmer now, but her pale complexion is even paler than usual, and the wicked curl of her mouth has gone, replaced by a disconcerting stare into the mid-distance.

  John’s attention is taken by two women at a table over by the stone balustrade. Harvey Nics girls, not his type at all, but they catch his eye. There’s something strange about them. What is it? He tries not to stare.

  “Did you hear Lanny back there?” he says, his eyes still on the women. “Suddenly he doesn’t want my family’s name mentioned in the same breath as his…”

  That’s it. They’re family: mother and daughter, the latter a carbon copy of her mum, same designer clothes, same hairdresser, same diet. He weighs them up, comparing their copycat, boutiquey style, as if the two of them are a single work of art and he’s still trying to decide if he likes it.

  “Bloody gratitude for you. He learned everything he knows from my dad, y’know. By the way, are you still interested in writing something about Dad?”

  She frowns, as if she’s hardly been listening.

  “No, didn’t think so.”

  “I was never interested,” she says. “Sorry. The story was always about Sheenan. That’s why I’ve been here, to look into the Leeds bombing.”

  The images of the bomb immediately flood back to him: the baby, the young man staggering out from the rubble, the look of desolation on his face… For more than twenty years those images have haunted him, and Sheenan’s death has brought them right back into focus.

  “So why spin me some shit about my dad? You’ve been in my flat most of last week. And the research? I mean, you seem to know a lot about Dad. What was all that for?”

  He tries to read her face, but she’s hiding her emotions well.

  “I was in your flat because I like you. I like being with you.” She looks around at the other tables. “I don’t suppose you can smoke here, can you?”

  “Why don’t you do some talking instead?”

  “OK. I’ve been trying to find out who was behind the bombing. Sheenan was going to tell me, lay it to rest, the last secret. Once he was safely in hospital, sort of a deathbed revelation.”

  “Only someone got to him first?”

  She nods. “I don’t think he was the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looks out over the perfectly manicured, layered gardens that stretch out beneath them, a concertina’d mini-Versailles, and beyond it the potent green of prime pasture. “I lied to you yesterday. About Roberto. It’s not a coincidence, John, none of this is…”

  But he’s hardly listening. Over and over, the same images replay themselves in his mind, the dead baby, and the young man’s face vacant and disbelieving, so hauntingly familiar, after all these years.

  “Roberto?” he says. “How?”

  She pours some tea from a silver pot. More of it dribbles onto the table than makes its way into the cup.

  “Shit, why do they always do that!” she says, slamming the pot down on the table, then sloshing milk into her cup until it overflows. “Sourcing Semtex had become a problem. Gaddafi was getting unreliable, things were falling apart. Sheenan found a supplier in the Ukraine. The delivery was made, but in the meantime the bombing was called off. There was a mix-up in communications. Sheenan planted the bomb anyway. The provos never claimed responsibility. No one did. It was a screw-up.”

  “He killed a baby,” John whispers, his eyes fixed on a spot close to the horizon. “Roberto. He said he killed a baby.”

  “Sheenan told me the people who organised the delivery of the explosives from the Ukraine were based in Leeds.”

  “And you think it was Roberto?”

  “Leeds means Lanny Bride, right? The only name I could find linked to him still working in Leeds was Roberto Swales. That’s where I started. I’ve been following him, trying to get a lead. Roberto was working for Lanny at the time of the bombing. And whoever killed Roberto, I think I led them to his door.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  She sighs. “Two weeks ago I went to see Bernard Sheenan in Ireland. A day later he was dead. I think I led the murderer to him. Then to Roberto. I don’t want to lead him to anyone else. So I’m packing up and getting out. You should be doing the same.”

  “Me?” He shakes his head in confusion. “Why me? I’m trying to sort out the thing with Roberto. I owe him that, at least. Whatever he did.”

  But the words sound hollow, sickening.

  The Harvey Nics women are now making a start on their cream teas, talking between miniscule bites, scones held up to their mouths as they whisper to one another, mother and daughter in afternoon conclave. They brush their long, straight hair from their faces, the two of them at blissful ease with the world.

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she says, pushing a ball of soggy paper napkin around the table, trying to soak up a pool of hot milky tea. “Sheenan was tortured. It wasn’t in the news. Was Roberto tortured as well?”

  John doesn’t answer. He watches the mother and daughter eating their scones, their beautiful scones and their beautiful lives. Different parts of his brain are trying to work on different ideas, and the strain is pulling his face in several directions. He sits back, runs a hand through his hair.

  “Yes,” he says. “But something’s not right. You knew about Sheenan yesterday, when I told you Roberto had been murdered. What’s freaked you out now, all of a sudden?” he says, keeping his voice steady, avoiding her eyes. “You were all smiles half an hour ago, giving Lanny Bride your card. Mrs Charming!”

  “Dennis Reid,” she says, picking at her nails, staring down at them like a nervous child. “I saw him on my way out of the golf club.”

  “The ape in the bad suit?”

  “That’s the one. You know anything about him?”

  “Nope. How come you know his name?”

  She exhales through her nose. “Did you notice the accent?”

  “Irish. Although he sounded a bi
t Scottish to me.”

  “He’s been living in Aberdeen since 1999. November 1999.”

  “That’s very specific.”

  “His release date. Part of the Good Friday Agreement. He’s ex-IRA.”

  “So why is he here working for Lanny?”

  “I dunno exactly. But Reid recognised me,” she says. “I’m pretty sure about that. He pretended not to, of course.”

  John does his best impression of a nonchalant shrug.

  “Perhaps that’s a coincidence? A hard man without a cause? He’s gotta work for somebody. Lanny’s got contacts, he needed a man…”

  She’s already shaking her head, and her hands are busy, messing with the soggy napkins, with the sugar bowl, her cup and saucer…

  “Reid was an IRA fixer. On the mainland.”

  “1990?”

  She lowers her head. Her body seems to sink a little further in on itself, her frame diminishing by the minute. And she looks older. In an instant she’s middle-aged.

  “Yes. And he’s a fucking psycho.”

  With that she gets to her feet and moves around behind John.

  “I’m going, and so should you,” she says, slipping her hands inside his jacket and down the front of his chest.

  “Still working your feminine charms, eh?”

  She closes her eyes, pushes into him until her lips are touching his ear, her face nestling in his neck. “Leave,” she whispers. “Go away. A few days. Weeks. Whatever.”

  “Why should I?”

  “They’re gonna find a connection. Lanny… Leeds… your family, whatever. They’re gonna find something. Just get out of the country, lie low for a while.” He feels the palms of her hands push harder into his chest. “New Zealand,” she whispers, her lips tickling the edge of his ear. “1990, you were in New Zealand, right? After you graduated from Cambridge?”

  He pulls away, twisting around in his chair but unable to see her face.

  “What? Yeah, I was in New Zealand when the bomb went off. I told you. I saw it on the news over there. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Who sent you out of the country, John?”

  “Nobody sent me out of the country! I went to see a girl. I was twenty-one. Love’s young dream. You heard of it?”

  She leans into him.

  “My laptop? You keep it,” she says, and kisses him on the temple, letting her mouth hover there until he feels the warmth of her breath on the side of his face. She whispers his name, three times, so soft it might be the sound of the sea inside a shell, there yet not there, a trick of the ear.

  Then she’s gone.

  A minute passes, perhaps two. He sits there, tries to piece together what she said, but the image of the dead baby crowds his mind until nothing else makes any sense. New Zealand?

  A shot.

  He’s on his feet. Legs slamming into the table, tea pots and cups crashing to the ground as he sprints across the terrace and down the stone stairway. He’s at a gallop, his heart pumping so hard he can feel it lurch upwards in his chest. Takes the corner of the building fast, almost toppling over on the gravel pathway, steadying himself on one leg then sprinting up towards the car park.

  When he finally comes to a stop he’s gasping for air so loudly that mothers and children in the playground stare with undisguised horror, expecting the worst. But then they look around, unable to see the source of the emergency, just a large man in a baggy black suit panting furiously.

  Over in the car park the dark green tractor backfires again, a cloud of dense blue smoke puffing out of its exhaust and dispersing almost immediately on the breeze. In the distance the black MR2 winds its way over the rolling grounds towards the exit.

  “I don’t know who’s more paranoid,” he tells himself, “me or her.”

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turns, ready to make his way back to the terrace, wondering how much the broken crockery in the cafe is going to cost him.

  He doesn’t need to wonder for long. The waitress is scurrying towards him, a stern, nineteenth-century scowl all over her face.

  “I’ll pay for the breakages,” he says as they make their way back up to the terrace together.

  “Forget it,” she says, “I thought you’d done a runner, that’s all. I friggin’ hate that.”

  She’s no bigger than average, but he doesn’t think he’d have made it all the way to his car if he had been trying to leave without paying.

  There’s a puddle of milky tea stretching halfway across the table, and most of the crockery lies smashed on the floor. The Harvey Nics ladies pretend not to look as John helps pick up the broken pieces.

  “You want another cup?” the waitress says. “Looks like you’ve had a bit of a shock.”

  “Coffee?”

  She pulls a face. “I wouldn’t bother. It’s like witch’s piss.”

  Now she’s my type.

  “Thanks for the advice. A strong tea would be fine. I don’t suppose I can smoke here, can I?”

  “Nah,” she says, a cluster of little metal teapots and milk jugs in her hands, “but nobody’ll bother you if you go down the steps out the front, in the garden.”

  He leans against a stone plinth, the statue of a fat-cheeked cherubim casting a shadow down across him. He looks at the cigarette in his hand, watching ringlets of smoke dance around the tip. New Zealand? He was sent there? That’s bollocks. What did she mean?

  There are footsteps on the gravel. The older of the women from the terrace is coming towards him.

  “Mind if I join you?” she says, a cigarette already in her hand. “Grab a quick one while madam’s not looking.”

  He lights it for her. “You are mother and daughter, then? I was wondering.”

  “My age that obvious is it!” she says, blowing a long plume of smoke up into the air with evident pleasure.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he says. “Quite the contrary.”

  She smiles at him, the faintest trace of mischief in her expression. “My daughter, yes, and she hates smoking. Who’d’ve thought it, I raised a health freak!”

  He laughs. “I’m sure she’s got your best interests at heart. No pun intended.”

  “Pun?”

  “Heart? Heart disease?”

  “Hell, don’t you start!” She takes a drag, but her face wrinkles, as if the smoke suddenly disgusts her. “Think they know it all these days, don’t they? Got kids, have you?”

  He shakes his head. “My dad’s still around, though. We tend not to share health tips.”

  Who sent you out of the country?

  “In fact,” he adds, “I don’t know much about him at all.”

  “That’s sad,” she says. “Lives far away, does he?”

  “About five miles away. Sorry, I’ve got to be going. Nice to meet you.”

  She watches as he runs up the stone stairs, slides a twenty pound note under the pot of strong tea which has now appeared, and heads off towards the car park, dialling Den’s number as he goes.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  There’s something about driving a Porsche. You can think, but only one thing at a time. You can’t piece things together. There are too many demands on your mind, too much stuff going on around you. Having so much power in your hands is good for having one thought, and one thought only. That’s the problem with driving the 911.

  As he makes his way to his dad’s retirement paradise, one thought sticks: it wasn’t him. It can’t have been Dad. Not a bomb. Not the IRA. It’s not just wishful thinking, either. Dad just wouldn’t have got involved in something like that. John knows it with a certainty that brooks no doubt, however hard he tries to imagine it to be true.

  Even as he gets out of the car, the satisfying clunk of the door, his feet on the gravel, a solitary bird’s cry somewhere up in the trees… even now, outside the nursing home, with his nerves so tight that he seems to hear the rustle of every leaf around him, he doesn’t believe it. But Jeanette as good as told him. Why? Why was she r
eally in Leeds? And County Cork before that?

  He stands under the trees in the car park and closes his eyes. Behind him, across the road, is the open expanse of Soldiers Field, a patch of Old England to complete the idyll, flat and a little windswept, but calm and permanent. This is why the rich folk retire up here. The peace is quite sudden, as soon as you pull off Roundhay Road. Only a mile away from the multicultural bustle of Chapeltown, with its Hindu temples, Mosques, and the colours and smells of whole continents.

  Things don’t change that quickly, though. Not in a mile. One of the Ripper’s victims was found on Soldiers Field. A body dumped on waste ground down by the Gaiety Bar was one thing, but up here? It had been like a message: no one is safe. And no one was safe. On and on it had gone, the victims adding up, until people didn’t want to turn the telly on, just in case.

  No wonder Len Holt had done so well. The Ministry of Eternal Hope must have been like a beacon of light, something simple and honest to believe in. Punk. Recession. Ripper. It had been a bad time to be in Yorkshire. A place ill at ease with itself, shifty and scared, permanently glancing back over its shoulder and asking why this was happening.

  He looks along the black fence that leads off in both directions, circling the grounds of Oaklands. The only way in is the electric gate just ahead of him. A cigarette first? No. That woman’s daughter was right. He reaches into his jacket pocket, finds the comforting, hand-sized box, and crushes it until he can feel the dry tobacco in his fingers as the cigarettes crumble.

  He takes a deep breath. There’s no choice now. Instinct is not enough. He doesn’t believe Jeanette, but he’ll have to ask Dad, and hope that whatever the old man does will be enough, that one way or the other he’ll know the truth.

  He sets out towards the gate. But then he stops. Someone comes out of his dad’s room and starts walking down the side of the building towards the exit. Denis Reid.

  John freezes. Should he rush to the gate, buzz the intercom and tell them to call the police? How the hell did an ex-terrorist walk into Oaklands? Reid, meanwhile, is looking straight at him, grinning. He raises an arm, waves a hello, as if they’re old friends, his body loose and relaxed. Behind him, the head of Andrew Holt appears through the French windows and watches Reid go, just for a second, then disappears.