by Jane Adams
Maria got to her feet and bent over to kiss him. ‘I’m going now,’ she said gently. ‘You get some sleep. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
Mike smiled weakly at her and returned the kiss, squeezing her hand and thinking how lucky he was to have this woman, even if she did have some strange ideas.
He was drifting into sleep even before she had left the ward, running through, in his half-dreaming mind, the list of fifteen names and dates. And of places. Four locations in all, set against the names. And of bodies buried in a farmhouse garden.
* * *
Jaques parked in a side street opposite the hospital and sat for some time watching the main entrance. Suicide by drowning, he had decided, was not something that he could face. The thought of cold water closing over his head, of his feet and legs dragged into the depth of stinking mud, had been too much. He had returned to the car and driven to the hospital, with the vague thought of seeing Mike.
But it was late, he thought. Much too late.
Maria had left the hospital by the main entrance about fifteen minutes after he arrived. He recognized her tall, elegant figure crossing the hospital forecourt even from a distance. He watched her cross towards the car park and then pass out of sight between the cars. If she had left Mike, then it really must be late, much too late tonight.
His mind shifted on to a different tack. Had Charles found his letter yet? Would he have read it? He sighed. Charles might not even be at the nick. Probably home in bed, well out of this mess.
Jaques toyed with the idea of going back into work. Taking the letter from where he had left it and burning it before it could be read. After all, he’d been lucky so far. Maybe his luck would hold for just a little longer.
Starting the car engine again, Jaques dismissed the idea. It was too late now, no matter how you looked at it. Jaques wasn’t certain whether he should be frightened or relieved by the thought.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Saturday evening
Eric seemed unable to settle to anything. He had spent the evening wandering from room to room, half heartedly picking up a book and reading a few pages, or joining the family for a moment or two in front of the television before taking himself off again.
The children, engrossed in a comedy film, had taken little notice of him. They were well used to Daddy ‘mooching about’, as Johanna called it, and the film had been far more exciting than their father’s mood.
It was good, Johanna thought, to hear them laughing. Behaving like ordinary, untroubled children, if only for a little while. Half an hour ago, she had hustled the eldest of them off to bed, checked on the youngest and then gone down to the kitchen to make tea for herself and Eric.
And here she was, she thought sadly, sitting with a pot of cold, stewed tea, still waiting for Eric to come and join her.
Time was when this last part of the evening, with the children in bed and a brief while left to spend alone together, had been the most precious part of their day.
What had happened to them? Johanna wondered. To the closeness and the love they had once had for one another? She sighed deeply. Everything, it seemed, had been sacrificed to this burning need Eric had within him. In time, even she and the children had been consigned to the heat of it.
Sadly, Johanna began to climb the stairs up to the living room. She could hear Eric pacing about up there, could hear the television still chattering to itself, and the slight, comfortable, going-to-sleep movements of her children in the rooms above.
Standing at the head of the stairs, Johanna watched for a moment as Eric paced back and forth, along the length of the back wall, pausing every so often to peer out into the dark beyond the uncurtained window.
He didn’t hear her come into the room, didn’t hear, either, as she shut off the news broadcast showing some new slaughter, neighbour against neighbour, in some other part of the world.
Johanna crossed the room towards him, catching a glimpse of herself in the black mirror of the window. How old she looked, body still slim despite bearing so many little ones, but the face lined and wounded, as though only the saddest parts of it could still function and smiles were long forgotten.
‘Eric,’ she said, laying a gentle hand on his arm.
Eric Pearson jumped as though he had been stung, his expression in the dark window at once startled and enraged. Then his expression softened.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’
He turned away from her, pacing along the other wall this time as though to break what little contact she still claimed with him.
‘What is it, Eric?’ she asked him softly. ‘Come and talk to me about it. I’ll make some fresh tea and we can talk it through.’
He turned to look at her, but only for a moment. Then he shook his head and looked away.
It seemed, to Johanna, that there had been no more than bare recognition in his eyes. No love, no concern, no contact.
Johanna felt the pain of it rising to her throat, threatening to choke what little life she still had a hold on.
Sighing, she let her gaze travel around the shabby, messy room. She should tidy up, really. At least pick up the children’s toys, or straighten the magazines.
Her gaze came to rest on the cardboard boxes that Sam had brought over.
Eric had set the boxes in the corner of the room after his first brief look through them, and then left them there.
She went over, bent down and began poking about inside.
‘Why don’t we unpack these, Eric?’ she asked, forcing a little brightness into her voice.
This time he didn’t even glance at her.
‘Maybe later,’ he said, then turned towards the window once again.
Johanna stared at him a moment longer; then decided that if Eric didn’t want to look, well, she might as well. Anything was better than this, following Eric around the house, waiting for him to speak to her.
It took two trips before she had the boxes down on the kitchen table. It would be nice, she told herself, to look through these things. Memories of happier times. Of what seemed like a lifetime ago.
She began to empty the boxes out on to the kitchen table, imagining that Eric was there beside her, sharing the memories with him, whispering softly.
‘Oh, Lord, Eric, do you remember this tie?’ she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand to suppress the laughter. ‘Frank bought it for Judy’s wedding, wore it with that old pin-stripe suit of his. You remember, don’t you? We all laughed so much. Elder Thomas said that all he needed was a violin case and wingtip shoes and he could double for Al Capone.’
She paused, her face lighting with the memory. Judy’s wedding, on a summer morning. The late mist just rising on the lawn and the bride so beautiful in her long blue dress with flowers in her hair.
There should be photographs in here, Johanna thought. Photographs of Frank and Judy and the rest, posed, laughing and exuberant on the gravel drive in front of the house.
Eagerly, Johanna began to sort through the plastic bag of photographs, pausing now and then to look more closely at one or two of them. The faces, the smiles. ‘Oh,’ she murmured, ‘how young we all looked back then.’ She wiped the tears away and, smiling softly to herself, laid the photographs aside. Later, she would take them to bed with her, show Eric. He’d be bound to take notice then, tucked up comfortably in their bed. Certain to relax enough to want to talk, to remember all the good times with her.
Smiling properly now, she dived her hand into the box once more, deliberately not looking, like a child with a Christmas parcel, trying to discern the surprise by touch alone.
Round and cool, heavy in her hand. Ah, yes. She knew what that was. Johanna lifted the object out. The large mille fleur paperweight Aunt Em had been so proud of. ‘Real Victorian, she used to swear it was. Do you remember, Eric?’ She turned it in the light, examining the little flowers and geometric patterns set within the clear glass. ‘And you used to tell me off,’ she said, ‘because I always thought the blesse
d thing was so ugly.’ She giggled, suddenly childlike, and plunged into the box once more.
Books and trinkets emerged, to be examined and then strewn across the table. Aunt Em’s pearls — ‘Wonder if they are real, Eric.’ A couple of heavily bound gold-blocked volumes of poetry. ‘Keats and Shelley, my dear. Never went anywhere without one of them, did he? Not that he ever went anywhere anyway.’ Three or four more brilliantly coloured neckties. ‘He must have spent a fortune on these over the years.’ She laughed. ‘Dear old Frank. Never without his tie. Old suits, baggy trousers and shabby cardigans, but always a tie.’
She wiped her eyes once more, not realizing until now how much she grieved for Eric’s brother and his wife. Both gone now, and never even the chance to say goodbye.
‘And look at this, Eric.’ She lifted the last item from the box. About eight inches high and dark brown with swirling patterns scraped into its clay body. Frank’s owl. ‘Swore it came from Peru, didn’t he? But we knew Judy bought it in that little craft shop we went to.’ She paused. ‘Now where was that?’ Johanna shook her head as her memory failed her. It really was an ugly thing, but Frank had liked it, and Judy had bought it for him, which would have made it special no matter what. Frank had loved all the children growing up in the House of Solomon and Judy, after her dad had died and her mother wasn’t able to cope, had become like another of Frank’s own.
Thoughtfully, Johanna tilted the owl backwards to peer into its beaky face, feeling, as she did so, something moving inside.
She shook it, puzzled for a moment, then turned it upside down, smiling to herself again.
There was a slit in the bottom of the owl, there to release the gases during firing. The kids used to post things into it; then cry when they couldn’t get them out again.
Holding it above her head and peering into the narrow slit, Johanna shook the owl again, curious to see what would come out. Whatever it was seemed to be jammed fast. Taking a vegetable knife from the kitchen drawer, she tried again, poking the tip of the knife into the hole and trying to coax out whatever was inside.
It took time and patience, but Johanna had both. Wiggling the tip of the knife backwards and forwards inside the slit, she gradually managed to draw the edge of the object down. With a little jerk, she pulled the knife free. A thin sliver of what looked like brown plastic poked out.
‘Now what’s that?’ Johanna murmured to herself, setting to work with broken fingernails to draw the strip the rest of the way out.
In the end, there were three of them lying on the table. Brown strips of photographic negative, a little scratched from her efforts with the knife.
For a moment, Johanna stared at them, all trace of her smile now gone, her face tight and wounded once again.
Somehow, Johanna guessed what she would see, even before she lifted them to the light.
* * *
DCS Charles looked warily at the envelope with his name on it.
‘This must have been left for you, sir,’ the desk sergeant said to him. ‘It was stuck in the day book. No one saw it till the shift change.’
Charles thanked him and took the envelope, waiting for the sergeant to leave before he opened it. ‘It’s from Jaques,’ he said, looking at the neat handwriting on the front of the envelope.
‘Jaques,’ Price breathed. ‘Oh, boy.’ He glanced at the mess of paperwork lying on the desk. Jaques’ name was in the journal. Descriptions of Jaques’ involvement with Blake and Fletcher and the rest were laid down in the greatest of detail. And Jaques wasn’t at home. His wife hadn’t seen him since the previous morning.
And now this letter.
Impatient now, Charles ripped open the envelope and read the few lines written on the sheet of paper.
‘It’s an address,’ he said.
Price was on his feet, reaching for the paper.
‘You know where this is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take some back-up,’ Charles told him, his face grave.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sunday, early morning
It was clear, just from the way Jaques walked down the length of the ward, his footfalls quick and decisive, that he was not a happy man.
Mike gave him an expectant look and invited him to sit down. Jaques didn’t. He remained standing, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, fingers jangling keys and loose change, his voice as tense and abrupt as his footsteps had been.
‘I can’t stop,’ he said, ‘and besides, I’ve just seen breakfast about to be brought in. Wouldn’t want to interrupt.’
He paused, frowning, then sat down after all, leaned forward to rest his hand on the side of Mike’s bed in what was, for Jaques, an outstanding show of intimacy.
‘Just wanted to be the one to tell you, Mike. Courtesy, you understand, but this thing’s got bigger than any of us thought.’ He sat back and rubbed his face with the palms of his hands.
‘You look tired, sir,’ Mike commented.
‘I am, Mike, I am. It’s been a long night, you know. Anyway, it looks like internal affairs will be taking over from here on in.’
‘What. . .?’ Mike was taken aback.
Jaques silenced him abruptly. ‘You’ll be laid up for a good while yet, so it’s no longer your worry. . . You’ve heard about the body?’
Mike nodded.
‘Puts a different complexion on things,’ Jaques went on. ‘Mike, we’ve not always seen eye to eye, I know, but we’ve rubbed along pretty well, haven’t we?’
‘I should say so,’ Mike said, wondering where this was leading.
‘And I know you’ve always been one to give a fair hearing, even to the likes of Eric Pearson.’
Mike frowned. ‘Everyone deserves to be heard, sir, whatever our personal feelings might be,’
‘Quite so, quite so.’
He rummaged in his pocket and handed Mike a few sheets of folded paper. Mike took them. Jaques sat fidgeting until Mike had finished reading. Then he said, ‘Well, what do you make of it?’
Mike separated the pages. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is part of Blake’s journal. And this,’ he fingered Eric Pearson’s Deposition gingerly as though it might bite, ‘is not going to endear him to the residents of Portland Close.’
Jaques snorted rudely. ‘No, no, I don’t suppose it will,’ he said. He got to his feet and took the paper back from Mike, folding it tightly before replacing it in his pocket. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know this is not where you want to be, but that’s just the way of things sometimes. You try your best to keep things going and then it all blows up in your face.’ He stood hesitantly beside the bed as though wanting to say more. ‘I just came to keep you informed, Mike. Nothing official, you understand,’ he said at last.
Mike nodded, puzzled now by Jaques’ attitude. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that.’
Jaques straightened himself up and shuffled his feet as though impatient to go but still having something left to say.
‘Just get yourself better, Mike,’ he said. ‘Take your time and don’t try to come rushing back before you’re ready.’ He nodded, as though satisfied that he’d got the message right.
‘Just take your time,’ he said again, and then he left.
Mike watched him walk down the ward, listening to the swift footsteps and taking note of the rigidity of Jaques’ back.
‘Now,’ he said softly to himself. ‘What was that all about?’
* * *
The door was forced, the hydraulic ram smashing the lock from the frame. The uniformed officer with the ram kicked the door open. Then he and the other two men accompanying Price streamed ahead of him into the house, two running up the stairs and the third heading towards the downstairs rear.
The front door opened directly into the living room. A second room could be seen beyond and off that, the small kitchen.
The stairs were hidden behind a panelled door leading off from the corner of the room. The windows still had their original sash boxes and the tiled firepla
ce, now with an ugly modern gas fire sitting in front of the arched grate, also looked untouched from the time of first building.
There was newspaper on the wooden floor, old and yellowed, between the front door and the opening to the other room. His gran had done that, Price remembered. Put newspapers underneath the carpets when they were laid. Said it helped them last longer. Stopped them rubbing against the floor.
He moved through to the middle room just as the third officer came back from the kitchen.
‘Bathroom tagged on to the back of the house,’ he said. ‘Back door’s locked and there’s no sign of a key. Want me to force it?’
A shout from upstairs cut across Price’s reply. He ran up the steep, narrow stairs, his feet echoing on the uncarpeted wood.
‘In here, sir.’
It was the smallest room at the back of the house. There were new locks on the door. On the outside. Price eased himself past the other officers standing silently in the narrow corridor. He pushed the door fully open and stepped inside.
‘Jesus!’
There was very little in the tiny room with its single window. Just the smell of stale urine making the air foul and a single bed with an old mattress lying at an angle across it. A mattress with a wide, dark, brownish stain spread across its width.
* * *
Jaques never quite made it back to his car. He’d not hurried, instead walked slowly across the hospital forecourt with the steady, purposeful air of one determined on a direction but in no major rush to get there.
‘Sir.’ The young PC stepped in front of him, the look on his face almost apologetic as though he couldn’t quite get his head around this arrest of a senior officer.
Jaques glanced up at him, then sideways at the other officer who had suddenly appeared on his other side.
‘I’d like you to come back to the station with me,’ the young officer began. ‘DCS Charles . . .’
‘Would no doubt want the job done properly!’ Jaques glared at him. His mind already pushed beyond reason, this lack of protocol annoyed him excessively.
