Remember, Remember

by Lisa Cutts

  ‘Thank you, and I’ll get some eggs to suck on my way back too.’

  Wingsy got up from his chair, snatched the pages from the printer and left the office.

  A snort from the corner of the room made me look over. I’d forgotten that Jim was still in the office.

  ‘Lovers’ tiff, you two?’ he wheezed.

  I chose to ignore him. Instead, I turned my attention to the file. I couldn’t keep putting it off, and I had to have something to ask Joe Bring about, as well as to show Harry on his return.

  I had previously run an eye over the entire file and had taken a fair amount of detail on board. Grabbing a new investigator’s notebook, I began to make a list of the enquiries I thought might lead somewhere. This included a list of all those who had been interviewed the first time around, and those whose details had been taken but no further account elicited from them. I was so engrossed in the task, I didn’t look up as Jim left the room. I leafed through the handwritten pages of officers’ reports from those on duty, duty statements from officers attending the scene, and the handful of witness statements.

  The handwritten notes of a contemporary interview with Malcolm Bring, Joe’s father, were in among the yellowing pages. He seemed to have been asked a number of questions during an interview but there was no record of his having been arrested. Over the years, older colleagues, some now retired, had regaled me with tales of their arrests and interviews pre-PACE. I had never fully believed all the stories I’d been told about what went on in the old days when a police officer was unconstrained by the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Some seemed to thrive on embellishing their stories, but no doubt some of those stories had substance. I made a note to check the Police National Database for any other arrests of Malcolm Bring after the crash.

  My attention span not being what it once was, I was beginning to lose interest and fantasise about a chicken salad sandwich, when the words I had just read clanged together in my mind. I might be hungry, but I needed to take stock of what I’d been reading and slot a couple of things into place.

  According to what Joe Bring had told me, there had been three football players on the train. The file contained a list of passengers with their details next to them, including occupation. Scouring the pages for details of those Leonard Rumbly meant to disrupt, I found the names Jimmy Crow, Charles Fitzhubert and Thomas Ross on the list, all with the words ‘footballer’ next to them. Crow and Fitzhubert had supplied statements to the police, but Thomas Ross had not. While I couldn’t rule out that it had merely been an oversight or that the statement had been lost during the last fifty years, I could find no mention of it anywhere in the file.

  Sometimes, it wasn’t what you had in an investigation or what someone told you, it was what you didn’t have, and what someone had chosen to leave out. Thomas Ross was now at the top of my list of people to visit.

  I continued to trawl through the file, making notes, photocopying some of the pages and highlighting the salient points and areas I wanted to check. The next hour passed quickly enough as I read and reread the file, still wondering where the fruit and veg had gone and adding to the list of enquiries I’d drawn up for Harry. I drew up the list of people to see, placing Thomas Ross very much at the top, underlined and in bold.

  Then I did the obvious thing and went online to look up Thomas Ross. It seemed that in the last twenty years the footballer had slipped from the public eye. Yes, he was getting on a bit now, but, even so, little had been seen or heard from him since his wife, Shona, had been hit by a car in 1989, leaving her paralysed and needing twenty-four-hour care. This, unsurprisingly, had eaten up all of his time and most of his money. He had left behind a football career, radio commentating and later television presenting to look after his wife. After some more searching, I found that Shona Ross had died three months ago.

  Here was a man who at first appeared to have had it all. He had been a first-class footballer in the early 1960s, with high hopes of playing in the 1966 World Cup. Every English person knew the ending to that one – even someone like me with a feeling of total indifference to football – and I wondered if Ross had ever got over the disappointment of not being selected that year. Still, it was a long time ago. Perhaps he was over it now.

  Next on my list, after Thomas Ross, was Jimmy Crow, then Charles Fitzhubert. Something struck me as very odd, though, as I started making notes about where each passenger was at the time of the crash: the three of them hadn’t been sitting together. Fitzhubert and Crow were in their allocated part of the train, but Ross was not only sitting apart from his team mates, he was also four carriages further away from the point of impact when the crash happened. This was recorded in notes scribbled by a long-dead police officer who was one of the first on the scene. My mind ran amok with a conspiracy theory as to why Ross was so far down the back of the train. I gave the train’s plans the once-over and my terribly suspicious mind came up with a very prosaic probable reason – the nearest toilets were towards the rear of the train.

  Slightly defeated, I carried on working my way through the mass of paperwork, engrossed in its detail until Wingsy’s return. ‘Think I’m getting somewhere, Baldy,’ I said as he came back into the office. He walked behind my chair and leaned over me to read the now lengthy list I had spent some time compiling.

  ‘You’re gonna have to be bloody good to speak to Crow,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ I said, throwing my pen down. ‘That’s annoyed me. And you’ve had cheese and onion crisps. I can smell them on your breath. You didn’t bring me any?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and yes, he’s dead. Don’t you read the newspapers?’

  ‘Not the part where it lists dead footballers, I don’t. Right, I’m going to get some food. I was only waiting for you to come back. Thanks very much.’

  I was annoyed that Wingsy hadn’t brought me a snack but I also knew that I was, once again, being very childish. My stomach was hurting and I had a headache but I had been determined not to show weakness and go home. Besides, Bill would be at home. I decided to give the crisps a miss as it was late on Friday afternoon and I had a weekend of arguing with my boyfriend to look forward to. Before I left, I quickly cobbled together a plan for the following week’s enquiries that I could go over with Harry on Monday morning, in preparation for throwing myself into my job. There was also the small matter of visiting Joe again. That was bound to be entertaining. I had managed to arrange that for Tuesday.

  Logging off the computer, I gathered my belongings, signed out in the diary and made for Bill’s house, thinking positive thoughts all the way.

  27

  Just as I thought we were about to get through our Friday evening without a cross word, Bill dropped a bombshell.

  ‘Your mum called earlier,’ he said from the safety of the armchair farthest away.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ I answered, my grip on my wine glass tightening. ‘Everything alright?’

  ‘Completely alright.’ Bill gave the nervous little throat-clearing cough which always gave him away. ‘She invited us round for dinner tomorrow. I’ve said we’d be there.’

  ‘You did, did you?’ I said, wildly searching out the wine. He was across the room, filling my glass before I’d even located the bottle. I could fill my own bloody glass, I wanted to say, but accepted the refill nonetheless.

  As he backed away, looking like an over-attentive waiter, Bill held the wine bottle as if he was offering it to me for my approval. The fact that it was now only a third full should have given him some sort of an idea.

  ‘I told your mum we’d be there at six o’clock.’ He studied the label on the bottle as he spoke to me. ‘Said that we probably wouldn’t stay long either. You get tired easily.’

  ‘I get tired easily, do I?’ This was incredible. Now he was telling me when I got tired. I was about to start a row when I yawned, and that spared us both from another barney about nothing. I did the decent thing and went to bed. It would appear
that my Saturday was going to be an emotional one.

  I got ready for dinner at my parents’ with the usual feelings of dread and regret. It was always tense when we all got together, probably made all the more so by everyone expecting an atmosphere. This particular evening started amicably enough with a pre-dinner drink and small talk about the weather before we moved on to the subject of mortgage rates. My stomach lurched at the mention of money. I knew what was coming.

  At the top of the table, my dad sat helping himself to green beans while my mum unfolded her napkin, smoothing it over her lap.

  ‘Things are getting more and more expensive for us,’ sighed my dad, heaping vegetables on to his plate. ‘I’m not too sure how we’ll pay the mortgage this month.’

  My mum continued to smooth the napkin. I sipped my wine, looking at the top of my dad’s bald head as he shook it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that my mum had looked up at me but was still needlessly brushing her lap.

  For thirty-eight years I’d played this game with them. My part in it was to feel as guilty as possible, but recently the rules had altered. I thought it only fair to tell them of the latest change in my status.

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Me too,’ I said, looking my mum straight in the eye. She looked back at her lap. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pay my mortgage. I’ve not earned any overtime for several months. I can’t pay my bills.’

  My mum stood up, letting her serviette fall to the floor. ‘Forgot the mustard,’ she mumbled, leaving the dining room to rifle around in the kitchen cupboards for a condiment no one wanted.

  ‘You’ve upset your mum now,’ said my dad, moving on to the carrots. ‘We can’t look after your sister on our own all the time, you know that. We love that your sister still lives here but we need help – and we need a break sometimes. I know we get some help, but decent private carers and homes cost money.’

  I knew this only too well, and one of the reasons I had never begrudged the money was because Sara did so well from a respite stay in the clinic. My sister didn’t require long-term residential care but, at a cost to my parents – or, in fact, me – she went there from time to time for a long weekend, like this one. It was a nice enough place with cheerful staff, but it was a care home, with patients who had a wide range of mental health issues. However, it always seemed to do her good and meant that she coped a little better with day-to-day tasks. I gained too, as I much preferred seeing her away from our parents. They meant well, but my mum fussed, and I always thought that my sister would have improved quicker if my mum didn’t try to do everything for her.

  I bit my lip and said nothing in reply. I’d tried to tell them I was broke but they hadn’t listened. I wasn’t up to this. I needed time to get better before I could face another onslaught.

  ‘It could easily be your sister sat there and you in her place,’ said my dad. ‘Do you ever stop to think about that?’

  Of course I do, I wanted to scream. The only positive aspect of anyone asking me that question was that it showed I masked my feelings better than I thought possible. But then that made me appear selfish. I would never win. Never.

  I couldn’t afford to tell the world that not a day went by when I wasn’t grateful it was her and not me. I battled every day with what a terrible person it made me, but I liked being a grown woman with a career, boyfriend, my own home. I didn’t want to swap places with a forty-six-year-old woman who couldn’t fully grasp that she was no longer a child.

  The first time I’d admitted this to myself, I’d felt a relief I hadn’t imagined possible. I rarely said Sara’s name and I only had one photograph of her, and that was taken when we were both children. If I didn’t look at her every day, I could picture how things might have been.

  At some point Bill was bound to say something. It was the whole reason he’d arranged this hideous evening. He’d thought, the poor misguided fool, that he was doing me a favour by trying to clear the air, and I supposed he’d had the crazy notion that I would rock up and tell my parents that the gravy train was on the last leg of its journey. My parents, however, thought that Bill was their saviour and was about to add some first-class carriages to the locomotive. They saw his arrival in my life as one of financial benefit to them both.

  I wasn’t conjuring up these feelings from spite; they had form for it. The only lasting relationship I’d managed in the last ten years had been with the store manager of a national supermarket chain. On the second occasion Marcus met my parents, my dad asked him for a loan. The embarrassment was too much for both of us and we split up shortly afterwards. Facing facts, though, the relationship hadn’t really been going anywhere, so I couldn’t entirely blame my parents for the break-up. And I still bumped into him from time to time when I was shopping. I needed to buy food, and he managed a shop which catered for such needs. Now he was married with a toddler and another on the way. Life had worked out pretty well for him. What had become glaringly obvious in the last ten minutes was that, despite my grumblings about Bill’s over-attentiveness, kindness and other annoying tendencies, I wasn’t about to lose him as easily as I had Marcus. So, whatever Bill was about to say, I was going to back him all the way.

  ‘The thing is, Derek,’ said Bill to my dad, ‘Nina doesn’t have that kind of money any more. Police officers, like lots of other people, have had a three-year pay freeze. The cost of living has gone up. Most people are struggling to pay their bills.’

  I could have said that, but it would have fallen on deaf ears. My mum came back in with the mustard, sniffing into a tissue.

  ‘Have you thought of getting a job, Sue?’ said Bill.

  No one moved. No one said a word. I’m not sure if anyone even breathed.

  At last my mum spoke. ‘You know I’d love to get a job.’ She sounded almost convincing. ‘But I have to look after Sara. Who else is going to do it?’ She turned to me, glowering, then she sat back down, unscrewed the mustard jar and passed it to me. I ignored her. I was over forty years old and had never liked mustard. Would she ever take any notice of anything I did?

  Bill was sitting opposite me. His mouth was hanging slightly open. In spite of everything, he carried on cutting up his chicken pie. My dad was managing to eat his dinner without too much putting him off, either. I’d picked at some of mine but I had no appetite.

  Just when I thought the atmosphere couldn’t get any worse, though, I was about to be stunned all over again.

  ‘I suppose Stan McGuire put you up to this,’ huffed my mum.

  I rarely used Stan’s name around my mum and she avoided it at all costs. Anyone would have thought that the man who had rescued her two children from certain death decades ago would have held some kind of deity status in her home and heart. Instead, she seemed to feel nothing but contempt for the retired detective chief inspector whom I had always looked up to and idolised. I put my mum’s attitude towards him down to a very childish jealousy.

  I bristled at her use of his name but made no comment.

  ‘He wasn’t happy enough with finding you and Sara and getting himself promoted from the glory. Oh, no – he wanted you to go and live with him and his wife, too.’ I spun in my seat and looked round at her. She was picking over her food, head on one side. ‘Oh, yeah,’ she continued, ‘wanted you to move in, he did. I must have told you that.’

  She knew full well that she had never told me anything of the sort. I sat dumbstruck. I struggled for something to say. Her words had ambushed my world, though I recognised them for what they were: she was being spiteful. Things weren’t going her way and so she was trying to make me feel bad for being alive and healthy.

  I put my fork down and said, in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘Bill, I’m very tired. Can you take me home, please?’

  A noise very much like a humph came from my mum as she stabbed at her food. My dad continued to shovel his meal into his mouth as if nothing had happened.

  As Bill and I got up from the table, it seemed to jolt my
mum from the carrot-impaling taking place on her plate. She looked up at me from under her blonde fringe. ‘You’ve not finished your dinner,’ she said. ‘It’s typical of you to make a fuss and storm out.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mum. Goodnight, Dad,’ I said. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of a row. Over the years, they’d led nowhere. I followed Bill from the dining room to the kitchen where we’d left our coats. He held mine out for me and I pulled it around me to fasten the buttons. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.

  I only heard him say the one word: ‘Sorry.’

  28

  The rest of the weekend held no joy for me. I knew that the courageous thing to do would be to call Stan and get to the bottom of it. He wouldn’t lie to me; I’d been certain of only a handful of things in my life and Stan’s loyalty to me was one of them. What was bothering me was my mum’s attitude. Even after all this time, she hadn’t forgiven me for coming out of it all apparently unscathed. Some wounds were invisible and I’d gone to great lengths to keep them that way, primarily where my own family were concerned. But, even more, I was worried about facing Stan in case he told me that my mum had been telling the truth and he had wanted me to live with him and Angela.

  My mum could be spiteful but she didn’t usually lie. Even the spitefulness I put down to frustration at how her life had turned out. She had probably pictured herself as a doting grandmother by this stage in her life. Not for one moment did I expect she had foreseen that her sixties would be spent taking better care of my sister than she had when we were children, with her only break coming when Sara stayed at the clinic.

  The thought of Stan and his wife wanting me to live in their home was crushing me in a way I had never thought possible. I had carried guilt around with me for longer than I ever could recall. Trying to remember any other emotion before the shame wrapped itself around me was all but impossible. Now I was covered in a new blanket of horror – regret that it hadn’t happened.