A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  ‘A week early.’

  Joe caught the unspoken accusation: because Alan asked you to. In the old days, his father had been only too glad of the time Joe spent at Alan and Helena’s. He’d been trying to keep the show on the road then, holding down a day job as a financial controller while devoting every spare moment to the ‘case’. Something had to give, and it was the garden that went first, followed by the house and the cooking. Then, for no apparent reason, the old man’s attitude to the Laskeys changed almost overnight. His gratitude soured, he became openly hostile, and Joe was forced to live two lives: the one at home, functional, solitary, secretive, the other at the Laskeys, open, uncritical, and all the more intense for being clandestine.

  ‘It was my own idea to come down. Dad. Alan didn’t ask me to.’

  The old man’s glare didn’t falter.

  ‘I’m not sure he even knows I’m coming.’

  ‘In that case you’re not going to catch him, are you? He spends all morning on his rounds.’

  ‘Well, if I miss him, I miss him.’

  ‘You will miss him. You’ll miss him by hours. I could have told you that.’ With a triumphant sniff, the old man turned his gaze on the cupboard. ‘Good God, Joe, you’ve bought the shops out! Far too much. Everyone eats far too much nowadays.

  It’s just greed, you know, nothing but greed. One meal a day’s plenty, plenty.’ He peered at the labels. ‘Beans… Get me going, I suppose. And custard … yes, yes … it’ll make a change.’ He said abruptly, ‘Thanks, Joe. Thanks for—’ His eye fell on the fruit bowl. ‘What on earth d’you want to buy all this for? Good God. It’ll only go and rot. It’ll only have to be thrown away.’

  At the door they embraced with the usual awkwardness.

  Joe had introduced the practice some years ago, but for his father it remained an ordeal of modern manners.

  ‘Joe?’ The old man shuffled awkwardly, as if he might offer belated reparations.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘It may be she’s just cut herself off, you know - Jennifer.

  Got herself a better life. She always had her sights set high.’

  Joe sucked in his breath wearily.

  ‘Oh, you may scoff, but she was always a very determined young lady. Always liked having things her own way. Most people saw no further than that pretty face of hers, that angelic look she used to get when she was singing. But there was another side to her, believe me. She enjoyed being the centre of attention. Alan’s fault, of course. Spoilt her rotten.’

  Joe could only shake his head and turn away.

  ‘All I’m saying is she might have turned her nose up at the past. It’s happened before.’

  ‘Don’t forget to lock up,’ Joe called back.

  The old man tutted irritably, but as Joe walked away down the mossy path he heard the sound of the bolt sliding across.

  Joe found Alan outside his house, standing beside the open bonnet of his car, gazing at the engine with a kind of wistful bafflement. When he saw Joe he broke into a grin and spread his hands in a gesture of delighted retreat, as if to acknowledge the absurdity of placing himself so close to anything mechanical.

  ‘Trouble?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Mysterious noises.’

  ‘Can I do something?’

  He laughed, ‘No, Joe. It’s just trying to provoke me, the blasted thing. It does it from time to time, just to add to my grey hairs.’ It didn’t occur to Joe until later that Alan had used the car as an excuse to catch him on his own, away from the house.

  Alan held Joe at arm’s length and examined his face for a moment before embracing him in a rapid bear-hug. ‘Joe! Joe!’

  he sang affectionately. ‘Good of you to come.’

  ‘I meant to drop in last time—’

  ‘But we’re never here, are we? No, no, of course you couldn’t find us. No, don’t even think about it, Joe. We’re impossible!’ He chuckled happily. He had a lively round face, a quick smile, and small dancing eyes, but in the winter light it seemed to Joe that his plump cheeks had developed an unhealthy tinge and the skin around his eyes a dark and puffy look, while his wispy hair floated across his balding pate like down. For as long as Joe had known him he had talked about dieting and for just as long had failed to get round to it, but now for the first time the weight seemed to rest heavily on his frame. There was a bow to his shoulders, a sag to his belly. He was wearing the uniform of the English country doctor he’d always longed to be: old tweeds, a brushed cotton shirt with a worn collar, its points skew-whiff, and sturdy leather shoes.

  Only the lilt in his voice and the precision of his enunciation gave a hint of his parents’ Polish ancestry.

  ‘You’ve seen your old man?’ he asked.

  ‘When I could persuade him to answer the door. I thought he was just avoiding the tradesmen, but I think the local kids have been giving him trouble.’

  ‘Do you want me to look into it? Of course I’ll look into it!’

  ‘No, you’ve got quite enough on your plate. I couldn’t ask you—’

  ‘But it’s no trouble, Joe. For your father? No trouble at all!

  If it’s the local kids, I’ll be able to sort it out in five minutes. A word with the parents,’ he whispered conspiratorially, ‘still works wonders.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’

  Alan blocked any further discussion with an energetic gesture of both hands, before turning back to the engine and gingerly closing the bonnet. ‘I always dread a patient’s cat climbing in. They wouldn’t thank me for that, would they? But then they don’t thank me for much anyway, Joe, not in the blame and compensation culture. Civility’s a thing of the past.

  Now it’s suspicion and mistrust. They accuse me of failing to disclose side-effects, they tell me I’m trying to damage their babies with vaccines, they demand second opinions. They call me out late at night to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about.’ He leant back against the side of the car with a cheerful shrug. ‘There we are, Joe. There we are. Thank heavens for the very young and the very old. They’re not interested in their rights. God bless ‘em.’

  ‘You’ve got some help, though, haven’t you, Alan? You’ve merged with this other practice.’

  ‘Trouble is, Joe, they do things differently. I’m a great believer in letting patients have a good moan. Does them no end of good. Saves on the drug bill. But now everything’s about efficiency and work-sharing. Ten minutes a patient.’ Distracted, he began a search of his jacket pockets, then opened the door of the car to peer inside.

  Joe glanced towards the house, which was of solid thirties design, grey pebble-dashed with a two-storey tile-hung bay topped by a gable with black bargeboards. The faded curtains were half drawn or hanging aslant. Inside, there were no lights lit against the gloomy day, but through the smeared glass of the ground-floor window he could see, clearly outlined against the patterned wallpaper, the familiar form of the upright piano, a book of music open on its stand.

  Alan abandoned his mysterious hunt with a last pat of his outer pockets. ‘Joe, it’s good of you to look in. Very good of you. The thing is, I called because - I don’t suppose Helena told you—’

  ‘She said you wanted to find Jenna.’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘She said that? Well, well…’

  Resuming an expression of great seriousness, he said, ‘Normally I wouldn’t bother you with such a thing, Joe. Of course I wouldn’t! Absolutely not. Not when it’s going to be such a lot of trouble, not when it might all be for nothing. But it’s Marcus, you see. He’ll never forgive me if I don’t give it a try.

  He’ll never - well, let’s put it this way, Joe, I don’t want to lose a second child. One could be termed bad luck, two carelessness!’ He forced a loud chuckle, but neither of them felt like laughing.

  ‘Helena said something about a legal matter. Something to do with a property.’

  ‘A property? That’s far too grand a word. Goodness gracious - a property’. No, it’s a tiny terr
ace house, one up, one down. Damp, decrepit, no view. Down by the river, next to the coal tip - what used to be the coal tip - behind Myersons.’

  Myersons were the builders’ merchants, but Joe had only the dimmest recollection of houses nearby.

  ‘It was left to the kids by a patient, Edith Gutteridge,’ Alan went on. ‘No family of her own. Wanted to leave it to me, if you please. Can you believe it! I said not on your life. Not allowed! Not in my book anyway. Otherwise people would start thinking I had designs on my patients, wouldn’t they?’

  His shoulders lifted in brief merriment. ‘No, no - wouldn’t do.

  So I thought that was that. Thought Edith would go and leave her pennies to a cat sanctuary - you should have seen her cats, Joe, eight, ten at one time, mange, fleas, you name it - but no, not a bit of it. No, without a by-your-leave she went and left it to the kids. Marc used to pop in on his way to and from his holiday job, you see. Did the odd jobs for her, gutters, light-bulbs, that sort of thing. And Jenna - well, Edith only met her a few times. That’s the strange thing, Joe - no more than three or four times, at the most. But of course she heard her sing - that’s what it was. Heard her sing at St Luke’s one Christmas, and really took to her. Always talking about her …’ He ducked his head to peer into the car again, without success.

  ‘And you know how Jenna was with old people - always sweet with them, always found time for them. They always adored her, didn’t they, old people? So, anyway, there it was! Edith died six years ago and out of the blue we found she’d left them her house. But the place was a mess, Joe. Worth next to nothing, we thought. In fact the estate agent said it was a waste of time putting it on the market because there were so many problems. It wasn’t just the damp, you see. There was a bulging wall. And cracks.’

  He plunged into the back of the car with a grunt of triumph and re-emerged with a pipe and tobacco pouch. He shot Joe a mischievous glance. ‘Don’t tell me! I know - I should have given up by now. Helena gets very cross. She’s got a nose like a bloodhound, smells it on my clothes.’ He rolled his eyes in mock despair and began the ritual of filling his pipe. ‘Anyway there’s been an offer for the place. That’s the thing, Joe. That’s what Marc’s in a tizz about. There’s this offer and it won’t go through unless we can find Jenna.’ He paused with an unlit match in his hand. ‘It’s not a lot of money, Joe, not for a house - forty-two thousand - but Marc could do with it just at the moment. Badly. That’s the thing, Joe. I don’t want him to feel’ - he waved the match in the air while he found the word ‘cheated.’

  But he wasn’t satisfied with this either. ‘I don’t want him to think badly of his sister. That’s what I couldn’t take, Joe.’ Settling for this, he struck the match and drew the flame into the bowl.

  Marc was younger than Jenna by four years. Joe had seen him once or twice in recent years, but he remembered him mainly as an intense, rather taciturn schoolboy with an appetite for junk food and video games.

  ‘So, it’s Jenna’s signature you need.’

  Alan looked at him sharply, as if he’d made an unexpected and unwelcome distinction. ‘Well, yes … But we have to find her first, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Alan was still looking for the catch. ‘You can’t have one without the other, surely?’

  ‘No, of course not. It was just my lawyer’s mind.’

  A last frown and Alan disappeared behind a wall of smoke.

  ‘I never inhale, of course,’ he commented. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it?

  It’s the stink I go for, I suppose. The memory of wickedness.’

  When he spoke again it was hesitantly: ‘I should tell you, Joe … I took it on myself to … it must be a year ago now … I got in contact with the Missing Persons Line and asked them to have another look for Jenna.’ Alan’s face had always been transparent, and now Joe saw the pain and disappointment there.

  ‘And nothing?’

  He shook his head solemnly. ‘I tried the Red Cross too.

  Unlikely, I know - they deal with refugees, don’t they? - but I thought I might as well, while I was about it.’ He added in a casual tone that didn’t quite come off, ‘Oh, and I didn’t bother to tell Helena, by the way. No point.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She hates any mention - you know.’

  ‘She seemed all right when I phoned last night.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have minded talking to you, Joe.’

  ‘She said something about some news. Something you got excited about.’

  Alan looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’

  he protested. ‘It was nothing. Nothing at all! And way back when. Good gracious - months ago. April. And I wasn’t excited, just curious. No harm in a bit of curiosity!’ He gave a half-hearted laugh, only to pause, locked in some internal wrangle. ‘Well, all right,’ he admitted in a rush. ‘It was my birthday. I thought Jenna might remember. My sixtieth,’ you see. I thought she might make the effort to get in touch. Just that once - you know.’ His voice dipped suddenly.

  ‘Your sixtieth, Alan - I had no idea!’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, why should you? We didn’t make a fuss about it. Nothing to celebrate, I can tell you. Sixty.’ He rolled his eyes.

  ‘All the same. Many congratulations.’ Joe gripped his shoulder affectionately.

  ‘Hey ho. Old Father Time.’

  ‘So …? Was it a phone call?’

  ‘What? Oh … no, it was a card.’

  ‘Any signature?’

  ‘No, no,’ he scoffed, as if arguing against himself. ‘You see? Could have been anyone, couldn’t it?’

  ‘But you thought it was Jenna.’

  ‘I thought all sorts of things … I thought…’ He hung his arms, the pipe forgotten in his hand. ‘I saw what I wanted to see, Joe.’

  ‘The card was blank?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Joe - as good as. There was a single kiss - an X - and a happy-face. You know, the sort kids do, with a circle and a smile and two dots for eyes. I was just being slow.’ He tapped his temple in a schoolboy gesture of stupidity.

  ‘Jenna used to draw happy-faces on her cards, but with lots of kisses - I mean showers of kisses - and always set in clouds, large clouds. Never one X on its own. Never without clouds.

  Not her style. Well, there you are!’ He spread a hand, palm up, ‘The happy-face went to my head. I wasn’t thinking straight. There was no reason to think it was Jenna. None. But Helena … she doesn’t let me forget these things. She told me I was a fool.’

  Joe made an expression of commiseration.

  ‘Can’t blame her, Joe. She feels very angry.’

  It was an odd word to use. Perhaps the word bothered Alan too, because he puffed aggressively on his pipe and Joe couldn’t help noticing that when he pulled it away from his mouth he appeared to be drawing the smoke down into his lungs.

  ‘You never found out who sent the card?’

  From the side of Alan’s mouth a stream of smoke shot out into the misty air. ‘A patient, I imagine. They do, sometimes.

  Send things.’

  ‘What about the postmark?’

  ‘I don’t know. Local, I think.’ Again, he lifted a hand in appeal. ‘You see, it was nothing, Joe. Really.’

  The sounds of the weekend rose around them: a revving motorbike, kids playing, the beat of a hammer. Glancing round, Joe’s eye caught what might have been a flicker of movement in the house, a person, a shadow, he couldn’t tell.

  He said, ‘I haven’t had time to investigate everything on the search front, Alan, but there are some checks that can be done straight away. They may duplicate the Missing Persons of course, but it’s worth a try. Could you let me have Jenna’s national insurance number? That might help. And her last known address.’

  ‘Her last address? But, Joe, the only one I ever had was that place in North London. Grisham Gardens—’

  ‘Gresham, I think it was.’

  ‘Yes, yes - Gresham Gardens. Bu
t you went there, Joe. You saw it for yourself.’

  ‘Just the once.’

  ‘Well, that was one more time than we did.’ The bewilderment tugged at his voice. ‘As for Jenna’s national insurance number, Helena will have it somewhere.’ He knocked out his pipe and straightened up. ‘Now, if there’s any cost involved, anything at all, Joe, I insist on paying,’ he announced in a tone of great gravity.

  ‘Well, let’s wait and see, Alan.’

  ‘No - whatever needs to be done, Joe. Advertising. Private investigators. Whatever you decide - that’ll be fine with me.’

  Alan was incapable of a bitter thought, he’d never once blamed Joe for introducing Jenna to Chetwood, but when he laid his hand trustingly on Joe’s arm, his touch contained all the unwitting reproach of a forgiving heart.

  ‘Come and have a coffee, Joe. Come and see Helena. She’s been asking after you.’ Halfway up the path Alan halted irresolutely, eyes fixed on the ground. ‘You don’t think anyone’s heard from her and not told us, do you, Joe?’

  ‘A friend, you mean?’

  ‘Someone in London.’

  ‘There was Martha, but she would have let me know, I’m sure.’ Martha had been Jenna’s best friend at music college.

  ‘She was the pianist?’

  ‘The singer. With red hair.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Alan murmured. ‘What about later, after she left college?’

  This was the summer that Jenna had moved in with Chetwood; the summer she had turned down the place with the Welsh Opera chorus. ‘I’m not sure what friends they had, Alan.

  There were a few in London, I think, at the beginning. Then in Hereford, in the farmhouse days. Fellow escapees from city life. I tracked a couple of them down, if you remember, right at the very beginning.’

  Alan was nodding furiously. ‘Yes, yes. A musician, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Guitar player. Dave Cracknell. He and his girlfriend were up in Hereford all that summer but lost touch soon after. They said everyone had lost touch with Jenna and Chetwood.’

  ‘You checked, Joe. Of course you did.’ Alan flung him a grateful smile. ‘And after Hereford? After the farmhouse?’

  ‘They moved so often, I don’t think they were in one place long enough to make friends, Alan. That was the impression I got anyway.’