The Mission

by Naomi Kryske

  The team had followed through as they should have done. Pilner, who was ex-Army, had been in front of him. He understood that the mission came first. Once the momentum was under way, there was no stopping or slowing until the mission was complete. He was always amazed by how fast and fluid their maneouvres were.

  “You all right, Doc?”

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed,” he growled but pleased nonetheless that McGill, the team medic, was on the spot. He leant on him and hopped into the flat. Usually his gear kept him warm enough, but the flat was unheated, and with shock possibly setting in, he felt the cold. Twin girls – who couldn’t have been more than twelve – were huddled together crying and shivering in their nightdresses, dwarfed by the officers who stood by bristling with gear. Their two brothers had gang tattoos, the 15-year-old looking a bit shaken, but the 17-year-old sullen. All, even the girls, were plasticuffed.

  “Firearms and ammo were found in the girls’ room,” Davies reported.

  Casey understood. Kids under sixteen were often recruited by gangs because they got lighter sentences. The investigators would have to sort out what the sisters knew, if anything. “No parents?” he asked.

  “Their mum works nights,” Traylor said. “No father.”

  Casey hated to see children involved, and these days gangs were using younger and younger ones. He wondered if anyone would address or even acknowledge the trauma these girls had experienced. Suddenly tired, he leant against the wall. “Somebody find a blanket for those two,” he said.

  CHAPTER 13

  “No fracture,” the doctor at the hospital Accident & Emergency reported. He finished suturing the tear in Casey’s calf and left the nurse, a leggy blonde with hazel eyes and a nice smile, to instruct him in posttreatment care.

  “You know all this, I think,” she said after a moment.

  “Yes, but I like hearing you say it,” Casey told her.

  “Your police training?”

  “Something like that.”

  She gave him an appraising look. “What then? You had no anxiety about the procedure, and you didn’t flinch. Most of the patients I see have curiosity at the least. You looked like you knew what the doctor was going to do before he did it and then watched to be sure he did it right.”

  She was direct and perceptive. He liked that. And the long legs. “I could explain over a drink. When your shift ends.”

  “You’re willing to wait another two hours?”

  “I’m going nowhere fast on this ankle.” And Jenny was in Kent. “But I’ll need to know what the ‘M’ stands for, Ms. M. Collier.”

  “Marcia, and you’ll have to lose your bodyguard. Unless I’m going to need him.”

  He laughed. Davies had accompanied him to the hospital, but he would be glad to head home.

  They found a pub nearby. Casey noted that Marcia drained her pints nearly as fast as he did.

  “Dilutes the stress, doesn’t it?” she said. “So? Where’d you grow up? Where’d you learn about emergency medicine?”

  Responding to her prodding, he told her a bit about his childhood in Penzance and his subsequent medical training with the Royal Marines. “Some of my training took place in civilian hospitals. My mum’s a nurse. She lives in Portsmouth now, where my brother Martin – a Royal Navy sailor – is based. Penzance is a good place to live if you fancy fishing and bird watching and don’t mind the smell of the sea. Growing up I could never escape the smell of sea air. Later I’d no desire to.”

  “But you wanted more.”

  He nodded. In his experience nurses weren’t shy, and she was a bit of all right. “I’d like to see you again. What do you do to relax?” he asked.

  “Listen to music. I’m not terribly athletic, and I’m on my feet close to twelve hours a day, so I’m not keen on anything that requires me to walk or stand for long. And with that ankle, neither should you.”

  “I can suggest some activities that wouldn’t require either of us to stand at all.”

  “I’m not interested in moving too fast,” she objected, lifting her chin.

  He felt a tug at his heart, remembering Jenny doing the same when she intended to be stubborn about something and stand her ground. He had liked seeing it, even when he was the one she was challenging. It took him a moment to recover himself. “I was thinking of dinner and a film,” he said. “Tomorrow?”

  She laughed. “If that’s true, I accept,” she said. “I share a flat with my younger sister, Abby. I’ll give you the address.”

  CHAPTER 14

  March 31, 2002: Easter. Jenny sat next to Joanne and listened to Father Rogers’ homily about resurrection and how Jesus had foretold it: “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” St. Albans was ablaze with light, and pure white lilies dotted the aisles and the altar. Everyone in the small choir smiled when they sang. It wasn’t fair, she thought. The disciples had grieved for only three days before Christ rose.

  “You seem angry,” Joanne observed over lunch. “I was angry after Cam died. I was angry at him, actually. Of course he didn’t ask to have cancer. Irrational, but there it is.”

  “What did you do?” Jenny asked, her heart nearly stopping in midbeat at Joanne’s disclosure.

  “Jillian wouldn’t have understood,” Joanne answered. “She idolised her father. Colin would have worried about me.” She smiled. “So I started doing my own gardening. I ripped out weeds. I trimmed shrubs. To the ground! Have you noticed that the west side of the house is a bit bare of greenery? That’s my doing. I went too far, and some of the plants never came back.”

  “I am angry,” Jenny confessed. “Angry at the terrorist who killed him. At the doctors who couldn’t save him. Please don’t hate me, but I’m angry at Colin, too. I know it wasn’t his fault and wouldn’t have been his choice, but I keep wondering how he could have let it happen. He should have been thinking about me, about protecting me. And then I think about how selfish that sounds, and I feel guilty.”

  “I have something that might help,” Joanne said. “Wait a moment.”

  She returned with a stack of ceramic plates. “I’ve been meaning to take these to Oxfam – they’re old and some are chipped – but now I think you might have a better use for them. Come with me.”

  Together they went outside. “The west side of the house would be best, I think,” Joanne said. “It’s shielded from the road, and because of me, there aren’t any shrubs to cushion the blows.” She gripped a plate, took aim, and smashed it against the brick. She handed a plate to Jenny. “Now it’s your turn. Throw it as hard as you can. If you don’t, it won’t break, and then it won’t be satisfying at all.”

  Jenny’s first plate didn’t break. She retrieved it, stepped a little closer, and threw again, harder. This time she was more successful. She knew the plates were a metaphor – because she was the one who was broken – but the effort it took and the sound it made released something inside.

  Joanne stood back. “They’re all yours,” she said.

  Jenny threw even harder and faster, reaching the bottom of the pile in no time.

  “Good job,” Joanne said. “How do you feel?”

  Jenny was panting. “Better. Calmer. Not as angry. But I’ve made a real mess.”

  “Not to worry. We’ll leave it for now.”

  The morning service, the physical activity, and the effort it took to be social had exhausted Jenny. Since it was too bright in the conservatory, she dragged herself upstairs to nap. Neither the rest nor the light supper Joanne served revived her. “Joanne,” she asked when they were clearing the table, “now that Colin is gone, am I still related to you? I don’t think I could stand it if I lost Colin and you, too.”

  Joanne put her arm around her. “I’m so glad you came to me,” she said. “I consider you my daughter. I have no intention of letting you go. Perhaps you should call me Mum.”

  Jenny hugged her back and for a few minutes couldn’t speak at all.

  When she took the train back to Hamp
stead later that week, she was wearing a bracelet that Joanne had given her. “A friend gave it to me after Cam died,” Joanne had said. “I wore it round the clock; that’s why some of the letters are a bit worn. I wasn’t able to follow its instruction for quite some time.” Jane Austen’s prayer was engraved in the silver: “Teach us…that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Simon Casey was looking forward to the weekend. He and Marcia had plans on. He’d seen her several times since his injury, and so far things were going fine. She liked to have fun. She made him laugh. She wasn’t put off by his unpredictable and demanding schedule; hers was time consuming as well. As a child, she’d always bandaged her dolls. Her parents had hoped to send her to medical school, but they didn’t earn enough. Her dad was a Royal Mail postman, and her mum worked for an accountant. She hadn’t come from a privileged background, and neither had he.

  Her nursing experience had given her an easy confidence, and she was forthright about her likes and dislikes. The sort of films she preferred – fantasies, romantic comedies – weren’t his cup of tea, but he wasn’t particular about his entertainment. She wasn’t much for cooking, so they ate out.

  They’d been to the karaoke bar in her neighbourhood. “I’m not a singer,” she said. “I just enjoy watching other people having fun trying. Some of them are quite good, and the rest are just funny. A few good laughs, and I’m less tense. Helps me to unwind.” He would have preferred the pub, but the drinks were just as good in the bar.

  She kept the conversation light, although she had told him that her long-standing boyfriend Adrian had broken it off with her recently. He was an actor – rather self-absorbed, she admitted – who had got a part in a New York play and left abruptly. Hadn’t invited her along. Their two years together hadn’t warranted even a discussion about his priorities.

  Her sister, Abby, was an accessories buyer for a London department store. Simon had only met her once. Younger and a bit slimmer than Marcia, she had been on her way to a dinner meeting. Fortunately Marcia didn’t wear that much makeup or dress that fancy.

  Their physical relationship needed improving. The one time he’d suggested picking up some takeaway and going back to her flat, she had told him she wasn’t ready for what she thought he had in mind. He and Amanda had slept together quite quickly. Marcia was more cautious, and he didn’t know what she wanted or expected from him. He’d had to curb his impatience by reminding himself that she had lost a loved one. Not in the way Jenny had done, but suddenly nonetheless, and she was still smarting from the humiliation.

  Davies was having a barbecue at the weekend, and he’d invited her to go. She kept pressing him to tell her more about himself, and perhaps meeting some of his mates would satisfy her questions.

  He could make time for Marcia; Jenny was in Texas.

  CHAPTER 16

  Jenny had forgotten how hot it was in Texas. Even in mid-April, Houston temperatures exceeded those in London by twenty-five to thirty degrees. No wonder Texans liked their drinks cold! Unlike London, where a glass held little or no ice, the amount of ice in Texas glasses left little room for the beverage.

  She went shopping with her mother for shorts and tank tops and then wondered why she should buy clothes that Colin would never see. She had thought she would miss him less in Texas, but when they went places he had never been, she ached for him all over again, wishing he were there so they could experience them together. He was a part of her, a part she would not excise even if she could, and her parents’ urging her to move back to Texas fell on deaf ears.

  She walked through her parents’ house, noticing that her mother had already replaced the heavy winter bedspreads with striped, combed cotton seersucker ones for the summer, a different color in each bedroom. The aqua and blue covers reminded her of the blanket Colin had given her long ago, because he knew she was cold in the witness protection flat. He had been thoughtful, and now he was gone.

  She looked for herself in the familiar surroundings but found reminders only of a stranger, the innocent child she had been. She was a grown woman now. Under the spell of sorrow, however, sometimes she felt helpless as a child.

  She was delighted and a little relieved to hear from her college friend, Emily Richards, a fiery redhead with a personality to match. Emily had teased Jenny when she heard that Jenny planned to marry a British man, calling it the Sean Connery Syndrome. When Jenny had told her that Colin was a police officer, not a spy, she had laughed aloud at the idea that someone with a college degree would marry a cop. Her tune had changed when she met him. “Four stars,” she had decided. “He’s charming, elegant, has a sexy accent, and is handsome too. He should be in the movies.”

  Although Emily knew Colin had been killed, Jenny could count on Emily to keep the atmosphere light, and attending her cocktail party would give her a respite from her parents’ earnest concern. Emily and her husband, Morgan, hadn’t started a family yet, Emily still focused on her teaching and Morgan working long hours at a Houston law firm.

  Two Jennys stood in Emily’s split level living room, the exterior Jenny smiling, conversing, and sipping her drink. Large-paned double doors led to the patio and pool, where some guests had congregated. She spoke to several other college friends and was introduced to a number of people who worked with Emily or Morgan.

  “Jenny went to school with me, but she lives in London now,” Emily said, and Jenny parried the questions about her life in London by talking about what a wonderful city it was. Those who knew of Colin’s death moved on quickly, however, as if Jenny’s bad luck were a contagious disease they might contract if they got too close to her. Those who had attended her wedding had seen the scar on her cheek and understood its significance, but the new acquaintances seemed to be conspicuously not looking at it. Jenny had finally gotten so used to it that she often forgot it was there and disliked the surreptitious glances which reminded her.

  The interior Jenny watched and didn’t feel a part of the alcohol-induced merriment. She remembered the last party she had attended: to celebrate the retirement from the police service of one of Colin’s colleagues. She had been dressed up, with a long coat to keep the London winter at bay, not in tonight’s casual lightweight clothes. Colin had been by her side as they listened to the congratulatory speeches, instead of – What was his name? Ted? – who hovered at her elbow now. When the evening was over, they had gone home and made love. Three weeks later he was dead. The outer Jenny accepted a refill on her drink while the inside Jenny wondered if she could swallow it with the tightness in her throat. She wished herself back in her solitary life in London, where she did not have to pretend.

  Laughter erupted in one corner of the room, Emily no doubt at the center of it, her capacity for carefree fun making her seem so young. Because her life was unfolding just the way she had planned, she believed she was in control of it. “Watch out,” she teased as she breezed by Jenny on her way to the kitchen. “That’s Ready Teddy who’s plying you with liquor.”

  “What are you ready for?” Jenny asked the young man with a tan almost as dark as his brown eyes and hair.

  “To entertain you,” he answered smoothly. “If you like baseball, that is. I work for the Houston Astros, and I have tickets for Saturday’s game. A group of us will be going. Will you join us?”

  She had always liked baseball, even scoring some of the games, but she didn’t have the concentration to do that now. The cocktail party was much shorter than an evening of baseball, and she was already exhausted. The fine line between the outer Jenny and the inner one was narrowing. Ted had been courteous and gracious, holding up more than his side of the conversation, but soon it would be evident that she was not functioning as well as others thought. A relationship was out of the question. She would visit her grandmother as scheduled.

  “Thanks, but I won’t be here then,” she said as sincerely as she could and excused herself to say good-bye to the Richards.
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br />   “Thanks for coming,” Emily effused. “I knew you wouldn’t be dreary.”

  Jenny bit back her anger. She wasn’t healed and whole. Why did everyone expect her to be? Later, trying to fall asleep in her room at her parents’ house, she made a mental list: Things I Know and Wish I Didn’t. My grief has set me apart was the first entry. Friends can be cruel was the next.

  CHAPTER 17

  Jenny was most relaxed when she stayed for several days with her maternal grandmother, whose husband had died when Jenny was in high school. Grandma Ellie’s home in Clear Lake, southeast of Houston, smelled liked lavender, which Jenny found soothing. She resolved to buy some lavender soap when she got home.

  Grandma Ellie’s single-level house was large for one person, with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, an in-house atrium and porch, and an open kitchen that folded into the dining and living areas. She hadn’t let anyone talk her into moving, however. She wanted to be where Grandpa Ed had been, to work in her garden, to maintain her network of friends. She and Jenny worked jigsaw puzzles, played cards, and watched the birds at the birdbath. In spite of the shade provided by the trees, it was too hot to spend time in the hammock, but they made cinnamon bread, the only recipe worth using the oven for in hot weather, Ellie said.

  “I feel disconnected, separate from everyone,” Jenny told her. Ellie’s auburn hair had faded to gray and then to white, but her gnarled hands were still strong, and she kneaded the dough with practiced ease. “And I don’t think Mom and Dad understand. How did you stand it after Grandpa Ed died?”

  “Everything was in a jumble for a while. You have to find your own way, and it always takes longer than you want it to.”

  “Did you lose things? And then spend an inordinate amount of time looking for them?”