by Joe McNally
A week later, Mave and I waited in the arrivals area of Manchester airport for Ben and Alice. The fallout from Ember’s arrest had landed sweetly for Chief Constable Bradley and his team. Bradley had told me privately that on the day Ember was convicted and sentenced, he’d be retiring from the force.
Bradley had moved straight on to helping set up the complex negotiations for plea-bargains for Monty and Prim and the others involved. Nigel Steel, Mac’s boss, was not nearly as accomplished as Bradley in the aftermath. Having hovered carefully on the sidelines throughout, he’d hurried to centre stage to big-up his part in the BHA’s ‘crucial role’ in helping with the arrest of ‘a master criminal with much blood on his hands.’
Mac had phoned me last night, ‘Steel’s getting press calls from all over the world and is making an utter balls of every interview. I’d told him to leave the police in the spotlight, but he wouldn’t have it. Even if he wanted to take action internally now on Prim and the others involved, he’s trampled in public all over any defence they might have had.’
I had said, ‘I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, Mac. So long as Prim and the rest get what was promised.’
Standing with Mave, waiting for Ben and Alice, one thing I did know was that Alice would still want her day in court. DJ would always loom large in her mind, no matter what Ember had done.
Mave said, ‘Looks like they’re beginning to clear from baggage.’
Tanned, tired passengers were filtering through from behind the partitions. I said, ‘Alice will be breathing fire. She’d have been expecting to come back with a false identity to be spirited away by Special Branch.’
Mave said, ‘I think that’s your imagination at work rather then hers, Eddie.’
‘Probably.’
We waited.
Mave pointed, ‘There’s Ben!’
All we could see was his neck and head behind the loaded trolley he was pushing. He smiled when he saw us and somehow those broken old teeth didn’t look quite so bad against a deep tan. We waved, and laughed as he came toward the barrier, but we were already looking for Alice.
Then we saw her.
Walking beside Kim, holding hands.
Mave turned to look at me, but my eyes were locked to Kim’s. He raised his left hand, pointing at me and mouthing ‘Gotcha!’
Mave tugged my arm. I turned slowly toward her. She said, ‘I think you just got your nephew back…for good.’
I nodded slowly, smiling, putting my arm across Mave’s shoulder, ‘Look at Alice,’ I said, ‘you’d think she’d never had a troubled moment in her life…look at her smile.’
Mave said, ‘Young love, Eddie. Beats everything. Makes the whole world new.’
I squeezed her and she looked up at me. I said, ‘You made my world new.’
She smiled slowly, and her eyes filled up, ‘I did my best.’
‘Hey, don’t cry, you were working with crap material!’
She stepped away and punched my shoulder as Kim and Alice rushed us, all yells and flapping arms and through the melee I saw Ben standing with the trolley, watching us. And I realized that his battered smile and his optimism and his appetite for life had carried us all through this…yet he was always just out of reach, on the perimeter, urging everyone else toward their own second chance.
Ben Searcey. Reborn.
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About the Author
Joe worked in a racing yard as a teenager. He has been in the racing and betting industry for most of his life and was formerly marketing manager for the Grand National, and commercial director for the UK Tote
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