Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

  * * *

  I couldn’t find any takers for a report on the logistics world of Bristol. This time I would have to pay for my own trip. Well, too bad; it was an offer I wasn’t about to turn down. Come the day, I caught the train from Paddington; no point in driving if (as I hoped) a long session in a pub might be in prospect. Just after midday I was walking through the centre of Bristol in bright sunshine.

  The city’s uneasy architectural mix of Victorian, 1960s and modern always seemed jarring, but the pub Ashley had selected was in a reassuringly traditional Victorian block. It was thronging with lunchtime customers when I walked in, but Ashley had found a table, and was seated opposite a dark-haired man.

  “Michael!” Her face broke into a smile. “I don’t think you’ve met my brother Patrick.”

  Patrick rose to shake my hand – a slim, athletic-looking figure in his thirties, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Likewise.”

  I sat down between them and smiled at Ashley. She too was in jeans with a black T-shirt, but there was no Latimer logo in sight today. She had pulled her hair back into a short ponytail, giving me my first sight of her face without its usual framing of hair. Her fine features readily withstood the extra exposure.

  “Patrick gave me a lift from Truro this morning. He’s going to a convention in Cheltenham.”

  “I’m in computer software,” he said. “They like to bring us together for the occasional bonding session. So what brings you to Bristol?”

  I felt caught out. What was I doing here? Chasing his sister – that’s what I was doing. I cleared my throat. “Ah – various things.” I looked at Ashley. “I might dip into Ashley’s show tomorrow.”

  Patrick went over to the bar to buy drinks and place our food order, and Ashley leaned towards me over the table. In a low voice she said, “I’m sorry about this. I didn’t know Patrick would be here. I could hardly turn him down when he offered the lift.”

  “It’s fine. I’m pleased to be here.”

  “You’re not really staying over, are you? I told you the show’s not up to much.”

  I shook my head. “Cover story.”

  When Patrick came back I said to him, “So you knew Trina Markham at the Fairmile.”

  “Well, yes, vaguely. I thought she was a cracking girl, but she didn’t seem to rate me, to be honest. She had a great laugh.”

  I’d completely forgotten that. My version of Trina was a silent-film version. Instantly I heard it again in my head – that slightly husky, resonant chuckle. “My god, you’re right!”

  I asked him if he thought he would be able to unearth any more photographs from that period. “I don’t think so, but I’ll keep my eye out. There’s a load of stuff stashed in my parents’ loft that I still haven’t checked.”

  We chatted for a while, then Ashley slipped away to the ladies’ room. Patrick leaned forward.

  “So what’s happening with you and Ash then, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Nothing’s happening. We’re colleagues.”

  “Er, d’you want to try that again? You didn’t have her jabbering at you all the way from Truro just now. You’d think Christmas had come early.”

  I wanted to smile at hearing this, but it also put me on the defensive. “Well, there’s still nothing happening.”

  “OK, whatever.”

  I shrugged.

  He said, “The thing is, I’m sure you know she’s engaged to a bloke called Jack Forbes. He’s a good friend of mine, and I don’t want to see him messed around. Or Ashley, obviously.”

  “Patrick, I don’t want to mess anyone around. I know you’ve never met me before, but I’m not one of the bad guys. Honestly.”

  “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” He took a sip of his beer. “Ash had a bad time after Kieron, but Jack was there for her, and he helped her put her life back together. They helped each other.”

  I probably looked blank at this, because he added, “You don’t know about Kieron, do you?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well, let’s just say he was the love of her life, and then all of a sudden he wasn’t. Long time ago now. Jack always had a thing for her, and after Kieron it came together for them.”

  This was all going too fast for me. I could only muster, “I don’t really know what to say.”

  He looked at me for a moment, assessing. “You seem a decent guy, Mike, and Ash knows her own mind. It’s not for me to tell her how to live her life. But you need to decide where you stand. If Jack is on the way out and he doesn’t find out about it pretty soon, I may find myself having to put him in the picture. And if you mess Ash around, you’ll find you have me to reckon with.”

  Ashley returned at that point and sat down, looking brightly at the two of us. She turned to Patrick and said pointedly, “Didn’t you have to be at Cheltenham pretty soon?”

  He shot us both a pained look. “Bonding on the bloody lawn for afternoon tea, followed by bonding over dinner tonight, followed by bonding in a classroom all day tomorrow. Yippee.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Very good to meet you, Mike.”

  “Aren’t you staying for lunch?”

  “Get something when I arrive.”

  * * *

  “So was Patrick giving you the third degree while I was out of the room?” She raised her hands behind her head, worked the elastic tie free of her ponytail and shook her hair out. It was like a spontaneous celebration of our liberation from scrutiny.

  I laughed. “Sort of. He’s a good guy.”

  “Yup. But he likes to think he needs to look out for me.”

  “He was telling me about Kieron.”

  “Kieron. Right. I seem to remember that name vaguely.” She gave me a dry smile. “I might tell you about him some time.”

  “That’s assuming we’re still in touch with each other.”

  She smiled again, then she sat forward. “Guess what, I’ve read your book!”

  “My god. What did you think?”

  “Really interesting. And I can see now why you’re looking for Trina Markham. She obviously made a really big impression on you.”

  “Well, I probably exaggerated it for the story.”

  “Hm. I wonder.”

  A waitress arrived with two plates of chicken Caesar salad. As we picked our way through the meal, Ashley said, “I’ve got a theory about your break-ins and those people who tried to kidnap you. You’ll probably think it’s daft though.”

  “No, please tell me.”

  “Well, now that I’ve read your book, I can see that it’s a really good account of what might have happened after that robbery. You make it sound as if you’ve talked to the people involved, and you really do know what happened to that missing loot.”

  “OK.”

  “But you didn’t actually talk to any of them, did you? I mean, I got the impression you made everything up.” She gave me a questioning look.

  “Correct.”

  She nodded. “I thought so. But what if someone who’s read your book believes that you did talk to them, and you actually know where the loot is? What if they think they could persuade you to tell them?”

  I sat thinking about this. The idea wasn’t actually new to me – it had been flashing in and out of my consciousness for several weeks, and seemed to have acquired new significance since I’d factored Janni Noble out of the equation. Yet it had seemed so insubstantial, so unlikely, that I hadn’t yet allowed it to coalesce in the front of my brain. Now that Ashley had articulated the thought, it suddenly seemed to take on new substance.

  “I wonder if that’s really possible.”

  “Well why not? The question is who would be interested. Would it just be some nutter who believes the people in EastEnders are real, or would it be people who actually know about the robbery, and think you’re on to something?”

  I found myself smiling as she said this – chiefly at the way she pronounced “nutter” with a slight
ly self-mocking West Country twang. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “I doubt if some nutter would raid my house, and then pay a bunch of heavies to kidnap me.”

  She frowned. “Maybe you’re right. So if what I’m saying is true, probably it must be people who have inside knowledge of the robbery, or knowledge of the gang who committed it.”

  “But how do I work out who’s read the book?”

  “Can’t you ask the publishers?”

  “I could, but I don’t think they’d tell me. Their position is that they’re really just a retailer, and the people who buy it are their customers, not mine.” My mind was racing. “In any case, other people have read the book as well. A couple of dozen literary agents, for a start. I’d never track them all down. They don’t even speak to mere mortals like me.”

  “It’s worth thinking about, though, isn’t it? It could explain everything.”

  * * *

  We finished our meal and chatted through another round of drinks, but finally Ashley started checking her watch. “I need to get out to the exhibition centre and make sure they haven’t erected the stand upside down.”

  I wanted to say something definitive, to make our unacknowledged relationship into a reality. I said, “I may as well admit I’ve got nothing else to do here in Bristol. I just came over here for this lunch.”

  A faint smile spread over her face. “A hundred miles is long way to come for a chicken salad, Mr Stanhope. I hope you feel it was worth it.”

  “What do you think?”

  She gave me a wry look. “On the whole, I think probably yes.” She stared down at her beer mat for a moment, fiddling with it, then looked up. “I’m glad you did come.”

  We smiled at each other. The moment could have passed, but I realised with sudden fright that I wasn’t about to let it. Almost as if someone else was speaking, I heard myself saying, “I suppose you realise I can’t stop thinking about you? Every sodding minute of the day?”

  We gave each other a wide-eyed look and she laughed nervously. “Well don’t make it sound like some form of mediaeval torture.”

  She scooped up her overnight bag and we left the pub without saying any more. A moment later we were in the street, standing close to each other in the sunshine. Ashley looked over her shoulder, talking vaguely about taxis. As she turned back to me I reached out and pulled her tentatively towards me. I was worried that she might resist, but she didn’t.

  I said, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  She gave me a slightly dazed look. “If you say so.”

  It was light, it was insubstantial, it was momentous. I pulled back and we looked at each other, smiling, then I put my hands on her shoulders. “I can’t believe this.”

  She crinkled her eyes against the sun. “Now all we have to do is work out what happens next.”

  Chapter 32

  I fell into the train in a trance. I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt like this, if ever. I was euphoric, I was empowered, yet I was also bereft. It was as if a drug had been dangled in front of me, then snatched away. I needed my next fix, and soon.

  It came that evening, though it didn’t entirely do the trick. At about ten o’clock Ashley rang me from her hotel room.

  “I’ve just been to the icebreaker dinner. God, I’ve had enough logistics talk to last me a lifetime.”

  I chuckled. “I’m glad I wasn’t there.”

  “I wish you had been!”

  We chatted about our lunchtime get-together, and she renewed her advice for me to work out who might have read my book. “I bet you there’s some lunatic out there who thinks you’re his meal ticket to riches beyond his dreams.”

  Tentatively I said, “Pity you don’t have a show in Bristol every week.”

  She had nothing to say to that, and there was a pause. Then she said quietly, “I’m a bit out of my depth here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I know.”

  “Jack said to me last night that he hoped I’d have a really nice day today. Well, I did, but not in the way he meant. That makes me feel awful.” She sighed. “He’ll probably say the same thing again when I ring him in a minute. I’m not sure I can hack this.”

  I wasn’t sure how to reply. I said, “Well do you want to hack it?”

  “Ha! Do you need to ask that?”

  I thought I’d better not say anything.

  There was another pause, then she said, “How often do you get to visit Cornwall, Mike?”

  “Normally about once in ten years.”

  “Well, there you go. I get up to London maybe two or three times a year at the most. Sometimes not even that.”

  I took a deep breath. “These are details.”

  “No they’re not details. These things matter.”

  Silence.

  I said, “All I can say is I wish you were here now.”

  I heard her draw breath to say something, then she seemed to think the better of it. “Well, I’m not.” She hesitated. “I think I need time to get my head together, to be honest.”

  “OK.”

  There was a longer pause, then she said, “God, I’m sorry to sound such a drip, Mike. This isn’t me. Today was absolutely brilliant. It was fantastic that you came. I just need to ask you to bear with me.”

  “I think I can do that.”

  But I wondered how good I would be at it.

  * * *

  I was at my desk next morning, still thinking about Ashley in a disconnected way, when the phone rang.

  “Mike, it’s Sandy.”

  From would-be girlfriend to former wife in one quick switch: the juxtaposition was not lost on me. I wrenched myself to attention; she sounded upset.

  “I’m sorry, Mike, I don’t know why on earth I’m ringing you. It’s just that we’ve had a break-in, and everything’s such a mess.”

  “My god – what happened?”

  “We were away last night. We stopped over in a hotel for Alan’s company dinner in Aylesbury. When I got back this morning, someone had broken in through the patio windows and thrown everything all over the place. I don’t even know what’s missing yet …” She broke off with a half-sob.

  “Is Alan there now?”

  “No, he went straight off from the hotel to a meeting in Wales this morning. He’s on his way back.”

  “Is there a lot of damage?”

  “Well, come to think of it, I suppose not.” I could visualise her staring around. “They’ve just chucked stuff all over the place. Papers, books, CDs … oh, and my big bowl is broken! Fuck it! Bloody fuck it.”

  I kept quiet a moment. I knew there was nothing I could contribute. Then I said, “Have you had the police round?”

  “They say they’re on their way. But what can they do?”

  I was about to draw a parallel with my own break-in, hoping to work up a bit of shared indignation, but at the last moment something held me back. What if it was my intruders who had now turned their attention on her? She wouldn’t thank me if she thought I’d somehow brought this on her.

  I decided to avoid suggesting any connection. Instead I said, “What have they taken? Is there anything missing?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see anything obvious, but it’s such a mess.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Oh, nothing, Mike. I don’t even know why I rang you. I suppose I just needed to hear a friendly voice on the phone.” She gave an ironic laugh. “It’s funny how the mind works in a crisis.”

  “You’ll need someone to help you clear up after the police have gone.”

  “I’ve got Marion from next door coming round. Anyway, Alan will be back in a couple of hours. I’m fine, honestly.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” I paused to marshal my words. “Look, when you’ve got yourself on top of this, get back to me and let me know what’s happened. I’m always here to listen.”

  “Thanks, Mike, I appreciate it.”

  * * *

  I stared into space for a wh
ile, wondering about all this. Was it really possible that someone could be searching for information that they thought I had about the security van robbery? It seemed wildly implausible, and yet it did fit in with the facts. I’d been comprehensively burgled, then actually kidnapped, and now my former wife had also been burgled. Coincidence, possibly, but there could be a logic to it.

  The more I thought about this, the more I found myself actually hoping it was true. If it was, it seemed to discount another possibility that had been quietly nagging at me. What if the break-ins at my house had been an attempt to warn me off the search for the Markham family?

  It seemed pretty unlikely, given that my search had been so tentative and low-key, but I’d felt I shouldn’t completely dismiss it. However, there seemed no logic at all in the idea that the perpetrators would go to the extent of burgling my ex-wife. So to my mind, if there was a connection between my break-ins and hers, the link was surely to my book, not to the Markhams.

  I felt it was time to run the idea past someone who was qualified to take a view. I reached for the phone.

  Dave wasn’t answering, which didn’t surprise me, but in the afternoon he rang me back. He asked if I’d seen any further sign of my would-be kidnappers.

  “Thankfully no. But I’m still watching my back the whole time. I hardly dare to go out after dark these days.”

  “Glad to hear it. You can’t be too careful.”

  “But I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this.”

  “It’ll all come out in the wash, trust me.”

  “I hope so.”

  We continued in this vein for a while, then I said, “Did I mention that I’d written a novel?”

  “No you didn’t. What about?” Straight to the point.

  “Well, it’s about a robbery actually. In a way.”

  “And you didn’t think to talk to me about it first? I’m deeply offended. I could have had a credit as a consultant.”

  “Huh.” Actually it had never occurred to me to talk to him. We’d been out of touch for a good while when I wrote the book, and it would have seemed inappropriate.