by Anna Legat
Haji smiles at Izzie. He feels like smiling. He is dying in the arms of a woman who cares for him. She is crying for him. What better ending could he wish for? ‘I’m sorry, so sorry, Sandman...’
‘Don’t be,’ he says, ‘It’s nothing,’ but the words are only formed in his mind, not on his lips. So she can’t hear him. No one can. He has always been a man of few words – those few last words won’t make any difference. Haji has nothing else to add.
XXXI
The abbey is packed to the brim: the regular parishioners have never seen such crowds, not even at Christmas. And though it is almost Christmas, this congregation has nothing to do with the new-born King. In fact, this has nothing to do with birth, and everything to do with death. It is the memorial service for the victims of the Sexton’s bombing. The Nativity scene and the few festive touches of baubles and lights clash with the twelve coffins lined along the main aisle – memory capsules of twelve lives extinguished. Their names and ages are read out. No one mentions the three dead who are behind the massacre: Haji, Malik, and Ahmed. They are not to be remembered. They must be left outside the abbey – there is no admission for them. Though they will receive forgiveness, as thou shall forgive those who sinned against thou, their names will not be spoken. Not in the same breath as the names of the innocents.
Gillian is sitting next to her daughter, taking comfort from her closeness. Tara’s fingers are entwined with Charlie’s, resting in his lap. He has insisted on coming to the service – to see his friends off. Tears are rolling down his cheeks. He clings on to Tara’s hands, both of them hijacked away from Gillian. She doesn’t mind. His parents, Jerry and Theresa, are also excluded from this intimacy. At least, they have each other. And they have their son, alive. Unlike Rhys’s family. Unlike Sasha.
Sasha is holding on to her mother’s arm. Clinging onto it. Poor Grace tries her best to offer comfort and to steady the sobs that shake Sasha’s body. The girl was to be a bride only a couple of days from now. It is not to be. How do you explain to her why that is? Nathaniel gazes at her, a helpless father who has no answers for his child. He could not protect her from this pain – he didn’t see it coming.
A slight woman with a girl of six, maybe seven years old sits in the same row. Both the woman and the girl are dressed in black. The girl acts older than her years as she purses her lips tight, determined not to cry when her father’s name is read out. Its pronunciation is distorted by the priest – it is foreign and difficult to say, but the girl knows that’s her dad: ‘Andrzej Sokolowski, thirty-five...’
Gillian thinks she recognises an elderly lady with copper red hair, wearing a red summer dress under her unbuttoned coat. She is sitting with a young man to her left. Gillian knows her from the hospital – she saw her on a few occasions when visiting Charlie. The young man, in his thirties, has his arm in a cast and a dressing on his part-shaven head – he must have been on that train, and survived. Someone else in that family did not.
As the congregation sings the last hymn, Gillian hears the lady say, ‘Oh, Harry, why did you bring me here? You know how I hate funerals.’ There is a disquiet in the woman’s voice, which sounds fragile as it vibrates above the low notes of the hymn.
The young man gazes at the lady and smiles ruefully. ‘It’s Dad’s funeral, Mum.’
‘I don’t like it, Harald. Let’s go home.’
‘William, Mum, not Harald... It’s Will,’ he sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s go home.’ He has given in to her. He takes her arm and hooks it over his, patting her hand affably, and leads her towards the exit. She leans towards him, rests her head on his shoulder. They are the first ones to leave the church.
As soon as the hymn is sung and its last note fades away, everyone else follows suit. It is slow-going; reporters from various local and national TV stations are gathered outside, filming the event, catching mourners and asking for interviews. They have laid siege to the abbey. A traffic jam forms outside the churchyard.
Like many others, Gillian is in no hurry to leave. The last thing she wants is for her face to be plastered all over the newspapers. Isabella Butler feels the same way. Celebrated across the land for killing the infamous Sexton’s Bomber, all she wants is privacy – with her family: her mother and her son. The vicar has approached them to suggest a back-door escape route, ‘If you follow me, Miss Butler, I’ll show you out through the vestry. When you’re ready, of course... There’s no rush.’
‘Thank you, Father,’ Izzie nods and smiles. She is so polished, so polite... Dressed immaculately in an elegant long coat, her hair trimmed and beautifully styled, she is only a faint echo of her former self. Alongside her homeless garb, she has also shed her blunt mannerisms and coarse language. The woman who had returned into the lap of her family after years of dead silence... Gillian watches her from the corner of her eye and ponders the miracle. She hears her reply to the vicar, ‘That’d be great, Father. If you just give me a minute. I need to have a quick word with DI Marsh over there.’
That surprises Gillian. She was sure Izzie – Isabella Butler – was done talking to her and talking to the police, and in particular to Gillian altogether. She had made it clear that she wanted to put it all behind her as soon as all the paperwork was done, as soon as the CPS confirmed that she had acted out of necessity and had no case to answer in the court of law.
Gillian turns to Tara. ‘You go ahead. I’ll follow in a minute.’
‘Work?’ Tara can see Izzie approaching, with Tommy in tow.
‘Not sure. I won’t be long.’
‘You always say that.’ Tara manoeuvres Charlie in his wheelchair to face the door. ‘We’ll go with Jerry and Theresa. I’ll see you at home. Remember Dad’s coming for dinner.’
‘Yes, I know.’
They join the now diminishing queue towards the exit.
Gillian smiles at Tommy, ‘Fancy bumping into you again!’
‘We came because of Oscar,’ he tells her, his face tight and dead serious. ‘That’s his coffin over there – the first one, with all the medals,’ he points out. ‘Major Oscar Holt MC! Did you know Oscar was given a Military Cross?’
‘No, I didn’t. I know he was a soldier.’
‘He was. To the end.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t... help him, in time...’
‘Don’t be stupid! He died a soldier’s death, you know! He would’ve loved that. I knew Oscar well.’
‘Go and sit with Nan, Tommy,’ Izzie touches his shoulder. ‘I want to have a private word with DI Marsh.’
‘I can sit quietly with you,’ Tommy tries to worm his way into the conversation.
‘No. I want to talk to her alone.’
Tommy scowls, drops his shoulders theatrically, and stomps away.
‘How are you getting on, Izzie?’ Gillian tries to sound casual though she realises that Izzie has every reason to hate her. She probably blames Gillian for forcing her hand – for killing Sandman.
‘I want you to take this,’ Izzie hands her a plastic pouch. ‘Sandman’s things, papers... I found it buried under his bed when we cleared things away. You need to have it. His name was Haji Mahsud...’
‘OK, thanks. I’ll pass it on. It’s not my case.’
‘But the killing of Weston-Jones is, isn’t it?’
‘That’s closed now. We found his – Haji’s – DNA on the clothes discarded in the grave. He is our killer. One more body to the count of many on his conscience won’t make much difference to him.’ Gillian says that to warn Izzie away from confessing. She has realised a while back that Haji Mahsud had dealt only the first blow, that it was the woman whom Weston-Jones had been raping who had finished the job – Izzie. The ferocity of the blows to his face and head confirmed that in her mind. She just chose not to pursue this line of inquiry. What good would it do to bury Isabella Butler all over again? She has only just been returned to her child and her mother. After ten years of self-imposed exile. What good would it achieve to put her through a trial for man
slaughter?
But Izzie clearly disagrees. ‘Not quite. I’ve been battling with this for days... I need to tell you this...’ she hesitates and steals a furtive glance at Tommy, who waves to her, beaming. She turns to Gillian, ‘That man – Weston-Jones – he... He was a... What he’s done – he’d do it again... I had to stop him! I -’
She swallows a gasp and, at that, Gillian steps in – to stop her. ‘Don’t. Don’t say another word. I’m not here to hear it. I cannot hear it. Do you understand?’ She grabs her by her shoulders and forces her to look back at her family, ‘You can’t do this to them, not again. Go back to your son and your mother. You’ve nothing to say to me. The case is solved. Go!’ she pushes her away, and Izzie starts walking. She picks up Tommy’s hand when he extends it to her, his other hand firmly locked in his grandmother’s. They are leaving the church accompanied by the vicar who leads them towards the vestry.
‘Thanks for these!’ Gillian shouts after them, waving the plastic pouch. She has no regrets about letting Izzie go, though letting her go amounts to a dereliction of duty. It is her duty to uphold the law, but the law and justice aren’t one and the same thing. Sometimes, like in this case, they even clash. On this occasion, justice has prevailed over the letter of the law. Gillian will have to live with it.
She goes through the contents of the pouch in her car. There are documents, money. There is a letter written in a foreign language, but the writing doesn’t look Arabic, as Gillian would expect it to look, but more like the Russian alphabet. Then again, she isn’t a language expert. They will work it out when she hands it in.
The most unexpected are the drawings: images of buildings, bridges and canals – probably Venice; a couple of mountainous landscapes; and finally, the portraits. Gillian recognises the faces: Izzie, her gaze distant and haunted, her long dark hair coiled around her neck; the man Izzie has saved, Ron – his portrait unfinished, but despite that his character is captured by just the few basic strokes of the pencil. There is another face – the paper is old and yellowed, and the lines are faded. It must’ve been done many years ago. It is a face of a woman with fair hair, bright eyes and smiling lips. On some level, Gillian ponders the possibility briefly that the drawing reminds her of herself. The shape of her face, her nose... She glances into the rear-view mirror, finds herself frowning back, changes her mind and twists the mirror away from her face. No, she imagined it. It’s not her. How could it be?
Gillian leans back in her seat, throws her arms over the headrest, and thinks. She will have to take the pouch and its content to the station and sign it in. This is as good an opportunity as any to return the handgun. After all, it too belonged to Haji Mahsud. At last she’ll be able to get rid of it. It’s been burning a hole in her conscience, sitting there, buried in her back garden, waiting for Corky to dig it up. By returning it alongside the pouch she won’t have to explain how she came into its possession. The unspoken assumption will be that the gun was hidden in the pouch and both were handed in together.
Gillian starts the engine, her mind made up. This is the second time today that she will bend the letter of the law. She mustn’t make a habit of it. She is an officer of the law! Though, having said that, she is not sure for how much longer. Right now, she can’t be bothered with upholding the law. It isn’t like her to give up, but the way she feels now she couldn’t care less about trying to wrestle that Hornby case away from Grayson. She will let him get on with it. Fingers crossed, he will fail.
XXXII
On Monday morning, Gillian finds the translation of the letter found in the Sexton’s Bomber’s pouch, courtesy of Jon Riley. Jon has also left an enigmatic post-it note stuck to the letter: They found her in Moscow. She hasn’t changed her mind. Doesn’t want her son to know. You owe me – Jon xx
Gillian scans the letter – a window into a mass killer’s life. The letter reads:
Haji,
I gave birth to a son. He was born on 28th October 1986, at 4:05 in the morning. I named him Igor. He has a mane of black hair on his head and a heart-warming smile. He is beautiful, and maybe he even has your eyes, but make no mistake – he is MINE.
I will bring him up to be a good Russian. He will be a patriot. He will never learn who and what his father is. One day, he may even come to Pandsher Valley to get you and your kind.
I have learned about the massacre of the Russian troops in the tunnel that night when you came home with the crack of dawn, bathed in their blood. They were young boys there, some as young as eighteen. They were only guarding a convoy, seeking no confrontation with you. But you trapped them with no way out from that tunnel of death, and blew them up to heavens high, and you cut the throats of those who survived so that they could not speak against you. But the truth has come out. The truth casts longer shadow than your lies. And now I know you. I know who you REALLY are. And I despise you.
Do not try to find me or my son. Do not come near us. You are dead to me and to Igor.
Svetlana Pavlova
THE END
SWIMMING WITH SHARKS
Anna Legat
Just when things seem to be going right for Nicola Eagles, she disappears without a trace. Was it a voluntary disappearance, or was she abducted – or murdered?
DI Gillian Marsh is a good detective but as she delves deeper into the case, she realises that she may be out of her depth, because Nicola’s disappearance is just the beginning...
NOTHING TO LOSE
Anna Legat
After a head-on collision resulting in four deaths and a fifth person fighting for his life, DI Gillian Marsh is sent to investigate.
Nothing seems to add up. How did four capable drivers end up dead on a quiet, peaceful country road?
As Gillian unpicks the victims’ stories, she edges closer to the truth. But will she be able to face her own truth and help her daughter before it’s too late?
THICKER THAN BLOOD
Anna Legat
After a head-on collision resulting in four deaths and a fifth person fighting for his life, DI Gillian Marsh is sent to investigate.
Nothing seems to add up. How did four capable drivers end up dead on a quiet, peaceful country road?
As Gillian unpicks the victims’ stories, she edges closer to the truth. But will she be able to face her own truth and help her daughter before it’s too late?
Published by Accent Press Ltd 2019
www.accentpress.co.uk
Copyright © Anna Legat 2019
The right of Anna Legat to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Accent Press Ltd.
ISBN 9781786154958
elSBN 9781786154217
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd,
Elcograf S.p.A
Proudly published by Accent Press
www.accentpress.co.uk
