When Will There Be Good News?

by Kate Atkinson

“Enough of the comedy,” she said.

  Now what?” Jackson said when they finally made their escape.

  “Fish and chips?” Reggie said hopefully. “I’m starving.”

  “No one eats in my car.”

  Road Trip

  I got four fish suppers, boss,” Marcus said, climbing back in the car. “I didn’t know what to do about the dog but he can have some of my fish, although it’ll be a wee bit hot for him just now.”

  “A dog person, are you?” Louise said, but he failed to catch her sarcasm and said, “Love ’em. They’re everything people should be.”

  He was in the front passenger seat, Jackson and Reggie in the back, the dog sitting awkwardly between them. Louise had suggested putting the dog in the boot, an idea that was received with a chorus of horror from Reggie and Marcus. “Just kidding,” she said, although they clearly didn’t believe her.

  “Still a hard-hearted woman, I see,” Jackson said. “You know that I’m not actually going in the same direction that you are.”

  “How true. In so many ways.”

  “If you could just drop me somewhere — a train station, a bus station, the side of the road, anywhere, really. I’m on my way home, to London.”

  “Tough,” Louise said. “You’ve committed a crime, several crimes, actually. Obviously you’re taking the stupid pills again — driving on a license that isn’t yours, driving when you’re not fit to drive, what were you thinking? Let me guess, you weren’t thinking at all. You’ve got mince for brains.”

  “You haven’t arrested me,” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  The Espace had been towed away, Louise had confiscated his driving license — Andrew Decker’s driving license. It was obvious that neither Jackson nor Reggie had a clue who Andrew Decker was.

  “So this,” Marcus said, turning and looking at Jackson, “this is the guy in the hospital bed, the guy who was mistaken for Decker. Who keeps on being mistaken for Decker.” He blew on a chip to cool it down. “And you know him, boss?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “You never said. Shouldn’t you have let the North Yorkshire police charge him?”

  (“Ma’am,” one of the bookending officers had ventured, “are you taking the prisoner back into custody?”

  “He’s not a prisoner,” Louise said. “Just an idiot.”)

  “Yes, I should. Anyone got any more questions to plague me with, or can I just drive?”

  When they set off she claimed the driving seat before Marcus had a chance to offer to drive. Everyone in this car, as far as Louise was concerned, needed to know who was in charge.

  “You look terrible,” she said, studying Jackson in the rearview mirror. “Even worse than you did earlier.”

  “Earlier? When was there an earlier?”

  “In your dreams,” she said.

  “Congratulations,” Jackson said.

  “On what?”

  “Your promotion. And your marriage, of course.” She glanced round at him, and he nodded at her wedding ring. She looked at her hand on the steering wheel, she could feel how tight the ring was on her finger. The diamond was back in the safe, but she had kept her wedding ring on even though it was squeezing her flesh. A penance, like wearing a hair shirt. A hair shirt reminded you of your faith, a wedding ring that strangled your finger reminded you of your lack of it. Strangled, estranged — fat Hayley had been right, the words were very similar.

  “You’re married as well, apparently,” she said to him in the mirror. “Sorry I didn’t send a card or anything, that would be because — oh yes, you forgot to tell me.” She could feel Marcus cringing in the passenger seat next to her. Yeah, the grown-ups are fighting. Never pretty.

  “It didn’t take you long to get over Julia,” she carried on. “Oh no, wait a minute, she cuckolded you, didn’t she? Carrying another man’s baby and all that. That must have made being dumped easier.” Jackson, rather admirably in Louise’s unvoiced opinion, didn’t rise to this remark. “So don’t even think about commenting on my relationships.”

  “Your small talk hasn’t improved,” he said, and then, unexpectedly, “I missed you.”

  “Not enough to stop you getting married.”

  “You got married first.”

  “I never had a full set of parents,” a small voice in the back interjected. “I often wondered what it would be like.”

  “Probably not like this,” Marcus said.

  The aunt, the aunt,” Reggie had chanted when she first saw Louise. “The aunt lives in Hawes, it’s not far away. We have to go and see if Dr. Hunter’s there. She’s been kidnapped.”

  “Well, not by the aunt, I can assure you of that,” Louise said.

  Reggie’s little face lit up. “You’re down here to see the aunt! You’ve spoken to Dr. Hunter? You’ve seen the baby?”

  “No.”

  The little face fell. “No?”

  “The aunt’s dead.”

  “She must have been very sick, then,” Reggie said solemnly. “Poor Dr. Hunter.”

  “She’s been dead awhile,” Louise admitted reluctantly. “Two weeks, to be precise.”

  “Two weeks? I don’t understand,” Reggie said.

  “Neither do I,” Louise said. “Neither do I.”

  Reggie inventoried the entire contents of Joanna Hunter’s handbag again, announcing each item loudly from the back — “a packet of Polos, a small pack of Kleenex, a hairbrush, her Filofax, her inhaler, her spectacles, her purse. These aren’t things you leave behind.”

  Not unless you were in a hurry, Louise thought.

  “Not unless you were in a hurry,” Jackson said.

  “Don’t start thinking,” Louise warned him.

  “Look at the facts,” he said, ignoring her advice. “The woman has definitely gone AWOL, but whether voluntarily or against her will, that’s the question.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Louise muttered.

  “Something bad has happened to Dr. Hunter,” Reggie said stoutly. “I know it has. I keep telling you the man in Mr. Hunter’s house was threatening him, he said something would happen to ‘you and yours.’ He wasn’t joking.”

  “I’m just kicking the wheels on this,” Jackson said, “but maybe the husband’s covering for her?”

  “Why?” Louise said.

  “Dunno. He’s her husband, that’s what spouses do.”

  “Do they?” Louise said. “What’s she called?”

  “Who? What’s who called?”

  “Your spouse.”

  “Tessa. She’s called Tessa. You would like her,” he added. “You would like my wife.”

  “No I wouldn’t.”

  “Yes you would,” Jackson said.

  “Oh, just shut up.”

  “Make me,” Jackson said.

  “Stop it,” the small voice of reason in the backseat said.

  She left everything,” Reggie said. “Her phone, her purse, her spectacles, her inhaler, her spare inhaler, her dog, the baby’s blanket. Plus she didn’t get changed, the first thing she does is get changed, and the men who were threatening Mr. Hunter said he would never hear from her again if he didn’t come up with the goods. And the aunt doesn’t exist! WHAT MORE EVIDENCE DO YOU NEED?”

  “Get her to breathe into a paper bag or something, will you?” Louise said to Jackson.

  But,” Marcus said, “does it have anything to do with Decker or not? Is it just a coincidence that he appears at the exact moment that she disappears? And what? He just walked away from the train crash?”

  “He hasn’t actually appeared anywhere,” Louise pointed out. “He’s the invisible man.”

  “Decker,” Jackson murmured, gazing thoughtfully out of the car window. “Decker? Why do I know that name?”

  The absence of Decker, the presence of Jackson. As if they had changed places in some mysterious way. Jackson had lost his BlackBerry in the train crash and mysteriously acquired Decker’s driving license at the same time. Had he unknowingly swa
pped with Decker? Was Decker the man who rang Joanna Hunter’s phone when Louise was in the house yesterday morning? He had been looking for “Jo,” not Joanna, not Dr. Hunter. Is that what she had said to him when she visited him in prison — Call me Jo? What else did she say to him?

  “What else did you lose?” Louise asked Jackson.

  “Credit cards, driving license, keys,” Jackson said. “There’s an address book in the BlackBerry.”

  “So your whole identity, basically. What if Decker’s using it? You get the driving license of a Category A prisoner with a warrant out against him, and he gets you — upstanding citizen (so-called) — credit cards, money, keys, a phone. The last person who phoned Joanna Hunter on Wednesday called on your phone, your BlackBerry, so perhaps it was Decker. He phones Joanna Hunter and then she disappears. Neil Hunter says she left at seven but we only have his word for it. Maybe she left later, after the phone call. And if she did drive away — somehow or other, not in her car, not in a rental — and she wasn’t driving down to see the aunt, then where was she going? To meet someone else? Decker? Did he catch the train to Edinburgh because they had arranged a meeting? He gets derailed, literally, he phones her afterwards, and she goes off to meet him.”

  “And then what?” Marcus said.

  “That’s the bit that worries me. What about CCTV, there must be cameras up where she lives, lots of rich people live on that street, and —”

  “Back up a minute,” Jackson said. “Why are you so interested in this guy Decker? I don’t understand.”

  “Yes,” Reggie said. “Who is Andrew Decker? And what’s he got to do with Dr. Hunter?”

  Sorry, kid, Louise thought. She hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell Reggie about Joanna Hunter’s past. As she expected, this information made Reggie even more vocal. (“Murdered? Her whole family?”) The girl was a terrier, you had to hand it to her. She wasn’t even related to Joanna Hunter and yet she seemed to care about her more than anyone else. Louise couldn’t imagine Archie feeling like this about her.

  “Jesus,” Jackson said. “Of course — Andrew Decker. How could I have forgotten that name? We were on maneuvers on Dartmoor. We were called in to search for the missing girl, the one that got away.”

  “Joanna Mason,” Louise said. “Now Joanna Hunter.”

  “And now you have to look for her again,” Reggie said to Jackson.

  “Just because something bad happened to her once doesn’t mean it’s happened again,” Louise said to Reggie.

  “No,” Reggie said. “You’re wrong. Just because something bad happened to her once doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. Believe me, bad things happen to me all the time.”

  “Me too,” Jackson said.

  You’re worried that this Decker’s going after Joanna Hunter?” Jackson asked Louise. “It seems unlikely, I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m beginning to worry that Joanna Hunter is going after Andrew Decker.”

  On the other hand,” Louise said.

  They were parked on the forecourt of a service station. Marcus and Reggie were in the shop, buying snacks, and Jackson had slipped into the front passenger seat. He was giving off heat. Louise wondered if he had a fever or if she was imagining it because of her own overheated state. She wanted him to hold her, she wanted to let her bones melt, even if for a moment. She never felt like this with Patrick, never wanted to stop being Louise, but sitting here on the brightly lit forecourt, she wanted to give in, leave the battlefield. Was there a way of keeping him this time, locking him up in a prison, a box, a safe, so he couldn’t get away again?

  “On the other hand what?” he prompted.

  “Neil Hunter, Joanna’s husband, is hardly above suspicion. For all we know, he’s done away with her himself. And the baby. Maybe she was leaving him and he lost it.”

  “It happens.”

  “On the other hand . . . he also knows some quite interesting people.”

  “Interesting?”

  “What we in the trade call ‘criminals.’ Some guys from Glasgow we’ve been hearing rumors about for a while. A guy called Anderson. He’s trying to get into town, muscle in on some legit businesses. Private-car hire being a particular favorite apparently.”

  “Minicabs?”

  “Yeah. And amusement arcades. Health clubs. Ropy beauty parlors. Guess who owns all of those?”

  “Neil Hunter?”

  “Bingo. One of his amusement arcades burned down last week and there’s been some other stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Technical term. We were looking at Hunter for willful fire- raising, but now I’m seriously beginning to wonder. What if Anderson’s threatening Hunter’s family? Kidnapped, Reggie keeps saying, and she’s been right about everything else so far. Bizarrely.”

  “‘You and yours. Think about it. Sweet little wife, pretty little baby. Do you want to see them again? Because it’s your call.’ That’s what Reggie said.”

  “You’ve got a good memory for an old man.”

  “Lot of rote learning at school. And I’m forty-nine. Younger than your spouse, I believe. ‘Do you want to see them again?’ Do you think they’re being held somewhere?”

  “And the aunt was just a red herring. A wild goose. A way of throwing anyone off who was worried about Joanna Hunter’s sudden disappearance,” Louise said. “The ironic thing is that her husband needn’t have bothered, Decker leaving prison gave Joanna Hunter a really good reason not to be around. Neil Hunter should never have gone down the aunt route.”

  “Good theories,” Jackson said. “How are we going to prove or disprove them?”

  “We’re doing nothing. Just me. I’m the real police, you’re just a waster. Basically.”

  “Thanks.” He reached his hand out and took hers and said, “I really did miss you, you know.” Her mouth went dry and her heart slipped into overdrive as if she had some kind of virus, and she thought about starting the engine and driving him away to the nearest hotel, barn, or lay-by, but Marcus and Reggie were already barreling out of the shop and she only just had time to reclaim her hand before they bundled back into the car, bringing in a draft of cold night air and ripping open crisp packets.

  “Do you want your seat back?” Jackson said to Marcus, and he said, “No, you’re all right, I’m happy back here with the dog,” but Louise said to him, “Actually, you can drive, I’m feeling tired, I’ll sit in the back,” because she couldn’t bear to be so close to Jackson and not be able to touch him again.

  “No probs,” Marcus said. “All change. Men in the front, women in the back, just how it should be. Joking, obviously,” he added swiftly, catching sight of Louise’s face in the rearview mirror.

  It was dark long before they recrossed the border. The miles after Berwick dragged. They dropped Reggie and Jackson in Musselburgh. “You’re sure you want him staying with you?” Louise said doubtfully to Reggie.

  “He hasn’t got anywhere else to go.”

  “Well, I do have a home to go to, actually,” Jackson pointed out. “It’s just that the world and his wife seems intent on stopping me reaching it.”

  “You have to help find Dr. Hunter,” Reggie said.

  “Finding Dr. Hunter is my job, not his, Reggie,” Louise said. “I don’t want any amateur interference.” She turned to Jackson and said, “We can do this without your help, thank you.”

  “Go home to your kids, Herb, kind of thing?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Nice wheels,” he said, patting the roof of the BMW affectionately as if it were an old friend.

  “Bugger off.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  “Will you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Her heart lifted, she would see him again tomorrow. This was how teenage girls felt, how Louise had never felt when she was a teenage girl. Patrick was right, she’d never had an adolescence. Making up for it now.

  “I wouldn’t go
home without saying good-bye,” he said.

  Bastard. She wasn’t enough to keep him, couldn’t compete with the pull of his new wife. Tessa. Bitch.

  She wanted to say, Come home with me — well, not home, she could hardly take him home, introduce him to her husband, to Bridget and Tim. “This is Jackson Brodie, the man I should have married.” Not married. Marriage was for fools. The man she should have run away with. Over the hills and far away. “Take a leap of faith with me” — that’s what she wanted to say to him. But of course she didn’t.

  “Who’s Herb?” Marcus puzzled.

  Shit. I should have taken that handbag off Reggie.” What was happening to her? She wasn’t usually forgetful. Now she was beginning to feel as if her brain were fraying.

  “I’ll organize a uniform in the morning, boss.”

  “You’re a wee treasure, so you are.”

  Marcus said, “Just drop me somewhere,” and she said, “Don’t be silly, I’ll take you home.” He lived in South Queensferry, miles out of her way.

  “I’m miles out of your way, boss.”

  “Not a problem, really. I’ve got my second wind.” He still lived with his mother. Archie wouldn’t still be living with her when he was twenty-six.

  “Girlfriend?” She’d never thought to ask before, Marcus had never seemed like a boy who had a girl.

  “Ellie.”

  “But not living with her?”

  “Next step, boss. We went to view a house last night as a matter of fact. Malbet Wynd.”

  Yes, of course, he was a boy who did things properly, in steps and stages. A girl called Ellie, a house in Malbet Wynd. He prepared for things.

  After he’d climbed out of the car Louise slid back into the driving seat and rolled the window down. “First thing in the morning we need to find out if Jackson Brodie’s credit cards have been used and where. And see if we can put some kind of trace on that phone.”

  “Right, boss.”

  “ ’Night, Scout.”

  “ ’Night, boss.”

  She waited until he’d unlocked the front door and turned and waved good-bye before he disappeared into the house. A curtain twitched in a downstairs room, his aspirational mother, she supposed.