Next of Kin

by TL Dyer

  *

  The first photo comes through an hour later. Jake’s sitting in a booth with a tall glass of ice cream clasped in one hand, a spoon so big he can barely hold it, and a vanilla moustache that his tongue is partway through cleaning up. His eyes are on the contents of the glass rather than the camera, but the message reads: Having a wonderful time (Jake’s exact words!) followed by a crying-laughing emoji. Shirley has sent it from her phone. She has sons of her own, grown now, and is on her way to see them for the first time in months. So maybe she knows better than anyone that it’s the hours before someone leaves as well as those just afterwards that are the hardest.

  I wipe my hand over my damp eyes and reply. Thanks. Needed that. Safe trip. Somehow it’s easier to be genial with her when she’s not standing before me.

  After saving the photo to my gallery, I return to the task I was attempting to do in order to keep my mind busy. I’ve only called three farms in the County Mayo region in search of Eliza Isaacs, maiden name unknown, and there are far too many to go, but it feels useful to be doing something rather than nothing. Every ‘No, sorry’ is at least one I can cross off the list. I pull up another on Google Maps, jot down its name and number on the A4 pad in front of me and tap the same number into my phone.

  Forty-five minutes later, I throw down the pen and get up to refill the kettle, checking the clock on the wall for the hundredth time. It’s almost one. Their flight to Inverness is not till two thirty. They’ve already checked in; I’ve had that photo too. From Dad this time, Jake’s hands pressed up to a giant wall of glass as he looks out at the runway. On his back is his Disney Cars bag and, inside that, amongst the Hot Wheels cars, is the miniature replica passenger plane I bought him so that we could talk through what happens with the real thing. I didn’t want him to be afraid. He wasn’t. He said he couldn’t wait to get up in the sky. I’ll just be glad when he’s back on the ground.

  My phone buzzes on the notepad with a text message. ‘Christ, not another one already,’ I mutter, resting my elbows on the table and swiping the screen. But it’s not them this time. It’s John Russell.

  Thought you’d want to know. They’ve dropped all charges against Smithy. He’s in the clear.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ I pull out a chair and drop into it, tapping a reply. What the hell? And a moment later he responds.

  I think what you mean is WTF! Which was what I said. False allegation apparently. He was right royally screwed (scuse the expression). Got two in custody. That’s all I’ve been privy to.

  Shit, I can’t believe it, I type back. Poor Smithy.

  I know, mate. Not sure whether he’s the one who’ll get the cake fines for this or us.

  If he comes back, I reply.

  Let’s hope so. I’m fucking dog tired covering his shift.

  I chuckle at Russell’s banter and the spirit in which it’s intended. I tell him he’s going straight to hell but before that I’ll see him on the beat. He replies, They’re one and the same! and follows it up with a devil emoji.

  If I wasn’t so drained of emotion already today, Smithy’s news alone would have been enough to take it out of me. As it is, I’ve got little left in the tank. I consider sending him a message, but each time I start it, I picture him reading the words and everything I say has a hollow ring to it. If I were him, I’m not sure I’d want to hear from anyone for a while. In the end I leave it. It’s the sort of thing that will be better in person.

  Remembering I’m alone in the house, I retrieve a packet of ten Embassy from the last cupboard by the window, and crouch to the doorstep to light up. For a sweet moment I revel in this small freedom I have without fear of being caught by son or by father. Leaning my head against the door frame, the afternoon sun warms my eyes so I close them, all the while knowing this fleeting sense of peace can’t last. Because at some point Darren’s going to ask after Jake. And when he does, I’ll have to tell him the truth.

  Chapter 41

  For a mother who’s son is over five hundred miles away, I sleep better than I have done in months. Which might have been helped by the video conversation we had last night. Though the signal was intermittent, I was treated to a tour by Jake, who was so keen to show me everything he struggled to catch his breath or keep the camera still.

  For an old farmhouse, it’s not what I had pictured. Shirley’s aunt kept it to a high standard, with most of the rooms as modern as any new-build. The rural lifestyle is only apparent beyond the front door, where immediately there’s a yard and outbuildings and fenced pastures, but then further out there’s nothing for miles. No adjacent properties or neighbours, unless you count the sheep and a handful of chickens. Jake tried to introduce me to some of the animals but we lost signal and he had to return to the house.

  Back in his small but cosy bedroom, he showed me where he’d put the things he’d unpacked. His Hot Wheels cars on top of a chest of drawers, his wellies beneath the window, dressing gown hooked over the door handle, and slippers on the wool rug covering the polished oak floor. On the bed, covered by his own space travel duvet set, Suzu lay next to the pillow, and on the bedside table was the stack of books he’d carefully chosen to take with him. I asked about his notebook and he pulled open the side table drawer and showed it to me, including a picture he’d drawn and coloured on the plane of what he could see. Mostly clouds, I gathered.

  When I spoke to Dad afterwards, there was a spark about him I haven’t seen in a long time. He was as excited about all this as his grandson, maybe more so, and when we eventually hung up, the tears in my eyes were of relief that so far all of my fears – Jake will be scared of the plane, he’ll be homesick, he’ll hate it there – have been unfounded. Today they’re travelling to a neighbouring farm and he’ll finally get to see the baby Highland cows he’s been talking about for the last two weeks. I only hope they live up to his expectations.

  Perched on the back step with a cigarette and a coffee, I text Shaun. I tell him I don’t have work until tomorrow and invite him over for dinner. His response is that he’s on his way out and will be gone all day. He doesn’t say where, but it’s Sunday and the weather’s dry so he’ll be taking the bike out, his pride and joy, a gleaming, polished to the metal, royal blue and black BMW R1200 GS affectionately known as The Great Escape. It means he’s still angry with me.

  I stub out the cigarette and go inside to power up the laptop. I’ve got the rest of the day to continue my search for Eliza, and if I can speak to her before I speak to Darren, at least then I’ll know for sure what I’m dealing with. Except I’m only half an hour into the phone calls when his message comes through.

  May I see Jake today, Sacha?

  ‘Shit.’ I tap the pen against the notepad. I need something that will give me a little more time.

  I’m at work right now, and Jake’s out with his granddad. How about next weekend?

  I hit send. He won’t be pleased I’m making him wait again, but perhaps my suggestion and willingness to co-operate will appease him enough that he’ll back off. A week might be enough to get through to Eliza, maybe even speak to Jen again if I need to.

  I’m waiting for his reply when the doorbell rings. ‘Bugger,’ I mutter, remembering that outside the school on Friday, Declan’s mum had said something about calling round with a pair of football boots that didn’t fit Declan any more but might fit Jake. I drop the phone on the table, hoping that she’s not the chatty type, the kind I’d feel obligated to invite in for coffee. But as I unlock and pull open the front door, socialising with the mums of Jake’s friends is the least of my problems.

  ‘This doesn’t look like work, Sacha.’

  Chapter 42

  ‘How is this supposed to work when you keep lying to me?’

  I’ve little choice but to let him in. He’s standing on my doorstep on a Sunday morning, his BMW taking up two spaces in the narrow street, and his voice loud enough to wake even tone-deaf Mrs Collins at number twenty-eight. Against my better judgement, I pull the do
or open, and he pushes past me to get inside.

  ‘There’s something I should explain,’ I say, easing the door closed.

  ‘Yes, there is.’ His voice is sharp, breath puffing out his chest, eyes blazing. With his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, he drops his hands into his trouser pockets, plants his feet, and glares at me. His presence fills the hallway, enough that the walls close in around us. This is what he does. He uses every part of himself to lay down who’s in charge. Well not here. Not in my house.

  ‘Jake’s grandfather has taken him on holiday. They’ll be gone for a few weeks.’

  ‘Holiday.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Where? No, don’t tell me. Majorca? Mauritius? Monte Carlo?’

  ‘Scotland.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nods. ‘A fair distance, then.’ He turns from me to call up the stairs. ‘Jake?’

  ‘He’s not here, Darren.’

  ‘Jake?’ He brushes past me and thunders up the stairs.

  I hurry to the kitchen to snatch my phone from the table and scroll through the contacts, panic gripping my throat as I realise there’s no one to call. Shaun’s out. Dad’s miles away. And Darren’s already coming back down the stairs.

  ‘You’re lying, Sacha. Where’s my son?’ he says, striding down the hallway. ‘Why are you doing this to me? Your games are getting very tiring.’

  ‘I’m not playing a game, Darren. Look.’ I turn the phone towards him. On it is the picture Dad sent me of Jake thousands of miles in the air, grinning as he sat beside the plane window.

  Darren takes the phone from me, taps at the screen. ‘This was taken yesterday afternoon. My son caught a plane yesterday and you didn’t think to let me know he was going away?’ He throws the phone onto the table. ‘How long have you been planning this?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to go. It was a last-minute thing.’

  ‘It was? And why was that? Why did you change your mind?’

  ‘I realised it would be good for him. Help him make the readjustment when his granddad leaves permanently.’

  ‘Really? No other reason?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you lying again, Sacha?’

  His eyes fix on mine, his voice measured and words fast, trying to make me trip up. But only feet to the side of him is my laptop, sitting open on the table, the screen displaying a map of County Mayo dotted with red flags signposting farms in the area. If he sees that, this conversation goes in a whole other direction. And while the topic of Jake is becoming predictable, the topic of Eliza is an unknown. The mother of his children, the wife he loved, the woman who left him – I can’t know for sure how he’ll react to that.

  In one movement, I turn and slam the laptop closed, take it across the room and throw it in a drawer as if he’s riled me.

  ‘For God’s sake, Darren, this has to stop. You can’t be questioning me every five minutes. I’ve been Jake’s mother for the last six years, surely you don’t expect me to run every decision I make past you.’

  My words and my own raised voice echo around the kitchen in the silence that follows. His only movement is a tilt of the head, just enough to hint at intrigue. Of what? My reaction? Did I overdo it? Or that I would stand up to him at all?

  ‘I’m not going away, Sacha. I will see my son. You’ve denied me for six years, and that was wrong. Very wrong. More than that, it was disappointing. I used to have more respect for you than that, thought you were someone with morals. But I’ll get over it. I’m a forgiving man. And it’s not you who matters, is it? Jake needs me in his life. He needs his father. He’s lost enough time as it is, it’s only right we shouldn’t waste any more.’

  He steps up to the table, takes one hand from his pocket to swipe at the phone screen. The picture of Jake flashes open. He smiles at it. But when he looks up again, the smile drops, leaving a chilling emptiness behind.

  ‘If you’d have told me about him from the start, who knows where we might have been now. Maybe Craig would still be alive. Have you considered that? My eldest son was very caring, he had a good heart, he just had no one to care for. But Jake… He’d have loved Jake.’ He pushes the phone over the table towards me. ‘Do the right thing by your son, Sacha. Before it’s too late for you to undo what you’ve already done.’

  He leaves with none of the rage he came in here with. And in the kitchen’s silence, my hands trembling as I light another cigarette, I wonder how he can do that. Be angry one minute and so clear with his thoughts and words the next. It’s either because his self-control is a by-product of his desire to control others, or it’s because he’s the most well-balanced person I’ve ever known. And given the things he said, I’m no longer sure which one that is. I did lie to him. I did deny him his son, and in return denied Jake his father. And, yes, Craig would have loved his brother. Perhaps loved him more than he loved himself. Enough to stay alive.

  Chapter 43

  The city centre is quiet tonight. Monday, the beginning of the week, is not the prime time for a night out. Then there’s the rain. It’s been coming down in sheets for hours, keeping everyone off the roads and at home, even the jobbing criminals. I don’t like it. I don’t mean the weather, I mean that it’s quiet. For one, it gives me too much time to think, as I complete a second circuit around the town, single-crewed again, not even a partner for distraction. And for another thing, it fills me with a sense of unease, like a forewarning of something that’s coming. Maybe that’s just the nature of the job. There always is something coming, that’s how this works. But tonight I neither want to be here nor home in an empty house. I don’t know what I want. I’m lost. A hot-air balloon untethered from its mooring and drifting without aim.

  Is this how it will feel when Dad’s gone for good? As if the training wheels have come off and now I’m out here having to do this all alone? Or is it just that I’m floundering without Jake? How could I not be? He’s been a physical presence in my life for six years, and an emotional one in my heart and head for longer. I can’t even remember any more what it was like to only be me.

  On the next loop of the town, I glance up towards the top window of Jen’s office when I pass. All the lights are off. It’s gone ten, she’s probably been home for hours. Maybe Shaun was right when he talked about me getting a normal job, one with a regular start and finish time so everyone knows where they stand. And isn’t Jen doing much the same as I am, only without getting her hands dirty or her boots spat on?

  I’m considering whether it’s too late in the day for a career change, when the radio explodes into life. And when I say explode, I mean the officer on the other end of it is yelling against a background commotion that distorts over the airwaves.

  ‘618, assistance required. Assistance—’ Static. Shouting. Voices all talking at once. ‘618. Mariner’s Pub, city centre, assistance required immediately. Disturbance— Fuck!’

  ‘353, attending. ETA less than five.’ I hit on the blues and twos and put my foot down, disregarding the wet roads. 618. That’s Jonesy. And his frantic message has gone out over the open airwaves, meaning he’s pressed the emergency button on his radio. A code zero. That’s never good.

  The radio is a cacophony of noise as officers from around the city respond to the call, but in the time it takes me to get there, no clear image emerges of what it is I’ll find when I reach the scene. Bringing the car to a sharp stop in the bus bay at the edge of the street, I leg it through the pouring rain to the Mariner’s, sirens coming up behind me, people milling in doorways, a couple of girls on their phones in tears.

  ‘353, on scene at the Mariner’s. Stand by,’ I call into the radio, releasing my baton from my belt just before I pull open the door to the pub.

  The sight I’m met with inside is utter mayhem, but my first thought is Jonesy. I don’t see him. What I do see are three men in front of the bar that I recognise. Not them personally, their faces, but who it is they represent. The white vests, black armbands, bald scalps marked with Swast
ika tattoos. TB-21. And they’re more pissed off than ever now that five of their own are currently inside refused bail.

  ‘Put your weapons down,’ I yell, advancing on the men with the baton held aloft. My left hand reaches for the CS spray and I release it, not convinced my baton will do the trick against these three behemoths and their cricket bats. By the looks of things, they’ve already made good use of their makeshift weapons. Scattered shards of glass litter the bar and the floor. Stools and tables are tossed aside, lying broken or upended. People cower against the walls, clutching each other, those who weren’t able to get out quickly enough or were too scared to move.

  ‘I said put your weapons down.’

  One of the TB-21 members laughs. With the cricket bat gripped in his right hand, he taps it against his left palm, his biceps flexing. He eyes me with curious amusement, as if I’m the entertainment. With only the baton and pepper spray to protect myself, he might have a point. He takes one step towards me, hesitating only when the door behind me flies open. I’m no longer alone. Relief floods through my system even while this is far from over. More worrying, though, I still can’t see Jonesy.

  ‘Drop your weapons. Drop them right now.’

  The shouts of my fellow officers fill the pub, the noise deafening. And as we close in on the three men, I see him out of the corner of my eye. My colleague. Lying face down in a pool of blood.

  ‘353. Officer down. I repeat, officer down. Mariner’s Pub. Medical assistance urgently required. Medical assistance required.’

  More officers come in through the door. Armed response this time, I know without turning round, red dots hovering over the white of the men’s vests. I get clear of their aim and run instead to my fallen colleague.