Hart nodded, regretting that she had been so hard on Sara.
‘Megan said she never wanted any of those things,’ Sara continued. ‘She told me what she wanted most as a child was to be invisible.’
Chapter Eight
Tanya and the boys were waiting at the pick-up point at Manchester airport when Jeff Rickman pulled into the bay. Tanya was as ravishing as ever. Even after a four-hour flight, her dark hair glowed as if the sun shone within it. She wore a sleeveless dress in pale cream, cut to just above the knee, and over it a jacket in matching suede. Her long legs looked slim and toned in low-heeled loafers. A single gold bangle on her wrist set off her tan and she wore simple teardrop diamond earrings that would have cost Rickman a month’s salary. She slipped into his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. Her brown eyes showed a little tiredness and her face was perhaps a little strained, but she relaxed into a smile, turning to the boys.
Rickman eyed the trolleys stacked high with luggage, wondering if his Vectra would be able to accommodate all of it. Jeff junior, the older of the two, smiled, leaning with both arms on one of the trolleys. Rickman offered his hand and the boy took it, making eye contact, his handshake firm and confident.
‘How’s the revision going?’ Rickman asked.
The boy glanced at his mother. ‘I think it’s going just fine.’
Tanya rolled her eyes. ‘He wanted to stay in Milan.’
‘She felt I needed to be supervised.’
Tanya had to smile. ‘It’s true.’
The boy put an arm around his mother. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said, adding. ‘I’m easily led,’ with just enough sharpness that he couldn’t be accused of capitulating too easily.
He began loading the boot of the car under his mother’s direction, and Rickman turned his attention to his younger nephew. As always, Fergus hung back; whether he was unsure of his reception or wary of overt shows of affection, Rickman still hadn’t quite worked out. He was thin and rangy, and there was a quiet watchfulness about him that Rickman felt almost as an echo of his young self.
He offered the boy his hand, and Fergus seemed surprised and quietly pleased. He was at the age between childhood and adolescence when such small courtesies mean a lot.
‘How tall now?’ Rickman asked, squinting at him to try to gauge his height.
‘A hundred and fifty-five centimetres.’
Rickman whistled. ‘Half a foot since Christmas!’
Fergus grinned, blushing, pleased and embarrassed by the attention.
‘At this rate you’ll break my record,’ Rickman added. ‘Four-ten to five-ten in a year.’
The boy absorbed this without comment, but his eyes glowed. Rickman understood: as a boy, he had been small and scrawny until the age of thirteen, when a growth spurt gave him a new perspective on life. Fergus was very like him, with his nut-brown hair and hazel eyes. He seemed also to have inherited Rickman’s youthful diffidence.
‘Put on about twenty kilos and you’ll look like a human being instead of a swizzle stick,’ Jeff junior added, ruffling his brother’s hair. Fergus took a swipe at him and moments later Tanya had to intervene.
In the forty-mile trip from Manchester airport into Liverpool they talked about Milan, the business, which Tanya was now running, the weather — anything to avoid talking about the boys’ father and his current state of mind.
* * *
Rickman lived in a large Victorian family house in Mossley Hill. High-walled gardens and mature trees shading the roadway gave the house a sequestered feel. The buds were beginning to plump on the trees and some of the shrubs in the garden were already showing their first flush of colour. He loved the place. It had been his rock, his place of refuge in a year when at times he thought he was losing his mind.
While the boys unpacked the car and argued over which bedroom they wanted, Rickman and Tanya retired to the quiet of the kitchen. It had always been the hub of the house and it remained the place where he felt most at peace. He opened the window to let in the sounds and scents of the garden before filling a kettle to make tea.
The kitchen was a marrying of modern utility and original features. The red floor tiles had been replaced by pink quarry tiles, the kitchen units were old pine but a big stainless steel cooking range dominated one wall. An old oak table stood in the centre of the room, its bone-white surface and the slight dip mid-way along its length giving it an air of permanence: it had survived two world wars and a succession of families during its long history, and it would go on to serve many more.
‘Simon will be here at eight,’ Rickman said. ‘It’ll give you and the boys time to settle in. He’s usually better in the evenings, anyway. Less excitable.’
Evening sunshine glanced through the glass of the back door, burnishing the copper highlights in Tanya’s hair. She ran her fingers through it and Rickman was dazzled for a moment. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been left to cope with all of this,’ Tanya said. ‘It’s just I didn’t want to disrupt the boys’ education any further. They’re settled in Milan — and the business—’
Rickman touched her shoulder lightly. ‘He’s my brother, Tanya.’
She took a breath. ‘And he’s my husband.’
‘I know. I know that — but he couldn’t have had better treatment. He’s made huge strides since you last saw him. He manages the mood swings well — and the headaches are almost gone—’
‘Does he remember me?’ Tears stood in her brown eyes. ‘Does he remember his sons?’ Since Simon’s near-fatal car crash the previous autumn he remembered nothing of his wife, his children or his clothing business in Milan.
Rickman couldn’t lie to her.
‘Then forgive me if I’m a little doubtful of the “huge strides” he’s made.’
Rickman stood facing her, the kettle boiling madly on the work surface behind him. He wanted to help her, he wanted to find some words of comfort. ‘He’s recovering memories every day. Maybe—’
Maybe what? Rickman wondered. Maybe a miracle would happen? Maybe the neurologists would come up with some new treatment? He shrugged, and Tanya smiled.
‘His reality is in this city, in the past. In your past, Jeff.’
Rickman looked away. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Tanya groaned. ‘Oh, God, I had this planned — I’d prepared a speech and everything — and look what I’ve done.’ She looked into Rickman’s eyes, her own earnest, anxious. ‘Can we start again?’
He smiled, relaxing. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You go and shower, I’ll start on dinner.’
He saw in her face the months of worry and hard work, a dozen visits from Milan to the UK and back again; too much time away from her boys and the family business to support a husband who neither recognised nor wanted her.
The clouds that had brought bursts of rain all day finally cleared around seven o’clock, leaving a washed denim sky and pale spring sunshine. The garden was sheltered and warm, and within an hour the barbecue was glowing nicely, the salad mixed and the dressing ready on the kitchen table. Tanya sliced bread in the kitchen while Rickman turned the meat, his face glowing in the heat from the barbecue, his eyes stinging with the smoke that rose in aromatic clouds from the coals. Jeff junior sat on the bench under the flowering cherry, his eyes closed, his arms folded across his chest while petals drifted around him. Fergus sat cross-legged on a rug on the grass, reading one of his comics.
The doorbell rang and the air around the boys seemed to contract and then expand again. Fergus glanced up at his uncle, then resumed his reading. Although Jeff junior did not stir, Rickman sensed the tension in the set of his jaw, and the tightness of the muscles in his upper chest.
Tanya appeared at the kitchen door, her face showing signs of strain.
‘I’ll get it,’ Rickman said. ‘Keep an eye on the barbecue will you, Jeff?’
The boy got up, stealing a look at his mother as he took the barbecue tongs from Rickman. ‘Okay, Ma?’ he asked.
She nodded stiffly a
nd disappeared inside again. Rickman followed her. She went back to the kitchen table and began piling sliced bread and ciabatta rolls onto plate. Rickman tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at him.
Simon greeted his brother with his usual enthusiasm. The disinhibition had diminished somewhat, and he stood on the doorstep grinning, waiting to be invited in, rather than barging past, as he would have done in the early days.
Simon was slightly shorter than his brother, lean and athletic, with a nervy energy that sparked around him like electricity. His hair was almost white, peppered with a darker grey, and it curled on his shirt collar. He had grown it out since the autumn, to cover the scar from the surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain. Rickman ushered him in, putting an arm around his shoulder. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘they come first tonight. You and me, we can talk anytime. Ask the boys about the holidays — ask Jeff about his exams.’
Simon nodded, the wide flat planes of his cheeks suffused with colour, his bright blue eyes sparkling with eagerness. ‘Jeff’s the big one, right?’
Rickman inhaled sharply and Simon laughed. ‘Joking,’ he said, the sparkle in his eyes turning to mischief. ‘’Course I know the one from the other.’
Rickman led the way through the house, into the garden. Tanya had finished laying the table. She came forward and kissed her husband lightly on the cheek. Jeff junior watched his father steadily but said nothing. Fergus stood up to greet his father, looking shy and a little anxious.
‘Hi, Dad,’ the boy said.
‘Hello, Fergus.’ The hurt on the boy’s face was plain, but Simon had never called either of the boys ‘son’ since his accident.
They ate, Simon on his best behaviour, talking to the boys, asking questions, listening patiently to the answers. The silvery evening sunshine faded to coral, then mauve; the traffic sounds diminished, birds sought out their favourite roosts and the air was filled with the song of robins and blackbirds, chaffinches and the soft burbling of starlings gathered on the rooftops nearby.
By nine, the last glimmer of light had died. A chill set in, and Rickman began to clear plates, taking them indoors. Jeff junior picked up his own plate and wandered inside, depositing it on the table. He kept going and moments later, Rickman heard him bounding up the stairs to his bedroom.
Rickman stepped back out into the garden. Tanya was stacking dishes; she caught Rickman’s eye. ‘He’s not what you’d call a New Man,’ she said with a smile. ‘Washing dishes became uncool around his eighteenth birthday.’
‘What about young Fergus?’ he asked, glancing over at his nephew. He knew immediately that there was something wrong. Simon sat next to the boy, talking rapidly, compulsively, while the boy leaned back slightly, angling his upper body to give the greatest distance between him and his father, his eyes fixed on Simon as if he was a snake about to strike.
‘Simon,’ Rickman said.
Simon’s head swivelled loosely on his shoulders. He focused on his brother only slowly, his expression increasingly perplexed.
‘Help me with this, will you?’ Simon looked from Rickman to his son and back to Rickman, and his face cleared.
‘Sure,’ he said, getting clumsily to his feet, his co-ordination still a little off, despite months of physio.
He stacked a few dishes and took them through to the kitchen. Tanya glanced at Rickman, her face a mask of practised control, then she went to her son, leaving the two men alone. Rickman closed the door after her and turned to his brother.
‘We talked about this, Simon,’ he said.
Simon seemed puzzled. ‘I did everything you said. I asked about school. I talked about Jeff junior’s exams and university. I even kissed Tanya.’ He made it sound like a major sacrifice.
‘Simon, think.’
For a moment, his face was blank, then he frowned, evidently trying to process Rickman’s words, replaying the last half hour in an effort to match his brother’s disapproval to something he had said or done.
‘Oh, God,’ Simon murmured, his hand going to his head, touching the scar hidden beneath his hairline. ‘I called him Jeff again, didn’t I?’ He immediately went on the defensive. ‘People do that all the time, calling one child by another’s name.’
‘You were talking to Fergus like it was me — like it was me and we were still kids. You frightened him.’
Simon’s eyes darted right and left in tiny movements, a sign of his distress. ‘I — I got confused.’ He focused on his brother’s face. ‘He looked so sad, sitting there all alone and I kind of lost track of time.’
Rickman exhaled in one long breath. When Simon lost track of time it could be measured in decades. It was true that he could tell the boys apart, now. The difficulty was in keeping his son, Fergus, and the ten-year-old Jeff straight in his head. Talking to Fergus, Simon had slipped back to their childhood, when he was the champion, the protector of the family, and Rickman was little brother Jeff, a scrawny kid in need of protection.
‘You’ve got to stop this,’ Rickman said.
‘Okay,’ Simon said, his head nodding in repeated jerky movements. ‘I’ll go and apologise.’ He reached impulsively for the door handle.
Rickman touched his arm lightly. ‘Best not.’
‘Best not,’ Simon repeated, a touch of petulance creeping into his voice. ‘Best leave the boy’s mother to explain that the crazy man doesn’t mean any harm.’
‘Do you care?’ Rickman asked. How could he refuse to acknowledge his sons and yet feel bitter that they trusted Tanya more than they trusted him? ‘Do you care at all what Fergus thinks?’
‘Why should I?’ Simon seemed to regret the sharpness of his reply and took a breath before going on. ‘I don’t remember him, Jeff. But I remember you. I remember how scared you were.’
‘It’s like arctic white-out,’ Simon had said once, in an effort to explain. He described vividly the melding of snow and horizon, the dizzying bewilderment of a world in which sky and land were inseparable, in which up and down had no meaning, but he had no idea where this memory had come from. It was there, as real as his own reflection in the mirror, but like his own reflection, now inexplicably old, it had no context, no past; he did not know its heritage. It was fossilised, like a fly in amber.
For a full minute Simon didn’t speak. He stood with his hand on the doorknob, gripping it as though it was the only thing preventing him from fleeing the house, his brother and his difficult questions. At last, he let his hand drop to his side. ‘I shouldn’t have left when I did, Jeff. You were too young to cope with all the shit from Dad. I don’t want to — I can’t make the same mistake twice.’
Rickman placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘You didn’t abandon your family, Simon. You had an accident. It’s not your fault.’
‘Tell that to the boy.’
‘Your son,’ Rickman corrected, squeezing Simon’s shoulder lightly. ‘Fergus is your son and you are his father.’
‘Am I?’ Simon frowned, trying to make sense of what for him seemed like insanity. ‘Am I really a father? A husband? You tell me I am, but I don’t feel it.’ He shook his head. ‘I tell myself over and over, but I can’t make myself believe it. They don’t even believe it,’ he said, jerking his head in the direction of the garden where Tanya was talking to Fergus, trying to explain. ‘They don’t believe it and they didn’t lose their minds.’
‘Don’t talk like that!’ Rickman exclaimed. ‘You didn’t lose your mind, you lost your memory.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing? It feels like I’m still seventeen and you’re my brother. That feels real. But then I look in a mirror and . . . I see a stranger.’ He gazed at his hands, turning them over, staring at them as though repulsed by the faint mesh of lines and wrinkles that had begun to form. ‘It’s like somebody stole all the years we should have had together.’
His head nodded in a constant rhythm and Rickman knew that every beat of Simon’s heart pulsed pain through his skull. The headaches had become an increasi
ngly rare phenomenon in recent months, but today, it seemed his brother had regressed several steps.
‘You’re tired,’ Rickman said, dragging out a chair for his brother, guiding him to it. ‘I’ll ring for a taxi, get you home.’
Chapter Nine
Sara Geddes checked her mobile phone for messages as soon as the court broke for lunch. She took the stairs down, too impatient to wait for the lift. As she strode across the long, carpeted foyer on the ground floor, she phoned her home number and keyed in her pass code for the answering machine. There were no new messages.
At the main entrance she kept walking; she couldn’t even think about getting changed to do her usual laps of Chavasse Park, but neither could she bear to stay in the dark depressing confines of the courts complex, so she turned right after the revolving doors, down the side of the huge, maroon-coloured building. It funnelled a fierce draught at this point and she held her jacket closed against its bitter chill, but the wind dropped as she reached the park and she walked on, under the alder trees, past the custard-yellow mock-up of the Beatles-inspired Yellow Submarine, heading towards the river.
At Strand Street, she stopped at the steel crash barrier and took in the waterfront: ahead, across six lanes of traffic, the brown brick warehouses of the Albert Dock stood solid and squat beyond the twinkling water of Salthouse, and to the right, the Liver and Cunard Buildings shone white against a crystal blue sky. Sara lingered for a few minutes, leaning on the barrier to take a few cleansing breaths, feeling a brief moment of contentment; but the gnawing anxiety quickly reasserted itself, and she fished in her handbag for the card Detective Constable Hart had given her. Perhaps they had discovered something new — if they had examined the contents of Megan’s computer drive . . . She hesitated and the impetus deserted her and after another glance at the number on the card she slipped it into her trouser pocket.
At the far end of the little park, she turned right again, onto the brick-blocked path. She barely registered the man jogging towards her, the hood of his navy-blue sweatshirt pulled up, feet pounding a steady rhythm on the pavement. He ran on, keeping an easy pace, passing her as she walked thoughtfully up the path, the regular thump of his feet on the bricks sounding like the inexorable tick of a clock in her mind. As she reached the top of the hill, he turned and stared after her.
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 5