‘Simon,’ he said, noticing the slight tremor in his brother’s fingers as he lifted a stray tile and placed it with the others. The brain injury or emotion? He couldn’t tell. ‘He’s upset. He doesn’t mean—’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Simon interrupted, a little too brightly. ‘He’s just a kid. It’s not like I know him or anything.’
Rickman felt Fergus flinch next to him. The boy made as if to stand, but Rickman put a hand on his shoulder to stay him. ‘He knows you, Simon. That’s why it does matter.’
He saw blank puzzlement on his brother’s face; Simon’s feelings had been hurt, but not as a father’s feelings can be hurt by the contempt of a son. His efforts had been mocked, and for Simon, every day, every new memory, every word, every skill relearned, took an effort that could break him out in a sweat. That was what had hurt, not that his own son had derided him, but that his struggle, his pain were seen as paltry, pathetic. For Simon, since his accident, it was all about Simon — how he felt, how he coped, what he remembered, what he needed. Rickman understood why, but he felt a stab of pity for Tanya and for the boys, too.
‘May I be excused?’ Fergus’s voice was watery with tears.
Rickman glanced at Tanya. She still had her back to them, and she hugged herself as if she was afraid that if she let go, she would fall apart. ‘Sure,’ Rickman said, giving the boy’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘We’ll talk later.’
Simon struggled out of his armchair. ‘I want to go home now,’ he said.
Rickman nodded, still looking at Tanya, staring at her own reflection in the window. His needs — always his needs first. ‘Fetch your coat,’ Rickman said. ‘I’ll drop you.’
Simon closed the door after him, and Rickman hesitated a moment or two before going to stand behind Tanya. He wanted to comfort her, but he wasn’t good at platitudes; he couldn’t promise that everything would be fine, because he didn’t believe it himself.
‘You must wish you could walk away from all this,’ she said, staring at the glass.
‘Never think that,’ he said.
Her eyes had searched out his face, the dim reflection of his eyes, but now they slid away from him, staring past their ghostly images as though she saw something fearful in the darkness beyond the window.
Rickman willed her to look at him, but she refused and finally he gave a sigh of resignation. ‘If it weren’t for you and the boys,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t have got through these last seven months.’
Her eyes lifted to his, but now he found it impossible to meet her gaze. She turned to him, forcing him to look at her and he saw surprise and gratitude in her eyes. She placed one hand on his chest, just above his heart, then she left without a word.
* * *
Rickman drove his brother back to the flat he had rented, near to the neurological unit in Fazakerley. A mizzly rain fell, smearing the windscreen of Rickman’s Vectra like oil. They drove in silence, weaving past the football supporters spilling out of the pubs at closing time, negotiating the narrow stretches of Rice Lane, finally reaching the quiet street and the two-bedroom flat that Simon now called home. It was in a Victorian mansion, and the BMWs and Lexuses and sports Mercs parked in the forecourt testified to the exclusivity of the client base.
‘I don’t think I can do this, Jeff,’ Simon said, as they pulled up outside.
‘Do what, Simon?’
‘Pretend that this is ever going to be right.’
‘It takes time,’ Rickman said, feeling a queasy unease in his gut. ‘You know what the doctors said.’
‘Little steps add up to large strides — something like that,’ Simon said with a tired shrug. ‘But it’s been how many months now?’ He found it hard to keep track of time. For Simon, time slipped between their childhood, twenty-five years ago, and a nebulous present he couldn’t seem to keep in his grasp.
‘Seven,’ Rickman said. In fact, he knew exactly how many months, weeks and days: Simon’s arrival had coincided with the most catastrophic event of his adult life. But it didn’t do to appear too obsessive around Simon. ‘Just over seven,’ he repeated, feeling every hour of every day that had passed.
‘Seven months — and look at me. Jeff junior’s right — I’m pathetic.’
‘No,’ Rickman said. ‘No, Simon.’ He turned to his brother and looked into his clear blue eyes. It pained him that they seemed to hold less intelligence and spark at forty-three than they had at seventeen. ‘You’re making progress every day.’
‘But I still don’t remember them, Jeff. The people who are supposed to mean most to me mean nothing.’
‘They’re grieving, Simon. Jeff junior and Fergus have lost a father. Tanya has lost a husband and confidante—’
‘You think I don’t understand how bad it is for them,’ Simon broke in. ‘But I do.’
Rickman took a breath and let it out slowly. He had waited a long time to say this. He had delayed many times, thinking that Simon wasn’t ready to hear it, but after what had happened this evening, he could wait no longer.
‘Maybe you never will get your memory back,’ he said.
He saw surprise, shock, relief and fear chase cross his brother’s features.
‘Maybe you’ll never remember falling in love with Tanya, your wedding, the birth of your sons, watching them grow up. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you do have a family. That they love you and they want to help you.’
Simon was shaking his head, but Rickman went on, ‘Maybe you have to accept the facts and rebuild a new life.’
‘With them?’
‘Why not?’ Rickman asked. ‘You learned to love them before.’
‘That was different — I was different then.’
‘I know,’ Rickman said. ‘But they’re willing to accept you. Can’t you accept them?’ Simon looked afraid more than anything. Rickman understood: he was asking his brother to put his trust — his entire life — in the hands of strangers. Strangers that not even Jeff, his kid brother, could vouch for.
‘Can’t you at least try — for Fergus? I know you feel something for him.’
Simon closed his eyes as if the orange light of the sodium streetlamps and the intermittent swipe of the wiper blades were too much distraction. ‘I do — I feel something for him — but it’s not real. It’s . . .’ He struggled to find the word. ‘It’s in the wrong place.’
‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ Rickman said. ‘I don’t—’
Simon tugged at the short crop of grey hair that still came as a shock to him when he looked in the mirror. ‘God! The bloody words!’ He slammed the heel of his hand into the dashboard.
Rickman was used to these explosions of temper when the words wouldn’t come. He waited.
‘Shifting about,’ Simon said, frowning in concentration. His hands clenched and unclenched as if trying to grasp the word that was just out of reach. ‘Changing all the time . . . Transient!’ he exclaimed triumphantly.
‘Fergus is the same,’ Rickman said, quietly. ‘He hasn’t changed.’
‘He’s like you,’ Simon said, and at first Rickman thought he’d gone off on one of his tangents, but Simon continued, ‘You used to look like that. Like you’d just found out something terrible and you didn’t know what to do about it. I think you saw the bad in people — the meanness — and it made you unhappy.’
Rickman remembered how that had felt. You didn’t know what it meant, which made it worse, because you wondered if what you sensed from people was because of you: that they were angry or pissed off or just plain depressed — because of something you did. All you knew was those vibes felt bad. He had learned to shut down just around Fergus’s age. It had taken fifteen years, and a good woman’s gentle coaxing to open him up again, and he didn’t want see his nephew withdraw in the way he had.
‘That’s why I feel something for Fergus. Because he reminds me of you.’
‘You couldn’t help me then, Simon,’ Rickman said, feeling they were about to make a breakthrough. ‘You were just a kid yoursel
f. But you can help Fergus. You can help your own son.’
A moment of bright hope flashed across his brother’s face, then Simon’s shoulders slumped, and he said, ‘Jeff . . . Little bro. I can’t even help myself.’
* * *
Conflicting musical beats reverberated from the boys’ bedrooms when Rickman returned home from dropping Simon off. It was comforting to hear the rhythms of other people’s lives in the house, to sense the pulse of hearts and minds not his own, but he wanted nothing more than to sleep. He sighed, not even sure if he could tackle the staircase, let alone the conversation he was about to have, but he had made a promise: he had told Fergus that they would talk.
He knocked and waited. No answer. He knocked again, and went in. Fergus lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were red from crying.
‘He’s never going to get better, is he?’ the boy said, before Rickman could gather his thoughts to speak.
‘I don’t know.’
The boy frowned, then nodded, as if in acknowledgement of Rickman’s honesty. ‘But he’s not a spaz.’
‘No.’ Rickman took a breath. ‘Jeff didn’t mean—’
‘Then he shouldn’t have said it.’ He saw a flare of anger in the boy’s eyes; like Rickman’s, they flashed amber when he was angry.
‘We all say things we don’t mean sometimes — when we’re afraid, or upset,’ Rickman said.
Fergus’s Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘I just want everything to be like it was.’
Simon wanted it, too, but in a different way. He wanted things as they were when he was seventeen, and the world seemed full of possibilities. ‘I wish I could make that happen,’ Rickman said, sitting on the edge of his nephew’s bed. ‘I wish I could fix things.’
Fergus sighed. ‘But you can’t.’ He looked at Rickman, a puzzled amusement on his face. ‘You’re not Batman, you know.’
‘So your dad was always telling me — I always had to be the sidekick,’ Rickman said, responding to his nephew’s change in mood, relieved to be able to postpone a repetition of the talk he had just had with Simon. ‘It drove me crazy when he called me Robin,’ he added, with a smile.
‘That was just to cover up,’ Fergus said, sitting up and leaning on one elbow. ‘He wanted to be Batman because Batman was a normal guy who stood up to the bad guys. But Dad was never strong enough. He wasn’t even brave enough.’ A spasm of emotion passed over the boy’s face, as if this admission was too much for him to bear.
‘No,’ Rickman insisted. ‘He’s confused. Your dad was brave — he took the brunt of—’ He broke off, realising that Fergus might not know the family history.
‘It’s okay,’ Fergus said. ‘Dad told us about your father.’ He looked away, awkward and embarrassed.
‘What, recently?’
Fergus raised his eyes to meet Rickman’s. ‘He barely speaks to us now,’ he said. ‘But before . . .’ He looked away again and Rickman felt the burden of sadness the boy carried on his narrow shoulders. Fergus seemed to shake himself free of the morbid thoughts that preoccupied him. ‘He was always saying I’m like you.’ He looked earnestly into Rickman’s face. ‘Am I?’
Rickman smiled. ‘You only have to look at the pictures.’ Always saying . . . It was a lot to take in: that through all the years he had thought he was alone, his name had been spoken with affection; that he had shared in an obscure and almost magical way in the lives of his brother’s family.
‘I know I look like you did at my age,’ Fergus said. ‘But am I like you? As a person?’
Rickman sensed that it was important to answer this question well. The boy was quietly attaching himself to him, he could see that. Fergus needed someone to look up to, someone to approve of him, but it wouldn’t be fair to appropriate the boy’s affections just because it would be easy to do.
‘Yes,’ Rickman said. ‘I think you are like me. Reserved, quiet. I was more . . . wary of people than you are. But that was because your grandad . . .’
Fergus shrugged. ‘Hurt you.’
Rickman took a breath. He had never spoken to anyone but Grace about this, and since Grace’s death, to no one at all. ‘Your dad was brave,’ he repeated, wanting Fergus to think well of Simon. ‘Your grandad only had to look at me and it would set him off,’ he said, remembering the rages, the terrifying hatred in his father’s eyes. ‘Simon — your dad — he would say something and your grandfather wouldn’t know which one of us to start in on, and Simon would goad and goad him till he forgot all about me and . . .’ Rickman didn’t finish.
Fergus frowned. ‘He did that for you?’ Rickman nodded. It was plain from the boy’s expression that he had understood perfectly what Rickman was hinting at. ‘That was . . . cool,’ the boy said.
‘Yeah,’ Rickman agreed, softly. ‘It was very cool.’
Chapter Twenty
Naomi Hart looked askance as Tunstall took the half-full jar of coffee from the battered tray that housed the jumble of Merseyside police-issue mugs, biscuits, tea and coffee makings. He smiled crookedly at her and replaced it with another which had the barest scrapings remaining.
She rolled her eyes and went to her desk, leaving him to get on with it. Reid came in with a newly rinsed mug, shook the kettle to check the water level, then switched it on, picking up the jar with his free hand.
‘Ar, ’ey . . .’ He peered into the dregs left in the coffee jar.
‘What’s up, mate?’ Tunstall asked, half-standing and peering over the computer on his desk.
‘Bloody coffee’s run out again.’
Tunstall clicked his tongue. ‘Looks like it’s your shout, mate.’
‘What?’ Reid was young enough and fresh-faced enough to flush when set-backs happened.
‘You know the rule, Reidy,’ Tunstall said, keeping his face straight. ‘Use the last spoonful, you get the new jar.’
‘Yeah,’ Reid said. ‘But twice on the bounce?’
‘Ooh . . .’ Tunstall winced. ‘Unlucky.’
A few faces appeared from behind computer monitors, enjoying the game. Hart heard a couple of stifled laughs.
Boys and their little pranks, Hart thought, scrolling through her email messages. She clicked on one marked urgent attention and felt a thrill of excitement as she opened the message.
* * *
Foster was working through a pile of paperwork; his door was open and the electric fan worked quietly in the corner of his tiny office, the circulating air ruffling the dark glossy spikes of his hair with each sweep of the arc. Foster was in his shirtsleeves. He looked up and smiled; not the full fifty megawatts — he kept that for women who responded to it — but the smile he gave Hart was warm and sincere.
‘I said you were falling in love with a spectre, didn’t I? she said.
‘What are you on about?
‘Megan Ward. She’s dead. I’ve had the results back from ELVIS.’ She held the top sheet of her bundle of papers just beyond reading-distance. ‘I’m off to tell the boss. Wanna come?’
He dropped his biro onto the desk without a second thought and followed her. Even teasing and difficult, Naomi was more fun than a whole month of his short-term flings. She was no strain on the eyes, for sure — he often fell back a step or two when they were walking together, just to look at the pale downy hairs at the nape of her neck, the blade-thin line of her jaw — but that wasn’t all of it. She frustrated him and she wound him up. But she could make him laugh, too, and more than anything, she intrigued him.
She caught him looking at her and said, ‘I must say, you don’t seem too devastated by the news of Miss Ward’s demise.’
‘I’m the strong, silent type.’
‘Ah,’ Hart’s smile was playful. ‘I was forgetting your date with your old squeeze.’
‘It was a meeting, and she’s a contact.’
She bit her lower lip. ‘Did you get anything useful?’
He shot her a sideways glance. ‘You really wanna know?’
‘Just the bits that are relevant t
o the case, please — if it starts getting squishy, I’m liable to throw up.’
‘We had a drink, exchanged pleasantries — not bodily fluids.’
‘Thanks, Sarge,’ she said. ‘Thanks a lot. I know that image will stay with me for days.’
They had arrived at DCI Rickman’s door. Hart smoothed her skirt unnecessarily before knocking at the door. Rickman was on the phone but he waved them in while he finished up. His desk was cluttered with papers, reports and stick-it notes that refused to stay attached to his computer monitor, and fell instead like fluorescent leaf-fall and were slowly buried under the mulch of mounting paperwork.
The printer on his desk hummed and whirred into life and Rickman said, ‘Thanks, Tony, it’s here.’ He hung up and said, ‘DNA results.’
‘They took a while, didn’t they?’ Foster said.
‘Thirty-six hours — they had to screen a couple of bodies found after an arson attack in a disused warehouse out towards Garston.’
‘Well, if you paid premium rate, you should get a refund.’
‘I’ve said it before — and it bears repeating — you’re the soul of compassion, Lee,’ Rickman said. ‘Now, do you want to know what the results say?’ He fixed Foster with a beady look that told him he was being more than usually annoying.
‘I’m all ears,’ he said. Rickman’s hair was tousled and he looked tired. Foster hadn’t been around to Rickman’s house since the family flew in, but he could have guessed things were not easy: he had spent enough time with Jeff and his brother to know that Simon was hard going, even on his good days. With Tanya and the boys around—
‘Megan Ward isn’t on the DNA database,’ Rickman said, breaking in on his thoughts.
‘Now I’d’ve put money on her having form,’ Foster said, taking a seat in the far corner of the room, leaving the chair nearest the door for DC Hart.
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 12