by R J Bailey
This was part of the Organised Crime Command of the National Crime Agency, charged with preventing criminal activity organised by foreign nationals on UK soil. They took a special interest in death threats and potential assassinations. As Tom was a target for action by a disaffected Albanian drug lord, it was part of their remit to keep him alive. But to supply him with women?
‘I never thought I’d do it. See a shrink, I mean.’
‘A shrink?’ Something flooded through me. Not exactly relief, more recrimination and embarrassment at my stupidity.
‘Well, strictly speaking, she is a psychotherapist. She’s been helping me with all that Trouble-Will-Always-Find-Me bullshit.’
It used to be his mantra, the feeling that, if he stuck in one place too long, bad things would happen. But trouble has found you, I thought. I found you. Which is much the same thing.
I unfolded my arms. ‘That Trouble-Will-Always-Find-Me shit, the constant moving on, that might just have kept you alive.’
I couldn’t believe I was defending his paranoiac tendencies.
‘She knows that. It’s more to do with interpersonal relationships. Learning to trust. And to accept what has happened. To deal with the past, not bury it so deep it festers.’
Ah. I saw where this was going.
‘You know my father was in Northern Ireland?’ he asked.
That wrong-footed me. ‘I didn’t know you had a father. I mean, obviously you did. But we’ve never talked about our families.’ Apart from Jess. Otherwise, I had good reason not to speak of my miserable bastard of a deceased father, nor the meek, scared mouse he turned my mother into over the course of their marriage.
‘Well, I still have a dad. Lives in the Isle of Man. When I was growing up, after he had left the army, he had this funny habit of always going through doors sideways. You know, left shoulder first.’
‘To offer up as small a target as possible?’ I asked.
Tom nodded. ‘And another thing. He always sent us on ahead into a darkened room to switch on the light. He was OK if the switch was just inside the room, but if he had to cross it . . .’
‘He’d done a lot of house-to-house?’
‘I guess so. He never talked about it and, to be honest, for all I knew as a kid, every dad did that. But, yes, he’d done two tours in Northern Ireland. Had a rough time. You can imagine – it was a very dirty war. And he’d lived with what he found in those rooms when he was doing house clearances – booby traps, dead snouts, some of whom had been tortured, traumatised women who had watched their boyfriends, brothers or husbands get tapped. Sometimes they found nothing, sometimes nothing but bloodstains. Fifty years he had lived with all that. Five decades of night sweats and fear of the dark. Until he went to therapy. Now he’s only angry that he didn’t do it a long time ago.’
‘He can probably have therapy for that.’
He spun away. ‘I knew it was a fuckin’ waste of time. I’m saying it helped him, it’s helping me, it might do something for you.’
‘Tom, I don’t have PTSD.’
He was back in front of me in one long stride. ‘No? Then why do you do this fuckin’ stupid, dangerous work? Eh? It’s not normal. And even if you haven’t got combat stress, what about Jess, eh? She’s your version of the darkened room. You need to come to terms with what’s happened.’
‘You really expect me to answer that? She’s my daughter. She’s been taken. There’s nothing to come to terms with.’
I saw a fleeting moment of vindictiveness in his face. ‘Then how come—’
‘What?’
The expression faded as quickly as it had arrived. He ran a hand through his hair and gave a hollow laugh. ‘This isn’t going quite as planned. I’m sorry. I was just saying, it might do some good to talk about it. About Iraq, Jess, Matt, what happened in that garage. You know? Just talk it out instead of slamming shut like a steel trap and internalising it all.’
I took a deep breath. There was part of me that just wanted to walk out the door. Call the whole thing off. Another part liked it better when I thought he had a new girlfriend. At least he couldn’t lecture me from that moral high ground then. But I also knew he was right. Caring and sharing wasn’t me. You don’t meet many touchy-feely PPOs.
‘Can you do me a favour?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Go to the bar and have a drink? Maybe we can start this over. I just need a little time. Alone.’
His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘I’ll still be here when you get back,’ I said, probably not too reassuringly.
‘Fifteen minutes?’
‘Thirty would be good.’
‘OK. See you in half an hour.’
I watched him scoop up the room key and his wallet and exit without looking back. After he had left I let out a long sigh. Men. Women. Relationships. War. Rum.
I went to the minibar and mixed myself a Havana Club 7 with a diet Coke and went back to the terrace. Hair of the dog, I told myself. A handsome, elegant couple in their thirties, dressed entirely in white, were cycling slowly towards the centre of town, probably for an aperitivo somewhere they could be admired. I marvelled at the uncreased linen – she a floaty dress, he a suit – they were wearing. They were the epitome of la bella figura that the Italians strive for.
The British don’t get the beach clubs of places like Forte. Why pay up to 350 euros just for the privilege of lying on a sunbed under an umbrella? After all, sitting on the sand at Southwold or Broadstairs or Pembrokeshire is free. But Brits also lug umbrellas, windbreaks, towels, picnics, children and other bulky paraphernalia down the beach, arriving red-faced and panting. After a few visits to Forte and Sardinia, I understood perfectly. What the Italians are paying for at a bagna is freedom from this sort of donkey work. The quest for la bella figura trumped all else.
Maybe Tom was right, I thought, as I sipped the rum. Maybe I did need my head testing. But I didn’t need telling what to do about Jess. Finding her was a given, no matter how long, how much money or how many people I had to hurt along the way. I thought about the phone hidden in the lining of my bag. On it were all those precious messages from Jess. The ones I listened to which help get me to sleep some nights. Even hearing the short, sharp ‘Oh, mum’, ‘You don’t understand!’ and the ‘Whatever’ messages helped. Just the sound of her voice, petulance and all, was a comfort. But now wasn’t the time to curl up with Jess.
I looked down and my glass was empty. Another?
No. I stripped off my clothes and went into the bathroom. It had a walk-in shower with an oversized head and controls that would have baffled Captain Kirk. I eventually managed to set it to a bearable temperature and stepped in. For once the shampoo was in generous grown-up-sized bottles and I lathered up and then stood under the rainshower spray for a good five minutes.
I felt something give in my back. I rotated my shoulders and pushed them up towards my ears. They actually moved freely for once. Another muscle or two popped and I did a few side stretches. I had been coiled up so tight, it was as if I had been shellacked. Like an armadillo, as my masseuse used to say. Back when I had a masseuse. But now I could feel the fibres beneath my skin slackening. Maybe there was something to this relaxing lark after all. And if Tom was right about that . . .
No. No trick cycling. Not yet. Maybe when it’s all over and I have Jess back. What was I frightened of? That too much self-analysis might take the edge off. In truth, that I might lose the anger that drove me on. ‘Feed the rat,’ as climbers say. That’s what I needed to do. Keep giving scraps to the rodent gnawing at my insides.
I grabbed the body wash and soaped all over. I tugged at my pubes as I did so. Could probably do with a trim . . .
I heard him pad into the bathroom on bare feet and step into the cubicle behind me. His breathing was shallow and I realised he was going to try to make me jump in surprise. ‘Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a woman with PTSD?’ I turned and he put his hands on my waist. ‘I might have thought
you were ISIS scum and broken your neck.’
‘You never fought ISIS.’
‘I haven’t got PTSD either.’ I looked down. ‘And I see you’ve brought your little friend with you.’
‘Hey, less of the little.’
‘Tom, do me a favour?’
‘Another one?’
‘Yes. It’s sort of son of the first one. For the next half-hour or so . . .’ I put a soapy finger to his lips. ‘Just shut the fuck up.’
Later, I decided we’d eat in the glass box that was the Byron’s restaurant, overlooking the pool and gardens. I didn’t feel up to a fashion face-off at Bistrot or Osteria del Mare. I thought Tom would find the wine-list-sized selection of different mineral waters amusingly pretentious, but he waved it away, and went for the real thing, huffing over a list of Chianti that filled several pages. In the end he jabbed a finger at one in the middle of the list. ‘That one, please,’ he said to the server.
‘And some water would be good. Tap is fine,’ I added.
The waiter gave the merest hint with his expression that perhaps tap water wasn’t fine when they had Veen and Tasmanian Rain on offer, but he smiled anyway.
‘You OK?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Of course. I just . . .’
I waited.
‘I find it hard to relax in these places.’ He picked up a piece of cutlery and waved it at me. ‘All this. You know what I mean . . . all this flummery.’
When I had met Tom he had been living on a canal boat. He was what is known as a constant cruiser, a peripatetic inhabitant of the waterways, slated to move on every few days. He missed that life. He was right, he was more about mooring rights than Michelin stars. But there was nothing wrong with a little flummery once in a while.
‘You seemed to be having an OK time just now,’ I said, my eyes flicking back to the hotel.
The smile he gave me back looked strained. I was aware that, whereas I felt as floppy as a filleted flounder, there was a rod of tension running through Tom. We appeared to have swapped places, me loose and easy, him stiff and unyielding. As the waiter poured the wine, Tom wouldn’t quite catch my gaze. Damn him, I thought. I had sunk beneath the waves, to that place where I felt comfortably numb, where my constant pain was a small, distant thing, and he was forcing me to surface and breathe the harsh air of real life. As he made to drink, I reached over and gripped his wrist.
‘Tom, what is it? You pissed off that I wouldn’t take your therapy idea seriously?’
‘No. I expected that. I had to try.’
‘And I’m not dismissing it out of hand. I’ll think about it. Promise.’ Jesus, I must be relaxed. ‘Is it this Leka business? Has something happened?’
‘No.’ He took the glass with his other hand and gulped. ‘Not with me. I talked this over with Freddie, and she said it was best—’
‘You talked what over with Freddie? Have you two been plotting something behind my back?’
His gaze bored into the table. ‘Not really.’
The word ‘intervention’ popped into my head. ‘Yes, really. What was it you decided was “for the best”?’
Another clearing of the throat. ‘That you heard this in person. And from me. After all, what difference would twenty-four hours make? And if you abandoned your job down here, well . . .’
I leaned in across the table, knocking over my glass of water, and hissed. All the good that the last hour had done me disappeared, like a caged bird finding the door open and fluttering off as fast as its wings would carry it. I felt the springs inside me re-coil. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Tom?’
‘Thing is, Sam . . . Jess has been in touch.’
SEVEN
London
Saanvi was an old schoolfriend of Jess’s. Her parents had a house on Highbury Fields and I insisted Freddie drove me straight there after the pick-up from Heathrow. ‘Shower first?’ she had suggested. I demurred. She sniffed to show this was a bad idea, but for once didn’t argue. As usual the M4 was snarled, the Hangar Lane Gyratory System refused to gyrate, so we had plenty of time to talk. Or rather, for me to rant.
‘What gets me is he waited to tell me until after we had had sex. Like it slipped his mind or something. Jesus, I thought he was better than that.’ I went on in that vein for quite some time, before concluding: ‘But he’s like every other bloke, isn’t he? Sex first, everything else can wait.’
Freddie changed lanes as we moved over to come off the A40. The building containing a storage company that always had strange or witty installations on top – a fighter jet, the Tardis, a Trabant – had an EU flag apparently shot full of holes and a tattered Union flag. ‘That was my idea,’ said Freddie.
For a moment I thought she meant the flags but then the truth dawned on me. I glanced at her but she was apparently concentrating on positioning herself for the off ramp. Her hands gripped the wheel like a bird’s feet on a perch. She had grown out her hair from the pixie cut she had favoured during our days in Iraq. She looked softer, more feminine, even when, as now, she was devoid of make-up. I looked like I’d not only been dragged through a hedge backwards, I had brought said hedge with me. I hadn’t slept since Tom’s little revelation.
‘I told him it would be best to delay telling you.’
‘You did what?’ I spat and the last word was dripping with so much venom, I was surprised her left side didn’t go numb.
‘Told him to wait. Not to blurt out the news immediately.’
I spoke through teeth that were not so much gritted as cemented together. ‘And what was the thinking behind that?’
‘Sam, we only heard about this less than forty-eight hours ago. I knew you’d drop everything if we told you – thus voiding whatever contract you had.’
I had told Freddie a sketchy outline of the retrieval operation, where I’d be, how to contact me in case of emergency. All she knew was the job was helping me pay for the search for Jess. She approved of that, because wages had been thin on the ground since I lost my SIA accreditation.
‘And Tom wouldn’t have had a chance to mention his therapy . . .’
‘Oh, yeah. That was a high point. Christ. How dare you assume you know what is best for me?’
‘OK, in retrospect—’
‘No, not in retrospect,’ I said. ‘It was a bad idea from the moment you had it. Jesus.’ I crossed my arms as aggressively as I could.
‘Jesus nothing. We informed Connie straight away.’ Detective Constable Connie Farnham was the FLO assigned to my case. Although why I needed a Family Liaison Officer when my family had been stolen from me I wasn’t sure. Anyway, she was the interface between me, the police here and Europol. Her main job was to gather evidence that might be useful to the investigating team, whether from me or Jess’s teachers and circle of friends. It wasn’t Connie Farnham’s fault nothing had been turned up and that Jess’s trail was cold. Although I often acted like it was. ‘She’s on it. There was – is – little you can do. So I thought you deserved some fun.’
‘Fun?’ I made it sound like ‘pus’ or some other unfortunate bodily secretion.
‘You know, sometimes a girl just needs—’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I snapped. I was in no mood for Freddie’s vulgar aphorisms.
Traffic congealed on the approach to the junction for IKEA. I looked out of the window, amazed at the change in light from the Riviera. We were capped by a leaden sky, the grey uniformity broken by splodges of dark clouds, like liver spots. I was feeling pretty liverish myself. How could he agree? Tom? He knew this was the most important thing in my life.
I had pretended to forgive him, waited until he had fallen asleep after he had consumed the lion’s share of the red wine, then left the hotel, took the Alfa and drove down to Pisa to get on the first flight to London. Let him figure out the rest. The nine missed calls on my phone suggested he was still trying.
‘He’s a bloke,’ said Freddie, as if this would be news to me. ‘He knew the way it worked. He could tell you the n
ews and watch you go straight back to London. Or he could have a shag first and you get the flight the next day. I suggested that you’d welcome the chance to have your brains banged out.’
‘Thank you, Dr Freddie.’
‘Welcome. My bill is in the post. And, you know, he’s stuck around for you.’
‘He’s living under an assumed name in Nottingham. He’s hardly stuck around.’
‘He’s been there on the rare occasions you’ve needed him.’ She shot me one of her fiercest glances. ‘You are lucky to have Tom. Someone who will come at the drop of a hat like he does. A proper fuck buddy. And then some.’
Is that what he was? I suppose so. I just wasn’t used to framing it in the current vernacular.
‘You ever consider he is risking his life every time he breaks cover?’
There was some truth in that assertion. We had to be careful because we had no idea if the Albanians were still after their revenge. So we acted like we were drug dealers or spies, with cut-outs, letter drops and burner phones. No emails, no regular post, no landlines. If it was a love affair, it was a very strange one. But Freddie was right. I might not see him for two months but if I got a message to him and said I was in Biarritz or Barnet and needed him, he’d drop everything and come running. Was that risking his life? Possibly. Just because we hadn’t seen any sign of the aggravated Albanians, didn’t mean they weren’t out there.
And the thought had occurred to me: they don’t have to find him. They just have to watch me. He would turn up eventually. I comforted myself with the thought that I was very unlikely to be on their radar.
We drove in silence for a few miles while I seethed, albeit with a little less commitment to the cause.
‘Sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I wasn’t thinking. About Tom, I mean.’
I was in no mood to let her off the hook. ‘The problem is, you were thinking. Too much. It’s very simple. Anything happens that has something to do with Jess, you tell me right away. No ifs and buts and no pause while I get some dick.’
‘It was just a thought.’
‘A bad one.’