by Tim Weaver
‘Have you reported this?’
‘To the police?’
‘Yes.’
She sat back again. ‘Of course not.’
‘You should.’
‘What’s the point?’
‘Because that’s what you do, Mary.’
‘My son is dead, David. You think they’d believe me?’
‘Why did you think I would believe you?’
She glanced around the room. ‘I know some of your pain, David, believe me. My cousin died of cancer. In many ways, the disease takes the whole family with it. You care for someone for so long, you see them like that, you get used to having them like that, and then, when they’re suddenly not there, you lose not only them, but what their illness brought to your life. You lose the routine.’
She smiled.
‘I don’t know you as well as I knew Derryn, but I do know this: I took a chance on you believing me, because if, just for a moment, we reversed this situation and you’d seen the person you loved, I know you’d take a chance on me believing you.’
‘Mary…’
She looked at me as if she’d half expected that reaction.
‘You have to go to the police.’
‘Please, David…’
‘Think about what you’re–’
‘Don’t insult me like that,’ she said, her voice raised for the first time. ‘You can do anything, but don’t insult me by telling me to think about what I’m saying. Do you think I’ve spent the last three months thinking about anything else?’
‘This is more than just a few phone calls.’
‘I can’t go to the police.’ She sat forward in her seat again and the fingers of one of her hands clawed at the ends of her raincoat, as if she was trying to prevent something from ending. ‘Deep down, you know I can’t.’
‘But how can he be alive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He can’t be alive, Mary.’
‘You can’t begin to understand what this is like,’ she said quietly.
I nodded. Paused. She was pointing out the difference between having someone you love die, like I had, and having someone you love die then somehow come back. We both understood the moment – and because of that she seemed to gain in confidence.
‘It was him.’
‘He was a distance away. How could you be sure?’
‘I followed him.’
‘You followed him? Did you speak to him?’
‘No.’
‘Did you get close to him?’
‘I could see the scar on his cheek where he fell playing football at school.’
‘Did he seem… injured?’
‘No. He seemed healthy.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘He was carrying a backpack over his shoulder. He’d shaved his hair. He always had long hair, like in the photograph I gave you. When I saw him, he’d shaved it off. He looked different, thinner, but it was him.’
‘How long did you follow him for?’
‘About half a mile. He ended up going into a library off Tottenham Court Road for about fifteen minutes.’
‘What was he doing in there?’
‘I didn’t go in.’
‘Why not?’
She stopped. ‘I don’t know. When I lost sight of him, I started to disbelieve what I had seen.’
‘Did he come back out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he see you?’
‘No. I followed him to the Underground, and that’s where I lost him. You know what it’s like. I lost him in the crowds. I just wanted to speak to him, but I lost him.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘No.’
I sat back in my chair. ‘You said three months ago?’
She nodded. ‘Fifth of September.’
‘What about Malcolm?’
‘What about him?’
‘Have you said anything to him?’
She shook her head. ‘What would be the point? He has Alzheimer’s. He can’t even remember my name.’
I paused, glanced down at the photo of Derryn on my desk. ‘Switch positions with me, Mary. Think about how this sounds.’
‘I know how it sounds,’ she replied. ‘It sounds impossible. I’ve been carrying this around with me for three months, David. Why do you think I haven’t done anything about it until now? People would think I had lost my mind. Look at you: you’re the only person I thought might believe me, and you think I’m lying too.’
‘I don’t think you’re ly–’
‘Please, David.’
‘I don’t think you’re lying, Mary,’ I said. But I think you’re confused.
Anger passed across her eyes, as if she could tell what I was thinking. Then it was gone again, replaced by an acceptance that it had to be this way. She looked down into her lap, and into the handbag perched on the floor next to her. ‘The only way I can think to persuade you is by paying you.’
‘Mary, this is beyond what I can do.’
‘You know people.’
‘I know some people. I have a few sources from my newspaper days. This is more than that. This is a full-blown investigation.’
Her hand moved to her face.
‘Come on, Mary. Can you see what I’m saying?’
She didn’t move.
‘I’d be wasting your money. Why don’t you try a proper investigator?’
She shook her head gently.
‘This is what they get paid to do.’
She looked up, tears in her eyes.
‘I’ve got some names here.’ I opened the top drawer of my desk and took out a diary I used when I was still at the paper. ‘Let me see.’ I could hear her sniffing, could see her wiping the tears from her face, but I didn’t look up. ‘There’s a guy I know.’
She held a hand up. ‘I’m not interested.’
‘But this guy will help y–’
‘I’m not explaining this to anyone else.’
‘Why not?’
‘Can you imagine how many times I’ve played this conversation over in my head? I don’t think I can muster the strength to do it again. And, anyway, what would be the point? If you don’t believe me, what makes you think this investigator would?’
‘It’s his job.’
‘He would laugh in my face.’
‘He wouldn’t laugh in your face, Mary. Not this guy.’
She shook her head. ‘The way you looked at me, I can’t deal with that again.’
‘Mary…’
She finally lowered her hand. ‘Imagine if it was Derryn.’
‘Mary…’
‘Imagine,’ she repeated, then, very calmly, got up and left.
3
I was brought up on a farm. My dad used to hunt pheasant and rabbits with an old bolt rifle. On a Sunday morning, when the rest of the village – including my mum – were on their way to church, he used to drag me out to the woods and we’d fire guns.
When I was old enough, we progressed to a replica Beretta he’d got mail order. It only fired pellets, but he used to set up targets in the forest for me: human-sized targets that I had to hit. Ten targets. Ten points for a head shot, five for the body. I got the full one hundred points for the first time on my sixteenth birthday. He celebrated by letting me wear his favourite hunting jacket and taking me to the pub with his friends. The whole village soon got to hear about how his only child was going to be the British army’s top marksman one day.
That never happened. I never joined the army. But ten years later I found a jammed Beretta, just like the one he’d let me use, on the streets of Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg. Except this one was real. There was one bullet left in the clip. I found out later the same day that a bullet, maybe even from the gun I’d found, had ended the life of a photographer I’d shared an office with for two years. He’d dragged himself a third of a mile along a street, gunfire crackling around him, people leaping over his body – and died in the middle of the road.
&n
bsp; At the house I rented later that night, I removed the bullet from the gun, and have kept it with me ever since. As a reminder of my dad, and our Sunday mornings in the forest. As a reminder of the photographer who left this world, alone, in the middle of a dust-blown street. But mostly, as a reminder of the way life can be taken away, and of the distance you might be prepared to crawl in order to cling on to it.
It had just gone nine in the evening when I called Mary and told her I’d take the case. She started crying. I listened to her for a few minutes, her tears broken up by the sound of her thanking me, and then I told her I’d drive out to her house the next morning.
When I put the phone down, I looked along the hallway, into the bowels of my house, and beyond into the darkness of our bedroom, untouched since Derryn died. Her books still sat below the windowsill, the covers creased, the pages folded at the edges where she couldn’t find a bookmark. Her spider plant was perched above it, its long, thin arms fingering the tops of the novels on the highest shelf.
Since she’s been gone I haven’t spent a single night in there. I go in to shower, I go in to water her plant, but I sleep in the living room on the sofa, and always with the TV on. Its sounds comfort me. The people, the programmes, the familiarity of it – they help fill some of the space Derryn used to occupy.
4
I got to Mary’s house, a cavernous mock-Tudor cottage an hour west of London, just before ten the next morning. It was picture-perfect suburbia, right at the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac: shuttered windows, a wide teak-coloured front porch and flower baskets swinging gently in the breeze. I walked up to the door and rang the bell.
A few moments later, it opened a sliver and Mary’s face appeared. Recollection in her eyes. She pulled the door back and behind her I could see her husband, facing me, on the stairs.
‘Hello, David.’
‘Hi, Mary.’
She moved back, and I stepped past her. Her husband didn’t move. He was looking down at a playing card, turning it over in his hands. Face up. Face down.
‘Would you like some coffee or tea?’
‘Coffee. Thanks.’
She nodded. ‘Malcolm, this is David.’
Malcolm didn’t move.
‘Malcolm.’
Nothing.
‘Malcolm.’
He flinched, as if a jolt of electricity had passed through him, and he looked up. Not to see who had called him but to see what the noise was. He didn’t recognize his name.
‘Malcolm, come here,’ Mary said, waving him towards her.
Malcolm got up, and shuffled across to us. He was drawn and tired, stripped of life. His black hair was starting to grey. The skin around his face sagged. He was probably only a few years older than Mary, but it looked like more. He had the build of a rugby player; maybe once he’d been a powerful man. But now his life was ebbing away, and his weight was going with it.
‘This man’s name is David.’
I reached out and had to pull his hand out from his side to shake it. He looked like he wasn’t sure what I was doing to him.
When I let go, his hand dropped away, and he made his way towards the television, moving as if he was dosed up. I followed him and sat down, expecting Mary to follow. Instead, she headed for the kitchen and disappeared inside. I glanced at Malcolm Towne. He was staring at the television, the colours blinking in his face.
‘You like television?’ I asked him.
He looked at me with a strange expression, like the question had registered but he didn’t know how to answer it. Then he turned back to the screen. A couple of seconds later, he chuckled to himself, almost guiltily. I could see his lips moving as he watched.
Mary returned, holding a tray.
‘Sorry it took so long. There’s some sugar there, and some milk.’ She picked up a muffin, placed it on to a side plate and handed it to her husband. ‘Eat this, Malc,’ she said, making an eating gesture. He took the plate from her, laid it in his lap and looked at it. ‘I wasn’t sure how you took it,’ she said to me.
‘That’s fine.’
‘There’s blueberry muffins, and a couple of raspberry ones too. Have whichever you like. Malcolm prefers the raspberry ones, don’t you, Malc?’
I looked at him. He was staring blankly at his plate. You can’t remember what muffin you prefer when you can’t remember your own name. Mary glanced at me, as if she knew what I was thinking. But she didn’t seem to care.
‘When did Malcolm first show signs of Alzheimer’s?’
She shrugged. ‘It started becoming bad about two or three years ago, but I guess we probably noticed something was wrong about the time Alex disappeared. Back then it was just forgetting little bits and pieces, like you or I would forget things, except they wouldn’t come back to him. They just went. Then it became bigger things, like names and events, and eventually he started forgetting me and he started forgetting Alex.’
‘Were Alex and Malcolm close?’
‘Oh, yes. Always.’
I nodded, broke off a piece of blueberry muffin.
‘Well, I’m going to need a couple of things from you,’ I said. ‘First up, any photos you can lay your hands on. A good selection. Then I’ll need addresses for his friends, his work, his girlfriend if he had one.’ I nodded my head towards the stairs. ‘I’d also like to have a look around his room if you don’t mind. I think that would be helpful.’
I felt Malcolm Towne staring at me. When I turned, his head was bowed slightly, his eyes dark and half hidden beneath the ridge of his brow. A blob of saliva was escaping from the corner of his mouth.
‘Stop staring, Malc,’ Mary said.
He turned back towards the TV.
‘Was Alex living away from home when he disappeared?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. But he’d come back here for a holiday for a few weeks before he left.’
‘Where was he living?’
‘Bristol. He’d gone to university there.’
‘And after university?’
‘He got a job down there, as a data clerk.’
I nodded. ‘What, like computer programming?’
‘Not exactly,’ she replied quietly. The disappointment showed in her eyes.
‘What’s up?’
She shrugged. ‘I asked him to come back home after he graduated. The job he had there was terrible. They used to dump files on his desk all day, and he’d input all the data, the same thing every single day. Plus the pay was awful. He deserved a better job than that.’
‘But he didn’t want to come back?’
‘He was qualified to degree level. He had a first in English. He could have walked into a top job in London, on five times the salary. If he had moved back here, he’d have paid less rent and it would have been a better springboard for finding work. He could have devoted his days to filling out application forms and going for interviews at companies that deserved him.’
‘But he didn’t want to come back?’ I asked again.
‘No. He wanted to stay there.’
‘Why?’
‘He’d built a life for himself in Bristol, I suppose.’
‘What about after he disappeared – you never spoke to him?’
‘No.’
‘Not even by telephone?’
‘Never,’ Mary reaffirmed, quieter this time.
I made her run over her story again. Where she saw Alex. When. How long she followed him for. What he looked like. What he was wearing and, finally, where she lost him. It didn’t leave me a lot to go on.
‘So, Alex disappeared for five years, and then died in a car crash –’ I glanced at my pad ‘– just over a year ago, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Where did he crash the car?’
‘Just outside Bristol, up towards the motorway.’
‘What happened with the car?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘No personal items were retrieved from it?’
‘It was just a shell.’
I moved on. ‘Did Alex have a bank account?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he withdraw any money before he left?’
‘Half of his trust fund.’
‘Which was how much?’
‘Five thousand pounds.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Did you check his statements?’
‘Regularly – but it was pointless. He left his card behind when he went, and he never applied for a replacement as far as I know.’
‘Did he have a girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘Down in Bristol?’
Mary nodded.
‘Is she still there?’
‘No,’ Mary said. ‘Her parents live in north London. After Alex disappeared, Kathy moved back there.’
‘Have you spoken to her at all?’
‘Not since the funeral.’
‘You never spoke to her after that?’
‘He was dead. We had nothing to talk about.’
I paused. Let her gather herself again.
‘So, did he meet Kathy at university?’
‘No. They met at a party Alex went to in London. When he went to uni, she followed him down there.’
‘What did she do?’
‘She worked as a waitress in one of the restaurants close to the campus.’
I took down her address. I’d have to invent a plausible story if I was about to start cold-calling. Alex had been dead for over a year.
As if reading my mind, Mary said, ‘What are you going to tell her?’
‘The same as I’ll tell everyone. That you’ve asked me to try and put a timetable together of your son’s last movements. There’s some truth in that, anyway. You would like to know.’
She nodded. ‘I would, yes.’
Mary got up and went to a drawer in the living room. She pulled it open and took out a letter-sized envelope with an elastic band around it. She looked at it for a moment, then pushed the drawer shut and returned, laying the envelope down in front of me on the table.
‘I hope you can see now that this isn’t a joke,’ she said, and opened a corner of it so I could see the money inside.
I laid my hand over the envelope and pulled it towards me, watching Mary as she followed the cash across the table.