by Val McDermid
‘This is the hard bit for me. What I’m going to tell you, you might think I’m making it up. You might think I’m off my head. But this is the truth. I swear. You can believe it or not, it’s your choice. You know your mother at least as well as I did. You can judge whether you think my story has the ring of truth or not.
‘Back then, I was a bright young man who was going places. I’ve always had a flair for invention. Most of the ideas go nowhere, but a few of them have turned out well. My first company was successful because I’d come up with a unique process for electroplating precision surgical instruments. I was doing well, and there were a couple of big companies prepared to pay a lot of money for my patent. I was pretty pleased with myself. I knew I was on the road to becoming rich and successful, which was quite something for a working-class lad from Sowerby Bridge.
‘I was walking out with your mother at the time. I was besotted with Vanessa. I’d never met a woman like her. She had star quality. She made every other lass in Halifax look colourless. I knew she was tough. Your grandmother was hard as nails and she’d brought Vanessa up in her own likeness. But when we got serious about each other, she seemed to soften. She was grand company. And she was beautiful.’ His voice was passionate now, rich and strong. Tony had seen enough of his mother’s charm with others to understand how she could have wrapped Arthur round her little finger.
‘When I asked her to marry me, there was part of me was convinced she’d turn me down flat. But she accepted. I was on cloud nine. We talked about a spring wedding and Vanessa suggested we make wills in each other’s favour. She was working in a solicitor’s office at the time, so she could get it done for free. And of course, she would have been giving up work when we got wed, so it made sense to do it while we could still get it for free.’ He gave a wry little chuckle. ‘You’ll be thinking I’m a typical Yorkshireman. Owt for nowt, eh? Well, the will might have come for free, but there’s other ways that it nearly cost me very dear indeed.
‘We did the wills, both leaving everything to each other. Round about this time, a company from Sheffield came after me. They wanted to buy the business outright, and my patent too. They were offering a lot of cash plus a lifetime royalty on the process. It would have been a good deal for a man who didn’t have ambitions to go a lot further. But I did. I had all sorts of dreams and hopes for the future and they included my business and my workforce. Vanessa thought I was crazy. She thought I should sell up and live high on the hog on the proceeds. “But what will we do when the money runs out?” I wanted to know. She said she knew me, I’d come up with some other clever idea and we’d do the same thing all over again. But I wasn’t convinced. I’d read about too many other inventors who never come up with a second idea that works.
‘Now, I reckon you probably know what your mother’s like when she gets an idea in her head. It’s like arguing with a steamroller. But I dug my heels in. It was my business and I wasn’t going to give in to her. I told myself I had to stand firm or I’d spend the whole of my life giving in to what she wanted. So there we were, stalemate. Or so I thought.
‘We were walking home one night through Savile Park. It was dark, it was late and there wasn’t another living soul in sight. Vanessa was on at me again about selling. I remember saying, “Over my dead body,” and the next thing I knew was this terrible searing pain in my chest. It was like everything went into slow motion. Vanessa was standing in front of me, and there was a knife in her hand, covered in blood. I looked down and my shirt front had a big red patch on it. I could feel myself falling and I swear I heard her say, “You said it, Eddie.”
‘The next thing I knew, I was in hospital, with the doctor saying it was a miracle I was alive. And there was Vanessa, holding my hand and smiling sweetly. I thought I was losing my mind. But when the doctor left us alone, she said, “I told the police we were mugged. If you try and tell them anything different, they’ll think you’re mad.”
‘I was supposed to die, you see. So she could have her way. But I didn’t die. I ran away. After I recovered, I sold up and cleared out. I spent a year studying metallurgy in Canada, then I came back and settled in Worcester. It seemed like a nice place and I knew nobody who had any connections there. I never took up with anybody else, not seriously. Vanessa spoiled me for anything like that. It’s hard to let yourself fall in love when the last person you loved tried to kill you.
‘I made a good life for myself, though. And then I found out about you. Once I knew about you, I kept a discreet eye on you. I’ve watched your career with pride. I know I can’t claim any of the credit, but I am proud of how you’ve turned out. I’d have liked to see you settled with a family of your own, but it’s not too late. I’m told you’re close to that detective you work with, Carol Jordan. If she’s the one, don’t let her go past you.
‘Anyway. I’ve said what I wanted to. And I’m still sorry that I was never a father to you. I hope you understand now, even if you don’t feel inclined to forgive me. And I hope you enjoy spending the money I’ve left you. Good luck with your life, son.’ Then silence. The last word was the killer, of course.
Tony pulled the headphones from his ears and bit his lip. A weight of sorrow pressed down on him, making his chest and throat ache. He wasn’t sure what was worse - hearing what he’d just heard, or not doubting its reliability. To hear such a shocking revelation about your mother would drive most men into a frenzy of rage. It wouldn’t occur to them to believe it. Their first response would be that this was a vile fantasy. Because most men didn’t have a mother like Vanessa.
For as long as he could remember, Tony had felt like the man Diane Patrick had described. The bad seed. The man who knew he carried the potential for evil inside him. One of the reasons he did what he did was his abiding conviction that he could so easily have become the sort of person he spent his life tracking down then trying to help. His empathy had to come from somewhere, and he had always believed it was rooted in his own potential for the road less travelled by.
And of course, Vanessa had never missed an opportunity to make him feel worthless. He had enough insight to understand how much she had undermined him, but even his professional training didn’t allow him to blame upbringing and circumstances for everything. There had to be a genetic component too. A balance of nature and nurture, conditioning and circumstance. And now he knew just how much of the bad seed was in him.
But for the first time, he also knew that his own fantasy of his father was false. He’d always thought a man who could walk out on his child must have a fatal flaw. Tony had believed he was the product of two profoundly fucked-up people, a legacy that offered him little potential to rise above it in emotional terms. Now he had to reset his own expectations of himself. Because half of what had made him had been a decent man who knew how much he’d let him down. And who had been proud of him.
It was going to be a big adjustment. And even as he thought this, Tony realised that change needed its own environment. Somewhere in his life, he was going to have to find an outward symbol of this transformation.
CHAPTER 44
Carol woke much earlier than she had planned. These days, too much alcohol had that effect. When she’d been younger, going to bed pissed had been a guarantee of eight hours of unconsciousness. These days, if she’d had too much to drink, she slept fitfully and not for nearly long enough. Another reason to follow Tony’s advice and cut it right back, she reminded herself. Her head felt muzzy and battered, her stomach bruised and tender. She vaguely remembered throwing up when she’d finally got back in the small hours.
But it had been worth it. It had been a night of great celebration for the team. Murders solved, lives saved, and Bronwen Scott stiffed. The icing on the cake had been the phone call Sam had taken from Brian Carson, the concierge of the Bayview Caravan Park. He’d been surprised to recognise the photograph of Nigel Barnes on the local TV news. He remembered him turning up at the caravan park one night with a puncture. Carson had insisted on helping
him change his tyre, in spite of the man’s insistence that he’d be fine. He particularly remembered the bale of clear polythene, the pack of black bin bags and rolls of duct tape in the back of the Volvo estate, because they’d had to move them to get at the spare tyre.
A woman couldn’t ask for much more, really. Carol lay on her back and stretched like a starfish. There was a soft thud and then a smoochy tickle in her ear. ‘Nelson,’ she said affectionately, scratching her cat behind the ear. He purred and head-butted her. ‘OK,’ she grumbled. ‘I’ll feed you.’
Her two mobiles, personal and work, were lying on the worktop above the cutlery drawer. As she took out a spoon, she noticed there was a message on her own phone: Brkfst? Txt me whn u get ths, Im up. Tx
She checked the clock. She’d been right first time, it was only quarter past six. It wasn’t like Tony to be up and about at this hour. Carol hadn’t noticed him leave the restaurant but she knew it had been pretty early in the impromptu party. She’d looked for him around nine, when they’d been ordering some food. But he’d been nowhere to be seen. She’d asked Paula, the person most likely to notice his departure, but she’d been too wrapped up in Elinor Blessing. Which was a good thing, naturally, but inconvenient right then.
She dished up Nelson’s food and texted back: Ur place or café?
Mine. I can haz sausages and eggs.
haf hour. She put the kettle on and headed for the shower.
Thirty-five minutes later, showered, dressed, Nurofen-ed and marginally caffeinated, she climbed the stairs from her basement flat to his house. The connecting door was already unlocked and she found him in the kitchen, pulling a tray of sausages from the oven and inspecting them suspiciously. ‘I think they need another five minutes,’ he said. ‘Which is just long enough to do the eggs.’ He waved at the coffee machine. ‘That’s ready to roll, do you want to help yourself? ‘
She did. While he whisked the eggs in the pan, she made lattes for them both and carried them to the table. ‘I can’t believe you’re up at this time, and with the makings of a proper breakfast,’ she added, noticing the plate of toasted crumpets dripping with butter.
‘I’ve been up all night,’ he said. ‘I went for a walk and the supermarket was open and I needed to talk to you, so I thought, breakfast.’
Carol pounced on the key part of his reply. ‘You need to talk to me? Don’t tell me you think there’s a problem with Diane Patrick?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ he said impatiently, plating the eggs and getting the sausages out. He put a plate of food in front of her with a flourish. Carol tried not to shudder. ‘There you go. Free-range eggs and local sausages.’
‘I can’t remember the last time you cooked for me,’ she said, gingerly trying the eggs. They were better than she expected.
‘No,’ he said, considering. ‘Me neither.’ He wolfed down a sausage and half his eggs. ‘This is good,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘I should do this more often.’
Carol was making slow but steady progress. ‘So what do you need to talk to me about?’
‘You have to listen to something. But let’s finish eating first.’
‘This is very intriguing,’ she said.
‘It’ll blow your socks off,’ he said, suddenly sombre. ‘And not in a good way.’
Carol forced the rest of her food down and pushed her plate away. ‘I’m done,’ she said. ‘Wedged.’
‘Well done for a woman who walked in gripped by the hangover from the outskirts of hell,’ Tony said drily, taking the plates away. He came back with the recorder and the headphones. ‘This is what you need to listen to.’
‘What is it?’
‘It doesn’t need an explanation,’ he said, putting the cans on her ears and pressing play.
As it dawned on her what she was listening to, Carol’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh. My. God,’ she breathed. Then looking at him with tears in her eyes, ‘Oh, Tony . . .’ And then, ‘Unbe-fucking-lieveable. Jesus!’ Tony said nothing, just sat impassively watching her reactions.
When she reached the end, she pulled the headphones off and reached for his hand. ‘No wonder you were up all night,’ she said. ‘Talk about bombshells.’
‘We both said we didn’t trust Vanessa’s version. That there must be a hidden agenda. Turns out we were right.’ His voice was dull and hard.
‘Yeah, but I never expected to be right like this,’ Carol said. ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to confront her with it?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t see the point. She’ll just deny it. It won’t have any effect on how she lives her life.’
‘You can’t just let her get away with it,’ Carol protested. What he was suggesting ran counter to all her convictions about the importance of justice.
‘She’s got away with it. Nothing can change that now. Carol, I never want to see her again. All I want to do is to cut her out of my life the way she cut Arthur out of mine.’
‘I don’t know how you can be so calm about this,’ Carol said.
‘I’ve had all night to think about it,’ he said. ‘This case, it’s not been my finest hour. The only real lead that came from the profiling process was where to look. And that was Fiona Cameron’s work, not mine.’
‘You worked out Warren was dead. And you knew to ask the questions that uncovered the vasectomy,’ she protested.
‘You’d have got there in the end. But I’ve had to face the fact that I’m maybe not as good at this as I like to think. The last couple of weeks have made me realise I need to completely reconsider who I am. I’ve made choices about my life based on incomplete data. I need a total rethink, Carol.’
There was an absolute quality about his seriousness that she knew she had no power to argue against. She fell back on the tactics she knew best. The ones that had made her such a formidable copper. When in doubt, attack. ‘What does that mean, Tony? You sound like a politician. All words and nothing concrete. ‘
He gave a sad little smile. ‘I can do concrete, Carol. I just wanted to explain myself first. I’m planning on handing in my notice at Bradfield Moor. I’m planning on selling the narrowboat because I don’t like it. And I’m planning on moving into Arthur’s house in Worcester because it’s the only place I’ve ever slept that felt like home. Beyond that, I don’t know.’
She understood all the words, but taken together they made no sense. It was as if she’d gone to bed in one world and woken in another. ‘You’re going to live in Worcester? In Worcester? You spent one night there and now you’re going to move there? Have you lost your mind?’
He shook his head, misery on his face. ‘I knew you’d be like this. I’ve not lost my mind, no. I’m just trying to figure out how I move forward in my life knowing the things I know now about where I came from. So much of what I thought I knew isn’t the case. And I need to work out where that leaves me.’
She wanted to scream, ‘What about me?’ Not screaming it was a physical effort. She gripped the edge of the table and forced her lips tightly together.
‘It’s OK, Carol. You can say it. “What about me?” That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?’
‘And that’s why I want to say it,’ she said, dismayed that she sounded so choked. ‘Because you know without me telling you.’
‘I can’t make your choices for you,’ he said. ‘It’s up to you. You’ve won this round against Blake, but he’s not leaving any time soon. You’ve met Alvin Ambrose, you’ve spoken to Stuart Patterson. They’re decent men who care about what they’re doing. If you wanted a change, West Mercia would probably bite your hand off.’ He made a small gesture with his hands, as if to suggest an offer.
Carol knew that for him to ask her to come with him was probably an impossibility. He’d never believed he deserved her. But she needed more than this. ‘Why should I, Tony? What’s in it for me?’ She challenged him with the hundred-yard cop’s stare.
He looked away. ‘It’s a big house, Carol. There’s plenty of room for two.’
Eventually Tony picked up the chrome recorder and weighed it in his hand. ‘This morning,’ he said slowly, ‘anything seems possible.’