by GJ Minett
But within minutes of setting off again he hit the first diversion – a police car was blocking off the road because of a multiple pile-up and sending everything back the way it had come. He followed the rest of the traffic as it threaded its way through a network of unfamiliar streets, hoping they would eventually lead him back onto the road he’d been forced to abandon. Every so often the queue of traffic ground to a halt again, for no reason that was immediately apparent, and on one occasion a policeman on a motorcycle drove past, stopping at each car window to explain that this road too would be closed for another ten minutes or so – presumably another collision.
By the time he’d cleared the outskirts of the town, there was no way he was going to arrive at the Prince’s Arms as early as he’d been hoping. By his reckoning, he was several miles west of where he needed to be. Rather than waste time trying to regain the original route, he decided he’d be better off using his AA road map and coming into Lachlie from the opposite end. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now he’s just hoping that this is indeed the right road and that he cannot, as the man said, miss it.
He passes some lights on his left, the first sign of habitation for several minutes. It’s a farmhouse, he realises, as he draws nearer. He’s tempted to stop once again and ask for directions but decides instead to give it another two minutes. At least he has somewhere he knows he can return to in the event of an emergency. And he’s rewarded for his persistence when, just a couple of bends later, lights suddenly appear out of nowhere as the lane broadens before forming a junction with a major road. Away to his right is a sign welcoming him to Lachlie. He’s here at last.
He knows he’s come into the village from the wrong side and will have to drive through it to find the Prince’s Arms. Now that he’s back in the arms of civilisation the snow seems less threatening somehow, as if the lights and the buildings have stripped it of its elemental force. A touch of tailspin, as he turns onto the main road, reminds him that this is no time for complacency.
The Prince’s Arms is easy to find from here. It lies in a deep hollow, just the other side of the village. As he approaches, he can see there’s no point in trying to find a space in the car park, which is nowhere near large enough to cope with the number of vehicles that seem to have been attracted here this evening. Instead he drives another 50 yards down to the pub itself, then beyond it, continuing up the hill, past a line of cars which have parked on the verge, presumably confident they’ll be able to drive off again later in the evening, whatever the conditions. The slope is much steeper by the time he reaches the end of the row. He pulls over but then drives on for a hundred yards or so as an afterthought, making use of a lay-by to turn the car before returning to park it. Now he’s facing down the hill approximately sixty yards or so from the entrance to the pub. The overhanging trees give just enough shelter from the snow to suggest that from here he ought to have a more or less uninterrupted view of events as they unfold.
It’s almost eight o’clock and he’s later than planned. There has to be a chance they’re already inside by now. Mr O’Halloran wants the father and son to have some time together before he springs his surprise, so he still has half an hour or so before he’s due to make his entrance, but he hoped it might settle his nerves to watch them for a while before they’re even aware he’s here. It feels like a missed opportunity, as if he’s lost some element of control by arriving so late. Then it dawns on him that if he’s been delayed in Inverness, they may well have been too. Not knowing for sure either way is unsettling.
Fortunately the whole area around the front entrance to the Prince’s Arms is floodlit. He can see not only who’s going in and out but also anyone approaching the pub, the moment they come within fifty feet of it from either direction. He’s satisfied he has the perfect spot here – as long as they’re not already inside.
There’s only one way he’ll be able to put his mind at rest. He’ll need to be careful, obviously. The last thing he wants, after Mr O’Halloran has gone to all this trouble, is to go blundering in there and give the game away. He’ll need to make sure there’s no way he can be recognised. He doesn’t think there’s that much of a risk. They only know him from the trial after all, and it’s been almost seven years since then. Seven years of standing still and holding his breath. Holding his breath because there’s nothing worth saying until he has the chance to say it to the right person. Tonight has been a long time coming.
He steps from the car, fastening his coat to the throat. Then he opens the boot and takes out his hat, which he wears during the long, solitary walks in the countryside that have become part of his routine now. They used to walk together. Now he honestly thinks he prefers the solitude.
He pulls the hat down firmly so that it all but covers his eyebrows. Then he takes a tartan scarf and wraps it round the lower half of his face, only partly to protect himself from the cold. He stoops to take a quick look in the wing mirror and decides there’s so little of his face visible, he has nothing to worry about. Not even the boys from the 302 would recognise him now.
The temperature has dropped several degrees since mid-afternoon. The conditions underfoot are icy and the slope makes things difficult for him as he picks his way carefully down the hill. Like an old man, it occurs to him. It doesn’t seem like so long ago he’d have been running down here, like those two young lads up ahead who’ve just leapt from a car. They’ve grabbed handfuls of snow from the verge and are bombarding each other, so sure-footed and fearless as they race down the hill towards the entrance. The invulnerability of youth. He envies them their blind, unsuspecting faith in a future that belongs to them.
He’s still several yards from the pub when a door opens and the reason for the large number of cars becomes obvious. Gaelic music, fiddles, accordion and a woman’s voice leak out into the cold night air. On a board at the roadside is a sign advertising Avoch in Concert with today’s date beneath it. The music increases in volume as he opens the door and steps into a hallway, with doors right and left leading to Public and Saloon bars.
The music is coming from the former so he tries the Saloon first. He puts on his glasses and peers round the door, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. There are several tables in here, most of them occupied already. Some people are drinking at the bar, a few have gathered round a huge log fire, making a fuss of a pair of black Labradors stretched out in front of it. He doesn’t need long to establish there’s no one in here he recognises. He walks further into the room to make sure he’s not mistaken, then turns round and heads for the Public Bar.
This is a much larger room than the Saloon but it’s heaving, so much so there’s no way he can hover near the entrance and hope to run his eye over everyone in here. Quite apart from anything else, he’ll be battered by the door every time it opens, which seems to be every twenty seconds. He nudges his way forward, apologising every time he jogs someone as he tries to negotiate a path through to a vantage point where he might have a better view. He follows a woman who’s juggling four baskets of chicken and chips, calling out the number of the order at the top of her voice and barely making herself heard above the music and conversation. Eventually he finds a place in the corner near the large bay window where he can relax a little.
At the far end of the room, on a makeshift stage, is the group, a six-piece band who seem to his untrained ear to have at least some idea of what they’re doing. It’s not his sort of music but some of the instrumentals are quite complex and the girl’s voice is melodic enough. He just wishes they weren’t so loud.
Several people are standing in front of the stage, watching the musicians perform. A couple are dancing – he assumes they’re not part of the act – and it’s not too difficult to imagine others joining in once they have a few drinks inside them. The crowd at the bar is several rows deep and every table appears to be taken. There’s no fire in here, nor any need for one. There are so many people, he feels uncomfortable in all these layers of clothing.
> Safely tucked away in his corner, he lets his gaze strafe the room in search of anyone he might recognise. He’s relieved to pick out Mr O’Halloran almost immediately. He’s sharing a table with two young couples, although he doesn’t appear to have anything to do with them. He has a newspaper open in front of him but it looks like it’s more for show than anything else. He’s looking up every so often, his attention never very far from a table just two away from his. It’s occupied by a young couple and a middle-aged man, who’s sitting slightly apart from them. The latter looks uncomfortable, on edge. He has a drink in front of him, what looks like lemonade, and every so often he takes a quick sip, then puts it back on the table while he concentrates on the door, as if checking everyone who comes in. He looks so different now, so much older, despite the longer hair and the absence of the beard, which always looked so untidy. He probably wouldn’t have recognised him if it hadn’t been for Mr O’Halloran’s obvious interest. So, he tells himself. One of them has made it, at any rate.
The shock of recognition makes him take a step back. He drops into a window seat to take the weight off his legs which seem intent on betraying him. Fortunately no one seems to notice anything untoward. Neither man has paid him any attention since he came into the room. Each seems locked into his own thoughts to the exclusion of everything else.
He’s surprised by the strength of his reaction. He’s been imagining this moment for so long, never quite daring to hope he’d ever have the chance to experience it. Now, since Mr O’Halloran got in touch and told him about Inverness, he’s been planning it down to the last detail. He knows word for word what he’s going to say. He’s rehearsed it until each sentence is deeply ingrained in him. He could be shaken awake in the middle of the night and still reproduce it without a moment’s digression or hesitation. And yet here he is, shaken to the core when the moment finally arrives, not even sure he’s up to standing on his own two feet, let alone delivering his lines.
And this is Martin Adams, he reminds himself. This is just the father. If his reaction to seeing him is this extreme, what will he be like when his son walks in? All of a sudden he’s desperate to regain the sanctuary offered by his car. He’ll need time to compose himself before he’s up to something like this.
Pushing himself away from the window seat, he keeps to the edge of the room, trying not to draw attention to himself. He scans the faces at the bar as he passes them, in case the boy’s already there. It’s seven years since he’s seen him, of course. His features will have changed significantly since then but he has no fears that he might not recognise him. He’s seen that photo more times than he’d care to remember and besides, those awful days in the courtroom are seared into his brain. Whatever else may have changed with the passage of time, he knows he’s not going to have forgotten those eyes. Every Parent’s Nightmare, they used to call him, as if desperate to claim a share of the agony and loss for themselves. He’ll recognise him, alright.
The boy’s not here now, that much is certain. He mumbles more apologies as he squeezes his way to the door, leading to the foyer. Another order of chicken in the basket drifts past, the smell combining with that of the all-pervasive cigarette smoke to unsettle his stomach yet again. He steps through into the hallway, allowing the door to swing shut behind him, and takes a deep breath, grateful that at least it’s a little quieter. He clearly looks as bad as he feels because the waitress, on her return trip, takes the trouble to ask if he’s OK. He thanks her for her concern, then takes the scarf which has unravelled and wraps it around his face again.
As he reaches out for the door, it swings open, catching him on the shoulder. A blast of cold air rushes in, carrying with it a few flakes of snow, and a man and a woman come crashing through, desperate to get out of the snow. They both apologise and while they’re making sure he’s OK, a figure in a yellow kagoul slips past them. Josef just has time to register the incongruous picture of a large grinning face on the back before the figure pulls the waterproof top over his head. He turns round, just for a moment, as he shakes the damp from the kagoul and folds it carefully. Then, without paying any attention to the others in the hallway, he opens the door to the bar and disappears inside.
And now Josef knows he was right. Even after all these years, there is no way he could ever have mistaken those eyes.
7
February 2008: Ellen
‘You’re kidding, right. Nothing?’
‘As good as. Nothing that helps us, at any rate.’
‘So what’s with the laptop, then?’ asked Kate. ‘I mean, I know she wasn’t exactly short of money but it’s not like they’re cheap, is it? You’d think if she was going to buy one, she’d at least use the thing.’
‘I didn’t say she didn’t use it.’ Ellen cradled the handset between ear and shoulder as she reached into the fridge for the tub of margarine. ‘There’s emails and a handful of Word documents, just nothing that seems to take us any further forward, that’s all.’
She lifted the crumpets out of the toaster and fetched a knife from the drawer.
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘So who are the emails to?’
Ellen spooned raspberry jam onto the crumpets while she talked Kate through what she’d found, which was significantly less than they’d been hoping for. She’d barely taken in a word of the film that evening. The children had loved it, which was the main thing, but she’d been too preoccupied with thoughts of what the laptop might reveal to pay any great attention to what was happening on the screen. Then, having driven home and put the children to bed, she’d turned it on and typed in Langmere as instructed, only to find next to nothing there. It took her no more than ten minutes at the outside to conclude that this was yet another dead end.
It appeared to have been bought with one purpose in mind. Almost every email dealt with Parish Council business. Most were exchanged with someone she addressed as Rowan, who appeared from the contents to be the vicar, not only for Oakham but for two other villages as well, which surprised her. She wasn’t aware it was customary for members of the clergy to be shared around in this way. She decided he was someone worth looking up in the next couple of days. If nothing else, he clearly had regular contact with Eudora. Ellen was amused to discover from the hotmail address that his surname was actually Williams. Reverend Rowan Williams. She imagined the nepotism jokes must be wearing a bit thin by now.
The Word documents were divided into three folders. One contained copies of a monthly church newsletter, which offered nothing that was likely to be of much help or interest to her. The second was used for the minutes of Parish Council meetings and was no more illuminating. The list of officers, printed as part of the heading, identified Eudora as the Minutes Secretary. She seemed content to take a back seat during discussions, her name coming up in business items only when volunteers were listed – the annual church fete, coffee mornings, a trip to Salisbury Cathedral in December 2006, Prinknash Abbey a few months later.
The third folder, labelled Miscellaneous, was no more than a collection of shopping lists, an improvised address and phone book, emergency contact names and numbers – plumber, electrician, gardener. Whatever hopes Ellen might have had of the laptop and its contents, she was left with little more than snapshots of a quiet, uneventful life. There was nothing there to shed even a speck of light on Eudora’s past or, more specifically, how their lives had come to overlap.
‘How about her web browser?’ asked Kate, reluctant to let go. ‘Anything in her Favourites?’
‘Nothing. Practically the only thing in the History section is Tesco online shopping. Trust me, there’s nothing there. Shit!’ She stooped to pick up the knife which had slipped from the work surface to the floor. ‘I’ll bring it with me tomorrow and you can have a look for yourself, if you like. Bring plenty of Valium though, in case the excitement gets too much for you.’
She nudged the fridge door shut with her knee and went through to the lounge, where she dro
pped wearily into an armchair, resting the plate in her lap.
‘I don’t get it,’ said Kate. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘What doesn’t?’
‘Well, why go to the trouble of password-protecting? How old was she – ninety?’
‘I think Wilmot said ninety-one.’
‘There you go then. You think she did that herself? Someone else has to have set it up for her, and if she went to that much trouble, there must have been something she wanted to hide. And even if I’m wrong, even if she was savvy enough to do it herself, why bother if all she’s got in there is minutes of church meetings and newsletters – what’s the big deal exactly?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ellen admitted.
‘Exactly. There’s got to be something, Ellie. And if it’s not on the hard drive, there’s a back-up somewhere – you know, a memory stick, or maybe one of those external hard drives you can plug in and go. Maybe she saved things to disk. Are there any in the case?’
‘Already been there. There’s nothing like that. Anyway,’ Ellen continued, wiping away a trickle of jam that had seeped from the corner of her mouth, ‘I thought the whole point of a back-up is to make a copy of what’s already on the hard drive.’
‘So maybe she typed it straight onto the memory stick.’
‘But if she did that, we’re back to square one, aren’t we? Why password-protect the laptop if this mythical document was never on it?’
There was a pause while Kate digested this.
‘Damn, this is weird,’ she said eventually.
‘Isn’t it just?’
‘And you didn’t get anything from Barbara, you say?’
‘Not really. There’s something there alright, I’m sure of it. But she’s not really in a position to give it up, even if she wanted to – which she probably doesn’t. You know what she’s like.’