by Russ Thomas
But then she remembers the letters. Perhaps there is a reason to be running and hiding. If only she could remember what it is.
There’s a healthy slice of Dundee cake left from the weekend. She tests it with the back of a finger. It’s cold and a little dry, but she knows Oscar will devour it in seconds. It always was his favorite.
Back in the dining room, Oscar takes the tray from her. “Shall I be Mother?” he jokes, and they all three laugh.
“Don’t be silly,” says Lily, and pours each of them their preferred cup. Oscar seats himself on a dining chair, leaving the second armchair for her. He’s always thinking of them. Since he was a boy, she’s never been sure if it was they who took him in or the other way round.
Edna clears her throat to begin what is clearly a carefully staged conversation; she, after all, is the director of this family drama. “Oscar’s just been telling me about the Old Vicarage,” she explains. “There’s been some trouble with the builders, isn’t that right?” She is prompting her lead actor.
“There was an accident, I think. Nothing too serious . . .” He dries up. Lily knows lying does not come easily to him. Edna will have told him not to bother Aunt Lil with the details. It’ll only scare her. But really it’s Lily she doesn’t trust. Edna’s worried she’ll say something out of turn. She supposes she’s right to be. How are you supposed to keep quiet about something if you can’t remember it in the first place? Why does it always feel as though everyone else knows more than she does? And why can she not just bring herself to ask?
Edna takes over again. “That’s why the police are there. They’ll straighten it all out, you’ll see.” She looks at Lily over the steaming brim of her cup, waggling those eyebrows in a manner that’s supposed to convey her own set of instructions. Keep quiet. I’ll handle this. Edna’s instructions are always the same.
Lily wants to ask, Keep quiet about what? You’ll handle what? But instead she says, “I wondered about the police. It’s all over the village. People do gossip about nothing, don’t they? Goodness, what a fuss!”
“I’m beginning to think you were right,” Oscar says. “About the builders. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to get them in after all.”
“What’s done is done,” says Edna, practical as ever, and then changes the subject. “Oscar was just telling me he’s thinking of booking a trip.”
“Oh, lovely,” says Lily. “To Whitby?”
Edna tuts. “Honestly, you and this Whitby trip!”
“What’s all this?” Oscar is smiling.
“Some coach trip or other, those daft women from the Women’s Institute.”
Oscar grins widely. “Sounds like fun.”
“Oh, yes!” says Lily. “I just spoke to the vicar and he says they still have places. I’ve always wanted to go to Whitby.”
Edna grunts. “You’ve been.”
“I haven’t.”
“You have. Bert took us up for the day in the Hillman, after Vi had her op.”
“Oh,” says Lily. She doesn’t remember that at all. “Well, I wasn’t counting that.”
“He’s talking about overseas. Abroad, isn’t that right, Oscar?”
Oscar has only been half-listening—poor lost little boy!
“What? Oh, sure. It’s just a thought really.”
“I found you some cake,” says Lily. “Eat up.” She pushes the plate toward him.
Edna goes on. “Like when we went to Spain that time. Do you remember, Oscar? You were probably too young, I expect. Of course, I couldn’t go now, not in my condition.”
“No,” says Lily, “not in your condition.”
Edna gives her another look. “I suppose you’ll take that Sophie girl?” Edna’s on shaky ground here. She doesn’t really approve of Sophie, but Oscar will not allow any criticism of the girl.
Lily couldn’t stand it if there was an argument between them. “Oh yes,” she says quickly, “I’ve just seen her father in the village. How is she? Everything all right between you? You will bring her round soon, won’t you? We haven’t seen her in an age.”
Edna frowns at her. “You seem to have seen a lot of people in the village this afternoon.”
“She’s fine,” says Oscar.
Lily takes a sip of tea. She places the cup back on the tray and, as if the move is a signal, Oscar gets up.
“I should be getting off.”
“But you haven’t touched your cake.”
“You can stay over if you want,” Edna offers, and Lily pushes down a little monster inside her; she should have offered first.
“Thanks,” says Oscar, “but I should get back to town.”
“I could wrap it for you?”
Edna struggles to stand, and Oscar leaps forward to help. Again the nasty little creature lurches inside Lily.
“Try not to worry,” Edna tells him. “It’ll all be fine, you’ll see.”
“Thanks, Auntie Edie.” He hugs her and Lily is a stranger in her own home, and then it’s her turn and as he draws her into him everything is warmer and sharper and more alive.
Together they see him to the gate, Edna more agile than she’s been for months. They watch him as he heads down the path. But for a little height, and the missing satchel on his shoulder, they might be seeing him off to school. Before he disappears round the bend he waves to them one last time, and they both wave back.
They stand together at the gate looking down the path.
“They’ve found him,” says Edna.
“Oh,” says Lily, clutching at the flaking ironwork. She wants to say, Found who? But she doesn’t. She’s fairly certain she probably ought to know.
Edna makes a sucking noise between her false teeth. “Did you get those chops?”
* * *
—
The sun is setting through the branches of the trees, casting jagged black lines across the front of the house. It looks like the house is burning all over again. Tyler kicks around in the rubble left by the builders until he finds what he needs, a broken half brick. The door to the incident room swings open and Rabbani steps out, squinting into the sun.
“The fiancée?” he asks.
“Tomorrow lunchtime at the university.” She hovers, not quite meeting his eye, plainly uncomfortable about something.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll pick you up.”
She hesitates, then nods. He tucks the brick under his arm and jots down the address she gives him on his mobile.
“Anything else?”
Again she hesitates, then, “I can’t find a death certificate for Lily Bainbridge, but I’ll keep looking into it. And I spoke to Cynthia Cartwright’s doctor. He won’t release her records without a court order but, off the record, he pretty much confirmed what Burnside said about her being depressed.” She stops, waiting for him to say something.
“Good job,” he tells her, returning the mobile to his pocket and extracting the brick again. “Where’s Daley?
She looks down at the brick in his hand and her brow creases. “I’m not sure,” she says.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to clock him with it.”
She smiles at him weakly, as though she’s not sure she believes him.
“Do you know if he spoke to the vicar yet?”
She pushes a lock of stray hair behind her right ear. He’s seen her do the same thing at least a dozen times today. “He said he couldn’t find him, but . . .” She leaves it there, her cheeks coloring slightly as she realizes he might consider this tale-telling. She doesn’t need to say any more, however. He knew Daley wouldn’t follow it up, certainly not on his say-so. He’d just been drawing Daley out, trying to find out what secret task Doggett had given him. It had been far easier than he’d thought it would be.
“All right,” he tells her.
“Was it important?”
/>
“Probably not.”
She still seems uncomfortable, as though there’s something she wants to say but can’t quite bring herself to.
“What is it?”
The lock of hair has fallen loose again and hangs across her face. “I don’t mind staying if . . .” She trails off.
He’s not used to working with others, with subordinates. He’s forgotten that you’re supposed to direct them, tell them every little thing. “Get yourself home,” he says, and then remembers, belatedly, to add, “Thanks.”
She hovers a moment longer, then sighs heavily, turns, and stalks away from him down the driveway. He wonders what he’s done now. She can’t still be pissed off with him about that business with Doggett. He got her on the case, what more does she want? He goes back over the day, considering her performance at the cottage, the way she pushed Burnside during the interview. She’d shown him up, in a way; they were questions he should have asked, would have asked, if he hadn’t been so fixated on Oscar. Was that why he chastised her about the research she’d done into the girlfriend? That was a bit unfair. It was good work, intuitive. Perhaps that’s why she’s so narked. He makes a mental note to try harder with her tomorrow. She has the potential to be a good detective, if she can just learn to keep her temper.
He smiles at the irony of his own thoughts and looks down at the brick in his hand. One side is black with soot. He juggles it for a moment, testing the weight. Then he heads back to the incident room and opens the door. The heat radiates out in a wave, like he’s just opened the door to an oven. He bends down and places the brick in front of the door. It holds. As he straightens, he takes one last look at the decaying house with its dancing shadow flames before stepping back into the sauna.
* * *
—
He works for another half hour or so, going over some of the reports from the SOCOs, but eventually the stale air is too much. He drains the last of the water he sent Rabbani out for earlier, grabs the jacket he brought with him but really doesn’t need, and steps out onto the driveway.
The sun has dropped below the horizon now, and the house looks bleaker than ever in the twilight. He walks up to the front door and nods to the PC standing guard. He steps back over the threshold into the tiled hallway. He isn’t really sure why he’s here, but his feet take him through the house until he finds himself back in front of the painting that hangs above the fireplace. He stares at the wrinkled, gray face of the fire watcher, and the painting stares back at him.
“Ugly bloody thing, isn’t it?”
He turns to find Doggett crossing the room to join him.
“I thought you’d gone.”
The DI tugs at a tie that’s already hanging loose at his neck. “I thought I’d head back to the station now, give Jordan an update. You all right getting things locked down for the night?”
Tyler nods his agreement and turns back to the portrait. “Can you make out the signature?”
Doggett squints at the painting for a moment. “Lowry?” he says.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But he was all landscapes, wasn’t he? Matchstick cats and dogs and all that.”
“So what’s your interest in the bloody thing?”
“I think it’s been moved. It was hanging in the attic at the time of the fire—there’s a patch on the wall that was protected from the smoke—and sometime since then, somebody’s moved it down here. Taken that picture down”—he points to the framed landscape propped against the armchair—“and replaced it. The question is, why?”
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Doggett looking at the picture again. “Could have been kids messing about. God knows who’s been through here, ransacking the place, in the last six years.”
But the place doesn’t look ransacked. Badly fire damaged, rain soaked in places, but not ransacked. No one has helped themselves to the furniture or the many pictures, some of which would be worth the taking for the frames alone. Tyler’s eyes stray back to the portrait of the fire watcher. Why does it feel so important? If it had been stolen or smashed up by vandals he could understand it, but why would someone move it from the attic to the living room? And rehang it, moving the other painting out of the way in order to do so. Would some squatter or dope-smoking teenager do that? He supposes they might, if they liked the thing enough, but he can’t help thinking it means something to someone. Someone who was here after the fire, after Gerald Cartwright was bricked in the cellar. He looks down at the remains of the small fire on the floor and remembers the cigarette butts the SOCOs have since collected and taken away. “I think someone’s been living here,” he says. “Someone with a connection to the place. Maybe a connection to Cartwright.”
It’s a bit of a leap, but to Tyler’s surprise Doggett doesn’t try to bat his theory away. He runs his finger along the bottom of the gold frame. “Did the SOCOs get anything?”
“Nothing usable, just smudges.”
“This hideous bastard means something to someone,” Doggett says, echoing his own thoughts. “Someone who’s familiar with the place. A childhood memory, perhaps?”
That’s why he’s so keen to listen. It fits his own theory.
“Why would Oscar be living here?”
Doggett shrugs. “It’s his house; why wouldn’t he?”
“Because the place is a death trap. Besides, he has his own flat in town.” He says it without thinking, but there’s no reason he shouldn’t know Oscar’s address for professional reasons. Even so, he feels the need to give Doggett something to distract his attention. “It’s possible,” he says. And for the first time he accepts that it is possible. Oscar could be playing him, using him.
“Tell me about Bridger,” Doggett says out of nowhere.
He has been expecting the question, or something like it, ever since Doggett’s comment in the car earlier. But now it’s here, the question takes him by surprise and he struggles to find an answer.
Doggett folds his arms. He’s watching closely, looking for some reaction. “Come on, son. It isn’t every day you get to floor a senior officer and get away with it.”
Tyler rubs at the scar with his thumb. “I wouldn’t exactly say I got away with it.”
He can still see the look on Bridger’s face, the smug grin that told him, even before the punch fully landed, he’d been played. Months of windups, scores of digs about who he slept with. Usually subtle enough they might be taken for innocent remarks but sometimes so obvious he might as well have accompanied them with a limp-wristed hand gesture. It was laughable, like some dubious performance by a dodgy ’80s nightclub comedian. And it wasn’t as though the two of them even worked that closely together, so he had no trouble ignoring the twat. He could have complained. He should have. But it was all just so pathetic. And besides, official complaints ran the risk of you losing the sympathy of your colleagues. No one likes a grass, not even the police. Best to keep your head down, ignore them. Sooner or later they get tired and move on. It was his golden rule. And it was manageable.
Until Bridger found his Achilles’ heel. His father.
By the time he’d joined the South Yorkshire Criminal Investigation Department, it had been years since Richard’s death, and it wasn’t as though the name Tyler was all that uncommon. But the manner of his father’s passing had been memorable, and it was enough for some to make the connection. Gary Bridger was one of them. Jordan told him later that his father and Bridger had been rivals. Richard had pissed him off sometime over some case or other, and since he could no longer take it out on the father, he’d gone for the son.
Tyler was queuing in the canteen that day when it started with the usual general comments thrown out casually to his mates so Tyler would overhear. Lots of stuff about bent coppers and how they were a disgrace to the force. Nothing that couldn’t be taken at face value if challenged, so there really wasn’t any point. Only the sly smirk on Bri
dger’s face told Tyler they were aimed at him. And then he started on about people only getting on the force because their fathers were coppers, and nepotism and all that.
“They say it runs in the family. Like father, like son.” Bridger looked straight at Tyler for the first time, making sure his words struck home. “Sometimes they’re so racked with guilt over what they’ve done, they end up topping themselves. Best thing for ’em, if you ask me.”
Afterward, he didn’t even remember moving. Only the blood pounding in his ears and the mist clouding his vision as he went for the man’s smug face.
“He always was a dog’s arse of a copper,” Doggett says now. “Too handy for his own good. I daresay I’ve been tempted to smack him one myself from time to time. But there’s one thing you can say about Gary Bridger—he’s always had friends in high places. I reckon it must have cost the DCI a fair few favors to pull your fat out of the fire on that one.”
“I think it helped that I came off worse.”
Ironically it had been Bridger’s defense of himself that had ultimately saved Tyler. Perhaps he’d underestimated how strongly Tyler would go for him. Or perhaps, after months of fruitless taunting, the thought that he might elicit a response hadn’t occurred to him. Maybe he believed his own rhetoric and saw Tyler as nothing but a limp-wristed sissy-boy. Whatever the reason, he’d panicked and picked up the bottle from the tray without thinking. At least, he was given the benefit of the doubt that it hadn’t been planned. There were witnesses, too. Not just Bridger’s mates either. The woman behind the counter had testified that some of the lads had already pulled Tyler off and were holding him back when Bridger attacked. She said she saw him smash the bottle deliberately. Tyler himself never even saw it coming through the mist. He didn’t feel the glass as it slid into his face, or the blows that came afterward. They were much weaker, to his abdomen and chest, most of them deflected by his clothing. The wounds were superficial, but they testified to the fact Gary Bridger was a violent little bastard. There had been other smaller incidents in the past, it seemed, and Bridger found that his friends in high places couldn’t get him out of this one. He escaped the grievous bodily harm charge but was forced into early retirement. Tyler, who was widely seen as the one who’d started the incident, was lucky to escape with just a reprimand. And the transfer to the CCRU, of course. The job nobody wanted. He suspects that was Diane Jordan’s work. Without the DCI in his corner, Bridger’s friends would have found a way to take him down as well. He still doesn’t know exactly what it cost her, but by all accounts she should be a superintendent by now. The fact she isn’t . . . well, he guesses that’s on him.