by M J Lee
Even from behind the gate, Rose could smell alcohol on his breath. The champagne glass in his hand was empty.
'I've come to see you about David.' She patted her son's head. He smiled up at her.
'What about the little bastard?'
Rose gripped her son's shoulder, pulling him to her. 'You shouldn't talk about your brother's son like that.'
'He's not my brother's son.'
'He is.'
'Prove it.'
'You were there Toby, the night we were married in Gretna Green. You were a witness.'
Toby Russell swayed slightly on his feet. 'Prove it.'
'You saw our marriage in the blacksmith's shop with your own eyes.'
He smashed the empty champagne glass onto the gravel. 'Listen, you little trollop, my brother may have fucked you for the fun of it, but you can't prove you were married to him, or that this thing is his son. You could have fucked half the soldiers in the British Army for all I know.'
Rose pulled David closer to her. 'You need to look after him. You have to take care of him, he's your brother's son.'
'I have to do nothing.' Toby Russell turned away and began to walk up the drive, the butler chasing after him with the black umbrella.
'I'll go away. You'll never see me again. You can bring David up exactly how you want.'
He stopped for a moment. Then, he turned, smiled and walked back toward her. 'Listen, you dirty slag, I want nothing to do with this boy. I will be marrying the Honourable Agatha Lyne next month. We don't want your boy hanging around this house, stinking the place with his rotten clothes and cheap stench. Now, be off, before I call the police.'
Rose reached into her bag. 'We're never leaving here, Toby.' She brought out the heavy pair of handcuffs and snapped one end on her wrist and the other on the wrought iron gate.
'Mother, what are you doing?'
'We're staying here until this man accepts you as his brother's son.'
Toby Russell smiled. 'Once a suffragette, always a suffragette, Rose. Walters, call the police and get me the chief constable on the phone.'
He walked away from the gates, his feet crunching on the gravel. Half way down the drive he began to laugh; a laugh which became louder and louder the nearer he walked to the house.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Sale, Manchester. April 2, 2016.
'My father talked to me about that night.' Mr Russell lit another cigarette, taking a long drag before he continued speaking. 'He was six and all he remembered was feeling cold and lonely. The police came and cut his mother away from the gate. He remembered trying to hold on to her as she was screaming his name, but the police dragged her away from him.'
The old man had tears in his eyes. 'He told me this when the cancer had spread to his liver and he was lying in the hospice waiting to die. It was as if he had buried it so deeply only the prospect of death had brought it back to him.'
'What happened, Dad?'
'The policemen pulled his mother away. Another woman took him and he spent the night locked up in a room in some home or other. He remembered crying all night, curling up on a rough blanket and screaming for his mother.
'Nobody came to see him. There was just a single window high up in the wall which the wind and rain battered against the whole night long. He lay there alone, crying for his mother.
In the morning, two men and a woman came for him. They took him to another home where there were lots of other boys. He told me he asked for his mother but they said she wasn't coming.'
'What did he do?'
'He didn't tell me. But it can't have been easy. He was six years old and all alone in the world. He didn't know how long he was in the home, but one day his great aunt came for him and he was taken by her to live in Worthing. She was an old woman, set in her ways, but kind to him, he said.'
'When did he see his mother again?'
'He told me he was 25 before he saw her again. He knew where she was, but his aunt didn't want him to see her, and besides, it was a long way to go.'
'What made him change his mind?'
'The war. The Second World War. He was training in Sheffield. He had a weekend off, so he took a train to the hospital in Derbyshire. He told me he walked in to the asylum and she recognised him immediately, as if he had only visited yesterday. She had been inside for nearly 20 years by then. Already an old woman, but she recognised him. They sat and talked. She never mentioned that night, perhaps she had buried it deep in her memories. She still thought she was married to David and he would come back one day from the war to take her home. She showed him the case and the letters. He never forgot the letters.'
The father took another drag from the cigarette, letting the smoke slide out from his mouth and rise to the ceiling. 'He died in 1973, before she did. I tried to tell her, but I don't think she understood. She was still living in 1916 I think, still waiting for David to come home from war.'
Mark left the couch and knelt down in front of his father. 'I'm sorry you had to live through this again, Dad.'
The eyes of Mr Russell were glazed with tears. 'My grandmother's obsession destroyed my father, it affected me. I can't let it you become obsessed by it, Mark. That's why I hid the case and the letters. I can't let the past destroy you too.'
'It won't, Dad. But we have to get rid of this demon that's haunted our family. If we don't solve it now, it will only haunt the next generation.'
The old man nodded.
Mark reached forward and hugged his father, the two of them rocking gently together.
As quietly as she could, Jayne walked out of the room, taking one last look at Mark and his father before she closed the door. They were still there, neither speaking to each other, just holding each other so the world could no longer pull them apart.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Didsbury, Manchester. April 2, 2016.
Jayne parked the car and opened the door to her home, expecting to be greeted by the mess she had left behind. Instead, a new laptop sat in the kitchen, the pictures were back on the walls and the place was spotlessly clean and tidy.
On the new computer, a Post-it note was stuck to the monitor. 'It's the least I could do.' It was signed Paul.
She opened the fridge. Two bottles of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Saint Clair lay on the top shelf next to a bottle of Dead Arm Shiraz.
She took out the Shiraz and opened it, letting it breathe for a few moments. Beside the sink, four new Riedel glasses were upside down drying. She poured a generous helping of the Dead Arm and inhaled the sticky jamminess of the wine.
Paul was a good man, she knew that. It was a shame it hadn’t worked out between the two of them. They just didn’t love each other any more. Jayne had finally come to terms with it, and, with the realisation, had come a strange kind of peace. She would do everything in her power to ensure they remained good friends. For twelve years they had been lovers, there was no point in now being enemies.
She switched on the new computer. After the requisite whirrs and swooshes, her homepage, brighter than before, smiled back at her. 'Finally, your computer skills have come in useful, Paul Jones. And here's to you.' She raised her glass to the ceiling and took a generous mouthful, rolling it around to coat her teeth and tongue. The blackcurrant and pepper lasted long after she had swallowed, filling her mouth with a jammy aftertaste.
'Not bad, Mr Jones. You know how to choose a decent drop or three.'
What should she do next? The investigation had reached a dead end. Without a wedding certificate, they would never be able to prove the marriage had existed. And with the last Lord Lappiter having died, a DNA test to prove a link between Mark and the family was no longer an option. Even then, all it would prove was that Mark was a descendent of David Russell, not that he was the rightful heir to the title and the estate.
Only two days left before the crown officially sequestered the estate. No doubt it would be used to pay off the national debt, but whatever the size of the inheritance, it would
only have the impact of a raindrop on the deserts of the Sahara.
Her mobile rang.
She was tempted to ignore it. It rang again, louder this time, rattling the edge of the counter where she had put it. She drank another mouthful from her glass. The wine was beginning to open up nicely.
It rang once more, and shivered its way to the edge of the counter, dropping like an electronic lemming.
She caught it and pressed the answer button. 'Thanks for all you did. And thanks especially for the wine.'
'Mrs Sinclair?'
It was Mark's voice. 'Hello, Mark… I thought you were somebody else.'
'Mrs Sinclair. I've spoken with my father and we've decided to…'
Here it was again. This was the second time she was going to be removed from this case. She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the bad news.
'We've decided we want to stop. For good, this time.'
There it was, the news she had been expecting ever since she had left their house in Sale.
Mark continued. 'It's no use dragging up the past, Mrs Sinclair, sometimes it just wants to stay buried.'
'But you wanted to know, Mark, you needed to know.'
'That was before I realised how much it upset my dad. The past is dead and buried, Mrs Sinclair, let's leave it that way.'
'But it isn't. We drag our pasts round with us all the time. For some people, it's a joy, a remembrance of wonderful times or marvellous people. For others it's a terrible burden, dragging a terrible albatross of misfortune through life, a weight they can neither discard nor abandon. Only the truth can set you free, Mr Russell, only the truth.'
'My father has carried the weight for his whole life, Mrs Sinclair, I can't ask him to continue any more. I must share it with him, don't you understand. We'll never find the truth. He knows that, he's always known it.'
'But, Mr Russell…'
'We've decided, Mrs Sinclair. My father thanks you for all your efforts on his behalf, but we have gone far enough now. It's time to stop. We will, of course, abide by our agreement and pay all your expenses so far for the investigation, my father insists. Thank you once again, and goodbye.'
The phone went dead. Jayne slammed it down in frustration. There had to be an answer, the truth was always out there, just waiting to be found. All she had to do was discover what rock it was hidden under.
And then a voice in her head said, 'Give this one a rest, Jayne, you can't win all of them.' It was her old sergeant counselling her as he always did when she was frustrated with a case going nowhere.
For once, she would listen to the voice.
She picked up her wine and finished it off in one gulp, pouring herself another generous helping. Perhaps Paul had also left her some chocolate?
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Buxton, near Manchester. April 3, 2016.
Her father wasn't in his usual chair in front of the picture window. For a moment Jayne panicked. Where was he? Had he gone missing again?
She found an attendant and asked to know where he was.
The woman looked in the usual spot and then pointed out of the window to two people sitting on a bench enjoying the early spring sunshine.
Jayne looked closer. It was her father, sitting next to a woman with carefully coiffured hair. Her father was laughing, pointing to something in the newspaper lying between them.
Her father was laughing.
Jayne's wine headache vanished in a second. Happiness was a much better analgesic than any tablet.
Out of the corner of his eye, her father caught sight of Jayne and waved for her to join them. She walked out through the open doors onto the patio. She saw the woman face-to-face now. A lovely, warm, open face, a shock of white hair, carefully coordinated clothes, and long, elegant fingers. So unlike her own mother.
'This is Mrs Thompson, Jayne.' He turned to the woman. 'And this is Jayne, my daughter.'
They both said, 'pleased to meet you' at the same time, followed by an awkward silence and laughter.
'After nearly a year in this den of iniquity, I've finally met somebody who can do the Guardian crossword quicker than me.'
'Don't exaggerate, Robert, you did get five down.' Jayne noticed an elegantly manicured hand rested gently on her father's. For a moment, an absurd wave of jealousy flowed up through her body, and then she dismissed it. 'That's great, Dad. Have you been here for long, Mrs Thompson?'
'Call me, Vera, love, your father is so old-fashioned sometimes.' There was a hint of Lancashire in the voice. A warmth in tone at odds with the carefully cultivated image the woman presented.
'I'm Jayne.'
'Me, Tarzan,' her father joked, looking for a reaction from Vera. She obliged with a big, warm-hearted laugh and gentle dig in his ribs.
'Have you been here long, Vera?'
'Just arrived. Met your father a couple of days ago.'
Her father laughed. 'I found somebody had finished the crossword yesterday before I'd even looked at it. Well, I was so annoyed and then I found out the culprit was Vera, and we hit it off straight away.'
This was the happiest she had seen her father in the last year. The joy in his eyes made her so happy. 'That's great, Dad.'
'Problem is, the crossword used to last me all day, but between the two of us, we finish it off before the elevenses come around.'
'Do you want me to bring the book of Guardian crosswords next time I come? Vera and you can work your way through it.'
Her father looked across at Vera, who nodded. 'That would be champion, lass.'
'Great, I'll bring two next time I come.'
'You must meet my daughter, Sharon. She doesn't come as often as you, lives too far away, in Birmingham.'
Jayne saw a sadness behind the smiling eyes of the old woman.
'Lass, it's a lovely day, why don't you take a shot of us sitting on the bench?’
Vera became coy, dabbing at her hair like a 13-year-old. 'I couldn't, Robert, I'm not ready.'
'You look grand, lass. Go on, Jayne.'
Jayne noticed her father had changed. Gone was the old shirt with its frayed collar and the tea-stained cardigan. He was now wearing a fresh shirt and tie, with the V-necked merino wool jumper Jayne had given him at Christmas. He even had sharp creases in the centre of his trousers.
She brought up her phone and found the camera app. He leant into Vera and they both smiled. She clicked the button and said, 'One more, for luck.'
'We all need a bit of luck, don't we?' said her father adjusting his position on the bench to lean in closer to Vera.
She pressed the button again, stepping forward to show them both the result.
'Will you look at my hair? Seems like something the cat's dragged in.'
'Get away with you, lass. You look stunning. Now, let me take a picture of you with our Jayne. Two roses sitting in a garden.'
'Your father always says the sweetest things.'
Jayne handed the phone to her father. She saw how old his fingers were. Creased and long, with misshapen nails from a lifetime of hard work. Why should she be jealous of his moments of happiness with this woman? She put her arm around Vera's shoulder and held her close.
'You look like sisters,' her father said.
Vera blushed. ’Enough with the sweet talk, Robert.'
Her father fiddled with the phone, trying to find the right button to press. 'Which one is it, lass, these new-fangled lemons are so fiddly?'
'It's an Apple, Dad.'
'I know, lass,' said her father archly, 'but it could be a Cox's pippin for all the use I can make of it. There's a picture stuck to the screen.'
He handed the phone back to her. Somehow, he had entered the gallery of shots and found the pictures of the old hotel register in Gretna Green. She looked for the line with the words 'Captain and Mrs Russell' written on it, but it wasn't there. This must be one of the other pages she had shot with her phone.
And then she saw it, staring right at her, jumping out from the page onto the screen
.
'Dad, I have to go, something's come up.'
Her father's face fell. 'Of course, lass, come back soon.'
Jayne ran through the patio doors, turned and ran back. 'Nice to meet you, Vera,' she shouted, before rushing off again without waiting for a response.
Chapter Seventy
Sale, Manchester. April 3, 2016.
Once again, the curtain flickered as she walked up the short pathway to the front door. She pressed the doorbell and the door opened almost immediately as if Mark had been waiting for her.
'Mark, I…'
'I told you, Mrs Sinclair. It's over, we no longer want to continue the investigation.'
'But please, Mark, I've discovered something new.'
'Mrs Sinclair, we can't keep doing this. My father is an old man, he's had enough.'
Mark began to close the door, Jayne put her foot in the gap to stop him, a trick she'd used many times in the police.
'Please take your foot away or I will call the police.'
'Mark, just two minutes of your time; if you tell me afterwards to go, I will, I promise.'
'She just wants her money, like the others.' The bitter whiny voice of Mark's father echoed in the hallway.
'I don't want your money, Mark, you don't even have to pay my expenses. Just give me two minutes, it's all I ask, just two minutes.'
Mark's face was set. Jayne took her foot away, he moved to close the door.
'Just two minutes and we'll never see you again?' It was the hidden father again.
'That's correct.'
'And we won't have to pay your expenses?'
The father was as stingy as ever. What did it matter? 'You won't have to pay my expenses.'
The father appeared at the door beside Mark. 'Well, you'd better come in then, otherwise the neighbours will start talking.'
The old man walked away. Mark opened the door wider without saying a word. Jayne stepped into the dark, dingy hallway. God, how she disliked this house. Mark must have hated growing up here, just him and his father and this.