by Tom Bradby
After they had finished eating and he had enjoyed her compliments, Professor Malcolm produced a packet of Marlboro Lights and a lighter. He offered her one, which she took and suggested they step out on to the terrace.
He looked funny smoking, though also like an habitué. He noticed her smiling.
‘Man cannot live by bread and water alone, you know. It’s the wine. I can never resist when I’ve had a drink.’
The night was cool and the light on the terrace attracted a moth that fluttered above their heads. Julia walked to the edge of the steps, sucking in the smoke. Mixing it with the fresh air made her light-headed.
She watched him inhale deeply, lean his head back, his Roman nose pointing upwards, and blow the smoke into the night sky.
‘Your mother is proud of you,’ he said.
Julia took another drag of her own cigarette. ‘She’s a selfless woman.’
‘You feel she interferes.’
‘No, not really. She’s at pains not to, actually.’ She looked across the hedge. One of the lights was on upstairs in the Ford house, probably in Alan’s bedroom. ‘But I sometimes feel that she protects me from my father, just as she did when he was alive, and it makes it worse.’ Julia sucked in the smoke again, but it was less satisfying. ‘I don’t think you really understand.’ He was about to answer, but she cut him off. ‘I mean intellectually you do, but emotionally you don’t.’
‘Well, I never had a father. So in that sense you’re right.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’
‘No, come on …’ He shrugged. ‘I wasn’t scoring a point. I’m just agreeing. You’re right. There’s a difference between understanding and feeling. There is emotional intelligence.’ He looked at her. ‘You were an only child.’
‘It’s not so much that.’
Professor Malcolm waited for her to go on.
‘When I was a teenager,’ she said, ‘say fourteen or fifteen, I was horrible to my mother. I mean, really horrendous. I blamed her for everything, somehow, as though she’d driven my father away.’ Julia turned to him. ‘I’m not saying this was logical.’
‘Being a teenager isn’t logical.’
‘I lionized my father and hated my mother.’
‘That was inevitable. If your father had been alive, you’d probably have hated them both.’
‘Perhaps. At some point I think you do reject parental influence, but then, later on, you realize how much you have taken from them, good and bad. You’re fashioned in their image, like it or not.’
‘Forgive me, but I’m not sure I follow.’
Julia took another drag of the cigarette, blowing the smoke from the side of her mouth, slowly. ‘After the skiing holiday you saw on the video, we went into a shop at Edinburgh railway station and there was a small doll there in a tartan dress, which I wanted. My father wouldn’t buy it for me, so I stole it.’
‘I knew you were a criminal.’
She smiled. ‘I don’t know why I stole it, but I did. Dad didn’t catch sight of it until about twenty minutes into the journey to London.’
‘He was angry?’
‘No, he was totally calm. He made us get off the train, wait for two hours to get another one back to Edinburgh and then he took me to the shop and forced me to say sorry. We had to stay an extra night in the city and … we didn’t have much money.’ She waited a moment. He was still frowning in confusion. ‘Look,’ she went on, ‘we’re all adrift in the adult world, yes?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘For better or worse he’s my fixed point.’
‘Role model.’
‘If you want, though I think it’s more complicated than that. He wasn’t an easy man, I’d be the first to admit, but there was something about him that infected people. He … radiated belief. He believed in right and wrong, decency, honour – all the things no one believes in any more.’
‘Integrity.’
‘Yes. Integrity most of all. You know, I couldn’t say this to anyone else. It would sound po-faced and naïve, but it’s true. I once tried to explain it to someone at school and they teased me about it for months. Everyone did.’
‘And your fears gradually invalidate not just every memory that came before his death but everything that you have done since.’
‘You know, I don’t really want to talk—’
‘And your mother protecting his image makes it worse, because you don’t know what she’s really protecting you from.’
‘Discussion over, please.’ Julia had not intended to speak sharply.
‘It’s okay, Julia. I will not wrest control of this from you.’
‘Please don’t make it about that.’
He raised his hands. His cigarette had burned right down and he was holding it gingerly between two long fingers. He moved along the terrace. The tree-tops on the common were ghostly in the moonlight, a sea of blackness beneath them.
‘The search of the common will begin on Monday.’
Julia did not respond.
‘And the police cannot find Pascoe anywhere.’
She waited for him to continue, but he did not. She tried to understand whether he was attaching significance to Pascoe’s disappearance, but it was hard to clear her mind of memories and concentrate on rational thought.
‘What do you hope to prove by the search?’
‘It’s not a question of proving anything. If we can find the body, it will clear up the biggest mystery of all. It might start making sense of things.’
Julia felt the same atavistic sense of fear at the thought of being confronted with Alice’s remains after all this time. ‘I don’t think you should go ahead with this search.’
‘Why not?’
‘You have people’s goodwill – you heard what Alan said. I mean, won’t a search alert them, put them on the defensive?’
‘I don’t see why. It’s about evidence. Without evidence, there can be no case.’
‘I know, but …’
‘And it’s about clearing up a mystery. Come on,’ he said. He threw his cigarette out towards the hedge. ‘Let’s do the clearing up.’ Julia waited, momentarily reluctant to follow him in.
Mac had forgotten about his date with Susannah, the receptionist from the gym.
‘You’ve forgotten,’ she said.
‘No.’
She smiled. ‘You have.’
‘No. Really.’ Mac looked down at his jeans and T-shirt. ‘I always dress like this.’
Susannah was wearing a tight-fitting pair of black trousers and a simple white top. Her short blonde hair had been newly washed and dried and she wore light makeup.
‘I thought we said eight thirty?’
She shook her head, not losing her cool, apparently still amused.
‘Okay, hold on, I’m there.’ Mac went to get his jacket and slip on the old pair of loafers he wore to go downstairs and get the milk.
‘Do I get to come in?’
‘No.’
‘What are you hiding?’
He was back at the door, checking that his wallet, mobile and keys were all in his jacket pocket. ‘My true nature.’ He pulled the door shut behind him and they walked down the first few flights of stairs in silence.
‘You were working today?’
She shook her head again, still laughing at him. ‘No, otherwise I wouldn’t be finished yet, would I?’
Of course, she worked the evening shift.
‘What have you been doing?’
Mac shrugged. ‘Oh, nothing much. A lot of work. Nothing much.’
They went into the bistro downstairs and were shown to a small wooden table in the corner beside the window overlooking the pavement. A fan turned overhead and Mac looked at the black and white picture of a couple kissing on a Parisian street, which he had seen countless times. For a Saturday night, it was far from busy, but the food was unspectacular. It was simply a convenient venue for them both.
Mac’s mobile phone rang and he took it out
of his pocket and mouthed an apology at Susannah. It was only when he heard Rigby’s rough voice that he realized he’d been hoping it was Julia.
‘Could you hold on a minute?’ he told Rigby. He walked outside. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Macintosh, I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you on a Saturday night,’ Rigby said, with uncommon civility.
Mac was on his guard.
‘I need you to be in my office at nine o’clock on Monday morning with this case typed up and ready to go. Sir Robert Quemoy, the Permanent Secretary at the MoD, will be there and you will need to brief him, then you’ll be straight out to Cyprus, so pack your bags with some shorts. There’s something we need you on out there.’
‘With respect, sir, the case won’t be finished by then. I can happily brief Sir Robert but—’
‘I’m sure you’ll be finished by then, Mac.’
‘No, sir, I won’t. The girl has been ill, so I’ve not even got to speak to her yet.’
‘Macintosh.’
‘Yes.’
‘Be in the office, on Monday morning, with this report finished and typed up and your bags packed.’
The phone buzzed in Mac’s ear. He put it back in his pocket and returned to join Susannah.
‘Work?’ she asked.
‘Er, yes.’
‘A long face.’
Mac smiled. Susannah was looking at a menu, so he picked up the one in front of him and did the same.
‘You don’t give much of yourself away, Macintosh.’
‘Yes. I mean … no. I’m sorry.’
She looked into his eyes, but he dropped his gaze to the menu again. He knew that she would be willing to sleep with him tonight and he had been looking forward to it, but he wasn’t going to now and this meal was going to seem a long one. He waved the waiter over. As usual, Julia Havilland was going to spoil simpler pleasures.
*
When he got back to the flat that night, after making his excuses to a confused and probably hurt Susannah, Mac called the Rose and Crown and asked to be put through to Professor Malcolm’s room. The phone was picked up on the third ring and Mac was grateful that he sounded awake. ‘Professor, I’m sorry to bother you so late.’
‘Mac. What is it?’
‘I was just thinking. Did you say earlier that you suspected Mitchell Havilland of these murders?’
There was no reply.
‘I mean if Pascoe is innocent, then …’
‘Mac, I did not say that. I did not say that.’
‘No, okay. I’m sorry.’
‘And please don’t talk like that.’
‘No. I’m sorry, of course not. It’s just you raised the possibility that Havilland might not have been murdered by the enemy.’ Mac picked up the phone and moved to his chair by the window. There was a light breeze. ‘I wondered, if it had been one of his own side, why someone might have wanted …’
‘Please, Mac. Don’t wonder. Not about that.’
‘Right.’
‘Goodnight, Mac.’
‘Goodnight, Professor.’
Julia pulled the curtain back, ready to shut the window and lock it, but, for a moment, glancing into the de la Rues’ garden, she was convinced that she saw a figure – Pascoe – watching.
But it was only a pot, in the corner of the hedge.
She fastened the window and pulled the curtain shut, then walked to the door and switched off the light. She couldn’t remember if she’d locked the front door and was forced to go downstairs to check.
It was locked.
Julia moved quickly back upstairs to her room, sat on the bed, ran her hand through her hair. She lay down and closed her eyes, aware that she no longer looked forward to sleep.
Shortly after lunch on Sunday, Mac was sitting at his desk in Woolwich, head bent over Julia’s file. He’d summarized most of the relevant sections and thought he had done his work reasonably thoroughly. He had not interviewed the staff at the embassy, but he did have their statements and Julia didn’t dispute either their accounts or those given to him by the sergeants. Mac had just finished typing up a section on the background and there seemed little doubt that the initial argument had arisen over different points of view about how the source had been treated and what might have contributed to his detection.
The gaping hole in this file was any indication as to what defence Julia’s lawyers might advance in the event of a contested court-martial.
Mac had phoned Julia three or four times today, at home and on her mobile, but had been met only with answering-machines.
He tried her mobile once more, but with no luck. He leant back, gazed at Rigby’s office and wondered what Sir Robert Quemoy would ask him tomorrow. Whatever it was, he was going to have to stall, because there was no way he was going to allow himself to be packed off to Cyprus.
Mac chucked his pencil on to the desk and closed the file. He got up, picked up his car keys and walked out, locking the office behind him. He went downstairs slowly, deep in thought.
Outside, in the courtyard, Mac could see Maurice sitting on the Registry steps, smoking a cigarette. He walked over. The large clock-tower left this section in shade.
‘Good afternoon, Maurice.’
‘Good afternoon, Macintosh.’
Maurice had almost finished his cigarette and Mac noticed how his hand shook as he put yellow fingers to his mouth. His glasses were dirty and dandruff was collecting on the shoulders of a thin blue short-sleeved shirt.
‘What brings you in here on a Sunday?’ Maurice asked. ‘Still looking for file six six seven forty-three forward slash B?’
‘Showing off your memory again, Maurice. You’ll be telling me next you were once on Mastermind.’
‘Semi-finals.’
‘Yes, I know. Registry doesn’t know how lucky it is.’
Maurice pointed his cigarette at Mac. ‘None of you know how lucky you are.’
‘No, well …’ Mac turned to face the sun.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Maurice went on.
‘Am I still looking for the file? Yes.’
‘Maybe it’s gone to the shredder.’
Mac turned back. ‘Is that a joke, Maurice?’
‘No.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, what else happens to a file like that that goes out and never comes back?’
‘Why put it in Registry in the first place if you’re going to shred it?’
‘Because you have to. But if you take it out again, you can just say you lost it.’
Maurice finished his cigarette and tossed it on to the tarmac. They both watched the last of the smoke rising from it.
‘You talk about this file, Maurice, as though you were familiar with it.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well … I can always recall anything that interests me. Remind me what it was about.’
‘The death of Mitchell Havilland. Mad Mitch, who died in the Falklands War. Got the Victoria Cross.’
Maurice nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Dashed out to save a wounded corporal.’ He shook his head. ‘Most unlikely.’
‘So you remember the file?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Come on, Maurice.’
The man’s expression, which had been playful, was serious now. ‘It’s not much of a job, Macintosh, but it’s the one I have.’
There was a black wrought-iron fence next to the white stone steps and Mac propped himself against it.
‘How could I persuade you to tell me?’
‘You couldn’t. You’re a detective. If I tell you, you’ll act upon the information.’
Mac took out the notebook from his pocket, opened it to the right page and handed it to Maurice. He looked at it. ‘What?’
‘That’s a list of those present when Havilland was killed, isn’t it?’
Maurice glanced at it for a few seconds more, then handed it back. ‘Why are two of the names crossed out?’
‘They’re d
ead.’
‘Bad for them.’
‘Very bad for their wives. I suspect both of them were murdered.’
Maurice was hesitating. ‘Don’t get into something you don’t understand, Mac.’ He pointed at the book. ‘Look at the names.’
Mac glanced at the page in front of him.
‘Battle still raging,’ Maurice went on, ‘spread out all along the ridge. This group trying to assault a machine-gun post at the far end, overlooking Port Stanley. Havilland dies saving a corporal.’ Maurice was looking at him. ‘That’s the official version, right?’
‘Right.’
Maurice pointed at the book again. ‘Look at the names. Havilland, Ford and the other two on the left. All officers. Havilland is the battalion commander. Only four soldiers. Four officers, four soldiers.’
Mac was still frowning.
‘It’s not your average military formation, is it, Macintosh? Not for a battle.’
Maurice walked up the stone steps and in through the swing door. Mac followed him but, back behind the safety of his counter, Maurice raised a hand. ‘No, Mac, that’s all I can do for you.’
‘One more thing.’
Maurice sighed.
‘Simple thing.’
‘Go on.’
‘I need to find one of these men. Claverton and Danes are dead and Pascoe is missing so I must get hold of Wilkes. Normally I go straight to the regiment, but this lot won’t co-operate.’
‘There’s a surprise.’
‘So how do I find him? The MoD records office will have some kind of address for him, right?’
Maurice was looking down at the register open in front of him. ‘Yes, should do. Won’t be open until Monday, though.’
As Mac left, he turned back and saw Maurice pointing up to the notice saying ‘Sin Bin’. He shouted, ‘And bring back your own bloody files!’
On Sunday night, Julia was watching television, sitting in the chair closest to it. The detective drama had just finished and she couldn’t be bothered to get up. Her mother and Alan were in the kitchen, Caroline playing ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ on the piano.
The news came on. The first headline was, ‘Welham Common case to be reopened; new search for child’s body tomorrow.’
Julia switched off the television. She got up, shut the door, then switched it on again.