Shadows to Ashes

by Tori de Clare

  He sat at traffic lights, a blaze of red in front of him, and somehow remembered that his phone was cluttered with calls. To pass the time, and as a token gesture to his logical mind, he took his phone from his pocket and listened to the last message left by Lorie. A tirade of garbled broken words poured into his ear. The reception had been a bad one. He was getting half a tale. These words remained with him when the message finished and his phone told him the message had ended: Your fault . . . At my mum’s . . . Why would you . . . Where . . . How could you ignore . . . My blood.

  Blood? Solomon hated blood. The sight, the taste. Even the word. What was she talking about? It seemed time to call her now. To tell her to calm herself and deal with her own life and leave him alone. He’d have to be blunt. So he called and didn’t get an answer. He called again only to get the same result. Solomon glanced about him. The lights were green. When did that happen? No one was around. He did a U-turn and stepped hard on the accelerator. His clock displayed 00:56. At 01:07 he pulled into the street where Lorie’s mother lived. An ambulance with warning lights zipping repeatedly along the top of the van, was parked half way down the street outside Kathryn Taylor’s house.

  A few people had dribbled from the surrounding houses in dressing gowns. Lights were going on. Curtains were twitching. Solomon crawled towards the ambulance. Its back doors were wide open. He stopped ten metres away and watched for a few seconds. Then the front door to the house yawned open and two men in uniform were at each end of a stretcher, steering it through the door. Light from the hall poured down on the scene. Solomon saw a white sheet covering a body, soaked in bright blood.

  His stomach recoiled but he rolled closer to the ambulance until a guy with a bald head turned and held up a hand, signalling for him to stop. His view from here wasn’t great, not with a thin line of bodies in front of the car, but the person now exiting the house caught his eye. It was a policewoman in uniform, clutching a note, a small piece of paper which she was studying. Solomon narrowed his eyes. The policewoman, he knew. Kerry Marshall. He recognised the bit of paper too. Ragged stuck-up strips along the top that he’d torn from a pad in Sydney. Coincidence?

  Solomon was keen to leave, but he put his hood up and rolled the window down. The guy with the bald head looked over.

  ‘Hey, I’m Lorie’s friend. Do you know what happened here?’

  ‘Dunno, mate. All I know is, a load of furniture was dumped in the front garden a few days ago. Lorie’s apparently. I helped Kathryn load it into the garage, like. We’re friends, you know. Then her daughter appears from nowhere. Came over to my house all aggressive, asking what kind of relationship I had with her mother.’ He shook his head. ‘Now this. Terrible.’

  The guy glanced back at the ambulance and looked as though he was itching to lunge forward and ask questions. Kerry Marshall was walking down the drive.

  Solomon slipped the car into reverse and backed away, slinking into the night.

  20

  By the time Naomi woke up the next day, she was struggling to understand her surroundings. Home? Yes, home. The relief! She couldn’t recall a single dream throughout the night. No nightmares. By some miracle, she’d slept deeply. She couldn’t even remember getting into bed, and yet here she was, comfy and warm, Camilla’s voice seeping through the walls and window from the front garden, as if nothing had happened, talking sternly to the dog.

  Naomi’s first thought was Dan. She’d heard no news about the case. Her second thought was Solomon. Third was the note. The thoughts churned together. It seemed so long ago now but it had only been a few days since the note had landed on the doormat. If Solomon hadn’t sent it, who had? She rummaged around in her bedside drawer until she found it, then she read it again.

  If you want to corner the king, you have to be in his game. I’ll help you.

  She wanted to corner the king all right. Wanted to strangle or suffocate him until he admitted that Dan was innocent and agreed to help him.

  The door opened a fraction and a head appeared.

  ‘Ah, you’re with us, at last.’ It was Henry, smiling, holding a steaming cup.

  She put the note under the covers out of view. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Lunch time.’ Henry walked inside the room and closed the door and deposited the cup beside her. His voice was very low, which seemed odd when she was fully awake and Camilla was yelling at the dog in the garden. ‘Annabel kept wanting to wake you, but I asked her to leave you to rest.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  His expression changed now. All the jolliness vanished and Henry turned solemn. He sat on the bed and looked at her. ‘Naomi, we need to talk. You said last night that no one hurt you. Is that the truth?’

  ‘I told you, yes.’

  ‘Other than that you were very withdrawn and I tried to say what I needed to say, but you weren’t taking anything in.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Look, no one knows.’ He glanced at the door.

  ‘Knows what?’

  ‘That you were taken by that man.’

  She didn’t respond immediately. His message filtered through. ‘What? The police –’

  ‘Not even the police know, Naomi. Not your mother, not Annabel. After everything we’ve been through and Annabel being pregnant –’

  ‘Dad. What on earth’s going on?’

  He folded his fingers together and Naomi sat up, only to discover that her head ached all around the back.

  ‘It’s complicated.’ He nodded. ‘Your mother got a text from you, only it was him of course, saying you’d gone to stay with your friend.’

  ‘Got a text when?’

  ‘When you should have been in court. I was here, with Annabel, frantic with worry, and your mother was out. When she came back, she told us you were fine. She was relieved you hadn’t testified. She thought you’d listened to her advice. Annabel and me, well, we didn’t know what to think and then he rang me, the guy, using your phone.’

  ‘Was that when he put me on to you?’

  ‘Exactly, yes. Maybe I should have told your mother, but . . . I just couldn’t, Naomi.’ His tone was loaded with apology.

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘And Annabel. She’s had enough upset. It isn’t good for her, so it seemed best to go along with your mother’s story for her sake.’

  ‘Dad, I agree, OK? I’m glad. I don’t want Annabel or Joel dragged further into this and I’m sick of talking about it. But the police?’

  He sighed now and stared at his hands. His thumbs were circling each other. ‘I thought he had you – Vincent Solomon. I know you’ve been worried about something happening linked to that man. So I contacted him demanding to know what was going on. Foolish of me. I fully intended to call the police too.’

  There was a long pause. ‘And?’

  ‘And he insisted that the abduction had nothing to do with him. He was furious about it, very agitated. He said that involving the police could endanger your life rather than save it and he wanted time to look for you. Well, I didn’t know what to do. I was out of my mind. And way out of my depth, needless to say.’

  ‘You can’t trust Solomon, Dad.’

  ‘Of course not, but I did trust that he knows more about criminals than me and how to deal with them. I panicked. I said I’d give him twelve hours to come up with something. I accept I did the wrong thing. I should never have rung him in the first place, but having told him you were missing, it was too late to un-tell him. I was in a horrible position by then.’

  Naomi tried to absorb what he was saying. ‘So you believe that he had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘Yes, I believe that. His reaction was genuine in my opinion. Solomon insisted on doing the negotiating. He said I’d mess up and that he couldn’t trust me to do it. Believe me, I wanted to collect you last night. I did not want some gangster responsible for your life.’

  ‘Who paid?’

  ‘He did. Again, he insisted. I just wanted you home. I didn’t care
about the money.’

  Camilla yelled the dog’s name from the garden.

  ‘It’ll save you explaining things to Mum.’

  Henry shrugged. ‘Well, yes.’

  Naomi pushed her hair off her face. ‘I don’t know what to say. It’s not like I trust the police, not after everything that’s happened. I really don’t want them involved.’

  ‘What if this man does the same thing to someone else, for money?’

  ‘Dad, the thought of giving a statement and spending time in those interview rooms . . . I can’t do it again.’

  ‘We could be prosecuted for failing to report a crime. A very serious one.’

  Naomi shrugged. ‘So let them prosecute me. I’m past caring. I’d rather take care of myself and leave the law out of it. They’ve let me down and let Dan down. Badly.’

  Henry nodded and he looked away, unable to meet her gaze. He began to rotate his wedding band, a sure sign that he was anxious. He drew breath to speak and then said nothing.

  Naomi’s insides responded. She felt a chill. ‘What is it?’

  Henry was reluctant to speak. ‘Dan’s been found guilty.’

  The world darkened. Her arms tingled. ‘No!’

  ‘I’m so sorry. The judge has deferred sentencing. It’ll be next week.’

  ‘He’s innocent.’

  Henry could do nothing but apologise again. He reached out and touched Naomi’s hand. ‘He’s been sent to Strangeways Prison. They’re saying he could get fifteen to twenty years.’

  Twenty? As in two decades?

  Naomi’s eyes blurred into Henry’s hands. Tears that welled from nowhere, dripped onto the bed. ‘Twenty? For doing nothing wrong.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ Henry said. ‘Sorry to load this on you when your plate’s already full, but you need to know.’

  Naomi stared at him now. He stroked her hand. His face was starting to fade, as if she couldn’t hold on to it.

  Twenty years? Twenty years!

  ‘Your friend Kerry rang this morning with unexpected news. Sad news, really.’

  Naomi didn’t want more news. Too much news for her brain already, and her eyes were spilling tears.

  ‘What news, Dad?’ she said, resentful of the load he was piling on her.

  ‘I’m afraid Lorie took her own life last night.’

  ‘Lorie?’ She was pulled away from Dan briefly. The name felt strange on her lips. It’d been a while since she’d spoken Lorie’s name, or thought about her. Nathan dead. Now Lorie? Was it sad news? She wasn’t sure. She said nothing, felt nothing except an empty kind of numbness.

  But Dan . . .

  Thoughts of him made the room look dim and carried Henry away. Naomi closed her eyes and lay back on her pillow. And the life emptied out of her.

  21

  I sentence you to sixteen years in Her Majesty’s Prison, Manchester, formally known as Strangeways. Judgement day. The day of sentencing following a guilty verdict. Dan had barely heard the judge’s farcical words summing up how evil his actions had been, how he’d robbed his own mother of a son. Brother’s blood on his hands, blah, blah, blah. But that line, I sentence you to sixteen years in Her Majesty’s Prison, Manchester, formally known as Strangeways had come at him from nowhere and impacted him violently, affecting his breathing. He expected to recall the words over and over, day after day, anticipated that they’d haunt his dreams for sixteen years or however long he must endure the place. Everyone knew that with good behaviour, it was half the actual sentence plus three months, minus the months spent in custody. Even so, it would be the best part of eight years. Inconceivable.

  His parents had made the journey to court for the sentencing, plus two cousins and an uncle. But no Naomi. He’d feverishly scanned the room. She wasn’t there. He didn’t even ask himself where she was, why she hadn’t come. Too painful. He told himself it was best she wasn’t there because this was the end for them. It was difficult enough for him to look at the agony in his family’s eyes, the way his mum was warding off tears in some valiant attempt to be strong for him. So he was trying not to react when the sentence was dished out, for their sake. But he found it difficult to breathe and his lawyer passed him his inhaler.

  I sentence you to sixteen years in Her Majesty’s Prison, Manchester, formally known as Strangeways.

  Dan had been led away in handcuffs. The wait for transportation had been a long one. The wind was howling bitterly in the bay where convicts were being loaded up like cattle. Dan stood waiting to be dumped inside what everyone in prison referred to as the sweat box. A little cell inside a big van, used to transport prisoners securely – men and women in a situation of extreme stress who were crapping themselves enough to release fearful farts into a confined space; whose bodies were oozing perspiration from every available pore. The place where some prisoners smashed their heads into the walls to try to force a diversion to hospital and delay a return to prison. Sweat boxes! Smelly, disgusting claustrophobic cages where you could all but taste the dread and doom.

  Mercifully, the drive to Strangeways wasn’t a long one, but it was long enough for Dan to try and grasp just how long eight years really was. How it might feel. His attempt felt like grabbing and trying to hold onto a fistful of dry sand. It was also long enough for him to feel intensely sick as he slipped around on a plastic ledge without a seatbelt. It was long enough to wonder how he’d survive in a category A, all-male prison, reputedly one of the toughest prisons in Britain. A place that had been rebuilt in the 1990s following the worst riot and the most severe damage sustained by any prison in history, where – during a three-and-a-half-week period of unreserved anarchy, with prison officers unable to penetrate the place – it had been slashed, trashed, battered and burnt, the roof tiles having been stripped and launched at anyone who resembled a figure of authority. Nickname, The Dark Star. Central dome with five dim and cheerless wings, each with multiple floors. That’s where Dan was heading.

  He’d spent the last five months on remand in Forest Bank, a category B prison. It was hell, sure it was. It was prison – enough said! But Dan hadn’t run into any trouble in Forest Bank either and had managed to keep his head down and his nose clean. None of the screws – prison language for guards – had treated him badly. He’d even met some decent cons who just happened to have acted indecently in ill-thought-out moments of madness or desperation.

  So, without a solid conviction behind him, Forest Bank had been a waiting room really. Life on hold with Dan passing time. Doing time. Any way he could. He’d had his own room. Attended classes and workshops. Trained in the gym. Seen regular visitors who’d buoyed him up, kept him afloat. Met with his solicitor, prepared for trial. Here was the big ‘but’ though – he hadn’t had one-on-one visits with Naomi. His lawyer had strongly advised him not to for this primary reason: she was to be the main witness for the defence in court. So it had killed both of them, but they’d kept apart.

  The promise of the trial was the candle in the dimness, the key to the bolted doors, the dawn following the long, dark night, the return to normality. It was the chance to prove his innocence before resuming his life with Naomi again. While Vincent Solomon had popped into his thoughts frequently during those stretched five months, Dan had dismissed him every time. Fact: it was prudent to think positively, and with a psychopath in your head, what room was there for hope? And without hope, what else was there?

  And now the candle had gone out, the key had been buried. The dawn would never come. And all hope drained out of Dan while he skidded around on a plastic ledge, needing to puke.

  By the time Dan was led to his cell on that first day – the day when hope extinguished and he fought to avoid eye contact with other prisoners who were glaring at him like he was the new, unwelcome kid on the block – the details were already bleeding together. He knew there’d been yawning gaps of time waiting for this, waiting for that. A strip search where every orifice was examined, an interview, a medical, rules for everything, the ha
nding over of his private stuff, a number issued, a wing, a floor, a cell within that floor. And warnings. Lots of warnings. If, then stuff. If you do this, then this will happen. If you don’t do this, then you can expect that. That kind of thing. All a horrible blur as he stood now, inhaling the stench of too many male bodies with too few showers between them, waiting for the officer to open his cell on B wing.

  The door opened. The screw stood back and extended an arm.

  ‘OK, fella, in you go.’

  Dan walked inside. It didn’t smell too good in here either. He looked at a cramped cell. Two bunks on the left, stacked up, a toilet and a sink. A desk and a few drawers with all the surfaces cluttered with items like toiletries, a comb, books. There was a small wall-mounted TV and an overwhelming lack of privacy and space. But what filled the room the most was the other person. On the bottom bunk was a guy watching TV, some programme about life in the sun. Made sense when all you saw in this place was monotonous concrete and bricks and a bit of sky in precious moments. The guy glanced at Dan briefly, nodded once, got right back to the sun, sea and sand and to the female presenter whose top was slouching ludicrously low.

  ‘Vic Meredith.’ The screw said, pointing to the guy on the bottom bunk. Vic Meredith didn’t move. Both his arms were jammed behind his head. He was transfixed, and not on Dan. Dan nodded at him anyway, his heart in his throat. He was thinking about having to use the toilet with a stranger in the room, in close proximity. ‘Play nice, you two. Makes life a lot sweeter. Vic will show you the ropes, answer your questions, right, Vic?’

  Vic Meredith was unresponsive. The dream of a life in the sun was blazing in his head, glazing his eyes.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  The door closed behind him and like a tank filling with water until there was no air left, Dan filled with trepidation and could hardly breathe.