by David Thorne
Oualidia is five hundred kilometres south of Tangier and I followed the coastal road all the way, the sea a constant presence on my right. The scenery was monotonous, barren scrubby fields sectioned off by low stone walls, the occasional goat, the even less frequent person. At one point, the road disappeared and I drove on bare earth until, around a corner, I came across a road crew with a digger and truck full of hardcore who waved to me as I passed. I stopped off at a town along the way, spent the night in a concrete hotel, which served me a plate of couscous with vegetables, courgettes and carrots in a watery sauce under fluorescent lights. I left at nine the next morning and arrived in Oualidia just after lunch. I walked into the main square, which looked over the harbour; it was empty except for two boats which were being repaired, skinny men squatting down on their decks mending sails and rigging. One of the buildings on the square was a restaurant so I walked into it and asked a shy woman if she had seen a man with skin like me, pinching my skin up and showing it to her to make myself understood. But she didn’t, or wouldn’t, and scampered off to fetch a man with an important black moustache who spoke English and told me that the man I was looking for was out fishing with Walid. He took me by the elbow and walked me to the seafront and pointed, there. I could make out in the distance a small shape, so I’d walked down to the beach and sat down on the low wall and waited for his boat to come in.
Terry walks with me back to the restaurant, where we sit at a table with a plastic cloth on it near the window and the shy woman I had first spoken to brings us mint tea, smiling uncertainly. I go to pour it but she waves a hand and pours it herself, lifting the metal teapot high in the air so the tea falls a foot and a half into the ornate glass cups she has set down on a silver tray. We are the only people in the restaurant, which has only four tables and a cash register near the door; it has the shabby, scuffed look of a down-at-heel corner store that has had all the units removed, leaving only the lino on the floor and the fluorescent tubes hanging on thin chains from the ceiling. A faded calendar showing the harbour is pinned on the wall behind Terry’s head. I have an end-of-the-season feeling, melancholic and lonely, as if we have been left behind by the rest of the holidaymakers, who have jobs and families and lives to return to.
‘New career as a fisherman, is it?’ I say.
‘How’d you find me?’ says Terry.
‘Your mate Andy. Bumped into him in Marbella, told him I needed to see you.’
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘Drink your tea.’ Terry looks at me apprehensively and drinks. The bruises on his face are nearly gone but I am shocked to see how much weight he has lost. He is tanned and gaunt and he could almost pass for a local.
‘You really thought Baldwin would come looking for you?’ I ask.
‘I dunno, Danny. It’s like I can’t think straight any more. One morning I wake up and it’s fine, by dinner I’m shitting myself and looking round corners. Like I’ve gone mad or something.’
‘Obsessing.’
‘Yeah. Totally obsessed, dream about him, wake up in the night and can’t go back to sleep. I have these fantasies where I kill him. You know? So I won’t have to worry any more. He’s fucking crept inside my head and I can’t get rid of him.’
I do not know what to do or say. I came to share what I had found with Terry, but I am worried that any more pressure and he will lose what little sanity he has managed to keep. Already he is seeing demons that aren’t there; what will happen when I tell him that, actually, they are real and that Baldwin is more dangerous than he ever imagined?
‘Listen,’ I say. ‘That footage… How much of it did you watch?’
Terry frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you watch all the discs, all of it?’
‘No, just… Just the bits with me in.’
‘So you didn’t see anything else on the discs.’
‘What, it wasn’t enough, Baldwin kicking ten bells of shit out of me?’
He’s got a point; why would he watch more? I only went through it all after what Baldwin did to me, after his reaction became so excessive that it aroused my suspicions. ‘Just asking,’ I say.
But Terry, half-crazy or not, is still a policeman and he knows when somebody is lying; he has dealt with evasion on more occasions than he can remember. ‘No. There’s something you’re not telling me. What? Danny? Fucking what?’
‘I watched it all,’ I say. ‘And what happened to you, that’s just the undercard for the main event.’
‘What? There was something else?’
‘Oh yes. There was something else.’
I had feared that finding out about Rosie would throw Terry into a panic; he was a man who was already on the ragged edge. But strangely, after hearing the news, he seems to calm down. He is no longer the central character in this story; it is about Rosie, not him, and this perhaps gives him a sense of perspective, helps him make sense of what has happened so far. I remind myself that he chose a career in the police and that he is, ultimately, motivated by the notion of justice, of bringing evil people to book. Hearing about Rosie gives him a cause; something to work towards, rather than something to run away from.
‘You think he killed her?’
I shrug. ‘Don’t know. Don’t know what happened. But if he didn’t, why hasn’t he said anything? Why does he want to keep the fact she came to the station a secret?’
‘Yeah.’ Terry’s quiet, thinking. ‘But why? Why would he? He’s a bent copper all right, but why would he kill that kid?’
‘Don’t know.’ I rub my face; I have not shaved in days.
‘Jesus, Danny, what happened to your finger?’ Terry says, pushing his chair back from the table in horror. He looks at me. ‘No.’
‘Doesn’t matter what happened to my finger,’ I say.
‘He do that? Baldwin do that?’
I look at the end of my finger. I need to take the stitches out, have been putting it off. It is bruised but no longer swollen, though it does not look pretty. ‘Yeah, he did it.’
‘Oh, Danny. Fuck, Danny, I’m so sorry, man. I brought this on you. I did.’ He chokes up and brushes the back of his hand over his eyes and when it comes away his eyelashes are glistening. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Forget it. It’s done. Over.’
‘Except it’s not, is it? We’re, ah…’ He snaps his fingers, trying to think of the phrase. ‘Loose ends.’
‘Probably not you,’ I say. ‘I’m the silly fucker who asked Baldwin if he killed her.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah. To his face. Rattled the horrible bastard.’
Terry looks out of the window of the restaurant. It is almost dark now; Oualidia has no streetlights and outside it is pitch black, the windows of the restaurant acting as mirrors. We could be the last people left in the world. But when Terry turns back to me he seems to have made a decision; his expression is determined and there is a bright excitement in his eyes.
‘So okay. It’s simple, right? We fucking do him. I’ll give the discs to my guv’nor; he’ll take it up the chain. ’Bye-bye Baldwin.’ He smiles at me. ‘No? We’ve got to do it, right? For that girl?’
Terry is not going to like what I am about to tell him; not one little bit. I put my fist to my mouth, knock it against my cheek. ‘I gave them back to him.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t mean to. Some little bastard called Dawson pulled a fast one. I thought I was giving them to his boss, turns out he’s Baldwin’s little pet.’
‘You don’t have the discs.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Oh.’ Terry frowns, looks at me in disappointment. ‘That was careless.’
‘Well the thing was…’ I begin, but Terry interrupts me.
‘I leave the discs with you and you lose them? What kind of a lawyer are you?’
‘Yeah, Terry…’
He holds up a hand, shakes his head in wonder that he could have made such a bad choice. He leans forward, across the
table towards me. Beckons me in until our heads are almost touching.
‘You seriously think I wouldn’t make extra copies?’
The next morning, after spending a near-sleepless night in what I suspect was the shy woman’s daughter’s bed and for which she would not accept payment, I say goodbye to Terry and head for my car. Terry has told me who he gave the other copied discs to, an old friend who has long since moved out of Essex. I am still buzzing from the news that Terry made more copies of the discs, and cannot wait to get back to England and pick them up, to make Baldwin suffer. I feel as if I have had a last-minute reprieve, a new chance at life. But Terry is still not his old, defiant self; last night he told me that he did not want to come back to England with me, did not want to help me take Baldwin down. He said that he was sorry and I could see the fear and more, shame, in his eyes; I told him that it did not matter, and I meant it. I selfishly wanted the pleasure of breaking Baldwin all to myself.
I am only a half hour out of Oualidia when my mobile rings. I do not recognise the number and pull off on to the dusty shoulder to answer.
‘Daniel Connell.’
‘You left me your card.’ It is a woman’s voice but, although it sounds familiar, I cannot place it. ‘You came to see my husband, Sean Conneely.’
‘Yes. Yes, I did. Hello.’
‘Mr Connell. I am sorry about your mother, about what happened to her. God knows I am.’ The words spill out as if they are too hot in her mouth, then she pauses.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Was there anything…?’
‘You must think me… I am not a bad person, Mr Connell.’
Standing by while your husband destroyed countless innocent lives, I think. Of course you’re not. But I do not reply. Perhaps she has been living with the guilt of what her husband did to all those women for too long, needs to unburden herself. I look into the distance, over miles of baked earth, and wait for her to get to the point.
‘Mr Connell,’ she begins again, her voice calmer. ‘Mr Connell, I remember your mother. I remember her to this day.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Was there anything…?’
‘And I know where she went. After she left us.’
26
‘DANIEL CONNELL.’
‘The fuck are you?’
‘Who’s speaking?’
‘Eddie, that’s who’s speaking. You was supposed to call three days ago. Now, again. Where the fuck are you?’
‘Out.’
‘Out. Your office is closed, nobody home. You done a runner?’
‘I’m away on business. I have other clients.’
‘Halliday, that’s your client. ’Til you’re finished, he’s your only fucking client.’
‘This conversation is over.’
‘No. Don’t you fucking dare hang up. I’ve got a message.’ I debate pressing the button, shutting Eddie up. But I let him continue.
‘Mr Halliday is not happy. Not at all. You’re making an enemy there, son, and you don’t want to do that.’
‘You have a message?’
‘Mr Halliday says, come back today, get it sorted, and he’ll forget that you took off for three days. You don’t come back? He’ll burn your fucking house down.’
My hand is gripping my mobile so tightly I wonder if I have the strength to crush it. I am in Manchester looking for the mother Halliday sold, yet he is threatening to burn my home. All fear of him has vanished; once again, as in Halliday’s bar, I feel that I am about to say something very unwise. But the depth of my anger is such that I do not care.
‘You tell Mr Halliday,’ I begin. I pause.
‘Yes?’ says Eddie.
‘You tell Halliday that if he threatens me one more time I’ll…’ But as I say the words I realise how childish this all is, how Halliday is reducing me to the language of the playground. If you do X, I’ll do Y, the most primitive of equations. ‘Tell Mr Halliday I’ll see him when I get back. We’ll sort it out then.’ I do hang up now, with some relief. I am in Halliday’s bad books, I know; but at least I have not threatened him with violence. There may still be a way out, which there would not have been had I said anything rash.
I hear somebody clear their throat and look up and see the receptionist at the hospital’s front desk regarding me with disapproval. She points to a sign that shows a picture of a mobile phone within a red circle, a diagonal red line across it. I put my phone away and walk up to her. She is young and quite pretty with strawberry-blonde ringleted hair and freckles, but she has the distracted, frustrated air of somebody who knows that everybody she deals with will come away dissatisfied in some way.
‘Help you?’ she asks.
‘Yeah. I’m looking for my mother.’
*
Conneely’s wife had told me that she knew where my mother had gone. At the side of that two-lane Moroccan road, I had struggled to hear what she was telling me as a bus blew past, pulling a cloud of dust in its wake.
‘I don’t know where she is now, you understand me? I cannot tell you that.’
‘Yes,’ I said, pressing the phone so tightly against my ear that my wrist ached.
‘But I can tell you this. She was working as a cleaner at the hospital there.’
‘The hospital?’
‘Saint Mary’s. She had a job there, I know that much.’
‘When was this?’
‘Oh, Mr Connell, this was years ago. Twenty-five years ago it must have been.’
‘Right,’ I said and I could not help the disappointment sounding in my voice. ‘Thank you.’
‘You said anything, if I know anything,’ she said defensively. ‘You asked.’
‘Tell me,’ I said to her. ‘When your husband was forcing women to have sex with men they didn’t know and then taking their money, when he was buying confused and scared young girls from criminals. While all that was going on, Mrs Conneely, what were you doing?’ I waited for her reply but there was none, and some seconds later I heard a click as she hung up. I had not heard from her since.
The hospital receptionist turns to her keyboard. ‘What ward is your mother in?’
‘No, she… She isn’t a patient,’ I say. ‘She used to work here.’
She stops, looks back at me. ‘Used to?’
‘A long time ago. I’m trying to find her.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Twenty-five years.’
She frowns, confused. ‘You haven’t seen her since?’
‘I’ve never seen her.’
She tilts her head, ringlets cascading gently, and something softens in her look. I’m willing to bet that she is a sucker for those magazines full of true stories of hope and tragedy, of children lost and mothers found. Now it is happening to her, for real. I could have walked in holding my own severed arm and she would not be more concerned, more willing to help. She folds her arms and leans towards me.
‘Were you adopted?’
‘Not exactly,’ I say. ‘She was taken away.’
Her eyes, which are a startling blue, widen. ‘By her family?’
‘Criminals,’ I say, loading the word with as much significance as I can. ‘Criminals took her.’
She mouths a silent ‘Wow’ with her lips. Now that I have her undivided attention I can see that she really is pretty. She shakes her head slowly. ‘That’s terrible?’
I do not know why she posed that as a question, but I nod anyway. ‘I know.’
She sits back up, back to business. ‘Twenty-five years is a long time,’ she says. ‘You’ll need to talk to Personnel.’
‘Where will I find them?’
She pulls over a plan of the hospital and shows me where Personnel is housed, in a separate building on the other side of the complex. I thank her and head away, and she calls after me. I turn around.
‘If you find her,’ she says, ‘tell me, yeah?’
I arrived back in Manchester last night and went back to the hotel I had originally stayed in, where they recognised me and gave me the same
room I had left only a few days ago. I had not driven back to Tangier, instead headed for Casablanca where I had taken a flight home, which stopped at Barcelona on the way. I had left the Panda in the airport’s parking; I felt a slight pang of guilt for the one-eyed man who had rented it out to me in Tangier but figured that, even in Morocco, a car in that state couldn’t be worth much more than I had paid to hire it.
The weather in Manchester has now changed, sunshine swapped for a persistent drizzle under grey skies. It is no longer hot and the people no longer radiant; it is as if I have returned to a moribund city that has, since I left, experienced a collective minor tragedy. I have to walk for five minutes before I find the building that houses Personnel, a grey, tired prefab that looks as if it was put up temporarily, yet thirty years later nobody has found the money to replace. Here, too, there is a reception desk but behind it is an older woman wearing glasses on a chain and with the flat eyes of somebody who long ago lost the habit of empathy. She looks me up and down, nostrils flaring as if she has smelled a turd.
‘Help you?’
‘I hope so. I’m trying to trace my mother, who used to work here.’
‘She’s missing?’
‘Kind of,’ I say. ‘I don’t know where she is.’
‘I see,’ the woman says, but she doesn’t; nor does she want to. Already she has me marked down as a nuisance. ‘Why do you think we can help?’
‘You might not be able to. Only, all I know about her is that she used to work here.’
‘Recently?’
‘I don’t know. She was certainly here twenty-five years ago.’
The woman exhales through her nose with annoyance. ‘Twenty-five years?’
‘Could have been more recently.’
‘We’re a hospital,’ the woman says. ‘Not a missing persons’ bureau.’
‘But maybe somebody would remember her,’ I say. ‘Even know her. I would like to find her.’