It took a full minute before he could speak.
“Does this mean I won’t … I mean, was that the last time – last time?”
“Not necessarily. We expect him to rally again … maybe. But it’s very unlikely he’ll get back to how he was before. As I said, it’s very close now.”
George slumped forward, his elbows on the table.
“Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the consultant. “Let me have a contact number, and when he’s well enough to receive visitors again, I’ll let you know. You’d need to get here quickly, though. He’s likely to be more down than up for his remaining time.” She waited for a response from George that was not forthcoming. “That’s the best I can do, Mr Holland,” she added.
George nodded, took his wallet from his inside jacket pocket and handed over a business card.
“Try the mobile first,” he said. “Unless I happen to be in London for a meeting like today, it will take me the best part of two hours to get here, so please let me know straight away. I don’t want to miss saying goodbye.” His voice broke on the last word. He stood up quickly and started to leave before turning back briefly to shake the consultant’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I really am very sorry, Mr Holland.”
*
Tom was interrogated by the panel of three investigators for six hours with just a forty-minute break for lunch. He couldn’t face eating anything during the recess, taking only some painkillers with a glass of water for a thumping headache. By the middle of the afternoon session he had started to feel faint and was conscious of becoming less spontaneous with his responses to their questions.
The committee spent most of the post-lunch period probing the source of the capsule. They clearly disbelieved his story of its being a relic of his Special Forces days, reading him a submission by a Professor of Toxicology who was very definite that such a poison could not be that instantly effective after a period of nine years.
“It seems rather pointless you asking me questions if you’re only going to believe the answers you want to hear,” Tom said, finally giving way to his anger. “And anyway, I think you’re stepping outside your terms of reference. Your task, as I understand it, is to examine the apparent breakdown in the internal security procedure at this Holding Centre and not to challenge me personally. I shall be responding to questions about the source of the capsule – which I have already admitted to bringing into the Centre – as part of the criminal prosecution I will be facing. It seems to me that you are confusing the two issues and if this line of interrogation persists, I’m afraid I shall have no alternative but to leave the interview.”
The head of the committee was a very large man in a mid-grey suit, which seemed a little tight for him, and a white shirt and dark blue tie. The other two members of the committee – a man and a woman – were small and slight by comparison, and their contributions to the process seemed to reflect their lesser physical stature. They hardly spoke at all but spent their time nodding vigorously as if to reinforce their colleague’s questions and taking pages of copious notes, even though the interview was being recorded.
The large man sighed.
“Home Secretary, it is not our intention to cause you any further anxiety or distress after what you have had to contend with during the past week. But we must consider all possibilities or we would not be doing our job properly. One of those possibilities is that you acquired the capsule from an internal source, and this line of questioning is designed to eliminate that scenario for the benefit – if I can put it that way – of the staff at the Holding Centre, which I think you will agree certainly is relevant to this committee’s remit. And furthermore …” he held up his hand as Tom made to interrupt, “we cannot ignore the expert opinion of one of the country’s leading authorities on toxicology.”
There was a long silence.
“However,” said the man, “we’ll leave it there for now. But we may return to this again. Thank you, Home Secretary.”
As he was driven home, Tom’s thoughts went back to the meeting with Jad, and he wondered how soon, if it had not happened already, his visit would come to light and yield its obvious conclusion about the source of the capsule.
*
The house was quiet. Tom found Katey in her study upstairs working at the computer. She turned and smiled at him as he poked his head round the door.
“Hi, Dad. Tough day?”
“No worse than I deserve, Princess,” he said. “Thank God I’ve got you.”
“No more than you deserve, Dad,” she said, smiling again.
She stood and they embraced, holding on to each other for a long time.
“Listen, Katey,” he said. “I’m going to need your help – I mean more of your help. I want you to get Mum and come down to the front sitting room in,” he checked his watch, “ten minutes. That’s five-fifteen. I have to talk to you both about … what happened. It can’t wait any longer. Okay? Oh, and I’d like to see you separately afterwards, please.”
Katey’s face started to crumple as her self-control wavered. Tom pulled her tightly to him again.
“It’ll be alright, Princess. Really,” he said. “Honestly it will.” He moved her gently away from him still holding onto her. “Go now. Please.”
She ran off, like a little girl, wiping her eyes.
Tom went downstairs to wait for them. He was standing looking out of the window as they entered the room together. They were holding hands. Katey smiled at him whilst Mags refused to meet his eyes, staring towards the sofa where she went to take a seat, pulling Katey down beside her.
“Mags,” he said.
There was no response.
“Mags, please.”
Katey gave her a nudge. “Mum, this is really difficult for Dad, for all of us. Remember what Jack said …”
Mags snatched her hand away.
“That’s between me and Jack,” she said. “Just me and Jack.”
“What did Jack say?” asked Tom, addressing the question to his daughter.
“Don’t say anything,” Mags snapped at her. She stared down into her lap.
Katey shrugged helplessly at Tom.
“Perhaps later,” she said, taking back Mags’s hand in both of hers. “Go on, Dad.”
“Look, just tell me.” Tom’s voice was raised.
“Dad, tell us what you have to. You said it couldn’t wait any longer. And, Mum, you better listen to what he has to say. Right?” There was an edge to her voice now, like that of a parent trying to deal with two sulky children.
“Yes,” said Tom after a brief silence. “Right … okay.”
Katey nudged Mags again, harder this time. Mags looked up and across towards Tom, her eyes cold and neutral, seeming not to see him at all.
“Mags, please,” he said. “For Katey. Please.”
Her eyes came to focus on him.
“For Katey then,” she said.
He sighed and pulled the wing chair closer to the sofa.
“As Katey knows, today I’ve been to …”
“I know where you’ve been,” Mags interrupted. “You’ve been telling the police how you helped kill our son.”
Tom slumped back in the chair. Katey leapt to her feet.
“You take that back!” she screamed at Mags.
“Alright! Alright!” cried Mags. “I take it back.”
Her eyes had dropped again and she stared at her hands, clasped tightly together on her knees.
“Katey, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Katey sat down on the sofa again, this time well away from Mags with her back half-turned to her.
“Look,” said Tom. “Let’s just get this over with. It’s clear then that you know what happened when I went to see Jack that last time.” He directed the statement at Mags, and then turned to Katey without waiting for a response. “What about you, Princess?”
“Well, I guess so. Jack left me a letter.”
“A letter? Saying what?”
“Well, explaining why he did it.”
“How could he write a letter explaining why, when he didn’t even know if?”
“Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” Mags volunteered, taking them both by surprise. “He would write the letters beforehand and leave them in his room. If he didn’t get the chance to … to … do it, then he would have just destroyed the letters.”
“Yes, of course,” said Tom. “You said letters. There was more than one?”
“Yes, one for me and one for Mum.”
“And me? Did he leave one for me?”
“No.” Mags’s reply was cruelly succinct.
“But he explained why in Mum’s letter.” Katey was quick to add.
“Well?” He looked angrily at Mags.
“He said he just couldn’t be bothered,” she sneered back at him.
“Mum!” Katey was on her feet again. “I don’t want to take sides in this unless I’m forced to, but if you carry on like this…”
Mags looked away, apparently unmoved.
“Right!” said Katey “If that’s the way.”
Mags turned back to Tom.
“He said in his letter that he would be telling you personally what he wanted to say when you met, so he wouldn’t need to write to you.” She looked at Katey. “Okay? Satisfied?”
No one spoke for a while. Katey sat cross-legged on the floor close to her father’s chair. At last Tom broke the silence.
“Look, I just want you both to understand what happened in the visiting room that day. If you know already, then that’s okay. But there’s going to be a press statement about what happened – what I did – what Jack did.”
His head dropped onto his chest as he choked on the words. Katey reached across and squeezed his hand.
“Tell us, Dad. We’re listening.”
He sat up again, his eyes glistening.
“I just wanted you to hear it from me first.”
He stopped, looking across at Mags.
“Go on,” she said, meeting his eyes more gently this time.
He spoke quickly at first, desperate to get it over with.
“I had a meeting with Jack – just the two of us – at his request. He asked me about providing him with … a way out. You know, if things got really bad. It made me feel sick just to think about it, but what could I do? What would you have done? It was the very last thing that any of us could do for him.”
He stopped, panting with emotion, and turned his head away to hide the standing tears. It was a full minute before he could continue. Mags and Katey waited in silence. He continued in little more than a whisper.
“I managed to get the stuff to him in Granny Brown’s locket. I handed it over and … he just … took it out of the locket and … put it in his mouth. I had no idea … I didn’t think he’d …”
The surface tension of his tears gave way and they rolled slowly down his cheeks.
“I reached across to him,” his voice even softer now, barely audible, “it was too late … he died in my arms.”
His whole body sagged, drained of strength.
Mags and Katey looked at him wide-eyed with shock.
“You mean … you were actually with him when …?” said Mags.
He looked across at her. In her expression of horror he thought he detected, briefly, signs of sympathy and understanding. Then she rose from the sofa.
“Thank you for telling us,” she said, reaching out her arm to Katey, inviting her to take her hand.
“I’ll just be a minute,” said Katey, and Mags walked quickly from the room.
Neither spoke for a long time. Katey shuffled round, still in her sitting position, so she could face Tom and take both his hands in hers.
“You poor thing,” she said, followed by more silence.
“How was it for Jack?” she asked, eventually, in a small voice. “Was it … very bad? Did he suffer?”
The question jerked Tom out of his trance.
“No, darling,” he said. “Not at all. It was over in a second. He wouldn’t have felt anything.”
“Perhaps it is best,” said Katey. “For both of them, like Jack said.”
She took his letter to her out of the pocket of her jeans. It was crumpled and ragged, more like a piece of cloth. She handed it over to Tom. He read the note in silence.
“Listen,” said Tom, “you need to go to your mum and see that she’s alright, and I want you to look after her. And also, you need to get back to college as soon as possible.” He held up his hands when she tried to protest. “Katey, you are going to be a great lawyer. Everybody thinks so – knows so. That’s what Jason will want you to do, won’t he? Correct me if I’m wrong.”
She thought for a moment.
“Yes, you’re right, of course. Perhaps the week after next. I will … definitely. But what do you mean, you want me to look after Mum? That’s your job. You told me half an hour ago that everything would be alright.”
“And so it will, Princess. But she needs time and space without me. Surely you can see that.”
Katey thought for a moment.
“If you say so. But where will you go? Are you going back to work? Will they let you?”
Tom sighed.
“I can’t go back, Katey. Tomorrow morning, I shall be appearing at Guilford Magistrates Court to be charged with a criminal offence. I guess you must have known that was coming. Either that or you’re grounded until you catch up with your homework. Then I’ll go on to SW1 and stay there. But we’ll keep in touch, you and I. Let’s talk every day, by phone. Call me whenever you like, and come to see me. But please don’t leave your Mum on her own in the evening or overnight. Not for a while …”
“Not until you come back.”
“That’s right. It won’t be long. You do understand, don’t you? You and I have just got to be really good friends again. I couldn’t stand it if I lost that.”
“You won’t, Dad,” she said, in a whisper. “We’ll always be friends now, you and me. And Mum will come round. She loves you. I’m sure you know that.”
“I hope so.”
He rose from the chair.
“You’d best go and check that Mum’s okay. See you later.”
She reached up to kiss him then left the room.
*
Jo burst through the door of the Thonburi Thai Restaurant in High Street, three minutes late and with an apologetic expression already in place, and peered round the softly-lit room. Her search eventually reached the huge shaven-headed man in the corner booth, and she averted her eyes quickly as she realised he was staring straight back at her with a sly smirk on his face. She eased herself up onto a stool at the bar, turning her back to him. After ordering a tonic water and settling herself to wait for her dinner date, she became aware that the man had got up from his seat and was heading towards her.
The man stopped behind her. Tight black T-shirt, black jeans, black leather jacket, stubble, and earring.
“You’re late!”
A familiar voice with an unfamiliar growl. Jo spun round.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked.
Everyone in the restaurant turned to look at them. Then Jo started laughing.
“What on Earth? You scared the life out of me!”
He leaned a long way down to whisper.
“Sshhh… I’m under cover, remember?”
“And this is your idea of being invisible, is it?”
She laughed again and looked him up and down.
“Have you grown?”
The two-inch heels of his cowboy boots placed his earring at approximately the same height as the picture rail which ran round the four walls.
“Only a bit. Anyway,” he did a camp 360-degree twirl, arms spread outwards, “what do you think?”
“I think we’d better take a seat before someone calls the police.”
They went to the corner booth and sat down. Jo smiled across at him.
“Actually, you look absolutely great.”
“Go on, you’re just saying that.”
“No, you really do. And I hope you’re not going to ditch the new image just because you’re fired. Well, laid off, anyway.”
David shook his head.
“What happened to the sabbatical on full pay? Have you found someone cheaper? We can haggle if you like.”
Jo looked serious.
“No, it’s just that John Mackay is not going to re-open the case. As far as he’s concerned there’s no reason to. Says it’s just a strange encounter on Delaware described by an unreliable witness, stacked up against a mountain of police evidence pointing to a solid conviction. And when he puts it like that – in the cold light of day – it sounds perfectly reasonable.”
“So you found nothing more?”
“I spent the last six days, including the weekend going through the police records for the five other users caught on camera with Jack, plus the two observed through police surveillance and the four who came forward and gave evidence at the trial. Details of convictions, appearances as witnesses in other cases, medical files – including any emergency hospitalisation and programmed treatment for addiction – and incidents where they had been picked up and not charged. There seemed nothing to link any of them directly to Mickey Kadawe.”
“Massive job.”
“Yes, massive job, particularly for a weekend. Good thing, of course, is that since the amnesty all the legit ones are on PROLIST. That cuts it down a hell of a lot. All dealers had to disclose the names of their customers to become Licensed Street Traders and get on the police register. Makes the links a lot easier to find – which makes it all the more conclusive, of course, when you can’t find a link.”
“What about Sammo? Any links to him are sort of links to Kadawe, aren’t they?”
“Well, including Laser, four of the six captured with Jack on CCTV were Sammo’s customers. That doesn’t mean, of course, that Sammo necessarily sent the other three to meet with Jack; and, even if he had, Jack may or may not have sold them drugs. And given John Mackay’s point that dealers and traders in the same area would all know each other, well … it all adds up to nothing really.”
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