The Unquiet Dead
Page 32
‘She wants you to send the letter.’
‘What?’ Jessie said again. ‘Who does? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Remember what I said, Jessie.’
Jessie marched away from the baths crossly. They lured you in, that was the trouble. They made you want to believe. Burrows was right all along. Belief demanded such an enormous leap of faith because a rational mind would see the gaping holes in any religion. What was it that she wanted, what had she been expecting? Jessie stopped walking. She knew what. A message in a bottle. A message from the big blue. From her mother. She wanted a hand to stroke her forehead, a voice telling her it was all going to be all right. That she was doing okay. She always thought she’d been striving for her brothers’ approval; now she wondered if it was in fact her dead mother’s approval she’d been striving for.
She found a step and sat on it. Jessie was exhausted. Utterly exhausted, and the day was just beginning.
Jessie ended up walking home. She didn’t have the energy to go to work. She didn’t have the energy to face Mark’s grief, fight over the office, or do the paperwork on the Marshall Street Baths case. She didn’t have the energy to be brave about P.J. She rounded the corner to her street, trudged along the familiar pavement and inserted the key in the entrance. She checked her mail. There was a postcard of a gnome. She smiled as, turning it over, she recognised Jones’ writing. Father Forrester had sent him on retreat in Wales. No beer! said the postcard. Send supplies! Jessie put the postcard in her pocket. Everyone wrote letters. She wasn’t falling for that old trick. The corrosive power of suggestion.
Someone knocked on the door. There was a woman standing the other side of the mottled glass. Jessie pulled it open.
‘Bernie.’ She was stunned to see the woman standing in front of her. P. J. Dean’s long-term housekeeper and friend had never liked Jessie, especially after she’d forced out some painful home truths.
‘P.J. doesn’t know I’m here, I’d like to make this quick.’ She reached into her pocket and held out a set of keys. ‘These are for you. It’s over there –’
Jessie stepped out into the raised porch. Parked a little way off to her left was a pink Triumph Bonneville.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Jessie.
‘Believe it – P.J. bought it for you.’
‘I was only joking about the bike. Pink Bonnies don’t exist. They only come in one colour – burgundy. I thought he knew it was a joke.’
‘He had it custom made. It’s been sitting at home for days. P.J. along with it.’
Jessie knew that wasn’t true.
Bernie glared at her. ‘When are you going to learn that you can’t believe what you see in the paper? That photo was taken ages ago. Look, I’m not going to pretend I like this, but I can’t watch him be so miserable. I’ll do whatever it takes if it means he’ll be happy again.’
Jessie started to say something but Bernie stopped her.
‘I’m not doing this for you. Put him out of his misery, either way.’
‘This hasn’t been that easy for me, you know.’
‘But I don’t care about you.’ Bernie turned to leave.
‘Can I give you a lift home?’ said Jessie.
‘No thanks, my son is with me.’ Jessie noticed the car next to the bike. A tall young man emerged on to the street. Jessie smiled at him; he waved back. The family resemblance was strong.
‘He looks well,’ said Jessie.
Bernie didn’t reply. Halfway back to the waiting car, she turned. ‘P.J. could do with a holiday. Somewhere hot. Somewhere he can relax and be anonymous for a week. He has a good friend with a house in Barbados. It’s empty at the moment. There’s a direct flight leaving this afternoon. The housekeeper has the keys.’
Jessie nodded.
‘Good bye, Detective.’
‘Bernie –’
She held up her hand. ‘It’s wasted on me. Save it for P.J.’
Jessie ran back up the stairs and into her flat.
‘Have you gone mad and bought a new bike?’ asked Bill.
‘Where the hell is my spare helmet? I left my other one at work.’
Jessie picked up the phone and dialled a number.
‘Driver, why aren’t you at work?’
‘DCI Moore,’ said Jessie, ‘I was wondering if I could have the day off? I’ll be in tomorrow.’
‘No you won’t.’
‘What?’
‘You are long overdue some time off. Take it – you need it.’
Jessie began to feel nervous. ‘Forget it, I’ll come in now.’
‘I insist, Driver.’
‘If I’m being squeezed –’
‘It’s nothing like that. You need a holiday. That’s what I wanted to see you about. You need to let yourself heal – you’ve only just started talking again. I’ve had words with Mark and I think there’ll be a considerable improvement when you return. His mother took a long time to die, Jessie. He’s been coping with a lot.’
‘What about the Klein case?’
‘Powell has been charged – unlawful sex; Sarah Klein is out on bail; Anna Maria is under constant supervision – she’s pregnant.’
To Jessie, this was the saddest news of all. ‘You know what, I think you’re right, guv. I do need a holiday.’
‘Good. Go somewhere hot, where you can relax – that’s an order from above.’
Jessie put down the phone and turned to her brother.
‘I’ll help you pack.’
‘I can’t be bothered to pack. I’m just going to grab my toothbrush and my passport.’
Jessie pulled open the dressing-table drawer, but her passport was not in its usual place. She searched through her backpack, but it wasn’t there either.
‘Damn.’
‘Perhaps you took it to work?’ offered Bill.
‘No. Never.’
Jessie started pulling her bedside table drawers open.
‘Shit, I can’t believe this is happening! For once I’m attempting to do spontaneity and spontaneity is laughing in my face.’
‘Try the bookshelves, I’ll look in the sitting room. Don’t worry, we’ll find it. If not, you can borrow mine.’
‘That isn’t even remotely funny.’
‘The picture was taken a long time ago, and with your hair like that –’
Jessie held up two fingers. She went through every drawer in her room. Her passport had gone. She stood in the middle of the disarray and looked around the room, thinking hard. Her focus kept returning to the same object: her mother’s jewellery box. It was sitting on a bookshelf, staring down at her. She pulled a chair across the room and climbed on it to reach the inlaid wooden box. Then she sat on the bed and slowly lifted the lid. Her passport lay neatly in the top compartment, next to the one item of jewellery she kept in there: her mother’s engagement ring. She must have put her passport in there for safekeeping, though she couldn’t remember doing so.
As she lifted out the small red booklet, she saw the white envelope underneath. Her heart contracted. I’m okay, said a voice. I don’t hurt any more. The girl’s name was Harriet and she had jumped in front of a train. Jessie had heeded a dying girl’s wish, she had not handed over the letter. Instead she had thrust it deep inside her trouser pocket and, when she’d arrived home drunk that evening after dinner with Bill, she must have put it away in her mother’s jewellery box – though, again, she couldn’t remember doing so.
Jessie picked the envelope up and turned it over in her hands. The writing was spindly and uneven, but it was bold in sentiment. The dead girl’s letter was addressed to God.
Jessie left the house with her passport, her toothbrush, a set of keys to a pink motorbike and a letter. When she reached Heathrow, she had one other thing with her.
‘Hang on a second,’ said Jessie, stopping at the post box before the final departure gate. ‘I have to post a letter.’
‘Something important?’ asked P.J.
‘Ve
ry.’ Jessie watched the little white envelope flutter down inside the Perspex box and land with a thousand other good wishes and final thoughts.
She re-joined P.J. He took her hand and did not let go until they were belted into their seats and handed a glass of champagne. She drank two in quick succession and was already feeling the effects when minutes later the engines roared and they were pushed into the back of their seats. P.J. took her hand again as the plane rose over London, banked left and broke through the cloud cover that had gathered through the day. The enormity of the sky engulfed her. Limitless. Illogical. Magic.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked P.J.
She faced him with a smile. ‘I was wondering how a lowlife like you managed to get such good seats at short notice?’
He winked at her. ‘One of the perks of the job. I have friends in high places.’
Jessie turned back to the window and looked out at an unforeseeable future.
‘You’re not alone,’ she said, feeling a rush as another plane, on another path, sped off to another destination.
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Acknowledgments
Father Ian Hazlewood dedicated his life to the church. He was a vicar, a father, a husband and an honourable man whose effect on me was simply this – I have strived to be a little better than I was before we met. He inspired this book, but sadly never read it. He died before I finished it. Father Ian, I hope you approve. Wherever you are.
When I was nine months pregnant, Shaun Stewart showed me around the Marshall Street Baths. Magnificent even in their decay. Although I changed a few details for the sake of the story, I hope the essence of the place remains. The number of marble slabs on the pool floor is certainly accurate. Shaun counted them for me himself. Thank you for your input and expertise. I gather the developers are indeed circling and soon the old public baths will be flats and offices – but if you listen very carefully you may still be able to hear those Edwardian men and women soaping up for a shilling a time. I could.
Our daughter was born after one long struggle, the book after another. I could not have coped with either without the help of Katherine Peens and Micky Fullilove. If our daughter could speak, she would thank you too. Luckily Micky’s husband is a former DI and still a biker, so thanks Dave, for insight into the minds of policemen and petrol heads.
The other person I would like to mention is Chief Inspector Sarah Francis of Norwich police station. A real-life Jessie Driver. Except with kids and a promotion. Thank you for your time and for sharing your experiences. I salute you.
For guidance of a more spiritual nature, thanks to Jessica Adams and Amaryllis Fraser.
I appreciate those layman editors out there who gave me invaluable guidance. My sister Stephanie, my husband Adam and Anne Marie Mackay and fellow writer Imogen Edwards-Jones. To the pros, I prostrate myself humbly at your feet. Julia Wisdom and Anne O’Brien at HarperCollins, you are masters of the art. As always to my agent Stephanie Cabot, MD of William Morris Agency, I raise a glass. I know exactly how she does it. Love and wine, in equal measures. Only for you would I wear a carpet and join the family von Trapp.
In New York, busy in the Flatiron building, with a baby at home, is Kelley Ragland, editor at St Martin’s Press. I doff my cap with respect and appreciation to you and Manie Baron at the WMA for allowing Jessie Driver to ride out across American soil once more.
As always I would like to thank my mother, for so many things. Finding herself in the rat-infested bowels of Marshall Street Baths and immediately thinking of me, is just one of them. On behalf of Stephanie and Greg Pavlik, Jokey and Tom Mollo, myself and Adam Spiegel, congratulations Lord Mayor of Westminster. We are immensely proud of everything you have achieved.
To my sister Jokey, I love you for loving our daughter so much. We miss you sand girl.
Adam, it has been quite a year. We are through it, better and stronger. I love you. Still, hugely, more.
And finally … a quiet dedication to my father. Because you gave me your word. I love you.
About the Author
Born in 1970, Gay Longworth trained as an oil trader after graduating from university. It was during this time that the idea for her first novel, Bimba, came to her. Eventually she took courage, left the job, and moved to Cornwall to write. Bimba was published in 1998 and her second novel, Wicked Peace, came out two years later.
During that time Gay had too many jobs to mention, though donning fishnets for Club Med was probably a low point. Thankfully she is now a full-time writer.
The Unquiet Dead is the second in a series of Jessie Driver novels. Gay lives in London with her husband, theatre producer Adam Spiegel, and their daughter.
Also by the Author
Dead Alone
Wicked Peace
Bimba
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004
Copyright © Gay Longworth 2004
Gay Longworth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007139576
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007402298
Version: 2013–12–04
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