by M. R. Hall
She wanted to slip quietly under.
‘Stay with me, Jenny,’ Dr Allen said. ‘You’re perfectly safe. Nothing can happen to you here. I want you to go back to where we’ve been before. You’re a child upstairs in your bedroom, playing by yourself. You hear the banging on the front door, the raised voices – it’s your grandfather. He’s shouting, screaming.’
Jenny’s body gave an involuntary twitch.
‘Tell me what he’s shouting.’
‘I can’t . . . I can’t hear.’
‘You can’t hear the words?’
‘No.’
‘Are there other voices?’
A pause. Jenny’s eyes moved sideways under their closed lids.
‘It’s a woman . . . sobbing, wailing . . . my mother.’
‘Is she saying anything?’
‘She’s crying out, “No, no—.” She keeps saying it . . . over and over.’
‘Then what?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘It just goes on and on.’
‘What about the men? What are they saying?’
‘They’ve gone quiet. It’s just my mother . . . It’s just her crying. Her voice carrying up the stairs.’
‘How are you feeling about this? What are you doing?’
‘I just want to get away . . . I want to go, get out of there.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know . . . I just want to go.’
‘What are you frightened of?’
Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes. ‘I can’t . . . It’s nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault.’
‘What’s not your fault?’
‘The screaming . . . I can’t stand it.’
‘Why would it be your fault?’
‘I don’t want this . . . I hate it here . . . I hate it. I just want to go.’
‘Where do want to go, Jenny? Tell me where you’d go.’
‘There isn’t anywhere . . . They’d see me . . . There’s nowhere . . . I can’t even go to . . .’ Her body convulsed as violently as if she touched an electric wire. She bolted back to consciousness, staring into space with wide, blank eyes.
Dr Allen gave her a moment. ‘You couldn’t even go where?’
Jenny blinked. ‘Katy’s,’ she said, with a rising inflection, as if the name was unfamiliar.
Dr Allen tugged a Kleenex from the box on his desk and handed it to her. Jenny dried her eyes feeling oddly empty, neither calm nor anxious.
‘Who’s Katy?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ She sniffed back the tears and shivered.
‘A sister, relation, friend?’
Jenny glanced upwards. ‘God, I don’t know. Not a sister . . .’ Dr Allen was staring intently at her face. ‘What?’
‘Your grandfather came with bad news that made your mother wail. You said it wasn’t your fault. Were you referring to whatever it was he told her?’
‘I can’t say . . .’ She shook her head. ‘The moment I’m awake it hardly seems real . . . I could even be making it up.’
‘You’ve got a name: Katy. I want you to find out what that means.’
‘I told you—’
‘Please, do what I say. I’m going to make it a condition of you coming back here. You’re going to do something positive for yourself. Next time I want to hear about your research.’ He turned to his notebook and wrote the instruction down.
‘You’re getting impatient with me, aren’t you?’ Jenny said.
‘Not at all. You’re just in need of a push. You’re also going to stick to the medication this time.’ He reached for his prescription pad. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you easing off at work?’
‘Not unless you section me.’
‘When you’re abrasive it suggests to me you’re feeling delicate. If you must carry on as normal, just be on your guard. Try to avoid emotional responses.’ He tapped his temple with his finger. ‘You’ll always make your best judgements up here.’
She collected the drugs from the dispensary and swallowed her first dose in the ladies’ room. They were both new brands to her: one blue, one red, like jelly beans. The world they led her to was less colourful. They took away her excitement and any sense of danger. Her attention was held by the immediate and the mundane: the instruments on the dashboard of her car, the squeak when she touched the brakes. She was aware of her emotions, but they were pale reflections of what she’d experienced during the last two days. She turned her thoughts to her inquest and without any conscious effort they lined up in logical order as a neat list of tasks waiting to be performed: jurors to be telephoned, witnesses to be summoned, law to be researched. Dr Allen had given her the mind of a bureaucrat.
The sensation was short-lived. She wasn’t yet halfway home when her phone beeped, signalling a message. She glanced at the lit-up screen: Call me. Urgent. Alec.
A jolt went through her. Dr Allen’s parting words rang like a warning bell in her head. She should ignore him, see him only once: in the witness box. Her finger hovered over the call button but reception faded and vanished, saving her from the decision. She had the ten minutes until she arrived home to sober up and get a grip.
As she pulled into the cart track at the side of the house she had worked out a strategy: call Alison and tell her to take any message from McAvoy. Tell him the inquest would resume on Wednesday morning and request that he attend to give evidence. Keep it all businesslike and at arm’s length. She could deal with the feelings he had stirred in her afterwards. She would have something by which to judge him then, a clearer insight into his motivations.
She reached over to the glove box to get the torch she used to navigate the ten yards along the path to the front door. She found it and was searching for the switch when the car lit up. Startled, she looked up to see a tall, male figure beneath the halogen lamp that automatically triggered on approaching the porch. He was featureless with the bright light behind him, but the silhouette was unmistakable: the long dark coat, the scarf, the unruly wisps of hair. He raised a hand in a tentative wave that acknowledged her alarm. Arrested by the drugs her heart held steady, but a fierce heat spread across her chest and neck and prickled across her lips as fear blazed another pathway to the surface.
‘It’s only me,’ he called out. ‘It’s Alec. It’s OK.’
She thought about driving off and hoping he’d vanish, but she knew he wouldn’t. He was the kind who’d walk all night and go days without sleep; he had a prisoner’s patience and a madman’s will.
She left her keys in the ignition and stepped out into the biting air, holding the torch defensively in front of her as she stepped around the car.
She stopped by the passenger door, still some twenty feet between them. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve got some information.’
She swept the torch beam over him. He was in a suit and tie, clean shoes.
‘I meant what are you doing here?’
‘My car packed up. I caught a cab.’
‘Are you going to stand there talking bullshit or answer my question?’
Jenny aimed the beam of light at his face. McAvoy shielded his eyes.
‘I didn’t want to speak to you on the phone . . . I found out who Tathum was working for when those two boys disappeared.’
‘You spent forty quid on a cab to tell me that?’
‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ll go if you want me to . . . It’s just . . .’ He looked down, ran his hands distractedly through his hair. She heard him exhale wearily. ‘The truth? These are dark waters, Jenny. I’m not sure how deep in you want to get. I thought it better to tell you here, away from everything. You can make your own decision. No public pressure.’
She slowly lowered the beam away from his face, responding to the sincerity in his voice. If he had wanted to hurt her, he could have run straight over or jumped out of the shadows. He wouldn’t have sent her a text, left a trail.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’d better hear it.’
>
She unlocked the front door and led him into the sitting room. Straight to business, she sat at the small dining table and motioned to the chair opposite. No offer of drinks. Even in forgiving light McAvoy looked tired. Dark shadows haunted his eyes. His face was drawn, his thick stubble grey in patches. He knotted his fingers and leaned forward in a way which suggested he had agonized long and hard, and arrived at a painful decision.
‘Remember Billy Dean, the private investigator?’ McAvoy said. ‘His son took over the business. I gave him a call after our visit to Mr Tathum last week, asked him what he could dig up. He got back to me first thing this morning, just before you turned up.’ He gave a strained smile. ‘In 2002 Tathum was registered self-employed. He declared an income of sixty-five thousand pounds and his bank records show it came in the form of three payments from the same account. That account was in the name of Maitland Ltd, a private security contractor with a registered office in Broad Street, Hereford.’
‘Where did he get hold of that?’
‘He’s got someone in the tax office, I expect. His dad always made most of his money from divorce. Anyway, until the year before Tathum was receiving his pay cheque from the army. Mid-thirties – I guess he must have done his time.’
‘What do you know about Maitland?’
‘According to their website they’re close-protection specialists. Hereford’s the home town for the SAS, so I’d guess that’s where they draw their personnel from. I gather it’s something of a local tradition: the ex-special servicemen cross the road and make their fortunes in the private sector.’
‘What would Maitland want with Nazim and Rafi?’
‘They’re just being paid to perform a service. If you’re asking me to speculate, I’d say they provided a snatch squad. But for whom . . . who knows? Could be the kids were terrorist suspects who were spirited away to God knows where. Or they could have been agents whose cover was blown, in which case they’ll be living happily in condos in Australia.’
Jenny said, ‘Why tell me now? Why not save it for the inquest? You know how risky it is for me to talk to a witness. Anyone could turn around and say my inquiry was tainted and have it overturned.’
‘Well, there’s the thing, Jenny – neither of us knows where each other stands, not truly.’ He fixed her with a sad, searching look. ‘I’ve seen and done enough wicked things in my span to know not to lead you to this lightly. British citizens disappeared by their own state – is that ever going to be allowed to be exposed? Call me a hoary old cynic, but I’d say another life or two would weigh lightly in the balance.’
‘But?’ She knew there was a but, that the flame that still burned in his eyes wouldn’t be extinguished that easily.
‘You’re not cut from the regular cloth, are you?’ McAvoy’s worn-out face creased into a smile. ‘I’ve got a shoulder so sore I’ve hardly been able to lift a drink all day.’
Unrepentant, Jenny said, ‘That was for lying to me. And for what it’s worth, I think you still are.’
There was a pause. McAvoy lowered his head. ‘It’s a funny thing, Jenny: I made a fine career out of telling other people’s lies for them. The other side were always the bigger sinners. Even when I was caught out and put away, all the virtue was with me. But this case . . . I’ve fixed trials, I’ve bought and sold witnesses, I’ve helped murderers walk free and drunk their good health with a clear conscience, but this one fucking case.’ He shook his head and turned his gaze away from her. ‘And then you turned up like the Angel of Desire . . . like a sorceress . . . what’s a spent force like me meant to do with that?’
Jenny inwardly reeled. The breath left her lungs. The visceral part of her willed him to touch her, to make the slightest contact so he could feel his charge and let it happen.
She knew he could feel the change in her, read what was written in her face.
‘You’re a temptation, that’s what you are,’ McAvoy said. ‘A sweet and beautiful temptation as dark and damned as I am. I can’t even touch your hand for fear—’
‘Of what?’ Jenny said.
He shook his head again. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’ He swallowed and pushed himself on. ‘Dr Sarah Levin – she’s a beautiful girl, I understand. She was eighteen years old at the time. She would have been spoken to, I’m sure of that. Wherever Nazim and Rafi went they would have been interrogated, questioned within an inch of their lives. It’s no coincidence she was the one who spoke to the police – she wouldn’t have had any choice. I guessed as much eight years ago. Should it be dragged out of her now? Does she have to be destroyed too? How much damage is enough?’
‘Why would she be on your conscience?’
‘She was a blameless child. Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘Don’t you think you’re idealizing her?’
‘Compared with me, she’s the Blessed Virgin herself.’
Jenny said, ‘What about the man who telephoned you, the American?’
‘I’ve no idea, except that whoever took those boys hounded Mrs Jamal to death, even if they didn’t physically kill her.’
‘You don’t even know the whole story,’ Jenny said, feeling an irrational compulsion to share her burden. ‘There were traces of radiation in her flat and on her body. Caesium 137.’ As soon as she’d said it, she knew it was too much. She stopped herself from mentioning Anna Rose.
‘To make it look like terrorists,’ McAvoy said. ‘Dirty bastards. At least regular criminals only kill their own. You wouldn’t find a man above the gutter to hurt an old woman. Only godless government and mad mothers can tar a man’s soul that black.’
Jenny made a faint noise that was almost a laugh.
‘What?’ McAvoy said.
‘The way you talk.’
‘How do you make sense of things?’
‘I don’t.’
‘You should try poetry, or scripture, both preferably. You seem like you could do with it.’
‘When I came to court, I didn’t mean to hurt you . . . I don’t know what possessed me.’
‘There’s a question . . .’
The faint smile, the longing behind the eyes. The grizzled face masking a spirit that was already inside her, touching her, knowing things about her she didn’t know herself.
‘Tell me you’re for real, Alec,’ Jenny said. ‘Swear that you’re not using me or being paid.’
‘What words can I say that are worth their weight? I came here to tell you that you’re not alone, that’s all . . .’ He held her gaze. It seemed to take every ounce of strength. ‘And that I know I scare the hell out of you, but if it’s any comfort the feeling’s mutual.’
He pushed up from his chair and made for the door.
‘You’re not going?’ Jenny said.
‘I better had, don’t you think?’
‘Can I drive you?’
‘I’ll be just fine.’ He lifted the latch, then paused. For a moment Jenny thought he might turn back, sweep round and break the unbearable tension between them, let their bottled-up forces explode.
Without allowing himself to look at her, he said, ‘When this case is over, can I see you again?’
‘Yes . . . yes, we must.’
‘Goodnight, Jenny.’ Then, with a hint of a smile, ‘I’ll see you in court.’
McAvoy let himself out, closing the door gently behind him.
She tugged back the corner of the curtain and watched him walk down the path. She remained at the window until long after he had gone, willing him to come back, even though she knew he wouldn’t.
There was mail to sort, food to cook, messages on the machine including a plaintive request from Steve for her to call, saying there was something he needed to say, but she could think of nothing except McAvoy. He’d gone with a promise to return, but left a deep sense of incompleteness behind him. It was as if he’d come to make a confession and stalled. The atmosphere in the cottage hung heavy with it: there was something Alec McAvoy had yet to tell her, and it was weighing on his c
onscience. She could tell.
Jenny woke, palpitating, as abruptly as if she’d been kicked in the ribs. There was no dream lingering, just a sense of having been disturbed by a threatening sound. She imagined footsteps on the flags outside, a man’s breath. She lay still and alert for more than twenty minutes, flinching at every faint creak and groan of the old house. But whatever phantom it was that had disturbed her had retreated to its hiding place. Nothing stirred except the breeze. As her eyelids grew heavy she thought of Ross, and of David sleeping soundly next to his happy, pregnant girlfriend, and wondered what she had done to be driven out onto such a lonely limb. ‘I think you’d do almost anything to avoid causing pain,’ Dr Allen had said to her, and on the same day that she’d picked up a pen – the irony – and thrust it into McAvoy’s shoulder . . . McAvoy. Looking at him was like looking into a mirror and seeing her dark shadow looking back. That was it, that was the thrill: the sense that in knowing him she might truly know herself.
TWENTY-TWO
JENNY CLIMBED OUT OF BED before six with a pressing sense of urgency. The inquest was due to resume in twenty-four hours and there were vital decisions to be made. Hurrying a shower, she felt a pang of guilt at the almost intimate moment she’d shared with McAvoy and the fact that thinking about him was crowding out thoughts of her son. What kind of mother was she? Recognizing the signs of rising anxiety – tingling fingertips and a pounding heart – she rushed down to the freezing kitchen wrapped in a towel and swallowed her two jelly beans with the dregs of a week-old carton of orange juice. She felt like an addict forcing down the vinegary liquid. The new pills were like magic: by the time she had dried and dressed she was at the helm. Mrs Jenny Cooper, coroner, with important business to attend to.
She ate a breakfast of stale cereal at her desk in the study while she searched for Maitland’s website. She found it in the online Yellow Pages and clicked through to a largely anonymous yet somehow exclusive-feeling site which presented the minimum of information. The registered office was a Hereford address, which accorded with what McAvoy had told her. The MD was listed as Colonel Marcus Maitland. The company’s chief areas of expertise were listed as ‘foreign and domestic close protection, operational assessments and security planning, and strategic security services’. The explanation was limited and the jargon dense and oblique: it could have been describing an investment consultancy. There was no mention of former special servicemen or mercenaries.