‘We can send an email,’ Anna says. ‘Postpone it. Unforeseen circumstances. I’m sure she’ll understand.’
I’m sure she won’t.
I give her the woman’s contact details and dictate an email explaining I have had an accident and am incapacitated. I apologise profusely (That’s four times you’ve said sorry, Linda) and ask for an alternative date in a few weeks’ time.
My head feels heavy and full, overloaded with the day. ‘You should get some rest,’ Anna says. I don’t argue. I’m gone in seconds.
She promised, didn’t she? But now she is shaking me gently, telling me the police are here, want to speak to me.
My eyelids are glued with sleep and when I finally manage to open one I see Anna’s hands held up in surrender.
‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t call them. They just turned up.’
They are searching for him.
It is real.
I find Detective Sergeant Jay Huxtable, plain-clothed and casual, studying the mess in the living room.
‘I would have tidied if I had known you were coming,’ I say. The joke is awkward, misfires.
‘Mrs Moscow,’ he shakes my hand. ‘Has your son been here?’
‘This morning,’ I say. ‘But he didn’t stay for long.’
‘Did he do this?’
I’m unclear whether he’s referring to the overturned table or my face, and decide to hedge my bets.
‘It was an accident, low blood pressure, it’s a bugger. I passed out.’
‘You should get it seen to.’
‘Anna here has taken good care of me already.’
‘Do you know where your son is now?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘We want to question him in relation to the death of a young woman. He was supposed to report to the police station at midday. We’ll do our best to find him but in the meantime, it’s not advisable for you to stay here.’
‘I’m not scared of my own son, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
But the man who appeared today? I was scared of him.
DS Huxtable doesn’t let up. I escape to the loo when his badgering reaches a pitch I can no longer bear. He wants me out of here, my own home, says he can’t leave until he knows I’m safe. Gabriel has made it hostile. I don’t want to go. Despite everything, I want to be here for him in case he comes back. In case he needs me. And yet, there’s another voice in my head, the rational, thinking one that tells me enough is enough, begs me to take a look in the mirror and ask: how much longer can I protect him?
I stare at my face and find my answer. Cheek inflamed, one eye closed to a slit. Pitiful. Me.
This is what he has done.
Anna intercepts me in the hallway to let me know my interviewee, Naomi Parkes, has replied to my email. ‘Well go on then, break it to me.’ The day has already done its worst, I’m of the opinion it can’t drag me down any further.
I am wrong. It transpires that Naomi Parkes, whose personal account is crucial to the success of my book, was already having second thoughts, questioning the wisdom of digging up the past. She’s sorry I’ve had an accident, but these last few weeks, mentally preparing herself to talk to me, have taken their toll. She’s not sure she wants to schedule another date, what with the kids and work; after this weekend she has school plays and Christmas parties coming out of her ears. And what’s she going to tell her husband? He’s away this week so she didn’t have to explain where she was going, who she was going to talk to. Lying doesn’t sit well with her and she’s not prepared to do it.
It is this week or not at all.
‘We could still go,’ Anna says. ‘If you felt up to it. You could rest for a few days before you meet her.’ She motions to the detective in the living room. ‘It would keep him happy, at any rate.’
The prospect of travelling hundreds of miles, putting endless roads and hours between me and my son, wherever he turns out to be, makes me light, shapeless, terrified.
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Don’t let him ruin it. Isn’t this what you’ve been working for?’
She’s right. Years I’ve been trying. I can’t let it slip from my grasp again.
Otherwise everything is lost.
November 1991
Gabriel, aged 7
I’m seven years, four hours and thirty-three seconds old . . . correction . . . thirty-five seconds . . . thirty-six. I can watch the seconds of my life tick away on my new digital watch.
I can also tell you I’ve been out in the cold for one hour and fifteen seconds. No one can see me in my hiding place behind the shed, which is good. What’s not so good is the cold, the way it bites my bum on the stone step and makes my teeth smash together.
The sky is black but that doesn’t mean it’s late. It’s only dark because we’re in November and the nights get greedy and swallow up the days. The air smells like it did when I blew out my candles this afternoon.
I wish that . . .
‘Don’t tell us what you’re wishing for,’ my mum said. But she was the one person who could make the wish come true. How else was she going to know I wanted her eyes to stop following me everywhere?
‘She loves you, that’s all, doesn’t want you to come to any harm or get into trouble,’ my dad said when I complained about it last week.
There must be different ways of showing your love because Tommy’s mum lets us play upstairs for hours and her eyes don’t interrupt once.
Her love is muddy fields and dirty footprints on the kitchen floor. ‘It’s only mud,’ she’ll say. She doesn’t even count the number of cookies we have or ask us to wash our hands.
When I blew out my birthday candles I wished for my mum to have Tommy’s mum’s eyes, although not a direct swap because that wouldn’t be fair on Tommy, would it?
The funny thing is, I wish my mum had seen what happened this afternoon. Then I wouldn’t be in trouble, and I wouldn’t be out here in the cold trying to teach her a lesson.
She said I don’t deserve any presents, and my dad said calm down, it’s not that bad.
‘He does this all the time, Hugh.’ She said his name like he was in trouble too. ‘And he refused to apologise, do you know how that makes me feel?’
‘I didn’t do it,’ I said. ‘Laura tripped.’
‘See? It’s the lying I can’t stand. Bernadette saw it happen.’
‘Bernadette is a witch.’
I said this because, a) it’s true, and b) because it’s about time my mother knew her friend isn’t really very nice, and c) because it’s not fair that a horrible witch and her moaning daughter get to spoil my day, and d) because it was already out there, like a burp after a glass of lemonade before I had a chance to think of the consequences. And e) my mum’s following eyes are Bernadette’s fault. She’s always telling Mum to keep them on me.
‘Gabriel! That’s quite enough.’
Bernadette thinks I am a sly fox, and manipulative. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, although coming from Bernadette my guess is it’s a bad thing.
She’s hated me ever since Laura broke her arm in a wrestle. When we’re all together my mum pretends to stick up for me. For example, today she said, ‘I honestly don’t think Gabriel would push Laura down the stairs.’ And even when Bernadette told her she saw it with her own two eyes, my mum just smiled and went to get Laura some frozen peas for the bruising.
When Bernadette left the party, my mum dropped the smile. ‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ she said, which was really annoying because I’d already told her five times.
‘Laura tripped over Mr Piddles, I didn’t push her although I should tell you she kicks me all the time at school.’
‘That’s not what Bernadette saw.’
&nbs
p; ‘Why do you always take her side?’
Dad looked at Mum when I said this. I guess he wanted to know too. Because in the family tree, I’m the strongest branch and Bernadette isn’t even a twig.
Mentioning Mr Piddles was a big mistake though. When he gets me into trouble he’s locked in the airing cupboard for days and comes out smelling of clean towels and not like himself at all. Seeing my mum reach for him I dived in first, grabbed him, protected him in a cuddle.
‘Give him to me, Gabriel.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll ask you again.’
‘Answer’s still the same.’
At this point my mum unlocked my arms and pulled him from me so hard his leg ripped. I watched the feathers of his stuffing drift down this way and that and land on the carpet.
‘I hate you.’
Slap.
A slice on the leg. Red and stinging.
‘Linda . . .’ my dad said.
My mum held her hand out in front of her, staring, eyes big bowls of wonder. It shook like my gran’s does when she drinks tea.
‘Go to your room, Gabriel,’ Dad said. My mum had lost her words.
I took Mr Piddles and ran away, feathers from his stuffing fluttering like we were in the middle of a snowstorm.
‘It’s his birthday, for God’s sake. Why do you have to be so hard on him?’
‘What, so we just do nothing and let him get away with it?’ My mum had found her words again and threw them at my dad.
‘Get away with what? You don’t even know he did anything wrong. He’s right, Bernadette is a witch. I don’t know what it is she’s got against him, but he can’t do anything right in her eyes and why you listen to her is beyond me. He’s a good kid, Linda.’
I was hoping my mum would say, ‘I KNOW THAT,’ really loudly, and then I could be sure she believed it. Instead she slammed a door so hard the tremors shook my bunk bed.
In my room, I inspected Mr Piddles. I wasn’t sure this was the kind of injury anyone could fix, but I told him not to worry. ‘People can do lots of things without a leg.’ I’d seen a programme with soldiers who came back from the Falklands War with missing limbs and they seemed to manage just fine.
I’m so cold now the wind is chopping into my head. If my mum had bothered to kiss me goodnight she would know I’m not in bed, but she hasn’t and there’s no point carrying on with this game if I’m the only one playing. I want to be back under a warm duvet. I creep through the kitchen and past the living room door.
My dad isn’t there. Just my mum. She has a wine glass in one hand and the other is holding the phone. Tears have given her a fat face. I wait for her to turn around because her eyes must know I’m here, but she doesn’t. Maybe my wish has come true after all. It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would.
She is talking to Bernadette.
‘I know I’m overreacting, but I can’t stop worrying about him. And I can hardly tell Hugh now. You’re the only one who knows.’
I go to bed wondering what is so worrying, and why my mum would keep a secret from my dad and hand it over to Bernadette, just like that.
Tuesday
Jonathan Clancy
‘It’s Jonathan Clancy from The Times.’
Even after twenty-five years at the newspaper, there are moments when Jonathan still gets a kick out of announcing himself.
This is one of them.
Given the choice, Jonathan knows that Curtis Loewe would never talk to him. Today. Any day. But he also knows he’s a man driven by his public image. Can’t pass up on an opportunity to make himself look good. It is this knowledge that provides him with his first shot of sunshine on an otherwise bleak morning. Gabriel Miller has been arrested on suspicion of murder. All the rumblings suggest he will be charged soon.
‘How the devil are you?’ Curtis asks, as if the men are old buddies.
Keep your friends close.
‘I’ve been better.’
‘Sorry to hear it. I assume this isn’t a social call.’
‘Correct. I wanted to talk to you about Gabriel Miller,’ Clancy says.
‘What can I say? I’m as shocked as anyone. I was introduced to him recently. Odd chap, if you ask me. A funny manner about him, but I wouldn’t have thought he was capable of this.’
‘Innocent until proven guilty.’
‘Well, yes . . . but you know, it doesn’t look good. You never can tell what’s going on behind the scenes. Poor Linda. It’s a tragedy.’
‘I didn’t realise you were friends?’ Jonathan asks.
‘Friends is rather stretching the truth. We were acquainted way back when she was a newish Member of Parliament. I met her at a fundraiser. Would bore the hell out of you, those things. Linda was a breath of fresh air. There weren’t many female MPs in those days. She was tasked with squeezing me for money.’
‘She must have been good. How much have you given them now?’ Jonathan asks.
‘Millions. I’ve lost count. She was very persuasive, but I had little to do with her afterwards. Busy woman, climbing the ladder.’
‘Until she was thrown off.’
‘Resigned, Mr Clancy. You really should get your facts right. She resigned after her misconduct was exposed.’
‘Of course she did. My mistake. Seen anything of her lately?’
‘No call to really. From what I can gather, she shunned public life. I’m afraid to say these things happen. Some types bounce back from a scandal, others shrink away. Politics is a brutal beast from what I can tell. Mind you, she was bang to rights. Never knew what possessed the woman to do it. She didn’t strike me as the greedy type.’ He stops himself, as if he’s realised he’s laying it on too thick. ‘Is it just a quote you are after?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well . . . I always found her professional and persuasive and a great asset to the party. Will that suffice?’
‘Just one thing . . .’
‘Listen, I have a meeting in five minutes, I think I’ve given you enough time.’
‘When did you say you met Gabriel Miller?’
‘I didn’t . . . It was a few months ago, after one of his shows. We were introduced. Can’t remember much more than that.’
‘Must be your age. It does that to the memory. If it comes back to you, do give me a call,’ Clancy says and hangs up.
Clancy sits at his desk and stares at the squiggles of shorthand in front of him. He has no intention of deciphering them, he takes notes out of habit not necessity these days. Besides, the most important facts from the phone call are imprinted on his mind. Curtis met Gabriel. He’ll be sure to follow that up, but first he needs to speak to Linda’s friend Bernadette Mulligan.
‘You’re lucky, I’ve sent the rest packing,’ Bernadette tells him as she ushers him inside her Clapham semi. ‘What a bunch they are. But you’re a friend of Linda’s and that makes you a friend of mine too.’
There are really only a few questions Jonathan wants to ask Bernadette, but quickly he senses that she is not a woman to be rushed. Currently she’s taking him on a detour through the years of her and Linda’s friendship; from university to marriage and beyond. ‘I thought she’d be with Hugh forever,’ to the early years of motherhood, ‘she doted on Gabriel.
‘I still can’t quite believe it. Poor Linda. But I will say there was something not right about that boy even from when he was a child. Linda could see no wrong in him but he was devious, you know, always up to tricks and lying. My goodness, the lies he told! I would say to her, Linda, you have to keep an eye on him. He had some temper on him too. Good God, the way he would spin out of control. All she could do was stand and watch. He needed a good hiding, if you ask me – not that I advocate violence, you understand.
‘She wasn’t well either
and I put it down to him. I’m not talking physical illness, I mean up here, you know.’ Bernadette taps her head. ‘Depression, you’d call it now. You see, people think Gabriel is all smiles and jokes, because that’s all they see on television, but there is another side to him.’ She shakes her head and dabs her tears. ‘We’ve been friends for more than forty years. Sure, she tried to cut herself off after that awful scandal – never knew what she was thinking, it was so unlike her; whiter than white, she was – but I wouldn’t give up. I think she was embarrassed, ashamed to show her face, and you can’t blame her, but we all make mistakes and you don’t dump a friend when the going gets rough, do you? She’d ignored me for a good two years before I bumped into her at the shops. Jesus, the state of her – don’t quote me on that now – she looked like she’d fallen out with the hairdresser. And to think she was always so particular. When I saw her, I said, Linda, I don’t care whether you want my company or not but I’m visiting once a week. No arguments. Of course she put up a protest, but she needed someone because that boy of hers didn’t come near. Imagine that, after all she’d done for him and he didn’t so much as pick up a phone when she was in trouble. That sent her into a black hole. She had everything once and then nothing at all. Except the bottle. But I think the book helped focus her mind; when she started writing that, she seemed more like her old self again.’
Bernadette takes a sip of her tea and Jonathan seizes his chance to speak.
‘She told you she was writing a book?’ he says.
‘Not a novel, if that’s what you’re thinking. Factual, she said. She always did like to be cryptic.’
‘Did you tell anyone else about this book?’
‘I don’t make a habit of gossiping and Linda made it quite clear she didn’t want anyone to know.’
Jonathan Clancy’s eyes tighten as if he’s trying to pull something into focus at the edge of his vision.
‘Did she have any other visitors apart from you?’
An Act of Silence Page 3