Cover Up

by Patricia Hall

  ‘I’ve a message for Mr Terry Jordan,’ she said. ‘There’s no reply at his house and I wondered if he was here.’ The man hesitated for a moment.

  ‘I’ve not seen him today,’ he conceded as if even this admission was more than his job was worth. ‘But Mrs Jordan was here for luncheon with some of her friends. Ladies are admitted to the social facilities as guests.’ He made it sound as if he did not really approve of that amount of latitude being offered to what he would no doubt call the weaker sex.

  ‘Is she still here?’ Kate asked. The man looked behind him to where various groups were emerging from the club house, most of them in a cheerful, even merry, mood after, Kate guessed, copious drinks and a substantial Sunday lunch.

  ‘She’s the lady in the blue dress,’ her informant admitted in a whisper, unbending for a moment. ‘But don’t tell anyone I told you, la.’

  Most of the group got into cars but Mrs Jordan waved them off and began walking slightly unsteadily towards the gates. As she approached, Kate was able to fall into step beside her.

  ‘Mrs Jordan?’ she asked. ‘I’m Kate O’Donnell. I think you know my father, Frank.’

  The woman stopped and gave her a deeply suspicious look.

  ‘So what if I do, dear?’ she asked, her accent pure Scotland Road, untouched by her wealthy surroundings. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘He works for your husband,’ Kate said in a rush, ‘and he seems to have disappeared. My brother’s in hospital very ill, so we need to contact my da and thought maybe Mr Jordan would know where he is. They’re old friends from the war, I think. I’d be very, very grateful if you could help me find him.’

  Kate realized that Mrs Jordan was swaying slightly, and her eyes were glazed as if what she had heard was difficult to take in. The older woman put a hand on Kate’s arm and held on tightly.

  ‘I think we’d better go home if you want to talk,’ Mrs Jordan said. ‘It’s only just round the corner. I wonder if I misunderstood what you just said. I thought you meant …’ She hesitated. ‘Oh, never mind. Come back with me and tell me all about it. I’d not say no to the company. My husband’s actually gone off on one of his jaunts.’

  ‘That would be good,’ Kate said and they made their somewhat erratic way down the road, with Kate steering her companion out of the way of the cars still leaving the club, until Mrs Jordan veered to the right and came to a stop outside a pair of substantial gates at the end of a broad drive with a low ranch-style house visible at the end of it.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Mrs Jordan said when they finally made it to the front door and she succeeded, after several attempts, in inserting the key into the lock. She led the way into a large sitting room facing on to the back garden, which itself looked out over the rolling golf links where some men were still playing.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Kate said, thinking of the cramped tenements where Jordan himself, if not his wife, must have grown up. She realized that Mrs Jordan had veered across the room to a massive cocktail cabinet where she was busy pouring herself a drink.

  ‘Housekeeper’s off today. Do you want something?’ she asked, waving a bottle of gin in Kate’s general direction. ‘G&T?’ Kate shook her head. It might be wise, she thought, to pin the lady down before she could drink much more and perhaps fall down senseless, as she had seen her own father do more than once.

  ‘They told me at his office that your husband is away in London,’ she said, ‘and I wondered if you knew about the accident at the building site where my dad was the foreman and where he might be. An Irish lad was killed, and no one’s seen my da since. He’s not come home, he’s simply vanished. And now my brother’s in hospital seriously ill, so we really need to contact my da.’

  Mrs Jordan sank into the embrace of one of the enormous sofas, slopping her drink down the front of her blue summer dress. Some slight spark of understanding entered her blue eyes.

  ‘Frankie O’Donnell …’ she said. ‘Is he your father? Or you think he is, anyway? In my experience you can never be too sure.’

  Kate opened her mouth to protest at this unexpected slur on her mother, then thought better of it. Mrs Jordan giggled and slopped her drink again. ‘I haven’t heard about an accident at all, but I remember Frankie from the war. He used to help Terry now and then when he was a rescue man. Burrowing into all those ruins like rats. That was before we were married, of course, and before Terry went legit in the building trade. I don’t suppose I’d have looked at him in those days. He might have been a part-time hero, but he was a bit of a spiv too. Always on the make. I don’t know how he got away with it. It was good practice, I suppose, for what he’s been getting away with since.’

  Kate was startled by Carmel Jordan’s candour, but hesitated to ask what she meant.

  ‘Never mind!’ Carmel added, evidently realizing, even through the alcohol fumes, that she’d said too much. ‘Anyway, I can’t complain, can I?’ And she waved an expansive hand around the vast sitting room.

  ‘My da’s been working for your husband on the building sites recently,’ Kate said. ‘Did you know that, Mrs Jordan?’

  ‘I did. Terry’s mentioned his name once or twice. I knew he was back on the scene in spite of the booze.’

  ‘He’s supposed to talk to the police tomorrow about how this lad got killed. It’ll all get very complicated if he doesn’t turn up. And he doesn’t know that my brother is in hospital …’ Kate faltered slightly and Mrs Jordan put a hand on her knee.

  ‘Call me, Carmel,’ she said, nodding slightly, and took another drink. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. I leave that to Terry and the la-di-da friends he’s making these days all over the place. He built this house for entertaining, he said. Entertaining and for the children that never arrived. But I don’t like entertaining.’ Kate realized with embarrassment that there were tears coursing down Carmel Jordan’s face, making runnels in her heavy make-up and smudging her lipstick.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, feeling helpless in the face of grief she didn’t understand and could do nothing about. Carmel finished her drink in one and her face suddenly contorted.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if he didn’t humiliate me with his bloody women,’ she said. ‘Terry, I mean. He’s always got some floozy on the go.’

  ‘At least my da didn’t do that,’ Kate murmured.

  ‘The worst thing was we were having a row one night and he told me one of them had had his child. I could have killed him. For all I know, he’s got dozens of little bastards scattered about the place. But he’s indestructible, is Terry. It was obvious in the war – he should have been killed a dozen times bulldozing his way through the ruins the way he did, but he was never even seriously hurt. He came out of it a hero, and there was no gainsaying him in Liverpool after that. Thought he was invincible. And maybe he is. One of my friends told me he’d taken his latest bit of fluff to London with him on this trip. Doreen Darcy she calls herself. How brazen is that when he’s talking to some Church bigwig about developing land they own? Who’d ever have thought he’d be in deep with the Monsignors, the Corporation, the planners … Anyone who’s anyone with a bit of influence, it looks like. You’d think he’d rebuilt the bloody city all on his own, though it’s true he’s rebuilt more of it than anyone would’ve expected when he started. And now some minister in London is ready to eat out of his hand, apparently. If I hadn’t listened too hard to the bloody Church, I’d have divorced him years ago and dented his reputation. Trouble is I like my little luxuries too much to give them up.’ She lay back on the sofa with her eyes closed and Kate was afraid she was falling asleep as she began to breathe laboriously, her heavily bejewelled hands laid across her breasts as if she was practising for her own burial.

  ‘So you’ve no idea where my da might be?’ Kate persisted. Carmel opened her eyes blearily.

  ‘I’ve not seen him, dear,’ she said. ‘Not for years. I do remember him vaguely, but I don’t take much notice of Terry’s business. If your da’s blotted his copy book, he�
�s most likely have taken the first boat out, isn’t he? He’ll know Terry won’t help him if he thinks he can avoid the blame for a nasty accident himself.’

  Kate sighed heavily.

  ‘I’ll get back to the hospital, then,’ she said. ‘Thank you for trying to help.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your troubles,’ Carmel Jordan said. ‘I’ll remember your poor brother in my prayers.’

  Much good that will do, Kate said to herself as she made her way out of the rambling house. She’d come all this way and gained absolutely nothing. And her worst fear was that for Tom it might already be too late.

  THIRTEEN

  Feeling sick and desperate, Kate took the train back to the city. Her first instinct was to go straight to the hospital, but as she was close to the police station she thought she would call in there to see if she could track down Harry Barnard. The sergeant on the desk looked at her as blankly as his predecessor had done earlier.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ he said, his eyes so opaque that she knew he could only be lying.

  ‘Well thanks,’ she said and turned on her heel. She hurried back to where she had last seen Barnard’s car and her heart lurched when she saw that there was still no sign of it. Harry could be looking for her, she thought, although she did not really believe it and in any case she knew she could not leave her family any longer. She needed to know how Tom’s operation had gone and confess to her mother and sister that she had made no progress in finding her father. She half walked and half ran the rest of the way to the hospital, arriving hot and breathless. She found her family and Tom’s boyfriend Kevin huddled in the waiting room more or less where she had left them and could tell from their pale, anguished faces that nothing much had changed while she was away.

  ‘How is he?’ she asked her mother, who merely shook her head, too overcome to speak.

  ‘He’s not come round from the operation yet,’ Annie said. ‘The doctor said it had gone as well as could be expected, whatever that means.’

  ‘They’ve still got two bizzies sitting by his bed, even though he’s unconscious,’ Kevin said bitterly.

  ‘Did you find out where your da might be?’ Bridie asked and tears rolled down her face when Kate shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I managed to track down Mrs Jordan in Formby but she didn’t know anything about him. And her husband’s still in London, apparently. She didn’t even know there’d been an accident at the building site. I went all that way for nothing, really.’

  ‘Didn’t your boyfriend take you in his car?’ her mother asked. ‘He is your boyfriend, isn’t he? Though I only had to look at him to see he wasn’t the sort of good Catholic you should be going with. Aren’t I right?’ Kate ignored the angry catechism.

  ‘I’ve lost track of him,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know where the devil he is. His car’s not where he left it. He said he was going to the police station but they don’t seem to know anything about him. He must have gone somewhere else instead.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up,’ Annie said, giving her a quick hug. Bridie sat scowling in silence for a long time, glancing endlessly towards the recovery ward where Tom lay and then at Kate, who refused to meet her accusing glances.

  ‘Are you living with him?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘I share a flat with Tess,’ Kate said, refusing to be drawn further, and watched her mother sink back into what looked like despair.

  Eventually Bridie stirred herself again.

  ‘Katie, can you do us all another favour, la?’ she said tentatively. ‘Can you get hold of Father Reilly for me? I wouldn’t want Tom to slip away without the last rites. I know he’ll not be in a state of grace but I’m sure Father Reilly will find an answer.’ Kevin immediately got to his feet and, obviously biting back his anger, flung himself out of the room. Kate followed him and found him staring out of the window into the car park below. She put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s not what Tom would want,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘I know,’ Kate said. ‘But she’s his mother.’

  ‘And as far as the clergy are concerned I’m nothing, less than nothing. I’ve no right to even exist. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘As far as most people are concerned, you and Tom are both less than nothing. I’m sorry,’ Kate said. Kevin looked at her with his eyes full of tears.

  ‘I don’t think I can live without him,’ he said.

  ‘My mother would say pray for him. But you’re like me, you don’t do that anymore. All we can do is hope, so let’s do that.’ She gave him a quick hug. ‘I want to go back to my hotel and see if Harry has left me a message there,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come with me? It’s not far and the fresh air will do you good.’

  ‘Will you get the priest?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘As you say, it’s not what Tom would want.’

  ‘We’ll all go to hell together, then,’ Kevin said with a crooked smile. They left the hospital together and slowly made their way to Brownlow Hill, buried in their own thoughts. As Kate had expected, the girl on reception handed her a piece of paper as they walked into the hotel. The message was very brief.

  ‘I’ve been called back to London urgently by the DCI. Don’t worry. Harry.’ She crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into a wastepaper basket, feeling totally bereft. At the moment when she needed him most, Barnard seemed to have deserted her.

  ‘Why don’t we get a drink?’ she said to Kevin, with the world apparently crashing around their ears, and led the way to the nearest pub.

  ‘I won’t say “Cheers!”,’ she said, pulling a face at the kick of the raw spirit as she sipped the Jameson’s he brought her. ‘It doesn’t seem the right thing to say.’

  Harry Barnard was sitting in the front passenger seat of his own car as the Liverpool DC, who had not bothered to offer a name beyond Jim, drove quickly out of the city, making him wince every time he misjudged the gears. As they ground their way through heavy traffic to Widnes and over the Mersey to Runcorn, before heading south, he drifted in and out of sleep, pleased to leave a city he devoutly hoped he would never see again but knowing that he had left Kate deeply in the lurch.

  They stopped briefly at a service station somewhere in the Midlands, and although DCI Strachan had left off the threatened handcuffs he knew Jim must have had orders not to let him out of his sight as he ostentatiously accompanied him to the gents. He wondered what sort of message had already gone to Jackson, but agonized more over what reason his boss had for summoning him so urgently back to base on a Sunday when they should both have been off duty. Sleep was easier once they joined the newly minted M1 motorway, although his aches and pains had gradually resolved themselves into a generalized discomfort that now seemed to extend from head to toe. The next time he struggled back to consciousness they had slowed down on the approach to Edgware, and Barnard fought to regain some semblance of coherent thought.

  By the time they’d driven into the West End and Barnard had guided Jim to a parking space near the nick, his mood had switched from depression to a fierce anger about what had happened in the north. The two men walked into the police station together, and Barnard led the way two steps at a time up the stairs to the DCI’s office and knocked. Jackson called them in and they found him at his meticulously tidy desk, as usual, with a distinctly unfriendly expression on his face.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said. ‘At last. And this is?’

  ‘DC Jim Bailey,’ the younger man said. ‘My DCI said he wasn’t fit to drive back on his own. He’d had a bit of an accident. But you wanted him back urgently, so here we are.’ Jackson looked more closely at Barnard and took in the black eye and visible cuts and bruises.‘You’d better sit down, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Thank you, DC Bailey, that was very helpful.’ The Liverpool detective shrugged and turned away.

  ‘Euston station is it, to get back home?’ he flung over his shoulder as he slammed the door behind him.

  Jackson leaned back in h
is chair for a moment, steepling his hands in front of his face as he surveyed the damage carefully.

  ‘So exactly how did you end up in this state?’ he asked at length.

  ‘I’m not sure you’re going to believe it, guv,’ Barnard said wearily. ‘But you got me out of a very nasty situation.’

  ‘A bit of an accident, your colleague said?’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Barnard said. ‘No way was it that. I went to the nick in Liverpool to ask about my girlfriend’s brother who’d been arrested. You remember he was a suspect a couple of years ago in a murder case?’

  Jackson looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Not a case we’re likely to forget,’ he said. ‘So what was he arrested for this time?’

  ‘He’s a homosexual, so the usual, I suppose. They dragged him out of bed, which seemed a bit extreme.’ Jackson did not hide his distaste but waved Barnard on.

  ‘When I got there, he was being taken away in an ambulance and it was obvious he’d had a vicious beating. I evidently saw too much for the DCI up there, a bastard called Strachan, and they put me in a cell.’