She stopped in the doorway and surveyed the room before her – everything was yellowed from smoke – the once-white walls, the stippled ceiling, the skirting. The net curtains which had been pulled to one side along a grubby curtain-wire were grey with age and dirt and she noted that the windowsill was dotted with occasional dead flies. The plain brown carpet tiles had seen better days as had the furniture – a once-beige suite with flattened cushions, a matching armchair facing a small portable TV. She could just about make out the shape of a quizmaster and two contestants on the screen through a thick snow. There was a coffee table bearing only an ashtray filled with butts, emitting a thin wisp of stale smoke into the air where a cigarette had just been extinguished.
As she looked around, Martin Pine pressed the ‘off’ switch on the TV. In an instant the room was thankfully silent, a relief from the deafening fizz of the white noise.
Through the silence, Martin made an attempt at speech, but blushed as no word came out – just a guttural noise, a mixture of a cough and a grunt. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, and tried again. Claire wondered when had been the last time he had spoken to another person?
“Welcome,” he managed nervously on his second attempt, and as she heard his voice, the emotion finally hit her.
There he was. The boy who had kissed her at the kitchen door, held her close by the lakeshore that lifetime ago. The fresh-faced, cheeky lad who had shared his cake and his coffee that sweltering day when she had first run to Dubhglas. And this was what he was now, what he had come to, this grey old man for whom words refused to form. So alone.
The wave of feeling was tinged with nerves. She looked at her feet, folded her hands together as if in prayer and paused to control herself before replying.
“Hello, Martin,” she said. There was so much more to say, but where to start?
“You got my letter then,” he said, indicating that she should sit down in the armchair.
She managed a short smile, smoothed the skirt beneath her, and perched on the edge of the chair, to avoid the indignity of sinking into it. She took a moment to arrange herself – to place her handbag on the ground beside her, and carefully smooth the raincoat over the arm of the chair where it covered a multitude of small burn marks. Pine took her lead and sat himself on the edge of the furthest cushion on the couch, closest to the window.
Claire glanced up to find him looking at her, taking her in.
For a second, in the sunlight, there was a trace of the boy she had once known, and then he was gone – in his place, a worried and sad old man, thin-lipped and hard. And desperately uncomfortable.
She tried a warmer smile. “It’s good to see you, Martin,” she said. She had thought she’d forgotten her feelings from back then but here they were, despite their grim surroundings, despite the hardness of the features that looked back at her. This was proving much more difficult than she thought.
“It’s very good of you to come,” he managed.
She shook her head in denial. “I was due some days off.” She paused. “I’m going home this evening on the five o’clock train.”
Silence fell in the room.
“By home, do you still mean . . . the place?” he asked.
“Dubhglas?”
“The castle,” replied Martin.
Claire nodded. “I live in Mrs Turnbull’s cottage now,” she said. “Myself and my husband . . .” She paused, she didn’t know exactly why but it felt wrong somehow to mention Jim. “Well, we moved in there when Mrs Turnbull had to go into a home. The poor dear couldn’t look after herself – she was confined to a wheelchair . . .”
A look of dismay flashed across Martin’s face and he lowered his head to hide his face. Claire paused, realising she had upset him. There was silence for a moment.
“And is your husband with you in London,” he asked, raising his head, his eyes unmistakeably moist.
Claire shook her head again. “No. He passed away last year,” she said matter of factly.
There was another silence.
“Sorry to hear that,” mumbled Martin. “And sorry to hear about Mrs T as well.”
Claire suppressed her own sadness, the sadness that welled in her sometimes when she thought about the past, thought about Mrs Turnbull, her once-capable saviour reduced to a withered, confused old woman who couldn’t tell where she was from one moment to the next, whose body eventually ceased to function. Her sadness when someone was kind enough to express sympathy at Jim’s loss. Their marriage hadn’t been stormy or passionate, their tale not a great love story, but she missed his company sorely, even though she kept herself busy with the few hours she still did at the castle and with her reading. She wondered what to say next.
“You look well,” said Martin suddenly, starting a fresh topic.
Claire looked at him to see him indicating his own face but meaning hers. “Your eye . . . it’s different . . .”
Claire smiled despite herself and nodded. “It is,” she said, raising her hand to it. Trust Martin to be still so upfront about things. “I had an operation some years ago.”
Martin smiled back at her. “Nice,” he said, and in his voice she again heard the young East End boy. For an instant it felt like she were reliving a film in her memory where the characters lived in a hazy place filled with warm yellow sunshine rather than the glare of today. It certainly didn’t feel for a second like it was her own life she was remembering.
“Drum, I haven’t got much time left,” he said suddenly.
Claire reeled a little, felt as though she had been slapped. “You’re unwell,” she managed.
Martin nodded weakly. “Cancer,” he said. He pointed at his cigarettes and lighter on the table before him. “Not much else to do in prison but smoke.” He attempted a grin but failed. “The doctors say that I might have six months, tops. I’ll probably have to go into hospital soon. That’s why I wanted to see you. There are things I need to do before I . . . go. Things that need to be set straight . . .”
Claire found that she was holding her breath in. Holding her whole body in, if she were honest with herself. Martin. Her Martin. Dying. Talking in terms of months – sitting before her like this. Dying. All that part of her life, gone now. Those happy, happy days before that night by the loch . . .
Martin’s face suddenly grew dark and he sat even further forward in the seat.
“I didn’t do nothing to Laurence,” he said. The words hung in the air for a moment as he fixed Claire with a stare. He spoke slowly, his words careful and measured. “And I didn’t do nothing to bloody Jack Ball. Do you understand? I have to tell someone. What I said in court all those years ago – when I pleaded not guilty – I was telling the truth.”
She’d been right all along. She’d always known it. Known that Martin couldn’t have harmed the boy. But she’d never told another soul. Had just gone along with everything, too afraid to defend him . . .
“I never touched him in any way – do you understand? He was my mate. I never had mates when I was small – always had to be a grown up, always ducking and diving, and that’s how my life’s been since. Laurence McKenzie might have been a kid but he was the best bloody friend I ever had.”
Spittle glistened on Martin’s lower lip as he grew silent again, his eyes filled now with rage and hurt, his chest rising and falling more rapidly with the exertion, his tired, rotting lungs unable to keep up. It was a while before he calmed his breathing enough to begin again.
“Uncle Jack used to . . . to hurt me . . . to do things to me . . . Do you understand?”
It took a moment for it to sink it, but when it did, Claire bit her lip hard in a futile attempt to stop herself crying at the shocking realisation of what he was telling her. He’d been abused. Just like she had . . .
The tears made her vision blurry and when she couldn’t help but blink, one rolled down her cheek rapidly, followed by another.
Martin Pine looked away from her, as if watching her tears might be catching. He st
eadied himself to continue. “That’s why I told you to go and get help that night at the lake, do you remember? I knew that Uncle Jack was done with me and was ready to move on to greener pastures.” He looked directly at Claire. “I couldn’t let Laurence be alone with him. When I knew that they were both down at the lake that night, I had to stop it. But you know what a bully Ball was. I couldn’t have done it alone. And besides which, I needed someone else to see . . . to know. That’s why I told you to go get help. To get someone who could have stopped him.”
Claire watched him, her eyes wide, as he continued to speak, his breathing becoming more laboured as he went on.
“When I got down to the lake that night, it was dark of course but I could see clearly – there was a moon – a great, round harvest moon, do you remember that and all? You have no idea how vivid it all is still in my head. I’ve played it over a million times, Drum.”
Claire nodded for him to continue.
“And there they were, just coming alongside the little jetty – you remember the one? With the ladder to climb in and out of the rowing boat? I was so scared, Drum – how could I have let that happen? Let Laurence be out there on his own with that evil piece of work for so long? I couldn’t help myself – I ran as fast as I could onto that jetty, shouting the odds, yelling for little Laurence to get out of that boat, yelling at Ball to keep his hands off him.
Ball tried to brave it out at first, you see. Started throwing faces at Laurence, cocking ’is thumb at me as much as to say ‘who’s this nutter then?’ and trying to laugh it off only poor Laurence didn’t seem to think it was so funny. His face was white as a sheet, Drum. To this day it haunts me that I don’t know actually what happened out on that lake, to that poor little lamb.
But I wasn’t going nowhere, I tell you. I could tell Jack was getting madder – his ’orrible face was like thunder and he started bellowing at me like a bull – he lurched to his feet and started shaking one of the oars at me while the boat rocked, telling me to get the hell back to the house and keep my nose out, but wild horses wouldn’t have dragged me away from that boat. The boat was close enough now for me to help Laurence out of the boat and up the ladder. I reached out to him, I did. Except it was Ball grabbed my arm and pulled me right close to his face so that I thought I was going to fall in, or that he’d pull my arm clean out of its socket. I could feel his spit on my face as he told me to shut up and get out of his sight before he did me some real harm. His voice came from his boots when he was angry, and he was angrier than I’d ever seen him in my life. Angrier than I thought a man was capable of being.”
Martin fell silent for a moment, partly to collect his thoughts, partly to regain his breath. Claire watched him retreat into himself, his face darken, watched him go back in time to that night, standing on the jetty.
“I can still hear Laurence screaming,” he whispered softly, a tremble to his voice. “Screaming ‘Stop, Uncle Jack!’ and ‘Let me off!’ and yelling at him to sit down, that they were going to capsize. His little voice, Drum, screams that you’d think would wake the dead. He was terrified – the sound of it made me want to cover my ears – and still Ball was roaring at me and the boat was rocking from side to side. Then suddenly he let me go and hauled his bloody great fat body up the ladder – I was sure it would come away from the jetty – and he came at me, his eyes on fire, still with the oar in his hand. It was all I could do not to get hit by it once he started swinging it from side to side like some bloody great pendulum on a grandfather clock. I could hear it making a ‘whish’ through the air, swinging past my ears as it went one way, past my legs as it came back, a swing with every step. He’d lost it Drum. I don’t know what it was that night that finally drove him over the edge. There was no reason there, no sense. He was just like a crazy animal and he wasn’t going to be happy until he’d hurt me.
And I couldn’t run, Drum – do you understand? There was nothing to stop me turning tail and making a run for it back up the lawns but I couldn’t. I couldn’t turn my back on Laurence – something just wouldn’t allow me to do that and all the while he was coming at me with this hatred in his eyes and then I lost my balance and stumbled and fell and I was sure I was a goner, a sitting duck. And then suddenly he stopped.”
Martin raised his eyebrows as if somehow he was still surprised, as if the moment was completely unexpected, even though he had clearly lived through it, again and again, for years.
“Just stopped in his tracks. And his eyes sort of glazed over for a moment and everything went still. And I could see Laurence behind him – with the other oar in his two hands. The little soldier had only gone and climbed onto the jetty and brought the oar down on Jack’s head. And for a moment we all froze solid. All we could do was stare at Jack, with his eyes gone all funny and his body starting to sag. There was a little trickle of blood just running down his face, a dark streak that ran down over his scar. He lifted up a finger then, real slow. And he wiped some of it onto his hand and looked at it. Like he’d never seen his own fingers before.
And then he let out a roar, Drum. A roar like a wounded animal. That just seemed to fill the whole night. I was sure that everyone in the whole world could hear that sound at that moment. And then Ball turned away from me. And did the last thing in the world that I wanted him to do. He turned on Laurence.
The little fellah wasn’t quick enough to get away either. Even though Ball was stunned by the blow from the oar, it wasn’t enough to floor him. I don’t think a gunshot would have been enough to floor him – he was fuelled by a rage that I’ll never forget. Pure bloody rage.
He got his fingers round Laurence’s throat before I could stand up and even when I did I couldn’t get at him properly to prise them off. They were like a vice, Drum. Like a crocodile or something when he gets hold of his prey and he won’t let go. That poor kid never stood a chance.”
He paused for a moment, overwhelmed. Claire saw tears form in his eyes as the tragic scene played out yet again in his memory.
“In the struggle we went into the water. All three of us. That’s what happened. Still I tried to prize those big fat fingers from around Laurence’s neck but it just couldn’t be done. Even under the water I tried but we just kept going down and down. Ball couldn’t swim, see? And even if he could I don’t know if he’d have had the mind to. He acted like a great heavy anchor, just dragging us down and down further and the water got muddier and darker with all the silt and the mud that was getting dredged up with us all thrashing around.”
Martin focused again on Claire, his damp eyes pleading for understanding.
“I only left Laurence for a few seconds, Drum. Just went back to the surface to get some air – just a few seconds – but it was enough. When I went back under, I couldn’t see a thing. And it wouldn’t have mattered if I did anyhow. There was nothing on this earth and probably the next that could have saved that child once Jack Ball decided he had it in for him.
“It’s haunted me all these years, Drum . . . if there was anything I could’ve done to stop it all happening, I would’ve. But if I hadn’t gone down there to the lake then who knows what Ball would have done to the boy? Or . . . would Laurence still be alive? Maybe it was my fault after all . . . maybe I did the wrong thing?”
He grew silent again and his eyes glazed over as he concentrated on the memory.
“I’m so sorry,” said Claire through her tears. “I shouldn’t have doubted you . . . I shouldn’t have testified . . .”
“Him being dead and gone – that’s something I don’t regret for a minute. Sometimes, when I was inside, I’d actually wish I’d done it, wished I’d managed to finish him off somehow. Ball was a vile, spiteful bully, and he hurt me and Laurence too, I reckon. Just the once but that’s enough, isn’t it?”
“He was no loss,” agreed Claire. She remembered suddenly Martin’s face that night when she had told him where Laurence was gone, the pure shock, the fear that she’d seen in his eyes. She should have recognised it th
en. The same look of fear and panic that she’d always felt when she heard footsteps approach her room at night. A lifetime ago now.
Claire was pensive for a moment, filled with regret. “I never spoke up, Martin,” she said. “I never told anyone what you were really like – how kind you were – I could have, maybe, said something to your solicitor . . . explained that you weren’t like that . . .”
Martin laughed bitterly. “My brief wasn’t there to get me off. I was fitted up. Once the case was sent back to London, my fate was sealed. Please don’t beat yourself up about all this, Drum. There was nothing you could have done. The odds were against me, all them years back. No matter what I did or said, there was no way I was ever getting out of that prison. There were forces at work – powerful forces who wanted me to pay for what they thought I did to Ball. The case was put together that I was the one who hit him with the oar and he fell in the water. The sickening part – the part that keeps me awake at night is that they twisted it to make it look like he was trying to protect Laurence from me. That I was some sort of dangerous predator who went on to hold the boy under the water by the neck until he drowned. As if I could, Drum. Whatever else Ball was, he had his uses to the powers that be. I knew that once I went down, I wasn’t getting out and there was no point in even thinking about it. For a long time I cried – I raged about it all. About how unfair it all was – why me and all that. And then time went on and I just got used to it. That was how things were to be from now on. And I grew to accept it and with a little help from Him Above, I realised that there was no point in being angry. But when I knew . . . when I heard my days was numbered, then I knew it was time to act. Time to tell someone. It’s his mother, you see? I can’t stop thinking about her, and about what she must think of me. And I need her to know some peace, do you understand? I need her to know that he called for her. He called out for her as he stood in that boat, terrified of what Ball was going to do next. He was a brave little fellah – the bravest. If he’d grown up he coulda ruled the world.”
The Dark Water Page 34