Fall From Grace

by Menon, David

  ‘You’ve heard nothing from Jake then, son?’ asked his father. He’d met Jake several times and liked the bloke. He thought he must be in the thick of it now though judging by what was on the news every night, ‘I forgot to ask before, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad, I understand and no, I’ve heard nothing.’

  Paul swallowed hard. He wanted to burst into tears but that would give too much ammunition to his mother so he’d save that for when he got home later.

  ‘Thirty-five years old and still living in a two-up, two-down house because he insists on staying in a job where he helps all the scum and the dregs of society,’ his mother scorned, ‘how bloody pathetic is that?’

  ‘It’s not pathetic, Mum,’ said Paul who could hold his own against her but was sick of having to do so. He felt like he’d been doing it all his life, ‘and they’re not the dregs of society.’

  ‘Of course it’s all so different with our daughter Denise,’ Mary boasted, ‘she lives in a beautiful big house down in Berkshire. Oh yes, her husband, my son-in-law George, he’s got a top job in the city. They have a very good life.’

  ‘And Denise has only been to see Dad once since he got ill and that was only for a couple of hours one afternoon, during which she watched the clock the whole time.’

  ‘Shut your stupid mouth!’ his mother scolded.

  Paul closed his eyes to quell his anger. When he opened them he saw that his father had fallen asleep but still he lowered his voice as he turned to his mother.

  ‘Mum, when was the last time your darling daughter even rang up to see how her father was?’

  ‘She’s very busy,’ said Mary, quietly.

  ‘Yes of course she is, Mum. She’s got nails to paint and magazines to read. Of course she’s far too busy to spend time with her dying father.’

  ‘George has a very important job and they can’t just drop everything to come all the way up here,’ said Mary, ‘you’re talking out of the back of your head as usual.’

  ‘I don’t deserve the crap I take from you, Mum’ said Paul, his emotions hardening to her. ‘I make a hundred mile roundtrip three times a week to see to Dad and to give you some support, and I do it gladly, but all you do is kick it straight back in my face and yet our Denise who never calls you and never comes anywhere near gets put on a bloody pedestal.’

  ‘Don’t you dare bad mouth your sister!’ she warned.

  ‘And what will you do if I carry on, Mum? Are we going to go back to the old days? Are you going to make me go without my tea and tell Dad when he gets home from work that I’ve already eaten? I lost count of the nights I went to bed hungry because of your cruelty. Are you going to pour boiling water over my hand until the skin starts to peel off and then tell Dad how clumsy I am? Are you going to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs for hours on end knowing how claustrophobic I get? Are you going to beat the shit out of me but only on my body so that Dad won’t see? Do you remember what you always used to say to me? You used to say that if I told Dad I’d get it all ten times worse the next day. I will never forget any of it for as long as I live.’

  ‘I did it for your own good.’

  ‘Oh yes that’s it,’ said Paul, shaking his head in absolute disgust, ‘the standard excuse used by parents who assault their children.’

  ‘You were always far too sensitive,’ she sneered, ‘I needed to toughen you up.’

  ‘Oh there goes another of the stock excuses. Keep on going down the list, Mum, I’m all ears. I’d hate to live in your world. It must be a very twisted place.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘Really? Well what I can’t work out is what made you hate me so much? What could I have done? I was only a child for God’s sake and you never did any of it to our Denise. That’s what hurts me more than the abuse itself. You singled me out and you still do and our Denise stood by laughing just like she does now.’

  *

  Sara Hoyland and Tim Norris had once been part of the same social gang, a group of about twenty who’d all hung out together before life had moved most of them into the settling down stage. Everybody had always expected Sara and Tim to get together as more than friends one day but then Tim met a nurse called Helen whom everybody acknowledged was gorgeous and lovely and beautiful and ‘so right’ for Tim. It had mightily pissed Sara off at the time that they all seemed to forget the feelings she had for Tim. Then, when fate gave her a reason never to forget what the rest of them seemed to have discarded, she distanced herself from them and now had a whole new set of friends. Tim had married Helen and by all accounts they were very happy. She was pleased for them. She just didn’t want her nose rubbed in it.

  ‘It is good to see you again, Sara,’ said Tim as they sat in her office. He meant it even though he knew that this could cause complications. But there was a certain comfort in seeing Sara again after all these years. The sudden nature of their parting all those years ago had left things rather untidy. Maybe they could be given a second chance at least at the friendship side of what they’d shared before, although he did want to know why she’d suddenly slipped out of his life. The fact that they’d slept together after being such close mates for all those years had been a mistake that they’d both acknowledged at the time.

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been having to think about that and convince yourself.’

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ said Tim, ‘I didn’t walk away from you. It was the other way round.’

  ‘How’s Helen?’

  So, thought Tim. That’s the way it’s going to be. Any talk of the past and the conversation is closed down.

  ‘She’s well, thanks.’

  ‘You must’ve been married … what, five years now?’

  ‘Five years next month.’

  ‘Is she still nursing?’

  ‘Yes but she’s part-time now,’ said Tim. ‘We’re trying for a family’.

  ‘Right,’ said Sara who really hadn’t wanted to hear that, ‘I see.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me what?’

  ‘Are you with anyone?’

  ‘No’ said Sara.

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘Why would I lie to you?’ said Sara, defensively.

  ‘Oh I didn’t mean that, I just … I just thought you’d have met someone.’

  ‘I don’t need anyone to take care of me, Tim.’

  ‘No, of course you don’t,’ said Tim, ‘I didn’t mean it that way. Look, Sara, is this going to be a problem for us? You and I working together?’

  ‘It’s a bit early days to be thinking about potential problems, isn’t it?’ said Sara.

  ‘I was also thinking about the squad.’

  ‘I’m not saying that seeing you again isn’t a little unsettling,’ said Sara, ‘It’s certainly not what I need when I’m starting a new job. But that’s the situation and we’re going to have to get on with it.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little … cold?’

  ‘Look, Tim, we were friends for years and then one night we gave in to all those feelings we’d been trying to ignore. Then you told me the next morning it had all been a big mistake, that it was one of those things that two people who are close friends should never do’.

  ‘I thought we’d both agreed that it had been a mistake?’

  ‘Your recollection is different to mine,’ said Sara, ‘you just assumed that I agreed with you and I was too devastated by your attitude to argue with you. Then after you’d met Helen there didn’t seem much point in me hoping anymore.’

  ‘Hoping?’

  ‘That you’d have a change of heart,’ said Sara, ‘all of our mutual friends embraced Helen with open arms and I felt like they’d all stabbed me in the back. They just seemed to ignore the fact I’d had feelings for you all those years. Because of Helen I lost you and all my friends in one foul swoop.’

  Tim rubbed his hand across his face, ‘I didn’t realise you felt that way.’

  ‘I don’t believe that, Tim,’ said
Sara, ‘you couldn’t have been that blind.’

  ‘Sara, I’m sorry.’

  ‘And I was pregnant.’

  Tim felt like his heart stopped for a second. ‘You were what?’

  ‘I was pregnant with your child,’ said Sara who despite the tremor she could hear in her voice was feeling remarkably good about finally getting things off her chest.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I had him adopted.’

  Tim was reeling. He hadn’t counted on a knife being taken to his past when he turned up for work this morning.

  ‘You had our child adopted without even telling me about him?’

  Sara could’ve slapped his face, ‘don’t start playing the ‘our child’ card, Tim, please. I couldn’t take that.’

  ‘Sara, if I’d known …’

  ‘…What? If you’d known I was pregnant? You’d have dumped Helen and married me? No way would I have been second best just because I was carrying your child.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been like that.’

  ‘Yes it would!’ She hissed.

  The aggravation was getting to Tim. ‘You should’ve told me!’

  ‘No I shouldn’t,’ said Sara, ‘you were head over heels in love with Helen and I didn’t want to bring up a child on my own. But I can tell you this, there isn’t a day goes by without me thinking about my baby. I see little boys of the age he’d be now and sometimes it’s like a dagger through my heart. So don’t you dare lecture me, Tim. Don’t you dare lecture me.’

  ‘Oh I’m not going to lecture you,’ said Tim, unconvinced by Sara’s emotional entreaty, ‘I just want you to give me a reason not to hate you for denying me my right to be my son’s father.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Tim,’ said Sara who was struggling to hold her ground in the face of Tim’s obvious fury, ‘but perhaps this is an appropriate time to remind you that I’m your superior officer.’

  ‘Oh don’t try and pull that one,’ Tim sneered.

  ‘You’ve got two choices, Tim,’ said Sara, hardening to her task, ‘I hope for your sake you choose the right one.’

  ‘That sounds like a bloody threat to me!’

  ‘That’s because it is,’ said Sara, ‘I won’t allow you to bring our personal history into what we have to do professionally.’

  Tim angrily retorted, ‘Well, when you’re holding my balls in your claws I’ve got no choice.’

  ‘That’s right, Tim,’ said Sara, ‘You’ve got no choice.’

  THREE

  ‘So what is this Obama person doing as President?’ said Dieter as he and Eleanor enjoyed a drink before lunch. ‘Only working for the coloured people?’

  ‘A negro as President of the free world,’ said Eleanor with her face contorted as if she’d just been shocked by a bad smell, ‘it’s just too awful to even contemplate.’

  ‘But it’s real, liebling,’ said Dieter, ‘far too real for either of our likings.’

  ‘We need another Hitler to come and sort out these Muslims just like he so bravely tried to sort out the Jewish problem.’

  ‘But he paid such a heavy price for it,’ said Dieter, ‘so did my poor friends in the east of Germany who had to live under Soviet tyranny for all those long, painful years. The wrong side won the war, Eleanor. You know I’ve always believed that and I always will. We’re all now the victims of communist, liberal teachings. Hitler would never have allowed the Muslims to have their say on anything. They’d have been silenced good and proper.’

  It so amused Eleanor when Dieter’s accent fell between the clipped German tones he could reveal in front of her and the relaxed Derbyshire drawl of his adopted life. He’d be a challenge for any impressionist.

  ‘What are you smiling at, my love?’ Dieter asked.

  ‘I’m smiling at you Dieter,’ said Eleanor, her hand wrapped in his. ‘You’ve brought the joy back into my heart and at our time of life that’s quite something.’

  Dieter kissed her hand. ‘It most certainly is.’

  ‘I’ve had Bradley prepare your favourite meal,’ she told him excitedly. ‘Roast knuckle of pork with mashed potatoes.’

  ‘Ah that will take me back to my childhood in Munchen,’ said Dieter, wistfully. He hadn’t been back to Germany since his excursion to England at the beginning of World War Two. He had brothers, sisters, but he’d never attended any family funerals, christenings, or weddings. The deal he’d come to negotiate, brokered by Eleanor, had never been concluded and his family had all been told that he’d perished in an English gaol. He did sometimes wonder if any of his brothers or sisters were still alive. ‘I expect it’s changed somewhat since I was last there a lifetime ago.’

  ‘Just like everywhere else,’ said Eleanor,‘have you heard from your children?’

  ‘They’ve both called, yes,’ said Dieter, feeling more than just a twinge of guilt at what he’d done to his family. ‘So has my youngest grandson Nicholas. He’s eleven and we’re especially close. I miss them all terribly. Dearest Eleanor, even though they won’t see me, I can’t stay away from them for very long. I have to try and explain to them. I can’t just leave it like this.’

  It hurt Eleanor to hear Dieter speak those words. She could never claim to have had any kind of maternal instinct when it came to her daughter Clarissa but that didn’t mean that she’d been happy with the way things had turned out. But Dieter was different. He adored his family and they’d clearly felt the same before all this business had blown up. That meant that he was way ahead of her.

  ‘Just give it a few days,’ said Eleanor, ‘you’re still all over the news.’

  ‘I still can’t quite believe that this is all happening,’ said Dieter. ‘I just can’t believe it.’

  ‘You don’t regret it bringing us back together?’

  ‘Of course not my darling Eleanor,’ said Dieter who kissed her hand again. ‘You know that. But to try and extradite me after all this time?’

  ‘We have to put our faith in God, Dieter.’

  ‘It’s all we can do.’

  ‘Every time we celebrate the Mass’

  ‘Eleanor, I haven’t missed one Sunday celebrating the Mass in the seventy years I’ve been in England,’ said Dieter. ‘But what am I going to do whilst I’m here?’

  ‘There’s a local priest I know who needs funds for a new church roof,’ said Eleanor. ‘He’ll help bring you closer to God whilst you’re here.’

  ‘Are you sure, Eleanor? Nowadays the rules are very different from when Father Heaney used to come here every Sunday during the war.’

  ‘My darling Dieter,’ said Eleanor, ‘whether it’s nineteen forty-one or twenty eleven, money still talks louder than any human voice.’

  The last thing Sara had wanted was to start a new job in the kind of atmosphere that now existed between her and Tim. She hoped that it would pass and that Tim, being a grown man and a highly professional police officer, would have the emotional resilience to come to terms with what she’d been carrying around for the last five years. She knew she’d hurt him very badly and she couldn’t help that now but in the meantime there were other members of the squad who she had to get to know and build relationships with and detective sergeant Joe Alexander was one of them.

  When they got to Gatley Hall, Sara wound down her window and spoke to the security guard who was at his post in the small cabin outside the front gates.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Hoyland and this is Detective Sergeant Alexander, Greater Manchester Police serious crime squad,’ said Sara as they both held up their warrant cards for the CCTV camera perched just above them. ‘We’re here to see Dieter Naumann. Could you let us in, please?’

  There was a gap of almost a minute before the gates were opened and they were able to proceed.

  ‘Take your time, mate,’ said Sara before driving them through and beginning the mile-long drive down the tree-lined road that led to the 200 room grand house itself.

  ‘I’ll bet you never thought that your first case would
be the requested extradition of an alleged Nazi war criminal, ma’am?’ said Joe who initially was quite impressed with the new DCI. She was one of the few high ranking female officers who didn’t behave as if she had strapped a dick to herself every morning before coming to work. Neither was she an ice Queen. She seemed human. She had warmth and a sense of humour. Joe had taken to her instantly.

  ‘I must admit, Joe, I didn’t,’ said Sara. ‘But as far as I’m concerned, however old these people are, they should be brought to justice even if they have to be helped into the dock on a zimmer frame.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly, ma’am,’ said Joe.

  ‘And listen, when there’s nobody else around, call me Sara.’

  ‘Okay, Sara,’ said Joe, ‘thanks.’

  ‘How long have been in the squad, Joe?’ asked Sara who had a good feeling about Joe. He seemed genuine and without an agenda of some kind. That was refreshing in officers at his level.

  ‘About eighteen months,’ said Joe, ‘Sara.’

  ‘You didn’t go for promotion?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m ready yet, Sara’ said Joe, ‘I like to know my current job inside out before I go for another one. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit it but I’m not fiercely ambitious.’

  ‘Who is on the squad?’