by Marcia Woolf
The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I remembered that I needed to phone the bank and tell them I was resigning. Then I wondered whether it was better to feign illness for a day and see how things turned out, just in case Nilsson was fool enough to want me back. After all, he hadn’t actually seen me the day before, so there was still a chance he hadn’t realised I was involved. I decided – possibly uniquely – to err on the side of caution and report in with a migraine. Lucy was unexpectedly sympathetic.
“Don’t worry. Lars isn’t coming in today either. He left a message – he had to go to Zurich suddenly.”
I wondered what that meant. Was ‘Zurich’ a euphemism? Perhaps he’d been held overnight at the station.
Excuses made, I showered and dressed and awaited the arrival of Dirk with a little trepidation. At just after ten-thirty the buzzer sounded and I pressed the entry key without checking it was him. I was beyond astounded when I opened the door to Ollie, closely followed by Dirk and – of all people – Dora.
“Good God! Dora? What are you doing in London?”
She beamed, obviously delighted to see me. As we hugged I looked over her shoulder at Ollie and Dirk and indicated that they should tell me what the hell was going on, but they sped off into the sitting room and then Ollie went into the kitchen and started making coffee.
After the usual round of hugging and kissing – not Ollie, of course, bearing in mind he was now officially my unofficial ex – we all sat down and Ollie handed round the cups. The three of them were looking at me, and an ominous silence fell over the room.
“Well? Dirk? You’ve got something to tell me?”
He coughed nervously.
“Ollie has.”
Ollie reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He waved it towards me, but didn’t hand it over.
“I got the results of the DNA test. I’d show you this but it’s just numbers and a chart. Doesn’t mean much, unless you’re an expert.”
I ignored the put-down.
“Oh, good. I was going to ask you about that today. So, what does it mean?”
Ollie and the others exchanged glances, and I could tell they were all aware of the result, expert or no. They’d all had sight of the numbers and the chart. That old cliché, the horrible sinking feeling, came over me.
“Go on, get on with it, Sullivan. It’s not the Oscars. Just tell me who the winner is.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Dora pulling a handkerchief out of her bag. Ollie moved along the sofa so that we were sitting closer. He put his arm around me. I shook him off.
“What is going on here? Stop it. Just tell me, why don’t you?”
He sighed.
“Okay. We found out that your mother was telling the truth. You and Jack do have different fathers.”
All three of them were still watching me very carefully, like I was an unexploded bomb and Ollie was about to cut the red wire.
“Right. Well, that’s what we expected isn’t it? I mean, it’s not great news, but...”
“There’s more,” said Dirk. “Listen to what Ollie has to say.”
“The thing is,” said Ollie, slowly, “the DNA shows something we weren’t expecting. It’s quite… unusual.”
“Go on.”
“The result indicates that your father was a close relative.”
I stared at him.
“Of course he was a close relative. He was my father! What are you talking about?”
“You don’t understand. I mean, it shows that your father was a close relative of your mother.”
Dora, having been totally silent, now let out a little sob. I turned to look at her. It still hadn’t quite sunk in.
“Dirk? What is Ollie telling me?”
Ollie reached over again, and this time I let him keep his hand on mine. Dirk’s expression was agonised: he was grey.
“We think it can only mean one thing. Given that Shirley didn’t have any close male relatives. Other than – I’m sorry, Cookie – other than your grandfather.”
We all sat quietly for a while, and the room grew cold. The lights flickered on and off, but we ignored them. Dora continued to sob, stifling it with her handkerchief. I was wondering how much she knew. Dora knew everything about our family, from the contents of the safe to the colour of our shit. She’d been there forever. She’d known about the hair in the locket. One of us had to break the silence, and I supposed it had to be me.
“Well, it’s not what I had in mind, but I always wanted a sister.”
Dirk blinked. Dora stopped sobbing and turned to look at him, confused. Only Ollie got the joke, and the two of us started to laugh, and we laughed so hard the tears were streaming down our faces and we had to stop each other falling off the sofa.
I don’t remember much about the rest of that day. The four of us went out for lunch. Dora drank some wine, which she never normally did, and it went straight to her head. Dirk did the tactful and gentlemanly thing and took her back to the hotel in a taxi, leaving Ollie and me to finish the second bottle. As good a time as any to tell him about Jack’s friends.
“Ollie, I know you’ve been to see Jack in prison.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, you have. And I think I know why you went.”
He opened his mouth to object but I didn’t give him the opportunity.
“I know you spoke to him the day before the shooting at The Anchor. I thought someone else had told Jack about us, but it was you. Don’t deny it. All that stuff about parole: you were going to try to cut him a deal, weren’t you?”
Ollie took a sip of his drink and gestured to the waiter that we were ready to leave.
“He told you all this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I see.”
“Didn’t you consider how he’d deal with that?”
“How? By telling you?”
“No, you idiot. By fixing for us to be shot at.”
Ollie’s eyes widened fractionally for a second.
“You’re telling me Jack managed to organise a shooter from inside in under twenty-four hours?”
“Jack can be efficient when it suits him. Let’s say it was a warning.”
“He’s lying. He heard about it and decided to take the credit. He’s trying to scare you.”
Our coats arrived and I stood up so that the concierge could help me. He was a small man, black-haired and strong-smelling, and as he reached out his hand accidentally brushed against my breast. We were both aware of it, but neither of us reacted. I pulled on my gloves slowly, feeling each finger slip into its silk sheath.
The concierge nodded politely as Ollie pressed a note into his hand.
“Thank you, sir, and thank you, madam. Have a lovely evening.”
In the taxi Ollie said nothing. He was staring out at the dark and the rain, as if there might be evil lurking in doorways, wrongdoing hanging back in the shadows, a malevolence, hitherto unsuspected, waiting to pounce. It must have been late by the time we got back to the flat: as we kissed in the doorway of the block a few flakes of snow began to drift down, illuminated by the streetlights like white confetti in slow motion. I stroked his face.
“Do you want to come in?”
He kissed me again.
“Just for a drink?” he asked.
I laughed.
“No, most certainly not just for a drink.”
He was struggling with his better judgment, but in the end we headed upstairs. When I woke in the morning, he was gone.
15th July
Day Three - Transcript
Mr Shorter, QC, (Defending Counsel)
Mr Shorter:
Mr Henning Nilsson, would you be so kind as to tell the court, in your own words, what happened when you arrived at the station in the company of DI Dawn Sayler?
Nilsson:
Gladly. I was taken into an interview room, and DI Sayler and another officer came and sat with me. DI Sayler asked if I was happy to answe
r questions without my solicitor being present. I said I was. Then DI Sayler asked me if I knew why she had been in my offices earlier. I said I thought it must be something to do with Simon. Mr Leach. Because the police were still investigating the accident.
Mr Shorter:
The accident? By which you are referring to Mr Leach’s suicide?
Nilsson:
Yes. I’m sorry. It’s still hard to think of Simon... Hard to believe it wasn’t an accident.
Mr Shorter:
So when DI Sayler explained to you that she was investigating the possibility that DC Samantha Dillon – the woman you knew as Susie Delaney – had been killed, how did you react?
Nilsson:
I was astonished.
Mr Shorter.
Astonished. And why was that?
Nilsson:
Because I had no idea that Susie was a police officer. I had no idea that she was the same person whose body had been found in the woods. I didn’t make the connection.
Mr Shorter:
So, to be absolutely clear, Mr Henning Nilsson, is it the case that when you were taken by DI Sayler to the police station voluntarily to answer questions, you had no idea that you and your colleagues at CBIB were under investigation for the murder of DC Samantha Dillon, or that there might be any connection between DC Dillon’s murder and Mr Leach’s suicide?
Nilsson:
I had no idea about any of it.
Mr Shorter:
And when DI Sayler told you that DC Dillon may have been murdered in the stationery room at your offices at the Bank, what was your reaction?
Nilsson:
I was horrified.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tuesday 2nd December
On the Spot
It had snowed hard during the night, and when I opened the curtains the brilliant white hit my retinas like a strobe. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen London in the snow. Already there were footprints, hundreds of them, orbiting the ornamental lake in the gardens below, leading from the doors of the surrounding blocks of flats in a greying stripe of determined habit, heading for the tube. Somewhere in amongst those imprints would be Sullivan’s.
A little shock ran through me as I remembered the conversation the morning before. It felt like a lifetime ago. The permutations were absurd, the relationships impossible. I was my mother’s sister; my brother’s aunt; my grandfather’s daughter. In the drawer where I’d kept Jack’s baby tooth there was also an old photo album, and I pulled it out and began to flick through the pages. I stopped when I came to an image of Papa Houlihan. He was a big man; tall, heavy-set. By the time that photo was taken in the early nineteen-sixties, he’d acquired all the trappings of wealth and respectability; his whole demeanour spoke of a man proud of his success, sure of his standing in the world. The backdrop was the newly-completed library at the Belltower, its shelves still empty of books. The fireplace. That damned marble fireplace. He must have been about forty then: already powerful, his empire spreading. A man with a temper. A man who got what he wanted. I looked at the photo for a long time, trying to imagine how he’d coerced Shirley, or forced her, wondering if I was the result of years of grooming and manipulation or the accidental outcome of a single act of madness. Papa stared back at me, his face set against the camera. Look at me. I can do anything.
I turned over the page, and the next, until I came to a picture – a yellowing Polaroid – of Shirley when she was around eighteen or nineteen. She was standing in a garden, an anonymous place, a park perhaps, and wearing a white dress: provocative, strapless, contrasting with her glossy auburn hair. Her expression was odd: a smile, but there was something wary about it, as if she were afraid of the photographer. Then I thought, no, it’s not the photographer she fears, it’s the evidence, the photograph. I recognised that look – I’d seen it in the mirror often enough. Not fear. Complicity.
That was that, then. I had to tell Jack the truth. It would be good if there was a way of sweetening the news, but the only upside that occurred to me was at least Rudy Bannerman wouldn’t be getting a look-in. Then another thing came to mind. Technically, if you were going to go down the route of rights and heredity and all that legal crap, I could claim to have more right to Shirley’s inheritance than Jack. Considerably more right. I began to wonder how a lawyer like Pinckney would view it. I daresay he wouldn’t be first in the queue to handle the case, but it might be worth sounding him out. That’s what I decided to do. No doubt Pinckney’s initial opinion would be not to stir that particular can of worms, not if I wanted to keep the whole sorry Garrity saga out of the press, but ever since Jack’s sparklers remark I’d been itching to get back at him, and a challenge to the will – even the threat of a challenge – would do that nicely. I lay on the bed, stretched out across it diagonally, and enjoyed the thought that, with Jack out of the way, it was all mine. The bed, that is. Let’s not be hasty.
My reverie was interrupted by a phone call from Dawn Sayler, from a public call box. She’s got guts, I’ll give her that. Hopefully she had some sanitiser spray as well.
“Cookie, just to let you know. We haven’t been able to hold Nilsson.”
“Oh? You mean he didn’t confess? There’s a surprise.”
“He had an alibi for the day Leach took the archive box down to the car park. He wasn’t even in the country. The likelihood that he personally had anything to do with Dillon’s death is remote. He’d been in Germany since the Sunday night, and didn’t get back until the day after the archive boxes were moved.”
“So why did he tell me that Susie – Dillon – had resigned? The way he told me, they’d had a discussion face-to-face. He’s covering for someone.”
“I can’t talk about this now.”
“What about Ollie?”
She hesitated. “I think it’s best if Ollie doesn’t get in any deeper than he is already.”
“Great. You know he spent the night here?”
Dawn sighed. “Then he’s a bigger idiot than I thought.”
“What am I supposed to do today? Does Nilsson know I’m involved?”
Another hesitation. “No. I heard about the archive box business, by the way. Sorry about that.” She laughed.
“Oh, hilarious. So d’you want me to go into the bank or not? If I’m going I’d better shift, it’s gone eight.”
“Yes. But take an early lunch, okay? Nilsson’s getting a surprise visit at midday.”
“Your lot?”
“The works. FCA, Revenue, forensics...”
“I thought the forensics team went in yesterday?”
“Only the store. We wanted to lull Nilsson into a false sense of security. If he’s going to make a move it’ll be this morning.”
“Did you get a confirmation on whether Dillon was actually killed in the store?”
“Not yet. Still running the tests.”
Dawn rang off, and I hurried up so I’d get to the bank at a plausible time. The two guys in the grey Merc were back outside the flats. There was snow on the roof, no tyre tracks, so they’d been there all night and must have seen Sullivan leaving.
When I got to the bank, Lucy was already at her desk. She didn’t look pleased to see me, but put on a show of asking how I was feeling and I put on a show of telling her I felt much better, thanks. She glanced at me warily as I started going through my emails, and out of the corner of my eye I spotted that she kept checking her watch, and the entrance doors. It occurred to me that if we were expecting guests of the common-or-garden variety they’d be in for quite a shock when Ollie’s team barged in. I could stand the suspense no longer and meandered over.
“Is Lars expecting visitors? I can get the meeting room ready.”
She stared at me.
“Visitors?”
“You seem to be watching the door.” I smiled.
“Oh, I see. No. No meetings this morning.”
Back at my desk I started packing things away. I had a quick check through the desk draw
ers to see if I’d left anything personal. A hairbrush. A half-eaten bar of plain chocolate. I shoved them into my handbag. In the bottom drawer lay the newspaper that Susie, or Sam, had left behind the day she disappeared. I never had got round to finishing that crossword. I picked it up and was just about to throw it into the wastepaper bin when I noticed that, although Susie had filled in several clues, there was no working out in the margins, no scribbling or crossing out. It reminded me of something Dirk had told me once, about a guy he knew at college, who everyone thought was very clever because he always used to do the New York Times crossword in about six minutes flat, no working out. The thing was, one day, Dirk was bored and decided to look at the answers, and they were all wrong. Turns out the 'clever guy' had just written random words and letters into the spaces, and nobody ever bothered to check. I looked at what Susie had written in. 9 Down: Telescope. 7 Across: Alphabet. 8 Across: Good Causes.
Alphabet. It had to be relevant. I pushed the newspaper into my bag and snapped it shut. It was eleven-thirty and trying to look busy and not nervous wasn’t easy, especially as Lucy was now pacing up and down. She’d been to the ladies’ room at least three times, taking her mobile with her. She knew something was up, for sure. But how?
Nilsson popped up as if from nowhere, and startled the hell out of me.
“You don’t seem very busy, Charlotte.”
I could hardly disagree. He scanned the empty desk top, the switched-off PC. I’d even finished the filing.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“To lunch,” I said. “I’m meeting a friend. If that’s okay, of course.”
“Do you always leave your desk like this? So tidy. A person would think you didn’t work here any more.”
Over Nilsson’s shoulder, I was acutely aware of Lucy watching us and listening to this exchange. She emerged from behind her desk and stood, arms loose by her sides, as if she were ready to stride over and intervene, which alarmed me more than if she’d stayed sitting. There was something volatile in the atmosphere you could smell and taste, like cordite, and it wasn’t Nilsson’s aftershave. He placed his hand flat on my desk, palm down. It reminded me of the day I’d been hired and Leach had seemed so intimidated by him. I glanced up again at the wall-clock. Two minutes to twelve.