Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

  He seemed to be wavering, but then Markham said, “Listen to the man, Gordon. He’s speaking good sense.”

  Gordon turned back to him, angry again. “And what would you know about that, you miserable fuck?” He tugged at the tube again.

  At that point I heard the door being pushed open behind us and someone new stepping into the room. I glanced round, dreading to see a nurse or doctor. In fact it was Trina, dressed in a light jacket and jeans.

  She glanced around at the tableau in front of her. “Has everybody here gone mad?”

  Chapter 77

  Markham said, “Trina, welcome to the party. I was just having a visit from my old friend Gordon, from Falmouth.” He turned to Gordon. “This is Trina, my daughter.” He smiled ironically. “My other daughter.”

  Gordon looked over at Trina without speaking. Wordlessly she strode round the bed to him. “Would you kindly stop intimidating my father?” She reached out and pulled his arm gently but firmly away from the tube, which he released without resistance. “And you might like to give my father a bit more space.”

  He looked at her as if bemused, then stepped back past her to the foot of the bed. He paused there a moment, then reached into the side pocket of his jacket and pulled out a heavy object: an old fashioned-looking handgun.

  A wave of concern seemed to surge through the room. However, he simply looked down at the gun as if wondering what it was, then turned, perhaps seeking a horizontal surface to put it on. In that spare environment nothing seemed to suggest itself, so I stepped forward. “Shall I take that?”

  He surprised me by saying, “Thank you Michael.” He handed it to me as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “I think I need to sit down.” He glanced behind him and sat down heavily in the armchair. I could feel the collective sigh of relief.

  Trina glanced around her. “Jesus!” She turned to me. “You see? This is what I get when I answer an email.”

  I lifted my arms in resignation. “I’m sorry.”

  At that moment a nurse in a blue uniform really did bustle in, and demanded privacy while she attended to Markham.

  Trina said, “I’ll stay.”

  I said, “We’ll wait outside.” I turned to Renwick. “Are you coming?”

  He nodded and stood up stiffly, and the three of us trouped out.

  * * *

  We found a lounge area along the corridor, and sat down in a cluster of modern multi-coloured armchairs. Ashley was looking distraught. She immediately turned to Gordon and said, “So that man is my father? Is that what you’re telling me? And you’ve been keeping this a secret from me all these years? I don’t bloody believe this.”

  Gordon seemed thoroughly shaken, and was barely able to respond. He was shivering slightly. He looked at her mutely for a long moment, then managed to say, “I should have told you years ago, but there seemed no point.” He swallowed. “He was gone forever – disappeared. I never thought we would see him again. I hoped he might be dead.”

  She glared at him. “I don’t know what the hell to say.” She stared at him for a long moment. “You should have given me the chance to meet him – to get to know him. At least it would have been my choice.”

  He looked at her bleakly. “But I didn’t know how to find him. He’d vanished off the face of the earth. What would have been the point?” He swallowed. “We wouldn’t have found him even now if it hadn’t been for Michael.”

  She sat there computing this. I could see that she wanted to remonstrate further with him, but she could also see the logic of what he was saying. Finally she said, “Good thing Mike made the effort, then.” She switched her gaze to me. “I bet you didn’t expect this outcome when you started all this, did you?”

  I gave her what I hoped was a sympathetic smile and said nothing.

  “Well what the fuck.” She dropped her hands in her lap and stared across the room, evidently lost in thought. Gordon and I both kept quiet for our different reasons.

  Finally she shuffled round to face Gordon. “OK, so tell me how all this came about. At least you owe me that.”

  He stared into space, still shivering. “I can’t …” He tailed off and looked down at his feet. He lifted his hands and placed them carefully on the arms of the chair, as if considering some complex manoeuvre, but said nothing and simply shook his head.

  Ashley turned to me. Was she slightly moist-eyed, or was it a trick of the light? Either way, her look still hovered somewhere between anger and anguish. “I want to know what the hell actually happened to make this possible. Is he going to tell me?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  She turned back to Gordon. “So come on – you might as well spell it out. Desmond Markham was part of our lives at one time. Mum knew him, obviously.” She broke off. “Was she ever going to tell me about this?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “I think I’m getting that.” She nodded several times. “But you can tell me, so let’s have it.” She paused. “Please.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her for a moment. “All right.” He cleared his throat. “All right. But I don’t think … Mike doesn’t want to listen to all this.”

  She said, “Yes he does.”

  He glanced briefly at me and shrugged. “Well, so be it.” He paused and seemed to think for a moment. Then, speaking in a defeated monotone, he began, “I met Des Markham in Plymouth, at a finance convention. Your mother was with me. I had to spend most of my time in the conference hall, but he wasn’t all that interested, so the two of them spent a lot of time together. They became friends.”

  He shook his head in apparent disbelief. “I liked him. We arranged that he would come and visit us in Falmouth. A few weeks later he did – and he offered me an amazing investment opportunity. It was too good to turn down, so I went for it. Money of my own that I’d saved, money I’d inherited from my father – everything.” He stopped.

  “Then what happened?”

  He gave her a pained look. “Well, you were born, and we were happy. Your mother never said anything, and the years passed. We even suggested that the Markhams should come and have a holiday at the Fairmile, and we got to know his wife and his business partner.”

  I said, “Robert Stainer.”

  “Yes, Robbie Stainer. Mary never really liked him, but I didn’t have a view.”

  Ashley was silent for a moment. “So there you were, living happily ever after. What changed?”

  “Ah, well, I suddenly heard that Desmond’s company had folded, and when I chased him up, he’d vanished. Didn’t answer his phone, didn’t answer letters – simply vanished off the face of the earth. Along with all my investment money.”

  I said, “But the police must have got involved, surely?”

  “Oh yes, there was some kind of fraud investigation, but I never got the details. All I knew was that my money was gone. Robbie Stainer sympathised, but he said there was nothing he could do, and my solicitor told me he was right. He’d built an intricate wall of protection around himself.”

  “So when did you find out Desmond Markham was my real father?”

  “Ha!” He spoke with more animation. “That was quite soon after all this happened. When Des cleared off with my money I was left with debts. We couldn’t keep the place at Falmouth. I had to sell up to get myself out of a hole. We moved to somewhere smaller.” He drew a deep sigh. “Mary wasn’t very forgiving. She blamed me for my poor judgement, and one day she told me about her and Desmond. I think she saw it as a kind of punishment, and in a way I just took it.”

  Ashley received this with astonishment. “How unbelievably mean-spirited! She was the one who slept with this odious man, not you. And then he robbed you! How was that your fault?”

  He gave a humourless laugh. “That’s what I thought too. But I also felt responsible for failing to provide properly for her and you kids. I felt I’d let her down.”

  Ashley said, “God, I kn
ew she could be a vindictive cow, but I never thought she would go to that length.”

  Gordon gave a small shrug.

  “And there was no question that Desmond was my father? Mum was absolutely certain?”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid so. She told me she’d lied about the date when she first found out she was pregnant, to make it fit in with the times we were together …” He broke off. “You don’t really want me to go into all this, do you? There really wasn’t any doubt.”

  Ashley shook her head. “It’s all right, I get the picture.”

  He looked at her for a moment without speaking. “There’s no point in being resentful. The fact is that we got through it all. Mary and I eventually agreed to put it behind us. We settled in at Truro, and you and Patrick did all right for yourselves. After a while my business picked up a bit. We had a good life.”

  He shuffled round in his chair to face Ashley more squarely, and fixed her with an earnest stare. “I never thought of you as anything but my own daughter. Never!” He looked at her for affirmation. “You must believe that. You’re not complaining, are you?”

  I saw a look of compassion slide fleetingly across her face. “No, of course not. But this is a hell of a lot to take in.”

  We sat in silence for a while, then Ashley turned to her father again. “So how come you took it into your head to drive all the way here today?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, darling. I think it just dawned on me that after all these years, I finally had the chance to come and confront Des. And he was dying, so I didn’t have much time. Suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of missing the opportunity to remind him what he’d done to us.”

  “So do you feel better now that you’ve done it?”

  “No! No I bloody don’t. None of this would ever have come out if I hadn’t come. I would have saved you all this melodrama. Stupidist thing I’ve ever done in my life.” He looked down. “But I couldn’t see that without coming here. Somehow it was inevitable.”

  I realised I was still holding Renwick’s gun, and I glanced down at it. It was a heavy revolver, and looked old. I said, “How come the gun?”

  He looked at it reflectively. “I inherited that thing from my father. God knows where he got it. Totally illegal, but it got to the point where I felt embarrassed to hand it in, so I just kept it.”

  “If I give it to you, will you put the safety catch on, rather than shooting us all?”

  He shrugged ironically. “Give it here.”

  I flashed a look at Ashley, who nodded slightly, so I handed it to him. He fiddled with it, then handed it back to me. “Will that do you?”

  Ashley said, “Would you have actually shot Mr Markham?”

  He waited a moment before answering that. “I certainly felt like it.”

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and we looked round to see Trina approaching us. I gestured to an empty chair.

  “Join us?”

  Chapter 78

  Trina took a seat and turned to Ashley. “So you’re my sister then? Does that mean I have to start sending you Christmas cards?”

  Ashley looked at her in wonder. “This really is too much to take in.” For a moment they sat without speaking, assessing each other.

  I said to Trina, “Are you telling us you had no idea that your father was also Ashley’s father?”

  “Not a clue, until ten minutes ago. That man is one twisted individual. Fancy living all these years knowing this, and never saying anything.”

  “You’re taking it very well.”

  “Huh! With the life we’ve led, you get used to surprises.” She glanced at Ashley. “Mind you, I thought we’d probably had all the surprises we were going to get. This one is something else.”

  Ashley said, “He told me he’d seen pictures of me online. He knew what I looked like.”

  “I suppose that was as far as he dared to go.”

  Trina turned to Gordon Renwick, who was watching this exchange impassively. “I’m not surprised that you went after him with a gun. Under the circumstances I probably would have done the same.”

  “It’s no excuse though. I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have caused all this fuss. It was a kind of madness.”

  Ashley said, “I’d better ring Mum and tell her everything’s all right.” Then she broke off, looking dismayed. “What the hell am I talking about? How can I even speak to her?”

  I started to reach over to her, then stopped myself. I said, “Nothing has really changed. She’s still the same person.” It sounded weak, but it was the best I could come up with.

  Gordon said, “I’ll call her myself in a little while. It’s my job really.”

  Nobody spoke for a while, then Ashley looked at me, forcing a smile. “Mr Stanhope, was I hallucinating, or did you come up with that ‘girlfriend’ thing again in there?”

  “Can I apologise here and now?”

  “Apology accepted – just so long as we’ve got this strange propensity under control.”

  Trina said, “Ashley, I think I’m going to like you.”

  “Well, I hope the feeling will be mutual.”

  For a moment no one spoke, then Trina gave Ashley another assessing look. “Do you think you would be up to seeing my father again? He asked me to ask you.”

  Ashley glanced at Gordon, who attempted an encouraging smile. She said, “OK, I think I can handle that.” She stood up. “Should I go in on my own?”

  “Up to you. Whatever you can deal with.”

  She nodded and walked off resolutely towards his room.

  I said to Trina, “Clearly I owe you one giant apology for causing all this trouble. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You weren’t to know about Gordon’s interest in all this. None of us knew that.”

  “It’s good of you to say that.” I turned to Gordon himself. “How come you knew about Sheffield?”

  He seemed to be recovering minute by minute, and now said, “Ever since you started trying to find the Markhams I’ve kept my eyes and ears open.”

  “You’ve been very surreptitious about it.”

  “I thought if I showed too much interest, Ashley would be suspicious. I could see you were a pretty tenacious person, so I just left you to get on with it.”

  “You see more in me than I do.”

  He shrugged. “I have to admit I was also checking some of her emails.” He looked slightly sheepish. “I didn’t read any love letters.”

  “Probably because I didn’t write any.” I thought for a minute. “How come you had access to her email account?”

  He actually chuckled at this. “Oh, I knew how to log in. Patrick set up all our email addresses for us. He’s a software engineer. One time he showed me how it all worked. He even told me the default passwords, and Ashley never changed hers.” He gave a tolerant sigh. “Patrick and Ashley probably think I’m an old duffer who couldn’t copy a file without having someone to hold my hand. The arrogance of youth.”

  “So you just pieced everything together?”

  “More or less. Last night everything suddenly gelled in my mind, and when I woke up this morning I felt I had to come here immediately and confront Des Markham in person.”

  “How did you know which hospital to come to?”

  “I just phoned around. I picked up his new name from you and Ashley.”

  “That’s what we did.” To Trina I said, “Did you come here this afternoon because you got my message, or were you coming anyway?”

  “I got your message.” She hesitated. “I didn’t mean to cut you off after that weird thing in the car park. I just needed some time to get my head round it.”

  “You’re probably being kinder to me than I deserve.”

  She smiled slightly. “Don’t push your luck.”

  We all sat in silence for a while. Finally I said to her, “Those people who tried to snatch you in the car park – they were after me because of a book I wrote.”

  “A book?”


  “A mystery novel. I published it online. It was based on a real-life robbery in the nineteen eighties, but it was completely fictionalised. The problem was that those people read it and thought it was true. They thought some of the loot was never recovered, and I might know how to find it – or at least, I might be able to lead them to someone who did. And they thought you might be a real life character that I re-created in the story.”

  She stared at me. “This is too far-fetched for words.”

  “It’s true. Trust me.”

  “Unbelievable.” She shook her head. “That whole sequence of events sounds like fiction if you ask me.”

  I smiled briefly. “I’ll tell you all about it one of these days.”

  Gordon said, “Trina, can I reiterate my apologies? I can’t forgive your father for what he did to us, but I can see that he’s in a bad way. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. And I can hardly blame you for what he did to us in the past. It wasn’t any of your affair.”

  “Well thank you saying for that.”

  * * *

  Ashley came back. “OK, we’ve done the father-daughter thing. We’re good buddies now.” She was being upbeat about it, but I could still see the shock in her eyes.

  She sat down and turned to Trina. “How long has he got?”

  “We’re thinking maybe a week or two at the most.”

  “So I get a new dad, and then within a fortnight he’s gone again.”

  “At least you got to meet him.” Trina looked at her a moment, her eyes burning. “He’s actually a nice guy. He’s been a good father to me, anyway.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “That is, if you exclude the bit about him snatching me away from my life and my friends, and making me change my name.”

  “I can see that his heart is in the right place,” Ashley said. “He’s just a weak man who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.”