Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

“You seem to have got the measure of him pretty well.”

  Trina said she wanted to spend some more time with him, so the rest of us prepared to leave. As we stood up she said, “Look, are we all agreed that you won’t tell anyone else about our true identities? If you blow the gaffe, it will blight my father’s last few days.”

  She looked earnestly from one of us to the next, then added, “As for me, I’m happy with my identity now. If you blow the whistle on me you could cause me untold grief for years to come.”

  We each assured her that we would keep her secret, and we left her at the door to Markham’s room.

  As we emerged from the hospital into a grey afternoon, Ashley turned to her father. “Are you all right now?”

  “I’m fine.” He straightened his back to underline the point. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this. I don’t know what the hell came over me. It feels like a bad dream, but I’ve woken up now.”

  Ashley looked indecisively from her father to me, then said to him, “Do you want to follow us in your car? We could all go somewhere and talk.” She laughed ironically. “God knows, there’s plenty to talk about.”

  “If you don’t mind, darling, I think I would rather just head straight home. We can talk more when we’re all back in Truro.” He looked at me. “Is that all right, Mike?”

  “Of course.”

  She said, “But are you fit to drive all that way? It’ll take you hours.”

  He sighed philosophically. “Mike put his finger on it earlier. This could all have ended up very differently. I could have killed a man. I could be in a police cell now. I honestly don’t know what came over me. Frankly I’m amazed that I’m able to walk away from this. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. I’m not going to squander it by driving into a tree.”

  “What will you tell Mum?”

  “Ah, that’s a good question.” He considered for a moment. “Probably I’ll tell her mostly the truth. She’ll just have to deal with it.” He looked carefully at Ashley. “Don’t judge your mother too harshly over this. She’s a good person and she made a mistake. Think of the happy life you’ve had all these years. Simply knowing what happened doesn’t cancel any of it out.”

  “You’re very forgiving.”

  “I’ve had thirty years to forgive. It wasn’t hard.” He glanced over his shoulder at the hospital. “It was Markham I hated, not Mary.”

  I said, “You’d better take this.” I carefully handed him the gun. “But no repetition of today?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  So we waved him away in his Volvo, and then I turned to Ashley.

  “What now?”

  “I wish I could just go home and curl up.”

  “Really? Did you want to go with him?”

  “No way!” She looked at me indignantly. “Can you imagine me having a five-hour conversation with him after all this?” She gave a mock shiver. “I just need some time to unpick my life. This is very big thing for me. I need to understand who my parents really are. Neither of them is the person I thought they were.”

  “I wish I could help you, but I can see that it’s something you have to work through by yourself.”

  I saw that gleam in her eye. “There you go again, Mr Stanhope, being too bloody understanding. I think you should be dragging me away somewhere where I can forget all this for a while. Preferably somewhere with a bit of life and lot of beer on tap.”

  “Truly?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Well, I happen to know a delightful country inn somewhere in the Peak District. Shall we give that a try?”

  Chapter 79

  The inn lived up to its promise. We sat in the cosy bar for most of the evening, talking of past experiences and happier times, not of the day’s revelations. Then we made our way upstairs and collapsed into a night of lovemaking that was free from the awkwardness of the previous occasion. We had moved on.

  Next day, despite the dull and slightly chilly weather, we went for a modest walk on the dales. “Might as well do this properly,” Ashley said cheerfully.

  We found that she could travel straight back from Derby to St Austell by train, making just one change at Exeter, so I dropped her off at the station on the Monday morning. “I might as well show up for work this afternoon,” she said. “Remind them I haven’t completely abandoned them.”

  Driving out of Derby towards the M1, I felt an acute sense of being alone. These repeated separations were becoming a real trial.

  * * *

  I reached Joanna and John’s around lunchtime, just as Joanna was arriving back from a morning’s work. I told her, “I’m going to move back into my house. It’s been wonderful here, but I need to get on with my life.” She protested, but I could see that she understood.

  She asked me about the weekend, but I was wary about telling her the whole story. Maybe some time I would, but not today. I wanted to see how things would settle first. I was also wary of introducing Trina into the conversation. Joanna knew enough about her for now, and I was reluctant to share her secret identity with anyone else. My interest in her had already caused enough trouble.

  My house seemed bleak and unwelcoming, but at least it was drying out slowly, and the smell of mould was fading. I switched on lights and heaters in all the rooms and turned on the radio to give the place a sense of life. It worked to an extent. Then I phoned a builder to arrange for a quotation for the repairs to the water damage.

  I sat at my desk and allowed my mind to wander over the events of the last few months. If you took my search for Trina and my book together, they had affected an extraordinary number of lives: Ashley and her family, Trina and hers, Rick Ashton, Liam Stone, Derek Flynn … the list ran on.

  In several cases the outcome had been truly life-changing. Things would never be quite the same now for Ashley and her parents, or indeed for Trina, who now had a half-sister she’d known nothing about.

  One thing that surprised me was the fact that I’d found so few internet references to Desmond Markham’s disappearance, and none to the financial irregularities that accompanied it. I opened my browser now and casually tried a couple of new searches, using different keywords that included the word “fraud”. Within minutes I came up with a link I’d never seen before to a facsimile of a news story from long ago: “No trace of HGRC boss as company crashes”.

  Well well. The information had been there all along. I just hadn’t looked carefully enough, or in the right places. It was only a short piece, but it might have pointed me in the right direction much earlier in my search. Well, too bad. For better or worse, I’d arrived at the true story in the end.

  The search had changed my own life a well as other people’s. Without it, I would probably never have got to know Ashley. And assuming we stayed together, as I fervently hoped we would, Trina would become a de facto member of my own extended family. It was an extraordinary thing to contemplate.

  Should I be feeling guilty about any of this? I wasn’t sure. I found it hard to feel apologetic about my book. Surely it couldn’t be wrong to invent a story and publish it? But when it came to my search for the Markhams I was on shakier ground. Curiosity might be a fine thing, but could it be justified when it had so many unintended consequences?

  As for Liam Stone, I felt especially uneasy about the way I’d given him up to Derek Flynn. Who was I to play god over these people? I had to keep consoling myself with the thought that Stone was a self-confessed thief. If you applied a skewed kind of logic to the situation, he had betrayed Flynn and the rest of the gang by fleeing with part of their haul from the robbery, so in a sense I was merely helping to even out the score. I might have disrupted Stone’s new life, but I wasn’t actually helping to get him arrested.

  But how did one strike a moral balance in a situation that was already bereft of any normal moral framework? I’d set myself a profound puzzle here, and would probably have to live with my doubts.

  Perhaps the greatest dividend for me p
ersonally in this whole affair, apart from Ashley herself, was the fact that it had dragged my life up from the low point it had reached. I hadn’t realised just how bad things had become, but I could now see how much I owed people like Joanna, Dave Matthews and even my ex-wife Sandy for keeping me from falling apart completely. Now I felt I’d justified their efforts. I’d picked myself up, and this strange saga was largely the reason.

  * * *

  Dave phoned me at tea time. “I thought you might like a status update.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Well, the police are still considering whether to charge Liam Stone, or at least Andy Davidson, with a firearms offence. No gun, no proper witnesses, and your mate Rick Ashton doesn’t want to pursue it. And they’re still not completely sure who he is.”

  “But they still might prosecute him.”

  “In theory yes. They also have your statement, don’t forget. But I’m getting unofficial word that in the meantime he may have skipped bail and disappeared. So it might never happen.”

  Ha! So it looked as though he’d taken heed of the message Rick had passed him. I couldn’t help feeling a sense of relief.

  “What about Derek Flynn?”

  “We’ve got nothing on him to link him unequivocally with your kidnapping. But you might be interested to know that we’ve got CCTV footage of your lady friend Joanna’s car in Warley one night recently, near his house. Would you care to explain that?”

  I hesitated. “Am I allowed to plead ‘no comment’?”

  He gave his characteristic dry laugh. “I warned you not to go round there, but you won’t be told.”

  Picking my words with care, I said, “I think it might have solved a few problems.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for that.”

  “Shall we say I don’t think I’ll be getting any more break-ins?”

  “Good thing, because we still don’t have anything concrete on the crew who snatched you. We know who they are, but there’s no evidence.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to put that episode down to life’s experience.”

  “I think you might.”

  There was a pause. I was wondering how I could possibly show my gratitude to this surprisingly consistent and undemanding friend. Thinking on my feet, I said, “Dave.”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to introduce you to my new girlfriend. Ashley. You’ll love her.”

  “I hope not, for your sake.”

  I ignored this. “She lives in Cornwall, but I’ll get her to come to London. Can we all meet up for a meal?”

  “So long as you’re paying.”

  * * *

  I checked my watch. It was coming up to five: just about early enough to make my next call, which was to Annette Braddock, the publisher at Hunt Topham Media. I still had her mobile number, so I rang her direct. The call went to voicemail, but twenty minutes later she called me back.

  “Mike, you wanted to know about your book?”

  “Yes, if possible.”

  “Not good news, I’m afraid. We reviewed it again at the team meeting on Friday, and basically we decided we couldn’t run with it.”

  Fighting my disappointment, I said, “Dare I ask why not?”

  “Of course. Just a few too many rough edges, a few too many inconsistencies in the plot. And the overall package doesn’t quite have the wow factor that we look for – the indefinable thing that gives books by unknown writers a flying start.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s well written, Mike. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very readable book. It has some good things going for it.”

  “Well thank you for that.”

  “Can I say this? You’ve made this connection now, so feel free to get back to me in the future if you want to pursue your writing career. I would say get yourself an agent – you can quote me as a reference if you like – and let them advise you. Then by the time we talk again, hopefully you’ll have something we can all work with.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  So my embryonic career as a novelist was limited for the time being to my massive online audience of twenty-four – no, twenty-seven, as I found when I logged into my account on the publishing web site. Maybe it was what I was secretly expecting. If I ever did go back to Annette to offer her a new book, at least I would feel I was presenting it on its own merits, not under some strange deal that might or might not have been orchestrated from above.

  I happened to glance down at the back page of a logistics magazine that had been waiting for me amongst my mail. A small article caught my eye: “Rick Ashton appointed chairman of Vantage Express”.

  Marvelling at this coincidence, I read quickly through the text of the piece. Did this change of role amount to promotion or a sideways shunt? The article wasn’t saying. Either way, it meant Rick wouldn’t be lost for a job in the near future. Presumably he must have impressed Janni Noble and his fellow-investors sufficiently for them to keep him on.

  I smiled to myself. After everything, I still liked him.

  2012

  Hawkins was dead, the man I’d hit was in a coma, Sasha was inconsolable, and the Australian police were relentless. The other assailant was also dead, shot by Hawkins.

  I spent the night in a Brisbane hospital, where I was told my injury should heal without any problem, then next day the police held me for long hours in an interview room. Eventually I was allowed back to my hotel, but they took possession of my passport.

  All told, I had to stay on in Brisbane for ten days before I was told I could leave. No charge would be brought against me for my actions, which the police had finally accepted were undertaken in self defence.

  I never saw Sasha again, but the police told me she had spoken up for me. I learned afterwards that no charges were to be brought against her either. But her new identity was wrecked, and she now had to rebuild her life without her father.

  I wondered through all this whether to reveal what Hawkins had told me in his dying moments. In the end I said nothing. One day I might contact Sasha and tell her what he’d done with the rest of the jewel stash. For the moment, I felt she would be more comfortable in ignorance.

  During my final interview with the police I was told that the man I’d hit had regained consciousness. They’d asked him how I’d been tracked down, and he seemed to know more than I’d have expected.

  The officer told me, “Some of the original robbers found out about your Facebook campaign to find these people, and put a Trojan on your computer to track your activity. They thought they would let you do their work for them. When they realised you were heading off to Oz, they called up their local mob to follow you when you got here.”

  Just as I suspected, I’d caused this mayhem myself.

  He told me the British police were going after the robbers who were suspected of orchestrating all this. I would be interviewed when I got back, and would need to hand over my computer for examination. This affair seemed to have no end.

  And what had I learned? Not to meddle in things that didn’t concern me? Not to yearn after the unattainable? All the above. Two men had died, and Sasha’s life had been changed forever. I would have all this on my conscience for the rest of my life. I felt empty – robbed of an obsession and weighed down with guilt.

  But as I sat in the plane during the long flight back, an idea gradually formed in my mind. This story would make an ideal subject for a novel. I’d always been drawn to the notion of trying my luck as an author, so why not now? Then at least something positive might come of all this.

  However, my own story would end up much more happily. I wasn’t having any of this death and destruction. I wanted to present a kinder world, with a more responsible leading character than I had been. I would have to change some of the details, of course. For a start, I would switch the hotel scenes away from Polperro. Where would I set them? Somewhere in the same area. Falmouth, perhaps …

  Chapter 80

  Ashley raised her beer gl
ass to me. “Welcome to your new home, Mr Stanhope.”

  We were sitting on high stools at the bar of the hotel in Truro where we’d first got to know each other. I’d just driven down from London on a Saturday morning at the end of November, and we’d arranged to meet up for a very late lunch.

  I smiled back at her. “It’s still hard to take all this in.”

  “You’d better get used to it.”

  It was my second visit to Cornwall in a month, and this time I wasn’t returning to London. A few weeks ago I’d met up with Ashley in Truro to check out a flat to rent, and today I was moving in. I hadn’t transferred my worldly goods here yet – just enough to get by with. As soon as the seemingly endless repairs to my house were completed I would put it on the market, and then I would move out any of the stuff that I wanted to keep.

  I said, “I only wish I felt I could afford it here.”

  “Wait till you sell your house. You’ll be rolling in it then.”

  It had all happened surprisingly quickly. I’d started asking myself why I needed to live in London, and soon realised that the answers didn’t stack up. Theoretically I could run my freelance life from anywhere at all, so what was keeping me there?

  The answer, of course, was a lifetime’s associations, plus friends like Joanna and Dave; but all this didn’t add up to a convincing case. Work was more of an issue. Admittedly, I could write desk-bound articles anywhere, but travelling from Cornwall to the rest of the country to do interviews would be a challenge. In the end I’d decided it was something I’d have to live with.

  On the plus side, I’d negotiated an increase in my work load for Latimer Logistics, with a commensurate rise in my fee. Bob Latimer had even offered me use of a desk in a little room adjoining that of Sally Meadows, his PA. He clearly had a soft spot for Ashley, whom he seemed to hold in high esteem. Whatever she wanted seemed to suit him fine.

  I wasn’t so happy with the way this left my journalistic life. Promotional PR for Latimer Logistics and ring-around articles for Jason Bright didn’t seem to add up to a satisfying career mix. But what the hell? I was with Ashley, I had enough of an income to live on, and if I decided to keep on trying to write novels there was nothing to stop me. What more did I want?