by Anna Legat
‘And you are?’ Gillian is not one to feel intimidated by a red-fleshed beefcake.
‘Ryan,’ Mrs Vitoli informs her reliably. ‘He’s my cousin, on my mother’s side.’
‘Visiting?’ Gillian’s brow quivers with sarcasm.
‘Helping. With the electrics. Putting up light fittings. What’s that to do with anything?’
‘Giacomo is in hospital, I told you.’ Mrs Vitoli gives him an appeasing look.
‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. It’s bloody awful. How bad is he?’
‘Critical,’ Gillian says.
‘I’ll take Megan to the hospital,’ he tells Gillian, sounding as if he is doing her a favour.
‘I offered –’
‘No, Ryan. I’ll wait at home. I can’t... I can’t look at him, if he’s bad, I mean. I can’t bring myself to look at him!’
‘It’s the shock,’ Ryan transcribes Mrs Vitoli’s behaviour to Gillian.
‘Yes... I was asking Mrs Vitoli about her husband’s movements this morning.’
‘I don’t know about that. I wasn’t here.’
‘He went to work, I think. Had a job. Last minute. I was asleep! I wasn’t paying attention, was I!’
‘You don’t know where that job was?’
Ryan steps in. ‘He works for Plumelec. They’re based in Wensbury. Ask them.’
‘He wasn’t on his way to Wensbury, though,’ Gillian is thinking aloud. ‘Oh yes, I remember now! It was a private job in Greyston,’ Megan looks pleased with herself.
But Ryan doesn’t. ‘No, it can’t’ve been!’ he almost shouts, then he calms down. ‘You’re mistaken, Megan. Giacomo never takes private jobs. Too busy.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
Gillian watches them with interest. Ryan certainly seems to be intimate with the Vitolis. For one, he knows more about Giacomo than Giacomo's wife does. And he is intimate with Mrs Vitoli in particular. After all, since when does an electrician take his socks off to install light fittings?
Not to mention taking off his T-shirt.
*
The BP lorry driver has been identified: Luke Orwin, forty-two, of 12B Sparrow Rise, Greyston. It is a mid-terrace, red-brick house in a street lined with battered old cars and wheelie bins. It must be the rubbish collection day. Kids in tattered school uniforms are playing football on the road, blissfully ignorant of the traffic. Gillian waits patiently for one of them to remove a ball from under her car where it has been kicked by a large boy, now standing in the middle of the road, glaring straight at her. The retriever pops up, with the ball under his arm, and gives Gillian the middle finger. She punches the horn and the bunch of them disperses amidst an array of rude gestures and laughs.
‘Don’t they bloody go to school?’ Gillian asks herself, and only then does she look at the car clock. It’s 3:45pm. It occurs to her she is starving. Hopefully Mrs Orwin will take Mrs Vitoli’s example and offer her a cup of tea with a biscuit, or maybe even a sandwich.
The cars parked in the road are a jigsaw puzzle, fitting into the tight gaps perfectly. There is nowhere to park. Gillian drives all the way to the end of the cul-de-sac and manages to squeeze diagonally next to a motorbike, her car’s rear jutting into the road like the iceberg waiting for an unsuspecting Titanic. She has to walk back to number 12B on an empty stomach. If any of the juvenile footballers and their middle fingers cross her path, she will bloody well eat them!
She rings the bell. A woman across the road comes out, with a cigarette in her mouth, and puts her hands on her hips. She watches Gillian, but says nothing. Gillian presses the button again, and holds it until she hears a chain clank against the door on the other side. A young woman with tousled short hair and a small Celtic cross tattoo on her upper arm, is looking at her. Behind her a little girl, not older than four, is arranging soft toys on the staircase.
Gillian takes out her ID card. ‘DI Marsh, Sexton’s Canning CID. Am I speaking to Mrs Orwin?’
The young woman nods and tries to look over Gillian’s shoulder, towards the other woman across the road.
‘May I come in?’
‘What is it? Is it him? Did he send the coppers on me? It may’ve been his day yesterday, but did he pay any maintenance? Ask him that. He owes me three months. I’ve got court papers to prove it, and I keep a schedule. He has no right to make demands.’
‘Mrs Orwin, there has been an accident.’
‘Accident?’
‘May I come in?’
‘Is it about Luke?’
‘It’d be better if I could come in. I’m afraid I have some bad news about your husband.’
‘He’s not my husband – not anymore. He doesn’t live here either. We’re divorced.’ The woman puts her hand over her mouth. Her fingers, with short clean nails, cut squarely in line with the fingertips, are shaking. ‘Has he done something to himself? What has he done?’ She looks over her shoulder, at the little girl on the staircase. ‘Imogen, go upstairs. Go to your room.’
‘But, Mummy, I –’
‘Go now!’ Clearly, Mrs Orwin does not mean to shout, but she does and the little girl collapses on the bottom step and bursts into tears. Mrs Orwin pushes Gillian outside, and shuts the door behind them. ‘What has he done? Has he done something stupid?’ she demands.
The woman across the road starts walking towards them, asking, ‘Everything okay, Sammy? What does she want?’
‘It’s about Luke!’ Mrs Orwin shouts back, over Gillian’s head. She is looking pleadingly at her across-the-road neighbour. ‘Something’s happened...’
‘I knew it!’
‘What has he done?’ Joined by her friend, Mrs Orwin appears calmer. The little girl inside stops crying.
Gillian has no choice – she will have to break the news to her in the street. ‘He’s been in a road accident. I’m sorry to tell you he is dead.’
Mrs Orwin swoons into her friend’s arms.
‘Blimey,’ the friend doesn’t sound particularly comforting. ‘He was here only yesterday. Harassing her. It wasn’t his day for Imogen, but he’s always been a law unto himself. Doing as he pleases! I knew he wouldn’t just go away. And now this... Selfish bastard!’ She offers Mrs Orwin a drag from her cigarette. ‘Sit yourself down on the step here, Sammy. Go on, have a puff. It’ll do you good.’ The smell is alarmingly potent. Not an ordinary cigarette, though Gillian chooses to ignore that fact.
‘How did it happen?’ the Good Samaritan neighbour inquires.
‘We don’t know yet. There is an investigation pending. He was driving his work lorry. There was a head-on collision.’
‘Someone’ll have to tell his parents.’ Mrs Orwin sounds hollow.
‘Yeah, that’s right. He lives with his parents. Moved out – what? Six months ago? They’re just ten minutes' drive from here.’
*
Mr and Mrs Orwin senior are sitting on a couch, side by side, their shoulders pressed into each other, their hands neatly in their respective laps. They are small elderly people and they are sinking deeper and deeper into their large, three-seater couch. It is as if they want to disappear. Someone from Family Liaison has already been and gone, leaving them in shock, lost on the couch and clinging to each other.
Mr Orwin has nothing to say. He hung his head on his chest and is gazing at his hands, which are lying perfectly still in his lap. Mrs Orwin is doing the speaking.
‘Luke was meant to come yesterday, bring Imogen with him. We were waiting. I made a chocolate fudge cake, Imogen’s favourite, isn’t it?’ She looks hopefully at her husband, waiting for him to confirm Imogen’s propensity for chocolate fudge cake, but he still says nothing and stares at his hands. ‘But they didn’t come. Luke didn’t call. I knew something was wrong. He didn’t get Imogen. Sammy must’ve stopped him. It wouldn’t be the first time... If he had her, he would’ve brought her here. He knows how much we love having Imogen. One thing we look forward to...’ She looks at Gillian with an earnest expression; she desperately wants to b
e believed. Gillian nods.
‘I didn’t want to ask what stopped him, didn’t want to bother him. He had a lot on his mind. I thought he’d come today, after work. He always did. He’d tell me all about yesterday of his own accord. In his own time. But he isn’t coming, is he?’
Mr Orwin remains silent. In his lap his hands remain paralysed with inertia.
*
Back at the station DC Webber is making valiant efforts to ward off not only the barking mad Beatrice Pennyworth, but also a fierce-looking woman in her mid-forties with two school-age boys in tow. One boy looks just like the other except that one is wearing a school uniform and the other, pyjamas.
‘Look, my parents are missing. I checked with the hospitals. Maybe Dad had a turn. But no. Can somebody do something! They can’t have just vaporised! Please!’
‘DC Webber, I need a progress report for Superintendent Scarfe. I asked you two hours ago. We have a live briefing in half an hour. I need an update, as in now,’ Pennyworth puts in her two pennys’ worth.
‘They were on their way to my place, you see. Alex, leave it! You’ve been playing with that water though Mummy asked you not to. Go and sit with your brother!’ Alex ignores Mummy and presses his finger on the lever, watching the water syphon out from the cooler. It bubbles on the grate of the drain. His brother, slumped on the floor, looks sick.
‘You need to go to the Front Desk to report missing persons –’ Webber is pushed into a corner. He is about to explode. It won’t be a pretty sight, Gillian has seen it before.
‘They are NOT missing! They are lost!’
Webber just looks at the woman, his eyebrows quivering on the brink of his forehead.
Pennyworth pushes by the fierce-looking woman. ‘DC Webber, in the Super’s office, in 5 minutes! FIVE!’ she mimes the word FIVE, thrusting her five-fingered hand in his face. She totters off, sailing past the desks and the entire Sexton’s Canning’s police force, mobilised at short notice to deal with the deluge of phone calls and inquiries. It’s mayhem.
‘They were on their way to my place to look after my sick child,’ the woman points to the green-tinged boy slumped on the floor looking as if he is about to throw up, and in this case – it seems – looks are not deceiving. ‘That was ten hours ago. Two elderly people don’t GO MISSING between Poulston and Sexton’s Canning! SOMETHING has happened!’ By now there is a distinctively crazed look in the woman’s eye. ‘Alex!’ she screams and pulls her naughty offspring away from the water cooler, giving him one hearty smack on the bottom. Alex dissolves into tears. DC Webber looks like he is about to caution the woman for cruelty to children. Or do away with formalities and just give her a good spanking.
Gillian’s plans to sneak into the canteen for a quick sandwich before taking off to see Jon Riley in Forensics go up in flames. She can’t leave Webber on his own, verging on a mental breakdown. She steps in.
*
It all fits. Margaret and Victor Adams entered the single carriageway to Sexton’s Canning in their blue Ford Fiesta shortly after 8 a.m. They never emerged at the other end, never turned up at their daughter’s house. Gillian’s quick inventory of facts points in one direction: Margaret and Victor Adams were in the Poulston head-on collision. The time of their trip and its trajectory coincide with the time and place of the collision. Victor Adams answers to Trevor Larkin’s description of a frail old man struggling to extricate himself from a blue car. And their car was blue.
‘My mother was driving. She is – was – such a careful driver,’ the daughter, Alison May, is telling Gillian, a spark of irrational hope withering in her eyes. ‘It isn't like her to get herself involved in... I’m sorry!’ she bursts into tears.
‘Mummy, I’m going to be sick. Can we go home?’ The boy is ignored. His mother has forgotten about his existence. The other boy, Alex, is lying under Gillian’s desk, going through the contents of her rubbish bin.
‘It wouldn’t be your father driving?’
‘Most certainly not. Dad is suffering from dementia. Mum wouldn’t let him drive. Not in his condition. He has these panic attacks – doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing. She wouldn’t let him. She learned to drive five years ago... Would you believe that? A sixty-five-year-old taking a driving test. And passing! We knew already then it wasn’t long before Dad... He deteriorated very quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. Other times it’s very quick. In Dad’s case it was quick. One minute he was all there, the next –’ Mrs May gapes at Gillian as if, for a second, she herself doesn’t know where she is or what she is doing here.
‘Are you sure?’ she asks at last.
‘We can’t be absolutely sure until the bodies are identified –’
‘I suppose you’ll want me to do that? Only I don’t know if I can. No, I couldn’t. Not with the boys around!’ Panic sets in her eyes.
‘No. Sight identification won’t be... necessary. We’ll carry out DNA tests.’ Gillian doesn’t want to go into the details of how badly the bodies are burnt, how utterly unrecognisable they have become. Even the DNA identification may prove inconclusive, in which case it is down to a painstaking forensic process of piecing together fragments of DNA, dental records and whatever else the pathologists can scrape out at the scene.
‘My God, is it that bad!’ The woman looks horrified. ‘It’s my fault, you see! If I hadn’t asked Mum to come... She hated driving and dragging Dad with her unless she absolutely had to. If only I hadn’t –’
The little boy in pyjamas throws up. His mouth just forms an O shape and out cascades the sewer-like contents of his stomach.
‘Oh God, Matty!’ His mother bursts into tears.
Alex crawls dextrously out of the line of fire under Gillian’s desk. From the safety of his hidey-hole, he offers his brother Gillian’s rubbish bin with only the bin liner inside it. ‘Here, use that, Matty. It’s got a sick bag.’
*
Smelling of sick, with the whiff of the Good Samaritan’s cannabis still lingering in the folds of her clothes, starved to death and exhausted beyond repair, Gillian crawls to her front door and tries her key. The key doesn’t seem to want to turn. Does she have the right house? At first sight it does resemble her crumbling cottage with the poky, wonky windows and the hobbit-sized door, which Gillian affectionately refers to as lowbrow because, affections notwithstanding, she could swear the cottage was, in its previous life, a one-cow barn. She looks up. Under the cover of night the roof is still there and it is thatched as it used to be, with straw sticking out in the same places as it usually would. This is the only place on earth that could be her house. So why does the key not turn in the lock? She ponders the question for a while. Maybe this whole house and her standing in front of it with a wrong key in her hand is a mirage?
Then she realises – the door is unlocked. She must have forgotten to lock it in the morning. It isn’t likely that anyone would have gone to the trouble of breaking into her house, and even if they had, they would have found very little of interest. Fritz is Gillian’s most treasured possession, but then he is a cat and wouldn’t let himself be overpowered without a fight. In any event, what idiot would want to steal Fritz? He moults round the clock and deposits long, prickly hairs in such inconvenient places as Gillian’s throat and eyes. He insists on having snacks and other meals at the most inconvenient times of day and night (though that may have something to do with his owner’s unorthodox working hours). He sulks at the drop of a hat. And he yodels.
Gillian picks herself up from her front step and enters her house, which happens to be through the kitchen. The TV is on, blasting from the lounge. On second thoughts, maybe someone did break in. Fritz is nowhere to be seen. He must have withdrawn to higher ground to regroup.
Every muscle in Gillian’s body tenses; every last fibre and gristle freezes. Does she have the energy to combat the intruder? Or should she just follow Fritz’s example, and scarper? Calling the police would be seen as self-indulgent for a copper. A waste of resources, Scarface
would say, and on a day like today he would be spot on. The entire police force of Sexton’s Canning is spent following the head-on mayhem of this morning.
‘Mum, you’ve been on TV!’
It’s Tara. She is curled up on the sofa with Fritz nestling in her lap.
‘Tara! Come here!’ Overcome by guilt (she had completely forgotten her daughter was back today from her summer escapades with friends – just for a week, before returning to Exeter and potentially avoiding contact until at least Christmas), Gillian throws her whole body weight at her child and crushes her in her arms like a blown eggshell. And Tara’s body does feel exactly like a blown eggshell. She is so skinny she feels like she is going to implode – fold in and simply vanish.
‘It looks like carnage! They showed the scene of the accident on the news. It’s, like, all black and sooty. Burnt to a crisp. Scary, the sort of shit you have to deal with for a living.’
‘Let’s have a pizza!’ Gillian cannot get over her daughter’s weight loss. She can’t think beyond those bony knees and elbows, and the sunken cheeks that were once chubby and pinch-able. Tara’s collar bones threaten to cut through her skin. What horrors hide underneath her clothes are unimaginable to a mother. Gillian has an irresistible compulsion to feed her child. Give her tons of food. Pump food into her. Force-feed her. She phones the pizza takeaway on the High Street and orders two large pizzas, garlic bread with mozzarella and brownies for pudding.
‘Isn’t it a bit too late?’ Tara looks petrified when she hears her mother asking for deep-pan, not thin crust.
‘I’m starving! Haven’t had a morsel to eat all day.’
‘I’ve eaten. Don’t worry about me.’
Like hell you have! Gillian wants to scream at her daughter. For lying to her – for bloody well lying to her face! She has been lying to her for over a year now, fading away inch by inch, pretending she had eaten when no one was looking. Bollocks! Fucking bollocks! But she knows better than to shout at Tara and give her an escape route. She would take that opportunity and run to the safety of her room upstairs, shut the door on her mother and put on music, loud. Louder than Gillian could shout. So she doesn’t. She just says, ‘Sure you can keep me company.’