by Peter Hey
There was a mug freshly washed on the draining board and a note on the kitchen table. Jane realised she had never seen Tommy’s handwriting before and was taken by how neat it was. She would have expected a geeky scrawl, but this was beautifully formed, almost artistic. That impression was reinforced by the accompanying doodle depicting its author, complete with Afro hair, waving good morning.
Tommy had borrowed a key from the hook on the wall and gone out to the shops. Snippets of the previous evening were beginning to creep back into Jane’s mind and she vaguely recalled trying to make a cup of tea when they got home and spilling most of the milk on the floor. There was no tell-tale stickiness underfoot, so she assumed Tommy had cleaned it up. Guiltily, she poured herself a large glass of water and rummaged around her pills drawer for something to deaden the pain in her head and neck.
The drugs were just starting to take effect when she heard the front door open. Tommy walked in with the happy expression of someone not being punished for the excesses of the night before.
‘Tommy, why don’t you look like I feel?’ was Jane’s greeting.
‘I slept really well, for once. Alcohol doesn’t normally agree with me, but maybe a couple of glasses of wine every now and again is a good idea,’ he replied cheerfully.
‘God, I’m never going to drink again,’ moaned Jane.
‘You hung over?’
Jane’s only reply was raised eyebrows.
Tommy read the gesture and tried to sound sympathetic. ‘You were a bit drunk last night. You wanted to go on clubbing, but we managed to get you in the cab. It was good night, though, wasn’t it?’
Jane briefly forgot her self-pity. ‘Did you enjoy it Tommy? I felt I bullied you into going. I know it’s not really your thing, but we had a good time, didn’t we?’
Tommy grinned his agreement and placed a plastic milk bottle on the worktop before switching on the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee? And I bought us a couple of bacon rolls from the café across the street.’
‘That sounds nice. I think I’ll be able to hold one down. And coffee, please.’ Jane suddenly registered they were in her kitchen, not his. ‘Tommy, sit down, I should be doing all that.’
Tommy waved her back into her chair. ‘It’s okay. Your need is greater than mine. I was going to offer to cook breakfast if the café hadn’t been open. I can do domesticated you know.’
Jane tilted her head to one side. ‘Is there anything you can’t do? I’ve discovered this morning you have beautiful handwriting and you can draw. I just assumed you’d be all maths and science at school, not arty too.’
‘I wasn’t exactly top of the class in sports, and I guess, well, from a social point of view…’ Tommy left the sentence hanging and turned back towards the kettle.
Jane thought about probing more into his schooldays, but decided it might be kinder not to. Her focus returned to her own, self-inflicted suffering.
She was feeling slightly better after eating and they took refills of coffee into the extension her grandfather had built at the back of the house. Jane opened the French windows to let in light and air from the small walled garden beyond. They sat at the dining table and Jane, still in her pyjamas, began to laugh as more of the previous evening began to emerge from the fog.
‘Duff really did buy a fire engine, didn’t he?’
Tommy caught the giggles and they interspersed his reply like hiccups. ‘I suspect he might be regretting it this morning!’
‘But he’s a really good dancer. I never knew. You weren’t bad yourself, Tommy. Though Sarah seemed to be monopolising you, I noticed.’
‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’ said Tommy, with a distant warmth in his eyes.
‘She is lovely,’ agreed Jane. ‘But I hope you’re not falling for her, Thompson Ferdinand. She’s my oldest friend, not to mention a married woman with an errant husband to look after.’
‘An errant husband and a fire engine,’ added Tommy.
A broad grin broke across Jane’s face and the aches and pains of overindulgence were temporarily eclipsed. ‘I wonder if she’s emailed me this morning yet. We girls love a post mortem.’
Jane reached across the table for her laptop.
‘How old is that thing?’ asked Tommy with a degree of concern.
‘I’ve had it a while,’ admitted Jane. ‘Still works. A bit slowly sometimes, I guess, but I’m not a hard-core gamer or anything. It’s fine for what I need – just browsing the Web and when I have to do a bit of typing. I use my phone a lot of the time.’
‘I doubt if the operating system is still supported,’ said Tommy, continuing to sound worried.
‘I’m not sure I know what that means and if it really matters. You know, so long as the thing still works,’ replied Jane.
‘It means it’s not getting software updates. Any security flaws won’t get plugged and it could be vulnerable to hacking. I hope you’ve got a decent antivirus on there.’
Jane didn’t feel up to a technology discussion. ‘Okay, okay. I hear you. You’re the expert, but let’s see if we’ve got an update on the fire engine situation.’
She logged in and opened her mail. Apart from a spammy marketing circular, there was only one new message. It wasn’t from Sarah.
‘Tommy, listen to this,’ said Jane excitedly. ‘I’ve got an email from a Dr Guy Ramsbottom. One of his patients is our previous client, Margaret Stothard. She’s recommended me, well us, to help with his family history research. It looks like we’ve got another commission!’
Tommy’s face was still serious. ‘Jane, I was meaning to talk to you about that. Maybe you should go on a few more training courses. I know they’re running some at the Society of Genealogists right now.’
Jane nodded dismissively. ‘Absolutely. I’m sure you’re right. But I still think there’s no substitute for learning on the job. And…’ Her tone became more sheepish. ‘...you can always bale me out if I get stuck? You did build one of the world’s leading genealogy websites, after all. There can’t be many of those society types who know as much as you.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Tommy, partly from modesty but also from the self-doubt that was inherent to who he was. ‘And I’m not sure how much time I’ll have. I told you last night – I’m starting a new contract. Still working from home, but programming again.’
‘Tommy, of course! That’s brilliant news.’ Jane leant over and clasped his hand. ‘It’s great that you’re feeling up to it. Okay, I promise only to bother you if I really, really need to…’
The trident
Jane arranged to meet Guy Ramsbottom at his home in the countryside some 20 miles north of Nottingham. To get some background, she googled his name and discovered he was a consultant ophthalmologist at the city’s main hospital. Jane also couldn’t resist trying to see his house using the online street-level images, but it was set back from the road and obscured by trees.
Jane was grateful she’d looked at the map in advance as the isolated rural lane was long and the few irregularly spaced houses all had names and no numbers. Nonetheless, the entrance drive caught her unawares as she came round a blind corner, and she had to turn the Mazda at the next junction and come back from the opposite direction.
The wooden five-bar gate carrying a sign for ’Laynston’ was propped open and a short, winding track led through thick hedgerows to an open gravel area next to a small black barn that seemed in the process of renovation. There was space for several cars, but only one was parked, on the side furthest from the barn. Jane pulled in opposite it.
At police college, some emphasis had been placed on vehicle recognition. A good officer should be able to record make, model, colour and registration plate of any car or van involved in an accident or behaving suspiciously. It was something for which her male colleagues seemed naturally equipped, one response in particular lodging in Jane’s mind: ‘The suspect was seen driving away in a dark-red metallic Vauxhall Astra Mark 5 diesel estate. Smoking a bit from the exhaust,
so probably high mileage.’ Jane, in comparison, had always struggled. Registration numbers were okay: that just took concentration. Colours were obviously fine too, but that was the limit of her natural discernment. There were silver cars – a boring predominance thereof in Jane’s view – red cars and blue cars, but Jane had never really differentiated beyond that. A silvery-grey Jaguar looked much like a silvery-grey Volvo to her. Jane knew her car blindness was largely due to disinterest but made a deliberate effort to learn the insignia of the different manufacturers. Some, like Ford, Fiat and Kia, helpfully designed their badges around their names. Others, including most of the Japanese, opted for stylised symbols. A few even went for obscure mythical beasts like the griffin, whatever that was supposed to be.
This parked car was big and black. Briefly, Jane’s mindset was back in her previous life and she felt compelled to try harder. It looked very sleek, almost like a sports car, but had four doors and a boot. There was a deep shine to its paintwork which suggested it had been cleaned and polished very recently and very thoroughly. The personalised number plate gave no clues to its age. The large emblem on the grille had Jane flummoxed. It was some kind of barbed, three-pointed fork. She thought it bore resemblance to a letter W and began racking her brain for a make of car beginning with W. A name popped into her head from somewhere.
She was about to look closer when she heard a voice from over her shoulder.
‘Admiring the Quattroporte? Beautiful isn’t she?’
Jane turned and saw a short, balding man in his mid fifties. He was dressed in pale blue chinos and a black polo shirt. It was a simple, casual look but somehow it conveyed expensive quality.
‘Quattroporte,’ she repeated. ‘It’s not a Wartburg then?’
The man’s face slumped into a look of horror. ‘It’s a Maserati! Quattroporte is the model name. It means four doors in Italian.’
Jane smiled, ‘Of course.’
‘It’s a Maserati,’ he repeated, dolefully.
Suddenly reading the man’s expression, Jane responded with embarrassment. ‘Sorry, Maseratis are good aren’t they? I don’t know what a Wartburg is, but I’m sure they’re nothing like this. I’m not a car person. I didn’t mean to offend you.’
The man still looked crestfallen. ‘A Wartburg was a horrible, ugly thing built in communist East Germany. It had a 2-stroke engine that literally used to stink. You drive an MX-5. It’s a good little soft top, the modern-day Lotus Elan.’
Jane didn’t know what a Lotus Elan was either, but felt on safer ground with her own car. ‘My husband, well ex-husband, chose it. I chose the colour.’
The man appeared to be slowly thawing. ‘You don’t see many in green.’
Jane decided to change the subject before she dug any more holes. ‘Are you Guy? I’m Jane, Jane Madden.’
‘Yes, I’m Guy. Nice to meet you, Jane,’ he said, trying hard to sound more positive. ‘Thanks for being on time.’
Guy led her up a short flight of steps and a building emerged from behind the screen of trees. It was built of warm red brick and had a steeply sloped slate roof. It contrived to look ancient, yet had an air of newly restored perfection. Its frontal aspect had two impressive gables and a wooden-railed gallery ran around some of the first floor. A wide stone terrace extended from one side and was partly shaded by a long pergola draped in roses.
‘Wow!’ said Jane. ‘Nice house!’
‘We’ve spent a fair amount of time doing it up. Its core is Jacobean, but it’s been extended over the years. We’ve knocked a few rooms into one, but we’ve still got seven bedrooms,’ said Guy matter-of-factly.
They walked towards the terrace, round the corner and then went inside through some open bi-fold doors. Again, Jane’s jaw dropped slightly. More than a few walls had been removed to make a space this big. They were standing in a kitchen with a vast central island and units fronted in gleaming opaque glass. There was a magnificent beamed dining room to one side, complete with huge stone fireplace, and a sunken living area with three of the largest sofas Jane had ever seen, formed into a U-shape. Everything looked hi-tech and minimalist, except for the dining area whose decoration and furniture offered a sharply antique contrast.
Jane was about to say, ‘Wow! Nice house!’ again, but managed to stop herself. She had already made herself look stupid over the car.
‘Coffee?’ asked Guy. ‘Cappuccino, latte, espresso?’ He was standing in front a complicated-looking machine, all chrome pipes and valves, that would not have been out of place in a fancy high street café.
Jane normally drank instant, but suspected the chances of finding it in this kitchen would be the same as there being a Wartburg in the drive. ‘Erm... An Americano, please. With a tiny bit of milk?’
Guy seemed reasonably happy with the reply and busied himself at the controls. After some hissing and bubbling he prepared two cups and they took their drinks out to a Victorian garden table under the terrace pergola. From there they looked out over a perfectly striped lawn as big as a football pitch and surrounded by high hedges and flowering shrubs.
‘Beautiful garden,’ said Jane, judging the comment slightly less inane than ‘Nice house’.
‘Thank God for gardeners,’ answered Guy, taking a sip from his cappuccino. ‘Always get the professionals in. That’s my mantra. Stick to what you’re good at. Which leads us very nicely to your own area of expertise.’
Jane blinked at the word expertise, but pushed any doubts away. ‘So, your email said you had a specific family mystery to solve?’
‘Indeed. Margaret Stothard’s one of my private patients. She said she gave you a similar challenge and you did a fantastic job. I must confess I did have a go myself – the TV ads make it sound so easy – but ended up with more questions than answers.’
Jane leant forward. ‘You’ve already done some research online?’
‘Yes. And at first it did seem very straightforward. I found the Ramsbottom family tree, but it just wasn’t what I expected.’
Jane looked confused. ‘The tree was already there? You didn’t have to step your way back through the generations?’ Her eyebrows lifted as the penny dropped. ‘You mean someone else had already done the work and made it public? A relative of yours?’
‘A cousin. We’ve lost touch with that side of the family.’ Guy gently stroked the back of his hand as if feeling for the right words. ‘My father’s youngest brother went off the rails. They had different mothers, you know how it is.’
Jane wasn’t quite sure how it was, but decided to let it go. ‘Have you been in touch with your cousin? To talk about your family history?’
‘No, I’d rather not, if I’m honest. Not directly anyway. We won’t have anything in common after all these years. You’re welcome to contact her, obviously. If it helps.’
‘Okay. Thank you. So what’s wrong with the family tree your cousin’s put together? You said it wasn’t what you expected.’
Guy’s eyes swept over his garden and his house. ‘As you can see, I’m a successful surgeon. I come from a line of doctors stretching back three generations. I’m aware of the privilege inherent in my… genealogy. I inherited the intellect, of course, but it also takes money to fund all those years of medical training. Even more so the further back you go. There would be no grants or student loans in my great-grandfather’s day.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Jane, wondering where the story might be going.
‘But that’s the problem,’ continued Guy. ‘My great-grandfather appears to have had an impoverished background. His father was a coal miner who died very young. His mother was a charwoman of some sort. And yet my great-grandfather ends up in general practice. Where did the money come from? It doesn’t make sense. If I’m honest, I had thought I’d be descended from landed gentry, that kind of thing. There was that cockney TV soap actor whose lineage was traced back to royalty, for goodness sake.’
Jane lifted her coffee cup from the table and then, after a thoughtful
pause, put it down again. ‘It’s possible your cousin’s made a mistake in her research. A lot of the trees you find online are flaky to say the least. People take the first hint of evidence they find and don’t cross-check it.’
Guy looked encouraged. ‘I was hoping you might say that.’
The conversation was interrupted by the loud clatter of gravel which sounded like someone had swung into the parking area at some speed. A large engine was revved and then silenced.
Guy smiled. ‘That’ll be Polly back in the Range Rover. She’s one of life’s more aggressive drivers. And she does like to make an entrance.’
Seconds later, a tall woman with short black hair and glasses strode up the steps and onto the terrace. She was wearing riding boots and breeches and a sullen expression. She ignored Jane and addressed Guy in an indeterminate European accent.
‘I’ve had enough. That silly little stable girl doesn’t treat me with any respect. Doesn’t she know who we are?’ Her words suggested anger but her tone of voice was blandly emotionless, the monotonic moan of someone who endured a constant battle with the rest of the world.
Guy raised his right hand as if asking for permission to speak. ‘Polly, let’s talk about that later. This is Jane.’
Polly scanned Jane disapprovingly. ‘It’s your old car parked in my space, I suppose. Horrible colour.’
Jane was taken aback by the unexpected and unnecessary candour. She knew green wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but she was also wearing a shirt in a similar shade. And she felt hurt having her car described as old: she’d had it a few years now, but it was hardly ready for the scrapheap.
Had she been prepared Jane would have dismissed the comments as trivial, spoilt bitchiness, but she was caught unawares and raw emotion kicked in. Surprise avalanched into indignation. Somewhere within a vulnerable child screamed, ‘Who does she think she’s talking to?’ Jane felt her face flush and her hands tighten into fists. For a brief moment she thought she might lash out in response. She began breathing slowly and deliberately in an effort to regain control and reign in her anger.