‘Jamie Rider, among others.’
‘And what did you think of him?’ She lit another cigarette from the one she’d been smoking, trying to push away the memories of her mother sewing curtains for the Riders, babysitting those damn boys while leaving her and Rick to fend for themselves. Her mother baking scones for Marianne Rider’s coffee mornings. Her father tugging his forelock and calling Marianne Rider ‘Ma’am’ and Joe Rider ‘Sir’, as if they were the bloody queen and bloody Prince Phillip.
Alex narrowed her eyes. She looked as though she was about to say something, but then thought the better of it. ‘He was charming.’
‘Charming. Right.’ She nodded.
Alex leaned forward. ‘Why do I think you know the Riders better than you’re admitting to?’
‘King’s Lynn,’ Cora said, banging her forehead. ‘Why didn’t I think of them? It could be possible he was taken there. And I know several of the nurses in A&E.’
She picked up the phone and stabbed out a number.
‘Margot is phoning me back,’ she said after a minute’s chatting. ‘She thinks that they may have had someone brought in, so she’s going to check.’ Her leg was jiggling up and down. She slapped her hand on her thigh to stop it. ‘Tell me more about you, Alex. You’re from this part of the world, aren’t you?’
Alex nodded. ‘Yes I am. Sole Bay up the coast is where my heart is, but I needed a change, and thanks to people’s love of saving cash I was able to buy a flat in Woodbridge. So here I am.’
Cora nodded. ‘I did see it, when I looked you up. Your book, I mean. Sounds like a great idea. A bit like that woman who cooks on a shoestring or bootstrap. Jack somebody. It’s all about saving money.’ She looked away. ‘I also read about your sister and all that happened.’ She pulled on her cigarette wishing that damn phone would ring.
Alex didn’t flinch. ‘She’s had a tough time, but she’s doing well now. I’m proud of her.’
‘I’m proud of Rick,’ said Cora. ‘He’s had one or two problems, but we were dealing with them together, and—’ she chewed her lip. She had to be careful, Alex was too easy to speak to.
‘It must be difficult, with him being homeless.’
Alex’s voice was so gentle it almost made Cora cry, so she busied herself with the kettle and cups and a box of teabags. She wished that phone would bloody ring.
‘It’s not great, I have to say, but we manage.’
‘You manage?’
Careful. ‘We used to live around here, near the coast anyway, but had to leave when I was eighteen.’
‘Had to leave?’
Sharp.
Alex was too on the ball. ‘Sort of. Anyway, we were living near Bury St Edmunds and Rick was working on a farm. When I qualified as a nurse, Rick decided to sign up for the army.’
‘So, how did you get here?’
The kettle boiled. Steam curled under the kitchen cupboards. Cora poured water onto teabags in mugs. ‘Rick was here. I wanted to be near him, so I followed him to the city and managed to get on the bank. Plenty of work at the hospitals around here.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Everyone going off with stress, you see. They need agency nurses.’ She squished the teabags against the side of the mug, poured some milk in and handed one to Alex. ‘Sorry. More caffeine. Rick saw action in Afghanistan. Watched his friends get blown up, maimed. But it was on his second tour that the worst happened.’
‘Go on,’ said Alex.
She sighed. ‘There was a young girl – look, you’ve got to know that part of the reason they were out there, in Afghanistan, was to “capture hearts and minds”.’
Alex nodded. ‘I know. I read about that.’
‘They would give out sweets to the kids, help the women, helped the men if they could. And they were winning. They were.’
‘A young girl?’ prompted Alex.
Cora gripped her mug even tighter. ‘Rick was at some sort of checkpoint. The girl came towards him. She was fifteen at the most, he reckoned. But she was already beautiful. Lovely eyes. As she came closer, Rick said he saw tears in those eyes. She spread out her hands. And then—’
Cora stopped, took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts. Every time she told this story – and she tried not to tell it often – she had to damp down the tears, talk about it as though it had happened to someone else and not her brother.
‘She blew herself up.’
Alex drew a sharp breath.
Cora knew the stark brutality of her words was shocking, but there was no other way to say it.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Alex said.
Cora gave a brief smile. ‘It doesn’t end there. One of his friends was killed and Rick received shrapnel wounds. He came home but he was a different man. Helen – Rick’s wife – got her husband back in one piece, but he wasn’t the man who’d left for Afghanistan, and no one seemed to care. He tried so hard for so long. He even held down a job in security for a year or two. The photography helped for a while – it had been a hobby of his for years – but it didn’t keep the demons away in the end. He would lose his temper at the slightest thing, just fly off the handle.’
‘Did he hurt his wife?’
‘Once. And that was it for Helen. She worried he would hurt the girls.’ Cora saw Alex’s questioning look. ‘His daughters.’ She gripped the sides of her mug to stop her hands trembling. ‘They were only four and five and they didn’t understand why Daddy had changed towards them. I think he was pushing them away deliberately.’
‘So Helen threw him out?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Cora, sadly. ‘He left before, as he put it, he did any more damage. He also said that every time he looked at his girls he thought of the girl in the village and how she’d been young and carefree not so many years before. But when he left he had nowhere to go. Or nowhere he wanted to go. So he got on a bus and ended up in Norwich.’
‘On the streets.’
Cora sighed. ‘Not straightaway. He had some money and he stayed in a hotel, then a hostel. But then the money ran out.’ She shrugged. ‘He went on the streets. Said he’d met someone who could help him get a good pitch, that sort of thing. I tried to get him help, but Rick didn’t want the bit that was offered. Said he didn’t deserve it. Said no one could understand what he was going through. And I suppose they couldn’t. I came this way because I wanted, no, needed, to keep an eye on him. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being all on his own. But he didn’t seem to care whether I was around or not.’ The best lies contained a grain of truth.
‘And Helen?’
‘Moving on. She took the girls to her parents in York. My nieces. I won’t see them grow up now.’ She sniffed, rubbed away some tears from the corner of her eyes. ‘We – Helen and I – know now that he was suffering from a head injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Still is. He didn’t tell us it was so bad. We didn’t understand.’
Alex took hold of one of her hands. ‘I’ve been there, Cora. Regret, lost opportunities. I know how guilt can eat away at you until it takes over your whole life. You have to let it go or it will destroy you.’
How Cora wished that bloody phone would ring.
‘And what about you?’ asked Alex.
‘Me?’ Cora sniffed. She lit another cigarette.
‘Yes, you. You’re entitled to a life too, you know. Rick made his choice. It doesn’t mean you have to give up your life.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Okay.’
‘Really, I’m not, so can you leave it, please.’ She made her voice deliberately sharp. There was no way she wanted this woman, this journalist she hardly knew, to start poking her nose into that business. Finding Rick, well, that was another matter. She would just have to make sure she kept Alex Devlin pointed in the right direction, didn’t allow her to veer off course. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘This isn’t getting us any nearer to finding Rick.’
‘No. But I wanted to get a sense of who he is.’
‘Perhaps if you hadn’t le
ft him to be taken in a strange car to God knows where you might have done just that.’ Cora knew she sounded mean and unforgiving but she couldn’t help it. Alex had got under her skin.
Alex picked up her bag. ‘That’s unfair, Cora. He was probably taken to a hospital and left before they could treat him. I’m sure he’s fine. That could be the answer. I’m really sorry I didn’t do better. I hope you find him soon.’
‘Please don’t go.’ Cora grabbed Alex’s arm. ‘Look. He would have been in touch with me by now.’
‘Really? How?’
Cora could see the doubt written on Alex’s face. ‘He always finds a way to get a message to me.’ She sat down again, her shoulders slumped. Up and down. Mercurial, Rick had told her that once. ‘Sit down. Please.’
Alex sat, though Cora could see it was with reluctance.
Cora’s phone rang. She snatched it up. ‘Hello?’
It took Margot on the other end only a few seconds to tell her that she’d been wrong. Someone had been brought in to A&E, but he was an elderly man of seventy-five.
She threw the phone down. ‘No luck there.’
‘We will find him, Cora.’
‘When I went looking for him, one of his mates, Martin, said that a couple of blokes had spoken to him, to Rick I mean, a few days before he disappeared. And that he wasn’t the only one.’
‘The only one what?’
‘Who these men spoke to.’
Alex frowned.
‘Martin said they’d been talking to Nobby and Lindy, two more of the homeless, and he hasn’t seen them since either.’ Cora leaned forward. ‘Don’t you see? These men could be the ones who picked Rick up. Maybe he didn’t want to go with them. I don’t know, maybe—’ she waved her hands around, ‘maybe they forced him in some way. Maybe,’ she said, warming to her theme, ‘maybe they were the ones who picked him up off the road? Come on, you’re a journalist, you must know how to find missing people. You can get into all sorts of databases and stuff.’ And the more she thought about it, the more she thought it would be a good idea to have Alex on board. She really was worried about Rick, what he was trying to do was dangerous. Then there were those goons last night. She rolled her shoulders. Bloody hell, she ached. And her head ached.
‘Cora, have you told the police that Rick is missing?’
Cora began to laugh, but knew she had to control herself before the laughter became hysterical. ‘Do you think they care if someone who lives on the street is missing? Of course not. They’ll only say he’s moved on or fallen in with some criminal gang or gone somewhere else to score.’ Her finger made patterns in crystals of sugar left on the table. Besides, she did have an idea where he might have gone. Before. But now, after this supposed accident?
‘Maybe. But he would probably be classed as a vulnerable person and more would be done to—’
‘Really?’ Cora was all sharp sarcasm.
‘Look,’ said Alex, ‘I’ll have a word with a friendly copper to make sure he hasn’t been picked up by them for some reason or other. I’ll phone him on our way to see this Martin who you know. We can try the hospitals again later. But let’s not sit here doing nothing. And maybe we should report him missing. Cover all bases, yes?’
Cora drummed her fingers on the table. Last night had been a warning. Don’t poke your nose in, don’t stir things up. Well, fuck that. She was bloody well going to poke her nose in where they didn’t want it and Alex Devlin could help her do just that. Reporting Rick’s disappearance to the cops wouldn’t help find Rick – the dozy buggers wouldn’t lift a finger – but it would piss the Riders off.
She stood. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
CHAPTER TEN
DAY TWO: MORNING
Alex had walked through the underpass many times before, lowering her gaze so as not to attract the attention of the winos and the druggies, always feeling slightly apprehensive. But with Cora they became individuals. The woman knew them by name, laughed with them, told them off for their filthy language. And Alex thought she was doing something for society by buying the Big Issue and occasionally giving to Crisis at Christmas. But it was Cora who was doing the right thing, seeing the homeless as people, with names and personalities and lives.
‘Still not found ’im then, Cora?’ A man with badly discoloured teeth and wearing a tatty flat cap waved a bottle of cheap cider at her.
Cora shook her head. ‘’Fraid not Tiger.’
‘Perhaps he’s got himself a girlfriend. A bed for the week, you know?’ He leered at her.
She took no notice of the leer. ‘Maybe. But I’m worried about him. When was the last time you saw him?’
Tiger shrugged. Pursed his lips. ‘Well, it ain’t changed since the other day. Coulda been last month. Or three weeks ago.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘My memory’s not so good these days.’
‘Has anybody spoken to you recently?’ asked Alex.
‘Besides the cops?’ There was general laughter. He stared at her. ‘And who are you anyways? Are you a copper? Or a do-gooder?’
Alex tried to smile as easily as Cora, though her heart was thudding in her chest. ‘Neither. I’m a journalist.’
‘You can write about me then,’ said another man, swaggering up to her. ‘Tell my life story. How I got here. You’d never believe I was an accountant in a past life, would you?’ His sour alcoholic breath wreathed around her.
He was right, she wouldn’t have believed it, but she knew perfectly well that anyone could become homeless – most people were only a couple of missed rent or mortgage payments away from it.
‘Gambling,’ he said, before hawking and spitting to the left of her. She didn’t move a muscle. ‘Lost everything. Had a good life once, everything going for me. Now look at me. No house. No wife. No kids. No life.’
Alex looked him straight in his rheumy eyes. ‘I would like to write your life story,’ she said firmly. She lifted her voice. ‘All of your stories.’ Her words echoed around the underpass. ‘I mean it. If you want me to. But first we want to find Rick.’
‘What about the coppers? Maybe they’ve picked him up.’ A challenge.
Alex shook her head. ‘Not as far as we know.’ Alex had rung Detective Inspector Sam Slater on the way to the underpass and he’d checked for her. No one had been taken off the streets early that morning or late last night, with or without any injuries.
A girl – who could have been aged anywhere between twenty and fifty – peeled herself off the wall. ‘Have you talked to Boney?’
‘We were going to go and see Martin. He was the last person to see Rick.’
Alex couldn’t help but notice the glances that went around the group. ‘What?’ she said.
‘Haven’t seen Martin since yesterday,’ said the girl. ‘Din’t turn up for the soup round last night. He allus turns up for the Sally Army soup round. Greedy bugger. Wasn’t there today neither. Ethel was tied up to the lamppost. Guess she’s gone to the dog pound. He could’ve moved on, I suppose. Back to Yarmouth.’
Cora shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t like the place.’
The girl shrugged. ‘Boney’d know. He knows everything.’
‘Where do we find Boney?’
Cora tugged at her sleeve. ‘I know where he is. Come on.’
Half an hour later and Alex found herself in the corner of a car park on the outskirts of central Norwich helping Cora pull at a sheet of corrugated iron.
‘If we just push this along like so—’ panted Cora. ‘We can shimmy—’ She squeezed her small frame through a narrow gap in the fence she had made. ‘Voila! Easy-peasy.’
Taking a deep breath, Alex followed.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ said Alex, looking around at the lichen-covered gravestones that sat, higgledy-piggledy in a small area of waterlogged grass. Some were leaning so precariously it would give a health and safety inspector nightmares. In between the overgrown graves and forgotten chipped weeping angels was long grass dotted with molehills.
&nb
sp; ‘It’s an old Jewish cemetery,’ said Cora as they made their way through the wet grass. ‘Years old I’m told. It’s forgotten by almost everyone except Boney and his crew. I think some historians want to make it some sort of protected area, restore it and all that. Put in a visitor’s centre I shouldn’t wonder. But there’s no money, apparently. So for now, it’s home to Boney. And his, er, mates.’ Her mouth was set in a line.
‘So who exactly is Boney?’ Alex was curious.
Cora sighed. ‘He helps the homeless people in the city. Finds places in hostels for them, gets the soup run out to them. Takes a small cut, but, hey, he’s got to earn a living, I guess. Gets them good pitches, makes sure they’re not turfed off them by someone new to the area – he even has a couple of coppers in his pocket who turn a blind eye to some of the people on the streets. Some might say they’re not doing their job; I think they’re showing a bit of humanity.’ Her expression grew dark. ‘But Boney’s also responsible for the never-ending supply of drugs – heroin, crystal meth, Spice, you name it, he can get it. Says it helps.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe it does. Oh, he can also supply a dog.’
‘Ethel?’ Alex asked, thinking of Martin.
‘Yes.’
‘Where are they then? Boney and his friends?’
Cora nodded to an even more overgrown area of the cemetery, in which stood a shed. ‘That’s where the caretaker used to store his tools,’ she said.
The door opened and a cadaverously thin man dressed in skintight jeans and a very grubby Parka stood in the doorway. His head was shaved, showing the outline of his knobbly skull, and his whole face was covered in what Alex thought were Maori-type tattoos. His bottom lip, eyebrow and cheek were pierced, and one of his earlobes had been stretched so it hung fleshily down.
‘Cora.’ Boney had a high-pitched voice but with a cultured accent. Alex wondered what his story was and whether he might tell her sometime. Could make a good article. He smiled and held out his arms. His incisors had been filed to sharp points. ‘Long time no see.’
Gone in the Night Page 6