by C. L. Taylor
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and doesn’t own a mobile. If Gareth’s got any hope of finding
out where Ruth is he’s going to have to pop into the Dog and
Duck and talk to Tony in person. He checks his watch. 8.20 p.m.
Too late to ask Kath if she’d sit with his mum for an hour? She did say she’d be happy to help out.
Kath, dressed in navy jogging bottoms and a grey T-shirt with
‘Mama’ picked out in black sequins, shoos Gareth out of his
house, still dressed in his security trousers but with a jumper pulled over his shirt.
‘Go on, have fun with your uncle. Your mum will be fine.’
He glances back towards the living room, the blare of the
television filling the house. ‘It’s not her I’m worried about.’
‘I’ll be fine too. Besides, I like watching Great British Menu at full volume. Clears my ears out.’
He laughs. ‘And Georgia’s okay on her own next door?’
‘She’s thirteen. She’s probably relieved to have the house to
herself.’
‘Okay, well, I won’t be more than an hour, hour and a half
tops.’
Kath touches a hand to his arm. ‘You take as long as you
want.’
Gareth pushes open the door to the Dog and Duck, the first
pub he had a drink in (illegally, with fake ID), and a flood of memories hit him as he inhales the musty tobacco tang still
clinging to the walls, the sour scent of the beer/lager mix in the slop trays and the whiff of warm bodies. The pub’s so busy it
takes him a while to spot Tony sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar, partly hidden by two men and a woman, all laughing raucously. He winds his way towards his uncle then clamps a
hand to his shoulder, making him jump. The indignation on his
uncle’s face swiftly morphs into pleasure.
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‘Well if it isn’t my favourite nephew!’ He reaches out an arm
and squeezes Gareth firmly on the shoulder. ‘What are you
drinking? Lager, isn’t it?’
Before Gareth can object, Tony fishes into his back pocket
for his wallet and flicks through a wodge of tenners. Someone’s done well at the bookies today.
‘Cheers.’ They clink glasses, then Gareth settles himself on a stool.
‘Mum all right?’ Tony asks.
‘Pretty much the same.’
‘Still remember who you are?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Still remember who I am?’
‘Mostly.’
‘Well that’s the important thing.’ Tony grins, exposing crooked yellow teeth. Back in the day he’d been a bit of a ladies’ man,
‘a right looker’ Gareth heard someone describe him once, but
the years have taken their toll and now he’s got the spider veins, pockmarks and swollen nose of a heavy drinker. Gareth’s
wondered more than once how he’s managed to live to such a
ripe old age. ‘He’s pickled his inner organs,’ his mum told him once. ‘He’ll probably outlive us all.’
‘It’s been a while . . .’ Gareth ventures.
His uncle raises a wiry eyebrow. ‘You tellin’ me off, lad?’
‘Just wondered how you’ve been.’
‘You know, bit of this, bit of that.’
‘Send any postcards recently?’ It’s a bit of long shot but he
can’t resist.
‘Eh?’ Tony gives him a look.
As Gareth opens his mouth to explain, he’s distracted by a
vibration in his trouser pocket. His first thought is that it’s Mark Whiting, telling him there’s no need to come in for a meeting
with Liam tomorrow because he’s done some investigating and
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Gareth’s off the hook. His second, less optimistic thought is that Liam’s got in there first and Mark’s texting to tell him not to come in for the meeting because he’s got the sack. But the text isn’t either of those things. It’s from his mobile phone provider telling him that his next bill is available to view online. He reaches into his other pocket for his antacids and pops one in his mouth as his chest begins to burn. He’s not going to be able to buy food if he gets the sack tomorrow, never mind cover a
phone bill.
‘What’s up?’ Tony asks. ‘Girlfriend dumped you, has she?’
The comment smarts almost as much as the heartburn.
Gareth’s last relationship ended nearly two years ago when
Susannah, his girlfriend at the time, told him that she was going to have to end things because she was thirty-eight and wanted
to have children. She couldn’t do that, she said, with a man who lived with his mother and was never going to move out. Gareth
pleaded with her, telling her they could find a way to make it work, but she was resolute. Either he put his mum in a home
or they were over. He had no choice but to end things.
‘No, Tony,’ he says now. ‘Something weird’s happened.’
‘Weird how?’ His uncle shifts on his stool, his curiosity piqued.
‘Mum received a postcard the other day . . .’ He pauses. ‘From Dad.’
The last word takes a couple of seconds to register, then Tony’s eyebrows shoot upwards. ‘You what?’
‘Two postcards, actually, in his handwriting; the first saying he loved her, the second saying he was going to see her very
soon. That one was hand-delivered but the first one was posted.
I don’t know where it was sent from because the postmark was
smudged.’
‘Can I see?’ Tony holds out a dry, red palm.
‘Sure.’ He hands them across and watches his uncle’s face as
he reads both messages then flips the cards over.
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‘Maybe they’re old. Your mum’s always been a bit of a
hoarder.’
‘No. They’re new. Look.’ Gareth taps the unsmudged part of
the postmark on the first card. ‘You can see the date stamp.’
‘Have you rung the police?’
‘I rang them after the first postcard arrived, to see if there was an update on Dad, but they said that no new information
had been added to Dad’s missing person case for years, so . . .’
He shrugs. ‘I told them about the postcard but the bloke I spoke to seemed like he couldn’t have cared less. There’s something
else. I thought I spotted Dad in the Meads.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah, on the CCTV, or at least I think it was him. I went
after him but . . .’ he shakes his head ‘ . . . by the time I got there he was gone. Logically I know it couldn’t be him, but
what if it was?’
Tony takes a sip of his pint then sets it down on the bar. ‘I
suppose there’s a small chance your dad could still be alive.
People have secrets, reasons why they disappear. I wouldn’t have put John down as one of them, but you only know what people
want you to know, not what they don’t.’
‘But why now? Why get in touch with Mum after all these
years? Why the postcards? Why not just knock on the door?’
‘Maybe he’s ill . . . dying and doesn’t want her to see him . . .’
He gives Gareth a long look. ‘Or maybe he’s got regrets.’
‘That’s what I t
hought, but why not just ring? We’ve got the
same phone number we had when he disappeared. And the
second card was hand-delivered. If Dad is alive he’s nearly eighty.’
‘Doesn’t mean he can’t walk.’
‘Well yeah, he might have walked into the Meads but . . . I
dunno, maybe it was wishful thinking, me spotting him like that.
I’ve been thinking about him a lot and maybe I saw what I
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than William Mackesy trying to wheedle his way into Mum’s
will.’
‘The psychic?’ Tony laughs. ‘The dead talk to me too – mostly
asking me why I was such an arsehole to them while they were
alive.’ His smile remains fixed but something shifts in his eyes, a shadow behind the bright blue irises. Tony takes a long swig of his pint, then sets it down on the bar. ‘You got any other
suspects?
‘Well, that’s why I’m here, really. When I got back from work
earlier Mum was packing to go on holiday. We’re not going on
holiday,’ he adds hastily as Tony’s eyes widen. ‘Neither’s she.
The thing is, when I asked her who she was going with she said Dad and that Ruth had told her it was a surprise.’
‘Ruth? Our Ruth?’
‘I don’t know any others.’
Sadness fills Tony’s eyes. ‘God, dementia’s a bitch. Your mum
and Ruth haven’t spoken in . . . must be forty, fifty years.’
‘I know. That’s why I’ve come to see you. Either Mum . . .
you know, went back in time and was reliving a previous holiday, or Ruth’s been in touch.’
Tony shakes his head. ‘What, with the offer of a holiday?
Mate, I just told you. They don’t like each other. Never have.
They’ll go to their graves without speaking.’
‘But what if Dad’s been in touch with Ruth?’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gareth suddenly feels incredibly stupid. It’s a ridiculous theory – that his dad would track down a woman
his mum fell out with forty-odd years ago.
‘Does she still live in Wales?’ he asks, despondence flattening his voice.
‘Used to. She’s in Keynsham now.’
‘Keynsham!’ Only a twenty-minute drive from Bristol.
‘Yeah. Do you want her number?’
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‘Course I do. Have you seen her? Since she moved down, I
mean.’
‘Once. It was a while back, mind. Must be at least . . . I
dunno . . . eighteen, twenty months ago. Something like that.’
Tony scratches the back of his neck. ‘You know what I’m like.
I flit about.’
That’s one way of describing his lifestyle, Gareth thinks as
he picks up his pint and drains a third of it in one quick gulp.
He glances round the pub as he wipes his mouth with the back
of his hand. Everywhere he looks, people are laughing, chatting and smiling. There are two blokes playing pool, shouting
obscenities at each other to try and ruin the shot, a man and
a woman kissing at the other end of the bar, and groups of
friends crowded around tables so small their knees knock. As
Gareth surveys the joyful bubble of life that surrounds him he feels a sharp jab in his chest that’s got nothing to do with
heartburn. This used to be his world – down the pub every
Friday and Saturday night, pub quiz on Tuesday and darts on
Thursday – but he can’t remember the last time he saw his old
mates Barry, Alan, Dai and Doug. There were quiet patches
when the others got married, and again when they had kids,
but it has to be five years at least since they were all in the same room.
He looks back at Tony with his bulbous red nose, the spidery
red veins on his cheeks and the slight tremor to his hand when he sets down his pint. That could be him in twenty-five years if he’s not careful. As he takes a sip of his pint he thinks about Kath, sitting in his living room in her sweatpants with a cup of tea in her hands, and his heart aches with longing and regret.
He can chase down a shoplifter but he can’t work up the courage to ask his neighbour on a date. Why? What’s he so afraid of?
The worst that can happen is she says no and things are a bit
awkward for a while.
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He sets his pint down on the bar. It lands heavily, making
Tony raise an eyebrow.
‘Everything okay, Gar?’
Gareth grins at him. ‘It’s going to be.’
He’s made a decision. He’s going to stop second-guessing
himself and tomorrow, in his break, he’s going to buy a bunch
of flowers. After work he’ll take them round to Kath’s. He’ll
thank her for looking after his mum then he’ll ask her out for dinner. What’s the worst that can happen?
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Chapter 28
Ursula
Friday
You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . . you . . .
Ursula swears under her breath and presses the eject button
on the van’s CD player. She’s tried breathing on the CD and
rubbing it on her sweatshirt, but no matter how hard Whitney
Houston tries, she can’t get past that one word of ‘I Will Always Love You’. The CD is scratched and no amount of breathing,
spitting or rubbing it is going to bring it back to life. Poor CD, poor Whitney, Ursula thinks as she takes the silver disc out of the player and lays it on the seat beside her, both of them dead.
With all her other CDs scattered in the footwell of the passenger side it’s either the radio or silence and Ursula’s had enough
silence to last her a lifetime. She presses the preset button for Radio 2 then immediately clicks away as Jeremy Vine announces,
‘On today’s programme we’ll be talking about loss and—’
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‘Sorry, Jeremy,’ Ursula says as she presses another button.
‘Not today.’
George Michael’s dulcet tones fill the cab and Ursula smiles:
‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me’, one of her favourites.
She sings along, one arm resting on the rolled-down window,
one hand on the steering wheel. She passes a primary school
where children are filing into the playground hand in hand with their parents, and feels a tight twinge of regret. She loved
teaching, she was good at it, but she couldn’t go back, not after she’d scared her class so terribly. What happened that day was a big part of why she’d moved in with Charlotte. She couldn’t
continue to live in the house she’d shared with Nathan and she couldn’t drive past her school without thirty small, frightened faces looming up in her mind.
As she passes the school an image pops into her head from
the film she saw at the cinema the night before, of the main
character sitting on top of a mountain as the sun sets and he
wrestles with the decision he has to make. It was a good film, a thriller with loads
of action and a hero you really rooted for.
Even so, Ursula had ummed and ahhed about going. It was over
thirteen pounds for a ticket – that was a lot of tins of baked beans – but she needed to get out of the house. It was either
that or sit alone in her room in an empty building, thinking
about the poor woman at number six. Ursula hadn’t taken
offence when she’d screamed at her to fuck off and leave her
alone. That wasn’t anger she’d heard in the woman’s voice, it
was fear. She wasn’t agoraphobic and she hadn’t locked herself in, of that Ursula was sure.
She rang the police as soon as she was out of sight of the
house and reported her suspicion that a woman and her child
were being kept prisoner in their own home. Ursula was nervous as she spoke but was reassured by how seriously the female
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felt sure she’d done the right thing. But that surety hadn’t lasted.
The moment she put her keys in the door of number fifteen
William Street, doubt began to creep in. What if she’d got it
wrong? What if the woman really was mentally ill and a police
visit pushed her over the edge? Even if she’d got it right the woman could still be in danger. If the husband found out
the police had been round he might beat up his wife, or worse.
The thought made Ursula feel sick. She couldn’t live with herself if someone died because of something she’d done. Not again.
The thought propelled her out of the house and back into
her van. She needed to steal something, to relieve the tight feeling in her chest. She was halfway to the Meads when she realised
that all the shops would be shut, so she parked up in the centre of town and walked the streets until a bus stop film poster
caught her eye. A trip to the cinema meant one hundred and
twenty minutes when she wouldn’t have to think.
The film had distracted her, but not in the way she’d imagined.
She’d walked in late, then caught a glimpse of a man she thought she recognised, cast in shadow, several seats back. When she
turned round to take a second look the woman sitting next to
him had glared at her like she was the scum of the earth. She
knew immediately who she was – the red-haired manager of
Mirage Fashions who’d stalked the racks the last time she’d