She smiled.
‘I don’t know you as well as I knew Derryn, but I do know this: I took a chance on you believing me, because if, just for a moment, we reversed this situation and you’d seen the person you loved, I know you’d take a chance on me believing you.’
‘Mary…’
She looked at me as if she’d half expected that reaction.
‘You have to go to the police.’
‘Please, David…’
‘Think about what you’re—’
‘Don’t insult me like that,’ she said, her voice raised for the first time. ‘You can do anything, but don’t insult me by telling me to think about what I’m saying. Do you think I’ve spent the last three months thinking about anything else?’
‘This is more than just a few phone calls.’
‘I can’t go to the police.’ She sat forward in her seat again and the fingers of one of her hands clawed at the ends of her raincoat, as if she was trying to prevent something from ending. ‘Deep down, you know I can’t.’
‘But how can he be alive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He can’t be alive, Mary.’
‘You can’t begin to understand what this is like,’ she said quietly.
I nodded. Paused. She was pointing out the difference between having someone you love die, like I had, and having someone you love die then somehow come back. We both understood the moment — and because of that she seemed to gain in confidence.
‘It was him.’
‘He was a distance away. How could you be sure?’
‘I followed him.’
‘You followed him? Did you speak to him?’
‘No.’
‘Did you get close to him?’
‘I could see the scar on his cheek where he fell playing football at school.’
‘Did he seem… injured?’
‘No. He seemed healthy.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘He was carrying a backpack over his shoulder. He’d shaved his hair. He always had long hair, like in the photograph I gave you. When I saw him, he’d shaved it off. He looked different, thinner, but it was him.’
‘How long did you follow him for?’
‘About half a mile. He ended up going into a library off Tottenham Court Road for about fifteen minutes.’
‘What was he doing in there?’
‘I didn’t go in.’
‘Why not?’
She stopped. ‘I don’t know. When I lost sight of him, I started to disbelieve what I had seen.’
‘Did he come back out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he see you?’
‘No. I followed him to the Underground, and that’s where I lost him. You know what it’s like. I lost him in the crowds. I just wanted to speak to him, but I lost him.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘No.’
I sat back in my chair. ‘You said three months ago?’
She nodded. ‘Fifth of September.’
‘What about Malcolm?’
‘What about him?’
‘Have you said anything to him?’
She shook her head. ‘What would be the point? He has Alzheimer’s. He can’t even remember my name.’
I paused, glanced down at the photo of Derryn on my desk. ‘Switch positions with me, Mary. Think about how this sounds.’
‘I know how it sounds,’ she replied. ‘It sounds impossible. I’ve been carrying this around with me for three months, David. Why do you think I haven’t done anything about it until now? People would think I had lost my mind. Look at you: you’re the only person I thought might believe me, and you think I’m lying too.’
‘I don’t think you’re ly—’
‘Please, David.’
‘I don’t think you’re lying, Mary,’ I said. But I think you’re confused.
Anger passed across her eyes, as if she could tell what I was thinking. Then it was gone again, replaced by an acceptance that it had to be this way. She looked down into her lap, and into the handbag perched on the floor next to her. ‘The only way I can think to persuade you is by paying you.’
‘Mary, this is beyond what I can do.’
‘You know people.’
‘I know some people. I have a few sources from my newspaper days. This is more than that. This is a full-blown investigation.’
Her hand moved to her face.
‘Come on, Mary. Can you see what I’m saying?’
She didn’t move.
‘I’d be wasting your money. Why don’t you try a proper investigator?’
She shook her head gently.
‘This is what they get paid to do.’
She looked up, tears in her eyes.
‘I’ve got some names here.’ I opened the top drawer of my desk and took out a diary I used when I was still at the paper. ‘Let me see.’ I could hear her sniffing, could see her wiping the tears from her face, but I didn’t look up. ‘There’s a guy I know.’
She held a hand up. ‘I’m not interested.’
‘But this guy will help y—’
‘I’m not explaining this to anyone else.’
‘Why not?’
‘Can you imagine how many times I’ve played this conversation over in my head? I don’t think I can muster the strength to do it again. And, anyway, what would be the point? If you don’t believe me, what makes you think this investigator would?’
‘It’s his job.’
‘He would laugh in my face.’
‘He wouldn’t laugh in your face, Mary. Not this guy.’
She shook her head. ‘The way you looked at me, I can’t deal with that again.’
‘Mary…’
She finally lowered her hand. ‘Imagine if it was Derryn.’
‘Mary…’
‘Imagine,’ she repeated, then, very calmly, got up and left.
3
I was brought up on a farm. My dad used to hunt pheasant and rabbits with an old bolt rifle. On a Sunday morning, when the rest of the village — including my mum — were on their way to church, he used to drag me out to the woods and we’d fire guns.
When I was old enough, we progressed to a replica Beretta he’d got mail order. It only fired pellets, but he used to set up targets in the forest for me: human-sized targets that I had to hit. Ten targets. Ten points for a head shot, five for the body. I got the full one hundred points for the first time on my sixteenth birthday. He celebrated by letting me wear his favourite hunting jacket and taking me to the pub with his friends. The whole village soon got to hear about how his only child was going to be the British army’s top marksman one day.
That never happened. I never joined the army. But ten years later I found a jammed Beretta, just like the one he’d let me use, on the streets of Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg. Except this one was real. There was one bullet left in the clip. I found out later the same day that a bullet, maybe even from the gun I’d found, had ended the life of a photographer I’d shared an office with for two years. He’d dragged himself a third of a mile along a street, gunfire crackling around him, people leaping over his body — and died in the middle of the road.
At the house I rented later that night, I removed the bullet from the gun, and have kept it with me ever since. As a reminder of my dad, and our Sunday mornings in the forest. As a reminder of the photographer who left this world, alone, in the middle of a dust-blown street. But mostly, as a reminder of the way life can be taken away, and of the distance you might be prepared to crawl in order to cling on to it.