I want you out of my life.
I closed my eyes, picturing Lucy, barely out of breath at the start of her run, thinking she’d tripped, until she felt herself being hit in the back, and heard a man spitting hatred into her ear.
I want you out of my life. Out of my life. Out of my life—
I opened my eyes, staring down at the spires and rooftops until the hatred faded. Right then. I drew a deep breath. Next stop Lucy’s parents, and if you think it’s tough standing on the spot where a girl was viciously attacked, it’s child’s play compared to questioning the bereaved parents. The only thing worse is breaking bad news.
I needed to tread carefully too. If they got wind that my investigation wasn’t kosher and contacted the police, they would also realize that neither Frank O’Donnell nor his so-called agency existed. That in itself wasn’t a problem. I’d be whisked back, they’d be confused, no one would be any the wiser. But if this mission was aborted, who knew when the next attempt would be made. In another seven years, memories would have faded to dust, witnesses might well be dead. What chance, then, of Craig and Lucy ever being released from their spiritual prison?
I am man enough to admit that my hand was shaking as I rang the Fullers’ doorbell, the first of several interviews, and by the time night fell, my head was splitting after putting so many decent, wounded people through the wringer. Even after renewing my acquaintance with Chivas Regal — perhaps the only true friend I’d ever had — I still couldn’t shake off their pain and suffering. Much less the guilt of forcing them to relive the blackest moments of their lives, probing memories they’d spent seven years trying to bury.
Somewhere in the early hours, I dropped into my hotel bed, no longer some distracted tourist revisiting a foreign land in which so much had changed and yet so little.
My only thought was, shit. Tomorrow, I get to wreck some other poor sod’s life.
“Mrs. Langstone? Frank O’Donnell from the DIA.” I handed her a card that looked every inch the biz. “I wonder if I might have a word about your son?”
She handed the card back. “I’ve never heard of the DIA.”
“It’s a new initiative. Our brief is to clarify certain unresolved issues which—”
“You work for the government?”
“A private corporation. May I come in?”
“No.”
Hostility’s nothing new. Mothers either welcome you indoors, burst into tears, then swear their son’s a good boy, an honest boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or they hurl abuse because their baby’s being victimized, those bastard cops set him up, he was at home eating pizza at the time. (And, of course, that he wouldn’t hurt a fly.) Occasionally, though, they slam the door in your face, but what made me wedge my foot in this particular door had less to do with a murder investigation. More to do with the fact that, with her long blond hair, tight top, and skinny jeans, Craig’s mum was one foxy-looking woman.
“Five minutes, Mrs. Langstone. Please.”
Blue eyes scanned the clear blue sky and the stillness of the newly unfurled leaves. “Very well, we’ll walk. Give me a minute.”
Most men, I thought, would give her the earth if she so much as crooked her little finger.
Rather than stand, like some hapless vacuum-cleaner salesman, staring at the glossy woodwork that had closed gently, but firmly, in my face, I leaned my elbows on the railings, watching the water gurgling past.
My home was the Victorian terraced house that I’d inherited from my parents. At the time of their crash, I’d barely turned fifteen, and my aunt — my father’s sister — was appointed my legal guardian. In the face of ferocious opposition from my uncle to sell the house and put the cash in trust, she rented it out. In part, this paid for my keep. Mainly, though, the income gave me pocket money that most boys my age could only dream of, and a home of my own once I turned twenty-one. All of which appealed to the gold-digging virtues of my ex-wife, attracted to the money not the man. Not that I was rich, but when you’re poor, comfortable equates to wealth, and that’s about the best I can say in her defence. Sixteen years later, when I simply couldn’t hack it anymore, she became so enraged when the court ruled in my favour about keeping the house that she burned every single one of my possessions, including the few remaining photos of my parents. Needless to say, I haven’t seen her since. In either dimension.
But roomy as the homestead was, it sat on a busy junction, plus I was never what you’d call handy with paintbrushes, screwdrivers, or garden forks.
This ancient flour mill, smack bang in the middle of town and converted into small, upscale apartments, was as far removed from tired and weed-infested as it was possible to get. Two hundred metres from the road, and you couldn’t hear the traffic. Amazing. Just water rushing through the mill race, the quack of hungry ducks, and a boisterous choir of birdsong from the trees. Times like this, I wished I could tell my willow warblers from my blackcaps. But at least I recognized the sparrows at my feet.
Just when I’d decided she’d had no intention of coming out, the front door opened and Craig’s mother emerged, zipping up a leather jacket that half the women half her age wouldn’t dare to wear. “This way, Mr. O’Donnell.”
Yes, ma’am.
We followed the Itchen through the park, then out along the open water meadows, an artist’s paradise of rolling downlands, wildflowers, and waving catkins. We watched rainbow trout basking underneath the bridge, heard the occasional plop of a vole dropping into the water, and once caught the unmistakable-even for me — turquoise and orange flash of a kingfisher. On the way out, we discussed the weather, the economy, the problems in the Middle East. On the way back, we agreed that Pink Floyd were the best, stood in different corners when it came to politics, and discovered that we were both ambivalent when it came to Quentin Tarantino, which had to be a first.
“Well, that was a pleasant walk, Mr. O’Donnell.” You could almost hear the barriers go back up. “Now perhaps you can tell me what exactly, after all this time, is unresolved about my son?”
I have a trick to break down barriers, and subtlety isn’t it. “His innocence,” I said.
“Oh, really? And what makes you such an expert?”
Everyone handles grief differently. There’s no right way, no wrong way, though I wasn’t sure brittle was helping. Still. If that’s how she wanted to play it...
“Sorry, Mum.” I’d read Craig’s suicide note so many times, it was imprinted on my eyeballs. “But the police don’t believe me and I can’t prove otherwise. If there is an afterlife, I can at least convince Lucy. Either way, we’ll be together. Be happy for me, Mum. Love, C.”
The clenching of fists was her only hint of emotion. I ploughed on.
“I spent twenty years in the police force, sixteen as a P.I., Mrs. Langstone, and contrary to popular belief, most suicides don’t leave notes. Those that do, they’re either short and abrupt, or they’re long, rambling over-protestations of innocence by men who are as guilty as sin.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“His letter hurt you, I know that—”
“Stop right there.” For all she tried, there was no snap to her voice. “You know nothing about me, Mr. O’Donnell, much less how I feel.”
“Maybe I know more than you think. For instance, I know you don’t trust me, and to be fair, I don’t blame you.” All manner of shysters would have stepped forward after the tragedy, offering everything from psychic healing to séances and messages from “beyond.” That was the reason for this walk. Establishing trust. Somewhere along the way, I must have passed the test, but these things cut both ways. “I also know this cool-calm-and-collected manner of yours is an act.”