As I sought Mary, Detective Sergeant Ryan sought me. Bebe could have withheld the information that I’d returned, but he owed me nothing more. Somehow he persuaded the powers that be, namely George Mason, that my request should be allowed. I asked him how he’d achieved the impossible, but he refused to say. It struck me then at what cost to him my fleeting freedom must have been purchased. Bebe simply placed a finger over his moist lips and promised that one day I’d know. I knew that to be true, although I suspected it might not come from those wet lips. However, we both knew I owed him everything and I would have to pay. I don’t think I realised the payback would start immediately, but it did: Bebe told Ryan where I was. Ryan wanted me back at the station. I said I’d call to arrange a time. He rang twice more. Once Mary made her position clear, I turned off the phone, sure in the knowledge I wouldn’t miss her call and would miss Ryan’s.
While there had been hope of meeting Mary, I hadn’t given England a second thought, but now there was only a paper-thin wall separating me from my fate there. I knew if I was to keep my rocket on planet fame I had to pass through the house of the head fuckers. When Mason first told me about the company’s requirement that I attend a clinic I wasn’t particularly shocked but now my pathological hate of going to such a place was in full flight. I would be a prized specimen for the men in the white coats, slicked-back hair and pebble glasses. They would rub their hands in glee. Think of the battery of questions, tests and psychobabble they could amuse themselves with. Think of the endless evenings of earnest discussion they could dine out on. It would all be very comfortable of course—first-class accommodation, expensive suits and spa pools to make the whole thing feel like a resort—yet behind the façade lurks a veritable host of syndromes and psychoses, people diagnosed with emotional fuck-ups that have names like Welsh villages. And they’d invent a whole lexicon of new descriptions to describe my phobias and needs.
My letter-writing stalker became the focus of my attention: I got into the car and headed for Avondale, where I sat for nearly twenty minutes, then took a stroll down the street, located number 26 and returned to the car to wait again. A light rain started and spattered the windscreen. There had been little rain over the past week and the shower brought the smell of the ground to my nose. I took this as a sign that the waiting was over. In the time it took to cross the road the rain grew harder. I glanced at the sky, which was surprisingly light, apart from a smudge of dark grey above me. As quickly as the rain came it vanished, as though God had turned off his hose. The steps to the front door were uneven and badly cracked with weeds growing to well above my ankles. The house, painted a pale salmon, was thankfully mostly hidden from view by an enormous banana tree, its huge leaves drooping under their weight and their ends brown and curled.
A young woman in her mid-thirties, holding a baby in her arms, answered the door. She was pretty, but sallow; her hair hung lankly to her shoulders and looked as though it needed a good wash. In fact, everything about her looked as though it could do with a good wash. Her shirt showed signs of more stains than just baby dribble. The child lolled on its mother’s shoulder, hardly able to keep its head up. ‘Can I help?’ Her voice was deep and husky. A smoker I surmised. She yawned inadvertently, the way new parents do, and the baby kicked as it pushed excitedly against her, driven by some buried instinct.
For a moment I had no idea what to say. In the hundred or so times I’d played this moment in my mind, I’d assumed the person answering would immediately recognise me and know the purpose of my visit. ‘Hello,’ I stammered, ‘my name’s Jack Mitchell.’ I hoped this simple introduction would clear the confusion but the name meant nothing and the woman stood with a blank stare that turned suspicious as she took two steps back into the house and looked around nervously. ‘I received a letter from someone at this address and I’d like to talk to them, please.’
The woman shouted for her mother. The edge of panic to her voice brought an instant response from somewhere deep in the house and the sudden sound of heavy footsteps. ‘Trudy, who is it?’
‘Some guy.’ The young woman spoke without taking her eyes from me and I dismissed her comment with what I hoped was an ironic smile, to prove I was no threat.
‘Can I help?’ Mother was almost twice the size of her daughter but with the same limp hair and once pretty face. She wore a pink tracksuit with similar stains to those on her daughter’s shirt. Obviously there was some genetic explanation for their inability to find their mouths when eating.
‘He says someone here has been writing to him.’ The baby wriggled and the daughter hitched her higher onto her shoulder.
I held out my hand. ‘Jack Mitchell, Mrs…?’
‘Ross, Heather Ross.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘You take Angus inside, love, he’ll catch a cold out here in this weather.’
Trudy walked off, her slippers slapping on the hallway tiles.
‘Did you write me those letters?’
Heather Ross shook her head. ‘Not me, Mr Mitchell. You’d better come through.’ I followed her through the hallway to a chaotic kitchen where the daughter and baby sat at a table. The back door stuck in the wet and Heather heaved her shoulder on the wooden frame to loosen it. ‘We could go around the side, but it’s overgrown and muddy. It’s better this way.’ There was a flight of wooden steps down to the jungle of a garden. Just visible through the trees at the very rear of the garden was a prefab building painted a dark brown. The steps were greasy from the rain and we tottered down them. ‘Sorry,’ she panted from the effort at keeping her balance, ‘we’ve not had the time to get around to tidying things up out here.’ Somehow I think twenty years wouldn’t be enough time for the three generations of the Ross family to tidy the place. We waded through knee-high grass and ducked down under the lowest branch of an apple tree to get to the front door of the sleepout. Heather smiled, opened the pale green door and waved me inside. Reluctantly I followed.
The room was empty apart from a faded beige carpet, a single mattress at the far end and a sheet over the only window. I went to the middle of the room, stood, stared and shrugged my shoulder. Clearly something obvious was escaping me, but I had no idea what it was. ‘I’m sorry, Heather, you’re going to have to explain this one to me.’
‘I’m afraid she left a week ago, your mother.’
As I stood, I still saw the room, but in the split second it took me to process Heather’s comment, it was suddenly transformed. A heavy rug excluded all natural light over the window. Lamps in the corners lit the place with a yellow glow. Along the wall opposite the window were books stacked in piles and a heap of papers and magazines. On the floor a beautiful Moroccan rug covered most of the tatty old carpet. A series of desert prints hung on the wall by the door, their colours ranging from the brightest yellow of midday to the sumptuous orange of sunset. A curtain divided the mattress from the remainder of the room. In my imagination I pulled back the curtain, revealing a space just big enough for the mattress and an upturned box for a bedside table.