She winked at him and Daniel smiled. He felt warm inside. It was the thought of staying here for years to come and calling this his home. He curled up on the sofa watching Are You Being Served? and smiling but not laughing at the jokes, only some of which he understood, still aware of the crackles of the fire and the tinkles of her ice in the background. He felt safe, he decided, that was what he felt. He felt safe with her, even if she was a drunk and a bad driver and smelled funny. He didn’t want to leave.
When the show was finished, Blitz was asking to go out, and so Daniel let him out the back door. When Blitz came back in, Daniel bolted the door and took a biscuit from the tin. In the living room, Minnie’s drink was empty and she had tears on her face.
The warm feeling faded as he watched her. She was staring at the television but Daniel could tell that she didn’t see it. The grey light reflected on her face. Daniel went to the fire and stood with his back to it, feeling the heat on the backs of his legs.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
Minnie swept a palm over her face, left and then right, but there were fresh tears ready to wet her cheeks.
‘Sorry, love. Just ignore me,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about today. You gave me such a fright, so you did. Promise me you’ll always wear your seatbelt, even if you’re in another car. Promise me …’
She leaned forward, knuckles white on the edge of the chair, lips wet with tears or saliva.
‘I promise,’ said Danny quietly. ‘I’m going to go to bed.’
‘All right, pet, good night.’ She wiped her face once, twice and then again with her right sleeve. ‘Remember to put the money in your piggy bank. No taking it to school and buying rubbish. C’mere … ’
She reached out to him and Daniel walked slowly towards her. She took his wrist and pulled him gently into her, to plant a kiss on his cheek. He lay on her for a second longer than he needed to, aware of the roughness of the wool against his right cheek and the wetness of the wool against his left.
15
It was after nine and Daniel was eating a takeaway Thai curry in his flat. He still had work to do, and so he sat with the laptop open on his kitchen table, drinking beer and trying not to get sauce on the keys. The radio was on low. He was due in court the next morning for a shoplifting case. Daniel had told his client, a mother of four, that he hoped she would not be given a custodial sentence. Now he sat reviewing the facts and noting down details.
Sebastian seemed to have absorbed more of his time than was necessary. Daniel always prepared well for his cases, and now took time to go over his notes for tomorrow, but Sebastian’s case still interrupted his thoughts.
He turned his attention to his files, but his mind was drifting to the lack inside him. Since he had left Minnie’s as a teenager, he had become used to being alone. At university and after, he had been known as a loner, a heartbreaker, neither a man’s man nor a woman’s man. His own man. A lone man. Keeping his own counsel.
Daniel remembered Minnie’s sister, Harriet, standing on her tiptoes to reach up to him. You should be ashamed of yourself, lad, and then the sight of her stabbing her way across the noisy shingle of the funeral-home yard.
Harriet.
Daniel remembered her coming to visit, and the tense drive to pick her up in Carlisle: Minnie’s knuckles white on the steering wheel as she drove, the roar of the Renault as she belted up the motorway in third gear.
Harriet was Minnie’s younger sister, also a nurse, also a laugh, and also fond of the drink. Daniel remembered the taste of her sweet ginger-ale kisses when she visited, once a year, or every two years, bringing hand-knitted jumpers and jars of hard sweets.
He finished his curry and pushed the plate away. Wiping his mouth, he found Minnie’s box in the living room and pulled out the address book. The book was full of Brampton farmers, but then he found Harriet – Harriet MacBryde – listed under her maiden name, although Harriet had married, had a family in Cork – he had seen the pictures. Daniel continued flicking through the book, pausing at the end, at another name he recognised: Tricia Stern.
Tricia. Daniel could still remember riding in the car with her to Minnie’s farm for the first time. There was the phone number and address for Newcastle Children’s Social Care Services and another number for Carlisle Social Services.
Daniel started from the beginning and went through the book more slowly this time. Jane Flynn – a London number, the address somewhere in Hounslow. Flynn had been Minnie’s married name: Minnie Flynn, Norman Flynn and Delia Flynn – the Flynns of Flynn Farm. Norman must have had family, Daniel reasoned, although Minnie had never spoken of them. She wouldn’t have – she could barely mention her husband without her eyes glassing with tears.
It was late and Daniel didn’t have time. He had too much work to do and would be up until two as it was, but so many questions whirred in his mind. Years he had tried to keep her from his thoughts, but now that she was dead he found himself drawn to her. He wanted to know why she had hurt him as she had, and why she had hurt so much. But it was too late.
Daniel took a deep breath. He flipped back through the address book, leaning forward with the heel of his hand on his forehead, so that his hair fell over his fingers.
He picked up the telephone and dialled with his thumb the number of Harriet MacBryde, Middleton, Cork, beer bottle in his other hand. He dialled all but the last number and then hung up. Harriet wouldn’t want to speak to him, he reasoned. She thought he was shameful, someone who should be sorry, the guilty one. What was it he wanted to know from Harriet? He wanted to know Minnie, he realised, wanted to know who she was, apart from the big-hipped woman who had mothered him and saved him from himself.
Daniel ran both hands through his hair and sighed deeply. He put the telephone down and got back to his work, steeling himself for a long night.
The prosecution had hired a psychiatrist to assess Sebastian. The report showed that he was sane and fit to plead. Daniel had also arranged a psychological assessment. The psychologist had visited Parklands House to meet with Sebastian and the report was sent to Harvey, Hunter and Steele one week later. Daniel bit his lip as he slipped the report into his briefcase. He didn’t know what he had been expecting from the psychologist. Sometimes when he was with Sebastian he felt a strange affinity with him. Other times he too felt uneasy around the boy whom Irene described as unsettling.
In the gents, Daniel fixed his tie and ran a hand through his hair. He was alone and he looked at himself for a second longer than he would normally, not smiling, watching his face as he imagined others saw it. He looked tired, he thought, his dark eyes shadowed underneath and his cheeks thinner than normal. He remembered his wildness as a child. He knew where it had come from, but not where it had gone. He leaned closer to the mirror and ran a finger along the bridge of his nose, feeling for the small bump that he attributed to having his nose broken when he was little.
Daniel had to be at the Old Bailey for a brief pre-trial hearing and afterwards he had an appointment with the psychologist. He was late and so he jogged to the Tube, running down the escalators and up again – apologising when his briefcase nudged a woman’s hip. He surfaced at St Paul’s and walked to the Old Bailey.
It was after four when he escaped the Central Criminal Court and headed to Fulham to meet the psychologist, Dr Baird. Irene had been delayed, and so only Mark Gibbons, her junior counsel, made the meeting.
Baird was younger than Daniel had imagined him. His skin was pale and freckles from his nose spread up his face and on to his scalp where his strawberry blond hair was thinning. He seemed nervous.
‘Can I get you tea or coffee?’ said Dr Baird, arching his thin pale eyebrows as if one of them had made an interesting remark.
Daniel refused but Mark cleared this throat and asked for a tea.
*