“And do you think they’d have the effect of making him violent?”
Sally Monks hmmed at the other end of the line as she thought about her answer. “I’m not absolutely sure about that. He’s certainly suggestible, so I suppose he might fit the profile of the kind of young men who become suicide bombers. But I can’t really see him going that far. I’d have to check out the psychiatrist’s reports in the office, but my recollection is that he wouldn’t be violent…unless under great provocation. Certainly he has no police record and I can’t remember him being reported for violence at any of the institutions where he’s been over the years.”
“Has he been in some kind of care a long time?”
“Most of his life. Fractured family background, the usual story. Viggo’s the kind of person who’s always going to need special help. God knows what’ll happen to him if Copsedown Hall is closed down, and he’s thrown out to the tender mercies of ‘the community’.”
“Has he got a job?”
“No.”
“Ever had a job?”
“He’s been tried at various things, but it’s never worked out. Even tried to join the army at one point, but he could never have hacked it. He’s got very poor concentration. Starts things, but can’t see them through.”
“So what does he live on?”
“That catch-all word ‘benefits’.”
“Ah. I was just thinking…”
“Yes, Jude?”
“…that this habit – or obsession – he has for sudden makeovers…well, it can’t come cheap, can it?”
“We’re just talking about clothes, aren’t we? Not too expensive.”
“Well, I don’t know if it is just clothes. I mean, when he was a biker, would he have felt he needed to have a Harley Davidson too?”
“I’d be surprised if he got one. I’m fairly sure he doesn’t have any kind of driving licence. He’s – .” There was a sudden shriek down the line. “Must go, Jude! My sauce is separating!”
“Well, bless you for talking. And good luck with the hot date!”
Carole arrived at her son’s Fulham house promptly in time for lunch. Stephen seemed more relaxed than usual. Marriage and fatherhood had diluted the seriousness with which he took life, a characteristic which Carole knew he had inherited from her. Motherhood suited Gaby too. She hadn’t lost all of the weight the pregnancy had put on, but was as effervescently cheerful as ever. And they both patently adored Lily.
Which was a feeling with which her grandmother could empathize. There was something so uncomplicated about the emotion engendered by that tiny little bundle of flesh. Her relationship to her son, Carole had always felt, had been made stressful by her own anxieties, but her reaction to Lily was much simpler. The little girl was easy to love.
Over lunch Gaby talked about the new laptop she was planning to buy that afternoon, and Stephen generously suggested that his mother might like to have the one it was replacing. “Nothing wrong with it, just not as state-of-the-art as Gaby feels is necessary for a twenty-first-century woman like her.”
“You can talk, Steve. You change computers more often than I change my knickers.”
This badinage relaxed Carole even more. To be with a daughter-in-law who talked like that, and called her son ‘Steve’…well, it must be almost like being in a normal family.
“That’s because it’s my work, Gabs darling. Anyway, Mum, it’s a good offer.” Even better, Stephen had called her ‘Mum’. “If you want to have the old laptop, you can take it with you today.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You know me and computers…” Carole had always had a resistance to them.
As usual with her, it was a fear of the unknown. She was not yet ready to take on a Faustian contract with Information Technology.
“Up to you,” said Gaby. “But if you change your mind, it’s all set up and switched on in the study.”
That afternoon, while Lily slept and her parents were off at PC World, to her surprise Carole did find herself drawn towards the study. And, rather tentatively, touching the keys of the laptop.
Jude sat that afternoon in the garden of Woodside Cottage under the shade of an apple tree. The clouds had rolled away, removing the pressure-cooker feeling of the day, but it was still unbearably hot.
Unusually for her, Jude was feeling restless. Though never quite as serene as she appeared to outsiders, she was a woman who normally had control of her emotions. Only love and compassion had the power to upset her inner calm, but neither of those was causing her current restlessness. It was still the feeling that she was missing something.
She wished Carole was there, so that they could toothcomb through the events of the last couple of weeks. Two memories might do better than one. But Carole, of course, was hopefully bonding in a one-to-one situation with her granddaughter. Jude would have to work it out on her own.
She felt sure that what she was missing was a detail from the previous Sunday, the night of Dan Poke’s gig at the Crown and Anchor and its terrible aftermath. She focused her mind in video-camera mode, and tried to replay the sequence of events that she had witnessed. She made mental notes, ticking off the names of everyone who had been there and what they’d been doing.
Pretty soon she remembered a person neither Carole nor she had considered up to that point. Greville Tilbrook. He’d certainly been at the Crown and Anchor at the beginning of the evening, in the car park with his protesting acolytes. Jude remembered the almost unhinged fury with which he had reacted to the sight of the girl with ‘Fancy a Poke?’ across her bosom. Surely Greville Tilbrook’s obsession hadn’t been enough for him to kill Ray for wearing the same T-shirt? Still, it might be worth checking out the whereabouts of Fethering’s Mr Civic Responsibility on the relevant evening.
But the thought was a new one, and a distraction. Not the missing detail which she was sure she had overlooked.
It took a while, but then she remembered, in a blinding flash. And flash was the operative word, because what she remembered was the fact that many of the audience at the gig had been using their mobile phones to take photographs. And one of the people her mind’s eye could see distinctly doing just that was Zosia.
Jude’s call found the Polish girl in her flat, between shifts at the Crown and Anchor. She was using her few hours of Saturday-afternoon freedom to work on her journalism course. Jude was constantly impressed by Zosia’s unobtrusive industry. She was really making something of herself.
Jude’s first question was about the Crown and Anchor. Had there been any more trouble?
“No. Not much business, but no trouble.”
“Were the bikers back yesterday evening?”
“Thank goodness, no. I think because the police got involved on Sunday that must have frightened them off.”
Then Jude moved on to the main purpose of her call. Zosia confirmed that she had indeed taken some photos at Dan Poke’s gig. And that fortunately they were still in her phone.
“That’s brilliant,” said Jude. “Could I come round and have a look at them straight away?”
“Well, you could, but it might be simpler if I just sent them to your mobile.”
“Ah. Yes.” Jude felt slightly ashamed of her ignorance of the possibilities offered by new technology. “Is it easy to do that?”
“Very easy,” replied Zosia, with that amused tolerance which the young reserve for their dealings with the old. “I’ll just check on my phone to see how many I took. It wasn’t many, just I think when Dan Poke was beginning his act. For most of it I was back behind the bar, serving drinks.” There was a brief silence. “Just four. Four photos is all I took. I will send them to you as picture messages.”