Brodmaw Bay (5 page)

Then there was the CCTV evidence. This was not only admissible but also quite damning, DS McCabe told the Greer family. The case was not exactly cut and dried, because no case ever was. But it was very strong. Despite it, the perpetrators had indicated that they would enter a not guilty plea. He was obliged to caution Jack that defence counsel would likely call him to the stand for cross-examination. It would bring the event vividly back to the present. It would be an ordeal for him.

‘Are you comfortable with that, Jack?’

‘I want them punished, Alec.’

The detective had insisted that Jack address him by his Christian name. They had bonded very quickly over a shared allegiance to a particular football club. James Greer took no interest whatsoever in the game. But Jack was a talented player and, like DS McCabe, a passionate supporter of Chelsea FC. They had waxed nostalgic about the great days under the management of the Portuguese maestro José Mourinho, the self-elected Special One. They had swapped eulogies about the world-class midfielder, Frank Lampard. This had all quietly amused James, who calculated that when the Special One had left Chelsea, his son had only been about eight years old.

Even at that age, though, his birthday present had been a replica kit. He’d won a Southwark-wide, borough-run keepy-uppy competition held for under-tens that year. Now a couple of London clubs were sending scouts to watch the games he played for South London Boys. Or they had been, before the attack and his injury. He had the off-season, the whole of the summer to recover. He would recover of course, but, if his father had his way, Jack had played his last youth match for any team based in the capital.

They were in the sitting room of their handsome Bermondsey house. James had seen McCabe raise an appreciative eyebrow when he’d shown him in. He had inventoried the wall-mounted Bang and Olufsen plasma widescreen and the Naim audio components stacked in their steel and granite rack. He had catalogued the artwork, carefully accrued and proudly hung by Lillian. You could not live like this on a detective sergeant’s remuneration. Not if you were honest, you couldn’t, and James thought DS McCabe probably as straight as they came. He had accepted a cup of coffee and James had gone and made it and he sat with the mug rested in his hand on his knee.

Lillian said to him, ‘Would it jeopardise the chances of a prosecution if Jack refused to take the stand?’

‘I’m not going to refuse to take the stand, Mum,’ Jack said. ‘I want them punished. I want to help to put them away.’

‘It would be far better if he were prepared to testify,’ McCabe said to Lillian. ‘He’s clearly attacked in the CCTV footage. The attack is sudden and unprovoked. But before he’s hit with the tyre iron and subdued, for the first half minute of the fight, Jack is actually getting the better of it. It would be much more damning if he could talk the jury through the film. He could stress the fact that they were total strangers to him. That’s more effective coming from him under oath. Your son has an engaging personality. He’s a very sympathetic character.’

And you want them nailed, James thought. You’re a copper for reasons that go a long way beyond the uniform and the pension provision. He wondered what sort of childhood McCabe had endured. He looked more than capable of taking care of himself now. He looked well capable of taking care of anyone else, come to that. But he had been small and vulnerable once. He’d said he had a daughter. Should he go on to have a son James thought the boy would be very fortunate in having him for a father.

To his mother, Jack said, ‘I don’t need the kid gloves treatment, Mum. I’m not traumatised.’

‘You were violated.’

‘No, I wasn’t. I was beaten up. I got my head bashed in by a gang of scumbag thieves who robbed my wallet and mobile. What was in the wallet? A five pound Virgin top-up voucher and my Oyster card, that’s what. They could have killed me for that. They didn’t care. I want them locked up and the key thrown away.’

McCabe stood. He put down his empty coffee cup on the low table in front of where he’d sat as he rose. He tugged his tunic absently straight and looked from Lillian to James and said, ‘With respect, the lad has a point.’

‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ James said. But he said it for Lillian’s benefit. He actually felt proud of Jack’s mental strength and decisiveness. He had never thought of himself as decisive and it was a quality he could easily admire in his son. Of course, Jack had inherited it from his mother.

That evening James went on to the Bookfinder website and sourced a copy of the illustrated Brodmaw Bay volume published in
1993
by Chubbly & Cruff. A shop in Hay-on-Wye had a copy they claimed was in pristine condition priced at thirty-five pounds and James ordered it with a feeling of relief. He had begun to think that it did not actually exist, that it was a figment of an imagination heightened by the awful anxiety of waiting for his son to return to consciousness and cogent life in the hospital room.

He did not really allow himself to believe in the book’s existence until two days later, when a large heavy envelope lined with bubble-wrap arrived in the post, bearing the logo of the shop he had sourced it from on its gummed flap. He opened the envelope straight away, in the kitchen. The kitchen had a glass wall for which they had sought and been granted planning permission seven years earlier, shortly after moving in, a couple of years before the dwellings in their street had acquired their current lofty status in the property market.

Their glass kitchen wall seemed more and more an act of vandalism or even desecration to James. But it did allow in a lot of light and in the bright morning he was able to sit at their breakfast bar and examine the book in a way he had not been able to, distracted, a week earlier in Jack’s hospital room.

In the chrome and glass and stone of the Greers’ bright kitchen, the painted images of the little port looked more mysterious and folkloric than they had viewed at the hospital. Light brooded and coalesced in some of the illustrations, as though they depicted a scene at dawn or dusk. There was a flushed look to the cobbles and slates on the roofs. The ruined church looked darkly sinister, the smashed stained glass of its windows, portals of black mystery. The pub and the butcher’s shop, though, had only increased in their charm and the vista of the village from the sea was utterly enchanting.

It was still only six in the morning. The post arrived early and James was an early riser. Lillian would wake with her alarm call at seven and Olivia would stir half an hour after that. It was a school day. Jack was still a couple of weeks away from his potential return to school. Potential only, because his father had determined that he was never going back there.

James put the coffee pot on, his eyes on the book on the polished grain of the kitchen counter. Its images had reminded him that Cornwall was probably the English county richest in folklore and legend and myth. It had been the only Celtic kingdom in ancient England, hadn’t it? It had been isolated. He did not know enough about Cornwall. He would have to do some research into the history of the place.

He was more convinced than ever that his wife had illustrated the book. It was her work, vivid, clever and unmistakable. It had that spellbinding charm and originality that had made her so successful. The details in the illustrations had a charm independent of his wife’s style. But the way they had been portrayed added to their allure. Her touch with a brush was seductive, beguiling. It had a dreamlike quality that had made her fortune. He had not calculated it to the pound, but they both knew that she earned substantially more than he did.

Theoretically, they were peers in their relationship and they ran their family as a democracy. But Lillian’s professional success and the relative wealth it had brought meant that important choices could not be made if she felt any reluctance over them. He was allowed the illusion of equality, but decisions were never reached without her assent, which meant that, in reality, she made them. There was a name for this. He remembered it from his own school history lessons. It was called benevolent despotism. That was harsh, he thought, hearing the feathery thump of his wife’s feet descending the stairs, because Lillian was not really by temperament at all despotic. But it was accurate. It was the truth.

She came into the kitchen, tousled and lovely, her dark blonde hair tangled around her head and shoulders, her breasts pushing against the taut sheen of her satin dressing gown. She rested a hip against the counter and picked up the book and hefted and opened it and the colour drained from her face.

‘Jesus,’ she said.

‘You can see what I mean.’

‘It’s unbelievable.’

‘Except that you’re holding it in your hands.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘I think you’re going to have to, Lily.’

‘Jesus,’ she said again.

Her eyes rose from the page she was studying to meet his. She had pale blue eyes and they were startling in the bright light of the morning kitchen, because her pupils had narrowed to nothing with the shock of what she had just seen. ‘It’s like some uncanny forgery,’ she said. ‘I mean, these are my pictures, James. This is my work. But I swear to God I have no recollection of this job whatsoever. I would take an oath on a Bible that I have never been to this place.’

‘You don’t believe in God.’

‘No more than I believe in magic or predestination. Or reincarnation, come to that.’ She had turned to the frontispiece.

‘It was published in
1993
,’ James said.

‘Then the illustration must have been done the previous year. I was in my second year on the graphics course at St Martin’s.’

‘I know.’

She snapped the book shut and put it on to the counter. She exhaled a long, steadying breath through her mouth.

‘On the plus side, you did a beautiful job, Lily.’

‘Evidently it’s a beautiful place. At least, it was then.’

‘It still is. It’s completely unspoiled.’

‘I’m going to have to examine my old diaries. This is a mystery I need to solve for my own sake, if I can solve it, of course. It’s funny because I’m not an amnesiac and I don’t recall having had a breakdown at college. Maybe I was just hypnotised into completing this commission.’

‘You believe in hypnosis?’

‘It worked for you.’

James didn’t say anything. That had been hypnotherapy.

Lillian nodded at the book. ‘So that’s it then,’ she said. ‘That’s your white-flight destination of choice.’

‘It isn’t as simple as white flight.’

‘Yes it is.’

‘London is more dangerous and volatile than it was when you were a St Martin’s graphics student. It’s become a far more hazardous place. I don’t think I like it very much any more.’

‘And immigration is to blame for that?’

‘I don’t want to get into the politics of it, Lillian. I just know that we’re not going to encounter the sort of people who attacked Jack if we relocate to the Cornish coast.’

‘Had it escaped your attention that the police officer determined to bring those boys to justice is a black man?’

‘I’m not a racist, Lily.’

‘I should bloody well hope not. Your biggest contract last year came from an Asian entrepreneur. You’ve got Muslim clients. You’d be some kind of bloody hypocrite if you were racist.’

James did not reply.

‘What about Jack’s football? He might be good enough to turn professional. He’s not going to get competitive games if we relocate to the West Country.’

‘It’s going to be some months before Jack is medically fit to head a football. It’s going to be longer before he’s going to be able to risk a clash of heads challenging for a high ball. He’s just thirteen. When the time comes I’ll drive him to trials. When he’s selected to play for a team I’ll drive him to games.’

It was Lillian’s turn to remain silent.

‘It’s a dream we’ve harboured for ever, Lily. We can go on dreaming about it until the day when we need to install one of those stair contraptions just to get us up to bed. Or we can do something about it while we’ve got the drive and energy and the kids are still young enough to appreciate the adventure.’

Again, Lillian said nothing. She sipped the coffee her husband had poured her.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ James said. ‘My son has caught a bus to a school in the south London badlands for the last time in his life.’

‘Our son,’ Lillian said. ‘He’s our son, not just yours.’ She put a hand on the cover of the book. Above them, they could hear their daughter leave her bedroom for the bathroom, heavy-footed, thumping like the eight-year-old she was. ‘Maybe you should go and take a look at the place, James.’