Midnight Fugue (34 page)

‘That was seven years ago. He’s had another seven years to make himself safe.’

‘Of course he has. And I’m sure the kind of lawyers he can afford would tear my evidence to shreds. So not much chance of a conviction. But that bag of shit would have been emptied on the courtroom floor and the stink would stick to him for ever. Once he wouldn’t have cared. But from what I read, another ten years or so, and Goldie could be visiting Downing Street to see
my son, the Prime Minister
. I could put an end to all that. The Tories would never forgive someone who’d tracked stinking estuary mud across their lovely royal blue carpet.’

Listening to him she was reminded of the bright, sharp-minded young cop he’d been before their daughter’s illness began to darken all aspects of their life. He could sum up situations in a flash, analyse possibilities, assess odds.

And he was passionate for justice.

Had that changed?

‘So what are you going to do? Come forward and offer to testify?’

He exploded a laugh that was more like a bark, and not a friendly one.

‘Don’t be silly. I told you, I’ve got a second chance, a new life. Do you think I’m going to put it at risk by stepping back into the old one? You too, Gina. You’ve moved on, put all that dark stuff behind you. You wouldn’t want to put your new life at risk either, would you?’

All that dark stuff…
she wanted to scream at him that she knew now that
all that dark stuff
was part of her being forever. There was no space behind her she could ever put it.

She said, ‘This isn’t about me. Look, Ed… Alex… I know it would be much harder for you…’

That laugh again.

‘You’re right there. It wouldn’t just be Goldie who ended up on trial. I’m sure they’d promise all kinds of leniency in return for my testimony, but the public don’t like to see a bent cop going free. Trust me, Gina: it would be hard for you too — harder than you think. No, when you leave here, what you have to do is drive home, forget you ever saw me. You just decided what you were doing was pointless, someone’s idea of a joke. You’ll be safe at home.’

Again the implications of his words took a moment to sink in.

‘Safe? Why wouldn’t I be safe here?’

‘Because when the tiger comes out of the jungle and the shooting starts, no one gives a fuck about the staked goat. They’d prefer not to involve you, of course. Much better for me to have a fatal accident, or simply vanish without trace. But if the choice was between risking losing me and blowing us both away right here, they wouldn’t think twice.’

She stared at him for a long moment then said, ‘I think you’re trying to frighten me. Like Mick when I talked to him earlier.’

He laughed and said, ‘Good old Mick, he’ll see the big picture. Think about it. If you’re not scared of Gidman, what about the press? I’m sure you had a taste of what those guys can get up to when I went awol. Imagine what a feast they’d make of this lot if they got a sniff of it. They’d tear you to pieces. Just think of the stories they’d make up. Wouldn’t do much for Mick’s career. As for you, I doubt if a parent anywhere would want to let her precious offspring take music lessons from a scarlet woman. So forget all of this, Gina. Go home. This hasn’t happened. I don’t exist any more.’

‘You’re right,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought I recognized you. I was wrong.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Tell that to the fat cop. You made a mistake. That’s your story. Stick to it and you’ll be fine.’

‘Even with Mick? You want me to lie to Mick too?’

‘Oh no,’ he said, with a smile closely related to his canine laugh. ‘No secrets between lovers. In fact, I may give dear old Mick a ring myself to put him in the picture, so it wouldn’t look good if you kept quiet, would it? You’ll have his mobile number in your phone, I expect.’

‘I’ve left it in the car,’ she said. ‘But I can remember the number.’

She recited it and he copied it into his phone.

‘Always a good memory,’ he said admiringly. ‘Ali’s the same. Must be all that music buzzing around in your heads. A real talent, memory. Except sometimes it’s a real pain.’

He reached over and opened her door. His arm brushed against her breast. After seven years, that’s the nearest we’ve come to intimate contact, she thought.

‘Goodbye, Gina,’ he said.

‘But what are you going to do? They won’t stop looking, will they?’

‘They might. You never know. Things change.’

‘For a man who thinks there’s a hitman after him, you don’t sound all that worried.’

‘You’re thinking of Alex Wolfe. He’d have been worried. I don’t think I’ve got anything to worry about if you keep your mouth shut. Goodbye.’

He sounded slightly impatient now.

She said, ‘Just one more thing. That general and the plucky little trooper game, did you ever tell anyone about it?’

‘I don’t think so. You?’

‘No.’

‘Never mind. One of those things, eh? A lucky guess.’

She got out of the car then stopped to take what she imagined might be one last look at him.

She said, ‘Goodbye, Edwin Muir.
I pack your stars into my purse, and bid you, bid you so farewell
.’

He stared back at her uncomprehendingly. Why should he understand when she hardly understood herself?

He didn’t say goodbye for a third time, just looked at her till finally she got out of the car. She closed the door behind her, firmly but trying not to slam it. She didn’t want him to think she was leaving him in anger. Not that it would have mattered. Through the window she saw he had taken out his mobile and was dialling a number. For a second she thought he must be ringing Mick. Then someone answered and she saw a smile spread across his face as he started talking. It wasn’t the guarded knowing smile he’d flashed as they spoke. This was a smile that turned him once more into the young man she remembered, the man she’d married.

He was, she guessed, talking to his new partner. Ali, the music teacher. The mother of Lucinda.

She felt all the pain of loss again as she hadn’t felt it for years. Not that it had ever truly gone away, she realized now. There were things that had the power to obliviate the pain for a while. Music. Sex. But like a ground bass, it ran beneath all the variations of life, good and bad. Perhaps it was a necessary part of living. Perhaps humans needed a loss that felt worse than death to make the inevitability of their own death bearable.

But she would not wish this pain on anyone. She certainly did not want to have it dragged into the public domain once more. She recalled how intrusive the press had been in the aftermath of Alex’s disappearance.

What Alex had told her about the threat from Goldie Gidman was hard to credit, it smacked too much of a TV thriller. But anything touching on the financier and his MP son would certainly be big news, and the thought of being besieged by journalists, midnight phone calls, cameras and mikes being thrust into her face whenever she emerged, her image appearing in newspapers and news items all over the country, was a horror worse than the threat of death.

No, though her own pain was not something she would wish on anyone, she was sure that if she had the chance to take the kind of pain journalists specialized in and turn it on them, she would not hesitate.

Alex was right. At least in this they were in accord. Silence was her refuge. She resolved that nothing would make her admit to the meeting and exchange that had just taken place. Nothing.

She set off down the hill towards her car.

18.05–18.15

Gwyn Jones’s progress north had been slower than anticipated.

He’d stopped at the first service station on the motorway to ring Beanie. The conversation had gone pretty well, he told himself complacently. She had sounded really sympathetic as he span his tale of his grandmother’s illness and the dutiful son heading back to the land of his fathers to take his place at the old lady’s bedside. Then he’d bought himself a coffee and a sandwich to make up for his missed lunch, tried Gareth again without any luck, and rejoined the thickening traffic only to be held up by an accident a few miles ahead.

The next ten miles took over half an hour, but once clear he’d made reasonable time and now he was definitely
up north
, passing through what had formerly been known as the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire where King Arthur lined up his coal-face knights to tilt against the great tyrant Thatcher.

A Welshman on a left-wing paper ought to have felt a frisson of fraternal nostalgia as he traversed this holy landscape, but Jones hardly spared it a thought or a glance.

He’d fed the Loudwater Villas details into his sat-nav. For most of the journey it had had nothing to do but tell him to keep going straight on. Finally it instructed him to turn off the motorway and soon the directions were coming thick and fast as he entered an urban environment.

The streets were pretty empty, not surprising at this time on a Sunday, but he indulged in a complacent sneer at this evidence that he was deep into the provinces.

In a few hundred yards he was warned he would need to turn right on to a road running alongside a river. Here was the turning and there was the river. Loudwater Villas should be in view in half a minute.

Ahead he saw flashing lights and some vehicles pulled on to the verge, among them a van bearing the logo of Mid-Yorkshire TV. Beyond them there seemed to be a barrier across the road. As he slowed, figures came alongside the car, some with cameras. A flashbulb directly into his face almost blinded him, forcing him to stop some yards short of the barrier. He wound down the window and swore at the cameraman. A woman thrust a microphone through the window and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, MYTV. Can you tell us who you are and why you’re here?’

He said, ‘No, I bloody can’t. Get that thing out of my fucking face.’

He pushed the mike away forcefully and a man’s face replaced the woman’s. It was a lean, weathered face with bright probing eyes that were scanning the contents of the car as if committing them to memory.

‘Sammy Ruddlesdin,’ said the man. ‘
Mid-Yorkshire News
. Sorry to bother you, sir…’

There was a pause as the man focused more closely on Jones’s face.

Then he said in a lower voice, ‘Don’t I know you?’

‘I doubt it. What the hell’s going on here?’

‘Just a little local murder. I’m sure I’ve seen your face somewhere. You’re press, aren’t you? Don’t be shy. National, is it? Listen, you want local colour, I’m your man.’

He was being ambushed by reporters! The irony of the situation might have been amusing, but the man’s words had roused emotions that left no room for amusement.

‘What do you mean, murder? Who’s been murdered?’

‘That’s what we’re all trying to find out,’ said Ruddlesdin. ‘Look, if you’re not here after the story, what the hell are you here for?’

He didn’t answer but climbed out of the car and went up to the barrier with the media pack in close attendance.

A uniformed policeman confronted him.

‘Can I help, sir?’

‘Not in front of this lot you can’t,’ said Jones, who knew that every word he spoke was being recorded by those nearest him.

The policeman took his point and led him behind the barrier. Even here he took care to keep his back firmly directed towards the press pack and dropped his voice so that the policeman had to lean close to catch his words.

‘Yes, I need to get into Loudwater Villas. I’m visiting my brother.’

‘Your brother, sir?’ said the man, looking at a list in his hand. ‘Can I have the name and flat number please?’

‘It won’t be on your list. He’s staying with a friend. Alun Watkins, number 39.’

The man looked at him with new interest.

‘And your name, sir?’

‘Jones. Gwyn Jones.’

‘Could you hold on here a tick, sir?’

The officer turned his back on the journalists and spoke into his personal radio. After listening for a moment he turned around and said, ‘If you’d like to bring your car forward, sir, I’ll raise the barrier.’

Ruddlesdin, who’d clearly got close enough to hear this last remark, fell into step beside him as he returned to his car.

‘You must have clout,’ he said admiringly. ‘Else you’re very clever. Any chance of a lift?’

Jones ignored him. There was a tight feeling in his stomach as if he’d eaten something so bad his digestive juices didn’t even want to get to grips with it.

He got into his car and edged forward. The reporters were still taking photos. He found he hated them so much he could gladly have run them down.

As the barrier slowly rose, the passenger door opened and a young man slipped in beside him.

‘Get the fuck out of here!’ he yelled, thinking it was another journalist.

But the man was holding a police warrant card before his face.

‘DC Bowler, sir,’ he said. ‘If you just drive towards the caravan there and park alongside.’

‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Gwyn said as he drove slowly forward. ‘I’m just visiting my brother, and he’s only staying here, he’s not a resident. Have you come across him? He’s a lot like me, people say, only eight years younger. Have you seen him?’

It was as if by talking about Gareth he could create the cheeky young sod’s physical presence.

‘And his name’s Jones, is it, sir?’

‘That’s right. Gareth Jones. Not surprising as Jones is my name too.’

‘Yes, sir. Are you Gwyn Jones of the
Messenger
, sir?’

He said, ‘Yes, I am,’ hoping that the young cop would say, ‘Thought I recognized you. Good try, mate,’ then tell him to drive the car back to the barrier.

Instead he just nodded as if this confirmed something he already knew.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

‘Just park here, sir. Now if you come with me, DS Wield will fill you in.’

He climbed slowly out of the car. He felt he was getting very close to a place he didn’t wish to arrive at. He looked back towards the distant barrier and found himself longing to be on the far side of it, one of the assembled pack, chatting, joking, smoking, drinking, passing the boring hours that any decent reporter knows have to be put in if they are to get a decent story to put out.