Ralph’s Children (26 page)

No real normality so long as that was in the offing.

* * *

I
t was while she was in London in August, paying a visit to Claude Duval’s gravestone in Covent Garden Church, that Kate, glancing at the date of
the highwayman’s birth, felt her mind drift to an entirely unconnected set of dates she appeared to have memorized, and realized that they were just two days away from another birthday.

She phoned Helen Newton, was put through to Ben Poulter instead.

‘It’s Carol Marsh’s birthday on Wednesday,’ she told him.

‘We know,’ Poulter said.

‘So does that mean you’ll be watching in case Pig visits Simon’s grave?’

‘We’ll be doing what we can,’ the detective-sergeant said.

‘But what does that
mean
?’ Kate wanted to know. ‘You’ve got to be there the whole day, waiting, not just having some car drive past every hour.’

‘As I’ve said, Mrs Turner –’ Poulter was not to be budged – ‘we’ll be doing everything we can.’

‘Newton never called me back,’ Kate told Rob the next evening, pacing in their bedroom, ‘and I just
know
they’re not going to handle this
properly.’

‘I think they might.’ Rob paused. ‘In fact, I know they will.’

Kate stopped pacing. ‘How do you know?’

‘Because Helen Newton phoned me this afternoon—’

‘You didn’t tell me,’ she accused.

‘She phoned to ask me –’ Rob remained steady – ‘to keep you occupied tomorrow, in case you’ve been having any crazy notions of keeping watch
yourself.’

‘But did she actually say they’ll be keeping watch?’

‘She wasn’t specific on details,’ Rob said. ‘But she asked me to have a little faith.’

‘Really?’ Kate was surprised.

‘It’s what she said.’

Kate took a moment.

‘Better occupy me then,’ she said.

And sat down on the bed.

Wednesday grew harder as it progressed.

‘Couldn’t we just drive by?’ Kate suggested at around eleven.

‘No, we couldn’t,’ Rob said. ‘For one thing, it’s exactly what Newton told us not to do. And supposing we pick just the moment when Pig’s arriving, and he
sees you and takes fright.’

Kate raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘Faith,’ he reminded her.

He was paying household bills at the table after lunch, believing her to be in the office working on Duval, when he saw her through the open doorway coming down the staircase,
car keys in hand.

‘I could lie,’ she said. ‘Tell you I’m going to get some milk.’

‘Kate, please.’ Rob got up, came into the hallway. ‘Give me the keys.’

She shook her head. ‘Just once round the cemetery, to see if they’re there at all.’

He looked at her furrowed brow and intent eyes.

‘We’ll take my car,’ he said.

* * *

There was a junction with traffic lights near the gated entrance.

‘Good,’ Kate said as the lights changed to red and Rob slowed the Saab to a halt.

A man was walking in their direction, a bunch of flowers in one hand.

‘Don’t stare,’ Rob said.

‘Doesn’t matter if I do,’ Kate told him. ‘It’s not Pig.’ She looked around, craned her neck, shook her head. ‘I don’t think the police are here at
all.’

‘What about him?’ Rob said about the man with flowers.

Kate made a sound of derision.

The lights began to change.

‘Round the block one more time,’ she said.

‘You said just once.’

‘Please.’

Rob sighed, began to move away slowly. ‘Once more, and that’s it.’

His mobile phone rang.

‘In my pocket,’ he told Kate.

She fished it out, hit the receive button. ‘Rob Turner’s phone.’

‘Kate, this is Helen Newton.’

‘Newton,’ Kate mouthed at Rob.

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Which is where you’ll both be,’ Newton told Kate, ‘if you don’t stop behaving like idiot children right now and go home.’

‘Tell her we’re leaving,’ Rob said.

‘Now, please,’ Newton said sharply.

‘She’s watching us,’ Kate said.

Rob sped up a little, moving away from the cemetery.

‘But what if he shows up?’ Kate said. ‘You’ll need me to identify him.’

‘If someone shows up who might possibly be your man,’ Newton said, ‘we’ll handle it, Kate, in the appropriate manner.’ She paused. ‘Tell Rob to turn left,
please.’

Kate told him.

‘Good,’ Newton said. ‘I’ll call you when we’re done.’

‘But when—?’

Kate was talking to a dead phone.

The cemetery had been closed for over five hours, Rob had made dinner, watched his wife unable to eat or settle, and had resigned himself to a sleepless night because Kate had
pointed out earlier that a man who’d been part of that gang might not let a little thing like a locked gate or stone wall stop him.

It’s not going to happen, is it?’ she said quietly, just after eleven.

‘I don’t know,’ Rob said. ‘It’s still Simon’s birthday for another hour.’

‘Do you think the police are still watching?’

‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘Easier for them to be unnoticed in the dark.’

‘Maybe just one poor PC now,’ Kate said, ‘hiding in the bushes near the grave.’

‘Maybe,’ Rob said. ‘And no, we can’t take them a thermos of coffee.’

She smiled. ‘I know we can’t.’

They were in bed, awake, when the phone rang at one fifteen.

Rob answered, listened for a moment, then said: ‘I’ll pass you to Kate.’

Her hand trembled slightly as she took the phone.

‘He came,’ Newton said.

Rob turned on his bedside light, his eyes glinting with excitement.

‘Tell me.’ Kate’s heart was thumping hard.

‘At twenty to midnight,’ the DCI expanded. ‘He came over the west wall, made straight for Marsh’s grave, got down on both knees and began weeping.’

Kate found she couldn’t speak.

‘He’s already said enough for us to be fairly certain it’s your man.’

‘You mean he’s confessed?’

Rob was out of bed, watching Kate expectantly.

‘Nothing quite so cut and dried,’ Newton said.

Kate shook her head, saw Rob’s face fall.

‘I’d say we’ll be talking to him for some considerable time before I have much more to tell you,’ Newton said, ‘but I wanted to let you know.’

‘Thank you,’ Kate said. ‘So much.’

‘It’s my pleasure.’ Newton paused. ‘So, more patience needed. I know it’s hard, but it’s the safest way.’

‘We’re getting there,’ Kate said. ‘That’s the main thing.’

* * *

‘One more to go,’ she said an hour or so later, after she and Rob had got back into bed with a bottle of red and a pizza from the freezer because suddenly
they’d realized they were both famished. ‘The Chief.’

‘I reckon the others will give him up,’ Rob said.

‘You still think it’s a man,’ Kate said.

He’d told her once that he thought a person who sent others to do their dirty work was probably fundamentally cowardly.

‘I still think women, on the whole, are braver than men,’ he said now.

Kate shrugged, snuggled closer.

‘Right this minute,’ he went on, ‘we have more important things to think about.’

‘Like our pizza getting cold,’ she said.

‘Fuck the pizza,’ Rob said.

And began to kiss her breasts.

R
alph had known that Pig would not be able to resist much longer.

She had made him promise, last time they spoke, not to do anything stupid, had even mentioned Simon’s birthday, and he had told her not to worry.

Foolish, loving man.

Edward Booth, as
they
would be calling him.

She had always known how much Pig had loved Simon, wondered now, suddenly, if maybe he’d known they would catch him, if maybe it might even have been what he’d wanted.

She was all alone now. All her children lost to her.

Only her hate left to warm her.

To keep her going.

T
he end of Kate’s world came in a phone call.

At five forty-three on an early September afternoon.

Rob’s first Saturday as a volunteer, though he’d visited Lambsmoor Farm twice before as a spectator.

‘I might not get to do any riding,’ he’d said that morning before leaving. ‘Each child has one helper to lead their pony, and at least one – sometimes two more
– to walk by their side to avoid accidents.’

Kate had liked the sound of that.

‘Perhaps this is something,’ she said now, ‘that I could do with you sometime. So long as I don’t have to get up on the horse.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Rob had said, real pleasure in his face. ‘I’d love that.’

It had not happened during the children’s ride, the organizer told her on the phone.

His name was Mack, and his own shock and distress were clear in his voice.

‘It was later,’ he told Kate, ‘while Rob and another helper were riding together on Lambsmoor Hill.’

In the kitchen, Kate sat down at the table, laid her left hand on the surface.

‘His colleague’s horse was acting up, and your husband went to help,’ Mack went on. ‘His mare lost her footing and fell.’

She stared at her wedding ring, then at the veins beneath her skin.

‘Is Rob all right?’

She could hear calm in her voice.

Knew, already, that in another moment it would be gone.

Everything
would be gone.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’m afraid your husband was crushed by the horse,’ Mack said.

Blood rushed through arteries, roared in her head and through her soul.

Her hand moved off the tabletop and gripped the edge, to keep her from falling from her chair.

‘Is he alive?’ Kate asked, at last.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Mack answered. ‘I am so very sorry, Mrs Turner.’

His face was unmarked. Calm and peaceful.

Sleeping. None of it true, after all.

Kate’s father was holding her right hand tightly while she fought to keep the inevitable at bay for just a few more seconds.

Please.

Michael began to weep, his tears confirming what her eyes had refused to register: that it was true. Yet still it was not real to her even then, with Rob before her.

And her tears, like her mind, seemed frozen.

They gave her time, were all very kind.

Someone came, after a while, to speak to her about tissue donation.

A woman in a dark suit with ash blond hair and sad eyes.

Kate heard the word ‘tissue’ and stopped her.

‘What about his organs?’ she asked. ‘Rob carried a donor card.’

She comprehended what the other woman was speaking about, but it seemed to be happening at a strange and inaccessible level, as if they were talking about someone else entirely.

‘Your husband’s heart,’ the woman explained to Kate and Michael, ‘stopped beating too long before the paramedics reached him, which means, unfortunately, that his organs
are unusable. Tissue and bone, however, can be donated for up to twenty-four hours after death.’

‘Right,’ Kate said. ‘OK.’

And then, with a shudder of deep shock, it came to her what they would have to do to Rob to grant that final wish, and though his death was still not real to her, the picture of scalpels cutting
into his flesh was suddenly so
acutely
real she wanted to scream.

‘Now, please,’ she said to Michael, her voice harsh. ‘We have to go now.’

‘But don’t you want to—’

‘
Now
.’

* * *

T
he days blurred, one into the next.

People around her all the time. Her parents, other people, Abby Wells flying over from Brussels where she’d been working, other friends and colleagues. Richard Fireman, the police, Martin
Blake, neighbours she scarcely remembered meeting. All wanting to help her, treading gently.

She hated them all, longed for them to go.

To leave her alone with what was left of Rob.

They had been together again for what seemed such a short time, yet it had begun to feel as if he had never gone away; his essence had been infused back into their cottage, which was why she
needed them all to be
gone
, so that she could hold on to it for as long as it remained.

Hold on to
him
.

Bel was there all the time, sleeping there, making her breakfasts and lunches and suppers, feeding her in a way Kate could not recall her ever having done during her
childhood.

‘I’d rather do it myself,’ she told her repeatedly.

‘Plenty of time for that,’ her mother said.

‘It’s helping Bel,’ her father told Kate. ‘If you can stand it.’

‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘Of course.’

Why not let them do it for her, she decided dully, the way all her thoughts came and went now. Why not let them make her food that she couldn’t eat, and see to it that she went to bed and
not sleep, and sit with visitors and not listen to the kind things they said about Rob?

Bel and Michael scarcely pushed her, until it came to the funeral arrangements.

‘Do what you think,’ Kate told them.

‘You need to be involved with this,’ Bel said.

‘We want this to be right for you,’ Michael said. ‘For Rob.’

‘He won’t know,’ Kate said.

The essence she’d wanted to cling on to, to wrap herself in, be
alone
with, was ebbing steadily away, was already almost gone, being rubbed out by these other loving, well-meaning
people. And when that was finally erased, there would be nothing left of him.

The funeral arrangements meant nothing to her.

Rituals.

* * *

M
arie Coates, the woman from Rob’s school who’d first suggested he volunteer at Lambsmoor Farm, came to visit Kate one week after the
funeral.

It was late September and Kate was alone, Bel having gone home to Henley at last, two days earlier.

‘I didn’t want to intrude before,’ Marie Coates said, after Kate had helped her ease her wheelchair over the threshold and into the sitting room.

She was, Kate thought, in her late forties or perhaps early fifties, had short salt-and-pepper hair and keen grey-blue eyes, wore a cornflower blue pullover over an old-fashioned tweed skirt
that covered her knees.