Unforgotten (13 page)

After dinner, Mike and Hugh took some wine to the living room and sat on either side of a flaming mock-coal fire. Over the mantelpiece hung a large abstract painting in wild splashes of scarlet, black and white. ‘One of Abbie’s,’ Mike remarked, following Hugh’s gaze. ‘We think it’s rather good.’

‘It’s amazing,’ Hugh murmured, not being a judge of these things.

‘You just have to accept that creative kids aren’t going to have easy lives,’ Mike said.

And maybe not-so-creative ones too, thought Hugh. It might have been the virus settling low over his brain like a fog, it might have been the comfort of the battered armchair, it might simply have been the wine, but he found himself saying, ‘Could I put a hypothetical case to you, Mike?’

‘Of course,’ Mike said easily. ‘But don’t rely on me for a textbook answer, Hugh. I’m not exactly a textbook man.’

Hugh went through it all: the personal injury claim of the hypothetical Mr D, the anonymous letter, the custody case two counties away, Mr D’s failure to grasp the consequences of his actions, and his temporary disappearance. ‘Mr D’s solicitor put a lot of pressure on him to come clean, and now he worries that he might have pushed Mr D over the edge.’

Holding up a hand as if to take Hugh back a step or two, Mike said, ‘But nothing’s come out yet? Hypothetically speaking.’

‘Well, no . . . but it will.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the High Court case will get reported.’

‘Not in the law pages. It’s hardly ground-breaking stuff.’

‘But the popular press.’

‘Okay, but they’re not going to go into great detail, are they? Could be just a couple of lines.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Hugh asked nervously. ‘That the solicitor should pretend he doesn’t know about the other case and hope it all goes away?’

Mike gave a light shrug. ‘You know what they always say – when in doubt do nothing.’

‘You know our man can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘The rules of conduct – he’d be in breach. He’d be in danger of being struck off.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘For God’s sake,’ Hugh breathed.

‘Who knows about this anonymous letter? According to our scenario.’

‘Oh, several people.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, Mr D, obviously. Plus our man’s wife. Plus his trainee.’

‘No one who’s going to talk, then.’

Taken aback by this, Hugh summoned Isabel’s argument. ‘But the letter writer’s bound to try again. People like that always do.’

‘So that’s a risk our man has to take.’

‘A bad risk,’ said Hugh, beginning to fight back. ‘He can hardly deny he got the letter.’

‘Okay, but perhaps the letter never mentioned any new medical evidence,’ Mike suggested ingenuously. ‘Perhaps our man wrote it off as a poison-pen letter, a fabrication, not to be taken seriously.’

‘Christ. You’re asking him to cross one massive great line.’

‘Am I? It seems to me that the codes of conduct don’t always cover every eventuality. That sometimes you have to
make a decision that satisfies the needs of natural justice. It happens all the time in my line of work,’ he admitted airily. ‘And if that means bending the rules a little . . . well . . .’

‘A bit more than bending the rules!’

‘I deal in human desperation. I tend to avoid sharp distinctions.’

Hugh shook his head, momentarily unable to counter this rush of argument.

Mike swung his wine glass to one side. ‘Playing devil’s advocate, would it really be such a bad thing to do nothing? Mr D’s a genuinely sick man whose condition isn’t going to improve. So he’s not telling the High Court any lies. He’s not trying to obtain money dishonestly. He’s just trying to save his kids from going into care, and who can blame him for that? Christ, if it was me, I’d
kill
rather than let my kids be taken away by social services. Okay, so Mr D’s been a bit economical with the truth in his dealings with the family court, but that’s not going to result in a bad outcome, is it? It’s not going to harm any of the people who matter. The ex-wife can’t cope and you say Mr D’s mad keen to look after the kids. Well, that has to be the best outcome, doesn’t it? For the kids.
And
for Mr D.
And
for the ex-wife. Certainly a whole lot better than having the kids shunted round the care system.’

Hugh felt a certain awe at Mike’s approach, not simply his readiness to overlook the rules, but his confidence that it was justified. ‘You forget what’s at stake,’ he said. ‘If it all goes wrong Mr D could end up with nothing – no money and no children.’

‘But our man had spelt out the risks to him?’

‘Well, yes . . . But Mr D’s deaf to things he doesn’t want to hear. He’s a man with tunnel vision. Obsessed with the case, obsessed with getting his children back. It’s all black and white to him. Either the world’s for him or it’s against him, and there’s not a lot in between.’

Mike gave Hugh a long, thoughtful look. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘forget the mights and maybes, and all that stuff. There’s only
one serious piece of advice I’d give our man. And that’s not to lose any more sleep over this case. He’s done all he can, he can do no more. He should let it go now, leave it at the door.’

‘That’s what Lizzie says.’

Mike raised his glass a little in tribute. ‘Well, she’s dead right.’

From the depths of sleep he thought he heard someone calling his name, but the voice was a long way off and faded almost immediately, to be swallowed up by a dream in which people he didn’t recognise crowded a strange room and Lizzie was nowhere in sight. Everyone was laughing so loudly they were making Hugh’s head ache, he had trouble making himself heard, and without any windows open the heat was stifling. When the voice came again, it was closer, more insistent, a summons. As he began to haul himself into wakefulness, he was aware of clammy heat and a heavy head and a parched mouth. Opening an eye he saw in the dim light a wall with posters and strange curtains, and struggled to remember where he was. Then the voice again, very close now.

‘Hugh? Wake up.’

Hugh turned over and saw a large figure silhouetted against an open door. He tried to speak, but his tongue adhered to the roof of his mouth. He swallowed with difficulty and felt fire in his throat. ‘What is it?’ he managed at last.

‘Charlie on the phone for you,’ Mike said, holding out a portable.

As he sat up, Hugh’s brain felt so heavy he thought he must have been drugged. Swinging his feet to the floor, he said, ‘Christ, sorry about this, Mike.’

‘Hey.’ Mike shrugged it aside and handed him the phone.

As Hugh put the phone to his ear it could have been two years ago, when time had meant nothing to Charlie and he had called in the night, at dawn, whenever he was in trouble or needing money or to be collected from Accident and Emergency,
or, once, from the local nick. Are we back into all that again? Hugh wondered wearily. Are we back where we started?

‘Charlie?’

‘
Dad
,’ Charlie said with a ragged gasp. ‘I’ve been trying to find you.’ His voice was tense, high-pitched. ‘Dad, something’s happened.’

‘What is it?’ Even as he remembered his promise to Lizzie to stay calm, he felt exasperation stirring in his stomach.

‘It’s Mum. There’s been an accident.’

Hugh’s heart gave a slow thud of foreboding. ‘What the hell’s happened?’ he demanded. ‘What have you done?’

‘It’s not me,’ Charlie protested in a choked voice. ‘Dad – it’s the house. There was a fire. And Mum – Mum was inside.’

Hugh’s heart was so full of dread that everything stalled inside him, he could hardly speak. ‘But she’s all right?’

Charlie made a stifled sound.

‘She’s all right?’ Hugh demanded again.

A silence, no sound at all, then a deep resonant voice. ‘Hugh, it’s Ray here. We’re at the hospital. Listen, you should come straight away.’

Hugh shut his eyes against the darkness. ‘Tell me. Tell me now. Is she all right?’

A soft pause, then: ‘It’s not too good, I’m afraid.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I’m so very sorry, Hugh. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.’

Afterwards he remembered little of the journey. Just Mike’s profile as he drove through the night. The dark motorway stretching westward. A stop at a petrol station, Mike placing a coffee in his hand, though he had the impression he never got round to drinking it. Calls to Ray, Hugh clutching the phone dumbly to his ear for minutes at a time before asking a question Ray couldn’t answer or, when he could, that Hugh was too dazed to take in so that he asked the same question time and again. Ray didn’t have many details at first, but either during
the journey or later at the hospital he told Hugh that the medics had tried very hard to resuscitate her, that she’d been brought into A & E at about half past midnight, that there was nothing the crash team could do to save her.
She
.
Her.
It seemed neither of them could bring themselves to use her name.

Mike must have spoken several times during the journey but Hugh could remember only one comment he made, that in fires most people died of smoke inhalation, they never knew what had happened to them, they didn’t suffer. This had caused a wave of horror to engulf Hugh because he hadn’t got that far, not in words or images and, forced to confront the idea, he immediately suspected the opposite, that she
had
suffered, that utterly terrified she had been beaten back by a wall of flames. But there was only so much the mind could take without going mad, and he had the impression it cut out on him after that, plunging him into a sense of unreality.

He had a clearer recollection of the hospital, of going into A & E while Mike parked the car, of announcing himself politely at the desk, of being asked to wait, of taking a seat until a nurse in scrubs took him through a pass-door and led him between rows of curtained cubicles, past a brightly lit area where doctors and nurses sat hunched over computers, to a small room with a few chairs where Charlie and Ray were waiting. Charlie, white-faced under the lights, came forward to embrace him, their arms meeting awkwardly so that they ended up in a half embrace, Hugh’s right arm pinioned, his hand looped up behind Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie held him very tightly and when they drew apart he was crying. Unable to speak just then, Hugh squeezed his shoulder. Ray went to find the doctor, a young girl with dark shadows under her eyes who expressed her sympathy and explained that the paramedics had tried to resuscitate Mrs Gwynne on the way to hospital, but there had been no vital signs on arrival. The crash team had tried further resuscitation without success and at a quarter to one Mrs Gwynne had been pronounced dead. The doctor looked so young and exhausted, so worn down by the business of death
and bad news, that Hugh offered her a smile of thanks and commiseration. Maybe it was this distraction or the numbness clouding his brain, but when she asked if he had any questions he shook his head. All he would like, he said, was to see his wife. The young doctor turned expectantly to Ray who, taking his cue, said that the police had requested a formal identification. Assuming Hugh wanted to be the person to make it, the arrangements could be made within half an hour.

He did want to be the person, he said. When the police turned up, Hugh and Ray left Charlie in the small room and followed the two uniformed men down long obscure passageways to a door marked Mortuary. One of the officers rang the bell and after a short wait a face appeared in the window high in the door and they were admitted by a youth in overalls. After a whispered consultation the senior officer explained to Hugh that at this time of night, without the full complement of staff, it wouldn’t be possible to see his wife in the viewing room, would he mind very much seeing her in the mortuary itself? He wouldn’t mind at all, he said politely. The youth led them to a room with two raised stainless steel tables in the centre and three large stainless steel doors along the side. As the youth went to one of the doors the senior officer said to Hugh in a tone of mild apology that due to procedural restrictions it wouldn’t be possible for him to touch his wife.

The youth swung the heavy door wide open and pulled out a trolley with a white-sheeted figure on it. Hugh stepped forward, bracing himself for the worst, however terrible that might be, only to find himself unprepared. When the youth rolled back the sheet, she was completely unscathed, no burns, no signs of fire, nothing to show for what had happened, her features beautiful but empty, her lovely lips parted to speak words that would never come, her hair wild and windblown.

She was gone, quite gone, but the prohibition against touching her was suddenly a torment, and turning to the senior officer he said briskly, ‘Yes, this is my wife.’