Buried

Chapter 23

Ridley had been sympathetic to Jack’s impending family loss and had granted him the time off to go and sort out Charlie’s affairs without comment. Jack got the impression Ridley was happy to see the back of him. The feeling was mutual.

Maggie drove and Jack stared out of the passenger window, his mobile on his lap. For the first half of their journey, she had attempted polite conversation but now she seemed content to mumble along to Queen songs and allow him time for his thoughts. His phone was on silent but each time it vibrated, he checked to see if it was Foxy calling with DNA results. If the bag of bones was a match to him, then his dad was dead. If it wasn’t a match, then his dad could still be alive. Tony Fisher had insinuated that Jimmy Nunn could well be living it up on a beach somewhere, spending someone else’s money. The thought once again popped into Jack’s head that it was even possible — if he was right, and Dolly Rawlins was behind it — that she’d enlisted Jimmy Nunn in the train robbery.

Jack’s gut instinct was in overdrive. What if Craigh had been right when he raided The Grange looking for guns? After all, Gloria Radford’s husband, Eddie, had been an arms dealer who had weapons stashed all over London. What if Ester had seduced...? No, not Ester; no one could be that desperate. Julia. What if Julia had seduced Norma into helping them? Or simply into trusting them? What if Mike and Angela had been lovers since the day he’d rescued her from Ester’s brothel? Right from the very beginning, coppers like Bill Thorn had totally underestimated the women, labelling them as too physically and emotionally weak. Different snippets of evidence swam around inside Jack’s skull, settling into their most likely home. If one of the robbers had been on a horse, why not all of them? That would compensate for any lack of physical strength. As for emotional strength, Jack had no doubt whatsoever that none of the women were lacking in that department.

‘It’s them,’ he whispered to himself.

And although Maggie heard this comment, she didn’t ask Jack to elaborate. He wasn’t speaking to her.

The tall ships in Cowes were an impressive sight. Tourists snapped away, hoping that at least one of their ten thousand holiday photos would be worthy of a frame. Waiting at the quayside, Ester looked like something out of an Agatha Christie TV drama — her sense of style had waned somewhat over the years. Today she was wearing a real fur hat.

‘If you’re off on the run,’ Geoffrey warned her, ‘might I suggest that a dead beaver on your head isn’t the best attire? It’ll only take one confrontation with an animal lover and you’ll end up being arrested for disturbing the peace. They’ll see your new passport and, hey presto, you’ll be taken from me for ever.’

Geoffrey was a gibbering wreck. His entire body shook and he made strange noises as he tried to stifle his tears.

‘Geoffrey! You listen to me!’ Ester barked. ‘You can’t be like this. Once I’m gone, you need to go home and set about finding yourself another lover straight away. Someone who will think more of you than she does of herself. You deserve the best — so don’t settle for the first money-grabbing tart who knocks on your door.’ She smiled. ‘That’s what you did last time and look at the mess that got you into.’

Ester’s feelings for Geoffrey were as shallow as they were for any other human being, but she did have the emotional capacity to understand that he loved her with all of his pathetic, overly needy little heart. Unfortunately for him, Ester was a great believer in pulling the plaster off quickly and not prolonging the pain.

‘I don’t love you, Geoffrey, you know that — although I have always very much liked the idea of you. Buy yourself a suit — you look lovely in a suit — and go on the prowl. Oh, and, when you do snag yourself a willing lady, make sure you hide the dildos and whips until you’re sure she’s on board with all of that sort of caper.’

Ester took off her beaver fur hat and placed it on Geoffrey’s head. It slipped down his bald head and covered his face before Ester tilted it back to reveal his weeping eyes.

‘Don’t think I’m coming back, will you?’ she said over her shoulder as she marched off. ‘Because I’m not. Move on, my darling.’

As she headed for the Southampton ferry, Geoffrey waved goodbye to the love of his life. And Ester never once looked back.

The electric fire had been off for so long that it now filled the living room with the stench of burning dust. Packing boxes had taken over the whole of the kitchen, half of the front room and were threatening to bury Jack in the far corner of the living room.

‘You know, we could sort some of this stuff out before boxing it up, Jack,’ said Maggie, although she knew that Penny must be the one to decide which memories she kept and which she let go.

Behind a bookshelf in the living room, Jack found a wooden arrow covered in cobwebs. The shaft was beautifully sandpapered to a smooth finish and the metal head was made from a piece of a Coke can folded and hammered into a triangular point. Even the fletching, made of pigeon feathers, was still intact.

‘Our cat never actually killed birds,’ Jack explained. ‘But it’d bring stray feathers in and give them to Dad. We made a bow and arrows in the shed one day when Mum was out. We had enough feathers to make fletching for seven arrows, I think it was. I’ve no idea why we thought it’d be a good idea to test it in here. Maybe it was raining. Dad hates being cold.’

Jack looked up the wall. Directly above his head, just beneath the narrow cornice that ran around the edge of the ceiling, there was a deep gouge in the wallpaper.

‘This one hit the wall and fell down behind the bookcase, just as Mum came back. Dad almost shit himself! He threw the bow out of the window and we pretended we’d been reading.’

Maggie loved the ‘little boy’ version of Jack. His smile melted away as the depth of his impending loss dawned on him. She wrapped her arms round his neck, forcing him to dip his head and rest into her neck. She felt him breathe against her tight embrace and she didn’t let go until she felt him start to move away. She would have held on to him forever if he’d wanted her to.

By early evening, Maggie and Jack were eating pizza and drinking wine in front of the fire, happy just to be with each other in this comfortable, familiar space that, after today, they’d never see again.

‘I’m sorry for being a dick,’ Jack said, out of the blue. ‘With all the Jimmy Nunn stuff, I mean. I’m not after another dad, Mags. I want to know where this restlessness comes from — or if it’s just me not quite knowing where I fit. Foxy’s helping me find the answers I need but what I won’t do, I promise, is ever again allow Jimmy Nunn to distract me from the people who are really important. We should catch up with Mum and Dad, like we said we would. Do you reckon you can get the time off work?’

Maggie knew her work rota off by heart, so knew she was owed several days — but she was more concerned about the cost of two tickets to St Lucia, which was the next stop for the cruise ship. As she googled flight and hotel prices, Jack’s phone buzzed.

Foxy’s text read:

In a split second, everything Jack had just said went out of the window. If Jimmy Nunn wasn’t the man in Harry Rawlins’ first grave, then he could still be walking around somewhere. He watched Maggie’s lips move, but he didn’t hear a word she said. He was getting to grips with the idea that his birth dad might still be alive.