Case Histories

Chapter 21. Jackson

They stopped in at the Catholic church and Jackson lit two candles, one each for his brother and sister. Marlee asked to light one for Fidelma. Passio Christi, conforta me. Both Fidelma's sisters were now dead of cancer – Jackson prayed that Marlee had missed that particular gene. Jackson's father was an only child, so Marlee was the only blood relative that Jackson had in the world now that his father was dead. It seemed unlikely that Jackson would have more children. This was it – one girl in pink jeans and a T-shirt that was emblazoned with the message, so many boys, so little time. Did the people who designed these T-shirts, did the people who made these T-shirts in size "8-10 yrs" ever stop to think that what they were doing might actually be immoral? Of course the people who made the T-shirts were probably themselves "8-10 yrs" in a sweatshop in the Philippines somewhere.

"Daddy?"

"Yep?"

"Can we light a candle for my hamster?"

"You should get a T-shirt," Jackson said. "So many hamsters, so little time."

"Not funny. Now are we going home?"

"No. We're going to take a quick detour. I have to go and see a woman called Marian Foster." "Why?" "Just because."

They were on the bypass when Jackson realized something was wrong. The swiftness of the feeling took him by surprise, one minute he felt okay – cracked, bruised, sore, and aching but okay – the next minute he felt himself spiking an incredible temperature and only a few seconds later he was seeing the world very much how he imagined a fly would see it and the next he was slipping into unconsciousness. Every last bit of his remaining energy was concentrated on bringing the car to a stop on the hard shoulder, after that – nothing.

The next thing he was waking up in a hospital and looking into Howell's eyes.

"Why are you here?" Jackson noticed that he seemed to be using someone else's voice.

"I'm your next of kin, apparently."

"Oh, yeah," Jackson said weakly. "Josie didn't want the job anymore."

Howell grinned. "I always knew you had black blood in you somewhere, Jackson. You never used to be the kind of guy that carried an organ-donor card."

"Well, I guess I'm that kind of guy now." Jackson struggled to sit up. "Someone's trying to kill me, Howell."

Howell seemed to think this was incredibly funny. When he stopped laughing he said, "Don't be so paranoid, Jackson. You've got blood poisoning. Apparently you had a tooth you were supposed to get seen to."

Jackson panicked suddenly. What was he thinking? "Where is she, where's Marlee? Is she okay?"

"She's fine. Keep your hair on your chest." "But where is she, Howell?" "On a sheep farm," Howell said.

Jackson didn't know why Marlee had given the police Kim Strachan's number – he supposed she'd scrolled through the address book in his phone and thought Kim was a trustworthy person. Maybe it was because Kim had given her five pounds (Marlee was that kind of girl). Was it Marlee who called the police and the ambulance? Was the first call she made on her Barbie pink phone to the emergency services? What if he hadn't managed to stop the car? Or an articulated lorry had plowed into them as they were stuck on the hard shoulder? He supposed his daughter would be pretty safe on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Russian gangsters.

"How long have I been here?" he asked Howell.

"Three days."

"Three days. Jesus, Josie's back tomorrow. I need to get Marlee home to Cambridge."

"Didn't know you were pussy whipped, Jackson."

Jackson ignored this comment. "Josie's taking Marlee to New Zealand."

"Well, it's only for a year," Howell said. "It'll pass in no time."

"No, it's for good," Jackson said.

"No, it's not, Jackson," Howell insisted. "It's just a year, ask Marlee."

You fucking bitch!" Jackson shouted. "Your wanker boyfriend's only going on a year's exchange to New Zealand. You told me you were going for good." Josie said something indistinct on the other end of the phone, her voice had a throaty, lazy timber that it took on straight after she'd had an orgasm. If she hadn't been in the Ardeche and he hadn't been in a hospital somewhere south of Doncaster he would definitely have killed her. He was sitting on a bench outside the hospital, still tied to his drip. A lot of people were giving him odd looks and he dropped his voice a little.

"Why, Josie? Why did you lie to me like that?"

"Because you were out of order, Jackson. Get over it," she added. "Get over me."

Jackson wanted a cigarette, very badly. His tongue found the empty socket of his tooth, both tooth and root had been removed by the emergency dentist on call while Jackson was blissfully unconscious. Sharon was going to be very annoyed when she discovered she had been denied the pleasure of torturing him. He caught sight of himself in the plate glass of the hospital, he looked like the walking wounded you saw in war documentaries.

He punched another number into his phone. "Theo?"

" Jackson!" Theo sounded almost happy. "Where are you?"

"In the hospital," Jackson said.

"Again?"

"Yeah, again."

Jackson discharged himself against the hospital's advice. The only way they could be mollified was by Howell promising to drive him to Northumberland to pick up Marlee and then home to Cambridge.

"Christ, Jackson," Howell said as he eased his huge frame into the driver's seat of the Punto. "What happened, have you turned into a woman?"

"Worse things could happen," Jackson said. "I can drive."

"No, you can't." Howell raked through Jackson's CDs. "You still listening to this shit, Jackson?"

"Yes."

Howell tossed Trisha and Lucinda and Emmylou and the rest of the women in pain onto the backseat and put on one of Marlee's Christina Aguilera CDs. By the time he'd played it three times they were up the Al and almost back in the middle of nowhere again.

"You don't have to do this," Jackson said.

"Yes, I do, I'm your friend. Anyway I could do with a break, bit of culture, city of dreaming spires and all that."

"I think that's Oxford."

"Same difference," Howell said. "Who's trying to kill you?"

"Guy in a gold Lexus."

"That would be the one that's following us, then?" Howell said, glancing in the rearview mirror.

Jackson tried to turn round to see but his neck didn't really turn anymore. Howell read out the number plate.

"Yeah, that's the one." Jackson reached for his phone and said, "Don't turn off the main road," just as Howell swung a sudden violent left onto the slip road.

"Why not?" Howell said. "We'll lead the Lexus somewhere quiet, a nice country lane, and then we'll deal with him."

"Deal with him?" Jackson said. "As in what, take him out?"

"Well, I wasn't thinking anything that drastic, but if you want, yeah, why not?" Howell said.

"No, I don't want. I want everything done by the book. I'm going to call it in. There's a warrant out for the guy's arrest."

"You're such a policeman, Jackson."

"Yeah, I know. I'm a policeman, I've turned into a woman, I'm pussy whipped, and I carry an organ-donor card. It's called middle age."

The Lexus was glued to their tail. Jackson turned the rearview mirror so that he could catch a glimpse of Quintus. His posh moon face was choleric. Jackson couldn't imagine what it was he'd done that had enraged the guy so much.

They could hear sirens in the distance. Jackson stayed on the phone with the dispatcher, although he was having a hard time giving her an idea of their position. They were on a narrow road now, made narrower by the overgrown hedgerows. Howell was driving as if he were playing Grand Theft Auto. They turned a sharp bend and found themselves almost bonnet to bonnet with a silver Mercedes SL 500 sports car being driven at equal speed. Jackson closed his eyes and braced himself, but somehow or other the driver of the Mercedes went to her left and Howell went to his left – it felt to Jackson as if they were on the Wall of Death – and they missed each other by a feather. "Fucking hell," Howell said admiringly, "what a babe, what a driver, what a car." "Jesus," Jackson said. He looked at his hands – they were actually shaking.

The Lexus seemed to have disappeared off the radar. Howell stopped the Punto and reversed cautiously back up the road and round the bend. The sound of police sirens was growing progressively nearer. The Lexus had managed to avoid the Mercedes but not the bend and had plowed relatively harmlessly into the overgrown hedge, where it was caught like an insect in a net. Quintus could just be seen inside, pushing helplessly at the door.

A couple of traffic cars appeared, followed by a plainclothes patrol car, all of them slewing to a stop in an overexcited way. An approaching police helicopter added to the sense of adrenalin-filled drama. Jackson knew how much they'd be loving this, anything that was out of the routine of speeding tickets and the misery of road accidents.

Howell and Jackson got out of the car and walked over to the Lexus. "Why does he want to kill you, anyway?" Howell asked.

"I've got no idea," Jackson said. "Let's ask him."

And when you see your mother," Jackson said to Marlee, "it might be a good idea not to show off your Russian to her." "Why not?"

"Because…" Jackson frowned, thinking of all the things he really didn't want Josie to know. "Just because. Okay, sweetheart?" She looked doubtful. Jackson gave her a ten-pound note. "Spaseeba," Marlee said.

When Jackson had phoned Theo from the hospital Theo told him that Lily-Rose, the yellow-haired girl, was staying with him. Jackson didn't know what to make of that, but as it wasn't anything to do with him he decided not to think much about it at all. He was trying not to think too much because thinking did actually physically hurt his brain. He said to Theo, "That's good," and hoped it was.

Jackson told Theo on the phone that he was going to send him a name, the name, the one he had been looking for for ten years, the name that Kim Strachan had given him. Of course, it might not be the name of the man who killed Laura (Innocent until proved guilty – did he believe that? No), and Jackson knew that, even if he suspected it for a moment, he should tell the police, but this was Theo's quest and it was up to Theo to decide where to take it from here.

He wrote the name and address on the back of a postcard that he picked up in a service station near the Angel of the North. The picture on the postcard was of one of the artificial-looking pink daisies that he'd passed over for Niamh's grave. Maybe it was a new kind of flower. He put a stamp on the postcard and Marlee ran to the postbox with it because she was still young enough to find posting a letter quite an exciting thing to do. When she came back in a year perhaps she would be blase about it. She wouldn't be the same Marlee in twelve months' time: she would have different skin and different hair, she would have outgrown the shoes and the clothes she was wearing, she would have new buzzwords (New Zealand words), and she might not like Harry Potter anymore. But she would still be Marlee. She just wouldn't be the same.

Jackson dropped Marlee off at David Lastingham's house. Josie looked him over dispassionately. "You look terrible, Jackson."

"Thanks."

He turned to leave but Marlee ran down the path and caught him at the gate. She threw her arms round him and hugged him. "Dasvedanya, Daddy," she whispered.

Jackson went back to what remained of his own house. The building smelled sour and sooty, as though the dormant spores of ancient diseases had been released into the air. He raked with his foot through the clinker and slag that now carpeted his living room. He wondered what had happened to Victor's ashes – there was no sign of his urn. Ashes to ashes. He found a broken shard of pottery, a piece of wishing well, the letters G… from scar still legible. He let it fall back into the debris. Just as he was turning to leave something caught his eye. He squatted on his haunches to get a better look. One blue arm, covered in ash, was sticking up in the air, like an earthquake survivor signaling for help. Jackson tugged at the arm and pulled Blue Mouse out of the ruins.

Superintendent Marian Foster had moved to Filey on her retirement from the force and was still doggedly unpacking cardboard boxes in her kitchen when Jackson and Marlee arrived on her doorstep. Jackson had phoned her from the car to tell her he was coming, and she seemed pleased to be interrupted, as if she already realized that burying herself in a small seaside town might not be the best way to spend her nonworking life. "I expect I'll find a committee or two that needs a firm hand." She laughed. "Finally do that OU degree, join an evening class." She sighed and added, "It's going to be fucking awful, isn't it, Inspector?"

"Oh, I don't know, ma'am," Jackson said. "I'm sure you'll get used to it." Try as he might, Jackson couldn't think of anything more positive to say. He could see his own future reflected only too clearly back at him.

Marian Foster could obviously recognize a sugar junkie when she saw one, and she sat Marlee down in front of the television with a can of Coke and a plate of chocolate biscuits. She made a mug of achingly strong tea for herself and Jackson. "Gone soft?" she said when she saw him flinch at the taste. "You're back in Yorkshire now, boy."

"Don't I know it."

"So," Marian Foster said, suddenly businesslike, "Olivia Land? What can I tell you? I was a lowly PC, and a woman to boot. I interviewed the Land girls, but I doubt whether there's anything I can add to what you know."

"I'm not so sure," Jackson said. "Feelings, impressions, instincts, anything. Tell me what you would have done differently if you'd been in charge."

"Knowing everything I know now about the world?" She sighed, a weighty sigh. "I would have looked at the father more closely. I would have suspected abuse."

"Really? Why?"

"There was something wrong with Sylvia, the eldest. There were things she was hiding, things she wasn't saying. She would start to disassociate if you questioned her too closely. And she was… I don't know – strange." Strange – the same word Binky Rain had used about Sylvia.

"And the father was a cold fish," Marian Foster continued. "Controlled and controlling. The rest of them were a mess – the mother, the other girls. I've forgotten their names."

"Amelia and Julia."

"Of course. Amelia and Julia. You want my honest opinion?"

"More than anything," Jackson said.

"I think the father did it. I think Victor Land killed Olivia."

Jackson removed the crucial evidence from his pocket and laid it down on Marian Foster's kitchen table. Tears welled in her eyes, and for a moment she couldn't speak. "Blue Mouse," she said finally. "After all this time. Where did you find him?"

The thing about Sylvia was that she hadn't really been surprised to see Blue Mouse. It was as if she'd been waiting for him to turn up eventually. And she hadn't been curious as to where Jackson had found it – Jackson had told her, but she hadn't asked. Wouldn't that be your first question? It was Marian Foster's first question. "Where did you find him?"

Jester wagged his tail when he saw Jackson, but Sylvia looked less pleased to see him on the other side of the grille in the visiting room. She frowned and said, "What do you want?" and Jackson thought he caught a glance of a different Sylvia, a less spiritual one.

Jackson's painkillers were wearing off. He would have liked to have taken his head off and given it a rest. How was he going to go about this? He took a deep breath and looked into Sylvia's mud-colored eyes.

"Sister Mary Luke," he said. "Sylvia." Her eyes narrowed when he spoke her real name but her gaze didn't waiver. "Sylvia, think of me as a priest in the confessional. Whatever you say to me will never go beyond me. Tell me the truth, Sylvia. That's all I want." Because in the end that was what it came down to, didn't it? "Tell me the truth about what happened to Olivia."

He had to push hard on the gate to open it. He felt like an intruder. He was an intruder. There was a piece of crime tape caught on one of the branches of Binky's apple trees. It wasn't a crime scene anymore. Binky had died of natural causes – "old age really," the pathologist said to Jackson. Jackson supposed it was pretty much a triumph if you went that way. He hoped Marlee died of old age, under an apple tree somewhere, long after Jackson himself had gone.

The place was like some kind of nature conservation area. There were bats flitting in and out of the eaves of the house, and a frog lolloped lazily away from him as he approached, and, despite sweeping the path with his big police-issue Maglite, he almost stood on a baby hedgehog as he worked his way round the thorns and weeds to the corner of the garden. The brambles were almost impenetrable and Jackson could see how something could get overlooked here. Something precious. It wasn't going to be as easy as simply raking through grass and dead leaves. In fact, Jackson didn't actually expect to find anything. It wasn't just that there was so much wildlife around – you could hardly walk into one of these gardens without encountering a fox – it was just that it was so rare when you went searching for something precious that had been lost that you actually found it.

In the corner, Sylvia said, beyond the apple trees, beyond the big beech. Jackson couldn't tell a beech from a birch, couldn't do tree identification at all, so he followed the wall round until it turned into another wall and reckoned that must be the corner.

He dug with his hands, an inefficient, filthy way of doing it, but a spade seemed too brutal. He didn't dig, he excavated. Delicately. The ground was hard and dry and he had to scrape at the soil. It was pitch black by the time he uncovered the first sign of her. His face and forearms were prickling with dirt and sweat. He kept thinking about Niamh, about the two days he and Francis had searched for her, in every stinking bin and rubbish heap, every corner of every piece of waste ground until Jackson felt like a feral animal, a creature that had moved far beyond the normal bonds and bounds of society. He had watched the police dragging the canal and had seen them lifting out his sister's body, sluicy with mud and water. He remembered that the first feeling he had, before all the other more complex feelings flooded in, was one of relief that they had found her, that she wouldn't be out there, lost forever.

Sylvia said Olivia had simply been left, more or less, where she died, covered up with some branches and grass. Every square inch of this garden should have been searched on hands and knees, that was how Jackson would have done it, a fingertip search of the immediate vicinity. He remembered Binky saying something about seeing the officers off her property, giving them "short shrift." Was that all it took, one domineering old Tory to tell you to get lost and you did? And all this time Olivia had simply been lying here, patiently waiting for someone to come and find her. Jackson thought about Victor, covering his smallest child up with weeds and garden rubbish as if she wasn't worth anything, leaving her behind in a strange place while her body was still warm. Not taking her home. Victor, who then went back to his bed, locking the back door, leaving Amelia outside alone to discover her sister gone. Victor, who for thirty-four years had kept Blue Mouse locked up like the truth. The Land girls used to play in Binky's garden and then Sylvia told them to keep out. Because she knew Olivia was here.

The first thing he found was a clavicle and then what looked like an ulna. He stopped his excavating and moved the Maglite around until it caught the small, pale moon of the skull. Jackson took out his phone and called the station at Parkside.

He sat back on his heels and examined the clavicle, brushing the soil off it with the tenderness of an archaeologist finding something rare, something unique, which it was, of course. The clavicle was tiny and fragile, like an animal's, a rabbit or a hare, the broken wishbone of a bird. Jackson kissed it reverently because he knew it was the holiest relic he would ever find. It started to rain, Jackson couldn't remember when it had last rained. Aqua lateris Christi, lava me. Jackson wept. Not for Niamh, or Laura Wyre or Kerry-Anne Brockley or any of the other lost girls – he wept for the little girl with gingham ribbons in her hair, the little girl who had once held Blue Mouse in her arms and told him to smile for the camera.

Jackson settled into his economy seat, row twenty, a window seat. He could have afforded to fly business class, but he wasn't going to start throwing the money around. He was still his father's son, it seemed.

He was rich. Unexpectedly, absurdly rich. Binky had made him the sole beneficiary of her estate – two million pounds, in bonds and stocks, all of which had been sitting in a safe-deposit box all these years while she hadn't spent a bean on anything but her cats. "To my friend, Mr. Jackson Brodie, for being kind." He had cried when her solicitor had read that out to him. Cried, because he hadn't been particularly kind to her, cried because she didn't have a better friend, that she had died alone, without a hand to hold. Cried because he was turning into a woman.

Two million on condition that the cats were looked after. Did that mean their offspring as well? Would he have to look after Binky's cats forever and ever, until he died, and then would Marlee and her descendants have to look after them? The first thing he would do would be to have them all neutered. He knew he didn't deserve it, of course he didn't deserve it, it was like winning the lottery without buying a ticket. But then, who did deserve it? Not Quintus, her only blood relative, that was for sure. Quintus, who had found his aunt's will made out in favor of Jackson and then had tried to kill Jackson to stop him from inheriting. Quintus, who would probably have killed his aunt if she hadn't preempted him by dying quietly of old age.

At first Jackson had worried that the money was tainted, that it had originated in the diamond mines, made out of the blood and sweat and slave labor of "bleck" miners. Filthy lucre. He had wondered about just handing it all over to Howell. "Because I'm black?" Howell said, looking at him as if he'd just grown an extra head. "You stupid fucker." Jackson supposed it was a bit much to make Howell the token representative of the whole sordid history of imperial exploitation. Howell and Julia were playing cribbage, sitting at Victor's dining-room table, drinking gin, Julia slamming her empty glass down, saying, "Hit me again," to Howell. Jackson would never have taken either of them on in a drinking competition.

Howell and Jackson were staying in the Garden House Hotel now that Jackson no longer had a home in Cambridge. Julia had offered to put them up but Jackson couldn't bear the idea of staying in Victor's old, cold house, sleeping in a room last occupied by one of the lost Land girls.

He was the one who had told Julia. He had taken her to see the delicate leveret bones laid out in the police mortuary ("Against the rules, Jackson," the forensic pathologist rebuked him mildly). Julia was strong, he knew that, she could look at what was left of Olivia's tiny skeleton without growing hysterical. She reached out a hand to her sister, and the pathologist said, "Don't touch, dear. Later, later you can touch her," and Julia had retracted her hand and held it over her heart as if her heart hurt and said, "Oh," very softly and Jackson hadn't realized that such a small word could be so unbearably sad.

Jackson's story went like this – he had been out walking a dog when the dog had nosed its way into Binky's garden, where it had rooted around in the undergrowth, barking its head off until Jackson had come and investigated, at which point he had discovered Olivia's body. "And where's the dog now, Inspector?" the first detective on the scene asked. "Ran off." Jackson shrugged and didn't bother to add, "It's plain Mr. Brodie now." He didn't mention his visit to the convent, neither to the police nor to Julia. He felt, rightly or wrongly, that if Sylvia wanted to tell the truth then it was up to her. He had offered her the shelter of the confessional, he had given his word. "Looks like a tragic accident," he said to the investigating DS. "Poor police procedure. Thirty-four years ago, what can you do?"

Howell poured more gin for himself and Julia. "Why don't you join us, Mr. B.?" she said. "We can play three-handed Gladstone. I'll teach you."

"We can try and win some of your excessive and undeserved wealth off you," Howell said. Jackson declined.

"Miserable bugger," Howell said.

Perhaps Jackson could set Howell up in business. He would put some of the money in trust for Marlee. And he could give some to Lily-Rose. He had been to see Theo, had seen the postcard with the picture of the pink flower propped up on the mantelpiece. Neither of them mentioned it. Lily-Rose had made them a pot of tea and they sat and drank it in the garden and ate slices of a Victoria sponge sandwich that Theo had made. "Good, in't it?" Lily-Rose said appreciatively.

And he would have to give some of the money to charity, to salve his conscience if nothing else. It turned out that the money hadn't come from diamonds. A long time ago one of Binky Rain's forebears had invested in the building of the American railroads, so the money had been made from the blood and sweat of whoever built the Union and Central Pacific lines (Chinese? Irish?), which wasn't particularly ethical either, Jackson supposed, but what could you do?

Which charities? There were so many. He thought about asking Amelia, it might be good to give her something to get her teeth into. She had become "a little overwrought," Julia had explained to him, and had taken too many pills and was now "resting" in the hospital.

"You mean she tried to kill herself?" Jackson interpreted.

Julia frowned. "Sort of."

"Sort of?"

He had volunteered to bring Amelia home from the hospital. She was doped up and untalkative, but when they reached the house on Owlstone Road Julia was waiting at the door with the black cat formerly known as Nigger, which she pressed into Amelia's arms as a welcoming gift, and when Jackson observed Amelia burrowing her face into the black fur ("He's called Lucky," Julia said), he realized that he might have found the perfect custodian of Binky's legacy.

"What do you think?" he asked Julia later. "Binky's place would have to be done up, obviously, but then Amelia could live there and look after the cats."

"Oh, and she could rescue the garden as well," Julia said excitedly. "She would love that. Oh, what a splendid idea, Mr. Brodie!"

Jackson hadn't thought about the garden. "Do you think that would be alright though," he said. "I mean with Olivia being there all that time – it wouldn't freak Amelia out?" Amelia hadn't been told about Olivia yet, Julia was still trying to find the "right time," and Jackson had said, "There never will be a right time," and Julia said, "I know."

"I think," Julia said, "that it would be a very good thing. It would be somehow appropriate." She turned her head on the pillow to look at him – because they were conducting this conversation about Amelia's future in bed – and gave him one of her big lazy smiles. She stretched extravagantly and one of her warm feet rubbed up and down his calf.

"Oh, Mr. Brodie," she said, "who would have imagined this would be so delicious?"

Who indeed, Jackson thought. "You might try calling me Jackson now," he said.

"Oh no," she said, "I much prefer 'Mr. Brodie.'"

As the plane went through its preflight routine Jackson perused the estate agents' details. There was a nice chateau, not too showy, in the Minervois (chateaus seemed to be ten-a-penny in France) and a thirteenth-century presbytery in a small village south of Toulouse, a maison de maitre in a village near Narbonne. Not that he'd decided which area to live in, but you had to start somewhere. He imagined he could motor his way round France, viewing houses, take his time. He'd sold his business to Deborah Arnold. If she'd been only a slightly nicer person he might have knocked something off the price. He closed his eyes and thought about France.

"Can I get you a drink, sir?" He opened his eyes and looked into Nicola Spencer's bland, indifferent face. She smiled at him without warmth and repeated her question. He asked for an orange juice in order to prolong the encounter a little. In some ways he knew everything about Nicola Spencer, and in other ways he knew absolutely nothing. She gave him a small packet of pretzels with his orange juice and moved on to the next passenger. He watched as she pushed her trolley past him, her muscular buttocks straining against her uniform skirt. He thought about following her when they landed – out of curiosity and because she was unfinished business – but by the time he'd gone through the rigmarole of picking up a rental car at Toulouse Airport, he'd lost interest.