Go Not Gently

CHAPTER NINE

I’d arranged for the kids to go hom

e with school friends. On the way to get them I dropped the film in at a photo shop I know where they boast processing within the hour. I didn’t need it that urgently. I’d collect it in the morning.

I reached the children at five.

‘I could’ve given them tea, you know,’ said Jean.

‘We want tea, stay for tea,’ Maddie began to chant and the others joined in.

‘No, not tonight. Maybe some other time,’ I said. I thanked Jean for offering, wishing she’d not mentioned it in front of the children. Now I was the mean, horrible Mummy who wouldn’t let them.

After ten minutes of gathering up paintings, coats, lunch boxes and shoes I managed to remove Maddie and Tom, ignoring the protests and complaints.

It only took fifteen minutes to get tea on the table: three-minute macaroni and cheese sauce, tomato salad and bread and butter. Once fed the children crawled off to play puppies with Digger. The dog treated the whole thing with detached caution, poised to remove himself if any indignities were committed.

Ray got back from work and went for a shower. I warmed through his pasta and washed up the rest of the dishes. ‘Your mother would have a fit,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘It’s three-minute macaroni,’ I said.

‘What? You haven’t made fresh?’

‘Nope.’

‘Neither does she,’ he said. ‘Well, only to impress. She’s a cupboard full of tinned spaghetti hoops, you know.’

‘She hasn’t!’

‘Yeah. She’s not stupid,’ he said. ‘She might not admit it but she’s discovered there’s more to life than home cooking.’

‘Like the bookies.’

‘Definitely the bookies.’

Nana Tello – her real name is Costello but Tom’s baby version had stuck – had a penchant for the horses. Ray spent a lot of time worrying about whether she was getting into debt or betting within her means. She refused point-blank to discuss it with him and denied it a lot of the time, like addicts do.

I liked her gambling. It proved she had weaknesses like the rest of us. Whenever she started on about how a good cook or a good mother or a good homemaker should do things I could conjure up an image of her entering her bets in a smoke-filled office.

As far as she was concerned our silly set-up was a diversion from Ray’s (Raymundo, as she called him) real need to find a pretty young mother for his poor motherless child. She couldn’t accept that our arrangement was platonic and equitable. She veered between casting me as a hussy, a landlady or a housekeeper. Ours wasn’t an easy relationship.

Once the children were settled I claimed the sofa. I flicked the channels hoping against hope that they’d got the listings wrong in the paper: football, darts, a TV movie (all big hair and heroism in the face of fatal illness) and a documentary. I watched this latter for a few minutes. They were uncovering abuse in private old people’s homes. Everything from verbal cruelty and petty bullying to systematic physical and sexual abuse. I kept seeing Agnes and Lily in place of the brave faces on the screen. I recalled the savagery of Dr Goulden’s face in the mirror. He’d been livid at our enquiries. Again I wondered why he’d reacted so strongly.

I zapped the TV. What would Agnes do now? She’d been so certain that something was awry and we’d found nothing. She had to face the inevitability of her friend’s illness and eventual death, though she could go on for years. In the books I’d read there were examples of people who had lost all sense of who they were, who no longer recognised family or friends, who’d lost all personality and needed constant care and reassurance. It would be hard for Lily but it’d probably be harder for Agnes to watch her friend disappear.

It was too depressing. I sought out my library book. A bit of Patricia Cornwell, forensic sleuthing, stateside – just the ticket.

I made sure I was in my office in plenty of time the next morning for Jimmy Achebe’s call. He rang a little after ten. I’d already decided to ask him to come in and see me; I didn’t want to go into details over the phone.

‘Hello, Jimmy. I’ve got some information for you. I ought to say it doesn’t look very good.’

‘Oh, right.’ He sounded uncertain, very young.

‘Perhaps if you called over after work?’

‘Erm, yeah right.’ I could only just hear him above the noise of the depot.

‘What time do you finish?’ I asked.

‘’Bout five. I’ll be there just after.’

‘OK. I’ll see you then.’

The guy would be in purgatory all day.

I rang Ray at the site to see if he could get back before five. No problem. Relief. I wouldn’t have to ring round sorting out a babysitter for a half-hour meeting.

I called at the photo shop and picked up the prints. They weren’t brilliant but they’d do.

Back at my desk I pulled out the file I’d opened and wrote up my notes on the investigation. I always listed in detail the job I’d done. Just in case. Then I added up the time I’d spent following Tina, and my expenses. The tenner to the receptionist, the rail and Metro fares, even the food I’d bought at the station.

I’d learned the hard way that it all adds up. It’s tough enough to make a living without being soft about the real costs of a case. I prepared the bill for Jimmy Achebe.

Later that morning I got an enquiry from someone wanting a night watchman. I passed them on to a firm I know in Stockport. After that it was very quiet. I tidied files and finally admitted to myself I was time-wasting.

I walked back home, pleased to see the pale sun had succeeded in emerging from the clouds. There were even a few wisps of blue sky. The ground was damp but not frozen. I’d be able to do some pottering in the garden.

For a couple of hours I lost myself in the pungent odour of damp earth and vegetation, the feel of brick and mud and dead wood, as I repaired the low wall of the herb garden, tidied up shrubs and prepared a sweet pea trench.

The children were tired on the way back from school and dived for the telly when we got in. Once Ray got back at four thirty I went round to the Dobsons’. I stuck my head in the kitchen to warn them I was expecting a client at five.

He was early. The stench of cigarette smoke hit me as I opened the door. He had a baseball jacket over his uniform.

‘Come in.’

Once he’d sat down I recited the bald facts as I’d uncovered them. I described following Tina from home to the Worcester Hotel. Tina registering as Mrs Peters, as she’d done several times before. The man joining her, leaving after an hour, Tina coming out later. I had photographs of each of them outside the hotel, nothing of them together.

‘Shit.’ He made as if to rise, then slumped back into his seat. ‘Shit.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I ventured.

His jaw muscles clenched as he bit down hard. His fist pressing against his mouth. ‘You know anything about this guy?’

‘No,’ I answered.

‘I asked her,’ he said, ‘last night, whether anything had happened, what she’d done with the day. She’d been bored, she said, she’d rung her mum to arrange to go over for the weekend. She was thinking of taking up another class, something to do. Shit.’

I passed him the photos of the man. Jimmy looked at the top one, his hand trembling.

‘Do you know him?’

He shook his head. Breathed in sharply and sat upright. ‘OK, can I take this?’

‘They’re yours.’

‘And the money?’

I passed him the bill, he read it and drew out some notes from his pocket. ‘There’s sixty there, I can pay the rest next week.’

‘Fine. I’ll give you a receipt.’

He brushed the offer aside. He stood up, his whole body tense. I wanted to make it better but this wasn’t a child with a grazed knee. Jimmy and Tina were adults and only they could sort this out, for better or worse. I passed him the photo he’d given me of Tina. I felt a flicker of fear for her. ‘If you and Tina want any help…’ I held out a leaflet from Relate. I keep a pile to give out. If I have to go around uncovering betrayal and adultery then at least I can hand out a lifeline to those couples who might not want instant divorce.

He snorted and stuck his hands firmly in his pockets.

‘I’ll see you out.’

He bounded up the stairs to the door.

‘Hey,’ I said, as he made to leave. He turned to me, his face taut, his eyes bright with anger.

What could I say? Don’t do anything daft? ‘I’m sorry.’

He wheeled away to the van at the gate, hands fumbling in his pocket for his cigarettes.