Lazybones

TWENTY-THREE

Thorne looked unconvinced. 'I've never interviewed anybody in the same place I buy my pants.'

'There's a first time for everything,' Holland said. They carried the coffees across to where Irene Noble was sitting waiting for them, flanked already – though the place had been open only half an hour or so – by large Marks amp; Spencer shopping bags. The cafe was a relatively new addition to the large store on Oxford Street, wedged into a corner of the ladies' clothing section and half filled with shoppers who'd obviously made as early a start as Irene Noble. As Thorne squeezed behind the table next to Holland, he glanced around at the dozen or so women getting their breath, ready to start again. Scattered around were one or two bored-looking men, grateful for the chance to sit down and not be asked their opinion for a few minutes.

Irene Noble took a small, plastic container of sweeteners from her bag. She pressed the top, dropped a tiny tablet into tier latt6, and raised her eyebrows at Dave Holland. 'They probably think I'm your mother,' she said.

She was pretty well preserved for a woman who had to be sixty or so, though Thorne thought that she was trying a bit too hard. The hair was a little too blond and brittle, the fire-engine-red lipstick applied a touch too thickly. To Thorne, it seemed that this stage was probably the one that came right before giving up altogether. Before mentioning your age to strangers, and always wearing an overcoat, and not giving a toss any more…

'Tell us about Mark and Sarah, Mrs. Noble.'

She thought for a moment, smiling briefly before taking a sip of coffee. 'Roger used to joke about it and say that we lost them in the move. You know, like a tea-chest going missing.' She saw the reaction on Thorne's face and shook her head. 'It wasn't a nasty joke, it was affectionate. That was just his way. Something to make me laugh if I was crying, you understand? I did a lot of crying after it happened…'

'This was just after you adopted the children?' Holland said.

'The beginning of 1984. We'd had them four years or so by then. We had a few problems, course we did, but then things got on an even keel.'

It was clear to Thorne that her 4eoice was affected somewhat. A 'telephone' voice. Thorne remembered that his mother had used to do the same thing. Airs and graces for the benefit of doctors, teachers, policemen…

'There were problems before, weren't there?' Holland said. 'With the previous sets of foster parents.'

'Right, and they gave up on the children straight away. It was only Roger and I who stuck with it. We knew that it was just something we had to get through. They were very disturbed children and, God only knows, they had every right to be.'

'What sort of problems?' Thorne said.

She paused for a few seconds before answering. 'Behavioural problems. Adjusting, you know? Roger and I thought we'd got it under control. Obviously we were wrong.' She reached for a teaspoon and stared down into her coffee cup as she stirred. 'Behavioural.' She said the word again, as if it were a medical term. Thorne glanced sideways at Holland who gave him a small shrug in return.

'So you decided to adopt them?' Holland asked. Mrs. Noble nodded. 'How did the kids feel about that?'

She looked at Holland as though he'd asked a very silly question.

'They'd lost their real parents and been let down by every set of foster parents they'd had since. They were delighted that we were going to be a real family, and so were we. Roger and I had always wanted children. We might have missed out on nappies with those two, but we had plenty of sleepless nights, I can tell you…'

'I can believe it,' Thorne said.

'And plenty after they disappeared. Plenty…'

'How did they disappear?'

She pushed her cup to one side, laid one liver-spotted hand across the other. 'We moved on the Saturday morning and it was the usual chaos, you know? Boxes everywhere and removal men sliding about because there was snow on the ground. We told the kids they could sort their own stuff out, so they just got on with it. Shut themselves away upstairs…'

'Fighting over who was going to get the biggest room, I suppose?'

She looked quickly up at Thorne. 'No. We'd sorted out their bed rooms early on, before we moved…'

'What happened?' Thorne said.

'They needed to have their own space, you understand?'

'What happened, Mrs. Noble?'

'Nobody heard them go, nobody saw a thing. They crept out like ghosts…'

'When did anybody find out they'd gone?'

'We were all over the place, you can imagine, trying to get everything together. Trying to find the tea bags and the bloody kettle or what have you.' She began to pick at a fingernail. 'It was around dinner time, I think. Can't remember exactly. It was after dark…'

'So what did you think?'

'We didn't really think anything at first. They always went out a lot. They were very independent, always off somewhere together. Mark always looked after Sarah, though. He always took care of his sister.'

Thorne glanced sideways at Holland. 'When were the police called?'

Holland asked.

'The next morning. Obviously we knew there was something wrong when they hadn't come back. When their beds hadn't been slept in…'

Thorne leaned forward. He took one of the fancy Italian biscuits that came with the coffee and broke it in half, asking the question casually. 'Who called the police?'

There was no hesitation. 'Roger. Well, actually, he went down to the station himself. He thought things might get handled faster if he went there personally, and he was right. He said they got straight on it. Two of them came to the house while I was out searching in the park and round the local streets.'

'Roger told you they came round?'

She nodded. 'They had a look in the kids' bedrooms, you know?

Asked all the normal questions. Took some photos away with them…'

Thorne looked at Holland. A reminder about getting photos of Mark and Sarah for Brigstocke's digital ageing plan. Holland picked up on it, nodded and made a note. Thorne popped the rest of the biscuit into his mouth, chewed for a few seconds before speaking again.

'Did the police presume the children had run away right from the start?'

'Well, that was the problem, wasn't it? Everything was in boxes, all over the show. It was hard to work out straight away if they'd taken anything with them…'

'Eventually, though,' Thorne said. 'That was what they must have thought.'

'Yes, after a day or two I worked out which clothes were missing. There was some money gone as well, but it took me a while to realise. I thought maybe I'd mislaid it somewhere in all the moving. Once the police knew about the children, about what they'd been through, Roger said they started treating it as a runaway thing more than anything else…'

'What did they do?'

'Very thorough, they were. Up and down the country. Appeals for information, searches at all the stations, that sort of thing. Roger got updates from them all the time. They were taking it very seriously, Roger said, for the first week or two, anyway.'

'Roger said…'

'That's right. He went down and nagged them every day. Twice a day, sometimes, demanding to know what they were doing.'

'For the first week or two, you said. After that…?'

'Well, they told Roger, a chief inspector actually, told Roger that he was sure the children were safe. They were certain that if, you know, any harm had come to Mark or Sarah, they would have found out. I suppose they meant found a body…'

Thorne saw that the skin below Irene Noble's fingernail had torn and begun to bleed slightly where she'd been picking at it. He watched as she pressed a napkin to her tongue and dabbed at the pinpricks of blood. When she spoke again, it struck him that the telephone voice had gone, and that the Essex accent was coming through strongly. Whether she was unable to keep it up for long or had simply ceased bothering, it was impossible to tell.

'Never having had any of my own,' she said, 'I can't say for sure if I felt anything less because Mark and Sarah weren't mine, weren't my flesh and blood. D'you understand what I'm getting at?' Thorne nodded. 'After the police told Roger they thought the children were safe, it wasn't so bad, you know? We weren't so scared. We just missed them. We got used to missing them eventually…'

'Did you ever see a police officer?' Thorne said. 'In all the time they were looking for Mark and Sarah, did you yourself ever speak to a police officer?'

Thorne had been expecting a pause, perhaps a paling, but instead he got a smile. After a few seconds it wilted a little, and she seemed suddenly sad. Then, as she spoke, her face filled with an affectionate remembrance..

'Roger wanted to shield me from any of it. He did everything, handled it all. Perhaps it was his way of dealing with what had happened, throwing himself into it like he did, taking the responsibility, but I knew he was trying to protect me. He dealt with all the official side of things. The strain of it, of everything that happened and that school business on top of it, drove my husband to an early grave.'

Thorne blinked, took a breath or two. A suspicion, a sense, began to distil into something more potent. 'What school business was that?' he asked.

'Roger worked over at St Joseph's. It was the school where Mark and Sarah would have gone.' She said it casually, like the children had done no more than fail an entrance exam. 'It was just part-time, casual work, but he did all the bits and bobs that needed doing around the place. One day this man comes round, one of the parents, hammering on the door. Says his son's been involved in some kind of incident and mentioned Roger's name. Utter rubbish, of course, the man was on something I think, but it really upset Roger. This lunatic wouldn't leave it and went to the headmaster. The school was keen to keep it low key, which was right, obviously, since it was so stupid, but Roger wanted to do the right thing. He left quietly in the end, rather than upset the children. That was typical of him. It was scandalous, disgraceful that anybody could even suggest… There were always kids round here after school and in the holidays. Always kids in our house…'

'Roger liked children…'

She looked up, her face softening, grateful for Thorne's insight. For his understanding. 'That's right. He would never have admitted it, but I think, deep down, he was always trying to make up for not having Mark and Sarah any more. Being around other kids had been his own way of coping with what happened. Later on, after that unpleasantness, everything started to get on top of him. His heart just packed up in the end…'

'What was your way of coping, Irene?' Thorne said.

'I just prayed the kids were safe,' she said. 'That wherever Mark and Sarah went after they left us, they were out of harm's way…'

It was that sentence which stayed with Thorne, which he thought about as they struggled out of the West End through traffic, inching around Marble Arch, car and passengers overheating more than slightly.

'It was very convenient for Roger Noble,' Holland said. 'The kids going missing when they were between schools. They vanish from all education records…'

'It was certainly handy,' Thorne said.

'They did go missing, didn't they? I'm just thinking out loud…'

Thorne shook his head. 'Noble was responsible for them going, which is why he never reported it, but I don't think it was worse than that. If he killed them, who the hell are we looking for?'

'What are we going to do?' Holland asked. 'Shouldn't we report it?

That fucker could have abused loads of other kids.'

'There's no point. He's long dead. He can't hurt any more kids now.'

'What about her? Do you think she knew?'

Thorne thought about what Irene Noble had said. About praying the kids were out of harm's way. He shook his head. If she had known, she could surely not have said that and kept a straight face. In the Grafton Arms, spitting distance from his flat, Thorne shared several pints and half a dozen games of pool with Phil Hendricks. The beer seemed to have little effect, and he lost five games out of the six.

'I'm not enjoying thrashing you as much as I normally would,'

Hendricks said. 'You're so obviously preoccupied with all this other shit.' Thorne, leaning back against the bar, said nothing. He watched as Hendricks potted the last couple of stripes before putting the black down without any difficulty. 'What about if we start putting money on it? That might focus your thoughts a bit more…'

'Let's leave it,' Thorne said. 'I'll finish this pint, and I'm off home…'

Hendricks took his Guinness from the top of the cigarette machine and walked across to join Thorne at the bar. 'I still don't really see it,' he said. 'How could they not know? How could they not know something…?'

Thorne shook his head, his glass at his lips. Among other things, they had been talking about Irene Noble and Sheila Franklin. About two women of more or less the same age, married to men who they loved dearly, and who, now that they were widows, they remembered with tenderness and affection. Two men whose memories lived on, fondly preserved as precious things. Two men beloved… One a rapist and the other a child molester.

Thorne swallowed. 'Maybe it's an age thing. You know, a different generation.'

'That's crap,' Hendricks said. 'What about my mum and dad?'

Thorne had met them once, they ran a guest house in Salford. 'My old man couldn't so much as fart without my mum knowing about it…'

Thorne nodded. It was g fair point. 'Same with mine…'

'She knew what he was thinking, never mind doing.'

Hendricks reached into the top pocket of his denim jacket, took a Silk Cut from a packet of ten. Thorne was irritated, in the way that only an ex-smoker could be. Irritated by the fact that his friend could smoke one or two, then put the pack away for a week or more, until he fancied another one as a bit of a treat. Smoke, and enjoy it, and not need another one. A packet of ten, for crying out loud…

'Are they going to be told?' Hendricks asked. 'Those women? Is someone going to break the bad news about their dead hubbies?'

'No point yet. If we get a result they'll find out soon enough…'

Hendricks nodded and lit his cigarette. The curls of blue smoke drifted across to where a man and a woman were now playing pool. It hung in the light above the table.

'Maybe we only think we know what was going on with our parents,'

Thorne said. 'Maybe we only know as much or as little as they did.'

'I suppose…

'There's an old country song called "Behind Closed Doors"'…

'Bloody hell, here we go…'

'It's true though, isn't it? So much family stuff is mythology. Shit that just gets handed down, and you never know for sure what really happened and what's made up. Nobody ever thinks to sit you down and pass it on. The truth of it. Before you know it, your history becomes hearsay.' Thorne took a drink. He knew that at some point, he should have talked to his father. Found out more about his parents, and their parents. He knew that there wasn't much point now…

'Fuck me,' Hendricks said. 'All that's in one song?'

'You are such an arsehole…'

They stepped away from the bar to make room for a group of lads, finished their drinks standing by the door.

'Where does all this leave you with Mark Foley?' Hendricks said.

'He's still our prime suspect.'

'Whoever he might be…'

'Right, and wherever. But he's not making my life very easy.'

'He'll slip up. We'll nail him when he does…'

'I'm not talking about catching him.' Thorne was finding it hard to think about his murderer without picturing him as a fifteen-year-old child. He saw a boy protecting his sister, spiriting her away from a place where one, or perhaps both, of them was being abused. 'I'm still trying to decide exactly what he is.' Thorne turned to look at Hendricks. 'This whole thing's all arse-about-face, d'you know that, Phil? Mark Foley or Noble or whoever the fuck he is now is a killer and he's a victim.'

Hendricks shrugged. 'So?'

'So, there's a part of him that part of me doesn't really want to catch…'

Thorne walked Hendricks back towards the tube. Hendricks asked Thorne about Eve, joked when he heard about their hot date on Saturday, and moaned about his own eventful but ultimately bleak love-life.

Thorne wasn't paying an awful lot of attention. He was tired, imagining himself floating gently down on to his hillside, the bracken waving a welcome as he drew nearer to it. Jane Foley was suddenly there beside him, drifting to earth, and though he could not see her face clearly, he imagined the pain etched across it, for herself and for her children.

Thorne knew that when he and Jane Foley hit the ground, their bodies would travel right through the bracken and beyond. He knew that the hillside would collapse beneath their weight and that they would sink down, deep through earth and water and the rotten wood of old coffins. Down through powdery bone and further, into the blackness where there was no sound and the soil was packed tight around them.