Wearing Purple

Chapter 46

The flat was silent when I opened the door and stepped inside, but to me it wasn’t empty. ‘Hello,’ I whispered. ‘I’m back.’

I dumped my duty-free Jack Daniels in the booze cupboard, chucked five days’ washing into my new Phillips machine, then checked through my post and my voicemail. When I had finished there were several cheques in my in-tray, and a number of new interview bookings in my diary. Apart from the business stuff, my phone messages included a call from Prim, from Auchterarder, letting me know that she had arrived safely at her folks’ place; one from Dylan, asking if I fancied a drink after work on Monday; and two from my dad, the second sounding more tetchy than the first: ‘Wondering where the bloody hell you are now, son!’ I had forgotten completely to tell him that I was going to the States.

I called him straight away to make up. When I told him where I’d been, he was impressed. ‘One of my favourite movies,’ he said.

‘What’s that?’

‘Judy Garland — Meet me in St Louis. They don’t make them like that any more.’ He sounded more like the old Mac the Dentist. ‘What did you think of the city?’ he asked.

‘It’s got a nice airport, and that’s it; but Chicago’s impressive, though. How’s Auntie Mary?’

‘She’s getting there, but she worries about you a lot. So do I of course,’ he added, casually. ‘How’re you doing, son, really?’

‘I’m okay, Dad. I’ll never get over it, but I’ve come to terms with it. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve found something. . not faith, stronger; a sort of certainty.’

‘I understand, Oz. You and I belong to the same club now, although it guts me to think about it.Tell me something; have you had the dream yet?’

I paused. The grey dream was my greatest secret. ‘Yes,’ I admitted at last. ‘A few nights ago. It was distressing, but since then everything seems, I don’t know, not to hurt quite so much.’

‘Uh-huh,’ he said softly. ‘That’s how it was for me too.’ I felt a huge surge of warmth, standing there, beside our desk. My dad and I had never been closer.

‘Come up and see us soon, Oz. So long for now.’

I hung up the phone, and turned to the thing that had been bothering me since the flight: those papers which Jan had been going over, and the excited, quietly triumphant look in her eyes.

‘What was it?’ I asked myself out loud. And right then, in my head, Jan answered me; something she had said over the dinner table with Susie and Mike came back to me, word for word.

‘I’m looking into the health care division, the last on my list, and I’ve found something very interesting. I’ll need to go over it again, and then I’ll need to consult a few people.’

Exactly that. She had still been working on those papers on the afternoon I left; yet when I had arranged her business affairs after the funeral, I couldn’t remember seeing them at all.

I opened the desk drawer in which she had kept her most recent files. I had been on autopilot when I had cleared her desk, but I knew I hadn’t sent anything back to Susie Gantry. The only papers which I had retained in each client file were rough working notes which Jan had made over her years in practice, and retained because they held some significance for her. I had kept them only because I could not bear to throw away anything that had been of her, created by her hand.

I checked The Gantry Group folder again. All it contained were those plain white pages, covered in her strong, clear script; nothing else. Yet I had left her working on those papers on the morning before she died.

I couldn’t stop myself. It was late in the evening, but I phoned Susie’s number. Ostensibly it was to arrange to meet Mike in the Horseshoe Bar next day after work, but as soon as that date was fixed, I asked him to put Susie on line again.

‘When was the last time you saw Jan?’ I asked her.

‘When we were at yours for dinner,’ she said. ‘I never saw her after that. Remember, she said she’d come and see me the following Monday.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ I paused as I thought back to that evening. ‘Listen, can you do something for me first thing tomorrow? Could you check and see whether those papers she was working on, the ones relating to the health care division, are back in your office?’

‘Sure I will. But I had assumed that you still had them.’

‘Not as far as I can see.’

‘Okay. Leave it with me. I’ll call you first thing.’