Killing a Stranger (16 page)

‘You stupid bitch,' she yelled. ‘I thought he was my bloody brother! Yeah, right, like I was going to fuck my brother.'

Beth wheeled around, hand raised and Ernst was almost tempted to let it find its target. He sighed, swore under his breath and then stepped between the warring factions.

‘Enough! No more.'

Beth froze. She stared at her father and lowered her hand. She was shaking and, Ernst saw, she had begun to cry. He wanted to take her in his arms and rock her as he had when she'd been a little girl. To hold her tightly while she cried. But he knew he couldn't. She'd resent that weakness almost more than she resented what he'd done. It would be to admit that he might not be as guilty as she painted him but the pain was too raw for her to let go of it just yet.

And then there was Jennifer, sniffing and snivelling and equally in need of love.

‘Dad, just get her out of here. Please. I can't cope with this.'

The hurt in her voice cut him to the core but it told him also that this would pass, given space and time. He nodded. ‘Jennifer,' he said without taking his eyes from his daughter's face, ‘go and pack a bag. You can stay with me for a few days.'

‘Damn right I will,' Jennifer exploded. ‘And don't think I'm coming back.'

She fled the room leaving her elders alone. Beth held up a hand. ‘Don't say anything, Dad, I couldn't bear it, OK?'

Ernst nodded. ‘I'll go,' he said. ‘But Bethy …'

‘No, I said not a word. Please, Dad.'

He nodded again and left the room, went to sit on the stairs, Jennifer and Adam's favourite roost, while his daughter wept and his granddaughter slammed around upstairs packing her bags and vowing never to come back home.

A
iden's local was the Rose a couple of streets away. Ernst told Jennifer to stay in the car, the tone of his voice such that she didn't argue. He went inside, finding Aiden playing darts in the Lounge Bar.

Aiden glanced his way, played his shot before coming over, carrying his beer.

‘What do you know about all this mess then?'

‘I know that Rob, the boy who killed Adam, he thought you might be his father.'

‘His father?'

‘You knew his mother. Clara. Clara Beresford.'

‘Clara … Rob Beresford. His name was Rob Beresford? The police said they knew who it was, that he committed suicide, they never told us his name. I … How did you find out?' He sat down in the nearest chair. ‘You want a beer?'

‘No, no, I have Jennifer in the car. She's coming to me for a few days.'

‘Oh. Right. Clara.' Aiden was stunned. ‘But how did you know? Did the police tell you?'

Ernst shook his head. ‘I read the papers, watch the news. The police also told me that the killer took his own life. One even mentioned how, though I don't think he even noticed his slip. So, I went through the newspaper reports and I found the story. There was only one. A boy, who killed himself by jumping from a bridge into the canal. It did not give his name, but mentioned the district where he lived. I went there, drank in the local pubs, chatted to the landlord and the locals. Everyone knew who it was. Most felt grief for the mother and said how terrible it must be for her. I watched the papers for the funeral. I knew they would say something about such loss of a young life. There was no connection made to my son, but the boy, Robert, he was only seventeen and his name protected by the law which, concerning his mother, is as it should be. I followed her home after the funeral. Then, I went to visit her.'

‘You went … why? For God's sake, what did you plan to do?'

Ernst shrugged. ‘I no longer know, Denny, and it was only much later as small things emerged that we realized a connection was in fact there, between my son and Clara's. The connection was you.'

‘But …' Aiden reached for his beer, but his hand was shaking. ‘Was he mine? My God, was he mine?'

Ernst shook his head. ‘Clara believes not,' he said. ‘We may not ever know for certain.' He looked around at the early evening drinkers and the wooden tables, bright red walls. This was not the place for such intimate revelations, but it had to be told and, if he invited Aiden back to his home, Jennifer would be there to interrupt and interfere.

‘You knew she was pregnant?' Ernst asked.

Aiden nodded. ‘Yeah. I was shit scared she'd … she'd name me. We had sex once. That was it.'

‘She didn't name you,' Ernst said. ‘In fact, she was adamant that neither you nor the boyfriend who seemed the other choice should be involved. All those years, she managed on her own. Clara says you were something of a bad influence,' he said fondly. ‘That you were not capable of being serious or being there for her and she felt you and the other one no longer had a place in her life.'

Aiden smiled, half sad, half, Ernst thought, flattered. ‘I wasn't much of a catch then,' he admitted. He laughed. ‘I cultivated the wild child image, fast bikes, running with the wrong crowd.'

Looking at the middle-aged man in his grey slacks and comfortable wooly sweater, Ernst found that touchingly hard to believe. ‘We were all young once,' he said softly. ‘Young and stupid.' He reflected sadly that some don't get past that age.

‘I think our Jen is starting to realize that,' Aiden said. ‘You know, this makes me wonder …' He looked embarrassed. ‘That it might be in the blood, you know. Me and Clara and Rob … if, if I was … you know. And Jen and whoever.' He paused, reached for his pint and managed to hold on this time, took a long swallow. ‘She's not … told you who, has she?'

Ernst shook his head. They talked for a little longer, Ernst filling in what gaps Jennifer's explosive confrontation had left out and warning Aiden of what reception he was likely to receive at home. Then he went back to a now complaining Jennifer and drove her to his flat, settling her in before telling her he needed groceries if she planned to stay. Ernst himself ate simply and the cupboards weren't exactly stocked to teenage requirements.

He stocked up at the local supermarket, loading the trolley with a combination of what he termed ‘real food' and the kind of junk he knew she liked. Impulse took him back to the Edwardian road where Adam had died.

Sitting in the cul de sac, opposite the road sign, he could see the flowers he had laid, faded now and brown behind their plastic wrapper. It pleased him that no one had tidied them away but he, always a tidy man, felt grieved too at the unsightliness.

What had happened here?

Ernst sat in the rapidly cooling car and closed his eyes, behind the lids he could visualize the scene. His son, waiting on the corner. The young man, Rob, crossing the road, standing just a little away from him, uncertain and maybe just a little scared. Adam wouldn't have been scared. He brimmed with confidence and oozed a quiet authority. Would the boy have felt threatened by that? Adam could appear arrogant. That could intimidate and aggravate. Lord knows, Ernst thought, it sometimes aggravated
him
and
he
loved his son.

He could see them now, easy to visualize, he had spent so long studying Rob's picture he fancied he could even see the gestures, the body language, the way he walked and moved. He saw Rob gesture, see the attitude – the Jennifer type attitude – in his gestures and the shrug of his shoulders. See as he threw his hands up in a gesture of dismissal as he half turned away. Could imagine Adam's response. Sarcastic, maybe. Assertive certainly.

The boy would have turned back then, aggressive, irritated at another adult who failed to see his point of view. The anger Clara talked about would have flared and …

Ernst opened his eyes unable to cope with the film that played out behind the closed lids.

He felt chilled. Stiff. Old. His eyes blurred and he blinked hard, then wiped them with gloved hands.

‘Adam. What the hell was going on? That's all I want to know.'

All Rob wanted was to be taken seriously. To be told, as Jennifer had been certain this man would, that he would get a hearing. That maybe they could find out the truth once and for all. Rob had been saving for years now, knowing that a DNA test would sort things out once and for all. Hetried to tell this man that was all he wanted but all he got back was scorn. Advice to go home and leave them all alone.

Alone, that's the way Rob had always been. Rob and Clara. Clara and Rob and a wall of silence and he was never expected to complain.

J
odie was as good as her word and called Naomi on the Monday afternoon.

Only one girl remembered Adam. Would Naomi like to set up a meeting with her?

‘Yes,' Naomi told her. That would be great and yes, she could get to Jodie. If necessary, she'd take a taxi.

‘Take a taxi where?' Patrick wanted to know. He was seated at her computer, trying to construct an essay on the life and work – and influence on Patrick's artwork – of David Hockney. So far as Naomi could tell, Hockney hadn't had any particular influence, but Patrick said his teacher didn't think Frank Miller or Neil Gaiman were suitable subjects for an AS level essay.

‘To see a contact,' Naomi told him.

‘A contact? What kind of contact? Someone you used to know?'

‘Yes, someone I used to know.'

‘Who? Is this anything to do with Dad taking you to Pinsent? He wouldn't tell me anything about it.'

‘Not everything is your business,' Naomi laughed.

Patrick grimaced. ‘Is this to do with Rob?'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘I know you,' he said pointedly. ‘I can't see you leaving everything to Alec.'

Naomi laughed. ‘It's just a rumour that didn't get followed up at the time,' she said. ‘I thought of someone who might have some answers so I went to see her.'

‘But you can't tell me about it.'

‘If it comes to anything I will,' Naomi promised and Patrick, reluctantly, had to be satisfied.

Discussion was interrupted by Alec's arrival and he had something for Patrick to look at.

‘I've talked to my boss,' he said. ‘But you've got to understand this is still unofficial but … anyway, take a look, Patrick, see if you notice anything odd.'

‘What is it?' Naomi asked. She heard the slide open on the CD drive and Patrick clicking the mouse.

‘Copies of the files on Rob's computer,' Alec told her. ‘Not all of his emails, unfortunately, they were password protected and I'm still waiting on forensics to get back to me on that. It's slipped down the priority list,' he added irritably. ‘We've managed to get what was on the school system and they'd already pulled some of his chat room files off the hard drive. Nothing revealing that we could see …' He left the comment hanging.

‘But
I
might, or Becky, or Charlie,' Patrick said. He sounded excited and Naomi frowned.

‘Should you really be getting Patrick involved?' she asked.

‘Probably not and we ought to check with your dad,' Alec conceded. ‘I just feel bad about things. I tried to get some bodies allocated to this today, but no one can be spared apparently.' He sounded even more irritable, remembering, Naomi assumed, the bureaucratic minefield he must have been walking through all day.

‘I'm just looking at stuff, Nomi,' Patrick assured her. ‘What harm can it do?'

‘Well, if Harry agrees, you can take that copy away, but I'll need it back. The official line is I've taken it to show to a computer expert. Thankfully no one asked me to specify what kind. Yet.'

‘Cool,' Patrick was impressed by the fudged truth. ‘So now I'm an expert.'

‘So now you've got an essay on Hockney.' Naomi reminded him.

‘It doesn't have to be in until Thursday.'

‘By which time you'll have more homework. Come on, Patrick, get the bad stuff out of the way first, then you can play. You've got to check it out with Harry anyway.'

‘I'm not five,' Patrick said, objecting to her tone, but he was laughing too. ‘OK, OK, I'll get the first draft done tonight. Deal?'

‘Deal. And don't think just because I can't see what you're doing I can't tell the difference between composition and detection.'

‘Naomi,' Patrick said grandly. ‘Credit me with some sense. Like I'd try to fool you.'

‘Hmm, I'm trying to decide if you're just being patronizing or trying for irony. Coffee?' she asked Alec.

‘Thanks.'

He followed her through to the kitchen and leant against the counter while she ground beans and played with the filter. ‘Dinner smells good.'

‘I've just made a casserole. I thought we could do with something to keep out the chill. It's been a lousy day. I hate melting snow about as much as I love the dry stuff. I had a phone call,' she went on.

‘From?'

‘Jodie Stuart. Remember her?'

‘Jodie the Madame. Of course I do and why would she be ringing you? Or do I really have to ask?'

‘No, don't suppose you do. I got Harry to run me over to Pinsent on Saturday. I'd have told you about it sooner or later.'

‘Oh, would you really.'

‘Well, yes. I'm telling you now, aren't I? Anyway,' she went on allowing no room for his objections, ‘I saw her and I asked about Adam Hensel.'

‘I'm sure the local beat officers already spoke to Jodie and her girls.'

‘Yes, well. Jodie owes
me
. Anyway, I've got a lead the locals didn't. Jodie's set up a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.'

‘In Pinsent? How are you getting there? Not that you should be going at all.'

‘Oh and why not?'

‘Because … because it isn't your job any more.'

‘Oh? And it's your job to recruit a seventeen-year-old “computer expert”, is it?'

‘That's different.'