Last Rites (15 page)

North London

Natalie Mason lifted her coffee mug in salute and managed a smile.

‘Congratulations,’ she intoned.

‘It should be something stronger than coffee,’ Mason said, nodding at her. ‘This is the best bit of news I’ve had for Christ knows how long.’

‘Better than hearing you weren’t going to be brain damaged by your beating?’ Natalie offered.

Mason raised his eyebrows quizzically.

‘All right,
one
of the best bits of news I’ve heard for a while,’ he conceded.‘Thanks for meeting me like this, Nat,’ he continued.‘But I wanted to tell someone about the job.’

‘And I was the only one?’

He nodded.

‘We’ve probably seen more of each other since you came out of hospital than we have in the past two years,’ Natalie reminded him. ‘I don’t think we came out for coffee like this when we were married.’

‘Circumstances change things.’

‘Some things, Pete. Like the man said, seasons change, times change but people don’t.’

Mason regarded her across the table for a moment. ‘This is a new start for me, Nat,’ he said, quietly.

‘For you, Pete.’

‘Come with me.’

She looked surprised for a moment then a slight smile spread across her lips once again.

‘I don’t think that would be wise,’ Natalie murmured.

‘But things are going to change, I know that. Things between us can be the same again,’ he insisted, reaching towards one of her hands.

Natalie felt his fingertips sliding gently over her skin and, when she looked into his eyes, she saw that he was looking at her almost imploringly.

‘We can start again,’ he told her.

She drained what was left in her mug, put the receptacle down and drew one index fingernail slowly around the rim.

‘Once you’ve left London there’s no sense in you keeping in touch with me,’ she told him. ‘If this is going to be a fresh start for you then you need to make that move completely, Pete.’

He was still touching her hand softly.

‘And this is what you want? You’re sure?’ she asked.

Mason sat forward, excited even by conversation about his new position.

‘Nat, it’s perfect,’ he told her.‘Even down to the cottage in the school grounds. I won’t have to scramble around looking for somewhere to live. I won’t have to worry about shit like that. I’ll be able to concentrate on the job and nothing else.’ He looked around him, his eyes flickering to the large plate-glass windows at the front of the café. ‘And I’ll never have to see this fucking city again.’

‘What about Chloe?’

Mason looked puzzled.

‘I know that visiting her grave was never high on your list of priorities, Pete.’

Mason raised a hand to interrupt her.

‘It doesn’t matter how many times I visit the grave, Natalie,’ he said, flatly. ‘It’s not going to bring her back, is it? Once a year. Once a month or once a week.What’s the difference? It doesn’t mean I think about her any less.’

‘Well, once you start this fantastic new job perhaps you won’t even have the time to think about her,’ Natalie said, acidly.

Mason met her gaze and held it.

‘Don’t do this,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t do what? Don’t spoil your big day? Don’t ruin your new start?’ Natalie got to her feet. ‘Don’t worry, Pete. I wouldn’t dream of it.’

He stood up and shot out a hand to prevent her leaving. He gripped her arm and pulled her close to him, pushing his face towards hers, his lips brushing her cheek.

‘What are you doing?’ she rasped.

‘I want you,’ he hissed. ‘Now.’

‘Get off me,’ she insisted.

His fingertips clutched at the material of her coat but slipped off.

‘Natalie,’ he said as she turned away from him. ‘Not like this.’

She looked back at him once then marched briskly towards the door. The couple on the next table looked at Mason who shot them an angry glance.They continued to gaze at him.

‘What are you looking at?’ he snapped and they both looked away, returning their attention to their drinks.

Mason hesitated a moment. He thought briefly about pursuing Natalie but instead he just sat down again, staring into the depths of his coffee mug.

It was another ten minutes before he left.

36

Walston, Buckinghamshire

Nigel Grant was breathing heavily by the time he got back to the car.

He wasn’t, he insisted to himself, exhausted but just a little short of breath. After all, he had been running and, for a man of his age, he thought he’d covered the ground with admirable speed.

The wooden box he was carrying hadn’t helped. Sure enough it was only about a foot square but it was difficult to run as quickly while carrying something and the box had slipped from under his arm a couple of times as he’d made his way across the darkened field.

He had run for a number of reasons. Obviously he wanted no one to see him. Despite the fact that he was in quite heavily wooded surroundings, Grant still feared some prying eye. He had also run because it was getting chilly and he was feeling the cold. But, most of all, he was anxious to be back inside the car and away from this place.

Grant had parked, he guessed, just over half a mile from his destination. Half a mile of slopes and inclines that would have sapped the strength of a man half his age.The ground was slippery too which made his passage more laborious and slowed his pace. He hadn’t run all the way back to the car but the last few hundred yards had been downhill and, perhaps lulled into a false sense of security by the slope, he had increased his pace over the last stretch, his eyes on the dark outline of the car as he’d drawn closer. When he’d reached the bottom of the slope he’d paused, sucking in deep lungfuls of air, touching his chest with one hand to feel his rapidly beating heart. For a split second he wondered if he was going to have a heart attack but the pain passed as quickly as it had come and Grant hauled himself carefully over the wooden fence that formed the perimeter of the field.

He almost slipped as he climbed, careful not to drop the wooden box. Once over, he paused again, checking in both directions before walking slowly back to his waiting car.

At any time of the day it would have been unlikely that much traffic would have been passing along the stretch of country road where he was parked but, at this hour, it was virtually certain that the thoroughfare would be deserted. Even so, Grant peered cautiously to his left and right before advancing towards his car. A thin mist was hanging over the hills like fallen cloud, stirred occasionally by the breeze that had sprung up in the past few minutes. The branches of some nearby trees rattled noisily as he walked beneath them and Grant shivered slightly, holding the box more tightly now as he reached the car. After coming all this way he wasn’t about to drop his prize.

He opened the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. The box he handed to his passenger.

‘I got it,’ he said, quietly, starting the engine.

His passenger didn’t speak. Her only retort was a sound like the wind puffing from ruptured lungs. A sibilant hiss that seemed to fill the car as surely as the stench coming from the box that she now held on her lap.

Grant guided the car out onto the road, driving slowly for about a hundred yards, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the brightness of the headlights after the pitch black of the fields where he’d been for the past thirty or more minutes.

His passenger hissed some more sounds and Grant nodded, his face set in hard lines.

‘It’s what they asked for,’ he replied, his eyes fixed on the road.

The passenger gurgled something else and reached out to touch Grant’s hand. He felt cold fingertips on the back of his hand. It was like being touched by a corpse. The fingernails were long and brittle and they scraped uncomfortably against his flesh but he glanced at his passenger briefly and smiled with as much warmth as he could muster.

‘You hold it until we get home,’ he said, softly, then returned his concentration to the road ahead. A car was approaching on the other side of the road and he winced as the blazing white headlights dazzled him momentarily.

Beside him, his wife held on to the box as best she could with only one working arm. The paralysed one hung uselessly at her left side. When she tried to speak the words came out as little more than breaths of rancid air but Grant could understand her. He looked at her once more and smiled, reaching out with one hand to wipe away some saliva that was dripping down her chin.

She clung more urgently to the box, ignoring the stench that rose from it.

37

North London

Mason looked at the sealed boxes of clothes and belongings piled in his sitting room and nodded in satisfaction.

There it is.Your life in boxes. Ready to go. Ready to start again.

What didn’t fit in the removal van he’d take with him in the car along with the more personal items that he didn’t want some hulking great Pickfords employee smashing as they shoved them into the van. He lit up a cigarette and wandered across to the window, gazing down into the street below.There were a few people moving about down there, cars still motoring up and down the thoroughfare. He stood there listening to the noise, thinking how much he was looking forward to the peace and quiet of the countryside.

He wouldn’t miss the city at all, he told himself. What was there to miss? The hustle and bustle. The noise. The aggravation.

Fuck that. Who needed it?

He drew gently on his cigarette then blew out a stream of smoke.

You’ll miss Natalie, won’t you?

Mason ran a hand through his hair and finished his cigarette, stubbing it out in the ashtray on the windowsill. He glanced at his watch and retreated to his bedroom, tired by his evening of packing. He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts on the following morning. On his life from then on. A new life. A fresh start. His back and arms were aching from the packing.

He fell asleep more quickly than he could have imagined.

When Mason woke with a start in the small hours, he was panting loudly as he sat up.

If he’d been woken by a bad dream then he couldn’t remember the details of it. Any residual thoughts and images had faded as soon as he’d sat upright. The only thing he knew for sure was that Chloe had featured somewhere in his nocturnal imaginings. As he thought of his daughter, her image pushed its way, almost unwanted, into his mind. He could see her in her school uniform but that image was replaced all too rapidly by one of her lying in her hospital bed. Mason exhaled almost painfully, trying to force the image from his mind but it clung on defiantly.

‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered to himself as if this mental rebuke would somehow precipitate the departure of the image. It worked to a certain degree and he tried to think about the following day. The move. The new school. The new position.

He swung his legs off the bed, irritated when he realised that he was still dressed. He pulled his clothes off quickly and slid beneath the duvet, hoping that sleep would come to him as fast this time as it had when he’d first lain down.

An hour later he was still hoping.

38

Walston, Buckinghamshire

Kate Wheeler stood outside the door of the room for what seemed like an eternity before knocking. She listened for sounds of movement from inside but heard nothing. Finally, unable to stand there motionless any longer she tapped lightly and walked straight in.

Her father was sitting on the bed on the far side of the room, rocking gently backwards and forwards.

Kate sucked in a deep breath and forced a smile on her face as she closed the door behind her.

‘Hello, Dad,’ she said, softly, crossing to where he sat. She put out a hand towards him, touched his cheek gently then kissed him on the top of the head.

Leonard Wheeler didn’t look up but he did raise one hand as if to ward off her attention.

Kate sighed under her breath and reached for the chair close to the bed. She sat down opposite him, aware that his gaze was directed not at her but at something behind her. Something beyond her, that she couldn’t see, that only her father was aware of.

‘The nurses said you’ve had quite a good day,’ she told him, warily.

‘Where’s Jessie?’ he asked, suddenly turning to look directly at her.

Kate reached out and touched his hand gently.

‘Mum’s not coming,’ she told him, wearily. ‘She’s been dead for five years.’

‘You bloody fool.’ His words came sharply and suddenly and he spoke them with such venom that Kate moved back an inch or two.

‘Dad, please.’

He moved across the mattress until his back was wedged against the wall of the room. Again he was looking past her when he spoke, his words seemingly addressed to someone who only he could see.

‘I want to know where Jessie is.Why hasn’t she brought that cardigan I asked her for?’

‘You asked me for a cardigan, Dad. I brought it for you last week when I came,’ Kate told him, exasperatedly.

‘Get Jessie,’ he snapped. ‘She knows what I’m talking about.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Kate said, her patience snapping. ‘No one knows what you’re talking about any more, Dad.’

The expression of anger on his face changed immediately to one of bewilderment and he gazed at her with something in his eyes that looked like fear. He pressed himself closer to the wall, cowering away from her as if he thought she might strike him.

‘Oh, Dad,’ Kate breathed. She could feel the tears welling up but fought them back. She didn’t want him to see her cry. She knew he didn’t know who the hell she was and certainly wouldn’t know why she was weeping but, all the same, she didn’t want him to see her lose control. She coughed and cleared her throat, again reaching out with one hand to touch his arm.

This time he didn’t withdraw but he watched her probing fingers as they gently brushed against his forearm.

‘Kate,’ he whispered.