The Disappeared (54 page)

'Jenny,
how long have you been there?' He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his plaid
work shirt.

'A
while. You looked like you were miles away.'

'I
was.' He planted the spade in the soil and wandered over.

'I'm
sorry not to have been in touch,' she said. 'You left a message days ago. I got
caught up with things at the office.'

'I
guessed as much.'

He
leaned against the opposite side of the fence, out of touching distance she
noticed, squinting against the sharp stabs of winter sunlight. He'd lost
weight, the skin drawn tight against his jawbone, a slight hollowness to his
eyes. He seemed pensive.

'Ross
still with his dad?' Steve said.

'Yes
... I don't know, maybe he's better off in town for the time being. I'm not
much company for him.'

'You
said David took him.'

'It
was my fault . . . Ross found me in a bit of a state one night. Had to put me
to bed.'

Steve
picked at a splinter on the weather-worn fence rail. 'You want to talk about
it?'

'You
must be sick of me coming to you for therapy. It's about time I got a grip on
myself.'

He
looked up at her. 'Can I say something?'

She
nodded.

'It
makes you tense having him around. It's as if the responsibility frightens
you,'

She
shrugged. 'It does. He's my son.'

'What
are you frightened off?'

Jenny
shook her head, feeling the tightness in her throat that meant she was
resisting tears. 'If I knew that. . .'

Steve
moved towards her and brushed her face gently with his hand. 'You don't need to
get a grip, Jenny, you need to let go.'

'Yeah,
right - an emotionally incontinent coroner. That'd inspire confidence.'

'You've
got to try . . . And I think you want to.'

He
ran his hand through her hair and stroked her neck, grazed her cheek with his
lips.

It
felt good to be close again, to feel the warmth of his skin.

Jenny
said, 'On your message you said there was something you wanted to say.'

'There
is . . . but I wasn't expecting . . .'

He
closed his eyes, trying to find the words.

'I
don't know how you feel,' Steve said, 'whether you want to be with me or . . .
but I want to be with you, Jenny. I've spent months trying not to say it, but I
have to. I'm in love with you.'

She
was shocked. 'You don't mean that.'

'You've
got enough to deal with without me saying things

I
don't mean.' He kissed her lightly on the forehead. 'There, I've said it. Over
to you.'

He
stepped away and picked up his spade. 'I promised myself I'd finish this
section before lunch. Do you want to stay?'

'I'm
meant to be going to see my father.'

'Oh
... I didn't know he was still around.'

'He's
in a nursing home in Weston. There's something I need to ask him about the
past. Doctor's orders.'

'Then
you'd better go . . . But if you're going to turn me down, I'd rather you put
me out of my misery now.'

Jenny
looked up at the ice blue sky. 'I could come back afterwards.'

'Will
you stay?'

'Yes.
I'd like that ... It feels like a day for a new beginning.'

For
the previous five years Brian Cooper's life had been an eight-by-ten single
room on the second floor of a large pebble-dashed villa a short walk from the
sea front. He was only seventy-three years old and physically in robust health,
but dementia had struck during his mid-sixties and his second wife, a woman for
whom Jenny had never had any affection, took less than a year to dump him in
the home and find another man to take her on cheap Mediterranean cruises. There
had been plenty of visitors at first, but as Brian's lucid moments became rarer
they dried up to a dutiful trickle. Jenny hadn't seen him since Christmas Eve,
when he'd thrown his dinner at the television, believing it was his first wife,
Jenny's mother, reading the evening news.

The
nurse warned her that she might find him a little quiet. He was taking new
tablets to help control his increasingly erratic and explosive moods. Jenny
felt in no position to criticize.

She
tapped on the door and pushed it open.

'Hi,
Dad.'

He
was sitting in his shirtsleeves, his armchair facing the window which looked
out onto the street below. He was clean and shaved, his hair cut neatly.

'Dad?
It's Jenny.'

She
came to the corner of the bed by his chair and sat down.

'I
haven't seen you for a while. How are you?'

His
eyes flicked suspiciously towards her; his mouth started to move, but he made
no sound. Then, seeming to lose interest, he turned his gaze towards a seagull
which had landed on the windowsill clutching a crust of burger bun in its beak.
He smiled.

Jenny
said, 'You're looking well. How are you feeling?'

There
was no answer. There seldom was, but the specialist had told her to keep
talking to him like an adult as long as she could bear to. There was always a
chance that some of it might be going in, he had said; she would know when he
stopped comprehending entirely. Jenny looked for signs of recognition and saw a
childlike quality in his face; almost playful as he gazed at the gull tearing at
the scrap it had pinned beneath its foot.

'Dad,
I need to ask you something. I've been trying to remember some things about
when I was little. I thought it would be good to record them for Ross, put them
together with some of the old photographs - something he can show his kids one
day.'

Brian
nodded, as if he understood perfectly well.

She
dipped into her handbag and brought out several old Polaroids she'd dug out
from a shoebox earlier that morning.

She
showed them to him: pictures of her on a swing aged four or five in the back
garden of their house, Brian smiling, pushing her with one hand, a cigarette in
the other.

'I
remember you putting that up. It was a birthday present, wasn't it?'

'Yes,
that was your birthday. You were a little smiler. Look at you.' He took the
photograph from her and stared at it.

Jenny
felt a surge of excitement. 'You remember that?'

'That
was the dress my mother made you. She slaved over that, cost her eyesight, she
said.'

They
were well-worn phrases, words she'd heard a thousand times before, but they'd
been prompted by the pictures, not thrown up at random like most of what little
he offered these days. She had to strike while she could.

'Oh
damn, I must have forgotten to put it in. There was one I found with Katy
written on the back. I couldn't think who she was . . .'

'Cousin
Katy?'

Cousin
?
Jenny could only think of three first cousins, all of whom were boys.

'Katy's
my cousin? You're sure?'

'Jim
and Penny's little girl.'

Jim
and Penny were Brian's brother and his wife. They only had one child, a son who
was ten years younger than Jenny.

'I
don't think that can be right, Dad.'

Brian
dropped the photograph on the floor. 'You wouldn't get a cup of tea in this
place if you were dying of thirst.'

Jenny
picked it up. 'I don't remember a Katy. Jim and Penny only had Christopher,
didn't they?'

'Oily
bastard all dressed up in his suit and tie. Your mother thought he had money.
Hah!'

Another
familiar, but this time disconnected refrain – he was referring to the estate
agent who had run off with Jenny's mother.

'I'm
not talking about Mum now,' Jenny said. 'What happened to Cousin Katy?'

A
second gull joined the first on the windowsill and snatched the remainder of
the bun from its beak. Brian chuckled.

'Dad,
it's important. I need to know.'

His
eyes faded and seemed to mist over.

'Dad,
please try.'

She
took hold of his arm and shook it. He wrenched it away, the muscles in his
forearms hard as iron.

'You
remember, Smiler,' he said. 'You killed her.'

Writing
a first book is an act of pure speculation. So what if it doesn't work, you say
to yourself; at least I gave it a try. Writing a second, with a deadline to
meet and people waiting expectantly for your manuscript, is a different
enterprise entirely. Fortunately for me those people have been unfailingly
supportive and encouraging. Special thanks go to Greg Hunt, my straight-talking
screen-writing agent, who propelled me into writing novels with the unerring
assertion that 'no one takes you seriously until you've written a book', and to
Zoe Waldie, my literary agent, who has given me nothing but faultlessly sound
advice. Huge thanks also to Maria Rejt, my publisher and editor at Macmillan,
who has many fine gifts including the rare ability to convey her great wisdom
in the subtlest and most respectful of ways, and also to all her friendly and
highly professional team.

I
would also like to thank my colourful and lively family and extended family,
all of whom lend their unconditional support. In particular, my mother and stepfather,
writers both, are always there with an understanding of what it takes to return
day after day to the lonely task of putting one word after another, and my
father, a musician, has consistently proved to me that a level head can rest on
artistic shoulders. My wife and sons, daily spectators to the many ups and
downs of the writer's life, make everything possible.

Ed
Husain's book The Islamist (Penguin, London, 2007) was a great help in
understanding the mind of the young Muslim radical. It is essential reading for
anyone seeking to comprehend how young men raised in the West can be seduced by
ugly extremism and also be delivered from it.

Finally,
thanks to all those friends and former colleagues in the legal profession upon
whom I rely for their experience and anecdotes, especially James Mclntyre, who
leave me in no doubt that truth is always stranger than fiction.