Chapter Thirty Four

Sorcha woke up in an empty bed. She seemed to have spent most of the night in fights with Einstein, punctuated by endless car journeys heading over cliffs, before finally being jolted awake when a disembodied hand had suddenly appeared from nowhere and grabbed at her throat. That was the one thing which she couldn’t place in the previous day’s events, once she had properly come to her senses: that, and the hippo. She couldn’t quite remember what the hippo had been doing, but she was reasonably sure that there had been one, wallowing around in the corners of her mind. It happened, sometimes.

As she had tossed and turned her way through the night, she had been intermittently aware of Jake sleeping, still and serene, away across the bed; but he was no longer there. For a fleeting second, she wanted to move across and bury her face in his pillows, and see if the mattress still held any of his warmth, before the ghosts of groupies past came back to haunt her again and forced her to get up and on with the day.

Jake was in the living room sitting in a chair facing the picture window, staring out across the city. Sorcha hesitated before speaking; afraid that she might be interrupting him.

“Penny for them.”

He did something that was half way between a sigh and a smile, but didn’t turn to face her.

“I’ve stopped meditating, you know.” He bit on his bottom lip, as if he were thinking something through, “I’ve tried a few times since all this began, but I can never quite let go of the idea that some bastard’s about to shoot me, and then it doesn’t work.”

Sorcha went over to him, and put her hand on his shoulder; only then did he look up at her.

“It’s OK. It’s not like it’s a big deal, or that it’s all I ever think about. I mean, it’s just that it’s always there, somewhere, and it never quite goes away.” He smiled up at her; it was a deliberate, serious smile. “Duncan’s gone, and there’s juice on the side in the kitchen.”

Sorcha wasn’t as relieved as she thought she ought to be that she wasn’t going to be spending the day dodging Duncan: she wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do instead. She found a glass jug covered with cling film sitting on the kitchen counter, containing a pale, sludgy liquid which she couldn’t quite identify from its smell. As she was pouring some into a glass, she heard Jake shout through that it was pear and lychee: she found the notion that anyone would ever decide it was a good idea to juice a lychee frankly bizarre, but sensed that this wasn’t the time to say so. When she went back through into the sitting room he had gone back to sitting motionless, staring into space. Sitting staring at him while he stared was unlikely to help.

“Is it Stephen Warren that you’re worried about, or the stalker?”

“I dunno.” He shifted in the chair, so that he was almost facing her, “Don’t worry about the stalker stuff. It’s happened before, and it’s probably nothing. Just a few weird letters.”

It was a subject which Sorcha felt uncomfortable even discussing: she was afraid that she might inadvertently give him reassurance which the situation didn’t warrant, but she had to say something.

“Presumably the police would do something to protect you, if they were that worried about it?”

“Probably. If I hadn’t told them and everyone else to bugger off.” Jake looked almost apologetic as he said it, but he could see that the discussion was making her squirm. It seemed better not to tell her that he was fairly sure that they had been tailed on their drive up the day before, and that when they left to drive to his mother’s an anonymous looking silver saloon would probably slip into the traffic two or three cars behind them.

Instead they had a rather bleak, businesslike discussion about some of the things that Duncan had said. The band and a part of the team responsible for staging their last tour had been to Las Vegas at the beginning of the year, but Jake was adamant that Keith had not been with them – which was presumably one of the reasons why Duncan had dismissed Nicola’s comments. The possibility that Keith might have been referring to a different trip to Vegas didn’t seem to have crossed Duncan’s mind, and might not have crossed Nicola’s mind either. The possibility that it was all a load of nonsense was also there, staring them straight in the face.

Sorcha had been so preoccupied with the idea of the stalker, and the drive to Jake’s mother’s house was so short, that they were nearly there before she realised she had no idea who or what she was about to meet, or what exactly she was meant to be doing there. The woman who opened the door was tall and sad, with highlighted hair and a face that told a story of kindness, cigarettes and sunshine. She looked the way that mothers were meant to look: Sorcha tried to will herself not to make a comparison with the slightly drooling, frozen leer of her own mother’s face, and it didn’t quite work.

When Jake had gone to hug his mother, bending down slightly to do so, Sorcha had looked away, concentrating on not apologizing for being there. It meant she was taken by surprise when Mary turned to her and briefly hugged her too. Being told that she was glad that she was there, and sorry that she had been caught up in it all, only added to Sorcha’s general sense of confusion, although she did a reasonably job of not letting it show.

Jake waited until the plates were cleared before tentatively steering the conversation round to the subject of his father. Sorcha wasn’t used to having so little to contribute to a discussion, and as a result she almost forgot to say anything at all. Instead, she watched and listened the conversation with an intensity which was strange to her. Jake knew how much even mentioning his father’s name was likely to hurt under the circumstances: to start with everything he said sounded like an apology, but he seemed to realise that was only making it harder. He tried to just ask the questions and then prompt as Mary spoke: the gentleness and seriousness with which he did it made it hard to watch.

Jake had started the conversation on the fairly neutral subject of his father’s work, which Mary certainly knew about even if she didn’t enjoy talking about it. Keith had carried on working for the same Manchester-based company for several years after he had left, before moving to work for a larger company which had bases all over the country, often driving between the Manchester area and Dover, Harwich or Southampton, with occasional trips to the continent. The company names were ones that Sorcha knew, which at least meant that she didn’t need to worry about the fact that she wasn’t really in a position to take notes. Mary had expected Keith to stay there, and hadn’t been at all surprised that he had gone back there in the late nineties and worked through to retirement. But there had been some kind of gap in the middle, and it seemed that Keith had been deliberately vague about what he was doing during that time.

“But he was still driving, right?”

Jake spoke softly, but his full attention was on his mother.

“I reckon so, love, but I really don’t know. Usually with your Dad the first thing he tells you when he gets through the door is all he’s done since you’ve last seen him, but I don’t remember him being like that then. I don’t actually remember seeing him that much.” Mary looked apologetically at Jake, “It was when all of the band stuff was going on, too, so I may just have been busy with other things.”

“Do you know anyone who might have known more about what he was doing and stuff? Anyone he was hanging about with then?”

Mary seemed to search through the contents of her head, before shaking it, disappointed with herself.

“Not that I can think of. Si might know: they were back in touch with him by then”

Jake looked up at Sorcha, pleading slightly. She put her hand on his knee, under the table, and gently massaged it.

“Was there someone he was with, back then?” Jake stared at the wicker mat, which was still sitting on the table in front of him. “I mean a woman. A girlfriend, or something.”

Mary looked across at him, unsure why he was asking these questions now, and a little embarrassed.

“Oh love, there were always women. There always have been, really. After the first two or three, I kind of stopped keeping track: it was someone new every couple of years.”

“There isn’t anyone at the moment, though, is there?”

Mary took her time to choose how she phrased it.

“Not one person, no. I think he was…” still she hesitated, worried about what she had to say, “… he was enjoying himself while you lads were on tour, though.”

Jake looked slightly rueful.

“Duncs got into a fight with someone about that last night.”

“I know, love. Her Mam was over here this morning.” Mary was clearly aware of the irony of the situation, but more saddened by the fact that it was happening at all, “Strange thing is, even Nicola actually seems to care about your Dad. I reckon most of the reason why she set about Duncan like that was just that she cared for him too. She’s worried just like the rest of us.”

The fact that Duncan was also a general all-round cheating bastard seemed to be understood and accepted between them, and didn’t merit comment. Sorcha excused herself, and went to find her bag from the hallway. When she returned, Jake was in the middle of an apology-cum-explanation, telling Mary that knowing so little about his father had started to worry him. Sorcha waited until he had finished his piece before putting on the table a clear plastic wallet, with the yellowed newspaper photo which had been loose with the Marty stuff.

“This is a long shot, but do you have any idea who this is? Is she linked to your ex-husband in any way?”

Sorcha realised that she had accidentally started sounding like a lawyer, but Mary seemed to be reacting to the photo rather than to her question. She looked unsure, and was glancing at Jake as if she wasn’t sure whether to tell him what she knew. He was still all gentleness.

“I found it in some stuff which was to do with Dad, and didn’t know whether it was there by accident.”

“He’s been leaving his junk with you too, has he? He’s terrible like that.” Mary seemed resigned as she said it. Sorcha, gave Jake’s knee a slightly excited squeeze, and then immediately realised that her timing could have been very unfortunate – as it was, he didn’t react. “I think I’ve got the article which that came from: Manchester Evening News, it was.”

Neither Jake nor Sorcha spoke while she left the room and went upstairs to find something. Sorcha’s hands were resting on the table: Jake laced the fingers of his right hand through hers. His hands were long and elegant, and he cupped his fingers right round as if to protect her. When they heard Mary heading back down the stairs, they both pulled back.

She came in carrying an album of sorts: as soon as she opened it up it became apparent that it was essentially a hard-back, slightly upmarket version of the scrapbooks from Marty’s spare room. After briefly leafing through, she opened it up at a page which had an article about a charity football match which Jake had been involved in, and a couple of very brief cuttings about property developments which mentioned his brother Simon’s name. The article which she was looking for was on the facing page, surrounded by a lot of blank space. The headline was “Local Nurse Sentenced for Stealing Drugs”, and there was text to one side of the picture.

Janette Cumberland, 42, of Oldham was sentenced yesterday to three years in jail for stealing opiates, sedatives and other controlled medicines from the Queen Victoria hospital, where she had worked since 1991. The thefts were spread over a period of at least four years, prompting an enquiry into record keeping and the safety of prescription medication at the hospital which is expected to report before Christmas. Cumberland is understood to have stolen to feed her own addiction, after having become depressed after she suffered repeated miscarriages in the late 1980s which lead to the breakdown of her marriage. Suggestions that the volume of drugs missing were an indication that she had also been stealing for profit were dismissed on the basis that there was insufficient evidence.

The date noted under the article was 21 May 1997

Jake seemed to be retreating, in a number of ways, but was also confused.

“Why did you keep this?”

“She was one of them: one of your Dad’s lady friends.” Mary looked at Jake fondly, “It isn’t only you I keep stuff about, you know, although there’s more of that than anything. He came round here the night she got arrested: it was really when we started to get to know one another again, I suppose.”

Sorcha could feel conjectures beginning to whirr around in her head, in a way which wasn’t helping her concentrate. She had no idea what Jake’s next move was likely to be, and decided to pre-empt it.

“Do you have any idea where she is now? Presumably she’s been released?”

Mary shook her head several times before answering, stiller and sadder.

“No love. She was never released.” Mary reached out and took Jake’s hand, before finishing her answer, “She hanged herself in prison, a couple of months after this was written.” She looked at the album for a moment or two, before looking up at Jake, “Your Dad took that hard, at least for a bit.”