“Esther…”
“No. He was at home. He told me.”
“Okay. But he has no one to vouch for that?”
Esther gave a small smile, eyes bright with tears. “You’ll learn, Tom. When that little boy is old enough to give you headaches. I know my son. Ethan loved Libby. He would never,
never
have hurt her.”
Tom nodded, looking down at his hands. “Okay, Esther. You understand…”
“I understand. You’re doing your job.”
“Daddy.” Ben had turned around, was half hanging off the chair.
“Yeah, Ben?”
“There’s no toons on.” He bit his lip, watching Esther. “It’s my birf-day. I got a Mickey.”
“You did? Well isn’t that wonderful.”
Ben looked around the room, doubtful. “Did you get presents?”
Tom smiled. “He’s having a little trouble with the whole birthday concept.”
“Well, I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s not my birthday, sweetheart.” Then Esther smiled, miniature fractures at the edges. “I did get a present though. He’s right here. Your daddy gave him to me.” A quick glance at Tom, eyes filling.
“Hope you kept the receipt.” Jim’s voice was thick, rough. Eyes bloodshot red, he struggled to open them. “How you doing, Tom?”
“I’m okay. You?”
“Yeah. I’ll live. Thanks to you.”
Esther pushed herself up from the chair. “Why don’t we go get a milkshake, Ben? What do you say? Your daddy can talk to my husband and you can tell me all about what you got for your birthday?”
Ben watched Esther, considering. “Can I have chocolate?”
She smiled. “You are the birthday boy.”
“’kay.”
Tom watched as they walked away, Ben slipping his hand into hers. Cecilia had gotten up, had come down a little after nine, when they had already been up for hours. Keep some of your presents, buddy. Wait until Mummy gets up. Cecilia had poured herself coffee, buried herself into the corner of the sofa, her legs pulled up, staring into space. Ben had opened his presents. Tom doubted that Cecilia would have been able to name one of them.
“You saved my life.” Jim wasn’t looking at him, watching the retreating form of his wife.
Tom shrugged, like it was nothing at all. “Right time, right place.”
“Whatever it was, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Someone did it on purpose.” The way Jim said it, it sounded like a question. Even though it wasn’t.
Tom nodded, leaning forward, even though it hurt his chest and his throat and his shoulder. “Fire investigator says yes. There was an accelerant, poured through the letter box. Probably petrol.”
Jim nodded, grimacing with the movement. “I was upstairs. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have been there. But Nat, he said they were releasing the scene, and, I don’t know, I just wanted to be near her, you know? I told Esther I was popping out for milk. I laid down on her bed…” His voice trailed off. Tom looked away, not wanting him to say the rest, that he laid down to weep, resting his head where his daughter last rested hers. “I guess I must have fallen asleep. I can’t have been out long. Fifteen minutes, twenty maybe. The house phone woke me, but when I got to it there was no-one there. I was, you know, disoriented, you know the way you are when something wakes you. But I remember hearing footsteps, someone running. That was when I smelled the smoke.”
“Did you see anything? Anything at all?”
Jim shook his head. “No.” Scrubbed his hands across his face, turning to Tom, pleading almost. “Who the hell would want to do this? Burn down her house? Hasn’t she been through enough? Haven’t we been through enough? Shit, when I think about it, if you hadn’t been there, Jesus. Esther. I mean, what she’s been through, and if I had gone too…doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Tom nodded, like he understood. But the truth was, he had no idea. No notion what it was to need to wake up every morning, because your wife needs you. And you can push it back and push it back and pretend that you’re doing the right thing, but you know and she knows that this isn’t right and that it never has been, but you have become so used to pretending that you forget that it isn’t real. That it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He didn’t look at Jim, afraid that if he did then he would see. “You’re a good man, Jim.”
Jim laughed, a ravaged, throaty laugh. “Yeah. Fucking saint, me.”
Tom’s mobile rang, loud in the quiet room.
“Shit. Sorry.”
“Ah, answer. The Nazi nurses are doing handover.”
Tom grinned, hitting answer. “DC Allison.”
“Hiya Tom. It’s Donna in the control room.”
“Hey, Don. How are you?”
“I’m good. I’m good. Look, Tom, I’ve got something on the Libby Hanover case. You’re on call, right?”
He wasn’t. He was supposed to be spending the day with his son like any normal man on his son’s birthday. But Jim was watching him, expectation hanging in the air like storm clouds, and he can see it in his face, the longing that this is the call, that they will have answers for him, because that’s the best that he can hope for now. His daughter is dead, and all he has left to hope for is the truth.
“Yeah. I am. Go ahead, Don.”
“We’ve had a call. A woman saying that she thinks her father was sleeping with Libby.”
“All Right. Is this, ah, you know…”
“A crazy? I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Who is she?”
“Name’s Freya Blake. She said her father’s name was Oliver.”
Tom’s stomach lurched, hairs on his arms standing on end. Watching Jim watching him. Not wanting to give too much away too soon, not until he knows and he is sure. “You said was?”
“Yeah, was. She said that he was the pilot. The one who crashed the plane.”
Chapter 42
Cecilia – Monday, 26th March – 5.55pm
Cecilia shivered. The snow had stopped falling at last, leaving behind a black sky, pinpoint stars. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat, pulling the front door behind her. A careful tread on the path. The light pooled from the living room window. All looked so welcoming. Homely. She bowed her head, fighting back the drowning irony. More comfortable out here in the snow and the cold.
Richard stood at the end of the drive, folded in on himself.
She had stayed at the hospital until late. Holding Maisie’s hand as she wept and wept. Cecilia didn’t speak. What was there to say? So instead she sat. A fleeting thought, this must be what other mothers felt like. Holding their children while they cried, making the tears easier, just by being there. Running her fingers along the veined ridges of the old woman’s hands. Wondering why it was that she could do this here, be this here, and yet not at home, with her son. With her husband. But then, when you came right down to it, when you thought about it (although she generally tried very hard not to do that), wasn’t her husband just one more man keeping her somewhere she didn’t want to be. Would it have been different, had Eddie never happened? If she had met Tom when she was a different person, less damaged and scarred. The wall wouldn’t have been there, that gust of ice that swept the room whenever her husband came near her, touched her. That fear. Would it have been different then?
But she was what she was. And Eddie had happened and the baby had happened. And, no matter how hard she tried, she was irretrievably scarred and damaged and scared.
The other visitors had left, faux cheerful voices, flurries of goodbyes. The curtains moved, once, twice, nurses ducking their heads in, tight lipped gazes falling on Maisie, Cecilia. Cecilia had ignored them. She didn’t know how long it was before the tears dwindled, sobs beginning to ease.
Finally, when the ward was quiet, Maisie shifted. Seemed so small, a child buried in a mountain of pillows.
“I’ll have to tell Caroline.” Her voice sounded raw, little more than a whisper. “I’ll have to ring her.”
“I can do that for you.” Cecilia felt a thrill of fear at her own words. “I can ring her. If you want.”
Maisie had sunk back into the pillows, was watching Cecilia from what seemed to be a very long distance. “Thank you, love. But it should be me.” A shuddering sigh. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell her. They were always so close.” She shook her head. “Ernie always said I should try harder. Let my guard down a bit with her. I’m going to have to do better now.” Her voice strengthened at the end.
Cecilia started.
“What, love?”
“Nothing. I just…”
But Maisie shook her head, a brief smile. Saw it without Cecilia saying it. “You thought I was going to lay down and die?”
“No, no…”
“Love, I don’t get to give up. For whatever reason, God saw it as right that he take my Ernie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with that, and believe you me, I’ll be having a few words with the big man when I get up there myself. But that’s where we are. So I’ve got to get on with it. And Ernie, he wouldn’t like me giving up. Wouldn’t like that at all.” She sighed deeply. “No. You can’t just give up. No matter how much you want to. You have to keep on trying. It’s not over until you’re dead.”
They had rung Maisie’s daughter. A little after ten. Cecilia dialling the numbers with quick fingers, Maisie holding the receiver, shaking so badly it seemed inevitable that she would drop it. Cecilia listening as Maisie choked over the words, and then, when the chokes turn into fresh tears, taking the phone. The daughter’s words barely audible through her own sobs. I’ll get the first flight I can. I’ll be there in the morning.
She had left the hospital late. Wondering why it was that the world suddenly seemed to have a pulse, wondering where it had been hiding all of these years. A feeling of recognition, suddenly realised that what she was seeing was a glimpse of the Cecilia she had been, too many years before. But then she had pulled up outside the house, and it was dark, empty, and the wrongess of it all had flooded back in. She had wanted to cry then. Had climbed into bed, in the room that she now thought of as hers, pulling the duvet high over her head.
The sun had been high when she woke. Sky crystal blue. She had gone downstairs, thick-headed and thirsty. Ben was sitting, a bird on a nest of wrapping paper, didn’t look up at her, clumsy fingers rotating a plastic tool set. Toys littered the floor, new, shiny, and she felt sick. She should have gotten up, should have been here when he opened his birthday presents.
“Morning.” Tom’s voice had sounded rough, a cough like he’d been smoking thirty a day for the last twenty years. “I’ll get you a coffee.” He glanced around, gesturing under the tree. “He kept some presents to open with you.”
Cecilia had looked at him, a thrill of some emotion that she couldn’t identify. “Thank you.” Watched Tom pushing himself up, movements awkward, pained. “Are you okay?”
Tom had glanced at her, seemed surprised that she would ask. But then, she allowed, that was probably fair.
“I…yeah. There was an…incident, last night.”
“What kind of incident?”
He looked down. “A fire.”
Then she’s falling again, can smell the flames, feel the heat. A sickness rises through her. “Oh.”
“It was in Libby’s house. You know? The PCSO that was killed?”
She looked at him, a long look. Trying to make sense of the words. A PCSO? What did that have to do with the plane?
“You know, the murder I’ve been on?”
Was it her, or was there some impatience woven through the words? “Oh. This fire. You were there?”
“Yes.” He paused, seemed like he was considering saying something else. “I had to go in. There was, her dad, he was inside.”
“So…you got him out?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Oh.” She sat there, looked down at her fingers. Another feeling swamping her. Her husband was a good man. Was, in fact, a hero. And here he was, stuck, with her.
“I’ll get that coffee. Ben. Show Mummy what you got.”
She stared at her son in his Elmo pyjamas, hoisting wrapped boxes over his head, toddling towards her. Felt her stomach clench. Just stay here. Just for now. Don’t think about anyone else. Don’t think about the other child. Just this one. Just for now. But it was creeping in, pulling at her. The hands, the pain, the smell of bins. And the baby she had killed.
She sank onto the sofa, pulling her knees up under, wrapping her arms tight around them.
She watched as he pulled the paper off a dancing Mickey Mouse, a train set, a jigsaw puzzle with oversized pieces. Wondered distantly what she had bought him. Then realised that it was probably all of it. That Tom had done it all. Felt the sinking sense of failure again.
“I…I was going to take him out later. If that’s okay with you. A friend of mine, he’s in hospital. Thought I’d take Ben to see him.” Tom had handed her coffee. “If you don’t mind.”
She had looked up at him, smiled. Had tried to hide her relief.
It was a little while after they had left, when she stood, thinking that perhaps she would take a shower. Wash free the remains of this morning and perhaps find that feeling again, the one that she had found on the mountainside surrounded by the ruins of a burning plane, that had flickered as she held Maisie’s hand. The memory of who she used to be. She had stopped, looking out of the window, where darkness had fallen, streetlights pooling orange on the standing snow. That was when she had seen Richard, standing across the road in a puddle of light. He had been part hidden behind number 72’s 4 x4, like he was unsure that he wanted to be seen.
Cecilia had felt that feeling swell in her again, had pulled on boots and a coat. Had pushed open the front door, a blast of cold wind wrapping itself around her. Felt herself standing a little taller. Suddenly feeling like she mattered.
She waved to Richard. A fleeting look of panic crossing his face, and so she smiled to make him feel better, reassure him that she’s here to help. So busy trying to be someone different that she forgets to wonder how he knows where she lives.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He didn’t look at her, scuffing his feet into the snow.
She should ask where his family was. Where was his mother? Then remembered Ben and the relief she had felt when Tom had said they were going out and she wanted to cry.
“You…you’re okay?” Cecilia asked, trying not to think about her son.