Authors: Pauline Rowson
‘Any good at ciphers?’ I asked Boudicca, when I returned home an hour later. She looked up at me as if to say, ‘You must be joking.’
I called the consultant’s secretary; Rosie had given me her name, and asked her if she knew anyone called Stella Hardway. She didn’t. I called the oncology department and the main switchboard of the hospital with the same result.
Then I telephoned St Thomas’s. Father was comfortable but still unconscious.
I played around with the letters that Jack had underlined ending up with twenty-one separate words. None of them meant anything to me. I stared at the paper strewn across the kitchen. Faye would have a fit. Which reminded me…
‘You sound as if you’re in a pub,’ I said when she answered her mobile.
‘Wine bar actually. We’re with clients.’
‘Stewart with you, is he?’ I wasn’t jealous.
Maybe I should have been. In my mind’s eye he was slick, sophisticated and good-looking, everything I wasn’t.
‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded wary with a small note of petulance that warned me I’d be skating on thin ice if I pursed that angle.
‘I won’t keep you, just wanted to check you were OK.’
‘I’m fine, what about you? All set for the exhibition? You haven’t been drinking, have you?’
‘You make me sound like an alcoholic,’ I snapped.
‘There’s no need to be so touchy.’
I took a deep breath. ‘No. I’m fine, everything’s fine.’
I rang off before she could say anything further.
I felt irritated. I told myself it was because of this damn puzzle rather than Faye’s accusatory and derisory tone.
‘Why did Jack put Rosie’s name in inverted commas?’ I asked Boudicca who was pushing her head up against my legs and meowing fit to bust.
Because it’s her name, stupid!
A name. Of course! The code was a name and it wasn’t bloody Stella Hardway.
I snatched up a piece of paper: Sid, Ned, Sine, Des, Denis, Denise, Enid…Did any of these have a connection with Jack, or with the fire fighters on Red Watch? Had I ever heard Jack mention any of them? No.
I wracked my brains. I walked about. I fed Boudicca. I made a coffee. Still nothing came to me. I was beginning to feel deflated. Back to square one.
I flicked on Radio Four. They were talking about the Man Booker Prize winner. Books. I froze. The books on Jack’s study floor. The books I had replaced on the shelf. With a pounding heart I stared at the letters. God! It was so simple.
GIDEONS. And on Jack’s shelf had been a New Testament and Psalms. Half an hour later Rosie was opening the door to me again.
‘Sorry to bother you, Rosie, but I think I dropped my pen when I was tidying Jack’s study yesterday. I can’t find it anywhere. Would you mind if I looked?’
‘Of course.’
She didn’t seem in the slightest bit suspicious.
I guessed she was too tired and too upset.
I climbed the stairs with a racing heart hoping she wouldn’t want to follow. She didn’t. I reached for the small brown book that contained the New Testament and Psalms and read the inscription on the first page: ‘Presented to Jack Bartholomew by The Gideons International within the British Isles, Date: December 1969.’
The date didn’t tie up with the one on the postcard, but I knew it wouldn’t. So, there had to be a reason why Jack had written 4 July 1994.
Eagerly my fingers flicked through the thin pages until I found the Daily Readings. I turned to the 4th July, which referred me to the Acts Chapter 14 versus 1–18. Nothing. Holding my breath I flicked on to the next 4th July under the Daily Readings. This referred me to Psalms 10 versus 1-18.
‘Is everything OK, Adam?’ Rosie called up.
‘Yes, fine.’
Psalm 10. I let out a long slow breath Jack had underlined a passage in verse 7 and in verse 8.
‘Did you find it?’
‘What?’ I spun round, quickly slipping the small Bible into my pocket. ‘No. I must have lost it elsewhere.’ Had she seen me? I didn’t think so. ‘I might have dropped it in the studio or at the art gallery.’
I felt bad leaving her but I was itching to look at Jack’s message. I felt less of a heel when she said that Sarah was due over shortly.
Instead of returning home I rode down to the seafront and ordered myself a coffee in the Blue Oasis Café. Through the window I could see the Hovercraft leaving a trail of white behind it as it skirted the tops of the waves on its way to the Isle of Wight. Lights were beginning to twinkle in Ryde across the water.
I eyed the occupants in the café. There was only an elderly couple in the corner. There was no sign of my pursuer, the motorbike man.
I took out my small pad usually reserved for sketching and a pencil from my jacket pocket and opened the New Testament and Psalms.
With my heart beating a little faster I transcribed the words Jack had underlined into my pad.
I looked up but no one was paying me any attention. I sat back to study what I had written.
His mouth is full of …deceit and fraud, he murder the
innocent.
Whose mouth was full of deceit? Who had murdered the innocent? Had something happened in 1994 that had led to the cause of death of the innocent? Who were the innocent?
I thought of that photograph pinned on my studio wall, of Jack who had been diagnosed with cancer and of the three men with him who had died of cancer. They were the innocent victims of something that had happened in 1994, something that had given them cancer. Jack had died trying to discover what it was. Jesus! Did I want to go on with this? Would I end up the same way as Jack? Is that why the motorbike man was following me? Waiting to see what I discovered, ready to make sure I had an accident when I got too close to the truth?
‘I didn’t have you down as a religious man.’
I started violently and then felt foolish as I saw Jody Piers, Rosie’s neighbour, standing over me. My heart skipped a beat. ‘Hello, what brings you here?’
‘What do you think?’ She pointed at her Lycra jogging pants and trainers, over the top of which she wore a waterproof jacket. Her hair was soaked and plastered to her small head. An earpiece from her personal CD player dangled on her narrow chest and she pressed a button to switch it off.
‘You won’t get very fit in here.’
‘Oh bugger that, I’m glad of the excuse to stop.
Not very dedicated, am I?’ and she laughed.
I liked the sound of it, fresh and slightly wicked.
She seemed genuinely pleased to see me and I felt flattered.
‘I recognised your motorbike and here I find you with your nose buried in the good book.’
She sat down heavily on the chair opposite. She stretched out her legs, which brushed against me.
She seemed in no hurry to move and I was in no rush to protest. I was surprised to feel a languorous stirring in my loins before the guilt kicked in. I cleared my throat.
‘Coffee?’ I asked.
‘Please. I’ll forgo the doughnut though. I’ll get a stitch running back.’
I pocketed the Gideons New Testament and Psalms and a few seconds later put the coffee in front of her.
‘I’m glad I’ve run into you,’ she said. ‘I was going to call you.’
‘Your landlady saw something?’ I said, hopefully.
‘She wasn’t sure. There was a dark blue van parked outside but it could have been perfectly innocent.’
‘She didn’t get the make or registration number?’
She gave me a quizzical look. ‘Why the interest?
Is there something more to this breakin than you’re telling me?’
She spoke lightly as though teasing me but my expression must have betrayed my concerns. She said, ‘I can see there is.’
I hesitated, not sure whether to confide in her.
It would sound fantastic. She’d think me paranoid, and why should I tell her anything? I didn’t know her, though clearly she had known Jack and was on good terms with Rosie. But I had to tell someone and it wasn’t going to be Faye.
Just as I had
never told her about Alison
. It troubled me that I couldn’t confide in my wife, but what was beginning to worry me more was the realisation that I never had been able to or even wanted to.
I put the postcard on the chrome table in front of her. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘It’s a painting by Turner.’ She picked it up and turned it over. I watched her expression turn from mild amusement to curiosity. ‘It’s from your friend and it reads like his last message.’
‘It was. He posted that the day he died.’
She looked shocked. ‘He
knew
he was going to die?’
‘It seems incredible, but yes.’
She turned the postcard over in her slim hands frowning with concentration as she considered Jack’s words. Finally she looked up and announced, ‘It’s a code.’
‘And this is where it has led me.’
I pushed my sketchpad towards her. I could smell the scent of her body, which mingled with her sweat. It was a powerful aphrodisiac and again I felt the stirrings of desire. As if sensing my interest she peeled off her jacket and I could see her small breasts straining against the tight Lycra of her running top.
She said, ‘What does it mean?’
I told her ending with, ‘Jack must have been trying to find a connection between the cancer and something that happened in 1994 and my guess is that it was a fire or a chemical incident.’
I waited for her to tell me I was barking mad and provide some other simple explanation that hadn’t yet crossed my mind. Instead a frown furrowed her brow, her green eyes were serious and her gaze intent.
In the silence I could hear the coffee machine whirring and gurgling. A radio was playing a Christmas tune and the door opened and shut letting in a blast of cold clammy air. The elderly couple left.
Finally she said, ‘You think he was killed deliberately in that fire?’
I nodded. ‘But don’t ask me how.’
‘This could be dangerous, Adam.’
I liked the way she said my name.
‘Take it to the police and leave it to them,’ she continued, firmly.
It was tempting and maybe she was right. I felt warmed by her concern. At the same time my stomach churned at the thought of entering a police station again. ‘I’ll talk to Steve Langton.
He’s a friend of Jack’s and mine; he’s a DI at the local police station.’
She seemed relieved at my decision. ‘I’m sure that’s the right thing to do.’ She dashed a glance at her watch. ‘I must be going. I’ve got a project to finish and a deadline looming. I’m doing a study of the marine life in Portsmouth harbour.’
Outside the door she hesitated. ‘Will you let me know what the police say?’
I wanted to ask why. But maybe I already knew the answer.
‘All right,’ I agreed eagerly; it would give me a reason to see her again. I ignored the warning bells that were sounding in my head like Nôtre Dame’s.
‘You know where I live, number forty-two.
Here’s my telephone number.’ She scribbled it in my sketchpad. ‘But I might see you next week at your exhibition.’
I must have looked shocked or horrified.
She laughed and said, ‘I’m based in the dockyard. I saw the posters outside the art gallery.’
‘Well if you fancy venturing out on a cold winter’s night and there’s nothing on the television you’re welcome to come to the private viewing on Saturday.’
‘Great.’ She plugged in her music. ‘I’ll see you then.’
Suddenly I was looking forward to the exhibition. I watched her lean body jog gracefully along the promenade towards the fun fair, then climbed on my bike and headed with trepidation for the police station.
Fifteen years ago it had been a different police station in a different city but they, like hospitals, all have that same smell about them of disinfectant and fear. As soon as I stepped inside the lobby I could feel the sweat pricking my brow. As I waited to see Langton I ran my hands down the sides of my jeans, feeling the space around me growing ever smaller by the slowly ticking minutes. Soon I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Maybe he wasn’t in. Maybe I should simply turn and leave. But I forced myself to stay even as the memories flooded back and I was once again back in that bleak interview room in Oxford with the red-faced, heavily perspiring inspector and his baby-faced sergeant.
‘What did
you do, Adam?’ ‘Are you sure that’s what
happened?’
‘You had a row with Alison, didn’t you?’ ‘We have
witnesses…’ ‘I didn’t push
her… I didn’t… I didn’t…’
Then nothing but darkness.
‘Adam, come through.’ Steve’s confident, friendly voice catapulted me back into the present.
As the security door behind us closed, it sounded like the slamming of a prison cell.
I put one foot in front of the other and followed his purposeful athletic strides up the stairs to the first floor where I was shown into a modern office. I let out a breath, thankful that it had not the slightest similarity to an interview room.
‘Drink?’ Steve offered but I declined.
‘I won’t take up too much of your time,’ I began but he waved away my concerns.
‘I need a bit of a break and this lot’s not going anywhere.’ He indicated the pile of paperwork on his desk. I glanced at it as I sat down, seeing some rather grisly photographs of a woman who’d been attacked. They weren’t very pleasant and I hastily looked away. The sounds of the station came to me from beyond Langton’s closed door: footsteps hurrying, someone laughing, a telephone constantly ringing. Would he think me paranoid? I’d soon find out. I told him about the postcard and code, my last conversation with Jack, my theories on the breakin, the missing items, and what I thought Jack had been investigating. I watched for his reaction in the glow of the angle poise lamp on his desk.
I needn’t have bothered being a policeman he simply stared at me impassively.
‘I know it sounds incredible, Steve, but something must have happened at a fire in 1994.’
‘Lots of people die of cancer,’ Langton said quietly.
‘I keep telling myself that, but it doesn’t feel right especially when you put it with everything else that has happened.’
‘You want me to look into it.’
‘Yes.’
After a moment, he said, ‘I’m up to my eyeballs in work, Adam. You know what it’s like at Christmas: more thefts, more fights, more domestics, more bloody everything and less coppers to handle it because of flu and colds.’