The Black Path (31 page)

Helen nods, grateful for his kindness.

‘It’s not always easy when men come back from war,’ he continues. ‘The doctors do what they can. They can fix a broken arm. But some things take longer to heal.’

He turns to watch as Jackson boards the coach. Then, satisfied that he’s gone, he looks back at Helen.

‘I knew a man once,’ he says. ‘A lot like your husband. We served in Bosnia together. He was wounded in action, in a coma for weeks. When he came round, well, he wasn’t the same. He kept asking for his shoes, so he could get back to work. This went on for days. Finally a captain came and spoke to him. He told him his fight in Bosnia was over. He was fighting for his loved ones now. That seemed to do the trick.’

‘How is he now?’

‘Happily married, with two kids.’

‘Are you close?’

Martin pauses. ‘We were, once.’ He looks as if he’s about to divulge more, then thinks better of it. ‘We haven’t seen each other in a while, but we exchange Christmas cards and talk on the phone occasionally. He’s his old self again.’

Helen gazes across at Owen. Will he ever be his old self again? Does he need help? How is she supposed to help him if he won’t even talk to her?

The older man must have read her thoughts. ‘He’ll get there,’ he says. ‘He’s a fighter.’

She turns and studies his face. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘He’s here today, isn’t he? I know a brave man when I see one.’

Helen thinks for a moment. ‘Can I ask you something?’ she says. ‘About your son?’

‘He was a brave man too.’

‘And was he –’

‘Gay?’ Martin smiles tightly. ‘Yes, he was. And I was very proud of him.’

His voice cracks. He looks away and clears his throat.

‘Barbara?’ he calls, his voice firm again. ‘It’s time we were leaving.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

‘You never told me he was gay,’ Helen says.

It’s the morning after the funeral. Owen is seated at the kitchen table while she stands at the counter, preparing breakfast. There can’t be more than a few feet between them, but it feels like miles.

He speaks without raising his head. ‘Who told you that? Jackson, I suppose. What else did he say?’

She has no intention of repeating what Jackson said. Just the thought of it makes her skin crawl. She plays for time by measuring the coffee into the pot and filling it with boiling water. ‘It wasn’t Jackson. It was his father, Martin. He seemed like a nice man.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘You spoke to his wife.’

‘So?’

‘How was she?’

‘How do you think? It was her son’s funeral. She wasn’t exactly jumping for joy.’

‘Of course not. I just wondered what you talked about.’

His voice is cold. ‘I don’t remember.’

She stares at him but still he refuses to look at her. She takes two breakfast bowls from the cupboard above the sink and places them on the table directly in front of him. He doesn’t react.

‘His father told me he was proud of him,’ she says, determined to get some response.

‘Why wouldn’t he be? He was a good soldier.’

‘They both knew he was gay. His parents. It wasn’t a secret.’

‘So?’

‘So how come you never said anything?’

He looks up at her with red, hollow eyes. For a moment Helen thinks he might cry. Then he brushes his hand across his face and turns to stare out of the window.

He can’t have had more than a few hours’ sleep last night. She heard him moving around downstairs in the early hours of the morning, but resisted the urge to check on him. Driving home from the funeral yesterday, he’d made it perfectly clear that he was in no mood to talk. They barely said a word before going to bed, where he stayed on his side of the mattress and she lay awake for hours listening to him toss and turn before exhaustion got the better of her and she sank into a dreamless sleep. She was up, showered and dressed when she found him crashed out on the sofa, surrounded by empty lager cans.

The cans are stacked by the bin, rinsed and ready for recycling. Another job she’s suddenly responsible for, another sign that things aren’t right.

‘Owen?’

‘What?’

‘Why won’t you look at me?’

He glares at her. ‘There. I’m looking. Happy now?’

The expression on his face makes her breath catch in her throat. His eyes are cold, his mouth a hard line. There’s no love there at all.

She lowers her voice. ‘Not really, no.’

He shrugs. ‘Yeah, well, that makes two of us.’

‘I’m worried about you, Owen.’

‘Really? It sounds to me as if all you’re worried about is whether someone you never even met was gay or not.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘I never had you down as a bigot, Helen.’

He says this with such contempt, it takes her a moment to respond.

‘I’m not.’

‘Then why go on about it? He was gay. Now he’s dead. What difference does it make?’

‘None. I just thought you might have mentioned it, that’s all.’

‘What do you want me to say, Helen?’

There are so many things she wants him to say. She wants him to tell her that he still loves her. She wants him to assure her that there’s no truth in what Jackson had said, that it’s all just a vicious lie. But she can’t tell him that. Things are bad enough already. The man she loves seems further from her now than when he was stationed thousands of miles away. She doesn’t know what to expect or who he is anymore. The thought terrifies her.

‘Well?’ he says. There’s an edge to his voice, a goading tone that sounds almost menacing.

‘Please, Owen,’ she says. ‘I’m scared.’

‘And we can’t have that, can we?’

‘What?’

‘A man’s dead. A mother has lost her son. And you’re scared.’ His eyes flash. ‘What have you got to be scared of?’

She feels her voice crack. ‘You,’ she says. ‘I’m scared of you.’

His eyes soften. For a moment, it looks as if she’s finally getting through to him. Then his face darkens.

‘I don’t need this right now,’ he says, shoving aside the breakfast bowl and rising quickly from his chair. ‘I really don’t need this.’

‘But what about your breakfast?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

He storms out of the room and up the stairs. She hears the floorboard on the landing creak and the sound of a door slam. There’s movement in the bedroom above. Maybe he’s going back to bed. Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea. Then heavy footsteps thunder down the stairs and he reappears, dressed in jogging trousers and the T-shirt he’d slept in. In his hand is the army beret he’d worn at the funeral.

She follows him into the hall. ‘Where are you going?’

He opens the front door without looking at her. ‘Out.’

‘Out where?’

He turns to her, eyes blazing. ‘Just out. This is doing my head in. What’s with all the questions today? I need peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask?’

‘Owen,’ she pleads. ‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m sick of talking. I need to do something.’

‘Do what?’

‘I don’t know! Clear my head. Walk it off. Whatever.’

‘Owen!’ she cries.

‘For Christ’s sake, Helen! Just leave me alone!’

He pulls the door closed behind him. Somehow it’s worse than if he’d slammed it.

She sinks onto the foot of the stairs and buries her head in her hands. Her mind races.

Where has he gone? What’s he running away from? Why won’t he talk to me
?

She thinks back to the funeral, to the hospital, to that night in the pub in Birmingham. She knows Jackson is a bigot and a bully, knows he’d say anything to stir up trouble. Still the doubts creep in. Is it possible to live with someone for years and not really know them? What was it Owen said to her the other day? ‘People aren’t always who you think they are.’ Was he trying to tell her something?

Footsteps approach the front door. She looks up expectantly, sees a shadowy figure through the frosted glass panel. But it’s just the postman. A handful of envelopes flop onto the mat. She thinks of Owen’s letters, wonders if there’s something she missed. He’d never mentioned Collins, not as far as she can recall. But maybe there’s something in one of the letters from Afghanistan, some clue to his state of mind that will help her make sense of things.

She runs upstairs to the bedroom and pulls the shoebox out from under the bed.
Strange
. It feels lighter than before. Her stomach sinks as she lifts the lid. The box is empty. Owen’s letters, her father’s photos, cards, newspaper clippings and old coins – all gone. Frantically, she searches under the bed – nothing.

Her pulse quickens. Someone has been through her things. Owen wouldn’t do this to her, would he? He may have been acting strangely lately, but he knows how precious those keepsakes are. Then it hits her. Siân was in this room. She brought her home drunk the night they first met. She packed a case for her the night they went to Birmingham. The coin she found in Siân’s bag at the hotel – she hadn’t imagined it after all. It
was
one of her father’s.

Dismay turns to anger, much of it directed at herself. If only she hadn’t been so drunk. If only she hadn’t been so trusting. But still there’s an element of disbelief. She shakes her head, climbs to her feet and begins rummaging through the chest of drawers. It’s all a big mistake, surely? She’s been so confused lately, out of her mind with worry, head all over the place. Maybe she’ll find what she’s looking for hidden at the back of a drawer, with no recollection of how it got there. But all she finds are clothes.

The bottom drawer is where Owen keeps his gym things – a few pairs of shorts and T-shirts folded in neat piles. Only now it’s crammed full. A gym bag and a pair of army desert fatigues are bundled together on top. The bag is empty. In one of the trouser pockets she finds a Swiss army knife, in another a military sewing-repair kit. What are they doing here? Normally he’s so meticulous about things. The trousers aren’t even clean. There’s an oil stain on one leg and, when she empties out the pockets, a fine layer of sand trickles onto the clothes below.

Then she sees it. Buried beneath the trousers, wrapped in one of her husband’s T-shirts is a large manilla envelope – the same envelope he’d snatched from her hands a few days ago. It’s been opened. She reaches inside and takes out a sheaf of double-spaced, typed, A4 pages, held together with a large paper clip. The paper is crisp and yellowed at the edges. Printed in block capitals at the top of the first page is her father’s name –

RICHARD THOMAS

Next to it, someone has scrawled in blue ballpoint pen, ‘I think this answers your questions.’

Who is the note addressed to? The envelope is addressed to Owen, but the handwriting on the note is different, the ink faded with age.

She begins reading.

‘People aren’t always who you think they are.’

She frowns. That’s the phrase Owen had used. Why would he say that? And why would he hide this from her? She continues reading.

This was the view expressed by Jane Morgan, a barmaid at The Jolly Brewer pub in Park Street. Mr Thomas, who died two weeks ago, has been described by one local newspaper as a hero who lost his life defending his family. But this reporter has uncovered a very different story. Far from being a devoted husband and father, Richard Thomas was an alcoholic who cheated on his wife with a girl barely half his age.

Helen’s blood runs cold. Who is this reporter? It doesn’t say. There’s no name or signature next to the handwritten note. It doesn’t even say which newspaper they’re writing for.

Halfway down the first page, a whole paragraph has been blacked out with a heavy marker pen. She holds the paper up to the light but is unable to decipher the missing words.

More lines of text have been blacked out on the next page. Names have been circled in blue ink or underlined with a yellow highlighter pen: Lisa Johns, who used to live a few doors down but moved away shortly after her father died; Mr Roberts, who lived across the road; Jackie Evans, a friend of her mother’s, better known to her as Auntie Jackie.

Lines jump out at her: ‘I think he felt trapped in that marriage’; ‘he looked like he’d been up boozing all night’; ‘I think it looks a bit odd when a married man starts hanging around with a younger woman’; ‘poor little Helen’; ‘she was so close to her dad’.

Who were these people talking about? Her father wasn’t a drunk. He would never have cheated on her mother. Why would people say these things?

She turns to the last page. Someone called Mark Yardley claimed to have seen her father at the Black Path hours before he died.

Mr Yardley said he had been walking along the path for ‘no more than five minutes’ when he heard raised voices up ahead. ‘I thought it was just kids messing about at first. Then I heard a man’s voice. He was shouting, something about his wife and how people should mind their own business. And then I heard some lads yelling back. One sounded really angry. But it was hard to make out the words. They were all shouting over each other.’

It was only when Mr Yardley approached that the shouting stopped. Mr Yardley saw a man he now identifies as Mr Richard Thomas. ‘And there were three lads with him, aged between fifteen and seventeen.’

Who the hell is Mark Yardley? She’s never even heard of him. And what would her father be doing at the Black Path? None of this makes any sense.

It’s impossible to read what comes next. Two whole paragraphs have been blacked out. Then, at the bottom of the page, one sentence is clearly visible.

‘You’d think the wife would show some concern when her husband has just been murdered.’

***

Helen’s heart pounds as she gathers up the sheets of paper from the floor and stuffs them back into the envelope. She wants to dismiss everything she’s read as a pack of lies. It’s just words on paper, written by some anonymous reporter. There’s no proof that any of it is true.

But already there are doubts forming, questions she can’t answer. Why did Lisa Johns move away so suddenly? Helen can picture her now, leaning over the front gate, all smiles and eyelashes and perky little breasts.