Jenna held the notebook open and read the entry over and over again. It would be so easy to take it downstairs, dial that number and ask to speak to Uncle Sandy.
A face filled her mind. So complete that Jenna could have been looking at a photograph. Where had this memory been hiding, she wondered? The face was deeply lined and the skin sagged as if he had lost a huge amount of weight. He had watery-blue eyes, and his hair was cut short – dark but patched with grey. One side of his moustache and the outer edge of an eyebrow were tinged in yellow, as if he had been smoking sixty unfiltered cigarettes a day from the moment he learned to walk.
He had turned up to the trial expecting to be called as a witness, Jenna recalled, but was let go when Robertson changed his plea. Jenna had come across him as she left the court house: an old man hunched over a banister as he eased a bad hip down onto the next step. Looking to ease his journey a little, she’d walked over to him.
‘There’s a lift, sir,’ she said as she approached.
‘There is, aye?’ The man cackled. ‘Is that the wan that’s broke?’
‘It’s broken again?’ she asked. ‘Goodness. That’s awful.’ She pointed at the wheelchair lift nearby. ‘How about that? Would that help?’
The old man muttered something about being the eejit who went on a wheelchair lift without an actual chair with a set of wheels. Then he turned to her.
‘Here, you’re our Danny’s girl, aye? I’m his Uncle Sandy. Well, no’ his uncle, uncle. I used to be their neighbour. Knew all the family.’ He scratched his face. ‘I saw you up the town with Danny one day. Arm in arm, like love’s young dream.’ He winked. Then under his breath added, more soberly, ‘You’re better off without him, doll, he was one bad bastard, but.’
His honesty took her aback.
‘Ah say it as ah see it, hen. He was a trial to his poor mum and dad from the day he was born that boy.’
At that moment a couple walked past. The man must have heard Sandy’s words because he stared at him and growled, ‘For God’s sake, Sandy, can it, will ye?’ The man then looked Jenna up and down, his face a sneer. He shook his head and said something to the woman by his side. She shot Jenna a look full of hatred, mouthed the word ‘whore’ and walked on. Both then clipped down the stone stairs as if desperate to get out of the building.
Jenna felt scored through with hurt by their brief examination. But then recognising the cast of the man’s features, she stepped back, hand over her heart in shock.
‘That’s…?’
‘His dad. And his mum, hen.’ Sandy shook his head. ‘Took it awfy bad.’
They must know, she thought. Danny must have told them about the baby.
Sandy shook his big head slowly, unmindful of the state she was now in, eyes shining as if they held the wisdom of Solomon. ‘They came here expecting answers. And when that bastard changed his plea, that got hit on the head.’ His eyes now offered an apology on their behalf. ‘And now, troubled as they were by their son’s ongoings…’ he made a face at that word, an expression that hinted at deeply unsocial behaviour ‘…they’re hitting out at anyone. Everyone. When a child dies you need an explanation, or a target, eh?’
Jenna wanted to say, But I loved him.
Then a quiet voice added, at first.
‘Word is he was fair besotted wi’ you, hen.’
‘Yeah.’ She felt a surge of emotion, and wiped away a tear.
‘As I said, you’re well shot. If you hadn’t chucked him there’s a fair chance he would have taken you down wi’ him.’
Jenna felt a hit of anger. ‘If you aren’t so proud of Danny why are you here?’
‘I’m a witness, doll. I saw Danny just afore the crash. Him and that Robertson boy. They were out Drymen way, driving towards the loch. I live just outside the town there, and was making my way into Milngavie when I passed them. Must have been just a matter of moments afore the accident.’
Danny’s father’s voice roared up the stairwell.
‘Sandy, are you coming or what?’
‘My old neighbour. We used to be like brothers.’ Sandy rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Allowances are being made.’ He looked down at her hands. At her notebook. ‘You work for the local rag, aye?’
‘Yes,’ Jenna answered.
‘Something I’d like to talk to you about, hen. Might be worth a wee write-up.’ He chanted out his telephone number and asked her to call him. He said something else, explaining what he wanted her to know, but Danny’s father came charging back up the stairs, heckling Sandy to ‘get his arse downstairs if you want a lift.’
Jenna desperately wanted to tell him she was sorry for his loss, that she really didn’t have a choice, but this time he didn’t even give her a second glance, so she knew any approach would be rebuffed. In her distraction she missed most of what Sandy saying, except something about an hour and that something didn’t add up.
Danny’s father turned away and before he followed him, Sandy pulled her close. ‘Well rid, hen. Well rid,’ Sandy said. ‘I knew him since he was a bairn, and, God rest his soul, but when he and that Robertson fella get thigither they’re pure poison.’
That Robertson fella.
Pure poison.
He had been talking about Luke.