And that was that. We gave the notebook to Simon, and Jo was released the same afternoon. On bail, but it’s only a matter of time. Martin was something else – threatening the Detective Inspector that if he didn’t ensure charges were dropped he’d be reading about the whole fiasco over his morning cup of tea, along with the rest of the nation.
Jo was shaky. She’d had an operation on her shoulder, and her arm was bandaged. She was still woozy from the anaesthetic. I had to tell her over and over, if she hadn’t shot Col, I would be dead. She took a life but she saved a life. My life. Col killed Megan because she was on to him. Her death means there’s another child out there, condemned to grow up in trauma, the odds stacked against them. The ripples spread, patterns repeat and so, to my mind, Col deserved everything he got.
Megan had suspected Col, and the final thing she’d written in the notebook we found was dated the last Saturday of her life. The day we’d met her on the Parkinson Steps. She’d known her life was in danger. She’d left a note to be passed to her son in the event that anything happened to her.
Two days after Jo’s release, on the Friday, we went to the office. My replacement phone had arrived, and Jo was setting it up for me – can’t say I was jumping up and down for joy, but at least it gave Jo something to focus on. The bell went, and Carly stepped into the offices.
‘Wow,’ I said as I caught sight of the young man behind her, holding her hand. I recognized him immediately, even though we’d been given so many different pictures of him – heroin addict, public schoolboy, bereaved child, boyfriend, best friend, turncoat. It was odd to see them there, all squashed into one human body. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘Sorry,’ said Carly, although her grin made me think she wasn’t really.
‘You knew where he was all along.’ It wasn’t a question. And in that moment, looking at Jack, the colour in his cheeks, the truth hit me, and I cursed myself for not seeing it from the start, from the moment we laid eyes on the smack in the Old Holborn tin. If there’s one thing I should know, it’s an addict doesn’t give away his stash. ‘Rehab,’ I said.
‘Where?’ said Jo.
‘Devon,’ Carly said. ‘He’s done it.’
‘Early days,’ Jack said, but I could see the pride in the way he held himself. ‘Three weeks.’
‘You’ve done the worst bit,’ Carly said. ‘Anyway,’ she turned to me, ‘I wanted you to know he’s OK.’
‘Do you know where Brownie is?’ Jack asked. ‘There’s no one at the squat.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘I spoke to Pants. He said Brownie’s disappeared, that it all kicked off. I feel like a right shit, but I had to get clean. I was no use to anyone.’
‘Right,’ I said again. Christ, where to start? I glanced at Jo but the look on her face made it clear. This was my job. ‘Do you want to come through to the back?’
Telling Jack his father was dead was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I recognized the look in his eyes, and it’s not one I’d wish on anyone. I tried to think of anything that might help. ‘He was really pleased to know you had a girlfriend.’
Carly had her arm around Jack’s shoulders.
‘I bet. Always convinced I was gay.’
‘He told us some things, about your mother. She didn’t die in a car crash, Jack.’
He didn’t look up at me. He sat with his head between his hands. I carried on talking, found that once I’d started, the words took on a life of their own.
‘From what he told us, I think your mum was bipolar. She was always up and down, he said. He showed me a note she’d written.’ I faltered, unsure whether to press on. I’d started now though, and I couldn’t stop. ‘Jack, your mum committed suicide.’
Carly stared at me.
Jack didn’t speak for ages. When he finally looked up, Carly had tears running down her face.
‘I know,’ he said.
‘You told me she died in a car crash,’ Carly said.
‘You told Brownie your dad killed her,’ I said.
‘I blamed him,’ Jack said to me. ‘I didn’t want to know. It’s all a mess. I had this recurring dream as a kid, of a car crash.’
‘There was a crash,’ I said. ‘A year or two before she died. You were in the car.’
I watched Jack drink in the facts of his childhood. Try to fit them with his own ideas. I’ve been in that situation. Kept in the dark, piecing together your history, the titbits people throw at you.
‘So who’s the woman who paid you to look for Jack?’ asked Carly.
‘Martha.’
‘“Martha”?’ Carly’s curls shook. ‘Why?’
‘Probably cos she wants to kill me,’ said Jack. ‘She’ll blame me for abandoning Brownie.’
‘She thought you had the cash to pay off Bernie and Duck.’
‘What?’ asked Carly. ‘That’s bonkers.’
Jack shook his head. ‘I bet Brownie’s told her my dad’s loaded. But, I couldn’t go to him. He hates, hated me.’
‘He didn’t hate you. He knew he’d fucked up. He didn’t blame you.’
‘So Martha wanted you to find Jack, so Jack could go to his dad and try and get the money?’
‘Not exactly.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Martha was actually an undercover policewoman called Megan Parsons.’
‘What?’
‘It’s true.’
‘It can’t be. She’s screwing Brownie!’
‘She genuinely fell in love with him. She also blackmailed your father, asked him for the twenty-four thousand pounds you needed to pay off your dealers.’
‘She didn’t.’
‘She did. She got the money, broke into the squat and put it all in what she thought was Brownie’s sock drawers. But you two had swapped rooms.’
‘My dad paid?’
‘He knew he was dying. He thought you were behind the blackmail, and he thought what the hell, you’re going to inherit it all anyway.’
‘I’m going to inherit it all?’
I nodded. ‘That’s what your dad said.’
‘So where’s the money now?’ asked Carly. ‘The money Martha put in Jack’s drawers, I mean?’
‘Pants cleared the room once it was apparent you’d done a runner. He bundled up all your possessions and put them in the cellar. When Martha realized you’d swapped rooms with Brownie, she went back into the squat, discovered all your possessions had gone and thought you’d skipped with the money.’
‘So Bernie and Duck still haven’t been paid?’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much about them. They’ve been arrested. Don’t think they’ll be any trouble in the foreseeable.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘What do you mean “was”?’ asked Carly. ‘You said Martha was an undercover policewoman.’
I hesitated. ‘She was killed.’
‘“Killed”?’
‘Last Saturday. In the line of duty.’
‘Who killed her?’
‘Well, that’s the thing.’ I knew this was a lot for them to take in, and I tried to break it down into bite-sized chunks. ‘Did you ever hear Bernie and Duck mention a guy called T?’
‘T killed Martha?’
‘T was a bent cop.’ I tried not to think of that kiss, the heat of his body next to mine. ‘Martha was on to him. He killed her.’
‘Shit.’
‘“T was a bent cop”?’ Jack repeated my words.
They both stared at me. I took a deep breath. ‘We left our business card at the squat. Bernie and Duck went there, looking for you or Brownie. I think T was putting them under pressure to get you to pay up. Pants told them he’d given us your stuff. Bernie and T broke into our offices, trashed the place. I don’t know whether T recognized Martha’s signature on our client form, or maybe he staked out our offices. Whatever, somehow, T realized Martha was paying us to look for you. He needed to find out what she knew and how much she’d told us.’
‘Where’s T now?’
I swallowed. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Brownie,’ said Jack, and I saw real fear in his eyes. ‘Where’s Brownie?’
I breathed out and felt my shoulders relax. At last, some good news. ‘Don’t worry, Brownie’s safe. He’s in rehab too. Kind of.’
Me and Jo went to Megan’s funeral the following week. She got the full works – the West Yorkshire police saw to that. I was strangely moved by the sight of them all in uniform, carrying her coffin. I got the sense that at least she’d belonged somewhere, that she had a tribe.
I saw her son – at least I assumed it was her son – I didn’t speak to him, but he fit the bill. A teenager, pale-faced and spotty. His dad kept his arm around him all day – never let go of him once – and so I allowed myself to believe that maybe he’d be OK. I comfort myself with the fact that Megan’s cards were marked long before we showed up on the scene. Thank God she’d plucked up the courage to walk through our doors, otherwise maybe Col would have managed to find a way to get rid of her without anyone ever finding out the truth.
The last person to turn up was Aunt Edie. She arrived the day Jo and I were painting the offices. Brownie was with her, half a stone heavier and wearing clothes that fitted him. She’d brought him back to Leeds on the train, wanted to make sure he got home safely.
‘Wow,’ I said, when Brownie had left. ‘What’ve you been feeding him?’
‘Sausages, mainly.’
‘Vegan sausages?’
She gave me a sly look. ‘Now, you’re going to have to keep your eye on him,’ she said. ‘I’ve done my best, but these things take time.’
‘We’ll do what we can, but we’re not a babysitting service,’ I said.
‘Speaking of which, I’ve been trying to ring you for the last week,’ Aunt Edie said, stooping to pull the edges of the old pair of curtains we were using to cover the floor so that the paint didn’t splatter the carpet. ‘I’ve left a dozen messages.’
‘Sorry, Aunt Edie.’ I was standing on the desk, using a roller brush. Jo’s shoulder was strapped, so she was doing the edges with a brush. The room already looked bigger, lighter. ‘We’ve been up to our ears in it all.’ I had sent her the cuttings from the newspapers – we’d been blazoned across most of them, which had been fantastic for business – the phone hadn’t stopped ringing. ‘We haven’t had chance to listen to them all yet.’
‘That’s where I come in.’
‘What?’
‘I’m offering my services.’
‘“Services”?’
‘Answering the phone. Cook, cleaner, general bottle washer.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about—’
‘You two need looking after. I’ve been going out of my mind with boredom since my Arthur, God rest his soul, passed on. This business has reminded me what I need.’
‘“What you need”?’
‘Something to do other than the blinking crossword. I can help you get this place straight for starters.’
I rollered the white paint over the last letters in ‘Be Scarred’ and watched them fade before my eyes. I turned to Aunt Edie. ‘Where would you live?’
‘I’ll apply for one of those housing association flats.’
I looked across at Jo.
She shrugged her one good shoulder and, for the first time since she’d come out of the police station, she grinned. ‘Business is booming.’
True. We’d had four requests for our services so far since the press coverage. Martin had done a great article that all the local press bought. The Yorkshire Evening Post had sent photographers, and they’d done some mean and moody shots down the Dark Arches, Jo’s bright blue eyes, heavily mascaraed, staring into the distance, her shoulder in its black sling.
The piece ran to two pages and told how we’d busted a drugs ring, solved a seventeenyearold case about the disappearance of a young mother, and disposed of a bent copper responsible for the murder of his colleague. Made us sound like superheroes.
Aunt Edie’s here now, on the telephone, chatting to a potential client, and I can’t fault her. Five minutes on the phone and she’s got people telling her intimate details of their lives, even the ones that were just ringing to sell us water coolers.
And she’s managed to work out how to use the oven in the kitchenette without burning the place down.
I haven’t told her about me falling off the wagon, about how good that whisky tasted, that I still smell it whenever I close my eyes. Better than food, better than sex, better than anything I’ve ever tasted. A need to know basis, I decided. I’ve joined one of those fucking AA groups. I figure a bit of help to get through the next few weeks can’t hurt.
I didn’t tell Aunt Edie about David showing up either. Jo reckons he’s got the message and that’s the last I’ll see of him. I’m not convinced but I’m trying not to think about it. No one can know what’s round the next corner.
So, that’s it. A full report. Writing it down means letting it go. Time to finish the chapter, close the book. There is only ever the here and the now, and the smell of freshly baked parkin is making me hungry.
Lee Winters
Director
No Stone Unturned Ltd