‘Norma was gay. She kept it very quiet — no other option in the eighties. In ’89, she was injured in the line of duty. It was serious. Her next of kin was contacted — Amelie, I think her name was. I had to liaise for a time and, well... You only had to see her at Norma’s bedside to know they were in love. Norma spilled the beans and I said that it didn’t make the blindest bit of bloody difference. Norma and Mike could still have known each other, of course. But, I have to say, I’d be very surprised if Norma had anything to do with your train robbery. I’d assume Mike’s personal connections to London’s lowlife are a better angle of enquiry. Follow the evidence though, Simon... I’ve been surprised before.’
‘That’s Sam,’ Julia said when she returned to the conservatory with a fresh pot of tea. Jack stood by the window, watching Sam teach a younger boy how to play keepy-uppy. ‘He’s 8 and has scars like you wouldn’t believe, outside and in. His instinct is to fight anyone bigger and teach football to anyone smaller. Battling against the man he’s meant to be and yearning for the kid he never was.’
‘He looks happy.’
As Jack poured tea for them both, his mobile buzzed. A text message from Ridley:
In confidence — ID is Mike Withey. Informing family now. No private connection to Norma, as she was a lesbian.
Jack tried to hide his grin. He knew for a fact that Ridley would have agonised over whether to type the word ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’. He might even have googled the most PC phrasing.
Jack handed Julia her tea and then excused himself to go to the bathroom.
He perched on the wash basin, reread the content of Ridley’s text, and suddenly felt like he was definitely wasting his time with these bloody Grange women. He should be back at the nick, with his team, looking for a bunch of dodgy coppers with connections to hired hands with enough balls to do a train robbery and kill one of their own.
When Jack re-entered the conservatory, a young girl was sitting on Julia’s lap, crying her heart out. Julia indicated that he should keep on with his questions while she rocked the distraught girl back to calmness.
‘Do you run this place alone?’ he enquired.
‘I have two people helping me. I’d trust them with my life. I did have three, until the father of one of the children turned up on my doorstep demanding his son back. I knew who’d given out our address.’ Then Julia spoke to the girl. ‘Go on. Stick by Suzie for now, please. I’ll come and talk to Darren in a minute.’
The girl jumped off Julia’s knee and headed for Suzie, who Jack hadn’t noticed was waiting in the doorway. Suzie was big for such a young-looking girl and didn’t seem ‘all there’. She seemed vulnerable and timid. When the girls had left the room, Julia continued.
‘Darren’s a worry. He’s feral. I don’t mean that maliciously, it’s just the best word to describe him. He lashes out so quickly.’
‘Self-preservation.’ Jack suddenly recalled another memory long buried. ‘A much bigger lad was after my lunch money at school — this was after I was placed with my foster parents — and as he got within reach I hit him before he could hit me. I remember that I didn’t want to fight him, so I had to create a lie to tell myself... the lie being that I wasn’t afraid.’
‘I have a feeling you still protect yourself in the same way,’ Julia teased. ‘You stand when I’m seated, in order to command the room. You have your hands in your pockets to show how at ease you are, you don’t break eye contact showing you’re no pushover, you chat to draw me in. I studied psychology as part of my doctorate, and I have to say that you are very hard to read for a copper. You’re either genuine or you’re one big façade, DC Warr.’
Jack blew air from his nostrils as he smiled. He liked Julia very much — she sounded posh and she looked very feminine, but he didn’t doubt that she was as tough as old boots.
When he asked if the isolation affected her, she said, ‘Isolation keeps us safe. I’m guardian to these children — that’s a privilege that I don’t take lightly. The truth, although they think the opposite, is that they saved my life. I owe these children everything.’
Four hours later, in West London, Jack rang Angela’s doorbell. She opened the door without asking who was there, and from her surprised expression it was immediately clear to him that she’d been expecting someone else.
‘DC Warr,’ he said, holding up his warrant card.
She led him into the lounge, where she’d been re-covering a set of dining room chairs, shaking her head.
‘I don’t see the point in that bottom door if people hold it open for strangers — no offence. I thought you were Irene from 36 — she wanted to take a picture of her chairs to show her mum. Sorry, that’s not remotely interesting. What can I do for you?’
Jack explained that he wanted to ask Angela about the train robbery, even though he wasn’t expecting much, having read her original statement.
‘I wasn’t there,’ she explained. ‘I’d taken Kathleen’s kids away for the night. We got back early and The Grange was swarming with police. That’s the first I knew of it. Tea?’
‘No, thank you. I’m all tea’d out.’
‘Ask anything you like — but I’m going to keep going on these chairs. I’ve got a deadline!’
Jack asked question after question, most of which were answered with ‘I don’t know, I wasn’t there’. It struck him as interesting that none of the women from The Grange were remotely flustered by him showing up at their homes. Surely train robbers, even 24 years on, would be a little surprised and jumpy? He got no sense of tension from any of the women, and there was precious little evidence of unexplained wealth.
Angela’s flat was probably two- or three-bedroomed — the wall of photos showed numerous children, but they couldn’t have all fitted in there. A toy box in the corner of the lounge contained some boys’ stuff and some girls’ stuff, so Jack guessed that at least two kids lived here. He also guessed the rest must be extended family. As he looked around the walls he noticed, high on a shelf, far out of the reach of sticky young fingers, were two lone toys — a small, worn teddy bear and a bright yellow teething ring. Special memories being kept safe, he supposed.
The family feel of this place was oddly similar to Julia’s home, even though in other ways they were vastly different. The children in these photos had probably never known abuse, violence or anger.
Angela freely told Jack all about herself. She ran an upholstering business, earning money from family, friends and neighbours — she was bringing back the make-do-and-mend ethos in a ‘throwaway’ society. Her husband, Rob, was doing the same with cars and bikes. Angela felt the need to digress for long enough to confirm that their businesses were legitimate and that they paid all their taxes. Unfortunately, seconds later, Irene from 36 came up to take photos of her newly covered dining chairs and took the opportunity to pay Angela in cash.
‘Take it now, Ange, for God’s sake, or it’ll go straight back out on the 3.40 at Chepstow.’
Jack smiled as Angela squirmed, trying to work out what kind of a copper he was. He laughed.
‘I’m not here for anything other than a little background on the train robbery.’
And to prove he wasn’t going to turn her in to HMRC, he accepted the cup of tea offered when he first arrived because, as every good cop knows, sharing tea breaks down barriers.
Jack and Angela talked for a further thirty minutes about the other women at The Grange, about the failed children’s home, about the death of Dolly Rawlins — and this final topic of conversation had a clear impact on Angela’s mood.