It was only now that Angela recognised how sad Dolly had been when she’d said those words. Dolly had lost her own babies, she’d lost the man she loved more than life itself and she was hopelessly sad. Even if she had lived, she’d never have been happy again. Angela moved the little bear to one side and took out her sewing kit.
Maggie had been sitting in the restaurant for twenty minutes. She was drinking faster than usual, embarrassed to be sitting by herself at a table clearly set for two people. And if that wasn’t enough, she was dressed to kill, with her 40-minute hair and her 30-minute make-up — triple the time she normally gave herself to get ready for a night out.
That morning, Jack had promised her breakfast in bed and a cuddle and he’d failed to deliver either. This evening, he had promised her a night out — which he was failing to deliver. Maggie wasn’t annoyed; she was deeply upset. She could feel everything slipping away because of Jack’s crazy obsession with finding his birth father, in the hope of finding himself. She knew he was grieving for Charlie, so she was being as supportive as possible — but he wasn’t making it easy. She looked at the bottle of white in front of her — one glass left. She swigged the last mouthful from her glass and then emptied the bottle. The sommelier dived across the restaurant, but he was far too slow. He removed the empty bottle and, with a patronising tone and a tilt of the head, asked Maggie if she’d like some bread while she waited for her companion. She wanted to tell him to fuck off, but instead she smiled and said, ‘No, thank you.’
Maggie spent the next five minutes watching a spot of white wine, which she’d dripped onto the tablecloth from the now-empty bottle, dry slowly. She glanced at the clock on the wall. She’d been sitting alone for thirty-five minutes; she was starving and pissed. When the restaurant door next opened, she had to look twice at the man who entered before she recognised him. Jack was dressed as he was always dressed, but he looked different. Maggie had rehearsed what she was going to say when he finally walked in, all apologetic and eager to make amends, but this wasn’t the man she’d expected. This man looked her straight in the eyes and smiled, as though he’d done nothing at all wrong. He looked handsome, confident, powerful. He looked like a man who knew that he was worth waiting for. Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Jack didn’t apologise for being late and Maggie didn’t shout at him as she’d planned to. He simply sat opposite her, stared deep into her soul with his smiling brown eyes and told her how much he loved her.
Chapter 31
Colchester Police Station was a square, tan-coloured new-build on the A134 with a green courtyard right in the centre. It blended well into the surrounding area, making it seem unobtrusive and non-threatening, regardless of what went on inside. This is where Anik was heading, although he was currently stuck behind a stalled learner-driver on the roundabout just twenty yards away. Ridley was in the passenger seat, reading the police files on Thomas Kurts, Rashid Wassan and Dennis Marchant; Laura, who also had a copy of the files, was frowning as she read, having been relegated to the back seat. Anik was revelling in his ‘promotion’ to driver, but this was because Ridley knew that he couldn’t read in cars without being sick.
‘The suspects have all had specialist training,’ Ridley continued. ‘Marchant’s a munitions expert who we now know was at the birth of his brother’s second child on the night of the train robbery. His brother had lost his licence one week earlier, so Marchant had stepped up as the designated baby taxi. He’s in all the photos. But we’re still going to interview him — not being there doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved. Wassan, no such alibi, was a sapper alongside Barry Cooper. Dangerous men. These interviews will probably be “no comment”. They’ll be good under pressure, so won’t bat an eye. This will more than likely come down to evidence, not confessions. It’s a longer road, but that’s fine. We’re smart, methodical and we’re patient... and Anik, if you don’t overtake that stalled learner right now, I’m getting out and walking.’
Jack stared at Foxy, waiting to hear words that he understood.
‘Using the Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups as a sort of road map, my biologist friend told me — and I’m sorry to break it to you like this — but shoddy dress sense does indeed run in your family. You share patrilineal lineage with the owner of this very distasteful Isle of Man baseball cap.’
Foxy could see that Jack hadn’t really understood a word. He went on.
‘In layman’s terms, you and the owner of this cap have the same dad. Is that what you expected to hear? Is it what you wanted to hear?’
Jack said nothing as he absorbed the information.
‘How’s Charlie?’ Foxy asked suddenly.
Jack snapped out of his trance. ‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ Foxy threw Jack a look. Eddie’s words came to mind: We are who we are. Can’t be anyone else.
‘Charlie’s fine,’ Jack said. ‘Holding on, you know.’
‘So — you going to tell me who you’ll be sending a Father’s Day card to next year?’
Jack managed a smile; he loved Foxy dearly, but he could be a tactless bastard at times. Charlie wasn’t even dead yet and he was making jokes.
Maggie sat at Jack’s desk in the squad room, watching Morgan injecting insulin into his belly. Once that was done, he stood up, tucked his shirt back in and left the room without a word. He wasn’t the most sociable of men. Maggie looked around the mostly empty squad room. The evidence boards were a complex array of photos, single words that meant little to her, dates and times, plans of action. Some of the photos here were the same as the photos on the wall in her spare bedroom; she didn’t recognise the soldiers.
As soon as Jack came back into the squad room, Maggie stood to meet him. But Jack sat her back down, pulled up a chair next to her, opened his desk drawer and took out the battered old file given to him by Charlie. Inside the file were all the photos and paperwork that Maggie had already seen, plus the photo Jack had stolen from Eddie’s album.
‘This is Harry Rawlins. He was one of the biggest criminal names in the eighties.’
Jack was whispering. This conversation, in the middle of the squad room, was for her ears only. Even though Maggie knew who Harry Rawlins was, she could see that he needed to say the most important bits again.
‘He was respected — reluctantly by some — but people who knew him couldn’t help but respect him. Even the copper who spent his entire career trying to catch Harry respected him. Dolly loved him — even though he had so many affairs. His cousin, Eddie, loved him — even though his youngest son belongs to Harry. Harry could do that... He could shit on people and they’d still love him.’
Jack covered his desk with newspaper cuttings from one day back in August 1984, the funeral of ‘Harry Rawlins’.
‘Hundreds of people, from both sides of the law, turned up to see Harry off — or to make sure the bastard was dead, I don’t know, but look at them, Mags. Look how many people are there. He was infamous. He was Harry Rawlins... He was my dad.’
Maggie tipped her head to one side, her eyebrows raised and her eyes filled with sympathy.
‘Don’t do that,’ Jack said gently. ‘Don’t look at me like I’m making a mistake ’cos I’m grieving. I had a DNA test done.’
For the first time since Jack had started on his strange journey of self-discovery, Maggie started taking him seriously. She pulled her chair tight under Jack’s desk and read through the newspaper cuttings in front of her. Jack looked around the squad room — every person here was a stranger. His immediate team was currently in Essex without him, being led by a man who had lost faith in him, if he’d ever really had any faith in him in the first place. Jack picked up one of the old, blurred, black and white newspaper images of Harry’s funeral.