Ridley rolled his eyes, but Anik was being sucked in.
‘Hard to believe.’ Gareth shook his head. ‘I mean, Dad and his mates were guessing left, right and centre about who it could be. Someone even thought old Buster had snuck back, done the job, and buggered off again.’
‘On the night your dad died, you said he was visited by a man claiming to be a policeman...’
‘That’s right. Big fella. Dark hair. Bit smaller than me. We don’t have CCTV on them back stairs, so I can’t tell you much more than that, really. Dad was a very sick man in those final months. Anything could have caused an angina attack at any moment. But, well, he had a massive stroke on top of it, so... no chance. I’m sorry I can’t help you any more than that, I really am.’
‘Death of a Salesman!’ Penny shrieked.
Maggie moved on to miming the last word in War of the Worlds and wondered how the hell this game of charades was ever going to end. Jack watched Charlie sleep. He was in a recliner, feet up, blanket over his knees. The heating was on full blast, but Charlie really felt the cold now. His head had lolled to one side, and the skin on the lower side of his face seemed to have slid down his skull — he just had no muscles left to hold it all up.
‘Planet of the Apes!’
Maggie screamed ‘Yes!’, gave Penny a round of applause, said how incredibly clever she was, and they swapped places.
Jack laughed under his breath as Maggie slid down the arm of the chair he was sitting in. He squished up a little, but this chair wasn’t wide enough for the two of them. They didn’t care. They watched Penny stomp around the lounge, mouthing the word ‘Godzilla’. She was so bad at games! By eight o’clock, Penny was snoozing on the sofa, Charlie was in bed, and Maggie and Jack were in the kitchen tidying up after dinner.
Jack opened the fridge to put the butter away and his attention was caught by the shelf full of high-protein, high-vitamin, high-mineral, life-prolonging milkshakes.
‘Thanks, Maggie,’ he whispered.
‘What for?’
‘For buying a month’s supply of these. Imagine if you’d bought a week’s worth. Imagine what that would have been like for Mum to see.’ Maggie turned him round and he was crying. ‘I couldn’t do this without you.’
‘You don’t have to do anything without me. Ever. And Penny will stay with us for as long as she needs.’
‘They’re in the nursery...’ he said half to himself.
This thought had come from him trying to work out how they were all going to fit into a two-bedroom flat; but it instantly turned into a much more disturbing thought.
‘He’s going to die in the nursery, Mags. You hear, don’t you, of babies and kids sensing stuff that’s gone on before them. What if Dad—?’
Maggie hugged Jack. ‘Your dad is a loving man with a beautiful soul. A room is a room, but if Charlie hangs around... I think we’d be blessed to have him looking over our little one.’
Jack began laughing at his irrational thoughts. As Maggie hugged him, she couldn’t tell where the giggling ended and the crying began, nor did she care. When Jack was ready, he pulled away.
‘We do need three rooms, though. When the time’s right, I’ll ask Mum what’s left from their pensions and the sale of the bungalow — and I’m up for promotion.’
‘As long as we’re all happy,’ Maggie said, ‘everything will work out.’
Jack loved her impractical take on finances, but one of them had to be sensible.
Jack walked the last few miles back to the police station to collect the car. It was just getting dark, and the streets were alive with a mix of commuters and drinkers. He used this time to talk himself into giving the women up, getting his promotion and living happily ever after with Maggie. He liked them, but he loved Maggie and that’s all that really mattered in the end. Telling Ridley about the phone call from Julia to Darren would be simple. But he’d need to work out how to get the women’s new names into the mix. He’d need to lie about how he got his hands on the notebook, and why it wasn’t found in the raid. He’d pretty much decided to make Gareth hand it in and pretend to have found it in his dad’s bedroom at the care home. That would work.
As Jack rounded the corner towards the police station car park, he suddenly stopped dead. By the passenger door of his car, a shadowy figure was trying to break in.
Jack didn’t shout out; he just ran, full pelt, in the hope that his gaining momentum would give him a good enough head start to catch the would-be thief before they even saw him coming. All Jack could think about was the notebook in the glovebox. And then he thought about how old the car was and how easy it was to bloody well break into.
Just as the passenger door finally gave way, Jack launched himself at the thief and they both hit the ground hard. The man’s shoulder hit him in the face and a piercing pain shot through his nose, rendering him useless for long enough to allow the man to scrabble to his feet and run. The chase was on.
His target was hefty and slower than Jack — but Jack reckoned he’d be a challenge when caught, so he’d have to get the upper hand quickly. He swiftly gained ground and the second they turned onto a street with a grass verge, Jack dived at the man’s legs, taking them both down on to the soft turf. Jack grabbed the man’s right arm with the intention of twisting it up his back, but he was too strong and shrugged Jack off like a rag doll. The man, unable to get to his feet more quickly than Jack, flipped onto his back so when Jack came in again, he got a fist to the side of his jaw, sending him spinning across the pavement. Now the man had time to stand up and make a break for it again while Jack was still on his hands and knees, trying to make sense of where he was. He shook the dizziness away, stood, stumbled into a tree trunk, righted himself, focused on the running figure through his streaming eyes, and powered after him.
Jack rounded a corner just seconds after the man and, out of the blue, was sucker-punched to the ground. It was like running into an iron bar. The pain was sickening. Jack flipped onto his hands and knees and vomited on the pavement. His nose dripped bright red blood onto the grey concrete and his eyes watered in sympathy.
The man stood over Jack. As Jack’s head spun and he tried to stop himself from vomiting again, he heard a few words.
‘... not stealing, you prick... a gift.’
Jack’s head became too heavy to hold up. He lay down on the hard, cold pavement and looked straight into the light on top of the lamppost above his head. He could feel the blood running down his throat, so he rolled onto his side and spat it out. From this position, Jack watched the man’s dirty white trainers walk away.
A moment later, a Yorkshire terrier sniffed its way along the blood trail and licked at Jack’s face, bringing him back to himself. As he clambered back to his feet, using the wall for balance, the pain in his face had subsided just enough for the pain in his arm to take over. It was excruciating and, although he had never broken a bone in his life, it felt like it must be broken. Jack pushed his aching body upright, fell back against the wall, pushed himself vertical again and spread his legs in the hope of being steadier on a wider base. He wobbled on the spot while the elderly woman in front of him, the terrier now tucked under her arm, came into focus and asked if he needed an ambulance. Jack shook his head and started back towards the police station.
The car’s passenger-side door was still open. And on the seat was a bag he didn’t recognise. He reached over this bag to check the notebook was still in the glovebox — it was. Jack kneeled heavily onto the edge of the footwell.
... not stealing, you prick... a gift.