He could see Paterson struggling with some decision.
“There were stories about some trouble she’d been in,” he said at last. “Other trouble. But I couldn’t tell you what. I don’t listen to that sort of thing.”
“Do you know anybody who might know?”
The other man considered, then shook his head.
“How about the member’s son you were talking about?”
“The family moved away last year. Couldn’t tell you where they are now.” He must have read the frustration in Ben’s face. “You thought I could tell you something to help get him back.”
It wasn’t a question. Ben hadn’t mentioned anything about why he wanted to know, only that he was worried about Jacob.
“I’ve been told there’s no chance.”
Paterson took a pull from the pint. “John Kale’s not going to let him go. It won’t matter what anybody tells him.”
Ben didn’t answer.
“He was always possessive. Didn’t like our Jeanette going out or doing anything without asking him. He was bad enough that way then. Now he’s got his son back he won’t let nobody take him again.” He tapped his finger on the table for emphasis. “I mean nobody. And I wouldn’t like to say what’ll happen if anyone tries.”
“You think I should just give him up?”
A weariness seemed to come over the older man, then it was gone. “I don’t like to think of my grandson in that house any more than you do. But John’s not going to deliberately hurt him. He’s all he’s got. Forget her, that tart...” He made a dismissive brushing-away gesture. “She’s just a bit of nothing. It’s the boy he’d lay down his life for. If he thinks he’s going to be taken away again, it’ll be like losing everything twice. I don’t think he’ll care what he does then.”
“I’ll be careful,” Ben said.
Paterson reached for his glass. “It’s not you I’m thinking about.”
They had another drink at the club — which Ben bought, so obviously the protocol of guests not buying applied only to the first round — and then went back to the house. Paterson invited him to stay for lunch. “I’ve done enough for two,” he said. “Force of habit.”
Afterwards they watched the football match on the small TV in the lounge. Ben felt drowsy and comfortable. The beer, the roast lunch and the coal fire popping in the grate combined to make him feel more relaxed than he had in ages. Whole swathes of the afternoon passed without them talking, but there was no awkwardness in the silences. When Paterson announced that he would have to get ready to visit his wife, Ben offered to go with him to the hospital. The decline came without fuss or self-consciousness.
“She’s not at her best just now. You can call round again when she’s back at home.”
Ben understood, without feeling offended, that it was time for him to go. Paterson saw him to the door, but they didn’t shake hands. It wouldn’t have felt right.
“Don’t push him too far,” the older man told him as he left.
Ben almost said okay. But he didn’t.
Chapter seventeen
He spent Christmas in the Caribbean. It was one of the plum jobs that came along every now and again, a scramble from an advertising agency who had decided to switch photographers at the last minute and needed something to show their clients early in the New Year. They sounded relieved when Ben accepted the job. Almost as relieved as he felt.
He sent Jacob a big parcel of Christmas presents, but he had no idea if he’d understand who they were from. Or if Kale would let him have them.
Before he went away he spoke to Ann Usherwood about investigating Sandra’s background. The solicitor had been doubtful. She’d warned it would be expensive, and probably not tell them anything they didn’t already know. “If there was something incriminating the social services would have it on record,” she pointed out.
But Ben insisted. If it had got Quilley nearly killed, it had to be worth knowing.
He left for the shoot without having heard anything. At the last minute a heavy weight of reluctance descended and almost made him back out. He felt certain that he was letting down his guard, struck by a superstitious conviction that something disastrous would happen if he wasn’t at hand to somehow prevent it. Only the fact that he wouldn’t hear anything from Usherwood over Christmas anyway, and the knowledge that his professional reputation might not stand another dent, made him go.
When he came off the plane and felt the sun bake down on him he was glad he had. It was so far removed from anything he associated with Christmas — and any stinging reminders of Sarah and Jacob — that the period he’d been dreading slipped by almost without him noticing.
Even Christmas Day passed relatively painlessly. They worked in the morning then spent the rest of the day getting slowly pissed at a beach bar. By the evening Ben had even forgotten what time of the year it was.
There was no escaping New Year’s Eve, though. He was back in London by then. He had been invited to several parties, more even than usual, but while he knew the reason for it and was grateful, he had no intention of going to any. He planned to lock the door, turn the clocks to the wall, then watch videos and drink until January had safely started.
But memories of other years came at him like a juggernaut.
Only four of them; that was all they had spent together. It seemed incredible that it had been so few. The best had been their second, when he and Sarah had left Jacob with her parents and gone to a New Year’s Eve party in Knightsbridge. The house had been ridiculously opulent but they hadn’t known many people there and had left not long after midnight.
Slightly drunk, they had returned home, gigglingly stripped off and made love on the lounge floor. Sarah had gone down on him, teasing him with hands and tongue, and when he came in a spine-arching spurt she had grinned up at him and mock-roared, “Hap-py New Year!” The previous year’s hadn’t been so memorable — Jacob had come down with flu, so they’d stayed in — but looking back on it now, that was the last they would spend together, the last Sarah had been alive for, making it if anything more poignant.
It seemed at once close enough to touch, yet much further removed than a mere twelve months.
He put the vodka bottle on the floor within easy reach and chain-watched one mindless video after another.
When the phone rang it startled him out of a doze. He jumped, spilling vodka from the glass loosely balanced on his chest. The room spun as he stood up. On the TV a mass of images refused to congeal into any coherent picture. The phone continued to ring. He wished he’d thought to disconnect it. He didn’t want to hear anyone wishing him a Happy New Year.
He didn’t think there was any such thing.
Resenting the intrusion, he answered it. “Yeah?” he said, deliberately surly. Sounds of a party came down the line — cheers, hooters, the cracks of party poppers.
“Ben? Is that you?”
The unexpected voice cut through the vodka. “Dad?”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yeah. Where are you?”
“We’re at some friends’ house.”
Ben couldn’t stop the drop of disappointment that he wasn’t nearby, even while he recognised its absurdity.
“I thought I’d call and see how you were.”
“Oh... not bad. You?”
“Fine.” There was a pause. “I just wanted to say...”
Don’t. Not ‘Happy New Year’. Please don’t.
“...well, you know. I’m thinking of you.”
Ben felt a lump rise in his throat.
“You there, Ben?”
“Yeah.”
Somebody whooped in the background. There was a burst of laughter. He could hear someone calling his father’s name. It sounded like his stepmother.