The Third Shadow

Thirty-eight

"How are you Jim?" Diane asked finally, this after exhausting her repertoire of libellous supposed workplace scandals. Her tone reminded me a little of Ellie: she wasn't to be fobbed off with mere platitudes. Only the truth - something approaching it at least - would be accepted.

So it was that I briefly outlined the symptoms of fanleaf virus. Described the visit of the ministerial inspection team, the short and mid-term consequences to my business. Went on to recount my call to Heather; without going into specifics, broadly brushstroked the enormity of my debt.

Diane's response was surprisingly upbeat: "Well that's great!" Then, in an attempt to qualify this: "Not the virus thing I mean. Not the financial aspect. But that you called her. Felt comfortable enough to do that."

"Needs must," I muttered.

"Yea, but even so, I think we can call it a step forwards."

"Then why does it feel so much like a step backwards?" I asked.

"Believe me Jim, in a few months, a couple of years at most, you'll look back at this as a starting point in your and Heather's reconciliation." Then, rethinking: "Reconciliation, no - that's not the word." As she searched for the right one I reminded myself that if anyone knew what they were talking about it was Diane, that she'd experienced exactly what I was going through not once but twice. Despite her barbed-wire sense of humour, I knew she'd maintained close, constructive relationships with Kev and Johnny's respective fathers, had retained a certain residual warmth in their regard.

"A starting point in your and Heather's repacification," she self-corrected.

But it struck me this wasn't the right word either. Heather had already repacified herself to me. Forgiven, moved on. I was the one stubbornly digging my heels in.

Dwelling and brooding.

Curdling my insides with wine and rancour.

*

Marston would get back to me on Sunday morning, just as I was passing a razor over jaw in preparation for my lunch appointment at Commander Nuzzo's home.

"On my way back up the A1," he announced. "Spent the night in a B&B. Throw in food and beer, I reckon that's over a hundred quids' worth of expenses you owe me Jim. Sure as hell my editor's not going to be stumping up any cash."

I'd swung back from the bungalow's closet-sized bathroom into its bathroom-sized kitchen/living room, had pulled up a chair at the ricekety old table, my face still half-lathered in shaving foam.

"Thanks," I offered, my gratitude genuine. After all, the guy had sacrificed his Saturday night for me. More than Nuzzo perhaps, it seemed that Marston was my only true ally in still wishing to get to the bottom of the Bracewell case.

"So, I got down there early in the evening. You know, a quick tour of a few pubs." Yes, I'd suspected this might be his strategy. "Lovely place, Stamford. Some cracking boozers." I didn't doubt it; something of a mini Oxford, didn't they say? "Didn't get anything I didn't already know from the tabloids though. You know, that her father's rolling in it and all that. Partner in a construction company, Wollaton and Pearce. Not just residential but offices too, factories, shopping centres, train station redevelopments, everything you can think of. Pratically, half of anything that's been built over the last twenty years in the whole of the East Midlands has got Wollaton and Pearce's pawprint behind it."

Reflecting on this - on the multi-millionaire background Olivia came from - I swished down the remaining mouthful of lukewarm coffee from my breakfast mug there on the table beneath me.

"As you can imagine, it wasn't the local comprehensive school Olivia went to but some posh private school. Some place over towards Oakham, I was told."

There was a pause in his words, the slam of the car horn loud and sudden enough to cause me to wince, snatch the phone involuntarily away from my ear.

"Bloody lorry drivers!" Marstin cursed. Then, settling himself again: "So, it still not having gone nine I decide to have a little drive over there, this place out towards Oakham where she went to school. Picture-postcard little village - you know, all thatched roofs and Mercedes parked in the drives." A diiferent world from Middlesbrough and its surrounds, I thought, pinching together the last remaining crumbs of croissant from the breakfast plate. "And the pub, Lord God, I swear half of the clientele have got wine glasses in their hands rather than beer!" Perhaps remembering that I was in fact a producer of the former type of alcoholic beverage, he carried on without further comment on the preferences of his fellow bar leaners the previous evening. "Anyway, I get talking to this young woman about Olivia's age, and turns out she went to this same private school, the year above." My right hand paused its crumb pinching. This was interesting, yes. "There was a bit of scandal it seems. At 18, her final year at school, Olivia goes and gets herself pregnant. The thing is, she claimed the father was Doug Pearce."

"Her father's business partner," I gasped.

"Imagine, the guy was in his forties, had kids of his own."

I'd noted Marston's choice of the verb 'claimed'. "And did people believe her?"

"Some did it seems, yes. Pearce's wife, for one. Divorced him not long afterwards."

"But not Olivia's father," I mused out loud.

"Exactly. Or at least didn't believe it was Pearce who'd set things into motion. Threw her out of the house, cut all links with her. She ended up having an abortion needless to say. Moved to Nottingham, bit of modelling, escorting, that sort of thing. A dissolute sort of lifestyle I suppose you could say. You know - drugs, casual sex. Then she met Lee Bracewell and the rest, as they say, is history."

Despite her lies and subterfuge, it was impossible in that moment not to feel sorry for her. A victim, a naive young girl dealt a terrible hand. Yet in the context of the case it was difficult to see how this particular piece slotted into place. Seemed to be of a different puzzle entirely.

Maybe Diane had been right, I reflected as Marston ended his call. Sometimes there is no other choice than to accept defeat. Just let things go.

Case resolution is like an old acquaintance you haven't seen for years however. No matter where you might find yourself, no matter what the state of your soul, it can be there hidden just out of sight around the next corner. Something to be stumbled into, chanced upon.

As I finished getting ready for my lunch appointment at commander Nuzzo's that Sunday morning, there was no way I could have guessed how close we were in fact to the end.