Please note I have posted two chapters at once. If you missed the last one about the grape harvest you'll need to scroll back.
Plot reminder: Ellie is Jacks' daughter, Adam her partner. Sarah and Olivia are from Nottingham
~~~~~
Monday June 9th, 2014
There was the pop of a lifted cork, the gentle trickle of glasses being filled...
"Cheers then," offered Adam, lifting himself to his feet. He held his glass out before him, strangely formal, waited for Ellie and I too to lift ourselves to our feet before chinking his glass against each of our own. Beneath us, the roast lay steaming and sizzling, just that minute removed from the oven. This being my daughter and her dopey, boho boyfriend we were talking about, it was however of the tofu variety rather than an actual fat-dripping hunk of dead animal.
"Here goes..." smiled Ellie, the final clink of glasses hers against mine.
I watched as she and Adam took their first sips; watched carefully, looking for any hint of a wince or grimace, something which might negate the sincerity of the compliments which, for politeness' sake, would inevitably follow. I was heartened that their expressions displayed nothing other than simple, unadultered pleasure.
"Full-bodied," concluded Adam.
"Fruity," added Ellie.
Satisfied, I too took a sip, my own pleasure heightened by the knowledge of just how much sweat and toil had gone into it.
Outside the window in front of me, the top deck of a bus had halted for the lights, a couple of tired-looking faces turning to peer at the softly-lit dinner scene to their left. Early evening in Putney High Street; for inhabitants of street-facing first floor flats, privacy comes at a premium.
"How's the roast?" Ellie enquired as we settled down to our meals.
"Fantastic!" I replied, forcing down a mouthful. "Who'd have thought these meat substitutes could be so..." Completely lacking in flavour, I wanted to say. So devoid of pleasure. Even Ellie's cat seemed disinterested, had soon sloped off to the armchair, was regarding me with one open malevolent eye.
"Yummy," Ellie finished for me.
"Exactly," I nodded.
Adam was meanwhile wagging an accusing knife. "'Alf the problem with you carnivores, you don't know what you're missing."
The sentence would have of course made more sense substituting the word 'carnivore' with 'herbivore', but I decided to let it go. They'd made an effort, after all; it was difficult to be anything other than a little touched.
"Tell you what though Mr Jacks, whoever's not tasted a drop of this 'ere plonk of yours don't know what they're missing neither."
The formality of his address - the 'Mr Jacks' - was just fine by me. I'd never encouraged him to use my christian name, nor likely ever would. 'Jim' was an honour which I one day hoped to bestow on a more fitting suitor to my daughter's hand.
Outside, meanwhile, the bus had moved on, been replaced by another. More gloomy, intrusive faces peered in at us.
"Top drawer," Adam continued, slurping himself out another glass from the bottle. "Like wine should be. You know - strong, earthy." The latter was Adam's favourite adjective."So, been any news with that case you was involved with?" he asked.."You know, the thing with them two brothers."
I shrugged sadly. "I'm afraid not, no."
"Strange," he reflected between glugs of negroamaro. "Was everywhere for a while. You just couldn't get away from it. Seems to 'ave dropped off the radar a bit of late."
It hadn't been through a lack of effort, I assured him. The problem was it just isn't enough sometimes. Trying your hardest. Doing all you can possibly do, leaving no stone unturned.
Luck. Plain old-fashioned good fortune.
As a chief investigating officer, often what's required is that most elusive factor of all.
*
A few minutes later the three of us sat in a reflective, wine-woozy silenve for several moments, empty plates smeared with vegan gravy beneath us.
"Adam," piped up Ellie finally, "why don't you clear away the dishes?"
It was a tone I was familiar with, one passed down from mother to daughter. Not so much a suggestion, more a military-style command carrying the threat of dark consequences should it not immediately and uncomplainingly be obeyed.
"Course El."
"And while you're in the kitchen you could plate up dessert if you like."
Another mandate sent down from high command.
With Adam thus engaged, Ellie and I finally had the chance to talk. I decided to set the ball rolling myself.
"Lover boy still not found a job then."
Her eyes rolled theatrically to the ceiling, a remnant from the stroppier excesses of her teenage years. "How many times do I have to tell you dad? Adam's a tree surgeon."
That was gardening, not a job. "Might help if he cut his hair," I commented.
This provoked a second upward roll of the eyes. The truth was I might have been able to forgive him for the veganism, the late-sixties fashion look. I might too have been able to forgive him for the faux Essex boy accent - he was in fact the son of two Berkshire-based barristers, Ellie had once told me. His lack of a perceivable income was also pardonable. No, what I had a problem with was his seemingly total lack of concern over this latter fact. How many call-outs did he get for this tree surgery malarkey he insisted on pursuing? Once in a blue moon, if he was lucky. A man of thirty living off the generosity of his gainfully employed girlfriend, hand-outs from mummy and daddy. Hardly very dignified. As he himself might have put it, not exactly earthy.
"I just think maybe he'd be better off trying-"
"Don't ruin it eh dad."
There was a brief, sweet smile, the sort which reminded me of the happy little girl who used to beg me for pony rides on my back.
"Haven't seen you for a year and a half. Been looking to this evening for ages."
Something different, I'd been going to say. Adam might be better off exploring other avenues. An office job, retrain himself as an electrician or a plumber or some such thing. But Ellie was right: now wasn't the time. Now was for us; the Lord knew it wasn't often we sat down at the same dinner table together.
"The wine really is good," she continued, taking a sip. "You should be proud."
"I am," I assured her.
She clinked her glass to mine. "And me of you."
There. That moment. The sweat and toil, the huge financial risk. My daughter's glow of filial pride made it all worthwhile.
Outside, another bus had pulled up for the lights; on the back seat, a teenage couple were indulged in what used to be known in my day as 'heavy petting'. Over in the armchair, meanwhile, a single feline eye continued to bore into me.
I yawned long and wide, tried smothering it with a fist. My day had started at half past six that morning at a service station somewhere on the French side of the Alps. Twelve more hours on the road to follow the same from the previous day. I was fading now. Fading fast, fading deep.
"So, what's on the itinery then?" Ellie asked.
I had a couple of appointments with regional wine merchants, I told her. One the next morning near Luton, the other the day after up in Durham.
"While I'm in the north east, I thought I might as well nip across to Middlesbrough. Lay some flowers on your gran and granddad's graves. Pop in on Uncle Frank and your cousins."
I was to say hi to everyone of course. "You'll be seeing Diane too I suppose."
I nodded. "She offered to cook me dinner one night." Smiling, I recalled her scant culinary skills. "More of a threat than an offer really."
Ellie turned her wineglass around in her hand, seemed to be pondering something. "You know, mum was always jealous of Diane."
Jealous of Diane. This was news to me.
"But we didn't..." I began to blurt. "I mean, there was never..."
She stretched lips into a strange sort of smirk. "Oh dad, I don't mean jealous like that."
The insinuation seemed to be that I was a man incapable of conducting illecit affairs. I was unsure whether I should take this as a compliment or else consider it an affront.
"You know how you two are," she continued. "The banter, the way you're always on the same wavelength." Her hand ceased turning the wineglass, raised it instead to lips. "I think mum felt she didn't have that with you. The same kind of complicity. Rapport." Her eyes met mine. "Not for years and years."
Before I had chance to respond, Adam had swept back in from the kitchen, was laying a bowl onto my placemat.
"Ice-cream!" he announced. Then, with the same level of enthusiasm: "Soya of course!"
I peered at the anaemic-looking slop beneath me, mustered a weak smile.
"Yummy."
*
The office of Mr Charles Bartley was as might be expected of one of the south-east's leading wine merchants: classical, principally mahogany, his competing passions for fine brandies and cigars in clear evidence.
His voice too was as one might expect: plummy, booming, redolent of the members' enclosure at Royal Ascot or Lords cricket ground. "The problem with these fruity southern wines," he announced, "is that they're not considered quite as refined as their northern counterparts." This after he had rather dismissively spat out a sipped mouthful of my wine into the silver bucket placed near his feet. "What a lot of these Chianti-worshippers don't realise of course is that southern grapes are often used as fortifiers." He examined the label of the bottle through thick, hanging eyebrows, these cobweb grey like the remaining tufts of hair above each ear. '"I vignetti sulla collina" he read. Then, translating: "the vines on the hill." He put the bottle down, regarded me solemnly. "Another problem needless to say is that people are reluctant to pay serious money for last year's vintage. The older, the better - this seems to be the general rule of thumb." He took a second sip, swilled it around on his tongue for a few moments before a similar dismissive spit to the first. "Complete twaddle of course. As a matter of fact, very few wines present themselves better after five years than they do after one. We English are horrendously uneducated in these matters." He sighed, as if the ignorance of his countrymen were something which wearied him. "But that's the long and the short of it. My advice to you, Mr Jacks, is not to sell any of your wine this year. A three-year-old vintage will earn you double. A ten-year vintage quadruple."
At that rate, I reflected as I headed westwards through the Bedfordshire countryside, I might just about break even before I reached my deathbed. I could only hope that my other contact up in Durham would be able to offer some much-needed financial injection.
Stopping off at a pleasant-looking roadside pub, I was pleased to see that shepherd's pie featured amongst that day's offerings on the menu board. One of the few things I had truly missed.
Thus replenished, my mood began to brighten a little as I turned northbound onto the A1. That warm tingle of homecoming, a sensation I hadn't experienced to such a degree since my early adulthood in the merchant navy. For all its defects, Middlesbrough would always be my hometown.
The sun which had awaited me on the ferry crossing the day before - illuminating the white cliffs of Dover in an unexpected welcoming glow - was now becoming ever more intermittent, the flat, fenland sprawl darkened by thickening clouds. The first spots of drizzle began to fall just past Peterborough; by the time I passed the exit road for Stamford it had turned to heavy, persistent rain.
Stamford, I thought... Hadn't Olivia told me that this where she was from? It all seemed so long ago now; it was difficult to believe only nine months had passed. I recalled her face, humbled and contrite, there at the front door of the holiday home. Following her little confession, our goodbyes had been awkward, without sentiment. In a moment she was out into the blinding afternoon sunlight, the embassy car waiting for her beyond the gate, not a backward turn of her head.
Nine months. She would have had the baby by now of course...
I wondered whether by some dark subterfuge Lee had seen his child. Coo-cooed over the phone at least, viewed photographs, video footage.
At the time I'd believed her when she'd said that she didn't know where he was. But since then? Had he been touch, revealed his whereabouts? No police force could hope to monitor a person's every movement, all their modes of communication, not even the wife of a suspected murderer and proven underworld firearms dealer. The baby, yes - maybe between them they'd deemed the risks worthwhile.
Was everywhere for a while. You just couldn't get away from it. Seems to 'ave dropped off the radar a bit of late.
Maybe it was time for a fresh look at things. Maybe it was true what they said: police officers never really retire.
At Grantham I found myself turning left onto the A52. Found myself turning towards Nottingham.