~~~~~
Beeston, I remembered - this was the part of the city where Sarah lived. Fortunately, only one Bracewell was listed in the phone directory for this area. My sat-nav did the rest.
The city seemed strangely deserted; only a smattering of umbrella-huddled shoppers were out braving the rain, a few hooded teenagers dawdling on their way home from school. I was directed to an anonymous looking terraced street fifteen minutes or so beyond the city centre. A first floor light suggested someone was at home.
Easing the van into a vacant parking space diagonally across the street, I sat for some moments contemplating the veined rivulets of rain racing their way down the windscreen. Now I was here, I wondered what I hoped to achieve. What I was going to say. Hi Sarah, was just passing...
I hadn't even remembered to bring an umbrella from Italy with me, I realised, rooting vainly inside the holdall on the passenger seat. A bit like visiting the moon without a tank of oxygen.
Sighing, steeling myself for a soaking, I unclicked seatbelt. As I did so, the front door suddenly spilled a figure out onto the street. Slender, frail somehow despite her youth. The elder of Sarah's two daughters I could only presume. I tried to remember the name: Alison? Alice? Frowning aganst the rain, a tangle of strawberry blonde hair fell over one shoulder as she struggled with her umbrella. The black clothes and heavy eyeliner reminded me a little of Ellie at the same age. Her expression wasn't angry or defiant though, just a pure, striking melancholy.
The umbrella finally opening, she scurried off in the opposite direction, my neck twisting as I followed her progress, watched her disappear around the corner. A crafty cigarette in a friend's bedroom, I wondered? A clandestine meeting with some hand-crawling, undeserving lad? Something like that, I hoped. Something normal, hers the same secrets as sixteen-year-old girls everywhere.
*
From upstairs came the dull thud of pop music; from the kitchen, the sharper clatter of cupboard doors being opened and closed as Sarah sought out teabags and sugar. In the meantime I was left to study the backyard view through the window in front of me as I towelled myself dry on the settee. Ankle high weeds sprouted between the flagstones; sections of perimeter wall were in desperate need of repointing. An upturned ladies' bicycle bore only rear wheel, the front propped against the wall, puncture repair postponed. The sense of conjugal absence was almost tangible.
"Two sugars you said, right?"
I'd said one in fact, but smiled anyway as she placed my mug down onto the coffee table before me. Her own she took with her to the armchair to my right, hands cradling its warmth. I'd forgotten how nippy England could be even in June, had been wildly optimistic with the choice of clothing I'd packed. Inside my skull, I could feel the beginning of a headachey cold - a still-distant yet approaching thunder.
"Took me a couple of moments to place you," she said. "Thought it was another ruddy journalist." This explained her less than welcoming scowl at the front door. "Well, I mean, been so long, hasn't it?"
I took the opportunity to study her a little, could conclude only that the intervening nine months had been less than kind. Crow's feet had appeared at the corners of her eyes; the centre parting in her hair was now peppered grey. She was much paler than I remembered, had put on a good stone or so too. Still those eyes though, that intense, disarming emerald.
"Maybe I shouldn't have come." That I'd voiced the thought out loud surprised me a little. "Only likely to stir up bad memories for you."
She sipped at her tea, gazed at some indefinable spot on the wall in front of her. "Oh, don't worry. Just waking up in the morning is enough for all the memories to come flooding back." Turning her neck to me, she then attempted a smile. "Really Mr Jacks, it's great to see you again. You were so kind. Christ knows how I'd have got through those first couple of days without you."
"Jim," I reminded her.
"Jim."
There was a moment of blissful silence as the pop song upstairs finished. The new one which replaced it was however hoiked up even louder. A particular favourite, obviously.
Grimacing apologetically, Sarah placed tea mug onto table, rose to her feet.
"Samantha!" Shouting up the stairs, her voice crackled with the strain of making herself heard. "How many times do I have to tell you?"
The volume was grudgingly restored to something near its previous level. How many similar battles had Heather and I had with Ellie, I wondered? How many my own mother and father with me? The Animals, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks.
"I saw the older one," I commented as Sarah reseated herself. "Just now as I was pulling up."
"Alice."
I nodded. "Pretty girl."
"Needs to put some meat on those bones," came the response. "Lucky if I get her to nibble at a couple of lettuce leaves most days." Pyschological trauma can affect people's eating habits in differing ways. With Sarah herself, it seemed to be the opposite: takeaways, a sly chocolate bar when no-one was looking. Food had become a rare and fleeting moment of pleasure. Of comfort.
I sipped at my tea, was forced to hide a wince: much too sweet. "They're doing all right I hope. I mean, at school and everything."
"Oh, Sammy got into a couple of fights a while back. You know - kids teasing her. Can be so damn cruel." It was a point emphasised by an incomprehending shake of the head. "Since then, she seems to have settled down. As for Alice, is going to stay on and do her A' Levels." Her smile was a strange hybrid of pride and fear. "Got her heart set on going to uni. Applied Linguistics or some such ruddy nonsense." Her voice now rose an octave, eyes welling with tears. "Uni! How the hell am I supposed to put her through uni? On top of the mortgage? On top of everything else?"
Though small, the house was stylishly furnished. To my left, a flat screen TV was mounted to the wall; the settee I was sitting on didn't look as it had come cheap. The opened door in gront of me meanwhile revealed a smart modern kitchen complete with dishwasher. Two teenage daughters to clothe and feed, but it seemed that between them, Sean and she, they'd been getting by okay.
"Oh, they had a bit of a whip round," she continued. "The factory where he worked. 'Support fund' they called it. Will just about keep my head above water for now." There followed a sigh: weary, resigned. "Lawyers say it'll take seven years though. Seven years till he's classified dead and I can draw a widow's pension."
She looked at me, smirked bitterly.
"Until then he's just sort of almost dead. Not quite alive."
*
Without flushing the toilet, I stepped sideways to the sink, splashed some water over my hands. The face in the mirror was pale, only vaguely recognisable. I was definitely coming down with something.
After taking a moment to palm down my hair where it had become spiky from the towel drying. I stepped out onto the first floor landing, the floorboards squeaky underfoot. The boom of pop music which thudded through the closed middle door along the corridor provided more than adequate cover.
The first of the three doors was also closed, firmly so, a fact which only added to my sense of guilt. I wasn't even sure what it was I was looking for exactly; was acting on a half-formed thought, barely conscious.
Upon turning the handle there was an immediate whoosh of perfume into my nostrils: a recently extinguished incense stick, a wicker bowl of lavendar pot-pourri and yes - a faint undertone of marijuana too. The room was dark, principally purple in colour. The bed was unmade; puddles of black clothing were strewn across the floor. The only note of order were the variously coloured pairs of Doc Marten boots paired underneath the window. I quickly closed the door again, thus escaped the intense glares of the rock musicians boring down from the walls.
The third and final door was wide open meanwhile. I stepped over as lightly as I could, the pop music loud enough to provoke a wince. This room was neater, only the downturned nearside corner of the double bed in need of adjustment. The carpet was a burgandy shagpile, the wardrobes pine. Everything mid-range, well-matched. On the bedside cabinet there was a photograph of the two girls together, the frame a stylish tobacco leaf affair. Taking a step inside, I stooper to get a better look. The shot was a couple of years old I guessed, this judging from the slight roundness of the elder sister's face. Sammy was dark-haired like the mother, a little boyish looking - that happy pre-adolescent period where girls are yet to obsess about appearance.
Then suddenly it came to me.
What I'd been looking for. What I hadn't found.
I tiptoed back across the landing, back past the closed middle door, its echoing boom. Stepped once more into the bathroom, flushed the toilet, made my way downstairs.
*
I had no plan, not really. Just a little chat, see if anything shook out.
"I have to ask you Sarah," I began, lowering myself back onto settee. "Did you have any inkling about the guns?"
"God no! What a shock."
The overly sweet tea had by now been left abandoned on the coffee table. Sarah meanwhile continued to cradle her own mug in hands, as if in need of something concrete to hold.
"I mean, don't get me wrong. I knew he must've been up to something. Knew the sums didn't quite add up. But that though, Christ!" She shook her head incredulously. "There was another one last week. Some kid shot dead over in Bulwell I think it was. Sixteen years old, same as my Alice. And every time it happens I can't help but wonder... you know, was it a gun someone had bought from Lee?"
"And Sean," I pressed. "Do you think he knew?"
"I'd imagine so. He still had contacts over in Mapperley where they grew up. Where Lee's lock up was."
I twitched my nose in the air, sneezed, thr. felt another following on close behind. Sarah dug a packet of tissues from pocket of cardigan, tossed them across.
"Will have had the baby by now I suppose," I remarked, scrunching the used tissue into my pocket. "Olivia."
There was a nod, but not the proud, accompanying smile one might expect of a new auntie.
"Imogen. About six or seven weeks ago."
A little girl then. I wondered if it had been a boy whether Olivia would really have named him Sean, as I remembered her telling me.
"You've been in touch then?"
"You're joking!" Her tone was indignant, as if I'd accused her of something reprehensible. "Stuck up cow. I only ever tolerated her for Sean and Lee's sake." It was strange, I couldn't help thinking, how her anger seemed still directed more towards Olivia than to Lee. "I haven't spoken to her since we left Italy," she continued. "We've got a mother-in-law in common though."
I nodded. "Must be thrilled."
Now there was a smile, touchingly affectionate. "With my two, she always said she was too young to be a granny. Said she felt more like an auntie. This time though, I think she feels more the part."
There was a grandfather somewhere out there too, I reflected. I remembered what Olivia had told me, about how he'd walked out while the brothers were still young.
"What did Sean tell you about his father?"
The question seemed to surprise her a little. "Not much," she answerered. "I mean, I asked him, tried to get him to open up a little, but he'd always... you know, just sort of clam up. All I know is what his mum has told me. The bugger upped and offed when Sean was only five and Lee had barely turned one. He worked at the Raleigh bike factory, was having an affair with a workmate's wife. They stayed in Nottingham for a couple of years then headed to London. Were last heard of somewhere in Germany, he working as a brickie." She gazed towards the window, the slanted lines of drizzle splattering against the pane. "It was his seventh birthday, Sean once told me, the last time he saw his dad. He was playing football with some mates in the local park, sees his dad there lurking a few yards away. He was going away, he told Sean. Told him to look after his mum and little brother. Made him promise it. Then whoosh!" Her hands gestured like a magician making a rabbit disappear into a puff if smoke. "Gone!"
I could only wonder how something like that would affect a young boy, shape the man he will later become.
Upstairs, meanwhile, the disco thud seemed to have grown surreptitiously louder once more. Rising sluggishly to her feet, Sarah crossed over to the stairway door, issued another crackle-voiced admonition to her daughter.
"Christ, give me strength."
Her movements were tired, those of someone much older than herself. I found myself looking once more at the bicycle wheel propped against the wall out in the backyard.
Alone, I reflected.
Two of them to bring up alone.
*
The chief investigating officer at the Nottingham end of things had been DCI Dave Tanner. It seems strange to say, but I would never actually meet him face to face. I've spoken to him on the phone though a couple of times as part of my research for this book. He seems an amenable enough type; I'm sure, had I phoned him up that wet June afternoon, he would have found a little time for me, indulged me in a bit of a chinwag over a mug of tea in the station canteen. Much as with military men, it's not unreasonable to claim that there's something of a fraternal bond amongst police officers present and former, CID in particular.
Would he have opened up for me completely though, I wonder? Revealed his innermost thoughts, half-formed hypotheses? After all, on an official level I was no-one. More to the point, I had nothing to offer him in return.
No, sometimes a man needs a bargaining chip.
Sometimes he has to sleep with the enemy...