~~~~~
The flat was located on the fourth and final floor of what Marston had told me was a former textile factory. One which had undergone a radical facelift, been converted into what would have been known back in the eighties as yuppie apartments. The foyer was cluttered with potted plants, their leaves a brilliant green in the light well opened up to the high glass ceiling. The lift doors opened smoothly, soundlessly, the ascent effected without even the merest hint of a jolt. Out on the landing, I was greeted by more leaf-dripping plants, more churchlike slabs of sunlight.
Olivia had left the door open for me, was rinsing something under the tap of the kitchen island, her back turned. The flat was one of those typically minimalist, modern affairs, everything open-planned and open-bricked. Beneath my feet, sleek swathes of wooden flooring stretched out almost to the horizon; matching, angled beams towered overhead. One of the huge, floor-to-ceilng windows afforded a magnificent view of the castle grounds perched high on their rock. Another framed the eastern sweep of the city, this featuring three closely huddled sets of floodlights: Trent Bridge cricket ground, the city's two football teams... A minor detail suddenly came back to me from nine months earlier: on the night of the disappearance, Sean Bracewell had been wearing a red Nottingham Forest shirt.
"You've got a nice place here," I commented, my footsteps padding on the parquet as I approached her. It was something of an understatement: I didn't suppose Nottingham real estate came any primer. This was undoubtedly the realm of the city's highest charging lawyers and medical specialists. Its most successful entrepreneurs, shrewdest crooks... Lee Bracewell, of course, had fitted into both the latter categories.
"They wanted to take it away from me," came Olivia's response. Her back was still turned to me at the sink, my visit seemingly anticipated; as Sarah had explained the day before, they had a mother-in-law in common. "He'd started with nothing, I told them. Everything he had he'd earned through his own hard work and enterprise." She turned then, switched the tap off, a dripping baby bottle in hand. "It would be like taking the nest away from a hatching bird."
As an analogy it was a little overblown perhaps: a hatching bird could equally get by in a much smaller, less luxurious nest.
I watched as she set the bottle into sterilizer, added a recently used dummy. Further evidence of the new arrival lay scattered here and there around the room: blankets, toys, bottles of powders and creams. With Ellie, I recalled, the clutter had seemed far worse: the same amount of stuff perhaps, but all crammed into the much more claustrophobic confines of a police married quarters.
"It's nice to see you again Mr Jacks." The weak accompanying smile suggested otherwise however. She'd had her hair cut since I'd last seen her, the sleek blonde locks butchered to a boyish crop which didn't suit her. Like Sarah, she'd aged noticeably; given the sleeplessness and physical strain of recent weeks, this was only to be expected perhaps.
"Congratulations," I offered, passing her the small gift bag I'd brought with me: a soft, rattly ball I'd picked up on the way back to the hotel. More baby clutter to add to the rest.
"You shouldn't have." Her tone seemed more suspicious than grateful. She then nodded towards the corridor which led from the main living area. "Fast asleep."
My timing was fortunate it seemed. "Imogen," I reflected out loud. "Unusual name. A pretty one though."
"Of Gaelic origin. Means 'innocent'." Her explanation was terse, unsmiling. "I just hope when she's older... If people are still saying the same things they're saying now. You know, about her father... Well, I hope it might give her strength."
There was a sigh, one which acted as a kind of punctuation mark: smalltalk over. She stepped off towards one of the windows, hers the elegant, sweeping movements of a former model. A trailing hand beckoned that I should follow.
"See that car down there?" Never having been particularly fond of heights, I peered down from a couple of feet behind her. "The red one in front of that dirty van?" My dirty van, as it happened. "That's them. Nottingham's plainclothed finest. One comes in a red car, another in a white car, and then there's this one in his dark blue car." Yes, I'd noted the figure in the driver's seat as I'd got out of the van, had strongly suspected what Olivia was now confirming. The car was positioned in such a way that from up on the top floor the officer himself - some poor, put-upon rookie of a DC no doubt - was hidden from view by the roof of the vehicle, but down there on the ground the rear-view and wing mirrors would provide clear vision of the condominium's comings and goings. "They take it in turns," she continued. "At the start there'd be one or other of them there when I woke up, one or other of them still there when I went to bed. They've become a little lazy though of late. Arrive about half past nine in the morning and leave again around seven in the evening." She smiled at me, glanced at the kitchen clock. "You'll be in his little book, Mr Jacks. 12.15 p.m, unknown Caucasian male, sixty to sixty-five, tall, grey hair." The smile morphed into a giggle, the thought obviously amusing her. "There's a pub just around the corner. I sometimes see them sloping off for a sly pint." I was relieved that she'd stepped back into the interior of the room, was perching herself onto a stool at the breakfast bar, this turned at ninety degrees so as to face me. "I don't need to tell you that the police have other, more sophisticated means of surveillance too. It's futile of me, I know, to change passwords and SIM cards as often as I do." She flashed a childish smirk. "Still, keeps those techie boffins on their toes at least."
I joined her at the breakfast bar, the stool diagonally across from hers.
"This isn't a game Olivia."
The smirk proved stubborn however, refused to dissolve. "The same thing your friend Commander Nuzzo once told me, if I remember rightly."
Yes, and on a similar theme of the wasting of police time and resources, if I myself remembered rightly.
"As if I don't know!" she continued. "As if I'm having the time of my life! Having an absolute ball!" Her blue eyes were ablaze, her face pinkening slightly; a snaking vein was contoured down her forehead. "You think this is easy for me, Mr Jacks? I can't walk down the street without a shadow hovering fifty metres behind. They even follow me around the supermarket, for Christ's sake! They've vetted the cleaning lady. The babysitter. I wouldn't even be surprised if they had someone lurking outside the door of the delivery room!" Barely pausing for breath, she burst straight on. "Then there are the tabloids. They paint me out as some as some kind of latter-day Lady Macbeth. The Wicked Witch of the East. Everybody feeling sorry for her. For Sarah. But what about me?" There was finally a pause, one in which she attempted to collect herself a little. "I'm just as much a victim as she is. What everyone forgets is that Lee's a missing person too. My husband. Imogen's father."
And as she was saying all this I couldn't help but picture her there in the holiday bungalow, framed in the doorway of the corridor which led to the bedrooms. The feigned passport search, her hand reaching to mouth.
Oh-my-God-oh-my-God! I can't find it anywhere.
That she was a good actress she'd already proved. Was she still acting now, I wondered? Had Lee somehow managed to wriggle through the net?
"Did you know about the guns Olivia?"
At this she rolled her eyes upwards - a gesture I remembered from nine months earlier, one at the same time dismissive and exasperated.
"Between police officers and journalists you must be the hundredth person to ask me that. No exaggeration."
"You should have the answer off-pat by now then." My eyes met hers, fixed them strongly enough to provoke a resigned sigh.
"Look, I suspected something all right. I have to admit, yes, he was a little distant in those final few months. More than normal let's say." It wasn't exactly what she'd said at the time, I recalled. "I thought he might even have been having an affair." There was an ironic kind of half-laugh, as if at her own naivety. "If only that's what it was. Just an affair. One of the shop assistants or someone." She shook her head vigorously. "But firearms, no. Not that. A real bolt from the blue." Her right forearm lay against the worktop, her fingers drumming its surface, one after the other then back again. "He got led astray. Too many dodgy characters from his past. Too many from his new, improved present."
Still loyal, defending him to the last. It was almost touching. Almost pitiful.
*
I'd noted the espresso machine as soon as I'd entered the flat. It would have been difficult not to - a big, flash Ferrari of a thing there on the kitchen top. It looked as if it had cost more than most people's fridges.
"I've got a long run up to the north-east ahead of me Olivia. I don't suppose you'd be so kind as to...?" Over the course of my police career I'd suffered countless similar situations whilst on house visits: sometimes a man can die waiting to be asked.
"I could do with one myself too actually." Sliding off her stool, she slunk over to the machine. "All told, I was lucky if I got two or three hours sleep last night."
"It gets easier," I promised. But these, I knew, were the words of a mere male: hollow, lacking in authority. It hadn't been me who'd hauled myself out of bed with such wearying frequency. Not me who'd ghosted through the daylight hours, occupied myself with the washing loads, the fridge to fill, the relentless keeping-on-top-of-things. The first six months of Ellie's life had coincided with my first involvement in a major CID case - a cross-constabulary affair with Tyne and Wear and North Yorkshire, one which would culminate in almost fifty co-ordinated arrests and the complete dismantling of what at the time was the third largest known drugs network operative in the UK. As a young DC, my duties had been of a similar intelligence-gathering nature to the poor guy at that moment parked outside next to my van. Nevertheless, they were duties I'd wished to carry out as thoroughly and competently as I could; mine would also be one of the first hands in the air whenever a bit of overtime was offered. Already I'd wanted to make an impression, already I had the ambition of some day being one of the guys at the top - the ones making the strategy decisions, calling the shots. As a result, those first six months, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of nappies I changed. Christ, I barely even saw the baby awake, my lasting image of that period the side-turned face there in the cot as I rolled home at ten or eleven in the evening, her skin peachy-soft in the dim glow of the nightlight, her breath a gently dozing half-snore.
Had I thanked Heather enough, I wondered as Olivia placed an espresso cup before me? Would it ever be possible to thank her enough?
"So I've been told."
That my thoughts had wandered so far as to have lost track of the conversation must have been clear from my face.
"That it gets easier. That the first three or four months are the worst."
I remembered something Sarah had told me. That second afternoon in the holiday home, just before she broke down in tears.
You know the sort - one of those middle-class dope-head drop-outs, cut herself off from her family.
"Your parents'll have been up a few times I suppose. Lent a hand."
She took a sip of her espresso, her lips tightly pursed. "I'd rather not talk about my family."
It was none of my business, certainly, and highly improbable that it had any relevance to the case. Yet even so, it would have been interesting to know what it was exactly, the cause of the family rift. A rift which her involvement in one of the highest profile cases in recent months hadn't been able to bridge. A rift so obviously canyonlike that not even the arrival of a granchild had helped.
Downing my espresso in a single swallow, I lowered myself from the stool. "Thanks for the coffee." My hands flapped casually to side of my thighs, the way people do when about to say goodbye. "Good luck. Really, it was nice to see you again."
If we'd been Italian there would have been an insincere kissing of each other's cheeks. Being English, we shared instead an insincere parting smile.
"Ah, just out of interest," I called back from the door. "Ivy. That the maternal or paternal grandmother?"
She was still finishing her coffee at the breakfast bar, any mounting sense of relief at my departure having temporarily to be put on hold. It was difficult to say whether it was this or the question itself which had provoked her lowered brow.
"Paternal," she called.
I took a couple of steps back inside. "The old girl still alive?"
"She died a few years ago as far as I know." Her frown had yet to lighten. "Why?"
I took another couple of steps inside, tap-tap against the parquet, halfway back to her now. "Just wondered. I mean, is there any particular reason he used her name for the shops?"
"Boutiques."
"Boutiques, yes." The difference was lost on me.
She tipped back the last of her espresso, clacked the cup gently to saucer. "You're original Mr Jacks, I'll give you that. Not even DCI Tanner has come up with this line of questioning, and he seems to have already covered most possible angles." I watched as she gathered both pairs of cups and saucers, lowered her head into the dishwasher, searched a space for them. "He liked the name of course." Facing me again, she closed the dishwasher with a backward thrust of her behind."Ivy. A timeless sort of name. Feminine, elegant. These are all central qualities of the Ivy brand. Then there's the connection with the plant of course. Something which covers. Which grows over time." She'd seated herself back at the breakfast bar, the subject matter of the retail chain over which she herself now presided something which animated her, clearly. "So all in all, it had seemed the perfect name for a boutique catering principally for the eighteen to thirty age bracket." From the baby monitor next to her came the first faint whimpers of Imogen rousing from her slumbers." But there was more to it perhaps." With tired, resigned motions, she dragged herself once more to her feet. "His father having left when he was so young, his grandma Ivy had also been cut from his life to a certain extent. Visits were rare I think, certainly much rarer than to his other gradmother." Her eyes were sad, seemingly sincere. "So yes, I think there was an element of that too. A homage to his grandma Ivy. A sort of reconnection with his father's side of the family."
But Imogen's whimpers had now turned to full-blown cries, Olivia's stride to a hurrying trot.
It was time for me to go too. Time to head north, do a little reconnecting of my own...
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