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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Liars All
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‘That's how we met. Four years ago. Somebody came in here one day, said I'd stolen money from her and asked Mrs Farrell to find me. And she did. But she was being lied to. I hadn't stolen anything. Someone thought I'd done something I hadn't, and knew something I didn't, and wanted Brodie to find me so he could ask me about
it. And I don't mean just
ask
. I was hurt too – quite badly. Brodie blamed herself. She'd no way of guessing how the information she provided would be used, but she felt responsible. Without her help they'd never have found me. They'd never have…'
His voice faltered. Even four years on, even knowing that the worst time of his life had led to some of the best times, he found it hard to get the words out. As if he could deal with what had been done to him in the privacy of his own head but was afraid what might happen if he let it out.
He flicked his visitor a shy little grin. ‘Sorry. The reason I'm telling you this is not to play for sympathy. It's to make the point that bad things happen to good people. Sometimes, bad things happen
through
good people. What matters is the intent. Brodie never meant to hurt me. I never blamed her, and I think even Brodie's forgiven herself now. If what's troubling you is at all similar, you're probably being harder on yourself than anyone else is.'
‘Perhaps.'
He thought she wanted to say something more, but Daniel waited and still it didn't come. He wasn't sure what to do for the best. ‘You haven't committed yourself to anything by coming here. You can finish your tea, go home and never come back, and if we meet in Tesco's we needn't so much as exchange a glance. The trouble with that is, nothing will have been resolved. The problem that made you want to see me will still be there.
‘So I'm going to say something that might make it
easier. If it's indiscreet, I'm sorry. You call the shots; I really am only trying to help. And it might help if I say I think I know who you are.'
She looked as shocked as if he'd slapped her. For a moment words evaded her. Then: ‘How?' she stammered. ‘You can't. I wasn't… I didn't… How can you know that?'
‘Don't be upset,' Daniel said quickly. ‘Please…that's the last thing I want. But you gave me your first name as if you were afraid your second name might mean something to me. And even in Dimmock a murder trial is unusual enough to attract attention. I put two and two together, and I thought – maybe I was wrong – that you might be Robert Carson's mother.'
Margaret Carson vented a breath so long she might have been holding it for most of the last nine months. Since her son was arrested she hadn't had a full night's sleep. She hadn't spoken to anyone, even friends and family, without wondering how much they knew and what they thought about it, about her. She hadn't walked down a street without the fear of being recognised. Once, when a man in a shop raised a hand to scratch his nose, she actually flinched.
Now this young man with his pale, weak eyes and his mild, engaging personality was telling her it might have been for nothing. That her responsibility for her child's behaviour ended when his childhood ended, and the man in the shop and the people who glanced at her in the street probably didn't know who she was, and might not care if they did. The thought brought a lump to her throat.
What it didn't do was undermine the resolve which brought her here.
‘Are you all right?' asked Daniel quietly.
‘Yes.' She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘I'm sorry. I
suppose I'm feeling a bit emotional.'
‘It must have been an emotional day for you,' said Daniel. ‘Were you in court?'
Mrs Carson shook her head. ‘I couldn't face it. I couldn't face people looking at me, thinking I was there to support him. And then, the last I heard he was pleading not guilty. I didn't want to listen to his lies.'
‘Did you know they were lies?'
‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘I mean, he never laid his head on his old mum's shoulder and confessed what he'd done. I didn't
know
in that sense. But I knew he was capable of it. From the moment the police came to my door I never doubted that Bobby had done what they thought he'd done.'
Daniel didn't know where all this was going. When he guessed who she was, he'd supposed she wanted him to seek out evidence for an appeal. He thought he was going to have to explain that she needed a private investigator for that, and her son's solicitors would organise it. Now it seemed that wasn't what she had in mind.
Conscious that time was money, Brodie would have asked her outright. Daniel took a rather gentler approach. He did this job because Brodie needed him to, but he genuinely liked helping people. If all someone needed was a cut-glass decanter to complete the set her Aunt Dotty left her and
somebody
didn't pack properly when they moved house, he took pleasure in her delight when he found a replacement. If he could help extricate a client from a sea of troubles emanating from the fact that something had been lost, or sold, or thrown or given away when he'd no idea how his future would be blighted by his failure
to keep it safe, that was even better. They were rarely life-and-death matters. But the people who came through the burgundy front door usually left a great deal happier, which gave Daniel considerable satisfaction. He was in many ways a simple soul.
He said, ‘Tell me how I can help you.'
Margaret Carson swallowed. ‘How much do you know about the case?'
‘What was in the papers, that's all.'
‘He ran them down. In his car. He knocked them down so he could rob them.' Her voice was a measured monotone. If she'd allowed any feeling to surface it would have run away with her.
‘Yes,' said Daniel softly.
‘They'd just got engaged. That's what they were doing in the restaurant – celebrating their engagement. She was wearing her ring, and a necklace he'd given her. Good jewellery – expensive. You can say that about my Bobby.' She barked a bitter laugh. ‘He has an eye for quality. The police never found the stolen items. It took them five days to catch up with Bobby, and by then he'd disposed of them.'
Listening to her told Daniel something about Margaret Carson. She was well educated, and there was no history of crime in her background. She lacked the vocabulary. Anyone to whom armed robbery was a familiar field would have used different words, and used them less awkwardly. The way she spoke went with the linen jacket and the summer hat. She wasn't a wealthy woman, but nor was she living in poverty. She was accustomed to a modest degree
of comfort. She was someone who paid her taxes, observed speed limits, didn't park on yellow lines. The hat didn't lie: she was in every sense a respectable woman. Except that she'd raised a son who killed people for money.
‘Detective Superintendent Deacon – do you know him?' Daniel nodded. ‘He said they interviewed an antiques dealer who bought the necklace – apparently in good faith – the day after the robbery and sold it again within twenty-four hours. The police never managed to trace either it or whoever bought it.'
Most people's experience of crime is limited to what they learn from TV drama. Daniel didn't watch much television: most of his experience of crime was personal. But between them Jack Deacon and Brodie Farrell had an encyclopaedic knowledge of crime, and a lot of the time they were talking, Daniel was listening. He knew that jewellery was an attractive proposition for thieves because it could be broken up. Good stones retained their value even after the ring, the necklace, the brooch had been rendered unidentifiable.
He guessed that this was not what his visitor wanted to hear. ‘Mrs Carson, I still don't know what it is you want me to do.'
She seemed to change the subject. Her gaze strayed off round the room. It was only a little office, there wasn't much to occupy it there – before long she had to look at him again. Her voice fell soft. ‘You think, maybe he'll be a scientist. Maybe he'll find a cure for cancer. You know it isn't very likely, but one day some mother's son is going to and you think, Maybe it'll be mine. You look at him
in his cowboy hat and his scuffed trainers, and he grins up at you, and you think he's the most perfect thing in the world. Five or six years old, a bundle of pure potential wearing a silly grin.'
Even knowing what followed, she couldn't keep from smiling at the memory. ‘And you tell yourself, Don't be ridiculous. For every Nobel Prize winner there are a million GPs. And that would be great – a good profession, helping people. Who wouldn't want a doctor in the family? Then you notice he's got the trainers on the wrong feet and you think, Maybe he's not going to be that academic. Maybe he'll have more of a practical bent. And that's fine too. People will always need car mechanics, electricians, plumbers. If a man works hard enough at anything to raise a family, he's been a success by any yardstick that matters.'
Her gaze fell. She had to make herself keep going. ‘What you never, ever think is that he'll grow up to be a murderer. A criminal, a thug and finally a murderer. Where did that little boy go? What happened to all that potential? What
happened
to turn a six-year-old in a cowboy hat and a silly grin into a young man who'd run people down in order to rob them? And if you're his mother' – she dared a quick, agonised glance at Daniel's face – ‘you think, What did I do wrong?'
Daniel didn't go in for platitudes. They were too close to easy lies, a way to avoid hard truths. But the truth never went away. It just hung around like a rightful heir, waiting to be acknowledged. Daniel believed passionately in truth. He thought that the one thing that was harder to deal with than a hard truth was an easy lie. So instead of demurring
kindly he said, ‘Do you think you did something wrong?'
She didn't have to think. She'd thought of nothing else for nine months. ‘I raised him the same way I raised his brother and sister. He had everything they had. I didn't treat him any different, I didn't love him any less. A part of me still loves him. I hate everything he's become, everything he's done, and yet still somewhere in the heart of me he's that six-year-old in the cowboy hat with all his life ahead of him. Only now, as well as that, he's a self-confessed murderer.'
Daniel was nodding slowly. ‘I suppose they're the unacknowledged victims of crime – the criminal's family. Everyone feels for the injured parties and the people who love them. And of course that's right. They're the ones like us – the ones who woke up that morning with no idea their life was about to be derailed, who had no say in what happened, who suffered because of someone else's greed or anger or stupidity. Of course we sympathise.'
Behind the thick glasses the mild grey eyes saw things that Margaret Carson could not have put into words. ‘But all that applies to you too, doesn't it? You didn't want this to happen. No one
wants
their son to turn to crime. And it's easy to think you should have seen it coming and stopped it, but how? Realistically, how do you prevent someone becoming a criminal? But your family were as much affected by his career choice as the families of Bobby's victims. You
are
his victims. The first time he hurt anyone, he hurt you too.
‘Tom Sanger's family, and his fiancée, weren't the only ones to suffer a bereavement. You lost your son too – the
one you loved and had hopes for. I suppose you feel that the man in court today murdered him.'
She looked at him as if he'd given her absolution. He hadn't – Daniel didn't do religion – but his understanding went most of the way. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. She mumbled, ‘I agonised about coming here. Whether I should come at all, and if so, when. I put it off as long as I could. I told myself that if I came before the trial it could prejudice the case. But I knew that if I didn't come as soon as the trial was over I wouldn't come at all. I thought it was going to be a lot harder. Thank you for that.'
‘I haven't done anything yet,' said Daniel.
‘Yes, you have.'
He considered a moment. ‘But that wasn't why you came. If talking about it has helped, I'm glad. But you must have had something else in mind. There are grief counsellors out there. There are priests, if you feel that way inclined. Nobody comes to a finding agency because they need someone to talk to – they come because they want something finding. Mrs Carson, what is it you want me to find?'
Brodie left Jonathan with his father – both of them sleeping, the baby in his cot, the detective sitting bolt upright on the squishy sofa as if he might be under observation – and went to pick Paddy up from school. She was tired and didn't want to go out again, and the second Mrs Farrell was happy to collect the child as she'd been doing for a month. But Brodie had the sense that this was something she owed to herself and Paddy both. It was the
last day of the school year. Next year she'd make her own way home from school. It was another milestone – the last walk home together. She didn't want to miss this one as well.
Everything in a household plays second fiddle to a sick child. At eight going on thirty, Paddy understood that as well as anyone. She didn't complain about the amount of her mother's time and energy the baby needed. Perhaps she was aware it wouldn't be for ever, and she and Brodie would have time to make up for lost opportunities in a way that Brodie and Jonathan never would.
But now she was home, while Jonathan didn't need her Paddy took priority. Over tiredness; over being jet-lagged; over everything else. She drove as far as the park and walked the rest of the way to the school, hoping the fresh air would blow some colour back into her face and soul.
Paddy was expecting her stepmother. She liked Julia, enjoyed staying with John and his wife, but when she saw Brodie waiting at the school gates her face blossomed like a rose. Brown pigtails bouncing ecstatically, schoolbag swinging, she ran the rest of the way. Brodie caught her in a hug and swung her round and round. Her heart was so full it ached. The child looked so healthy! She'd almost forgotten what that looked like.
And the other thing that struck her, after not seeing her daughter for a month, was how little she resembled either of her parents. She had something of Brodie's colouring, but without the drama – rosy cheeks and glossy brown hair would never turn heads the way her mother's classic features and cloud of dark curls did. And she'd inherited
something of her father's asceticism – a thoughtful, considerate, conscientious child who might one day follow in John Farrell's footsteps as a solicitor. Unless she stuck with her first love which was tractors. But of all of them, thought Brodie, the one she favoured most was Daniel, with whom she shared no genes.
Of course, there's more to family than DNA. Paddy had known Daniel for half her life. They were interested in the same things: not the tractors so much but the world and the stars and the way things work. By the time she was five she knew there were a lot of questions that Daniel could answer better than her mother. She didn't think of him as a father: she had one of those and found him quite satisfactory. And she knew he wasn't her mother's boyfriend, because that was Uncle Jack. Perhaps that was why she was so fond of Daniel. If he didn't come with a label, he was free to be her friend. Paddy had learnt early what it had taken Brodie thirty years to discover: the strength, the support, the sheer contentment to be found in friendship.
The child mumbled something into Brodie's midriff. Brodie ducked down to her level. ‘What was that?'
‘How long are you home for?'
That stabbed her in the heart. She could brush aside Daniel's reservations, deflect Deacon's concerns, but when Paddy's first words to her after a month apart were to ask when she was leaving again, that pulled her up short. Was it possible, after all, that she was doing this wrong? That she was risking too much on a gamble she had little chance of winning? She held her daughter close. ‘For a while, anyway.'

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