The Fire Child (14 page)

Jamie is almost crying. His hands cover his eyes. Then he opens his fingers and says:

‘What are we doing? Don’t follow the bus! It’s frightening! Please?’

I have to ignore him, hard as it is. The bus is three cars in front. On these narrow lanes it is impossible to overtake, and get nearer, but it is also impossible for the bus to escape. Hands tight on the wheel, I keep the bus in sight, my mind focused, the sickness thick in my mouth. How can it be her? How can she be alive?

Jamie is still freaking out, and I cannot blame him.

‘Rachel! Rachel? What are we doing? Why are you driving the wrong way, why are you driving like this, why are we going after that bus—’

‘I just am.’

‘You saw the face, you saw what I saw, didn’t you – Rachel? – but not the bus, don’t chase the bus – no, it’s frightening—’

‘Jamie, please, I don’t want to crash!’

The moorland roads are entirely dark now. Oncoming cars dazzle me with their lights, scarily close. These roads are so narrow. Granite boulders mark sudden curves, where my tyres squeal, where dark trees move. The bus is still there, topping the moors and heading into town. It has an advert for a local Christmas pantomime on the back.
Puss in Boots,
at the Hall for Cornwall. The big cat smiles at me. But we are nearly there now. When we will find out. I feel even more nauseous. What if it
is
her?

‘Rachel! I don’t want to do this. I’m scared!’

We drive past a supermarket, and the bus pulls over, and stops. Three cars ahead. I strain to see what is happening: people alighting in the cold, in their winter coats, faces orange in the streetlamps, an old lady with a shopping trolley. I lift my head to see Nina, if it is Nina, I am sure it is Nina, still on the bus. The blonde hair. But the bus is too far in front to make out faces, and most of them are facing forward, anyway.

I feel simultaneously terrified, and oddly triumphant.

‘Rachel, stop. I’m scared. Don’t do this don’t do this.’

I’ve had enough; there is no oncoming traffic. Pressing my foot to the pedal I scoot on to the wrong side of the road, just as the bus begins to pull out – I overtake one, two, three cars – I can sense the other drivers’ shock and outrage –
What the hell is she doing! –
but now I am right behind the bus.

‘Rachel—’

I can definitely see blonde hair. The bus is trundling down Market Jew Street. Lined with charity shops and cheap hairdressers and a knackered, medieval church. More Christmas lights sway overhead. The next time the bus stops I can stop, climb out, go and see.
I will know.

And now a man with a road sign steps into my fevered daydream, my frenzy of discovery.

STOP.

Roadworks.

STOP.

‘No!’

I am shouting. But I have to stop, or I will kill the man. Yet the bus has slipped through, at the last moment – it is speeding ahead, escaping us. Puss in Boots leers at me as the bus climbs the hilly road, then prepares to turn. And now the smile of the cat has vanished, like the cat in
Alice in Wonderland
. Like it was never there.

‘No!’ I say. ‘No no no no no no!’

I am banging the steering wheel in frustration. I can see Jamie in the mirror, staring at me in shock.

The bus has gone from view. Turned a corner. Another flow of traffic fills the street, from a side road – and I am still here, stuck behind the man with the STOP sign. The bus could be anywhere by now, I will never catch up. I slap the wheel, again.

Finally – fully five minutes later – the man with the STOP sign turns it around and it says GO and I race down the hill, past the minimarket. I know it is probably forlorn, but I can still try. Veering in front of oncoming traffic, breaking the speed limit, I chase the route the bus took – past a couple of pubs, heading down to the waterside. And yes.
There it is.

But as I drive close, the disappointment knifes my hopes. The bus has reached its terminus. This is Penzance bus station. And the interior of the bus is dark: it has reached its final stop, and all its passengers have disembarked. The bus driver is locking his door, and walking away, and there is no sign of her.

I will never know now whether that was really Nina Kerthen. I press my face to the steering wheel, and hold my fist to my mouth. I am so close to vomiting. Swallowing the acrid taste of my fears.

Lunchtime

Plumstead. Woolwich. Bugsby’s Reach. Thamesmead. David had heard of these estuarine non-places of course, these incoherent suburbs straggled along the grey and surging Thames, but he had never seen them. Except perhaps from the Business end of a plane, taking off at City Airport, heading for Ibiza, Paris, Milan, when he looked to the side and idly marvelled at London’s sprawl, the glitter of the docklands, the silver oblongs of water, and then the moth-grey-brown of those suburbs. Then a Tanqueray and tonic, thank you.

Now he was here, descended, lost in the backwaters of south-east London, where sofas sat in the pot-holed road for no apparent reason, where the trees snagged plastic shopping bags in their black branches, where the last British natives kept their heads down, and headed for here, this pub, between a tyre garage and an old Georgian mill, the Lord Clyde.

The pub was virtually empty. Just a barwoman in her thirties sporting a black eye, watching the soundless TV on the wall, and two other lunchtime customers: a couple of workmen in hi-viz jackets necking cheap pints of yellow lager. Talking football, with accents not unlike Rachel’s. The echo – the reminder – tugged at his conscience. His new wife. The woman he loved.

And now that love had turned to
this
. To this dismal pub. To doubts, and anxieties, and investigations: to a sinister suspicion that had to be confirmed, and maybe used. Because he had to protect his son from his own mistakes.

Who had he really married? Who had he allowed, so hastily, into Carnhallow?

Ray was back from the toilets, zipping himself. Taking his chair. Sipping his Guinness.

David looked at him. Assessing how much he had aged, and therefore how much David had aged, since they last met, maybe five years ago.

Ray was once one of his old friend Edmund’s fixers. That was how David had traced him, last week, via friends of friends of Edmund. This man, Ray, an ex-policeman in his early forties, had worked for Edmund for maybe half a decade – doing private investigations, discreet research, edging the right side of the law. Before Edmund had keeled over, aged thirty-seven. Brain haemorrhage.
Could have happened to anyone
.

‘He’d have loved this place,’ David said.

Ray wiped beer from his lips. ‘Edmund? Yeah. He liked lowlife.’

‘His boyfriends were always from places like this.’

Ray laughed. ‘Too right. Talk about rough trade. Bless his little cottons.’ The ex-cop looked uncharacte‌ristically wistful. ‘Miss the old bastard. He was funny too.’

David nodded. Forcing himself to be businesslike. He didn’t want to talk too much about Edmund. They didn’t need to go there.

‘OK, what have you got?’

Ray suppressed a burp, leaned to his side, and grabbed a supermarket carrier bag. He pulled out a slender volume resembling a child’s exercise book. As he opened it, David tried not to look at the pages too obviously. Ray’s handwriting was small, careful and precise. That was, no doubt, the copper in him. Taking assiduous notes.

Clearing his throat, as if he was in court, Ray explained. ‘To be honest, David, your call was a bit of a surprise. Haven’t heard from the likes of you in years, and you didn’t give me much time. Usually I like to, you know, take these things slowly, build a picture, as it were.’ Ray smiled, showing a hint of gold in a tooth-filling, ‘But your offer was very generous, so I’ve been working quick. And hard.’

‘And?’

He read from his notes. ‘Rachel Daly. Thirty years old. Five foot two. No previous. Irish parents. Mother cleaner, father villain. Born in Woolwich General. Went to St Mary’s Primary. Went to Holy Trinity secondary, Catholic comp. Left school early, did basic jobs, cleaning, skivvying, zero hours. Then went to art college: to Goldsmiths. Then escaped.’

‘Escaped?’

‘Seems like the right word, wouldn’t you say? Take a look at this area. Take a look at her CV. Family’s typical South London underclass. Knew her kind when I was Job. Tea-leafs, neets, chancers. Vicious semi-criminals.’

‘Anything else?’

‘When she was a kid her folks lived all over the shop. House in Thamesmead, flat in Charlton, the nasty bit, then a grotty little semi in Abbey Wood, always renting of course. Renting, and then evictions. List of addresses as long as yer arm. Bailiffs in and out the door. Very, very rough.’

David sat back, thinking of his smart, resourceful second wife, who had
made herself from all this
. Admiration surged, despite himself. Rachel had overcome this terrible backstory. It was impressive. That was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with her.

But then a Christmas carol interrupted his foolish reverie. Tra la la la la. He really had to
stop
thinking this way. He had to remember why he now resented her, too. This woman snooping around Carnhallow. This irrational woman, upsetting his son. This potential disaster. Whom he had married.

‘What else?’

Ray looked at his notes. ‘Yes. Here’s something. They disappear for a while.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Around Rachel’s late teens, the family vanishes. No known address. Dad on his own. Then, a few years later, Rachel enrols at college, Goldsmiths, and by then her mum is living in the country. And, get this: she’s living in her own house.’

David sat back. ‘But they had no money.’

‘Exactly. They disappear, then come back, and they’ve got enough cash for a little house. Not much, but still, pretty weird. And by that time her dad has gone back to Ireland. He’s still there now, Kilkenny. Her mum died a few years later. Lung cancer.’

David took a thoughtful sip of his drink, trying to take away the taste of betrayal. But it was hard. He was betraying Rachel, the woman he loved. But this bad stuff had to be done. Maybe he could find an easy way out. Persuasion, not force. If the worst came true, and the marriage was over, he certainly didn’t want to go through a messy divorce. Whatever he did, divorce had to be avoided. Because she could fight it. She could tell the police he had lied about the accident, and if they started investigating …

Unthinkable. He needed to be cleverer than that. He was cleverer than that.

‘You want another?’ Ray was gesturing at David’s glass. David waived the opportunity: one G&T was sufficient. He needed his mind at its sharpest.

As Ray ambled to the bar, David gazed around. The workmen had exited into the wintry cold, zipping up those jackets, steeled by three pints of lager for lunch. Yes, that was it. Zip up, move on. Get the job done. Pint.

Ray sat down with another fat glass of Guinness. David leaned nearer. ‘Look. I need something now. Something better, stronger.’

‘Something you could use for a little bit of blackmail, you mean?’

David said nothing: there was no need. Ray took another slurp of stout and looked at the barwoman with her black eye. ‘Someone’s been walkin’ into doors. Happens a lot round here, their doors must be shite.’

‘Ray—’

The man chuckled. ‘I do have something else, yeah. Though they’re oddly loyal, these people. Thick as thieves. Birds of a feather. All that shit. But there’s this one bloke might be able to help. He’s the only one willin’ to talk about her.’

‘And this guy is?’

‘Liam Daly – cousin of Rachel’s. I’ve said you’ll give him five hundred, if he coughs something nice. He said on the phone he had somethin’, maybe.’

‘OK. OK.’

‘Right on time. Here he is.’

The door had swung open; a red-haired man in his early thirties wearing a huge anorak nodded gruffly towards them. He looked mildly hostile. But then, David mused, everyone and everything was mildly hostile round here. Everything was curt, gruff, stunted. Withered by the wind off the estuary.

‘Liam, this is David.’

Liam sat down without a word.

‘Pint?’

Liam glanced at David, then back at Ray. ‘Abrahams. Cider.’ A pause. He did not say thank you.

The drink was fetched. Liam unbuttoned his anorak, showing layers of football shirts underneath. A fit man running to fat. Half the pint disappeared in about ten seconds. David felt the frustration rising, and interrupted: ‘So Rachel Daly is your cousin?’

Liam glugged more cider, and set the pint-glass on the table. ‘Yeah.’

‘Go on.’

‘Eh. We were close for a while.’

‘How close?’

‘We went to the same school.’

‘And?’

A shrug. More silence.
I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas
. Liam was inert, bordering on defiant.
David pressed, ‘Liam. I’m not paying you five hundred quid to hear about you snogging by the bike sheds.’

Where the treetops glisten, and children listen
.

At last, with a hint of contempt, Liam went on: ‘All right, what else can I tell ya? She was a looker, a sparkler. Everyone fancied her, she was funny too, clever. Good for her, getting out of this fucking zoo.’ Liam was staring at David, open aggression in his face; but then, David realized, maybe Liam was angry at himself: betraying a friend for money. ‘Then somethin’ happened. She fell out with her family – dunno why, sure it wasn’t her fault. They all stopped speakin’.’

‘No idea at all?’

‘Nope. Zilch. Her family was a right busload, always in trouble. And her da. Jeezo, what an evil old cunt. Drinking and brawling like a twat. No wonder her sister ran wild.’

‘What did the sister do?’

Ray interrupted. ‘Rachel’s older sister, Sinead, thirty-two. Expelled from her comp for breaking windows. She lives in Glasgow now, she’s a nurse. Seems Rachel hasn’t communicated with any of her remaining family, dad and sister, since they dispersed.’

David nodded, biting back his irritation. This still wasn’t enough.
White Christmas
warbled to its end. Ray apparently sensed his mood; he nudged Liam along.

‘Liam, we haven’t got all day, can you tell David what you told me. On the phone, this morning. What happened to Rachel. You said you had something that would help us.’

Liam took a long drink, as if he needed the liquor to steady his nerves. Then he gazed flatly at David. ‘OK. Not long after her da fucked off, maybe before, dunno, she went mental. Done her nut.’

David felt a quickening: his lawyerly senses alerted. ‘You mean Rachel had a breakdown.’

‘Yeah.’

‘How bad?’

A slight, tantalizing delay. ‘Pretty fucking bad. Apparently she was, like, properly off her trolley. They took her to Fraggle Rock. Yeah, she was in some place, locked up, whatyacallit, psycho unit. After that she left, disappeared. Grew up. She got rid of that accent, or most of it. And then she flew away.’

David looked at Liam, then at Ray, then he gazed at the empty glass on his table. He had a kind of prize. Rachel had mental health issues. The worst of his suspicions had been proved horribly correct. And probably this explained it all. Rachel really was making it all up. The woman looking after his son was actively crazy, hallucinating, classically paranoid and persecuted.
I hear voices. They tell me I’m going to die at Christmas.

He could get his wife sectioned, and taken away, for ever. He had to do this. Before she harmed his son.

David gazed about the pub, feeling the bleakness. Despite this breakthrough, he felt no sense of triumph. If anything, this information made him feel sadder, guiltier. That feisty, funny red-headed girl he’d met at the art gallery eight months ago. That survivor. That girl he’d loved. She was unique. She was the special girl he’d always hoped for.

But she was a girl that had to go.