Ascension Day

flashes of their wedding day and Joshua being born making the years since seem all the more lost, wasted.

Larry hastily pushed the thought away. ‘Though I told Roddy straight that it wasn’t half as funny as seeing him struggle to save the day in front of that crab-faced woman at the BOP hearing. He was back-paddling faster than a duck facing ten Chinese chefs… until that Ayliss guy turned up to save his neck. Or mine, as it so happens.’ Larry shook his head, grimacing. ‘If I miss anything from this place, then it’d be Roddy. And maybe the library a bit, too.’

Ayliss. Saving neck. But as much as they’d all desperately tip-toed around the subject, talking about anything but, suddenly it was back before them. Larry’s death. Only thirty-two hours away now. The shadow of it hanging so close that it was stifling, suffocating. Inescapable. With the mention of Ayliss, Franny’s eyes darting rapidly as if unwilling to accept the inevitability of that shadow, she leapt for what she saw as a possible escape route.

‘I heard that new lawyer of yours, Ayliss, on a radio phone-in a few days back after Candaret turned down your pardon… and he said he wasn’t giving up yet. Not by a long shot. Said that he truly believed you were innocent and in fact had someone visiting the prison over the next few days that would hopefully, once and for all, prove it.’

‘Yeah.’ Larry nodded, smiling dryly. Jac hamming it up as Ayliss, trying to get a doubt bandwagon rolling. Never say die. ‘A psychiatrist.’ Larry explained about Ormdern’s two sessions and what they’d hoped to find either with his old pool game or lack of detail recalled about the Roche house. He shook his head as he finished. ‘But in the end, they didn’t hit on anything. Not enough, anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘Though apparently Ayliss is still out there, chasing down, from what he tells me, “some vital final leads uncovered from the sessions”.’

Francine reached out and gently clasped one of his hands. ‘So there’s still some hope left. Still someone out there fighting for you.’

He clasped back at her hand, realizing in that moment that, like her smile and laugh, she’d touched him more in this past half hour than she had in eleven years. He grimaced tightly. ‘Franny, I don’t think it’s right to fool ourselves that he’ll suddenly pull a rabbit out the hat. He’s probably saying all that just to make me feel good, keep my hopes up. Candaret said no, and in the end those sessions didn’t dig up anything. I might just have to accept that that’s it.’

‘But surely, Larry, if he’s still out there trying, then — ’

Larry squeezed tighter at her hand. ‘It’s okay, Franny… it’s okay. I’ve accepted it. Because, you know, at…’ He looked down awkwardly, the right words suddenly elusive. ‘At some stage… I’ve got to. It’s just not right clinging on till the last moment with false hope, when I should be trying to make peace with — ’ He was about to say “my God”, but changed tack at the last second; it de-personalized too much from Fran and Josh. ‘With myself in my own mind. And that inner peace is real important to me right now, so I can say the things to you and Josh that need to be said.’ He kept hold of her hand, though more gently now. ‘I want to thank you first off for bringing Josh up straight and true when, like I said before, God knows often it couldn’t have been easy with me not there through all the years. And I don’t even have to ask you to promise me to keep doing that good job, because I know you will. And to say that… that I always loved you… even though I often had a strange way of showing it back then.’ Francine, eyes glistening heavier with tears, shaking her head as if to say, No, no… you don’t need to say this to me now, or perhaps feeling awkward at hearing it, not wishing it to be the last thing she heard from him, remembered him by; and him eager to get the words out before his resolve went, say what he should have said years ago, but never did because he was too blind or proud or foolish or stubborn, knowing that if he didn’t say it now, he never would. ‘And I… I probably never did stop loving you. And to say that… that…’ But as hard as it had been to say everything so far, this was by far the hardest. ‘I’m… I’m sorry. So sorry for having done what I did. Let you and Josh down.’

Francine crumbled then, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks. Joshua’s eyes too were glassy, both of them still clinging to that hope mentioned of Ayliss still trying to save him, not wanting to accept what was happening, not wanting to hear from Larry what sounded now like a goodbye speech, their pleading eyes screaming at him, ‘You might have accepted what’s happening, found peace with yourself, but we haven’t. We haven’t! And as much as one part of Larry was glad that he’d said what he had — in fact what he should have said eleven or twelve years ago — another part of him cursed ever having met Jac McElroy. For filling him with hope, caring again.

Before that, he’d had it all pretty well worked out: his family had all but given up on him, so in turn him giving up on them and what little there was left in this life for him wasn’t that difficult. Seemed almost the next natural progressive step, as did turning to God. Though he did truly believe, it wasn’t just a second option, a crutch because God was the only person left in this world who he felt hadn’t deserted him.

But one effect it had, though it hadn’t dawned on him until later, was that when he turned more to God and away from worldly life, love and caring — most of it already stripped from him in any case — when he made that final turn away, nobody really noticed. As if he was already a shadow, and so that final slipping away was barely visible. And at that moment he also half-died, and the daily grind and horrors and isolation of Libreville over the years steadily chipped away at that other half until there was practically nothing left.

At that final low moment, the only consolation was that death — the shadow of execution hanging over him — no longer held any threat, because there was so little of life left for him. So little would be taken.

But then this Jac McElroy had come along, talking about family and caring and hope, about life; and as he finally let himself be drawn into that, started to care once more, he’d become afraid of death again. Because there was suddenly much more of life, more that seemed worthwhile, that would be taken away. He wanted nothing more now than to see his son grow tall, go to college, get a girlfriend, avoid all the mistakes he’d made… rather than just have to imagine it all happening; but the last thing he wanted at this moment was his son to see that, see his fear of dying, the longing in his eyes.

And minutes later, as they said their final tearful goodbyes, and Larry hugged them tighter than ever before, while he felt his heart soar as they said they loved him too, Josh adding that he’d never forget him — ‘You’ll always be my pa,’ as if the others since had only half filled that role — Larry couldn’t bear to see the pain and unwillingness to accept his death in their eyes.

And so part of him wished it had been like before: him already half-forgotten, just a shadow, and then he could have just quietly slipped away without anyone hardly noticing. Not caused them any pain or trouble.

‘So there she is in this neck brace, her face like she’s gone five rounds with Tyson, and she says: I’ve been in an accident. Really? I say.’

Two vice detectives and another sergeant smiled as Brennan started with the story in the Eighth District canteen. This sounded like it was going to be good.

‘But she’s as sour-faced as a turkey’s ass, this one. I got more chance of raising a smile from a funeral director.’

The smiles lapsed into chuckles as Brennan got to the reason for her accident: slamming on her car brakes because she’d just seen her ex-husband of seven years, and then convinced that it wasn’t him. ‘And when I suggested to her that maybe, with her only seeing him for two seconds, she might have been mistaken — she looks ready to kill. Starts giving me a lecture about when you’ve been married to someone for a while, you recognize them in the first millisecond, and anyway, she says, there was no recognition on his face when he saw me. What, he didn’t slam on his brakes too? I’m about to say…’ More chuckling, Brennan in his element as he hammed up the story, saying by that stage he was worried for his own safety if he showed even the trace of a smile, starting to get lockjaw from holding it in check. ‘And at one point she goes to nod, but can’t with the neck-brace…’ Full-blown guffaws now. Brennan held out one palm. ‘Then it started to get even more interesting, because it turns out her ex is no less than Darrell Ayliss, Larry Durrant’s new lawyer…’

At the table behind them, Lieutenant Pyrford had only been half-listening to the story as he sipped at a coffee. He was waiting for robbery reports on four downtown stores for a suspect held over at the Fifth District, and had been told they’d be fifteen minutes or so. But as Darrell Ayliss and Durrant were mentioned, he looked over. And as the penny at the back of his brain dropped fully, he leant across and interrupted the conversation.

‘Excuse me… you said that this ex-wife of Ayliss’s claimed that the man she saw wasn’t her husband?’

‘That’s right.’