Ascension Day

he’d first headed along their grey, footstep-echoing lengths, shirt sticking to his back, nerves bubbling wildly, to see Larry Durrant for the first time.

Felt like a lifetime ago now. Because now it seemed like they were long-lost old friends, Larry hugging him in greeting before they took up seats each side of the table in the ‘Quiet’ room. Larry’s expression darkened as Jac told him about the BOP hearing in two days’ time.

‘What do you think are the chances?’

‘We’ve put in a strong plea, no denying: good character, strong religious values, your self-educating, and, of course, the key issue of executing someone who even now doesn’t have all their memory faculties. I even sent in a couple of case examples to back that up. But against that we’ve got the thorny problem of Aaron Harvey re- offending. Killing again. There’s a lot of political pressure on Candaret because of that. And so…’ Seeing Durrant hanging on his words with fresh light, hope, in his eyes, Jac side-stepped, moderated what he’d initially planned to say. ‘So it’s all in the balance, Larry. All in the balance.’

Larry nodded thoughtfully, and Jac felt a stab of guilt to his chest. Having told himself that he couldn’t and wouldn’t fool Larry, in the end he’d weakened and done just that: the odds were far worse than fifty-fifty. From what he’d seen in the press and talking with John Langfranc, the political pressure on Candaret was so intense that the chances were probably no better than two or three percent.

But having spent the past weeks giving Larry something to cling to, filling him with hope, Jac couldn’t just come along now and tell him that there was little or no hope. Kill the faint light in Durrant’s eyes he’d only just put there.

Jac introduced a fresh tone. ‘But there’s been movement too on other fronts.’ He told Larry about Mack Elliott and Rillet and his conversations of the past few days. He didn’t mention the crack house or being worried for their lives at one point, because Larry hardly remembered Rillet in any case; a reminder to Jac of how little Larry recalled from his past, how far he might be stretching for what he wanted now. ‘And miracle of miracles, Rillet did manage to dig up his diary from that week.’

‘Oh? That’s great.’

Jac held one hand up, calming, as that hopeful light came back into Larry’s eyes. ‘It’s only given us half the picture, unfortunately. He wasn’t working the night of Jessica Roche’s murder — so he can’t tell us anything about then. But the good news is that the pool game wasn’t one of the nights he was working that week. Otherwise we’d have struck out straight away.’ One trait Jac had gained from his father: look to the bright side. When Jac had first heard that Rillet hadn’t worked that key night, he’d felt immediately deflated, especially after the lines he’d put through name after name over the last few days. But then he’d shaken himself out of it, started to look at the other options. ‘So, of course, that means with the pool game taking place on one of those nights remaining, it could well have coincided with the night Jessica Roche was murdered. Out of those nights you used to play — Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday — Rillet was there Saturday, and it wasn’t then. So that leaves just the Tuesday and the Thursday, the night she was murdered. We’ve managed to narrow it down to just two nights.’ Jac held Durrant’s gaze for a second. ‘That’s the other reason I’ve come here now, Larry. To hopefully try and fill in that final gap. I’ve asked everyone else, but not you.’

‘Okay, fine.’ Durrant nodded, something in his eyes lifting, as if only then did it fully dawn on him where Jac was heading. ‘Fire away.’

Jac gave the background to how he’d handled things with Hadley, Saunders, Levereaux and Mack Elliott: putting them in the moment. ‘So, I’m going to ask you the same as them: do you remember where and when you first heard Jessica Roche had been murdered?’

But as quickly as that light had come into Larry Durrant’s eyes, it receded. ‘I don’t know. It’s difficult.’

‘I know.’ Jac smiled tightly. ‘But try. Try. It’s important.’

Larry nodded, applying more thought, his eyes darkening with concentration. ‘I’m not sure, but… but early evening news, I think.’

‘Early evening? Not daytime news or in a newspaper?’

Durrant shook his head. ‘No, don’t think so. I wasn’t working, but I was out in the daytime a lot… looking for work. So I think that’s the first time I’d have seen it.’

‘Think? Don’t you actually remember where and when you saw it, Larry?’ An edge now in Jac’s voice.

‘Don’t know.’ Durrant looked down again, that uncertainty, the shadows worming deeper. ‘That’s how I seem to remember it… evening news.’

‘Evening news. Okay. Okay. And what do you remember feeling when you saw that news?’

‘Feeling?’ Durrant shook his head, his tone incredulous. ‘I’m still working on where and when, and now you want me to tell you what I was feeling. And why’s that so important?’

‘Because, Larry, if you’d just killed Jessica Roche, you’d have been scouring the newspapers from first light, or at least made sure to catch a news bulletin a bit before early evening. That’s why. And when you did first hear that news, a stone would have sunk through your stomach.’

‘Oh, right.’ Durrant exhaled dramatically, forcing a tight smile. ‘Since you put it like that.’ He applied more thought for a moment, faint shadows drifting behind his eyes again; then, as if as an afterthought, ‘What did the others recall?’

‘I’ve still got a couple more leads to hear from,’ Jac lied. He didn’t want to tell Durrant that there was only one lead remaining, and that it was a scatterbrained waitress who hardly remembered your drink order minutes later; let alone what, where and when from twelve years ago.

Larry nodded, ‘Okay,’ blinking slowly as he sank back again into thought. But the shadows in his eyes just seemed to settle deeper, and after a moment he squinted and shook his head, as if he’d tried to read a distant number-plate on a dark night, but the car had driven off at the crucial moment. He smiled wryly. ‘You know, when I first lay on Truelle’s couch, I couldn’t even remember my son’s middle name or his birthday. My mother’s name had gone too, and what my father looked like and how old I was when he died… and everything about Francine’s mother — though at first Franny thought I was just doin’ that on purpose — all completely lost, out of reach.’ Larry’s lopsided smile quickly faded. ‘I’m grateful just to have been able to get that back, Jac — let alone remembering what I was feeling twelve years ago.’

‘I know. I know.’ Jac nodded sombrely. ‘But it’s just that you said you’d started to remember more.’

‘Yeah.’ Larry held one palm out in tame concession. ‘Like a bit of where and when and a couple of old buddies’ names. But I think that what I was actually feeling then is gonna be stretching things. Maybe always will be.’

‘Okay. Where and when.’ Jac grabbed for what he could. ‘Let’s concentrate on that. See if you can remember when that week’s pool game was in relation to you hearing about Jessica Roche’s murder. I mean, was it just the day after? Or did there seem to be more of a gap?’

‘I don’t know. Day after… day after?’ Larry’s eyes and thoughts drifting again. ‘Maybe something there… but…’

Jac sat forward, desperately afraid that whatever thin thread Durrant had grasped might be lost again. ‘Try, Larry, please…’

Durrant nodded, blinking slowly. ‘If only I could remember whether Bill Saunders was there that week. You see, if it was a Tuesday… I recall that often Bill wouldn’t show then, because he had to take his little girl to some sort of dance practice. So we’d get someone else from the bar to fill in. So that would then leave just that crucial Thursday night.’

Jac nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, yes. It would.’ The night Jessica Roche was murdered. He fell quickly silent again so as not to break Durrant’s concentration.

Larry was squinting at that distant number plate again; for a second it looked like he might have fixed on it, but then it was as if the tail-lights had in turn moved further away. He peered harder to try and compensate, but it was no good; it was lost again. Jac noticed Larry’s hands and arms trembling then, as though the effort of remembering had set off a gentle quake in his body.

Larry shook his head finally. ‘I’m sorry, Jac. Maybe led you on some there, too, with the “where and when”. I can’t remember whether Bill was there that week. Overall, I can recall only a handful of pool games, and maybe a handful of incidents too from those games. But ask me now which incidents were from