Had that changed?
‘So what are you going to do? Come forward and offer to testify?’
He exploded a laugh that was more like a bark, and not a friendly one.
‘Don’t be silly. I told you, I’ve got a second chance, a new life. Do you think I’m going to put it at risk by stepping back into the old one? You too, Gina. You’ve moved on, put all that dark stuff behind you. You wouldn’t want to put your new life at risk either, would you?’
All that dark stuff… she wanted to scream at him that she knew now that all that dark stuff was part of her being forever. There was no space behind her she could ever put it.
She said, ‘This isn’t about me. Look, Ed…Alex…I know it would be much harder for you…’
That laugh again.
‘You’re right there. It wouldn’t just be Goldie who ended up on trial. I’m sure they’d promise all kinds of leniency in return for my testimony, but the public don’t like to see a bent cop going free. Trust me, Gina: it would be hard for you too-harder than you think. No, when you leave here, what you have to do is drive home, forget you ever saw me. You just decided what you were doing was pointless, someone’s idea of a joke. You’ll be safe at home.’
Again the implications of his words took a moment to sink in.
‘Safe? Why wouldn’t I be safe here?’
‘Because when the tiger comes out of the jungle and the shooting starts, no one gives a fuck about the staked goat. They’d prefer not to involve you, of course. Much better for me to have a fatal accident, or simply vanish without trace. But if the choice was between risking losing me and blowing us both away right here, they wouldn’t think twice.’
She stared at him for a long moment then said, ‘I think you’re trying to frighten me. Like Mick when I talked to him earlier.’
He laughed and said, ‘Good old Mick, he’ll see the big picture. Think about it. If you’re not scared of Gidman, what about the press? I’m sure you had a taste of what those guys can get up to when I went awol. Imagine what a feast they’d make of this lot if they got a sniff of it. They’d tear you to pieces. Just think of the stories they’d make up. Wouldn’t do much for Mick’s career. As for you, I doubt if a parent anywhere would want to let her precious offspring take music lessons from a scarlet woman. So forget all of this, Gina. Go home. This hasn’t happened. I don’t exist any more.’
‘You’re right,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought I recognized you. I was wrong.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Tell that to the fat cop. You made a mistake. That’s your story. Stick to it and you’ll be fine.’
‘Even with Mick? You want me to lie to Mick too?’
‘Oh no,’ he said, with a smile closely related to his canine laugh. ‘No secrets between lovers. In fact, I may give dear old Mick a ring myself to put him in the picture, so it wouldn’t look good if you kept quiet, would it? You’ll have his mobile number in your phone, I expect.’
‘I’ve left it in the car,’ she said. ‘But I can remember the number.’
She recited it and he copied it into his phone.
‘Always a good memory,’ he said admiringly. ‘Ali’s the same. Must be all that music buzzing around in your heads. A real talent, memory. Except sometimes it’s a real pain.’
He reached over and opened her door. His arm brushed against her breast. After seven years, that’s the nearest we’ve come to intimate contact, she thought.
‘Goodbye, Gina,’ he said.
‘But what are you going to do? They won’t stop looking, will they?’
‘They might. You never know. Things change.’
‘For a man who thinks there’s a hitman after him, you don’t sound all that worried.’
‘You’re thinking of Alex Wolfe. He’d have been worried. I don’t think I’ve got anything to worry about if you keep your mouth shut. Goodbye.’
He sounded slightly impatient now.
She said, ‘Just one more thing. That general and the plucky little trooper game, did you ever tell anyone about it?’
‘I don’t think so. You?’
‘No.’
‘Never mind. One of those things, eh? A lucky guess.’
She got out of the car then stopped to take what she imagined might be one last look at him.
She said, ‘Goodbye, Edwin Muir. I pack your stars into my purse, and bid you, bid you so farewell.’
He stared back at her uncomprehendingly. Why should he understand when she hardly understood herself?
He didn’t say goodbye for a third time, just looked at her till finally she got out of the car. She closed the door behind her, firmly but trying not to slam it. She didn’t want him to think she was leaving him in anger. Not that it would have mattered. Through the window she saw he had taken out his mobile and was dialling a number. For a second she thought he must be ringing Mick. Then someone answered and she saw a smile spread across his face as he started talking. It wasn’t the guarded knowing smile he’d flashed as they spoke. This was a smile that turned him once more into the young man she remembered, the man she’d married.
He was, she guessed, talking to his new partner. Ali, the music teacher. The mother of Lucinda.
She felt all the pain of loss again as she hadn’t felt it for years. Not that it had ever truly gone away, she realized now. There were things that had the power to obliviate the pain for a while. Music. Sex. But like a ground bass, it ran beneath all the variations of life, good and bad. Perhaps it was a necessary part of living. Perhaps humans needed a loss that felt worse than death to make the inevitability of their own death bearable.
But she would not wish this pain on anyone. She certainly did not want to have it dragged into the public domain once more. She recalled how intrusive the press had been in the aftermath of Alex’s disappearance.
What Alex had told her about the threat from Goldie Gidman was hard to credit, it smacked too much of a TV thriller. But anything touching on the financier and his MP son would certainly be big news, and the thought of being besieged by journalists, midnight phone calls, cameras and mikes being thrust into her face whenever she emerged, her image appearing in newspapers and news items all over the country, was a horror worse than the threat of death.
No, though her own pain was not something she would wish on anyone, she was sure that if she had the chance to take the kind of pain journalists specialized in and turn it on them, she would not hesitate.
Alex was right. At least in this they were in accord. Silence was her refuge. She resolved that nothing would make her admit to the meeting and exchange that had just taken place. Nothing.
She set off down the hill towards her car.
18.05-18.15
Gwyn Jones’s progress north had been slower than anticipated.
He’d stopped at the first service station on the motorway to ring Beanie. The conversation had gone pretty well, he told himself complacently. She had sounded really sympathetic as he span his tale of his grandmother’s illness and the dutiful son heading back to the land of his fathers to take his place at the old lady’s bedside. Then he’d bought himself a coffee and a sandwich to make up for his missed lunch, tried Gareth again without any luck, and rejoined the thickening traffic only to be held up by an accident a few miles ahead.
The next ten miles took over half an hour, but once clear he’d made reasonable time and now he was definitely up north, passing through what had formerly been known as the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire where King Arthur lined up his coal-face knights to tilt against the great tyrant Thatcher.
A Welshman on a left-wing paper ought to have felt a frisson of fraternal nostalgia as he traversed this holy landscape, but Jones hardly spared it a thought or a glance.
He’d fed the Loudwater Villas details into his sat-nav. For most of the journey it had had nothing to do but tell him to keep going straight on. Finally it instructed him to turn off the motorway and soon the directions were
