The poor girl was totally exhausted from the ever-increasing workload and was at the end of her tether. Between bouts of tears, she had told me what life for my grandmother was really like. Above all, she was lonely. Keeping her in her own home had been no real kindness to anyone, and certainly not to her. So the following day I had made arrangements for my grandmother to go into permanent residential care and had promptly sold her house to pay for it.
That had been two and a half years ago, and the money was starting to run out. I hated to think what would happen if she lived much longer.
As usual in the evenings, she was sitting in her room with all the lights full on. She didn’t like the dark and insisted that the lights be left on both day and night. As it was, on this midsummer day, the sun was still shining brightly through her west-facing window, but that made no difference to her need for maximum electric light as well.
I sat down on a chair facing her and took her hand in mine. She looked at my face with hollow, staring eyes. I stroked her hand and smiled at her. I was beginning to think this had been a waste of my time.
“Nanna,” I said to her slowly, “I’ve come to ask you about Peter. Do you remember your son, Peter?”
She went on looking at me without giving any sign that she had heard.
“Your son Peter,” I repeated. “He got married to a girl called Tricia. Do you remember? They had a little boy called Ned. Do you remember Ned? You looked after him.”
I thought she hadn’t registered anything, but then she smiled and spoke, softly but clearly. “Ned,” she said. “My little Ned.”
Her voice was unchanged, and I felt myself welling up with emotion.
“Yes,” I said. “Your little Ned. Nanna, I’m right here.”
Her eyes focused on my face.
“Ned,” she repeated. I wasn’t sure if she was remembering the past or whether she was able to recognize me.
“Nanna,” I said, “do you remember Peter? Your son Peter?”
“Dead,” she said.
“Do you remember his wife, Tricia?” I asked her gently.
“Dead,” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said. “But do you know how she died?”
My grandmother just looked at me with a quizzical expression on her face.
Finally she said, “Secret,” and put one of her long, thin fingers to her lips.
“And Peter,” I said. “Where did Peter go?”
“Dead,” she repeated.
“No,” I said. “Peter wasn’t dead. Tricia was dead. Where is Peter?”
She didn’t say anything, and her eyes had returned to their distant stare.
“Secret,” she had said. So she must have known.
I pulled the photocopy of my father’s photograph from my pocket and put it on her lap. She looked down at it. I placed the tiny photo of my mother and father at Blackpool there too.
She looked down for some time, and I thought at one point that she had drifted off to sleep, so I took the pictures and put them back in my pocket.
I stood up to leave, but, as I leaned forward to kiss her on her head, she sat up straight.
“Murderer,” she said quietly but quite distinctly.
“Who was a murderer?” I asked, kneeling down so that my face was close to hers.
“Murderer,” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said. “But who was a murderer?”
“Murderer,” she said once more.
“Who was murdered?” I asked, changing tack. I already knew the answer.
“He murdered Tricia,” she said. She began to cry, and I gave her a tissue from the box beside her bed. She wiped her nose, and then she turned and looked at me, her eyes momentarily full of recognition and understanding.
“And he murdered her baby.”
7
It emits a radio signal,” said Luca in the car on the way to Ascot on Saturday morning. He was holding the black remote-type thing with the buttons. “You were bloody lucky this wasn’t stolen,” he added.
“Why would it be stolen?” I asked him.
“Because the teenagers at the electronics club are a bunch of hooligans,” he said.“Most of them are only there because the courts make them go. To keep them off the streets on Friday nights. Supposed to be part of their rehabilitation. I ask you… Most of them wouldn’t be rehabilitated by a stretch in the army.”
“But what about this?” I said, pointing at the device.
“One of the little horrors had it in his bag,” he said. “God knows what he thought he would do with it. Just liked the look of it so he lifted it. They are like bloody magpies. If it shines, they’ll steal it.”
“You said it emits a radio signal,” I said. “What sort of signal?”
“Fairly low frequency,” he said. “But quite powerful. One of the staff at the club was able to set up an oscilloscope to see it.”
“What’s an oscilloscope?” I asked.
“Like one of those things in a hospital that shows the heart rate of patients,” he said. “It displays a trace on a screen.”
“But what’s the thing for?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think it might be for writing information onto the RFIDs.”
“The glass grains?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “The end slides off.” He showed me. “And you can fit one of the grains into this hollow.” He pointed at it as I drove. “When you push the ENTER button, it sends out a signal. I think that must program the RFID with the numbers you punch into it before pushing the ENTER button.”
“Is that really possible?” I said. “There aren’t any connectors.”
“It’s easy,” he said. “Writing to RFIDs occurs all the time. When someone puts their Oyster card near one of those round yellow pads on the tube gates, the card is first scanned to determine the available credit, then the system automatically deducts the fare and rewrites the card with a new balance. Same thing on all the buses. It’s done by radio waves. It doesn’t need connectors.”
I was slightly disappointed. I had somehow hoped that the device was going to be more exciting than something that was fitted to every bus in London. But why, then, I wondered, did my father think it was necessary to hide it in his rucksack?
I yawned. Sleep had not come easily to me after my visit to my grandmother. I had lain awake for hours thinking about what she had said to me, and also how that secret must have burned ferociously in her for so long. What did you do when you found out that your son was a murderer? More to the point for me, what did you do when you found out that your father was one?
I thought back to when I had sat by my father’s body in the hospital after he had died. Was it really just four days previously? It felt like half a lifetime.
I had mourned for what might have been, for the lost years of opportunity. Somehow, even in spite of the knowledge I had gained since, I felt some form of affinity with the man who now lay silently in some mortuary’s cold storage. But what had he done? Had he really deprived me not only of himself but also of my mother, and a brother or sister as well?
I had tried to telephone Detective Sergeant Murray at Windsor Police Station, but I was told he was either elsewhere or off duty. I had left a message for him to call me, but, so far, there had been nothing.
“It’s the Wokingham today,” said Luca, rubbing his hands and bringing me back from my daydreaming.
“Sure is,” I said.
