16
The rest of the week passed by uneventfully. Ben continued to stumble into the office starry-eyed, and spent his days exchanging messages with Lucy. I tried to keep Jeremy at bay despite his frequent ‘Knock knocks!’ followed by casual probes into my progress on the Bryant case. Christopher went out with his running group. I looked at my wedding Pinterest boards for the first time in months. We chose the invitations. We booked a tasting at Tillbury Manor for June, and I made an appointment with the other Jenny for a dress fitting.
I didn’t hear from Jackson.
Life, in other words, returned pretty much to normal, and I reminded myself every night to be grateful for it.
It was late on Friday afternoon, shortly after another ‘Knock knock’ from Jeremy, and I was flicking through the photographs from the cobbler’s shop for the hundredth time. Ben was looking at a recipe for slow-cooked lamb. ‘What the hell is a tagine?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Lucy’s obsessed with it, so I want to make it for Sunday lunch, but from the look of this it’s just a load of meat with some dried apricots thrown in.’
‘That’s pretty much it,’ I replied.
‘Eurgh.’ Then he copied the link to the recipe and sent it to himself. ‘I guess it doesn’t hurt to give it a go,’ he shrugged, ‘if it’ll make her happy.’
‘Man, you are whipped,’ I said, tossing a close-up of the cobbler’s workbench onto the pile. I made a couple of whah-pssh! sounds for good measure, but he just smiled.
‘Guess so,’ he said, turning happily back to his screen.
I glanced at a few more photographs, but nothing had changed from the first ninety-nine times I’d studied them. ‘I think I’m going to head out,’ I announced. I started stuffing the photographs back into the file. One of them slipped out of my hand and fluttered to the ground.
I reached down to pick it up. That’s when I saw it. ‘Holy shit,’ I muttered.
Ben spun around in his chair. ‘Find something?’
I nodded and held the photo out for him to see. ‘Bottom left corner.’
He leaned over. ‘What is that – a bin?’
‘Look what’s in the bin,’ I said, tapping a finger on the print.
He squinted at it. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘I think so.’
Our eyes met. ‘Holy shit,’ he muttered.
‘I’ve got to go.’ I quickly shut down my computer and stuffed the file into my bag. ‘I’ll see you Monday,’ I called as I rushed out of the cubicle.
‘Where are you going?’ he shouted after me.
‘Columbia Road!’
I sent Christopher a text message on my way, warning him that I’d be working late. It was nice to be able to say it without lying.
My heart thudded in my chest as I made my way down Hackney Road. If what I’d seen in that photograph was still there – if my hunch was right – I was about to prove that Mr Bryant’s place didn’t burn down because of an electrical fire. A person – not a fuse – had caused that fire.
Columbia Road was fairly quiet when I got there, but the first signs of Friday-night reveling had begun to appear. Clusters of men in rolled-up shirtsleeves stood outside the Royal Oak clutching pints, foreheads tinged red from the sun. People strolled down the road in twos and threes, stopping to peer into shop windows. A couple walked ahead of me, heads tilted towards one another, deep in conversation. I could only see his shock of blond hair and her long tangle of red waves, but the familiarity was enough to knock the breath out of me.
How had it only been a week since Jackson and I had stood on this sidewalk together? A week since he’d told me how he felt. A week since he kissed me. A week since I kissed him back.
A mix of emotions flooded through me. Sometimes, a week can seem a lifetime. Anyway, it was over now. Ancient history.
I passed by Daisy’s and quickly peered in to see if Betty was under the dryer, but the place was empty except for a sullen-looking girl pushing a broom around the floor. It was probably best I didn’t run into her anyway. She’d made it clear she wasn’t a fan of mine, and without the one-man charm offensive of Jackson by my side, I didn’t think she’d even acknowledge my presence.
It didn’t matter, anyway. I had a burned-out wreck to break into.
By the time I reached the shop, my nerves were so bad that the back of my mouth tasted metallic. It was one thing breaking into a place in the middle of a sleepy afternoon, but the street was filling up fast, and I was sure to get a few suspicious glances. I stood outside for a minute and leaned up against the brick wall, trying to look casual. Now, I thought to myself, would have been a good time to smoke. Instead, I took out my phone and pretended to study something extremely interesting while I waited for a group of Danish tourists to pass.
Finally, the coast was clear. I ducked down the alley next to the shop, picked my way through the detritus-strewn garden, and shouldered the back door open.
I crept into the shop, my phone in hand, with the camera switched on and at the ready. The smell hadn’t changed. Acrid-stale smoke still snaked its way into my lungs, and I could feel the damp in my bones. My footsteps sounded absurdly loud, echoing off the charred walls.
There was the wall where the safe had been, still covered by the scrap of tattered canvas. There was the workbench with its set of blackened tools. There were the fragments of a leather apron, still hanging from its hook. But there was no sign of the wastepaper basket anywhere.
My heart sank. Of course he would have destroyed the wastepaper basket and whatever was inside it. I felt like a fool. All this effort, and still nothing to show for it. I would have to tell Jeremy that I hadn’t found anything after all.
And then I heard it. At first, I thought it was a rat, its claws scuttling across the floorboards above, but then there was a thud and a sigh. Someone was upstairs.
I froze. Oh fuck. I was going to get caught. I was going to get arrested! What the hell was I doing here, anyway? Why was it so important that I solve this case? Why couldn’t I have just told Jeremy to pay out the money and end it, like a normal person?
I could see the headlines now: Insurance agent breaks into charred remains of elderly client’s home. Maybe they’d deport me. Maybe they’d have me committed. Maybe this was it. Maybe I really was going crazy.
The footsteps were getting closer.
‘Hello?’ The voice was low and slightly trembling. ‘Hello?’
I thought about making a break for it. How fast could I run? I gazed down at my feet. What had possessed me to wear these goddamn heels on today of all days? I could kick them off and take off barefooted, but then I’d have to get all the way home without any shoes on. I would definitely get tetanus, maybe worse. And my shoes would be here waiting to be found, like some deranged criminal Cinderella’s.
I saw part of the wall open up and a small, white hand appear. Too late.
‘Hello?’ A man’s pale face appeared. He was older – in his sixties – and wearing a plaid flat cap and a look of terror. He saw me and his face fell. ‘Are you from the police?’ he asked, taking in my dark Zara trousers and blouse.
‘No!’ I said, a little too quickly, and then I thought, damn. Maybe I should have pretended to be the police. Though impersonating an officer is definitely a crime, too.
‘Then who are you?’ His hands were shaking slightly, and I could still hear the tremor in his voice.
‘I’m, um …’ No point in trying to hide it now. ‘I’m from your insurance company.’
His face grew even paler. ‘Oh,’ he said quietly. He shuffled into the shop. I realized now that the part of the wall he’d emerged through was actually a doorway leading to a stairwell. The handle was missing and the grime had made it blend into the wall. The realization flooded me with relief: at least he wasn’t a ghost.
‘I was just checking a few things,’ I said. I stood up straight and tried my best to look official, despite my soot-covered palms.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I was expecting you.’
‘You were?’
He nodded. There were heavy pouches of skin under his eyes, and deep lines carved along the sides of his mouth. This was a man who was suffering. ‘Can I buy you a cup of tea?’ he asked, moving towards me.
‘You want to buy me a cup of tea?’ I tried to keep my face neutral, but I could hear the incredulity in my voice. It wasn’t every day that a man whose home you were currently invading offered to buy you a cup of English Breakfast.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ he said, ‘dragging you all the way out here.’
‘But—’
‘Come on, keep an old man company for a while.’ He gave me a beseeching look. ‘Please?’
I nodded. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘There’s a nice little caff around the corner,’ he said, shuffling towards the back door. I remained rooted to the spot. ‘Come on, love,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I’m not getting any younger.’
We walked the short distance in silence, both of us ignoring the curious glances of people wondering what a pensioner and a woman who apparently looked like an plainclothes police officer were doing together and, more importantly, why they were both covered in soot.
The place was an old-school greasy spoon that looked as if it had been plucked from another era, all peeling Formica tables and brightly colored signs advertising egg and chips for a pound. We chose a booth at the back and settled in.
‘You’ve got to go up to order,’ he said, plucking a laminated menu out of the holder on the table and handing it to me. ‘Used to be table service, but then Margie left and they didn’t bother replacing her. Which is fair, to be honest – she was an awful waitress. Spilled more than she served.’ He was talking at a rapid clip and in a cockney accent so thick you could stick a fork in it. ‘Now, what would you like? Have anything you like – it’s on me. They do a lovely sausage roll in here.’ He sized me up from across the table. ‘Though I expect young ladies like yourself don’t eat sausage rolls these days, do you?’
‘I’ll just have a cup of tea, thanks,’ I said weakly.
He nodded and slid out of the booth. ‘Back in a jiffy.’
I sat there, stunned. The man had every right to call the police on me, but instead he was at the counter, ordering me a cup of tea. How had this happened? And what was I supposed to do about it?
‘Here you are,’ he said, depositing two large, thick-rimmed mugs on the table. Steam curled from each of them, and they were filled to the brim with murky mahogany-colored liquid.
‘Is there milk in this?’ I asked as he settled himself across from me.
He gave me an indulgent smile. ‘That’s a builder’s brew.’
I took a sip. It was so bitter with tannins, I could feel the enamel being stripped from my teeth. I forced a smile. ‘Delicious.’
He looked genuinely delighted. ‘They do a proper cup of tea, not like most of these phony places around here. All style and no substance, that’s what my Vicki used to say.’ His eyes filled at the mention of his wife and I looked away. I couldn’t bear to see his sadness, knowing I was potentially about to make it worse. ‘So whereabouts in America are you from?’
‘New Jersey,’ I said, and braced myself for the Sopranos impression.
‘Ah, lovely place,’ he said. ‘My wife and I went there on our holidays once. Walked the boardwalk, did a tour of the house that chap who invented the lightbulb lived in. Must be twenty years ago now.’
My jaw nearly fell into my tea. ‘You went on vacation to New Jersey?’
‘It’s called the Garden State, isn’t it? Besides, Vicki had a cousin out there at the time. Lovely holiday, that.’
He got that wistful look in his eye again, and my heart actually physically hurt. The man loved his dead wife and he loved New Jersey and I was trying to screw him out of his insurance money. Christ.
‘So what brings you to London?’ he asked.
‘Work,’ I said. ‘And my fiancé.’
‘You’re engaged? Congratulations! Marriage is a wonderful thing. Nothing better.’
I squirmed in my seat. ‘That’s nice to hear.’
‘Anyway, I didn’t drag you over here so I could grill you on your personal life. I wanted to explain myself.’
‘Explain yourself?’ I stuttered.
He leaned back in the booth and sighed. ‘I may look young for my age, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m guessing you didn’t come all the way down here to hand me a cheque for the insurance money.’
‘Now that you mention it, there have been a few … discrepancies raised that I wanted to discuss with you.’
He wrapped his hands around his mug. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, there’s the wastepaper basket … and one of your neighbors mentioned that the smoke was black, not white, which is what you’d usually expect with an electrical fire.’
He nodded. ‘Sharp as a tack, aren’t you?’ His smile faltered, and suddenly he looked old. ‘I was a fool to file that claim. I should have just let sleeping dogs lie, but my son …’ he shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter now. I suppose you’ll be calling the police.’
I stared at him. His blue eyes were rheumy and red-rimmed, the edges of his mouth sagging in defeat. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me what happened?’
He took a sip of tea. ‘My wife, Vicki … she passed about a year ago.’
‘I know,’ I said. He looked surprised. ‘The insurance money,’ I explained.
‘Oh. Right.’
‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’
He took off his cap and ran a hand across his thinning hair. ‘She was sick for a long time. Cancer.’ He shook his head. ‘Horrible thing, cancer. Ate her alive. When she finally died, everyone told me it was a blessing. That she was in a better place now, away from the suffering. I tried to believe it – I promise I did – but the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.’ His eyes met mine. ‘All the pain she went through, all the years – how could that be a blessing? And even if she was in a better place, what about me? I’m still here, without her.’ He stared down at the table and worked at a bit of congealed grease with his thumb.
I realized what he was about to tell me, and the breath caught in my throat.
‘I tried for a year. I really did. I went to work, said hello to people in the shops, saw my kids.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I held my first grandchild – a little girl. Clara.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘Beautiful. But,’ he said, laying his hands flat on the table, ‘it wasn’t enough. Every single second of every single day with her not there … and all I could see was all the days still in front of me.’ He sighed. ‘I went to see my kids on the Saturday. Gave my granddaughter a kiss. And then I came back to the shop.
‘I wasn’t trying to burn the place down – I swear it. I got home that night and it was exactly the same as it always was, only she wasn’t there. The walls were covered with pictures of Vicki and me everywhere … I couldn’t bear to look at them anymore. I started burning them in the bin. I don’t know what came over me – the kids would have killed me if they’d known I was burning things of their mum’s, but I was like a man possessed. I threw in a few of the rags from the workshop to get things going, and the flames got out of control and the place filled up with this thick black smoke and I thought … maybe it would be easier if I just lay down and went to sleep.’ A tear slid down his cheek, and I reached out and took his hand. ‘It was the sirens that woke me up. I looked up and I swear to you, my Vicki was there. She was standing above me, this funny little smile of hers she gave me when I’d done something stupid, and she told me to get up and run. So that’s what I did. I went straight to my son’s house and told him what had happened. I didn’t want people thinking I was mad, you see. I didn’t want their pity. He understood that, my son. He’s a good boy. He went back there with me after the firemen cleared off and he pulled a bit of the wiring out of the wall. He’s an electrician, you see. Said everyone would think it was a fault with the old electrics. He told me I should file an insurance claim to make it look like it was all on the up and up.’
‘And the safe? Was your wife’s insurance money in there?’
He shook his head. ‘What was left of it, which wasn’t much. We’d signed her up for this experimental treatment that wasn’t covered by the NHS. Left us with a mountain of debt, and didn’t do her any good in the end.’ He grasped my hand in his. I could feel the rough callouses on his fingers from years of working with his hands, and the warm blood that flowed beneath his skin. ‘I wasn’t in my right mind when I filed that claim. I was going to cancel it, but I didn’t want to bring any more attention on myself. I hoped it would just sort of … go away. Stupid of me, really.’ He tightened his grip, and when I met his eye, all I could see was desperation. ‘I’m not bent, I swear it. Neither’s my son – he was only trying to help me. Please, you have to believe me.’
‘Mr Bryant …’
‘Ed,’ he said, ‘call me Ed.’
‘Ed,’ I said gently, ‘I’m not going to call the police.’
‘You’re not?’
I shook my head. ‘It was an accident, that’s all. But you should cancel the claim.’
He nodded. ‘Of course. I don’t know how to thank you.’
I remembered something Jackson had said to me. ‘Grief makes us do crazy things.’
He smiled at me sadly. ‘It’s not grief that makes you do crazy things, sweetheart. It’s love.’ His gaze drifted towards the window of the café, where the Friday-night crowds drifted past. ‘All those people out there … I see them sometimes, young kids in love, holding hands, in their own little bubble. Like it’s the two of them against the world. Do you know what I mean?’
I nodded.
‘I see them, and I think, hold on tight, because when they’re gone, there’s no replacing them. You remember that for you and your fellow, too. You tell him to hold onto you tight.’ My eyes filled unexpectedly with tears, and they spilled over onto my cheeks before I could stop them. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said, hurrying to hand me a tissue. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You didn’t,’ I said, waving him away as I blotted my face, but the tears kept coming. We sat in silence for a minute, and he handed me fresh tissues as I fought to control my shuddering breaths. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said finally.
‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,’ he said, mock-sternly. ‘A lovely girl like you is allowed to have a bit of a cry every now and then without apologizing.’
‘Thanks,’ I smiled. ‘What are you going to do next?’
He shrugged. ‘Get on with the act of living, I suppose. Find a little flat somewhere. Spend time with my granddaughter.’ He patted the back of my hand as he climbed out of the booth. ‘What about yourself?’
I shot him a startled glance. ‘Me?’
‘Do you know what you’re going to do next?’
I was silent.
‘Take your time, love,’ he said, picking his cap up off the table and settling it on his head. ‘It’s a long life, full of twists and turns. Just promise me one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
He smiled as he headed towards the door. ‘Be happy.’