Chapter 62
Steve is sitting on his bench by the duck pond talking things through with Debbie. It’s only a couple of minutes’ walk from The Hunter’s Rest.
‘He came quietly,’ says Steve to his wife. ‘I’ll give him that.’
A quiet suspect usually worries Steve.
If Connor Brooks was heading straight into police custody, it would worry him still more.
But Ernesto is taking him to the We Solve Murders offices to get whatever they can out of him before he ends up in a room full of lawyers and tape recordings.
It might be their only chance to get the whole truth. It’s highly illegal, of course.
He should be with them, but he wants to talk to Debbie.
He was on his way here when he saw Rosie’s and Ernesto’s cars parked haphazardly in The Hunter’s Rest car park.
Parking up, without crashing into anything and, he might add, neatly within a designated bay, he had seen Connor Brooks disappear into the maze.
‘They’ve taken him up to the offices. Should really have taken him to Southampton nick, but Ernesto’s a bit like us. Wants to do things his way. Wants a couple of hours with Brooks without those lawyers. That’s my bet anyway.’
There’s a reason Steve wants to talk to Debbie. Ever since that day in Lucca, Steve has known there was something at the heart of this case that didn’t make sense. Something that needed unlocking.
Steve still has an itch to scratch. Something he can’t help thinking might solve this whole thing.
‘Do you remember that time we were watching Deal or No Deal? And I kept pausing it every time it went to box fifteen, and I was like, I know that guy, I swear I know him, and you said he’d probably been on some other TV show, and I said, I’m sure it’s not that. You remember?’
Steve waits for Debbie to answer. She does remember. Of course she remembers, he didn’t stop banging on about it for days, did he?
‘And it bugged me all that evening, the bloke with box fifteen, where did I know him from? So we watched it again the next day, and this time he was on box seven, or nine or something, and I said, there he is, and you said, not all this again, I’m trying to watch, he probably went to your school, but it wouldn’t go away.
It wasn’t just that I knew him, I knew it was important that I knew him … ’
He knows he should talk to Debbie about Georgie Glazier too.
But it was all innocent. On his part at least. I mean, sure, he’d had a shave and had sniffed his T-shirt before he left the house, but that’s basic manners.
Stop thinking about it, Steve, there must be a reason you’re telling this Deal or No Deal story.
Get to the end of it, and you’ll work it out.
‘So the next day, and this is the first time I’d ever watched Deal or No Deal three days in a row. First and last, it’s just opening boxes at the end of the day, isn’t it? How is that entertainment? I tell you a good show, The Ch–’
Two schoolchildren pass by in a tentative wide arc, and Steve realizes, from their nervous side-eyes, that he said the last bit quite loudly, and that if these kids didn’t realize he was having a conversation with his dead wife, it might look weird to them. He quietens down a little.
‘Anyway, that day it was our familiar friend’s turn in the magic chair, the chair of dreams, so I got a good long look at him.
Seventy-five grand he won, the Banker was fuming.
You could see Noel was cock-a-hoop. He was dancing up and down, this geezer, hugging everyone and his auntie, and I got it.
Sydenham Post Office, 2004. Wages snatch.
We only got the bottom half of his face on the CCTV, that’s why it took me so long.
I went straight back to the station, pulled out the file and there he was.
Twelve years he got for that, and they took his seventy-five grand away from him. Remember?’
Steve knows exactly why he doesn’t want to talk to Debbie about Georgie.
But he also knows why he’s thinking about the Sydenham Post Office robber turned daytime TV jackpot winner.
He’s thinking about the Sydenham robber because Steve never forgets a face.
He’d recognized the blond hitman the second he saw his photo. And he’d recognized him for a reason.
You see, Steve was sure he’d seen him in one of the airport photos, just idling in the queue. Was sure of it.
But he’s looked at those photos again and again and again, and they seem to be a blind alley. But it’s what his brain keeps going back to. His brain keeps saying, ‘Trust me, Steve’. He’s missing something in those photos, he’s sure of it. He needs to head home and have another look.
‘I’ll love you and leave you, Princess,’ says Steve. ‘I need to check out those photos though, you know me.’
Steve strokes the brass plaque on the wooden bench in the green field by the calm pond. He stands and stretches.
He can’t talk to Debbie about Georgie, he knows he can’t. Because it hasn’t been a long time. It’s been no time at all. He’ll tell Georgie, next time he sees her. He’ll explain. I’m already married. I’m in love with another woman, and I always will be.
Steve knows that Debbie would tell him to move on, but he made up his mind a long time ago that he will never move on. He’s going to stay precisely where he is.
He looks back at the bench and pulls a cap low over his eyes to hide his tears.
Life really is impossible, but it’s all we’ve got.