Chapter 51
MONDAY
Jess brings me tea and toast in bed in the morning, insisting I take it easy.
She leaves it as late as she can before driving Leah to school, telling me she’ll try to finish early today.
Even though we both concede that the kids will probably be safer at school than at our house.
The pain from my head injury has receded to a low background hum, kept at bay by the painkillers.
The bruising has started to bloom blue and black beneath the skin of my chest and back, the wrist sprain settled to a dull ache that flares every now and then when I take the sling off.
I drop Callum and Daisy at St. Jude’s Primary, watching them until they’re safely inside their classrooms, then head back to my car and drive straight into town. On the way, I dial Maxine’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail. She hasn’t responded to any of my messages since Saturday.
My phone buzzes as I’m parking up in the multi-story on Fletcher Gate. Finally. I snatch it up, expecting to see a reply from Maxine. But it’s not from her—it’s from the unknown number, the first time they’ve been in contact in a few days.
A needle of ice slides down my back as I read the message.
Next time we bring petrol and matches. Or you can return our property to us. Your choice.
I swallow hard, pushing back a sudden image of the house in flames with my family trapped inside. I resist the urge to respond in anger, or fear: that currency is no longer any good here.
I’m sorting it. Need a little time.
I lock the car and head for the stairs. The car park is busy, and I’ve ended up on the lower half of level six, where almost every bay is already taken.
Above me and to the right, cars are crawling slowly along the higher tier of this level, engine noise growling off the low concrete.
Doors slamming, cars beeping as they’re locked, drivers hurrying away.
A figure catches my eye further down the row.
Because I’m below him I can only see his upper body, but I can tell that he’s tall and heavy, graying hair and beard, and a dark gray coat…
There is a cold shock of déjà vu as I realize I’ve seen him before.
The General Cemetery on Saturday, just before I met Maxine.
I dodge around a car coming up the ramp from below and change direction to head toward him. A van passes in front of him as the phone buzzes again in my hand.
You have until tonight.
For a crazy second I think it must be him who’s sending me these taunting messages, who’s threatening my family as casually as sending a text on a Monday morning. I break into a run, sprinting up the ramp to the next level, my head pounding, scanning left and right to see which way he went.
But there’s only a blonde woman in jeans and a jacket getting out of a Range Rover.
The figure in the gray coat is gone.
It’s a five-minute walk from the car park and I watch for the gray-coated man all the way, doubling back and taking an indirect route to see if he’s following me.
I don’t catch sight of him again.
The city’s central library is a modern glass-fronted building near the train station, with high ceilings and plenty of space between the bookcases.
The microfiche reader sits in a corner at the back and looks decades old, cream plastic surrounding a large screen, with a pair of control wheels—one horizontal, one vertical—instead of a keyboard.
A staff member hunts out a cardboard box from a rack behind the desk, sliding out a sheaf of densely printed transparent plastic sheets and checking the tab at the top of the first one: Nottingham Evening Post 1/12/2001–4/12/2001.
“Each one of these sheets is about three days’ worth of papers,” he says.
The screen lights up as he switches the reader on and slides in one of the clear plastic sheets.
“Each page of the city final edition, reduced to four percent of its original dimensions. The lens magnifies it back up to legible size. Controls here and here for moving the lens from one page to the next.”
He wanders off back to the front desk. I sit down at the reader and flick through the cardboard box of plastic microfiche sheets, the printing impossibly small for the naked eye, tiny consecutive pages laid out in rows side by side.
Elizabeth Makepeace and Peter Flack had died on December 27, 2001, but both of them had lived in my house for years—or maybe decades—before that.
I start with that day’s edition, scanning each page carefully for any mention of sudden or unexpected deaths.
The type is thick and old-fashioned, the headlines blocky; the whole thing has the feel of a period piece, like something you might discover under the lining of an old carpet.
I scan through pages, slowly at first, moving more quickly as I get the hang of it.
The single page of national news on the twenty-seventh is dominated by news of the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, who had been arrested after trying to bring down a transatlantic flight with explosives in his shoes.
The next day’s national story is about the recent invasion of Afghanistan, following the 9/11 attacks.
The first hint of what I’m actually looking for is in the New Year’s Eve edition: a few paragraphs on page two.
No names, no details, simply that police had been called to an address on Regency Place in The Park after the discovery of two bodies in circumstances the police were treating as “unexplained.” I take a picture of the story on my phone.
On the second of January, there is a longer piece that takes up half a page under the headline POLICE PROBE DOUBLE TRAGEDY.
In the article itself, there are quotes from neighbors and friends paying tribute to the pair and describing how Peter, a doting grandson, had lived with his grandma since his mother died when he was a boy, his father having long since departed.
I don’t recognize any names among the people quoted, and frustratingly it still doesn’t give a cause of death.
But it does have photos of both victims. Elizabeth is a small, frail-looking woman with a halo of snowy hair, leaning on a walking stick at what looks like a garden party.
Her grandson is the absolute opposite in every respect: a broad-shouldered man in his prime, with dark hair and a strong jaw, laughing eyes that brim with confidence and charisma.
In the picture he’s wearing a muddy rugby shirt, grinning as he holds up a trophy.
I take photos of everything and scroll on through the next day, and the next, each edition comprising dozens of pages.
Scanning every article, large and small, for any mention of the mysterious deaths that had happened two days after Christmas.
I slot in another of the microfiche sheets and keep going, my head starting to ache as I stare at page after page of black type on the backlit screen.
Scrolling, scanning, moving onto the next page.
I reach the end of the sheet, then go through the whole of the next one without finding a single mention.
Surely there would have been an update, a court report, something from the police?
Perhaps I’ve missed it. I rub my eyes, scan back through again before reaching for the next sheet and slotting it under the lens.
I find the answer on January 11th.
I stop, the breath catching in my throat.
Reading every word of a story that takes up most of page five, not quite sure yet what it means or how it fits into everything else.
Even as I know in my gut that it’s another piece of the puzzle.
Because there was no crime, no dramatic incident all those years ago.
No attack, no intruder, no murder-suicide.
No perplexing mystery still waiting to be solved.
It had been a tragic accident.