Chapter 26 Jacob
Jacob
‘Thank you for coming, sir,’ Clarice Toad said, standing by the door in her pretty pinafore, her hair held up by a neat little bonnet emblazoned with the tearoom’s logo.
A floral lace nametag gave her first name in swirling letters.
Aunt Marjorie had felt it best to stick to first names, just for the time being.
As she stood by the counter alongside Jacob and watched Clarice thanking the departing customers, wishing them a good day and asking them to come again, Aunt Marjorie leaned close to Jacob’s ear.
‘She’s just perfect. She’s got a natural way with customers, and I’ve never known anyone work so hard.
Her cooking will be an asset too. She told me she had to get creative on her family’s budget, but some of the ideas she’s given me …
honestly, if I were to expand and open another shop, I wouldn’t think twice about hiring her as manager. ’
Jacob smiled. ‘She burst into tears when I told her why I wanted to talk to her. Although some of that might have to do with showing up with Mark. He let Billy put the cuffs on me, just to show how they worked.’
‘She’s doing a great job.’ She patted Jacob on the arm. ‘And so are you. No word from your lady?’
Jacob sighed and shook her head. ‘She didn’t show up at the children’s home on Wednesday night. Lisa said she had a bit of a cold, but Michaella said she was fine at school that day. Perhaps she heard about the police, or James fed her some lies … or both.’
‘Why don’t you just call her? You know, I thought I saw her standing outside the tearoom the other night? She looked like she was waiting for you.’
‘It was probably someone else. Why would she want me when she could be with James?’
‘Because you’re a decent human being and he’s not?’
Jacob shrugged. ‘That’s not really enough these days, is it?’
‘Come on, cheer up. Oh God, is that Barbara Bakersfield? This’ll be a good test for Clarice; the future Ghost of Christmas Criticism.’
It was hard to concentrate on the job, but with Christmas just around the corner, the tearoom was busy, and Jacob was run off his feet all afternoon. After they closed, he hurried over to the hospital to visit Nora. He found Rita sitting in the waiting room, reading a newspaper.
‘How is she?’
‘Oh, Jacob,’ Rita said, wiping away a tear.
‘She recognised me for the first time this morning. We had a real chat. The doctors said her medication is starting to take effect, and while she’s clearly not all there, she’s improving quickly.
She might need to stay in hospital for a couple more weeks, but there’s a good chance she’ll be out before Christmas. ’
‘That’s great news. What will happen to her?’
‘My family is keen for her to come back with us to the States, if she’s able to travel. She doesn’t have a passport or anything like that, and she can’t go anywhere without medical approval. But, you know, we’re hopeful.’
He was about to ask something more when a doctor approached, telling Rita that Nora was awake and asking for her. Holding back floods of tears, Rita patted Jacob on the arm, thanked him again, then hurried after the doctor.
Jacob sat down again. Through a window he saw that it had started snowing once more, thick, fluffy flakes floating gently down.
An elderly patient leaning on a walker looked out of the window and gave a little chuckle, then muttered, ‘A new hip please, old man.’ At least Nora was all right.
Things might not be working out for Jacob, but that didn’t matter.
He’d done something good, helped someone.
He wasn’t looking forward to the long walk home in the snow, so went to get another coffee out of the machine to fuel him for the journey.
Taking the little cup, he turned away, and found Charlotte’s friend Kelly, in her nurse’s uniform, standing right behind him, so close he could have reached out and plucked the name tag off her scrubs.
‘Jacob.’
‘Uh … Kelly? Nurse … Collins?’
Kelly smiled. ‘I just spoke to Doctor Kipling. I wanted to know what you were doing here. He told me about Mrs. Shapton. Nora. You brought her in, didn’t you?’
Jacob shrugged. ‘An ambulance brought her in. I just found her.’
‘He told me that she’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far—’
‘Doctors never lie. Not unless it’s necessary. Did you drive here?’
He shook his head. ‘I walked. I don’t have a car and this ice … not great for bike riding.’
‘I just finished a shift. Can you meet me in the lobby in five minutes? I’ll give you a lift home.’
‘Ah, sure. If you really want.’
‘I need to talk to you. It’s about my friend, Charlotte.’
Jacob swallowed. His neck had suddenly gone all hot and prickly. ‘Oh, right. Are you going to tell me to leave her alone? Because I don’t think you really need to. She’s not interested in me, and even if she was, I think there are few worse choices she could make—’
‘The lobby. Five minutes.’
‘Right.’
She was a little longer than five minutes, and he was just about to leave when she came jogging out of a side door wearing jeans and a winter jacket.
‘Sorry about that. A nurse’s work is never done. Right, let’s go. You need coffee?’
‘Always.’
‘There’s an all-night garage on the way. Well, it’s not on the way, but with this snow I’ve had to figure out a route free from both hills and ice. The council’s not been ploughing the town centre, either because they think it looks Christmassy or they’re too cheap. Or both.’
‘Or they haven’t realised it’s snowing. Councils aren’t all that aware of what’s going on, in my experience.’
‘You could be right.’ As they crossed the car park, she pointed at a little Honda. ‘This is mine. Get in.’
They had been driving for a couple of minutes before Kelly turned to Jacob. ‘So. What’s the deal with Steamblack?’
‘James?’
‘Yes. Not a common name. I’ve not heard it before.’
‘It’s a stage name. His real surname is Boswell.
My mother’s surname is Black, and he liked it, but couldn’t steal it directly.
I think one of his early tricks was to make a steam train disappear, so he got it from that.
’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe, I don’t know. To be honest, I haven’t followed his career.
I just wanted to forget about him. It was easy to just turn off the TV if one of his shows came on. ’
‘Well, right now, you can’t. We find ourselves in a bit of a tricky situation.’
‘Do we?’
‘Charlotte’s been my best friend since school.
She’s scatty, a bit of an airhead, and tends to spend way too much time in shoe shops, but she’s probably the nicest person I know, and that’s saying something because I work in a hospital, where a lot of nice people tend to work.
But Charlotte, she’s something else. If I got too far behind on my rent I would dissect her and literally cut out her heart because I’m certain that it’s made of gold. ’
‘Would you really?’
‘Humour me here, Milkman.’
‘I’ll try. My humour reserves are pretty low right now.’
‘Scrape the bottom of the barrel. It might prove necessary.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Right, here’s our coffee stop.’
She pulled in at a garage. Jacob sat in the car, feeling like a chastised child while Kelly went inside, returning a couple of minutes later with two coffees.
‘If I drink a tall I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight,’ Jacob said.
‘You can sleep when you’re dead. You have work to do first, though.’
Jacob took a sip of the coffee and winced. Black. ‘No milk?’
‘I need you to focus here. I put yours in mine because I have an early shift tomorrow. Those hearts don’t cut out themselves.’
‘Right.’
She started the engine and they pulled out into an empty road.
‘I’ll just say it straight out. No one is good enough for my friend Charlotte.
’ Kelly slapped the wheel with one hand.
‘No one. However, judging by what I’ve learned about you with a bit of simple sleuthing, you’d make a decent effort.
And you’re certainly better than this James Steamblack.
I Googled him, you know. He’s got not one but two court cases coming up.
One woman claiming his paternity of a pair of twins, another that he stole a copyrighted magic trick and passed it off as his own.
I know he’s a showman and charming and all that, but I don’t much like him.
However, he apparently laid down a pretty convincing argument for why he’s some lifelong victim and you’re the root of all evil. ’
Jacob couldn’t help but laugh, even though inside he was dying, his worst fears coming true.
‘That doesn’t surprise me at all. He’s had it in for me since we were kids.
My dad ran out when I was baby. It was just me and Mum for years; then she met Colin—that’s his dad—at a charity dinner disco thing while I was on a school trip.
James is four years older than me. We never got on.
He wasn’t a fighting type, but he’d do stuff to get me in trouble, steal my things, tell people lies about me that were believable enough to ruin a few friendships.
I don’t know what happened to his own mother—he told me his first trick had been to make her disappear, whatever that meant—but even though mine did her best, it was a bit late in the day for her to be a replacement.
He was already in the Sixth Form, full of himself, a bit of a bully and all that.
My mother tried to get along with him, but he had a massive chip on his shoulder. ’
‘So is that why you tried to sabotage his career?’
‘I didn’t. I just told the truth in court as I knew it.’
‘Court? What court?’