The Black Path (21 page)

‘Come along, Helen,’ she said briskly. ‘We haven’t got all day.’

She sounded as if she was simply hurrying her along to school.

As soon as they were home, her mother sent her upstairs to her room. Helen lay with her ear pressed to the floor, listening to the adults talking in hushed tones in the room below. Finally they said their goodbyes and she heard her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. She turned off the bedroom light and climbed under the covers, pretending to be asleep as the door cracked open and her mother whispered goodnight.

‘There you are,’ a voice says, snapping her back to the bright light of the hospital corridor. Siân is staring at her with an intensity she finds unsettling. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ Helen replies. Her voice shakes. Her eyes blur with tears.

Siân’s face softens. ‘C’mon,’ she says. ‘Let’s find a cab.’

Martin Collins isn’t given to excessive displays of emotion. He has the stiff bearing of a man who’s spent a lot of time in the military and is proud of it. A former army staff sergeant, recently retired, his greying hair is still worn in the same severely cropped style. His thin lips and clipped moustache rarely twitch or widen into a smile.

As he leaves the hospital with his grieving wife by his side, he keeps his eyes locked firmly ahead. Heading towards his car, he sees the young woman who caught his eye earlier in the hospital corridor. She’s being bundled into a taxi by another woman with black hair and a red shoulder bag. Watching her now, she looks every bit as shaken as his wife. He wonders for a moment if she, too, has been asked to identify the body of someone she loved – her brother perhaps, or her husband.

Martin’s son wasn’t married. There’s no wife to grieve for him, and no children to worry about. That’s a blessing, at least. For years, Martin has been learning to count his blessings. He sighs to himself and fumbles in his pocket for his car keys. Jamie hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped. He hadn’t excelled at school. There were no girlfriends, no prospect of grandchildren. But he had followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the army. Even now, there’s comfort in knowing that he’d devoted his life to serving his country. His son died a hero. That’s what people will say. That’s how Martin will remember him.

As he jerks open the car door he hears a wailing sound and turns to see his wife standing several feet away. Her face is a mess of emotions – all the feelings he’s keeping locked up written large across her features. Her mouth gapes. Her eyes are wild. Tears course down her cheeks.

‘Barbara?’ he says, walking towards her.

She backs away, hands raised in front of her face like she’s fending off an attacker.

‘Barbara?’ he says again, and reaches for her shoulder.

‘Don’t!’ she says, shrugging his hand away. ‘Don’t touch me!’

Martin looks around to see if anyone is watching. The taxi containing the two young women is pulling past. He averts his eyes and looks at his wife. ‘Come along, Barbara,’ he says. ‘We have to be strong.’

‘Strong?’ She gives a dry, manic laugh, totally devoid of humour. ‘Is that the best you can do? My son is dead. My beautiful boy is dead. And you’re telling me to be strong?’

Martin swallows hard before responding. ‘He was my son too.’

‘Was he? Was he really? Then tell me about him, Martin. Tell me what kind of man he was!’

Martin glances around the car park. ‘Barbara, please. This is hardly the time or the place.’

‘I don’t see why not. He’s dead. What better time to remember him?’

‘Of course I remember him. Do you honestly think I’d forget my own son?’

‘You didn’t even know him, Martin. You didn’t want to know.’

‘Barbara, please. Let’s go home. We can talk then.’

He takes a step forward but she backs away again, arms folded across her chest. ‘Come on, Martin. I’m waiting.’

He sighs and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about my son, Martin. Your son. The one you drove away. The one who’d be alive now if it wasn’t for –’

She starts sobbing again and reaches into her handbag. Her expects her to take out a tissue but instead she clutches a handful of blue envelopes. She waves them at him.

‘Do you know what they did to him, Martin? Do you know what they did to our son in your precious army?’

He shakes his head again, more out of desperation than anger.

‘Of course you don’t. How could you? You never asked. You never listened. So I’ll tell you, shall I? They bullied him. They called him queer and they bullied him. One time, they got him drunk and strapped him to his bed while he was asleep, so that he woke up soaked in his own urine.’

Martin looks away. ‘That’s just horseplay, Barbara. It happened when I was in the army and I’m sure it happens now. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Did it happen to you?’

He flinches. ‘What?’

‘Did they tie you to your bed? Did they call you queer and spit in your food?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Then don’t you dare tell me it’s just horseplay. Don’t you dare insult the memory of my boy by making light of what he went through. You haven’t the faintest idea what it was like for him. How many friends did you make in the army, Martin? A dozen? A hundred?’

He bristles. ‘I knew a lot of good men, Barbara. A lot of brave men. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’

‘Our son made one friend, Martin. Just one. A man called Owen. If it hadn’t been for that man, he’d have been totally alone. But then you’d know that if you’d bothered to read his letters.’ She stuffs the blue envelopes back into her handbag and snaps it shut. ‘Shame it’s too late now,’ she adds icily.

‘I did my best, Barbara.’

‘Best?’ She snorts and turns her head away. When she looks back again, her eyes are challenging him to say something.

‘He loved the army,’ he says gently. ‘You know that.’

‘He joined the army to please you. What were you thinking, Martin? That it would help straighten him out? That it would make a man of him?’ Angrily, she brushes the tears from her cheeks. ‘He didn’t need straightening out. What he needed was a father who loved him.’

‘I did love him,’ Martin says. ‘I loved him just as much as you did.’

‘Of course you did,’ his wife sneers. ‘You loved him so much you sent him away to die.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Barbara! He died serving his country. You can’t hold me responsible for that.’

His wife stares at him coldly. ‘He died serving you, Martin. And don’t you ever forget that.’

For the first time in years, Martin Collins feels his temper rise. He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

‘I’ll wait for you in the car,’ he says, and marches briskly on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Angela has been home for the best part of an hour – enough time to fix herself a sandwich and flick through the
Gazette
. Most local news stories don’t hold much interest for her, but she’s read all about Dennis Bevan and his upcoming parole hearing. According to the paper, Bevan was sent down several years ago for a series of drug offences including the possession and supply of heroin on what the paper described as ‘a massive scale’. An earlier trial had fallen apart amid allegations of police corruption. Bevan had friends everywhere, apparently – including two senior police officers and a local magistrate. It was only when a former associate was persuaded to testify against him that the prosecution finally had enough evidence to secure a conviction and send Bevan down for life.

Angela is well aware that Bridgend has a drug problem. It wasn’t that long ago that the town earned the dubious distinction of being named the heroin capital of Europe. But she hadn’t realized that such a large part of the problem could be traced back to one man.

Flicking through the rest of the paper, she feels her heart sink. There’s little to inspire a sense of civic pride. If anything, the tensions in the town appear to be getting worse. A cyclist who was stabbed at the Black Path is out of hospital and giving evidence to the police. A local doctor’s son has been jailed for ten years over a series of assaults, including a particularly vicious attack on his pregnant girlfriend, whom he’d punched twice in the stomach. A man is in a critical condition after being attacked outside a pub the previous Saturday night. Meanwhile, the local council has just unveiled its latest plans to turn the town centre into ‘a continental-style café area’.

Which continent? Angela wonders. It’s more like a war zone.

Her thoughts turn to Helen. She still hasn’t heard from her. She reaches into her pocket for her mobile. Helen’s is the last number she called. She hits redial and presses the phone to her ear, expecting the call to go straight to voicemail like all the others. Instead, the phone is answered on the second ring.

‘Yes?’ an unfamiliar voice says.

Angela’s first thought is that she somehow dialled the wrong number. But that’s impossible. A quick glance at the screen confirms it. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Is that Helen?’

‘Do I sound like Helen?’ the female voice asks.

She doesn’t. There’s an edge to her voice, a hardness that Helen doesn’t possess.

‘Is Helen there?’ Angela asks.

‘She can’t come to the phone now. She’s sleeping.’

Angela checks her watch. ‘But it’s the middle of the afternoon. Is she okay?’ She thinks of Kath and the spiked drink that landed her in hospital. ‘She’s not ill, is she?’

‘Who is this?’

‘My name’s Angela. I’m a friend of Helen’s from work.’

‘Oh, I know who you are,’ the voice sneers. ‘You’re the one who got her so drunk on Friday night she could barely stand up. Then you fucked off and left her to fend for herself. It was lucky for her I came along when I did.’

‘What happened?’ Angela asks. ‘Was she hurt?’

‘Not seriously,’ comes the reply. ‘No thanks to you.’

A mixture of remorse and indignation rises up in Angela’s throat. ‘Can I speak to Helen, please? It’s important.’

‘I just told you. She’s sleeping. I can’t wake her up now. Not with everything she’s been through.’

‘I thought you said she was okay.’ Guiltily, Angela pictures Helen as she last saw her – drunk, vulnerable, out of control. What the hell happened to her?

There’s a pause and the burble of voices in the background, like someone switching channels or turning up the sound on the TV. Then the woman is back. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she says coolly. ‘But she won’t be coming into work for a few days, so be a good girl and pass the message on. Do you think you can manage that?’

Angela can picture her smirking as she speaks. ‘Who am I speaking to?’ she demands. ‘Are you a friend of the family?’

‘Something like that,’ the woman replies. ‘I’ll tell Helen you called.’

Then the line goes dead.

Helen wakes with a dry mouth, a thumping headache and no sense of her surroundings. It takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the fading light and unfamiliar shadows of the room. Slowly, it comes back to her. She’s in a hotel in Birmingham, with Siân. The next realization makes her stomach tighten. Owen is in the military hospital, in a coma. The thought of him makes her call out.

‘Siân?’

There’s no reply.

‘Siân? Are you there?’

Still nothing. The display on the digital clock next to the bed reads ‘17.04’. She’s been asleep for hours. The painkillers Siân gave her earlier must have worn off. With an effort, Helen heaves herself out of bed. She feels a sudden rush of blood to the head and takes a few seconds to steady herself before padding into the bathroom. Turning on the light, she sees that the bathroom mirror is steamed up and beads of water are still clinging to the glass shower door. The wash basin is wet too. There’s a smudge of foundation on the rim and, next to the basin, a paper tissue with a blot of red lipstick. A damp towel hangs limply behind the door.

She wipes the mirror with one hand and studies her reflection, wonders if it’s true that traumatic events can prematurely age a person. She’s heard of people whose hair turned white after a tragedy, but never of someone whose skin turned to chalk. Her face is a blur.

She fills a glass of water from the tap and gulps it down, before refilling the glass and returning to the room. The sheets on Siân’s bed are still folded down. Her red bag is lying on the floor next to the bed. She can’t have gone far. She probably just slipped out for some fresh air or a bite to eat.

Helen hasn’t eaten in hours. She isn’t hungry. The headache is so strong, the thought of food makes her nauseous. She stares at Siân’s bag, remembers her placing the bottle of painkillers back in one of the outer pockets. She kneels down and opens a pocket. Sure enough, there’s a bottle marked paracetamol. The seal is already broken, so she unscrews the lid and tips two blue and white plastic capsules into the palm of her hand. Her skull tightens. She pops the pills into her mouth and swallows them down with some water.

As she returns the bottle to the bag, her fingers brush against something cold and metallic. It’s a coin. But not just any coin. It’s an old penny, the kind no longer in circulation – the kind her father used to collect. It’s just like the ones she keeps in the box under her bed at home. The coin is dated 1970, the year they stopped minting those old pennies. Just like the one she held in her hand a week ago.

She turns on the bedside light and inspects the coin more closely.

It can’t be the same one, can it?

It looks so familiar. But then she remembers her mother telling her how common those old coins were and how little they’re worth. It’s probably just a coincidence. She makes a mental note to ask Siân about it later.

A wave of tiredness washes over her and she climbs back into bed. She places the coin next to the clock on the bedside table. The time is now 17.12. Soon it’ll be time to get dressed and return to the hospital. But first she’ll wait for the headache to pass and for Siân to reappear. Within seconds, she slips into a deep sleep.

The voices are barely audible at first – whispers in the dark, impossible to make out. There’s no moon to light her way, but she knows where she is – the Black Path. The tangled trees are as familiar to her as the dark soil underfoot. The air is damp, and the smell of smoke hangs in the air. Somewhere in the distance, she hears the crackle of a bonfire.