Touching the Wire (16 page)

The clouds parted and the
sun sank over the cliffs; the daughters of Night waited with an almost tangible
presence. He turned to the God who’d forsaken him all those years before, the
God in whom he’d lost all faith, and who knew his innermost secrets. Miriam had
believed. Jane believed. He offered up a silent, hopeless prayer as the waves
closed over him.
Father Forgive
…

A breeze lifted Jane’s hair from her forehead.
The leaden sky reflected in a leaden sea, mirroring her leaden heart: no thin,
bright line of hope broke the horizon. It was three days since Walt had gone
missing.

She stared across the waves,
welcoming the painful sting of icy rain on the side of her face, the
mind-numbing cold: for her the world stood still.

Beneath her feet, insensate
pebbles lay immune to grief and pain; above her head, storm gulls wheeled and
screamed in a seemingly continuous loop. She ached to join them, to scream her
pain and loss into the wind, have it carried away until she could feel no more.
Jennie stood on her far left, tears whipping across her cheeks. Between them,
Charlotte and Lucy stared ahead each clutching the other’s hand. In their free
hands they held bouquets of white hellebores, narcissi and snowdrops from the
garden, bound together with the ivy that grew on Walt’s workshop: the first
flowers of the year, they’d been among his favourites. A sob at her side made
her look down. Jennie put her arm round Charlotte’s shoulder and hugged her,
holding out her other arm for Lucy. She moved closer to embrace the huddled
group that stared out to sea with sightless eyes.

Along the beach, at a
respectful distance, another small group held silent vigil. Eric’s wife, Edie,
and her family also huddled together in the cold paying their last respects to
the man who’d held their family together with his indomitable good humour and
boundless energy. The light had suddenly and inexplicably gone from all their
lives.

She folded herself back into
her own small group, all the family she had now. She clenched her jaw: Jennie
had spent a day contacting the Blundells in the local phone book to tell them
Walt was missing presumed dead. None would admit to knowing him. One even said
he’d been dead for years and slammed down the phone. Maybe he
had
been
better off without them.

She strained to see through
the spray as if, by constantly watching, somehow, miraculously, Walt would
appear. Her mind replayed their last conversation. Something about him hadn’t
been right. What had he actually said, other than that he loved her more than
life?
I want you to remember that
. Why had he jumped into the water on
such a foolhardy rescue attempt? She could understand why Eric had jumped in:
he’d been the worse for drink by all accounts but Walt hadn’t. Ted, still in
hospital under observation, said Walt had refused a second tot of rum.

An angry tear tracked across
her cheek, lashed by the wind. She was proud of Walt for saving Ted’s life, but
why couldn’t the stupid old fool have saved his own, too? It was almost as if
he’d had a death wish.

Was that it? Could the
current media frenzy about the man whom she was sure caused Walt’s nightmares
explain something she’d never now understand? If only she’d persuaded him to
talk about his pain, perhaps he would still be with her. Perhaps he wouldn’t
have died alone in a cold, merciless sea. She’d let him down. He wouldn’t have
suffered, they said. The cold would have numbed his senses before the waves
took him, but it was no comfort. He’d needed her and, for the first time since
they married, she hadn’t been there to hold him, comfort him,
cherish
him.

She stared over Charlotte’s
head, north and south across the shifting sand, past Edie and her family, not
wanting to see. They said the bodies would probably be washed up somewhere on
this stretch of coast, depending on the winds and tides, but so far they’d
found no sign of either Eric or Walt. Three days… there was no way either of
them could have survived that long. Charlotte’s shivering brought her back to
the reason they were here. They needed to say goodbye.

She squeezed Charlotte’s
shoulder. ‘Shall we throw the flowers?’

Charlotte nodded wordlessly
and took a step towards the water’s edge. Lucy followed, and she and Jennie
walked behind them. The tide was going out, leaving streaks of yellowed foam on
the wet sand. A wave broke, sending a ripple of water towards their feet.

She put a hand on
Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘Now, sweethearts.’ Lucy and Charlotte threw the bouquets
and the sea took their offerings. Walt hadn’t believed in her God. They’d
talked about his view of world order and she thought she understood. Tykhe,
he’d explained, had given him too great a gift. She should say something. ‘The
Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’ His Gods danced before her: Thanatos -
death, Hypnos - sleep. Okeanus, God of the Sea, accepted their offerings, and
the white-gowned daughters of Night, tossed them and carried them out to sea, bobbing
on the waves, further and further until they were gone from sight. Nemesis
judged his debt paid. ‘Goodbye, love.’ Her whisper was all but lost. ‘Sleep
without dreams.’

***

The rattle of the letterbox shook Jane from her
reverie: she’d been back on the beach, watching the posies of flowers bob out
to sea. Life, she’d discovered to her distress, went on. She pushed herself
from her chair. How many cups of cold coffee had she tipped down the sink
untasted? She put the cup on the dining table and went to collect the
newspaper. It was… had been Walt who’d read the paper. It was four months since
Walt had… been lost. She couldn’t even say died, because no bodies had been
found. She couldn’t bury him or allow herself to grieve. She picked up the
paper: cancelling it felt as if she were giving up.

She drudged into the living
room and sank into her chair. She hadn’t slept well since the night before he’d
gone fishing. She should have stopped him going. She unfolded the paper onto
her lap, scanned the headlines and froze.

 This, she was almost
sure, was the name Walt had cried out in his sleep. She read the front-page
article like a starving man offered maggot-ridden meat. For millions of men and
women of her generation, his name alone would fill their hearts with hatred and
revulsion.
He
had been tracked down at last, and he was dead.

Her fingers clenched,
ripping the newsprint. He had survived Walt by such a short time. God forgive
him, but she was sure Walt had planned to take his own life, and
this
man
was responsible. Walt had endured the torment of his nightmares and memories
for forty years, but he wasn’t the first survivor who hadn’t been able to live
with what had happened to them. Why couldn’t he have hung on a few more months?
Would it have made a difference?

Photographs showed evil
wearing a smart uniform and looking like any ordinary man. On May the
thirty-first West German police had raided the home of one of his
friends
in Günsburg, and found letters from him
and other ex-patriots living in
Brazil. Brazilian authorities had been notified and within a week they’d
identified the families that had harboured him. Through them, only days ago,
they’d found his grave, though the name on it was false, and they’d exhumed the
body for forensic identification. He’d drowned after a heart attack while
swimming in the sea… six years ago…

Six
years when Walt
had been racked by nightmares. Even in death his family and friends had
protected this monster: they’d protected him for forty years. How could they,
knowing what he’d done? Only God could heal the wounds and mete out judgement
now. She sank into Walt’s chair and covered her face with her hands, rocking
backwards and forwards as emptiness consumed her. She’d take this pain with her
to the grave. Why couldn’t she have helped Walt more?

A noise upstairs made her
wipe away her tears and tie on the apron Lucy had given her for her birthday.
Kettle… and set the table.

Breakfast over, Jennie left
for an early shift at work. She chivvied the twins to get ready for school and
stood on the doorstep to wave them off. A police car stopped outside the house
next door.

‘Mrs Blundell?’ The
policeman held out his warrant card. ‘PC John Cox… this is WPC Jill Murray.’

‘What’s happened? It isn’t
Jennie?’

‘It’s about William… your
husband.’

Her heart somersaulted.
‘Walt. I call him Walt.’

‘Can we come in?’

‘You must excuse the mess.’
She plumped cushions and tidied plates. ‘Do sit down. I haven’t had time to
clear the table yet. The twins…’

‘It’s quite all right, Mrs
Blundell. Please, don’t worry.’ WPC Murray indicated a dining chair. ‘Perhaps
you’d like to sit down.’

PC Cox’s face said it all.
Her heart fell like a potato through a wet paper bag. ‘Walt?’

‘Mrs Blundell, I’m sorry… A
body has been found. We’re checking dental records and medical records, and a
post-mortem will be carried out, but we wanted you to know. Can Jill make you a
cup of tea?’

‘Yes… thank you.’ She rested
her forearms on the dining table for support, clinging to a last hope. ‘Dental
records won’t help much. He and Eric both wore full sets of dentures.’

WPC Murray clattered around
in the kitchen. PC Cox was saying something.

‘Pardon?’

‘Did your husband have any
fractures, physical abnormalities, anything that might not be on his medical
records? Anything that might help identify him?’

‘No, not that I know of. He
did have a small tattoo.’ She pointed to the place on her own body. ‘Here. Just
a small circle. He had burn marks too, on his forearms, but they were faint.’
Not much use in identifying a body that had been in the water for four months.

PC Cox wrote in his
notebook. His expression suggested he didn’t think it would help much, either.
‘We have items of clothing. I wonder if you can identify them.’

The policeman removed
tattered scraps from a bag and laid them on the table. Her head thumped. WPC
Murray placed strong, steaming tea in front of her. It was in Walt’s favourite
mug.

PC Cox pushed a scrap of
material towards her. ‘This was found on the same stretch of beach.’

She took a sip of tea, not
wanting to look. She could almost feel Walt’s hands closing over hers. She put
the mug on the table and picked up the tatter of tweed. It still had a piece of
the black lining attached, and a button… she’d sewn that button on herself. It
had come from a jacket long-since consigned to the rag-and-bone man who used to
call with his horse and cart to collect scrap and old clothing; it hadn’t quite
matched the others.

She caressed the fabric
between her thumb and forefinger. She’d thought she couldn’t feel worse pain.
‘It’s from Walt’s overcoat. I made him promise to wear it.’

‘And this?’ WPC Murray
indicated part of a blue and white striped cotton shirt, badly stained and
frayed. ‘It was on the body.’

‘I’m not sure… It… it looks like
one of Walt’s shirts but it’s a common pattern. I can’t remember what he wore
the day… the day he went fishing. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s quite all right, Mrs
Blundell. You’ve been a great help. Eric’s wife… She’s not sure any of this is
her husband’s.’

PC Cox put the scraps back
in the bag. ‘Perhaps when you feel up to it you could check Mr Blundell’s
shirts and let us know if the one like this is missing. I’m sorry we can’t tell
you more at the moment. We’ll be in touch soon… if it is your husband… about releasing
the body for burial.’

It was Walt, she knew it
was. She was going to
have
to accept it now. Walt was never coming home.
The tears she’d held back fell unheeded down her cheeks.

‘Can we call someone… a
neighbour?’

‘No, thank you. I need to be
alone.’

WPC Murray squeezed her arm
comfortingly. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Blundell. Don’t get up. We’ll see ourselves out.’

She roused herself,
eventually. If she had a funeral to arrange, things needed organising. Not for
the first time she wondered about Walt’s family. He’d had maternal family in
Liverpool, though she didn’t know his mother’s maiden name. Just because he
wouldn’t talk about his relations didn’t mean that someone, somewhere, wasn’t
thinking about him. Even if they refused to acknowledge him, they should be
told he was dead... if he was dead. Of course he was dead. She forced herself
to say the words out loud. ‘Walt is dead.’

There, she’d said it. She
couldn’t make herself check his shirts, not yet: it would only confirm what she
already knew. She concentrated on the job in hand. Ted had offered help if she
needed it. Perhaps if she could find Walt’s birth certificate Ted could find
out if he had any relatives who would admit to knowing him. He felt he owed
Walt a debt. It might help him to do something for her and, even if the body
wasn’t Walt’s, it would be good to find someone else who’d known him, someone
who could explain the family feud. She hadn’t been able to help him in life,
but maybe she could heal the rift in death. They were Jennie and the twins’
relations, after all.

She dialled Ted’s number.
‘Ted,
it’s
Jane. I wonder if you could spare some
time. I’d like to contact Walt’s family and I don’t know where to begin. Jennie
tried, but couldn’t get anywhere.’

‘Anything, Jane. Shall I pop
round now?’

‘Thanks, Ted. I’ll have the
kettle on.’

Ted arrived with a bag of
cream cakes. ‘I thought these would go with a coffee.’ He held out the paper
bag like a peace offering.