Touching the Dark Read online

  “It never stops affecting you,” she said quietly. Sometimes I even used to see Helen.

  “Nan and dad still do,” Patrick put in. “They pretend to each other that they don’t, or that’s it’s no big deal, but I know they do”

  “I guess for someone like Tally...It must make it hard to want to get close to people. She’s lost three now, even if you don’t count her father. Her brother, Adam, Jon’ O Dowd. She must be afraid of losing others if she gets involved.”

  “That’s what I said to her,” Simon reminded him again. “I said I though she used Jack as an excuse so she could back off if she needed to.” He shrugged and admitted. “I don’t think I put it too well though.”

  He pause before saying, “I still can’t understand why I never met him though. She seemed intent on keeping us apart. She talked about Jack right from the start. Said he was a friend from way back when she was just a little girl and yet...”He paused and Naomi sensed that he was actually jealous as he said, “you met Jack. Why didn’t I?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was mid-evening when Simon left Naomi’s flat. Harry, Patrick’s father had come to collect his son and stayed for dinner. Simon had stayed too, later refusing Harry’s offer of a lift and walking slowly home.

  Sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of a life that he had collected had reminded Simon of how he had first begun to investigate Tally’s past. That evening when things that had been so right between them began to show how badly in actuality, they were going wrong. It was after he had met Nat Sullivan. After he had slept with Claire.

  He and Tally had, eventually met that one more time and for a brief while Simon had believed that they might heal the rift between them.

  “I knew what I wanted to do from being fifteen years old,” Tally said. “I guess I was lucky, not having to hunt around for a direction.”

  They had left the flat and walked beside the canal towards the marina. Night had fallen and a soft moon, light filtered through a mist of rain reflected brokenly in the water. Night, Simon thought, was never truly dark in the city. It was neon blue and smoky yellow and, tonight, the colour of a rain drenched moon.

  “I guess I must have known early too,” he said. “For me it was always words. I was hopeless at sports and couldn’t draw a carrot without instructions, but I had power over words and that made me feel strong.” He smiled wryly, “most of the time anyway.”

  “When I was due to leave for Sheffield my mum moved house. She said now I was going off to university they didn’t need so much space. I spent my last night in her new house and it was like suddenly everything I had known was changing and ending.”

  “And you cut off your hair,” he had heard the story before. Tally’s small act of final defiance as she left childhood behind and went out to conquer the world.

  He breathed in the damp night air. The canal was clean enough these days for fishing competitions to be held along its banks but he could recall a time when it had been a mere resting place for supermarket trolleys and old prams and had stunk of rot and decay. The city fathers had decided it was time to redevelop, convert the old factory units into high priced loft apartments and the canal into a artery for the tourist trade. It was a good change in the main, Simon thought, though he could never foresee a time when he might afford to live beside it.

  “Who is Jack?” he asked softly. “Who answered the phone to me that night. Tally, what was he doing there?”

  She sighed. “He’s just a friend, Simon. His name is Jack Chalmers and he’s a sound man.”

  “I don’t buy that.”

  “Don’t buy what?” She became angry again, turning away from him as though that meant she could avoid his questions. “I don’t care what you do or don’t “buy” Simon. Jack’s a friend and it’s bugger all to do with you anyway.”

  “Fine. So it’s nothing to do with me. Tally, I love you. That makes it something to do with me.”

  “Loving someone doesn’t mean you own them.”

  “I never said it did.” He took a deep breath. “Why did you lie to me about Mamolo?”

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t there. Jack didn’t go with you. I talked to Nat Sullivan. Nat was Jon’s sound man on that trip, not Jack.”

  “He’s mistaken. Or lying.”

  “Why should he lie?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I don’t know that, but no way is he mistaken. He remembers that incident with the dying man. Remembers it like it was yesterday. Told me in detail.”

  “Did he tell you how we got away?”

  “What? No,” Simon admitted. “No he didn’t. I didn’t ask, but the fact is, Jack wasn’t there.”

  “Wasn’t he? Simon, you spy on me, you go behind my back and ask questions and you stand there looking all aggrieved and self-righteous ready to believe anyone rather than me. Fuck it, Simon. Just get out of my life.”

  Raucous laughter from a nearby bridge reminded them of how public a place they had chosen for their argument. A group of half-drunk youths were standing on the bridge enjoying the show.

  In the yellow of the sodium lights Simon could see the colour rise to Tally’s cheeks. She turned from him and began to walk back down the towpath, the set of her shoulders making Simon realise that she really did not want him to follow. At that moment he felt too confused and angry to want to anyway.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “Well that’s just fine by me.”

  He walked swiftly away in the opposite direction feeling that his world had just fallen apart.

  Simon walked without thinking of direction realizing suddenly that he was close to the newspaper office. The night man signed him in and he wandered upstairs to his desk in the shared, partitioned office.

  The archive material he had requested lay in his tray together with a list of messages that had been left for him. He sat at his desk and flicked through the papers, reading about the man who had shared such an important episode in Tally’s life but on the face of it there was nothing that he had not heard or seen before. Several papers covered the Somalia incident, emphasising how lucky Jon and his crew had been to get out alive. The reports said that they had run with rebel forces in hot pursuit until they had reached the main road and miraculously caught up with the back markers from the US army convoy. To Simon’s mind, the reports of their escape were vague and sketchy, but, he figured, so much had been going on that O’Dowd would have seen as more important in his coverage and Jon O’Dowd was a man who was well known for his acceptance of the risks that went with the job.

  All of this was reprised on the reports that covered his death and some of these were complete features that ran to several pages. Jon O’Dowd had been a respected man who had finally stretched his luck that step too far

  One cutting showed a picture of Jon O’Dowd taken not long before his death and Simon stared at it long and hard. A man of great presence with his mane of jet black hair and his piercing blue eyes that seemed to look into the soul of the viewer. These things were trademark O’Dowd.

  Looking at the clippings reminded him that he had not watched the video given to him by Nat Sullivan. He’d been unable to face it, knowing that it recorded that last moments of O’Dowd’s life and would expose Tally’s grief as nothing else could do.

  He took himself home and, before he could change his mind, loaded the tape straight into the machine and sat down to watch before even removing his damp coat. The actual recording was only minutes long. The crew stopped at a checkpoint close to a railway siding and the camera filming Jo getting out of the truck to show their identity papers to the guards. Prisoners were being brought out from another truck for transfer at the siding where a cattle wagon waited.

  In the film he could see Jon gesturing at the line of men who were shackled hand and foot and being prodded by the guards. As they watched from the truck, one man turned on his guard, knocking the rifle from his hand and begin to run. Shackled as he was there was no hope of escape.
Maybe he thought that with a foreign film crew present he would be safer but there was no truth in that. As the man ran a guard raised his rifle and shot him down. Jon O’Dowd turned furiously on the guard and next moment he too lay on the ground while the guard simply moved away and continued to help load the prisoners into the cattle truck while in the background, Simon heard Tally’s voice, screaming Jon O’Dowd’s name.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The morning had been a busy one and Naomi had stayed on to have lunch with a couple of her colleagues. George, therefore, did not collect her from the advice centre until after two and it was approaching the half hour when he pulled up outside her door.

  “Are you ok to see yourself in, love, only I’m running a bit late today. I’m due at the school for three.”

  “I’m fine, George, thanks.” She’d been fine for months, but more often than not George waited outside until she’d closed her door. George was part of a small family run company and most of their work came from repeat custom. George knew the virtue or taking care of his clientele. His three o clock job was a daily one, collecting a child and her carer from the local comprehensive.

  “I’ll spin round at the end of the road,” he told her. “You take care of yourself now.”

  Naomi kept her door key in her pocket. She had just slipped it into the lock when a voice behind her said hello. It was Jack.

  “How did you find me?” Naomi demanded.

  “Easy. I followed you from the advice centre. Good restaurant you chose for lunch. Reasonably priced too...”

  “You watched me? Followed me. What the hell...”

  “It’s cold out here,” he interrupted her. “Let’s go inside.”

  He pushed past and swung the door open. Naomi shouted at him, reached out to catch his arm, but Jack had already gone beyond her reach.

  Naomi’s phone lived in her other pocket. Easier than fiddling about with her bag when it rang. She dug it out now and began to dial the nines.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Jack said. He took the phone from her hand and threw it to the ground. Naomi heard it crash, break into pieces against the concrete. Napoleon whined, knowing things were wrong, waiting for Naomi to tell him what to do but Jack had her arm and pulled her sharply away from the dog and through the door.

  Napoleon, scratching and whittering in his anxiety, was left outside.

  *

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He had taken her keys from her and they now stood in her living room, Jack pacing restlessly. She could hear him as he moved about the room, shifting things, inspecting her books and ornaments. Flicking through the photo albums that sat on one of the shelves beside the window. She was glad that Alec had moved Simon’s boxes into the spare room.

  “I needed to talk to you,” he said. “I was told at that place you work in that I’m persona non grata. Not nice, Naomi, not nice at all.”

  She heard his footsteps coming closer, felt the heat and size of the man as he pressed so close that his breath warmed her cheek. “You went to see her, didn’t you. When I specifically asked that you keep your business out of Tally’s life. I told you, keep Simon away.”

  “Simon didn’t go to see her. I did.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. She clenched her fists hard to stop her hands from trembling.

  “What difference is there!” He reached out and took her arm, his fingers digging painfully into the muscle. “I won’t stand for it Naomi. I won’t put up with any of it at all.”

  *

  Outside, George had swung the cab around in the entrance way of a local factory and was heading back down past Naomi’s house towards the promenade. The sight of the black dog scratching at the closed front door was not one he had expected to see. He pulled up at the kerb and got out of the taxi. “Poly? What’s wrong mate? Where’s the missus gone?”

  The dog turned and whined at him then bent his head and snuffled at the ground. Naomi’s phone lay broken at George’s feet. Moments later, George was on his radio and calling for the police.

  *

  “Who the hell is that?”

  Jack released her arm and strode across to the window. Relief flooded through her at the sound of George Mallard’s voice accompanied by the barking of an excited dog.

  “George!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “George, call the police!”

  She heard Jack swear and then felt him pass her as he headed back towards the door, his fury an almost tangible force. She heard the door slam and his footsteps on the stairs and the kick as he broke the rear door down. Naomi in her turn stumbled to the door and tripped her way down the stairs. She dragged the front door open and almost fell into the arms of a startled George Mallard

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Do you know what he might have touched?”

  She shook her head, then forced herself to think carefully. “George said he saw him leaning on the windowsill,” she said. “It’s glossed, should have taken a good print. And he touched the photo albums, I’m pretty sure of that and he was fiddling around with the stuff on that shelf, but I don’t know exactly what he touched.”

  “When do we expect SOCO?” Alec asked.

  “With luck, this afternoon,” Peterson told him. “Maybe tomorrow.” He paused and Naomi could imagine him shrugging his shoulders. “You know how it is.”

  “Yeah, I know how it is.” Alec sounded bitter. Bitter and angry. “You say he followed you from work to the restaurant?” he asked her for the third time.

  “Yes, like I said. I can’t believe I didn’t know. Can’t believe Shirley didn’t notice him, she turned him away earlier when he came to the centre. She’s usually so sharp when it comes to faces.”

  “Lunchtime crowd,” Alec said. “And you were talking, concentrating on each other. Not on some face in the background.” He stroked her arm and she flinched, realising suddenly how much the bruises hurt.

  “Nomi?”

  She hadn’t even taken off her coat, chilled and unable to get warm again. “Bruised arm,” she told him briefly. “I’ve had worse.”

  “Let me see.”

  She felt the tiredness of post adrenaline setting in and reluctantly she allowed him to remove her coat and slip her arm out of the sleeve of her sweater. He was silent as he studied the bruises on her arm.

  Impatiently, Naomi shoved her arm back into the sleeve and dragged her coat back around her shoulders. “Just bruises, Alec,” she told him impatiently. “It’s nothing.”

  “It could have been.” His voice shook slightly and she reached out instinctively as much to comfort herself as him. Alec pulled her to him and held her tight.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Even Tally’s agents could shed no light on her whereabouts. On the road, they said. Until she made contact with them, there was nothing they could tell.

  When asked about Jack Chalmers their response was a simple, “Who?”

  Rose Palmer was the next logical step. Alec went to see her first thing on the Wednesday morning.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Alec, “but I know nothing about Jack Chalmers.”

  “You know that he’s Tally’s friend. Her close friend?”

  Rose Palmer raised an eyebrow and her lips quirked in a half smile. “Detective Friedman,” she said quietly. “My daughter is an adult, at least in chronological age. It’s a very long time since she consulted me about her friends. Maybe you should ask some of them about Jack Chalmers, or ask that nice young man she’s seeing at the moment. Simon Emmet, I believe he’s called.”

  So Rose thought Simon was still seeing Tally? Alec wondered if he should disillusion her; decided to wait a while.

  “We’ll be talking to anyone who might know him; anyone who knows Tally,” Alec assured her. He rather liked her, he decided. Small and delicately made, it was clear to see where Tally had got her looks, though Rose looked very different in other ways. She wore her hair long, grey and undyed, tied back in a nea
t braid. Her clothes were slightly hippyish. A long black skirt, embroidered at the hem and an Indian cotton blouse – the small red brick house was pleasantly warm. It looked as though Rose Palmer had settled on a style years before and saw no reason on earth to change it. It suited her though, he had to admit. She looked comfortable with herself. He remembered Simon’s allegation that the woman had been arrested at her husband’s funeral and tried to imagine such a scene with Rose at its heart. He found that he could not.

  “Mrs Palmer,” Alec went on, “Jack seems to be very concerned about Tally’s mental health. His threats against Miss Blake seemed to centre on this concern. I know it’s a delicate question but has Tally...has there ever been any reason to be concerned about...”

  “Tally’s mental state?” Rose nodded slowly, her lips pursed as though holding something back or deciding how much to say.”

  “I know she’s been through some rough times,” Alec said gently. “Maybe...”

  “It was after her brother died,” Rose told him. “She couldn’t seem to come to terms with the fact that he was gone.” She shrugged. “Understandable I suppose. No one finds it easy to let go of a loved one, but Tally seemed to find it especially hard. Impossible in fact. In the end, we had her see a counsellor and for a time things seemed to settle down. She no longer talked to us about Jack as if he were still around.” She smiled a little sadly. “Afterwards I realized that the only thing Tally got out of the experience was that she learnt to say what we wanted her to say. I don’t believe she ever let go of her Jack.”

  “Jack?” Alec questioned. “I understood...”

  “That his name was Zechariah, yes. Well it was, but it was such a mouthful for a little one to say and Tally couldn’t manage it. She tried to call him Zack. We all called him Zack, but it came out as Jack and somehow it stuck. Her pet name for him.”

  Alec frowned, Simon’s theories about Tally using a scapegoat to get out of difficult situations nagging at him. But that still didn’t explain Jack Chalmers. The man who had bruised Naomi’s arm had been utterly here and now. So who the hell was he?