Giving Shaw access to a computer would never happen; besides, Shaw had not been near a computer for years. Yet the idea wouldn’t go away. What might Shaw be able to tell her about the Dark Web that Varga could not know?
Incredibly, she felt tears brimming and she wiped them away, angry that remembering Shaw’s email triggered fresh memories of her father’s death and its shocking abruptness. It had hit her like a hammer. No one knew how long he’d lain there in his two-bedroom rented flat alone. She’d pushed the coroner for an answer and the pathologist finally suggested no more than eighteen hours. The fact that he hadn’t rung anyone or called an ambulance also suggested that it had been sudden and catastrophic. Myocardial infarctions were not always lethal. But one that provoked ventricular arrhythmias and resulted in pump inefficiency could result in no blood to the brain. At least it would be quick and instant.
Every day she hoped that was how it happened. And every day she wished she’d been there to say goodbye. The urge to see him again now was overwhelming.
* * *
An hour after leaving Janice Dawson, Anna turned her car around, went back to the M5 and headed first north and then west along the M4. Once more crossing the River Severn as she gave in to her urges.
They’d cremated Tom Gwynne and scattered his ashes in a memorial garden at a crematorium on the edge of the Brecon Beacons near Aberdare. Close to the mountains where he always loved to be. When the local authority remodelled the garden, an opportunity arose for the bereaved to purchase a stone bench and have a plaque incorporated as a memento mori. Kate and Anna jumped at the chance. Anna’s mother had seen it as an unnecessary expense. Kate and Anna did it anyway.
The crematorium was isolated and in a wild, windswept spot. There were no rules about where crematoria needed to be situated, but if she had a choice, Anna wanted to end up somewhere like this, too. She was not religious and she’d cringed inwardly at her mother’s insistence at involving a vicar to preach a eulogy. Neither she nor Kate felt strong enough to take an active part and, numbed by their grief, they’d defaulted and acceded to their mother’s wishes, incapable of offering any resistance. If she’d had the time back, she’d have insisted on a humanist service, played her dad’s favourite songs and mouthed funny anecdotes about his wicked sense of humour. It was her one everlasting regret. At least, and through nothing more than luck, they’d ended up here: a wide-open space, a place where souls might wander unheeded by the living.
The bench with her dad’s inlaid plaque had views over the bleak mountains beyond. Mountains where he’d loved to walk before his shortness of breath slowed him down. Sometimes, on busy days in winter when funerals stacked up, the car parks would fill and the hearses would queue outside the modern, whitewashed building. But on this bright summer’s day the place was deserted except for one or two mourners laying flowers.
Anna wasn’t a great one for meditation. But what she wanted and usually achieved by sitting on her father’s bench was the nearest thing to peace and solitude she knew without the help of an hour’s circuit training or a good Sauvignon. What it allowed her to do was open doors in her memory and properly remember her dad. There was no need for the clichéd one-way conversations. All she needed to do was give reign to her imagination. She remembered his love of the absurd, the way he’d pretend not to enjoy board games at Christmas but then get totally involved, the way he’d sit and listen to Led Zeppelin’s ‘What Is and What Should Never Be’ half a dozen times on vinyl just for the guitar solo. She understood that he knew her better than anyone. Had nurtured her, provided wisdom tempered by an astonishing ability not to be judgemental – unlike her.
Sometimes, his tolerance and care, the things that made him such a great teacher, made her wonder how he could possibly be her father. And as she sat on the bench that morning, with Shaw and Woakes and Rosie Dawson battering at the walls of her defences, she remembered one of his phrases. She heard him say it to her as clear as day when she was being sullen or feeling hard done by because of being Anna Gwynne.
‘The most fragrant roses grow from the worst-smelling manure, Anna.’ And then, being her dad, he’d cap the whole thing by saying, ‘Brownie, anyone?’
Smiling stupidly to herself, Anna got up from the bench, turned and ran her fingers over the plaque with her dad’s name and the Welsh word for loss and longing for the departed that had no real equivalent in English:
Thomas William Gwynne
Hiraeth
Twenty-Seven
Kevin Starkey pulled in to his drive and parked. He didn’t get out immediately, but simply sat there, contemplating. Six thirty on a Wednesday evening and almost another week over. He looked up at the house. A lovely little red-brick semi with bay windows on the edge of town in a great area with good schools. Schools that had given his two a bloody good start in life. Brenda’d insisted they both go to uni. She would, of course, since she wasn’t the one paying. He wasn’t close with them and they chose to spend holidays with their mother and her lot in Shepton Mallet. He didn’t mind. In fact he encouraged it.
This was his house, mortgage all but paid for, would be paid for by the end of this month if all went well.
Starkey let himself in through the front door. He hadn’t bothered redecorating since Brenda’d left. Hadn’t seen the point. He kept the place clean, lawns mowed. He didn’t do much with the neighbours because, thanks to his job, he was hardly ever there.
Except on weekends. And on weekends, he indulged himself. He’d bought a frozen fish lasagne from a fishmonger on Monday and defrosted it the night before. The other half he’d keep for later in the week.
He took himself and his suit jacket upstairs, showered quickly and found some shorts and a T-shirt. It would have been nice to have air con in the house. How many times had he heard that over the last few days as people sweltered in offices and clinics? But twenty-eight degrees was a rarity in the UK and you could count the number of times anyone would need air con in any given year on one hand.
He stared at his face in the bathroom mirror and thought about the phone call he’d taken from the detective inspector. She’d sounded young and efficient. So, they were looking into the death of Rosie Dawson again, were they? Well, what he’d told them all those years ago and repeated today had helped, he had no doubt about that.
He remembered the case very well. The overtime had been brilliant. He’d been involved in door to door and the prolonged painstaking searches of open land. They’d found nothing of course. But his information on the van was vital. It was important then and it remained important now.
Starkey splashed cold water over his face, dried it on a towel and walked back downstairs. He put the lasagne in the microwave and poured himself a glass of wine. He’d finished it before the meal was heated through so poured himself another one. He was big. Always had been. His legs were thick, his neck was thick and he’d had a gut for as long as he could remember, though he had lost a bit of weight. Being tall helped, but everything juddered under his clothes when he moved quickly.
And he did like his beer and wine.
He ate quickly and drank the second glass before he’d finished eating.