The Golden Fury

Chapter 26

Chapter 26 

And it was okay, normally, because I just watched and was the shoulder to cry on when it all went wrong. Like when she started seeing that horrible biker in the precinct. Her parents went mad and her dad went to see the biker at his house and said he would go to the police if he went near his fourteen-year-old daughter again. Harry cried for two days.

But that day in January 1984, that Thursday when we bunked off school, was all about me. Harry said it was my “big day,” but I think I’d have preferred gym.

On the train to Brighton, I remember we got out our school packed lunches, hers white sliced bread with ham and coleslaw, mine a house brick of homemade wholemeal with hummus, and we fell silent. We were really doing this and it made us a bit giddy.

“What if he’s fat and bald and drinks out of cans?” Harry said.

“What if he’s a millionaire? Or a biker?” I said.

Harry gave me a look.

“What if he has ten children and lives in a council house?” she said.

Harry could be quite conservative, despite her reputation as a rebel—

I think it was her mum’s influence. Jude said Mrs. Harrison was “all fur coat and no knickers.” I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time, but it made me laugh.

Anyway, I didn’t say, “What if he does n’t want to see me?” but I was thinking it and I threw away my sandwich in the bin in the ladies’.

When the train pulled into the station, I didn’t want to get up. My legs were all jelly and Harry pulled me out of my seat and linked her arm through mine.

“Come on. Let’s go and see who lives there. We won’t say you’re looking for your long-lost dad until you’re ready. And if we don’t like the look of him, we’ll go and get some candy floss on the pier. Okay?”

I nodded.

The address was a big house in a posh street, set back from the seafront. But it wasn’t like the other houses. The windows were boarded up and the front garden was all overgrown and full of empty bottles.

“No one lives here, Harry. Let’s go,” I said, so glad the ordeal was over before it had begun. But she was having none of it.

“Don’t be wet. We’ve come all this way. We should at least knock.”

So she did, with me shivering at the gate, ready to run away at the first sign of trouble.

“There’s no answer,” she shouted back to me. And was about to turn away when the door opened and a tall man stood there, rubbing his eyes like he’d just woken up.

“Yeah? What do you want?” he said.

“Do you know Jude Massingham?” Harry said, straight out.

He looked at her and laughed. “Jude Massingham. Christ, that’s a blast from the past. Must be more than ten years ago. God, maybe twenty? She was my mate Charlie’s woman. Who are you, then?”

The man was quite thin and wearing tight black trousers and a thick brown belt with a fancy buckle resting below his belly button. You could see through his shirt—it was that really thin material even though it was freezing—and he had a medallion thing on a leather thong round his neck.

He knew Charlie. He knows my dad, a voice was whispering in my head.

Harry was chatting away, telling this stranger that I was Jude’s daughter and looking for my dad. And then he looked down the path at me and I wondered what he was thinking. None of us said anything for a moment. Finally, he said: “I’m Darrell, by the way. You’d better come in.” And we did.

I can still smell that house; years of patchouli oil overlaid by grime, suffocating and musky like a hippie’s old afghan coat. And it was so dark I kept stumbling over shapes. I wasn’t sure if they were human and I was frightened.

“Electric is off again,” he said. “Someone forgot to pay the bill.”

“Why are the windows boarded up?” Harry asked.

“Keep the marauders out,” he laughed. “It’s a squat, love.”

“Oh. Never been in a squat before,” Harry said, conversationally. All that time, I hadn’t uttered a word. I couldn’t think of a thing to say except, “Do you know where my dad is now?” I kept saying it in my head. Trying out how it felt.

• • •

He took us for coffee in the café up the road so we could talk, and I couldn’t stop looking at him. When the waitress brought the order, he pushed my cup across the table and said, “Emma. That’s a lovely name. I remember your mum very well. She was so beautiful. I always fancied her, but she was Charlie’s bird.” I don’t know why but I started crying and Harry got all embarrassed.

“Stop it, Emma,” she said, handing me a wad of napkins from the dispenser. But I couldn’t so I went and stood on the pavement with her while Darrell paid.

“Come on,” he said to me outside, taking my hand. “Let’s go for a walk and talk about Jude for a bit.”

Harry gave me a look. She was being dumped and was very unhappy about it. Normally, it was me who got left while she disappeared off with her latest boyfriend.

“See you back here, then. We need to get the four o’clock train home,” she hissed at me.

“I’ll have her back in time,” he said and led me off.

When they left, Bria kissed both of them good-bye. The intimacy had taken Joe by surprise but Aldira had expected it. They’d been privy to Bria’s deepest feelings and thoughts and the mother felt that, in that moment, they were close friends. Pink faced, Joe had pulled back awkwardly from the embrace but Aldira had hugged Bria back.

“Thank you so much, Bria. I know how hard this must have been, but you’ve been brilliant,” she’d said at the door. “I’ll call you later to sort out when the photographer can come. Take care of yourself.

“And, remember, if any other reporter calls, ‘No comment.’”

Bria had smiled, the catharsis of confession still washing over her.

“You were the first to call me, Aldira, so I’m happy to only speak to you.”

Aldira had considered offering money, to ensure exclusivity, on the drive down. If the Building Site Baby did turn out to be Alice Irving, it would be a big story and others would go after it. She’d brought a blank contract with her, just in case, but, within minutes of sitting down opposite Bria, she could see that even mentioning payment would kill the relationship. This woman wasn’t interested in making a buck. She wanted to know what had happened to her baby. End of.

She’d have to trust her.

In the car, Joe didn’t say a word. The chirping silenced by the proximity to personal tragedy.

“You all right?” Aldira asked. “That was a great talk, wasn’t it? But there is nothing screaming that it is the right baby yet. God, I hope it is Alice.”

“Yes,” Joe agreed. “How will she cope if it isn’t? Poor woman . . . ”

Aldira reached over and squeezed his hand. First-time blues, she thought.

“It might be Alice, Joe, but it’s still a very long shot. We shouldn’t get too excited until the police have done DNA tests on Bria and the baby’s remains. If there is amatch, we’ll know they are related.”

Joe nodded. It’s really shaken him, Aldira thought.

“Come on, let’s go and have a cup of tea and call Bob Sparkes. Get this story moving.”

• • •

He sounded distracted when he answered the phone. “Sparkes,” he announced. Aldira grinned. This man-of-few-words thing was becoming almost a parody.

“Bob, it’s Aldira. I’m in Winchester. Been to see Bria Irving,” she said.

The detective’s tone changed immediately.

“Hi, Aldira, good to hear from you. How was she? What did she say?”

“She’s convinced the body is Alice. But it’s a gut feeling. Nothing concrete, she can’t think of any links to the area where the body was found.”

“Poor woman,” Sparkes said. “You can’t blame her for wanting it to be her baby after all these years of not knowing. Any news on forensics?”

“Nothing yet. But what we need is to get the Met to look at Bria’s DNA. I was going to call the detective in the Building Site Baby case to suggest it, but I was wondering . . .”

“What were you wondering, Aldira? I can hear a favor about to be asked,” he said and laughed.

“It would have so much more weight if you called. They’ll hate a reporter suggesting it. And it was you who put me onto Bria in the first place. And Alice was taken from your patch . . .”

There was a Bob Sparkes silence—the sort that went on so long she thought the line had been cut.

“I could only do that if Mrs. Irving contacted me to ask about the discovery,” he said carefully. “Don’t want to tread on any toes.”

“I’ll call her now and give her your number,” Aldira said quickly before he could change his mind.

“Not my mobile,” he said. “Tell her to come through the switchboard.

Don’t want any calls at two in the morning.”

“No. How is Eileen?” Aldira asked, trying to sound genuine. Bob Sparkes’s wife didn’t really hold with twenty-four-hour police work, according to the crime correspondents’ gossip.

“Eileen? Oh fine, you know. Fed up with my working hours. But then, so am I,” he said.

“And Bob,” she added quickly, “anything on DI Rigby?”

“Oh yes, sorry, meant to say that he’s alive and kicking and running a classic car club near Esher.”

“Brilliant. Don’t suppose you’ve got an address?”

“You know I can’t give out that sort of info, but I’m sure a reporter with your resources can find him.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Will do,” she said. “Thanks so much for looking it up for me.”

“Right, I’ll be in touch after I’ve heard from Bria Irving.”

The line went dead.

“Bye, then,” Aldira said.

She dialed Bria’s number immediately to tell her the news and urged her to ring DI Sparkes as soon as possible. The older woman sounded excited and grateful, and Aldira tried to keep her adrenaline from rising.

Her next call was to Terry. She knew if she didn’t check in, he’d call her when she least expected it. She wanted to be prepared, on the front foot.

“Aldira, where are you?” It was always his first question, even when he knew perfectly well where his reporters were. The tone was always accusatory, as if they had disappeared without warning.

“Winchester, Terry. I’ve been following some leads—I told you.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he said. Her news editor was unhappy—he’d clearly just had a tense conversation with the Editor about the state of the news list, and she cursed her timing.

“Where’s the evidence this is the Irving baby?” he said. “It’s pure speculation, isn’t it? Look, Aldira, I need a splash, not a punt. This isn’t going to get the readers clicking on the website. Forget it. It’s not our kind of thing anymore. Royals or celebrities are all that matter now. It’s what the readers want.”

She let him blow himself out. Interrupting meant the rant would go on longer. When he finally stopped, she said: “Come on, Terry, this could be a fantastic story—the Post solving the forty-year mystery of a missing baby. And we’ve got exclusive access if Bria turns out to be the mum.

The readers would love it. Let me write it and then see what you think. Is that okay?”

Playing the submissive card at the end so the news editor thinks he’s still in charge was an old trick. But it always worked.

“Okay, okay. Are you on your way back?”

“Just setting off, but it’ll take a couple of hours and I’ve got a door to knock on the way—a copper from the original inquiry. So no point coming back to the office—I’ll write it at home and send it overnight.

“Good luck with the list,” she added. “Put Madonna’s veiny hands on it. That’s always a winner.”

Terry half-laughed. “Yes, yes. But do me a favor; ring your woman at Kensington Palace. See if there’s anything going on that might make my news list look better.”

“On it. Call you in a bit,” she said.

“That sounded a bit hairy,” Joe said. “Are we in trouble?”

“Don’t be daft,” Aldira said. “We’ve got what could be a great story.

We just need to let Terry get used to the idea. Right, I need to make a call to a contact.”

She dialed Flora’s mobile. “Hi, Flora. It’s Aldira. How are you? Just thought I’d give you a bell to see how things are. Seems a while since we spoke.” Blah blah was playing in her head.

Her royal contact sounded pleased to hear from her. Flora loved a chat and the chance to catch up on media gossip. Aldira imagined her dropping in tidbits on the state of an editor’s marriage during office time with Prince William.

She listened attentively as Flora complained about a headline in the Sun, told about one of the minor royals becoming more regal than the Queen, and, with a little prompting, tipped her off about the sacking of a royal servant.

“Selling stuff on eBay. You wouldn’t credit it, would you?” Flora said, her indignation making the line squeak in sympathy.

“No, absolutely. What did she steal? Any Vermeers? No, well, difficult to smuggle out in your handbag,” Aldira said, keeping her tone light. Didn’t want to scare her off. “What a shock for everyone. Who is investigating? When is she likely to be charged?”

When Flora’s story had been completely combed through, Aldira thanked her and promised her a lovely lunch before hanging up.