Chapter 30

Colin McAllistair’s journey north was uneventful enough. It gave him plenty of time to mull over his discussion with Cyril Galloway, although he was looking forward to their planned lunch later that day with the kind of trepidation a mouse might feel when approaching a piece of cheese laid out on a trap. He tensed in his seat as he wondered how one, fleeting mistake a quarter of a century ago could come back to haunt him.

After he’d left Jonathan Harcourt’s house, McAllistair had driven into the centre of Thirsk, looking for somewhere to stay for the night. Parking in the high street, not far from the imposing clock which dominated the market square, he watched as the shop-keepers busied themselves shutting up their premises, Setting off in his search for a hotel, he might have turned left here, or right there, carrying his briefcase by his side. As it happened, his route found him passing a small antique shop, hidden away up a side street. It was almost five o’clock, but Colin noticed it was still open. It wouldn’t hurt to get an idea, at least, of what these medals were worth, he thought.

He pushed open the door, and found himself in a small room about ten feet square, surrounded by cabinets stuffed full with clocks, ornaments, silver tea services … the stock trade of a small antique dealer. A door in the corner led off to a larger room, where he could see items of furniture, and a small, glass-topped counter was set to the side of the door. A moment later, a small, slightly overweight man in (McAllistair judged) his early forties, emerged from the back room. As he positioned himself behind the counter, he surveyed his customer – seeming to take the measure of him. He saw a young man, and noticed the briefcase he was carrying. A student, no doubt.

“What may I do for you, young man?” McAllistair found his tone a little too ingratiating.

“I have some … medals. I wondered if you could give me some idea of their value?”

“Of course, sir,” and a thin, weak smile showed on his face. “May I see them?”

McAllistair fished inside his briefcase, pulling out the box Harcourt had given him less than half an hour ago.

The man opened the box carefully, taking each of the medals out, laying them one by one on a red velvet pad that sat on the counter.

“Well, let’s see…” he said, picking up the largest one and turning it over, briefly, before flipping it back. “Now, these are interesting, you see.” McAllistair waited for an assessment, but instead, the man asked “What do you know about them, Mr …?”

“McAllistair – Colin McAllistair,” Colin replied, automatically reaching his hand out over the counter.

“And I am Cyril Galloway,” the auctioneer had said. His handshake was limp, his hand slightly damp and cloying, McAllistair had thought.

“I only know that they belonged to a journalist who fought in the…” And here, Galloway had interrupted him.

“The Spanish Civil War. Yes, that much I can see. Of course, I’m not an expert on these matters,” he said, fingering the remaining medals. “But if you could... ah … leave them with me for a day or two, I’m sure I could get an idea of their value for you.”

McAllistair seemed to consider this for a moment or two.

“I’m afraid I’m not local, Mr Galloway. I’m heading back down to Oxford tomorrow.”

Galloway looked disappointed, but noticed, too, how the young student emphasized ‘Oxford’ in his Scots burr.

“That’s such a shame. I suppose if I could take a note of them, I might be able to discover something – I can’t promise anything quite so quickly as tomorrow, but I’ll do my best,” he said, picking up a pencil and executing a remarkably accurate sketch of each of the medals on a small notepad he had pulled from his pocket.

“Tell me, Mr McAllistair,” he said, as he continued his sketching, “your journalist friend. Is he still alive?”

McAllistair had often thought, since that time, what instinct it was that led him to reply “No”, but had never reached a satisfactory conclusion.

“But I take it you know the man’s name? That might help in the valuation, you know,” Galloway had said.

“It was Jonathan Harcourt.” Galloway seemed to be considering the name, trying to place it. He picked up the larger of the medals again, turned it over to look at the reverse, then put it back down on the velvet pad, face upwards.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t know any Harcourts. Not to worry, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

And they’d left it that McAllistair would return the next day, to see what the auctioneer had found out.

As he watched the young student leave, Cyril Galloway was wondering whether Colin McAllistair had been entirely truthful. Why would this Jonathan Harcourt have had a set of medals from the Spanish Civil War that were inscribed, on the reverse, with the details ‘JL, 1937’?

Chapter 29

As the sun forced its way through a thin, grey drizzle on Thursday morning in Birkenhead, events were unfolding that would bring together the main protagonists in the drama of Laurel McFry.

After a fitful night’s sleep, Colin McAllistair had left his north London flat not much after 6.30am, taking a cab to Euston station and catching the 7.13am train north to Liverpool. If all went well, he expected to arrive in Birkenhead sometime shortly after 10am, and to meet Stan Redfearn in his shop at 10.30am.

Lillian McFry had awoken at her usual time of 6am, sleep something which she found eluded her more and more the older she got. She lay awake in bed for an hour, her thoughts skimming from memory to memory, before rising to make her breakfast.

Laurel McFry had spent an uneasy night, too, worrying (just a little) about the implications of her meeting with the bank manager the previous day, and wondering if perhaps she’d made a mistake not informing Harry McFry that she had also engaged Danny Longhurst to look for her missing family.

Dave Morris, the deputy manager of the national Family Health Services Counter Fraud Operation, was travelling by train to North Yorkshire, along with Jane Tobias, the officer he had selected to accompany him to investigate exactly why a GP in Thirsk should have wanted to access medical files as far afield as Staffordshire, Durham, Merseyside and the West Country. It was a long journey, almost five hours, with changes at Bristol and York, and they were not expecting to arrive in Northallerton until mid-afternoon. Time enough for Dave to get to know Jane a little better.

Harry McFry had woken early, catching the fragment of a dream involving Ana and a missed tube train in Madrid. At the unaccustomed hour of 8.30am he was already at his desk in his office at Meldew Buildings, leafing through a file and piecing together the information he’d gleaned the day before, and wondering how much else he could find before Danny Longhurst arrived at ten.

Dr Dacre Lawrence woke in the unfamiliar surroundings of a hospital bed.

And Cyril Galloway, after a leisurely breakfast, was preparing himself for a pleasant drive through Cheshire for a lunch appointment in Birkenhead with Colin McAllistair. At McAllistair’s expense, of course.

Chapter 28

While Danny Longhurst was getting the drinks, Harry was wondering whether he’d better not put a call in to Laurel McFry. They’d left it that she would ring him, but he wasn't planning to go back to his office just yet: he had a few ideas he wanted to run past young Danny first. Then he realized he’d never even taken her number down when they met last night!

He stood up and walked across to the bar, where Danny was paying the barman. “Hey, Danny – have you got Laurel McFry’s number by any chance – save me going back across to the office?” (‘Nice cover-work, Harry!’ he thought). Danny fished into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Are you OK if the two of us meet up with her tomorrow morning – say ten o’clock?” Danny nodded: “Sounds good to me,” he said, as he took the drinks back over to their table.

Harry turned to the payphone at the edge of the bar, and dialed Laurel’s number. After half-a-dozen rings, she answered: that voice again, like it was wrapped in silk: “Hello…”

Harry cut straight to the point: “Miss McFry, it’s Harry. Are you able to come in to see me tomorrow morning? We need to talk”.

A pause, as though she might be checking her diary. “That shouldn’t be a problem. What time are you thinking about?”

“How does ten o’clock sound?”

“That’s good.”

Harry waited a second: “Oh, and Miss McFry … I hope there won’t be a problem if a mutual friend joins us,” and another slight pause, before he continued: “He’s called Danny. Danny Longhurst.”

Harry could sense her embarrassment at the other end of the phone, imagined her pale face blushing.

She responded quickly enough: “Perhaps I should have told you about Danny. That was naughty of me.”

“Let’s just say you should have been more upfront from the start. Looks like there’s more to your missing family than meets the eye,” Harry said, “and if we’re going to get to the bottom of it, there’s got to be no more holding back.” Harry felt like a schoolteacher reprimanding a pupil. He hung off, and headed back to join Danny. While he was at it, he might as well put young Mr Longhurst in his place, too.

*

The evening was drawing in around Vale View, the small plot of bungalows on the outskirts of Telford where Lillian McFry made her home. After making herself a light tea, she’d settled down for the evening, comfortable in her favourite chair, the low drone of a radio her only company. She was thinking about Dacre Lawrence, and his visit there earlier that day. There was something about the man – she wasn’t sure what, exactly – that she recognized. He was a crook, there was no doubt about that. And in league with that odious Mr Galloway from the auction house, she was sure. She marveled that they had presumed her medals had belonged to Thomas McFry – an easy assumption, for who would imagine that little, frail old Lillian had ever fought in a war, had ever killed oh, it must have been over fifty men? Galloway was a fool if he thought that piece of paper with the medals was a certificate, and Lawrence a bigger one still for accepting the auctioneer’s assessment. And yet, she couldn’t shake herself from the view that she already knew Dacre Lawrence before he turned up today – something, perhaps, about his eyes that seemed familiar? He was handsome enough, for his age, and he had a certain charm. What was it he had said – his father and Thomas had been cousins? She didn’t remember Thomas mentioning cousins, but then she knew, nowadays, how her memory was wont to lead her down paths that ended at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a sea of nothingness.

She wondered if Laurel had the medals yet. That was a good thing to do, she thought. She imagined the young girl – not so young now, she thought, opening the package and seeing them for the first time, a tangible link between the two of them. She’d have to call that young man, Mr Longhurst, tomorrow, to see whether he’d delivered them to her yet.

She remembered seeing the young Laurel McFry at her daughter’s funeral. Had anyone stopped to think, she wondered, who the old woman, standing at the back of the family group, was? It had been a strange feeling, playing so many roles at once – mother, grandmother, aunt – yet not to be recognized. And all the while, trying not to stare at the little girl in the black dress.

How, she wondered, had a night of passion in a park in Madrid led to so much complication? One, wonderful night under the stars, and a love, she mused, that few people ever experienced. All served up with a lifetime of regrets, all mangled by a war that no-one even remembered. Sometimes she wished she had never met Thomas McFry.

Chapter 27

Colin McAllistair’s mind was more than a little preoccupied as he made himself something to eat in the small kitchen of his north London flat. He was thinking of the first time he met Cyril Galloway. His interview with Jonathan Harcourt had concluded when the former journalist had produced, with a flourish, his campaign medals from the Spanish Civil War. Colin, then a young undergraduate, knew next to nothing about the value of that kind of thing, but he sensed, nonetheless, that they were extremely important, and should find their place in a museum somewhere. He remembered imagining them in a glass cabinet, with a brief, typed note affixed to the display, explaining how they had been ‘lost’ for 40 years, but had been ‘discovered’ by a brilliant, young student from Oxford named Colin McAllistair.

“You know, Mr Harcourt, these medals are very important, from an historical point of view,” he had said. “I can think of a dozen museums that would be honoured to have them.”

Harcourt had seemed unmoved. “Perhaps, if you will permit me, I could take them to be valued, as a first step?” Colin had asked, sensing, however, that the old man’s mind was elsewhere. A few seconds passed before he’d replied:

“These medals don’t mean anything to anyone, anymore. They’re from a different time. Nobody appreciates what they represent.” His voice was tired, and flat, Colin recalled, as if the three-hour interview had sucked him dry. Another pause, before Harcourt had went on: “Take them. If they have any value, let me know.”

McAllistair had re-assured him he would have them valued, and contact him as soon as he knew their worth. He’d taken a contact phone number, slipped the medals into his briefcase and started to gather together his papers, when he’d been struck by a thought: “Whatever happened to Lillian Blyth, Mr Harcourt?”

Looking into the middle-distance, Harcourt had seemed to gather a little strength before replying:

“Lillian … I don’t know what happened to Lillian. After Jamara, it was all just chaos. We were in Madrid for a couple of days, then they split our battalion. She got sent to the north, to Guernica I think. I stayed in Madrid another week, then got posted to the south. It was chaos out there.”

McAllistair had wondered, briefly, if he shouldn’t start taking notes again, but he’d dismissed the thought at once. He’d come back to see Harcourt again, he resolved. He’d imagined flourishing a cheque in front of him, paid on the bank of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Harcourt would be incredulous that his old war medals had brought such a sum, enough, perhaps, to mean he could retire from his job in the factory.

With that thought, Colin had made his leave. As he stood at the door, he had turned to Harcourt and said: “Thank you so much for your time. I can assure you that you’ll be remembered for a long time, Mr Harcourt. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” and he’d walked to his car, thinking that it was too late to journey back to Oxford just now, and that he would be better finding himself a little bed and breakfast for the night.