Chapter 124

What led Cyril Galloway to decide to visit Dacre Lawrence on Monday afternoon, we will probably never know. Subsequent enquiries determined that the trip wasn’t outlined in his diary, so we can only speculate why he might have felt he needed to make an unscheduled trip all the way to Yorkshire to see his ‘friend’. Perhaps it was some sense of chagrin, that the doctor had seemed to suggest he (Galloway) might double cross him? Maybe he was covering all bases, anxious to give Lawrence the impression that all was well between them, so that when (or if) he recovered, no one could point a finger at him? He might be able to clear the air before his visit to see Lillian McFry the next day.

Whatever the reason, he enjoyed the drive over the Pennines, despite the atrocious weather. As he entered his home county, he braved the rain and wound the window down to breath in the air. ‘God’s own earth,’ he thought to himself, as he sped along the motorway. When he finally pulled into Northallerton, the rain had eased a little. He was, he reminded himself, on ‘the drier side of Britain’, a phrase he liked to use to describe the east of England because it reminded him of the old railway posters that proclaimed the same fact. He found the hospital easily enough, even though it had been some years since he’d been back to the area. As a nurse led him to Lawrence’s room, he straightened his tie. He had, he realized, always been the junior partner in their ‘business.’ The doctor had always taken the lead, until this time.

Earlier, Mabel Harris had visited Lawrence, bringing his change of pyjamas. She’d sat with him for a while, resisting the urge to taunt him about the certificates she’d found when she’d gone to his flat the previous evening.
“Are they treating you alright, Dr Lawrence? I imagine they are. An important person like you. They’ll be looking after you, I’ve no doubt.” Her words had sounded more patronizing than ever to her employer. He’d responded as he had done to anything she’d said during her visits, by staring resolutely at the wall ahead of him.
“What happened to your head? “ she’d asked, even though she knew all about Lawrence’s fall from the bed, courtesy of a brief word from the nurse in charge, as she’d passed the nursing station. “You’ll have to be more careful, doctor. You could do yourself a real injury.”

She’d glanced briefly around the room, noticing that whoever had dressed his wound had left the remnants of the bandage on the locker at the side of his bed, together with the scissors they’d used. “Slapdash – that’s what I call it!” she’d said, as much to herself as to Lawrence.

Shortly after she left, one of the members of staff had hurriedly changed his pyjama jacket, so that when Galloway arrived an hour or so later, he looked a little more presentable than he might otherwise have done.

“Hello, Dacre,” Galloway had said, as he entered the room. Lawrence seemed startled to see him, his eyes betraying anxiety and anguish in equal measure. Galloway, for his part, was shocked to see the bandage wrapped around his friend’s head. He wondered, for a moment, if he’d had some sort of operation on his brain. He stood at the foot of the bed, trying to gauge the extent of Lawrence’s disability.
“I thought I’d see how you are. Can you talk?” The question might have seemed insensitive, to someone who had suffered a stroke, but it wasn’t meant to be. Whatever Lawrence might think of him, Galloway knew that their relationship went back a long way. Without him, after all, he would hardly be running his own auction house in Telford.

“I hope you’re not upset by what I told you when I rang the other day. I thought you knew all about the McFry’s, and Jonathan Harcourt,” Galloway said. Just then, the thought occurred to him that, perhaps, Lawrence might not have known, after all. What if – heaven forbid – it had been him telling Lawrence what he knew that had precipitated the stroke? He would never forgive himself.

He thought his friend’s lips seemed dry and cracked, saw him seem to struggle to move his hands and arms, while his mouth and larynx failed, again, to do their master’s bidding.
“Let me get you some water, Dacre,” he said, turning to leave the room to find a glass and jug when he couldn’t see one there.

Whatever Herculean effort was required by Lawrence to finally lift his heavy limb, we will never know. But somehow, in the brief minute or so that Galloway was out of the room, he mustered the strength of body and will to reach across to the bedside cabinet, where he’d seen the scissors lying – exactly as the nurse had left them.

*

In his office in Cardiff, Dave Morris was explaining to his superior, Tom Gauntless, where he was up to with the investigation into Lawrence. Jane Tobias was sitting on a chair against the wall.
“I’m due to see a Lillian McFry tomorrow – I think she’s the key to this, along with someone called Cyril Galloway,” he said.
“What’s your evidence?” Gauntless asked.
“Lawrence’s notes. They’re a bit sketchy, but when you link them to the records he accessed, it starts to tell a story.”
“Don’t forget, he’s also implicated in fabricating census images on the family history websites,” Jane chipped in.
“Is that anything to do with us?” Gauntless asked.

Dave Morris would have preferred to have kept this angle of his inquiry under wraps from his boss.
“Insofar as he made cash payments to a young trainee from his practice to do that for him, yes – I think it is. I suspect the money came straight out of the practice budget.” Morris suspected nothing like that, just yet, but he thought Gauntless would find the explanation to his liking.
“So. You’re seeing Mrs McFry tomorrow? You know we’re still under pressure to get a report together on this one quickly - I don’t think I need to tell you why…”
Dave Morris knew his boss was still under pressure to get results from the Gilbert project.
“Don’t worry, Tom. We can do this, can’t we, Jane?” Jane smiled, confidently, and nodded her response, even as she wondered what Dave might have up his sleeve. It had better be good: Gauntless, she knew, wasn’t in the business of accepting second-rate work.

When their boss had left the room, Dave pulled open the file he’d prepared over the weekend.
“Here you are, Jane – take a look at this…” he said, as he pulled out a typewritten copy of Lawrence’s notes, which he’d put together the previous day. Jane Tobias studied the notes. Yes, she could see, alright. Suddenly, it almost started to hang together.

*

Sometimes we look for complex reasons to explain why certain things happen at certain times. When you discover that your great-grandfather was married on Christmas Day, for example, you might be tempted to assume he possessed a romantic streak that the general facts belie. In reality, it was much more common than you’d imagine, since it was one of the few days of the year when both parties to a marriage might be assured of not having to go to work, whether that be in a cotton mill or as a house servant. So, Christmas Day was often one of the busiest for nuptials in a cleric’s calendar.
Similarly, we might wonder why, against all the odds of probability, Lillian McFry was scheduled to receive so many visitors on Tuesday. Some readers might even suspect this is merely a writer’s device to allow Danny and Harry to get back from Madrid on Monday, and to build a certain tension in the plot. The thought’s unworthy.
The simple reason was that Monday was usually the busiest day in Lillian’s weekly schedule. Her nurse visited her, of course, but it was also the day she had her hair done. The very thought that she might receive guests without her hair being carefully coiffured was one which, even at the age of 102, she couldn’t possibly entertain.

And so, our story hinges – to some degree at least – on Doreen Parminster, middle-aged, mobile hairdresser and spinster of this parish who, in turn, liked to keep Mondays reserved for her OAPs, so that her entry into the working week was as undemanding as she could engineer it. Doreen usually saw Lillian mid-afternoon, and enjoyed her visits there. She’d lost her own grandmother a couple of years earlier at the tender age of 95, but had always enjoyed her tales of life between the wars. Lillian was now her last real link to that era, since an old age pensioner these days was more likely to have been a mod or a rocker in the 1960’s than anything else.

“So, Lillian,” she said, as she put the finishing touch to her styling, “what’s the week got in store for you?”
Lillian smiled. “Tomorrow promises to be quite interesting. Do you remember I told you once about Jonathan?” she asked.
“Oh, yes – I remember!” Doreen had exclaimed, pausing to perch on the arm of a chair to listen the better. Lillian had indeed told her about Jonathan Harcourt – more than once - and the sweetness and the sadness of the tale had beguiled her.
“Well, I’ve organized it so that tomorrow I’m going to finally find out what happened to him.” And she explained how, with the kind of guile and cunning that she might have assumed had been blunted by years of under use, she had arranged for a number of people who all, in their own way, knew a little about Jonathan, to visit her the following day.
Doreen was excited: “Oh, Lillian – that’s wonderful! I can’t wait to find out what you discover.”
Neither could Lillian.

Chapter 123

Monday didn’t start too well for Harry. In fact, as the day progressed, it didn’t get any better. Before he left for the airport with Danny (via a taxi, as Alan was ‘going to be busy’), he’d managed a call through to the General Records Office at Southport, only to discover that his source there was on a training course that morning. The certificates he’d wanted would have to wait that little while longer.
Then, he’d rung Ana, to check the position with the DNA test. Ana had promised, anyway, to ring him once the results were through, but he couldn’t resist checking. “It’s bad news, Harry,” she’d told him. “She’s had a problem with her daughter, and had to take her to the doctor. She won’t get into work until later this morning…”
Ana must have heard Harry’s sigh. “What’s the matter?” she’d asked.
“Oh, just – you know: kids! They get in the way, sometimes, don’t they?” It was the kind of throwaway remark that missed the bin. Ana’s response was swift, and curt:
“I’m afraid that’s life, Harry. Deal with it.” And she’d put the phone down on him. He’d never understand that woman even if he enrolled in a post-graduate course in Ana Studies, he thought, ruefully.

So, if Harry wasn’t in the best of moods as they boarded the plane home, it was perhaps understandable. He consoled himself with the fact that he’d re-built some rapport with Danny the previous night. They’d gone for a meal in the kind of restaurant that would make a vegetarian see red, polishing off a huge steak each, washed down with a bottle of deep, ruby wine.

Now, en route back to Merseyside, they could relax a little and perhaps work some more on the McFry case. Danny had wanted to be sure that Lillian’s medals were safe. After all, if Harry could lose a £20 million bond, then it was quite possible to lose the medals.
“Don’t worry. The bond is securely stashed away in a safe in a government office – and I’ve got the receipt. The medals – well, they’re even safer,” Harry had said. He had left it at that, but he did sound pretty certain, Danny remembered thinking.

Then, so as to appear not entirely insensitive to his colleague’s inner turmoil, Danny raised the subject of Ana.
“It hasn’t worked out like you wanted with her, has it, Harry?” he asked.
“I’m not sure how I wanted it to work out, to be honest. I thought at one point we might be able to rekindle it, but she was giving out mixed messages.”
“In what way?”
“Well, the whole thing with this Pablo. I never expected she’d be married. You’d think someone might have told me, somewhere along the line.” Harry sounded genuinely betrayed.
Danny stared at him. “Married? What makes you say that?”
“You saw the ring, I’m sure. And no doubt you heard all about Pablo.”
Danny didn’t know much about Pablo, but he knew Harry had made a big mistake. He’d only been in Madrid a couple of nights, but he’d noticed something that Harry, if he ever knew it, must have forgotten. He wasn’t sure how he could best disabuse his colleague.
“Err … I don’t know what Pablo means to Ana, Harry, but I know one thing for sure. They’re not married.”

Harry was dismissive. “Don’t be a mug, Danny. Like I said – you saw the ring.”
“Which was on her left hand, if you remember. And, I may be wrong, but don’t the continentals wear their wedding bands on their right hand?”

Harry stared straight ahead, his eyes unpicking the stitches on the fabric of the headrest in front of him, the sound of the aircraft suddenly becoming thunderous, the smell of the instant coffee in the jug on the trolley being slowly pushed past his seat overpowering him. He could taste the bitterness of his last cigarette at the airport, and could feel the grain in the vinyl armrests under his fingers. It was as if he’d been pulled awake, from a dream, into the ‘now’. Dumbkopf! Danny was right! How could he have been so stupid as to forget something so simple as that? He desperately tried to replay, in his mind, the meeting in the bar with Ana, tried to replay all the subsequent conversations he’d had with Ana, with Alan and with Yolanda … but the rewind button seemed stuck, somehow. He had assumed Ana was married, just because she was wearing what he realized might have been a piece of gaudy costume jewelry! There had been no withholding of information on the part of his brother, no marriage he had never been told about – instead, he’d misread the situation altogether.

He didn’t know what to say, but his mind settled on blaming Danny. “I wish you’d told me this earlier, Danny. I feel so stupid now.” He felt like maybe he’d checked his brains in at left luggage before they’d left John Lennon airport to start their trip.
Danny knew Harry didn’t really blame him for the situation, but having unmasked his stupidity, he didn’t really know how to make amends.
“Maybe you’ll get another chance with Ana?” he said, finally. But it sounded lame.
“I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to talk to me again, the way I treated her just now,” Harry said.

After that, they didn’t have a great deal of conversation, so it was a relief to Danny when the plane finally touched down, and they could make their way out of the airport to collect his car.

Chapter 122

Bill Blunt was next on Harry’s list of people to call, and he wasn’t about to pull any punches. He suspected that an article on Laurel McFry’s family might well be in draft stage, and could easily be heading for the front page of the Birkenhead Beagle - notwithstanding what he’d told Laurel.

“Bill?” he asked, when his old friend answered. “It’s Harry. I’m in Madrid… but I guess you already know that!”
In Birkenhead, Bill was surprised to receive the call. He’d given up hope that Harry might contact him, wondered, perhaps, if he might even be deliberately avoiding him.
“So, Harry - how’s it going?”
“I think I need an explanation, Bill. You see, I’ve had Laurel McFry on the phone. She’s none too happy that you’ve called her. Who put you onto her?”
Harry was trying to mask the anger in his voice, but Bill picked a shade of it up, nonetheless.
“Hey, Harry – calm down! No-one put me onto her. I found her myself: it’s my job, remember! And I’ve got a deadline to meet…”
“OK, OK. But you’ve got to appreciate this is a delicate situation. I can’t have you stomping all over it in your size nines.” Harry paused. Maybe he was being a bit unfair on Bill. “Look … I think it’s time you told me what you’ve got. If you want a story, I’ve got it for you, but you’re going to have to wait until next week’s Beagle.”

Bill wasn’t enamoured of the idea of a delay. But he knew that, for all his digging, he only had the bones of a story. He needed Harry, it was true. But maybe – just maybe – Harry needed him, too.
“What have you got on Harcourt?” Bill asked. Harry was a little taken aback by the question.
“Wait a second, Bill,” he said, as he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply on the smoke. Danny watched as his colleague continued the call.
“That’s pretty much what I was going to ask you,” he said, finally.
“Tell me about the medals, then. I met Galloway, you know...” Bill thought this would make Harry sit up.
“I know: Laurel told me you mentioned him. I can’t tell you about the medals, Bill. But, anyway, this is about more than the medals. It’s a big story – and I can promise you, if you’ll just wait, you’ll get it first.”
They were sparring with each other, and neither of them wanted to give any ground. Bill was smarting, though. He saw visions of one of the nationals pre-empting his scoop: if seven days are a long time in politics, it can be an age for a weekly publication like the Beagle, and Bill knew it.
“Suppose I tell you about Harcourt, then. What do I get in return?”
Harry was wondering what he could trade, when all of a sudden the phone emitted a dull chirp, repeated for a few seconds.
“What’s that?” Bill asked.
“I don’t know. Is it another call coming through?” Harry said. As he pulled the phone away from his face to look at the screen he realized, to his horror, that the battery was dead. Bill was left, at the other end of the line, wondering why Harry might have hung up, and who the other caller might be.
“Damn that Harry McFry!” he said, angry that he’d made no progress from the call.

Danny Longhurst, meanwhile, was remembering, too late, that he’d forgotten to pack his phone charger before he’d left for Madrid. It was unusual for him to forget something like that. Well, there’s a first time for everything, I suppose.

*

That night, Dacre Lawrence injured himself. Even as Mabel Harris was leaving his room, he had become agitated, using what little strength he could muster to turn himself on his side to shout for the nurse. As he did so, he found himself rolling, unable to stop himself slipping from the bed to the floor. In the process, he caught the back of his head against the bedside cabinet and, as he lay prone on the floor, he could feel the blood slowly trickling down his face onto his neck.

It was over half an hour before a nurse arrived to check on Lawrence, and she immediately called for assistance to return him to his bed. Between them, the two dressed his wound, chatting all the while about their respective Saturday night’s out. They cleaned the dried blood from his face, but left him sitting up in bed in his spattered hospital pyjama top. Sadly, Mabel wasn’t expected back with a spare pair until the next day.
“Do you think it’s his wife?” one of the nurses said to her colleague. They were working quickly, this tiny drama in a room off the main ward an unexpected disturbance to their schedule.
“Who do you mean?” was the reply.
“You know – her who’s been visiting…”
“Oh … no. I shouldn’t think so. You don’t look the type to have a wife, do you, Dr Lawrence?” she said, smiling at the invalid. If she’d been able to interpret what Dr Lawrence meant as a withering look, then perhaps she’d have been more careful what she said.