Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George
He passed through the entrance where a sign identified the park as Island Gardens. At its far west end, a circular brick building stood, domed in glass and mounted by a white-and-green lantern cupola. A movement of white shimmered against the red bricks, and Lynley saw Jimmy Cooper trying the building’s door. It was a dead end, Lynley thought. Why would the boy…? He looked to his left, across the water, and understood. Their run had brought them to the Greenwich foot tunnel. Jimmy was going to cross the river.
Lynley picked up speed. As he did so, the Bentley careened round the far corner. Jean Cooper and Sergeant Havers spilled out. Jean shouted her son’s name. Jimmy dragged on the handles of the tunnel door. The door didn’t move.
Lynley was closing in quickly from the northeast. Sergeant Havers and Jean Cooper were doing the same from the northwest. The boy looked in one direction, then the other. He took off east, along the river wall.
Lynley began to cut across the lawn to intercept him. Havers and Jean Cooper followed the path. Jimmy produced a final burst of speed and strength, leapt over a bench, and sprang onto the wall. He hoisted himself atop the railing of lime-coloured wrought-iron that fenced the gardens off from the river below them.
Lynley called the boy’s name.
Jean Cooper screamed.
Arms flailing, Jimmy plunged into the Thames.
CHAPTER
23
Lynley reached the river wall first. Jimmy thrashed below him in the water. The tide was high, but it was still coming in, so the current flowed swiftly from east to west.
Jean Cooper screamed her son’s name as she reached the river wall. She threw herself at the railing and began to climb it.
Lynley pulled her back. He thrust her at Havers. “Phone the river police.” He tore off his jacket and kicked off his shoes.
“That’s Waterloo Bridge!” Havers protested as she struggled with Jean Cooper, holding her back. “They’ll never make it in time.”
“Just do it.” Lynley climbed onto the wall and hoisted himself atop the railing. In the river the boy was stroking ineffectually, hampered by the current and his own exhaustion. Lynley dropped to the other side of the railing. Jimmy’s head sank under the turbid water.
Lynley dived. He heard Havers shouting, “Bloody hell! Tommy!” as he hit the water.
It was North Sea cold. It was moving faster than he would have suspected from looking at it behind the safety wall in Island Gardens. The wind chopped against it. The tide’s flux created an undertow. The moment that Lynley surfaced from his dive, he could feel himself being swept southwest, into the river but not towards the opposite shore.
He lashed his arms against the water, trying to keep himself afloat. He searched for the boy. Across the river, he could see the facade of the naval college, to its west the masts of the Cutty Sark. He could even make out the domed exit to the Greenwich foot tunnel. But he couldn’t see Jimmy.
He let the current take him as it would take the boy. His heart and his breathing thundered in his ears. His limbs felt heavy. Dimly he heard screams from Island Gardens, but with the wind, his heart, and his gasping lungs, he couldn’t make out what they were trying to tell him.
He twisted in the water as it carried him on. Treading, trying to locate Jimmy. There were no boats to come to his aid. Pleasure boats wouldn’t take chances in the gusty weather, and the last of the tourist crafts were gone for the day. The only vessels afloat in the area were two barges chugging slowly up river. And they were at least three hundred yards away, too far to hail even if they could have built up the speed to reach Lynley in time to find the boy.
A bottle bobbed past him. His right foot kicked against what felt like a net. He began to swim with the river’s flow, striking towards Greenwich as Jimmy would be doing.
He kept his head down. He kept his arms and legs moving. He tried to time his breaths.
The water dragged at his clothes and pulled him downward. He fought, but the effort was draining him quickly. He’d done too much running, too much climbing and jumping. And the tide was insistent and just as strong. He gulped in water. He coughed. He felt himself go down. He fought back, rose. He gasped for air. He felt himself go down.
Beneath the surface he found there was nearly nothing. Murk. Air bubbles escaping from his lungs. A liquid tornado in which debris swirled madly. Endless green upon white upon grey upon brown.
He thought of his father. He could almost see him, on the deck of the Daze sailing out of Lamorna Cove. He was saying, “Don’t ever trust the sea, Tom. She’s a mistress who’ll betray you given half the chance.” Lynley wanted to argue that this wasn’t the sea, but a river, a river, for God’s sake who could be so stupid as to drown in a river? But his father was saying, “A tidal river. Tides come from the sea. Only fools trust the sea.” And the water dragged him down.
His vision went black. His ears roared. He heard his mother’s voice and his brother’s laughter. Then Helen said distinctly, “Tommy, I don’t know. I can’t give you the answer you want just because you want it.”
Christ, he thought. Still ambivalent. Even now. Even now. When it didn’t matter in the least. She would never decide. She would never be willing. Goddamn her. Goddamn.
He scissored his legs in a fury. He threshed his arms through the river. He broke the surface. He shook the water from his eyes, coughing and gasping. He heard the boy.
Jimmy was shrieking some twenty yards to the west. His arms pounded against the water. He twisted round and round like a piece of flotsam. As Lynley struck out towards him, the boy went down again.
Lynley went after him, diving, praying his lungs would hold. The current was on his side this time. He collided with the boy and grabbed his hair.
He swam for the surface. Jimmy fought against him, flailing in the water like a netted fish. When they hit the surface, the boy kicked and punched. He shrieked, “No, no, no!” and tried to struggle away.
Lynley changed his grip from Jimmy’s hair to his shirt. He looped one arm underneath the boy’s arms and round his chest. He had little breath left for speaking, but he managed to gasp, “Drown or survive. Which one?”
The boy kicked frantically.
Lynley tightened his grip. He used his legs and one free arm to keep them afloat. “Fight me, we drown. Help me swim, we might make it. What’s it going to be?” He shook the boy’s body. “Decide.”
“No!” But Jimmy’s protest was weak and when Lynley began to tow him towards the north bank of the river, he no longer had the strength to fight him.
“Kick,” Lynley said. “I can’t do this alone.”
“Can’t,” Jimmy gasped.
“You can. Help me.”
But the final forty seconds of struggle had taken Jimmy to the end of his resources. Lynley could feel the boy’s exhaustion. His limbs were dead weight. His head lolled back.
Lynley shifted his grip. He locked his left arm beneath Jimmy’s chin. He used what stamina remained in his own muscles to turn himself and the boy towards the north bank of the river. He began striking against the water in that direction.
He heard shouting, but he didn’t have the strength to locate it. He heard the low horn of a boat somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t risk pausing at this point to try to find it. He knew the only chance they had was centred upon the mindless act of his swimming. So he swam, breathing, counting the strokes, one arm and two legs against sheer exhaustion and the desire to sink and have done with it all.
Dimly, he saw a pebbled stretch of bank up ahead where boats could be launched. He made for this. He kicked with ever growing weakness. His grip on the boy became harder to maintain. As he reached the limit of his endurance, he kicked a final time and his feet struck the bottom. First sand, then pebbles, then larger rocks. He found a foothold, drew breath in a sob, and hauled the boy out of the deeper water behind him. They collapsed in the shallows five feet from a bollard, on their hands and knees.
Furious splashing and shouting followed. Someone wa
He coughed. He felt his stomach pitch. He rolled to his side, rose to his knees, and vomited onto his sergeant’s shoes.
One of her hands went into his hair. The other curved firmly round his forehead.
He dragged his hand against his mouth. The taste was foul. “Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Havers said. “The colour’s an improvement.”
“The boy?”
“His mum’s got him.”
Jeannie was kneeling in the water, cradling her son. She was weeping, her head lifted towards the sky.
Lynley began to lurch to his feet. “God. He’s not—”
Havers grabbed his arm. “He’s okay. You got him. He’s all right. He’s all right.”
Lynley sank back to the ground. His senses began to awaken one by one. He became aware of the rubbish heap in which he was sitting. He heard a babble of conversation behind them and looked over his shoulder to see that the local police had finally managed to arrive and were now holding back a group of spectators among whom were the same journalists who’d been trailing him since he’d left New Scotland Yard. The photographer with them was doing his job, documenting the drama over the shoulders of the Manchester Road police. There would be no need for the papers to hide the boy’s identity this time round. A river rescue was news that could be reported in a way unconnected to Fleming’s murder. From the shouted questions and the noise of the cameras, Lynley knew that the journalists meant to report it.
“What happened to the river police?” he asked Havers. “I told you to phone them.”
“I know, but—”
“You heard me, didn’t you?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“What are you saying? You didn’t bother to phone? That was an order, Havers. We could have drowned out there. Christ, if I ever have to deal with you in an emergency situation again, I may as well depend upon—”
“Inspector. Sir.” Havers’ voice was firm although her face was pale. “You were in the water for five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” he said blankly.
“There wasn’t time.” She quirked her mouth and looked away from him. “Besides, I…I panicked, all right? You went down twice. Fast. I saw that and I knew the river blokes couldn’t get here anyway and if that was the case…” Roughly, she rubbed her fingers beneath her nose.
Lynley watched her blink quickly and pretend it was the wind in her eyes. He got to his feet. “I was out of line then, Barbara. Put it down to my own panic and forgive me please.”
“Right,” she said.
They picked their way back into the water where Jean Cooper still cradled her son. Lynley knelt next to them.
Jean’s hand held her son’s head next to her chest. She was bent to him. His eyes were dull, but not glazed, and as Lynley reached out to touch Jean’s arm preparatory to helping them both to their feet, Jimmy stirred and looked up at his mother’s face.
She was mindlessly repeating, “Why?”
He worked his mouth as if trying to summon the will to speak. “Saw,” he whispered.
“What?” she asked. “What? Why won’t you say?”
“You,” he said. “I saw you, Mum.”
“Saw me?”
“There.” He seemed to go even limper in her arms. “Saw you there. That night.”
Lynley heard Havers breathe the word, “Finally,” and he saw her make an initial move towards Jean Cooper. He signalled her to stay where she was.
Jean Cooper said, “Me? Saw me where?”
“That night. Dad.”
Lynley could see the horror and the realisation break over Jean Cooper simultaneously. She cried, “You talking about Kent? At the cottage?”
“You. Parked in the drive,” he murmured. “Went for the key in the shed. Went inside. Came out. It was dark but I saw.”
His mother clutched him. “You’ve been thinking that I…that I…” Her grip on him tightened. “Jim, I loved your dad. I loved him, loved him. I never would of…Jim, I thought you—”
“Saw you,” Jimmy said.
“I didn’t know he was there. I didn’t know anyone was in Kent at all. I thought you and him were going on holiday. Then you said he phoned. You said he had cricket business to take care of. You said the holiday’d been postponed.”
He shook his head numbly. “You came out. You had some squirmies in your hands.”
“Squirmies? Jim—”
“The kittens,” Havers said.
“Kittens?” Jean echoed. “What kittens? Where? What’re you talking about?”
“You tossed them to the ground. You shooed them ’way. At the cottage.”
“I wasn’t at the cottage. I was never at the cottage. Never.”
“I saw,” Jimmy said.
Footsteps began to crunch across the boat launch. Behind them someone shouted, “At least let us have a bloody word with one of them!” Jean turned to see who was coming towards them. Jimmy looked in that direction as well. He squinted to bring the interloper into focus. And Lynley at last understood what had happened and how.
He said, “Your glasses. Jimmy, on Wednesday night. Were you wearing your glasses?”
Barbara Havers trudged along the path to her cottage at the bottom of the garden. Her feet squished inside her shoes. She’d scrubbed them vigorously under the tap in the Ladies’ at New Scotland Yard, so they no longer smelled of vomit. But they were pretty much done for. She sighed.
She was completely knackered. All she wanted was a shower and twelve hours of sleep. She hadn’t eaten in ages, but food could wait.
They’d shepherded Jimmy and his mother through the spectators and past the firing camera of the single photographer. They’d driven them home. Jean Cooper had insisted no doctor was necessary to see to her son, and she’d taken him upstairs and run him a bath while her younger two children hovered round them both, crying, “Mummy!” and “Jim!” until Jean had said, “Heat some soup,” to the girl and “Turn down your brother’s bed,” to the boy. They scampered off to do so.
Jean had protested when Lynley said he wanted to talk to her son. “There’s been talk enough,” she said. But he quietly insisted. When the boy was bathed and put into bed, Lynley climbed the stairs in his sodden clothes and placed himself at the foot of Jimmy’s bed. He said, “Tell me what you saw that night,” and next to him Barbara could feel his limbs shaking. His jacket and shoes were the only dry clothing he wore, and the adrenaline that had so far kept him going was beginning to give way to chill. She asked Jean for a blanket, but he wouldn’t use it, instead saying to the boy, “Tell me everything this time. You won’t be incriminating your mother, Jimmy. I know she wasn’t there.”
Barbara had wanted to ask why Lynley believed a simple denial. She recognised Jean’s confusion over the kittens, but she wasn’t willing to absolve her of responsibility because she’d acted as if she didn’t know about the animals. Killers often were master dissemblers. She couldn’t see how or why Lynley had decided that Jean Cooper was neither.
Jimmy told them what he had seen: the blue car pulling up in the drive; the shadowy form of a light-haired woman coming into the garden and slipping into the potting shed; that same woman entering the cottage; less than five minutes later, that same woman returning the key to the potting shed, then leaving. He’d watched the cottage for another half hour. Then he’d gone to the potting shed and nicked the key.
“Why?” Lynley asked him.
“Don’t know,” the boy said. “Just to do it. Cos I wanted.” His fingers plucked weakly at the covers.
Lynley was shaking so badly that Barbara was certain she could feel it through the floor. She wanted to insist that he change his clothes, use the blanket, eat some soup, drink some brandy, do something to take care of himself. But when she was about to suggest they’d
Jimmy’s mouth quivered—at the tone, its gentleness, and its unspoken message of understanding—and his eyelids closed. They looked purple with fatigue.
Lynley said, “Will you help me find his killer? You’ve already seen her, Jimmy. Will you help me flush her out? You’re the only one who can.”
His eyelids opened. He said, “But I didn’t have my binns. I thought…I saw the car and her. I thought Mum…”
“You won’t have to identify her. You’ll just need to do as I say. It won’t be pleasant for you. It will mean I release your name to the media. It will mean we take things a step further, you and I. But I think it will work. Will you help me?”
Jimmy swallowed. He nodded in silence. He turned his head in a weak movement on the pillow and looked at his mother, who sat on the edge of the bed. He licked his lips wearily. “I saw,” he murmured. “One day I saw…when I bunked off school.”
Tears seeped slowly from Jean Cooper’s eyes. “What?”
He’d bunked off school, he told her wearily again. He’d bought himself fish and chips at the Chinese take-away. He’d eaten them on a bench in St. John’s Park. And then he’d thought about the Watney’s in the fridge at home and how no one would be there at this time of day and how he could drink half and fill the bottle with water or maybe drink it all and deny it bold-faced when his mother accused. So he went home. He entered through the back, through the kitchen door. He opened the fridge, uncapped the bottle of Watney’s, and heard the noise from above.
He’d climbed the stairs. Her door was closed but not latched shut, and he listened to the creaking and suddenly knew what it was. This is why, he thought and the anger felt like a spike in his neck. This is why he left. This is why. This…is…why.