Adrian Magson - No Tears for the Lost

She left the car and returned to the toilets. She debated trying the Gents, but decided that was a step too far. She’d probably find herself being hustled out by a couple of local constables and marched to the nick for questioning.

As she was about to return to her car, a tall, thin man in his fifties crossed the piazza and approached the entrance, walking with a pronounced limp. He was dressed in smart trousers and blue shirt, with a dark blue anorak and matching tie. He eyed her warily but didn’t speak. In his hand was a small paper bag. Printed on the outside was the name of an office supplies company.

Without knowing why, Riley’s instincts told her that this was the man she was looking for.

‘Jacob?’ She spoke quickly before he could disappear down the stairs. ‘Can I speak to you?’

The man paused, then shook his head. ‘It’s not a complaint, is it? Only you have to address complaints to the council offices. I’m only the attendant here.’ With that, he turned away and hurried down the steps, clutching his bag.

‘Wait!’ Riley followed him, but stopped at the entrance, not quite ready to cross the threshold. ‘Jacob? Please — I need to talk to you.’ There was no answer. She heard a door being unlocked and closed very quietly, the sounds echoing clearly over the hiss of water. ‘Jacob,’ she called. ‘It’s about Tristram.’

She waited, but there was no response. She was about to leave when she heard a noise at the entrance and the man re-appeared. He looked pale, his chin trembling, and was holding onto the wall to keep his balance. He was still clutching the paper bag in his hand.

‘What?’ he asked softly, blinking in the light. ‘How do you know about him?’ His eyes glowed with an inner fire and Riley could feel a furious energy coming off him in waves.

She took out the email and held it up so he could see it. ‘Because Tristram sent me this,’ she explained. ‘And others like it.’

‘To you? No.’ Jacob shook his head and began to back away. ‘No, that’s not possible.’

Riley stepped after him. At least he hadn’t denied the name Tristram.

‘Don’t go. My name’s Riley Gavin. You- Tristram’s been emailing me about Sir Kenneth Myburghe.’ She paused as his eyes darted from the email to her face. He showed all the signs of being about to bolt back inside. ‘I think I can help you.’

‘No. Can’t do it,’ he muttered defensively, and turned away like a child guarding a secret. ‘See Barbara. The library. She’ll tell you.’ Then he was gone, scurrying back inside. Seconds later, the inner door slammed shut.

**********

‘Jacob?’ The middle-aged woman stacking books on a wheeled trolley frowned at her. ‘What would you want with my Jacob?’ She looked pointedly at her watch. The library was about to close.

After leaving 34A, Riley had asked for directions to the local library, and been directed past a half-timbered pub to a stone-built, almost austere Victorian building. The inside, by contrast, was bright and cheerful, with the welcoming glow of lights and the warm, musty smell of books.

Riley shrugged. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure. He told me to come and speak to you. Barbara at the library, he said. You know who I mean, then?’

The woman gave a wry smile. ‘I should do — I’ve been married to him long enough.’ She looked around at two remaining readers and another woman stacking a trolley on the other side of the room, then said quietly, ‘What’s he been doing now? He’s not well, I’m afraid. You’re not the police, are you?’ Her eyes opened in alarm at the thought.

Riley was quick to reassure her, sensing that it wouldn’t take much for this woman to shut down, just like Jacob. ‘Nothing like that,’ she said soothingly. ‘It’s this.’ She took out the emails and showed them to the woman, and explained how they had directed her to number 34A.

Barbara read the text, her face draining of colour. Then she handed the emails back, her hand darting to an elegant cameo brooch on a gold chain at her breast. ‘It’s silliness, is that,’ she whispered. ‘It’s so long ago — he doesn’t mean anything by it, not really. I’d forget about it, if I were you. It’s nonsense.’ She turned away, busying herself, hoping her visitor might give up and go away.

‘Wait. Please.’ Riley touched her arm. She had to find some way of bringing this to a conclusion. If this was just ‘silliness’ as Barbara described it, then so be it. She could simply chalk it up to experience. Maybe Jacob, the woman’s husband, was unwell. But having seen her reaction to the emails, Riley wasn’t so sure. There was clearly something going on here, lurking beneath the surface, and Barbara knew what it was. ‘He must have wanted someone to know what he knew about Sir Kenneth Myburghe, otherwise, why send me the emails?’

Barbara didn’t respond, although she stayed where she was, no longer intent on flight.

‘Why Tristram?’ Riley urged her. ‘Is that name important to him?’ It occurred to her that without confirmation that Jacob Worth and Tristram were one and the same person, she was still at square one.

‘What happens,’ Riley continued, ‘if he sends these emails to someone else — maybe one of the tabloids? They won’t be put off so easily. And they won’t be subtle about it, either. If they smell a story, they’ll come looking for him in droves.’

It was this point which seemed to penetrate the woman’s mind. She nodded and sighed deeply, as if reaching a decision she had been considering for a long time. She led Riley over to the deserted reference section and invited her to sit.

‘He won’t speak to you,’ she explained softly. ‘He doesn’t — speak to women, I mean. It’s part of…what happened to him.’

‘How do you mean?’ Riley leaned in close, intrigued. ‘Part of what?’

‘I can’t tell you much… that’s up to him if he wants to. But Jacob was… in the Falklands — in the Navy.’ Barbara spoke concisely. She seemed calmer now, as if unburdening herself was helping. ‘He was with the Defence Intelligence Group, working in Latin America. He never says much, but I know he was working with the British embassies down there, trying to get support against the Argentinians. This was in nineteen eighty-two. He’d been over there for a couple of weeks, travelling about. Then on the fourth of May, he was told to join some other officers on HMS Sheffield. There was to be a conference of some sort and Jacob and a friend named Tom Elliott, were to brief the meeting about what they’d found.’

‘The Sheffield?’ Riley trawled her memory for details with a sense of foreboding. ‘But wasn’t that-?’

‘She was hit by an Exocet. It didn’t explode, but the ship caught fire. Jacob and Tom were in a wardroom for the conference when the missile struck. A bulkhead door was blown off by the impact and entered the wardroom. It broke Jacob’s leg, but… Tom was crushed. He was taken off the ship with Jacob, but he died of his wounds. There was nothing they could do. It was such a waste.’

Riley waited, saying nothing.

Barbara took a small handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘You asked about Tristram earlier. He uses the name after one of the other ships. He said it’s safer than using his own name. It’s useless telling the man, but he blames himself for not saving Tom’s life. The Navy told me he couldn’t have done anything — that the door was too heavy for one man to lift, and the damage was too severe — but he won’t listen. In the end, what with the wounds and that, it all got too much; he suffered a breakdown.’ She shrugged. ‘He’s been like it ever since. Bouts of depression, anger, insomnia — guilt, too, which is worse, poor man. But there’s no getting to him. God knows, we’ve all tried.’