Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue

‘And not just that, though that was at the centre of everything,’ he went on. ‘Once I knew she was ill, everything shifted, perspectives changed, I changed, you changed too I daresay, though I was too absorbed in my own pain to really see that. I thought that you were strong, that you had the strength to be resigned, but I see now that all that was just a different way of dealing with the pain.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Alex, this corruption thing, were you guilty?’

He looked at her impatiently, as if this were a diversion from the important stuff.

‘Of course I was. You must have known that.’

She shook her head. Somehow this felt like the biggest shock of all, not because it was more important than anything else but because, amidst all the debris of their shattered lives, she’d always clung to the certainty of his innocence.

She said, ‘I thought…I thought…’

‘Come on!’ he said. ‘We needed the money. From the start we knew the good old NHS was only with us so far along the way. If we wanted the newest and the best treatment, we went looking for it, remember? Here, there, everywhere, chasing a hope. Hope doesn’t come cheap. Where did you think the money was coming from?’

‘You got a bank loan, you were applying for a mortgage on the house…’

‘The loan went nowhere, mean bastards. And they were making me jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to get a mortgage, then Gidman made his offer. There it was: instant money, no strings attached. I wasn’t gong to refuse.’

‘No strings? Except your job!’

He laughed and said, ‘I can’t remember much, but one thing I do remember is how utterly unimportant the job seemed. Everything except Lucy was shadowy, unreal. The rest of the world was illusion. I could have seen it fall into ruin without a pang.’

‘And then?’

‘And then she died and I was left alone in this illusory world.’

‘Alone? You weren’t alone!’ she cried. ‘I was there.’

‘No. You were alone too in your own world. It was a world I wasn’t strong enough to join you in. I had nothing to stay for, everything to flee from.’

‘Including the internal investigation,’ she said, feeling a sudden urge to hurt him. ‘Might have been illusory, but I daresay the prospect of being jailed as a bent cop must have played a small part in your decision.’

He shook his head violently.

‘I told you, there wasn’t any decision. What I did had nothing to do with the threats, not the rat pack’s at the Yard, not Goldie Gidman’s either…’

‘He threatened you too, did he?’ she mocked. ‘What was he going to do? Beat you up? Break a few bones? Pain or prison? No wonder you ran!’

It was proving hard to stick to her own proposal that apologies and recriminations should be saved for later. In her heart she believed he had vanished because he had no choice, but all that pain he had caused her surely deserved some punishment?

He didn’t react to her mockery but said quietly, ‘I felt threatened, certainly. Not long after the investigation started, I was opening the garage door one morning. A car pulled up at the gate and a woman got out and called to me. She said she’d heard the house was up for sale, I told her it wasn’t, and she looked up at the house and said it didn’t matter anyway, now she’d seen it, she thought the property looked as if it might be a fire hazard. She’d known a lot of houses like this go up in flames, everyone inside burnt to death, just because the owner was careless. She hoped I wasn’t a careless owner.’

‘You’re saying she was from Gidman?’

‘His name was never mentioned, but oh yes, I knew she was from Gidman. I felt angry, but there was a man sitting in the car, watching us. He didn’t look the kind of guy I wanted to see getting out of the car, so I said I wasn’t the careless type. I was just about past caring then, but you were still at home.’

‘So you were thinking of me?’ she said. ‘What do you want me to do now? Swoon with gratitude?’

‘I was almost at a point where I wasn’t thinking of anyone,’ he said. ‘What I did had nothing to do with you or anyone. I did it because I couldn’t help it. It was like teleporting in the space movies. I was there, I wasn’t there. I was now, I was years in the future.’

She felt drained. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to go on with this, couldn’t imagine where it was going to end. Her throat felt very dry. She coughed and glanced out of the window towards the pub.

She said, ‘I could do with a drink.’

‘Better we’re not seen together in there. They know me. Here-’

He produced a bottle of water from the glove compartment. She opened it and took a swig. It was lukewarm but it eased her throat and renewed her strength.

‘So that’s what took you away,’ she said. ‘What brought you back?’

‘Nothing. I mean, lots of things. I mean it wasn’t just a blinding revelation: Oh, I’m ex-DCI Alex Wolfe, I must have lost my memory. It was gradual, confused. You see, I was really settled in my new life, I had a job, I had friends.’

‘A job? Friends? Lucky you. What kind of job?’

‘Casual work, to start with. In fact I started here at the Lost Traveller.’

‘The what?’

‘It’s the name of the pub. I must have come here for a drink and seen the advert. Maybe it was the name that attracted me.’

‘Oh yes? Might have made more sense if it had been called the Running Man.’

That came out more sharply than she’d intended, but she’d been provoked by the hint of pathos in what he’d said.

His reaction was a faint smile, the first lightness she’d seen in his features.

He said, ‘Whatever, it helped me survive. I collected glasses and served behind the bar to start with. I was casual labour, money in hand, nothing in the books, so no questions to answer. Just as well, as I had no answers to give.’

‘You must have had a name. They must have called you something.’

‘Yes, they did ask me. I told them my name was Ed. Ed Muir. I’d no idea why, it just came into my head. For all I knew then it was my real name.’

She stared hard at him, looking for signs that he was mocking her, but found none as he went on: ‘Later, when it started coming back to me, I realized where it came from. Back about a year before I got put on Macavity, I was on the team investigating that Hackney benefits scam. Way it worked, someone in the local social security office had to be involved, so I was delegated to go along and sign on to try and get a lead. I needed a name, so I called myself Edwin Muir. Remember? That Scottish poet you were so fond of? I’d just bought you a fancy edition of his collected works for your birthday.’

She said very quietly, ‘I remember. You couldn’t see what I saw in him, right?’

‘That’s right, but his name stuck and it came in really useful. Not only when I was working casual, but later, when things started coming back to me. I’d started doing a bit in the kitchen at the pub. I always enjoyed cooking, remember?’

Suddenly she didn’t want to do any more shared memories, not at this level, not like a couple of old school friends who’d run into each other by chance.

She said, ‘So you became a cook, is that what you’re saying?’

‘To start with. And as I stopped being casual, I needed a real back story. That’s where Ed Muir came in handy. Way back then, I’d picked up a lot of tricks about how to manipulate social security. Turned out there were still some traces of Ed Muir on file from the Hackney op, so it wasn’t too hard for me to build up the identity, particularly as I wasn’t trying to get money out of them. In fact, they’ve probably got me in their books as a success story. Layabout turns the corner, gets a permanent job, starts contributing.’