Fall From Grace (34 page)

‘It is true,’ said Jake who felt strangely calm. ‘They say they care when they ring in to TV programmes and put some loose change in a collection pot for heroes. But they don’t really. They cross the road when they see a soldier who’s only got stumps where his legs used to be. They don’t know what to say. They get too embarrassed. Or they patronise us with their shallow, meaningless words about how brave we are and how they’re thinking of us. It’s all bullshit! The politicians send us out there playing their little power games and they don’t even make sure we’ve got all the right fucking equipment!’

‘When all charges against her were dropped,’ said Jake. ‘I saw it all over the papers. It’s never going to change, Paul. She kills and gets away with it because of who she knows. I kill and I’m the most wanted man in the country. Her and her Nazi should’ve had justice served on them.’

‘I know, Jake, I know, and I agree but this is not the way to change any of that.’

‘I didn’t care,’ said Jake. ‘I mean, what’s the fucking difference? They send me out to kill Afghans for their reasons. It’s okay if you’re killing for Queen and country. But you come back home and you’re driven to kill because the people couldn’t give a shit about what you’ve been through. Well, nobody is going to drop the charges against the likes of me. I’m just a soldier, a piece of equipment to fight their wars for them.’

‘Oh Jake, Jake…’

‘…that stupid youth who was giving out to you outside the school was a fucking useless excuse for a human being. Never done a day’s work in his life and yet still expects everything to be given to him on a fucking plate. He was pissing himself about that head teacher friend of yours. I had to do something, just like I had to do something about the missing girls.’

‘You know where they are?’

‘They were down Nantwich way in a farmhouse. I freed them this morning. They’ll be alright. You’ll be alright. I’m the one who needs to get out.’

‘What do you mean?’

Their was taken by the screeching to a halt of several police cars. An Armed Response Unit had been called and in seconds Paul could see several guns pointing at Jake’s head.

‘We don’t think about the children,’ said Jake. ‘We never think about the children when we drop our bombs to protect our oil. We never think about their children. We only think about ours.’

Jake turned and when he stepped forward they opened fire. Paul could only watch in horrified shock as Jake fell to the ground.

After all the difficulties of the evening, when Sara got back to the station she sat down at her desk and buried her head in her hands.

‘Sara?’ said Superintendent Hargreaves as he entered her office and closed the door behind him. ‘Are you okay?’

‘About as okay as I can be on a day like this, sir.’

‘Come on,’ said Hargreaves, ‘you’re not to blame for Steve Osborne. He went out on a limb of his own accord, Sara. Nobody could’ve stopped him.’

‘He was under my charge, sir, so with all due respect, I am responsible.’

‘Okay, I’ll give you that,’ said Hargreaves, ‘but don’t punish yourself. Anyway, we got a result.’

‘We may have got a result, sir, but where’s the justice? I was able to prove that a load of dead people committed certain crimes but where’s the justice for their victims?’

‘Maybe the fact that all the perpetrators of those crimes are now dead is the justice, Sara,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Try to look at it that way.’

Sara sat back in her chair. ‘But then I think of those kids who were sold to the Nazi’s in the war and what could’ve happened to them.’

‘They might’ve ended up leading very happy lives,’ said Hargreaves.

‘With no recollection that they were actually English,’ said Sara. ‘So many crimes stretching back to the war, sir. It’s hard to get your head around.’

‘The world is very different from nineteen forty-five, Sara,’ said Hargreaves. ‘You have to earn your stripes these days. Deference is not entirely dead but it’s not the automatic right it used to be.’

‘And do you agree with that?’

‘I’m like a lot of British people, Sara,’ said Hargreaves. ‘I’m more concerned about how much tax I pay than in any kind of social injustice.’

‘Well I used to think like you, sir, but this case has made me think,’ said Sara. ‘We missed our chance in this country. We should’ve had a revolution.’

‘Sara, we could never have had a revolution in this country because all we Brits would do is argue about who was going to pay for the guillotine.’

Sara laughed. ‘You could be right there, sir.’

‘So let’s just move on from these events,’ said Hargreaves, ‘and everything that went with them. You know, we’re very much alike, you and me, Sara.’

‘We are, sir?’

‘I’m sure it will become apparent to you as your career progresses,’ said Hargreaves as he opened her office door. ‘It was a good result, Sara, despite the difficulties. I’m pleased with it and so should you be and Steve Osborne wouldn’t want us to think any different.’

*

Paul had been given tranquilisers to get him through the day and sleeping pills to make sure he didn’t lie awake all night reliving the events outside the centre when Jake checked out of this world. The drugs, along with Kelly and Lydia, had held him together through his darkest days. It was a darkness that almost made him feel separate from the world he was living in. There’d been so much death, so much pointless, needless death, so much unnecessary heartache for so many people. He had to try and mend some of it. And he knew where to start. He went down to Rubinstein’s jewellery shop on St. Peter’s Square with the watch his father had given him.

‘Mr. Foster,’ Saul Rubinstein said, greeting him warmly, ‘how nice to see you. Please, come through to the back.’

Paul followed Mr. Rubinstein through to his back office and handed him the watch. ‘This belongs to you and your family, Mr. Rubinstein,’ said Paul. ‘I’ve discovered through an investigation by certain experts that my grandmother had quite a collection of gold and jewellery that has been verified as having been stolen by the Nazi’s. Some of it, I have to say, was given to her by a member of our own royal family, and some of it came into her possession by her own misdeeds both during and after the war. It’s been valued at about a million pounds. I’m planning an auction and the entire proceeds will go to the Simon Wiesenthal centre in Vienna. I hope you think that’s some kind of poetic justice.’

Saul Rubinstein took hold of Paul’s hand and, tearfully, he said, ‘thank you. You are a big man, Paul Foster and only big men can deliver real justice.’

‘Mr. Rubinstein, my family have been involved in some evil things but it’s up to me now to bring an end to it all. I just hope this goes some way to putting things right.’

‘From your mouth to God’s ears,’ said Saul.

TWENTY ONE

ONE MONTH LATER

Paul was nervous as he got into his suit. The day had finally dawned and it was going to be good for his soul. A cleansing of the past and the name of a good family restored. He’d been a multi-millionaire for the best part of a month before he’d turned over most of his money to the Wilfred Jenkins foundation that he’d set up. He’d kept some back and he considered he was due something from the old witch. Yet he still felt there was more than enough left over for him to be comfortable for the rest of his life and able to help out his friends whenever they needed it.

Paul was perched on the end of his bed and looking down at his folded hands in his lap. Lydia knew there was something more going on than just nerves.

‘It’s like I’ve lost Jake all over again, Lydia,’ said Paul, ‘and breaking my heart doesn’t even come close to it.’ Paul broke down again and wept on Lydia’s shoulder.

‘But hang on, love,’ said Lydia. ‘The trust fund you’ve set up for Callum and the monthly allowance you’re giving her? Is she still taking that?’

‘I know but I… like I said, I just can’t go back on the promise I made, Lydia but I’ve lost Jake, the only man I’ve ever truly loved and now I’ve lost contact with his son and I’m just getting a little tired of putting on a brave face and pretending everything’s alright when it fucking well isn’t.’

‘Now listen,’ said Lydia, taking hold of his shoulders. ‘Lesser men would never have thought of doing what you’re doing today. They’d have just taken the money and run for the hills.’

‘That the pain in your heart about Jake won’t go away for a very long time but that you should feel proud of what you’re doing in the rest of your life. It gives you a reason to go on.’

‘She’s a sweetie,’ said Lydia, ‘but I can understand why she didn’t want to move to another flat like you wanted her to. She wasn’t slighting you, Paul.’

‘Yeah, I know that,’ said Paul. ‘She’s got her neighbours and she’ll be okay if we keep an eye on her or if Uncle Leonid does. Do you know she’d never even had her hair done until you took her to the hairdressers yesterday? She’d never thought anything about herself at all.’

*

There’d always been a community centre on the Tatton estate, it’s just that it had never been used. The windows had all been boarded up, there was graffiti on the walls, and most of the residents didn’t even register anymore that it was there. But it was in a prime location at the start of the estate, just off the A6 that ran like a vein through the heart of Salford.

Kelly drove Lydia, Paul, Kathy Jenkins, and Paul’s Uncle Leonid to the estate and parked in the newly resurfaced car park outside the community centre. Leonid was proud to be there. Paul had promised to use his position to campaign for official recognition of the Holodomor that the Ukrainians went through during the 1920’s and 1930’s. They’d talked a lot recently, mainly about Paul’s father, but Paul had also floated the idea of trying to re-unite Leonid with his family in the Ukraine. Leonid thought it was too late now, too many decades had passed and it should all just be left alone.