The Ultimate Truth (3 page)

I wheeled my bike through the open door and headed down the corridor towards Mum and Dad’s office.

The office door was half open, the pebbled-glass panel smashed out. As I leaned my bike against the corridor wall, I heard a muffled
clonk
from inside the office. I stopped and listened.
I couldn’t see anyone through the broken door panel, but there was definitely somebody in there. I could hear them – shuffling footsteps, a muted cough, a quiet sniff.

My heart was beating hard now, and for a moment or two I was tempted to play it safe. Just turn round, walk out, and call the police. Let them deal with it. But my heart wasn’t just
pounding with fear, it was seething with anger too. This was my mum and dad’s office. I’d spent half my life in here. It was full of good memories. It was a special place. It was
our
place. No one else had a right to be in our place.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then pushed open the door.

The first thing I saw when I went into the office was a young woman picking up piles of papers from the floor. She had bright-red hair, a tattoo on her right shoulder, and she
was wearing a tiny black miniskirt, a vest top, and purple Doc Martens. As she heard me come in, she straightened up and smiled at me.

‘Hey, Travis,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hi, Courtney,’ I mumbled, feeling pretty stupid.

The main reason I felt stupid was that Courtney Lane had been Mum and Dad’s assistant for almost two years, so it should have at least occurred to me that she might have been in the
office. But I also felt stupid because Courtney always makes me feel stupid. She’s not only stunningly pretty, but she always wears incredibly revealing clothes. And whenever I see her, I
never know where to look, which is pretty embarrassing. It’s even more embarrassing when she gives me a hug, which she did just then – grabbing hold of me and squeezing tight –
because I never know where to put my hands. Despite feeling stupid and embarrassed though, I was still really pleased to see her.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you at the funeral,’ she said, letting go of me and stepping back. ‘I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure if you were up to talking or
not. I wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. I still don’t.’

‘You don’t have to say anything.’

She sighed, shaking her head. ‘I still can’t believe it.’

‘Me neither.’

‘One minute everything’s all right, and then suddenly . . .’

I just nodded, not really wanting to think about it, but not wanting to appear rude either.

‘Sorry,’ Courtney said. ‘I didn’t mean—’

‘It’s OK,’ I told her.

She sighed again, then went over to her desk and put down the pile of papers she was holding.

I looked around the office. The whole place had been trashed. Desk drawers had been emptied, cabinets ripped open, papers and files were scattered all over the floor. All the office equipment
was either missing or smashed to pieces – computers, printers, scanners, phones.

‘When did it happen?’ I asked Courtney.

‘Last Saturday night,’ she said. ‘From what I’ve read in the local papers it all kicked off around seven o’clock when a gang of kids from the Slade Lane estate
broke into the T-Mobile shop at the end of the street. There were about twenty or thirty of them at first, but once they went on the rampage and started looting all the other shops, loads of other
people joined in. They all just went crazy, smashing up everything they came across.’

‘Did it spread any further?’ I asked. ‘Did they move on to the High Street or anything?’

She shook her head. ‘The police reacted pretty quickly, apparently. They had the High Street blocked off within about half an hour, so most of the damage was limited to North
Walk.’

I looked over at Mum and Dad’s private office. The door was half hanging off, the wooden panels kicked in.

‘Is it just as bad in there?’ I asked.

Courtney nodded. ‘I haven’t had a chance to check what’s missing yet. I thought I’d better try to clear up some of the mess first.’ She glanced across at me.
‘The police didn’t notify your grandad about the damage until Monday. He called me on the Wednesday after the funeral and asked if I could pop in sometime to check that the main door
had been fixed.’ She gazed around at the mess. ‘I would have started on all this earlier, but my mum’s been in and out of hospital all week and I just haven’t had
time.’

‘You didn’t have to come in and clean up,’ I told her. ‘I’m glad you did, of course. It’s really nice of you. But I don’t know if . . . well, you know .
. .’

I was suddenly feeling embarrassed again, but this time it was because I didn’t know how to say what I was trying to say. Thankfully, Courtney had already read my mind.

‘I’m not bothered about getting paid or anything, Trav,’ she said. ‘I mean, I know I don’t have to come in to work any more. I’m not doing this because I have
to, I’m doing it because I want to. Your mum and dad were always really good to me.’ She wiped her eyes and smiled at me. ‘Besides, someone’s got to get this mess cleaned
up. And I don’t suppose you came armed with a dustpan and brush, did you?’

‘No,’ I admitted.

She turned back to the desk and started sorting through the piles of papers. ‘So what
are
you doing here, Travis?’

‘I’m not really sure, to be honest,’ I told her. ‘I suppose I’m just wondering what Mum and Dad were working on when they died. I know they were going to London to
meet someone, and I know they’d been working on a new case, but I don’t know what it was about.’ I went over to a filing cabinet and started looking through the drawers. ‘I
thought I might find their case notes or something . . .’

‘I’ve already checked that cabinet,’ Courtney said. ‘It’s empty. All the files are on the floor.’

I looked at her. ‘Do
you
know what Mum and Dad were working on?’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I was on holiday for the first two weeks of July, and I only came back on the Monday before the crash. Your mum and dad weren’t in the office
that day, and I only saw your mum for a couple of minutes on the Tuesday, so I never got round to catching up with their current cases. The last case I know about was a missing persons enquiry that
came through on the Friday before I went away. I passed on the details to your dad at the time, but I don’t know if he actually took the case or not.’

‘Do you remember who made the enquiry?’

‘It was a man called John Ruddy. He said he was an old friend of your dad’s.’

‘Have you still got his contact details?’

‘Well, I entered them into a new-client file on the office computer, as usual. But as you can see . . .’ She gestured at the empty space on the desk where the office PC used to be.
‘I also printed out two hard copies of his file. One copy went in the filing cabinet, the other went in the in tray in your mum and dad’s office.’ She looked down at the piles of
paper on the floor. ‘They could be anywhere now.’

‘So you don’t have this John Ruddy’s phone number or anything?’ I said.

‘I can’t remember his phone number or his home address, but I remember that he mentioned a boxing club.’

‘A boxing club?’

‘It wasn’t the one you go to, it was the other one. The one near Slade Lane, down by the docks.’

‘Wonford Boxing Club?’

‘That’s it. I think Mr Ruddy said he was the club’s manager, or maybe the owner. He said your dad knew the club.’

‘Dad used to train there when he was boxing,’ I told her. ‘It’s a pretty rough place, but it’s got a good reputation for producing pro fighters. Did Mr Ruddy give
you any more details about the case?’

‘He just said it was a missing persons enquiry and he’d like to talk to your dad about it.’ She looked at me. ‘What’s going on, Travis? Why do you want to know all
this?’

I paused for a second, thinking things through, then I sat down and started to talk.

When I’d finished telling Courtney everything – my doubts about the car crash, my suspicions about the man at the funeral – she didn’t say anything for
a while, she just sat at her desk, thinking quietly.

Eventually she said, ‘I’m not sure we’ll ever know the truth about the car crash, Travis. I’ve been asking myself exactly the same questions as you. How did it happen?
Why did it happen? Why were your mum and dad turning off the A12? None of it made sense to me at first. There didn’t seem to be any logical answers. But then I reminded myself that life
isn’t logical, it doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes stuff just happens. Maybe your mum was distracted by something when she was driving, a wasp or a bee, something like that. Or she
could have sneezed at the wrong time . . . I don’t know. It could have been anything.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ I said, ‘but why were they on the slip road? And why were they only ten kilometres from Barton? Where had they been before then?’

‘Perhaps they called in here first. I would have gone home by then. They might have forgotten some paperwork or something, called in here to pick it up, got delayed by a phone call . .
.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe they were turning off the A12 to find a service station. I know it doesn’t sound very likely, but unlikely things happen, Travis.’

I nodded, accepting her point. But I still wasn’t convinced. And I didn’t think she was either.

‘What about the man at the funeral?’ I said.

‘Let me see the picture you took of him.’

I took out my mobile, found the photograph, and passed the phone to Courtney. She studied the man in the picture.

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I remember seeing him. I wondered who he was. I thought he might be one of your grandad’s old friends.’

‘What made you think that?’

‘I don’t know . . . he just had that look about him, you know. Like he was ex-military or secret services or something. Did you ask your grandad about him?’

I shook my head. ‘He’s not feeling too good at the moment. I didn’t want to bother him.’

‘Is he going through one of his bad patches again?’

I nodded. ‘I’m sure he didn’t know the man though. He didn’t talk to him or anything. Didn’t even look at him, as far as I know.’

Courtney glanced at the photograph again. ‘Are you sure he was wearing a hidden camera?’

‘Fairly sure.’

‘Why would anyone want to film your parents’ funeral?’

‘I don’t know. If we knew who he was, we could ask him.’

‘But we don’t know who he is.’

‘We know his car registration number.’

Courtney’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?’

I smiled at her.

She shook her head. ‘It’s illegal, Travis. Even if I could do it, and I’m not saying I can, unauthorised access to the DVLA database is against the law.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt anyone though, would it?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘No one would have to know.’

‘I’d know. And so would you.’

‘I can keep a secret.’

She sighed. ‘You’re not going to let this go, are you?’

‘No.’

She pulled out her mobile. ‘You don’t know I’m doing this, OK?’ she said, keying in a number.

‘Right.’

She stared at me, apparently waiting for something.

‘What?’ I said.

‘How are you going to
not
know what I’m doing if you carry on sitting there?’

‘You want me to leave you alone?’

She smiled. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Not at all,’ I said, standing up. ‘I’ll be in the other office if you need me.’

She watched me as I crossed over to Mum and Dad’s private office, and she waited until I’d gone inside and shut the door before getting on with her phone call. I didn’t know
who she was calling, but I’d heard her talking to Dad once about a police officer she knew who owed her a big favour. But like she’d said, it was best if I didn’t know.

I looked around Mum and Dad’s office, remembering how it used to be, how it was
supposed
to be. Dad’s desk against one wall, Mum’s on the other side of the room.
Dad’s desk neat and tidy, everything in its place, Mum’s a complete mess, everything piled up in random heaps. The window looking out into an alleyway at the back, the pictures on the
walls – framed photos of Mum and Dad and me, a Picasso print, a picture of Millwall FC’s 2004 FA Cup Final team. I could see it all in my mind, but now it was all gone – either
smashed up and broken, lying in bits on the floor, or just not there any more. Dad’s PC was missing, Mum’s laptop was nowhere to be seen, the desk drawers had all been emptied.

I could hear Courtney talking on the phone now. I listened hard, trying to make out what she was saying, but she was speaking too softly for me to hear anything. I looked over towards the
window. The small wooden table that should have been standing in the corner beneath the window had been kicked across the room. The aspidistra in the brass pot that should have been on the table
was lying on the floor, the soil scattered all over the place, the plant itself stomped into the carpet.

I went over to the window, stood there for a moment, then crouched down and pulled back the carpet from the corner. I paused again, listening to the murmur of Courtney’s voice, then I
reached down and pulled up a hinged section of floorboard. As I’d hoped, the hidden safe beneath the floorboards hadn’t been touched. It was still locked, still safe. I stared at it,
remembering the day I’d come across Dad opening it up.

‘There’s nothing exciting in it,’ he’d said, smiling at me. ‘It’s just boring old business papers – insurance documents, contracts, stuff like
that.’ He grinned. ‘I told Mum it was a waste of money, but you know what she’s like. Always worrying about something.’ He winked at me. ‘Don’t tell her I said
that.’

I wasn’t sure I’d believed him at the time, and I’d always wondered what was really in the safe. But although I knew the code – I’d seen Dad keying it in –
I’d never actually looked inside. I’d been tempted a couple of times, but it just hadn’t felt like the right thing to do. Even now, as I leaned down and began entering the code,
it still didn’t feel quite right.