All Or Nothing Page 2

  Tess had always stood by him. And if she was a little bit titillated by her jailbird boyfriend, and secretly loved the fact that it scandalised her parents, that didn’t matter, because she loved him properly. He knew she did.

  Just not quite enough to marry him. His was a proposal borne more out of hope than expectation and, sure enough, she turned him down. Tess, after all, was bound for Oxford University. She loved Abbott. And who knows, perhaps she did see some future in the relationship beyond uni. Just that she never let on, being Tess. If the world is split into dog people and cat people – dog people needing love and affection, giving it in return, getting kicked and coming back for more; cat people, inscrutable and unreadable, much more selective with their affection – then he was a dog person, Tess was a cat person. Perhaps they were destined never to be together.

  Either way, the choice was not his to make, because on one of their famous breaks, Abbott had a one-night stand with a girl called Fiona. There had been an unfortunate contraception malfunction and from that moment on, fate was in the driving seat.

  He did the decent thing. He stuck by Fiona, married her, fathered Nathan and loved that boy with all his heart. But although Fiona was a good woman – as canny with money as he was crap with it, a great mother, funny, witty, great-looking, and a tiger in bed – she had one drawback. She was not Tess.

  Abbott had joined the military. Being in the Marines changed him more profoundly than any other event in his life, excluding, perhaps, the birth of Nathan. The military taught him to both read and control his instincts. It instilled in him discipline and organisation.

  At home, however, things were not so good. The word ‘divorce’ was mentioned. Who had said it first? He couldn’t remember. The point being that it was out there, and once it’s out there, as soon as the concept takes breath, it’s difficult to go back. Talk of separation and divorce, once taboo and either whispered or spoken of only in anger, now became commonplace, something they discussed as easily as who did the washing-up.

  Until, by a slow process of osmosis, it became a reality.

  There was no rancour, at first. They had agreed between themselves to keep things civil for the sake of the young Nathan. He was just ten years old when they finally went their separate ways. Abbott had been away for so long that although he absolutely doted on Nathan, he hardly knew him. But it was as though the separation wrenched something loose in Abbott, or maybe tightened it up, for suddenly he became a much more present father, taking every opportunity he could to see his son. This, though undoubtedly a good thing, came at the expense of his previous good relations with Fi, who was aghast at the change, unstinting in her contempt for Abbott’s ‘sudden change of heart’, as she put it. He, meanwhile, felt the same when Fiona had so quickly moved on to another bloke, a guy who held an administrative role attached to the British Army’s Intelligence Corps.

  And in the background – something that was like a low hum in his head whatever the drama and tragedy of his life – were thoughts of Tess.

  Years passed, until the advent of the internet allowed him to look her up and he’d discovered that Tess was now married with two kids and worked as a lawyer at Fitzpatrick & Sims. They’d got in touch, met up, and during the subsequent meal he’d told her the story of how Chris had died.

  Why did he feel the need to reveal something that he’d kept hidden from her all those years? He wasn’t sure. Maybe because he’d wanted to explain what made him the way he was back then. Why he’d been such a mixed-up kid. After all, everything about Tess seemed so content and settled.

  Later that night they ended up in bed together. To him it was seismic, but Tess had behaved like it was nothing, no more important than a goodnight kiss, and Abbott had been left feeling discarded somehow. Hating the sensation, hating how it made him feel weak, unmanly and vulnerable.

  A short while afterwards, Nathan had gone missing.

  And not long after that, Abbott had cradled Nathan as he lay dying in Iraq.

  The next thing to happen was that Tess had got back in touch, telling him that she needed to see him right away.

  Then, as now, he had been in the clutches of grief. Even so, he couldn’t help but think about their night together, hoping that her reasons for seeing him were romantic. For if anybody could save him – if anybody could stop the downward trajectory he knew his life was taking, it was Tess.

  Once again, they had met in Kettner’s in London. ‘I’m so glad you got in touch,’ he’d said, ‘I was worried you might not want to. You know, after . . .’

  ‘After what?

  She’d looked confused for a moment before it dawned on her. ‘Oh, that. Yes, of course. I think that was what they call a blast from the past.’

  The joke didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her fingers were restless on a small sheaf of papers that she had placed on the table.

  He swallowed. ‘Sure. But I mean, well, to me it wasn’t just a shag.’ She was looking uncomfortable so he tried thinking of something else to say, something lighter and more conversational, but all he could come out with instead was the one pathetic word ‘sorry’, leaning back in his chair, giving her space.

  ‘No, look, I’m sorry, Alex. It did mean something, of course it did. And maybe one day we can organise a return visit,’ but again the smile didn’t quite get there, ‘it’s just that that’s not why I’m here. Why I’m here is not about us at all. It’s about you.’

  ‘What about me?’

  She held up a hand. Wait. ‘I know that you told me that your mum has passed away,’ she said. ‘What about your dad? Where is he right now?’

  ‘He’s in a home.’

  Abbott thought guiltily of his father. When was the last time he’d bothered to pay the old man a visit? ‘Why? Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I have something I need to tell you.’

  ‘About my dad?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s to do with Chris,’ she told him. ‘About how he died.’

  And if the line of questioning about his father was unexpected, then that took him completely by surprise. What could she possibly have to say about Chris? About the death of Chris? A tragedy that had taken place so many years ago.

  ‘It’s something you said,’ she told him. ‘How your parents told you that Chris must have been swept out to sea. It didn’t ring true somehow. Either way, I looked into it.’ She had picked up some of the papers that she consulted now. ‘I found something,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alex, I think that your parents lied to you.’

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘What do you mean they lied to me?’

  ‘OK, I mean that if they really told you that Chris had been swept out to sea then they definitely lied to you. Look, I’m trying to choose my words carefully here. I don’t want to appear insensitive. But it just sounds, I don’t know, unlikely that a kid in a river in the East Midlands ends up in the sea, don’t you think? Tell me, did you ever look into that?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I never checked it out. I took what I was told at face value and . . .’

  ‘Even with the passing of time? Something nagging at you? Some sense that things weren’t quite right?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Or had you simply accepted this notion of guilt, this sense that you should have done something more?’

  He looked at her. ‘Don’t psychoanalyse me, Tess,’ he said, perhaps more sharply than he had intended.

  Her eyes flicked down to the glass of beer in front of him. Not far away was a second glass, this one of white wine. Neither were his first. ‘I know this is painful territory for you, Alex,’ she said, ‘I know you’re dealing with new stuff now. Believe me, I thought long and hard about bringing this to your door.’

  ‘No, no, you did the right thing. I’m sorry. Just, please, bear with me.’

  ‘Sure, sure.�
�

  ‘What else is there? I mean, there’s more, right?’ His gaze went to the papers.

  She placed her hand on them palm down. ‘Yes, there’s more. But are you sure you want to hear it?’

  He shrugged like, Tell me and then we’ll see . . .

  ‘This is going to be hard to hear, Alex.’

  ‘It’s getting even harder not to.’

  ‘OK. So like I say, your brother wasn’t swept out to sea. In fact, he was pulled from the river. It was Chris’s misfortune that the man who rescued him from the river should be a known sex offender. He put Chris into his car. They must have driven for some distance. Perhaps Chris became suspicious, something about the way the guy was behaving, perhaps. Or possibly Chris knew that he wasn’t being driven home. Either way, at some point Chris escaped from the guy’s car.’

  ‘He escaped . . .’

  Tess held up a hand. Again: wait. Her eyes dropped. ‘Not quite. He got out of the guy’s car and ran into the path of another vehicle. I’m sorry, Alex, but he was killed instantly.’ She paused, looking at Abbott as if to assess his reaction. ‘There was no fault on the part of the other driver,’ she told him. ‘He wasn’t speeding or drunk or anything. Chris literally ran out in front of him.’

  Abbott absorbed the information, feeling what, he couldn’t say for certain. Only that it was cushioned by a great numbness. He reached for his drink, grateful of the excuse to take a good long swallow. ‘What happened to him, the kidnapper?’

  Tess continued. ‘When the police got round to his house, they found him in the process of smashing computers and discovered that there was already a fire in the back garden. They did manage to retrieve some images of child sex abuse from a laptop that had not yet been thrown onto the fire, and that, plus the charge of attempted kidnapping, was enough to put him away.’

  ‘So he went away?’

  ‘Yes. For a long time.’

  He nodded as though satisfied but the thought in his head was, That’s not enough. ‘How did you get this information?’ he asked her.

  ‘Well, I could have made a subject access request through the official channels, but instead I called in a favour. A favour with a warrant card, the necessary security clearance and access to a computer.’

  Abbott nodded. ‘Which prison?’

  ‘He died inside,’ she said. But Abbott watched her eyes slip away. A tell if ever he’d seen one. He filed the moment away for the time being.

  ‘What was his name?’ he asked.

  ‘His name?’

  ‘Yes. The name of the paedophile. The one who died in prison. What was his name?’

  She looked at him.

  ‘Go on,’ prompted Abbott.

  ‘I need you to tell me . . .’

  ‘Tell you what? That I won’t go after him? He’s dead, remember?’

  ‘Of course. But reassure me that you won’t, I don’t know, go after members of his family or something. That you’ll leave it there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take it out on his family,’ said Abbott, surprised she’d even think so. ‘I’d never do something like that.’

  ‘OK. His name was Jason Scutter,’ she told him.

  ‘Jason Scutter RIP,’ he said, watching her carefully.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  No doubt about it. She was lying to him.

  CHAPTER 5

  Abbott took a train back to the place of his youth. Arriving, he realised that he’d been steeling himself for a memory rush – some good, some bad, all of it hard to handle in his weakened mental state – but instead was relieved to find that the station had been modernised and looked nothing like it had when he’d last seen it. Exiting the station, same again. It used to be that cars were parked outside. Now the area had been pedestrianised. Only taxis were allowed near the station front. It felt like the only thing unchanged was its name. Burton-on-Trent.

  He gave the taxi driver an address – out of town, thankfully, also unlikely to evoke memories – settled in the back, had a surreptitious chug of vodka and caught sight of the guy watching him in the rear-view. He checked himself to see whether he cared about being judged and found that, no, he didn’t, his thoughts going back to his old AA group in Singapore. Guys who talked about motoring past that point where you stopped worrying what other people thought. Where you stopped caring about yourself. About your family. You stopped caring about anything apart from the booze.

  At the time he’d thought to himself, That’s what makes me different from these other guys. It’s because I care.

  But you’re getting there, aren’t you? You’re getting ready to join that group.

  The driver was visibly relieved when Abbott came up with the cash at their destination. Abbott waited until he was gone, took another quick chug of the bottle and then turned to look at the care home.

  Clearview was the name. This was where Abbott’s father, Ted, lived now. He was only in his mid-seventies, but first alcoholism, and then a stroke had put him in a wheelchair needing around-the-clock care.

  The last time Abbott saw him was Nathan’s funeral when his dad had been accompanied by a male nurse from the home. Abbott had leaned in to embrace him after the service, but the moment had been awkward and weird. Had they spoken further? Abbott couldn’t remember, although what he did recall was that as a Brucie bonus, the funeral had also included a moment when Fiona physically attacked him, accusing him of being responsible for Nathan’s death. There wasn’t much answer for that. She was right.

  So to the Clearview complex where the only view, clear or not, was of more buildings associated with the care home. During the journey Abbott had been asking himself the purpose of his visit; after all, he knew the truth of Chris’s death now. Why take time out of his busy schedule to spend precious money on trains and taxis to ask his father what he already knew?

  Answer: because he wanted to confront his father with it. He wanted his father to know that his lies had been exposed.

  A woman on reception directed him to another building across the quad. There, he asked where he might find Ted Abbott, and was told to wait.

  Inside was warm with a smell like school dining halls, not especially pleasant but at the same time almost nostalgic, making him feel like a kid again.

  ‘Mr Abbott?’

  Abbott looked up, startled, coming right back down to earth with a bump, his hand slapping his thigh before he realised that no sidearm was there.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Sorry. I was miles away. Years away, actually.’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ she said, and to his surprise took a seat beside him. ‘I was wondering if I could have a quick word before you go in to see your father?’

  ‘Of course.’ He leaned away slightly, worried she might smell the booze on him.

  ‘As far as I know you haven’t seen your father in a while, so you may not be aware of this – there’s something I need to tell you before you go in.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and Abbott sat, nodding but shell-shocked as she went on to say that with any luck his father, being in his late-seventies, was likely to die with Parkinson’s rather than of it, and how the onset of the condition was gradual, and that Abbott might not even be aware of its presence because sufferers could be quite lucid one moment, confused and incoherent the next. That their long-term memory was often much better than their short-term memory.

  ‘You might find that you need to be very patient with him,’ you do, you cannot lose your patience with him. Don’t show irritation or anger.’

  With that, she stood, indicating that he should follow, and led him along the hallway to his father’s room. She knocked, ushered him in, announced him. ‘Mr Abbott? Ted? It’s your son Alex to see you.’ She promised to organise some tea and then left them to it, closing the door gently behind her.

  And there they were. Father and son. The older
Abbott in his wheelchair, positioned in front of the TV, which was on, some antiques programme. The younger one hovering by the door, thinking, My dad has Parkinson’s. He’s been given a death sentence.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ said Abbott, at last.

  ‘Hi, Alex,’ said his father.

  Abbott, about to take a seat, stopped, excused himself to the en-suite bathroom and took a nip. He returned to find that his father had switched off the TV and positioned his wheelchair by the window, which although the radiator blazed away, was open a crack, letting in a welcome breath of fresh air.

  ‘It’s good of you to come,’ said his father. He wore a pair of baggy faded jeans, shirt open at the neck and a brown cardigan. ‘I can’t think. When was the last time I saw you?’

  Abbott was about to remind him when his father added, ‘And how is that lovely wife of yours? And my grandson?’

  The question was like a dagger. He swallowed. ‘They’re fine, Dad.’ The words were croaked. ‘They send their love.’

  ‘Good to hear. Good to hear. He must be walking now, isn’t he?’

  Abbott thought of the last time he’d seen Nathan. Nathan dying. He thought of a tiny little boy, pictures that appeared on his laptop screensaver: Nathan sitting up in his cot. Nathan crawling. Nathan sitting cross-legged on his bedroom carpet grinning up at the camera, no older than three. A perfect little boy. A wonder of possibility that had been snuffed out by greed and revenge.

  ‘Bet he runs you a merry little dance,’ chortled his father, happy and jowly, eyes bright with pleasure.

  ‘Yes, he does, Dad. He does that.’

  For a second, Abbott wondered whether it was worth pursuing any line of enquiry with his father let alone the one he had planned. Remembering what the nurse had said, how his dad’s long-term memory was likely to be better than short-term, he thought, Here goes nothing.

  ‘Dad, I need to talk to you about Chris.’

  His father gave a small start. His brow clouded. For a moment, Abbott wondered if he would even remember Chris.