Page 24

TWENTY-FOUR

Jane has a Facebook page. Her name, despite two marriages, is still Jane Trevally, which is how Ash’s parents had always referred to her, with both names, as if to distinguish her from other Janes.

Her privacy settings leave very little to view apart from shares of other friends’ posts about lost dogs or GoFundMes or videos of scientists and statisticians during the Covid years.

Her bio says that she lives in Dorset and her profile photo shows a very striking-looking woman with intensely red hair, very wide eyes, a strong jaw, and a dress with a ruffled neck.

The background photo shows a collection of gun dogs lined up against an ivy-covered wall.

Ash knows that if she sends Jane a message here, it will fall into the black hole of Facebook’s “other messages” folder, where messages from strangers go to die, so she finds her on Instagram instead, another private account, and contacts her there.

Hi Jane.

My name is Aisling Swann. I am Paddy’s daughter.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but my father died last October.

He was pushed onto the tube tracks by a man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

The man is in a secure psychiatric unit now, and he was given a life sentence, but we (me, my mother and brother) are not close to feeling any closure.

The whole thing felt so pointless and wasteful.

My dad used to talk about you a lot, about your relationship, which sounded crazy and colorful and kind of amazing!

I’d love to talk to you about him, about your memories of him, things you know about him that maybe I never knew before.

It’s a big ask, I realize that, and I know you’ve moved on with your life and maybe never think about him anymore, but it would mean a lot to me.

Maybe you have photos I’ve never seen before? Stories I didn’t know?

Anyway, I’m sorry to barge into your DMs like this. Please do reply either way.

Yours, with hope, Ash

She sends the message and within thirty seconds it has been seen, and Jane is typing a reply.

A moment later, her message appears.

I am sitting weeping I did not know about Paddy.

I have been abroad since lockdown and only returned home a month ago I would love to talk to you about him.

Either in person (I’m based in Dorset but spend a lot of time in London) or over the phone/Zoom/whatever.

Do write back so that we can make a plan And I am so sorry for your loss

Two days later, on her day off, Ash takes the train into London. She has arranged to meet Jane for brunch at a restaurant in the new development at King’s Cross, one with a terrace that spills onto a beautiful, landscaped piazza with fountains and avenues of bare-branched cherry trees.

It’s the first time that Ash has been to London since she left under a cloud eighteen months ago.

She feels panic grip her gut as she steps off the quiet train and heads into the maelstrom of St. Pancras.

It’s not the number of people that is making her heart race, it’s the possibility of one of them being one of her former colleagues from the lifestyle magazine where she used to work.

Or worse still, one of them being her ex-boss, Ritchie Lloyd.

It’s easy to spot Jane with her shock of bottle-red hair and a contrasting shaggy green cardigan. She gets to her feet as Ash approaches and holds her at arm’s length for a moment, scanning her face.

“Yes,” she says to Ash, “I can see him there. I can see Paddy.”

Then she brings her close for a hug and Ash smells something that reminds her of a holiday in Ibiza when she was a child.

Jane’s a few inches taller than Ash, which means she must have been roughly the same height as Paddy, possibly even taller.

“I’m afraid I already ordered,” says Jane, pointing at some kind of smoothie and half a buttery croissant. “I was starving. Here”—she passes Ash a menu—“order whatever you like. My treat. I know you poor millennials can’t afford nice things.”

“No,” says Ash, “it’s not that we can’t afford nice things. It’s that we can’t afford important things. And I’m actually Gen Z, just.”

Jane widens her eyes. “Are you really? I thought they were all at primary school!”

Ash can’t tell if she’s being disingenuous or not. “Do you have children?”

“Step. I have stepchildren. Two sets. Ha! I am rather more of a dog person than a children person, it turns out. Anyway, I am so sorry about Paddy. About your dad. I googled after I heard from you—I saw all the stories online. It sounds quite horrific.”

Jane is very posh, but not in a grating way. And she is mesmerizingly beautiful: hollowed cheeks, a wide, expressive mouth, a long neck that she touches a lot with elegant fingers.

“It was,” Ash says. “It is. It feels like a nightmare that never ends. Every day. I can’t close my eyes without picturing it.

Without imagining how he must have felt when those hands connected with his body.

When he knew he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back.

That it was done. That he’d never see any of us again. ”

Ash blinks hard and rolls her head back as the darkness nudges at her temples, trying to worm its way into her being.

She makes herself smile and glances down at the menu.

“Anyway,” she says, her eyes scanning the words that swirl and fade as she tries to process them, “I should probably have something to eat too.” A waitress approaches and she asks her for a cappuccino with oat milk, and a coconut yogurt with berries and chia seeds.

“You know,” Jane says, eyeing Ash gently, “Paddy was the love of my life?”

“Yes,” says Ash. “I did know that. He told us quite a lot about your…” She reaches for words that won’t offend. “Your time together.”

“Did he say I was mad? Oh God, I bet he did. I bet he made me sound like a total lunatic. And in many ways, I suppose I was. But I was so young, and really, young people shouldn’t be let loose on relationships.

Those really should just be left for the grown-ups.

And I did behave quite terribly on occasion. I know I did. Did he tell you?”

Ash scratches the side of her face where a stray hair has tickled her skin.

“Kind of. I mean, yeah. But only because…” She inhales deeply “… because I was going through something similar. With a guy. A guy at work. Who I was kind of…” She feels a flush rise through her from her gut “… obsessed with. Yeah. I was obsessed with him, and I did some mad stuff, and my dad told me some stuff that happened when you two were together, I think basically to try to make me feel better. You know? But he only talked about you with affection. With kindness.” This wasn’t strictly true.

There had also been some dark humor in the way her father spoke about Jane Trevally, about the way she was perceived by the Swann family.

“Oh,” says Jane, pushing the cuffs of her cardigan up her forearms and tossing her head slightly. “I’m sure he did. Paddy was a very kind man. He was always very nice to me, even when I didn’t deserve him to be.”

“How long were you together?”

“Four years. From eighteen to twenty-two. Blink of an eye from this perspective. But it felt like a marriage at the time. You know. Four years. Nowadays, four years happens when you’re in the shower.

” She sighs. “I’m not so crazy now. Or at least, the edges have been worn off me.

In a good way. Weird to think that if I’d met Paddy now, I’d probably be sane enough to keep hold of him.

” She darts a glance at Ash. “Sorry,” she says.

“That sounded weird. Inappropriate. Forgive me.”

Ash shakes it off. “It’s fine,” she says. “I get it. I really do.” Her coffee and yogurt arrive, and she smiles and says thank you to the waitress. “What was he like? Back then?”

“Oh, pretty much as he was when he was older, I’d imagine. He was solid, steady, you know. Just regular, decent, grounded. It was me that made things complicated.” She shivers lightly.

“Do you remember a man called Nick? Who worked at the restaurant in Mayfair where Dad used to work?”

She cocks her head. “Nick what?”

“Radcliffe. He’s kind of tall, slim. His hair is white now but was probably dark then.

Slightly northern accent.” She swipes her phone screen to find Nick’s LinkedIn page, then does a double take and grimaces when she realizes it’s gone.

“Oh,” she says. “His LinkedIn page has disappeared. How weird. But look…” She scrolls through her camera roll to the screenshot she has of it. “This is Nick. Do you recognize him?”

Jane peers at the photo and shakes her head. “Not that I recall. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know, he’s just kind of landed in our lives. Said he knew Dad from back then. He sent us Dad’s Zippo. Here.”

She pulls it out of her bag and slides it across the table toward Jane.

Jane eyes it curiously. “Whose is this, did you say?”

“Dad’s. Apparently this Nick guy found it back in the day.

My dad left it in the kitchen one night and Nick put it in his pocket for safekeeping, but then Nick left and forgot to give it back to him.

He saw the story about my dad in the papers and then somehow found our address and mailed it to us.

Well, to my mum, really. And now he’s kind of, well, he’s dating Mum. And it’s all a bit weird.”

Jane reaches out for the Zippo and turns it over in her hand.

“Not Paddy’s,” she says decisively.

Ash flinches slightly. “What?”

“Paddy never had a lighter. It was a thing, you know? He was always cadging lights off people, always had pockets full of those flimsy matchbooks from restaurants and bars, or shitty old Bics that never worked. He never had a proper lighter.”

Jane pushes the Zippo back across the table toward Ash, slowly, with a kind of apologetic tilt of her head.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes,” Jane says decisively, comprehensively.

“I was the world expert on Paddy Swann, remember. I was obsessed with every last detail of him. I could have written a book.” She sighs.

“Sorry,” she says. “Inappropriate again. I’m not very good at…

” She gestures at the space between them, suggesting delicate human discourse.

“So, you think this guy is lying? About the Zippo?”

Jane pulls the lighter back toward her and examines it at close quarters. “It doesn’t even look old enough, to be frank. It looks quite new.” She pushes it back once more, leans into her chair, and blinks slowly.

Ash shrugs. “Maybe he thought this was Dad’s, but it was someone else’s,” she says, her hand covering the Zippo. “Or maybe Dad did own it for a while, and you didn’t know. But it just feels… I dunno. It all feels off . Somehow.”

Jane nods, her mouth open slightly, as if she is pondering whether to speak her mind.

“I know people,” she says, leaning toward Ash.

“People who can run checks. You know. Run him through systems. Police records. That kind of thing.” She ripples her fingers.

“Which makes me sound kind of mysterious and exciting, which I’m not, I just come from a very wealthy, very paranoid family who trust no one, and I have two paranoid wealthy ex-husbands who also trust no one.

I could ask someone to check him out? If you’d like? ”

Ash inhales sharply. “Yes. Please.”

“What do you have?”

“Not much. A name. Nick Radcliffe. A wine bar that he says he co-owns. A deleted LinkedIn profile. He lives in Tooting. He’s fifty-five.

He has a dead fiancée. No kids. Although I did find something in his coat pocket the other day and didn’t know what it was at first, but turns out it’s the thing that clips a baby’s pacifier to their clothes, so they don’t lose it?

” She shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee.

“And, oh,” she says, putting the cup back down on the table.

“A poo bag, for a dog. I mean, you wouldn’t have one of those in your pocket, would you, unless you had a dog, and he never mentions a dog or brings a dog, and anyway . He’s just very… sus.”

“Leave it with me,” says Jane, picking up the last section of her croissant and popping it in her mouth.

“Now,” she says, rubbing her greasy fingertips together to dislodge the crumbs and leaning down to pick up the bag at her side, “I brought some photos. Of your dad. When he was a young thing. Do you want to see?”

Ash feels her stomach turn to liquid and she nods eagerly. “Oh,” she says, forgetting for a long moment about Nick Radcliffe and all his disquieting loose ends. “Yes. Yes, please.”