A Good Catch Part 31

'He's barely recognisable, but we know Grant Behenna. In fact, his name has come up recently in an investigation we're conducting into a drug gang.' The policeman addressed Jesse. 'Is this what happened, sir?' asked the constable.

Jesse nodded; out of the corner of his eye he watched as Grant's battered body was loaded into the ambulance.

'Can I go with Grant to the hospital?' he asked.

'I don't think you're in a fit state, sir. In fact, I recommend you go home and rest. You're in shock. You need a nice cup of tea. We'll drive you home.'

'No,' said Mickey, 'I'll take him home.'

The policeman took down Jesse's address and phone number and also that of Mickey. 'I'll be round to see Mr Behenna tomorrow to complete the paperwork. Get some sleep. Grant Behenna has been in trouble quite a few times and mixes with an unsavoury lot. I'll go down to the hospital now and see if your brother can tell me anything about his a.s.sailant, if, I mean ' he gave an embarra.s.sed cough 'when he wakes up.'

29.

October 2009 The soft blue of the lights around Grant's intensive care bed threw ghoulish shadows onto his parents' faces. They had come to the hospital as soon as they had heard, which was fourteen hours ago.

Jesse stood back from the scene. He stayed out of the glow around the bed and waited at the dark outer reaches of the room. Through the window he could see that the sun was rising.

The door opened with a slight suction of air and a young female doctor, slender with long dark hair, entered.

'h.e.l.lo, Mr and Mrs Behenna.' She offered her hand. 'My name is Dr Shawna Dhaliwal. I'm part of the care team for your son.'

'How is he, Doctor?' asked Jan.

'As you know, he has broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken jaw and a broken nose. But it's the scan we did on his brain that is worrying us.'

Jan closed her eyes and reached out for Edward's hand.

'What do you mean?' asked Edward, his voice cracking.

'We need to get inside and take a look. He hasn't fractured the skull but we believe he may have a substantial bleed and we need to get that fixed as soon as possible. It's imperative we release the pressure on his brain.'

Jan wiped her eyes with the tissue clutched in her shaking hands. 'An operation?'

'Yes,' said Dr Dhaliwal. 'And we need to do it sooner rather than later. Your son is very poorly. Theatre are getting prepared now.'

Six hours they waited. Jan trying to keep cheerful. Getting fresh cups of thin milky tea. Edward fretting about the car park ticket. Jesse unable to look either of them in the eye.

Eventually the ward sister came to see them. 'Grant is in recovery. The operation went as well as we could have hoped.'

Jan's hands grasped hers. 'Oh, thank G.o.d. He's OK?'

'Dr Dhaliwal is coming to talk to you as soon as she's changed.' The sister wore an unreadable expression. 'Although the operation has gone well, I can't tell you more than that. Would you like some tea?'

At last, Dr Dhaliwal came. 'We found the bleed and we've stopped it, which has released some pressure on Grant's brain. However, his brain is bruised and rather swollen. It has some lacerations which may have been caused when he fell during the attack, or maybe ... when the attacker had already got him on the floor and had kicked him.'

Edward couldn't contain himself. 'The police had better find this coward before I do.'

Jesse felt sick. 'Dad, the police will do all they can.'

'They'm better 'ad do, or by G.o.d I swear I'll kill 'em myself.'

'Edward,' said Jan. 'Let's hear everything the doctor has to tell us first.' She turned to Dr Dhaliwal. 'What happens next? When can he come home?'

Dr Dhaliwal frowned in a practised, professional and concerned way. 'I'm afraid I can't tell you that. It's a waiting game. We will monitor his progress. It may be a few days or,' she swallowed, 'or maybe weeks, maybe months, before he wakes up.'

Jesse looked at her sharply. 'Will he ever wake up?'

'It's possible that he won't.'

The sound of Jan's anguished wail filled the room.

'Live by the sword, die by the sword,' said Greer, handing Jesse a whisky. She settled herself into the depths of their elephant-grey velvet sofa.

Jesse rubbed his forehead. 'Don't say that.'

'I'm just saying he chose to live recklessly and that's what happens.'

'He might never recover.'

'Yes, and that's awful, of course, but it's not your responsibility.'

There was a knock at the front door. 'I'll get it,' said Greer, unfolding her slim legs from underneath her.

Moments later she arrived back in the room with the policeman Jesse remembered from the night before.

The constable stepped awkwardly into the room, his hat under one arm, his radio burbling indecipherable messages. Jesse stood up. 'h.e.l.lo, I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name last night.'

The policeman held out his hand. 'Constable Steve Durrell. Steve.'

'Sit down, sit down. Would you like a drink?' asked Jesse.

'A soft drink, please.'

Greer disappeared to the kitchen. Steve watched her go.

'I'm afraid I have bad news.'

Jesse felt his stomach twist. 'What?'

'Your brother, Grant ... He died an hour ago.'

Jesse could hear the rus.h.i.+ng of his own blood in his ears. 'He can't have. I've been at the hospital all day. He had his operation. I saw him, on his bed, being wheeled back into his room.'

'I'm sorry.'

Greer came back in with a beautiful tray laid stylishly with a linen napkin, a small jug of orange juice, a gla.s.s and a ceramic dish containing olives. 'Here we are,' she said.

Grant's body was released after a post mortem. The police investigation had been unable to turn up any leads for the actual attack, but all their enquiries led them to the unsavoury characters and unfortunates with whom he had spent those lost years after he had left prison. Jan was tortured anew as details came out of his years of drug dealing and a drug habit that he had picked up in prison. It seemed that in the last months he had taken up dealing again and his life was starting to spiral out of control. The paraphernalia of a drug habit had been found in his rooms and the general consensus seemed to be that things were heading in only one direction for Grant.

Despite all this, Jesse made sure that the funeral befitted a Behenna. Grant hadn't many friends in Trevay, but the town turned out to honour Edward and Jan. Reverend Rowena gave a suitable tribute to Grant. She didn't go into his army career or his violent and often drunken personality. But she carefully described him as a son of Trevay. One who had had the joy of growing up in a tight community and loving family. 'The choices he made in this life were never the easy ones, but we trust in our heavenly father to take Grant's soul and heal it. We pray too that his murderer will one day be revealed and that the grace of G.o.d be with his parents, Edward and Jan, and his brother, Jesse. Let us pray.'

Jesse looked at the hunched figure of his mother, clinging on to her husband like a child as tortured sobs racked her body.

Jesse sat bolt upright in his pew and stared at the stained-gla.s.s window of Jesus calling the fishermen to be his disciples. He was glad that no one could hear the conversation in his head. 'Forgive me but I'm glad he's dead,' he said to the sunlit face of Christ. 'I'm glad. He hurt us all. And he's not going to hurt us again. I didn't mean him to die. But he did. Finally he did the right thing.'

The vicar ended her prayer and the congregation intoned 'Amen'.

Greer got up from the embroidered ha.s.sock she'd been kneeling on and squeezed Jesse's knee. 'All right?' she whispered.

He nodded.

The organist started to play 'The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended'. Everyone stood and began to sing. Jesse, Mickey, Hal and Freddie went to the coffin with two of the funeral directors and lifted it onto their shoulders.

Outside the sun shone and a flock of seagulls cast their shadows as they flew over the churchyard cackling into the wind.

The freshly dug grave accepted Grant into its red earth, allowing him to rest on the slate beneath.

Jesse stepped back and bowed his head with a respect he did not feel. Greer slipped her arm through his elbow. 'It's over,' she said to him quietly.

He looked at her sharply. 'What did you say?'

'I said: It's over.'

He looked at her intently to see what, if anything, she knew. He examined the expression in her eyes, the turn of her mouth, the colour of her cheeks, but there was nothing.

'Yes.' He dropped a kiss on her dry lips. 'You're right. It's over.'

30.

New Year's Eve 2012 Jesse was woken by the weight of four paws kneading the duvet around his chin.

'b.u.g.g.e.r off, Tom.' He pushed the fat rescue cat which Greer had brought home without asking him off the bed. Tom sat on the floor twitching his tail and looking astonished, before jumping up again, and this time wiping his wet whiskers across Jesse's lips.

'I said b.u.g.g.e.r off.' Jesse took his arm from under the covers and caught Tom by the scruff of his neck, throwing him back onto the floor.

The bedroom door opened and Greer came in with a c.h.i.n.k of mugs on the morning tea tray.

'Is Tom up here?'

'Yes,' Jesse grunted with his eyes closed and his face pressed into the pillow.

'Did he wake you up?'

'Yes.'

Geer put the tray down and Jesse heard tea being poured. 'Did you wake Daddy up? You naughty puss,' she said to Tom, who was mewing loudly and pus.h.i.+ng himself around Greer's legs. 'And did he throw you off the bed?'

'He jumped off of his own accord,' mumbled Jesse.

'I think Daddy's lying,' said Greer, walking round to Jesse's side of the bed and putting his mug of tea on the coaster on the mahogany bedside table. She bent down and kissed his bristly cheek. 'Happy Anniversary, darling.'

He opened his eyes and squinted at her. 'Happy Anniversary.' He sat and yawned, rubbing a hand across his face. 'Twenty years. That's some bleddy time, in't it?' Jesse found it hard to believe that it was twenty years ago that he had walked down the aisle with Greer. Twenty years since he and Loveday ...

'Yes, it is,' said Greer, getting into her side of the bed and pulling the covers up. She took a sip of tea thoughtfully and said, 'I think we're just about all ready for the party.'

Jesse groaned. 'I 'ate bleddy parties.' He already felt that his house was barely his own. It looked like something from a magazine rather than a real home where a man could be himself. He'd rather be down at the boat-house on the beach at Tide Cove. It was his domain. It housed lobster pots, fis.h.i.+ng gear, all the small things that Freddie had made at school, which Greer did not want cluttering her pristine house, but which made Jesse's heart swell with pride and love for his son.

Greer couldn't hide her irritation. 'Well, you only have to come and enjoy it. Everything else has been done for you.'

Tom jumped back onto the bed and nudged Greer's hand. 'Tom, you nearly spilt my tea. Be careful.' She reached out a hand and stroked Tom's ears. He began purring loudly.

'That bleddy animal oughtn't be allowed on the bed. 'Tis unhygienic,' moaned Jesse.

'He's spotless. Besides, he's been out all night in the cold and needs to warm up.' Tom dribbled with ecstasy and, opening one yellow eye, gave Jesse a look of pure disdain. 'He just wants a little affection.' Greer held Tom to her and nuzzled him against her cheek. 'Don't you, Mr Tom?'

'Mr Jesse could do with a little affection too,' Jesse said, turning to Greer and giving her what he a.s.sumed was an alluring look. He put his hand on her thigh and slowly ran it upwards.

Greer was not in the mood. 'Mind Tom. You'll squash him.'

'I don't care.' Jesse began his well-worn foreplay routine and started to nibble Greer's ear. Tom, totally affronted, jumped off the bed and left the room, tail high.

'I've got a mug of hot tea in my hands,' said Greer pathetically, pulling away from her husband.

Jesse stopped the nibbling and took the tea from her. He put it on his side table and turned back to her. 'There. No tea. No Tom. Just you and me.' He restarted his nuzzling.

Greer attempted another diversion. 'The florist is coming at ten. I haven't got time for this.'