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Christ only knows how, but I’ll try.
My first step is to find a hospice place for my mum. If I’m to go haring off to God knows where looking for her long-lost daughter, I need to know she’s in good hands. Willowfield comes well recommended, but it’s not cheap. Still, I reckon I can manage to cover the fees for a couple of months or so, and hopefully that will be enough. If not, well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I see her safely installed in her pretty new room at Willowfield with a view of the gardens and ornamental lake. She even has her own personal nurse, a kindly soul by the name of Julie. The pair of them hit it off straight away, so I don’t feel so bad about leaving my mother there.
My next task is to arrange compassionate leave from the police. I bypass Sergeant Fisher. What he knows about compassion would fit on the back of a stamp.
I go straight to Human Resources and explain that my mother is in the final stages of terminal cancer and I want to spend as much time as I can with her. The efficient and brisk lady in charge of such matters expresses her sympathy and signs my forms happily enough.
It only remains to take up where my father left off. He always kept any papers of importance in a bureau in the dining room of our house, so I ransack that. I can’t believe my luck when I find a large brown envelope with ‘Naomi’ scrawled across the front, though I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised. My father was always organised.
I tip the contents onto the rug and rifle through.
The social worker’s notes show that the baby was described as clean but undernourished, aged twenty-nine weeks. Her date of birth is there, and my mother’s name. Esther Horowitz.
So, we’re of Jewish descent. I never realised that.
Naomi’s father is listed as unknown. She was born in London, but no address is given for Esther.
The adoptive parents are named as Faith and Harold Sampson. He’s a van driver, she works in a hairdresser’s. They live in Basingstoke. They fostered baby Naomi within weeks of her coming into care and formally adopted her two years later.
There’s an additional note, in my father’s handwriting, saying that Mr Sampson took on a pub tenancy, the General Grant in Stafford. He moved there with his family in June, nineteen ninety-nine, and was still there at the time of my parents’ marriage.
I assume that must have been the point at which they decided to leave matters as they were and try to move on. There is no further information in the file.
Right, then. Stafford, here I come.
CHAPTER2
Jack
“Something’s amiss at the Hope.” I peer at the report before me, mentally sifting through possibilities.
“Like what?” My colleague leans back and props his feet on the desk. Tony Haigh may be a damned good lieutenant, and half-decent company when he works at it, but his manners aren’t the best. “Young Jenna knows she’s on probation.”
“Whatever. There’s way too much police interest in the place. She’s getting visits from the local plodmost days. And she’s behind with her payments.”
Tony decides to take notice. His boots hit the floor, and he leans forward, elbows on his thighs. “What are you thinking? She’s been recruited? On the take?”
I shrug. Jenna Delaney hasn’t been managing the Hope and Anchor for long, just a couple of months, since her father got banged up. Not long enough for me to know if she can be trusted. She wouldn’t be the first pub landlady to get tempted by a bit of extra cash. The police are always on the lookout for a fresh-faced but well-connected informer, and Jenna would be in an ideal position. A lot of business is transacted at the Hope and Anchor, and a fair proportion of it is ours.
“Maybe. Or maybe she’s got some little scam of her own going on. Either way, I think she needs a visit, to remind her of her loyalties. And the consequences of letting us down.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You think I need a minder?”
He laughs. “Hardly. But I need a break from these four walls.”
“This isn’t a social call.” Though it doesn’t hurt that young Jenna is a lot easier on the eye than most of our tenant publicans. Still, a pretty face and lush curves won’t help her if I find she has been playing for another team. Her fingers will break just like anyone else’s if she’s had them in our till.
We pull up outside the Hope and Anchor. It’s a typical Glaswegian watering hole catering to a clientele of dockworkers, engineers, and truckers, as well as a fair cross section of the criminal underworld. The Hope is where anything that had the misfortune to fall off the back of a wagon gets redistributed. It’s a favourite haunt of drug dealers and prostitutes, and something of a labour exchange if anyone needs an extra hand or two to pull off a bit of business. Getaway drivers hang around looking for work, along with thugs to hire, burglars, and counterfeiters. A regular hive of activity is the Hope. And this is why it’s vital to make sure that the licensee is one of ours.
The Savages have protected the Hope for years. Jenna’s father, George, ran it for a couple of decades, and his father before him. The Delaneys were always pleased to do business with us, and the arrangement was mutually beneficial. In exchange for a guarantee that there wouldn’t be undue hassle from the police, or other criminal firms, my boss, Ethan Savage, takes a twenty-five percent share of the takings along with a cut of any additional revenues arriving through any other means. We provide bar staff if needed, and security. We’ll even help out with a good lawyer should circumstances call for it, though that didn’t help Old George when he was nicked for driving a lorry-load of hot vodka up from Dover. A sharp eye for a legal argument will only go so far in the face of overwhelming evidence. He’s currently doing a five stretch in Belmarsh, leaving his one and only daughter to run the pub single-handed while he’s away.
Tony and I observe the exterior of the pub for a few moments. The place could do with a bit of attention. New window frames, perhaps. A new sign, definitely. It’s looking decidedly run-down, not an image we like to cultivate. Ethan Savage prefers the places he runs to be decent, at least on the outside. I’ll need to have a word about that, too.
“Let’s go.” I reach for the door handle. “Whoa. Wait. Who’s that?”
