CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A friend of many years standing had once explained what serendipity meant to him. It was something very close to his heart.
He had just gone through a separation that was intended to lead to a divorce in a year or so. There was no question of it being anything other than amicable. He and his wife had known each other, married pretty well the whole time, for more than a dozen years but they had drifted apart and having gone their separate ways in key areas of their life they decided the best thing to do was to end the marriage. They would remain friends but the marriage bed and everything that implied would come to an end. So he went his way and she went hers.
Hers was to immerse herself in her new job and to meet new friends and essentially to start a new life. It went very well. For him, it meant submerging himself in, to a large extent, self pity. He drank a lot. He was angrier more of the time. He was not as pleasant as he used to be much of the time.
He had a fling with a married colleague that lasted a month or so. It was exciting, though with the amount he was drinking it was not as exciting as it would otherwise have been. He was numb to the threats it imposed.
Then one night serendipity played its hand.
Along with two friends from his office, neither of whom he knew well but both of whom recognised a fellow drinker, he had been in the bar not two hundred meters from his work of employment in the evening. He had already consumed plenty of beer and was headed for a night of oblivion after which he would probably have gone home and lay in bed wondering what his former wife was doing and with whom she was doing it. But serendipity intervened, his friend explained.
An hour before closing time, by which time one of his colleagues had departed, his remaining friend noticed two women enter the bar, go to the counter and order two Baileys and then sit at a table not that far away.
His colleague suggested they strike up an acquaintance. He shook his head and said he was in no way interested. His friend ignored him and strode over to the table and introduced himself and in minutes he was also seated at the table trying to think how to make coherent conversation.
It was not until the next afternoon after he had been at work most of the morning and for a few hours after a very dry lunch that he found a piece of paper in his wallet with what appeared to be a telephone number written on it and a name. He had little recollection of how it might have ended up there but he called the number anyway.
Cutting to the chase, he had met one of the young ladies of the previous evening for dinner, strolled through St James’s Park around midnight when it was at its most romantic, and within eighteen months they were married. Happily.
Serendipity his friend had explained some days later. If he had not separated from his wife due to no reason other than they had drifted apart, if he had not had a fling with the married woman, if he had been drinking too much, if he had not that night chosen to visit that pub with that friend who had approached the two women, he would not have ended up where he did. Happily married. Serendipity.
So when I bumped into Joan Maguire in Westminster underground station I was stunned. I had certainly not planned it. I was passing through on my way to the House of Commons to meet with Tony Lawrence MP. Joan I learned was on her way to offices along Embankment to discuss matters associated with the development of property in Knightsbridge. The chances of our running into one another there, or anywhere, were remote to say the least. Serendipity.
“Zack. Hello.”
I was deep in thought and trying to locate my underground ticket when I heard the words. But I knew immediately who it was, the familiarity of the voice unmistakable.
“Joan. Lovely to see you.” I looked into her eyes and touched her gently on the shoulder, tactile but nothing more.
She leant forward and kissed me lightly on both cheeks.
“We’ll have to stop meeting like this,” she said. “People will start to gossip.”
“Of all the tube stations, in all the towns, in all the world, you walk into mine.” My attempt at levity, poor though it was, at least put a smile on her face.
“I could start calling you Rick I suppose,” she said. “But somehow Rick Tighe doesn’t have the right ring to it.”
“And,” I said, “Casablanca this aint.”
She laughed. “You’re right there. Shall we get out of the way of these people, at least to the other side of the turnstiles?”
Once negotiated we stopped and faced each other and explained what we were doing at the same time in the same place.
“For once the trains were not delayed,” I said, “so I have a good half hour before I have to see Tony Lawrence.”
While I paused Joan kept looking at me and then glanced at her wristwatch.
“And that’s roughly the same time I have before I have to be at my meeting,” she said.
“Can I buy you a coffee? There’s a little café just around the corner in Whitehall. Nothing fancy, but if my memory serves me correctly the coffee does come in a china cup and not a cardboard one.”
“That would be nice Zack.”
Once seated and with the cup of steaming coffee cupped in her hands Joan said: “So what have you been up to Zack? We haven’t seen you since the night we ran into one another at Boisedale.”
“No,” I answered. “Well you and I haven’t seen each other but I have been in touch with your husband.”
“That’s right,” she said. “You’ve been working together sort of on this murder thing.”
“In a manner of speaking,” I said. “But I’m just following the story. He’s integral to it.”
“He certainly is.”
“How is it going?”
“Now Zack. We had this out once before I think. I’m just the wife and as the wife I certainly do not speak about my husband’s business.”
“Of course. I was just wondering. Sorry.”
“That’s alright.”
There was a silence and then she said: “I can tell you this, David is working every hour that God has given him. When they catch this person it will be largely down to his endeavours, his hard work, his giving it his all.”
“I can understand,” I said. “It’s a bad case alright. I just thought that, even though he probably wouldn’t want to, he might bring the work home as it were. You know, I guess when he’s working on such a case he must sometimes want to just speak to someone about it in a dispassionate way.”
Joan nodded, but said: “Yes, I’m sure he would want to do that. But not with me and not at home. They are completely separate lives. David has his work and he has his home life. The twain do not mix.”
I mumbled an understanding.
“Zack I don’t mean to sound rude but I never get involved in David’s work. Never.”
“I understand. I…”
“With this case especially. It is as you described it in your column a particularly bad one. A horribly upsetting one. Any murder is bad but when it involves women and when those women are so awfully killed it has an affect. It does something to you inside that changes you outside. I don’t talk about it with David but I can see very plainly the effect it’s having on him. And it’s not very pleasant to watch.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
We sat in silence for a time and Joan studied her coffee.
Then I said: “Joan, if you would like to talk to someone yourself, I don’t know, someone who could just listen…”
She said nothing and I continued: “Maybe, if you like, we could meet for a coffee, or have a meal together….”
She looked up and her expression was not hard but she was not smiling. “Zack,” she said, “I can’t have dinner with you. You must know that.”
“What I meant was…”
“I think I know what you might have meant Zack. But I couldn’t.” She hesitated for just a few seconds. “Zack I love my husband very much. I hate the work he has to do sometimes and I hate the fact that it keeps him away from me for nights at a time. And I hate the way his work has an effect on him. An upsetting effect. But I’ve known that for a long time now and I accept it. I accept completely who he is and what he does even though there are many times I don’t like either.”
I could not hold her gaze and I found it easier to examine the remains in my own coffee cup.
“Zack, it has been lovely seeing you again. I really mean that. Now, I have to make my appointment or I’ll have a very unhappy client. Can I offer to pay for…..”
“Of course not,” I answered sharply. “Absolutely not.”
She pushed her chair back and stood. Holding out her hand she said: “Thanks for the coffee. It really was good seeing you again. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again in another tube station or somewhere else.”
“Probably,” I said. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world maybe you’ll walk into mine.”
Her laugh was instant. “You never know. We never really know Zack. Goodbye.”
“Bye,” I said with a half wave of my hand.
Serendipity I thought.
Stuff it.