Chapter 8
"Steve, I'm not made of glass. You're going for one night."
"Still I want to make sure that you will be ok. You still aren't over being ill a couple of days ago" Steve explained as he brought some clothes out from his room to the living room where Lottie sat on the sofa. He shoved them into a bag and began checking he had everything he needed. Steve was never one to be prepared with packing. He threw stuff in a bag at the last minute and just hoped that he didn't forget anything. Before doing so he made sure she had been propped up with three thick pillows, had a blanket over her lap and had a hot water bottle clutched to her groin. She had spent the best part of two days sleeping given the sudden loss of a lot of blood had depleted her energy. She was still bleeding but nothing like two days previously so Lottie had the energy to finally come out of her room. Advised by the hospital to eat and keep as hydrated as possible meant that what felt like every five minutes Steve gave her a mug of tea or a glass of water. He also made sure to give her double portions of food and when she caught on to the fact he would strategically put snacks around for her to nibble on instead within arm's reach. When Lottie had been sleeping he did a load of research on endometriosis to make sure he knew exactly what it was and what he could do to help her. It also prevented embarrassing questions and conversations happening between the two. The last thing he wanted to do was to make her uncomfortable. He did find it interesting to research and realize that although he thought he knew his stuff about female anatomy from his years of dating he really had no idea how complex it was. He wouldn't tell anyone that.
"Steve, it isn't likely I am going to leave the flat after Kate and Ted pick you up and everything I need is here. I don't need your help going from room to room now or getting in and out of the shower. I'll face time you every five seconds if that makes you feel better."
Just then the buzzer from the outer door rang through the flat. Steve saw from the camera that it was Kate and Ted so he buzzed them in.
"I just want to make sure you aren't going to have a bad turn."
"Steve, take it from the one who has the illness. We've been through the major low this month and I am on my way back to being me. Just a couple more days in the flat and I'll be Lottie again" she tried to reassure him. "You got everything you need?"
"I think so."
"You remember your tooth brush?" Steve thought about it and headed for the bathroom making Lottie chuckle under her breath. She knew him too well. When a knock came at the door she went to throw the blanket off her lap but Steve reappeared, toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. He pointed at Lottie as he crossed the room to the door.
"Don't you dare" he warned making her roll her eyes. He opened the door and found Kate and Ted, Kate who was carrying an overnight bag, a tray of four take away coffees and a large coffee shop take away paper bag whilst Ted was carrying a large bouquet of sunflowers.
"Morning Arnotts" Kate said and Steve stepped aside to let her and Ted in.
"You can't possibly be this cheery at 7am Kate" Steve observed.
"I guess it is for seeing your handsome face" was the reply and Kate quickly headed for Lottie. She placed the various items she was carrying on the coffee table before giving Lottie a big hug. "You look so well. How are you feeling?"
"Ok but it would be nice if I was given permission to get off the sofa. I miss the outside world."
"Do these help?" Ted asked and Lottie finally saw the sunflowers. She gasped at seeing them and Ted handed them over.
"Oh Ted, they're beautiful. Are they for me?" she asked.
"Well I didn't buy them for Steve here. I hope they help you feel closer to nature, petal."
"Thank you so much" she beamed and he bent down to give her a hug.
"Here I'll put them in some water" Kate said and headed to the kitchen with them.
"So how long will your drive be?" Lottie asked as Steve put his last items in his bag and quickly checked he had everything again.
"About four hours give or take. Hopefully setting off now we won't be caught up in too much traffic" Ted explained.
"Yeah, you boys better go. Don't forget your coffees and goodies" Kate said. Lottie and Steve glanced at each other confused.
"What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"Oh come on Steve, do you really believe we would have you leave Lottie behind and not make sure she was taken care off?" Ted said. Kate reappeared from the kitchen with the sunflowers now in a vase of water.
"Yeah, besides, all three of us in a car for four hours each way, is a total of eight hours of time where none of us can actually work. While you boys are away, I'm staying here for a girly sleepover and I can continue to work on Christopher's case doing the searches that need to be done."
"Wait, doesn't that break your own rule that I can't be around the case?" Lottie clarified praying she wasn't messing up a chance to hang out with Kate.
"Let's call this a bend in the rules due to unforeseen circumstances" Kate replied and put the vase on the coffee table. "Besides it's not like you will be doing the work with me, I'll just be spending some time on my laptop whilst I am here. That is if it is ok with you Lottie."
"Hell yeah! I'm in!" Lottie beamed.
"Do I get a say in this?" Steve asked.
"No" the women replied in unison. Kate removed two of the take away cups and some of the goodies inside the paper bag for her and Lottie.
"Hot chocolate and almond croissants? Can you stay forever?" Lottie asked making Kate smile.
"I doubt Steve would like that."
'Yes I would' Steve thought to himself not knowing exactly where that came from.
"Right we best be off then Steve. I'll meet you downstairs. You two be good and no trashing the flat with a last minute party" Ted said grabbing the coffees and food left for the journey.
"Kate, I don't know how to thank you" Steve began but a shake of her head stopped him.
"No need. I haven't been able to have one on one time with Lottie, you get to know she is ok and I get to continue on the case. We all win. Let us know when you get there ok?"
Steve nodded and gave her a hug.
"Is there one there for me?" Lottie asked and Steve smiled as he parted from Kate.
"Always." He gave Lottie a hug and right as he reached for his bag he moved his head down and took a bite from the almond croissant in her hand.
"Evil! Get him Kate!" Lottie commanded but Steve was too quick for her and he was out the door with it slamming behind him before Kate could catch him.
Hanging out with Kate was far more fun than Lottie has anticipated. Kate had some wild stories to tell of cases from her earlier years as a police officer. Some hysterical, some more serious but Lottie found it all fascinating. The best thing of all though, she treated Lottie as an equal woman with no restriction on conversation or honesty given Lottie's age. Lottie wanted to share everything with Kate but after a few hours she found herself sinking into the pillows propping her up, her eyes heavy and her head titled to her left which felt heavy too. Kate was typing away on her work laptop when she noticed Lottie had gone quiet.
"You want to go back to your room to sleep?" Lottie shook her head.
"No I'm in a good position here. If I move I know I'll regret it. What is it you're doing exactly?" Lottie asked.
"Trying to find stone thorns" Kate said and Lottie couldn't hide the confusion on her face. "We believe there is an irregularity with the location of the picture of Christopher from the news article and the location it states it from in the text so I'm trying to figure it out."
Kate handed Lottie the picture the two were very familiar with. "See the stone carving over the door? That would have been put in when the building was built and designs like that tended to be in buildings from the 1800s. Being on a high street it is possible that it is still there. So trying to find which one it is."
Lottie hadn't noticed the stone carving before and stared at it for some time. "Are you sure it's thorns?"
"Why do you ask?"
"This might sound crazy but if you tilt your head to the left and relax your eyes, it kind of looks like an octopus." Kate was now looking confused and took the picture back from Lottie. She did as told and after several seconds she saw what Lottie meant. The tangle of thorns was actually a tangle of tentacles.
"Oh my god. I think you're right." Kate looked back at Lottie to see the teenager was fast asleep. In order to check the stone carvings she had been searching the street views of addresses of banks in 1974 located in Birmingham and Manchester to see if there was one where the stone work matched. It was possible that the stone work was gone now with more modern buildings but being directly over the door and the building architecture, it was greatly hoped that the original features were still there. She knew for certain that the ones she had searched so far didn't have an octopus so she didn't have to go over those again. Another forty-five minutes in Kate watched a street view load on her screen and froze. It was the location of a TSB bank in a beautiful light stone building with its original architecture. The bank was in Manchester and when she cross referenced the address with the 1974 bank listing she found she was looking at the Manchester and Salford Savings Bank. They were right after all.
Kate's phone began to ring which luckily didn't wake Lottie. It was Steve.
"Hey, you get there ok?" Kate asked.
"Yep managed to just miss the traffic. Is everything alright with you?"
"Yes. Lottie is fast asleep and I have news. I found the bank. It wasn't thorns over the doorway it was a carving of an octopus."
"Octopus? Really?"
"Yes. Not sure why it got chosen to be a symbol for a bank but according to google they represent wisdom, mystery and transformation but are associated with fear and danger."
"Are you giving me an octopus lecture?"
"Just trying to expand your knowledge of the world Steve. I've still got a few addresses to check but if they don't have any octopus stone carvings we know for certain that the picture is from Manchester taken outside the Manchester and Salford Savings Bank. It was nowhere near Birmingham."
"Good work."
"Thank Lottie for it, she taught me to look at the picture from a different angle."
Kate looked back at Lottie when she hung up and saw the teenager was still fast asleep. Little did she know, Lottie wasn't asleep at all. She had been awoken by the phone ringing but kept her eyes closed. Her first questions had been answered.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with us Gwen" Ted said as Gwen put down a tray of teas and coffees and a plate of biscuits for her guests. She, Ted and Steve were in her living room which looked out over the beautiful Northumbria countryside. "I know it mustn't have been easy to take the call when I rang you." Gwen handed each of the men a cup of tea before sitting down. She handed the men their drinks before taking one of the coffee cups for herself.
"Hardly slept since if I'm honest. Not out of anger or anything you understand. Losing Christopher weighted heavy on everyone in the community not just my family. Your arrival brings up a mixture of feelings really. You might find that some people may be happy to co-operate and others not so if you ask around the neighborhood."
She was a pleasant woman and although looking well for her age she had a soul much older than her actual age. Life had not been kind to her on a mental and emotional level and a look of permanent exhaustion haunted her face and her clear blue eyes, the ones she shared with her brother. Looking about the room Steve saw family photos of various children, grand children and multiple ones of Christopher with the child version of Gwen and their mother. He was never forgotten in this house.
"Can I ask you a question?" Gwen asked to which Ted nodded. "Why now? What has Christopher got to do with anti-corruption? He worked for the murder unit. Or do you think that he was corrupt?"
"We work in anti-corruption in the building which Christopher worked in back in the 1970s. A well wisher stumbled across some articles about Christopher and flagged that things didn't quite line up. These irregularities are our bread and butter so we are looking into them. We have no reason to believe at this moment that he was corrupt but we need to establish the facts" Steve explained taking the lead from Ted who could have been annoyed but in fact he was impressed with Steve. Knowing how important this was to Lottie he knew Steve wanted to have input on this conversation.
"Thank you for that. I was going to say there was no way my brother was corrupt. If you had known him you'd never doubt him. He was honest and true to his core. Sometimes it baffled me how he became a police officer. Not that he wasn't honest enough to be one; it's just that police you tend to think of the negative not the positive especially in the 1970s. Not offense."
"None taken" Ted confirmed.
"I always thought he would have made a good vet. He loved nature and it helped him deal with the hardship of the job. Going from the countryside to the city it was a big shift for him and at times he found it hard to process."
"How often did you communicate with him?" Ted asked.
"Hard to say really as his working hours had no regular pattern. Sometimes it was a quick two minute phone call and then nothing for weeks. Others it was a regular Sunday afternoon event. He wrote me letters as well to make up for the lack of phone calls. Mum loved it when the letters arrived. She'd sit here and read them over and over again. She became a bit obsessed with them when Christopher was declared missing. That's when her health started to decline."
"So this is your family home?" Steve asked.
"Yes. It might sound stupid or ridiculous but when you lose someone so abruptly with no idea where they are, you cling on to faint hopes that they will magically appear at the front door. It's an address you know they know so you do everything in your power to make sure you never let go of it. Mum left it to me in her will. She died seven years after Christopher disappeared, a lot longer than people thought she would …. It was hard for her to understand. She'd forget things and saw things that weren't there. By the end she swore Christopher was in the house talking to her. It confused her why we couldn't see him. We had to play along to get her to sleep or eat. I hate to say it but it was a relief when she finally went because I could sleep knowing she was safe. You don't know what you've got until it's gone."
"I'm so sorry for your loss" Steve said.
"Do you have any siblings?" Gwen addressed Steve.
"Yes, a little sister." Gwen smiled.
"Do you see her often?"
"She's living with me." Gwen nodded.
"Tell her that you love her every day. You have no idea how important it will be for her as she grows older. No matter how old she is, she needs to hear it" Steve nodded at Gwen's advise.
"Do you still have the letters?" Ted asked.
"Of course I do."
"Would you be ok if we took them for our investigation?"
"I thought you'd ask that. My grandson taught me how to use a scanner and I made copies of the letters after your phone call. And his diaries." Gwen stood up and crossed the room to a chest of drawers covered in framed photos and ornaments.
"He kept diaries?" Ted asked.
"Oh yeah. Had done since he was a teenager. I found them all in the attic. You are welcome to take those as well if you like." She pulled out a large cardboard box and handed it to Ted. It was full of letters bound with ribbon and leather bound diaries, some of them faded in the sunlight and a couple with a bit of water damage.
"I will get them back though?" she asked and the men could hear the concern in her voice.
"We promise you will and we will take good care of these" Ted reassured her. Gwen smiled softly and sat back down.
"Did Christopher ever talk to you about a bank robbery?" Steve asked.
"Oh the one in Manchester?" Ted and Steve glanced at each other. A second confirmation that day of the bank location. "Yes he spoke about it somewhat reluctantly but only a couple of times and then he didn't want to again. He didn't see himself as a hero and he surprised us all when he refused an award for it."
"He was given an award?" Ted asked.
"Yes, he wrote about it in one of his letters I think. I would have thought that would have been on his police file" Gwen replied a little confused.
"It appears not. Sadly records from the 1970s aren't like today" Ted explained.
"I can believe that. A time without technology seems alien doesn't it when in fact it wasn't all that long ago. Paper tears, crumples, slips away but technology means everything is permanent. I don't know if this will help but he had some friends in the city and his unit. Nicholas, Charles, Vic and Mark. I don't remember their surnames I'm afraid but I know Nicholas and Charles were in the same unit as him at work. Oh and of course there's Holly."
"Holly?" Steve asked.
"His girlfriend. She worked in the same building as him but I don't know which unit exactly. PWCs weren't given equal status with their male counterparts so I don't know anything really about her. Just that she gave Christopher stability in the city that was alien to him. It gives me some comfort to know he had someone you know?"
"You spoke to a newspaper in 1986 demanding a plaque be put up for Christopher" Ted asked and Gwen nodded.
"I got fed up of trying to get through to the police to look at his case and twelve years had passed. I wanted to go to war really. So I contacted the papers. Only local ones were interested so I thought that no one would see it but then national papers came knocking on the door."
This caught Steve and Ted's attention.
"Did they publish articles about the plaque?"
"Yes. I have the clippings if you want those too."
"That would be wonderful" Ted replied and a photo album was presented to them. It was dedicated to Christopher full of photos, articles and even a lock of his hair.
"Did anyone come asking you about the bank robbery or any other details about Christopher?" Steve asked.
"No, it died down pretty quickly. He turned back into the forgotten."
"The wording on the plaque is quite interesting. 'May you soar through skies with no cages'. Can you explain that?" Steve asked and Gwen looked baffled.
"What do you mean?"
"The plaque outside his work office" Steve clarified.
"Do you have a picture?" she asked and Steve showed her a picture he took of the plaque on his phone. Her hands began to shake and she shook her head.
"This can't be right. There is no plaque. Despite the buzz from papers my application for one to be put up was rejected. I have the letter. This isn't my plaque for him."
Ted and Steve looked at each other. This was getting more and more confusing by the minute. Gwen handed the phone back over.
"I'm sorry, I need a minute" she said and headed outside to have a cry.