There was another property in Lowland Gardens, previously more available than hers, but now more booked up.
“What time did you finally get to sleep?” Naomi asked.
“Oh, I don’t remember. Too late.” Sissy’s heart thudded as she pictured Naomi’s face if she told her the truth about last night. First, she probably didn’t think women in their sixties had sex. (She probably didn’t think she would ever get old enough to find out, imagining herself immune to anything grisly and menopausal that lay in wait for other women.) Second, might she think it borderline sordid to run a B and B and sleep with one of the guests? For this was what Sissy had done. Darren Booth could have had the entire chorus line of the Folies Bergère cancanning outside his house last night and for once she wouldn’t have so much as tweaked the blinds.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true. The conversation with her erstwhile paramour had been struck up, the offer of the first drink, precisely because of Booth. Everything was because of Booth now—if it wasn’t in spite of him.
Graham Reddy, her booking from Solihull, had come down to the kitchen at nine thirty p.m. with a bottle of wine and asked if he could use one of Sissy’s wineglasses. She was about to point out that there were glasses in his room when he offered her a drink. Asked if business was booming.
“It was,” she told him, exactly as she had Naomi just now. It was definitely her feelings of helplessness regarding Booth that led her to open the second bottle of wine, but there was obviously an attraction in the first place. He was her age, twice divorced, ready to retire but financially unable to. “Not ever,” he said. “It is what it is.” And the statement seemed to summarize his incautious air. It had been her only sex since divorcing Colin, and as she stood here now on Naomi’s doorstep, in the sane and sober reality of the day, it seemed fantastical, like some sort of delusion. Oh! Might it have been illegal to take money from him? Did it make her the keeper of a brothel? Guests paid in advance via the website, but had it been done the traditional way, writing a check or handing over cash on departure, she couldn’t possibly have gone through with charging him.
She’d noticed Booth’s music when they were lying in bed in the bedroom at the front. It must have been one in the morning by then.
“Is that your bogeyman?” Graham asked, going to the window. He didn’t cover himself, and when he pushed aside the curtain and the streetlight exposed his pale body, Sissy felt heat suffuse her face. “He and the missus are having a fag out the bedroom window. Looks like a wimp to me.”
“He’s stronger than he looks,” Sissy said. Wrapping herself in the bedsheet, she joined him. Partially backlit, the scaffolding at number 1 was a stark exoskeleton, Darren and Jodie’s joint silhouette a shooting target at their window. It was impossible to tell if they had seen Sissy and Graham or not. Perhaps it was the wine or the postcoital boost of self-belief, but Sissy felt more confident about taking them on than at any time before. “I’m sure we’ll resolve it one way or another,” she said. “For now, all I can do is move into this room myself when I have guests, so they can stay in the back.”
“Except when they join you.” Graham chuckled. He returned to the bed. Would he expect to stay all night in here, she wondered, or would he return to the room he had paid for? “My sister had a problem a bit like this, years ago.”
“Many people do, I’m learning. What did she do?”
“Oh, a couple of us scared him off.”
“How?” Sissy asked.
“Not sure you need to know that, Sissy.”
Nor did she need to know the sister’s name or any other detail about his life, his and Sissy’s connection being so transitory. It struck her that he might have lied about being single. Or did people bother lying at their age? She certainly didn’t. If you couldn’t tell the truth by your seventh decade, you probably weren’t ever going to.
The next morning, she said good-bye at the door, determined to recapture the air of professionalism she’d possessed when she’d checked him in. Graham masked any awkwardness by turning to the street as they talked.
“Now I see it in the light, that scaffolding looks a bit dodgy.”
“He put it up himself, apparently,” Sissy said. “I went out one day and when I came back it was up.”
“Always the way,” he said, as if he encountered Booths every day of the week.
There were no plans to keep in touch. It wasn’t that sort of thing.
* * *
—
After she returned from Naomi’s house, Sissy’s mind turned to what she needed to get done before a two-day visit to her old friend Anthea in Wiltshire (she’d sleep well there; that was for sure: Anthea and her husband lived on the edge of their village and had no neighbors). Strolling past Tess’s house before turning to cross, she became aware that the object of the street’s displeasure was watching her from the first level of his scaffolding. She avoided his eye and stepped into the road, which was when, for the first time in their acquaintance, he initiated dialogue with her.
“Good night last night?”
She hesitated a few steps into the road. What did that mean?
“Get along OK with your paying guest, did you?” he added.
He had seen them. Jolted though she was, Sissy stepped back onto the curb and faced him with a steady gaze. Bearing down on her from behind the waist-height railing, he had a peculiar menace about him. Baiting was a brand-new dynamic between them; previously, he’d dismissed her, swatted her complaints aside like stunned wasps.
Well, if he wanted to talk, she would talk. “To answer your first question, I think everyone’s night would have been a lot better without the heavy metal soundtrack, thank you. But we do our best, given the limitations. You won’t get away with it forever, though. This is antisocial behavior, whether you’re capable of seeing it that way or not.”
Booth regarded her with mild contempt. “Should’ve called the police if you were so bothered.”
Was he really so unaware that he didn’t guess his neighbors had tried the police, that they had the council on speed dial? Surely he’d begun to receive formal letters by now? Then she remembered Naomi’s warning: “They’ll guess who made the complaints and become verbally abusive.” Something must have happened, which was a good thing, even if this particular interaction was unwelcome.
“Sooner him than me—that’s all I can say,” he added.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your bloke last night. An old cunt like you.”
Sissy gasped and a flush spread upward from her chest like bushfire: Had he really just said that? No, he couldn’t possibly have. And yet, he had. Speechless with fury and humiliation, she picked up a chunk of brick from his scrap heap and hurled it at him, yelping in frustration when it hit the wall instead and clattered back to the ground. As Booth laughed at her incompetence, she backed away, stumbling across the road, her legs trembling and eyes brimming.
“What did I say?” he called, taunting her. He wanted her to repeat the word back to him, turn it into her crime, not his. How could he be so cruel?
How had he survived this long saying things like that and not been murdered in his own bed?
CHAPTER
9
RALPH
To be honest, I’d say the noise has been worse for other people than for us. Like my brother and his wife—they’re only two houses away from Booth and they don’t have double glazing. Plus their dog’s very nervous, barks a lot. But everyone has their own pain threshold, don’t they?
MR. RALPH MORGAN, 7 LOWLAND WAY, HOUSE-TO-HOUSE INQUIRIES BY THE METROPOLITAN POLICE, AUGUST 11, 2018
One day earlier
Lately, Ralph had been suggesting the Star on the Rushmoor Estate for his Friday drink with Finn over their traditional drinking hole, the Fox and Hounds, a gastropub on the high street that was frequented by people like them.
“Pigs in blankets and dogs in jackets” kind of people, as Finn put it, and Kit, a lurcher, had a particularly extensive collection of cozy coats chosen by Naomi and Libby.
Why he was attracted to the Star, with its dilapidated fittings and edgy clientele, he wasn’t altogether sure, but it might have been an extension of those diversions on the way home from work—deprivations revisited. What would a psychologist have to say about that? That he felt under threat in Lowland Way and needed to reassure himself that his grass was greener than everyone else’s? Or that the conflict with Booth moved him to further study members of that tribe, the better to understand (and defeat) Booth himself?
Either way, Finn had resisted the idea of the Star until this evening, saying he fancied the longer walk after a shit week at work. As usual, when Finn made a passing complaint about work, Ralph discerned a reflex of regret, as if Finn feared yet another poaching attempt, which would have been hurtful if Ralph didn’t know exactly what was behind his fear of joining Ralph at Morgan Leather Goods. Or, rather, who.
It was nine by the time they got there, and the bar was crammed with Friday drinkers, a fair few of whom wore an air of boozing as a primary career.
“Jesus,” Finn said as they waited to be served, “is it me or can you still smell the smoke from before the ban? When was that?”
“Two thousand and seven,” Ralph remembered. It was when he’d given up. Or “given up,” perhaps, considering his occasional weakness. “It doesn’t look that different from the Bell, does it? Remember when Dad used to take us with him? We must have been Libby’s age. Well underage.”
“Different time,” Finn said. “Different world. I don’t remember anyone saying, ‘Shouldn’t those kids be in bed?’”
“Or ‘Shouldn’t their young lungs be protected from the fog of cigarette smoke?’ Our clothes must have reeked.”
When they settled at a table near the door, Ralph resisted the temptation to mop up the previous occupants’ spills with the Pret napkin in his pocket. There was a man at the next table whom his eye kept returning to. Though he was physically the same type as the other middle-aged, beer-bellied punters, there was something about his expression, his body language, that connected with Ralph in an unwelcome way. It made him see who he might have become had he not had the right drive at the right time (the right place, you could always find). Bitterness was the closest word, but it was subtler than that, more like the final scrabble for an escape route before surrender. “You know how people say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’?”
“Yeah,” Finn said.
“Well, I hate that saying. Why is everyone supposed to be so humble? Why can’t people say, ‘I got where I am because I worked fucking hard’? I didn’t want second best.”
Ralph glanced out of the window to the concrete “garden” forecourt, to the gray expanse of road with drifts of litter in the gutter and, beyond, a caged sapling, a pathetic attempt by the council to inject green. The caging was torn; it was only a matter of time before the tree was bent flat.
There was an explosion of male laughter from the neighboring table, followed by a chorus of heckling as a bony, pink-faced lad was ejected from the group in the direction of the bar. Never keep the blokes waiting when it’s your round, Ralph’s father had taught them, and they never had. His gaze moved to another of the group, a man in his thirties who was powerfully built and charged with violent energy.
“You know what I reckon?” he said to Finn. “We wouldn’t need to look very far if we needed help. You know, with him. If it comes to that.”
“You think it will?”
“It might.”
While Finn went to the bar for another round, Ralph checked his work mails. A notification for an earlier Facebook post by Naomi popped up: Play Out Sunday will go ahead as usual. Following Charlie’s accident, they would close the road lower down, outside the Morgans’, using extra bollards and a rotation of adults to guard the sign. Like fucking riot police, Ralph thought, newly enraged. Whatever it was Booth thought he was doing on Lowland Way—building a business, renovating a house—he was, in fact, jeopardizing a community. Their community. Ralph and Naomi had been a big part of raising their street to the heights it had reached and he was damned if he was going to let one man bring it back down.
Yes, he would get help, if it came to it. He would not let him win.
Finn returned with their drinks. “Guess who I’ve just seen sitting with his mates on the far side of the bar.”
“You’re kidding me. He’s been here this whole time?”
“Both of them. Date night.”
Ralph took a look on his way to the gents’. It was a jolt to see Darren and Jodie out of context, Darren in casual clothes and Jodie half-decent in a short black dress, makeup and heels, two of a group of six. Pints and cigarettes and phones on the table. Darren was silent— he was never going to be loquacious—but he was grinning, relaxing. Ralph thought of Charlie on a gurney, of the oppressive heat and ancient, faintly aromatic upholstery of Children’s A and E, and glowered. This was the man who put him there, who could easily have killed him.
He fished out his phone and texted the number he’d gotten from Autotrader:
This is your final warning: move that heap of crap from outside my house by 8am tomorrow.
Was Booth the kind of person to respond to a text the moment it arrived? Evidently not.
“Shall we head back after this one?” he said to Finn. “Have one at home with the girls?” The evening had soured for him, the dubious-at-best pleasure taken in the Star evaporated. He’d told Finn they wouldn’t need to look far for help, but Booth had got here long before they had. He belonged.
They trudged home, Finn teasing him about his devotion to his wife. Yeah, yeah. It was only as they approached their end of Lowland Way that he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and he drew up next to the RV. It was a mild, moonlit evening, the kind when you’d appreciate seeing a vintage Jaguar outside your door, not this hulking, malodorous piece of wreckage.
“You go in,” he told Finn. “I won’t be a minute.”
“OK. Don’t go slashing those tires, now,” Finn warned, joking. “Then he really would have an excuse not to move it.”
“I won’t. At least not with you as a witness,” Ralph returned.
The message was from Booth:
Or else?
Ralph placed a hand on the side of the RV for support. It was the first time he had touched the vehicle and the metal was warm after a long day in sunlight. When he removed his hand, he could see his palm print in the dirt on the paintwork, fingers and thumb perfectly captured, like evidence.
He tapped out his reply:
Or else you’ll regret it.
CHAPTER
10
ANT
Worst off? Well, we are, of course—we’re right next door! I have to say, Sissy Watkins has had it pretty bad as well. The poor woman’s aged visibly. We’ve been really worried about her, even before this.
Mind you, people would probably say the same about us.
MR. ANTHONY KENDALL, 3 LOWLAND WAY, HOUSE-TO-HOUSE INQUIRIES BY THE METROPOLITAN POLICE, AUGUST 11, 2018
One day earlier
For the first Friday since Darren and Jodie had moved in, they were out when Ant came home from work. Out! It caused a powerful kick of nostalgia right to his gut: this was how a weekend was supposed to feel, especially in August. Sunbaked and frisky, the air sweet with freedom.
Except for the stink of next door’s scaffolding. It was revolting, as if the boards had been dredged from the bottom of the Thames. The lower platform was loaded with materials; Booth appeared to be using it as a semipermanent storage facility, with a security alarm box so flimsy-looking it might have been one of those fake ones, the wires not actually attached to the power.
Following Em’s reports of cowboy builders, Ant h
ad watched a YouTube video to check if the scaffolding had been put up properly and he had concluded there was a longitudinal brace missing between the two platforms. “Keep Sam away from it, in case something falls from above,” he’d told Em.
She’d reacted defensively: “I’m not stupid. I’m keeping his head protected every time we go in and out.” She’d complained this week of the peace-shattering sanding of exterior features between the upper-floor windows and roof line, of the sudden wince-inducing scrapes and crunches of materials being dragged along the boards, but the fact was that all of it was perfectly legal during the hours of eight a.m. to six p.m. Monday to Friday and eight a.m. to one p.m. on Saturdays. The law paid no heed to stay-at-home parents, home workers or anyone hoping for a lie-in after a backbreaking week at work.
“All quiet on the western—” he began, closing the door behind him, but faltered at the sight of a large suitcase standing in the hallway. “Em?”
In the kitchen, Sam was in his high chair, face smeared with pureed carrot, while Em collected items from the fridge and stored them in Tupperware. The radio was on, as it always was, a permanent low-level defense against what might advance through the walls and windows.
“Why is there luggage in the hall?” he asked, stooping to kiss Sam hello.
Em turned, efficient, determined. “Because I’m going to go to my mum and dad’s. Just for a week or so.”
Ant blinked repeatedly, as if his vision had suddenly blurred. “You mean with Sam?”
“Of course with Sam.”
Without discussing it with Ant, who had not yet been parted from his son for longer than a night or two. “What, right now?”
“No, I can’t face the Friday night traffic. We’ll go in the morning. I’ve had a horrific day, nonstop noise. I can’t take any more.”
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