by Kate Vane
Mark shrugged. ‘You wonder how he’d have known about Tilda’s blog. But this company he was working for, presumably they’d have had the research capability. Or perhaps he tried the papers but they thought it wasn’t enough of a story.’
‘It is now. Do you know who he was working for?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘Could they have had him killed?’ Paolo was thinking out loud. ‘Maybe they didn’t want him coming to you. Sharing their secrets with an outsider.’
It hardly seemed the work of a corporate assassin, the kind of figure that stalked the pages of thrillers, anonymous, sleek, leaving no forensic trace. But then such a murder would automatically have aroused suspicions. In real life wouldn’t it have to look like an ordinary crime? Still, it drew attention to Sid’s activities. Paolo still thought that Mark was likely to be the intended victim.
‘Why did he come back on the day he died?’ asked Paolo. ‘Because he’d leaked your story and wanted to warn you? But why do you harm and then try and soften the blow?’
Although wasn’t that just messy, contradictory, human behaviour? He did the damage then regretted it. Or he wanted to convince himself, despite what he’d done, that he was still a good person, a friend, so that’s why he came.
‘I keep turning it over in my head,’ said Mark, ‘but I just don’t know. The good that’s come out of this is that we’ve finally got national media to focus on the fracking. Because of my notoriety. And yours.’ A rare flash of humour from Mark. ‘They’re doing the right thing, even if it is for the wrong reasons.’
He looked pleased. As if a potential life sentence were a price worth paying. He had the same smile Paolo had seen before, on political prisoners, on would-be suicide bombers. Was he willing to sacrifice himself, for this cause? Would he have sacrificed Sid? Or them?
‘Why did you lie to me? About when you last saw Sid?’
‘I wanted you to trust me.’
‘So you lied.’
‘Yes. But now I can tell the truth because the demo’s over. It doesn’t matter if they arrest me. They haven’t got any evidence.’
‘Tell me about the fire,’ Paolo said.
A fleeting change of expression. Paolo would have felt completely let down if Mark had said, What fire? After a moment’s hesitation, he seemed to have decided against that.
‘I didn’t know anything about it. If I had, I would have stopped it.’
First Paolo resented his assurance, his certainty that he could control them all, back then. But then he realised that Mark was conceding there was a connection to their fledgling plan.
He stood and walked to the window. He looked out. Now he could see more than brick. He was looking at the back of a row of terraced houses across the alley. Not alley, ginnel, that was what they called them up here. Yards at the back, some neat, some concrete and weeds. Strange the things that made you nostalgic. Bin yards and ginnels.
‘So who did it?’ he asked, watching a couple of students stop in the ginnel and exchange bear hugs. They used to do that. When had he started doing that middle-class kissy thing?
‘I don’t know.’
‘Not much of a spy,’ said Paolo, his face still turned to the window, but then he thought, it was worse than that. He wasn’t just reporting on the actions of other people, he was inciting them. Would he and Claire and Ratman have even thought of doing anything illegal without Mark’s encouragement?
‘How do you know about it?’ asked Mark.
‘Afzal spoke to me. He wants to investigate. Does that mean we’re all in trouble?’
35
He wouldn’t have pictured Claire as a Facebook kind of person but when he looked for her he found an account set to friends only, with a profile picture of a hedgehog. He messaged her and was pleased when she replied quickly.
‘Can you email me?’ it said tersely and gave an email address. ‘I don’t like sharing stuff on Facebook, even if it is supposed to be private – I’m only on here for my book group!’
He sent her an email as requested asking if she’d like to meet up in Leeds. She sent a reply suggesting the Oronaise café in Hyde Park for lunch.
‘It does great Middle Eastern food,’ she wrote, ‘lots of veggie options!’
He hadn’t thought of Claire as an exclamation mark kind of person but back then they hadn’t had occasion to write to each other, apart from scribbled notes – ‘We’re in the pub’ or ‘We’re out of bog roll and it’s YOUR TURN to buy’.
She was here. Dressed in a print jersey tunic and leggings. Her face was somehow made more expressive by the lines around her eyes and mouth, but her hair was styled and blow-dried and highlighted and she looked toned, somehow both leaner and softer round the edges. Did everyone do this to friends after an absence? Perform an inventory of who had aged the better?
‘You found it okay?’ she said then laughed at herself. ‘Of course you did.’
‘It’s nice,’ he said, looking round at the mirrors and wall hangings. ‘I feel old though.’
‘Pretend we’re lecturers. Besides, it’s a mixed crowd. I’ve been here on work dos. We always have to choose somewhere where we won’t see any kids. But you’ll know all about the hazards of being recognised off duty.’
‘Kids? You’re a teacher?’
‘Head of English, I’ll have you know.’
Claire was a teacher? She seemed to read his mind.
‘I went into teaching for the same reason as most people we knew. I’d run out of options. Hanging out on the dole, doing voluntary work, trying to get taken on as a campaigner for a charity. Wanting to change the world. I thought I’d do it for a year, maybe teach abroad for VSO. I didn’t expect to fall in love.’
‘You met your husband there?’
She laughed. ‘I fell in love with teaching.’ She was disconcerting, this contented Claire.
‘Changing the world doesn’t have to be big and abstract,’ she said. ‘It can be about making one child’s life a little better, then another. And accepting that ninety-five per cent of what you do is a complete waste of time, but that small bit that filters through makes it worth it. When a kid reads a line of poetry and they see something in it that you’ve never seen before, that maybe no one else has seen, that opens up a whole new world, it’s the most magical feeling.’
It is? He didn’t say it out loud. Then he remembered Claire with her music, poring over the lyrics like there was a code there, an answer to life’s meaning, if she could only decipher it. Listening to her favourite albums over and over, in a kind of trance, and not even caring that they were on crackly home tapes.
‘Of course most of the little shits just spend the hour sexting under the desk.’
He laughed.
‘But I did fall in love,’ she said. She produced her phone with a selfie of her and a man, both in climbing gear on a mountain path, faces red from the wind, laughing. She looked incredibly happy.
‘Great Orme,’ she said. That explained the fitness. He hadn’t been able to picture Claire in the gym (he’d have pitied the machines) but he guessed a mountain could just about take the punishment. People they knew hadn’t exactly been into fitness or team sports back then, but Claire and Mark had been keen walkers and Claire used to go out with conservation volunteers when the hunt season was over. He remembered her coming home once exhausted, hands skinned and bleeding, saying she’d been learning how to build a dry-stone wall. Looking as contented as he’d ever seen her.
‘You’ll never guess, he’s an engineer!’
He laughed. What was it with engineers? It had been the last acceptable prejudice among their friends. Their conservative dress sense and strong work ethic? They had the last laugh now, ruling the world and wearing T-shirts while they did it.
‘He works for the Environment Agency. Something to do with tidal flows and flood modelling,’ she went on.
‘Kids?’ he asked.
‘No!’ she laughed. ‘But I’m happy to look at your
girls and make the obligatory noises.’
He didn’t ask how she knew about Mai and Maryam. He was used to being public property. She smiled at an image taken in their Suffolk garden last summer.
‘Haven’t we got respectable,’ said Claire. ‘And even you appear to have mastered monogamy.’
‘I was a slow learner but I got there eventually,’ he said.
The food arrived and Claire looked at him over the vine leaves and falafel and hummus and said, ‘So, I presume this is about Mark.’
He had so many questions he wanted to ask, about Sid, about what happened back then, the fire, of course, but he found himself asking, ‘Do you hate him?’
Claire appeared to consider the question while scooping up baba ghanoush with pitta. Then, as if belatedly realising she couldn’t express profound thoughts with her mouth full, she put it down.
‘I don’t think I do. Sometimes I think I should. I’ve followed all the other stories in the media, the women who were betrayed, and felt disgust, but with Mark it’s different. He didn’t use women like that. And it seems he genuinely changed his views. That was what we wanted, wasn’t it? To convince people?’
It didn’t accord with how Paolo remembered it. In theory they were equals, but he had always thought of Mark as their leader. Could he really have been swayed by them?
‘So you’re not angry.’
‘No.’
He was confused by this new serene Claire. ‘But you were angry about everything. From CIA-funded atrocities in Nicaragua to housemates leaving toast crumbs in the margarine.’
‘I still get angry.’ He thought he saw a spark, a hint of the old Claire. ‘But you have to choose your targets. The margarine thing, clearly that’s non-negotiable.’
‘I thought you of all people might feel betrayed. You were closest to him.’
‘Mark didn’t betray us in the end.’ she said. ‘He made a choice.’
The words hung between them. Finally he spoke. ‘You’re talking about the fire?’
She sat back. She looked surprised. ‘So you’ve worked it out.’
She spoke in a hushed tone, aware of the people around them. It was strange hearing Claire talk about that day in Mark’s flat. He had almost wondered if it was a dream – if the sense of dislocation from real life which he had attributed to his hangover was because the whole thing hadn’t happened at all.
‘Mark said that only two of the devices we made were viable. He asked me to keep one and said he’d have the other. Then if one of us got busted the other could still go ahead.’
‘And you found that convincing?’
‘At the time.’
‘And you didn’t think about the risk to your housemates?’
‘Why are you upset? You were one of us.’
‘Then why wasn’t I asked?’
‘You weren’t around so much then. It was when you were seeing Fiona. I wonder what happened to her, she was nice. You were sweet together.’
‘Sweet? It was just a casual thing.’
‘So you said. After she left you.’
She gave him one of those meaningful looks which reminded him of why he hated her sometimes. Like she knew something deep about him that no one else did, while in fact she was just wrong.
‘So the device was in your room –’
‘And then a few weeks later it happened. And it was gone.’
‘Who knew it was in your room?’
‘No one knew but as for who could have found it – well you know how it was back then. There’s all of us, plus all our friends, plus the random women you brought home, plus Isabel’s occasional random bloke plus we’d had that party the week before –’
‘The one where Kev snogged that Philosophy lecturer?’
‘No, that was our first party. The one where the gatecrashers came and that guy was getting heavy with that woman.’
‘Mark stepped between them and the guy punched him in the face.’
‘Yeah, then he left and the woman ran after him.’
‘And we all said Mark needed fillet steak over his eye.’
She laughed. ‘He got a real shiner, didn’t he?’
‘So when did you last see the device?’
‘I don’t know. As I remember, I pretty much put it away and forgot about it. It was probably six weeks between him giving it to me and the fire on campus.’
So that meant even more random visitors.
‘It could have been any of us,’ said Paolo. ‘He could have blamed any of us.’
‘I didn’t think it was you,’ Claire said. He felt oddly put out.
‘What about Mark?’ he said. ‘He gave you the device. He could have used it to frame you or me or any of us.’
‘But he didn’t, did he? Why set us up and then not follow through? Besides, he wouldn’t have risked that man’s life. He didn’t even eat cheese.’
‘So he said. But that was him in character. Who knows what he would have done in real life?’
‘This is his real life, isn’t it? That’s why he didn’t go back.’
There was something about her use of the present tense that gave him pause.
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Of course. He didn’t mention it?’
‘No.’
‘That’s Mark for you.’ She laughed but appeared unconcerned.
‘You don’t think that’s odd?’
‘Maybe when he was undercover he got into the habit of saying as little as possible. So he couldn’t be caught in a lie.’
‘You’re defending him?’
‘Understanding, I think.’
‘So where did you see him?’
‘I’ve been involved in an anti-fracking group. Nothing very active – it’s difficult being political when you’re a teacher, even though in theory you’re not restricted in what you can do outside school. I’m more likely to just set up a direct debit than storm the barricades these days. But I was so pissed off about the fracking thing I went out leafleting in town a few times, and one day Mark was there. I didn’t even know he was back in Leeds but apparently he’s been here for years.’
‘He suddenly appeared? Again? Just like all those other undercover cops. Just like he did at the city group.’
‘Then you could say I suddenly appeared as well. I mean, it’s different now. He lives here. He’s known to people.’
‘You seem very laid back about it,’ he said.
‘They won’t reopen the case because it would shine a light on Mark’s role.’
‘The police is not a monolithic organisation. There are people who want to keep this quiet, but there are others who want to clean house. One of them has already spoken to me.’
She looked at him for a moment, weighing this up. ‘If he’s a fearless seeker after truth then he’s not going to fit up the innocent, is he? Either way we’re fine, as long as we didn’t do it. And you didn’t, did you?’ She said it almost playfully.
‘Two people are dead,’ he said. ‘And Mark isn’t helping anyone. Not the police, not –’
‘You?’ she asked. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I thought I might get in touch with Isabel.’
‘Why?’ asked Claire. There was a sharpness to her tone. Did Isabel still matter to her, even now?
‘I think it all goes back to that time. What’s happening now.’
‘Why?’ This time with a sardonic smile. He thought of Mai during her phase of infinite ‘why’ questions, how he had thought it showed curiosity and determination, had playfully told Salma that Mai was like her mother, but she had said all children do it at a certain age.
‘An intuition,’ he said.
‘You mean you never quite got over that crush and you want to see her now, see if the spark’s still there.’
‘Not at all.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s only a spark if it’s mutual.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Isabel was never part of the animal rights
group. She thought we were absurd.’
‘She was a vegetarian.’
‘She lived on vodka and shredded tissues. It was hardly a stretch.’
‘Still,’ said Paolo. ‘She was there, but she was outside it all. Aloof. She may have seen something, had some insight, that we missed.’
She had that gently mocking smile again. ‘You’ll be contacting Graham as well then.’
Graham. He always forgot about Graham. They all did.
‘I mean,’ she said, adopting a mock-serious pose. ‘Since it all goes back to that time. He was there, but outside it all. Aloof.’
‘Well perhaps –’
Now Claire was laughing.
36
It was a different world up here, thought Paolo. Dudley’s ordered universe had a microwave and a kettle and it was the only room in the house with a TV.
Paolo and Dudley were getting mildly stoned and listening to one of Paolo’s tapes. They also had the TV on without the sound. It reminded Paolo of home a bit, the way the TV always had to be on in the living room, whatever else you were doing, but it was funny because if you really really focused it almost looked like the people on the screen were singing the words.
It was one of Paolo’s compilation tapes that was playing. He heard the opening bars of Billy Bragg’s ‘A Lover Sings’, then Dudley jumped up and pressed fast forward on the cassette-radio.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m not having that commie shite in my room.’
‘It’ a love song!’
‘I don’t care. His other songs are political. Shoving his views down people’s throats. Why can’t they just stick to singing?’
Paolo didn’t know what to say. He sometimes wondered if he and Dudley had that much in common but he wasn’t sure it was worth falling out over. Especially as Dudley was supplying the gear.
Perhaps Dudley felt the same because he got up to turn over the TV. He didn’t have a working remote for the giant box made of wood veneer. At least it was colour, and the aerial which was perched on top of it got reasonable reception since they were in the attic. Hardly anyone they knew had a telly and those that did usually had black-and-white portables with snowy, flickering images.