by Mark Tufo
‘You lost?’
‘We’re not lost.’
‘You new?’
‘Just moved in down the road,’ she said, inadvertently giving him more information than she’d intended.
‘The grey house?’
‘Uh huh,’ she replied, not about to risk saying anything else, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. The way he looked at her... the way he kept licking his lips with his snake-like tongue...
‘You know there’s no buses Sunday afternoons?’
‘We noticed.’
‘You could walk back from here. S’not far.’
‘We know, that’s how we got here,’ Michelle said, trying not to laugh. ‘We were just getting a little air. Getting to know the area.’
‘I’ll give you a lift. Plenty of room,’ he said and he leant across and opened the passenger door. The worn velour seat would have looked just as uninviting had she known him. Now she was really starting to feel uncomfortable.
‘No, thank you,’ she said firmly. ‘Honestly, we’re fine.’
‘Ah, go on. I’ve always plenty of space for two lovely ladies. You’re not out my way. Last chance...?’
‘We’re okay, thanks,’ Michelle told him.
The man in the car nodded, pulled the door shut again, then put his foot down and disappeared in a cloud of gravel and dust. She might have been impressed, she thought, had she been Tammy’s age and it had still been nineteen eighty-nine.
Chapter 52
By mid-evening the tension in the house had reduced to a slightly more bearable level. Michelle had been working in the living room for the last hour or so, arranging the little furniture they had and leaving spaces for the rest of their belongings to be slotted in tomorrow once the removal van had been and gone. George was in bed, Phoebe had crashed out on a beanbag with her face buried in a book, and Tammy was sitting on an inherited sofa which, Michelle hoped, would be dumped outside by this time tomorrow. Scott was messing with the TV, had been for a while. He’d just about managed to get a decent signal. The picture was occasionally distorted by bursts of blocky digital static but, on the whole, it was watchable.
‘Can’t we get Sky?’ Phoebe asked, not looking up.
‘We can’t afford it,’ Michelle said quickly, hoping to nip the conversation in the bud before anyone could get any other ideas. She failed.
‘I’ll ask in town tomorrow,’ Scott said.
‘Just the basic package if we do. That’s all we need,’ Michelle warned.
‘And the sports channels.’
‘You had all those extra channels in Redditch and no one ever watched them.’
‘I never had time back in Redditch. Anyway, I need to get the Internet sorted and the phone. Might as well get a bundle. It’ll work out cheaper that way.’
‘There’s a free version, isn’t there?’ Tammy said. ‘Hannah had something. Freesat, I think it was called. You have a dish and a box, but you only get the free channels.’
‘Might be worth looking into?’ Michelle said.
‘Can’t get the sports channels,’ Scott said, still messing with the TV. ‘Not worth it if you can’t get the sports channels.’
‘Can you even get satellite TV out here? Isn’t it a bit remote?’
Phoebe put down her book and sighed. ‘We’re in Scotland, Mum, not on Mars. What, do you think satellites don’t fly over here?’
‘Haven’t really thought much about it.’
Phoebe looked back down, then back up again. ‘You know what, I actually think this place is going to be all right,’ she said, surprising the rest of them. They all looked at her, as if demanding an explanation. ‘I’m serious. I mean, it’s not like being home, but I think we’ll get used to it.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Tammy grumbled.
‘Good for you, Pheeb,’ Michelle said. ‘It’s nice to hear someone being so positive. We need a bit of positivity around here.’
‘We need a lot of positivity,’ Scott agreed.
Nauseated by the sudden abundance of forced positive vibes, Tammy turned up the TV. It was the usual Sunday night shite they were watching, but it was a welcome distraction nonetheless. Without the Internet or a reliable phone signal, the TV felt like the only tenable connection she still had with the world she’d been forced to leave behind. Strange how reassuring it was seeing adverts she’d seen a hundred times before, and listening to theme tunes she knew note for note. Strange also how jarring it was when things weren’t as she’d expected. When the national news bulletin ended and the announcer handed over to regional newsrooms, the graphics and theme music seemed all wrong – almost like what she remembered, but not quite. This programme was Scotland Tonight, not Midlands Today, and it would take some getting used to. The presenter’s face was unfamiliar, she’d never heard of any of the place names, and the woman’s accent was all wrong... Tammy stopped listening and thought about home again, no longer paying attention.
‘That’s horrible,’ Michelle said. ‘Absolutely horrible.’
‘What is?’
Michelle nodded at the TV. ‘They found a body.’
The picture threatened to break up again, then steadied. On the screen Tammy saw an area of woodland, criss-crossed with police ‘do not cross’ tape. There was a white forensic tent in the middle of the space. It reminded her of the gazebo Dad used to put up in the garden when he did barbeques before he and Mum split up. Officers in all-in-one white forensics romper suits worked around the scene.
‘What happened?’
‘Some poor woman,’ Michelle said. ‘Murdered.’
‘So they found her, then,’ Scott said. ‘We saw them out looking yesterday afternoon, remember?’
The TV cut to a reporter loitering on the public side of the police cordon, the tent visible over his shoulder. ‘The body was found late last night by a security guard. Cause of death has yet to be established, although we understand the woman may have been the victim of a sexually-motivated attack. An eye-witness described the body as being in a state of partial undress and having been badly mutilated. Falrigg is popular with fell runners and walkers and police are appealing for anyone who might have been in the area over the course of the last twenty-four hours to come forward. Formal identification of the body has not yet been made, and police have so far refused to comment on any links with the disappearance of Joan Lummock. Mrs Lummock of Glennaird has been missing since Thursday evening.’
‘Nice,’ Phoebe said. ‘Is that far from here?’
‘It’s about a twenty minute drive,’ Scott said. Michelle looked at him and he felt compelled to explain. ‘The tip’s not far from there, if I’m thinking of the right place.’
‘Lovely area you’ve brought us to, Scott,’ Tammy said, goading for a fight.
‘Come on,’ he protested, ‘it’s not like there were never any murders in the Midlands.’
‘Ignore her, she’s just cranky,’ Michelle said.
‘Damn right I’m cranky.’
‘Shouldn’t you girls be going to bed?’ he said. ‘Big day tomorrow. First day at your new school.’
‘I’m sixteen, Scott, not six,’ she reminded him. She changed the TV channel, then looked across at him. ‘Sorry, were you watching that?’
‘Ah, you’re fine,’ he said, and he got up and walked away. Tammy was past caring anyway. She scrolled through the limited channels until she found something completely dumb and inoffensive, and she switched off her brain and soaked it up.
Chapter 53
The morning arrived too soon. ‘Stop treating me like a little kid,’ Tammy complained as they drove up the high street towards school.
‘I’m not,’ Scott said. ‘I’m just checking you’ve got everything, that’s all.’
‘It’s not like we’ve never been to school before,’ Phoebe grumbled from the back. ‘Just not this school.’
‘Can’t you just drop us here?’ Tammy asked. ‘We’ll follow the other kids.’
‘I told your mum I’d
take you all the way to the gates, so that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘Jesus, don’t. Just stop on the other side of the road or something. Don’t take us right up to the gates.’
She looked across and he caught her eye. He’s actually enjoying this. He stopped just short of the entrance to the school in the worst possible place. Hordes of kids swarmed past on either side. Tammy got out fast and slammed the door. Phoebe scrambled out after her, running to catch up. Tammy froze when she heard the car horn. Phoebe started to turn back, but Tammy grabbed her quick. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘He’s just winding us up.’
‘Have a good first day, girls,’ they heard him shout. ‘Stay safe and be good!’
‘He’s such a prick,’ Tammy said, her face red with anger and embarrassment.
They followed the signs for Reception, sticking close to each other as they walked towards the main building, trying to avoid all eye contact. It was a walk of shame, everyone else stopping and looking at them, staring at them.
‘It’s like that horrible TV programme Dad used to watch, remember?’ Phoebe whispered.
‘Which one?’
‘The one with the local shop for local people. You remember? The freak behind the counter who was married to his sister, and they were all played by the same blokes.’
‘I remember. League of Gentlemen. Didn’t like it.’
She was right though. Walking through the crowds this morning, Tammy felt like a social outcast. The kids seemed to part when they got close, like they didn’t want to touch them. The feeling was mutual.
‘There’s that boy,’ Phoebe said.
‘What boy?’
‘From outside the shop yesterday. Jamie, wasn’t it?’
Tammy looked up but looked down again the moment she made eye contact. Boy was definitely the right word. He’d looked quite mature when they’d seen him yesterday, but standing there in his school uniform, he looked like just another kid playing at being a man. She kept her head down, but Jamie had other ideas, making a beeline for her. ‘Hello again,’ he said. Tammy ignored him. She didn’t want to get overfamiliar with any of these kids. In fact, she didn’t want to get familiar at all.
‘Which way’s Reception?’ she asked, no time for small-talk.
‘You’ve missed it.’
‘Which way?’
‘Go back the way you just came. First left.’
Tammy turned around and pulled Phoebe back through the heaving crowds. ‘That was a bit rude,’ Phoebe said.
‘You’re welcome,’ Jamie shouted. ‘Have a good day now.’
The corridor looked the same both ways. It was a long, symmetrical straight line with a set of identical double doors at either end. It didn’t feel right. Hell, it didn’t even smell right. Tammy couldn’t ever remember feeling so out of place.
They missed the turn again, but found it on their third pass. Once they’d introduced themselves to the lady on the reception desk they, in turn, were introduced to the principal, to a couple more teachers who just happened to be passing, and then to Mr Renner, the school’s one man pastoral team. Mr Renner gave them an embarrassingly brief tour of the school’s facilities, then delivered them to their respective form tutors. Tammy looked over her shoulder as they were led off in opposite directions along the front corridor, watching her little sister disappear.
He’d never have admitted it, but Scott thought he was probably as nervous as the kids. After dropping them at school he’d driven back into Thussock to look for work. It was going to be no easy task, that much was clear. The brewery was laying off staff, not taking on, and though they told him he could try again in a month or so, the fracking company were only looking for engineers and specialists at the moment. Thussock didn’t even have a job centre, it seemed. How was he supposed to find a job if the damn place didn’t even have a bloody job centre? He toyed with the idea of driving to the next town, but it was too far and there didn’t seem a lot of point. It would have been a hell of a commute if he’d found work there, and it would probably only have been financially viable if he’d managed to get a job requiring far more responsibility and commitment than he was prepared to give. He wanted something quick and easy: enough to put food on the table and still give him the funds and flexibility he needed to start work on the house, because the sooner he started working on the house, the sooner he’d be back on his feet again.
He parked up near the half-empty retail development they’d visited yesterday. He could see that crazy Graham guy, struggling to keep a snaking chain of shopping trolleys under control, and he thought to himself, if a weird fucker like that can get a job here, surely I shouldn’t have any trouble?
Fuck it. There was nothing left for it. He was going to have to go door to door (if he could find any doors still open) and see if he could find anything that way. Chances were slim, but it was worth a try. And while he was there, he thought, he could try and find someone to talk to about getting Sky installed.
Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing.
He went into a few places and looked through the windows of others, but no one had anything. The library didn’t open until later, and the lady manning the tourist information kiosk had plenty of ideas of places to try outside Thussock, but next to nothing in the town itself. Scott stood outside the Black Boy pub, wishing it was a few hours later. He’d have propped up the bar for a while if it had been open. Pulling pints wasn’t beneath him, and even if the landlord didn’t have any work available, there was a chance he might know someone who did.
Christ, job hunting was tedious. His heart really wasn’t in it. He wanted to work for himself again, to be his own boss and not have to answer to anyone else. It would be a while before that happened.
It was too soon to give up and go home, so Scott kept walking. Without the distraction of his family – their constant bickering and complaints – he saw more of Thussock this morning, things he’d missed previously. There was a small police station opposite the pub, a branch of a Scottish bank he’d never even heard of, and a betting shop that looked busier than pretty much everywhere else. A little further and he’d reached the bridge over the river. He stopped, leant over the balustrade, and peered down into the murky waters.
‘Don’t do it, son,’ a man shouted, grabbing Scott’s back and scaring the hell out of him.
‘Wasn’t planning on it,’ he said quickly as the elderly gent walked on, laughing with his mates.
Scott realised he was almost back at the school. Bloody hell, he was rapidly running out of town. He thought about going down to the rail station, figuring that if he was going to have to commute, maybe public transport would be a better option. It wasn’t what he wanted, but if there were no jobs here, what else could he do? Surely there’d be work in Edinburgh or Glasgow or somewhere between?
He stopped to cross a narrow side street, and had to pull himself back quick when a dusty builder’s merchant’s truck thundered past and swerved out onto the main road. He looked down the street to check there was nothing else coming and saw a sign on the fence the same as the logo on the side of the truck that had almost hit him. Walpoles. Strange name, he thought. The sign might as well have said ‘Welcome to Dodge’, because it looked pretty desolate down there. Less the Wild West, he thought, more like the Numb North, and he laughed at his own pathetic joke as he followed the track down into a decent-sized builders yard. Scott thought this place looked slightly more promising. The familiarity of bricks, tiles, cement and sand was welcome and, if nothing else, he figured he might be able to price up the materials he needed for the kitchen wall. The sooner he made a start on that the better. He’d heard what Michelle had said yesterday, but she was looking at it all wrong as she so often did. And if he couldn’t find work, which seemed increasingly likely, then wasn’t this the perfect time to get done everything that needed doing to the house?
Walpoles looked like a typical builder’s merchant’s place: a dustbowl of a yard with pallets of bricks, slabs, joists a
nd various other mounds of material dotted all around. It looked scruffy and rough, as behind the times as the rest of Thussock, but it reminded him of the work he used to do and the business he’d built up from nothing then lost. Three hundred and fifty miles away from home he might well have been, but a brick was a brick wherever you found it.
He couldn’t see any prices. He walked over to a pallet loaded with sacks of plaster, the whole thing still wrapped in plastic like it had just been delivered. ‘Help you there?’ a gruff, barely understandable voice asked. Scott turned around and saw a short, stocky, balding man standing behind him. He wore a grubby blue polo shirt with the ‘W’ from Walpoles embroidered on the breast pocket.
‘Just looking, thanks.’
‘Not the kind of place folks usually browse, this,’ the man said, and Scott thought he should explain.
‘Just pricing up. I’ve bought a house not far outside town. Got a few alterations planned.’
‘You in the trade?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I was,’ he answered, ‘until I moved up here.’
‘You in the grey house?’
‘Haven’t heard it called that before, but yes, it’s grey. Needs a lick of paint.’
‘On the road into Thussock.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Willy McCunnie’s old place.’
‘Was it?’
‘Aye. Poor old Willy. Terrible, that was...’
Scott paused, uneasy. ‘You sound like you know something I don’t. You gonna tell me a horror story or something? Something bad happen there?’
‘Not that I know of. Lovely guy, Willy.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He died.’
‘Oh.’
‘Ninety-two he was.’
‘Oh,’ Scott said again.
‘Cancer.’