by Fiona Barton
“What do you mean, Barbara?” Kate said. One minute she was sipping flat Cinzano and lemonade, the next taking confession while wearing platform shoes. No one could say journalism was predictable. She waited.
“I’m just saying,” Miss Walker said, moving Shorty onto her lap.
“But you are all upset. I think you are talking about a specific person, Barbara. Are you? It might help to tell someone.”
Me, tell me, thought Kate, crossing her fingers and legs. Miss Walker closed her eyes again, but jerked them open at a sudden tinny blast of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
“Christ,” Kate said, rummaging in the bottomless pit of her handbag. “It’s my phone. I’m so sorry, Barbara.”
It took six rings to locate the phone, six rounds of the opening bars to spoil any chance of intimacy.
“Hello, Mick,” she said when she answered it. “I’m a bit busy.”
But Miss Walker was already clearing away the glasses.
“You’d better go,” she said. “You’re going to be late for your party.”
FIFTY-NINE
Kate
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
Kate found Mick leaning on the wing of her car.
“Look at you, all dolled up. On the game tonight?” he shouted as she approached.
“Shut up, Mick. What are you doing here?” she said.
“Picture desk sent me. To do pics of some reunion you’re going to. Didn’t they tell you?”
“No,” Kate said. “You’d never think we were in the communication business. Look, I’m not sure what you can do. It’s a bit of a fishing expedition. I’m going to this party to find people who were around when Alice Irving was buried. There won’t really be anything to photograph.”
“Fucking desk. It’s my day off. They never ask enough questions before they send,” Mick said, flicking away his cigarette end.
“Sorry, Mick,” she said. “Actually, you can do something. I’ve been given a photo that I need copied. Can I give it to you to do?”
He hunched his shoulders and shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
Kate was beginning to shiver with cold. She’d left her coat in the car when she’d gone into Miss Walker’s house.
“Let’s get in the car,” she said. “I can tell you about it in the warm.”
She gave him the black-and-white modeling photograph of Barbara Walker and he studied it.
“Lovely face,” he said. “Who is she?”
Kate filled Mick in on Barbara Walker, 63 Howard Street, and Al Soames as he chain-smoked, carefully holding his cigarette out of the passenger window as if it made any difference to the blue fug filling the car.
“And then there are other photos,” she said.
“Others? What—other modeling pix?”
“No, Polaroids of unconscious women—some of them young girls—that I got from Soames’s flat. I think Barbara may be among them. I haven’t got them here, but I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“Fuck. Have you told Terry yet?” he said.
“Give me a minute, Mick. This has just happened. I didn’t know I was going to meet one of Al Soames’s victims. One minute I was having my makeup done, the next this story came tumbling out. Anyway, I want to have a think about it before I tell the news desk. You know what they’re like—they’ll go full-steam ahead. I don’t know if Barbara Walker knows what happened to her. It could be devastating for her. This is going to take some very careful handling.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Poor woman.”
“I’ve got to find the other man in the photos, for a start,” she said.
She wished she still smoked.
“Go on, you get off,” she said, wafting his smoke and the temptation away from her. “I’ll talk to Terry in the morning. There’s nothing we can do tonight.”
“Okay, I’m in the office tomorrow if you need me,” he said, tossing his cigarette away.
A gaggle of aging disco divas tottered past, shrieking and clutching each other.
“Evening, ladies,” Mick called after them.
“Better go. I’m expected,” Kate said, reaching behind her for the purple felt hat.
“Go on then. Can I come? I’m a demon on the dance floor.” Mick pulled a John Travolta shape, banging his hand on the rearview mirror and swearing.
“I can see that, Mick. But I’ve already got a date. You go home and ruin your fiancée’s evening instead. How is the saintly Anna?”
He grinned. “Bearing up,” he said and flicked the brim of her hat in farewell as he got out. She waited until he had driven off before readjusting the mirror to check her face. It’d do. She looked tired.
“I’ve peaked too early,” she said out loud.
She wondered how Miss Walker was. She’d offered to stay with her for a while, but she’d been shooed towards the door.
“You get off,” Miss Walker had said. “I think I’ll shut my eyes for a while.”
“Of course. You have a rest. But I’ll call you in the morning,” Kate had said.
• • •
Come on,” she said to her reflection. Joe would be there in a minute and their job shouldn’t take long. They only had to talk to Toni’s friends and see if they could pick up some leads on who might have brought baby Alice here. “Hour, tops, and then home.”
Joe sprinted into view, running up the street to show he realized he was late. “You look like Donny Osmond in that shirt,” she said as he stood panting by the car.
“Bus got stuck in traffic and I got called an effing poofter by a drunk.”
“Never mind. I’ve had a bit of an evening, too, but let’s get in there and chat everyone up. Ready?”
He nodded and squared his shoulders.
• • •
The music almost blew her hat off as they walked through the door. Gloria Gaynor was belting out “Never Can Say Goodbye” and the Boys’ Brigade hall was heaving with sequined tube tops and unsuitable legs in short skirts. Oxfam has had a good week, she thought.
Kate looked at Joe’s stricken face and laughed. “Mum heaven,” she shouted in his ear. “You go to the bar and talk to the women there. I’ll take the dance floor.”
She sashayed into the crowd, arms raised in mock tribute to the opening bars of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” as Toni lurched towards her and enveloped her in a hug.
“This is brilliant,” Kate shouted. “Fantastic job, Toni.”
Toni gave her a double thumbs-up and screamed in her ear to follow her.
They wove their way through the dancers, avoiding flailing arms, to a table near the emergency exit.
Toni did the introductions, pointing and shouting the names: “This is Jill and Gemma.” The two brunettes bobbed their heads at her, smiling warmly. “And Sarah B. and Sarah S. and Harry.”
Kate mouthed hello to all of them. Harry raised one startled eyebrow in recognition.
“Kate’s the reason we’re all here,” Toni screeched. “She gave me the idea in the first place. Come on, it’s my favorite record. I want to dance all night.”
Four of the women jumped up to join her and Kate stayed put with Harry.
They tried to talk, but it was impossible so Harry shouted, “Ladies’ toilet?” and they trooped off.
“Meanwhile back at the youth club,” Kate said when they reached the traditional teenage sanctuary and closed the door on the music.
Harry eyed her up and down. “Why are you here?” she hissed.
“Toni invited me. You know why I’m here.”
At that moment, the cubicle door swung open, banging noisily on its hinges in time-honored fashion. A woman in a beautiful blue dress emerged and Kate looked at her closely.
SIXTY
Emma
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
Harry an
d I met at Woolwich Dockyard station and got a taxi to the venue. The Boys’ Brigade hall had stopped being new a long time ago. It looked as if it was leaning drunkenly to the left, the asbestos roof was mossy, and the paintwork was peeling.
“Can’t believe it’s still standing,” Harry said, paying the driver and leaping out. She’d gone for the glam-rock look and I’d opted for New Romantic, after looking through a box of old clothes in the loft. I found one of Jude’s old dresses with a thousand buttons—it hung off me, way too big, but I could’ve sworn I’d worn it before. I got Paul to help me. He kissed me when he’d finished and said: “You look fantastic, Em. Go and have a lovely time with the other ravers.”
“Thanks for the buttons,” I said, slipping my coat on and picking up my keys. “Don’t wait up. I’ll be late.”
“Okay, bye,” he called, switching on the television.
• • •
The disco is in full swing and the music hits me like a brick to the head so that I can’t see or hear anything for a few seconds. Harry pinches my arm to get my attention, her eyes shining. “It’s like stepping back in time,” she shouts. “But we’re legal this time. Bacardi and Coke?”
“No, Dubonnet and bitter lemon or that horrible sweet cider. I want to be able to taste it on the way back up.” We are both lighter than we have been for years, kidding around like teenagers.
Toni and her gang gather around us immediately, eager to hear where we’ve been all these years.
I’d decided beforehand what I’ll say about my life story. Keep it short and sweet, Emma, I told myself. Let’s keep the grime and degradation to a minimum. We don’t want pity. Or judgment.
And it all seems to go well. I let Harry do the talking—well, she tries, but it’s hard to make herself heard over the thunderous clamor of a hundred voices singing along to Wham!—and the girls are rapt. They keep touching us, as if we are aliens. Hilarious, really, but if I’d stayed, I might be doing the same thing. Might have been one of them. A middle-aged, restless mother with a little job at Tesco and kids who don’t ring.
Finally, we get our drinks, and when some of the others get up to dance, I try to talk to Harry but it’s hopeless and in the end I head off to the loos. I’ve often wondered why so much of my adolescence was spent in stinking public lavatories, but it all becomes clear when I get in and shut the door. It was the only place we could hear.
I go into one of the cubicles, crouching on the child-sized loo and reading the obscene messages scrawled at head height. Apparently, a girl called Maz is working her way through the ranks of the Boys’ Brigade, marking them off on the wall as if she’s a con doing time. Perhaps she is.
I store the info to tell Harry, but when I come out of the cubicle, she’s there. She’s talking to a woman I’ve never seen before. Our age, but I don’t think she’s from our school. So I decide to save Maz for later.
The woman is Kate Waters. I feel like someone has hit me in the stomach when Harry introduces her. I hear myself gasp and turn it into a cough, so she won’t know. But she is looking at me as if a spotlight has been turned on. I wait for her to expose me. Even though I know she doesn’t know my real name. My mask feels so flimsy, I can sense it slipping away. But Kate Waters shows no sign of recognition.
I try not to react when she mentions Alice Irving. Move the conversation to a safer place.
That must be interesting, being a reporter, I can hear myself saying. God, I’m so obvious. She must know. She must see right through me.
If she does, she doesn’t show it. She goes along with my little game. She is a laugh, actually—she knows all about Malcolm Baker and Sarah S. even though she’s only just met us. Toni must have told her. Funny that, a bit like me and my books. An instant expert on someone else’s life. Dangerous to think you know too much, sometimes, because who really knows someone else? You can scratch the skin, but you never get to the meat of someone else. Into their bones.
SIXTY-ONE
Kate
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
God, she’s slim, Kate thought when she saw her. Wish I could lose some weight.
“Emma,” Harry said. “I didn’t know you were in here. I was waiting for you at the table.”
“Sorry, I needed a quick pee. These long drinks go straight through you.”
“Hi, I’m Kate,” she said.
“Hi. Kate? I don’t remember a Kate in my class. Were you in the year above? Toni’s class?” Emma said.
“No, she’s a reporter,” Harry said. “Kate Waters.”
“I was talking to Toni about the Alice Irving story—the baby found in Howard Street—and she invited me to her reunion,” Kate explained.
The woman reacted to the news by avoiding eye contact.
Hiding, Kate thought. But hiding what?
“That must be interesting, being a reporter,” she said.
Kate looked at her. Classic distraction technique, she noted. She’d expected a comment or a question about Alice. That was the most interesting thing she’d said, wasn’t it? It was what everyone who lived round here was talking about. Not that she was a reporter.
“Er, yes, I get to meet all sorts of people. How about you? What do you do?”
“I’m a books editor,” she said
“Em works on celebrity memoirs,” Harry chipped in.
“Like a ghost writer?” Kate said.
“No, someone else is the ghost. I sit in my spare room and polish other people’s stories for them.”
Kate smiled. “I seem to be doing a lot of that as well. Are you sisters, then?”
Emma smiled back. “Sisters from another mother, we say.”
It was a bit of a struggle but Kate pushed on with the small talk.
“What a great job. Have you done anyone good?”
Emma listed a couple of big-name footballers and her current film star project as she rummaged in her handbag for her makeup and Kate made all the right noises.
“Must be fascinating seeing behind the public face,” she said.
“Yeah, fascinating and a bit scary at times,” Emma said.
“Scary?”
“Well, knowing what people are really like and then having to write them up as someone different. To match their public persona. It’s a bit of a responsibility when you suspect someone is a violent thug, say. Is it your lie or their lie?”
“God, that must be very difficult. Have you ever turned a commission down?”
“No, I need the money.” Emma laughed. A brittle laugh.
“Must be funny seeing all the old faces here tonight,” Kate said, moving on quickly.
“Yes, it’s been years. Decades.”
“You moved away, then?”
“Well, not far physically,” Emma said, exchanging a glance with Harry as she emerged from a cubicle, tucking her shirt in. “Our lives went in different directions, I suppose.”
“What’s it like coming back?” Kate said.
“Odd. A bit like being in a dream,” Emma said. “I look round the room and see faces I almost know. Familiar but I can’t quite place them. Then they say their name and they come back into focus. Do you know what I mean?”
Kate nodded, enchanted by the description.
“Harry persuaded me to come. She has far too much influence on me. Don’t you?”
Harry smiled at her friend. “Does you good to get out. And this is brilliant,” she said.
Kate smiled mischievously and added: “I wonder if Malcolm is here.”
Both the other women laughed.
“Bet he’s got a toupee and a gold medallion off the market,” Harry said.
“Bet he’s got a mistress and a midlife-crisis Harley,” Emma said. “Let’s go and find him, meet back here in half an hour, and report.”
Kate opened the door to let the party back in a
nd shooed them out. “See you later. Good hunting.”
SIXTY-TWO
Kate
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
She edged round the room to the bar to see how Joe was doing. He was leaning on the sticky counter, deep in mimed conversation with the barmaid, a woman in shoulder pads with too much hairspray.
“Lemonade, please,” Kate ordered, spotting a bottle behind the bar.
“Hi, Kate,” Joe mouthed, looking pleased with himself. She pointed to the exit and picked up her plastic cup to lead the way.
“How’re you doing?” she said as they perched on a low brick wall in front of the hall.
“Great, thanks. Told people I was your son.”
Kate tried not to mind. “Good thinking,” she conceded. “And?”
“Rita behind the bar has been filling me in on all the gossip.”
“Good. What’ve you got?”
“Loads on Harry. Seems that’s all anyone wants to talk about. It’s the first time anyone has seen her since she was a scruffy little troublemaker. They can’t believe she’s done so well.”
“I’ve just been chatting with her in the ladies’. Bit awkward at first but she’s relaxed. But what about the baby? Are there any rumors?”
“No, nothing about a baby. No pregnancies that ended suddenly, no married women having affairs, no whispers. Complete mystery, Rita says. I asked about Barbara Walker’s house, number 63. She said she remembered there was a lawyer living there as well. A clever woman called Jude.”
“Judith Massingham, Barbara’s housemate,” Kate said.
“And a daughter,” Joe added.
“Yes. Barbara said there was a child. But she wouldn’t have been listed on the electoral register. What did Rita say about her? Did she know her?”
“Oh, yes. Rita was at school with her. She’s here tonight. Emma, she’s called.”