by Tim Lebbon
This encouraged her to develop her own ideas, and lecturing would give her ample opportunity to continue her research, publish papers, and perhaps even write books. Most people would kill to be in her position. For that matter, in the pages of the books and the files of printed materials that constantly covered the dining table, there were people who had killed. The very idea made her eager to get started.
“Delightful.”
That was the word Vince used to describe her fascination with criminology. You’re delightful, he’d say when she relayed the story of a particular murder, or read the description of a gang attack, or a riot that had resulted in death and destruction. He didn’t mean it in a purely ironic way, either. He loved her complexity, and loved even more the way he couldn’t quite understand these aspects of her character.
His idea of a relaxing night in was feet up watching a movie.
Hers was sitting in the bath with a glass of Pinot and a book about subcultures, deviancy, and messiah complexes. So many people spent their lives trying to discover what made a mind work. Her interest lay in what made a mind tick in all the wrong ways. Evil people fascinated her.
Some days she spent the whole morning just getting ready to work. Pacing the apartment, making endless cups of tea, changing into comfortable clothing, slipping along to the corner shop to buy a pack of biscuits, reading, swapping texts with Vince or Lucy or her mom or dad in Boston, tending her orchids.
Leaning on the kitchen sink and staring out over their small garden and the backs of the terraced houses in the next street, she’d agonise over the wasted time but also knew that it was simply her way of working. She’d eat lunch and have a productive afternoon, so embroiled in whatever task she’d set herself—to write a thousand words, or research and make notes on a particular chapter—that she’d barely notice the time flashing past.
Other days, like today, her passion was aflame, and she was into it from the first moment. She drifted away from the world and even turned her phone off, because the ping of a text would bring her back to safe, boring reality.
All morning she sat at the dining table, laptop open and research materials spread across the surface. Her current chapter played social class against environment and desire in juvenile delinquency, discussing whether gang culture and criminal intent arose more from the simple need and desire for money, or was rooted in the social structure. In effect, nature versus nurture. There were good arguments for both, and Angela was forming the data that would lead her to her own conclusion.
As yet she didn’t know what that conclusion might be, and that was the most exciting aspect to what she did. She was constructing theories and personal opinions as she went. Expanding her mind. So many people of her age had already stagnated, but she was still growing.
She broke off only to make tea or visit the bathroom. Now and then she changed albums on her phone to add background noise. She barely even noticed the music, but she had never enjoyed working in complete silence.
By the time she surfaced and glanced at the clock it was almost 1:00 P.M., and she’d be late meeting Lucy for lunch.
“Shit!” She stood and snatched up her phone, turning it on and leaving it to power up while she slipped on her boots and a light overshirt. Opening the back door she breathed in the daylight. It was warm, but not too hot. The row of gardens backing onto each other were relatively quiet, only the soft grizzling of a distant baby disturbing the peace. Beyond the terraces, traffic rumbled along streets, but this enclosed space felt private and isolated, an island in the middle of the city.
Something bothered her, though…
It took her a while to figure out what it was.
No pings, she thought, and she went back inside to check her phone.
Vince always messaged her before lunch. Every day, like clockwork. He knew he wouldn’t always get a reply, but that never stopped him.
Today there was nothing.
“Huh,” she said. Oh well. Perhaps he had a busy day. She sent him a quick text.
All good? Been working hard today. Fancy a drink at The Bear later?
She put the phone in her pocket, pulled the door shut behind her. Stepping past the tiny front garden she turned and walked briskly along the street, passing neighbours whose names she didn’t know, offering smiles and sometimes receiving one in return. There was a dead pigeon on the road, a fresh kill flattened by vehicles, soft feathers stuck to bloody marks along the middle of the road.
A crow pecked at the mess.
* * *
“Sorry,” she said quickly as she arrived at Merton’s. Lucy had taken an outside pavement table so she could smoke, and she smiled up at her friend. Shorter than Angela, slinky and athletic and—Vince assured her—extremely hot, Lucy had been her friend since travelling to Tufts University on a lecturing exchange five years before. Angela had been in the second year of her degree, and the two of them had hit it off and remained in touch ever since. They’d ended up living and working close enough in London to be able to see each other frequently. It almost made Angela believe in Fate.
“Your gangs get you?” Lucy asked.
“Totally in their grasp.”
“Weirdo. Punishment will be severe.”
“Lunch on me,” Angela said.
“Good enough. I’ve already ordered… hope you don’t mind? Got to get back on time today.”
“No problem.” Angela sat, and moments later two cappuccinos were placed before them. They drifted into the sort of casual, unimportant chat that easily filled an hour but would mostly be forgotten come evening. It was the comfortable talk of friends who knew each other very well.
Angela welcomed it. Sometimes her research drew a dark, heavy veil across her mind, especially after an immersive morning such as this one. Reading account after account of youth gangs and extremes of juvenile crime—at times it got to her. She did her best to keep it from Vince, though she wasn’t really sure why. He supported her in everything she did, was there for her if she needed him, but for some reason, when her work depressed or disturbed her she didn’t want him to know. She didn’t want her research to come between them.
Somehow Lucy always made that dark veil disappear.
Yet all through lunch Angela glanced at her phone. The screen remained locked. No messages came in, and that was odd. She wanted to send Vince another text, but she couldn’t do it while she was sitting here with Lucy. Though her friend always seemed to have her own phone surgically attached to her hand, Angela always berated her about it.
If she broke her own rule, Lucy would never let her forget it.
“So I’m thinking France this year instead, but Max is a pain in the ass and says he doesn’t want to go anywhere they eat molluscs that don’t come from the sea. What’s that about? What a tit. Still, I’ve always fancied Brittany, what do you think?”
“It’s lovely there,” Angela said, nodding. She’d finished her food and was halfway through a second cup of coffee, content to listen, throwing in an occasional comment. Lucy seemed to be having an argument with her husband while he wasn’t even there, and it was diverting, amusing, almost sweet. They were the most loving of couples, destined by cruel fate to never have children but still as open and giving as anyone Angela knew.
“Yeah, right, that’s just what I said to him, you can’t judge a country by what the people there eat, and if you don’t want to eat something you don’t have to, right? So anyway, I’m just going to book it without telling him, maybe go out for a meal next weekend and spring it on him, see if—”
Angela’s phone pinged, and she snatched it from the tabletop, knocking her cup and spilling coffee onto the wooden surface.
“Woah, you on a promise?” Lucy asked.
The text was from her phone provider, offering her a new phone. Something inside her sank.
“What?” Lucy noticed her expression.
“Haven’t heard from Vince today, that’s all.”
“And?”
Angela shrugged. And? May
be he was just super-busy, or stuck somewhere with no reception.
“You look worried.”
“Yeah,” Angela admitted. Voicing her concern made it real.
“Maybe he’s got no signal, or his battery’s dead.”
“Right, that’s what I’ve been thinking.” She tapped her phone, willing the screen to light up. Her research gave her insights into darker, grimmer aspects of modern life, and her imagination sometimes went into overdrive. Vince not texting her didn’t mean he was lying dead in an alley somewhere.
It really didn’t.
“What is it he does again?” Lucy had asked maybe a dozen times before. Angela always gave the same answer, and wondered why she never seemed to remember.
Maybe it’s just too boring, she mused. “He works for a property firm, assessing the rentability of private and commercial properties around the city.”
“Right,” Lucy said. “Yeah.” She looked at her own screen as she replied, thumb stroking, light reflected in her eyes.
Angela checked her messages one more time and scanned for missed calls. Made sure the volume was up, even though she’d just heard it.
“So are you guys always in touch?” Lucy asked, smiling coyly.
“Most of the time. Just texts through the day, usually. You know.”
“Young love.”
“I’m older than you!”
“Yeah, but me and Max have been together over ten years. You’re still in that can’t-be-without-you, get-home-and-shag-on-the-floor-before-the-front-door’s-closed part of your relationship.”
“Hey, now,” Angela said, and she felt some of the tension lifting. “We’ve never done it with the front door open.”
A raised eyebrow.
“Honest!”
Lucy tilted her head.
“Okay. Maybe on the floor behind the front door. Sure.”
“Lucky bitch. I usually have to get Max drunk. If it’s a choice of me or Match of the Day…” Lucy used her hands as imaginary scales, laughing. She glanced at her watch, then waved at the waiter. “I’ve gotta dash! Why not just give him a ring?”
“Maybe,” Angela said. “I told you, I’ve got the bill. I’m going to stay and do a bit of reading.”
“The hard life of a mature student.”
“Damn right. I see a chocolate cake in my future.”
“Fat and ugly.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Angela stood and hugged her friend. Lucy pulled back to look at her.
“You’re really worried,” she said.
“I can’t help it,” Angela said, trying to laugh away her concern. But the laugh caught in her throat.
“Want me to do anything? Drive you to his office or something?”
Angela knew that Lucy had to get back to work. She smiled and shook her head, pecked her friend on the cheek. “Chocolate cake,” she said again, smiling.
“Lucky bitch.” Lucy dashed away, pausing along the sidewalk and turning, hand at her ear. “Call me?”If you need help, she meant. If you want to talk.
Angela smiled and waved her friend away. She was glad to have her, and watching Lucy leave somehow made her calmer. She knew that good people had her back. After she paid the bill and said she’d be staying for a while, she took out her book, stretched her legs, leaned back, and opened to her current page.
Then she picked up the phone and dialed Vince’s number. It rang, and rang, and eventually went to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said. “Just wondering how your day’s going, haven’t heard from you today.” A police car flew past at the end of the road, siren screaming. The familiar London concerto. “I’m having coffee in the metropolis, just ate lunch with Lucy, she sends her love. Call me or text, yeah? See you later. Love you.” She disconnected and placed the phone on the table so she could see the screen.
Even though she started reading, nothing registered because she expected Vince to call back at any moment. She rarely rang him during the workday unless it was something important, and she knew he’d sense her disquiet.
But what was there to be worried about?
She was just troubling herself over nothing. He had a busy day, that was all, and maybe he was stuck in some high-powered meeting with a property developer or planning officer, or whoever else he had to deal with. In truth, even she wasn’t sure what he did all day. He didn’t talk about work that much, and when he did it was with a distracted air. He didn’t like bringing work home, he said, because home was for the two of them.
She tried reading for half an hour, then ordered a cup of tea and some cake.
Her phone was silent.
Angela watched pedestrians passing by. She loved people-watching, and enjoyed trying to tell their stories from what they wore, how they walked, whether they smiled or frowned, whether they saw themselves as a part of the world or apart from it. This man walked quickly, half-smiling, perhaps on his way to an illicit lunchtime meeting. That woman’s distracted air might be concern for a sick relative. He wore clothes too large for him, perhaps from a charity shop. She was trying to cover a tattoo on her forearm.
Sometimes she and Vince would make up a story about someone sitting at the next table or working in a nearby shop, but their combined tales would always expand into the ridiculous. Alone, Angela tried to discern the truth, because separating truth from fantasy was an integral part of her work.
“Damn it, Vince.” She texted him again—terser this time, shorter, demanding a response. When she looked up she locked eyes with someone across the street. The woman held her gaze for just a little too long before looking away and disappearing behind a parked van.
She had yellow eyes.
Angela caught her breath. That was weird. People in London kept to themselves, and the woman’s brief stare made her uncomfortable. Yellow eyes? Really? She waited for her to appear around the other side of the van, but when the vehicle pulled away to reveal no one there, Angela frowned.
“Ducked into a shop,” she muttered, but the awkwardness of that swapped glance stirred her from her seat, and she decided to walk home.
It was almost three in the afternoon. Maybe when she arrived home Vince would already be there.
* * *
Angela sat in the back garden for the remainder of that afternoon. She’d tried briefly to work on her thesis, but failed, and she shoved aside the guilt as she closed her books and poured a glass of wine. At least she’d made some progress that morning.
Something was wrong.
Vince often told her that he wished he was like her—calm, laid-back, not rattled by anything. She wasn’t a worrier. She let life roll by and rode the waves. But now something had changed, and she wished she could place what it was.
Maybe his battery’s just run down, Lucy had suggested. Angela tried to grab onto that idea, because it made some sense. Her texts would still show up on her phone as “sent.” But Vince always, always charged his phone before going to bed, and she’d seen him check it before he left that morning.
London sounds rolled across the garden. There were more than twenty gardens set in two rows, backing onto each other with no pathway in between. The two long terraces were enclosed at both ends, blocked by two more houses, and as far as she knew there was no access to the large garden area other than through the buildings. Most people grew large shrubs or small trees around their plot’s perimeter, forming a sort of urban forest landscape, and the sounds that did intrude from beyond were distant and faint. A siren, perhaps, or sometimes the drone of a plane passing high overhead.
From the buildings came the cries of babies, chattering of children, the buzz of television sets, occasional raised voices, music, and during the weekend the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter. Considering they were packed so close together, she hardly ever saw any neighbours, and the couple upstairs never seemed to take advantage of the garden they shared. The plot was large enough for some patio furniture, a barbecue, and a few plant pots.
She and Vince had made love out there once, lit only by starlight, the danger of being seen a delicious thrill. They had argued out there, too. Raised voices, then an uncomfortable silence. Sometimes they sat together and read, a bottle of wine on the table between them.
She wished for any of those things now.
Angela caught her breath, remembering something.
She stood quickly, went inside, and started searching through her handbag for her notebook. She’d written down his workplace number a while ago, though she’d never before had cause to call his firm. He was always available on his mobile, and he’d told her it was best not to call him at the office.
Screw that.
“For fuck’s sake, Vince,” she said as she rooted through her handbag. This was stupid! When he came home he’d take the piss at how touchy she was, and ask her why.
The phone pinged and her heart leapt.
Heard from Vince?
Lucy had texted. It was almost 5 P.M.
Pulling out the notebook, she scanned through it, found the number of his firm, and dialed. A woman answered.
“Anders and Milligan.”
“Hi, is Vince there please?”
“No, I’m afraid he hasn’t been in the office this afternoon. Who’s calling?”
“Angela.”
“Angela who?”
“His girlfriend. So have you seen him today?”
“Oh, hi! Yes, I saw him this morning, he had a quick meeting in the office then said he… er.”
“He what?”
“He said he had the afternoon off.”
“Right,” Angela said, frowning. “Anything else?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry.”
“Could you tell him I’m looking for him, if he does come back to the office?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.” Angela hung up. She thinks he’s fucking someone else, she thought. Whoever the woman on the other end of the phone had been, she’d immediately been thrown when Angela said who she was.
But no. She didn’t believe it for a moment.
She paced the apartment for a few minutes, wondering what to do and who to call, and the third time along the hallway she saw that the postman had been there. She ignored the mail and strolled into their living room, looking at the three rare orchids she was growing and tending right now, trying to take comfort from their beauty and unique perfection. One of the plants had cost her almost fifty pounds. She’d thought Vince would object, but he seemed to accept her strange little hobby.