In the last week, however, things had taken a slight turn for the better — at least they might do soon, if she could only ignore two small facts: firstly, that she and Louise seemed to have little in common, and secondly that they’d allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into their tentative friendship. With hindsight it was glaringly obvious that the whole encounter had been choreographed by the bossy midwife, which didn’t seem like a satisfactory foundation for a lasting bond. Granted, she and Louise did have one piece of common ground, as outsiders; Millie as a policewoman and Louise, well . . . for lots of reasons that were becoming increasingly apparent.
Millie had been sitting alone in the waiting room at the health centre when Louise had come in and, ignoring the rows of empty seats, had chosen to take the one right next to her. Millie’s instant and uncharitable thought was that this might be ‘nutter on the bus’ syndrome, as Louise was rather eccentrically dressed in what looked like an oversized farmer’s smock over pantaloons in shades of dark pink and purple. For a few minutes the two women had sat silently side by side, until Millie, sensing a growing awkwardness, had ventured the first words. Even those had got them off to a rocky start. ‘He’s a smiley little chap,’ she said of the woman’s baby, dressed all in blue.
‘Actually she’s a girl. Abigail.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Millie pulled her face into what she hoped was a comic grimace. ‘I’m a bit new to all this. I’m Millie,’ she indicated the pushchair, ‘and this is Haroon. He was born four weeks ago, so now I’m a stay-at-home mum.’
The woman managed a smile. ‘Louise,’ she said, simply.
Millie would probably have left it there, except that Shona, the health visitor, chose that moment to bustle in and must have noticed the last brief seconds of eye contact. ‘Great,’ she beamed. ‘You two are starting to get to know each other. How about a nice cup of tea when you’re done here? You only live down the road there, Mrs Khatoon. And company is just what our Abigail needs, don’t you, darlin’?’
Millie glanced at Louise for signs that she too felt that she was being handled, but the expression on the woman’s face was more like relief. ‘That would be lovely,’ Louise said, smiling properly for the first time and leaving Millie with little choice in the matter.
‘You’d be doing me a favour,’ she conceded graciously. ‘I’ll start to go mad if I have to spend much more time with only Haroon for conversation.’
When it was Haroon’s turn to be weighed in the health visitor’s office, Shona pressed home her point. ‘Don’t let her off the hook,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘It will do Louise good to get out and about a bit. She’s a quiet one and I think she’s already feeling a bit of the baby blues. Abigail had a suspected heart murmur when she was born, so they’ve had a lot to cope with.’
An hour later, Millie was welcoming Louise and Abigail into her home and filling the kettle to make tea.
‘I love your house, it’s so cosy.’
‘Untidy, you mean,’ said Millie, cheerfully, at the same time wishing she’d had the foresight to at least tidy up a bit before she’d set out that morning.
‘No! It’s welcoming. And homely,’ Louise said, casting rather a dubious eye over the pile of un-ironed washing and yet-to-be sorted junk mail. That had been ten days ago and since then Louise had been back to Millie’s house on two further occasions, though the invitation had not yet been reciprocated.
The excitement past, Millie looked out over the darkened rooftops towards the slight incline of rolling treetops that marked out where Louise lived. About half a mile away, Louise’s house was significantly bigger than most of the properties around here and on a small private estate of about a dozen houses, set back behind wrought-iron railings and wide gates. When she’d found this out, Millie had got Suli to drive them past on the way back from his mum’s. It was like a different neighbourhood altogether and made Millie wonder why Louise would want to slum it round at hers. Millie hoped that baby Abigail was sleeping through. Though not quite sure why, Millie instinctively knew that a crying baby in the middle of the night would be unlikely to improve her new friend’s quality of life.
Chapter Four
After a couple of hours of restless sleep, Mariner was woken by the thudding against Jamie’s bedroom door that signalled he was awake. Twenty past six was not bad going. Automatically reaching for his phone, Mariner checked for messages, but he had none. If there had been a breakthrough someone would have called him and he hadn’t really been expecting one anyway, but even so, he felt slightly let down. Thud, thud, thud. Mariner pushed off the duvet and got out of bed.
Twenty minutes later he and Jamie were pounding along the canal towpath, coming to the end of a two-mile run and breathing easily. It was a crisp, clear morning, the sun beginning to break through the trees and sparkle off the water. On his first morning at what was the former lock-keeper’s cottage, Jamie had been like a caged animal, pacing the rooms and literally bouncing off the walls. Only too aware of the stretch of deep water that was the Worcester and Birmingham canal six feet from his back door, Mariner had deliberately taken him out through the front and into the park beyond. He’d intended on a brisk walk, but Jamie had set off at a run, forcing Mariner to keep up with him. Now, having gradually acclimatised him, their routine most mornings was to run a couple of circuits of the playing fields and, if the weather was OK, to extend it along the canal as far as the Wast Hills tunnel, with a longer walk at the weekend. For years Mariner had detested running, considering it an assault on the body’s natural functioning. He had always been lean, but what with the running and their occasional weekend swim, he was developing the kind of stamina and muscle definition that would impress any woman. Just a shame the only woman likely to be impressed was a hundred miles away.
It had been a bolt from the blue for Mariner to learn just a few months ago that he was still the guardian for his late ex-partner Anna’s disabled brother. He’d wondered since if the shock of it had skewed his judgement. It had been an impulsive decision to uproot Jamie from the residential facility in Wales where he’d been living, and even now Mariner couldn’t completely rationalise why he’d done it, except that on his brief visit to the Towyn community, there were aspects of the place that had made him uneasy: Jamie’s dishevelled appearance, the neglected buildings and the casual attitude of the staff to name but a few. He’d kept a watchful eye on the headlines since to see if his misgivings about the place would be justified, but so far they hadn’t been. At the time it had seemed like the only way of keeping Jamie safe was to have the severely autistic man come to live with him and Mariner had acted immediately, bringing Jamie back to Birmingham there and then.
Within twenty-four hours the foolishness of that decision had become glaringly apparent and now Mariner lived daily with the consequences. In the early days of Mariner’s relationship with Anna, Jamie had moved residential accommodation more than once, seemingly with ease. But that was before local authority cutbacks, and Mariner had been ill-prepared for how much the picture had changed. A couple of abortive phone calls to the relevant council department and more hours surfing the internet looking at private organisations, had brought reality crashing in. His current care arrangements, stretched between the local authority day centre and Mercy, were as precarious as a spider’s web that could be snapped in an instant by any additional strain, and the tension between fulfilling his responsibility and earning his salary was thrown daily into sharp relief. But despite all that, deep down, Mariner’s gut still told him that this had been the right thing to do.
The other advantage of starting each day with a run, Mariner found, was that Jamie was much more co-operative with going in the shower and the laborious prompt-and-reward routine of getting him dressed afterwards. The prize at the end was to watch a recording of whatever was his current favourite TV show, at the moment the aptly named Pointless.
Opening the fridge door for breakfast, Mariner knew that it would be in a sorry state. Sunda
y morning also meant the supermarket shop. One of Jamie’s least favourite activities, it had to be undertaken when things were relatively quiet. It was amazing how quickly Mariner was beginning to fall into Jamie’s strict routines. Anna, Jamie’s sister, had hated the repetitiveness but Mariner was finding he didn’t mind it that much at all. He told himself that somehow it was a natural compensation for the unpredictable nature of his day job. Anna would have thought differently. It’s because you’re probably autistic too, she’d have said.
‘Very-well-done-if-you-got-any-of-those-at-home,’ Jamie chorused, in unison with the presenter as the programme came to an end for the umpteenth time.
Mariner passed him his breakfast toast (thin smear of honey, no butter). ‘Thank you,’ he prompted.
‘’K you,’ Jamie echoed back meaninglessly, eyes still fixed on the TV as he bit into the toast.
* * *
When Dominique woke up she forgot again where she was at first. Then she remembered, she was in the flat and it was Sunday morning. Excitement bubbled up as she jumped out of bed. They might go out today — to the pictures or to the shops. Mum had said she would buy Dominique a new winter coat soon, like Somia’s, with fur round the hood. Taking Animal with her, she tiptoed with exaggerated care along the hall with its cold vinyl floor, to Mum’s room. But Mum’s bed was empty, the duvet smooth and flat like it was when Mum made the bed. Dominique ran through to the kitchen and then the lounge, hopeful that perhaps Mum had fallen asleep on the sofa, like she had before when she got home late. But she wasn’t there either. Dominique checked once more in all the rooms, but she knew by now that Mum wasn’t here; the flat felt cold and empty, and out in the hall she saw that Mum’s shoes weren’t in their usual place on the mat. It was strange. It couldn’t be helped that Mum had to go out after tea, but she always made sure she was there again when Dominique woke up — at least, nearly always. Perhaps another man had got cross with Mum’s friend, Ricky. That time Mum hadn’t got home until after Dominique had got up and was watching TV, and she had come in a taxi. ‘It’s all right,’ Dominique said to Animal, snuggling him up under her chin. ‘Mum will be home soon.’
Chapter Five
‘Are you even looking, Tony?’
‘Course I am, love.’ Walking back down the aisle to where Jean stood, between a shelf of toilet brushes and another of toothbrush holders and soap dishes, Knox slipped his phone back into his pocket, but not before he’d noted, with some disappointment, the absence of any new messages that might legitimately present him with an escape route. A year ago Knox had never even heard of ‘Athena.’ He knew all about the events that had led up to it of course, as did the whole country. But he hadn’t realised at the time how significant it would become for him. The operation itself had begun slowly and quietly, with a recognition from the outset that its execution would be a long game. The initial stages had involved the gradual introduction of a small team of undercover officers to strategic positions in the arms supply chain. Over the following months those men had worked hard to forge relationships and build the kind of trust that would allow them to infiltrate the gangs for whom guns were the natural currency of everyday life. Now, almost a year on, the operation was beginning to bear fruit in the form of regular, reliable intelligence and that was when Knox had signed up.
Athena was not, as Knox would be the first to admit, as exciting as he had hoped. The day-to-day work was largely logistical: recording conversations, monitoring vehicles and mobile phones. The data had to be meticulously collated to provide evidence strong enough for the level of convictions sought, and Knox, alongside other officers, had been seconded in for that purpose. Now the net was beginning to close, and as it did, the levels of expectation were beginning to rise. The last place he wanted to be was here. He and Jean weren’t married or anything — yet. But if things ever progressed that far . . . he wondered idly how frequently Sunday mornings in Ikea had been cited on divorce papers in recent years.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Jean was holding up what looked to Knox like two virtually identical shower curtains. They were both white. They both had bits of green and blue on them.
‘Great,’ he said, hoping that his firm endorsement would mean they could get this over with. A young Chinese couple, the woman heavily pregnant, was trying to squeeze past them, and a toddler a few feet away had started to grizzle. Knox felt like doing the same.
‘But which one do you think most closely matches the tiles?’ Jean persisted, over the noise.
Knox didn’t understand the question. The tiles in Jean’s bathroom, as far as he could remember, were blue. The shower curtains each had blue on them. ‘Well surely they both—’ he started to say.
‘We’ll take this one,’ Jean cut in, exasperated. ‘If it doesn’t look right we can bring it back later and swap it for the other.’
‘Actually, I’ve got plans this afternoon, love,’ Knox said, impulsively.
‘What plans?’
‘I said I’d go and sit with Jamie for the boss. He wants to go and see Millie and the baby.’
‘I thought you said he was avoiding her.’
‘Yeah, but he can’t do that for ever, can he?’
While Jean was in the checkout queue Knox took out his phone again and selected Millie’s contact number. Fancy a visitor this p.m.? he put in the text. I’ll sit with Jamie so that boss can come over.
* * *
Mariner was standing in a queue almost identical to the one Tony Knox had joined, but in his local Sainsbury’s, where he was mentally urging the checkout girl to speed things up a bit. So far Jamie had done well, but Mariner could tell from the increased tic level that he was approaching his limits. Then, just as it was their turn to start loading the conveyor belt, his phone chimed. He grabbed it, thinking it must be news from the investigation, and was surprised to see a text from Tony Knox.
Since his secondment, Knox had become an expert at text-speak and it took Mariner some seconds to decipher the code: Got some free time this afternoon so can mind Jamie. Time 2 visit Millie. C u @ 1.
Hm, Mariner could think of better things to do with a couple of free hours, but now he’d have to face up to the visit. He wondered what had brought on this sudden, altruistic gesture. Tony was always brilliant at helping out when asked, but volunteering his services was a departure. In a flash of inspiration, Mariner texted back: Jean going to Ikea?
* * *
Millie was making the most of a few free minutes to put her feet up. Suli had gone round to his brother’s to help with putting up a fence. Haroon was fed, changed and down for his midday nap, with the baby monitor plugged in. She had just put in her second load of washing and, out of the blue, Tom Mariner texted to ask if he could stop by at about two. By her calculation that meant she should have at least an hour to read a couple more chapters of her book, if her concentration was up to it. When the doorbell rang she felt a flush of irritation. Who on earth would come calling unannounced at this time on a Sunday? Louise would not have been at the top of her list of likely candidates, but opening the door, there she was with Abigail in her pushchair.
‘Hello. Is everything all right?’ Millie asked, partly from professional habit.
Louise seemed equally surprised by the question. ‘Yes. It’s just that Greg’s had to go in to work today, so I thought I’d pop round. I hope you don’t mind. I wondered if we might go to the park or something.’
Millie glanced over Louise’s shoulder at the angry grey clouds sweeping across the sky. ‘Perhaps later,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see you anyway,’ she added, making an effort. ‘I’m expecting my boss to stop by soon, but that’s OK. You can meet him too.’
‘Oh.’ Louise looked panic-stricken. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Millie. ‘I expect he’s coming to talk me into going back to work. And if he doesn’t, you can prompt him.’
Between them, the two women manoeuvred Abigail’s pushchair into the house, and
Louise lifted the baby seat from its chassis and took a sleeping Abigail into the lounge.
‘You’re keen to get back then?’ said Louise, as she and Millie sat nursing coffee mugs at either end of the sofa. She looked genuinely worried at the prospect of losing her new-found friend.
‘Oh, it won’t be for ages yet,’ said Millie. ‘And not at all if Suli gets his way.’
‘He’s against it?’
‘So he says. We’ve already had heated words about it and tend to avoid the subject now. I’m sure he’s not even speaking for himself. He’s just going along with what the parents want. They’re all of the generation that clings to traditional ideas of what a wife and mother should be. I can see it all over my mum and dad’s faces — the relief that I’ve got these silly thoughts about having a career out of my head and will be satisfied now with taking care of my family. I bet you’re not subjected to that kind of pressure. I’ve never even asked you. What did you do before Abigail?’
‘Oh, I haven’t really worked since I got married,’ said Louise. ‘It didn’t seem like a good idea for us to be together twenty-four hours a day.’
‘You met at work?’
‘Yes, I was a secretary at Greg’s company.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘As soon as I saw him I was smitten and he says it was the same for him, though it took him a few months to ask me out. It was quite a big staff back then and he was popular with all the girls. Anyway, we started dating and one thing led to another and here we are. Even if I hadn’t been at Pincott’s I don’t think I’d be working. Greg prefers it that way. It means I can attend to the house, and now of course I’ve got Abigail to look after. Greg likes things tidy and he works so hard I like to have dinner ready for him when he gets home. And he earns a good wage, so financially there’s no need for me to be out working too.’
Wow, thought Millie. And I thought my family was traditional. ‘What does Greg do?’ she asked.
Missing Lies (Reissue) Page 3