A message buzzed. Bringing one hand free from around Ben she looked down, read it, answered with a thumb, All right, all right. Moved the thumb to delete conversation.
It occurred to Fran, numbly, that she wouldn’t be alone for much longer; she had a sister-in-law who was coming to help. Her sister-in-law, Miranda, who would about now be boarding a plane, she’d be landing in Dubai in a smart suit and heels, desert heat and luxury hotels.
All she knew about Miranda was a photograph in a frame of the two of them, she and Nathan side by side in a swingboat, a serious chubby girl with a straight black fringe. And the message on Nathan’s phone, the day they got married. As she remembered that a tiny pulse set up. There were things Miranda would be able to tell her. Their childhood, their parents, that summer, him and Rob and Bez, and then nothing, then cutting ties, leaving it all behind till now. Just like Miranda had done herself.
Ben detached himself, straining backwards and turning his head away, already saying no. The man in the ski jacket had gone back inside. Fran climbed out of the car with Ben at her shoulder, and followed him.
The ceilings were low and it was fusty and dim but Fran registered that they weren’t open, the place was empty and the tables in disorder. As her eyes adjusted she saw a garland of tinsel over the bar, a big red heart of padded and frilled velvet hanging askew against a black curtain behind a podium. Still in his ski jacket the man she’d seen smoking was halfway up a stepladder on the other end of the heart in the far corner. He eyed her but said nothing, his mouth full of tacks. He turned back and finished what he was doing and then stepped off the ladder.
‘Can’t bring a kid in here,’ he said, frowning, but not hostile. He wore a black shirt under the jacket, he was skinny, clean-shaven, about Carswell’s age but nothing like Carswell.
‘You’re not open for customers though, are you?’ she pleaded, shifting Ben to one side. He strained to reach for some tinsel and the man sighed.
‘What then?’ he said, turning to go behind the bar. She followed, standing there. Ben tugged at a beer cloth and she tried to pull it out of his hand.
‘Let him,’ said the barman. ‘What’s his name?’ He took off his jacket, hung it up and held out a hand to Ben. ‘I’m Eric,’ he said. ‘Shake, mate.’
‘I’m here about my husband,’ she said and Eric paused mid-handshake. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘One of those. Haven’t seen him, haven’t shagged him, seen nothing, done nothing, don’t know nothing.’
‘He’s dead. He died.’
Eric looked down, extracted his hand from Ben’s, leaned down and began to lift steaming glasses from a dishwasher behind the counter. ‘Right,’ he said flatly. ‘It was Al, was it?’ He reached for a cloth.
‘I called him Nathan.’
‘But the one … the one the coppers came about?’ A twisted sad little smile, as slowly he began polishing a glass. ‘Nice-looking pair. I think they liked it here.’ He reached up and hung the glass from its rack, leaned down for another.
‘So he was a regular? They were telling the truth.’
‘For once,’ said Eric, regarding Ben. ‘Christ. What a fuck-up.’ He hung the next glass, then started on another.
‘The police said you wouldn’t tell them about his … partners. What he got up to.’
‘And you want to know? What he got up to?’
She frowned. ‘I’ve got no choice,’ she said, flatly.
He nodded. ‘Listen, love. It’s not as unusual as you think, it’s all sorts, you see all sorts. Some of them too scared to come out, some of them say they love their wives, some of them are in it for the kink. Their secret life. It’s a big world out there, live and let live, is what I say.’
‘He’s dead, though.’
And Eric’s smile twisted again, kinder this time. ‘What do you want to know?’ he said, with a sigh. She got out the photograph and laid it on the table; he peered down. ‘That’s a while ago, isn’t it?’ he said, but he put a finger to Nathan’s face. ‘Can still see it, though. Looked after himself.’ And the finger moved along, to Bez, he frowned. ‘Where is that?’ he said, leaning closer.
‘They squatted at a place. Their last summer after school finished. Nineteen ninety-five, something like that.’
Eric was hunched over the picture. ‘Summer of love,’ he said. ‘That sort of deal, was it?’ He looked up. ‘I’d have been not much bigger than him then.’ He nodded to Ben then looked back at the photograph. ‘A lot of E in the system, those days.’ He sounded wistful. ‘All-nighters, shiny happy people. Stuff got nastier, didn’t it? Getting out of your head got hardcore. Ketamine an’ that.’ He straightened. ‘Looks like Black Barn, out that way.’
‘Where is that?’ she said, breathless. Eric squinted back down at the photograph, his head tilted. ‘Out Chatteris way, this side of the reservoir?’ The oily dark surface of the water swam in front of her eyes in the gloom. ‘There were stories about what went on there, kids and that, they closed it down. Something happened, someone died. Ten a penny, OD deaths round here, you want to spend a night in Casualty now and again.’
‘Drugs? Did the police ask you about it, when they came about my husband?’
He snorted. ‘They just wanted to know who he was shagging.’ He looked back at the picture almost tenderly, as if it told him something about himself.
‘Did he come in here with either of them?’
The barman ran a hand over his shaven head, puffed out his cheeks. ‘Jeez, I dunno if I’d even have recognised Al from that photo.’ He shook his head. ‘Not sure, is the answer.’
‘Did Nathan … did Al come in here with anyone in particular?’ Fran said quietly, and he shrugged, uneasy.
‘No, he always came in alone. As for who he talked to, who he left with, well…’ His shoulders were eloquent. ‘Gets busy. Gets a bit full-on.’ He frowned. ‘And he always sat in the snug,’ he nodded towards another room, where the corner of a booth was just visible, ‘you know. A bit more private. There’s one booth just behind a pillar, Al liked that best. Maybe because you couldn’t see what he was up to.’ He gave her a sheepish look. ‘Sorry.’ He looked back down at the photograph.
‘Sort of familiar, that one.’ His finger was back on Bez in the photograph, the lean shoulders, the head thrown back. ‘Something about him.’
‘He’s called Bez,’ and Eric said, ‘Never. Fuck.’ He began to shake his head. ‘Warning to stay off the booze if ever there was one.’
‘You know him?’
‘I seen Thorney talking to him, once or twice. He’s down the war memorial sometimes with the other boozers, not lately though, come to think of it.’ He pushed the photograph back towards her and she stowed it quickly as Ben reached out a pudgy hand to grab. ‘Never came in here, he’d be a four-pack of Kestrel and a Thunderbird chaser, no money for pub prices.’
‘Who’s Thorney? Did the police talk to him?’
‘Ray Thornton. Older guy. Collects glasses, cleans the toilets. Yeah, they talked to him, being as he’s the only one sees what they’re up to in the glory hole. Man of few words though, especially where the police are concerned. And he’s a drinker.’
She shivered suddenly – it was cold in the gloomy low-ceilinged room, and Eric said, ‘It cheers up of an evening, you wouldn’t believe. Put the heating on and everything. Tomorrow night it’ll be like Vegas in here.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Long as the snow holds off,’ he said dubiously, leaning to peer towards the window, where the outside world showed grey. A shadow passed it, the crunch of tyres as the beer truck moved off. ‘Valentine’s, Ray’s back on then, if you want to talk to him. Catch him before he’s pissed though. I’ll put in a word, if you like.’
‘Get my showgirl outfit ready, shall I?’ she said. Eric cracked a proper smile at last, and the gloom retreated, just fractionally.
‘Maybe leave the kid behind for that one,’ he said, and the smile was gone as quickly as it had come. ‘Lose our licence that way.�
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And then abruptly he turned his back, opened a door in the back of the bar and she glimpsed a rectangle of striplit kitchen, a row of catering jars on top of a fridge.
‘Ray’ll be in at three thirty,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘He’s old enough to remember the summer of love, first time around.’ But before she could even say thanks, Eric was through the door and it was closing behind him.
Outside, she scanned the grey car park but it was empty as she walked across the gravel with Ben clamped tightly to her. The sky was low and white with cloud and the air freezing and clammy, the chill crept up on her even between the pub door and the car, seeping under her coat, up inside the cuffs of her sleeves. There was moisture inside the car windows, and she could see her breath as she strapped Ben in.
Keys. She sat there with them in her hand, turned to check on Ben but he seemed stunned by the cold, strapped in his padding, his eyes black and round. Fran heard the car pull in alongside them, on the passenger side, and still she sat there with the keys in her hand, she didn’t turn to look.
The other car’s engine turned off and she leaned her head back against the seat. The door opened and he was inside.
She closed her eyes and there was his smell, of what she didn’t know but she’d know it in the dark, the ghost of sweat, washed cotton and shaving foam, with it she recalled the texture of the skin below his chin, the roughness against her cheek. The breadth of his hand. When she opened her eyes again there was his shoulder as he looked back between the seats at Ben. He turned back and when he smiled she saw the lines beside his eyes, the lines that hadn’t been there in the old days.
‘Needs a dad, now, doesn’t he?’ he said, quietly, turning back to look at her, his eyes narrowing as he did, and he lifted a hand to her face, she felt the warmth of it as he rested it against her cheek. Quickly she brought her own hand up to stop him.
‘He’s another man’s kid,’ she said. ‘Would you want that? Would you, Nick?’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He hadn’t spoken to Fran the first time: he’d just stood on the bridge and watched her there, pregnant in the sunshine, with Emme in the buggy beside her. She’d lifted her hands to shade her eyes, so that she could be sure of what she was seeing, though she already knew. She knew Nick’s haircut, she knew his jacket, the angle of his shoulders, and recognising it all Fran had felt her body propelled upright and towards him on the bench, her belly momentarily forgotten until she shifted forwards over it. Then she stopped, catching her breath, warning the baby against the sudden movement, careful.
Nick was leaning on the bridge’s parapet but as she moved forwards he lifted his hand in a half-wave, awkward, nervous, shy as she’d never seen him. And then he had turned and walked off, jerky and anxious, and she was almost on her feet to call out and stop him, or run after him. But she hadn’t called after him. She hadn’t run. She had only wanted to.
It was a week later that he sent her the first message. I miss you. She’d deleted his contact but she hadn’t blocked his number: a shrink would probably say that was a dead giveaway. And when the number came up she knew it straight away.
She left it ten days before she answered. How did you find me?
Of course, it hadn’t been like that, or so he said. And besides, he could have found her easily enough if he’d wanted to – she wasn’t hiding, was she?
He had stroked her belly, the week before Ben was born. He’d set his cheek against it. It seemed to her by then that Nathan was actually averting his eyes from her, never mind feeling her belly, but still she stepped away from Nick abruptly when he touched her.
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ he had said when she recoiled, and he seemed genuinely hurt, his eyes dark.
‘I don’t know if Nathan would see it like that,’ she’d said. ‘I can’t see you, Nick.’
The snow was beginning as she drove back with Ben behind her in his seat, although Fran didn’t notice it at first, it was so fine, like dust in the greying afternoon. She parked along the side of the house. Slowly she put a hand up to the button that locked all the doors
The car that had pulled up next to her in the car park of the Angel had been dark and big and solid but nothing special; no more top-end Range Rover with tinted windows, no more chauffeur-driven Italian job with doors that opened the wrong way and leather seats.
‘I’m done with all that,’ he had said to her the first time they sat down together, a month after she saw him on the bridge. Five weeks, not that she was counting, not that she found herself on her weekly visits to Oakenham hunting out something decent to wear, circling back always to the bench by the river. They were in a coffee shop down a lane behind a church, a big dark tree shading the window. Nick took her there, he already knew it.
‘It was … that wasn’t me, Frankie.’ He ducked his head as he said it, ashamed – which she supposed was to his credit. ‘I’m a businessman now, pure and simple. I’ve had enough of the rest of it.’ Averting his eyes. ‘One way or another I’d be dead by now if I hadn’t got out.’
He told her he’d been there more than a year. ‘Cheap storage, cheap property. And there’s a market for clubs out here in the middle of nowhere like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve got a chain of them, up as far as Hull. End-of-date beer, off-season guest DJs, it might not be glamorous, but it’s a foolproof formula. It’s hard work.’
She stopped him when he started telling her where he was living – it seemed dangerous. The next step would be him asking her if she’d like to see it. ‘So I came out here before you did,’ he said abruptly, and looked mystified, on the edge of wonderment at the miracle that had brought them back together.
He had looked tired, he had looked as if he’d spent two years tracking up and down from the Wash to Lincoln to Wisbech, sorting out premises and security, back to an office in a warehouse on the edge of town where he stored his speaker stacks and decks and props and whatever else.
‘I was out of my depth,’ he had said back then when she’d first seen him again, in the coffee shop in Oakenham he’d led her to.
Helpless, when she turned on him as he’d put his cheek against her belly to whisper the words, and she’d shoved her chair back and said, ‘You do remember, don’t you? Why I left you?’ The girl in the coffee shop had turned at the loud sound of the chair against the floor and given them a look.
Ben was wide awake in the back of the car: something beyond the window fascinated him, perhaps the tiny particles of snow, barely visible, just a glitter in the low light.
Someone had seen them, someone had told. The girl in the coffee shop. Of course. Long before the press conference, Nathan’s death, someone would have whispered, saw that Londoner. Saw her with a man. And it seemed to her in that moment of revelation that Nathan had known it all too, Nathan who watched her, who knew her. Nathan knew Nick was here, before she did.
But that was stupid. How would he know? And why would he have let her go, urged her to go, if he had?
‘What do I have to do,’ Nick had said to her, ‘to show you? I love you. There’s only ever been you.’
The snow was beginning to dust the hedges; she had passed a gritting lorry miles back on the Oakenham ring road, but nothing since.
Known what, anyway? What did they all think they knew? Because she hadn’t slept with Nick. And that was what an affair was, wasn’t it? Loving someone, wanting to touch him, remembering the smell of his sheets in the morning and the sound of his humming in the shower – that wasn’t an affair.
And was it rape, if you didn’t know it at the time?
With Ben asleep behind them in his seat Nick had gone very quiet when she told him: the first person she had told. The person who wouldn’t judge.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ Nick’s voice had been so low she barely heard it and then, as if he’d felt what she felt, all her limbs going rigid at the question, he went on quickly, as if he hadn’t said it at all, ‘I suppose the question is, were you in a position to giv
e your consent?’
And he had looked down at his hands, as if at a loss. The ice they tiptoed across was thin, it cracked under them.
‘He must have just killed Nathan,’ she said then, in a voice odd and bright and clear in the enclosed space of the car. ‘Murder trumps rape, doesn’t it? I mean. Why should I scream and shout because a man screwed me while I was half asleep, when Nathan got murdered? That shouldn’t make me feel guilty, should it? That shouldn’t make me feel ashamed, should it?’ Her voice was getting higher and thinner, and she stopped, dead.
For a second as she glanced sideways at him, saw his hands, the fabric of his coat, the ghost of stubble on his chin in her head, she was scrabbling to get out, to get away from him. A man, a man, a man, he touched me, a man.
‘You didn’t tell them, then,’ he said. ‘You didn’t tell the police, about the sex.’
‘You don’t know,’ she said then, numb with horror. ‘You don’t know what it’s been like.’
From where she was parked now Fran could see the lit windows of the school beyond the gates, and the dark shapes in the playground. She thought of the big solid shape of Nick’s car beside her tinny battered one; she thought of him sitting in the passenger seat next to her, warm and familiar; and then she thought of the cold unlit house waiting for them, she remembered that the boiler was on the blink. She would only need to say a word or two, to put out her hand, and she wouldn’t be alone. She felt drained, hollow.
‘Hey!’
The voice, rough and close and the rap of knuckles loud against the window, made her heart race. She started forward and then she saw it was Karen, and she had Emme with her.
In the end Ali resorted to waiting outside for Sadie to come off shift. There wasn’t a desk for an FLO in the incident room and there’d been no sign of her anyway. She’d stood for a bit looking at Gerard’s scrawl on the whiteboard, arrows and rubbings out and names. Teamwork, was what it was supposed to be about.
The Loving Husband Page 25