‘None taken. You’re right.’ She drained her glass and reached for the bottle to pour herself another inch. ‘And that’s humanity in a nutshell, isn’t it? The vast majority of people are decent, or decent enough anyway, and they spend large swathes of their lives dealing with the damage done by the handful who aren’t.’
Lennie and Austin managed to eke out their tea until quarter to eleven, at which point Robin called Austin a minicab then went upstairs to clean her teeth while they said goodbye. A moment after the taxi accelerated away, she heard the bolts on the front door and then Lennie came galloping up the stairs, face lit up like Oxford Street at Christmas. She sat on the edge of the bed and bounced. ‘What do you think? Do you like him?’
She tried not to laugh. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘And I think he likes you.’
‘No, he doesn’t!’ As if it was the most outrageous suggestion ever voiced.
‘Oh, he hangs around drinking tea till the dead of night with all his little sister’s friends, does he?’
‘Mum.’ Three syllables.
‘Well, you asked what I think.’ Robin watched Len trying and failing not to look too delighted. ‘But I also think you’re fifteen.’
‘What does that mean?’ Alarm and almost immediately the first hint of defiance: You’re not going to stop me seeing him! Well, of course she wasn’t, she wasn’t an idiot. And why would she? She meant it, she did like him.
‘It means it’s bedtime, my friend,’ she said. ‘For both of us. Go on, hop it. Go and get your beauty sleep – the love object will be at school tomorrow, you don’t want bags under your eyes.’
‘The love object? Oh. My. God,’ Lennie’s cringe was all-body. ‘When did you get so – mortifying?’
‘Years ago, but you were too little to realize. And this is just the beginning – I’m only going to get worse.’
She flung her clothes over the back of the chair and got into bed, letting the mattress take the weight of her limbs. Bliss. Down the corridor, Lennie sang ‘Sweet Jane’ over the sound of running water then padded off to her room. After a few minutes, there was a click as her bedside light went out.
Robin had thought she’d crash the moment her head touched the pillow but instead she left her own light on and lay staring at the ceiling, mind whirring. Lennie and Austin, she and Samir – the generations flicked by so fast, one after another, like frames in a cartoon, carrying the story forward. When you were that age, you thought you always would be; it didn’t occur to you that within a couple of decades, you’d be the embarrassing one.
Mortifying – she turned the word over. Killing with embarrassment, presumably, but possibly also killing as in rendering dead. Miriam Chapman had only been Lennie’s age when she disappeared, her frame in the cartoon suddenly removed – and the removal had reached back to destroy the frames before, too. But what if Miriam hadn’t died? What if she’d just cycled through her time as the youngest generation extra-quickly – more quickly, even, than she had with Len? What if she’d run away and got pregnant – or run away because she’d been pregnant? Could the Gisborne Girl be Miriam’s daughter? Did the timing work?
On the duvet by her hand, she felt her phone vibrate. She picked it up and saw a message from Kev on the screen: You awake?
She hesitated. Why?
Look out your window.
If she’d been a hundred and forty earlier, she felt two hundred now – talk about cycling through the generations. She thought with envy of the crane Henry the Eighth used to get out of bed as she hauled herself upright and over to the window. Across the road, she saw the navy Mercedes estate, its dashboard lights glowing green.
Can I come in?
Lennie’s here.
I’ll be ever so quiet …
No, you won’t. Stay there, I’ll come to you.
She put on jeans and a T-shirt and crept downstairs, careful to avoid the floorboard at the top of the stairs and the step with the Hammer Horror creak midway down. Holding her breath, she drew back the bolts on the front door a millimetre at a time. She might be the older generation, she thought, but look at her sneaking out for teenage kicks.
The street was quiet, even the tortoiseshell cat off duty. Kev leaned over and opened the car door as she approached, and she slipped into the seat next to him. ‘Evening.’ His smile was audible.
‘Evening. Have you any idea what time it is, Mr Young?’
He glanced at the clock. ‘Half past eleven. I knew you’d be up. And your bedroom light’s on.’ He pointed towards the house.
‘Fair warning, my days of looking decent on no sleep are fast slipping away.’
‘You look pretty good to me.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You didn’t reply to my texts earlier so I came to see if everything was all right. After the other day.’
‘Really?’
He frowned. ‘Yeah, really.’
‘Well, that’s kind. Thanks.’ She told him what her mother had said on the phone. ‘Honestly, though, I haven’t had much time to think about Luke today.’
‘Saw you got someone. Is it him?’
She shook her head. ‘Back to the drawing board.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Yeah, me, too.’
To her surprise, Kev reached over, took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Rather than letting go afterwards, he held on. Surprised, she looked over to find him looking at her, eyes soft in the semi-darkness. The inches of air between them came alive all of a sudden and as he leaned in, she felt herself leaning, too. Kevin Young, he was a sexy kisser – she felt the touch tingle down her body. Gentle at first, tender, even, then increasingly urgent. She tipped her head back into the cup of his hand, breathed in his aftershave and warmth as he shifted closer, seat-leather creaking.
She pulled back and put up a hand. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. School night.’
He grinned. ‘Want to go back to mine? The girls are still at Sasha’s.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t leave Len on her own.’
‘We could make it a quick one …’
‘Oh, really?’ She laughed. ‘No. I’d like to’ – she would – ‘but I can’t. I need my brain tomorrow.’ Kilmartin would be on the warpath now, sure as God made little apples.
‘Worth a try.’ He smiled, eyes glinting, but she thought she detected actual disappointment.
‘Shall I see if I can sort something out for the weekend? Maybe Mum and Dad could have Len over for movie night – they like doing that, the three of them.’ Though she liked movie night with Len, too, and as she’d just pointed out, she’d barely seen her all week.
‘That’d be good,’ Kev said. ‘We could have dinner somewhere nice.’
Robin heard distant alarm bells. ‘Oh, we don’t have to go anywhere nice.’
He looked at her. ‘Why not?’
Was that a real question – a challenge, even? No, she was imagining it, because a moment later, he had on his usual jokey smile. ‘And what if I want to? What if I want a white tablecloth and ingredients I’ve never heard of? You can’t make me go somewhere crap.’
‘All right, Egon Ronay, have it your way. Let me see if I can wangle it. I’ll let you know.’
‘Good.’ He leaned over and kissed her again. ‘Off you go then, before I get out of hand.’
She got out, then leaned back into the car. ‘Thanks again, Kev. For being so kind.’
‘On your way, you daft old bat.’
She closed the door and crossed back to the opposite pavement. Yet again, she had the strange sensation of eyes on her but of course it was only him, waiting to make sure she was safely in the house before he drove off.
Chapter Twenty
The phone rang as she was turning into Rose Road. Her dad’s mobile number – odd. Oh Christ – Luke. Had he done something stupid? ‘Dad?’
‘Robin, is that you?’ He said the same every time he called on his mobile, as if he didn’t trust it to connect him to the pers
on he wanted.
She normally replied with something ridiculous – ‘No, this is the Aga Khan, who’s speaking please?’ – but he sounded different. Flustered. ‘Yes, it’s me. Is everything all right?’
‘Not really, love, no.’ He took a sharp sort of breath. ‘Your mother’s not well.’
Relief – Luke was still extant – followed quickly by a different alarm: her mother was never ill. In fact, she operated as if feeling ‘under the weather’ was self-indulgent, a weakness to be mastered by effort of will. ‘What kind of “not well”?’
‘We don’t know for sure yet. Are you driving?’
‘Yes, but hold on, I’m almost at the station – ten seconds.’ She pulled into the car park and took the first empty spot by the gate. She was aware of her heartbeat all of a sudden. ‘Dad?’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know, we’re at the hospital. I don’t want to panic you, it could be something else, we’re waiting to see the doctor again now, but they’re worried she’s had a stroke.’
‘A stroke?’
‘Everything was fine last night, we went to bed same as usual, but then your mum woke me up about an hour ago saying she couldn’t move her arm.’
Robin felt cold wash over her body.
‘Her voice sounded a bit funny,’ he said, ‘slurred, and when I turned the light on, the left side of her face was drooping.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘I don’t want to panic you, love,’ he said again.
‘I’m not panicked but of course I’m worried. Really worried. Which hospital are you at?’
‘The QE. We’re in A&E – I called an ambulance straight away. That’s what you’re supposed to do with strokes, isn’t it? Get help as soon as possible, every minute counts?’
‘Yes, you did the right thing. How is she now? Are you with her?’
‘No, Luke is – I’ve stepped out to the lobby to call you, it’s no phones once you’re through to the bays. She’s being brave – you know your mother – but I think she’s very frightened.’
‘How’re her face and arm now? Is there any change?’
‘A little better, she says, but I can’t see it – she still can’t lift her arm. And I can’t tell if her face is improving or if I’m over the first shock. Getting used to it.’ A tremor in his voice, unmistakable.
‘I’ll come now.’ The Queen Elizabeth was a mile away, if that; even with the morning traffic, she’d be there in twenty minutes. ‘Let me know if you move from A&E, otherwise I’ll find you there.’
Her dad hesitated. ‘Sweetheart, I don’t want to sound mean but it might be best to wait.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, like I said, Luke’s here and what your mother needs now is calm. We can’t put any stress on her. If you and Luke start squabbling and her blood pressure goes haywire, then …’
A flare of disbelief. ‘You think I’d come in and pick a fight with Luke and give Mum another stroke? You actually think I’d do that?’
‘No, of course not – of course I don’t, love.’ Mollifying.
‘But …?’
‘But it’s not worth risking, is it? I know it’s not all one way, I know Luke provokes you, but … It’s a stressful situation, no one’s at their best … You’d never forgive yourself, would you, if things kicked off and something happened to your mum. Why don’t I let you know when Luke takes a break – how about that?’
How about Luke gets to be with her and you don’t? How about we cut you out even when your mother has a life-threatening emergency – might actually be dying? Robin felt like she’d been punched in the gut.
And yet she couldn’t say anything – the last thing her dad needed now was for her to fly off the handle. And he was right, it wasn’t worth the risk; she could trust herself not to fight with Luke but not the other way round: he was so unpredictable. And on the edge.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let me know. But Dad, please keep me posted. If there’s any change, any news, will you tell me?’
She turned the engine on and pulled back out on to the street. She couldn’t go in and be professional yet, she needed a few minutes to sort herself out. As she turned onto Park Hill Road, narrowed by parked cars on both sides, a black saloon slowed to let her pass. The driver gesticulated at her and, looking, she saw Samir lowering his window to talk. She pretended not to notice, waved and drove off.
Barely aware of what she was doing, she drove. When she reached Lightwoods Park, she edged the car up on to the pavement behind a row of others. Elbow on the steering wheel, fist clenched, she clamped the soft flesh of her finger between her teeth until it hurt. It felt good to have a physical focus for the pain.
In the terrace across the street, people came and went, going about normal mornings. A woman bumped a pram down her front step on to the pavement then crossed the road and headed over the flat expanse of the park.
Her mother had had a stroke – had probably had a stroke. But an arm she couldn’t move, one side of her face collapsed … What must her dad have felt when he saw that? A numb arm was one thing, maybe she’d slept on it too long, lost sensation, but the face … How would her dad cope if anything happened to her? He’d be bereft.
And her poor mother. Robin tried to imagine what it had been like, waking up to discover she suddenly couldn’t move her arm – hearing her own voice, seeing her dad’s face when he saw hers and realizing something was wrong. Very wrong.
What if she died? She’d never see her again. Strokes often came in multiples, didn’t they, like earthquakes, a series of pre-shocks then the big one. The pain in Robin’s chest was back, so sharp that her breath came out like a sob. Cry, she told herself, cry and let some of the tension go. But she couldn’t, the tears wouldn’t come. God, what was wrong with her?
‘Luke’s here.’ And you’re not. That wasn’t the subtext, she knew the idea hadn’t crossed her dad’s mind, but it crossed hers. And Luke was there – he’d been at Dunnington Road when it happened. But more than that, he’d always been there. In the seventeen years that she’d been off in London, he’d been right here in Birmingham, constantly in touch with their parents. He and Natalie had had Sunday dinner with them every week, he popped round all the time, as she’d seen last year. He’d been a much better child to them than she was, she understood now. She might think that her professional success was important but what did it matter to them beyond being something to talk about? Until eighteen months ago, she’d barely been around for years so why now, in a crisis, should things be different? Of course it was right that Luke was there first.
Chapter Twenty-one
Even paused with his mouth unflatteringly half-open, Ben Tyrell had the look of a man with an epic story to tell. Leaning in, shirtsleeves rolled, he was alight with purpose. When Samir hit ‘Play’, he sprang to life, full of outraged energy.
‘Now,’ he said, looking directly out of the screen, ‘as I said a minute ago, my plan was to talk to you all again this afternoon, same as usual, but then this came to my attention and I thought, no, I’ll make time now. Some things, when they happen, I think you deserve to know straight away.’
His Venetian blind was open today. Robin looked through the window behind him and saw a dense hedge three or four feet back. No doubt a path ran along there, access between the back and front of the house. He was recording this crap at home.
‘Ladies and gents,’ he said, ‘those of you who’ve been on this week know that over the past few days I’ve been talking about the two girls found murdered in our city. Knifed to death. Lara Meikle, just twenty-three, a lovely-looking girl about to start training as a nurse, and, on Saturday night, Sunday morning, the girl whose name the West Midlands Police still don’t know. Let that sink in for a minute. It’s Thursday now. That poor girl lost her life in the small hours of Sunday morning – if we choose to believe “our” police – and they still don’t even know who she is.
‘Now,’ he shifted in his chair, ‘I’m not mak
ing any claims for our power here, though I do know from traffic to our page that more and more people are finding us and’ – he held up a finger for emphasis – ‘joining us, becoming part of our community. We are not alone, folks – far from alone. There’s a whole army out there who feel as angry and let down and betrayed as we do. What I also know – and whether it’s us or the traditional media, I can’t say – what I also know is that the police know we’re watching – us, the clued-up part of the public – and they know we know they’re screwing up.
‘Which brings me to this morning’s news. Again, if you’ve been following the story here or elsewhere – the national papers are getting involved now, it’s reached that level – you’ll know that yesterday the police told us they’d arrested a suspect. Good news, right? They’d got the guy they were looking for – here he is,’ he held up his A4 printout of the CCTV still from Bradford Street, glancing round the edge to make sure it was in focus, ‘and we were all supposed to breathe a sigh of relief. Despite their obvious … challenges, shall we say, they’d got him.
‘Well, let me tell you now that early this morning, they let that suspect go.’ He let his body fall back against the chair. ‘Can you believe it? Can you? Because I’ve got to tell you, I’m struggling.
‘As I see it – and I have racked my brains – there can only be two explanations. One, in order to make themselves look better, they’re claiming success when actually they’re getting absolutely fucking nowhere. Two – and I think this is more likely – in letting this guy go,’ he stabbed at the printout, now on the desk in front of him, ‘they’ve made a big mistake.
‘This picture,’ he held it up again, ‘is from CCTV of the guy leaving the factory where the first girl’s body was found right after she died. Now let me ask you, what else could he bloody well have been doing in there at four-odd in the morning? Those factories on Bradford are wrecks, we’ve been saying for years that they’re eyesores and should be razed to the ground – there’s nothing there for anyone any more, nothing even worth nicking. So tell me why a young, able-bodied man – he doesn’t look like a druggie to me – would be leaving there in the dark right after she died. Tell me.’ He let the challenge hang on the air. ‘People, he was there when she died. No – when she was murdered. He. Was. There.’
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