by GJ Minett
Blind, desperate optimism had held sway until getting on for midnight, at which point she’d decided, what the hell! Opening the first of two bottles of Château Altimar 2009, which she and Callum should by rights have been drinking that very moment in Bournemouth, she told herself she wasn’t going anywhere now, even if he did ring. Too bad, sunshine. Missed your chance. And after the first few glasses, having alternated between blubbing like a lovesick teenager and turning the air blue with a volley of imprecations that would have shamed an Alaskan trucker, she’d taken the second bottle to bed and drunk herself into a stupor, finally checking out altogether at some ungodly hour.
So no, maybe it wouldn’t be fair to take her frustrations out on the alarm clock. On the other hand, if she didn’t manage to find the right button in the next few seconds to stop the infernal row it was making, all bets were off.
She checked her mobile to confirm what she already knew: no messages. Whatever he was doing, it was obviously more important than picking up the phone and keeping her in the loop. She spent an eternity in the bathroom, doing her level best to put right the damage wrought by the excesses of the previous evening. It wasn’t just her hair but her eyes, her mouth, her complexion – in fact, pretty much anything on show, that needed to be teased back into shape – and if she was moderately pleased with the eventual outcome, it was more akin to the relief experienced by a hurricane survivor who’s managed to erect a makeshift shelter with a tin roof.
Convinced there was no way she’d manage to keep anything down, she skipped breakfast and made do with a coffee so strong the spoon almost baulked at entering. As soon as her head began to clear a little, she made a stab at weighing the pros and cons of another call, not to his mobile – if he still hadn’t answered any of the calls, it was either disabled in some way or he was ignoring it – but to his home. Phoning seemed like the most productive option available to her. She wasn’t exactly spoiled for alternatives and if there was one thing she was not going to do, it was sit around all day, waiting for some sort of explanation. Whatever the risks inherent in phoning, including having to talk to Abi in person, it was time to get onto the front foot and be proactive for a change. She’d had enough of supine last night. She hadn’t been stood up since God knows when and no one was going to walk all over her now, not even Callum Green. Whatever the reason for last night, he was going to have some major-league sucking-up to do.
She rang just after 9.30 and was just about to give it up as a dead loss again when someone picked up and gasped ‘Hello’, before apologising for being out of breath. ‘Was upstairs – only just made it to the phone in time.’ She recognised the same sing-song tone from the voicemail message. Chirpy. Not a care in the world; default position set at friendly. She hated her already.
The cover story was in something like its fifth or sixth incarnation by now. Judith Price, conference secretary, phoning from Bournemouth, wondering if she could speak with Mr Green to confirm what he’d need for his keynote speech in the way of IT support and admin services. Hoping to catch him before he set off in case he wanted any photocopying done. Any chance of a quick word?
Abi regrets: her husband – and isn’t it strange how a simple possessive adjective in conjunction with the wrong noun can just get up and grab you by the throat like that when you’re at your most vulnerable? – her husband is already there in Bournemouth. Left sometime yesterday evening and no, she’s afraid she doesn’t have a contact number for him other than his mobile. She suggests maybe contacting someone named Bill Shawcroft – he’ll know how to get hold of him. If Abi knows him at all though, she’s sure Callum would have let them know well in advance if he’d needed anything done.
If she knows him at all . . . ha!
Something slightly unnatural in the voice. No discernible accent but the rounded vowels didn’t quite ring true. A telephone voice, cultivated to make her sound better educated and more upwardly mobile than she probably was, redolent of dinner parties and afternoon tea at Bailiffscourt. Did she talk that way with Callum? Somehow Hannah very much doubted it. Would she talk that way if she knew what her husband had been up to recently? Yeah . . . right. A few vowels might just lose some of their shape when that day dawns.
She thanked Abi, akin to chewing a wasp, and sat at the kitchen table for a few moments, tapping the mobile against her chin. Already there in Bournemouth. Left sometime yesterday evening. Pretty much as they’d planned, if you were to overlook the apparently minor detail that she was supposed to be going with him. For some reason he’d left without picking her up and spent the first night there on his own. For presumably the same reason he was knocking back her calls and texts. She had absolutely no idea why that might be. If this was the big brush-off, it had come out of nowhere as far as she was concerned. If anything had been wrong the last time they saw each other – it was only Saturday, for Heaven’s sake! – he certainly had a strange way of showing it. He’d even texted her several times since then to say how much he was looking forward to the two of them going away together and not having to creep around like criminals.
No, she told herself. Whatever it was that had caused such a major deviation from the original plan, it had to be something to do with his work, which she knew to be unpredictable and subject to last-minute changes, even if she didn’t really understand quite what it was he did. She had no idea why it should prevent him from keeping her updated but one thing was for sure – she wasn’t going to sit around here waiting for someone to enlighten her, even more so now she remembered Izzy was due back sometime later that afternoon. God, could you imagine how that conversation would go?
No. The answer was in Bournemouth.
So was Callum.
And in a couple of hours or so, she would be too.
ANNA
‘Shame about that Attenborough dude.’
Back on days again. Sunday and Monday off to let the body clock readjust. Then straight back into it.
‘You mean that Lord Attenborough dude, right?’ he said.
‘That’s the one. Only heard about it this morning. So sad . . . makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘Apparently.’
‘I mean, right out of the blue like that.’
‘I dunno – he was ninety-something.’
‘Shut . . . up!’
‘Why? How old did you think he was?’
‘Dunno. Not that old though. God, he was so active. So . . . alive, you know? My parents will be upset.’
‘They big fans of his?’
‘You kidding? It’ll be like losing a member of the family. Every time one of his series came on, it was like the biggest event of the year. We all had to be there.’
She let it hang there, wondering how much further she’d need to nudge it before he’d bite.
‘That one with the frog,’ she added mischievously. ‘How do they do that?’
‘The frog?’ Nibbling now.
‘And the polar bears. We all cried . . . even Poppa, although that’s not saying much. He cries at the drop of a hat. Latin temperament.’
He stopped. Looked closely at her, trying to make up his mind.
‘You do know it’s Lord Attenborough who’s died, right?’
‘What I said.’
‘Only it’s his brother who does all the natural world films. Life on Earth? Planet Earth? Frozen Planet?’
‘Good with titles, isn’t he?’
‘This is a wind-up, isn’t it?’
She sighed dramatically.
‘Lord Attenborough, formerly Richard. Actor, director, President of BAFTA, darling of the nation, all-round clever Dickie, really. Won eight Oscars for Gandhi, probably should have picked up another for Brighton Rock. Yeah . . . it’s a wind-up. What took you so long?’
He smiled, shook his head before walking on.
They went through the automatic doors and out into the fresh air which was more than welcome after the succession of hot days they’d had. The storm in the
night had woken her around 3 a.m. and threatened to mess with the readjustments her body clock was still in the process of making but it had died away soon afterwards. All that remained now were a few puddles which the intermittent sun and a stiff breeze would hoover up before long.
They headed towards the car park to make sure that the unlicensed breakfast van they’d moved on half an hour ago hadn’t sneaked back. Later they’d probably be butting heads, metaphorically at any rate, with the local goths who, for some unaccountable reason, seemed to have taken a liking to the fountain near the car-park entrance and had to be encouraged to find somewhere else to mooch around and look weird. She had nothing against them herself – live and let live as far as she was concerned, although quite why anyone would want to look like a corpse was beyond her – but there had been concerns expressed that some of the customers might find them intimidating. Personally, she thought anyone who might be intimidated by a Goth probably shouldn’t be allowed out but what did she know? Dispersing them every so often was all part of the rich pageantry of day patrol.
‘You do that a lot, I’ve noticed,’ he said.
‘Do what?’
‘Joke. Fool around.’
‘Oh, you’ve noticed, have you?’
‘I have. Why d’you do it?’
‘Does it bother you?’
‘No. Just curious.’
She picked up a plastic bag which was skipping across the car park and dropped it in a bin.
‘You want the serious answer or the flippant one?’
‘The serious one.’
‘OK,’ she said, and paused to work out exactly what her answer might sound like. Just how serious did he want her to be? ‘It’s a confidence thing, I guess,’ she said at length, brushing a few specks of dirt away from her trousers to give her hands something to do. ‘I figure if everyone’s going to be laughing at me anyway, I might as well make it look like it was my idea in the first place.’
He pursed his lips as he digested this.
‘You did ask,’ she continued.
‘You think everyone’s laughing at you?’ he asked.
‘Hello . . . have you met the Keystone Cops upstairs?’
‘I thought you didn’t take them seriously.’
‘Yeah well . . . like I said, confidence thing. And I’ve been here a few years now. Starts to wear you down after a while. I’ve shown zero interest in any of them, so that makes me a dyke. I do MMA, so I’m an aggressive dyke. I like to talk about things other than football and sex, so I’m an uppity dyke. There’s a bit of a pattern in there somewhere.’
‘I don’t laugh at you.’
‘No, you laugh with me which is why I like patrolling with you and not them. We’ve got the same sense of humour.’
‘You trying to upset me now?’
‘See? That’s what I mean. We’re on the same wavelength. We make a good team.’
She tried to synchronise her footsteps with his as they walked on, weaving their way through the hordes of shoppers heading for the main entrance. Go on, she urged him silently. Say something. You can do it.
‘We do,’ he said eventually. And the sun edged its way out from behind the clouds, its reflected glare dancing off the rows of cars ahead of them like fireworks.
OWEN
A buzzing in his pocket. Takes out his mobile and lowers the shears to the ground while he answers it.
Abi.
Good news. She’s looked closely at the plans and more or less decided which one she wants to go with. Just needs to check with Callum when he gets back to make sure he’s on board. Would it be OK if she left it until the weekend before confirming with him?
And speaking of Callum, she wonders if he could do her a favour. Just a small one. She doesn’t think for one minute it will ever come to this but if Callum ever asks what time she left his place last night, would he mind saying it was sometime around nine rather than whenever? She’s sorry to sound so mysterious. Feels bad about asking him to lie, even if it’s just a tiny white one, but it would mean a lot to her. She’ll explain why next time she sees him. Does he think he can do this for her? As a special favour?
He says yes and she goes over it again, making sure he’s got the time straight. Like he’s doing her some massive favour. The way he’s feeling right now she could ask him to do just about anything and he would.
So now he knows – Callum and Abi lie to each other. He has a mistress, which is about as big a lie as there is, and now he knows she lies to him as well. And if she really loves him, she wouldn’t do that, would she? He knows he wouldn’t. If he was married to Abi, they’d never, ever lie to each other. They’d never need to.
There are cracks in the relationship and the thought of it, plus the memory of the way she kissed him as she left his house yesterday, send him back to his work with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.
PHIL
‘Mic 1 to Sierra 5, Mic 1 to Sierra 5, over.’
He switched on his lapel mic and responded. Langford, the Chief of Security, was in the Control Room today which at least meant some sort of respite from Mic 2, whom everyone assumed to be his idiot love child. Even so, he still had to listen to the apparently obligatory lecture and offer assurances that he understood the company policy on personal calls before Langford got around to telling him, almost grudgingly, that Abi had rung. She’d asked if he could ring her back and stressed that it was urgent but he knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Both she and Callum understood that was the only way they’d ever get a message through the practically impermeable membrane that was the Control Room.
He left Anna to continue patrolling the ground floor on her own for a few minutes while he went outside to make the call. Abi answered on the first ring and apologised immediately for disturbing him at work. ‘I know they don’t like you taking calls there.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘It’s probably nothing, only . . . have you heard from Callum since yesterday?’
‘Callum? Why? Where is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, a level of exasperation coming through loud and clear. ‘Well, Bournemouth, in theory, giving this talk at some conference or other. Only they rang a few minutes ago in a bit of a flap because he hasn’t turned up and they can’t get hold of him on his mobile. They’ve just rung home to see if I’ve heard from him or have any idea where he might be.’
‘Well, he’s probably just misjudged it and got caught up in traffic. You know what the M27 can be like.’
‘No, the thing is, he was already there,’ she said. ‘In Bournemouth. He rang me just before he left last night.’
‘OK,’ he said, processing this. ‘So you’ve tried his mobile too, I suppose.’
‘Just now. It goes straight to voicemail.’
‘Where was he staying last night? Have you tried there?’
‘I can’t,’ she said, and he listened while she gave him the gist of Callum’s call just before he left. He leaned against the rail that separated the trolley area from the car park and tried to think of what to suggest. It wouldn’t be out of character for Callum to change his plans at the last minute. And much as it grieved him to think such a thing about his own son, the boy could be supremely selfish at times. Letting his wife know where he was and what he was doing wouldn’t necessarily have rated high on his list of priorities. But if he could be said to be utterly dependable in any one respect, it was professionally. His reputation mattered greatly to him and missing the start of any conference was not like him. Not like him at all.
‘Do you know who this friend is?’ he asked. ‘The one who booked the apartment?’
‘Yes. Bill Shawcroft. He’s leading one of the seminars, I think.’
‘And do you have a number for him?’
‘No. But the conference people will.’
He asked her if she knew where the conference was taking place and she read the ph
one number to him from her calls list.
‘It’s the Royal Exeter,’ she told him.
‘Is that a hotel?’
‘I think so.’
He wondered why Callum would have wanted an apartment away from the conference centre but decided he didn’t want to wonder too hard. And if Abi hadn’t had the same thought, he didn’t see it as his place to nudge her in that direction.
‘Where are you now?’ he asked her.
‘I’ve been in town,’ she said. ‘Just on my way home in case he’s left a message on the answerphone.’
‘And you’d know if he rang last night?’
There was a slight pause at the other end.
‘I was out for a while but I wasn’t late back. And anyway he’d have rung me on my mobile – he knew I was out. Phil . . . what do you think I ought to do?’
He thought he could hear genuine concern in her voice now. Until then he’d picked up on exasperation and bewilderment in equal measure but this was the first time she’d sounded worried, as if other possibilities were only now beginning to occur to her. He did his best to reassure her, told her she was doing the right thing in going home to check for messages. He suggested she stay there while he tried to get a number for this Bill Shawcroft. If they hadn’t heard from Callum by the time he finished work, he’d ask a few of his mates on the force to look into it. For now, the best thing she could do was to make herself a nice cup of tea and sit tight. A bit of patience.
‘It’s Callum,’ he said, trying to inject a lighter note into the conversation. ‘You know what he’s like. At some stage he’s going to come waltzing in through the front door with a bunch of flowers in his hand. He’s probably there right now.’
‘Yeah . . . you’re right,’ she said, sounding about as confident as he felt.
And he didn’t feel confident at all.
PETER WILKINSON
The field was off to the left, deep into Honer Lane, not far short of the halfway point of his afternoon walk. He’d taken the same route more or less every day for just shy of twenty years since he’d retired: turn out of Punches Lane and into Honer Lane, then up towards Pagham Harbour. Thirty minutes one way, turn around, thirty minutes back. Same route, several different dogs over the years.