by Ann Cleeves
‘Ronnie Laing,’ he said. ‘Spelled like the art gallery.’ His voice surprised me too. It was pleasant, quiet, almost without accent. There was a trace of a stutter. I knew how his name was spelled. There was that big sign by the road. I thought he was trying to tell me something else. That he was cultured, more than a grease monkey. He wasn’t showing off, but he wanted me to know something about him. I didn’t give him my name. I didn’t say anything.
‘What sort of thing are you looking for?’ he went on.
‘Nothing boring. I can’t stand boring cars.’
‘A woman after my own heart.’ In someone else that could have come out as flirty, teasing, but I thought he was quite serious. He gave a little frown as he spoke. With the easy cliché he spoke of a connection between us. That was how it seemed to me then.
He showed me what he had in stock, touching my elbow occasionally to direct my attention. It wasn’t hard to appear interested. I really would have to buy a car soon. Thanks to Philip I had some money and I couldn’t rely on Ray to ferry me about. But all these were way out of my league and he must have sensed that he wasn’t going to make a sale.
‘If you have anything special in mind I can look out for it for you.’
‘Maybe something a little less special.’
He frowned again. ‘We don’t usually deal with the budget stuff.’ There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Oh?’ I gave him a quizzical look. I hope that’s how it turned out. The effect he was having was so marked that I wasn’t in the mood for role playing.
‘Nothing illegal,’ he said quickly, and the stutter was more marked. ‘I don’t operate that sort of business. I have contacts, go to auctions. Most of my trade is with repeat customers. I know the sort of thing they want. I might bump into something to suit you.’
‘Oh, right.’ An embarrassed giggle to show I’d misunderstood. I went with him into his office to pick up a business card. There was a framed photo of a woman and two little girls on his desk. The woman had a hairstyle that could withstand a hurricane and a thin, straight smile. There was nothing of Thomas, but I hadn’t expected there to be. Also on the desk was a cardboard dispenser with application forms to join something called the Countryside Consortium. A picture of a bloke carrying a shotgun, wearing green wellies and a Barbour jacket was printed on each one.
‘I didn’t have you down as the green wellie type,’ I said.
‘It’s a serious issue. You have to do what you can.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said again. ‘Of course.’
‘I’ll need your name and number.’ He paused a beat and I seemed to stop breathing. ‘In case I find you a car.’
‘Lizzie.’ I scribbled the Sea View number on a piece of paper.
‘Lizzie what?’
‘That’ll find me.’
In the car Ray was listening to something plaintive and Irish. Easy listening for him.
‘What do you know about the Countryside Consortium?’ He’d switched off the tape and pulled out into traffic. Every Sunday he went walking in the hills. I didn’t know anyone else who’d have information on the countryside.
‘Those buggers.’ For Ray the reaction was vituperative. I was surprised. I’d even thought he might be a member.
‘What’s wrong with them?’
So he told me. They were land-owning bastards who tried to restrict the right to roam on their land. They were townie thugs who thought they should have a free hand to bait badgers and steal raptors from the wild. They were hunters and punt-gunners and they thought democracy didn’t apply to them. In Ray’s view, they were the scum of the earth. None of that seemed to apply to Ronnie Laing. He was gentle and polite. I supposed his support of the consortium was a ploy to hit the farmers with his fancy four-wheel drives, but even that seemed too calculating for him. I thought Ray must have got the whole thing wrong.
That evening I couldn’t put Ronnie Laing out of my mind. I’m an obsessive. It’s part of my personality. Occasionally images get stuck in my head and they go round in a loop, like an irritating song. What bugged me most was that I couldn’t place him. I couldn’t fix his class or his education, even his age. Usually I’m good at that stuff. Ray and Jess invited me to the pub with them, but I stayed at home. I lay on my bed remembering the shock when Ronnie touched me and his quiet voice, the effort it took him to keep the stammer out, the slim, fit body beneath the suit. I was still awake when the clock at St Bartholomew’s struck three. I took a sleeping tablet then and eventually fell unconscious.
Chapter Ten
Perhaps because of the pill I felt strange the next day, disconnected. When I woke up Jess was hanging out towels to dry in the yard. The spin on the automatic had gone, so they were very wet. They were heavy and they dripped and she had to struggle to peg them up. I wondered briefly if I should use some of my money to buy a new washing machine, but I didn’t go out to help her.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ She turned, the plastic laundry basket in her arms, and saw me watching from the kitchen door. It wasn’t cold but I was wrapped up in a big sweater.
‘Dunno. A touch of flu.’
She accepted that without question, though she looked at me again more closely. Then she fussed inside to make a hot lemon drink.
‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring it up.’
‘I’ve got to go out. Work, sort of.’
She accepted that too. She didn’t like it but she let me go.
The evening before I’d been to the library in the village to look in the Tyne and Wear phone book, hoping to track down an address for Kay and Ronnie, but they must have been ex-directory. I could have put off tracing Thomas’s mother for another day, waited until I felt better, but, like I said, I’m an obsessive. I couldn’t let it go.
In the photo she’d shown me in North Shields, Mrs Mariner’s grandchildren had been wearing bright yellow sweatshirts with St Cuthbert’s Primary School in big brown letters on the front. There was only one St Cuthbert’s school in Whitley Bay and that was in the phone book. I arrived there too early. It was an old-fashioned place built of grey stone, still showing the separate boys’ and girls’ entrances over the doors. The yard had been marked for hopscotch and it was surrounded by black wrought-iron railings. When a class came out with a basket of skipping ropes and balls for PE I walked on up the street. I didn’t want to be noticed staring in at the kids. There was a café near the old bus station and I sat there drinking stewed tea which had been poured from a big iron pot, watching the hands of the clock move round towards three. It only occurred to me when I was leaving that I should have had something to eat.
There was a bunch of mothers waiting by the gate, a couple of grans, a sprinkling of self-conscious dads, an assault course of pushchairs and prams. I stood on the edge of the group, trying to look as if I belonged there. I was starting to panic. Little girls in yellow sweatshirts all look very similar. How would I recognize them?
‘I’ve not seen you here before.’ It was a middle-aged woman, comfortably, scruffily dressed, slightly overweight.
‘No.’ A pause, more panic. ‘I’ve come to collect my sister’s kids.’ Immediately I thought, That was really dumb. Then, pleading, in my head, Don’t ask me the names, don’t ask me the names.
‘They’re always late on a Thursday. Hymn practice. That Mr Cryer, he does go on.’
‘Oh.’ I felt my breathing become more regular, tried to remember the instructions of the yoga teacher in the hospital. ‘Right.’
She turned away to chat to someone else.
In the end when they ran out I knew them straight away. They were in the first group, very tidy in identical pleated skirts and patent leather sandals. They seemed to be heading straight for me, their faces shiny with enthusiasm, their plaits bouncing. I knew they were bursting to tell someone about their day and I almost knelt to listen. They’d have books full of stickers and gold stars and I wanted to see them. But they hurtled past
me to the middle-aged woman who’d put me right about Mr Cryer and hymn practice. She finished her conversation with a mother who looked as if she’d just come from the gym, while the girls pulled at her jumper and demanded her attention.
It wasn’t Kay Laing. I’d seen a recent photo of Kay in Ronnie’s office at the garage and even if she’d suddenly put on weight, the woman with the sculpted hair wouldn’t have been seen dead in leggings which were going bald at the knee and a jersey covered in paint. This was the childminder. She gave me a friendly nod, took the girls by the hand and walked off.
I waited until the lollipop lady had seen them across the road and then I followed. The woman didn’t look round. Finally she was taking notice of what the children were saying, smiling and murmuring encouragement. They’d arrived at a small rank of shops facing onto a wide pavement. The woman opened the door of a newsagent’s and held it for the girls to go in. I looked at the desirable property displayed in an estate agent’s window on the other side of the road, then watched their reflection in the glass as they came out carrying ice creams.
‘Lizzie Bartholomew. What are you doing here?’
He’d come up on my blind side. There was a jolt of adrenaline in my system which made me want to run, but I turned slowly to face him. For a moment, because I’d been so focused on the woman and the two little girls, I couldn’t place him.
‘Dan Meech!’ So pleased with myself for remembering that it sounded as if he were a long-lost brother. I thumped him on the back because that’s what he would have expected. Nothing soppy, though once I’d fancied him like crazy. We’d gone out a couple of times at university but, it seemed he liked his women blonde and willowy. He’d dumped me for a girl on his course because he said we were too like mates. An excuse of course. She was stunning. He’d been doing performing arts. She was passionate about ballet. How could I compete?
I thought I’d carried this encounter off well, but he said, ‘Hey, Liz. Are you OK?’ And put his hand under my arm as if I needed him to steady me.
Looking past him into the street, I must have sounded absent-minded.
‘Yeah, Dan. Course.’ The childminder and the little girls had disappeared. ‘Look, Dan, I’m in a real hurry. I’ll have to go. See you around.’
I sprinted down the street. When I turned back briefly, Dan was still standing there in his baggy trousers, looking as if he’d been set an exercise in his mime class: ‘express surprise and confusion’. He always was a drama queen.
Still I couldn’t see the childminder and the two kids. I was scared they’d already gone into one of the houses and I’d have to go through the whole charade of playing doting auntie by the school gate again. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. This was turning into the smart bit of Whitley Bay. Big Edwardian houses were set back from the pavement. Through painted wooden gates I glimpsed long back gardens with fruit trees and striped lawns. The streets were parallel, running off the main road, where the row of small shops gave the impression of a village. I didn’t see it as a place where the childminder would live. The houses round here went for a lifetime’s earnings. She was taking the girls to their own home and I didn’t even know which street she’d taken from the main road.
I stopped running. I was just drawing attention to myself. People were staring. I must have looked wild. Again I forced myself to breathe more slowly into the pit of my stomach, then began a systematic search. The streets were straight. Although trees had been planted at the edge of the pavements, I could see to the end of each one. There was a group of kids walking down the first I tried, but they were older, loaded down with violin cases and bags of books. There was no adult with them. The second was empty.
That was it. Time to give up. Perhaps I could find Dan again and persuade him to come for a drink. I really needed a drink Last time I’d heard, Dan had been working for a community theatre group and he was always broke. I could probably buy half an hour’s company for the price of a pint. Or two. Then I heard voices behind me. Children’s voices. The minder was carrying a plastic bag with Alldays Convenience Stores printed on the side. They’d been in a shop all the time and in my panic I’d run past them.
I was standing on the pavement like a prat, looking crazily around me. There was nowhere to hide. The woman came up to me and stopped.
‘That was quick,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’ve got rid of your sister’s kids, then?’
‘Yes.’ She must have thought I was a halfwit. ‘Change of plan.’
‘Do you live round here?’ There was envy in her voice which confirmed that she didn’t.
‘Nah. I wish. Just meeting a friend.’
We smiled conspiratorially. For a moment it was us against all these rich bastards in their big houses. Then she moved on.
I stood at the corner and watched her go, counting the houses until she went in. She didn’t look back. The Laings’ house had a storm porch with a blue front door and there was a magnolia tree in the front garden. I wouldn’t miss it if I came again. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had a choice. A drink with Dan or make an effort to see Kay. A late-afternoon pub, quiet, with only a couple of serious drinkers to compete for the landlady’s attention, seemed attractive. Dan would be up for it. We could talk about university, catch up on the news of old friends. He’d probably still be on the main road, expressing confusion and surprise. But I wanted to meet Kay Laing. It was already a quarter to four. Kay was an infant teacher. The kids would be gone by three-thirty at the latest. There’d be clearing up to do, a staff meeting perhaps, but she could be home at any time. Without being conscious of taking a decision, I leaned against the phone box on the corner and waited, watching the traffic grow heavier, my eyes fixed on the blue front door.
She arrived home nearly an hour later. I knew it was an hour because I checked my watch, but it seemed as if I’d only been there for minutes. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking about. She was driving an electric-blue Corsa. It was new. Not something Ronnie would normally stock and not something picked up at an auction. She pulled into the side of the road, so I thought she was going to leave the car there, but she opened the door of the double garage and drove into one side. Five minutes later, the childminder came out through the front porch. One of the children waved to her from a bedroom window, but she didn’t notice. She walked down the street in the opposite direction. I waited until she was out of sight before approaching the house.
Chapter Eleven
Kay Laing opened the door as if she expected the caller to be someone dirty and unemployed selling dishcloths. She couldn’t have many friends who just dropped in. She’d changed from the skirt and jacket she’d been wearing for work into a grey tracksuit and white trainers. Very white trainers.
‘Yes?’
This was the woman Philip had made love to more than twenty years ago, the mother of his child. She would have been very different then, of course. A student. And I could tell she would have been pretty in a conventional way. But that was the problem. I wasn’t jealous, nothing like that. I was disappointed. I had hoped for more from Philip, that he would have fallen for someone different, more exciting.
‘Well?’ she demanded. She made to close the door.
I flashed my identity pass. ‘Lizzie Bartholomew from the youth justice team.’
I wasn’t sure if there was a youth justice team in North Tyneside and at nineteen Thomas Mariner would probably be too old to concern them. But social service provision was labyrinthine, even to the people involved. I didn’t think Kay Laing would know the difference.
‘He doesn’t live here now.’
‘I’m aware of that, Mrs Laing. I just want a chat.’
Talking to Kay I felt sharper than I had all day, on top of things for the first time. Philip would have been proud. On the other side of the privet hedge, an elderly neighbour was on his knees weeding. If he hadn’t been there Kay wouldn’t have been so accommodating. She didn’t want him to hear her being
rude.
‘You’d better come in.’
Ahead of me through an open door I saw the children at a table in the kitchen. They had changed too, one into pink dungarees with matching flowery shirt, the other into blue. I knew their uniforms would be hung up and neatly folded, ready for the next day. They were working with exercise books and pencils. I thought they seemed too young for homework but none of the schools I’d attended had been like St Cuthbert’s. And perhaps things had changed.
The living room was yellow and white. Stripped floors. Two big oatmeal sofas with yellow woven throws. A wood-burning stove, cold now. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Not Kay’s taste, I thought. She’d have gone for something more chintzy and convenient, Dralon and a real-flame gas fire. Ronnie’s, then . . . I was impressed.
‘What’s Thomas done now?’ Kay said. ‘He’s gone eighteen, you know. Responsible for himself.’
‘I know that.’
‘It’s not as if we haven’t tried. It’s not as if he wanted for anything.’ She turned her head, a gesture which encompassed not only the room but the house and all it represented.
‘I can see.’
She sat on one of the sofas, her back very straight. I took the other. Now I was here, I was feeling good, relaxed, confident I could get the information I wanted. I didn’t like Kay Laing and that helped. I didn’t mind lying to her. I imagined Ronnie as henpecked and downtrodden. While I was thinking that, my mind was racing, planning the interview: not too many direct questions, I decided. She’d realize then that I knew less than I pretended.