by Ann Cleeves
‘What exactly are you doing here, Lizzie? And don’t give me the crap you gave Ellen. Journalists make notes. I bet you haven’t even got a pen on you.’
So I told him. Not about Philip. Just that I was on the sick and that I’d been asked to trace a lad. He made a pot of tea and rinsed out a couple of the mugs. He didn’t ask about my illness, but I gave him something to be going on with. ‘Depression,’ I said. ‘Stress-related.’ I almost felt I had him eating out of my hand. Almost but not quite. Dan Meech was never a soft touch, except when it came to blonde dance students.
‘Thomas Mariner,’ I said, staring at him, hoping for a flash of recognition. None came. Perhaps I’d underestimated his skill as an actor.
‘I can’t tell you anything. I work here. It’s confidential.’
‘Look, all I’ve got to do is wait for one of those lads playing pool. They won’t stay in all day and I can be very patient. If Thomas is living here they’ll tell me. If I give them a tenner I’ll know the colour of his underpants and when he last had sex. But it’s delicate, isn’t it? He wouldn’t want them all knowing someone’s looking for him. Besides, if Thomas is here you’ll know him better than anyone. If you were involved from the beginning you’d be able to help.’
‘He isn’t living here.’ As if that was the end of the matter. Either he’d never known me very well or he’d forgotten how stubborn I could be.
‘But he did once. And you’ll know where he is now.’
‘He doesn’t want anyone to find out. I promised I’d not say. And how come you’re involved anyway?’
‘This is personal, Dan. Almost family.’ And really, that was what it felt like.
I was expecting more of a fight, but suddenly Dan gave in. Perhaps he could tell how much this would mean to me. He held up his hands, a gesture of surrender. ‘All right. You win.’
‘An address, then?’
‘Look,’ he said wearily, putting off the inevitable, ‘do you fancy a pint?’
There was a pub a couple of streets away. It was very small, one bar not much bigger than Jess’s kitchen. The landlord was a big-jowled man, flabby and loose-skinned. He nodded at Dan as soon as we walked through the door and had his pint pulled before we reached the bar. He seemed offended when I said I’d have the same. If ladies drank beer at all, it was clear he preferred them to have halves, which he’d serve in glasses with stems.
‘How did you get involved in Absalom House?’ I asked.
‘Acting Out did a workshop there for the residents. Ellen and I got talking. She offered me a job.’
‘Who funds it? Social services?’
‘They fund a few of the residents. Kids who’ve been in care and need a bit of support. But it’s a charity. Ellen set it up thirty years ago in memory of her son. He was sleeping rough in London, got mugged and died two days later in hospital.’
‘Is there a Mr Ellen?’
‘I suppose there must have been once. She never mentions him. She probably wore him out. She’s tireless. There are other trustees, but she does most of the work. She’s provided a home for hundreds of kids over the years. I don’t know how long she’ll be able to keep going. I don’t dare ask her age but she must be at least seventy. She was an actress in rep before she started up in this. Perhaps that’s why she took to me. In my darker moments I think she might be expecting me to take the place over when she can’t manage any more.’
‘Grooming you for stardom?’
He grinned. ‘Something like that.’
‘Thomas Mariner was one of your residents?’
‘Aye, for a couple of months. He had the room next to the lasses you saw. The sisters in the headscarves. But he’s working. It wasn’t hard for him to find his own place. Absalom House was always going to be temporary for him. Perhaps his mother thought it would bring him to his senses, send him home promising to be a good boy.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘He’ll do all right.’
‘Come on, Dan. You can give me more than that.’
‘He’d had a row with his family. Uptight middle-class bitch and a stepfather I never met.’
‘But you did meet the mother?’
‘She helped him move in, brought round some of his gear in the car. There was something heavy going on between them. Not just him moving out. I mean, he was old enough to be independent anyway. With a bit of time he’d have been able to find a flat. But she wouldn’t give him the time. There was something else. They’d fallen out big style.’
‘Did he ever tell you what it was all about?’
‘No. I was just starting to know him when he moved out. There was a student, a lad Thomas had been friendly with when he was at school, who needed a body to share a house in Seaton Delaval. The lad’s father had bought this place and done it up. The mortgage worked out cheaper than hall of residence fees apparently and I suppose he saw it as some kind of investment. Anyway, Thomas could afford the rent and he moved on.’
‘Did he talk about his work?’
‘Not much. He likes to impress, does Thomas, and moving paper around in the haulage firm didn’t give the impression he wanted to create. Not in front of the other lads. He’d rather be talking about the band he’s in, the gigs he plays.’
‘Is it paper?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’d be computers now, wouldn’t it? Any invoice and booking system?’
‘Well, he’d be all right, then.’ Dan was starting to get impatient. ‘He knows all about IT. Ellen’s system went on the blink and he got it going again. Bragged about it for weeks, but he certainly knows his stuff.’
‘You don’t sound as if you liked him.’
‘Like I say, he’ll do all right.’ He must have realized that wasn’t enough for me. ‘Look, he’s young, a bit cocky, a bit arrogant. Or maybe he’s just not very sure of himself and needs to put on a show. Whatever. None of them are angels.’
‘Why’s he still working for the haulage company if he’s so good with computers? He could get a job programming. It’d pay more.’
‘Perhaps he likes being a big fish in a little pond. The confidence thing again.’
Some mystical or telepathic signal must have passed between Dan and the landlord, because two more pints appeared on the bar. This time I paid.
‘Anything else you can tell me?’
‘He’d started doing voluntary work, fund-raising for some conservation charity. It was probably Nell’s influence.’
‘Nell?’
‘His girlfriend. The love of his life. At least she was while he lived at the hostel. They’ve split up recently.’
‘Does she live at Absalom House?’
Dan shook his head. ‘She’s still at school. Sixth form of Whitley High. Lives at home with Mummy and Daddy. Staid and respectable in an arty, theatrical sort of way. Mummy and Daddy are arty too. Very liberal.’ He paused, gave the sheepish grin which made me remember why I’d fancied the pants off him at university. ‘She did her work experience at Acting Out.’
I was relieved. That explained Dan’s ambiguous attitude to Thomas. There was nothing sinister and I hadn’t been imagining things. They were rivals for the affections of a pretty girl. Dan was still speaking. ‘Her real name’s Helen. Helen Ravendale. But known to all her friends as Nell.’ Suddenly he stopped short. A question he should have asked upfront had just occurred to him. ‘If his mother wanted to find Thomas, why didn’t she come and ask?’
‘Because you wouldn’t have told her where he was.’
‘It is his mother, then, who asked you to trace him?’
I tapped the side of my nose and told him that I had client confidentiality to respect too. ‘Let’s have that address in Seaton Delaval.’
‘Look, he really didn’t want anyone to know. He made a point when he left. If he asks, you didn’t get it from me.’
‘OK.’
‘It’s 16 Isabella Street.’ He stopped pretending to resist. ‘I remember because I was pre
paring to forward some mail to him this afternoon. If you come back to the hostel you can pick it up. You might as well take it with you. Save me a trip to the post box.’
Chapter Thirteen
That night I had the Blyth dream again and woke up shaking.
In the morning I went to Delaval. I hadn’t slept well, but I couldn’t put off seeing Thomas. I’d woken to the same obsession, the same drive, to carry out Philip’s instruction. Perhaps I had become so caught up with his commission because it was a way of burying my own demons. I didn’t think the flashbacks would end when I found Thomas. Not consciously. But I felt it was a way of taking control again. Of my own life and my own mind.
It wasn’t until I was sitting on the bus that I realized I didn’t know what I was going to say to the boy. Philip hadn’t given me any clues. We pulled up a bank past a row of grey, terraced cottages. A colliery wheel fixed in concrete surrounded by bedding plants marked the end of a village and an Alsatian dog was cocking its leg against it. What will I tell him, I thought. I’m a friend of your father’s. But by the way, he’s dead.
In the seat across from me sat a very fat woman, so fat that she was ageless. She had huge chins and sagging bosoms and she took up the whole double seat. She was muttering to herself about buying a pair of shoes, telling the whole story of what would happen when she went into the Co-op to choose them. No one took any notice of her. When you see mad people, usually you ignore them, put them out of your mind. But that day in the bus that woman really bugged me. I wanted to yell at her to shut up. I had plans of my own to make which were more important than buying shoes. I didn’t shout, of course, but that’s what I wanted to do.
I still hadn’t decided how I was going to play my meeting with Thomas when I got out of the bus. It was possible that he was well and contented – that, having escaped from his mother and stepfather, these new friends had provided a surrogate family. Perhaps he wouldn’t need my advice or my friendship. I could take him out occasionally for a drink or a meal, like a distant godparent. Stuart Howdon could deal with the rest. But somehow I didn’t believe in the fairy-tale ending, and anyway, wasn’t friendship what I was hoping for? I was confused and miserable. Perhaps my low mood had to do with the weather. A sea fret had come in from the coast, bringing a persistent drizzle. I felt paler, greyer, as if it had washed away my Moroccan tan. In the street everyone walked with their heads bent. It was so dark that I expected streetlights and their absence threw me.
There was something else. Something more worrying. For the last few days I’d thought I was being followed. It’d happened before. It happened just before I lost my temper that time in Blyth. However much I knew really that no one was following me, I couldn’t get the sensation out of my head
Seaton Delaval was once a pit village. The streets are straight and grey; little Tyneside houses or flats with two front doors side by side, one leading upstairs and one down, face onto the narrow pavements. In fine weather young mothers sit on the steps, smoking and chatting. Today Isabella Street was empty except for one figure in a long black coat hurrying to get into a car and out of the rain. Number 16 was a house. The upstairs and downstairs flats had been knocked together. Where the second door had been was now a sheet of plate glass, so I could see inside to a hall and staircase. There was a brown cord carpet on the floor, which was covered in so much muck and dust that it looked as if it hadn’t seen a hoover since it went down. A bike was propped against the wall and there was a mountain of random boots and shoes. I rang the bell. There was no reply. I didn’t try it again. The feeling that I was being watched was making me really jumpy and I fled back down the street the way I’d come. This needed more preparation and I was glad of the delay.
On the roundabout there was a shop run by an Italian family. The place was famous for its ice cream. Jess and I had queued there on Sunday afternoons after a ritual visit to the gardens of a local stately home. Jess had an immense curiosity about the aristocracy. Ray would have disapproved, I’m sure, if he’d known – he was something of a revolutionary on the sly – but I don’t think she’d ever let on. Inside the shop a few tables and chairs had been set out as a café. It was all dark-panelled wood and dusty shelves with jars of boiled sweets, brightly coloured sherbet and liquorice sticks. I sat over a milky coffee and tried to make sense of my position.
Suddenly it occurred to me that Thomas was unlikely to be at home at this time anyway. Wouldn’t he be working at Harry Pool’s? Perhaps Thomas’s student friend would be in on his own. If he could confirm that Thomas was living there, I could report back to Stuart Howdon and leave the friendship thing until I felt better prepared.
This time someone was in. From upstairs came the thud of a bass line, music I didn’t recognize. I pushed the bell and heard it ring faintly above the sound. Still there was no response.
The door of the next house opened and a girl looked out. She was fourteen or fifteen, dressed in black trousers and a white shirt which I took to be school uniform. Beneath the white shirt was the neat dome of a pregnancy. Otherwise she had the figure of a child – very slight and boyish. Her feet were bare and she stood in her own hall and peered round the door at me.
‘They won’t hear,’ she said. ‘They never do.’
‘Are they both in?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Lizzie Bartholomew.’ This time I didn’t show my pass.
‘From the social?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘What, then?’
I only hesitated for a second. ‘Housing officer from the university. I have to check it’s a reasonable place for students to live.’
I know. Unlikely. But the girl bought it anyway. Or she was looking for an excuse not to go straight back to school. ‘Course it is. They’ve done it all out. It’s better than the other houses in the street. Better than in here.’ Her voice was wistful.
‘All the same . . .’
‘I don’t know who’s in,’ she said. ‘I’ve just come back from the doctor’s. I got caught short on the way back to school. You never stop pissing, do you, when you’re pregnant?’
I banged on the door again to show I was serious about getting in.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s a key. I’ll show you.’ She slipped her feet into black boat-like shoes with big square heels and joined me on the pavement. On the front sill of number 16 was a wooden window-box. There were three clay pots inside. The plants were dead; the student obviously wasn’t into gardening. The girl took one of the pots, knocked out the plant and inside there was a key. She tipped it into her hand, wiped the earth from it on her trousers and gave it to me. I expected her to go home then, or to make her way back to school, but she stood beside me, curious, proprietorial.
‘Go on, then,’ she said.
But when I put in the key it wouldn’t turn. I pressed the handle and the door opened. It was already unlocked.
‘They’re daft, those two,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve told them they should be careful. They’ll get burgled. They’ve got no idea what it’s like round here.’
She pushed ahead of me and charged up the stairs. I shut the door behind me. The music was louder inside. Much, much louder. And weirder, pierced by a sudden shrill high tone. Then the music stopped and the piercing screech continued. It was the girl wailing. The noise came from somewhere in the back of her throat. That was what made it so high-pitched. It must really have hurt her to make it. And even when I was standing right behind her she wouldn’t stop.
She stood in the doorway of a bedroom. I pushed her out of the way and suddenly I’d walked into my own nightmare. It was like reality and flashback had collided with the violence of a nuclear explosion. The result was blood. It was everywhere. Glossy and very red against the monochrome decoration, spreading out from the grey figure curled on the floor.
But where was the knife? In my dream there was always a knife. I scanned the scene but I couldn’t see it. It certainly wasn’t centre-stage, where I
’d expected. Then the girl’s screaming got to me. I took her by the shoulders and shook her, forgetting about the baby she was carrying, just wanting the noise to stop. It was like a drill inside my head. It was hurting me, like all that red was hurting my eyes. There was silence. She turned and stared at me, her mouth still open. I touched her shoulders again, this time an apology, a clumsy attempt to comfort.
‘Is there a phone in your house?’ I demanded.
She nodded, still unable to speak.
‘Phone the police. Not from here. From your house. Can you do that?’
She nodded again.
She was halfway down the stairs when I called after her. ‘Who is it? Which one is it?’
Her voice was a croaky whisper, as if she’d regained her powers of speech at last after a lifetime’s silence. ‘Tommy Mariner.’
Of course, I’d known all along that it was Thomas. It was as if I’d been expecting it. As if I’d seen it before in a vision. Since I’d stabbed that boy in Blyth, I’d been waiting for it to happen again.
I began to sob. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘So, so sorry.’ I wasn’t talking to Thomas but to Philip.
Chapter Fourteen
So, I was back in the same room. High walls painted that thick cream gloss that you only ever find in institutions. A high window, slit horizontally like a post box in a door. A graffiti-covered table bolted to the floor, and on the table a fluted foil container which they used as an ashtray but which might once have held a mince pie. It looked as if it had been there since Christmas. Since the last time. Four chairs, moulded plastic. The same policeman asking the questions, and he made the connection too.
‘Another stabbing, Miss Bartholomew.’
He spoke sadly. It was as if I’d let him down. A woman sat beside him. She was only a bit older than me, thin-lipped with blotchy skin. She didn’t speak, didn’t even move. The fourth chair was empty.