At about 9pm, finally exhausted of distractions, he found the number Tom had left. He picked it and up and put it down. Held it in a closed hand trying not to memorize it and put it in a drawer in the kitchen. At 9.30 he phoned the boy’s number. There was no answer; he left a message. ‘Hello its Adam, Adam Sands. I was thinking, it’s not like Anna and I don’t know what she has been doing for the last, god, twenty-odd years, but I’d like to help, if I could. Help you look I mean. Let me know what I can do. Or better still, of course, if she has been in touch, let me know that. Bye.’
When he put the phone down, to his surprise he found himself not thinking about Anna at all, or Tom, but rather of the blonde woman who actually bought books. And so, without a moment’s hesitation, he phoned Lesley the history teacher and asked, in a roundabout sort of way, if he could come over if he brought wine and fresh vegetables from his allotment.
‘Sands,’ she said. ‘Get your sorry ass round here now. Where have you been?’
As he left his flat he noticed that the tightening around the chest was still there but it must have lessened slightly because he wasn’t so aware of it. Either that or he was getting used to it again.
11. Seascape
Anna’s instinct had been to go as far from Manchester as she could. If it was the case that she was being followed or was under threat, then her first responsibility was to lead that threat away from her son. In finding herself thinking that, she opened herself up to the realization that if anyone in the world ever wanted to hurt her then the way to do that was through Tom. On the one hand this made her want to call him, warn him, protect him. On the other, her sense of insecurity had become so acute, so tinged with paranoia that her belief, a belief evidenced by the Ford Focus showing up at Grace’s house meaning that her phone had been bugged, spread like a stain to consider that maybe her email had been hacked too, and maybe even Tom’s phone, and so she couldn’t contact him.
Anna had driven to Brighton. She booked into a small hotel on the seafront that was next to a posh fish and chip shop. She hadn’t slept that first night. Next morning she got out of bed early, showered and went for a walk along the seafront. She walked into what became Hove and then what became something industrial. Three hours later she was back at her hotel and checking out. She walked toward the pier and up into town. Brighton was always crowded but she was used to seeing it when it was sunny and people were congregating round the seafront or the lanes to celebrate life. Today it was raining and everyone looked cross. It was like being on Oxford Street but with fresher air.
It was Paul she needed to talk to but she didn’t have a phone anymore. Anyway, if people were as interested in tracing her as her imagination was leading her to believe, they would perhaps be monitoring the phones of those she was most likely to call, like Paul. She considered her options. She could drive along the coast, say toward Portsmouth, find a public phone booth and call Paul. Yes, they may trace it but she could then drive either on toward Bournemouth or back east toward Eastbourne. Of course that might narrow the search but she knew that at some point she was going to have to take some sort of chance and there was a reasoned voice inside her head telling her that a couple of blokes in a Ford Focus does not constitute MI5, although when she told herself that the image of Meena’s smouldering flat and weeping mother crept into her head.
Alternatively she could just buy a phone, new number, no contract. Or do both? Anna went to a cash machine, drew out £300, went back to her car and started driving along the A27 toward Portsmouth. At Chichester roundabout she stopped at a garage and filled up with petrol, paying by debit card. She pulled off the dual carriageway and drove down into Fareham, stopping at the first phone booth she found, which was broken. A mile or so on, she found one that was working. It crossed her mind to wonder who used phone booths any more, to make phone calls in as opposed to urinate. She phoned Paul’s number, it rang several times and she was surprised when someone answered it. But it wasn’t Paul. ‘Hello?’
’Who’s this?’
‘Simon. Anna?’ Simon was Paul’s son. A six foot four, rugby-playing chemical engineer who, in the half dozen times Anna had met him, had never shown the slightest glimmer of any emotion, unless you consider affability an emotion.
‘Where’s your dad Simon? I really need to speak to him.’
‘Don’t know. No idea.’
‘Simon, this is important…’
’I know, it must be. Look, we came back from fishing and there was a message for Dad to call someone at work. He didn’t think much of it, he actually said, ‘about bloody time,’ but when he got off the phone he seemed quiet. I asked him what was wrong and he said he didn’t know but he’d left fishing mode and gone into work mode by then, I didn’t think much of it. Where are you calling from?’
‘Phone booth,’ said Anna. ‘I got it into my head that my phone might be being tapped. It may be that your dad thought the same about his? That’s why he hasn’t got it with him?’
‘Hang on… phone tapping? Is this something to do with dodgy journalists?’
‘No idea’ said Anna.
‘Dad made a couple of calls and then he packed a bag and took off. Said he’d be back in a few days.’
Anna paused for a moment and imagined the two men in the Ford Focus listening to this conversation, tracing it. Simon hadn’t said anything that they couldn’t have already known and Simon was a bright enough young man for her to imagine that was intentional.
‘OK.’ Anna swallowed hard. ‘When he gets home, let him know I called, please.’
‘Right,’ said Simon.
‘And let him know that Meena was involved in a fire. She was hurt, I’m not sure how badly.’
There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘I think he already knows, Anna.’
Anna went back to her car. The chances were Paul was doing what she was doing. She immediately imagined him doing it better. She wondered where her confidence had gone. There was a time, a long time, in her life that she lived as though she was just waiting for the world to turn on her, secure in the knowledge that if it did she would be ready for it. As a younger woman she was always in control, indeed she designed a worldview that was wholly suited to the situation she found herself in now, a need for self-sustenance, the emotional equivalent of guerrilla warfare, but something had happened, something like motherhood.
When Tom was young she guarded him the way mothers do but more so. Always watching, always mistrusting. Policing herself to be the quiet focused career woman, yet always present when a parent had the opportunity to see their child. She watched not the sports day or nativity, nor in later years the music, the singing, the piano recitals. She watched the space around him. Was it a happy space, a growing space, a safe space? Tom had a wholly different nature to her. He was so very trusting of the world. Perhaps, she had thought, because he was a boy he expected things to be OK; she expected things to be laced with traps. His casualness, his confidence may have eased down her defences over the years. His ability to gently laugh at her caution, to tease her, had helped her do that, at least up until he was around sixteen or seventeen, when he closed up a little and she began to turn her energies away from keeping guard and toward letting go as gracefully as possible.
Anna drove on to Portsmouth following the signs to the shopping centre called Gun Wharf. There she bought a pay as you go phone, using her credit card. She put £50 worth of credit on it and immediately phoned Grace. ‘Hello?’
There was a pause and then Grace’s voice said: ‘Wait.’ And the line went dead.
For thirty seconds or so Anna stared at the phone, at first afraid then terrified and then confused. Until the phone rang. ‘Right,’ said Grace firmly. ‘I’m not taking any chances: this is Laura’s phone. Silly child left it here. The local news says that the fire at Meena’s might have been started on purpose. Meena and an unnamed man remain in a serious conditi
on. A third person is recovering well. What on earth is going on?’
Anna explained as far as she could. She told her about Paul and what Simon had said.
‘So it’s about work?’ said Grace with surprise.
‘Don’t know, must be,’ said Anna.
‘What are you working on Anna? Nuclear weapons?’
‘We were just about to start working on this depression project. Can’t see anyone needing to kill… Christ, someone tried to kill Meena?’
‘We don’t know that for sure, Anna.’
‘Don’t we?’
‘We know she is hurt, we don’t know it was necessarily an attempt on her life.’ Grace paused. ‘Having said that…’ She decided to change the subject. ‘Have you spoken to Tom?’
‘Not yet, didn’t want to draw any attention to him. I left him a message.’
‘OK, that’s good. If you call him now, though, he might start worrying.’
Anna thought for a moment. That made sense, in so much as anything made sense, but the thought of not speaking to Tom felt too close to defeat. ‘Sooner or later I’m going to have to say something to him.’ She felt as if she was almost asking the universe for permission to be illogical.
There was a long pause. ‘Let’s assume there are some people trying to find you, Anna, and let’s assume they had the ability to tap your phone, find out where you live and know that I am your best friend.’
‘Right,’ said Anna.
‘That suggests that they have access to your ordinary life. Your habits, your friends, your… son… that they have information on you, and the same about Paul.’
‘Yeah… this isn’t actually making me feel any better.’
‘No, sorry, but what might exist in your life that they don’t know about?’
Anna thought about her life: there wasn’t enough in it for there to be parts to not know about. ‘Nothing,’ she said quietly.
‘Your past, Anna. You keep your past under lock and key.’
‘My family, you mean?’
‘Well, maybe, that’s up to you. Or there’s Adam?’
‘Adam?’ Such a long time ago.
Grace didn’t speak, sensing that Anna was processing the idea. Eventually Anna said: ‘I’ll think about it.’ And then added, ‘What if I am simply going a bit mad?’
It had been her intention to leave a trail along the south coast heading westward and then head back east. Buying the phone was going to be the end of the trail but it occurred to her that up to now she was simply avoiding people unknown and guessing at what was going on. She wasn’t learning anything, not anything helpful. So she headed west into Southampton and found a small hotel off the ring road. She booked in using her debit card and told the woman behind the counter that she was going shopping and then on to dinner, but that she was expecting a business acquaintance. She asked the receptionist for the name of a good restaurant, not too close to the hotel as she would like to see a little of Southampton. The receptionist, a pretty plump woman with dark eyes and tired shoulders recommended a small Italian she liked down by the docks. Anna thanked her and gave her her phone number—risky she knew—and asked her to tell her guests that she will be in that restaurant from 8.30 and wondered if the receptionist would be kind enough to phone her to let her know when the men arrived.
‘Frankly,’ she said conspiratorially, ‘I need a bit of preparation before I see them. My little girl needed an operation and I borrowed money from the bank to get it. They say I obtained it illegally. I didn’t, and I am paying it back as agreed but they say fraud is fraud…’ Anna found herself welling up.
The receptionist lifted her shoulders and breathed in the opportunity to be a force for good rather then just someone who answered the phone and sorted out the bill. ‘Bastards’ she murmured. Anna smiled and cried a tiny bit at the same time. ‘They would say they are just doing their jobs, its just… well if I see them without expecting to see them I get all… flustered.’ The receptionist recognized the enemy that was flustered. ‘Don’t worry Ms Newton’ she said. ‘I will phone you as soon as they leave.’
‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘You are kind.’
‘That’s why you asked for a restaurant on the other side of the city isn’t it? So you will have time to get yourself together?’ Anna smiled and nodded. ‘Good thinking,’ said the receptionist. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’
Anna shook her head. She thought of tipping her, but somehow tipping someone for an act or even a gesture of kindness seemed cheap. So instead she reached across the reception desk, put her hand on the receptionist’s and squeezed. ‘I’ll bring my bag in later,’ Anna said quietly. ‘And thank you.’
Anna got back into her car and headed, almost randomly, for Eastbourne.
Anna had never been to Eastbourne before and was struck by its architectural poise. The large regency buildings, the well-ordered sea front. As she wandered along the coast road on her first day there, she felt herself relax slightly, physically at least. She booked into a large Bed and Breakfast on the edge of the town, a four-storey terraced mansion with flaking paint and a yellowing ‘Vacancies’ sign in the window. It was shabby on the inside and run by a woman who seemed suspicious of anyone who wanted to stay there. Particularly when they were paying cash. Anna spent two days wandering the streets of Eastbourne finding out why the landlady was suspicious. It was a poor town. Laced with street drinkers and angry people in nylon jackets.
The hotel in Southampton never phoned her and Anna noticed that, rather than imagine this meaning that whoever was pursuing her had less all-seeing power than she had imagined, she began to wonder if the receptionist was in on it. That was a step beyond anything resembling logic: that was paranoia. And so she took a chance and phoned Grace on Laura’s phone.
‘Where are you?’ asked Grace and Anna noticed her own paranoia again. Before she could answer, Grace said: ‘Don’t answer that. Just in case.’
‘Have you heard from Tom?’ Anna asked.
‘Yes he came here. I played dumb really. He was worried about you Anna. He said someone had been to your flat asking for you when he was there.’ Anna stopped breathing for a moment.
‘Where is he now?’
‘Tom? I’m not sure, I think he may be… he may have gone to see Adam.’
‘Why the hell would he do that?’
‘Because when he asked about any part of your life that he didn’t know about, then Adam was all I could think of and I thought, old habits or something, that, well, Adam was nothing if not trustworthy.’
Anna said nothing. All Grace could hear was her own breathing. Finally Anna said:
‘Grace, could you do me a favour, do you think? Could you call The Mayfield Hotel in Southampton and find out if anyone came looking for me?’
‘Yeah, sure. Anything else?’
‘No, I think I’m OK.’ Anna laughed. ‘Well, under the circumstances.’
‘Do you need any money?’
‘No. I’ll run out of knickers in a few days, but maybe by then I’ll have a plan.’
‘Have you tried Paul again?’
‘No…’
‘Shall I?’
Anna thought for a moment. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘If you were able to contact his son? Maybe at work or something?’
‘Where does his son work?’
‘Notts University. Simon Stern. Something to do with chemistry or engineering.’
‘Right,’ said Grace.
‘Thank you,’ said Anna.
‘Take care, pet.’
‘Trying to,’ said Anna, who was already imagining what Adam Sands, if he was still alive, was like now.
*
When the sun finally arrived Lesley was in a friendly rush.
‘Don’t leave it so long next time, Sands,’ she said as she emerged from the shower
and dressed more self-consciously than she used to in front of him. ‘And help yourself to tea and toast if you want.’
‘It’s OK’, he said softly as he got out of bed and started looking for his underwear ‘I’m fine. I’ll leave when you do and get the shop open.’ It made the following twenty minutes less comfortable than it could have been. If he had stayed in bed he could have pretended to watch her turn herself from post-coital lover to professional woman with an appreciative, flirtatious eye. In truth, while he liked her body very much, her self-consciousness made him feel that watching her was not a tender thing to do. So they dressed awkwardly and quietly and Lesley left the room as soon as she could, to go to the kitchen to make coffee that Adam would not drink.
Before they left her flat, he reached out and touched her hair, still wet from the shower and blacker for the water. ‘Are you looking for grey?’ she asked defensively.
‘No,’ he said honestly and added clumsily: ‘Do you know you have the best legs I have ever seen on a woman?’ Which was true and crass at the same time and he knew it.
‘You need to get out more, book boy,’ she said, moving round the kitchen table to separate them and check her workbag.
‘Maybe,’ shrugged Adam.
At the door she turned to kiss him goodbye. They kissed lightly but not on the lips, instead brushing each other’s face between the cheek and the mouth and lingering for a moment to formally remember that the night before they had kissed like lovers rather than as members of the same badminton club. ‘Call me, Sands,’ Lesley said. ‘A girl can’t be expected to buy her own vegetables you know.’
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