I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked at the children’s play area, empty except for a gaggle of teenagers packed into a small, dark space underneath the slide. The dropping sun had spread a buttery glow over the swings, climbing frame and roundabout. The teenagers were smoking and talking in low, serious voices; the tips of their cigarettes pinpricking the gloam, orange against black.
‘I never noticed before. There aren’t many trees. Not like home. The orchards. Is that why you moved?’
‘Orchards? What have orchards got to do with anything?’
‘It is hard to imagine her in a place like this. Does that help?’
‘Mum, can we talk about why you’re here?’
‘Twelve years old today.’ She pulled a fingernail across the needlecord on her jacket collar. The ridged material vibrated dully. ‘You were awful at twelve. Answering back, kissing boys, shortening your skirts.’ She nodded at the teenagers under the slide. ‘Smoking out of your bedroom window.’
I did a double take. All these years and she’d not once let on she knew. When I was fourteen I’d gone through a phase of lighting up a sneaky fag every night before bed. I’d fancied myself as Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan and used to blow the smoke out the side of my mouth, taking care not to inhale too deeply as it made me feel sick. We’d lived in a modernist, seventies bungalow, the same bungalow occupied to this day by Mum and Dad, and my bedroom window, facing out onto the back garden, had been perfectly positioned, or so I’d thought, for acting out my Madonna fantasies.
‘Don’t be so naïve,’ said Mum, registering my surprise. ‘You used to reek of fags. Thank God you grew out of it. Disgusting habit.’
I smiled at the memory. I used to hide the butts in a pencil case, depositing them in the rubbish bin at the end of our street on my way to school. That street. That bungalow. I’d spent more time living there then I cared to admit.
I’d moved back in when I was six months pregnant. It had seemed to make sense. People ask about Lauren’s dad, but I only ever knew the bloke’s first name: Shaun. Lost to the blurry memories of stand-up sex in a nightclub toilet – unsurprisingly, I never saw or heard from him again. And so, my meagre salary barely able to support myself, let alone a child, I’d jumped at the chance when Mum and Dad had suggested the idea. Still, after nearly a decade of renting with friends, living back with my parents had taken some getting used to. Lauren had spent her first few months in the Moses basket in my room, below the same window I used to smoke out of. Then, when she was old enough, she’d moved into a cot in the bungalow’s third, smaller bedroom. Situated down the hall, it had once been earmarked by Mum and Dad for a sibling that never came. The day I claimed it for Lauren, Mum had been thrilled.
The last sliver of sun disappeared from sight. The park was cast into a thick, purply dusk. I looked at Mum. She was staring at the darkening sky, the nub of her chin tucked into the top of her polo neck.
‘I like your hair.’
She reached up and, misjudging her new length, found herself grabbing at her jacket collar.
‘I thought it more befitting a woman of my age.’
‘Don’t be silly. You looked great; you still look great,’ I said, nudging her gently.
She smiled and nudged me back.
‘I had the radio on during the drive up.’ Her voice was bright, as though she’d sensed an opportunity and was glad to act on it. ‘They were talking about how long women leave it to have a baby these days.’
I stiffened.
‘They said once you get to forty your chance of getting pregnant in any given month is just five per cent.’ She stopped and turned to face me. Her thoughts seemed to have jack-knifed in some other direction. ‘Did you have to go into work today?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘When I couldn’t get hold of you …’ She tailed off. ‘It was like last year all over again.’
‘When are you going to stop obsessing about that? I was away, at a sales conference. You couldn’t get hold of me because I was busy.’
‘They had to break down the door.’
‘I have a bad back. I took one too many painkillers on an empty stomach.’ I slapped my chest. ‘I’m fine. As fine as I can be. Just like you and Dad.’
She slunk a little lower into her polo neck.
‘Look,’ I said, dropping my voice an octave. ‘It’s been a hard few weeks and today is always difficult but Jason takes good care of me.’ I searched for something I could use to reassure her. ‘We’re going on holiday soon.’
‘Oh?’
‘Gran Canaria. The hotel is lovely. It overlooks the beach. We’ll be there out of season so it should be nice and quiet.’ I imagined the blue seas and sand to come. I realised I wasn’t just saying it to make Mum feel better. Jason and I needed this holiday. It would give us a chance to relax and get back on track.
I reached for her hand.
‘Stay tonight. I don’t want you driving all that way here and there in one day.’ I squeezed it hard. ‘Please.’
She screwed up her eyes and leant forward, towards the skyline.
‘It really is quite odd. I keep looking and looking and still, I haven’t been able to spot a single tree.’
I released her hand back into her lap and got to my feet.
‘It’s getting late. Come on. I’ll walk you back to your car.’
Chapter Nine
I waved Mum off and continued down the hill to our front door. Inside, the house was dark. I was about to turn on the hall light when I heard the squeak of chair against floor tile.
‘Jason?’
‘Back here,’ he shouted. ‘In the kitchen.’
I made my way down the passage and found him sitting at the table.
‘Has there been a power cut?’
‘The electric’s fine.’ He got up, came round to where I stood and kissed me lightly on the mouth. Easing my bag off my shoulder, he unbuttoned my coat, slipped it away from my body and offered me a chair. I let myself sink down onto the wooden seat and sniffed. The central heating was on full and its warmth had mingled with something sweet and vaguely familiar. I took another sniff, deeper this time. The air was thick, syrupy almost.
Jason pulled up a chair opposite.
‘I know you like to mark today in your own way but this year I wanted to do something for you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And for her, for Lauren.’
He twisted round and reached towards the sideboard. Holding whatever it was with both hands, he brought it forward and placed it on the table in front of me. I squinted in the gloom.
‘I had to order it special.’ There was the rasp of a lighter being struck. ‘It was tricky to track down, but then someone on the internet pointed me in the right direction.’ The lighter’s yellow flame bounced and once it had settled he held it next to a pink birthday candle. As the wick caught and flared, a weak disc of light spread out onto the table below. I looked down and saw that the candle was wedged into the middle of a small, triangular biscuit. The biscuit was golden brown and decorated with tiny strips of orange peel and granules of sugar that twinkled in the light.
I recognised it immediately.
‘Infar-cake.’
Jason smiled and reached for my hand.
‘Dreaming bread,’ he said quietly.
I moved my face in close to the plate and breathed deep. I’d come across infar-cake only once before, on holiday on the Isle of Mull. Its salty-sweet tang was unique. I broke away a corner of biscuit and placed it in my mouth. Rolling the crumbs around on my tongue, I felt the sharp granules of sugar soften and dissolve.
‘Is it OK?’ asked Jason. ‘I spoke to the lady on the phone. She told me this was the right type.’
I squeezed his hand.
‘It’s perfect.’
Lauren and I had gone to Mull with Mum and Dad when Lauren was three. Dad had always wanted to go and so one week in May we’d rented a cottage and set off for the Hebrides. A few days in, I’
d suggested Lauren and I explore the rock pools on a nearby beach. We’d had a great morning looking at the tiny fish and crabs that populated each enclave of water and had got so into it that we’d walked from one end of the beach to the other. By then it was lunchtime and so, instead of returning to the cottage, I’d led us into a village in search of a café. We soon discovered that the village contained nothing but a few fishermen’s houses and a small shop that sold basic groceries. We were both starving and so, instead of trekking all the way back to the cottage, I’d decided to improvise.
Inside the shop I grabbed some bread, cheese and crisps and as I waited to pay I noticed a plate of what looked like flat triangles of some kind of bread for sale on the counter next to the till. They resembled a more solid version of an Irish potato farl. The shopkeeper noted my curiosity and explained that it was homemade infar-cake, a kind of shortbread, and that it was a local specialty. I added two of the odd-looking biscuits to my basket, and while the shopkeeper bagged them up she winked at my empty ring finger and told me that some people called the biscuits dreaming bread and that it was tradition to break the cake over a bride’s head on the threshold to her new home.
Outside the shop, sitting on a low wall overlooking the Atlantic, Lauren had surveyed the strange, crumbly biscuit with suspicion. But then her hunger had got the better of her and after tentatively nibbling a corner, she had devoured the whole thing in less than three bites. Licking her lips, she had pushed her fingers back inside the greasy paper bag in search of leftover crumbs and had declared it the most delicious thing she had ever tasted, more delicious even than Phish Food ice cream.
I’d told Jason about that meal when we’d first started seeing each other. He’d taken me away for the weekend to a tiny stone house in Windermere. The first night there, the weather had blustered at the windows the same way it had in Mull. I’d told him that, despite the rain and being stuck in a small cottage with Mum and Dad, it had been a great holiday. The best.
The pink candle wax had started to drip and harden onto the biscuit.
‘Thank you.’ I blew gently.
With the light gone I blinked, disorientated. Sitting on that park bench earlier had left every muscle packed tight against my bones but now I felt them start to loosen. I thought about telling Jason how Mum had been there waiting.
He seemed to sense the change in me. He got up, came round to where I sat, lifted my arm and put it around his neck. Then, placing his hands underneath my legs, he scooped me up off the chair and carried me out into the hall.
I let my head fall heavy on his shoulder. His flannel shirt was soft against my cheek, his chest beneath it warm and firm.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and slowly turned sideways on. Taking care not to bang my feet on the walls or banister, he began his ascent, hushing and soothing me with tiny words and noises that formed a language all our own and before we reached the top of the stairs my eyes were already closed, asleep.
Chapter Ten
The following week I had a window of free time before my last meeting of the day, and I took my chance. I drove to the off-licence, parked across the street and grabbed my bag. Inside were the photofits I’d taken from Jason’s file. It had been five years, but I hoped that if the manager of the off-licence, this Keith Veitch, was one of the unidentified suspects seen in or near Ashbrook House when Barney disappeared, I’d be able to match him to a picture, no matter how much he’d changed in the meantime. More than that, I hoped to get another look at the boy. I needed to know if he would provoke the same reaction in me. I needed to know if I was imagining things that weren’t there.
Putting the composite of the woman with frizzy hair to one side, I laid the images of the three men onto the passenger seat. The bald guy with the hamster cheeks seemed to be of a similar age. Trying and failing to remember whether or not Keith had hair, I moved on to the second man, the one with the goatee. He had a slim, almost gaunt face. I thought of Keith’s hip jowls. Maybe he’d spent the intervening years gaining weight? It was possible. Finally, I studied the man with the shaved head and pierced eyebrow. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, whereas I remembered Keith as more around the forty or fifty mark.
Memorising their faces as best I could, I left the photofits in a pile, locked the car and was about to cross the road when a portly man holding a clipboard appeared in the off-licence doorway, a middle-aged couple in tow. I watched as the man with the clipboard pointed at the shop’s exterior. He seemed to be showing the couple around. I lifted my gaze up, to the blue and red Wine City sign. There, fixed on the wall above it, was a large LEASEHOLD AVAILABLE board.
I felt a twist of anxiety. After only nine months in the job, Keith Veitch was moving on.
Still watching the estate agent, I stepped into the road. I didn’t see the van.
I put out my hands to break my fall. As the road’s gravel made contact with the soft, private skin of my palm I twisted and hit the floor side-on. When I looked up I could see something black, its surface grooved with zigzags. It was a tyre. The tyre of a parked car on the street. Beyond the tyre I saw the scattered contents of my handbag, my business cards flapping in the wind.
I must have been in pain, but all I could think was how spongy the van’s bumper had felt against my thigh bone and how surprising that was.
The driver ran round to where I lay.
‘She came out of nowhere,’ he kept saying as people started to gather. ‘I braked just in time.’
I became aware of someone kneeling over me.
‘Don’t move her. She might have hurt her back.’
There was a growing murmur of voices. I looked in their direction. Trainers, flip-flops and slip-on leather shoes filled my vision.
I knew I had to convince everyone I was OK, otherwise an ambulance and the police would be called. They’d contact my next of kin, Jason. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out why I’d been here, on this street.
‘It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
It hurt, but I forced myself to sit up.
‘I think we should call someone.’ This was the driver again. ‘My insurance.’
‘I’m OK, honestly.’ I mustered a smile.
‘Are you sure?’ asked the man at my side. I looked at his face. He seemed genuinely concerned. In his fifties, with blue eyes, and cheeks crevassed with acne scars (most of which were hidden by a brown beard). His chest and shoulders were bull-solid, his arms thick with muscle.
‘I don’t want any fuss,’ I said, wincing at the searing sensation in my hip.
He didn’t seem convinced. Still, he nodded and stood up.
‘I’ll take care of her,’ he said, addressing the driver and small crowd on the pavement. ‘You can all go on your way.’
He began gathering the strewn contents of my handbag. I watched until I saw him retrieve Lauren’s silver compass and then set about finding my shoes. Somewhere during my tumble, my stilettos had fallen off.
‘How about something to warm you up?’
I looked at my arms. I was shivering.
‘And maybe a plaster for that knee?’
I let him help me to my feet and into a café a few doors down from the off-licence.
‘She’s had a bit of a bang, that’s all,’ he declared to nobody in particular once we were inside. He sat me on one of the fixed red plastic two-seaters that furnished the place. ‘Kimberley, can you bring a mug of tea?’
A chubby girl at the till responded with a nod.
The man crouched on his haunches and moved in close to look at my knee. Remembering myself, I tried to hitch down my skirt, but it was no good – from where he sat it was impossible for him not to see my underwear. He stroked the outer circle of the wound with the pad of his thumb. Beneath his greying forearm hair, I could see two tattoos. Too faint to be professional, the one on his right declared an allegiance to Celtic Football Club, the one on his left outlined a winged naked woman, a large anchor placed diagona
lly across the length of her body. They were the kind you do with a needle and ink from a biro. The kind you see on sailors. Or ex-cons.
I looked around to see who else was in the café. There was only one customer. An old man eating his full English and reading the racing pages. Every now and again the long multi-coloured ribbons that hung above the entrance would fly up and brush him lightly on the back and he would tut at them as if they were a naughty child. A blackboard spelt out the daily specials in chalk and a clear-fronted Coke fridge hummed in the corner, dust balls dancing around the air vents where its bottom met the floor.
‘Is this place yours?’
‘It’s not mine, but I’m in charge here, if that’s what you mean.’ He wiped his fingers on his black-and-white-checked chef’s trousers. ‘I’m Tommy.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Tommy Bibbings. Nice to meet you.’
‘Heidi,’ I said, not giving out my surname. I always did this. I didn’t like to tell strangers anything that might help them recognise me in case they started offering their sympathies about Lauren or Barney or both.
‘I was at the counter when I saw him hit you,’ he explained. His accent sounded Glaswegian but had blurred around the edges, suggesting he hadn’t lived there for some time.
I decided to go with a half-lie.
‘I wanted a cold drink,’ I said. ‘I’ve been driving all afternoon. I’m a sales rep.’
‘Got distracted?’ he asked, staring at my knee.
‘I suppose.’
He looked up, studying my face for a second before he spoke again. I wondered if he thought I might be concussed.
‘After what just happened, I think you should call it a day on the sales front.’ He sat back on his heels, his eyes now perfectly level with the gap in my skirt. He didn’t even pretend not to look. ‘You should get someone to come and pick you up.’ He nodded at my wedding ring. ‘Maybe your husband?’
I sipped my tea and tried to work out my next best move. The estate agent and leasehold sign were worrying. How long did I have before Keith and the boy disappeared, possibly never to be seen again? This afternoon was clearly a write-off and, although I’d come back another time soon, I didn’t want today to go completely to waste. Maybe my rescuer knew something that would help?
My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller Page 6