I cruised past the last of the smashed-up cars and soon my lane of traffic was back to its normal speed. Less than a mile later I pulled off the motorway and onto the road that would lead me to the restaurant where I was meeting Mr McDonald. I came to a halt at a set of lights and stared out at the row of houses to my left. One of the houses, a tidy pebble-dashed semi, had a large TO LET board in the front garden, advertising its rental potential to passing traffic.
Worry knotted my stomach.
I planned to go back for a photo of the boy again soon, but what was to say he’d even still be there? Whatever Tommy had said to the contrary, the estate agent I’d seen showing that couple around seemed to mean business. What if, the next time I managed to make it over, I discovered the bloke running the off-licence and the boy had moved on? By passing up Tommy’s invitation to come and have a drink I was missing out on what might be my only chance to find out more about Keith and the true identity of the child. The pub would be a chance to chat to him direct. He might say something to allay all my fears, something to reassure me that the child was not Barney. On the other hand, he might give away some detail, some scrap of information that would give me the confidence to override Jason’s wishes and get the police involved.
My table with Mr McDonald was booked for five minutes’ time. I’d already missed one meeting with him; to be late tonight would be bad form, but not the end of the world. He was an amenable fellow. Maybe I could stall?
A petrol station appeared on my left and I swerved into it at the last second, leaving the drivers behind me beeping their horns. I pulled up next to the cash machine, turned off the engine and sat there with my eyes closed. Listening to the radio, I tried to concentrate on the way the air felt as it went in through my nostrils and down into my lungs.
I got out my phone and dialled. He picked up on the first ring.
‘Mr McDonald, Heidi Thursby. From Bullingdon’s.’
‘Heidi, my dear.’ There was a murmur in the background. I heard the clink of glasses and the rattle of cutlery. He was already there.
‘I took the liberty of choosing the wine. Do you like Montepulciano?’
‘My favourite,’ I said. This was good. If he started ploughing into the vino he might be more forgiving.
‘I’m terribly sorry but I’m stuck in traffic. I’m going to be late.’
I screwed up my face, braced for his reaction.
‘How late?’
‘There’s an accident on the A19 and the cars are backed up for miles.’
I hoped that, by telling him a half-lie, I’d sound more convincing.
‘I suppose it can’t be helped.’
‘It can’t,’ I jumped in. ‘Again, my apologies. You know how grateful I am that you’ve made time to see me. Especially after we missed each other last week. Stay where you are. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
I checked my watch. I should have just enough time to get to the pub, have a quick drink and be back at the restaurant within the hour. I looped my way round the outskirts of the forecourt and set off back in the direction from which I had come.
Chapter Seventeen
Red paint flaked off the pub’s doorframe and curtains hung brasserie-style from gold hoops over the windows. The curtains’ lining faced out onto the street, revealing old condensation stains. Zig-zagging up and down the inside of the fabric they looked like a series of complicated brown graphs. Smoothing down my suit, I steeled myself ready and pushed on the door.
Inside, groups of men sat at small round tables and leant against the bar, their shoulders hunched and eyes glassy from an afternoon on the beer. Trying to ignore the fact I was being given a predatory once-over, I scanned the room. I couldn’t see Keith and Tommy anywhere. My nerve began to wobble. Maybe coming here had been a mistake?
I was about to leave when I saw a little wooden arrow next to the toilets with the words BEER GARDEN burnt onto it in clumsy block capitals. I told myself I’d check out there and then, if there was no sign of them, I’d be on my way back to Mr McDonald and his Montepulciano.
The beer garden turned out to be a concrete patch of ground with a few benches and red velvet-covered stools that had been brought out from inside. I clocked Keith and Tommy straightaway. They were sitting at a table near the smoking shelter, Tommy with his back to me, Keith’s head bent over a newspaper.
I thought of the boy playing on the floor of the back room of the off-licence. Had Keith left him locked in there alone while he went out to the pub?
As I got nearer, Keith looked up. When he saw me he did a double take, as if trying to place me, and said something to Tommy I couldn’t quite hear. Tommy twisted round, smiled and beckoned me over.
‘Thought I’d join you after all,’ I said as flippantly as I could and sat myself on the bench next to Tommy. ‘Mine’s a glass of white wine.’
Winking the same way as the boys at school when they knew you’d snogged one of their mates at the disco, Keith signalled to Tommy, asking him if he was ready for another. Tommy nodded and, with that, Keith hoisted himself off the bench and went inside.
He’d left his newspaper on the table. Folded in two, it showed the top half of an advert for Center Parcs. It featured a family: a mother, father, boy and girl, splashing together in a bright blue swimming pool. Enlarged to fill the page, the oversized dimensions of the family’s smiling eyes made them look unreal, other-worldly almost. I started to feel dizzy and, as I looked away, I caught Tommy’s eye. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, as though he’d realised something I had yet to understand.
‘So,’ I said, acting as if we hadn’t just seen each other in the back alley. ‘How was your day?’
I caught myself. There was a flirtation to my voice I didn’t realise until I heard it out loud. When had I decided to play it like this?
‘Hot,’ he replied and then paused, letting the word settle, ‘and busy.’ He smiled, his beard creasing up around his acne scars.
I felt myself smiling back.
Tommy reached towards my head and, for a moment, I thought he was going to cup my cheek so that he could kiss me, but instead he fished something out of my hair and held it up for me to see. It was a sweet wrapper. It must have got stuck when I fell off the wheelie bin. We stared at it like it was a rare butterfly, our faces close. But then I saw Keith returning with our drinks and directed my eyes to the left, indicating we had company. Quickly, we drew apart.
Keith retook his seat, the bench creaking and listing so far to his side that Tommy and I were raised a few inches in the air.
‘You’ve got some size on you,’ laughed Tommy, and I was surprised to see Keith’s cheeks pink a little at the allusion to his weight.
‘It’s all right,’ he joked, posturing that way men do when they want to hide their embarrassment. ‘You can’t help being jealous I’m such a magnificent hulk of a man.’
Sitting across from him like this, I took my chance to compare Keith’s face with the three suspect photofits from Jason’s file. I went through each of his features in turn, trying to find points of similarity, but there were none. He had almond eyes and long, saggy cheeks, but I decided any witness would almost certainly have remembered his nose. A protuberance so tiny it looked more like an afterthought than an intended, coherent part of his face, it was dead straight, his nostrils lizard-thin.
No matter. The fact remained. He was the one person in charge of or in close contact with a child I had recognised as Barney. And so I decided that, as I’d made the effort to come here, I might as well see if he could shed any light on my suspicions.
‘So Keith,’ I asked, ‘how do you know Tommy?’
‘The caff,’ he said, patting his tummy. ‘Someone has to keep me in bacon butties.’
Tommy laughed.
I figured my best tactic would be to try and catch him off guard. To ask a question about the boy out of the blue. If the question spooked him in any way, then it might be a sign something was up.
&nbs
p; ‘How’s the little lad?’ I tried to sound as small-talky as I could.
I scrutinised his face, ready for any change of expression that might betray his guilt or fear. But, apart from seeming a little surprised that I’d mentioned the child, there was nothing.
‘You must mean my nephew, Mikey?’
Taking a deep sup of lager, he began picking at the gold sovereigns that decorated his left hand; flicking his nail off the rings’ latticework. I let my eyes drop down from them to the table. Keith had been resting his pint on his newspaper. The Center Parcs mother now had a series of dark, damp rings on her forehead.
‘It’s a nightmare keeping the little sod entertained,’ said Keith. ‘But unlike some of us,’ – he nodded accusingly at Tommy – ‘I try and help my sister whenever I can. I take him for her after school.’
I forced the best platitude I could – ‘That’s very nice of you’ – and gulped at my wine, only to find my glass already empty.
‘Underneath all that flab there’s a heart of gold,’ added Tommy.
I laughed. Too loudly by the looks on their faces. It was time for me to leave. What was I thinking, sitting here with two men I hardly knew? I needed to get back to the restaurant. I’d left Mr McDonald waiting too long already.
I looked around. The beer garden was now packed with people smoking and drinking, all men, and the temperature had dropped considerably. I searched for the door that led into the pub – the only way back out to the street – and saw that it was blocked from view by a large group of football fans having a few pre-match pints.
‘So, champagne lady,’ said Keith. He did remember me then. ‘Live nearby? Got a nice big house over in Jesmond or something?’ He said the place name in a posh accent.
‘Heidi’s not from round here,’ said Tommy, jumping to my defence.
‘She isn’t?’
‘She’s from down south.’
I smiled gratefully. Next to him like this I was able to see how his beard stopped just short of his lips, leaving a neat line of skin around his mouth. Every now and again a flash of gold filling would peep out from the back of his teeth.
‘Don’t we know a lot about each other? You’ll be telling me her star sign next,’ laughed Keith. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he said, heaving himself off the bench, ‘I might leave you two lovebirds to it.’
Lovebirds? I felt for the curve of my wedding band.
‘Off to see your mam?’ asked Tommy.
‘Thought I’d pop in for a bit, see how she’s doing,’ replied Keith, readjusting his waistband.
‘Give her my love.’
Keith nodded and I realised that, without that off-licence cage between us, my sense of him as a person was totally different. Up close, he had a vulnerability I hadn’t noticed the first time, a vulnerability that meant he could never willingly hurt a child. Not only that, after this afternoon, I now knew that the boy was in school. Happy and healthy, he had friends and was allowed to come and go from the shop as he pleased.
‘His mam is in a hospice,’ said Tommy, once Keith had gone. ‘Hasn’t got long left, by all accounts.’
‘Oh?’
‘They diagnosed her less than a year ago. Keith tries to visit every day.’
I stared at the tattoo of the naked, winged woman on Tommy’s forearm. Her breasts were large, high and powerful, her figure hourglass.
My phone buzzed inside my bag. Mr McDonald. No doubt wondering where I’d got to. I felt my belly twist. I couldn’t miss my meeting with him. Not again. I needed to leave, now.
‘So,’ said Tommy. ‘Got any plans for tonight?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Or do you have to get back to your husband?’
A chill wind gusted through the beer garden and I shivered. I’d left my suit jacket in the car and I could feel how my nipples were sticking out through my blouse.
A smile danced around Tommy’s mouth and there it was again, that flash of gold.
‘I have to get going,’ I said, resisting the urge to cross my arms.
He licked his lips and for a brief moment I had the feeling he was playing me. That he had been all along. Suddenly, I felt like he knew exactly who I was, who I was married to and why I was so interested in Keith and the boy. That the two of them were in it together. My stomach curled in on itself. I had to get out of here immediately; I had to call the police. But then I stopped. If Tommy did know that the boy in Keith’s care was Barney and if he also knew who I was, it wouldn’t make any sense for him to invite me into his world, would it? He’d be trying to push me away, not welcoming me in every chance he got. As soon as I started to think rationally, I felt better. No, I was just being paranoid, on edge from my Nancy-Drew-like attempt at detective work, that’s all. Plus, I told myself, in the past I’d always been able to tell when people recognised me, even if they tried to hide it. You saw the click of satisfaction in their eyes. It was like they’d found a match, a key that fitted. I’d never seen that click with either Tommy or Keith. I was sure I was safe.
‘I should get back,’ I said again, as if, by repeating myself, I would make the words come true.
‘If you must.’ He blew a series of smoke rings up into the air.
But then, as I tried to get up off the bench I found he’d barred my way. I lost my footing and had to grab the table for support.
‘Tommy, please,’ I said, my mouth sticky from the wine.
After checking no one was looking, he reached his hand in behind the crook of my knee and gently ran his palm up my inside leg. Once my skirt started to bunch in the middle he brought his hand to a halt and left it there.
‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked. His fingers were on my inner thigh, inches short of my knickers. ‘If you want me to stop, say.’ His hand was shielded by the top of the picnic table. He could go further and no one would see. ‘What are you doing next Monday?’ What was he asking me, what was happening? ‘I want to see you again.’ His hand was hot on my skin. ‘Do you want to see me?’ It took me a minute, but finally, I managed to say the word.
‘Stop.’
And, although I said it very quietly, under my breath, he instantly removed his hand and swung his legs to the side, letting me go.
I staggered forwards and tried to push my way through the crowds of people towards the door that would lead me back into the pub. I was halfway across the beer garden when he shouted after me.
‘Next Monday,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
Safe in the knowledge he had no way of ever contacting me, I turned back, ready to give him a generous smile, only to see him produce one of my business cards from his back pocket.
He must have taken it the day I got knocked over by the van.
Like a magician performing a trick, he wove the white rectangle between his finger and thumb, his eyes on me. Once he was certain I had properly registered its meaning, he returned the card to his pocket and went back to his drink.
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning I arrived at work to find Yvonne pacing the boardroom, her phone glued to the side of her head.
Boxed off from the rest of our floor by immaculate glass walls, the boardroom took up the entire left side of the office and was at once the most private and the most public place we had at our disposal. Dominated by a large oval table around which Yvonne was currently performing laps, its single non-glass wall was garish with framed colour photos of our clientele.
I went to my desk and turned on the computer. Within seconds, Nick appeared. He stood behind my monitor, smiling.
‘Is there something I can help you with?’ Nick had been assigned to my team a few months earlier. A junior sales rep, he was always first in the office and last to leave and liked to clog my inbox with unnecessarily long reports on every call and pitch.
‘Have you had a chance to look at the Wetherspoon’s spreadsheet?’
With coarse black hair cut close to his head and wiry sprouts on the backs of his hands, he had a tendency to wear shirts that were ju
st that bit too small.
‘Spreadsheet?’
‘I sent it last night.’
‘OK. I’ll come back to you as soon as I have any feedback.’
I turned my attention back to the computer screen, letting him know we were done. He lingered for a few more seconds before wandering off, back to his side of the office.
Nick dealt with, I logged in and was all set to power through my emails when I heard Yvonne banging on the glass wall. I looked up and she pointed at me, then beckoned me inside.
Ignoring the craned necks and curious whispers of Nick and my other colleagues, I did as she asked. Taking a seat, I noticed a single white envelope on the table in front of her, face-side down. Yvonne had placed her index finger on its seal and was moving it around in small circles, the paper sliding easily across the varnished pine.
I gave her a hopeful smile. She didn’t return the gesture. My mouth went dry. There was only one thing this could be about and that was last night.
After departing the pub, I’d finally made it to the restaurant only to discover that, having waited for over an hour, Mr McDonald had gone. I’d hoped to spend this morning doing damage control but, judging by the scowl on Yvonne’s face, it seemed I was too late.
My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller Page 10