by Ann Cleeves
He wasn’t sure how he would have coped with a stepson. Would Julie have expected him to be like a dad? He didn’t like to admit it, but he wasn’t sorry Luke was dead, not really. It would have been a complication. Julie was always going to put the boy first. It was an awful way to look at things, but he couldn’t help it. That led him to think of Laura. He pictured her as he’d last seen her, standing on the pavement outside the house in Seaton, watching him drive away. Weighing him up. That was how it seemed. He saw her in the short black skirt, the white shirt. He tried not to think of her in a sexy way. She’d be like a daughter to him if he got it together with Julie, and that was just vile. But something about her – her youth or her energy and defiance had got under his skin. Sometimes he thought he was haunted by Laura as much as he was by Julie. Perhaps it was safer not to consider moving into the house in Seaton until Laura had grown up.
There was still half an hour before he needed to start work and he went outside for air, walked to the front of the huge curved building and looked out over the Tyne. His parents had left for Spain because they couldn’t stand the weather, but he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He was proud of the city. He liked telling people he worked at the Sage. To his right and down by the river was the huge bulk of the Baltic Gallery. He remembered it as a decaying warehouse, kittiwakes nesting in the cracked stonework, its facade covered with bird muck. When it had first opened, he’d gone with Samuel Parr to see the Gormley exhibition. He wouldn’t have wanted to go on his own. He was only comfortable backstage. But he’d loved the sculpture, all those figures of twisted metal, fine as spun sugar. Gary had found it odd to be there with Samuel, who was recognized by some of the staff. He was part of the Tyneside arts mafia, the set Gary despised as an alien race when they came into the Sage.
The river was at full tide, moving sluggishly, almost on the turn. On the north bank people were spilling out of the bars. He heard a line of melody, which faded before he could place it, the blast of a car horn. The low sun was reflecting from all the glass and turning the water red. Would Samuel or Clive or Peter Calvert find it strange to see Gary at his work, sat behind the deck, in control of the sounds coming out to the audience, making a difference, a real difference to the experience they had in the brilliant space? They knew him only as a demon sea watcher. They’d been friends for years, but really they knew very little about each other’s lives. They knew he’d fallen for Julie, his childhood sweetheart, with her smile and her easy, comfortable body. They’d never guess he dreamed of the teenage Laura in her short black school skirt. They believed they were the closest of friends, but they all had secrets they would never share.
His mobile beeped to show he had a text message. It was from Julie and he felt a shock of guilt, physical. His face was hot as if he was blushing. What are you doing tonight. He pushed away his daydreams about Laura then and answered immediately. Working. Wont be finished til midnight. He had to wait so long for the reply that he’d almost given up. Perhaps she’d been offended, seen it as a rejection rather than a statement of fact. He should have taken more time to compose it. He fretted, putting together another message in his head. It was time for him to go in and do the final check. He always switched off his phone when he was working. Her reply came as he was walking back up the steps, with his back to the river. Ill come and meet you. See you then.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Julie felt that if she didn’t get out of the house she’d scream. She’d stand at the top of the stairs and fill her lungs and open her mouth and the noise would be so loud that you’d hear it at the end of the road. Her mother was still there, cleaning. All day there was the hum of the Hoover, the background stink of bleach and polish, so it didn’t even feel like Julie’s house any more. And when she wasn’t cleaning Mrs Richardson was talking, trying to prod Julie back to life with sharp words and guilt. As if there wasn’t enough guilt around already. Julie had always found it easier to get on with her father. If he’d been there instead of her mother, they could have got pissed together. He’d have sat beside her on the sofa, watching the music channels on TV, telling his old stories about the musicians he’d known, holding her when she wanted to cry.
She couldn’t tell her mother to leave. She thought she was being useful and it would hurt her. Then Julie would feel guilty all over again. So all day she tried to make up an excuse to get out. She concocted a story about being invited to Lisa’s house. Lisa would cook her a meal and Julie would stay over in the spare room. Julie’s mother approved of Lisa, who worked as a secretary for a big firm of solicitors in town. Then Julie went out into the garden and phoned Lisa on her mobile. On the other side of the horses’ field they were cutting grass. She watched the tractor moving backwards and forwards, regular and mesmerizing. She could have watched it all day, but her mam would never have allowed it. She’d see it as idle and self-indulgent and would find Julie something useful to do.
‘If my mother phones, I’m at your house, but I’ve fallen asleep and you don’t want to wake me.’
Lisa was a good mate and didn’t ask questions. She would have cooked Julie a meal and drunk wine with her and let her cry. But Lisa lived in a smart new flat on the front at Tynemouth and it had never been the sort of place where Julie had felt able to kick off her shoes and relax. Telling all these lies made Julie feel like a teenager again. By the end of the afternoon she was exhausted by it all. But she was a little bit excited too. She’d known all along that what she really wanted was to see Gary.
She had a shower before she went out, stood in the bath where Luke had been lying. Before, they’d had an old shower curtain, with pinkish spots of mould along the hem, but the police had taken that away. Her mam had been to Matalan to get another. Julie drew the curtain and shut her eyes to wash her hair. It was the first time since Luke had died. Until then she’d used Sal’s place when she wanted a bath. She took her time getting ready, make-up, a splash of perfume. It wouldn’t make her mother suspicious. She was of a generation when women didn’t go visiting without making a bit of an effort.
Laura was in her room. She seemed to live there these days, only came out to eat and wee. Julie thought she’d been like that even before Luke had died. She knocked, poked her head round the door. Laura was lying on the bed. Not reading, not watching television, just staring at the ceiling.
‘Are you all right, pet?’ Julie sat on the bed.
Laura turned, managed a bit of a smile. Julie thought she should stay in. She was reminded of Luke when he’d started to get depressed. But she couldn’t quite make the decision. If she didn’t get out of the house she’d go mad herself.
‘I was thinking of going out. Lisa’s asked me to hers. Is that all right with you?’
Laura stared at her for a moment before shrugging. ‘Sure.’
Julie thought she could never tell what Laura was thinking, never had been able to.
‘I might stay over. Nan will be here.’
‘I’ll be fine. Really.’
Julie sat in the old Fiat she’d had since Geoff had left, which was held together now with filler and paint. Each year at MOT time there was a crisis and her friend Jan’s mechanic son would work his magic and pull it through. This was another first. She hadn’t driven since Luke had died. She imagined the neighbours looking through their nets, waiting for her to drive away. What would they think? That she was a heartless cow or that she was brave to start putting her life together. She wasn’t sure herself which it was.
It was only eight o’clock but she went straight to the town. There was the usual panic when she hit the motorway at the old BT roundabout. She never knew which lane to take for the bridge. Then in Gateshead she missed the turn for the Sage and ended up in the car park for the Baltic. She couldn’t face going back and stayed where she was. She sat for twenty minutes, her mind quite blank, before buying a ticket at the pay and display machine. Nine o’clock. The light was starting to go. She realized she was relishing the sensation of being alo
ne.
She left the car and walked around the front of the Baltic Gallery. There was some sort of reception in the downstairs bar. Through the long glass windows she saw women in long dresses, men in dinner suits. They were drinking champagne from narrow glasses. A fat woman with very short hair was making a speech. Julie felt as if she’d travelled to a new country, as if these were exotic creatures quite different from her. On an impulse she walked across the new millennium footbridge from Gateshead to Newcastle. She’d never done that before either. She stood in the centre and looked upstream at the arcs and towers of the other bridges, the Tyne, the High Level, the Redheugh, familiar landmarks seen in a completely different light. On the Newcastle Quayside, she pushed her way through the crowd in a bar, just to use the toilet. She wasn’t tempted to stop for a drink. She wanted to be clear-headed when she met up with Gary. She felt a bit mad as it was.
By the time she got back to the south bank of the Tyne it was quite dark. The river was draining towards the sea. The smart people were still in the bar at the Baltic, though the speeches were over. She sat on a bench outside, watching them. It was as if the big plate window was a giant film screen and though she couldn’t hear what they were saying she got caught up in the drama. There was a pretty young woman who couldn’t settle. She fluttered from group to group, talking and laughing, growing more and more unsteady. When she moved away, the groups turned in and talked about her. She seemed so lonely that Julie wanted to cry.
Her phone rang. She looked at the time as she answered it: 23.38. She’d been sitting here, watching, for more than an hour. And enjoying every minute of being alone.
It was Gary. ‘Hi. I’ve finished earlier than I thought. Where are you?’
‘I’m here already. At the front of the Baltic, by the river.’ She was going to add that she’d just arrived. She didn’t want him thinking that she’d been sitting here for hours waiting for him. But he was talking about the gig and how well it had gone, a joy. Despite the crap music and the small audience. How some nights were like that. Smooth and sweet. And then she saw him walking towards her, still talking on his phone. He’d walked down the steps from the entrance to the Sage. She stood up, so he could see her. The phone went dead and she stuffed it into her bag, so her hands were free. They stood for a minute just looking at each other, then almost stumbled together, awkward like kids. She expected him to kiss her, but he didn’t. He held her for a moment, rubbing her back.
‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Can we go back to yours?’ she said. ‘I don’t feel much like company.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’d better follow you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know the way.’ She hoped he’d suggest something different. Why don’t you leave your car here? I’ll bring you back to get it in the morning. But he didn’t, so they were only together for a few brief minutes before they were separated again. He was giving her instructions about waiting for him in her car and what to do if she lost him. She felt like the girl weaving her way through the crowd in the Baltic bar. Lost and unconnected.
But she didn’t want to make a fool of herself so she did as he told her. She waited at the car park entrance until the white van drove past and she followed it all the way back to Shields. If she lost him at lights he pulled in so she could catch up with him. She drew in behind him when he parked in a narrow street. Here there was another view of the river. Suddenly she was so nervous she wished she was back at home, sitting in her nightie in front of the telly, her mam wittering on.
In the flat it was easier. He opened a bottle of wine and she drank a large glass very quickly. Sod it, she thought. She’d never intended to drive home that night anyway. He put on some music she didn’t know. They both sat on the sofa, leaning back against the cushions so they were almost lying down. He had his arm around her and he was talking about the music, what he loved about it, but in a whisper, so she could feel his breath on her cheek. He put his hand on her neck, stroked it just underneath her ear.
And suddenly she thought of Luke. How someone had put their hand on his neck, pulled a rope tight around it and squeezed until he was dead. She didn’t scream. The last thing she wanted was to make a fuss. But Gary must have felt her tense because he pulled gently away.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Nothing to be sorry for.’
She told him what she’d been thinking about. Luke in her bathroom and someone strangling him. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘I’m a bit of a liability.’ But she’d drunk the wine too quickly and the word came out wrong. She giggled and he joined in.
‘We can do whatever you like,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’
She thought how lonely she’d feel in the double bed. Her mother would have made it, so the sheets would be stretched tight, tucked into the mattress. She never bothered making it herself, she preferred the sheets soft, slightly crumpled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Can I have more wine?’
He poured her another glass.
* * *
She woke with a hangover, lying on the sofa, fully clothed except for her shoes. There was a strange light, coming from a different direction, so she’d known at once it wasn’t her own bed. The smell of proper coffee came from the kitchen. She hadn’t thought he’d be into proper coffee. He must have been waiting for her to wake because he came in carrying a mug, a plate of toast.
‘You could have had the bed,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t move you.’
‘God, I feel dreadful. What time is it?’ She did feel dreadful, but only the way she always did when she had a hangover, sick and heady, and that was reassuring, a sign of things getting back to normal. And she had slept, without the sleeping pills.
‘Ten o’clock.’
‘Oh my God. Laura will have already left for school. Mam will kill me.’ She swung down her legs, so there was room on the sofa for him to sit beside her. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘About last night…’
‘It’s all right, I had a great evening.’
‘Really? I don’t think so.’
‘You’re good company. Even when you’re pissed. And we’ve got plenty of time.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I hope we have.’
She took the scenic route home along Whitley Bay seafront and past St Mary’s Island, singing along to one of the compilation tapes her dad had put together for her. Motown. She was trying to put off the moment of going back into the house. Here, driving the Fiat so slowly that the guy in the Astra behind her hit his horn, yelling at the top of her voice, she could almost believe that the rest of it, all the nightmare stuff, had happened to someone else.
As soon as she opened the door, her mother appeared from the kitchen. She was like a figure in one of those mechanical clocks. Not a cuckoo, of course. A peasant woman in an apron, bobbing her head and wringing her hands.
‘Thank God. Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.’
‘I told you I’d be staying at Lisa’s.’ And that wasn’t a lie, was it?
‘I expected you to be back before Laura went to school.’ The guilt again.
‘Yeah, well, I had a bit much to drink. Did she get off OK?’
‘She didn’t have time for breakfast.’
‘She never has time for breakfast.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve had anything to eat either.’ And immediately she popped back into the kitchen, to put on the kettle and start frying bacon. ‘I got this from that decent butcher in Monkseaton. It’s not all water and fat.’ And though the smell of it almost made Julie want to throw up, she sat at the table and waited until the sandwich appeared, then forced herself to eat it. To make up for lying to her mother. To make up for having a few hours when she wasn’t thinking about Luke.
It was only after the plate was clean that her mother brought in the mail for her to look at. Not such a big pile. On the top, a long white envelope.
‘Look,’ Julie said, trying to re-establish friendly relations. ‘This is addressed to Laura.’
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Her mam, already in her Marigolds at the sink, turned round. ‘That’s nice. Some of her friends from school, maybe.’
‘Maybe.’ But by now Julie had recognized the square capital letters, remembered Vera’s response to the last card. ‘All the same, I think I’ll just give Inspector Stanhope a ring.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
When the call came from Julie, Vera was in her office, reading. The night before, she’d started a short story by Samuel Parr, one she’d never heard or read before. It was in the book she’d picked up from the library on her way to meet Ben Craven, a collection published by a small press based in Hexham. The title Jokers and Lovers had some sort of resonance, but she couldn’t remember where it was from. It said on the jacket that the anthology had won a prize she’d never heard of. The story she’d been looking for, the one she’d heard on the radio, hadn’t been in it, but she’d started reading anyway. Vera had fallen asleep after a couple of paragraphs but, perhaps because of the beer swilling round in her veins, the opening image had stayed with her all night. It had described the abduction of a teenager. The abduction had been described lovingly. A summer’s morning. Sunshine. The flowers in the hedgerow named. It became a seduction, rather than an act of violence. The gender of the child was left deliberately ambiguous, but Vera imagined Luke. A great deal was made of the child’s beauty. This was a form which would turn heads. And Luke could have been a girl with his long lashes and his slender body. Half child, half man, he’d been an ambiguous figure too.
In the office, Vera held the morning briefing. Joe Ashworth had checked all the car-rental places in North Tyneside.
‘Nobody of Clive Stringer’s name or description hired a car on Wednesday night or Friday. I suppose that lets him off the hook.’ He sounded disappointed.