‘Can’t sleep?’ Poppy says.
‘Yeah.’ He rubs at his beard.
Her upper lip is sweating as she sits there, in her pyjamas, his secret phone down the side of the sofa.
He gets them two glasses of water and sits in the armchair opposite her. ‘I miss them,’ her dad says. He puts his glass on a coaster on the coffee table and stretches his arms above his head. ‘But I think things might get better, you know? I think it’ll blow over soon.’
Poppy leans back against the sofa. It’s too warm in the living room, the electric radiator in the corner producing steam that rises up into the room like tendrils of hair. She once told her dad that he kept the house too cold and, ever since, he’s turned the heating up whenever she comes to stay.
‘You think?’ she says.
‘I really do.’
She can tell he’s tired. He would never usually get her hopes up like this. But there it is. Proof. She’s seen it on his phone and, if there was any doubt, he’s confirmed it. The nightmare is about to end.
‘I’m happy on the camp bed, if you two want my bed,’ he says sleepily to her. ‘I should have said earlier.’ He rubs his head. ‘Didn’t think.’
‘No, no,’ Poppy says.
Bill pads into the living room. He doesn’t like it here. He’s been at Hannah’s, for a while, but now he’s back. She guesses her dad got lonely. Bill looks mournfully out of the sixth-floor window, and then to Poppy. She reaches to pat his head and he nuzzles into her, the way he used to do with Lauren. She hopes her dad is paying him enough attention.
Her dad finishes his water and goes to the sink. He’s never been a big talker, not in the way that Lauren is. He is the one who quietly turns the thermostat up, who tries to entrap a vigilante group.
Eventually, he leaves. When Poppy hears his snoring begin, Emily replaces the phone in his bag.
At midnight, they google the address.
York. They’re in York. Sunshine Drive.
She knows it, and wishes she didn’t, all at the same time.
As she’s falling asleep, Bill’s chin by her side, she remembers she didn’t put the text message back on ‘read’. But she’s sure he knows where they are. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Sleep overcomes her and, the next morning, it is forgotten.
59
Lauren
York, Yorkshire
Six weeks gone
Lauren is hungover, sitting on the bar stool in the kitchen. They are almost exactly the same as the ones she has at home, in Islington. If she closes her eyes, she can conjure up the feeling of that house. Sunlight on the counter in tiger stripes through the shutters. Bill’s dangling jowls resting against her knees. Leathery and warm. The smell of it, only noticeable after holidays: laundry, last night’s cooking, dog hair. God, it’s almost Christmas. They don’t even have a tree.
‘I’m going out with Dom,’ Zara says. A burst of enthusiasm in the kitchen, like a flower pushing up unexpectedly through pavement.
Lauren feels a heavy sigh brewing within her. Oh, to be sixteen and in love with the boy next door.
‘Is that who you were speaking to?’ Lauren says.
‘Not sure.’ Her composure has come back, drawing across her face like a filter.
‘What? How can you not be sure?’
‘Was I on the phone?’
‘I heard you talking.’
‘Yeah.’
‘To who, then?’
Zara says nothing.
‘Where has all this secrecy come from?’ Lauren says, anxiety lacing her words like acid. She can disregard her own safety, sit in taxis ill-advisedly and send selfies, but she can’t relax the rules for her daughter. Her endangered daughter.
Zara shrugs. She’s been less insolent, recently. Happier, but still secretive.
‘Look,’ Lauren says, ‘I get that it’s hard. But I don’t know why you seem to think that’s my fault.’ She looks carefully at her daughter’s angry little face. ‘Because it isn’t.’
‘Yeah. Sure,’ Zara says, and, this time, she isn’t angry: she’s indifferent.
A funny sort of rage rises up through Lauren. How dare she keep things from her?
They stare at each other for several seconds. Lauren can’t see any of herself in Zara, today. Zara is wearing a hat and mittens, hasn’t put her coat on yet. She looks like a model.
‘If you won’t do things my way, I won’t help you,’ Lauren says. ‘I can’t help someone who keeps secrets from me.’
‘What?’
‘We live here,’ Lauren gestures around her. ‘Together. We’re a team.’
‘So?’
‘I can’t do it, Zara. I can’t,’ Lauren says, thinking of the past few weeks. Feeding Zara chocolate cake for breakfast. Being understanding, understanding, understanding. Letting her go out whenever she wants to. Acting like a kid herself on the burner phone. Her mind circles back even further. Letting her daughter give evidence. Letting her go out alone the weekend after, even though she knew a group wanted to hurt her. God. Lauren needs to grow up. It’s time to start parenting.
‘It’s up to you,’ Lauren says.
‘Thanks for the understanding,’ Zara says sarcastically.
‘I do understand,’ Lauren says quietly. ‘I’ve left my husband, my stepdaughter, my job, my friends … nobody understands better than me.’
Zara stares at her, her eyes two wet pools. ‘I know,’ she whispers. She drops her gaze. ‘I know.’
‘I’m not the enemy here,’ Lauren says. ‘I’m just not. You need to … God, Zara. You need to respect me here. Or you can find another ally.’
‘Okay,’ Zara says.
Lauren sees two distinct tear tracks making their way down Zara’s cheeks. Her shoulders sag in defeat.
‘What’s been going on? Why have you been so … so angry with me?’
Zara waves a hand. ‘I just …’
Lauren waits.
‘I feel like there’s probably something wrong with me,’ she says in a small voice.
‘What?’
‘Like, I told that lie. And then I don’t know … I’ve never been able to fit in. You know?’
Lauren takes a tentative step towards her daughter. ‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.’
‘You would say that.’
‘It’s the truth. What could be wrong?’ She holds on to Zara’s long, slim arms. Her skin is still baby soft. ‘You’re perfection, to me.’
‘I like books too much. I’m awkward. Everyone at school is always joking around and I’m so … I’m so serious.’
‘Serious people who like books aren’t worse than chatty, jokey people,’ Lauren says. Has she instilled this insecurity in Zara, somehow? In trying to always buoy her up, has she pushed her down? ‘I bet Emily Brontë was serious.’
Zara cracks a smile at that.
‘I bet she liked books, too,’ Lauren adds.
‘Probably.’
‘I feel like that, you know,’ Lauren says. ‘I had this interview yesterday and I was a total lunatic in it. We all feel awkward sometimes. We all feel like we don’t fit in. It’s part of being human.’
‘Is it?’ Zara says, her eyes fixed on her mother’s, like she’s just told her something amazing.
‘Absolutely. I feel like it every day.’
‘Every day?’
‘Every day.’
Lauren ascends the stairs later. She turns the wrong way – already, her muscles have memorized their first house’s layout.
She starts the bath running. The water clatters out of the hot tap, steaming within just a few seconds, and she watches it, hoping it’ll hold, even though it’s a different bath. A different house. As she turns to go and investigate which of her bath oils made it across here with her, she sees something on the edge of the bath. A bottle of Radox Stress Relief. A Post-it note next to it.
Here’s to York – Jon.
Tears fill her eyes.
She dumps
a quarter of the bottle in and watches the water turn a bright aquamarine. She fetches a towel and removes her clothes, then gets in. Warm feet. Goosebumps everywhere else, like she is outside, wild and free, the cool wind on her skin, the hot sun just reaching her feet, like she’s stepped out on to a patio half in shade, half in light.
She adds a little cold, then sinks down into the water as she fills it. She closes her eyes, thinking nothing, her mind a bicycle wheel slowing down, down, down.
Her burner phone is in a drawer, the ill-advised text to Aidan gone unresponded to.
She thinks of their near miss, and of Zara’s smile when Dom WhatsApps her. It is here, safe in the warm water, that she can finally consider it. She is wounded by Aidan’s silence, but could she also be free? Could she … could she try to grow up, and move on?
The longer they stay, the deeper their roots grow, and the more pain they would experience if they returned home. If Zara could somehow move back to London, and discard Suzanne, and be Zara again, would she? She would right now – but what about next week, next month? Soon, there will come a tipping point, where here feels more like home than London.
And what about herself?
She’s been in denial, thinking this’ll end, thinking she can fix it. But she has been offered a new identity, on the state. The gold-standard last resort. It is not the kind of problem that will suddenly fix itself. They have to try, here, in York, and make it home. She has to accept the hand she’s been dealt, stop trying to rebel against it like a child. She’ll never not love Aidan, but she has to move forwards, not backwards.
She submerges her ears beneath the water, the steam tickling them, and blanks her mind.
After half an hour, she hears Zara’s voice outside. And then the boy’s voice, too. Just broken, a brand-new man’s voice in a boy’s body.
She can’t make out what they’re saying, but she can tell the tone of it. Happy, excited. Interrupting each other constantly and enthusiastically. Finally. She’s coming out of herself. Her shy daughter who’s always felt like she isn’t enough. Lauren momentarily wonders who Zara had been on the phone to. She’ll try to ask again, later. Baby steps.
The melodies of Zara and Dom’s voices mingle as Lauren closes her eyes, letting the steam heat her shoulders, wiggling her toes against the side of the bath. If Zara is happy, Lauren is thinking, then I am, too. Zara could be happy here. She could settle here. And so could Lauren. For Zara. Happiness by proxy.
60
Aidan
Shepherd’s Bush, London
Two days to go
Aidan turns on Lauren’s old coffee machine. The top is dusty. He puts a tea pod in that went out of date in 2014. He thinks of all of the times Lauren must have made coffee in the early days of their relationship. Did she press it, this button here, faded from her fingerprints, and think of him?
He strokes the button slowly, thinking. The day after tomorrow is the day of the meeting. And so, in two days, she will be in his arms again. His Lauren.
He’s nervous, but he’s optimistic, too, his stomach fizzing with it. He feels like he’s had three coffees and a bag of sweets. He’s jittery, shifting his weight from foot to foot as his mug fills with tea.
Right. Think.
The police. Lottie. She wanted an update today. He finds her and presses ‘call’.
‘It’s all on for the day after tomorrow,’ he says to her. ‘They should all be there. It’s a group-wide meet. I’ve asked everybody to bring all of the information they have, so there should be evidence. If not the weapons themselves.’
‘Good. I’m plugging away here. I know it might not feel like it, but I’m lining it all up.’
‘Good. Is it … are you getting grief?’
Lottie hesitates. ‘A bit,’ she says. ‘It isn’t … orthodox, what we’re doing. And you know, I’m junior here.’
‘I know. Sorry,’ Aidan says.
‘No worries. Look, I told you – I’d do the same thing for my babies.’
Aidan stares into his tea. She’s so young, and with two babies already, and this volatile career of hers. What’s behind it all? he wonders.
‘What’ll happen if it goes wrong?’ he says.
‘It won’t go wrong.’
‘I mean, to you. Why are you … why are you putting it all on the line for me?’
Lottie appears to think for a second. ‘You know,’ she says. ‘I just always wanted to do the right thing, from when I was a child, even.’
Aidan’s mouth twists into an ironic smile. He takes a gulp of tea. ‘You sound like my stepdaughter,’ he says softly.
Lottie laughs, a small, sad laugh. ‘I always was quite … I don’t know. Anti-establishment. Right?’
‘A classic young person. Bet you vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Just you wait.’
Lottie chuckles. ‘We’ll see. I always wanted to tackle gang culture,’ she says. ‘People who get caught up in it, and can’t escape.’
‘Maybe you will work with gangs,’ he says.
‘But I already am.’
‘Yeah?’
‘The Find Girl A group might be middle class,’ she says. ‘Footballers. Football fans. But they are a gang.’
Aidan sits in silence. They are. He thinks of the way Brian riles them up. Mob rule. Of their form of vigilante justice. Of Goodbye Mr X leaving the group and getting his arm broken. It’s all gang culture. And he’s right in the middle of it. He’s joined a gang.
‘A gang,’ he echoes softly. ‘Yeah.’
‘But we’ll get them.’
‘Have you told your team?’ he asks.
‘Had to, after your … your injury. My superior doesn’t like the idea of you being in the group. But to me it’s the only way.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘No. But … well, I think I might have to leave if we don’t get a conviction. I’ve forced a few hands. Called in a few favours.’
‘What?’
‘I mean it,’ Lottie says. ‘I believe in it. Plugging away, doing the right thing, playing the long game. That’s the kind of officer I am. Want to be.’
‘Wow,’ Aidan says, glad he has this woman on side, this beacon of hope on the horizon of the dark dawn.
‘Have they any idea?’ she asks.
‘Who I am? No. I don’t think so.’
‘I’m just thinking of double bluffs,’ she says.
Aidan briefly thinks of Brian’s suspicion, of the two blokes who beat him up, one of whom might have been at the last meeting, but doesn’t voice it. ‘No, nobody suspects,’ he says.
Aidan reconfirms the address to her. It’s written on a Post-it note he keeps on his desk, and his hand is trembling as he holds it. He tries to stop it, but he can’t. Soon, soon. Lauren will be back in his bed, warm skin sticky on his, and he will finally relax.
‘Even the ones we can’t convict will be witnesses,’ Lottie says to him. She seems to be thinking aloud.
‘Good.’
‘How advanced is their plan, would you say?’ Aidan can hear as she shifts the mouthpiece. She becomes louder.
‘They’re intermittently trying to find her. They never say too much about what will happen when they do. But the implications are clear. And those pensioners in Truro. They had a knife … the police there fingerprinted the house, didn’t they? And I’ll be able to testify –’ he swallows, thinking about Zara having done this exact thing, ‘– about the group.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘Okay. Right. Good.’
He sips his tea, enjoying the bitter taste of the tannin.
‘You’ll be there, I assume,’ she says. ‘I’ll have to arrest you, too. Otherwise they’ll know it was you.’
‘You’re smart,’ Aidan says.
Lottie laughs. ‘I try. Leave it with me,’ she says. ‘I’ll call you in the morning. Let me know if anything changes.’
They pause, both saying nothing. Aidan owes this woman so much. How can he ever thank her – a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolate
s? They all seem trite.
‘Okay. What are … what’re your kids called?’ he says, wanting to prolong the call. To see a chink in her armour.
‘Katie and Siân. My whole world,’ she says sincerely.
He hangs up and sips his tea slowly, thinking. He’s thinking of parenthood and how parents are at the centre of all this chaos. Aidan, Lottie, Lauren, Brian. All doing the best for their kids, however misguided.
Next, he reconfirms the meeting place and time with the group. Asks them to bring all of the information they have, again, trying not to labour the point. It’s read by everybody except Brian and another member. Aidan navigates to their contact details and sees Brian’s online. So is the other man. But he’s not responding to him. His mind scans over the last few weeks. Brian’s insistence on the scrapers. His suspicion. What if they’ve rumbled him? What if he is discussing him with the other member right now?
He opens his text messages, thinking about whether to tell Lauren, to give her a hint, but then he closes them again. He shouldn’t have told Poppy what he did the other night. It’ll get her hopes up. It’s cruel. It’s cruel when there’s so much at stake, and so much that could go wrong. And it’s cruel for her, specifically. She has suffered so much.
But wait. Was that … he opens the texts again. Lauren’s sent a selfie. The other night, shortly before midnight. He must have missed it. He opens it. She’s in a car, looking at the camera. She’s so beautiful, and so sad, his wife who can’t stay away from him. He smiles back at her selfie, until Brian writes back on Telegram, distracting him.
Sounds like a big day, he says.
Aidan swallows. He opens Brian’s contact and types.
All okay? he says.
Yeah, mate, looking forward to seeing you, Brian writes.
Aidan leaves it there. Anything else would reveal too much. He has to trust. He has to relax. He has to believe that he might be able to pull it off. Doubts won’t help at this stage.
He takes the tea over to the sofa and puts his feet up, feeling the anticipation of the relief he might experience when it’s all over. He allows himself a reverie on the couch. Lauren and Zara are here, no, not here, back in their sunny Islington house, together, under their own names, and they’re safe. They’re making pancakes. Buying Christmas presents. The worst autumn of their lives forgotten. A bullet dodged.
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