‘It’s homely,’ Melissa says, laughing when she sees my sceptical look. ‘I mean it. It’s warm and full of love and memories – just the way a family house should be.’ I search her face for regret, but find nothing.
Melissa was forty when we met – still young enough to have a family – and I asked her once if she and Neil were planning to have children.
‘He can’t.’ She corrected herself instantly. ‘That’s not fair. I meant we can’t.’
‘That must be hard.’ I’d been a mother for so long I couldn’t imagine a life without children.
‘Not really. I’ve always known, you see – Neil had leukaemia as a child and the chemo left him infertile – so it was never part of our life together. We’ve done other things; had other opportunities.’ Work, I supposed. The business, holidays, a beautiful house.
‘Neil found it harder than I did,’ she said. ‘He used to get very angry – Why me? That sort of thing – but nowadays we barely even think about it.’
‘Whereas I’d love a house like yours,’ I say now, ‘all clear surfaces and not a dirty sock in sight!’
She smiles. ‘The grass is always greener, isn’t that what they say? Before too long, Katie and Justin will have moved out and you’ll be rattling around in an empty house, wishing they were here.’
‘Maybe. Oh, that reminds me; what on earth have you done to my son?’
Melissa looks instantly worried, and I feel bad for trying to make a joke. I explain: ‘He presented me with money for rent on Tuesday. Without being asked for it. I gather you’ve promoted him.’
‘Oh, I see! He deserves it – he’s doing a great job, and I need a manager. It’s worked out perfectly.’
There’s still something troubling her. I hold her gaze till she breaks away, looking out of the window to our scrubby garden. Finally, she speaks.
‘The pay rise.’ She glances at me. ‘It’s cash-in-hand.’ I raise an eyebrow. I’m her friend, but I’m also her bookkeeper. I suspect she wouldn’t have told me, had I not mentioned Justin’s pay rise.
‘When customers pay in cash, it doesn’t always go through the books. I keep a rainy day fund. It covers the odd household bill without my needing to take a dividend from the business.’
‘I see.’ I should probably be wrestling with my conscience, round about now, but the way I see it, she’s not hurting anyone. She’s not some global retailer, avoiding corporation tax with offshore accounts. She’s just a local businesswoman, trying to make a living like the rest of us.
‘It’s not purely selfish, you know.’ I can see from Melissa’s expression that she’s regretting telling me; that she’s worried I’m judging her. ‘It means Justin doesn’t lose out to the taxman either; he can start to put something aside.’
I’m touched that she’s even considered it. ‘So do I also have you to thank for him passing some of his pay rise on in rent?’
‘We might have had a word or two …’ She assumes an innocent face that makes me laugh.
‘Well, thank you. It’s good to see him finally growing up a bit. You’re not worried about someone grassing you up to HMRC?’ I add, my bookkeeper hat temporarily in place. It isn’t just Melissa who should be worried. If she were to be caught, I’d be hauled in too.
‘You’re the only one who knows.’
‘Knows what?’ I grin. ‘I’d better get dressed – I must reek.’ I’m still wearing the jogging bottoms and T-shirt I slept in last night, and I’m suddenly conscious of the stale smell of sickness. ‘I’m meeting Katie’s new boyfriend-slash-director later – he’s picking her up for rehearsal.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Well, she hasn’t called him that, but I know my daughter. She only met him on Monday, but I swear I haven’t had a conversation with her since then without her mentioning his name. Isaac this, Isaac that. She’s got it bad.’ I hear the creak of the stairs and I stop talking abruptly, just before Katie appears in the kitchen.
‘Wow, check you out!’ Melissa says, jumping up to give her a hug. Katie is wearing grey skinny jeans that look sprayed on, and a gold sequinned sweatshirt that rides up as she puts her arms around Melissa.
‘Is that your famous chicken soup? Is there any left?’
‘Loads. So, I’ve been hearing about Isaac …’ She emphasises the vowels in his name, and Katie looks at me suspiciously. I say nothing.
‘He’s a great director,’ Katie says primly. We wait, but she won’t be drawn.
‘And dare I ask about the money?’ Melissa says, ever the businesswoman. ‘I know acting isn’t the most lucrative of professions, but will it at least cover your outgoings?’
Katie’s pause tells me everything I need to know.
‘Oh, Katie, I thought this was an actual job!’
‘It is a job. We’ll get paid after the run, once the ticket revenue’s in and the bills have been paid.’
‘So it’s a profit-share?’ Melissa says.
‘Exactly.’
‘And what if there’s no profit?’ I say.
Katie rounds on me. ‘There you go again! Why don’t you just tell me I’m shit, Mum? That no one will come and see it, and we’ll all lose our money—’ She stops, but it’s too late.
‘Lose what money? A profit-share I can understand – to a point – but please tell me you haven’t actually given money to some bloke you’ve only just met!’
Melissa stands up. ‘I think that’s my cue to get going. Well done on getting the part, Katie.’ She throws me a stern look that means Go easy on her, and leaves us.
‘What money, Katie?’ I insist.
She puts a bowl of soup in the microwave and presses the reheat button. ‘We split the costs of rehearsal space, that’s all. It’s a cooperative.’
‘It’s a rip-off.’
‘You know nothing about how theatre works, Mum!’
We’re both shouting now, so intent on making our points that we don’t hear the key in the front door that means Simon is home early, as he has been every day this week, since I fell ill.
‘You’re feeling better, then?’ he says, when I notice him leaning in the doorway, a look of resigned amusement on his face.
‘A bit,’ I say sheepishly. Katie puts her soup on a tray, to eat in her room. ‘What time is Isaac picking you up?’
‘Five. I’m not inviting him in, if you’re going to have a go about the profit-share.’
‘I won’t, I promise. I just want to meet him.’
‘I bought something for you,’ Simon says. He hands her a plastic carrier bag with something small and hard inside. Katie puts down her tray to open it. It’s an attack alarm – the sort that lets off an air-raid-type siren when you pull out the pin. ‘They were selling them at the corner shop. I don’t know if they’re any good, but I thought you could carry it when you’re walking home from the Tube.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. I know he’s bought it for my peace of mind, really, rather than for Katie’s. To make me feel better about her being out so late. I try and redeem myself for my earlier outburst. ‘When do tickets for Twelfth Night go on sale, love? Because we’ll be in the front row, won’t we, Simon?’
‘Absolutely.’
He means it, and not only because it’s Katie. Simon likes classical music, and theatre, and obscure jazz concerts in tucked-away places. He was amazed I’d never seen The Mousetrap; took me to see it and kept turning to look at me, to check I was enjoying it. It was okay, I suppose, but I preferred Mamma Mia.
‘I’m not sure. I’ll find out. Thank you.’ This, she directs at Simon, in whom I think she sees something of a kindred spirit. Last night he was testing her on her lines, the two of them breaking off to debate the imagery apparent in the text.
‘You see how she personifies “Disguise”, and calls it a “Wickedness”?’ Simon was saying.
‘Yes! And even at the end no one’s identity is really clear.’
I caught Justin’s eye; a rare conspiratorial moment between the two of us.<
br />
On our first date Simon told me he wanted to be a writer.
‘But that’s what you already do, isn’t it?’ I was confused. He’d introduced himself as a journalist when we met.
He shook his head dismissively. ‘That’s not proper writing; it’s just content. I want to write books.’
‘So do it.’
‘I will one day,’ he told me, ‘when I have time.’
For Christmas that year I bought him a Moleskine notebook; thick creamy pages, bound in soft brown leather. ‘For your book,’ I said shyly. We’d only been together for a few weeks, and I’d spent days agonising over what I could get him. He looked at me like I’d given him the moon.
‘It wasn’t the notebook,’ he told me, more than a year later, when he had moved in and was halfway through the first draft of his book. ‘It was the fact you believed in me.’
Katie’s jumpy. She’s still wearing the skinny jeans and sequinned sweatshirt outfit – somehow managing to look both casual and glamorous at the same time – but she’s added dark red lipstick and a sweep of thick black eyeliner, curving up towards the outside of her eyebrows like wings.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ she hisses at me, when the doorbell rings, ‘then we’re going.’ Justin’s still at the café, and Simon and I are in the lounge, which I’ve hastily tidied up.
I hear low voices in the hall and wonder what Katie’s telling her new boyfriend-slash-director. Sorry about my mum, probably. They come into the lounge and Simon stands up. I can see immediately what Katie finds attractive. Isaac is tall, with smooth olive skin and jet-black hair, worn longer on top than underneath. His eyes are the darkest of brown, and the V-neck T-shirt under his leather jacket hints at a well-defined chest. In short, Isaac is gorgeous.
He’s also at least thirty.
I realise my mouth has fallen open and I turn it into a ‘hello’.
‘It’s good to meet you, Mrs Walker. You’ve got a very talented daughter.’
‘Mum thinks I should be a secretary.’
I glare at Katie. ‘I suggested you did a secretarial course. As something to fall back on.’
‘Wise advice,’ Isaac says.
‘You think?’ Katie says, incredulously.
‘It’s a tough industry, and cuts to Arts funding means it’s only going to get tougher.’
‘Well, maybe I’ll give it some more thought.’
I turn my snort of surprise into a cough. Katie gives me a sharp look.
Isaac shakes hands with Simon, who offers him a beer. He declines, on the basis that he’s driving, and I think that he at least has that in his favour. He and Katie sit on the sofa, a respectable distance between them, and I look for signs that, in the brief time since they met, they’ve become more than just director and actor. But there are no accidental-on-purpose touches, and I wonder if Katie’s hero-worship is just a one-way crush. I hope she’s not going to get hurt.
‘I knew Katie was perfect for Viola the moment I saw her at the agency,’ Isaac was saying. ‘I sent a quick snap to the guy who plays Sebastian, to see what he thought.’
‘You took a picture of me? You never said! That was sneaky.’
‘On my phone. Anyway, he texted straight back to say you looked perfect. I’d already heard you speak – you were talking to the girl next to you, do you remember? – and I just had an instinct you were the Shakespearian leading lady I’d been looking for.’
‘All’s Well That Ends Well,’ Simon says, with a grin.
‘Very good!’ Isaac says. They all laugh. Katie looks at her watch.
‘We’d better get going.’
‘I’ll drop her off after rehearsal, Mrs Walker. I understand you’re a bit worried about her taking the Tube late at night.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Not at all. London isn’t always the safest place for a woman on her own.’
I don’t like him.
Matt used to laugh at the snap decisions I made about people, but first impressions count for a lot. I watch Isaac and Katie through the lounge window; walking a hundred yards down the road to where Isaac’s managed to find a parking space. He puts a hand on the small of her back as they reach the car, then leans in to open the passenger door for her. I can’t put my finger on what I don’t like, but my senses are screaming at me.
Just a few days ago I resolved to be more supportive of Katie’s acting; if I say anything about Isaac she’ll see it as one more attack on her career choice. I can’t win. At least she won’t be coming home on her own tonight. I heard a report of a sexual assault on the radio this morning, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the victim’s photo had appeared in the classifieds first. Simon usually brings a Gazette home from work, but this week he’s returned empty-handed; I know it’s because he wants me to forget about the adverts. But I won’t. I can’t.
On Friday Simon comes with me to work. ‘Just in case you’re still a bit wobbly,’ he says when we wake up. He holds my hand all the way there. On the District line I see an abandoned copy of the Gazette, and I resolutely ignore it, leaning into Simon with my face pressed against his shirt. I let go of the strap I was holding, and instead put my arms around his waist, letting him balance us both as the train slows for each stop. We don’t talk, but I can hear his heartbeat against my face. Strong and steady.
Outside Hallow & Reed he kisses me.
‘I’ve made you late for work,’ I say.
‘I don’t care.’
‘You won’t get into trouble?’
‘Let me worry about that. Are you okay if I leave you now? I can hang around, if you like.’ He gestures to the coffee shop across the road, and I smile at the idea of Simon waiting all day for me, like a celebrity bodyguard.
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll speak to you later.’
We kiss again, and he waits until I’m safely installed at my desk, before waving and walking away, towards the Tube.
As soon as Graham goes out on a viewing I close down the Rightmove listing I was updating, and bring up Google. I type in ‘London crime’ and click the first link I see: a website called London 24, promising up-to-the-minute information on crimes in the capital.
Teenager shot in West Dulwich.
Man found close to death with mystery burns in Finsbury Park.
This is why I don’t read the papers. Not usually. I know all this is going on, but I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about Justin and Katie living somewhere a knifing hardly raises an eyebrow.
Ex-Premier League player admits drink-driving in Islington.
‘Sickening’ attack on Enfield pensioner, 84.
I wince at the photo of eighty-four-year-old Margaret Price, who headed out to collect her pension and never made it home. I search for Tania Beckett. One of the newspaper articles mentions a Facebook tribute site, and I click through to it. Tania Beckett RIP, it says, and the page is filled with emotional messages from friends and family. In some of the messages Tania’s name is highlighted, and I realise it’s because people have tagged her Facebook page. Without thinking, I click on her name and take an involuntary breath when her page appears, full of status updates.
135 days to go! her last update reads, posted the morning she died.
135 days till what?
The answer is a few updates down, in a post captioned How about this one, girls? The photo is a screenshot from a mobile phone – I can see the battery life marked out at the top; a photo of a bridesmaid dress grabbed in a hurry from the Internet. There are three female names tagged.
Tania Beckett died 135 days before her wedding day.
I look at Tania’s Friends list; thumbnails of identikit girls, all blonde hair and white teeth. My attention is caught by an older woman with the same surname.
Alison Beckett’s page is as open as Tania’s, and I know straight away that the photograph I’m looking at is of Tania’s mother. Her last Facebook post was two days ago.
Heaven has gained another angel. RIP m
y beautiful girl. Sleep soundly.
I shut down Facebook, feeling like an intruder. I think about Alison and Tania Beckett. I imagine them planning the wedding together; shopping for dresses; making invitations. I see Alison at home, on that dark red sofa she’s sitting on in her profile picture, picking up the phone, listening to the police officer talk, but not taking it in. Not her daughter; not Tania. There’s a pain in my chest and now I’m crying, only I don’t know if I’m crying over a girl I never met, or because it’s too easy to replace her name with my own daughter’s.
My eyes fall on the business card tucked into the clip on the edge of my noticeboard.
PC Kelly Swift, British Transport Police.
At least she listened.
I blow my nose. Take a deep breath. Pick up the phone.
‘PC Swift.’
I hear the sound of traffic in the background; the fading siren of an ambulance. ‘This is Zoe Walker. The London Gazette adverts?’
‘Yes, I remember. I haven’t found out much more, I’m afraid, but—’
‘I have.’ I cut in. ‘A woman from the adverts has been murdered. And no one seems to care about who might be next.’
There’s a pause, and then, ‘I do,’ PC Swift says firmly. ‘I care. Tell me everything you know.’
11
It was midday before Kelly was able to get back to the station and find a number for DI Nick Rampello, the detective inspector listed as Senior Investigating Officer. She was directed first to the incident number, an all-purpose helpline set up for members of the public who had information to give about Tania Beckett’s murder.
‘If I can take some details, I’ll make sure it’s passed on to the investigating team,’ said a woman, whose disinterested tone suggested Kelly’s was one of very many calls she had taken that day.
‘I’d really like to speak to DI Rampello, if that’s possible. I’m a police officer with British Transport Police and I think one of my cases might be connected with his investigation.’ Kelly crossed her fingers. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Zoe Walker had come to her, and it was still Kelly’s name on Cathy Tanning’s crime report. Her name, her job.
I See You Page 11