Desire Line (15 page)

After some little time she was conscious of his getting to his feet and drifting away and felt only respite.

Sara's lost to me the instant Josh wrenches his car off the main route out of town. Nobody could've followed without being noticed and Josh was even more vigilant than most, driving fast on narrow lanes built up across marshland— some of which had an unlit drop of a metre on either side to drainage ditches— and enjoying scaring his passenger though he'd never admit to it. I'm forced to go ahead to the parked vehicles cringing at the thought of the tricks being played on Sara and not just by firelight. It won't be pleasant. Strangers and familiars come together in an empty field, doing nothing but dance against the cold, watch the juggler and have sex till they fall into a stupor— she'll be baffled and never more aware that she's off her patch.

Where the hawthorn's at its tallest, a battered Ford transit has just drawn up. The female driver slides out and opens the side shutter-door. Two men emerge, loiter, staring around before one shrugs and they disappear, leaving her to roll herself a smoke on the vehicle's wing. And all the while it's obvious she's listening to or answering a third passenger through the cab's open window. After a long slow drag she offers it inside. Then the leisurely tempo is interrupted as something in the distance registers, something that alarms her— she scrambles back up and the glowing tip is rested out of sight. You would need to be very close to see another body slide over the seat and be swallowed by the van's interior. The driver hesitates – it becomes a farce – she jumps back down and runs around to the shutter door. Stuck wide open! She struggles in vain. (The voice from within must be desperate now). At the last frantic attempt down it comes. She runs back around and takes up position— just savouring a lungful. See?

As Meg walks into view with Sara.

Three women, pinned to the field while the talk goes round, Meg the taller, the youngest but definitely in control, Jay Rix, the locks flicking out at every head shake, not openly hostile but the attitude disrespectful. This is the sort of scene you can watch with sound muted and still be in no doubt what's happening. At one point Sara stares into the vehicle's inner darkness. She shivers and makes a pleading sign— then her hand goes to the shutter door and I imagine Rix holding her breath.

And it's over. Meg and Sara are gone.

Rix is left pressed against the Ford's bonnet. Her shoulders start to heave with laughing.

Chapter 10

September 29th

Her first thought was not of defeat but
Kim knows where my daughter is.
In the bathroom mirror her eyes may be curds under marshmallow lids but they were registering optimism. At least until she went downstairs. Josh had returned from a run, sweat-stained, flecked with mud, exuding male scent strong enough to fill the room. ‘I've been down that way but sticking to our side of the river. You can see them all still there. Clive Upton wants his head examined! The fire's still smouldering. Apart from the bloody dogs, nothing else is moving. Have this.'

Sara took the cup and noticed suddenly her wrist's lack of a watch. Had she been wearing it last night? In fact when was the last time she saw it at all? One more example of myriad tiny absences. She thought of them as holes, literally holes in the brain: perhaps they were what ached now. ‘I have to go out.'

‘You're going to meet this nutter, are you? I'll come.'

This was a continuation of a previous argument, begun after midnight. That Meg's offer had brought scant return from Jay and nothing from a sullen Neil Rix when cornered, in fact that Meg gave every sign of regretting her invitation, had overnight begun to count against Josh. Whereas contact with Kim was a point for her and, though it didn't bear scrutiny because based on a glimpse of photographs she didn't intend to own up to, still, she felt out ahead and empowered. She took a deep breath. ‘No.'

‘Ha! Of course bloody no.'

When she came down a second time he surveyed her up and down. Burst into laughter. ‘Well done, Sara!'

The creased blouse, the soot-speckled chinos and the jacket thrown over her arm with an embellishment of straw to its sleeve all provoked mockery. ‘At least this woman won't think she's tapped into money, not you looking like that. In disguise, eh?'

She searched for her Marc Jacobs tote so he shouldn't see it first (Josh was not above rifling it) or the tears welling at his sarcasm.

‘What's her second name?'

‘Tighe.' Meg had known. At least that was one thing she had remembered to ask.

He shook his head, finding a new way to undermine her: with despair. ‘Right… OK… So after you meet her where do you think you'll be going?'

‘I could…' she had no plan, ‘er, suggest we…'

‘So what you do is
this.
You tell her you'll take her for a coffee. For breakfast if she'll go for it. Give people food and drink, 'specially this type. She won't be getting a lot of treats. So you buy her what she wants, someplace grotty she'll feel comfortable. But try to make sure you choose the venue. Got it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Don't tell her about yourself or about Eurwen. Nothing.
No facts
! It's like going to a fortune teller. Give them anything, they'll try feeding it back to you like it was theirs. So watch that. Get her to talk. She'll ramble on. They always do, go off on a tangent, and what you do is pick up any word or phrase that you can use to get them back on track.'

‘Yes.'

‘She might want to bend your ear, say, about the rough time she's had as a kid. So you look like you're understanding, you make all the right noises, and then you come in with
I know
! And if that was
Eurwen
I could see a reason for her going off but it isn't. So when…? Then you get back to who and what and where? Quick as you like.'

‘Yes.' But everything he had said was seeping away through one of those voids that seemed less like pinpricks this morning. Bullet holes?

Kim Tighe. What Meg couldn't know was the spelling.
Tighe
offered itself.

She was afraid of Kim Tighe: the seasoned air of a Rhyl morning woke her to this. Either the woman herself was intimidating, or she would give information about Eurwen that knocked every other fear for six.

Stalled traffic on the bridge connected to raised voices and a bare-chested man leaning from his car window; a proper view of the meeting place was impossible until Sara was almost upon the first flight of stone steps down to the beach where a thin figure hung on the railings. An orange beanie might have hidden her identity except for the strands of hair whipping around a face turned to the sea. It was Kim though tinted glasses hid the eyes. Leggings emphasised her emaciation to the extent that her knees jutted pathetically and the fisherman's jumper that swamped her upper body, gaped at the neck. Closer now, Sara could identify the tattoo above Kim's protruding collar-bone as a crude, plain-ink Gordian Knot and felt queasy at the injury to such fragile skin. ‘Hello… Kim. I wasn't sure you'd come.'

‘I don't sleep much, me.'

Hot fat was already scenting the breeze. Sick and sicker… her empty stomach wanted to roll up like a touched caterpillar. ‘Why don't we go for a coffee? I'd love one.'

Kim sniffed. ‘Got any fags?'

‘I haven't I'm sorry. I'll buy you a pack from where we go… How about breakfast?'

‘If we try up the Clear I can maybe bum a couple off Harv.'

‘No, really. Let me buy you some.'

‘I don't need fucking charity!' The change of tone stung like a slap. ‘I'm off now.' Come or not, Kim's body language said. In fact she seemed anxious to end their encounter before it had hardly begun, judging by the speed of departure.

Sequential lights and mind-bludgeoning tunes were operating to the empty arcades they passed but visitors were already on the streets. Sara contented herself with keeping up with a target that bobbed and weaved through the strollers so nimbly she was convinced it was some sort of test. If she demurred or lost Kim, the chance was forfeit. And for a woman as sick as she looked she could certainly move. Stopped, about to cross yet another junction, Sara managed to chip in, ‘I don't know about you but this time in the morning I feel like death. I drink.'

‘Who doesn't? We're there, anyhow.' Kim turned and pointed above her head. Clear Skies Café was over a junk-shop by the looks of its window's assorted objects. FOURWAYS, whatever that meant, was painted across the glass. A steep flight of stairs had sharp metal edges… Kim was up them with the lightness of a shore bird and pushing on the solid door at the top. Sara followed. The upper interior was much dimmer than expected and fuller, a space only the size of a double bedroom holding a half dozen battered Formica tables and most of them were filled with people who had turned to stare.

‘Hiya Kim,' someone out of sight called. Sara searched for the voice and found a hatch in the far end of the room with a man's upper body and shaven head blocking it.

‘Harv! I'm gasping.' Kim threaded through the tables. The door's hitting Sara in the back was the hint she needed and someone's laugh at her expense seemed to restart the hubbub. Kim kept her waiting until she had her cigarette, had it lit, only then did she drag two chairs to the counter and motion Sara to sit, her attention transferred now to the person providing the treats. As it would always be, Sara thought.

Harvey would have been unremarkable were it not for thick black swirls of tattooing that licked up out of his T-shirt against the chalky neck like a high collar and his brows, nose and lower lip that were pierced with steel. Younger than she had first estimated, a tough-looking thirty, perhaps, but with a confident demeanour of fifty. The slight cast in one eye made it difficult to decide which of them he was concentrating on or expected to speak next.

‘This is Sara,' Kim said.

‘You all right?'

‘Well—'

Harvey gave an abrupt nod that reminded her of Josh.

‘She's OK aren't you Sara? Couple of coffees, Har-
vey
.' When Kim drew deeply on the cigarette her cheeks flattened along the gum line in rictus as though smoking were an ordeal. To Harvey's suggestion of toast Kim snapped, ‘Not got'ny cake?'

Sara waited until Harvey disappeared although privacy was not an option, the tables jostling each other. ‘Am I here to talk to him or you?'

‘Oo-oo! Please yerself.'

‘I don't wish to be rude. Is this a place you've seen my daughter? Or are we to meet someone else?'

‘Just hold on. I can't think till I've finished the first fag.'

Two squashed jam-filled Swiss role slices were put down between them. ‘You not got chocolate?' Kim wanted to know. ‘This'll do then.'

‘Let me pay.' Sara had her bag off her shoulder. ‘There's nothing else, no? Then how much?' Her next question was going to be about a red-haired girl. But she could
not
find her purse. Fingers searching the recesses of tissues and unidentifiable bits touched only coins, a couple of pounds which she offered and had accepted.

‘The last of the big spenders,' Kim said. She drank most of the steaming cup in one go. The room was heating up, unsurprisingly with the number of bodies packed into it but when the door opened again and a teenager backed in pulling a child's buggy with her, somehow the space managed to absorb them. Sara's rapid scan of the clientele told that most were young, several with wriggling toddlers attached, the exception being at the next table where two old men in woollen overcoats had wedged themselves into the corner. Apart from a rota of puffing and coughing they were dumb and vacant-eyed beneath the notice THIS IS A NO SMOKING AREA IT IS AN OFFENCE TO SMOKE HERE PENALTY FOR NON-COMPLIANCE £200.

Swiftly, Kim's cigarette was down to the filter tip. ‘It's council, see? Harv's some sort of, I dunno, worker for them. He runs it like a centre. The library's another place you can go but not on a Sunday natch. And they'll be down on you like a ton of shit if you light up.' There were no ashtrays and with conscious good timing she leaned down and stubbed the cigarette out on the wooden sole of a sandal that looked too big and heavy for her skeletal feet.

‘If you want more…?' Sara remembered just in time.

But no need for nicety. ‘Ta. Harv. Harv! How much you charging for—?' she rattled an imaginary packet at the hatch.

‘Three-eighty.'

‘Fucking robber! Give us one.'

A black packet came flying in her direction and she caught it. ‘This one's payin'.'

Sara handed over a five pound note from the discovered purse, her bag's contents spread out between them, lipstick, comb, reader's tickets for specialist manuscript collections she no longer made use of. An invitation to an August book launch ‘Garden Quad, St Clement's College, 7pm' lay next to the dog-eared card with her own contact details… how long since had she needed to offer one to any new acquaintance?