Gone (17 page)

‘Lemonade, then?’

She realized she was staring. She stopped smiling and felt her face go numb. ‘Excuse me.’ She got up unsteadily and went to the Ladies, locked herself into a cubicle, peed, washed her hands and was standing with them under the dryer when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She leaned closer across the basin and examined her reflection. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold of the day and the cider. The veins in her hands, feet and face felt swollen. She’d used the on-board shower on the unit’s dive van but there was no hairdryer so her hair had dried naturally into white-blonde corkscrews.

She unbuttoned her shirt a short way. Underneath she wasn’t pink and flushed. She was tanned – a sort of year-round tan she must have developed as a child from all the diving holidays with Mum, Dad and Thom. Caffery’s face flashed into her head, yelling at her from the towpath. Furious. You’d never describe Caffery as congenial, but even so – that level of anger was inexplicable. She did up the buttons on the blouse and checked
herself in the mirror. Then she undid the top two buttons again until a small amount of cleavage was just visible.

Back in the bar Prody was sitting at the table, two glasses of lemonade in front of him. When she sat next to him he saw the undone buttons instantly. There was an awkward, awful pause. He glanced at the window, then back again, and for a moment she saw it all clearly. She saw that she was a bit drunk, looking stupid with her tits showing, and that the wheel was about to come off the whole thing and put her in a ditch she wouldn’t know how to climb out of. She turned away, putting her elbows on the table and closing off her cleavage from him.

‘It wasn’t me,’ she said, ‘that night. It wasn’t me driving.’

‘I’m sorry?’

She felt stupid. She hadn’t planned to say it, had only opened her mouth to cover her embarrassment. ‘I’ve never told anyone this but it was my brother. He was drunk and I wasn’t so I covered for him.’

Prody was silent for a while. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Nice sister. I’d like one like you.’

‘No – I was stupid.’

‘I’d say. That’s quite something to protect someone from. A DIC charge.’

Yeah, she thought. And, believe me, if you knew what I’d really protected him from – if you knew it was much more than just a drink-driving charge – your head would spin round and your eyes would come out on springs. She sat woodenly, staring at the optics and hoping her face wasn’t as flushed as it felt.

Prody’s meal came then, and that saved them both. Gloucester Old Spot sausages and mash. Little red pickled onions on the side, like cloudy marbles. He ate in silence. For a moment or two she wondered if he was angry still, but she stayed anyway and watched him. Let the mood settle itself. They talked about other things – the unit, an inspector from Traffic who’d dropped dead of a heart-attack at a family wedding aged thirty-seven. Prody finished his meal and at one thirty they got up to leave. Flea was tired, her head stuffy. Outside, the rain had stopped and the sun
was out but more rainclouds were banked in the west. The chalky earth of the car park was pitted with yellowish puddles. She stopped on the way to her car at the parapet above the tunnel’s eastern portal and peered down into the murky canal.

‘There’s nothing there,’ Prody said.

‘Something still feels wrong.’

‘Here.’ He held out an Avon and Somerset business card with his phone numbers on it. ‘If you remember what it is, call me. I promise not to yell at you.’

‘Like Caffery?’

‘Like Caffery. Now, will you go home and relax? Give yourself a break?’

She took the card but she didn’t leave the parapet. She waited for Prody to get into his Peugeot and pull out of the car park. Then she stared down at the tunnel, drawn inexorably by the glint of the winter sun on the black water, until the noise of his engine had faded, and the only sounds were the clink of the barman clearing the table in the pub, and the cawing of crows in the trees.

At three fifty Janice Costello sat at traffic lights and stared grimly at the rain trickling down the windscreen. Everything was dark and dismal. She hated this time of year, and she hated sitting in traffic. Emily’s school was only a short distance from the house, and although Cory usually drove if he picked her up from school – any mention of the greenhouse effect generally sparked off in him a diatribe about the blatant erosion of his civil liberties – on Janice’s days they walked, carefully adding up the minutes and diligently reporting back to Emily’s teacher as part of the Walk to School Challenge.

But today they were driving and Emily was thrilled. She didn’t know it was because Janice had a plan. She’d cooked it up overnight, lying in the darkened bedroom, her heart pounding, while Cory slept dreamlessly next to her. She was going to drop Emily at a friend’s house, then visit Cory at the office. On the front seat of the Audi, a bag contained a flask of hot coffee and half a carrot cake sandwiched between two paper plates. One of the things that had come up in the therapy sessions was that sometimes Cory felt his wife wasn’t exactly a traditional wife. That although there was always dinner on the table and a cup of tea in bed in the mornings, although she worked and took care of Emily, he still missed the little touches. A cake cooling on a wire tray when he came in. A packed lunch for work with maybe a little
billet doux
tucked inside to surprise him at lunchtime.

‘Well, we’ll change that, won’t we, Emily?’ she said aloud.

‘Change what?’ Emily blinked at her. ‘Change what, Mummy?’

‘Mummy’s going to take some nice things for Daddy. Just to show she cares.’

The lights changed and Janice shot the Audi forward. The streets were wet and treacherous. She had to brake suddenly for a gang of children who trailed over a zebra crossing without looking left or right. As she came to a halt the bag on the seat flew off and landed on the floor.

‘Shit.’

‘That’s rude, Mummy.’

‘I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.’ She groped on the floor, trying to grab the bag before the children crossed and the driver behind her leaned on the horn. Cory had chosen ‘champagne’ for the interior even though it was her car and she’d bought it with money she’d saved. Somehow he’d managed to have the last word on most things about it. She’d fancied a VW camper now she was working from home, but Cory said it was a shabby thing to have sitting on the driveway, so she gave in and got the Audi. And he was a killer when it came to keeping it clean. If Emily so much as crawled across the back seat in her school shoes he’d launch into a tirade about how the family had no respect for anything, and how Emily would grow up not understanding the value of money and become a leech on society. As Janice hooked up the bag and put it on the front seat a trickle of coffee dripped out of the bottom and made a long brown trail over the pale cream upholstery.

‘
Shit shit shit
.’

‘Mummy! I’ve told you. Don’t say that.’

‘I’ve got bloody coffee everywhere.’

‘Don’t swear.’

‘Daddy’ll be furious.’

‘No!’ Emily squealed. ‘Don’t tell him. I don’t want Daddy to get cross.’

Janice yanked the bag off the seat and put it the first place she could think of. Her lap. Hot coffee oozed out all over her white sweater and beige jeans. ‘Jesus.’ She tugged at her scalding
trousers, trying to unstick them from her legs. The car behind sounded its horn as she’d known it would. Someone was yelling.

‘Shit, shit.’

‘You’re not supposed to say that word, Mummy!’

There was half a parking space at the end of a bay just past the crossing. She let the car go forward, pulled into the space and opened the window, hung the bag outside and let the coffee drain away. It was a big flask and it seemed to take for ever to drain. It was as if someone had turned on a tap. Another horn sounded. This time it was the car in the parking space ahead. It had its reversing lights on and apparently couldn’t go back far enough to pull out, although there was at least a metre behind it.

‘
I don’t like that noise, Mummy
.’ Emily put her hands on her ears. ‘
I don’t like it
.’

‘It’s all right, baby. Sssh.’

Janice slammed the Audi into reverse, and eased back a fraction to let the car in front come out. As she did someone banged hard on the back window, making her jump. Rap rap rap. Rap rap rap.

‘
Mummy!
’

‘Hey!’ a voice said. ‘You’re on the zebra crossing. There are kids out here.’

The car in front pulled into the traffic and Janice drove into the space. She cut the engine and dropped her head on to the steering-wheel. The woman who’d shouted at her was at the passenger window now, rapping hard on the glass. It was one of the mothers from school. She was furious. ‘Hey. You’ve got a big car so you’ve got the right to park it on a zebra crossing, have you?’

Janice’s hands were shaking. This was bloody awful. It was eight minutes to four, when Cory would either leave to meet Clare or she’d arrive to meet him. Janice couldn’t appear at the office covered with coffee – and how would she justify turning up without it? And Emily – poor little Emily – was crying her eyes out and not understanding any of this.

‘Look at me, you bitch. You can’t get away from this.’

Janice raised her face. The woman was very big and red-faced.
She was bundled in a huge tweed coat and wore one of the Nepalese knitted hats that they sold in every street market, these days. She was surrounded by children in similar hats. ‘Bitch.’ She slammed the flat of her hand on the window. ‘Petrol-guzzling bitch.’

Janice took a few deep breaths and got out of the car. ‘I’m sorry.’ She came round to the side of the road. She set the dripping bag down on the pavement and stood in front of the woman. ‘I didn’t mean to go on the zebra crossing.’

‘You get a car like that I don’t suppose you can afford lessons to learn to drive it too.’

‘I said I’m sorry.’

‘It’s amazing. Whatever effort the school puts into getting us to walk home you just can’t legislate for the selfish pigs of the world.’

‘Look – I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want? Blood?’

‘It will be blood. It will be my
kids
’ blood with people like you around. If you don’t run them over in your Chelsea tractors you’ll
suffocate
them or
drown
them with all the shit you’re pumping into the atmosphere.’

Janice sighed. ‘Right. I give up. What do you want? A fist fight?’

The woman gave an incredulous smile. ‘Oh,
that
just about sums up your type. You’d do that in front of kids, wouldn’t you?’

‘Actually . . . yes, I would.’ She wrenched her jacket off, slammed it down on the Audi’s boot and headed for the pavement. The children scattered, banging into each other, half giggling, half panicking.

The woman backed into the doorway of the nearest shop. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘Yes. I’m crazy. I am crazy enough to kill you.’

‘I’ll call the police.’ She held her hands in front of her face and cowered in the doorway. ‘I will – I’ll call the police.’

Janice grabbed her by the coat lapel and put her face close to the woman’s. ‘Now, listen.’ Janice gave her a shake. ‘I
know
what it looks like. I
know
what you think I am, but I’m not. I didn’t choose that car. It was my fucking husband who chose it—’

‘Don’t swear in front of my—’

‘It was my
fucking
husband who wanted a
fucking
status symbol, even though I was stupid enough to
pay
for the damned thing. And for your information I walk my daughter to and from school
every single day
. I walk her home and that stupid beast of a car has got only
two
thousand miles on the sodding
clock
after a
year
and for your information I am having a very,
very
bad day. Now.’ She pushed the woman back against the wall. ‘I’ve apologized to you. Are you going to apologize to me?’

The woman stared at her.

‘Well?’

She glanced from left to right to see if her children were near enough to overhear. Her whole face was covered with tiny broken blood vessels as if she’d spent a lifetime in the chilly weather. Probably no central heating in her house. ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘If it’s
that
important to you, I apologize. But you’ve got to let go of me
now
and let me get my children home.’

Janice held her eyes for a moment more. Then, with a dismissive shake of her head, she let her go. As she turned away, wiping her hands on her sweater, she glanced across the street. A man wearing, incongruously, a full-face Santa Claus mask and a zipped-up ski jacket was running across the road towards her. That’s early for Christmas, she had time to think, before the man leaped into the Audi, slammed the door and pulled away on to the open street.

Janice Costello was probably the same age as her husband – little pinched lines around her mouth and eyes gave it away – but when she opened the door into her elegant tiled hallway she appeared much younger. With her pale skin and jet-black hair knotted at the back of her head, the jeans and casual blue shirt worn a little too big, she was like a child next to her foppish husband. Even the blotchiness of her eyes and nose from crying didn’t detract from her youthfulness. Her husband tried to put an arm under her elbow to help her as they went down the hall into the huge kitchen-diner, but, Caffery noticed, she snatched it away and continued on her own, her head held high. Her awkward, dignified gait suggested someone in physical pain.

MCIU had assigned their own FLO to the Costellos, DC Nicola Hollis. A tall girl with long, pre-Raphaelite hair who couldn’t have been more feminine but insisted on calling herself ‘Nick’, she stood quietly in the Costellos’ kitchen, making tea and arranging biscuits on a plate. She nodded silently at Caffery as he came in and sat at the big breakfast table. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. A child’s drawings were scattered across it, with crayons and felt tips. He noticed that Janice chose a place at the table that was separated from her husband by another chair. ‘I’m sorry it had to happen again.’