School Run (30 page)

She glanced at the cover of the publication he was holding, which featured a blonde with a voluminous chest. ‘Isn’t that thing a bit adult for you, Kieran?’

He grinned. ‘We had Reading For Pleasure for homework last night so I’m just doing mine now, like you said.’ He winked at her. ‘Want a look?’

BETTY

‘Sunny Sue has called in to warn drivers to look out for cyclists. She says drivers ignore cycle lanes. What do you think? We’d like to hear from you.’

That’s it! Why didn’t I think of that before? Thanks, Sunny Sue. You might be new to this – I haven’t heard your name before – but welcome on board! As soon as we heard you, Terry reminded me about his old bike in the garage.

Down I go, over the road and up to the school gates. I can get really close this way. Terry and I can see their faces quite clearly, can’t we, duck?

Cripes, that car was close. I’d feel safer on the pavement but there are too many children. Isn’t that a friend of yours over there, Terry? He doesn’t seem to recognise us. No, don’t talk to him. Concentrate on finding that woman. You’d recognise her, wouldn’t you, love? She was near enough. Me too. You’d left your homework behind, remember? I came running out with it behind you. Tossed up in the air, you were, like one of those balsa wood planes you used to put together. I saw everything, right up to when she drove off. Everything except the number plate. But I’d recognise her. Oh, yes. Like I keep saying to your auntie, it’s why I bought the house on this very road so I could look at the drivers, day in, day out, and wait for her to turn up again.

This one? No. Wrong hair, but I suppose she might have had it dyed. Heavens, the wind’s a bit strong today – it’s almost blowing me off.

Hang on. That’s the car.
And
the driver. Same nose. Same eyes. Same hair.

Stop
!
Stop
!

PIPPA

‘Where’er you walk, green trees shall fan your shade . . .’

Handel, thought Pippa, hazily. She was sure it was Handel, playing somewhere. They used to sing that at school on Founders Day because Handel had had a link with the building before it became a school.

‘I want you to count from ten backwards.’

The anaesthetist was bending over her, and she could see her mouth moving through the mask. There was the pungent smell of disinfectant and everything seemed white. The sheet, the mask hovering above her, the strange stiff gown they had put her in . . .

‘All right, Pippa?’ Derek’s hand tightened on hers.

‘Ten . . .’

Gus’s bedroom. Gus kissing her. Gus in her head. Gus in her body.

‘Nine . . .’

Guilt. Lump. Derek.

‘Eight . . .’

The girls. Cyst. Malignant.

‘Seven . . .’

Nothing.

MARTINE

‘So, Alison, how would you suggest that Janet changes her life?’

Dear Diary,

I usually listen to this programme to help my English. I would like Alison to give me some advice but I do not know how to approach her on the radio.

Simon and Sally have told me I have to go. They are very, very cross that I gave Barry the code to the gates. I tell them he is a nice man. They do not know he broke into the house. When he gets back to work, he will be able to defend himselves. Anyway, nothing was stolen, apart from some money in Simon’s bedroom and some DVDs. The police, they say the burglars were disturbed.

They could have hurt me if I had seen them. What is that, compared to DVDs? Sally and Simon say I must go for other reasons too. But they are not fair. The children say I was drunk when I picked them up the other day. I say I was not. It was a very bad apéritif that the supermarket gave me as a present when I went shopping.

They say it is not right to drive and drink. But I did not exceed the limit. Then they blame me for a magazine that Josh buys. It is not suitable, they say. I tell them it is not my fault. He asked for comic money so I gave him. I am not his nanny, no? So on Saturday I depart. But it is good because my man, he has telephoned. He has been delayed but he will be here very soon.

Véronique, she says it is time to ring the paper. She says a lot of people watch Sally and Simon. Even little things, like Simon’s underwear, would be of interest. So I called the paper and spoke to a nice girl who is going to meet me tonight and take me out to dinner. That is kind, yes? It will help to pass the time until my man can come.

NICK

‘So, Alison, how would you . . .’

‘My God, look out for that bike!’

Nick grabbed the steering wheel and threw himself across Julie as he did so. The car stopped a fraction away from the woman’s front tyre. He leaped out. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? You could have been killed!’

The woman, in a dirty pink coat and headscarf, got off the bike and ran up to Julie’s side of the car. ‘Murderess! Murderess!’ She beat her fist on the car window and Nick saw his daughter’s scared face. ‘You killed my son! Now you’re going to pay for it!’

Nick took her arm. She tried to shake him off but he was too strong for her. Dimly, he was aware that several people were watching. ‘What are you talking about?’

Tears were streaming down the woman’s face. She was mad, thought Nick. She had that wild look in her eyes, the same look he had seen in Juliana’s when things were bad. ‘She killed my son.’ She was howling now, like an animal in distress. ‘Two years ago. Knocked him down, she did, and drove on. I’d recognise her face anywhere.’

Nick was speaking softly, the way he’d learned to do with Juliana when she was screaming. ‘This is my daughter. She’s only seventeen. She wasn’t driving two years ago. I think you’ve made a mistake.’

The woman stopped as though he’d turned off a switch.

She looked back at Julie, who was still staring, horrified, at the scene outside. ‘Seventeen?’

Nick nodded.

‘Fifteen, two years ago?’

‘That’s right.’

‘My Terry was only sixteen. He’d have been eighteen now. A man. He might have had a wife or even a child.’

The car behind Nick hooted. He waved irritably at the driver, indicating there was a problem. The poor woman was hysterical and her eyes were rolling wildly. ‘Look, you’ve had a shock,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you away from here. I’ll just park the car and I’ll get you a cup of tea.’

The woman shook her head vigorously. ‘No. I must go. If it wasn’t her, it was someone else. I must look. Not much time.’

Nick watched her run back to her bike, get on to it (extremely agile for someone who had to be in their late fifties) and disappear into the crowd.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Julie, white-faced, as he got in.

Nick switched off the radio, his mouth dry. ‘She mistook you for someone else. Someone she said had run over her son two years ago.’

‘But I wasn’t driving then.’

‘No.’

Neither said anything as Julie moved on and slid into a space at the end of the road. She turned off the engine and began to weep. Nick put his arms round her and breathed in his wife’s fragrance, which Julie used every day. ‘Put it out of your mind, darling. The poor woman was upset. Your driving was fine, really good today.’

Julie sobbed on to his collar. ‘It’s not that. I felt so sorry for her, losing a child. And meeting her this week, of all weeks. Two years since Mum, you know . . .’

It was a gaping hole that they were both walking round without saying anything. ‘I know. It will be better next month. It always is.’

‘Is it?’ Julie’s eyes filled with fresh tears.

He fumbled in his pocket for a bit of loo paper. ‘Look, it’s the last day of term today. You can come on a shoot with me tomorrow, if you like.’

‘Really?’ She blew her nose and checked her mascara in the mirror. It had smudged so she wiped it off.

‘Yes, really. And we can take Mutley, if you walk him.’

‘That would be cool.’ She blew her nose again and tried to smile, just as Juliana had after an upset. ‘Pick me up at the usual time so I can practise on the way home?’

He hugged her. Maybe Amber had been right when she’d said that eventually you learned to live with something. Perhaps this time next year the anniversary wouldn’t hurt so much.

‘See you tonight. Oh, and Julie? Try to have a good day. She’d want that, you know.’

He drove off slowly and waited at the end of the road for the queue in front to clear. It was getting hot again and he wound down the window. A man was sitting in a Volvo, speaking urgently into his mobile. Nick recognised him as Harriet’s husband from sports day.

‘
Bon
.
Bientôt
.’

Nick was almost adjacent to him in the queue and he couldn’t help overhearing. Harriet’s husband might speak French well but he didn’t like the look on his face. It was hard and unforgiving.

‘
Ce soir
.
Oui
,
moi aussi
.’

The car ahead moved on and Nick followed, wondering how Harriet was doing. A woman who needed to see a counsellor about her marriage had to be pretty desperate. Sometimes it was easy to forget you weren’t the only one who found life painful.

32

EVIE

‘Now for the midday news.’

Evie pulled out of her dad’s road, listening intently to the radio in case there was a news item that might, in some way, account for Robin’s disappearance, but as usual there was nothing. Her temples throbbing, she drove on miserably to collect Jack from nursery, then headed home.

It was impossible to settle. She had tidied the house and attempted to clear spaces in the girls’ bedrooms, but it didn’t seem right to be at home during the day when she was normally checking pages or in meetings. Evie couldn’t believe how she’d been betrayed, and every time she thought of Janine, her fists clenched.

But none of this compared with the tight panic that was gripping her chest over Robin. Every time the phone rang she sprang at it, hoping it was him. But it never was. Where the hell was he?

Had he really done a bunk? Was it ‘just’ this awful financial mess he had got himself into? Guiltily Evie thought of all the times she had snapped at her husband. Deep down she knew she had also felt angry because of the insecurity. Men of her father’s generation had worked to provide for their families. Why couldn’t Robin find a job? Why did she have to be the breadwinner?

Thank God Rachel was coming to get the girls tomorrow. That was why Evie was going into school early this afternoon. She didn’t want Rachel moaning because the girls had left something in the cloakroom. Leonora had come home every day this week without her blazer. When Evie had questioned her about it, the answer was always the same: it was in the cloakroom somewhere. Evie was willing to bet the last twenty quid in her purse that it was in Lost Property but she also knew Leonora wouldn’t bother looking. So she’d beat her at her own game and get there first. And if she arrived when they were still in lessons they wouldn’t see her.

Evie grabbed her bag and went out to the car. Jack was still asleep in the back – he’d dropped off after she’d picked him up. She hadn’t the heart to wake him, poor lamb. This time she’d made sure the car was properly locked.

At least it was easy to park at this time of day. Evie walked smartly towards the school entrance gates. It was an old building in need of modernising, with its stone exterior and draughty windows. The main doors were open and as she went past the glass screen, behind which the school secretary usually sat, she saw that the office was unattended. Never mind. She had a fair idea of where Lost Property was. She’d had to go through it before when Natalie had lost her hockey stick. It hadn’t been any old hockey stick, either. Oh, no, it was one of the most expensive you could buy – Robin had insisted on getting it for her as part of her Christmas present. It hadn’t turned up in Lost Property so Robin had bought her another.

Robin, Robin, where the hell are you?
What was she going to tell the girls if he hadn’t turned up by tomorrow? Her father was going to find out as much as he could but, as he’d pointed out, ‘Ron’ might not mean anything apart from a toddler’s garbled invention. If Robin hadn’t made contact by the weekend, her father had advised her to inform the police. But she couldn’t do that in case he was up to something. Robin had never been the type to be up to anything before, but now Evie wondered exactly what type he was. Was it possible to be married to someone and not know them? And did she have the courage to tell on someone whom – heaven help her – she still trusted?

Here it was. Lost Property. Daft to worry about a school blazer at a time like this but something inside Evie (the desire to make things right?) made her feel that if she could do something practical she could sort out the rest of her life.