The Calling (16 page)

Fiona Robinson stepped from the shower and bent over to dry her face on the warm bath sheet draped over the radiator. She wiped an arc through the steam on the mirror, enough to see her hair. She combed it until it fell in a sleek curtain of straight strands trickling tepid water down her bare back.

She then separated it into three even sections and wove a plait, securing it at the end with a hair band. Still naked, she applied her make-up, wiped down the shower cubicle, brushed her teeth and washed her hands. And, in accordance with her usual routine, she checked her hair again in her bedroom mirror before dressing herself in the clothes lying ready on the bed.

She couldn’t remember when she’d first learnt to plait, but guessed she must have been five or six years old at the time. Since then it had become a habit she turned to whenever her hair hung loose. Her fingers would reach for it automatically and intertwine long thin fair strands of it until five or six braids hung beside her left cheek. Then she’d disentangle them and start again.

Fiona made herself a coffee and set it down on the edge of the low table next to her armchair. She switched on the TV for the news and, without thinking, pulled the band from the end of her damp hair, then subdivided one of the existing sections – blissfully unaware of the irony that her fate was already interwoven with two other lives.

Fiona Robinson, Marlowe Gates and Stephanie Palmer had never met, but they now tumbled towards each other on a fatal collision course.

They’d started far apart: one in Cambridge, one in Crewe and one in Auckland – until, with broken hearts fanning the desire for change, Australia was exchanged for London, and Fiona left the Derby Dales for the flatlands of the Fens.

They all three always visited the cinema alone, watched late-night television, read books, and each kept a diary. No close friends, no boyfriends, minimal family contact and no pets.

They all tried to keep it simple, and lived by their own rules of distrust and isolation.

Stephanie’s alter ego was the ultimate party girl. First to the bar and last out the door. Loud and brash in public, laughing loudly at jokes, drinking pints with the lads but never getting involved with them. Not emotionally anyway.

Just physically – but she could handle that.

And if they ever wanted to see her again, they’d just have to go on wanting, wouldn’t they?

Fiona and Marlowe played it safer. They just avoided men altogether.

Fiona reached the end of making her braid. She curled the end of it around until it hovered a few inches from her face. She studied the end, then began to unpick it.

‘Why does it do that?’ she wondered.

And it never failed to annoy her. Every time she plaited her hair, she started with three almost identical strands. There would be nothing to choose between them and she was always careful, but whenever she reached the end she found that one of them had mysteriously run out.

The single-decker wove its way along a twisting route from Cambridge centre, via the industrial units in Newmarket Road, to the post-war housing estates of Fen Ditton, which lay three miles to the east. Marlowe sat at the back until the stop before her own, then made her way to the front, ready to alight as soon as the bus came to a standstill.

She stepped out on to the pavement, opposite a small shopping parade and ducked under the steel railing next to a row of lock-ups. A patch of surplus concrete led on to a strip of waste ground, providing a shortcut to the alley on the far side. She was careful to miss the dog mess and discarded condoms, and climbed through the hole in the mesh fence opposite, without incident.

The footpath, a privet-lined alley, brought her into Laburnum Gardens where she turned right and hurried towards number 17. She eyed the house’s windows; a mishmash of unmatched net curtains prevented her from seeing inside, but she saw a silhouette move behind one of them.

The gate’s metal hinges squealed as she pushed it open; it swung back against a straggling pansy. The first tingle of nerves began as she pressed the bell. She didn’t hear it ringing inside so she rapped the chrome knocker.

Marlowe made fists in her pockets as she waited, and the cuffs of her coat covered the fresh bruises on her wrists and forearms. The delicately speckled, criss-crossed scabs itched, and her knotted stomach sent out frustrated messages that made her scratch at them through the beige raincoat.

She waited almost two minutes, then knocked again, this time banging eight times.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. ‘Come on!’ she growled, and checked the street in each direction. It was still deserted.

She turned back to the door and clouted it several more times with the flat of her hand, then snapped open the letter box. The stairs and hall stared at her impassively through the oblong slot.

‘Open the door. I know you’re in there,’ she called. ‘I only want to talk.’

She continued to peer inside, hoping to spot a movement or perhaps a shadow. After another long minute, Marlowe
straightened
up and eased the letter box shut.

She stepped back and scrutinized each window in turn. Without warning, her frustration boiled to the surface and she leapt forward to the letter box again. ‘Open the fucking door,’ she screamed and kicked it hard enough to make it move slightly in its frame.

She strode back to the gate and threw it wide, back into the unfortunate pansy. ‘I know you’re in there,’ she bellowed, her voice rising to a screech. ‘You stupid bitch!’

She then turned and darted back along the empty street towards the alleyway.

Behind her, a face pressed the net curtains closer to the glass. The woman watched until Marlowe had vanished from sight. She then tore down the stairs and across to the telephone housed in a corner beside the front door. With her gaze still riveted on the letter box, she raised the receiver and dialled the six familiar digits.

The answerphone clicked on and she waited for the tone. Then, in a small voice, she whispered, ‘Pete, it’s me. Phone me. There’s something you need to know.’

‘Julie, please open the door,’ Marlowe called from the landing of the block of flats.

‘Who is it?’ Julie Wilson called back.

‘My name’s Marlowe. You don’t know me.’

The door cracked open. ‘What do you want?’

‘I need to talk to you about Peter Walsh.’

Julie hesitated, but then allowed the door to swing wider and she took a few seconds to assess Marlowe.

Julie wore a towelling robe and her hair was still damp; she clearly hadn’t expected a visitor. There was a strange look in her eyes: contemptuous maybe, or cynical or embittered, or perhaps she’d just been caught off-guard – Marlowe couldn’t tell.

‘Go through.’ She waved Marlowe inside, and through to the lounge. Julie herself didn’t follow. Marlowe sat down beside the window and looked across to the car park, trying to guess whether Julie owned a car and, if so, which one. Only an Escort, a large Citroën and a small Fiat occupied the parking area. Knowing which car someone drove was a small piece of very public information, but it made her realize how very little she knew about Julie Wilson. She turned her gaze back to the sitting room and something about the bookshelves caught her eye. Without thinking, she was on her feet and across the room. She squatted suddenly to inspect the lower shelves.

Her concentration was broken by a loud cough. Marlowe turned sharply, like a startled rabbit. Julie stood close behind her, now
dressed in a purple jumper and an ankle-length black jersey skirt, with coffee mug in hand. She had clearly watched as Marlowe began poking through her bookshelves.

‘Sorry,’ Marlowe muttered.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Julie’s voice had chilled from cool to icy. ‘He said you weren’t all there, so it’s nice to see you can at least read.’

Marlowe scrambled to her feet. ‘And write and add, if you’re really interested.’ A cheap clock ticked loudly from the wall above the television. ‘I’m not thick, if that’s what he told you. I know, for example, that he gave us both a bad time and …’ She let her sentence trail into nothing.

‘And?’ Julie demanded.

That single word instantly filled Marlowe with huge disdain for the other woman. ‘And?’ she echoed, her tone suddenly oozing with heavy sarcasm. ‘Oh yes, and you’re not that thick either, are you, so I thought you might be the one to give me the answers to some questions that are bugging me.’

‘About him?’

Marlowe felt a familiar anger beginning to fill her, and heard her words becoming angrier, driven from within. ‘Yes “him”. It’s wicked even allowing his name to pass your lips, isn’t it? Even after so long.’

‘What’s the point of this?’ Julie turned away, placing her mug on the table to avoid looking at her visitor. ‘Life goes on, you know.’

‘Maybe for you.’ Marlowe hesitated, picked a paperback from the lower shelf, and continued. ‘I have this book too, and most of these in fact, and that picture, and at least half of your videos…’

‘And so does Pete.’

‘But I had them first. And I’ve watched him with you, and with your replacement, and now with the latest one. And he’s taken us all to the same places and tried to make us the same.’

‘So what?’ Julie answered, turning back to Marlowe, her face now a mask, the eyes hard and ungiving.

Perhaps Julie doesn’t care
. Marlowe dismissed the thought. ‘Julie, have you ever heard of a girl called Helen Neill?’

‘No, who is she?’

‘A murder victim. Her body turned up about a year before you met Peter. In the Forest of Dean.’

‘Did she look like you?’ Julie asked.

‘Yes, like both of us, I suppose.’ Marlowe stepped towards her. ‘You know who I mean, don’t you?’

Julie shrugged but didn’t move. ‘Pete showed me her picture in the paper one day. Said it was a bit like you.’

‘If I said I think Peter’s connected to her death, would you help me trap him?’ Marlowe reached forward to touch her arm.

‘No,’ Julie jerked away, ‘that’s crap.’

Marlowe pressed on. ‘He needs to be stopped.’

‘Stopped from what? Going out with other girls?’ Julie kept backing away until they reached the narrow passage approaching the front door.

‘No, from killing them,’ Marlowe pleaded, unaware of her left fist thumping the wall beside her.

‘You’re obsessed.’ Julie felt behind her for the door. ‘You and him are two of a kind. But he’s out of my life now, and you should stop trying to vilify him and just come to terms with being dumped.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Marlowe breathed.

‘No, no,
you’re
wrong! Wrong coming here and trying to drag me into your therapy.’ Julie unclipped the latch. ‘So what if Pete likes girls that look alike? And it’s all our own fault if we stick around for his abuse. But that’s what you haven’t come to terms with, isn’t it? He treated you badly because you let him. Get your head around that. Deal with it. Put him in the past.’ She stepped to one side. ‘Now I want you to leave.’

Marlowe dropped the book at Julie’s feet and drew herself closer until they stood eye to eye, and Julie’s shoulder blades were pressed against the passage wall. Marlowe’s voice went quiet. ‘You may be right about some of it, Julie, but I’ll tell you this. The next time another girl is murdered, it will be on your conscience as much as it’s on mine.’

Julie pushed herself away from the wall and shoved Marlowe back against the opposite one. ‘My life’s going well and he can’t touch me now,’ she hissed. She then clamped her fingers around Marlowe’s upper arm, digging her nails into the underside, and thrust her out of the flat.

Fiona Robinson loved entering other people’s homes. It was the best part of being an estate agent, and it kept her competitive. She could always judge her own progress by comparing her home with the ones she was viewing, to decide whether she was achieving enough.

And, given her age, she knew she was doing better than at least ninety per cent of the clients she saw.
Including This One
, she thought, as she waited on the doorstep of the old terrace house in Glisson Road. The aluminium door opened a crack and Mrs Reynolds squinted at her from behind the chain.

‘Hello, I’m Fiona Robinson,’ she beamed, ‘from Sampson’s, the estate agents.’

‘Right-ho, dear. Hold on and I’ll let you in.’ The arthritic fingers trembled as she struggled with the chain.

Fiona wondered why such security gadgets weren’t designed to be easier for the elderly to use quickly.

Eventually the door opened and Fiona entered a small hallway bedecked in large-print, dark-brown leafed wallpaper.

She knew instantly this would be a ‘plenty of original features’ property, but ‘in need of updating’.

‘How are you, Mrs Reynolds?’

‘Oh, not so bad, my dear. Can I get you a cup of tea?’

‘No time, I’m afraid. I’m really busy today.’

Mrs Reynolds was a widow about to move into a development of flats for the retired. She talked constantly. ‘I lost my Eric four years ago this September, you know.’

Fiona smiled sympathetically, for a second.

‘He had cancer – was ill for two years before he went. We’ve got one daughter, a bit older than you, but I don’t see her much. She’s very busy. Well, you all are, aren’t you, you young people.’

‘Uh-huh’ Fiona noted down the dimensions of the dining room and proceeded to the kitchen.

‘Like you, I expect – busy getting ahead. So I’ve decided to buy a flat and spend any money left over so it never gets wasted on nursing fees when I’m really old.’

‘Good idea,’ Fiona replied, as she checked the under-stairs cupboard.

‘That’s what my daughter said. I said, “What about you?” and she said “Don’t worry, I’m doing fine.” I must admit that I thought, then, if you don’t need all the money you’re earning, perhaps you could come round more often. But I didn’t say so, of course.’

‘No.’ Fiona made her way upstairs, still pursued by the lonely Mrs Reynolds.

‘Do you have family nearby, then?’

‘No, they’re in Bradford.’ Fiona wrote some brief notes and hurried on to the last bedroom.

‘Not married either?’

‘No, no, quite happy single, actually.’ Fiona reached the head of the stairs and closed her notebook. ‘All done, thank you, Mrs Reynolds,’ she said, smiling brightly.

They made their way back down, and Mrs Reynolds carried on chatting. ‘A nice young lady like you should be courting at least.’ Fiona opened the front door, keen to move on to her next appointment but, before she could speak, Mrs Reynolds continued, ‘Unless you’re one of these modern women married to their careers. I’ve been out with one or two men from the social club.’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘I’d love to have a young man – or at least one with his own teeth and all his marbles.’

Fiona laughed then, caught off guard.

Her 3.30 appointment was in Queen Edith’s Way, viewing another property about to go on the market. The owner, Anita Marshall, hadn’t yet signed a contract and wanted to meet first to discuss details.

Fiona pulled into the cobbled drive and parked behind a new black BMW cabriolet.

This house, she decided, belonged to a client in the other ten per cent.

A dark-haired woman answered the door and motioned Fiona inside, whilst she continued chatting on her phone. Fiona hovered in the hallway, already making mental notes for the sale literature. Finally the woman finished her call. Her hand shot out and gave Fiona’s a swift shake. ‘Anita Marshall.’

‘Fiona Robinson, pleased to meet you,’ she said to the back of Anita’s head, as she followed her towards the kitchen. And then into each successive room, as she was marched swiftly on a tour of the house.

A brief fifteen minutes later, she was back in her car, her ears ringing from Anita Marshall’s self-satisfied tributes to her own success. ‘I worked for all of this.’ And, ‘I love living alone.’ And, ‘What could a man give me that I haven’t got here?’ And even, ‘I’d never have succeeded like this if I’d had children.’

Fiona realized how she herself probably sounded the same. Unconvincing. Unfulfilled. Lonely.

For the first time in her career, Fiona’s determination had wavered just a fraction. Oh, yes, she was galloping forwards all right. But she suddenly realized that she wasn’t sure where her final goal lay.

Her original motivation to succeed had been twofold: firstly to prove she could, and secondly to assure herself of an independent future. Even last Christmas, when everyone else was enjoying festive flings, she had been glad that she’d been too occupied to have time to meet anyone.

But now?

Now, she suddenly decided, she didn’t want to turn into poor, isolated Anita Marshall.