To Catch a Rabbit (26 page)

When it came time for them to change trains at Peterborough, she got their cases down from the rack.

‘What a day, Dad, what a bloody day.’

‘Wasn’t it? That old Confucian curse, my dear, may you live in interesting times. I’d settle for some boring ones myself.’

He shook hands with Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge, who looked more than willing to provide him with all the boring times he could handle. If they’d been of another generation, they would have exchanged numbers, or email addresses. But as it was, they didn’t even know each other’s names.

Karen passed a sleepless night in the bedroom she’d occupied all her childhood. She couldn’t get comfortable in the single bed, brushing up against the cold wall, or waking with her arm hanging over the side. In the morning she made her father’s breakfast and took it to him on a tray. He scolded her for fussing over him, but she could see how tired he looked.

‘Takes it out of you, all this,’ he waved his toast to demonstrate the strange new world of grief they were now inhabiting.

Later, when he was dressed, they went to the shops and she made sure his cupboards were stocked.

‘Anyone would think there was a war on,’ he said. ‘I shall be well prepared in my bunker with all these baked beans.’

Eventually he persuaded her that he was fine, well rested, and that she should get home to Max and the children. She sat on the local train, numb with tiredness, but once she’d changed on to the main line, she finally let herself drift into a deep sleep, waking with a stiff neck and dribble on her cheek, as the train slowed its way into York.

By ten o’clock that night, Karen was on her own doorstep, rummaging in her handbag for her front door key. As she went inside, it sounded like Max had company. Trisha’s yelping laugh from the front room reminded her of something Ben had learned at school about hyenas. He said the ancient Egyptians believed they lived in the caves of the dead and fed on corpses. She pushed the door open, hoping that Trisha and Paul weren’t going to stay long. She was exhausted.

The hall light was off and the glow from the living room picked out a path across the tiled floor. There was a jumble of shoes under the radiator and she kicked off her boots to join the pile. The low rumble of Max’s voice was punctuated by Trisha’s yelp. Bless her for finding his jokes funny, most of them were a hundred years old, but Karen wished she’d keep the volume down. As she pushed the door open she was hoping there was some wine left. She saw two empty glasses on the floor a second before she took in the fact that they were both naked. Trisha was sitting in Max’s lap and he was still wearing his socks. There was no sign of Paul. For some reason Trisha screamed.

Karen said quietly, ‘Please, don’t wake my children.’

She went to shut the door, not sure which side of it she should be on. It seemed like slow motion, but she managed to put one foot in front of the other and leave the room. The door clicked shut. Silence. She stood in the hall. She thought she might faint; dots of light danced around the edge of her vision. She realised she was holding her breath.

No point being jealous. What right did she have anyway? She ran her hand along the wall as if she needed to feel her way to the kitchen. She turned on the tap for a glass of water. She wasn’t jealous. It was something else. Nausea maybe. But that might be because of the lack of food in her belly. She opened the fridge and took out some pastrami, which she ate straight from the packet. Then she cut some bread and put it in the toaster. She was just spreading Marmite on it when there was a knock on the kitchen door. Max stood in the doorway, waiting for her to say something. He was fully dressed and had a small suitcase in his hand. He was wearing a dark suit and a clean shirt and tie. Wherever he chose to spend the night, he’d be able to go straight to work in the morning. Typical Max. She scraped the Marmite towards the crusts so it was an even, pale brown all over the slice.

‘I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Paul at this stage. Trisha is in a very delicate emotional state.’

The Marmite-covered knife hovered in the air. She didn’t seem to be controlling it. She heard a strange voice say ‘is she?’ It was hers, but it didn’t sound right. Like a medium channelling a voice from the other side.

Yesterday she’d been sitting in an inquest, hearing about the state of her brother’s body, the condition of his skin, the decomposition of his vital organs. And now Max had the temerity to tell her that Trisha was in a delicate emotional state. The knife fell out of her hand and clattered on the lino.

‘Just go, Max.’

‘I…look, Karen, I’m…’

‘A fool.’

She wanted to ask him if he’d used a condom but she decided it could wait. Perhaps she should ask her neighbour first. Trisha might not have been quite so open with Max about her desperation to have a baby.

She heard the front door close and came out to check the living room. Trisha had gone. Home to Paul presumably. Would she sneak into the shower without waking him? No. He was probably away somewhere, making money out of someone else’s cracked-up marriage. Jesus. It didn’t matter, she knew the answer anyway, even if Max hadn’t realised what the deal was. What was it Trisha had said?
I’ll try anything.

They’d left their empty Champagne bottle and two dirty glasses on the carpet. They were Dartington crystal, a wedding present from Max’s parents. If she’d been wearing shoes, she would have stamped them to pieces, but instead she picked them up and carried them through to the kitchen where she hurled them into the sink. One stem snapped and the other sprung a crack like a demented smile. She held the side of the sink and began to cry.

When the doorbell rang, it was well past midnight. She had no tears and no anger left. Max must have forgotten his keys and she decided she wouldn’t turn him away. He could sleep on the couch if he had to. She turned the Yale and opened the door.

The woman standing on the doorstep looked tired. She had pale olive skin and deep circles under her green eyes. Her hair was pushed back and it looked like it hadn’t been washed for a week. She looked at Karen for a moment before she spoke.

‘You are ffilip’s sister?’ She blew the f sound in Phil’s name as if she was blowing out the candles on a cake.

‘Phil’s sister? Yes.’

‘Thank to God!’

Karen had no time to step out of the way. The woman threw her arms around her and kissed her on both cheeks.

The dream altered, the colours changed. He was wearing a green waistcoat and red bloomers like some idiot in a pantomime. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this. It was ‘Jack And The Beanstalk’ and he was saying,
it’s all right, I know what to do.
He had a goose under his arm and was coming down the beanstalk when the fat man appeared with a kitchen knife and started to hack away at the plant. Only this time the fat man was Barry ‘Burger’ King. Sean’s feet were tangled in the leaves and he lost his hold, the goose slipping out of his hands, and when he looked down, he saw it had turned into a rabbit. He dropped it and it fell, spinning round and round, and then he was falling too.

He woke up for real then. Put the light on and sat upright against the pillows. The space on the wall where his flipchart had been was marked with four blue smudges on the wallpaper. The goose was in its frame. The dream receded but he was left with the feeling that there was something he should have done.

‘Mummy?’ Ben said. ‘The lady on the sofa is asleep. Can I put the telly on or will it wake her up?’

She sat up. The clock said seven-thirty. ‘Don’t you have to get ready for school?’

‘It’s the holidays. Half-term. Remember? Daddy and Trisha took us to Flamingo Land yesterday. Where did you go?’

She rubbed her face. ‘Grandpa’s house.’

Downstairs it was very quiet. She looked at the shape under the blanket on the sofa, rising and falling, just a tiny movement. This frail girl seemed to need very little oxygen to keep her alive. Arnold was nesting in the curve behind her knees. Karen closed the door and let her sleep on.

One floor up, Sophie was curled up in an identical position, cocooned in her pink duvet. Karen sat on the end of her bed and watched her waking, turning slowly, eyes half open, peering against the light.

‘Hello, Mum. You’re back.’

‘Yes.’

Sophie wiped some sleep dust from the corner of her eye. ‘Did Grandpa come with you?’

Karen shook her head. She didn’t know how much should she tell Sophie about the inquest or about Max and Trisha. She would have to begin by telling her about the woman downstairs.

‘There’s someone staying over, on the sofa. She’s a friend of Uncle Phil’s and she’s not very well, so we need to be quiet.’

‘Did she come when Trisha was here? She was really noisy, I couldn’t get to sleep.’

That bloody woman.

‘Mum? Are you okay? You look like you’re going to cry.’

‘Just tired, really, really tired.’

Somehow she dragged herself back upstairs and got dressed. Sophie was listening to her MP3 player when she passed her door on the way back down. She would let her eat breakfast later; there was no rush. In the kitchen she put bowls and cereal, milk and orange juice on the table. She fed the cat and turned the kettle on. It was all so automatic and yet it felt like she was doing these things for the first time. It came to her then: Max had let her go. He didn’t even know it, but he had freed her. This was the first day of her post-Max life. She wanted to tell someone. Charlie. She wanted to phone him, better still, see him. She stood still. There were voices coming from the living room. Ben and the girl. Damn, he’d woken her.

He had a jigsaw puzzle out across the floor. The girl was sitting, the blanket wrapped round her shoulders, pointing at one of the pieces.

‘Is corner piece, no? You should start with corner, it becomes easier I think.’

‘It’s going to be a steam engine, like Thomas.’

‘Tomass?’

‘The Tank Engine, you must know who that is.’ Ben stared at her as if she’d just stepped out of a spaceship.

‘Hi,’ Karen said, ‘Did you sleep okay?’

‘Yes. Very okay. I need it very badly.’

Karen handed her a cup of tea and left them to the jigsaw while she went to empty the dishwasher. Her mobile was ringing where she’d left it on the kitchen worktop, spinning as it vibrated on the marble.

‘Charlie! You must be psychic. I was just about to ring you.’

‘There’s been a development. South Yorkshire Police are about to release it to the press.’ It was his work voice, DCI Moon on the case, she almost laughed. ‘They’re looking for someone in connection with your brother’s murder. A young woman, Arieta Osmani, she comes from Kosovo and was working as a prostitute in Doncaster. I wanted to tell you before you saw it on the national news.’

‘National news?’

‘She’s not in the area, as far as we know. She could be anywhere.’

When he rang off, Karen turned the radio on in the kitchen. Weather. That meant she’d missed the news. She went upstairs and switched on the computer. Sophie came in.

‘What you doing Mum?’

‘Nothing.’ Her hands didn’t move on the keys. ‘Just going to check emails.’

‘Can I go on MSN?’

‘Later.’

She unfroze when she heard Sophie go downstairs. It was there on the BBC website. Just posted. God, they were quick. Arieta Osmani, wanted in connection with the death of Philip Holroyd, and a photo, credited to the Doncaster Gazette. She’d seen it before, she realised, when she’d looked up the heroin deaths, two young women squeezed into a photo-booth. The girl downstairs was much thinner now and her hair had grown, with several inches of black roots showing before the red. She could hear Ben laughing and the girl laughing too. Then Sophie was running back up the stairs.

‘Mum! Uncle Phil’s friend is so funny. She’s doing magic tricks. She can make a puzzle piece disappear then pull it out of Ben’s ear.’ She stopped behind Karen’s shoulder. ‘Oh…my…God.’

It was too late.

‘It’ll be all right, Sophie. Go and check the back door is locked and put the key in your pocket, then put a film on for Ben. Something long. Try to act normal. I’m going to call the police.’

Sophie nodded and backed out of the room. Charlie’s phone rang to voicemail. She cut the call and rang again. This time he picked up.

‘Sorry, I didn’t get to it. I’m in a meeting…’

‘She’s here.’

‘What?’

‘Arieta Osmani. She’s downstairs doing a jigsaw puzzle with my son. She turned up last night. She had my address, Charlie.’ She was speaking quietly but making sure he heard every word.

‘Is your husband there?’

She almost laughed. ‘No. No, he’s gone away.’

‘Is there anywhere you can send the children?’

Not Trisha. She racked her brains. ‘Sophie’s got a friend. They can go there.’

‘Wait, I’m passing a note to a detective here. He’ll get the ball rolling. There’ll be someone with you from North Yorkshire Police in a few minutes. It may be better to keep the children there for now. Don’t do anything to arouse her suspicion.’

‘I need to go downstairs. She’s with them, with my children.’ She heard her voice crack and he was trying to calm her. She kept the phone to her ear as she came downstairs. Then raised her voice, injecting a false note of normality. ‘Bye then, thanks for calling.’

Sophie had put ‘The Jungle Book’ on for Ben. She searched her mother’s face as she came into the room. ‘Do you want me to make another cup of tea, Mum? So you can watch the movie.’

She could have hugged her. ‘Thank you, darling, that would be lovely.’

She realised she sounded like Mary Poppins, trying to keep everything normal. She stole a glance at Arieta Osmani, curled up again on her side, her energy dissipated, staring at the television. If the doorbell rang now, Ben might go to answer it and be confronted by police, possibly armed, but if she went, he would be alone with the girl. Come on Sophie. It seemed to take ages but finally she heard a sound from the kitchen: the bolts being pulled open on the back door, unfamiliar voices.