I See You(9)

I swallow what I want to say. It wouldn’t be fair. I was the one who said I didn’t want Simon paying rent. We even argued about it, but I won’t let him. We split the food and the bills, and he’s forever treating me to meals out and trips away – the kids too. He’s generous to a fault. We have a joint bank account and we’ve never once worried about who pays for what.

But the house is mine.

Money was tight when I married Matt. He worked nights, and I did eight till four at Tesco, and we managed like that till Justin started school. By the time Katie came along things were easier; Matt had more work than he could handle, and gradually we were able to afford a few extras. The odd meal out; even a summer holiday.

Then Matt and I broke up, and I was back to square one. Neither of us could afford to keep the house on our own, and it was years before I was able to save for the deposit on this place. I swore I’d never throw my lot in with a man again.

Mind you, I swore I’d never fall in love again, and look what happened to that.

Simon kisses me, one hand cupping my chin and then sliding around the back of my head. Even now, at the end of a long day, he smells clean; of shaving foam and aftershave. I feel the familiar heat run through my body as he wraps my hair around his hand and tugs it gently, pulling my chin up and exposing my neck to be kissed. ‘Early night?’ he whispers.

‘I’ll be right up.’

I pick up the plates along with the London Gazette, carry them into the kitchen and load the dishwasher. I drop the newspaper into the recycling bin, where the woman in the advert stares up at me. I switch off the kitchen light and shake my head at my foolishness. Of course it isn’t me. What would a photograph of me be doing in a newspaper?





4


Kelly snapped the hairband off her wrist and on to her hand, tying back her hair. It was slightly too short; the consequences of a regretted crop in August, when a fortnight-long heatwave had made it seem like a good idea to lose the heavy curtain of hair she’d had down to her waist since her student days. Two dark strands fell instantly forward again. It had taken two hours to process Carl Bayliss in the end, after discovering he was wanted on a couple of theft allegations as well as the Fail to Appear. Kelly yawned. She was almost beyond hunger now, although she had looked hopefully in the kitchen when she got in, just in case. Nothing. She should have stopped off for that kebab, after all. She made herself some toast and took it to her ground-floor bedroom. It was a large, square room with a high ceiling and walls painted white above the picture rail. Beneath it Kelly had painted the walls pale grey, covering the past-its-best carpet with two huge rugs she’d bought at an auction. The rest of the room – the bed, the desk, the red armchair she was currently sitting on – was pure Ikea, the modern lines contrasting with the sweep of the bay window into which her bed was pushed.

She flicked through the copy of Metro she’d picked up on her way home. Lots of Kelly’s colleagues never looked at the local papers – bad enough we have to see the scumbags at work; I don’t want to bring them home with me – but Kelly had an insatiable appetite for them. Breaking news bulletins scrolled constantly across the screen on her iPhone, and when she visited her parents, who had moved out of London to retire in Kent, she loved to scour the village newsletter with its appeals for committee members and complaints about litter and dog mess.

She found what she was looking for on page five, in a double-page spread headed ‘Underground Crime Soars’: City Hall chiefs launch an investigation into crime on public transport, after record increases in reported sexual offences, violent assaults and thefts.

The article opened with a paragraph rammed with terrifying crime statistics – enough to stop you using the Tube altogether, Kelly thought – before leading into a series of case studies, designed to illustrate the types of crime most prevalent on London’s busy transport network. Kelly glanced at the section on violent assaults, illustrated with a photograph of a young man with a distinctive pattern shaved into the side of his head. The teenager’s right eye was almost invisible beneath a black and purple swelling that made him look deformed.

The attack on Kyle Matthews was violent and unprovoked, read the caption. That needed taking with a pinch of salt, Kelly thought. Granted, she didn’t know Kyle, but she knew the symbol shaved into his head, and ‘unprovoked’ wasn’t a term usually associated with its wearers. Still, she supposed she should give him the benefit of the doubt.

The photo accompanying the section on sexual assaults was in shadow; the profile of a woman just visible. Stock photo, the label said. Names have been changed.

Unbidden, another newspaper article appeared in Kelly’s head; a different city, a different woman, the same headline.

She swallowed hard; moved on to the final case study, smiling at the face pulled by the woman in the photograph.

‘You’re not going to make me do a Daily Mail sad face, are you?’ Cathy Tanning had asked the photographer.

‘Of course not,’ he’d said cheerily. ‘I’m going to make you do a Metro sad face, tinged with a spot of outrage. Pop your handbag on your lap and try to look as though you’ve come home to find your husband in bed with the window cleaner.’

The British Transport Police press officer hadn’t been able to attend, so Kelly had volunteered to stay with Cathy for the interview, to which the woman had been quick to agree.