The Couple at No. 9(33)

As she slows down to sip her coffee she hears someone clearing their throat at her shoulder. She turns to see a man in his late fifties, wearing a checked shirt and jeans. Short, greying hair and narrow eyes that seem to be assessing her for longer than is polite. She stops walking and Snowy plonks himself at her feet.

‘Hi,’ he says, smiling pleasantly. ‘You live at nine Skelton Place, don’t you?’ He has a northern accent and there is something about his posture and tone that screams ex-military.

‘No. I’m just visiting,’ she replies.

‘I’m not from around here either,’ he says, surprising her.

‘Oh. Right.’ Then it occurs to her. ‘Are you a journalist?’

He looks taken aback. ‘Oh, no … no. I’m just visiting too. The name’s Glen.’ He holds out a hand and she feels it would be impolite to refuse to shake it.

‘I’m Lorna.’

His handshake is firm. ‘I heard about the bodies up at Skelton Place. Everybody in the village is talking about it.’

‘Yes, I can imagine.’

He grins at her, still holding her hand. She wonders if he’s trying to chat her up. He must be a good fifteen years older than her at least. She supposes he’s quite handsome in an older-man kind of way, although there is a hardness to his face. She retracts her hand.

‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘I need to get back. Nice to meet you, Glen.’

‘Nice to meet you too,’ he says, but he stays where he is.

As she walks away she’s sure she hears him call out, ‘Say hello to Rose.’ But when she turns he’s heading towards the woods. She frowns at his retreating back, wondering if she should run after him and ask if he knows her mother. But she decides she must have misheard.

When Lorna reaches the cottage she’s relieved to see that Heleana and her crew have left. She rings the doorbell and Saffy lets her in with an air of distraction.

‘Hi, honey,’ she says, unclipping the lead from Snowy’s collar. Saffy bends down to kiss his head, then returns to her study. On the screen is a mock-up of a book cover with the name Leon Bronsky in huge red letters across the top and a sinister-looking china doll on fire underneath. Lorna’s read some of his books: they’re exceptionally dark. ‘Did you create this?’

Saffy nods. ‘His publisher’s employed us to do his cover and marketing. Posters, headers for magazine ads, that kind of thing. A rebrand. He’s moved into horror. It’s a good commission. He’s a huge deal.’

Lorna winces, imagining how much more gruesome this book must be. ‘Did you have to read it?’

Saffy laughs. ‘Yep. It gave me nightmares.’ She pushes a curl from her face, eyes still trained on the screen and the creepy cover. ‘I’m glad the reporters have finally gone.’

‘Me too. One of them cornered me earlier. But don’t worry, I didn’t say anything.’ She holds up her carrier bag. ‘Bought groceries for tonight. I couldn’t get everything I wanted but I’ll manage to make a paella of sorts.’

Saffy grunts in answer, her brow furrowed as she concentrates on the screen. Lorna decides it’s best to leave her to it and puts the shopping away in the kitchen. Afterwards, she wanders into the living room. They were too tired to finish looking through the boxes last night and Tom had to get up at the crack of dawn for work.

Lorna settles down to continue what they started yesterday. She can see a layer of dust on the skirting board and resists the urge to go and find a cloth. She slips off her sandals and curls her feet underneath her on the hardwood floors, trying to decipher if a bunch of papers is important or just receipts when her mobile rings.

It’s Alberto.

Her stomach drops. She’s been trying to ring him for days. He sent her a few cursory texts when she arrived but every time she called his mobile it went straight to voicemail.

‘Mi tesoro, I’ve missed you,’ he says, as soon as she answers. ‘When you coming home?’

‘I’ve missed you too.’ She’s not sure if it’s true. ‘I’m staying until the weekend, at least.’

‘The apartment is lonely without you.’ She doubts that. He’s usually at his bar until late. But, still, he sounds like he’s missing her. Maybe her suspicions about him are wrong.

But he doesn’t ask after Saffy or her mother, she thinks, with a stab of disappointment. ‘I’m needed here right now. Saffy’s pregnant …’ She recounts everything that’s happened since she’s been in Beggars Nook but she suspects she’s lost him somewhere along the way because he sounds bored when he replies.

‘As long as you come back soon, mi amor. Me muero por verte.’

‘I can’t wait to see you too,’ she lies, ending the call with a heavy heart.

She spends the next hour sifting through her mother’s papers, hoping to find anything else of interest, some more photos maybe. Perhaps of her father. Most of the time she didn’t think much about her dad but there were occasions when she missed having a father around. She remembers once at school when she was about ten, they’d had to do a general knowledge quiz – over a full week they were tasked to see who could come up with the most facts – but the library was in town, and without a car to get there she could use only the old-fashioned encyclopaedia her mother had in the house. Her best friend, Anne, won because her dad took her to the library every night for a week to help her find what she needed. She had felt jealous of Anne then, with her doting father and his Mini Metro. Lorna had come last in the quiz.