The Couple at No. 9(51)

‘Tom …’

‘How dare he frighten you like that?’

‘I’m more concerned about who he’s working for. He wouldn’t tell me what kind of information Gran is supposed to have.’ I sigh. ‘I don’t know, it just feels like it’s snowballing. Something bigger is going on here. Are we just blundering on, getting ourselves deeper in the shit without knowing the full picture? And now Mum has gone tearing off to fucking Broadstairs to meet a man who may or may not be the real Alan Hartall and I haven’t heard from her, and our back garden is a crime scene – and don’t get me started on those journalists. I can’t step out of the front door without being accosted. I feel like I’m under house arrest!’ I’m out of breath after my rant and sink onto the sofa next to him, my head in my hands, my shoulders shuddering. ‘I wish we’d stayed in Croydon,’ I say, through my fingers, tears falling down my cheeks and plopping onto my jeans. ‘I’m sick of it all, Tom. This was supposed to be a new start for us. For the baby … I don’t even want to go in the little bedroom any more knowing it looks out onto the garden. Seeing that hole where those bodies were …’

Tom pulls me against him, the cool leather of his jacket pressing against my cheek. ‘I’m going to take a sickie tomorrow. I’m not leaving you here alone.’

I sit up in shock. Tom has never once taken a day off work sick. Not even when he had food poisoning and had to take a sick bag on the Tube with him.

‘Tom, you can’t …’

‘I think I’m owed it, don’t you? And I don’t want you to be alone tomorrow. I can get on with decorating. And I’ll call the builders, find out when they can come back and continue the build. If they mess us around again, we’ll get someone else. Then we won’t have to look at the hole any more.’

‘Mum should be back …’ The thought of Mum makes me feel queasy with worry again. ‘What time is it?’

Tom checks his watch. ‘Just gone eight thirty.’ He stands up, shrugging off his jacket. ‘It’s not like Lorna to forget to call, is it? She’s usually always attached to that phone.’

‘I know,’ I say, picking up my mobile and trying her number again.

It goes straight to voicemail.

By ten o’clock she’s still not home.

Every time I hear a car, which isn’t often, I run to the window, hoping it’s a taxi, but nothing.

‘Do you think I should call the police?’ I say to Tom, who’s sitting in front of the television watching The Wire on box set, although neither of us can concentrate.

‘The police won’t do anything. Haven’t you got to wait twenty-four hours or something before they’ll look into an adult’s disappearance?’

I take a deep breath, pushing down panic. I don’t know what to do with myself – my body oozes with nervous energy. I know Mum is a free spirit and I never worry about her when she’s in Spain. But something doesn’t feel right about this. I know she would have rung me – after all, this is a journey we’re on together.

I pull back the grey flowered curtains that we’d taken from our Croydon flat and don’t quite fit the window. It’s dark outside. There isn’t even a streetlamp to light the way, the moon a sliver of a crescent in the sky, half obscured by a cloud. The night seems heavy and oppressive, like a thick blanket curling around my car and Tom’s bike, making innocuous shapes menacing.

‘Come away from the window,’ says Tom, gently. ‘I’m sure she’s okay.’

‘Then why wouldn’t she have phoned?’ I wail, my hands clenched by my sides.

I can’t shake the feeling that something bad has happened to her. Something that’s connected to all this.

What have we got involved in?





27


Lorna





Lorna finds herself a window seat on the train back to London, clutching her caramel macchiato, grateful that nobody has occupied the space next to her so she can stretch out. She’s shattered and a little tipsy. She shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine.

Now it’s gone eight and she still has to get from London to Chippenham. She leans her head against the glass as the train pulls out of the station, watching the sun cast purple and peach streaks across the sky, reflecting on her conversation with Alan and her suspicions that Daphne and Sheila are the same person. She can’t wait to tell Saffy.

She sits up straighter. Saffy! She hasn’t called her all day. Damn it, she’d promised she’d ring on her way home. She rummages in her bag for her phone. Where is it? She has so much crap in her bag: old receipts, business cards, a notebook, two pens, her purse and make-up. But it doesn’t matter how much she searches, it’s not there. She flops back against the seat. She must have dropped it or did she leave it on the table when she left? She groans, startling a man in the seat opposite. Her whole life is on that phone. She doesn’t know any of the numbers by heart. Who does any more? She suddenly feels naked and vulnerable without it and inwardly curses the modern world, the advances in technology that have made her so dependent on a stupid little machine. She fights the urge to scream. What is she going to do now? She just hopes there’s a taxi rank outside the station in Chippenham or she’ll have a long walk back to Beggars Nook. It’s at least five miles. And without her phone she won’t know the way.