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‘I really enjoyed it,’ he says, and I turn, hungry for more.

‘To be honest, it’s not the sort of book I’d usually go for, but it hooked me. I think you could get a real publisher, if you wanted.’

‘That’s very kind, but surely my little book wouldn’t interest a professional.’ I empty the teapot and pop in three teabags, pour in boiling water, put on a cosy and bring the pot to the table.

‘Well, I think it could – it’s as good as a lot of the stuff out there that gets published.’

I search the cupboard for two clean cups and am careful to give them a wipe with a cloth, just to make sure. I settle down opposite him.

‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Milk, two sugars,’ he says.

I like Geoff. He doesn’t tell me much about himself, and he doesn’t ask about me. We talk about books and music, and there’s something in his careless appearance that I find comforting. His nose hairs are not trimmed, they shiver like spiders’ legs when he blows on his tea. He is ungroomed – a sign of sound mind, in my opinion. At the same time, he is respectful, not deliberately scruffy. He has shaved, though I can see his razor has lost its edge; he wears a shirt not a T-shirt, but it’s too tight round his tummy, the buttons straining round his middle and more hair sprouting through the gap, and his top button is missing, not undone. I feel a fondness towards him, and I think he does me, too. Perhaps he lost his father or perhaps he fears he will end up like me. Whatever the reason, he has been kind without condescending. And he likes my book, he genuinely likes it.

‘Stephen, I know you want to manage it all yourself, but, I hope you don’t mind, once I read your book I thought … well, it deserved a bit of help, so I’ve taken a few copies round to the local bookshop and they said they’d put them out. See how it goes. They’re keen to promote local authors, and when I told them about you, they were really interested.’

I was stunned.

‘It’s in a bookshop? The one on the high street?’

‘Yes. Have I done the wrong thing?’

Do I look unhappy? I am surprised, that’s all. ‘No, no. It’s just that I would never have thought of doing that. Thank you.’ I am touched.

‘I don’t think you realize how good it is.’

Oh, but I do, I really do.

‘Well, you know – no one likes to blow their own trumpet.’

My mind races. Is she ever likely to travel up to these parts and wander into my local bookshop? For a moment my mind runs away with thoughts of a book-signing and her queuing up and having me sign her copy. Geoff is smiling at me and I realize I am smiling too, smiling with this little fantasy.

‘I was quite surprised by some of it.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Pretty explicit.’

My smile has gone. He is worried that he has stepped over a line. I lift my chin, then resume my smile. I feel his relief.

‘Life in the old dog,’ I say, and look at him over my mug as I sip my tea.

I want to tell him it’s true. I want to tell him it should be on the non-fiction shelf. I don’t want to scare him though, and for the moment the end is still wishful thinking – a work of fiction not yet realized.

‘What did you think of her?’ I ask instead. ‘Do you think she got what she deserved?’

He mulls this over.

‘Well, I don’t know. It’s a hard one, that. I mean, she was a manipulative cow, but I guess she seized the chance to get away with it, didn’t she?’

I feel my heart clench. How easy for him to say. He is not sitting here, suffering the consequences of what she did and didn’t do.

‘You didn’t answer the question,’ I manage. ‘Did she deserve it?’

‘Well, I wasn’t sorry when it happened,’ he says, ‘so I guess I think she did. Great description.’

That’s better. I nod, sip my tea and begin to enjoy the opportunity that has landed in my lap. I feel a busy afternoon ahead of me, surfing for bookshops in her neighbourhood. Why not? Get it out there, nothing to lose. I’ll have to spruce myself up – or perhaps Geoff would be a more presentable ambassador. Dear Geoff, my innocent accomplice.

‘Do you think there’s hope? Do you think other bookshops might be interested?’

‘Well, yes, they could be. See how it goes at Hillside Books first and take it from there.’

‘So, if it goes well, would you be willing to help me spread the word?’

‘Happy to, Stephen. Happy to.’

I think there might be tears in my eyes.

‘I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have your support. It’s a lonely road, Geoff, and to know that there’s someone else who believes in me, well …’ I falter.

And he smiles. You know, I think I’ve made his day.

15

Late spring 2013

Second day back at work and Catherine has regained focus. That’s what it looks like to her colleagues. The familiar sight of Catherine, upright in her chair, tapping at her computer, twisting her finger in a curl at the back of her head as she reads and makes notes. She is pulling something together, drawing threads into a story. Kim hovers over Catherine, but Catherine is absorbed in what she’s doing and Kim knows better than to disturb her when she’s like that. Instead she places a cup of coffee on the desk and moves away.

Catherine has found confirmation of Nancy Brigstocke’s death. Cancer. Dead ten years now. Her husband is alive though. Stephen Brigstocke, BA. He is no longer dead husband with a question mark. He is retired teacher. Why the hell hadn’t she checked that before? Why hadn’t she used the same rigour she would use on any other story, on her own? It hadn’t occurred to her that Nancy would lie about the death of her husband. She knows now. And she knows what he looks like too.

She’s had a phone call from the woman who bought their old home. She was angry. She accused Catherine of being duplicitous, of not warning her that some creepy old man was going to turn up on her doorstep. Catherine had been full of apologies and told her that he was indeed her godfather, but that she’d had no idea he would show up like that. She assured her that there was nothing sinister going on and that, no, there would be no more unwanted visitors. Not to her anyway, Catherine thinks.

The call left her shaky. It is spreading. Oozing out. Ripples on a pond. She must get to him before he can do any real harm. Because he hasn’t harmed her yet. He has rattled her. And he has shown his malevolence in his extended poison pen letter, and by sending it to her son he has made it clear that he wants his poison to spread beyond her. What is at stake, for now, is her reputation, her integrity. She is a woman who is liked, admired, trusted and loved by a few. That is what he threatens, because once it is out there, once it has been said, there will be no taking it back. She will never again be the person they thought she was. He will have distorted their view. Nicholas has read it, although he didn’t recognize her in it. Nothing chimed with him. Of course it didn’t. The woman in the book is not the mother he knows. And Nancy is dead. So who is to say that this perverted account of events is true? It is the product of a sick mind; the mind of a bitter old man. But the mind of a killer? Surely not. No, it is her reputation, not her life, which she fears for most.

‘Kim? Have you a minute? There’s something I’d like you to look into.’

Kim scoots her chair across, parking it next to Catherine’s, pen and pad in hand.

‘Stephen Brigstocke. Retired teacher. Early seventies. London-based. Probably taught in North London. Would you track down his last places of employment? Don’t make contact, I just want to know where he’s been over the last few years. And a home address, if you can get it, and telephone number. Start with the teaching unions.’ Catherine watches her write down the name
Stephen Brigstocke
, then hesitate before adding the word
paedophile
in brackets with a question mark. Catherine doesn’t correct her. Why should she? She watches Kim scoot back to her desk and pick up the phone, zealous in her pursuit of a suspected child molester.

It takes less than an hour for Kim to come up with the school where Stephen Brigstocke last taught. Rathbone College. Catherine recognizes the name. A private school in North London. One they almost sent Nicholas to. One where some of their friends sent their children. Before that, Sunnymeade Comprehensive. Many years there. Why the move from state to private? Catherine tries to read between the lines. Loss of principles? Cash-driven? Retired in 2004 on a full pension.

‘A bit old to still be teaching, wasn’t he?’ Kim reads over Catherine’s shoulder. Catherine glances up the page:
Born 1938.

‘I suppose, although private schools work by their own rules,’ she says. ‘Have you got anywhere in finding contact details for him?’

‘Not yet. I’m waiting to hear. I’ll keep on it.’

‘Great. Thanks.’

‘So what’s the story?’ It’s a perfectly reasonable question.

Catherine hesitates. ‘I’m not sure yet. It may be nothing. But you know …’ and she entices her assistant with a smile to make her believe she will be the first to hear if Catherine comes up with anything concrete. She has no intention of letting Kim find out too much about this investigation. Still, she is grateful for her help.

‘Coffee?’ Catherine asks, reversing their roles for good measure and neatly ending the conversation by taking their cups into the kitchen.

An hour later, and two cups of coffee down, Catherine has established that the present head of Rathbone College is distinctly uncomfortable when the subject of Stephen Brigstocke is raised. The previous head had retired soon after the former English teacher, and the current one’s reluctance to talk about him indicates to Catherine that there was something fishy about Brigstocke’s departure.

Brief calls to a couple of friends – quite a skill, this, to make contact with long-neglected friends, keeping the niceties short without causing offence, yet still managing to get what you want from the call – and she finds her way to someone who is more than happy to open up on the subject of Stephen Brigstocke. A mother whose little boy was taught by him. A mother who prides herself on having led the campaign to remove him from the school.

A nasty man. A teacher who hated children. And what’s more, the school knew about it. They tried to cover up his inadequacies: shunting him down to where they thought he could do least harm; away from the GCSE pupils, letting him loose on the youngest children in the school. There is no stopping this mother. She is still angry. All they were interested in was protecting their results and they gave no thought to the damage he would inflict on the minds and self-esteem of seven-year-old boys. Disgusting. Altogether disgusting.

This mother remembers the first time she met Stephen Brigstocke, sitting on the other side of a table from him at a parents’ evening. He actually looked bored when he talked about her son. He was a man who didn’t seem to care what anyone thought or how he came across. Simply didn’t care. And that struck her as a dangerous thing. To simply not care. Well, it is, isn’t it? It’s more than just bad manners. Most people care, don’t they, on some level, about what other people think? Not him. Catherine agrees that it must have been very unsettling. And the mother was sure he had been drinking. She and her husband could smell it on him. Not just the usual small glass of white, but something stronger. Spirits. He gave all the signs of being a heavy drinker. There was something rotten in him, definitely rotten.

Of course the school did their best to protect him. When the first question marks arose about his teaching, they sent him on extended sick leave. They hinted at bereavement. His wife had died, and of course everyone tried to be understanding. And then he came back. He must have had some special relationship with the old head because, well, they should have got rid of him long before they did. When she read the filthy things he wrote on her son’s essay, she was absolutely horrified. And her son wasn’t his only victim. He had violated other children too.

‘Violated?’ Catherine cuts in. Oh yes. This mother is clear in her view that what her son suffered at the hands of Stephen Brigstocke was nothing less than a violation.

‘He was not the sort of man you would want to leave your child alone with, of that I am perfectly sure.’

‘Did he ever physically harm any of the children?’ Catherine presses her.

There’s a pause.

‘Well … I did hear that the reason he left his previous school was that he became too attached to one of the boys. Let’s put it like that.’

‘What do you mean?’ Catherine needs more than this dainty word
attached.

‘It was a former pupil. Apparently he took an unhealthy interest in him once he’d left the school. I heard he was threatened with a restraining order. I only found out about it after he’d retired. To be honest, it didn’t surprise me.’

‘So this was a pupil at his previous school: Sunnymeade Comprehensive?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘And how did you hear about it?’

The mother tries to remember. ‘A friend of mine. Her children went to Sunnymeade.’

‘Do you know the name of this pupil? I’d like to talk to him.’

‘Well, no. I’m sure I could find out though.’

‘That would be incredibly helpful. Thank you. And thank you for taking the time to talk to me.’ Well of course she took the time. Catherine has a reputation, a string of socially conscious credits to her name. She is a woman of sound credentials, a woman who can be trusted to do the right thing. For the first time in weeks her head feels clear, uncluttered by shame. She is working up a story, gathering information, getting to know her enemy.

16

Late spring 2013

I have her telephone number, I have her address and I have seen her in the flesh. She is no longer just a figment on my laptop. I’ve taken to haunting the Underground station where she changes trains on her journey to work. Right now, I’m standing behind her.

There are a few people between me and her, and she is taller than me, but I can see her through the gaps between their shoulders, their necks. If I reach forward, I’ll be able to touch her. Her hair is caught in the back of her collar and she flicks it out, then shifts her shoulder to hitch her bag up. She’s twitchy. I like that. But her fingernails are painted. I don’t like that. They make me want to weep. They are a sign that she doesn’t care. That she is carrying on as if nothing has happened. I don’t want to see that. She must not be allowed the comfort of amnesia. That cannot happen. She should not be able to paint her nails, do her hair. She should not care about herself. She knows what she has done and yet she still thinks she is worth preserving. I want to see her nails chewed and bleeding. I want to see a sign that she feels something.