one-hit wonder (20 page)

“But you never saw anyone getting in or out of it?”

“No—I mean, I saw it arriving and that, and the ambulance people helping someone out, but it was all on the wrong side, facing away from me, so I never saw anyone getting in or out. I just kind of thought it was an elderly relative or something.”

Flint nodded and looked very serious. “And did you ever speak to Mrs. Wills? Did she ever come in here?”

“Nah. Not in here. But I used to see her sometimes, on her motorbike—just passing through. Or at the Spar a couple of times. Not to talk to or anything, though. She was very pretty.

How did she—if you don’t mind me asking—how did she die, exactly?”

“Well—we don’t know—exactly. That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“She didn’t—well, she didn’t die in the cottage, did she?”

“No—she died in London. In her flat.”

“God. I’m really sorry. She was so young and so pretty and everything. You must be gutted.”

“Yeah. We are.” Flint turned to look at Ana and Lol, and Louise looked at all three sadly.

“Look,” she began, “I get off in half an hour. If you want, I can take you round to see some people. People who might know more than me. You know—busybodies and that.” She giggled and Flint smiled, and she giggled even more.

“Really?” he gushed. “Would you? That would be fantastic, wouldn’t it, girls?” He spun around and they nodded eagerly.

“OK. Great. We’ll be here, in the corner, when you’re ready.”

“OK,” she beamed, “brilliant.”

He was about to turn away and then he stopped, turned back, looking straight at Louise’s tits, and grinned. “Have you ever thought about changing your name?”

Louise flushed and giggled and hid her face, and Lol stuck her fingers down her throat and gagged and headed toward the back of the bar. “Christ, Lennard, you really are vile, d’you know that?” she said as they sat down.

“Just doing what was necessary. That’s all.”

“Oh. Bollocks. Couldn’t you have just said, ‘Hi—d’you know anything about the woman who used to live in the pink cottage on Broad Lane?’ Did you have to get yer knob out and start waving it around in front of the poor girl? And you’re thirty-six years old, in case you’d forgotten. You could have fathered her and another half a dozen like her by now, you sick fuck.”

Ana looked at them both in amazement. “Don’t you two ever stop arguing?” she asked.

Flint and Lol looked at each other and laughed. “No,” they said in unison. “Not while we still get this much pleasure out of it, at any rate,” said Lol, and they both laughed again.

And then Ana looked at them, at big, flash Flint with his scarred cheek and mad Lol with her platinum glued-in hair and her big raspy laugh and she thought, these are Bee’s people—I’m sitting here in a pub in Kent with Bee’s people.

And Bee’s dead. How weird is that? And just think, she thought, if I’d stayed in touch with Bee, if I hadn’t let my mother’s neuroses influence me, if I hadn’t believed her lies, if I hadn’t been so lazy, if I’d had more strength of character, maybe I could have been sitting in a pub with Bee’s people and
Bee.
I could have known Flint since I was a teenager. I could have known Lol when she was my age. I could have could have known Lol when she was my age. I could have been someone for Bee to talk to, someone for her to tell her secrets to. I could have ridden behind her on her bike down to Kent and we could have done whatever it was she was doing here together. I could have been at her flat on Baker Street that night, on July 28, and I could have saved her. I could have saved her. . . .

sixteen

January 1998

Bee ran around the cottage one last time, making some final adjustments. Puffing up cushions, straightening curtains, switching on a table lamp, switching off a table lamp. It was a glistening winter’s morning, and a fine layer of snow lay all over everything. It was January 8 but Bee had bought a Christmas tree anyway, just a small one, and put it in the corner decorated with gold sequined stars, tiny white lights, and these really cute little fluffy baubles she’d found in Paperchase. A huge fire was crackling away in the fireplace, and there was a chicken roasting in the oven.

My God, thought Bee, it’s finally happened—I’ve turned into my mother. She shuddered at the thought and pulled the curtain back again to peer out into the road. She looked at her watch: 11:15 A.M. Where the hell were they? They’d been due at eleven. And then she heard a crunching, of tires on grit. A small white ambulance emblazoned with the legend HIGH CEDARS pulled into her driveway. They were here. Oh God. They were here. She let the curtain fall and smoothed down her hair, her neat blouse, her smart tailored trousers.

She looked down at her feet—pumps—flat navy pumps.

Weird. And then she caught sight of herself in the mirror. At the pale, unlipsticked mouth, the softly mascaraed eyes, the discreet gold earrings. She did. She looked just like her mother. Oh Jesus. She pulled on a coat, took an enormously deep breath, and strode out into the driveway.

“Hi,” she said, putting out a hand to the care assistant who was unlocking the back of the ambulance. “Belinda Wills.

Nice to meet you. Did you have a good journey down?” I wish it was you, she thought, looking at the pimple-faced boy, I wish it was you. I wish that all I had to do was shake
your
hand and welcome
you
into my house and make
you
chicken. That would be so easy. So easy compared to what I have to do now.

She peered into the ambulance over the care assistant’s shoulder, and there he was. He caught her eye and looked away again.

“Zander!” she said, trying to inject her nerve-racked voice with enthusiasm and lightness. “At long last. Welcome.”
seventeen

Carol in the Spar knows everything. Absolutely everything.

She knows that Mrs. Wills—Belinda—bought the cottage in October 1997; that Tony Pritchard from the real estate agent up on the seafront sold it to her. She knows that she bought her curtains from the posh interiors shop on the High Street and she had a mural done—Carol saw the van—SPECIALIST PAINT

EFFECTS, it said. She knows that Mrs. Wills had originally been due to move in with her husband—but he’d never been seen, maybe they split up or something, she didn’t like to ask. And then in January 1998, this boy had started visiting. Yes—that’s right. A disabled boy. That’s 1.20, love, thanks. About twelve years old. Although it was hard to tell, with him being in a wheelchair and everything. No—she never met the boy, never even saw him really, except from a distance. He turned up on Saturday mornings and left on Sunday nights, and then Mrs. Wills went home on her motorbike, with her cat strapped on the back in a box. She’d been into the Spar a few times, not regular or anything, for tea and sugar and basics like that. Not with the boy, though, and she was always in a hurry to get back. Carol asked after the boy sometimes—

she’d say, “How’s your boy?” and Mrs. Wills would always smile, that beautiful smile of hers, and say, “He’s fine, thank you for asking.” She didn’t chat, but then, Londoners don’t, do they? And as for who the boy was—well—she presumed it must be her son, but no, she didn’t know that for sure. That’s 3.74 please, love. Thanks, love—say hello to your mum. And did you know, says Carol, did you know that apparently Mrs.

Wills—Belinda—used to be a pop star? Yes. She was a pop star in the eighties. She had a hit with that song, you know,

“Groovin’ for London,” or something, wasn’t it? Carol wiggles her hips and giggles. You could tell it about her, when you thought about it, she says. She had that quality, you know—star quality. Even in her old Barbour jacket and wellies—she was definitely a star. Oh yes. Definitely . . .

Lol, Ana, and Flint all flopped onto the lipstick-pink sofas and sighed in unison.

“Barbours. Wellies. Weekend trysts with Tiny-bloody-Tim.” Lol kicked off her stilettos and massaged the soles of her feet. “Fuckin’ hell, Bee. What the fuck were you playing at?”

“So. What d’you think? Was he her son?”

Both Flint and Lol shook their heads vehemently.

“Why not?”

“Because Bee was never pregnant, that’s why. A small matter of biology.”

“So why the hell was she spending weekends with this boy? I mean—why?”

Flint rubbed his face into his hands. “I can’t get my brain round any of this stuff right now. There’s nothing we can do today to answer any of these questions. I think we should just chill out, get something to eat, watch a bit of telly. And then tomorrow, we can phone around some children’s homes, hospitals. That sort of thing.”

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day, Lennard,” said Lol. “I’m going to have forty winks in the garden.” She pulled herself to her feet and put her hands on her hips.

“What are you two going to do?”

Ana and Flint looked at each other and shrugged. “Fancy a ride?” said Flint.

“I beg your pardon?” said Ana.

“On the bike. D’you fancy a ride on the bike? I’ve got keys.

Bee gave me a spare set. We could go down to the seafront, get some chips or something. Go for a paddle?”

“Oh,” said Ana, flushing slightly, “yeah. Why not?”

“OK, then. I’ll just go and get the bike ready. I’ll be a couple of minutes.”

“Yeah,” said Lol, addressing Flint’s back, “and you make sure you look after her all right. No showing off. All right?

And none of your macho bullshit. Stick to the speed limit.

No wheelies and no monkey business. And get us some dinner, will you? Get some pizza or summat. I’m fucking starving.”

A couple of minutes later, Ana opened the door to find Flint outside, sitting astride the enormous red and yellow Honda, revving it urgently and proffering a crash helmet.

She walked toward the huge machine in wonder. She’d always had a bit of a thing about motorbikes, and this really was a fine specimen. “Wow,” she said, running her hands over the brightly colored paintwork, “this is incredible.”

“It is, isn’t it?” he said. “And you know the funny thing that just occurred to me. This monster probably belongs to your fucking mother now. Do you think she’ll like it?” He grinned his grin and Ana laughed, the image of her mother mounted on this huge beast of a machine running through her mind. “I can’t imagine Bee on this, either,” she said. “She was so tiny.”

“Yeah. She did look a bit out of her league on it. But she loved it. It was the first thing she bought after her dad died, after she inherited all his money. She really hated cars, you see.” He stroked the bike tenderly. “Hop on.” Ana didn’t need asking twice. She threw one long, spindly leg across the bike. “Ooh,” she said, settling herself into the pillion seat and pulling on the helmet, “it’s ever so comfy.”

“Blimey,” said Flint, staring at Ana’s knee, which was jutting out at a ninety-degree angle and resting very nearly in the crook of his knee, “Bee’s leg only used to come up to there.” He indicated his hip. “You ready?”

Ana jiggled around a bit and nodded.

“Arms.”

“What?”

“Put your arms around me.”

“Oh. Yes. Right.” She gently brought them around and strapped them around Flint’s substantial torso. He was wearing just a T-shirt and she could feel everything: every last rib, every muscle, the beating of his heart, the warmth of his blood, the dampness of his sweat.

“Tighter.”

She fastened them tighter, and now she was close enough to be able to smell him, her nose only a centimeter or two from his T-shirt. She breathed in deeply and held his smell in the back of her throat, like cigar smoke. He smelled of unponced-about man. A bit musty, a bit sweaty, and run all the way through with a seam of the indescribably delicious smell of sun-warmed flesh.

The sun was starting to get low in the sky, and it cast long shadows on the country lanes. As they neared Broadstairs, it hung over the sea and threw an orange-yellow glow over the bustling seaside resort. Ana’s heart filled with joy as she saw the sea, as the smell of brine hit her nostrils and the agitated squawk of seagulls assaulted her ears. She missed the sea.

They parked the bike by the seafront. Flint ran his fingers through his tufty hair and laughed. “I must look a right state.”

“I’ve got a comb, if you like.”

“Cheers.” He took it from her and combed his hair. Ana watched him. It was a vain thing to do, she thought, but he made it look unconsidered and masculine. “Thanks.” He passed it back to her, and they stood and surveyed the view for a while. The sea breeze was taking the edge off the late August heat and Ana felt herself shivering a little. “What sort of things do you like doing at the seaside, then, Ana?” She shrugged, felt her head tie itself up in a knot as she tried to find an answer to Flint’s simple question. What do I like doing at the seaside? She thought desperately, what the hell do I like doing at the seaside? And why the hell is this man making me so nervous? She glanced at him. He was squinting into the distance. Not many men fell into the category of “handsome.” It was easy for a woman to be thought of as “beautiful.” Just by not being “ugly” and making an effort and being young-looking and having nice hair and a good figure, a woman could be described as beautiful. But it was different for men. Men could be cute or good-looking or sexy, but rarely handsome. And Flint was handsome.

Ana didn’t really like handsome men. Or even good-looking men, come to that. She found something offensively ostentatious about an overtly attractive man. She liked nice but strangely unattractive men who had “something about them.” The sort of unattractive men who had that verging-on-arrogant air of confidence instilled by late-in-life mothers.

Interesting men. Men with opinions and ideas. Men who liked to talk. Intense men. Educated men. Intelligent men.

The sort of men who didn’t have a problem going out with women taller than them. The sort of men that other women didn’t fancy. Usually of quite an undernourished appearance, with the type of skin that tended away from tanning. Often with thin wrists and oddly fleshy mouths. Men who didn’t gossip, who didn’t bitch.

Men like Hugh.

There’d been good-looking blokes at college, guys that all the girls had fancied, but she’d never looked at them in that way. Attractive men came from a different planet in Ana’s opinion, and she was as likely to be attracted to one as to a Tibetan goatherd.