The Backs (2013) (26 page)

For a little while now, the area of Cambridge that was home to the greatest concentration of independent shops had been called the Boutique Quarter. Maybe if someone explained the logic of the term, then Goodhew might have thought it made more sense. But, as it was, every time he heard it, it bugged him. Firstly, plenty of Cambridge streets brimmed with shops offering quirky, artisan and specialist items, and they weren’t all located in the ‘Boutique Quarter’ by a long shot. Secondly, apart from hearing the odd mention of the ‘Art Quarter’, he didn’t know if there were any others. With all Cambridge had to offer, the idea that the Boutique Quarter and the Art Quarter were the only two to deserve this extra recognition seemed a little pretentious.

But Tizzi’s in All Saints Passage wasn’t at all pretentious, just a small family-run shop, selling clothes that had, in the main, come from local designers. The owner/manageress/sales assistant was called Val. She had a great smile that offset her overly severe eyebrows and tightly pulled ponytail.

‘So you’ve come about the underwear? The Ingénue Lingerie?’

‘I believe you’re the only stockists of that line locally?’

‘It sells here, online and in Covent Garden.’

‘I take it it’s expensive, then?’

‘Not compared to what some women will pay. Having said that, Ingénue would not sell for any more; it’s found its price point. So which items are we talking about?’

Goodhew used his phone to show her the pictures: one of the knickers, one of the bra.

‘Astonish
– that’s the name of that range.’ She looked back and forth between the two shots. ‘Yes, the thong and the balcony bra. They’ve both sold well.’

Oh good.

‘I will have all the sales records, so I’d know when the items were sold but not who to, unless they paid by credit card, of course. You do know the sizes, I assume?’

‘Size 8 and 32D.’

‘That’s a good start.’

‘In what way?’ he asked, because he actually wasn’t sure whether she was being sarcastic.

‘We would have had either four or six of those bras in stock. Do you know when it was purchased?’

‘Before 28 July, but I don’t know how much before.’

‘Yes, this is making sense.’ She spoke partly to him, partly to herself, and then pulled a diary out from beside the till. She also tried drawing her sharp eyebrows into a frown, though the muscles barely moved. On 1 June she’d written a list of bras and sizes which included the
Astonish
in a 32D. ‘I rarely reorder,’ she explained, ‘but several models had sold better than their matching knickers. I queried whether more were available, and they weren’t, but I’m sure it was selling the last 32D that would have prompted me to check.’ She part-frowned into the book. ‘No, perhaps it was the 34D.’

Goodhew waited.

Val chewed her lip and gazed up towards a corner of the ceiling. ‘Something’s ringing a bell,’ she pondered. ‘Any idea who ended up with them?’ She looked at Goodhew. ‘Or can’t you say?’

‘I don’t know. The description is of a young woman, late teens, maybe, or early twenties. A tattoo of daisies across her foot?’

She brushed that comment away. ‘It feels like most of them that age have tattoos. Unless they covered her face, I wouldn’t have noticed.’

‘One witness described her as
kind of Scandinavian . . .’

The memory clicked into place and Val’s eyes widened. ‘Long blonde hair. I do remember her now. She came in with a hundred pounds in vouchers. Oh, yes, that’s right. She looked at only this range of underwear, but spent quite a while choosing. My daughter was working with me that day, and neither of us had seen her before.’

‘Did you speak to her?’

‘Briefly, and she was English, not Scandinavian at all.’ She clicked her fingers several times. ‘Hang on, there was something else. My daughter might remember.’ She whipped an iPhone from her pocket and assaulted it with some rapid double-thumb texting. He couldn’t read whatever she’d written, but joined her in staring at it and willing it to flash up a reply. The incoming message made the sound of a repeated plinking of a piano key. She tutted, then tapped a message back, spelling
I-n-g-é-n-u-e
under her breath. When it plinked the next time she read it swiftly, then passed the phone across to Goodhew. ‘The
woman said she’d been hand-painting on silk as part of her degree.’

‘An art degree?’

‘Fashion or textiles, I would think. I do actually remember having a conversation with someone who was asking if we’d consider selling anything like that here on their behalf, but I would have said no. It wouldn’t work in here. I don’t know anything else, so I hope I’ve been some help?’

‘Definitely. And, one more thing, you wouldn’t know who originally purchased those vouchers, I suppose?’

‘No. We’re a small business so our vouchers are printed like cheques in a book, and numbered. There won’t be many for a hundred pounds. I’d be able to go through the accounts, find out which vouchers have been used and let you know when they were sold, but nothing more.’

He passed her a card printed with his landline number. ‘That would be very helpful. Just let us know when you’ve found them, and an officer will come back for the details. If that isn’t me, just repeat everything you’ve said.’

The fact that it was now 6.15, with everybody dispersing for the evening, was the precise reason Goodhew resented the idea of having been sent home to rest right in the middle of the day. Of course he hadn’t slept, but if he’d followed Marks’s instructions to the letter, then he’d be even further behind. If, on the other hand, he’d been able to read the report an hour sooner, he might have made it to the Cambridge School of Art before the staff had left for the evening.

He crossed back through town, past Parkside, and had made it halfway down the wide university steps before realizing the irrelevance of his train of thought.

It wasn’t even term time.

He stopped in his tracks and sat down on a dry but dusty step. He couldn’t even be bothered to swear. His frustration lasted moments, until he realized how much more he now knew than even one hour earlier. And there were always methods to summon staff back to any teaching establishment, term-time or not. If he was going to swear he ought to direct it at himself, because maybe he had really been too tired to see the obvious.

He glanced along East Road, in the direction of Parker’s Piece, thinking he ought to head back that way, go straight home and go to bed. Or put the jukebox on repeat and lie on the settee to see whether sleep really might catch up on him by accident. But he associated every bout of insomnia with lying endlessly awake up there so, for all he loved his flat, going back there now didn’t appeal. He stood, turned his back on it and set off the other way. He decided on coffee instead, and turned down Norfolk Street and into the CB2 café. Only one table was free, a corner seat away from the window, then he ordered a macchiato and a cappuccino, both at the same time, rushing the first then savouring the second.

Over the next half cup he spent the time studying the café’s clientele. Some were students, plenty weren’t. Work by local artists hung on the walls, and flyers advertised acoustic music nights and poetry readings. He wandered over to the counter and found even more events advertised, most aimed at the student population. He held up one flyer to the man behind the counter. ‘Do you know of any regular fashion events?’

‘Like what?’

‘I’m guessing there’s somewhere in Cambridge where would-be fashion designers meet?’
Would-be fashion designers?
He cringed at his own use of words.

‘Not here, but if you go up the steps there, right to the back, you’ll see a table of eight. Ask for Olley . . . or if there’s someone wearing a maroon beanie, that’s him. He’s a bit like a student what’s-on guide.’

Goodhew found Olley immediately, the beanie gave him away. There were only two men at the crowded table in any case and, as Goodhew headed over, the other one grabbed a couple of empty glasses before offering to buy the next round. As his first words were, ‘Oi, Olley,’ that pretty much clinched it – beanie or no beanie.

Olley had a D-shaped grin, blue eyes and a fringe of lightened hair protruding from under his hat. Judging by the attention he received from the girls seated at the table, Olley was comfortable with his role as the lead man in the ensemble.

Goodhew introduced himself and the curiosity of the group settled them into silence.

‘I’m trying to locate a female student who’d be studying for a degree in fashion, or in fact any course which includes painting textiles. I was hoping there might be a venue or a society or something. If it was poetry, I’d look here.’

Olley looked from Goodhew to the assembled girls. A couple of them shrugged and all but one of them stared back blankly. The girl sitting closest to Goodhew leant forward on her elbow, the fingers of her supporting hand entangled in strands of long dark hair. In a barely-there Spanish accent, she announced, ‘I know what you mean. I expect she’s a student over there.’ At which she pointed in the direction of Anglia Ruskin University. ‘The Cambridge School of Art is in there.’

‘I know, but it’s not term time, and it’s urgent that I find her.’

‘I don’t know anywhere else to suggest, but all of us here are students there, except for Olley. What’s her name? Or do you have a photo . . . or a description?’

Olley smiled in mock apology. ‘Though apparently I’m now just an
ex
-student, I might even recognize her too.’ He nudged the girl who had spoken playfully. ‘You never know.’

She nudged him sharply in response, and was still smiling when she looked up again at Goodhew. ‘Tell us about her, then. One of us
proper
students might know.’

‘I don’t have an actual name, but she is slim with long, straight blonde hair. And probably with a tattoo of flowers running across one foot and curving around her ankle.’

‘Benz knows about tats.’ She leant over to the only red-headed girl in the group. ‘Who’s got a daisy tat across her foot?’

Benz shook her head. ‘I don’t know that one.’

‘I’ve seen it.’ All eyes turned to back Olley. ‘It’s a daisy chain, isn’t it?’

Goodhew nodded. ‘I think so. Do you know who she is?’

‘Not exactly, but she must be coming into her third year by now. I first noticed her at some fresher events that would have been during the start of the academic year before last – like two years ago next month. She was drunk and apparently she’d drawn the daisy chain on with an ordinary pen.’

‘Where was this?’

‘Revolution, maybe, or the Fez. Probably the Fez because I hardly missed it back then. Next time I noticed her was at Lola Lo, and the daisies had been henna-ed on by then. She said she was trying them out before making them permanent. I didn’t come across her anywhere after that, so I never saw them properly inked.’

‘And this is nearly two years ago.’

The Spanish girl leant towards Goodhew. ‘He remembers women so well, even when he pretends not to.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘You can trust him for what you’re after.’

‘She had a bloke’s name,’ Olley added thoughtfully.

‘Like Dave?’ Benz shouted out, then laughed rather too loudly.

‘No, Andie. She’s called Andie.’

‘Fuck, yes.’ Benz suddenly sobered. ‘I know who you mean now. I’ve seen that tattoo as well. Andie Seagrove, that’s her. I used to see her on Facebook.’ Several of the others nodded then. ‘But I haven’t seen her for months.’ And they nodded at that as well.

Everything had changed. But it was going to be OK, Andie understood now. As of this morning she was grateful to be alive – and not just ordinary living, breathing alive, either.

She’d draped a towel over the full-length mirror from day one, and still wasn’t ready to take it back down. But this morning she’d been finally ready to fully open the curtains and let the sunlight flood into the room without shrinking from what else she might see.

Dust particles had tumbled through the air. Chocolate brown and cream leaf print warmed walls that had seemed monochrome for as long as she could remember. The room had gone from being barely satisfactory to the only place she’d been prepared to be. But she’d also realized that it couldn’t stay that way. And the hours she’d spent allowing herself to daydream of a fictitious life with safe outcomes had gradually evolved into visions of what her own life still had the chance to be.

Perhaps there would come a day when she saw that deep regrets were as life-affirming as hard-won accomplishments. Unlikely. But she’d have to push herself to bring about such accomplishments if she wanted to test that theory, so today she must set about purging her life of all the evidence of her own stupidity.

It was early evening now, and the bedroom was close to empty, while the area next to the front door was piled with bags destined for one of the charity shops in Burleigh Street.

During the last two trips between her room and the hallway, she finally developed the feeling that she’d done enough. The front door itself was solid, apart from a fan of glass near the top, a spyhole in the middle and a letterbox at the foot. The view through the spyhole showed an empty street beyond, but it made the outside world look distorted and distant. The idea of stepping out into St Matthew’s Street still overwhelmed her, but tomorrow she would have to try.

She pulled away from the door then and, without letting herself think about it for too long, opened it. The air outside was warm and smelt of a neighbour’s barbecue: sausages and onions. She sucked in several deep breaths, and then leant on the doorframe for another few minutes, watching the traffic passing the end of the road.

When she was finally ready, she returned to her room. The wardrobe doors hung open and the only items of clothing that remained were the ones that she’d brought with her when she’d first come to uni, and the ones she’d brought from home since.

She felt satisfied with the room’s new and sparse appearance and, in spite of her tiredness, pushed herself on until she had cleaned down every surface and vacuumed into every inaccessible corner. Then she showered, and for the first time in weeks she washed her skin without breaking down.