The Shadows in the Street (11 page)

‘Not in my book.’

‘Save me traipsing here with Liam all the time. Save a load of money as well.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘Oh, work it out. Anyway, it’s a flat that’s going and I think we should have it.’

‘Looks funny. Two girls living together. People’d think.’

‘Let ’em bloody think then.’

Abi poured water into two mugs.

‘It was dead tonight,’ she said, turning the television on low, ‘one punter, nobody else out there. Bloody freezing.’

‘…
her mother, Mrs Audrey Buckley, reported Chantelle missing. She was last seen five days ago walking towards the bus station. Chantelle, who is seventeen, was wearing a distinctive bright green nylon jacket and short skirt. Mrs Buckley, of Aberdeen Way, Bevham, said that Chantelle sometimes stayed overnight with friends but none of them had seen her this week and
…’

‘I saw her,’ Abi said.

The CCTV picture of the girl walking down a street was replaced by a snapshot of her with a dog, younger, darker hair.

‘That’s her, deffo. She was on my patch. Naff jacket. Didn’t think she’d stay around.’

They watched the rest of the news, eating a packet of Jaffa Cakes.

‘See, that’s why there’s no punters out there,’ Hayley said, ‘it’s this credit crunch.’

‘I flippin’ hope not. Anyway, you’d think there’d be more of them, not less, cheer themselves up.’

It was as the weather chart came on the screen that it occurred to Abi. ‘That girl,’ she said, ‘that Chantelle with the green jacket.’

‘What about her?’

‘Only I haven’t seen Marie for over a week.’

‘Be her mother playing up again then. Or that dosser Jonty.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You know she goes off, Abs, she went off before, you remember. Last summer.’

‘OK.’ Abi reached for another Jaffa Cake. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘I’m always right. I’m right about that flat as well.’

Abi chucked the empty biscuit packet at her.

Hayley and Liam left just before nine the next morning.

‘Just come and have a look at it, you don’t have to make up your mind, only it’d be great, Abs, think how much more room the kids’d have, think of a proper kitchen. Just come and have a look.’

But Abi wouldn’t promise anything. She needed to think a lot of things out before she got tempted by looking at any flat and committing herself when she wasn’t ready. Hayley wasn’t dependable. She was still liable to dope herself up and then wouldn’t be fit to work or look after the kids, she was still liable to hitch up with some no-hoper and bring him home. The room Abi lived in was a dump, small, cold, shared toilet and bath and only a corner to cook in, but it was hers, she felt safe in it, and it was cheap. She’d been able to save. She had the kids where she could see them and they were safe as well. Chuck this away to share with Hayley and there’d be a load of what-ifs.

It was playgroup morning for Frankie. After she’d left him, Abi stood on the corner waiting for the bus to the supermarket. She always went when it was just her and Mia, did her shop and then had breakfast, one good cooked plateful. Mia had bits off hers and an egg of her own. She bought a magazine, Mia went to sleep, she had a second coffee. Happy. Sometimes, sitting in the supermarket café, in the warmth and brightness, people all around her, she felt OK, and when she thought about it, she knew it was because she felt normal. She could be anybody, a mum with a toddler, house to go back to. Not doing what she did. Normal. Only this morning, she suddenly knew she had to do something else. She’d woken half a dozen times in the night and each time it was there, churning round her mind, and when she had slept again it had flitted in and out of her dreams.

She crossed the road and caught a bus in the opposite direction, then walked. Mia slept. A raw wind snaked towards her bare legs.

She’d thought it was a short walk but it took twenty-five minutes before she was at the broken gate leading through rough grass into the field. The caravan was on the far side, standing in a patch of mud and nettles. Abi could see the door swinging open. She couldn’t push the buggy over the thick grass and ruts, so she lifted Mia out and carried her.

There was no sound. She hesitated, then knocked on the open door. But she knew she wouldn’t get any reply, and in the end she just went in, and found the place wrecked, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, table, cupboards, benches, sink, windows, the lot, everything was smashed and splintered and the floor was covered in broken bits of wood and cushions from the bench. The television was upside down, smashed, and plates and cups had been smashed too, there was crockery and glass all over. But nothing else. Nobody. No sign that anyone had even been living here except for a few clothes, pulled out of a cardboard box and piled onto the mess. She recognised a sweatshirt, and one shoe from a black patent pair Marie wore.

Mia had woken and was looking round, her face bewildered, and the wind blew at them across the field and cut round their heads.

‘OK,’ Abi said, ‘OK …’

She ploughed her way back across the field, collected the buggy and went through the broken gate into the lane. Mia had started to cry.

Abi walked fast, to get warm, to get away, and to help herself think about what she ought to do.

Sixteen

Marley had his head out of the stable and began to toss it about and whinny with anticipation when Stacey drew up. She thought he knew Saturday and Sunday the minute dawn broke, though it was light later in the mornings now, the long days when they had started their ride at five and six o’clock were over. Still, she liked to be at the stables as early as she could, stretching the weekend out.

Marley was a sure-footed, Coloured horse, the easiest Stacey had ever owned. The livery stables were three miles outside Lafferton on the Starly side so she could ride for a couple of hours without hitting much traffic, across the hill track and out onto the moor. But the weekends were sometimes a problem up there because of the mountain bikers and scramblers, and today she had heard on the early local news about a rally, so she took Marley along the road and through the gate that led towards the canal towpath. They might meet dog walkers and runners, sometimes other riders, but never noisy bikes. Not that Marley was bothered – he was that rare thing, the genuinely bomb-proof horse.

There was no one on the path. Here the canal broadened out and flowed through the fields between pollarded willows. There was a thin mist floating over the water. With luck, Stacey thought, the sun would break through and it would be a fantastic day. She leaned forward to pat Marley’s neck.

Marley was always keen to get going, but once out he was never wound up, never over-energetic, happy to canter if she pushed him but otherwise just to amble. He was ambling when she saw it. At first, she couldn’t tell what it was – a bundle of clothes or rubbish caught up in the roots of a tree maybe – but she kicked the horse on to go nearer. It looked odd.

He wouldn’t go nearer. He stopped dead and tossed his head slightly. Stacey kicked. He wasn’t a horse that just stopped. He never did that.

‘Come on, come on, boy, what are you playing at? Walk on.’

It took a lot to get him to move. She could feel him, torn between reluctance, the desire to stand his ground, and his usual willingness to do as he was asked.

‘Walk on, Marley.’

After a moment or two, he walked.

From where she was, sixteen hands above the dark water, Stacey had a view but not a full view. She waited, looked around, saw no one, no walker, no runner, not even a random dog.

She didn’t want to go closer, didn’t want to find out, didn’t want to get off the safety of the horse’s back. But she knew she had to. She couldn’t just go. She knew she couldn’t.

She slid to the ground and went slowly closer, hanging onto Marley’s reins, not because Marley would ever bolt away, but for her own reassurance. Because she knew, she said afterwards, she knew all along really, she didn’t think it was a bundle of old clothes from the first second.

She knew.

Thank God for mobile phones, though her hands were shaking so much she could hardly dial. The police were there in ten, maybe less, she heard the screaming tyres, saw them jump the stile and come running, and by then she was sitting on the ground, her head between her knees and the reins hooked over her arm, Marley’s reins, her lifeline to the great, steady, warm, breathing safety of her horse, who was cropping the grass beside her.

The body of Chantelle Buckley had caught in the tree roots and the water flowed on round it and away, as if it was somehow abandoning her. She had been strangled and there were cuts about her face, though at first the cuts mingled with the bruising and bloating and discoloration and were not clear. The pathologist would find them later, when she was stripped and labelled and under the cold white lights on the slab. Surprisingly, she was fully clothed, in short skirt, T-shirt, torn green jacket, though inevitably the shoes had gone, pulled off by the movement through the water.

She was face down, one arm out, one bent behind her, her hair wrapped like weed round her head. From the first second of realising what it was, and so forever, Stacey had been grateful that she hadn’t seen the face.

Seventeen

‘Miles, we were just talking about you. Come in if you can. Shall I be glad when we’re out of this!’

Cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls and the small sitting room was crammed. The house had been lent to the Webbers until the Deanery was ready.

‘Would you like coffee? And keep to this side of the room if you don’t want the plague. Stephen was going to phone you.’

Stephen Webber was hunched into a chair, his face flushed.

‘Oh, I’m bound to get it sooner or later – everyone else has. I’d love some coffee, thank you.’

‘Now don’t start talking till I come back.’

Miles Hurley frowned slightly.

‘We won’t,’ Stephen Webber said quickly, his voice rasping and thick with cold.

Miles smiled conspiratorially at Stephen. They were old friends and sat in companionable silence.

Ruth came back with a tray of coffee, an angular woman who carried herself awkwardly, with severely swept-up hair and a strangely expressionless face. She laughed, often and loudly, but never smiled.

‘I can’t find a thing. I just want to be settled.’

‘I feel settled,’ Miles said, ‘have done for months.’

‘You can’t. Impossible. Nobody could feel settled in that dreary little shed at the end of someone else’s garden.’

‘It isn’t a shed, it’s a perfectly nice bungalow, and as I have a separate path, I don’t have to go through the Precentor’s garden at any point. I like it.’

Ruth shook her head. ‘No, we can do better for you than that.’

‘He just said he was perfectly happy, Ruth,’ Stephen Webber said, turning his head away to sneeze.

‘And I said he can’t be. Did you know the cathedral owned a very nice, spacious apartment at the top of one of the office buildings in the close?’

‘I don’t think I did.’

‘Well, it does and I think you should live there. I gather it’s a very smart flat indeed, wonderful tall windows, view down the close, and fantastic fittings.’

‘How did you find all that out?’

Ruth held his gaze.

‘But it really doesn’t matter,’ Miles said quickly, ‘because I like my bungalow, thank you. Find someone else for the smart flat. I’m sure there are plenty of candidates.’

Miles Hurley was adept at resisting Ruth’s manipulation. He and Stephen had known one another since theological college and had worked together at their London parish. Not for nothing had Ruth been nicknamed Mrs Proudie.

‘Oh, it isn’t empty. Not yet anyway. Some policeman or other lives in it, which is a disgrace.’

‘What’s wrong with policemen?’

‘He isn’t even a member of the congregation.’

‘Ruth, several of the houses in the close are let out. Offices and flats. You know perfectly well we don’t have the huge staff there would once have been. Besides, the lettings have nothing to do with the Dean and Chapter, thank goodness.’

‘Why don’t they? Now
there’s
an abdication of responsibility …’

‘We have more than enough to do, and they are in the hands of a very good agent. Anyway, how did you find out about the policeman?’

‘He’s Dr Deerbon’s brother. She told me herself.’

‘She’s coming on to the Magdalene Group, isn’t she? Good idea.’

‘Which brings us to why we were talking about you when you turned up, Miles. The Magdalene Group.’

‘I didn’t know you were joining us, Ruth.’

‘I’m taking Stephen’s place.’

Miles glanced across the room as Stephen turned away, ostensibly to blow his nose again.

‘As you can see, he obviously isn’t well and frankly he has taken far too much on. This place needs a complete sorting out and the Magdalene Group is the perfect example of something he can hand over to me.’

She got up and went out of the room in the abrupt way Miles Hurley knew well.

‘I’ll come back,’ he said. ‘You should be in bed, Stephen.’

The Dean shook his head. ‘Have you seen David Lester today?’

‘No – should I have?’

Stephen Webber sighed. ‘He can’t go on avoiding me. I thought he might have said something.’

‘I know he isn’t happy, but that’s not surprising – nobody likes radical change and he’s more of a traditionalist than most.’

‘He’s a very good musician. I just wish he could see that I’m trying to bring new light and life into the cathedral.’ He stood up cautiously. ‘I’m sorry, Miles, you’re right. I’d be better off in bed. Can it wait – whatever you wanted to talk about?’

‘Of course. But I think you ought to come to the first Magdalene Group meeting at least. Perhaps suggest that Ruth takes your place from time to time?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think anyone would mind. It’s just a question of too much to do, too little time. Ruth can run it just as well as I can.’

‘What?’ Ruth came out of the kitchen as Miles was leaving. ‘What can I run as well as you?’