The Shadows in the Street (6 page)

Now though, she said, now, today. She switched on her computer. Outside, the autumn sun was bright, the sky brittle blue, the branches of the oak tree tinged with yellow.

Today. She would start to look. Focus. Concentrate. After she had checked her emails she would make a start.

From
[email protected].

Dear Cat

Canon Hurley asks if you could possibly make 4pm on the 3rd, for the first meeting of the Magdalene Group? If so, please note that the meeting will now be in the Precentor’s House. Would you kindly let me know if this date / time are convenient for you?

Many thanks.

Aisling

There were a couple of other work-related messages to which she replied. Emptied the washing machine and put in another load. Made fresh tea. ‘Displacement activity,’ she said aloud. But why? She had got as far as this – why was she avoiding the next step? Because it was just that, a step, a step forwards, a step into the future, a step in the dark, a step into the unknown. All of those. A step further away from the way life had been. From Chris. She did not want to take that step.

‘Come on,’ Chris said, ‘do it. I’m telling you.’

She took the tea back to her desk.

      King’s College London

      MSc, Diploma and Certificate in Palliative Care

      Course booklet in PDF format

She clicked to start the download.

Nine

Frankie had gone from white, floppy and silent to roaring round the room like a tank. The medicine had worked. It was Mia who was quiet now, having been sick three times. Abi sat with her on her lap watching an old video of
Bagpuss
, which had been her own. There was a little pile of them on the window ledge, along with half a dozen books she’d loved, kept and taken with her from flat to flat. Mia was hot and sticky.

‘Frankie, quit pulling the curtain, you’ll have it down. Come and watch this and sit still, you’ll be sick again.’ But he wouldn’t. He was made of cast iron.

She could’ve done with those tea bags now. Lurky Les. He’d probably be round tonight as well with his sandwiches and cakes, trying to make conversation, asking them stuff. Hayley said he was weird, Marie said he was bonkers, some of the others laughed at him. Abi wasn’t sure. He gave her the creeps and she wondered what he got out of it, why he did it, if he was lonely or religious or what. The Reachout van people were religious but they didn’t push it at you. There were leaflets and posters in the van but nobody preached. Loony Les – they had plenty of names for him – was always alone. So why’d he come, bringing the sandwiches? Why buy her a box of tea bags?

Frankie was making a high noise, partly a whistle, partly a screech.

‘I said, pack that IN.’

He went on.

It was boys, everyone said that, you couldn’t do anything with them, they got out of control, they were like permanently revved-up engines, even at this age. When Frankie was born she’d been depressed for two days, wanting a girl if she’d wanted anything, wondering how she’d cope. Yet Frankie was the soft one too, the one who crept into her bed and put his arms round her neck, the one who always offered her half his sweets or his biscuit.

He’d roar round like this but then he’d crash. He was still pale. She knew the signs.

It didn’t matter because she wasn’t going out, even if Hayley turned up. She couldn’t forgive Hayley for getting stoned when she had all three kids, couldn’t stop imagining what might have happened. They had an agreement, it had been solid, and Abi had trusted her. Abi wouldn’t even have drunk a glass of beer when it was her turn and Hayley went out to work. She felt betrayed and let down, furious whenever she remembered. The trouble was, she couldn’t leave Frankie and Mia alone, and who else was there? It had been a good arrangement with Hayley, suited them both, meant they could both of them work enough and the kids were all safe. Now what?

The wind-up music was playing at the end of the video and Mia was slumped and heavy in sleep on her lap. Abi carried her to the bed and laid her carefully down as her mobile beeped.

CU soon. H xx.

As if nothing had bloody happened then.

She replied.
Don’t bother
.

But by the time she had washed out Mia’s sicky clothes and started to cook sausages and toast, Hayley was up the stairs and in the room, shoving a bunch of garage flowers at her and trying to give her a hug.

‘God in heaven, Abs, it won’t ever happen again, hope to die. It never will.’

Liam was already down on the mat with Frankie and two beaten-up metal cars, both of them making motor noises.

‘Shut up, you’ll wake Mia.’

‘I don’t know what I was thinking and I was out of order, but give us a break, Abs, nothing happened, did it? I was fine.’ Hayley took out the toast and started to scrape butter onto it.

‘Get your mitts off.’

‘Oh, come on, I’m starving, Liam’s starving, we’ve got nothing to eat, Abi.’

‘Don’t give me that. I know you, I know what you spent it on.’ She snatched the toast out of Hayley’s hand.

‘Cow.’

‘Right.’

The room smelled of frying sausages and she went to open the window and put the shoe in to keep it propped up. Hayley stood miserably staring at the toaster.

They’d been here before enough times, Hayley without ten pence, Abi feeding her and Liam. But it had been the other way too, when Abi had been ill and couldn’t work for two weeks and Hayley had helped her out with money and taken the kids off her hands. That had been last winter, when Hayley had been clean for four months, even started saving a bit. They’d talked about getting a decent flat together, two bedrooms, a garden for the kids. They’d laughed.

‘Oh, Christ. Frankie, get up to the table and eat this. Liam as well.’

Abi shook the ketchup bottle and tipped it upside down. Behind her, Hayley was putting more bread in the toaster.

Abi sighed.

‘It’ll be OK, Abs,’ Hayley said.

‘Will it?’

Abi walked out and down the corridor to the shared toilet. But she knew that, for now, Hayley meant it. It would be all right. She’d scared herself. She’d look after the kids properly tonight, no problem, and for the next few times, weeks maybe, till it all started up again. It was a risk but Abi knew she’d have to take it. She always did.

When she got back, Hayley had put the rest of the sausages on and cracked two eggs into a cup. Frankie and Liam were throwing bits of chewed-up toast at each other.

‘Happy fucking families,’ Abi said.

In the end, though, it was Hayley who went out because both Frankie and Mia were sick again.

After she’d gone, Abi opened the window and leaned out, smelling the night. It was colder. She was not looking forward to winter, when the punters got fewer and the streets were bleak, but this was the last one, she told herself, the last winter. She’d go to the post office tomorrow, put more money away.

Liam was asleep wrapped in the old blanket, Mia too, but Frankie came crying to her, pale again and miserable. She picked him up and closed the window to keep him warm, then sat in the armchair with him until he too slept and the room went quiet. Occasionally, there was a racket from somewhere else in the house, someone shouting or dropping something, sometimes a car went by. But even that all settled eventually, so that Abi was left listening to the soft sounds of the three children breathing and stirring and mumbling now and again, and thinking about Hayley, out on the street.

Ten

The dawn was coming up a little later every day now but it was still the same soft, pearl-coloured light that sifted gently in through the window. He never drew the curtains and the bed faced the gentle slope of shingle that ran down to the silver water and the huge pale sky. Serrailler wondered how he could ever have woken to anything else.

He turned slightly. Her bare shoulder was towards him, her hair fanned out finely against the pillow.

She must have sensed him looking at her. She stirred slightly, murmured, turned. ‘What time –’

‘Twenty past six.’

‘Christ!’ She shoved back the duvet. ‘The boat’ll be here in half an hour, I’ve got to move. I said not to let me sleep in.’

‘I don’t call twenty past six “sleeping in”.’

But Kirsty McLeod was already on her way to the shower. Simon rolled onto his back and crossed his arms behind his head, propping himself up to look at the water, and at the heads of two seals which were bobbing close to the shore.

He had been on Taransay for six weeks and it felt like half a lifetime, remote from everything and everyone, in its own time that was somehow out of time. It had taken two days and a night of driving, a ferry and then a helicopter to get here, and it seemed as if he had fallen off the edge of the world. The last SIFT job he’d headed up had been exhausting, draining, terrifying and ultimately successful, but when he’d got back to his own CID the Chief Constable had taken one look at him and told him to take some leave.

‘Five young men were brutally murdered, one of them in front of you, Simon. You’ve been living like a rat in a sewer for weeks, you’ve been short of sleep and in some danger, and if your nerves aren’t in shreds they damn well ought to be. I’m extremely proud that you belong to us and you’ve done an amazing job, but I don’t want you back on my force until you’ve had a proper break. That’s an order.’

Sitting in the Chief’s office, he had suddenly felt all the wind go out of him, and as if he might be about to faint, throw up or burst into tears. Paula Devenish was right. He needed to get away. He had spent half an hour on the Internet tracking down this small, isolated cottage on the remotest Scottish island he could find, booked it, packed and set off. He had brought a single bag of old, rough, favourite clothes, some books and his rucksack of pencils, pens, inks and sketch pads. He had even thought of leaving behind his phone, but only for a moment – work wouldn’t call him, but family might. No one else. He had recently changed the number.

Kirsty was out of the shower, still damp, pulling on jeans, shirt and sweater which had been thrown across the back of the chair. He watched her. Thick, light brown hair with a deep wave at the end. Long legs. Blue eyes. A laughing face. That was what he had first noticed. A laughing face. She tied her hair up quickly in an elastic band.

‘See you,’ she said. She did not come over, did not kiss him goodbye, just waved and was out the door.

A minute later, Simon got up and went to the window, but by then, Kirsty McLeod was halfway up the track and away. In fifteen minutes she would be at the small cluster of houses, pub, shop and quay that was Taransay Village. Other than that, the islanders were scattered in single cottages and small houses across the island, overlooking other stretches of water, different fields and tracks, and the low violet and brown hills.

Kirsty was in a rush because the weekly ferry was due in with supplies and mail, and she was an essential hand, needed to carry boxes and crates from the boat to the one small hotel-cum-pub and the shop, in both of which she worked.

Kirsty McLeod. Serrailler shook his head, smiling, and wandered into the neat, small kitchen to make coffee.

There were virtually no trees on the island, which took the winds from all corners of the earth, so he did not have the usual markers for the onset of autumn, but the light had changed subtly, and everything seemed to be slowing gradually, like a creature moving towards a long winter. Not that anything ever moved quickly on Taransay. Life was lived at a steady, measured pace, quite different from the one he was used to; people did not hurry and there was little noise other than the sounds of nature. For the first few days here he had slept, taking sleep in great draughts like cool water after a drought, and had soon lost much sense of time and the progress of the weeks. Coming to, he had wondered briefly if he would become bored or restless. He need not have worried. He slipped into the life and the pace and floated on its surface, never for a moment missing anything about his usual life, other than his family. He sometimes woke late, sometimes early, sometimes went to bed before nine, hardly able to remain upright, sometimes went out walking on the shore at three in the morning. He ate and drank when he felt like it. And then, going across to the village pub for supper one evening, he had met Kirsty McLeod.

It was the most uncomplicated relationship he had had since the early days of Diana – more so because Kirsty had made it clear that she was not likely to fall in love with him and certainly would not want to follow him when he left the island for home. She was a local girl but she had left to study biology at the University of Glasgow, stayed to do teacher training and worked in schools in the city for three years before realising that she was homesick at too deep a level to stay away any longer. She had returned to the island to help the various members of her family run the hotel, pub and shop, and, more recently, had taken a business studies course online. She was no fool, she was even-tempered, cheerful, pretty, without baggage and they had fallen into an easy friendship. But it had been Kirsty who’d stepped the friendship up a level when she’d appeared at the cottage late one night.