The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (15 page)

Cal turned left, into Poltown’s first cul-de-sac, and pulled up outside the shop which used to be twin garages – another architectural misapprehension inflicted on the populace. For the most part the residents had little use for garages since few were prosperous enough to own cars. ‘Run by the community for the community’ was the legend underneath the sign which proclaimed ‘Poltown General Stores’. The opening hours were painted in white on the door, along with an indecipherable scrawl of luminous pink and yellow graffiti which extended across the plate glass window. All that was missing was a metal grille, Cal reckoned, and it could be dropped into any big city sink estate without it seeming out of place.

Cal noticed a group of teenagers sitting on a front step opposite. They were watching him in silence. He took the precaution of locking the pickup.

Inside, the shop was a cross between a small warehouse and a car-boot sale. The floor was concrete and the walls lined with a type of shelving Cal associated with DIY stores. The centre of the shop (the car boot sale) was filled by end-to-end trestle tables on which were trays of bread, rolls, fruit and vegetables, boxes of crisps, bags of dried dog food, stacks of cat food tins and, incongruously, a collection of red and gold ‘Santa Claus Crackers’ (whether relics of Christmas past or stocked too early for Christmas to come Cal wasn’t sure). The bread was white only, he noticed in passing, and the selection of fresh fruit and vegetables beside a display of Pot Noodle and packet soups.

Cal’s other impression was of a
group of people gathered at the back of the shop.
There were half a dozen of them, four men and
two women. One of the women sat behind a till
around which newspapers were arranged. The others stood leaning against
the counter or shelves, talking.

‘Hi,’ he offered in their general direction. He took a wire basket from the stack at the door and began to search for the ingredients of a picnic. He put rolls into a paper bag, three over-ripe tomatoes into another and rejected two droopy lettuces before selecting a third. Snatches of conversation drifted over to him. It was about the meeting the night before, who had hit whom, who had been hurt, who had thrown the first punch and who had seen what.

‘Excuse me.’ The discussion stopped. Six faces turned to Cal. ‘Are there any oranges?’

‘I took them off this morning,’ the woman at the till replied, ‘because they’d gone a bit soft.’

‘Just like you then, eh Helen,’ a man leaning back against the counter growled. He had a thin, stubbly face and a mocking expression. Cal recognised him from the night before. In all the panic and commotion, he’d been the odd one out. Instead of running for the door, he’d stayed in his seat observing the melee with detached interest. Cal hadn’t paid him much attention – his concern then had been Violet.

Cal ignored the remark. ‘Have you still got them?’

Helen glanced nervously at Cal and then at the man who had joked at her expense. ‘Aye,’ she said uncertainly, ‘they’re on the floor, by me.’

‘Can I see?’

‘You wouldn’t want to eat any of them.’ She bent down to lift up the box and showed it to Cal who was approaching the counter, ‘Well I wouldn’t at any rate.’

He saw what the woman meant: they were discoloured and shrunken, like collapsed old faces. ‘Those are perfect,’ Cal said, ignoring the surprised reactions of his audience. ‘Can I have them?’

‘All of them?’

‘Yes.’

The woman peered at them again in case she’d made a mistake about their condition. ‘Are you sure, son?’

‘Yeah, they’re good.’ Cal went to the other side of the shop to buy juice and bottles of water. While he was away from the counter he heard Helen wonder what she should charge since the oranges were ‘five minutes away from the bin.’ She asked nervously, ‘What should I do, Davie?’

‘Why do you want them?’ Cal recognised Davie’s growl. It had a distinctive and hard edge.

‘Nothing interesting . . .’ Cal picked up
a packet of biscuits.

‘You were at the meeting last night.’ It was less an observation, more an accusation.

‘I was there, yes.’ Cal returned to the counter with his basket, feeling Davie’s eyes on him. After Helen began recording his purchases, Davie said, ‘I always remember a face.’

Cal shrugged and extracted a £20 note from his pocket and unfolded it.

‘So what brings you to Poltown?’ Davie persisted.

‘The sea, the scenery, usual things . . .’ His answer was off-hand. ‘Isn’t that why everyone comes here?’ He put his money on the counter, while Helen worried aloud about the unresolved problem of charging for the oranges.

‘Half price? What do you say?’ The others mumbled in agreement. ‘Half price is fine,’ Cal reassured her.

‘Full whack,’ Davie said. ‘He pays full whack.’

‘For them?’ Helen asked doubtfully, holding one up, inspecting it, glancing at Davie, wondering what was going on, what she had missed. ‘I wouldn’t feel right charging 35p for that.’

Cal was aware of a change in the atmosphere, as were the others. They were looking at Cal and then at Davie as if they expected something to happen.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Cal said. ‘35p is fine.’ He’d rather pay £3.50 for 10 oranges than argue about it.

‘I’ll put them in a carrier for you,’ Helen said helpfully.

‘Make him pay for that too,’ Davie ordered, ‘50p a bag.’

Helen glanced nervously at Cal.
That’s all right
, he nodded back and handed over £10. She shot another anxious look at Davie. Her face showed concern at the bewildering turn of events, at her inadvertent role in what was happening, at Davie turning this into a confrontation. Cal had the impression she’d witnessed similar scenes before and that she knew what might be coming next.

Once Helen has finished packing Cal’s groceries, she counted out his change, dropping it into his open hand. When Cal lifted up the full carrier bag in his other hand, Davie asked, ‘Is that your vehicle outside?’

‘It could be,’ Cal replied without looking up.

‘Didn’t I see it at South Bay the other day?’

‘It’s possible.’ He might as well have told him to mind his own business. Cal walked deliberately and slowly towards the door. He lingered for a few moments beside the community notice board to show he wasn’t in any hurry before going outside. As he drove away he glanced in his wing mirror and saw Davie standing in the doorway of the shop, legs apart, mobile phone at his ear. Cal opened his window, extended his arm, and raised his middle finger in the air. ‘Fuck off, Davie.’

Along the west wall of the garden Violet found a place where she could not be seen from the drive or from the track leading to Mrs Anderson’s house. She could kill time there without the complication of the Hamiltons or anyone else noticing her and prying into what she was doing. Having ten minutes to waste gave her the chance to ring Mr Anwar, a duty call that had been on her conscience. Usually she was slow to make judgements about peoples’ characters. About Cal, for example, she had yet to make up her mind, an indecision which had a number of causes: caution about involving him in something she did not yet understand, reticence about divulging her purpose, wariness about romantic entanglements (she suspected Cal’s interest) and his recent habit (in so far as she could tell his habits) of impetuousness, of saying aloud what he thought. About Mr Anwar, by contrast, she had made a decision quickly. As soon as she had met him, she’d warmed to him. At the time she thought it was his good manners which won her over. On reflection she realised it was his consideration, the trait which he displayed again once she started to explain who she was and why she was ringing. ‘Do you remember? I gave you tea without milk and you met my daughter Anna.’

‘Miss Wells, my dear, I was thinking about you, wondering how you were getting on. How are you?’

His quiet civility brought an end to her gabbling. She made a little sound in appreciation. ‘I’m well, thank you, Mr Anwar. And you?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter about me,’ he replied after a hesitation which Violet noticed, a stumble she regarded as uncharacteristic. She found herself saying, ‘You matter very much Mr Anwar, after the kindness you have shown me. Very much indeed.’

Immediately, she worried that Mr Anwar would be offended by her effusiveness. To her surprise, it affected him in a different way altogether. Instead of the polite deflection she expected, he told her he’d been foolish and he mentioned people he had wronged in some way or other. Someone called Mr Hunter cropped up a few times. Then there was Meera, and, the only one she recognised, Shereen. When she heard it, she interrupted him. ‘Shereen’s your daughter isn’t she Mr Anwar?’ He talked through her question, raising his voice, which was so untypical of the unassuming Mr Anwar she knew that she said, ‘Where are you Mr Anwar? Are you at work?’ She heard his breathing and then a different sound, a distant muttering, as though he had put the phone down and he was pacing around the room. Then she heard a noise like paper being torn.

‘Mr Anwar, Mr Anwar,’ she said. ‘Mr Anwar? Are you all right?’

‘Shereen will be angry with me.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve torn her poster.’

‘Mr Anwar, are you in Shereen’s room?’ She heard him take a deep breath.

‘Should I be somewhere else?’

‘At work?’ Violet tried.

‘Ah, work,’ he replied.

‘What’s happened, Mr Anwar?’

‘I’m sorry Miss Wells . . .’

‘What have you got to be sorry about? You’ve been wonderful to me.’ She almost mentioned the money but worried it might offend him. Then she said, ‘It’s something to do with me, isn’t it?’ His silence made her think she was right. ‘What’s happened? Please tell me? I couldn’t bear it if it’s something I’ve done.’

‘It’s nothing you’ve done, dear Miss Wells.’

She could hear he was trying to protect her. ‘It’s better I know Mr Anwar, really.’

‘I suppose it is,’ he conceded. ‘You’ve been to see a police officer.’

‘Yes, a retired one. He was the man who led the inquiry into my mother’s disappearance.’

‘He reported your visit to the police authorities and they passed it on to my employers.’

‘What has happened?’

‘I have been suspended.’

‘That’s awful. Because of me?’

‘Because I was stupid, Miss Wells. Because I disobeyed my superior. Not because of you.’

‘I’m so sorry Mr Anwar.’

‘You must go now, Miss Wells. You must carry on. But be careful. It pains me to say this but sometimes people prefer to let things lie than to suffer the discomfort of unearthing the truth.’

‘Who, Mr Anwar, who? The police? Tell me, Mr Anwar.’

The phone went dead. Mr Anwar had gone. She rang again but there was no answer. She left a message, promising to visit him as soon as she had discovered the truth about her mother. She’d bring Anna too. ‘We’d love to do that,’ she said, ‘and look after yourself… please Mr Anwar, dear Mr Anwar.’

She stared at her phone, impotent in the face of the havoc she had wreaked on his unassuming life. She had an unsettling feeling that forces were gathering against her, the police, the threatening man at the end of the public meeting – and that her clumsiness had been the cause. Standing there, hidden in the shelter of Brae’s walled garden, she suddenly felt exposed. In Poltown, she realised, nothing went unnoticed, herself included. She was two minutes late for Mrs Anderson.

At South Bay, Cal opened his laptop and called up the Admiralty’s tide prediction website, EasyTide. A map appeared on his screen: green for land, blue for sea, and a scattering of yellow dots around the UK coast. The dots represented ports. He scrolled across the map to the north-west of Scotland. As he hoped, there was a yellow dot in Poltown Loch. He put the cursor on it and a small rectangular box appeared with the name ‘Nato jetty’ on it, a legacy from before its closure when allied navies needed to know the best times for approaching and leaving the loch.

He clicked on the box and the website asked him whether he wanted historical data or a tide prediction. He opened the calendar icon and selected the year Violet was born, and a week either side of September 10th. According to Violet, that was the day the hat and bag went into the sea. Two 7-day graphs filled his screen, one above the other, separated by grids of numbers. Each graph appeared as a series of blue finger-like spikes. The peak of each spike represented high tide: the base, low tide. On the first graph, the spikes grew longer day by day, the high tides climbing higher, the low tides becoming lower, and the cycle advancing towards the highest and lowest tides of all, Spring tides. On the second graph they did the opposite as the relative positions of the moon and the sun changed; as they moved out of alignment, as their gravitational influence on the sea lessened. The 10th was the first day of the second graph. At 8am, the time the hat and the bag went into the water, the tide was already flowing, building to a peak one hour and 50 minutes later. According to the graph, it reached a height of 5.2 metres.

Cal started an up-to-date search for the next seven days, this time selecting prediction. When the graph displayed, he studied that day, the 15th. The next high tide was at 17.17. It would reach 4.6 metres, lower than he’d hoped. Still, it would give him an idea. It was past noon now: he’d wait for exactly the same stage, until one hour and 50 minutes before its peak. It’d mean kicking his heels until 15.27.

Next, he called up his ocean database for information about the wind. He had columns of figures going back a century; wind speeds and directions for the entire North Atlantic. He searched back 26 years to September 10. There had been a southerly breeze on the coast around Ullapool, 10mph becoming 15 during the afternoon and moderating to 5 by nightfall. According to his live weather feed, the breeze today was a few degrees more to the west and lighter at 5mph. Cal studied a large scale map of the Poltown area. If anything, he thought, the wind direction today was more likely to push a hat or a bag ashore in North Bay than the one more than quarter of a century before.