Downstairs, she was sorting cutlery for them both when the doorbell went. She went to run upstairs but Aisling was already in motion.
‘I’ll get it,’ she shouted.
Hannah was serving up the pie, broccoli and carrots when Aisling appeared holding a white carrier bag like a prize, its top stapled together.
‘Deliveroo?’
Jem looked up from his book and he and Aisling locked eyes. Then, like enemies who have realised they’ve both turned up at the same party, they turned away, each of them pretending the other person wasn’t there.
‘Must be a mistake,’ said Hannah.
‘Your name and address are on the ticket.’ She ripped off the receipt and handed it to her. ‘Look.’
There were three containers. Pad Thai, fried chicken and sushi. A folded piece of paper with her name on it was at the bottom of the bag. She fished it out and opened it. A few lines of blocky handwriting were printed inside.
WARREN STREET TUBE
TURN LEFT AT THE TOP OF THE ESCALATORS
GET THERE BEFORE 8 AM
ASK FOR JAMAL
P.
Hannah reread it a few more times and then searched the bag in case there was anything else.
‘What is it Han?’
‘Not sure.’
She opened one of the containers and breathed in the buttermilk chicken. It was the same dish she’d seen Piotr cooking that day in the industrial kitchen. The note must be from him.
But what did it mean? He was telling her to go to Warren Street but when, tomorrow? Was someone going to be there waiting for her? Who was Jamal?
Aisling hovered by the stairs, food in hand, not wanting to be around Jem a moment longer than necessary, before retreating to the living room.
Hannah took his plate over to the hatch and slid it through, then returned to the counter, her mind fogged with questions.
When she finally brought a forkful of mince and potato to her mouth it was cold.
Jem
Moving day and I’m up at dawn. Hannah appears soon after.
I ask if I can have my phone call early and she agrees. I want to speak to Kenzie, make sure he’s all set. This is too important to leave to chance.
The dial tone is the same low burr as before. I hold my breath. He was supposed to fly in from Ibiza yesterday.
‘Hola?’ He sounds groggy, like I’ve woken him.
‘Kenzie.’ I breathe, my words a jumbled rush. ‘It’s Jem.’
‘Jem.’ He perks up.
‘Where are you?’
He pauses and in that moment I know. He’s not coming.
‘About that.’ He grunts and I imagine him hauling himself upright. ‘Something came up. Hotel gig. I’ll be there tomorrow for sure.’
‘You said you could do it.’ My voice is shrill. ‘It’s organised.’
‘Calm down. It’s one day. Your stuff will be fine.’
I try to contain my panic but all I can think about is my things being left on the pavement, my photo albums kicked around by the wind, my microwave looted by strangers, passers-by mooching through my books.
‘If someone isn’t there by noon they’re going to chuck everything out.’
I hang up and phone Alina, only to end the call after two rings. There’s no point. She won’t help and, even if she did, she might be followed. I don’t want to put her at that kind of risk.
I look around, at the bars, at my cage.
Twenty years of this, and for nothing.
I’m scrabbling for a solution when Hannah slides breakfast through the hatch.
‘Everything OK?’
I’m too at sea to pretend.
‘My stuff, it’s in storage but the lease has run out.’ I relay the information calmly but inside I feel like I’m in a collapsing building, slowly smothered by rubble. ‘A friend organised another place for me online. They were supposed to move everything today but they’ve let me down at the last minute. If no one shows up they’ve every right to bin it all.’
Hannah chews on a corner of toast, thinking.
‘Where’s the storage space?’
‘A house, Brixton. The new place is in Stockwell, ten minutes away.’
‘What time?’
‘Deadline is midday.’
She finishes the toast and slaps her hand free of crumbs.
‘I could do it?’
‘What? No.’ I speak without thinking, wrong-footed by her kindness. What if she looks inside the boxes, what if she sees? Then I stop. I’m being ridiculous. Even if she saw it, she wouldn’t understand. ‘I mean,’ I say, trying to back-pedal. ‘You’d do that?’
She smiles.
‘I would.’
Hannah
Hannah emerged from Warren Street tube and turned left, toward Marylebone Road, as the note had instructed.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for: a shop, a cafe?
She soon discovered this stretch of pavement had neither. The few units that were here were either long shuttered, rusty cans and rotten leaves wedged against their doorways, or specialist outlets with bizarre opening hours.
She continued forward past the bus stop, the roar of traffic like the sea on a stormy day. London was already baking hot but the tall buildings on either side of the road had turned this strip of pavement into a wind tunnel. Hannah crossed her arms over her chest, trying to keep warm, her vest and thin cotton maxi skirt no match for the chilly squall.
She had a busy day ahead. Once she was done here she needed to go to Mornington Crescent to collect stock from Rahnak, the woman who supplied her with the delicate hand-stitched silk flowers she liked to use on wedding cakes (she felt for the envelope in her bag; Rahnak operated on a cash-only basis) and from there to Brixton, to pick up Jem’s things.
She thought about the look on his face when she’d offered to help. He’d been relieved but not entirely so – a tiny wrinkle in his chin, a pressing of the mouth – the prospect of her handling his stuff worried him. She remembered the day he’d arrived, the way she’d purposely slammed his custody bag onto the table, breaking something inside, and was hit by a rush of shame.
Ahead she could see an overhang, a long concrete lip that fed out from an office building and provided shelter for twenty or thirty people sleeping rough.
Is this where Piotr had meant for her to go?
Moving closer she saw that each sleeping area was clearly demarcated by a cardboard box, folded and shaped into a kind of futon, and that instead of sleeping bags, everyone had white double duvets. Kerosene stoves, bottles of water, half-eaten packets of croissants and large wheelie suitcases sat next to their beds. One man had an alarm clock by his pillow.
Most of the camp were sleeping soundly despite the traffic and chattering pedestrians, but one person was awake, a woman. Sitting with her back against the wall, she’d wrapped the duvet around the lower part of her body and was watching the world go by, smoking.
Hannah came to stand at the foot of her bed.
‘Sorry to intrude,’ she shouted, competing against the blare of cars.
The woman put out her cigarette and drew the duvet up to her chin. Her face was stained orange by the sun, her eyes black.
‘We are not moving,’ she said. Her accent was Baltic, her voice low. ‘We don’t want to go to your shelter or your church, we stay here.’
The couple in the next bed along stirred, the man cricking his eyes to the morning.
‘I’m not from a charity,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m looking for someone. Jamal? Do you know him?’
The woman said nothing but Hannah saw how her eyes flicked toward the duvet at the farthermost part of the row.
‘We can’t help you,’ said the man in the next bed, his eyes now wide open. ‘Fuck off.’
But Hannah was already on her way.
The edge of the camp was bleak. Those who slept here were buffeted by the worst of the wind and vulnerable to everything from rain to those who might want to steal from them while t
hey slept. The final bed was occupied by a woman wearing a puffa jacket zipped to her chin and a paisley scarf in her hair. She looked no more than twenty. As Hannah approached she reached for something and sat bolt upright, a screwdriver in hand.
‘Sorry,’ said Hannah, taking a step back. ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you.’
The woman eyed Hannah’s clothes and bag and, reassured, dropped the screwdriver on the bed.
‘I’m looking for someone,’ said Hannah. ‘Jamal?’
‘Jamal? Don’t know anyone with that name,’ she said and shook her head, but the slight change in her face, a breeze rippling across a pond, told Hannah otherwise.
‘My husband,’ said Hannah. ‘He was killed. I was told Jamal might know something about the person that did it.’ She got out a business card. ‘Please, if you see him, ask him to call.’
As the woman took it from her the duvet slipped, exposing her rounded belly.
Hannah startled.
‘How many months?’
A flicker of shame.
‘Seven.’
Hannah looked at the pavement next to where the woman lay, the concrete pocked with gum, and wondered what she’d do, where she’d sleep, once she’d given birth.
She felt for the envelope of cash in her bag. Rahnak would have to wait.
‘For the baby,’ she said and handed it to her.
The woman hesitated, caught off guard, then snatched it and pushed it inside her jacket.
Hannah went to walk away.
‘Jamal was a cleaner,’ she shouted after her. She gestured at the row. ‘We all are. But now he doesn’t answer his phone, no one knows where he is.’ She shrugged. ‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t ask him to call.’
More people were awake now. They sat up in their beds, heads craned toward the intruder at the end of the row.
‘You are making everyone nervous,’ said the woman. ‘They see me talking to you and they won’t trust me. I am already at the edge of the group. Please go.’
Jem
It’s just before 2 p.m. when I hear the key in the front door. I get to my feet, ready to greet her, ready to thank her.
Minutes pass and she has still not appeared.
I strain my ears and catch what sound like footsteps and the occasional metallic clank. Then she says something I can’t make out and the door slams shut.
Quick thuds on the stairs and she’s there.
‘That was eventful,’ she says, going to the sink for a glass of water. She is red-faced and sweaty, hair tied back, but she doesn’t seem concerned; if anything she’s chipper. A spring in her step.
‘Were Rita and Winston difficult?’ I’m not sure if she’s talking about what happened at Warren Street or with the move. ‘They can be grumpy.’
‘They were fine,’ she says gulping the water down in one. ‘It was the new place that was the problem.’ She refills her glass. ‘They wouldn’t let me in. Said they’d messaged you last night to say they’d changed their mind, that your money would be refunded.’
I grip the steel bars and squeeze. Kenzie should have been on top of this, he had access to the account, to my messages.
‘So what happened to my stuff?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do, so I brought it here.’
‘Here?’ The word is more of an accusation than a question. ‘In this house?’
Hannah cocks her head to one side, her expression flitting from confused to insulted and back again. She thought she’d done me a favour and she has, her intentions were good, but she’s also put us both in danger.
‘I’ll put the boxes in the spare room for now,’ she says coolly, ‘then I’ll move them into the loft.’
I see a chance and take it.
‘Or you could put them with my custody bag,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light, ‘store all my things in the one place?’
‘More like I’d have to put the bag with them,’ she says, mooching through the fridge. ‘It’s in the old airing cupboard at the top of the stairs.’ She emerges with a packet of sliced chicken and a punnet of tomatoes. ‘Not exactly roomy.’ She dumps the food on the counter. ‘Enough storage chat for one day. You ready for lunch?’
Hannah
Early evening Wednesday, Jem’s phone time. Hannah left the device in the hatch and retreated to the living room. She’d just hit the top stair when she heard him hang up. This was usual – from what she could tell there’d only been two occasions on which he’d actually talked to someone – still, until now, she’d always made sure to keep her distance for the full hour in case he decided to use his minutes on someone else. Tonight though, as soon as she heard the hatch clank she came back down. He’d been living with her for nearly two months and she was curious as to why he rarely spoke to anyone, why his visitors were so few and far between.
Turning the corner into the kitchen she realised that, when it came to a spontaneous getting-to-know-you chat, she couldn’t have picked a more inappropriate moment. He sat on the bed, head in hands; she’d never seen him with his guard so down.
It was a private moment, intensely so.
She turned round, hoping to double back before he realised she was there. She wasn’t quick enough.
‘Hannah?’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll go.’
‘No.’ His response was immediate, his voice thick with some emotion she couldn’t place. ‘Please, I don’t want to be alone.’
Hannah came and stood by the cell. Her instinct was to ask what was bothering him, to tell him he could confide in her, that she was here to listen, but she sensed that to acknowledge his upset would be to embarrass him. That he would close off completely.
She grabbed a bottle of red from the rack. She decided that, if she wanted to put him at ease, her best bet would be to change tack completely.
‘So.’ She unscrewed the lid, poured two glasses and handed one to him through the bars. ‘Your name. Who was the Harper Lee fan?’
Jem took a few beats to catch up. Then, as he understood what she was doing, he smiled, grateful.
‘Mum,’ he said, accepting the drink. ‘She taught literature.’
They both took a sip of wine.
‘Funny,’ said Hannah, cocking her head left and right as if she was marking him for size, ‘you seem more like a Scout to me.’
Jem laughed and then, as the break in tension rolled over him, threw back his head and laughed some more.
Hannah pulled a chair close.
‘Where did she teach?’
‘Anywhere that would have her.’ He pressed his lips against the outer side of the goblet, as if in a kiss. ‘Sixth form, university. She was bipolar, never stayed in any one place too long.’
‘And your dad?’
Jem shrugged.
‘Off the scene before I was born. Mum was vague on the details.’
They drank their wine in silence.
‘I can’t be bothered to cook tonight,’ said Hannah once she’d drained her glass. ‘Shall we order in? Pizza or Indian?’
Jem laughed, not sure if this was another joke, and then again once he realised she was serious.
‘Either.’
‘Indian it is. Do you like poppadoms? Because if you do I’m going to order double.’
She went to the drawers, rifling for menus, and had just found the one she was looking for when her phone rang. It wasn’t a number she recognised.
‘You asked me to let you know if I heard from Jamal,’ said a woman. In the background Hannah could hear the roar of traffic. ‘He called this morning, asking about the baby.’ She took a slow breath, like she was still weighing up whether or not to share what she’d learned. ‘Afterward I googled the number he’d called from.’ Her voice was edged with triumph now, delighted at her ingenuity. ‘It was for a hotel.’
Parade sat on the outer reaches of Margate’s Marine Drive. Its Victorian frontage and stained-glass windows were still intact, the woodwork painted racing green. The wom
an said Jamal had called her from a number that matched this hotel and that, although he wouldn’t tell her as much, she was sure this must be his new place of employ.
Hannah looked to the beach twinkling with broken glass, sniffed and covered her nose. The tide was going out and the air was ripe with rotten seaweed. For a brief moment she thought she saw a person in the water but when she looked again she realised it was the head and shoulders of an Antony Gormley, the iron statue facing out to sea.
She pushed against the hotel’s swing door and flinched at a loud, electronic hee-haw above her head. An alarm. The noise was familiar, like an old radio jingle you’re surprised to find you still know the words to. She was trying to figure out where she might have heard it before when the man behind reception said hello.
‘Do you have a reservation?’ Hunched over the computer, he was already swishing the mouse, ready to input her details.
The entrance area was all pristine white leather and sheepskin, a large leather-bound guestbook on the counter. Looking closer though she saw that the floor was littered with dust balls and that a glass bowl of what she guessed were supposed to be crisp green apples was on the turn, the fruit mottled brown.
‘I’m looking for someone that works here,’ she said. ‘Jamal?’
He withdrew his hand from the mouse and came to standing.
‘That would be me,’ he said slowly. His manner was still bright but there was a new strain to his voice, a pinch around the cheeks, like he wasn’t sure whether to be wary or open to some wonderful impending surprise. His hair was cropped close to the scalp and Hannah noticed a long white scar lintelled above his right ear.
‘I’ve been told you might know something about my husband’s death,’ she said, watching him carefully. ‘He was a Met detective.’
His smile hardened.
‘Can’t help you.’ His eyes went from the black CCTV orb above the door to the one behind the counter.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you know and I’ll leave you in peace.’
He crossed his arms, thinking.
‘How did you find me?’ he said eventually. Then he looked at her again, reassessing. ‘Wait, are you the one who gave Martina money?’
The Captive Page 15
