by John Harvey
A weak sun was visible between the clouds.
'Not taking solids these days?' Will said, sliding on to the bench alongside her.
'I had something earlier.'
'You can have one of these if you want.' He was unwrapping the foil package he'd brought from the car: ham and cheese sandwiches with mustard and tomato.
'Lorraine make those for you?'
Will shrugged. 'She was getting Jake's lunch anyway.'
He held one out towards her and she shook her head. 'What happened to Pret A Manger?' she asked. 'Fancy chicken and avocado and a cinnamon what-you-call-it?'
'Too expensive.'
'On your salary?'
'Lorraine wants to take the kids to Center Parcs at Whitsun. It's not cheap.'
Helen took a last drag at her cigarette, wafted the smoke away from Will into the air, and ground out the butt beneath her shoe.
'She saw you the other day,' Will said.
'Lorraine did?'
'Snogging some guy in the market. Tongue right down his throat, apparently. Wonder the poor bloke could breathe.'
'Bollocks!'
'They probably came into it. Sooner or later.'
'Fuck off, Will!'
Will laughed.
'No, I mean it. Mind your own damned business.'
'Okay, okay. But if you don't want people to pass comment, perhaps you should stop getting carried away in public.'
'Yeah, well. Easy for you to say.' Helen reached into her bag and tapped another cigarette out of the pack.
'You don't need that,' Will said, hand on her arm.
'Don't tell me what I need, Will,' she said, shaking him off. 'You're not my doctor. Not my bloody father, either.'
'That's what Lorraine said.'
'Well, she's right.'
'I'm your friend, least I thought I was.'
'You're my boss.'
'Can't I be both?'
She looked at him. 'Maybe.' Lighting her cigarette, she inhaled deeply. 'Whichever you are, doesn't give you any right to comment on my love life.'
'Okay. Fair enough.'
He went back to his sandwich; Helen drank some of her coffee. An ambulance went fast past the sports centre away to their left, sirens blasting, heading for the Newmarket Road.
'Is it serious?' Will asked. 'This bloke?'
'Maybe.'
'How serious?'
She cast him a sideways glance. 'Enough for him to want to leave his wife.'
'Oh, Christ, Helen!'
'It's all that's out there, all you'd want to shag anyway—gay blokes and married men.'
'He's not on the force?'
Slowly, she nodded, avoiding his eye.
'Who?'
'It doesn't matter.'
'Who?'
'Declan.'
'Declan Morrison?'
Helen nodded.
'God, Helen, what did you do? Line up the ten most unsuitable men and then pick the winner?'
Helen grinned. 'Something like that.'
'He's been married what? Twice. Two kids this time around. Story is, even before the second was born he was going over the side.'
'Stories, Will, rumours. That's all they are.'
'And now?'
'Now what?'
'This a rumour?'
Helen shook her head in annoyance. 'Don't.'
'Don't what?'
'Don't preach.'
'Okay.'
Will rewrapped the uneaten half of his sandwich and slipped it back down into his coat pocket. Declan Morrison had transferred into the Cambridgeshire force from Sunderland three years before; a transplanted Irishman by way of Liverpool and then the north-east, he had arrived at Parkside with a couple of warnings for insubordination hanging over him, one accusation of using excessive force that had subsequently been withdrawn. Will had met his wife on a couple of occasions, small and shy, pretty in a Claire's Accessories kind of way.
Morrison himself was broad-shouldered, an inch or two under six foot, a few pounds overweight. He gave the air of not suffering fools gladly, doubting authority, forthright enough to relish calling a spade a fucking spade.
Will tried to picture him and Helen together, then rapidly shunted it from his mind.
'How on earth did you ever get tied in with him anyway?' he asked.
She smiled ruefully. 'He must have caught me in a weak moment.'
'You mean, like when you were breathing.'
'Very funny.'
'Well, why couldn't you just—I don't know—do it and get over it? Move on?'
'Ah, Will ...' She leaned against his arm, hand over his, '... you know I'm a great romantic.'
'And this is what? Beauty and the beast?'
'He's nice. Really. When you get through all the front, all the bluster. I like him.'
Will looked unconvinced.
'And he's great in the sack.'
'I don't want to know.'
'Not jealous, Will?'
'No, you can have him.'
Helen laughed, spilling coffee down the back of her hand and on to her skirt. Will got to his feet and she fell into step beside him, the concrete and glass of Parkside inviting them back.
'You really think he'll leave his wife?' he said.
'That's what he says.'
'Don't they all? When they want to go over the side?'
Helen's face tightened. 'Do they, Will? You tell me.'
They walked the rest of the way back to the building without speaking.
Mitchell Roberts took a bus out to Histon, walked around the thirteenth-century church and moat and then the site of the old Chivers jam factory at Impington, before catching a bus back. In the city, he sat for a while on a low wall close to the bus station, smoking a cigarette, before heading off along Sidney Street towards Magdalen Bridge. Fifteen minutes later he'd changed direction and was strolling between the stalls in the market, pausing to look at a piece of old silverware here, a set of knives there, a collection of old sepia postcards. When a young schoolgirl in uniform, white ribbon in her hair, walked close behind him, holding her mother's hand, he scarcely seemed to notice.
Following him into the twist of narrow streets and passages between Market Street and the Guildhall, Will thought he'd lost him, until Roberts stepped out of a shop doorway and stopped right in front of him.
'Inspector Grayson.'
'Yes.'
He was leaner than before, the lines in his face deeper; there were liver spots on the backs of his hands.
'Bit of shoppin'?'
Will shook his head.
'Not a coincidence then?'
'No.'
Roberts nodded slowly. 'Saw you the other day. In the park. Takin' an interest, that's nice. Sense of responsibility, I dare say. Only right. Since it was you got me put away.'
Several of his teeth, Will noticed, were stained yellow; one, near the front, was badly chipped at the edge.
'You did that yourself,' Will said.
'Ah, yes.' A smile curled round Roberts' mouth. 'That poor girl.'
Will held himself under control. Just.
'You got children?' Roberts asked. And when Will didn't answer: 'I'd like to see 'em some time.'
The only thing Will could do to stop himself from punching Roberts in the face was to turn hard and walk swiftly away.
8
She sees her. Heather. She has never told her husband. She has never told either of her husbands. She doesn't know for certain what they would say. Except that neither would believe her.
Andrew, she thought, would listen a trifle wearily and then, making an effort not to be patronising, try to explain it away: a projection of loss, the result of too much dwelling in the past. If only she could bring herself to get rid of some of those things of Heather's she'd clung on to, or, if not that, at least lock them away. Out of sight, out of mind. And she should talk to the doctor, why didn't she do that? Probably there were some pills. Or therapy, that was always an option. Even yoga.
S
imon, on the surface anyway, would be more understanding. He was the one, after all, and not her, who had joined those support groups, gone to meetings, spent hours exchanging experiences on the Web. He would advise her, Ruth thought, to do the same. Share. Don't keep it all inside: that's the worst thing she could do. Talk to other sufferers, other victims—for that's what they were. They were victims, too.
Except that sharing, sharing Heather, now, was the last thing Ruth wanted to do. And telling anyone—Simon, Andrew, anyone—would be a betrayal. A severing of trust. And once she lost that trust, Ruth feared—her greatest fear—Heather would not come to her again.
A face seen at the window, the wave of a hand from a passing train; a group of schoolgirls standing waiting impatiently at the crossing, Heather's the only face partly turned away; at the pool, a shout and a splash and then that familiar crawl, feet kicking up so much spray.
But those are only the glimpses, the moments she's vouchsafed, the little proofs that jolt Ruth's heart. Proofs she dare not allow herself to question, lest they disappear.
What she longs for are those rarer times Heather comes to her when they're alone. Bright and chattery sometimes, full of who said what or who did this in class, who was Star of the Week or who had to stand in the corridor outside, who pushed whom in the playground, who was horrible and called her names, who's her new best friend. Then at other times she's quiet and will barely talk at all—like the other week when Ruth was standing in the kitchen, early evening, no one else at home, Andrew having relented and taken Beatrice into Cambridge to see a rerun of The Bridge to Terabithia at the Arts Cinema, and suddenly there was Heather, reflected in the dark of the window, walking slowly towards her, smiling. Only stopping when she was right beside Ruth and then reaching for her hand, her fingers small inside Ruth's palm, nails bitten down.
They had not talked then, scarcely a word.
Ruth had asked her if she wanted a drink, nothing more, some juice or hot chocolate, maybe a biscuit, but Heather had shaken her head. She was happy. She was fine.
Sometimes when she sees her—like that evening in the kitchen—it's Heather as she was then, ten years old, just ten, her birthday barely past; dark hair, darker than Ruth's own, and long, long enough to reach almost halfway down her back. Like Rapunzel, she said. Like Rapunzel in the tower. Washing it was a nightmare, getting it properly dry something worse. Knots and tangles that would never untie.
And sometimes when Ruth sees her she is older—not as old as she would have been had she lived—but in her early teens, around thirteen.
As if she had stopped growing when Beatrice was born.
II
1995
9
Ruth closed her eyes. Another day with year four: thirteen girls and seventeen boys, eight different nationalities, five religions, nine children learning English as an additional language, six who are eligible for free school meals. Another day conjuring up some enthusiasm for this term's project on the Egyptians: mummies, masks, a giant wire and papier-mache model of a pyramid and a forthcoming trip to the British Museum.
Heather, who went to one of the other local primaries, had been on to her from the moment she'd stepped through the front door. 'Mum, why can't I? Why? Why? Just tell me why?'
And when Ruth, after fielding the same arguments as the day before and the day before that, had retreated behind a simple, declarative 'Because', Heather had flounced off to her room with much muttering and slamming of doors.
Ruth made herself a cup of Milo with warm milk and sat watching the blue tits and the occasional robin peck at the fat balls dangling from the cotoneaster bush at the bottom of the garden.
She was still there when Simon returned early from work, having decided, after a meeting on the possible extension of parking provision for the north of the borough, not to go back to the office.
'Where's Heather?'
'Upstairs sulking.'
'What about now?'
'The same as before.'
Simon loosened his tie, pulled off his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair, gave his arms a stretch, and took an already opened bottle of Sauvignon blanc from inside the fridge.
'Join me?'
Ruth shook her head. 'Not just now.'
'It's what I need.'
'Hectic day?'
'Boring. Felt myself nodding off this afternoon on at least two occasions.'
'You could always leave. If you're really bored, I mean. Pack it in.'
'And do what?'
'I don't know. Set up in private practice. Accountancy. You're qualified.'
Simon tasted the wine. 'Too risky. Mortgage like ours, I like to know what we're earning, month on month.'
'If you're really unhappy, we could sell up, find somewhere smaller.'
'No, it's okay.' Aiming a kiss at her head as he leaned past her, he just missed and kissed air. 'Just a bad day. Bad week. It'll be fine. Besides, you don't really want to move again, do you?'
'Not if we can help it.'
'Well, then.'
Something over two years ago they had sold their high-ceilinged, three-bedroom flat in Muswell Hill and, with the help of one of Simon's old friends who was a mortgage adviser, bought a three-storey house on the fringes of Kentish Town—compared to Muswell Hill, a grittier part of London that still didn't seem to know if it was on the way up or down, a bookshop, admittedly, and a new organic grocer's, but Iceland and Greggs and a busy Poundstretcher, and more charity shops than you could shake a stick at. Still, as Simon pointed out, they were closer to Ruth's school, close to the tube and—importantly, and rare for London—there was a choice of halfway decent secondary schools, which meant that even if they couldn't finally finagle a place for Heather at Camden School for Girls or LSU, there were a couple of comprehensives that would do the job.
'You sure you don't want some?' Simon asked, topping up his glass.
'Sure.'
One of the first things they'd done after moving in was to open up the side return to accommodate a new kitchen-diner. That and a new coat of paint on the walls. Of course, the bathroom could do with having everything pulled out and being replaced—and Simon was very keen on having an ensuite in the main bedroom—but all that could come in time. For now they were settled.
'Maybe we're being a little harsh,' Simon said. 'Unfair on Heather. This holiday.'
'We?'
'Yes, you know. Laying down the law. It's only a week, after all.'
'Ten days.'
'Exactly. What's ten days? She's spent as long as that before now with your mum and dad, in the Lakes. Longer.'
Ruth could barely contain her incredulity. 'I thought we'd agreed this wasn't the same.'
When Heather had come home, fairly exploding with the news that her new best friend, Kelly, had asked her parents if she—Heather—could go with them on a camping holiday in Cornwall and they had said, yes, of course, the more the merrier, Ruth's reaction had been, well, ambivalent. Simon's had been this side of apoplectic.
'You know perfectly well I don't like the idea of her palling up with that girl anyway, but the thought of her going away with the whole damned family ...'
'Come on, Simon,' Ruth had said. 'They're not that bad.'
'No? Mrs is a great lumpen bloody breeding machine, always wandering around with a fag stuck in her mouth and looking as if she's about to pop ...'
'She's perfectly nice ...'
'And he's either living off disability benefit or one way or another bumping up the black economy ...'
Almost despite herself, Ruth had laughed. 'As far as I know, he's got a perfectly good job as a builder. And he doesn't look in the least bit disabled.'
The truth of it was there were a number of nice, polite middle-class girls in Heather's year, all of whom came from homes where there were plenty of books on the shelves and where they had piano lessons or played the flute and went to Guides or Woodcraft Folk, and for whom stir-fried fresh noodles with organic chicken and vegetabl
es were more of an everyday affair than a Big Mac with fries. And those were the girls both Simon and Ruth wanted Heather to spend time with. Instead of which, in the last few months at least, she had chosen Kelly.
So without quite coming out and saying they disapproved, they'd both done their best to discourage the friendship from developing further. Tea after school and the occasional play day were just about acceptable, but, though Heather had pleaded and cried, sleepovers were not.
And now there was the issue of the holiday.
'You're really changing your mind?'
Simon smiled. More of a smirk than a smile. 'It occurred to me, I've got a few days owing. You'll be off anyway. If Heather's down in Cornwall, we could nip over to Paris for a few days. Further, maybe. Avignon. Montpellier. Just the two of us. What do you think?'
Ruth was smiling now, too. 'And for this you're prepared to sacrifice your only daughter to ten days in the bosom of Kelly and her family, warts and all?'
'Oh, I think so,' Simon said, leaning back. 'Don't you?'
10
Heather was upstairs in her room, the walls a barometer of burgeoning change: ponies, kittens, the sky at night; a poster for the Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker alongside one showing the members of Boyzone looking moody and cool. Certificates for swimming, punctuality and the recorder. Party invitations. A blown-up photograph of Heather and her granddad on a ledge halfway up Helvellyn, laughing into the wind. That had been before her granddad's trouble with his knees.
Among a collage of other photos Heather had made on the outside of her wardrobe door, for Ruth two stood out: Heather in a flowery dress top and blue polka-dot pedal pushers, alice band in her hair, happily astride one of those gloriously old-fashioned fairground horses—every bit a little girl—and then Heather only six months later, got up for the school disco, mauve vest gathered at the top and close fitting enough to show the beginnings of breasts, skintight cropped jeans, a suggestion of make-up around her eyes.
