by Jane Corry
Carla would not have dreamed of touching it. She would only look. Was this really her? This was a picture of a child – not the nearly grown-up lady she wanted to be. Even worse, Charlie wasn’t in it.
‘What do you say?’ demanded Mamma.
‘Thank you.’ Then, remembering the book they were reading at school about English kings and queens, she bent her knee in a sweeping curtsey. ‘Thank you for having me.’
To her surprise, Ed burst out laughing. ‘She’s a natural. Come again any time, Carla. I will do a proper painting next time.’ His eyes narrowed as if he was measuring her. ‘Maybe acrylics.’
And now, here they were on the bus to school, waiting for Lily.
Perhaps she will not come, said Charlie from his place on her lap. Perhaps she is still cross with us because you stole me.
Carla stiffened. ‘Do not ever say that again. I deserved to have you. Just as you deserved to have me. Did you really want to stay with that big bully?’
Charlie shook his head.
‘Well then,’ hissed Carla below her breath. ‘Let’s not talk about it again, shall we?’
‘Hold on.’ Her mother put out a hand protectively as the bus lurched forward. ‘It’s starting at last.’
Sitting back in her seat, Carla watched the trees go past with their yellow and green coats fluttering down to the ground. And then she saw her! Lily! Running down the street. Running as fast as she tried to run in her nightmares, even though her feet, in that other world, always stayed glued to the ground.
‘Come on!’ she called out. ‘You can sit next to me!’
But their bus went on, gathering speed. On the other side of the street, she could see Ed, waiting for a different bus. He went another way to work, he’d said yesterday. Carla knocked hard on the window and waved. Yes! He was waving back. And although Carla was sad that Lily had missed her bus, she also felt warm and happy because now they had friends. Proper friends. It was one more step away from being different.
‘I think you were wrong, Mamma,’ she said.
Her mother, who was examining her face in the little mirror which she always carried in her bag, stared sideways at her. ‘Wrong about what, Carla?’
‘You said that women who don’t look after themselves don’t get handsome husbands. You also said that Lily is fat. But Ed is like a film star.’
Her mother let out a little trill. It made the man on the other side of the bus glance at her admiringly. ‘That is true, my clever little bird.’ Then she pinched her cheek. ‘But what I didn’t say was that women like Lily might get a husband, but they need to be careful. Or else they might lose them.’
How could they lose them? Carla wondered as she prepared to get off (this was her stop now). Did they drop them in the street? Or mislay them on the bus like she had mislaid a pink hair slide the other week? Besides, Lily might be big but she was kind. She had kept her secret about the caterpillar. And she had let her make a cake. Was this enough for her to keep Ed? Carla didn’t want her to have to find another husband.
She was about to ask, but Mamma was calling out. Giving her instructions for this afternoon when school finished. ‘Wait for me, my little one. Do you hear me? Right there by the gate, even if I am late.’
Nodding happily, Carla jumped off the bus, waved, scuttled across the playground and made her way into the classroom. After the ball incident the other week, she’d been disappointed to find that the children in her class had still not been very friendly. But now she had Charlie, they would soon come round. She was sure of it.
At break-time, she wrapped Charlie up carefully in her jumper so he wouldn’t get cold, and left him in her locker. Then she went out to play. ‘May I join in?’ she asked the girls who were playing hopscotch. No one answered. It was as if she had not spoken.
She tried a group of girls who were throwing a tennis ball against a wall. ‘Can I play too?’ she asked. But they just looked the other way.
Carla’s stomach felt like it did when it was empty, even though it wasn’t.
Slowly, she returned to her classroom. No one was there. Not even the teaching assistant who had taken her home when Kevin had hurt her eye. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen her since that day, although she had heard one of the other teachers saying she had been ‘let go’, whatever that meant.
Excitedly, Carla went to her locker and began to unwrap her jumper. Charlie would understand about the children who wouldn’t talk to her. Charlie would make her feel better …
No. NO!
Charlie was dead. Slit from top to toe in a jagged line, his lovely green fur ripped. And on top of him, a note. In big red capital letters.
THEEF.
9
Lily
I need to run faster. Or I’ll miss the bus. If I were thinner, it might be easier to run. Lollop, lollop, go my breasts against my chest. The same breasts that Ed had fondled when he’d rolled on top of me unexpectedly last night. Yet afterwards, when his eyes finally opened, they expressed surprise at the person beneath him.
Me.
I too had been surprised. In my half-awake state, I had imagined someone else. His soft hands on my breasts. His mouth on mine. His hardness against my body …
‘Got to wash,’ I mumbled before staggering to the tiny bathroom and drying my eyes. When I returned, Ed was fast asleep.
Where had that come from? Why had I imagined Joe in bed with me? A man whom I disliked …
And who was Ed imagining? I can guess. There might not be anything concrete apart from that overfamiliar gesture the other night. But I can smell it. Just as I smelled Joe. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s to listen to my intuition.
While all these thoughts churned endlessly through my mind, Ed slept. He looked so peaceful. Snoring lightly, a growth of fine fair hair on his chin. Quietly, so as not to wake him, I eased myself out of bed, tiptoed into the kitchen and got out the mop.
I got so distracted that I didn’t sense Ed coming in until I heard his voice. ‘Why are you cleaning the floor at this time?’ He was fastening his tie as he spoke. It bore, though he didn’t seem to have noticed it, a drop of blood from the shaving nick on his neck.
I looked up from my kneeling position. ‘It’s grubby.’
‘Won’t you be late for work?’
So what? I needed to make the lino gleam. If I couldn’t make it all right with my marriage, I had to make it all right with the kitchen floor.
And that’s why I’m running now. If I hadn’t gone mad with the cleaning, I wouldn’t have left the flat fifteen minutes later than normal. Wouldn’t be watching the bus disappear up the street. Wouldn’t be dreading the excuses I’d have to make to my boss.
As I come panting to a halt, I see Carla, nose pressed against the glass, waving madly at me. ‘Come on,’ she mouths. Then she appears to add something else.
Fatty? Surely not. Carla’s a sweet child. Although I’ve seen the way Francesca looks at me pityingly. And I’ve also seen how the daughter copies everything the mother does.
Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time someone had called me fat.
As I sit waiting for the next bus, I can’t help thinking about Carla. Carla and her green caterpillar.
‘You stole him, didn’t you?’ I’d said when we looked after her yesterday. ‘Why?’
There was a shy yet defiant turn of the head. A discomfortingly mature pose which suggested it was practised. ‘Everyone else has one. I didn’t want to be different.’
I don’t want to be different. Just what Daniel used to say.
My instinct’s right. I’ve got to help this child.
My boss is waiting in his office. He’s about thirty years older than me and has a wife who gave up her job when she got married. I get the distinct feeling he disapproves of me.
Soon after I’d joined the firm, I was foolish enough to tell one of my colleagues that I wanted to go into law ‘to do some good’.
My boss overheard. ‘Good
?’ he scoffed. ‘You’re in the wrong job for that, I can tell you.’
I flushed (if only there was a cure!) and kept my head down after that. Yet at times, especially when he’s barking at me, I want to tell him what happened with Daniel.
Of course I wouldn’t really. Even Ed wouldn’t understand if I told him the full story. It would be madness to tell my boss. He’s sitting across from me now, a pile of papers between us, and a frosty smile on his lips. ‘So how are you getting on with Joe Thomas?’
I cross my legs under the table and uncross them again. I’m aware of Ed’s imprint from last night, still inside me. Etched on my body like the surprise on his face.
‘The client is still playing games with me.’
My boss laughs. It’s not a friendly laugh. ‘He’s in a prison with a high proportion of psychopaths, Lily. What do you expect?’
‘I expect a better briefing.’ The words are out of my mouth before I can take them back. Fear gives me courage – rightly or wrongly – to stand up for myself. ‘I don’t think I have enough background,’ I carry on, trying to recover the situation. ‘Why has he launched an appeal after being inside for two years? And why won’t he talk to me properly instead of speaking in riddles?’
I pull out the paper Joe gave me with the strange numbers and letters.
‘What do you think these figures mean?’ I ask, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘The client gave them to me.’
My boss barely glances at the creased sheet. ‘No idea. This is your case, Lily. New evidence, perhaps, that he’s only just got hold of? That might explain the delay in the appeal.’ His eyes narrow. ‘I’m throwing you in at the deep end, just as they did to me at your age. It’s your chance to prove yourself. Don’t let either of us down.’
I spend the rest of the week doing what I can. But there are other cases too in my workload. They pile up with intentional regularity, or so it seems. Clearly, my boss is testing me. Just as Ed is doing, with his blow-hot, blow-cold approach to me.
‘I’m struggling with that client still,’ I start to say one evening over dinner: an undercooked steak and kidney pie which doesn’t look quite like the picture in the well-worn Fanny Craddock book that Ed’s mother passed on to me. Ed is chewing slowly, as well he might. My meal is a challenge. Davina, by the way, went to one of those cookery schools in Switzerland.
‘The one who … Ed? Are you all right?’
I jump up from the table. Ed’s gasping for breath and his face has gone all red. Something’s stuck in his throat. Shocked into action, my hand whacks down on Ed’s back. A piece of meat shoots out across the room. He splutters and then reaches for a glass of water.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Perhaps it was a bit underdone.’
‘No.’ He’s still spluttering, but his hand comes up to reach mine. ‘Thank you. You saved me.’
For a minute, there’s a connection between us. But then it goes. Neither of us feels like eating any more. I scrape the offending meat into the bin, realizing, too late, that it should have been braised before I put on the pastry top. But there’s something else too.
How easy it would have been to let Ed choke to death. To pretend it was an accident.
I’m shocked – no, appalled – at myself. Where did that thought come from?
But it’s then that I have my idea.
Ross. The actuary I met at that awful party when Ed and Davina had disappeared. Hadn’t he discussed this very issue with me? I work out how long people have to live from statistics. How many people are likely to choke to death or get leukaemia before they’re sixty. Cheery stuff, I know, but it’s important, you see, for insurance.
So I got his number from Ed. And yes, Ross was free the following day. How about lunch at his club?
‘These figures,’ I say, handing the sheet of paper over to Ross as we sit at a table with a stiff white tablecloth and hovering waiter, ‘were compiled by a client of mine. He’s … well, he’s in prison for murder.’
Ross shot me a surprised look. ‘And you think he’s innocent?’
‘Actually, you might be surprised if you met him.’
‘Really?’
We fall silent as the waiter pours out our wine. Just one glass, I tell myself. Nowadays, I appear to be drinking more than I used to, which isn’t good for concentration or my calorie intake. But Ed likes a couple of glasses every evening and it seems wrong not to keep him company.
‘I need to know what these figures refer to,’ I say, rather desperately. ‘Joe’s good with numbers.’
‘Joe?’ His eyebrows rise.
‘We’re often on first-name terms with our clients.’ I hurry on, reminding myself that, actually, Joe had told me to call him ‘Mr Thomas’ until I’d solved his riddle. ‘This man has some kind of condition. He’s very methodical in some areas and yet finds it difficult to speak to people. He prefers to speak in puzzles, and this … well, this is one of them.’
I detect a gleam of interest in Ross’s eyes. ‘I’ll look into it.’ His tone is so reassuring that I almost want to hug him. ‘Give me a few days and I’ll come back to you.’
And he did. ‘A mixture of water temperatures and models of boilers, including their age,’ he says now, beaming. ‘And, if I’m not mistaken, the implications are pretty big. I showed them to an engineer friend – don’t worry, I didn’t give him the background. But he said that there’s a definite pattern. So I had a hunch and did a bit of rooting around in our resource department.’
He hands me a newspaper cutting. It’s from The Times back in August when I was preparing for my wedding. An exciting time, when I hadn’t, perhaps, read the paper as carefully as I normally did.
SCANDAL OVER FAULTY BOILERS
I scan the piece with increasing excitement. ‘So,’ I say, summarizing the article in front of me, ‘a number of boilers, made over the last ten years, are suspected of being faulty. To date, seven customers have made complaints involving irregular temperatures leading to injury. Investigations are currently being carried out, but so far there are no plans to recall the models in question.’
Ross nods. ‘That’s seven who have come forward, but there are sure to be more.’
‘But it’s been going on for years. Why didn’t anyone realize before now?’
‘These things can take time. It takes a while for people to spot a pattern.’
Of course it would. Lawyers can miss things too. But I can’t be one of them.
‘I’ve worked out the figures,’ I say as I enter the visitors’ room the following day.
Funny how this is becoming more natural now. Even the double doors and gates seem quite familiar. The same goes for the seemingly casual pose of my client, arms crossed as he leans back in his chair, those dark eyes fixed on mine. This man is thirty. Ed’s age – my husband had his birthday a few weeks ago. Yet I feel as though I’m dealing with a truculent teenager.
One thing’s for certain. I’m not going to allow those ridiculous fantasies into my head again.
‘Worked out the figures?’ He seems slightly annoyed. ‘Really?’
‘I know about the boilers. The lawsuit. You’re going to tell me that the boiler company is responsible for Sarah’s death. You said the water was hotter than you’d expect after thirty minutes. Your boiler was faulty. It’s your defence – or rather your self-defence.’
He’s tilting his head quizzically to one side, as if considering this. ‘But I told you before. Self-defence can’t get you off.’
‘It can if you have the right lawyer,’ I shoot back.
‘Congratulations.’ He’s gone from disappointed to smiling in just a few seconds. Holding out his hand as if to shake mine.
I ignore it. I’m cross. Unnerved too.
‘Why couldn’t you just have told me about the boiler figures at the start? It would have saved a lot of time.’
‘I told you before. I had to set you the clues to see if you were bright enough to handle my case. I must have someone who’s on my level for
this. Someone on the ball.’
Thank you, Ross, I think silently. Thank you.
Then he leans back, slaps himself on the thighs and lets out another laugh. ‘And you did it, Lily. Well done! You’re hired.’
Hired? I thought I was already.
‘You still haven’t told me exactly what happened.’ My voice is cool, laying down a boundary between him and me. ‘I’ve had enough of messing around now,’ I add. ‘If you want me to represent you, I need to know everything about you. No more clues. No more games. Straight facts. Why, for example, did you always cook dinner? Why did you usually run Sarah’s bath?’ I take a deep breath. ‘Was Sarah right when she told her family you were controlling?’
His face is rigid. ‘Why do you need to know?’
‘Because I think it might help us.’
For a while, he says nothing. I let the silence hang between us. It’s so sharp that I can almost cut myself on it.
I suspect Joe Thomas feels it too. He is looking out of the window. There’s no one in sight, even though it’s another beautiful crisp autumn day. Maybe the other men are at work; they all have jobs in the prison. I see the list in the hall when I walk in. Chalked-up surnames next to a task.
Smith – Pod. (Apparently that’s prison jargon for ‘kitchen’.)
White – Toilets.
Essex – Fish tank.
Thomas – Library. (Why does that not surprise me?)
Next to each name is also the word ‘Education’. I wonder what they learn in prison. Simple reading perhaps, if literacy statistics are to be believed. Or something more advanced? (Later, I was to discover, many men take OU degrees.)
‘The bath, Joe,’ I repeat. ‘Why did you usually run it for her?’
My client’s voice is quieter than usual. I can barely hear it. ‘So I can make sure that the cold goes in first. It’s what I’ve always done. Means you don’t burn yourself.’ The thump of his fist on the table makes me jump. ‘Stupid girl. She should have listened to me.’
‘Fine. The bath was too hot. But that doesn’t matter. They proved you pushed her in.’
