Scar Tissue

by Judith Cutler

  What happened was that I was so panicky I started banging and hollering. In fact, I banged so hard you could see the bruises on my hands a week later, and my hollering turned to hysterical tears.

  At long last, Todd, in Jan’s black dressing-gown, flung upon the door and stared at me. ‘Caffy! What on earth’s the matter? Is someone after you?’

  ‘No, not me.’ I fell into the caravan, shaking so much he literally had to pull me to my feet. ‘They’re after you. You and Jan. Todd, I’m so sorry!’

  By now Jan was with us, also in a black dressing-down. Ah. His and hers. Another time I’d have thought it sweet. ‘For God’s sake, Caffy!’

  Todd almost dragged me to the sofa and pressed me down. I stared at my hand – a glass of something had materialised there. ‘Get that down you and then talk,’ Jan said, quite roughly. She was flushed. I dropped my eyes. I’d interrupted them when they least wanted an intruder.

  I said baldly, ‘Your phone, Jan. You gave them your number.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ve been using it all the time from here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the police can put a trace on any phone and find where it’s being used.’

  ‘Yes.’ This ‘yes’ was far less irritated – concerned, in fact.

  ‘So by trying to protect me you’ve laid yourself – you and Todd – wide open. If Marsh can tell Granville where I am, he can look you up and do the same. If Granville can arrange a bomb for me, he can arrange one for my legal adviser. And will. And I’ll bet my boots it’ll be a much more stable one that only explodes when it’s opened.’

  Jan’s flush drained completely. She looked ten years older. She sank down beside me.

  ‘The police,’ Todd said efficiently, reaching for the same bloody phone.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said quietly.

  And neither did I.

  By now I was calm enough to explain my plans for the phone. Todd picked up the idea very quickly. ‘But we can’t be incommunicado,’ he said. ‘Even if I buy a new one, the police’ll be able to check the registration and trace it back. The bent police, I mean.’

  Before I could ask about pay as you go phones, Jan downed her whisky in one gulp – I’d seen people on TV doing that but even one tiny sip had set my mouth and throat on fire. ‘I think we’re being premature,’ she said firmly. ‘If a parcel should arrive, we’d dial 999. We wouldn’t get Sergeant Marsh then. We’d get specialised police and maybe the bomb squad. That’d lead us to some senior and straight officers, surely.’

  ‘What if they don’t go for the parcel bomb option?’ Todd said. ‘What if they simply decide to fire bomb the caravan while we’re asleep or maybe organise a car bomb?’

  ‘The letter bomb’s Granville’s trademark,’ I mused. ‘But I think you’re right. Which is why I think you and Jan should abandon ship for a bit.’ I heard the words coming out of their own accord. I hated them – but I was sure they were the right ones.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘If you can lend me forty quid for some of those coloured lenses, I shall be fine.’ I gave what was meant to be a grin. ‘I’ve got my vibes to look after me, you see.’ I explained about the aborted burglary.

  ‘You mean this van der Poele set a trap?’ Jan went paler still.

  ‘I think so. Which is why I’m going to try those lenses. If I’m working on Crabton Manor full-time, then I shall be able to nip in and out all the time.’

  ‘But what about Fullers?’ she wailed.

  ‘If we can’t pull things together, there may not be a Fullers,’ I pointed out.

  ‘You can’t deal with this on your own!’ Todd snapped, as if he were angry with me for even thinking of it.

  ‘I don’t intend to. But at least if you two aren’t here, if you’re back at Eastwell Manor or better still some big London hotel, then you’re safer and can work out a proper plan – talk to your legal friends, maybe, Jan. They must know some straight officers. They’ll know what to do. So long as none of us try to play by our rules. We have to play by theirs.’ Now I’d started to think things through I felt as if I were an inch taller, my shoulders an inch broader. ‘I’m sorry I was so het up before. But I wanted to make sure neither of you ended up like Arthur.’ I got to my feet. ‘Now, I’ll leave you to get some sleep. I think you should be away first thing.’

  ‘What about you?’ Todd asked.

  ‘Back to my little eyrie in Fullers,’ I said.

  ‘Surely you’d rather stay here,’ Jan said.

  I shook my head firmly. However early they’d be up and around, I’d be up even earlier. ‘I don’t suppose, Todd,’ I said casually, catching Jan’s eye, ‘that you bought another camera today.’

  He flushed like a first-time punter. And then grinned, a naughty schoolboy grin.

  ‘Could I borrow it? And could you spare five minutes to show me how it works?’

  In the few moments it took to show me the camera – it was virtually foolproof – I also convinced him that I didn’t need his assistance. It was far more important for him and Jan to get away.

  ‘But wouldn’t an extra witness – I take it you are going people-trafficker hunting? – be useful?’

  I patted the camera, a neat compact job, though still equipped with a little zoom lens. ‘This’ll be my extra witness. If it’s needed. They may not bring consignments in every day.’

  ‘Consignments! You make the poor devils sound like a commodity – so many packets of fags, so many cases of booze.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s what they are to people-traffickers? They don’t care about spiriting victims away from hostile regimes; they don’t care that families back home have beggared themselves to get one relative clear. They’re just interested in screwing the last penny out of them for the “voyage” and then taking as much of their earnings as they can.’

  ‘Yours isn’t the conventional view of illegal immigrants,’ he laughed.

  ‘I have another view, too,’ I said seriously. ‘If you bring folk in like that, they escape screening. Who knows what little charmer may come in and meet up with his al Qaeda cell-master?’

  Todd passed over his new toy without a word.

  As we stood by their door, Jan rejoined us. She’d been crying. She passed me a set of spare keys, ‘So we’ll know you can have a shower and boil a kettle,’ she said. We had a long hug. Then Todd and me. ‘Promise me if I’m not around in the morning you’ll just go,’ I said, before I could join her in a little weep. ‘Promise. We’ll find some way of getting in touch. I know! Call Paula as soon as you’ve got a new phone. But please be somewhere like Kew Gardens when you do!’

  I didn’t get much sleep, but I got enough to clear my head, and was down in the fields near the verge with its little cairn by about five-thirty. I’d waved goodbye to the Daweses’ caravan, blowing them a kiss, as I’d set out. There, that sounds easy. It wasn’t. But never mind. Here I was, at the bottom of the steep slope, cold and damp with the heavy dew, lurking under fronds of cow-parsley poking the little zoom lens through a gap in the hedge. If – big if – the removal van parked where it had parked before, the number plate should be nicely in focus.

  A glance at my watch told me that if they kept to the previous day’s schedule I wouldn’t have long to wait. Insects were starting to buzz. Birds were singing – but they seemed much quieter than they’d done yesterday. A fieldmouse scuttled a couple of feet from me: if it hadn’t meant refocusing, I could have taken its photo.

  A couple of cars passed. One of them might have been Jan and Todd’s. I hoped so. I wanted them well clear of any action, much as I’d miss them. It was like finding my parents after all these years and then having them whisked away. And no, I didn’t think for one moment that they might have been my true parents, handing me over to the Tylers for whatever reason. But I wouldn’t have minded adopting them.

  It was a good job the rumble of a lorry interrupted my thoughts before I could get sentimenta
l and weepy. I flattened myself even more closely into my hide and waited, hardly daring to breathe. Was it the removal van?

  I could have cried with frustration when it proved to be an ordinary bread van, one of those big jobs that deliver Mother’s Pride or whatever all over the country. All the same, it stopped on the same patch of verge, and the driver cut his engine and got out. Perhaps he just wanted a slash. My luck was in. The jet of urine was directed six or seven feet away. He threw his fag end in after it. There was a little hiss.

  Then I felt another vibration. Through my stomach. God, I must be turning into some little shortsighted animal, dependent on other senses to escape predators. But there it was. Footsteps. I could hear them now. Not marching. Just ragged walking, the effort to stay upright on the steep canal banks obviously too much for some of them after the long walk from wherever they’d been put ashore. I squeezed the shutter release. No reaction from the driver, because he was just opening the back doors. I took picture after picture, one of each backside, refugee, migrant, illegal immigrant, call the men what you will. At last, long last it seemed to me, although I could see everyone was moving with the speed of desperation so strong I could almost smell it, the last set of feet disappeared, the doors were slammed and locked and the driver’s feet moved back to his cab. A twig snapped somewhere close to me. For a moment he hesitated. Then he got in and drove off. I stayed where I was. One elephant, two elephants, three elephants, four elephants – all the way up to a hundred elephants before I eased myself free of the vegetation and pushed myself upright. Then I bolted.

  Ladders apart, I’ve never been much of a one for exercise, and people like Paula Radcliffe simply amaze me; it’s not just that she can run so far so fast, but that she does it regularly, day in, day out, just so she can do it on the big occasions. All I managed was a bit of a run, a bit of a walk, then a bit more of a run. I fell over a couple of times, once into a mixture of thistles and nettles. By the time I reached the top of the hill and Fullers I was hot, sore and breathless, and aching in silly places like my ribs. No question – I’d have to take advantage of the caravan shower. They’d left everything in their fridge and cupboards, with a little note telling me they didn’t expect to find any of it when they got back, which they hoped would be very soon. There was also a wad of twenty-pound notes – For lenses! said the note. It would buy more than lenses.

  I’d cleaned myself up, though my hair was still wet – and very frizzy – and I was just draining a mug of coffee. There was a knock at the door. My God – Paula (ours!) already? We’d agreed she’d pick me up at eight-thirty, and it was barely eight.

  But it wasn’t Paula. It was a handsome young postie, berry brown in summer shorts. His blue eyes twinkled as he smiled, revealing even white teeth. He had long elegant fingers.

  ‘Morning, Miss. Ms Dawes, is it? Would you mind just signing for this parcel for Ms Tyler? Whoops!’

  Chapter Eleven

  Now, when there really was good reason for a wholehearted panic, and after all my fuss the previous night, I was remarkably calm: the cliché about seeing everything in slow motion seemed true, after all. I caught the package, signed, exchanged a quip about the lovely weather and closed the door, the package still in my hand. As soon as the young man had gone, I opened the caravan door, still clutching the package, which I took to the very far corner of the Fullers’ plot. I laid it very carefully where we usually parked the Transit. If it exploded there, it should hurt no more than a wall. So that no one could inadvertently run it over, I pulled across the big plastic rubbish bins we use for stripped wallpaper and grotty plaster to form a crude barricade. There. Now I would wait for Paula, and, more important, Paula’s mobile phone. Because now, in the warm morning sun, it was clear I had only one course of action. All this cops and robbers stuff wasn’t funny any more – even if it ever had been. It was involving innocent people. I couldn’t blame myself for what had happened to Arthur, but if the young man this morning or any of his colleagues in the sorting office had been injured, yes, I would have considered myself to some extent responsible.

  Only then did it dawn on me that the young man probably hadn’t been a postman at all. I’d seen neither bike nor van, and though I knew the delivery workers had summer uniforms, he’d just looked summery. And he hadn’t been carrying any other mail, either. No, of course Granville wouldn’t use conventional means again. He’d have known that the Royal Mail would be keeping a close eye open for packages, intercepting and checking anything suspicious.

  What we needed desperately was that straight policeman we’d joked about, one we could trust with our lives. I’d already trusted Taz enough to do two lots of cold turkey, the second one, of course, courtesy of Clive Granville. What I couldn’t trust were my emotions. Taz, or Tadeuzs Moscicki, the only man I’ve ever really, truly loved – the head over heels sort of love, as opposed to the deepening daughterly affection I felt for Todd. And Taz hadn’t loved me quite enough. Enough to drag me out of my drug-ridden way of life, not once but twice: yes. Enough to set me on the course of study that got me – literally – where I was today: yes. Enough to send me his phone numbers ever year, of course: yes. But enough to make what I was terribly afraid he’d still think of as ‘an honest woman’ of me: alas, no. Nor even to get to that promising halfway point, sharing my bed. Don’t think I hadn’t tried. But I wouldn’t use the skills I’d needed to make a living, and nothing seemed to happen without them. So there we’d been stuck, as seething with sexual tension as non-lovers in a D. H. Lawrence novel.

  I’d known all along that if he turned up here in rural Kent I’d make another play for him. I’d also known, at a place very deep down that I didn’t care to prod, that he’d reject me again. Because that was how it felt to me. A slap in the face. A turning away. A closing of doors. But never a final turning of a key in the lock.

  I pulled myself straighter. What was I bellyaching about? No one had ever said that love should always be requited. In fact, we’d be a lot worse off in terms of books, music and plays if it were. What was a bit of heartache, compared with Arthur’s death and the total disruption of the lives of two quite innocent people?

  A nasty little voice informed me it was quite a lot.

  Tough.

  Action was always better than a mope. I’d cried enough with Jan to keep me dry for weeks; I’d played a sentimental card, to my shame. Even if there was no one to see me, I owed it to myself to straighten my back, start thinking about Taz purely as a policeman and get a life. And life would have to start with putting together lunch if I was to spend the day at Crabton Manor.

  The Daweses’ fridge provided some rich pickings for my lunchbox. I was determined not to feel guilty about taking stuff, because I was sure they’d have been really hurt if I hadn’t polished off things that would have gone off by the time they could return. Less easily I pocketed the cash. The moment she arrived I greeted a surprisingly bleary-eyed Paula with a demand for her phone. She handed it over with no more than a raised eyebrow, and retired to explore the mobile home, the whole of it, squeaking with pleasure at each new space-saving item as she did so.

  I’d clenched my stomach against hearing Taz’s voice. So it was a bit of an anti-climax when I got this electronic message telling me he wasn’t available. Well, I suppose a lot of folk are still decently in bed at eight-thirty on a Saturday morning, even in weather as gorgeous as this. I simply asked him to phone as soon as he possibly could. And then I added another sentence, not playing the sentiment card, believe me, just being dead accurate: ‘I’m in very grave danger and so are some other people.’

  ‘I’d hoped for a full day’s work out of you!’ Paula protested when I asked her to drive me into Ashford.

  ‘I know. And I’m sorry. But if I change the whole of my appearance, then we should all be a lot safer. And could you leave your phone with me? You know there’s no signal out at Crabton Manor.’

  Paula wasn’t normally one to tighten her lips, but believe me they
were almost invisible by the time she dropped me. ‘And how do you propose to contact me when you wish to be collected? I presume you do wish to be collected?’

  Best to ignore the sarcasm. ‘You could park up and hang around?’ I said hopefully. ‘These chains of opticians are supposed to provide instant service.’

  ‘Or I could go and get on with a decent day’s work – bloody Dean says he’s too busy, by the way, bugger him – and let you bloody fry,’ she said. ‘OK, I’ll send Helen to meet you at eleven-thirty. Parking will be impossible by then, of course. Meet her by the Stour Centre. I’ll tell her to wait ten minutes and if you’re not there then to come back without you.’

  I couldn’t really argue. But I wondered just how much of her bad temper was a result of last night’s failed burglary. Paula liked to be proved right, not wrong.

  To my amazement, the new lenses didn’t hurt at all. They did all sorts of tests, and then found they hadn’t got a pair in my first choice of colour. They could order them, of course. But I had a van to meet, so I opted for the nearest shade – a rather tigerish hazel. Armed with detailed instructions about hygiene and handling, I was ready – and just about waiting – for Helen when she appeared. To my delight, she didn’t recognise me.

  There’d been no phone call, of course. I’d had to switch the mobile off while I was at the optician’s, and had no idea how to get messages off it, assuming there were any. Helen tried to instruct me, but her idea of safe driving didn’t coincide with mine, which involved the old-fashioned concept of at least one hand on the wheel and both eyes on the road. So we gave up.

  Not knowing quite how much Paula had told her about the situation – nothing, I hoped, to affect her appetite – I talked mostly about the lenses and their fitting. But it seemed she was even more squeamish about eyes than I’d been, so the conversation faltered and lapsed. We’d just turned off the M20 on to Stone Street, the B2068, that is, where if you look back over your shoulder, as I always do, you get a view that makes you want to take up landscape art, when the phone rang. Pressing the obvious button, I heard just enough to recognise Taz’s voice when we lost the signal. Bloody countryside!