The Calling

by Alison Bruce

  She took her mobile from her pocket and rang Peter’s number. She watched the stranger listen to the phone ringing. He then opened the letter box to hear the answerphone message.

  She pressed the end button as soon as she heard Peter’s voice start up. Funny how she could cope with hearing him on his answerphone, but then she often rang it if she needed to know where he was. Her mobile was permanently set to ‘number withheld’ and she’d already used it to ring Peter’s office. He hadn’t answered his phone, so she’d hung up.

  Clearly this stranger didn’t know how to find him either. Perhaps he hadn’t been at work today.

  She watched the young man through the pouring rain. He’d moved away from the front door and stood, straight-backed and patient, watching the entrance to the road. The weather didn’t seem to affect him.

  She couldn’t see him clearly enough; she wanted to look at his face.

  Peter’s not home, she told herself as she slipped into another inner conversation.

  What if he comes back? You can’t just walk straight past his house. You wouldn’t dare.

  But she suddenly realized that she could cut through an alley situated three houses beyond Peter’s, then back into the adjoining street where she had parked. She could easily walk straight towards the stranger, on past him, and disappear.

  Yes, I dare.

  Gary thought nothing of the woman walking towards him. At least nothing suspicious.

  He noticed her rain-sodden clothes, and that she was feeling cold by the way she clutched the front of her jacket. Otherwise she was just a passer-by in a hurry. She strode towards him, staring at the pavement in front of her, avoiding the uneven paving slabs, though once or twice she glanced towards him and beyond.

  He glanced towards the main road again. Still no sign of Peter Walsh. Number 28 was empty, and for sale. Gary decided to call at number 24, just in case they could shed light on Walsh’s whereabouts.

  He stepped away from number 26 just as the woman passed number 24. He paused before stepping from Pete’s garden path, allowing her time to pass by. She glanced up at him, and her blue eyes took a moment to scan his face before she directed them back down at the pavement.

  Her hair was soaked, rainwater running from her fringe and trickling down her nose and cheeks. He gave a spontaneous smile. ‘Nice weather, eh?’

  She gasped and her eyes widened slightly as they darted up to meet his. Her lips, red and wet from the cold rain, parted as if to speak, but she merely stared at him and walked on by.

  Goodhew knocked at number 24. Instinct made him turn his head towards her, and he caught the last second of her gaze as she stared at him over her shoulder. Biting her bottom lip, she turned away quickly, breaking eye contact. She headed down a side alley and hurried out of sight.

  Gary stepped back from the doorway, torn by an unexpected urge to run after her. What had just passed between them? A shiver rippled down his spine.

  He hurried to the near end of the alley, but already she’d vanished. Above the sloshing of traffic in the distance and the dripping of gutterings, he thought he caught the sound of her running.

  Pete’s neighbour’s front door suddenly opened and a blonde in a BHS uniform called across to him, ‘Can I help you, mate?’

  Kaye Whiting obviously had to come first. ‘Do you know if Mr Walsh is away at the moment?’

  ‘Pete next-door? No idea.’

  In the end, he posted a note through Walsh’s letter box and drove home after one quick trawl along the next street. Not that he expected to see her still. And if he had? He didn’t know if he’d even recognize her properly again, but could only conjure up a vague image of her – wide-eyed and uneasy, like a startled deer.

  He left the unmarked car in the bay opposite his house and unlocked his front door. The hallway was dark and silent; tonight the house seemed too big and too empty.

  CHAPTER 27

  FRIDAY, 1 APRIL 2011

  Pete unlocked his front door and stepped inside, with his suitcase.

  He scooped up the clutch of letters lying on the mat. A folded note lay amongst the others, but he tucked it between them. He didn’t even want to see it now and dropped the pile on to the table next to the answerphone. It bleeped and flashed the number three. That was currently his favourite number. He slid the volume to off.

  After switching on all the downstairs lights, he turned up the thermostat to dispel the chill in the air. He kicked off his shoes and filled the kettle with fresh water, then took his case upstairs and put his jacket in the wardrobe. Next he visited the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He shook out the toothbrush and dropped it into its glass.

  The ghost of the answerphone’s bleeping still played in his ears, encouraging him to listen. Avoiding it was pathetic; he ought to listen to it straight away. It would be better just to get it over and done with. But, as he reached the table, he picked up the post instead; bills, statements and junk mail. What else did he expect?

  He tucked the loose note under the phone. ‘Paulette, Paulette, Paulette,’ he murmured – once for each phone message. As he scalded the coffee granules with the boiling water, he added another ‘Paulette’ for the note too.

  He wrapped both of his hands around the mug and stared into the black coffee as he waited for it to cool. Little things gave him such satisfaction.

  But Paulette, she wanted the big things: the grand gestures of love. Absolute devotion, for one.

  He leant on the doorframe between the kitchen and the sitting room and contemplated the flashing red light. He then tipped his head back, closed his eyes and sighed.

  Her good looks and the sex still did it for him, but nothing else. He needed to be free of the fussing, the attention-seeking and, worst of all, the jealous tantrums always followed by grovelling and begging for forgiveness. Why had he hoped their holiday would change that? There was no future in it, at all.

  Enough was enough. Play her messages, but harden up. No matter what she said in a message, he needed to remember that she wouldn’t change. She couldn’t change.

  He crossed to the answerphone and pressed play. He stood still, concentrating, waiting, determined not to be swayed.

  ‘You have three messages.’

  The first two were hang-ups. Probably Paulette, all the same.

  The third was definitely Paulette. ‘Pete, it’s me.’ Silence, interspersed with sobs, dragged on for several seconds. ‘I love you, please phone me,’ she whimpered. ‘I can’t stand this, I need you.’

  She sniffed and spluttered more words at irregular volume. ‘Tell me what I’ve done wrong. I’m sorry if it’s my fault.’

  Pete reached out and pressed delete all messages before she’d finished talking. His decision had been made. He wouldn’t change his mind now. It was impossible.

  He slipped the note out from under the phone and unfolded it, expecting more of the same pleading.

  It was brief and to the point, and from DC Gary Goodhew. ‘Please phone’ was all it said, accompanied by Goodhew’s name and mobile number.

  Pete flicked it against the back of his hand as he considered the policeman’s request.

  Perhaps there had been another anonymous call. He badly wanted to know who would do that.

  Pete thought it through for some time before he decided that he would contact Goodhew, and somehow then make him understand that the deaths were nothing to do with him.

  CHAPTER 28

  SATURDAY, 2 APRIL 2011

  The little brown prescription bottle of diazepam tablets lay clasped in her curled fingers.

  She’d taken extra again and had sunk into sleep, thinking of that man in the street.

  In her restless dreams she continued to let their encounter replay again and again. She watched him turn and look at her and puncture her belief that she was alone. She had felt so the moment it had happened; like a hot blade skewering the emptiness she’d carried within her for so long.

  She dreamt that she crept up to him and ta
pped him on the shoulder, wanting to see him as he turned to face her. His features blurred, however, and instead she smelt Peter’s skin as his cheek brushed her lips.

  The other man had then vanished, leaving only Peter.

  Her heartbeat quickened and, as if he knew, Peter squeezed her left breast. His lips brushed hers and his tongue poked between them, curling its way into her mouth.

  They were still outside his front door and at first she didn’t move, just let him kiss her. He forced her to kiss him, too, and then she tasted his sweat as he made her lick his skin.

  People started to walk by, and she waited for someone to intervene. Peter pulled open her blouse and she twisted her head towards the street, pleading for help. He bent down and bit her nipple; it throbbed and she bit back the desire to yelp. Her clothes fell away from her but she made no attempt to shy away or cover her nakedness. She knew he expected her to stand still, and that thought alone seemed to be enough to guarantee her petrification.

  He straightened up and she saw blood on his lips. He turned away and she stood, unmoving, too scared to examine her injured breast, too traumatized to see who was watching, or to ask for help.

  She sank to the ground and curled into a ball, ashamed of both her humiliation and that inescapable rush of unwanted arousal.

  She jolted awake as the bottle of tranquillizers tumbled to the floor. Her warm and sodden undersheet told her that she’d just wet the bed.

  She pulled the bedding on to the floor and rushed to the shower, turning away from her dim reflection in the cubicle door. She didn’t want to look at her naked body.

  She hated it.

  She knew she had only been dreaming again, but she felt ugly and debased.

  She tugged the showerhead from its hook and hosed herself down, avoiding her hair and spending longest in rubbing soap under her arms and between her legs.

  She pushed away the dreams by returning to her thoughts of the stranger in the street.

  Today she’d find out who he was.

  She dressed quickly, pulling on a jersey and jeans, and dragging her hair back into a ponytail. Her make-up bag remained unopened in the bathroom cabinet and she didn’t bother with breakfast either, only ducking into the kitchen for her purse and keys.

  It was just after 7 a.m. as she drove to the centre of Cambridge and along Park Terrace. It didn’t look as though his car had moved since she’d watched him pull up outside the endmost terraced house the night before. And it looked like her assumption that she’d followed him home had been correct. Now all she needed to do was find out who was registered at that same address. She pulled away from the kerb, but curiosity made her drive round the block so that she could crawl past for another look.

  The one-way system required her to turn right at the end of Park Terrace, then follow the road around the perimeter of Parker’s Piece. She watched his house as her engine idled at the pedestrian lights in front of the swimming pool, and she continued to stare across at it as the traffic edged forward, until the house finally vanished behind some other buildings.

  By the time she re-entered Park Terrace, the earlier idea of a quick drive-by wasn’t enough, so she swung into a parking space beside the old cricket pavilion and settled back to wait for the man to leave his house. She passed the time by staring at the terrace house’s end wall and trying to picture what lay behind those regular, rectangular windows.

  After about twenty minutes he appeared, closing his front door, stepping out on to the footpath and across to his car in one fluid movement. His reversing lights flashed on as he backed up by a few feet, then swung forward into the traffic, pulling into the main road twenty yards ahead. She waited until he was a good fifty yards in front, then followed him along East Road and on to the dual carriageway leading over the Elizabeth Way bridge.

  The traffic thickened and for a moment she lost him behind a minibus, but caught up with him again at the next roundabout. She turned up the heater in an attempt to stop her shivering, but she knew it was due to nerves.

  He eventually turned right, then left, heading into the warren of streets off Arbury Road. Kaye Whiting’s neighbourhood. She followed him until he turned into Acacia Road. She stayed on the main road with two wheels on the grass verge and the other two straddling double yellow lines. She watched as he parked in front of number 16.

  He knocked and waited, then knocked again.

  She drove back to Cambridge centre, parked in the multi-storey and hurried up the steps of the Reference Library.

  The electoral register was bound in nine black files, and kept on the bottom shelf immediately behind the librarian. She flicked through until she found Acacia Road. With her pen poised ready to write the name listed next to the address, she ran her left index finger down the list.

  Number 16, Michelle Whiting.

  Her stomach lurched. Michelle Whiting, Kaye’s sister.

  She didn’t write it down; she knew that name well enough already.

  She pushed the book away and dragged the next volume across the desk. She started at the front, then flicked further through until she found Park Terrace.

  Only one name appeared against his house and this time she copied it down.

  Gary Goodhew.

  ‘Gary Goodhew.’ She tested it out loud, then quietly spoke the name again and again slowly, varying the emphasis on its syllables.

  ‘Gary Goodhew, Gary Goodhew.’

  She doodled boxes across the page, and then scored them out again.

  ‘Gary.’ The pen gouged the paper. ‘Goodhew.’

  CHAPTER 29

  WEDNESDAY, 27 APRIL 2011

  The reception area at the head office of Dunwold Insurance Services was furnished in black and chrome, with copies of the Financial Times and the Economist neatly arranged alongside the Company’s Annual Report on each of the three glass coffee tables. The two receptionists were enjoying the mid-morning lull in activity. Karen, the elder of the two, was in her mid-twenties, with no greater career aspirations than to reach the end of each day and receive a cheque at the end of the month. Donna was a huge help to have around, filling their days with chatter and jokey observations about almost every visitor and other member of staff.

  Donna leant towards Karen and lowered her voice to an excited whisper. ‘So he said, “We can have some privacy at my place.” So I thought why not?’ A smile flickered across Donna’s lips. ‘But we got there and he still lives with his parents, doesn’t he?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No, really. Twenty-seven years old and his idea of privacy is being in the TV room with his parents sitting next-door. He said, “I’d better get them a cup of tea.” That took him about twenty minutes, so I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘I’d have sneaked out.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t. He was quite sweet, really.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Well, I switched on the telly and I’m sitting there watching it, and he comes back in and sits on the next chair, kind of facing me more than the TV. And he just sat there – staring.’ Donna curled up her nose and waved her hands in a shooing-away motion. ‘Ugh, no, it was horrid.’

  ‘Bet you wish you’d left then?’

  ‘Well, I decided to get out quick. But you’ll never guess what he did next?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I went to the loo and when I came out he was sitting on the stairs, waiting for me.’ She began to giggle. ‘Said he’d missed me.’ They both giggled then.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘It’s true, I tell you.’

  ‘You always pick them, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s just it, I don’t. He picked me and I fell for it. I might be better off if I picked my own.’

  ‘Give it a go. There’s plenty in this building.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Marcus Bagley in Accounts? Or John Brent in Marketing?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Wait, I know, that guy on the third. The one you liked
a while back, what’s his name?’

  ‘You mean the one with the sulky girlfriend that waits for him?’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t think he’s with her now.’

  ‘No. I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested.’

  ‘Don’t sell yourself short, Donna. Just go for it if you fancy him. So what is his name?’

  ‘Peter Walsh.’

  ‘What have you got to lose?’

  She wasn’t quite his usual type. Her hair was shorter and she looked a little bit tomboyish, and she laughed a lot.

  Laughing a lot was a good thing, of course, but too much of it was as wrong as none at all. The idea of any laughter right now seemed such a pleasant change that it was a risk worth taking.

  He wondered whether he was a fool for looking at another woman, when he’d only just split from the last troublesome one. But, for all his laddish bravado, he knew he really wanted to find himself that one special girl.

  He now leant on the reception desk, casually flicking the pages of the company brochure, as he waited for her to finish on the phone.

  ‘I think you’ve got a delivery down here for me?’

  The girl flushed but kept her voice level. ‘There must be a mistake.’

  A scowl flickered across his forehead.

  She frowned back at him. ‘I really don’t know anything that’s come in. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  She lifted a folder and flicked through some loose sheets of paper in the in-tray underneath, then shook her head earnestly. ‘I’ll find out about your delivery and run it up to you, if it’s around, but I really think there’s been a mix-up.’

  Pete gave her his full attention for a few seconds. ‘That would be great. Thank you …’ he looked at her name badge ‘… Donna.’

  They both smiled then, and the ice was broken.

  He asked her a couple of questions about her job; she asked him the corresponding questions about his. She then asked him about his girlfriend and, before he thought about it too closely, he asked her what she was doing on Friday.