‘Ha, not at all. I suppose I was a late developer. I had a few girlfriends before Anita but, well, she was the one.’
Liza lifted her chin. ‘I’ve never been anyone’s numero uno,’ she said defiantly. ‘I don’t mind, really.’
But she sounded as if she did.
He cleared his throat, wanting to ask the question that had been on his mind for a while. ‘What about Henry?’ he said, these new surroundings making him feel braver.
‘Ah, Henry’s my friend.’ Liza’s eyes misted. ‘I met him at a support group for relatives and friends of missing people. He hasn’t seen his brother for five years, since he didn’t return from a night out. It’s just so awful. You try to function as normal, then feel guilty when you have good times. You’re always wondering if they’re safe, why they left and what you could be doing to help them. At least Yvette has kept in touch, albeit only sporadically.’
Unless the letters aren’t from her at all, Mitchell thought, but he kept this to himself.
He knew these feelings well, of having to try to function normally while your world was falling apart. The fact that Henry wasn’t Liza’s boyfriend sparked the smallest flame inside him, even if he felt sorry for his situation.
Liza leaned over and picked Yvette’s mail up off the coffee table. She leafed through the letters and flyers, shaking her head as she went. Except when she came to the final one. ‘Handwritten,’ she said, holding it up to show Mitchell. ‘Letters are quite rare these days. Everyone emails or texts instead.’ She slipped a finger under the flap and took out a small piece of lined paper.
Mitchell watched the colour drain from her cheeks as she read it. Her eyes filled with worried tears.
‘What is it?’ he asked and gently eased it from her fingers. When he read the words, his own throat tightened.
Hello Darling,
Miss me? Sounds like we’ve both been gone a while. Heard what you did behind my back, then I find out about you and Connor, too.
Don’t worry, I’ll find you. Won’t be long. I have eyes and ears everywhere.
V x
‘V for Victor,’ Mitchell said solemnly.
Liza held a hand to her chest. ‘It sounds like it. How could Yvette be mixed up with someone like that? He sounds so angry. You don’t think he’d do anything to harm her, do you…?’
Mitchell couldn’t be sure. ‘Perhaps you should contact the police. It sounds like Yvette could be in trouble. Maybe get in touch with her workmates, too, if Yvette knew Victor through her job.’
‘Yes, I will do that. Though I can’t tell Mum about this. Not with her health. It would send her over the edge.’
‘You should share it with Naomi, though. Don’t do this alone.’
She took the letter from him and placed it in her bag. ‘Yes, and I’m lucky to have you, too. We may have to take a rain check on that drink.’
Mitchell nodded. ‘I’m glad I could help,’ he said awkwardly.
As they left the apartment building together, all he could think about was what Victor might be capable of, if he got to Yvette before they did.
20
Chains
Dear Idiot,
It’s people like you who set a bad example. You try telling my kid it’s not a cool idea to jump off a bridge, when there are people like you doing it, in broad daylight. You should be ashamed of yourself. And as for the prize money, that’s bribery, plain and simple, to detract from your stupidity. I hope you have a shitty life.
The next day, Mitchell had picked a postcard up from the mosaic of correspondence on his floor and read it after his breakfast. It had a baboon on the front. Poppy tried to take it from him to read, but he folded it in half and stuffed it in his pocket before she could see it.
He dropped her off at the school activity club and walked across the city to return to work. The thought of being back on the bridges cutting off the padlocks made him feel like he was wading through tar. Victor’s ominous words swarmed in his head.
Liza had texted him that morning to say she was going to the police station and to call into Yvette’s workplace, and he wished he could be there to support her.
The only contribution he felt he could make today was finding Yvette’s padlock again, and retrieving it for Sheila, especially if it might prevent another of her panic attacks.
As he walked, the air felt hot and heavy with a closeness that made it difficult to breathe. He couldn’t spot Barry on Archie, the Slab or Vicky, so he walked along the street at the side of the river towards Redford.
A juddering noise came, like a pneumatic drill digging up the road, and a flock of birds bolted from a tree into the sky. Mitchell walked on and found red stop signs had been positioned across the mouth of the bridge. A yellow sign said Road Ahead Closed. Follow Diversion Signs. His mouth slackened as a truck with a winch on the back thundered past him onto the bridge, bashing against one of the signs and toppling it over. He followed it through the gap and saw that a tall wire fence had been erected around a section of the railings, the twenty-metre-long rectangular zone looking like a cage. The truck billowed out thick grey smoke as it pulled up on the pavement, and two men wearing neon yellow bibs and orange hard hats climbed out of the cab. Another man already stood behind the fence, and the three men proceeded to open up two sections of the fence outwards, into the road, like the gates of a stately home.
Mitchell’s legs felt shaky as he walked closer to this unsettling scene. Yvette’s lock was totally out of reach. A young couple joined him, and the three of them stared through the fence together at the padlocks, as if they were observing poorly animals at the zoo.
‘What are they doing?’ the woman asked. She stared at the council logo on Mitchell’s chest, as if he was responsible for the situation. ‘We only hung a lock here yesterday.’
Besides them, the truck choked out a plume of smoke and one of the hard-hatted men headed their way, a clipboard in his hand.
‘Stand back,’ he bellowed. ‘Use the other pavement.’
The couple muttered to each other and reluctantly walked away, but Mitchell stayed put. He looked up at the metal bar and chunky chains that hung down from the truck’s winch. The chains were fastened to one of the bridge’s panels, and the bolts that originally held it in place lay loose on the pavement.
Mitchell jumped as the winch suddenly turned and screeched. The chains tightened and the panel groaned and jerked upwards. The padlocks hanging from it clanked and creaked as they swung. The panel levitated higher until two of the hard-hatted men grabbed hold of it to stop it swaying around in the air.
Mitchell hooked his fingers around the wire of the fence and watched helplessly. When he felt a tap on his shoulder, he spun around expecting someone wearing a yellow bib to order him to move away.
Instead, Barry grinned and stuck two thumbs up. ‘Bloody brilliant, isn’t it?’ he said above the crunch of the winch as it lowered the padlock-laden panel onto a large blue trolley.
‘What’s going on?’
Barry indicated they should move away to talk, and they found a spot at the end of the bridge. ‘Russ called the contractors in,’ he said excitedly. ‘A panel on the bridge has cracked, and he’s worried someone else might fall into the river. The council media team says the padlocks are making the city look a mess. They want something done before the new white bridge opens. It’ll send out a clear message to anyone thinking about hanging a lock before or during the ceremony.’
Mitchell’s throat felt tight. ‘Are they going to remove the locks?’
‘Yeah, they’re starting to. Russ found the budget to bring in the big guys. That’s temporary fencing they’re setting up, then they’ll replace the railings with lock-proof ones.’
‘But they’re part of the bridges, their design and heritage,’ Mitchell said. His gut cramped as he thought about Yvette’s heart-shaped lock being torn away. He had made his promise to Sheila and Liza. ‘It’s our job to remove them, not theirs.’
‘It�
�s out of our control, mate. If the contractors step in, it’s less work for us. There’s going to be bigger fines, too.’
Mitchell thought about the messages and names on the locks being taken away and destroyed. The padlocks weren’t just pieces of metal. They were parts of people’s lives and love letters to each other, and to the city. They were a modern-day method of self-expression, and they were probably all going to be mangled or smelted.
He’d made a promise to Sheila that he’d retrieve Yvette’s lock and he couldn’t renege on that, especially when her health was at risk. Mitchell curled his hands into fists.
‘Um, you don’t look very pleased,’ Barry said. ‘Rules are usually right up your street.’
Mitchell grunted. There was no worth in telling Barry about his true feelings, only to be scoffed at. ‘What about our jobs?’ he said.
‘Don’t think about that now, mate.’ Barry patted him hard on the back. ‘Let’s see what happens when they’ve stripped the first two bridges. Now, do you want to hear how my first date with Trisha went?’
Mitchell clenched his teeth. ‘Sorry, Barry, but I’ve got to do something.’
Mitchell strode over to a man with a tufty black beard. He jutted out his chest and made sure the council logo on his T-shirt was on display. ‘Excuse me, mate. I need to get to one of those locks.’ He jabbed a finger towards the panel where Yvette’s lock hung.
The man smirked at him. ‘Me, too. I just want to be rid of them.’
‘I need to remove one of them, intact if possible.’
The man scratched under his hard hat with the end of his pen. ‘They’re all being taken away.’
‘What will happen to them?’
‘Who cares?’ The man glanced at Mitchell’s T-shirt logo but turned away.
Mitchell shot out his hand and gripped the man’s arm. When the man glared at him, he awkwardly let go. ‘Sorry, I need to retrieve one of them. Just one.’
The man slouched wearily. ‘Look. Those locks are a blight on this city. I don’t know if they’re going to be crushed, buried or blasted to high heaven, and I don’t care. These manky chunks of metal will be history. Wiped out, like the dinosaurs.’
Every word the man said felt like a knock on a stake through Mitchell’s heart. He peered over the man’s shoulder to the spot where Yvette had stood, where they shared their smiles. Now all he could see was fencing. ‘How long will it take to remove all these panels?’
The man shrugged. ‘We’ll get half done today, the other half tomorrow.’
Mitchell figured it would take them until at least tomorrow to get to Yvette’s lock, but he didn’t want to risk it. He lurched forwards and tried to dart through a gap in the fencing. When a hand grabbed the back of his collar, he let out an, ‘Oof.’
‘Leave it,’ the bearded man snapped. ‘Move away, right now, or else I’ll report you.’
Mitchell batted his hand off. ‘Please,’ he tried again. ‘This one padlock is really important. I’m trying to find a woman…’
The man glared at him for a while before he let go. ‘Look, mate, I get it. I’m married. My wife and I came here and hung a lock, too. It was a nice thing to do. But they have to go. If you save one, you have to save them all.’
‘It will only take a few minutes…’
The man rolled his eyes and walked away, muttering.
Mitchell stared after him for a while, before he set his jaw. He turned and marched back to Barry.
‘What’s up?’ his friend asked. ‘Your face is like thunder.’
‘Can you cover for me? I need to make a call.’
Mitchell rang Liza and she answered straightaway. ‘I can’t get to Yvette’s lock and it’s going to be removed,’ he said. ‘Make sure your mum doesn’t come to the city centre. The bridge is all cordoned off.’
‘Oh,’ Liza said. She sounded anxious.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Not really. I called into Yvette’s workplace and asked about Victor but they said business matters are confidential. I went to see the police, too, and there’s nothing they can do about his letter because it doesn’t really contain a threat.
‘I told Naomi all this, but then Mum kept phoning her for an update, and Naomi gave in. Mum had another panic attack and couldn’t catch her breath, and now she’s even more fixated about Yvette’s padlock. If she doesn’t see it for herself soon she’s going to make herself really poorly.’
‘We don’t want that.’ Mitchell thought quickly, and he could only come up with one solution. ‘I have an idea. Would you be free to look after Poppy this evening?’
‘Um, yes, I’d love to. My last lesson is at seven thirty until eight. Is that okay?’
‘Yes, thanks. I’ll call you later to arrange things. I need to make another call. And in the meantime, you look after your mum.’
Mitchell hung up and dialled another number.
He was finally ready to call in his long-standing favour from Graham.
When his friend answered, Mitchell explained how he wanted to save Yvette’s padlock from destruction.
‘Interesting one,’ Graham said. ‘Didn’t see that one coming, Mitchy Boy. Out of all the things you could ask me for…’
‘I know, but I can’t let it be destroyed. It’s a long story, but it’s important. A removal operation is underway, so the bridge is all fenced off and I can’t get close to the railings. The padlocks will probably all be gone in twenty-four hours.’
‘Let me think,’ Graham mused. ‘Yup. I’ve got a meeting at the Jupiter about the wedding plans this evening, but am free after that. We can do something tonight, near dark. Rosie can help, and you’ll get to meet her.’
‘But Rosie’s pregnant,’ Mitchell said.
‘The woman is a dynamo – she’ll want in on the action. She’ll be good at keeping a lookout. I’ve got a team in mind, too.’
Graham made the removal of one lock sound like a military operation, worthy of one of Mitchell’s hallway spreadsheets. He worried that his favour was taking on bigger implications.
‘Is Poppy coming along?’ Graham asked. ‘She’ll think it’s cool, won’t she? Roaming the streets of the city at night, like outlaws.’
‘Definitely not,’ Mitchell said, knowing how excited she was even buying her new necklace. ‘Let’s keep this between ourselves.’
After hanging up, Mitchell found Barry and told him he was going to finish work an hour early. He wanted to call Liza again and make proper arrangements for her coming over, before Poppy got home from the school club.
Barry pointed his bolt cutters at him. ‘If Russ finds out, you’ll be dead meat.’
Mitchell gave a small shrug. ‘I’ve worked through lots of my lunch hours in the past. I’ll call Russ’s PA and ask to book time off. Okay?’
‘Whatever you’re up to, keep under Russ’s radar.’
‘Russ is the least of my worries,’ Mitchell mumbled as he hurried away.
21
Padlock
‘Are you sure it’s no trouble retrieving the lock?’ Liza asked when she arrived at Mitchell’s apartment to look after Poppy. ‘It all sounds a bit dodgy.’
‘It will be fine,’ he assured her.
Poppy bounced into the hallway. ‘Can I show Liza all the letters, Dad?’
Liza peered over his shoulder at his sitting room floor. ‘There looks to be a lot of them, now they’re out of the bag. I thought you’d bought a new rug…’
‘Now, does that sound like me?’ Mitchell said.
She laughed and allowed Poppy to take her hand and tug her towards them. ‘Well, no, not really.’
In his bedroom, Mitchell got dressed in a black pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. Poppy narrowed her eyes when he re-entered the sitting room. ‘You look like a burglar, or like you’re going on a date.’ She turned to Liza. ‘A lady called Vanessa wrote to Dad, and he reckons she likes him.’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ Mitchell said hurriedly when Liza raised a
n eyebrow at him. ‘I need to see Graham about something, and will be back as soon as I can. Let Liza read through any letters first before you look at them.’
‘Okay,’ Poppy said in a singsong voice.
He grinned and kissed the top of her head. ‘See you later. Don’t wait up for me.’
In the middle of an alley close to the back of Angel House, Mitchell met Graham’s fiancée, Rosie, for the first time. At nine thirty, the skies were darkening and, under the light glowing from the windows of an apartment above, he could see she was heavily pregnant.
Rosie wore flared jeans and a wide paisley scarf in her hair. Her faded T-shirt featured an illustrated PS4 handset and the slogan Player 3, Coming Soon.
‘My wife-to-be.’ Graham proudly wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
They gave each other a loving glance before Rosie held out her hand to Mitchell. ‘He talks about you all the time. You’re a legend in our household.’
‘He saved my life when we were kids,’ Graham said.
Mitchell shook his head. ‘Not really.’
‘I’ve still got my broken tooth as proof.’
‘It’s brilliant to meet you. Thanks for being our best man,’ Rosie said. ‘Graham says you have a daughter, Poppy. Is she coming to the wedding?’
‘Oh, yes. Just try to stop her,’ Mitchell laughed.
‘Rosie is going to be on lookout duty tonight,’ Graham said. He laid a protective hand on her belly. ‘She’ll keep her eyes peeled while we get busy. We’re just waiting for reinforcements, then we can make a start. I’ve asked a couple of my gardening friends to help out with no questions asked.’
‘You really have gardening buddies?’ Mitchell questioned.
‘Yup, love plants almost as much as my PlayStation now. The lights are all turned off on the bridge, but we don’t want to use a torch and be spotted. So, we’ll strip the entire panel to make sure we get the right lock. My friends will bring a couple of wheelbarrows to transport them away.’
Mitchell stared at him. ‘I only need to save the one lock.’
The Secrets of Sunshine Page 17
