Tomorrow had arrived without them noticing. The sky was pale blue with a bright yellow horizon. Blossom glowed on a chestnut tree. Cars were being parked, people were waiting at a bus stop. Dad could not be dead in the daytime. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong—the sun should go out and the sky turn black, and there should be thunder and lightning. Sam pelted around the grass verge, shrieking at the top of his voice until he tripped and fell hard. He’d wet himself when he was running and his pyjama bottoms were soaking. It felt clingy and warm at the tops of his legs. Normally he’d have been mortified but now he didn’t care. He lay face down on his front, sobbing and sobbing.
He heard his mother panting as she trotted up. He worshipped Angus, I’m not sure how he’s going to get through this.
A deep voice answered her. Poor wee chap.
Someone was on the grass beside him. A heavy hand was rubbing his shoulder.
‘Robert’s here for us, Sam,’ said Mum. ‘He’s going to drive us home.’
Robert! He crawled away and sat with his back to them and his hands over his ears.
‘Go away,’ he mumbled. ‘We don’t want you here.’
He heard Mum apologising. Robert was telling her not to be silly, the little guy was in shock, it was a bloody awful thing to happen to a kid. He said he’d drive them home in their car and take a taxi back to collect his later.
‘How’re you feeling, Harriet?’ he asked, as he turned onto the road.
‘It hasn’t even begun to sink in. I’m dreaming, I’ll wake up and it’s all …’ She looked across at him. ‘Thank you for coming. You must be shaken too.’
‘It’s a dark day.’ He seemed to choke up for a while. ‘God. A dark, dark day, especially for this little man. Harriet, remember I am here for you. Whatever you need. A shoulder to cry on, anything at all. Just ask. I mean it. I am at your service.’
He came into the house. He made Mum tea with lots of sugar and Sam hot chocolate with marshmallows floating on the top. You’re so kind, Robert. He put breakfast in front of them and insisted they ate. He changed the sheets in Sam’s parents’ room. She watched him, with Dad’s pillow held tight to her chest. It still had the dip in it where his head had been.
‘Thank you, Robert. I was dreading this job.’
He took the pillow out of her hand, punching it hard with his big fist until the Dad’s-head-shaped dip was gone. Sam didn’t want him to do that.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather sleep in the spare room?’ he asked.
‘No, I’ll stay in here.’ She touched Dad’s side of the bed with her fingertips. ‘He feels closer.’
Robert took the next few days off work. He never stopped doing things for Mum—all kinds of things. He mended a broken pipe under the sink, and did the shopping, and made phone calls to the bank and to suppliers and contractors and the lawyer, and drove Mum to sort out the death certificate. He answered her mobile phone whenever it rang, which was all day long. He talked to the undertaker and the vicar. He met people who came to the door, thanked them for their flowers and cards and messages, but he wouldn’t let them in. He said Harriet wasn’t in a state of mind to see anyone.
He cooked in their kitchen, or brought meals he’d made at home. His cooking was much, much posher than they were used to. It looked and tasted like restaurant food. On the third day, Sam upended himself in the freezer and found some cottage pie his father had made, and Mum heated it in the oven. So they got to eat a Dad cottage pie one last time. They both cried as they ate it. Sam sneaked away the leftovers and hid them under his bed until they were covered in a cloud of fluffy mould—orange, blue and white. He tried eating what was under the mould, because Dad had made it, but it tasted so rotten that he had to spit it out.
Robert even tried to stop Granny visiting, but she wasn’t putting up with his bossiness.
‘My son,’ she said, pushing past him at the kitchen door. ‘My grandson. My daughter-in-law. I think we should all grieve together, don’t you?’
Robert bowed his head and murmured, Of course, Patricia, so sorry. Granny had brought hundreds of photos in a suitcase. She and Mum went through them, choosing which ones should be printed on the order of service. Granny had strong views about the readings and the coffin—it had to be wicker—and the music, and the wake afterwards. She had opinions about everything.
After she’d gone, Mum and Robert took glasses of wine and sat in the garden. Sam was riding his bike around and around the fishpond. They thought he wasn’t listening because he was busy. People often assumed that about him. Sam’s a busy child, isn’t he? they’d say. That was code. It meant he was annoying and fidgety and he was driving them nuts. But what they didn’t know was that he was alert while he was doing those other things. He listened, he understood and he remembered. His dad used to call him a maestro multi-tasker.
‘She’s just expressing her own grief,’ Mum was saying.
‘Mm, poor Patricia. Burying her only son—it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ Robert rubbed his jaw with the palm of his hand. He’d grown a bit of stubble. ‘But she’s steamrolling. She’s not thinking about you.’
Mum had tilted her head back and was gazing at the summer sky as though she were searching for something.
‘My mind’s playing tricks. You know? I keep thinking he’s just out on the farm. I hear his footsteps in the yard, and walking through the back door. His clothes are still in a pile on the chair where he left them that night. They smell of him, so I can pretend he’s just nipped out for an hour. His toothbrush on the basin, his socks with bits of hay stuck in them, all those scruffy to-do lists in his handwriting.’ She gave a sad little laugh—ha! ‘Even those awful oily overalls. They’re the last bit of him. I keep trying to talk to him … I keep remembering the moment I woke up and reached out to him and he was cold.’ Her voice went high. She covered her face with one hand. ‘Sorry.’
Sam knew what she meant. That morning he’d felt something warm nudge his fingers and hoped his dad had come to see him. But, no, it was just Snoops. He’d cried.
Robert leaned across from his deckchair, running his knuckle down Mum’s arm.
‘I’ll keep Patricia at bay for you, shall I?’
‘That seems wrong. Her heart is broken too.’
‘She’s got such a powerful personality, that’s the trouble. No boundaries.’
‘Are you talking about Granny?’ Sam asked as he whizzed past on his bike.
Robert snatched away his hand.
‘Big ears,’ he said.
Sam kept riding around the fishpond but in his head he was yelling at Robert. He remembered Granny saying the man was all teeth and smiles. He considered telling him so, but thought better of it.
Robert was Mum’s best friend through those sad times. Her very, very best friend. She was so tired that she couldn’t think straight, so Robert helped with all the complicated arrangements about money and the will, and the farming business. He contacted the life insurance people. He arranged for a neighbouring farmer, Mr Appleton, to take over the management of Tyndale. To start with it was an emergency measure, but Mr Appleton leased the farm and ran it alongside his own land for years after that. He took Dad’s guns and kept them in his own safe, because nobody had a licence in their house anymore.
Mum worried that she should be managing her own affairs, but Robert wouldn’t hear of it.
‘I’m doing it for Angus,’ he insisted. ‘I loved the guy. He would have done the same for me in a heartbeat.’
He was so kind to them, and Mum was so grateful. She didn’t know how she’d have coped without him—as Sam heard her telling people again and again at the funeral.
‘He’s been my rock,’ she said.
‘Is that what you call it?’ muttered Granny. ‘Huh! Steady hands.’
‘Robert Lacey’s a lovely, lovely man.’ This was Marjorie from the Holdsworth village shop. ‘When he comes in for his paper, I always end up feeling good about myself.’
Oma turned up fo
r the funeral. Sam’s other grandmother reminded him of Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, except she had a Dutch accent. She said whatever nasty things came into her head. She told Mum that being a gardener isn’t a career; she bragged that Monique was a skinny accountant: at least one of my daughters had brains, and a waist as well. Sam didn’t think Mum was lucky with her parents. She used to say she didn’t know happiness until Angus came along.
But, boy, did Robert turn on the charm for Oma! He had her eating out of his hand. Literally. He offered her the triple chocolate mousse he’d made at Jackson’s Lodge. After the first spoonful she was purring like a cat. Soon she was inviting him up to London for the theatre and talking about how she had a lovely spare bedroom.
Even Aunt Monique was under his spell. She took the train from Manchester and stayed the night of the funeral. She’d met Robert years before but they’d both been divorced since then. She and he went for a long walk around the fields, and Sam spied on them from up in the poplar tree as they returned through the farmyard. He heard Robert telling her the sad story of how his dad—a carpet layer—had run off with a rich client, and his mother brought up her two sons single-handed. Monique was making lots of poor-you noises.
Later, she cornered Mum and started blathering on and on about Robert.
‘He’s simply there for you, Harriet!’
‘I know.’
‘No strings attached. Nothing is too much trouble. What’s the catch?’
Mum looked confused. ‘Catch?’
‘Is he gay?’
‘Don’t think so. He was married to Connie for years. I’m not really in a mood to notice these things.’
‘Mm, well, I am. He certainly doesn’t make my gaydar bleep.’ Aunt Monique pretended to fan herself. ‘Far from it! That smile, those brown eyes. The man could be a film star.’
‘What’s gaydar?’ asked Sam, but he got no answer. Monique was still raving on.
‘Sensitive, intelligent. Good teeth.’
‘You make him sound like a horse,’ protested Mum.
‘And—on top of all that—the man can cook!’
‘True.’
‘Can I have him?’
Mum shrugged and turned away, but Sam saw her smile.
It wasn’t just the women who liked Robert. Men also seemed to think he was a great bloke. He organised five of Dad’s friends—plus himself, of course—to carry the coffin out of the church. He played host at the wake, made sure everything ran smoothly, behaved as though it was his own brother who’d died. Sam overheard heard him telling people that Harriet’s boy was a ‘troubled’ kid.
Sam hated him. He hated his stupid handsome face and his deep voice. He hated the way he was so nice to everybody. He hated everything about him.
He wasn’t the only one. Tammy was Mum’s old school friend; she was also Sam’s godmother—which meant she gave him Christmas presents. She used to visit Tyndale at weekends and often sat on the steps outside the kitchen door, smoking. She had orange hair and a loud voice, wore big billowing dresses and called herself ‘cuddly’ or ‘curvy’. Sam’s mum was pretty much the same size and shape, except she wore jeans and called herself ‘fat’. In the good old days Tammy and Mum used to stay up and chat half the night, laughing their socks off down in the kitchen.
‘Don’t you think Robert Lacey’s a bit creepy?’ Tammy asked soon after the funeral, when she, Mum and Sam were out walking the dogs. ‘Feels like he’s trying to get his feet under the table.’
Mum sighed. ‘Oh, Tam! Not you too.’
‘I’ve met his ex-wife. It was a ghastly marriage.’
‘He’s just being loyal to Angus.’
‘Yeah, but why is he always here?’ Tammy slid a cigarette out of a packet and stuck it in her mouth. She took a moment to light it. Sam watched the smoke curling. ‘Hanging around.’
‘As are you.’
Tammy made a face and muttered something about hoping she wasn’t getting in the way. They didn’t see her much after that, which was a shame. Sam missed hearing Mum and her laughing their socks off.
Once the funeral was over and Aunt Monique had gone, Sam took the two-faced Santa Claus snarling-devil puppet off his mantelpiece, put a sock over its head and shoved it into the back of his cupboard. And he named it Robert. Because it was Robert.
EIGHTEEN
Rosie
It’s just over there. Just there. So close.
She has to move. She can’t stand it any longer. Three-two-one-go! She’s on her knees, on her feet, scurrying across to the coat hooks and grabbing her phone from her jacket—got it—then fifteen seconds to pee in the staff toilets before forcing herself back into her lair. Only when she’s inside, with the cupboard door pulled nearly shut, does it occur to her that she could have put the jacket on.
For a time she is exultant. The phone gives her light. It gives her hope. Somehow it keeps her company even before she’s spoken to anyone. She has no idea how to text the police, and dialling 999 is too risky. She daren’t even whisper—she might be more audible in the café than they are to her. She finds DAD in her contacts and sends a text, begging her useless father to let the police know she’s trapped in Tuckbox Café.
Hiding under sink back kitchen. Robert shot I think HELP
This will be the first time she and her dad have been in contact since … when? June? They don’t get on. She despises him, and he claims to disapprove of her life choices. Frigging hypocrite! Please, Dad, answer. She imagines him in a grubby T-shirt, rolling a cigarette in his thin fingers, shaking from a night of weed or whisky or whatever it is he’s doing these days. He’s only forty-five. Younger than Robert. Different species to Robert.
Five minutes pass, and he hasn’t answered. Perhaps he’s lost his phone. Perhaps he’s turned it off, or forgotten to charge it. That would be typical. Perhaps he’s gone off on some kind of meditation retreat. She’ll have to try somebody else. She brings up her contacts and begins to text her half-sister.
The screen is suddenly flashing in the darkness. So much light, using precious battery life. Someone’s trying to ring her. DAD. She cuts off the call, texting furiously with both thumbs.
I can’t talk!! Please tell police I’m here
The phone vibrates as he replies.
OK will do worried sick
It’s an old phone, doesn’t hold a charge for long. The battery’s already down to thirty per cent. She can’t afford to waste it.
She sends one more message. It might be her last, for all she knows.
Love you dad xxxx
It’s true. True-ish. She sometimes, almost, kind of loves him. On a good day. Or a really bad day, like this one.
And then she waits. She waits. She waits.
Eliza
The fragile rapport she’s so painstakingly built has been shattered. Four calls in a row have ended badly.
‘This is your final chance,’ he warns, his voice flat. ‘Don’t call again unless it’s to tell me Nicola and Julia are on their way over here.’
‘We haven’t found them yet.’
‘You’re the police, aren’t you? You’ve got access to every database there is!’
‘Listen, Sam—’
‘No, you listen. Nobody is leaving this café until I’ve seen my family.’
‘I understand you’re frustrated and—’
‘You don’t understand shit!’
A post-it note from Paul. Talk about Julia?
‘You’re right, I don’t,’ says Eliza quickly. ‘Sorry. I don’t understand, but I really do want to. Tell me about Julia. How old is she?’
‘Don’t bother calling again until you’ve got them.’
‘Sam, can we just—Sam?’
It’s no good. He’s gone. Eliza rips off her headset.
‘Damn! Where the hell is this Nicola person? How come we haven’t got her here yet? Is she deliberately avoiding us? He says she was in the café, so why didn’t she fetch up here, with the other witnesses?’
&nbs
p; Paul is logging the call—what was demanded, what time it ended.
‘D’you think Sam might be getting tired?’ he asks. ‘I thought I heard a bit of exhaustion in his voice.’
‘He must be. He can’t rest at all, can he? But he’s not so tired that he’ll be giving up—it’s just enough to make him dangerous.’
Eliza has often tried to imagine what it would be like to be the person at the other end of that phone: to be so alone, a public enemy, unable to let your guard down for a single second. The idea first caught her imagination when she was twelve and watched a real-life prison drama unfolding on the local news. A middle-aged man had somehow got onto the highest roof of Edinburgh Prison. He’d always protested his innocence but the courts wouldn’t hear his appeal. Hear me, hear me, he kept shouting. He’d been balanced on a ledge for hours. Will somebody please hear me!
‘He must be getting really tired,’ Eliza had said. ‘Poor man.’
Her brother Aaron pretended to play the violin. He was incapable of putting himself into anyone else’s shoes. He’s in insurance now, with four kids and two ex-wives. Eliza dislikes him intensely.
‘How my heart does bleed for the poor murderer or paedophile or whatever he is,’ he’d simpered, imitating her. ‘Boohoo.’
‘He says he didn’t do it.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he? If he can’t do the time, he shouldn’t have done the crime.’
Instead of going to bed that night, Eliza wheeled her desk chair into the middle of the room, clambered up and stood on the seat. After fifteen minutes she was cold and bored. After half an hour she was cold and bored and longing to be in bed. After an hour she was almost in tears from sheer exhaustion. The chair kept wobbling. It was after midnight when she finally gave in, tumbling from chair to bed and snuggling under her duvet. That lonely man was probably still standing on the prison roof, surrounded by arc lights and people like Aaron.
By morning the crisis was over. He’d given himself up. She hoped they were letting him sleep.
The Secrets of Strangers Page 10
