‘Height of summer,’ Bill says. ‘The garden’s at its best, especially the borders. Now we’ve had a bit of rain, even the lawns are recovering.’
He keeps up a running commentary: the weather, the rain last night and the forecast of another heatwave on its way. They go outside and he shows her where she’ll be working today. She leans forward to touch the soft leaves of a plant with purple flowers.
‘Lamb’s ears,’ he says, ‘because, well, you can see why.’
They’re a dusty pale green but they feel like velvet. She strokes one of the leaves with her fingertips.
She spends the rest of the day deadheading roses and pulling up cleavers where they’ve started to encroach on the beds. Bill has given her a pair of gloves. They’re not like the tough cotton ones she’s used before. He says these are made of pigskin in China. They’re too nice to get dirty, but they stop the cleavers giving her a rash. It’s a quiet day; Bill says Mondays usually are. The few visitors look at the plants and ignore her. That suits her fine. She’s happy to be invisible.
She works hard and by four o’clock she’s stacking the tools according to Bill’s tidy system, when she hears a familiar voice outside the potting shed.
‘Ouch! Ow, ow!’
She looks out to see Taheera, wearing a huge pair of film-star sunglasses, hopping on one leg, trying to take one of her sandals off.
‘Got a stone right under the ball of my foot.’
She hops onto a strip of lawn and puts her foot down, shaking the offending sandal to check the gravel isn’t stuck inside it. A tiny pink sequin falls out onto the grass.
Bill follows Chloe outside and wipes his hands on an old rag. His arm twitches as if he wants to offer Taheera a hand. She hops on one leg again, trying to put her sandal back on, and he hesitates. Chloe can tell he sees what she sees: Taheera is beautiful, and here, in the garden, she looks more beautiful than ever.
‘Hi,’ Chloe breaks the silence. ‘Is it all right if I go now, Bill? This is Taheera. She’s going to give me a lift home.’
‘Aye,’ he clears his throat and rubs at an oil spot on the palm of his hand. ‘You get off. You’ve worked hard.’
They walk to the car park where the little cream car is parked. They get in and Taheera pulls away fast, spinning the wheels on the gravel. The car swings round the corner of the drive and Chloe reaches for something to hold on to. She wonders if they’ll chat, but Taheera turns Radio 1 on loud. Chloe sits back in her seat and settles down to enjoy the ride.
At the far side of the village, Taheera pulls up to a junction and indicates right. The sign says Doncaster, twelve miles. Chloe feels the sweat rising in her armpits and hopes Taheera can’t smell her fear.
‘Hope you don’t mind, I need to nip back to my parents’ house, I’ve left something,’ Taheera shouts over the music. ‘It won’t take a minute.’
‘OK,’ Chloe says, reading every signpost carefully.
Taheera slows at a crossroads and turns into a leafy narrow lane overhung with beech trees.
‘Sleepy hollow!’ Taheera says. ‘That’s what I call it. Mum and Dad think it makes them more English to live in a village like this.’
Chloe isn’t sure what she should say, so she says nothing. The house is at the end of a pretty lane. It’s detached, with a big garden. Along the side of the house there’s a row of apple trees heavy with leaves and the tiny nubs of fruit waiting to fill and grow.
Taheera drives between two large stone pillars and stops in front of the garage, next to a dark blue BMW.
‘You OK to stay here?’ Taheera says, opening the door and getting out.
‘Sure,’ Chloe feels a crush of disappointment that she’s not been invited in, but she tries not to show it.
‘Won’t be a minute.’
Taheera slams the door shut and Chloe watches her pick her way across the gravel drive. As she reaches the front door, it opens. Taheera stands aside for a white guy in jeans and a denim jacket. There is a younger man standing in the doorway. Chloe recognises the brother, the one who shouted under her window the first night she slept at Meredith House. She can’t hear what’s said, but the guy in the denim shakes the brother’s hand and turns to get into the BMW. He doesn’t notice Chloe, a few feet away, as he ducks into the driver’s seat. He adjusts the rear-view mirror and starts the engine. It’s only when he begins to reverse that he looks across at her, but she lets her hair fall in front of her face and turns away. When the BMW has gone she looks up to see Taheera gesturing angrily to her brother, who simply smiles and stands aside to let her in.
She’s gone for a few minutes and when she comes back she’s carrying a bag and a paper plate.
‘My mum thought we might be hungry. Do you want some sweets?’
The plate is crammed with brightly-coloured cakes; one of them is oozing orange jam. Chloe takes the plate on her knee and puts one in her mouth. She’s hungry and the sugar is wonderful.
‘Who was that guy?’ she says, when she’s swallowed most of it.
‘Who?’ Taheera starts the engine.
‘In the BMW.’
‘No idea, one of my brother’s cronies, I guess.’
‘Oh.’ Chloe says.
There was something about his eyes, but she tells herself lots of people have blue eyes.
‘Kamran must think pretty highly of him: he’s lent him his car.’
Taheera turns the radio back on and turns it up loud, skids into reverse and backs out of the driveway.
Chloe doesn’t recognise these roads. They’re nowhere near the local station where she got the train home after her interview.
‘Are we heading back to York?’ Chloe shouts over the drum and bass.
Taheera turns the music down a couple of notches.
‘Just need to see someone,’ she says. ‘It won’t take long.’
They pull up to a ‘give way’ sign and wait. Halsworth is to the left, Doncaster to the right. A gap opens on the main road and she swings right.
‘But where are we going?’ Chloe says.
‘I’m going to try his uncle’s shop. He’s probably working.’
Chloe stares out of the window, pressing her fingernails into her palms.
‘The guy who came to the Minster?’
‘Oh, yeah, of course, you’ve met him. I forgot.’
Chloe sits tight. They’re on a stretch of dual carriageway now and there’s no chance of turning round. She shifts in her seat, the backs of her legs stick to the leather. Taheera fiddles with the control for the air-conditioning and the temperature starts falling.
The road feeds onto the M18 motorway and a sign reads: Doncaster - four miles. They pass an exit but Taheera keeps going. They swing out into the middle lane to pass an Asda lorry. Maybe it will be all right. Maybe they’re headed beyond the town. The car is swamped on either side by lorries that will surely crush them. She looks at Taheera’s hands on the wheel, gripping so tightly her knuckles peak in little mountains of hard bone. They sway back into the left-hand lane.
It’s hard to tell what direction you’re going on a motorway. Everything looks the same, except the sun. It was on their right when they started but now it’s behind them. Taheera is indicating onto a slip road and the next sign leaves Chloe in no doubt. She feels like she’s going to be sick.
‘I can’t go this way,’ Chloe says. ‘I’m not allowed to go to Doncaster.’
‘It’s just on the edge,’ Taheera says. ‘It’s OK. We’re not going into the town or anything.’
They slow down for the roundabout at the top of the slip road and Chloe feels for the catch on the door.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Taheera turns to look at her.