‘Lizzie Bartholomew. What are you doing here?’
He’d come up on my blind side. There was a jolt of adrenaline in my system which made me want to run, but I turned slowly to face him. For a moment, because I’d been so focused on the woman and the two little girls, I couldn’t place him.
‘Dan Meech!’ So pleased with myself for remembering that it sounded as if he were a long-lost brother. I thumped him on the back because that’s what he would have expected. Nothing soppy, though once I’d fancied him like crazy. We’d gone out a couple of times at university but, it seemed he liked his women blonde and willowy. He’d dumped me for a girl on his course because he said we were too like mates. An excuse of course. She was stunning. He’d been doing performing arts. She was passionate about ballet. How could I compete?
I thought I’d carried this encounter off well, but he said, ‘Hey, Liz. Are you OK?’ And put his hand under my arm as if I needed him to steady me.
Looking past him into the street, I must have sounded absent-minded.
‘Yeah, Dan. Course.’ The childminder and the little girls had disappeared. ‘Look, Dan, I’m in a real hurry. I’ll have to go. See you around.’
I sprinted down the street. When I turned back briefly, Dan was still standing there in his baggy trousers, looking as if he’d been set an exercise in his mime class: ‘express surprise and confusion’. He always was a drama queen.
Still I couldn’t see the childminder and the two kids. I was scared they’d already gone into one of the houses and I’d have to go through the whole charade of playing doting auntie by the school gate again. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. This was turning into the smart bit of Whitley Bay. Big Edwardian houses were set back from the pavement. Through painted wooden gates I glimpsed long back gardens with fruit trees and striped lawns. The streets were parallel, running off the main road, where the row of small shops gave the impression of a village. I didn’t see it as a place where the childminder would live. The houses round here went for a lifetime’s earnings. She was taking the girls to their own home and I didn’t even know which street she’d taken from the main road.
I stopped running. I was just drawing attention to myself. People were staring. I must have looked wild. Again I forced myself to breathe more slowly into the pit of my stomach, then began a systematic search. The streets were straight. Although trees had been planted at the edge of the pavements, I could see to the end of each one. There was a group of kids walking down the first I tried, but they were older, loaded down with violin cases and bags of books. There was no adult with them. The second was empty.
That was it. Time to give up. Perhaps I could find Dan again and persuade him to come for a drink. I really needed a drink Last time I’d heard, Dan had been working for a community theatre group and he was always broke. I could probably buy half an hour’s company for the price of a pint. Or two. Then I heard voices behind me. Children’s voices. The minder was carrying a plastic bag with Alldays Convenience Stores printed on the side. They’d been in a shop all the time and in my panic I’d run past them.
I was standing on the pavement like a prat, looking crazily around me. There was nowhere to hide. The woman came up to me and stopped.
‘That was quick,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’ve got rid of your sister’s kids, then?’
‘Yes.’ She must have thought I was a halfwit. ‘Change of plan.’
‘Do you live round here?’ There was envy in her voice which confirmed that she didn’t.
‘Nah. I wish. Just meeting a friend.’
We smiled conspiratorially. For a moment it was us against all these rich bastards in their big houses. Then she moved on.
I stood at the corner and watched her go, counting the houses until she went in. She didn’t look back. The Laings’ house had a storm porch with a blue front door and there was a magnolia tree in the front garden. I wouldn’t miss it if I came again. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had a choice. A drink with Dan or make an effort to see Kay. A late-afternoon pub, quiet, with only a couple of serious drinkers to compete for the landlady’s attention, seemed attractive. Dan would be up for it. We could talk about university, catch up on the news of old friends. He’d probably still be on the main road, expressing confusion and surprise. But I wanted to meet Kay Laing. It was already a quarter to four. Kay was an infant teacher. The kids would be gone by three-thirty at the latest. There’d be clearing up to do, a staff meeting perhaps, but she could be home at any time. Without being conscious of taking a decision, I leaned against the phone box on the corner and waited, watching the traffic grow heavier, my eyes fixed on the blue front door.
She arrived home nearly an hour later. I knew it was an hour because I checked my watch, but it seemed as if I’d only been there for minutes. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking about. She was driving an electric-blue Corsa. It was new. Not something Ronnie would normally stock and not something picked up at an auction. She pulled into the side of the road, so I thought she was going to leave the car there, but she opened the door of the double garage and drove into one side. Five minutes later, the childminder came out through the front porch. One of the children waved to her from a bedroom window, but she didn’t notice. She walked down the street in the opposite direction. I waited until she was out of sight before approaching the house.
Chapter Eleven
Kay Laing opened the door as if she expected the caller to be someone dirty and unemployed selling dishcloths. She couldn’t have many friends who just dropped in. She’d changed from the skirt and jacket she’d been wearing for work into a grey tracksuit and white trainers. Very white trainers.
‘Yes?’
This was the woman Philip had made love to more than twenty years ago, the mother of his child. She would have been very different then, of course. A student. And I could tell she would have been pretty in a conventional way. But that was the problem. I wasn’t jealous, nothing like that. I was disappointed. I had hoped for more from Philip, that he would have fallen for someone different, more exciting.
‘Well?’ she demanded. She made to close the door.
I flashed my identity pass. ‘Lizzie Bartholomew from the youth justice team.’
I wasn’t sure if there was a youth justice team in North Tyneside and at nineteen Thomas Mariner would probably be too old to concern them. But social service provision was labyrinthine, even to the people involved. I didn’t think Kay Laing would know the difference.
‘He doesn’t live here now.’
‘I’m aware of that, Mrs Laing. I just want a chat.’
Talking to Kay I felt sharper than I had all day, on top of things for the first time. Philip would have been proud. On the other side of the privet hedge, an elderly neighbour was on his knees weeding. If he hadn’t been there Kay wouldn’t have been so accommodating. She didn’t want him to hear her being rude.
‘You’d better come in.’
Ahead of me through an open door I saw the children at a table in the kitchen. They had changed too, one into pink dungarees with matching flowery shirt, the other into blue. I knew their uniforms would be hung up and neatly folded, ready for the next day. They were working with exercise books and pencils. I thought they seemed too young for homework but none of the schools I’d attended had been like St Cuthbert’s. And perhaps things had changed.
The living room was yellow and white. Stripped floors. Two big oatmeal sofas with yellow woven throws. A wood-burning stove, cold now. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Not Kay’s taste, I thought. She’d have gone for something more chintzy and convenient, Dralon and a real-flame gas fire. Ronnie’s, then… I was impressed.