‘Did he ever tell you what it was all about?’
‘No. I was just starting to know him when he moved out. There was a student, a lad Thomas had been friendly with when he was at school, who needed a body to share a house in Seaton Delaval. The lad’s father had bought this place and done it up. The mortgage worked out cheaper than hall of residence fees apparently and I suppose he saw it as some kind of investment. Anyway, Thomas could afford the rent and he moved on.’
‘Did he talk about his work?’
‘Not much. He likes to impress, does Thomas, and moving paper around in the haulage firm didn’t give the impression he wanted to create. Not in front of the other lads. He’d rather be talking about the band he’s in, the gigs he plays.’
‘Is it paper?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’d be computers now, wouldn’t it? Any invoice and booking system?’
‘Well, he’d be all right, then.’ Dan was starting to get impatient. ‘He knows all about IT. Ellen’s system went on the blink and he got it going again. Bragged about it for weeks, but he certainly knows his stuff.’
‘You don’t sound as if you liked him.’
‘Like I say, he’ll do all right.’ He must have realized that wasn’t enough for me. ‘Look, he’s young, a bit cocky, a bit arrogant. Or maybe he’s just not very sure of himself and needs to put on a show. Whatever. None of them are angels.’
‘Why’s he still working for the haulage company if he’s so good with computers? He could get a job programming. It’d pay more.’
‘Perhaps he likes being a big fish in a little pond. The confidence thing again.’
Some mystical or telepathic signal must have passed between Dan and the landlord, because two more pints appeared on the bar. This time I paid.
‘Anything else you can tell me?’
‘He’d started doing voluntary work, fund-raising for some conservation charity. It was probably Nell’s influence.’
‘Nell?’
‘His girlfriend. The love of his life. At least she was while he lived at the hostel. They’ve split up recently.’
‘Does she live at Absalom House?’
Dan shook his head. ‘She’s still at school. Sixth form of Whitley High. Lives at home with Mummy and Daddy. Staid and respectable in an arty, theatrical sort of way. Mummy and Daddy are arty too. Very liberal.’ He paused, gave the sheepish grin which made me remember why I’d fancied the pants off him at university. ‘She did her work experience at Acting Out.’
I was relieved. That explained Dan’s ambiguous attitude to Thomas. There was nothing sinister and I hadn’t been imagining things. They were rivals for the affections of a pretty girl. Dan was still speaking. ‘Her real name’s Helen. Helen Ravendale. But known to all her friends as Nell.’ Suddenly he stopped short. A question he should have asked upfront had just occurred to him. ‘If his mother wanted to find Thomas, why didn’t she come and ask?’
‘Because you wouldn’t have told her where he was.’
‘It is his mother, then, who asked you to trace him?’
I tapped the side of my nose and told him that I had client confidentiality to respect too. ‘Let’s have that address in Seaton Delaval.’
‘Look, he really didn’t want anyone to know. He made a point when he left. If he asks, you didn’t get it from me.’
‘OK.’
‘It’s 16 Isabella Street.’ He stopped pretending to resist. ‘I remember because I was preparing to forward some mail to him this afternoon. If you come back to the hostel you can pick it up. You might as well take it with you. Save me a trip to the post box.’
Chapter Thirteen
That night I had the Blyth dream again and woke up shaking.
In the morning I went to Delaval. I hadn’t slept well, but I couldn’t put off seeing Thomas. I’d woken to the same obsession, the same drive, to carry out Philip’s instruction. Perhaps I had become so caught up with his commission because it was a way of burying my own demons. I didn’t think the flashbacks would end when I found Thomas. Not consciously. But I felt it was a way of taking control again. Of my own life and my own mind.
It wasn’t until I was sitting on the bus that I realized I didn’t know what I was going to say to the boy. Philip hadn’t given me any clues. We pulled up a bank past a row of grey, terraced cottages. A colliery wheel fixed in concrete surrounded by bedding plants marked the end of a village and an Alsatian dog was cocking its leg against it. What will I tell him, I thought. I’m a friend of your father’s. But by the way, he’s dead.
In the seat across from me sat a very fat woman, so fat that she was ageless. She had huge chins and sagging bosoms and she took up the whole double seat. She was muttering to herself about buying a pair of shoes, telling the whole story of what would happen when she went into the Co-op to choose them. No one took any notice of her. When you see mad people, usually you ignore them, put them out of your mind. But that day in the bus that woman really bugged me. I wanted to yell at her to shut up. I had plans of my own to make which were more important than buying shoes. I didn’t shout, of course, but that’s what I wanted to do.
I still hadn’t decided how I was going to play my meeting with Thomas when I got out of the bus. It was possible that he was well and contented – that, having escaped from his mother and stepfather, these new friends had provided a surrogate family. Perhaps he wouldn’t need my advice or my friendship. I could take him out occasionally for a drink or a meal, like a distant godparent. Stuart Howdon could deal with the rest. But somehow I didn’t believe in the fairy-tale ending, and anyway, wasn’t friendship what I was hoping for? I was confused and miserable. Perhaps my low mood had to do with the weather. A sea fret had come in from the coast, bringing a persistent drizzle. I felt paler, greyer, as if it had washed away my Moroccan tan. In the street everyone walked with their heads bent. It was so dark that I expected streetlights and their absence threw me.
There was something else. Something more worrying. For the last few days I’d thought I was being followed. It’d happened before. It happened just before I lost my temper that time in Blyth. However much I knew really that no one was following me, I couldn’t get the sensation out of my head
Seaton Delaval was once a pit village. The streets are straight and grey; little Tyneside houses or flats with two front doors side by side, one leading upstairs and one down, face onto the narrow pavements. In fine weather young mothers sit on the steps, smoking and chatting. Today Isabella Street was empty except for one figure in a long black coat hurrying to get into a car and out of the rain. Number 16 was a house. The upstairs and downstairs flats had been knocked together. Where the second door had been was now a sheet of plate glass, so I could see inside to a hall and staircase. There was a brown cord carpet on the floor, which was covered in so much muck and dust that it looked as if it hadn’t seen a hoover since it went down. A bike was propped against the wall and there was a mountain of random boots and shoes. I rang the bell. There was no reply. I didn’t try it again. The feeling that I was being watched was making me really jumpy and I fled back down the street the way I’d come. This needed more preparation and I was glad of the delay.
On the roundabout there was a shop run by an Italian family. The place was famous for its ice cream. Jess and I had queued there on Sunday afternoons after a ritual visit to the gardens of a local stately home. Jess had an immense curiosity about the aristocracy. Ray would have disapproved, I’m sure, if he’d known – he was something of a revolutionary on the sly – but I don’t think she’d ever let on. Inside the shop a few tables and chairs had been set out as a café. It was all dark-panelled wood and dusty shelves with jars of boiled sweets, brightly coloured sherbet and liquorice sticks. I sat over a milky coffee and tried to make sense of my position.