On the other side of the street, people streamed in and out of the police station and students cycled by, but Bethan and that fellow she was with didn’t come out again.
Oh, Bethan. What am I going to do with you?
Well, if she was dobbing him in he was safer here than at the house, he supposed. It was hardly worth rushing back to his little Katie if they were heading that way anyway. He’d already withdrawn what was left of his savings while he was out buying Katie’s nightdress, and it was wadded in his jacket pocket. There wasn’t much money left after all these years – these girls, they bled a man dry.
On the other hand, it would do nobody any good if they got talking to Katie. He should end it decently with her. If he left now for the Grove and got it finished with, he could be on his way to the coast, or the wilds of Scotland, with Katie tidied away and nobody any the wiser.
And now this one, his first love, who’d broken his heart. What did she think she was playing at? He’d watched the house CCTV, no one had come while he was out last night; there’d been no one while he was digging the new patch by the rhododendrons to put poor Katie in. Katie loved rhododendrons – well, he was sure she would, if he asked her. No sign of the police. No sign of anyone.
What was Bethan playing at?
He let his forehead fall on the steering wheel, ignoring the besuited tart that scowled at him through the car window.
Was she torturing him? Did she know he was following her, and she’d come here to bait him? Inside, she was probably describing a lost cat or stolen bicycle, aware of him out here, sweating, watching her.
Oh, you wicked minx.
He’d been so wrong about her. He’d had clues, early on, that there would be trouble in paradise, during Phase One. But did he listen? Did he pay attention? Did he buggery.
Phase One, as he called it in the little black notebook he kept with his stash of magazines, began on 15 December 1997. He had arrived at this date after considering various practical factors. It would be nice to have everything cleared away and spend Christmas with Bethan, after all, and see the New Year in with her.
A new start for a new year.
The Fates had smiled on the venture early – his phone call to the UK Border Agency had quickly seen the Eastern European cleaning duo removed from their weekly slot. Old Mr Broeder had charged him through the agent, Mr Merrills, with finding replacements, but it was easy enough, with Christmas coming up, to fob him off. Everyone knew Old Mr Broeder, in his Knightsbridge lair, had no interest in anything but his club and his antique collecting, and Young Mr Broeder, his grand-nephew and the ersatz heir, who was allegedly a student, had no interest in anything that wasn’t turbocharged or in skirts.
At the Grove, Chris was effectively the Master.
And there was no reason to tell Bethan any different once he got her here.
He’d bought a new outfit that made him feel awkward and clownish – baggy jeans, a hoodie, a stupidly expensive pair of what his mother would have called tennis shoes. It was what trendy liberal do-gooders wore, apparently. He had his shaggy blond hair cut into the longish style that was popular for men, just like that one out of Oasis, the group with the two Manc brothers that swore all the time. They were inexplicably popular with Bethan and The Gnat, though The Gnat had loudly declared to Bethan that she preferred Blur, who were just more of the same as far as Chris could make out. He had to remember to forgive Bethan for her immature tastes and poorly chosen friends – she was young, and had no father figure in her life to correct and guide her… at least not yet.
He parked up the street from the dumpy little brick maisonette she lived in, trying to control his pounding heart, his mouth dry as he walked out of the car and towards her door.
It was all about confidence. Fair heart never won fair lady, and all that. Christ, years ago, before his mother’s latest boyfriend, Derek, had made him join the Army (it had been that or dobbing him in to the coppers), he had been a past master at chatting up old people on the doorstep and getting inside their houses. If Derek the Dick hadn’t started noticing the money and stuff coming through the flat, he’d have got clean away.
The flags leading to the door were cracked and uneven but weeded, and there was a bright little planter by the front, though the flowers in it were gone, of course, their dead remains already in compost. Peggy was particular about the garden, it seemed, if not about herself.
He knew there was no mother, hence Bethan’s distress at the loss of the necklace. He had braced himself for the presence of a father, though hopefully one that would be in full-time work.
But his surveillance had proved that there was only a grotesquely fat old woman, clad day-in and day-out in the same leggings and one of three baggy tunic-like shirts. These all bore the names of holiday destinations she could never possibly have visited in big letters, as though by force of will she could persuade herself this was Barbados or Fiji or San Diego.
Most days she didn’t leave the house, but every so often his binoculars had caught her hobbling her doughy self out with her cane to the post office to collect her pension, or to the shops for cigarettes if Bethan wasn’t around to run these errands for her.
The doorbell produced no response, as his nervousness grew. Finally, he knocked loudly, twice.
‘Give us a minute!’ came back the cracked, hoarse reply, and through the dappled glass he could see Peggy coming towards him, her gait halting. He could hear her breathing even through the door. The disgusting fat pig…
The door opened, showing a sliver of the woman’s face.
‘Hello… Peggy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ In their folds of flesh her eyes were deep-set, bright and suspicious. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m Alex Penycote. From South Cambridgeshire Social Services.’
‘Yes?’
‘This is just an informal visit. Can I come in?’
‘Of course, yes, yes.’ She shuffled backwards. Her accent was different, something Northern, possibly Geordie. ‘Sorry I was a bit abrupt. Thought you were here to sell me something. Or convert me. Come in.’
And just like that, he was inside the sanctum, being led through the tiny, neat house with its smell of boiling potatoes and roasting beef pie. She hadn’t even asked him for ID.
His heart soared.
‘Is this about Melissa?’ Her voice was rasping and the breathing harsh. It was not just exertion – something was wrong with her.
‘Sorry?’ he asked.
She turned, her knuckles whitening on the cane’s head, and the suspicion was back. She knocked on the wall, just under a hanging photograph of an exquisite brunette with a wavy perm and Bethan’s fathomless black eyes – a photo that had clearly been taken by a professional. ‘Bee’s mother. My daughter. Melissa. Have you found her?’
‘Oh, sorry, no. This is just a follow-up visit to check that everything’s OK with Bethan.’
‘What d’you mean, checking on Bethan?’ she asked, her voice rising. ‘Nobody’s come for years. We’re fine here. Just the pair of us wondering where her bloody mother is, that’s all.’ She breathed in hard, her eyes narrowing. ‘Did some interfering bugger call you lot up?’
‘What? No, no, nothing like that. It’s purely routine. It’s just that since she’ll be leaving school in a year or so, and our care, we just want to manage her transition…’
‘She’s not leaving school.’ Peggy had dropped her anger as quickly as she had picked it up, and was once again moving into the kitchen. ‘She’s staying on. She’s bright. Aren’t you, pet?’
‘What’s that, Nanna?’
The kitchen was as small and pokey as the rest of the house, but bright and clean. A pot bubbled merrily on the stove, and the oven made a gentle humming. At the Formica table in the middle of the room sat Bethan, surrounded by books.