The door bell rang, two short pings, the way he always rang it. She pressed the button on the intercom until she heard the door open downstairs then on a sudden impulse went into the bathroom. Here she was back on very familiar ground. Several damp towels draped wherever, the wash basin encircled with used razors and a tube of toothpaste spilling its guts. In the corner behind the door, a stray black sock. This chaos had always infuriated her, so why did a fierce nostalgia bite at her now? She heard the clinking of bottles and quickly checked herself in the mirror, make-up, hair, teeth, then pulled a face at herself.
From the sitting room came a girl’s voice. ‘Liam? I pilfered six bottles of Pilsener from the pub and I want you to arrest me. I suggest a strip search and a night in custody. Where are you?’
Laura found the voice belonged to a blonde girl showing surprise, a pierced belly button and a lot of leg below the hem of a frayed denim miniskirt.
‘Oh sorry, hi, didn’t know he had company. I’m Rebecca.’ She was cradling half a dozen bottles of beer in front of her no doubt perfect chest. ‘Where is he then?’
‘He just popped out, he’ll be back in a minute. I was just leaving.’
‘You sure?’
‘I am.’ She picked up her handbag. ‘Absolutely certain. Abso-bloody-lutely.’ She slammed the front door and clattered noisily down the stairs. As she left the building she nearly collided with McLusky carrying a bottle of wine by the neck like a weapon.
‘Where’re you going? I just got your wine, I thought we were having a drink?’
She didn’t stop but walked a few steps backwards. ‘Some other time, Liam, you’re far too busy right now.’ She smiled and waved then walked quickly away. Just around the corner she passed a man in a blue rainproof examining his shoes. She couldn’t be absolutely certain but hadn’t he been there examining his shoes when she arrived? Not that it bloody mattered.
Chapter Thirteen
Charlene Kernley hated this bit. She didn’t like walking home in the dark and she hated walking right by the river but it was such a shortcut. At first she used to take the bus but the return ticket had gone up so much she would have to work forty minutes each day — she had worked it out on a calculator — just to pay the fare, so now she walked and this shortcut made it just about bearable.
There were the lights around the swing bridge but the further she walked the darker it got. The council should really put some lamps here. She never used it in winter, far too dark before and after work, she always went the long way round. But at this time of the year there was still some light left in the sky and it was only in the middle between the bridges that it got really scary. She shouldn’t walk home alone, there were so many places where someone could lie in wait and jump out at you. She knew in theory that things like that happened but they didn’t happen all that often, surely, and never to anyone she knew.
At intervals Charlene checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was there. If she saw someone she would run. Not that she could run very far, not with her asthma, but there were cars driving up there, she would make it that far.
There was no one. No one but her. No one else was stupid enough to use this shortcut, she thought icily.
Charlene could feel herself go wheezy — hell, she could hear herself go wheezy, it was so quiet on this stretch. She stopped, got out her inhaler, always in her left jacket pocket, shook it and took a deep suck into her lungs. That was better. Her biggest fear was that one day it would simply stop working. One day she would use her puffer and nothing would happen. She was only seventeen now, could you really live all your life relying on your inhaler being there when you felt that someone had stolen all the oxygen from the air? But then you never knew, they might find a cure for asthma though she wasn’t sure they were actually looking for one.
As she set off again, aiming for the weak puddle of light that a sodium lamp from the bridge threw on to the path, a shiny object near the edge of it drew her eye. It gave her something else to aim for, would take her mind off things for the next few yards. Probably broken glass, there seemed to be a lot of it lying about, mostly beer bottles. But this was no beer bottle, the thing looked square. As she got closer she thought she knew what it was and quickened her step, despite still feeling a little wheezy. No longer checking behind her now.
It was a mobile phone. Not the latest model but not a crap one either. Black and silver and so heavy in the hand. Not a scratch on it, it looked polished in the gloom. Charlene didn’t own a mobile, simply couldn’t afford it at the moment. Every kid in the street had a mobile, the parents probably picked up the bill. Even though she was working five days at the canteen she couldn’t afford it. She wondered whether this one worked, it would be just her luck to find a broken one. Where did you switch this on? This button at the top, she supposed.
The tongue of magnesium-powered flame that shot straight into her mouth seemed to consume all the oxygen in the world. She had swallowed live coals and now her head was on fire. While the melting plastic of the phone’s casing fused with the burning flesh of her hand she staggered back, trying to escape from the blinding swirls of coloured pain in front of her eyes. With her airways soldered shut with fear, panic and fire she whirled around, unseeing, hoping to extinguish the fire in her face and hand. She didn’t realize that she was already falling, pitching sideways into the oily water with a silent scream. The other reason she hated walking by the river: she had never learned to swim. The ice-cold grip of the black water mixed with the fire in her mouth, indistinguishable. Charlene kicked her legs and thrashed her arms, straining towards what she thought was the surface, what she hoped was up, but it was dark now, cold and black. The pain in her chest was raging, it became huge, it became unbearable, her heart punched like a fist into her throat. Nowhere was up, it was all down, it was all black. Charlene stopped struggling and the pain popped like a child’s balloon.
‘Mum being in and out of hospital all the time is how I learnt to cook. No, it’s a lie, my dad trying to cook for us, that’s what did it. He was awful. In the kitchen, I mean. Can you cook?’
‘Don’t know, never tried it.’ His stomach rumbled but McLusky didn’t mind waiting. He lit another cigarette and poured more wine. What for him made this unexpected domesticity quite acceptable was that the cook was messy and dressed in nothing but a T-shirt.
At first Rebecca had just been there, then been there again, then been there still. Soon a portfolio, a messy bundle of drawings and a toolbox had appeared, along with a holdall full of clothes. On cue the fridge-freezer was delivered. The empty fridge had given rise to shopping. This in turn had spawned cooking.
‘Seriously?’
‘I’ve been known to boil potatoes and shove lamb chops under the grill.’
‘That’s cooking. One step up from heating up ready-meals, anyway.’
The sound of his airwave springing to life next door made McLusky even hungrier. He groaned theatrically.
Rebecca turned round to face him. Blood red sauce spattered from the spoon she held aloft on to the floor. ‘What?’
‘Work.’
‘Tell them you’re a hundred miles away, visiting sick relatives. That’s what I always do.’