She lunged the Audi sideways, down the residential street. Screeched to a halt in the driveway of their Victorian semi. No Cory. When she turned round she saw that Emily, bless her – instead of sitting white-faced, terrified by the race home – really had fallen asleep, Jasper tucked between her chin and her shoulder like one of those neck pillows clutched by people trailing around in airports.
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ Janice whispered. ‘Mummy’s going to take you up to bed.’
She was able to bundle Emily out of the car and into her bunkbed without waking her. She rubbed toothpaste on a finger hurriedly round Emily’s sleepy mouth – it would have to do for now – kissed the little girl on the forehead, tore off her own coat and shoes and threw them into the wardrobe. She was in the kitchen emptying the last of the milk into the sink when Cory’s car pulled up outside. Quickly she rinsed the carton and carried it out to the front to put in the recycling bin.
Cory met her at the door, keys in his hand, suspicion on his face. ‘Hello.’ He looked her up and down, noting the outdoor shoes.
‘Out of milk.’ She rattled the empty carton at him. ‘I went to try and get some more but the shop’s run out.’
‘You went out? What about Emily?’
‘I left her, of course. I put her into a nice warm bath and gave her some razor blades to play with. For God’s sake, Cory, what do you take me for? She came with me.’
‘You said she was asleep.’
‘I said she’d woken up. You don’t listen.’ She put the milk carton into the bin and stood, arms folded, studying him. He was good-looking, Cory. No getting away from that. But lately there was something soft about his jaw that made him seem almost feminine. And there was a bald spot starting on the top of his head. She’d noticed it in bed the other night. It didn’t bother her, but she wondered what Clare would make of it. Was it worth saying something to him – just to puncture his ego? Or should she let Clare notice it?
‘How was the session?’
‘Told you. Same old, same old.’
‘Clare?’
‘Eh?’
‘Clare. The one you were talking about the other day. Remember?’
‘Why do you want to know about her?’
‘Just showing an interest. Is she still fighting with her ex?’
‘Her husband? Yes – the piece of shit. The things he did to her, to her kids, outrageous.’
There was a tinge of extra venom there. Piece of shit? She’d never heard him use that expression before. Maybe something he’d learned from Clare.
‘Anyway – I’m thinking of stopping the group.’ He pushed past her into the hallway, unbuttoning his coat. ‘It’s taking too much time. Things are changing at work – they want more hours out of me.’
Janice followed him into the kitchen and watched him open the fridge, hunt for a beer. ‘More hours? That’ll mean late nights, I suppose.’
‘That’s the one. Can’t afford not to. Not with the world the way it is. The directors want me at a big meeting tomorrow afternoon. We’re going to discuss it then. Four o’clock.’
Four. Like a slap, Clare’s face came back to Janice, the way she was holding her hands up. Four fingers. They meant four o’clock. Cory and Clare were meeting at four. He wouldn’t be answering any of Janice’s calls because he’d be in a ‘meeting’. And then, almost to confirm exactly what she’d suspected, he said conversationally, ‘What are you doing tomorrow? Any plans?’
She didn’t answer for a moment, just regarded him calmly, her heart racing. I don’t love you, she thought. Cory, I really don’t love you. And in a way that makes me very happy.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Nothing,’ she said lightly, then turned away and began unloading the dishwasher. It was supposed to be his job, but she always did it, so why should today be any different? ‘Tomorrow? Oh, I think I’ll pick up Emily from school and head over to Mum’s.’
‘That’s an hour’s drive.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m happy for you, Janice, that you’ve got the free time to do things like that. I really am.’
‘I know.’ She smiled. Cory was always pointing out how easy her life was, doing freelance stuff here and there, not a proper job like he did. But she wasn’t rising to the bait. ‘I finished the project for that website and I thought I’d take the time before I start the next job. I may stay at Mum’s – maybe have dinner with her.’ She paused and repeated herself very slowly, staring down at the handful of cutlery in which her face was blearily reflected. ‘Yes. I won’t be in town tomorrow, Cory. Not for the whole afternoon.’
20
By seven o’clock the world was so cold and dark it might have been midnight. There was no moon, no starlight, just the glow of the security lights in the lumber-yard at the end of the lane. Flea stopped her car and got out, shrugging on a fleece and a waterproof. She wore Thinsulate gloves and a wool beanie. Usually she was OK in the cold – she had to be in her job – but this autumn the weather had a hard, almost vindictive edge that seemed to affect everyone. She flashed her card at the soporific cop in the car that blocked the lane and clicked on her torch. The track through the pine forest was a pale, almost luminous yellow in the beam. The Yaris’s tracks were surrounded by limp police tape, the ground covered in little forensics marker flags. She passed them and went through the pool of light cast by the yard’s halogen lights, the conveyor-belts, sawmills and log splitters now silent and shadowy. She continued down the lane until she was in the grounds of the abandoned factory.
Flea had been home already. She’d jogged and showered and eaten and listened to the radio and read. She couldn’t wind down. She couldn’t stop wondering what it was about the search that wouldn’t lie right at the back of her thoughts. If Dad had still been around he’d have said: You’ve got a thorn in your head, girl. Better you take it out than leave it there and let it go to poison.
Now she went to the tree-line, where the field began and where Wellard had been standing. She found the line of cleared land, the place that had been searched and the line of rubbish, like the boundary line of flotsam and jetsam a retreating tide had left. She twisted the beam to halfway between flood and spot. Shone it on the line of rubbish and tried to pull up images from this morning.
Whatever was bugging her had struck her after they’d searched the tank. She’d been standing over at the tank talking to one of the other team’s sergeants about what time their shift finished and what staffing they’d have available if they had to go into overtime. The teams were still searching around them. Wellard had been over here at the edge of the field. She remembered watching him vaguely while she spoke. He’d found something in the grass and was talking to the crime-scene manager about it. Flea had been concentrating on what the sergeant next to her was saying and only half watching Wellard and the CSM, but now she could see the picture clearly. She could even see what he was holding out to the CSM. A piece of rope. Blue, nylon, about a foot long. The rope itself wasn’t what she’d wanted – she’d seen it later on the exhibits table and it had been unremarkable in and of itself – but something about it had started up a particular thought process that she knew was important.
She went to the old water tank where she had been standing and switched off the torch. She waited for a few quiet moments, surrounded by the monster shapes of the winter trees, beyond them the ploughed fields stretching away, dull, immense and dead. From somewhere in the distance to her right came the giant sound of a train racing along the Great Western Union Railway, flying through the darkness. Flea had a desktop at home that drove her crazy by giving off a faint crackle moments before her phone rang. She knew what it was – electromagnetic currents trying to piggyback the speaker wires for antennae – but to her it always seemed as if the machine had prescience, a subtle inkling of the future. Wellard would laugh if she told him, but sometimes she imagined she had a similar electromagnetic warning system – a biological buzzer that sent the hairs up on her arms moments before a thought or an idea clicked into place. Now, standing in the frozen field, she felt it happen. A current racing across her skin. Just seconds before the knowledge fell neatly into her head.