I suppose I knew he'd take things further if I gave him a sign, but I also knew the sparks were all on his side. I didn't think it was fair to let him believe anything might come of it, and I hadn't spoken to him for a few months.
Now, I explained about Terry's password-protected machine and asked if he thought there was anything he could suggest. I don't know exactly what it is that Sam does with computers, but he seems to be a bit of a whizz kid.
“Yeah, no problem,” he said. “I'll see what I can do. Most of these lap-tops aren't that difficult to get into. What's the make and model?”
I grabbed the computer and read off all the identifying marks I could find. “Shall I bring it round?” I asked.
“Er, well, you're just down on the quay, aren't you? Why don't I pop round to you tonight, about eight-thirty?” he said, adding quickly. “If that's OK, of course. I just thought it would save you carting it about strapped to the back of that bloody Jap rice-burner of yours.”
“At least my bike only burns oil, it doesn't dump most of it on the road,” I said. “Half eight is fine. I'll see you later.”
“Yeah, great. I'll look forward to it,” he said.
I put the phone down wondering if I'd done the right thing.
***
In the afternoon I packed my work-out clothes into my rucksack, climbed onto the Suzuki, and headed across town to the refuge.
I've been holding self-defence at the Shelseley Lodge Women's Refuge for the last couple of years. On paper, I suppose it doesn't make much financial sense to do so, but actually the arrangement suits us both quite well.
I teach there three times a week. The classes are open to all, and often people mix and match which days they attend, depending on their schedule. The residents of the Lodge are free to join in any time.
My regular students pay me their tuition fees direct, but Shelseley take the class fees themselves for their own people, if they charged them at all. Still, I didn't have to fork out for use of the venue, so I couldn't begrudge them my labours. Not for the work they were doing.
Shelseley Lodge had been turned into a women's refuge some time in the early seventies by the late mother of the present owner. Old Mrs Shelseley had used premature widowhood as the perfect opportunity to take in single mothers and battered wives as fast as she could make up camp beds for them. And if deserted husbands turned up in the middle of the night to kick up a fuss, she'd even been known to appear, a terrifying apparition with a shotgun and curlers, to show them the error of their ways. I'd never met her, but I thought she sounded wonderful.
I very much doubt that the new Mrs Shelseley knew one end of a shotgun from the other, but she was just as effective at shifting unwanted visitors. Ailsa had arrived temporarily at the Lodge as a trainee solicitor to offer advice to the residents on matters of divorce and child support.
She'd taken a fancy to the place in general – and the owner's son, Tristram in particular – and had stayed put. Although she's since given up the law and retrained as a counsellor, she can still spout enough legalese to put the fear of God into marauding men when the need arises.
I reached the entrance to the Lodge and turned the bike between a pair of red brick gateposts. The driveway was short and claimed to be gravel, but every summer the dandelions staged another covert incursion and I think they were finally winning the battle.
As always, there was a motley collection of cars sprawled in front of the impressive Victorian house. Where space was tight someone had even driven one of them onto the lawn, leaving gouges in the sodden grass like a mistreated billiard table.
I slid the bike into a gap near one of the elegantly proportioned bay-fronted windows, and killed the motor, pulling off my helmet. Into the quiet that followed came the raucous squeal of children at war. Somewhere upstairs, a baby cried relentlessly.
The front door stood open as usual beneath a fanlight made from delicately-coloured glass in leaded panes. The matching panels in the door itself had long since fallen victim to one set of angry fists or another, and now consisted of reinforced safety glass. My boots echoed on the faded black and white tiles as I walked down the hallway, calling a hello as I went.
Ailsa stuck her head out of what was supposed to be their private sitting room and beckoned me through. When I went in I found Tris squeezed into a corner, trying to read a book on William Blake. Nearly all the other available chairs were taken up by a bedraggled-looking woman with bruised eyes and four young children.
“Hi Charlie,” Ailsa said brightly, subsiding her generous frame onto a seat, her loose Indian cotton dress billowing around her for a moment like a collapsing big top. “Won't be a moment. We're just trying to sort out these forms from the Social. Be a dear, Tristram, and put the kettle on.”
Out of his wife's line of sight, Tris sighed, carefully inserted a bookmark as he rose, and disappeared into the narrow kitchen. When I couldn't stand the scruffy round-eyed stares of the kids any longer, I went to join him.
Tris was standing at the sink, staring out into the garden at the lines of terry nappies, flapping like pennants. He was absently trying to dry a teapot with a towel that was too wet to make any difference.
“D'you want a hand?”
“Hmm?” He took a moment to bring his mind back on track. “Oh, yes please, Charlie. Sorry, miles away there.”
Ailsa had cut his hair again, I noticed. It looked like she'd done it with blunt nail scissors, by candlelight. There was a chunk missing over one ear, and half his fringe stood straight up in the air. Ailsa had all the hairdressing aptitude of a bottle-nosed dolphin, but Tris was too good natured to complain.
Left to his own devices he would have favoured something more in the romantic poet style but, he once explained to me with a weary smile, the proliferation of unwashed small children about the place made head lice a very real concern, and a short haircut a necessity.
He was still wearing his working uniform of a short-sleeved white tunic over black trousers, and he smelled of lavender, and orange blossom. When what had once been the drawing room hasn't been commandeered as an overflow bedroom, Tris uses it for aromatherapy massage.
The kettle on the hob began to scream and I lifted it off the heat with a slightly scorched oven glove. Between us we managed to load a tray with all the required equipment for tea and were manoeuvring our way back into the sitting room when the door into the hall swung open again.
A small boy in a football jersey shoved his head through the gap. “'Scuse me, Aunty Ailsa,” he said, a vision of angelic politeness, “but the filth's here.”
Ailsa smiled at him, taking the news of the arrival of the police without undue surprise. For one reason or another, they were regular visitors at Shelseley.
“OK love,” she said to him. “You'd better show them in. Oh, hello Tommy,” she went on when the first of two uniformed constables edged into the room, taking off their hats.
The young officer she'd addressed manfully stifled a blush at her familiarity, and tried to ignore a derisive glance from his colleague. The other man was the older of the two, though that wasn't saying much. Neither of them looked old enough to drive. Wasn't that supposed to be another sign that advanced age was creeping up on me? My God, I wasn't expecting that when I'd only just hit my quarter-century.
“Now then,” Ailsa said briskly, “what can we do for you this time, Tommy?”
From his expression, Tommy's dearest wish was that she'd stop calling him Tommy, but he decided to let it pass. It was his mate who spoke up instead.
“Actually, Mrs Shelseley, it isn't you we wanted to speak to today. It's Miss Fox.”