‘What is it?’ John stood at the door.
‘Come here, bonny lad. I don’t want the whole world to hear. And nor will you.’
‘What is it?’ John said again, sauntering towards the desk, refusing to be rattled.
‘What were you doing playing silly buggers in Anchor Street a couple of nights ago?’ Joe said.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He was superior, haughty. It was a faultless performance.
‘Don’t come the innocent with me. I saw you and your mates driving like lunatics. What had you been up to, eh? It wasn’t your car you were driving. Don’t you think the police would be interested?’
‘No,’ John said calmly. ‘I don’t think they would. They’ve more important things to worry about than a few lads mucking about. Besides I’d deny it.’
‘Deny what you like, bonny lad. But if I see you at it again I’ll be on to your father as quick as you like. Or to that Inspector Ramsay.’
‘I shouldn’t do that,’ John said. ‘That would be a mistake.’
He was more worried by the exchange than he let on but he refused to run away. He wasn’t going to be intimidated by an old man like Joe Fenwick. He told himself it was the lack of information which was frightening. If he knew which way the police investigation was moving he’d have more to work on. He’d know what line to take. He thought then that Anna Bennett might be a source of inside information. Her mother was close to the inspector leading the investigation. It was an outside chance but he’d always been willing to gamble. Ignoring Joe Fenwick’s disapproval he walked defiantly back to the pay phone.
‘Hi!’ he said when Anna answered. ‘I think we should meet.’ He thought it was beneath him to identify himself. He took it for granted she would recognize his voice. He knew she liked him. ‘We’ll need to talk about the play if you’re taking over from Gabby. You are going to take on Abigail Keene?’
‘Yes,’ she said, then consciously echoing her mother: ‘Apparently.’
‘I’ll borrow my mum’s car and pick you up,’ he said and replaced the receiver before she had a chance to refuse.
Anna walked slowly back to the kitchen. She was flushed with excitement.
‘That was John,’ she said. ‘He’s asked me out.’
‘Tonight? Will you go?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said, then added sarcastically, ‘if it’s all right with you.’
What can I say? Prue thought. She’s eighteen. An adult. At her age I was making love to Stephen Ramsay in the dunes at Duridge Bay.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘ Of course it’s all right. I hope you enjoy yourself.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ Anna said impulsively. ‘You don’t know how much this means to me.’
Prue did not know what to say.
John arrived at the house later than they had expected and the waiting only increased the tension between them. When the door bell rang Anna rushed off to answer it. Prue wished that she was not so eager. She would be so easily hurt. Through the open kitchen door she heard John say, without apology, that he was late because he’d had problems arranging transport. Then the front door slammed and Anna went off without saying goodbye.
John knew from the beginning that the evening was a crazy idea. Why Anna Bennett, for Christ’s sake? It had started logically enough with a desire to find out more about the police investigation but as soon as he got hold of the car he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with a quiet drink and a chat. He needed danger like a drug. Her affection for him was a challenge, as Gabby’s had been. He wanted to shock her out of it.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked. She had changed from her school uniform into a long black skirt and boots. He could tell she had made an effort for him. She sat primly with her hands on her lap. What had she expected? he wondered. The pictures? A meal in a wine bar in Otterbridge? Did she think he fancied her when he could have had Gabby Paston? Her passivity made him want to hit her.
‘You’ll see,’ he said roughly. ‘It’s a surprise.’
He drove fast out of Otterbridge and joined the main road south. He realized it wasn’t too late to save the evening, to stop him making a fool of himself. He could buy her a pizza, a few glasses of wine, make her feel good and deliver her safely home to her mother. But he had never played safe and he recognized the self-destructive excitement, the lack of control, which made him drive too fast and spend his time with Connor and which was his only antidote to boredom.
‘I thought we were going to talk about the play,’ she said. He overtook a lorry and just missed an oncoming vehicle. She clasped her hands in her lap more tightly.
‘Not talk,’ he said. ‘Talk’s not enough. We’ll never understand Abigail and Sam just by talking. They took risks. They lived on the edge.’
‘So,’ she said more loudly, too proud to let him see how frightened she was by the speed. ‘Where are we going?’
‘We’re going to the races,’ he said and braked sharply as they approached a roundabout. She thought she must have misheard and did not like to ask what he meant. She felt out of her depth. As they waited for the traffic to pass he said: ‘What do the police say then about these murders? Your mam must know. They were at the Grace Darling today. And didn’t you say she was a special friend of Inspector Ramsay’s?’
‘My mother was at school with him,’ Anna said, ‘but they’ve not seen each other for years. I don’t think he’d confide in her.’ She paused. ‘Wouldn’t your father be able to tell you more?’
‘Oh, him!’ John said. ‘He’ll give nothing away. Not to me.’
‘I never knew my father,’ she said. ‘ It made me different right from the start not having a dad. I hated being different.’
It was a difficult admission for her to make but he seemed not to hear.
‘Who do you think killed Gabby Paston?’ he asked suddenly.
‘How would I know?’ she said. She shivered. She never wanted to think of Gabriella Paston again. The traffic cleared and John drove on, down Anchor Street to Hallowgate Fish Quay and over the cobbles past the new flats at Chandler’s Court. The fog had returned to the river with dusk.
‘I’m hungry,’ John said. He looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock. ‘There’s an hour to wait yet. Do you fancy fish and chips?’
She nodded and he pulled in under a street lamp close to the Seamen’s mission. They crossed the road together and she wondered if he would put his arm around her, give her some sign of affection. She longed to touch him but he seemed wrapped up in thoughts of his own and oblivious to her presence. A queue snaked around the inside of the chip shop and they joined it, standing one behind the other as if they were strangers. Inside the shop it was beautifully warm and the windows were misted with condensation. The talk in the queue was comfortingly domestic: of family rows and minor illnesses. No one mentioned the murders. Anna turned to John hoping to establish some contact with him but at the same time a customer opened the door to leave the shop and John’s attention seemed caught by a movement outside.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I thought I saw someone I recognized in the street. But it couldn’t have been.’
Because he thought he had glimpsed his mother running across the road towards Chandler’s Court, her raincoat blown open, and he knew that was impossible. His mother would be at home in their dull grey sitting room waiting for his father to return and provide a brief vicarious excitement with news of his work.
John would not let Anna eat the fish and chips in the car. It was his mother’s, he said. She would object to the smell and not let him borrow it again. They sat, huddled in their coats against the cold on a bench looking out over the river and still there was no physical contact between them.
He jumped up impatiently before she had finished, making a ball of the chip papers and throwing it into a rubbish bin.