Tammy laughed and wiped her eyes. ‘I don’t get how they’re happy wanting to look the same? If I had an identical twin I’d want us both to look completely different.’
‘Jeez, two of you… imagine that. I struggle enough with just the one.’
‘Shut up!’ Tammy said, leaning against her mum.
Michelle was about to speak when a car shot past them. The driver braked hard, then put the car in reverse and came skidding back towards them. He wound down his window. ‘Youse two ladies all right here?’
Michelle and Tammy looked at each other, both struggling with the accent. Michelle subtly positioned herself in front of her daughter. She didn’t like the look of the man in the car. Unshaven, with a horrible, wiry ponytail and wearing a grubby denim jacket and faded football shirt, he looked like he’d been wearing the same clothes since the mid-eighties. His car, a battered old Ford-something-or-other, might have been impressive twenty-odd years ago, but it definitely wasn’t now. The paintwork was patchwork, and the knackered exhaust made it sound more like a tractor than a car. The bodywork was spattered with mud, like it had recently been taken off-road. Inside was no better. The floor and dash were covered in all kinds of crap, the back seat full of DVDs and drinks cans, and the rear windscreen was more stickers than glass.
‘We’re fine, thanks very much,’ Michelle replied. He kept trying to look around her. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to eye her up or Tammy. Probably both, she thought.
‘You lost?’
‘We’re not lost.’
‘You new?’
‘Just moved in down the road,’ she said, inadvertently giving him more information than she’d intended.
‘The grey house?’
‘Uh huh,’ she replied, not about to risk saying anything else, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. The way he looked at her… the way he kept licking his lips with his snake-like tongue…
‘You know there’s no buses Sunday afternoons?’
‘We noticed.’
‘You could walk back from here. S’not far.’
‘We know, that’s how we got here,’ Michelle said, trying not to laugh. ‘We were just getting a little air. Getting to know the area.’
‘I’ll give you a lift. Plenty of room,’ he said and he leant across and opened the passenger door. The worn velour seat would have looked just as uninviting had she known him. Now she was really starting to feel uncomfortable.
‘No, thank you,’ she said firmly. ‘Honestly, we’re fine.’
‘Ah, go on. I’ve always plenty of space for two lovely ladies. You’re not out my way. Last chance…?’
‘We’re okay, thanks,’ Michelle told him.
The man in the car nodded, pulled the door shut again, then put his foot down and disappeared in a cloud of gravel and dust. She might have been impressed, she thought, had she been Tammy’s age and it had still been nineteen eighty-nine.
3
By mid-evening the tension in the house had reduced to a slightly more bearable level. Michelle had been working in the living room for the last hour or so, arranging the little furniture they had and leaving spaces for the rest of their belongings to be slotted in tomorrow once the removal van had been and gone. George was in bed, Phoebe had crashed out on a beanbag with her face buried in a book, and Tammy was sitting on an inherited sofa which, Michelle hoped, would be dumped outside by this time tomorrow. Scott was messing with the TV, had been for a while. He’d just about managed to get a decent signal. The picture was occasionally distorted by bursts of blocky digital static but, on the whole, it was watchable.
‘Can’t we get Sky?’ Phoebe asked, not looking up.
‘We can’t afford it,’ Michelle said quickly, hoping to nip the conversation in the bud before anyone could get any other ideas. She failed.
‘I’ll ask in town tomorrow,’ Scott said.
‘Just the basic package if we do. That’s all we need,’ Michelle warned.
‘And the sports channels.’
‘You had all those extra channels in Redditch and no one ever watched them.’
‘I never had time back in Redditch. Anyway, I need to get the Internet sorted and the phone. Might as well get a bundle. It’ll work out cheaper that way.’
‘There’s a free version, isn’t there?’ Tammy said. ‘Hannah had something. Freesat, I think it was called. You have a dish and a box, but you only get the free channels.’
‘Might be worth looking into?’ Michelle said.
‘Can’t get the sports channels,’ Scott said, still messing with the TV. ‘Not worth it if you can’t get the sports channels.’
‘Can you even get satellite TV out here? Isn’t it a bit remote?’
Phoebe put down her book and sighed. ‘We’re in Scotland, Mum, not on Mars. What, do you think satellites don’t fly over here?’
‘Haven’t really thought much about it.’
Phoebe looked back down, then back up again. ‘You know what, I actually think this place is going to be all right,’ she said, surprising the rest of them. They all looked at her, as if demanding an explanation. ‘I’m serious. I mean, it’s not like being home, but I think we’ll get used to it.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Tammy grumbled.
‘Good for you, Pheeb,’ Michelle said. ‘It’s nice to hear someone being so positive. We need a bit of positivity around here.’
‘We need a lot of positivity,’ Scott agreed.
Nauseated by the sudden abundance of forced positive vibes, Tammy turned up the TV. It was the usual Sunday night shite they were watching, but it was a welcome distraction nonetheless. Without the Internet or a reliable phone signal, the TV felt like the only tenable connection she still had with the world she’d been forced to leave behind. Strange how reassuring it was seeing adverts she’d seen a hundred times before, and listening to theme tunes she knew note for note. Strange also how jarring it was when things weren’t as she’d expected. When the national news bulletin ended and the announcer handed over to regional newsrooms, the graphics and theme music seemed all wrong – almost like what she remembered, but not quite. This programme was Scotland Tonight, not Midlands Today, and it would take some getting used to. The presenter’s face was unfamiliar, she’d never heard of any of the place names, and the woman’s accent was all wrong… Tammy stopped listening and thought about home again, no longer paying attention.
‘That’s horrible,’ Michelle said. ‘Absolutely horrible.’
‘What is?’
Michelle nodded at the TV. ‘They found a body.’
The picture threatened to break up again, then steadied. On the screen Tammy saw an area of woodland, criss-crossed with police ‘do not cross’ tape. There was a white forensic tent in the middle of the space. It reminded her of the gazebo Dad used to put up in the garden when he did barbeques before he and Mum split up. Officers in all-in-one white forensics romper suits worked around the scene.
‘What happened?’
‘Some poor woman,’ Michelle said. ‘Murdered.’
‘So they found her, then,’ Scott said. ‘We saw them out looking yesterday afternoon, remember?’
The TV cut to a reporter loitering on the public side of the police cordon, the tent visible over his shoulder. ‘The body was found late last night by a security guard. Cause of death has yet to be established, although we understand the woman may have been the victim of a sexually-motivated attack. An eye-witness described the body as being in a state of partial undress and having been badly mutilated. Falrigg is popular with fell runners and walkers and police are appealing for anyone who might have been in the area over the course of the last twenty-four hours to come forward. Formal identification of the body has not yet been made, and police have so far refused to comment on any links with the disappearance of Joan Lummock. Mrs Lummock of Glennaird has been missing since Thursday evening.’