“You never wanted to get married?”
“To the father of my child? Of course I did!” What kind of strumpet did he take me for? “Unfortunately, he never had any intention of leaving his wife and at the first sniff of the word pregnancy, he dropped me like a brick.”
No offer of child support. In fact, no support of any kind. And he knew I was far too sweet to go blabbing to his wife.
“Dammit, Sullivan, he even denied the baby was his!”
“I, er, meant afterwards. The last few years.”
Oh. “Too busy,” I said, and then, in another burst of unaccustomed frankness (I blame the Chianti), I admitted that no one had ever asked me. “Men aren’t exactly tripping over themselves to put a ring on an unmarried mother’s finger.”
Instead they think of us as easy, which is why I took up judo and why I make Susan go to classes every Tuesday.
“What about you?” I asked, calming down over the coffee. “Are you married?”
“Nope.” He shrugged. “Engaged once, but she didn’t like the hours I kept and married a nine-to-five accountant. Then again.” He grinned. “It might have been because I’m so damned ugly.”
Not handsome, that’s for sure. Craggy/rugged/lived-in, call it what you will, that face was never going to end up on an advertising poster. But ugly…?
“We’d better go,” he said. “The restaurant is closing.”
Was it? I hadn’t realized we’d been sitting there so long, and though I can’t remember how we ended up going from trattoria to cinema, I have vague recollections of someone saying something about Cary Grant, which led to the fact that North by Northwest was playing at the Odeon, which in turn led to there being just enough time to catch the matinee before I met my daughter after tap class.
I knew full well what Sullivan was playing at. Softening me up, winning me over, drawing me into his confidence. It wouldn’t work, I didn’t care. It was the first time I’d been to the pictures in a decade. I’d forgotten what popcorn tasted like. It tasted bloody good.
October turned to November. Sunshine turned to rain. The nights began to draw in really fast. From time to time, like twice a week, Sullivan would drop by my office to discuss the Belle Vue murder – or at least vent his frustration at the lack of leads and progress – and invariably we’d end up having lunch or taking in a film. Ben-Hur. Rio Bravo. Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.
“I just wish I could find a motive,” he would say, spiking his fingers through that dark, unruly mop. “The door was locked, there was no key on the inside, and commercial reps in motor oil can’t break their own necks, that’s for sure.”
“Not and lock the door afterwards,” I’d agree, and trust me, I did feel sympathy. Needless to say, had I believed that holding back that photograph prevented him from bringing the perpetrator to justice, I’d have mailed it to him – anonymously, of course. Okay, he’d know it was me (even though I’d have denied it with my dying breath), but there was still the possibility, however remote, that someone else had snapped the dead man in that hotel bedroom. But I’d studied that picture over and over. It was just a dead man in a hotel bedroom, end of story.
“He’d stayed at the Belle Vue several times, that’s the silly part.”
The first time Sullivan kissed me was during the chariot race in Ben-Hur, and if anyone ever tells you that’s exciting, believe you me, it was nothing compared to the thrill of that kiss. I decided there and then that I liked being softened up, won over, drawn into a policeman’s confidence. Torture me all you like, Officer, I still won’t tell.
“I guess he made enemies in Brighton -”
“Motor oil is a dangerous business,” I grinned.
“But legitimate,” he said. “I checked, and he had genuine appointments in Brighton on every occasion that he stayed at the Belle Vue, even though the company he worked for didn’t spring for their uncompromising rates.”
That was odd, I thought. Usually reps stayed at fleapits and charged the higher allowance to make a bob or two, not the other way around. I was about to point this out, even though I’m sure Sullivan was way ahead of me, but then he leaned over the table and kissed me full on the mouth and in public, and it went straight out of my head. I had other things to worry about.
“My daughter has a crush on her road-safety officer,” I said. Lately we’d taken to having lunch on Saturdays, when Susan went to Josie’s. “She thinks he’s handsome, clever, funny, a real scream-”
“That doesn’t sound like a crush.” The gravel in his throat churned up in laughter. “It sounds to me like she’s found a friend, but in any case, where’s the harm? She’s nine.”
“Hero worship? Nothing.” I downed half a glass of wine in a single swallow. “Providing she grows out of it.”
And there it was again, too much damned Chianti, because suddenly I was blurting out my own stupidity at falling in love with an older, married man-
“Whoa.” His hand covered mine and half the table. “Why do you keep blaming yourself? The bastard knew exactly what he was doing, Lois. He’s the one who preyed on your youth and innocence. He’s the one who led you on, lied to you, and cheated. And Lois, he’s the one who bailed when you got pregnant.”
I’d never really thought of it like that, any more than I’d imagined Stephen Rolands as a child molester, who ought to be locked up and the damn key thrown away for good. If Sullivan ever got his hands on him, so help him, he said, Rolands would need a bloody plastic surgeon. What odds the bastard was still doing it today?
“Is he still teaching?”
“Long Road Secondary Modern, but-”
“But nothing. You said yourself, you’d only just turned seventeen, but times have changed in ten years, Lois. Rock and roll has taken over, Teddy boys are in, girls are wearing make-up, looking older. I’ll bet you a pound to a penny Rolands is targeting fifteen-year-olds or younger.”
I wanted to do something, say something, be really grown up about this business of scales dropping from the eyes. Instead I burst into tears.
“Don’t worry, we’ll stop him,” Sullivan said softly. “He won’t ruin any more lives, you have my word.”
“It’s not that,” I blubbed. In fact, it wasn’t even the thought of Susan’s father rotting in jail – nothing half so noble.
The thing is, right up till that moment, I’d genuinely believed that I was special.
It’s surprising how businesslike you become when there are no illusions left. How detached you feel snapping adulterous husbands with mistresses/call girls/rent boys and in places most decent people couldn’t imagine, or how disconnected you become furnishing cast-iron proof of wives with gambling addictions, drug addictions, lovers, or just a love affair with the bottle. After all, who was I to judge what constitutes an unfit mother? I only needed to take one look in the mirror.
As a result, shades of grey no longer figured in my life. My job was to secure Susan’s future, and whereas before, when it came to runaway children, my heart was torn between finding them and reporting their whereabouts to their parents, I simply reminded myself that if I hadn’t intended to return them, I shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. Black and white worked well. With the cheque from Mrs Cuthbertson’s solicitor, for instance, I could send Susan on a foreign-exchange visit, maybe two. Her life would never be like mine.