Her voice changes, as though she’s reading a pre-prepared speech off a piece of paper. ‘Listen, Martin, you need to understand. Jackie is not your girlfriend. She’s not your friend. In fact, she finds your behaviour aggressive and frightening.’
‘I-’ he begins to protest, but she ploughs on, ignoring him.
‘Martin, I want you to listen very carefully. Jackie wants nothing to do with you. What you’ve been doing, all this following and watching, it’s harassment. It’s not a show of devotion and it won’t persuade her to change her mind. You need to stop it. Now.’
Who is this woman? He knows the voice; it’s maddeningly familiar. Now he hears his own breath, coming fast.
‘I don’t know who you are…’ he begins.
‘It doesn’t matter who I am. All you need to know is that Jackie is in a place of safety and she wants you to leave her alone.’
‘Place of safety…? What are you-’
‘You heard me, Martin. And I’m telling you now, you’d be well advised to listen to what I’m saying. You need to leave Jackie alone. You need to stop.’
‘If Jackie wants that,’ he snaps, abruptly angry, ‘she can tell me herself. Who are you? Who are you to tell her what to do?’
‘No,’ says the woman. ‘She’s not coming to the phone. I’m going to hang up now, Martin. And when I do, you’re not to call this number again. You’re not to call, or send any other type of message, to this number. You are not to come to her house, not to come to her place of work, not to follow her in the street. Do you understand? Because if you do, we will be calling the police. Do you get that?’
He can barely articulate. His lips are cold and numb, his throat constricted. ‘Yes,’ he mumbles. Whoever this woman is, she’s not going to listen to reason. She’s got to Jackie and she’s going to destroy everything, twist it till it looks ugly, deformed. He won’t argue with her. People like that – it’s not worth wasting your breath.
The line goes dead. He dials again. It goes straight to the plummy robot woman, who tells him that the mailbox has been deactivated.
His hands are shaking.
Chapter Twelve
He’s a cocky young sod. Kirsty can tell by the swagger, by the imperious curl of the lip, by the way he wears his hat slightly offcentre, as if to make a point. By the fact that he’s got his nightstick out as he patrols up and down the line and slaps it against his palm, rhythmically, as he eyes the women with an expression somewhere between a sneer and a leer. There’s a few of them in every town. He reminds her of her brother Darren: his air of sex with a predatory edge. A nasty young man, but he might well be useful.
She can’t wait to be done with this piece. She wants to get home and sort things out with Jim. And she still has the remains of her two-day hangover. She wants to be at the dining-room table that doubles as her office, back in Farnham, with a cup of proper coffee and the laptop open and her husband mollified. She will be, soon. Just needs to mingle, like the rest of the press pack, with the first trippers back into Funnland, and she’s out of here. She has fifteen hundred words to file by lunchtime tomorrow and needs to get writing.
The queue edges forward. She’s amused to see that a lot of her colleagues are also mingling undeclared among the civilians in the hope of picking up some juicy, usable quotes without having to seek permission, studiously ignoring each other though they will all be buying each other drinks in a couple of hours. Stan shambles up the street, looking as hungover as she feels. The landlord of the White Horse will probably be able to take the rest of the summer off. Few drinkers are as free-spending as a journalist on expenses.
He walks past the straggly queue and straight up to her.
‘Sorry about that,’ he says loudly, for the benefit of the people behind. ‘Took ages to find a parking space.’
He slots himself in beside her, lowers his voice. ‘Of course, it’s less about the queue than the company.’
‘Is that you being roguish?’ she asks.
He slide his specs down his nose, twinkles at her over them. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’
He offers her an Extra Strong Mint and they shuffle along companionably.
‘Get back to your room all right the other night?’ she asks.
‘I should be asking you that,’ he says. ‘You were so many sheets to the wind I thought you might go flapping off across the Channel. And how was your room, after you dodged the Ripper?’
‘Thanks for that, Mr Pot. It was great. It had a sink in the corner for throwing up in. But tell you what, I’m in such bad odour at home, I should be wearing a hazard label. I completely forgot we were having some City cheeses over to dinner to try and oil them up for a job for Jim.’
‘Oops.’
‘I was so hungover, I actually threw up.’
‘Not at the table, I hope?’ asks Stan.
She laughs.
‘We’ll make a pro of you yet, my girl.’
‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘I don’t think you can call him a ripper, can you? Strangler, surely?’
His face takes on a contemplative look. ‘The Whitmouth Strangler. It doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?’
‘The Seaside Strangler?’
‘Nice. Like it. I found what looked like some dried snot on my bedspread. Which wasn’t very conducive to a good night’s sleep.’
‘Bed-bug numbers are up globally, you know.’
‘For God’s sake. I’m getting that camper van. I hardly ever go home as it is.’
‘Then you could go to the seaside every day,’ she says.
‘Ah, wouldn’t that be lovely? I must say, I’m enjoying this little interlude.’
‘Me too,’ she says. ‘It’s like being on holiday. Are you going on the rollercoaster?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You?’
‘Still feeling a bit frail,’ she says. ‘I might have to give it a miss.’
‘Amateur,’ says Stan, and shakes his head. ‘How’s your piece shaping up?’
Kirsty shrugs. ‘Oh, you know. You can find whatever your editor wants you to find. Jack’s after Third Circle of Hell stuff. So that’s what I’m giving him.’
‘That’s why I joined the press,’ says Stan. ‘The relentless quest for balance. Jack does so love to sneer at the proles, doesn’t he?’
‘That’s a bit harsh. Have you seen what the Guardian’s been saying?’
‘Well it is the Guardian. It’s either that or they’ll have to find a reason why Israel’s to blame,’ he says. ‘So how was the press conference?’
‘Oh God. I didn’t go. I was sort of expecting you would.’
‘Ah. Oh well. It’ll all be on AP anyway. You home tonight?’
She nods. ‘As long as he hasn’t changed the locks. I’m on the motorway the second I’m done here. Can’t bloody wait.’
She catches the look on the face of the woman behind her, that peculiarly British suspicion of snobbery, and corrects herself in a louder voice. ‘I hate these overnighters,’ she tells Stan, while looking the woman in the eye. ‘Doesn’t matter where. I just miss my family so much, you know?’
Stan nods. ‘Yes. I remember the days when I had one of those to miss.’
Jim calls just as the gates to Funnland open.
‘Hey,’ she says. ‘How are you?’
‘More to the point, how are you?’ he asks. ‘You didn’t say goodbye before you went.’
‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t entirely sure of my welcome.’
‘Yeah,’ says Jim. ‘You are an arse, you know.’
She feels a rush of relief. If he’s back to administering direct insults, it means he’s over the hump. ‘Accepted and understood,’ she tells him.
‘Save it for the judge,’ he says. ‘Are you still coming home today?’