Paul wiped water from his face. One cheek was swollen. He pointed at Clive, sullenly. “I came to see you, and this prick wouldn’t let me!”
“He came in drunk and tried to barge upstairs,” Clive snapped, staring at him. Paul turned towards him again, and before they could restart the fight Kate moved between them.
“Get over there, Clive. Go on.”
Still glowering at the other man, Clive moved across to the other side of the office, where Josefina and Caroline, who had ventured back in, huddled. Kate confronted Paul. “Well, I’m here! What do you want?”
He seemed deflated by her aggression. It took him a moment to pump up his anger enough to answer. “I came to give you some good news!” he said, face twisting. “I’ve been fired! Satisfied, now, are you?”
Kate felt a pang of sympathy. And guilt, she admitted. She stamped down on both. “I’m sorry you’ve lost your job, Paul. But it’s nothing to do with me.”
“No?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “I bet you’re heartbroken, though, aren’t you, you backstabbing bitch?”
Clive started forward. She shot him a look, stopping him, and turned back to face Paul. Her anger had burned down to a weary impatience. “I’m going to put this as simply as I can,” she said, trying to speak levelly. “I’m not interested in you, your job, or your problems. You got yourself fired because you’re a self-pitying drunk who always has to blame someone else. I don’t want to see you again, I don’t want to hear from you again, and I don’t want to talk to you again. Now get out of my office before I call the police.”
Paul blinked. He glanced around, and for the first time seemed to notice that other people were watching. He looked bewildered, as though he didn’t understand how he came to be there. Then he drew himself up and stared at her. “You wait. You just wait.”
He nodded to himself as he went to the door. “You just fucking wait.”
He went out, slamming the door. It bounced back on its hinges and swung open again. Kate watched, half expecting him to reappear, but he didn’t. She could feel herself beginning to tremble as reaction set in. She looked around the wreckage of the office and felt a lump form in her throat.
“I’m sorry, Kate. It all got a bit out of hand.”
Clive looked shame-faced. He was still soaking wet. Kate saw that his lip was bleeding.
“Are you okay?”
she asked.
He touched his hand to his mouth and gave a weak grin. “I think so. Been a long time since I’ve been in a scrap.”
“It wasn’t Clive’s fault,” Caroline said, coming forward. “He just tried to stop him when he started going upstairs. Clive didn’t start it.”
Kate nodded and managed to give Clive a smile. “No, I know. But in future — “
The window behind her shattered. She ducked as broken glass struck the back of her head and shoulders, and glimpsed something flying past. She looked up in time to see Clive race to the door and tear it open.
“No, Clive! Clive!” she shouted. He stopped, poised on the doorstep. “Let him go.”
Clive hesitated, then closed the door. Glass crunched under his feet. Kate looked at the window. The vertical blind was hanging half off. Where the name of the company had been stencilled on the glass, now there was only a jagged hole.
There was a moan. Kate turned around and saw Josefina clutching her arm, her face screwed up in pain. Caroline was supporting her, looking if anything even more stricken.
“She got hit by that,” she said, nodding at a half housebrick on the floor.
Kate went over. The Spanish girl slowly removed her hand to reveal a bloody gash on her forearm. Josefina sucked in air with a hiss and sat down.
“It only just missed your head,” Clive said, giving Kate a grim look. The back of her neck prickled as she remembered how close the sharp-cornered housebrick had come. She pushed the thought aside.
“Get the first aid box, will you?”
she told him. “I’ll phone the police.”
Kate cleared up the wreckage of the office by herself after the police had taken their statements and left. Clive had gone to the hospital with Josefina, and she had sent Caroline home early. The girl was too shaken to be of any use, and Kate didn’t really want any help anyway. Setting the office to rights was a sort of penance for letting her private life spill over into business.
It took longer than she’d expected, though, and by the time she arrived at her flat that evening she felt exhausted.
She poured herself a glass of wine and put some pasta on to boil, before remembering that she’d told Miss Willoughby she would visit her.
Kate looked at her watch. She could still make it before visiting time ended, and she knew the old lady would be expecting her. But the thought of turning out again was too much. With the relief from making the decision only slightly tinged with guilt, she phoned the hospital and was put through to the ward sister.
“I was supposed to be visiting Miss Willoughby tonight,” Kate told her. “Can you give her my apologies and tell her I’ll see her tomorrow instead?”
The sister hesitated. “Are you a relative?”
“No, just her neighbour.”
She guessed from the sister’s tone, but still asked, “Is everything all right?”
“I’m afraid Miss Willoughby died last night.”
Kate felt no real surprise, only a tired sadness. “What happened?”
“It was heart failure. It was very quick. There’s always a risk at that age, and after the sort of shock she’d had …” The sister didn’t bother to finish. “Actually, I’m glad you’ve called,” she went on, bad news delivered. “She put down her solicitor as next of kin, but we’re not sure what to do with her personal effects. Do you know if she had any friends or relatives?”
“No,” Kate said. “No, she didn’t have anybody.”
CHAPTER 7
It was late afternoon when the train arrived back at Euston. Kate stepped down from the carriage and made her way with the few other travellers towards the exit. Their footsteps echoed in a complicated cross-rhythm. It was strangely deserted on the hot Saturday. With the sunlight suffusing through the high windows, it assumed a hushed, almost dream-like quality, and Kate remembered her anxiety dream of being lost in a crowded station. Now, though, as she walked through the almost empty concourse, she knew exactly what she was doing.
She caught a taxi outside the station. It was an extravagance when the tube was almost as convenient, but she didn’t care. She gave the driver Lucy and Jack’s address and sat back, feeling her body hum with barely suppressed exuberance.
The taxi dropped her outside the house. She struggled with the gate, which was almost as dysfunctional as hers, and went up the path. After a moment Lucy answered the door, wiping her hands on a towel.
“So how was Birmingham?” she asked, standing back to let Kate inside.
“Oh … okay.”
Lucy cocked an eyebrow. “Judging by the look on your face it went better than okay.”
She closed the door. “Go straight through. We’re out back. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
She went upstairs. As Kate began to go down the hallway, Lucy leaned over the banister that fronted the first-floor landing. “And keep an eye on what Jack’s up to with the barbecue, will you? He pretends he knows what he’s doing, but he hasn’t a clue.”
The warped French windows in the lounge were thrown open. Beyond them, the garden was overgrown and unkempt. Someone had made a token effort to cut the grass, trimming a shaved square in the centre of the ankle-deep lawn. Over one corner of the high, crumbling brick wall that screened the house from its neighbours hung the heavy branches of a laburnum.
Emily and Angus ran up to Kate as soon as she went out. Emily, older and more shy, presented her face for a kiss, but Angus, still unsteady on his feet, demanded to be picked up. His mouth was orange from the ice-lolly he clutched in one fist.