The second time she’d met Jake, it had been unexpected. She’d spent the previous few days trying to think of a decent-sounding excuse for getting back in touch with him. She’d known after her meeting with Salter that she wanted to see Jake again. She tried to tell herself that her reasons were simply professional. He was an important contact, the most direct route she was likely to find into Kerridge’s inner circle. If she wanted to make a success of this job, if she wanted to prove to the likes of Salter and Welsby that she really could hack it, this was her best chance. Even if it did mean making use of what Welsby would no doubt call her feminine wiles.
In her heart, though, she knew that her motives were no longer quite so pure. She was attracted by Jake. She hadn’t quite registered it at first, or at least had been aware of it only as the vaguest inkling, the kind of half-stirring you might feel for some passing acquaintance. After all, they’d had a pleasant enough evening at Kerridge’s charity do, chatting easily, knocking back a few glasses of wine. As the evening ended, and they made their way to the pre-booked taxis, she’d expected he might try it on, or at least ask her out. But he’d simply wished her a polite goodnight, and headed back for some sort of debrief with Kerridge. Looking back, the sensation she’d felt had been less than disappointment, but it had still been discernible.
Then, as the days passed, she could tell that it was growing into something stronger. Not so much a physical attraction, she thought, though she couldn’t deny that there was that, too. It was a longing for friendship, for humour, for the warmth they’d briefly shared on that mildly boozy evening. The kind of relationship she had with Liam, she thought, and then caught herself wondering whether that was still the case. Perhaps that was why, suddenly, she felt so attracted to Jake Morton. Because he offered her something that she hadn’t even realized she’d lost.
She was tempted just to pick up the phone and call him, but she didn’t want to seem too eager. Like some teenager playing hard to get, she laughingly told herself. But she hadn’t quite lost sight of her professional objective. She had to tread warily here. Whatever she might think about Jake at a personal level, he was still on Kerridge’s team. She couldn’t afford to give him any reason to be suspicious of her motives, even if she wasn’t entirely clear about them herself.
She spent a few more days struggling to concoct a good business reason to call him, always hoping that, against the odds, Jake might decide to call her first. With every day that passed, it was feeling increasingly like an unrequited adolescent crush. Then one morning, just when she’d decided that she might as well take the plunge, she received a phone message from Ken Anstey. According to the records, Anstey was another of Kerridge’s associates, once or twice removed, but with no link to Kerridge’s legit operations. Anstey described his business as import-export, but most of it was import and all of it was dodgy. Small-time stuff for the most part – alcohol, cigarettes, occasionally drugs or serious porn. Most was sold into Kerridge’s networks, and as always, Kerridge creamed off a decent slice for himself.
The authorities weren’t that interested in Anstey himself. They were keeping tabs on pretty much everything he brought in, and he would be picked up eventually. For the moment, though, they were only too happy for him to keep doing his bits of business. Step by step, they were tracing Anstey’s networks, following where the goods went, seeing who was selling and who was buying at each end. Anstey and his cronies got their hands dirty, but the real interest was in those who kept their hands clean.
‘You don’t know me,’ Anstey began laughably. From what she’d heard, every officer up here knew Anstey, if only by name and half-cocked reputation. ‘But I might have a bit of business to put your way. Give me a call when you can. Next day or two.’
Anstey left his name and a mobile number. She knew there was no point in leaving it more than the stated day or two. The number would be a pirated SIM card, operational for a few days then discarded.
She phoned Anstey back and did the deal. It was one of her first pieces of under-the-counter business, but straightforward enough. He wanted documentation, legitimate-looking shipping notices that indicated that duty had already been paid. A fallback in case they were picked up by customs. Easy enough to get produced, though unlikely to be effective if customs hadn’t already been briefed not to detain Mr Anstey. Marie didn’t tell Anstey that, though. She just quoted him a price and a delivery date.
Anstey never said so, but Marie knew she’d have been recommended by Kerridge’s people. When she moved up here, the Agency had pulled the strings to spread the word among the right people. They’d have had her checked out, but everything would have seemed kosher. She’d built a good reputation in her previous patch – she was known as a fixer, someone who got you what you needed, even when others couldn’t. Not difficult, when you had the resources and protection of the Agency behind you. But it made her look good. She delivered.
It had taken a month or two for the word to spread, but finally the business was starting to come in. She had the contacts. She could get you people, she could get you equipment. She could get you vehicles – untraceable, available when needed, then gone again. She could get you documentation, though behind the scenes that needed authorization in triplicate and there were limits as to what was permissible. The ability to produce fake passports would have given them a neat advantage in tracking movements across national boundaries, but that was a definite no-no.
The other thing she didn’t deal – couldn’t deal – was firearms. But it seemed easier for her to hold that line than it had been for her predecessor. In this skewed world, it was what they expected a woman to do. Women just had higher standards. The men didn’t understand it, but they respected it. No one ever thought to question why she’d chosen to draw the line just there. If anything, coming from a woman, it was the kind of thing the pond life around Kerridge tended to respect, God help them.
Anstey was based in Bury, and she’d arranged to meet him at Birch Services on the M62. It was an anonymous place, a small service station located a mile or two off the junction with the M60, where the motorway was beginning to climb up into the Pennines. Up ahead was the bleak expanse of Saddleworth Moor. Behind, the drop towards the Mersey Basin and the Cheshire Plain. No one’s idea of a destination. Just a place to pass through.
She’d had the documents prepared without difficulty. Decent forgeries that would fool a layperson without unduly challenging an experienced customs detection officer. Ten minutes in the service station car park, a handover of envelopes. Job done. Anyone who saw them would assume they were sales reps going about their business.
She arrived a few minutes early and bought a newspaper and a takeaway coffee from the Italian-style concession. It was mid-morning, the place relatively quiet – a few people like herself sitting in their cars, killing time before business appointments or stopping to make phone calls.
Anstey was late. Not a great surprise. From what she’d heard, Anstey was usually late. He liked to give the impression that he was a busy man – lots of important irons in the fire, only just time to squeeze in a meeting with the likes of her.
A car pulled in, swept round the car park and pulled in a few spaces along the row from her. She glimpsed the driver’s face momentarily as the car passed. Not Anstey, but a face she knew. Not a coincidence, surely.
Kerridge’s usual policy was to keep people like Anstey at a lot more than arm’s length, so what was one of his inner circle doing butting into this meeting?
She watched as Jake climbed out of the car – a small Polo, not his usual style, she suspected – and strolled casually towards her. She could already feel her body tense, her heart beating faster, as she tried to read his expression. Maybe she’d been rumbled, after all. Or maybe for once the fates had just decided to give her a helping hand.
She waited just long enough to make him pause, then lowered the window.
‘Morning, Jake. This your usual stamping ground?’
He looked around him, as if he’d not previously registered where he was. ‘Not if I can help it. How you doing?’
‘I’m doing OK,’ she said. ‘We have to stop meeting like this.’
‘Probably. Mind if I join you for a second?’
‘I’m waiting to meet someone.’
‘Yeah, I know. Why I’m here. Won’t take a minute.’ Without waiting for a response, he walked around the car and pulled open the passenger door.
She waited till he’d lowered himself into the seat. ‘What’s this all about, Jake?’
‘Ken Anstey, right?’
‘Any of your business?’
‘Yeah, my business. Pretty literally so, as it happens. Afraid Anstey’s not available.’
‘That right?’ She was watching his face, still trying to work out what he was thinking.
‘Picked up by the police, a couple of days ago. Various charges. Smuggling class A drugs. Tax evasion. Double-parking, probably.’
‘Shame,’ she said. Inwardly, she was cursing. Maybe some customs officer had just become overeager, or – probably more likely – Anstey himself had done something so inept they couldn’t turn a blind eye. Or maybe someone had deliberately grassed him up to the local plods who wouldn’t necessarily have been briefed on Anstey’s status. ‘Are you on messenger duties now, then?’
‘Don’t know if you knew, but Anstey did bits and pieces of work for us; one of our suppliers.’
‘Just like me.’
‘Yes, just like you.’ He smiled for the first time. She had the sense he was doing this under sufferance. ‘No, actually, Marie, not much like you.’
‘Possibly the most backhanded compliment I’ve ever been paid. But go on.’
‘Ah, well, Kenneth has caused us a more than a little embarrassment over the last day or two. Trying to wriggle his way off the hook by impaling others on it. Throwing dirt in all kinds of directions.’
‘Including yours?’
‘Including ours. Nothing we can’t handle, of course. Anstey was never on the team.’
‘Just a supplier.’
‘Just a supplier. And, unlike some people, not a particularly reliable one. Generally more trouble than he was worth. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. Apart from giving us a few headaches, he’s also left rather a lot of loose ends. Things that just might come back to haunt us.’
‘And you’re the Boy Scout,’ she said. ‘Tying up the loose ends into fancy knots.’
‘Something like that.’ He was gazing flatly out of the wind-screen, not looking in her direction. Ahead of them, a harassed-looking mother was struggling in the rear door of her car, trying to load a crying baby into a child seat.
It struck her suddenly that there was a potentially sinister undertone to his words. ‘So I’m a loose end?’
‘No, not really. Not you personally, anyway. But I’ve been sent to check. We know Anstey was doing some business with you, but we don’t know exactly what. I just need to make sure it’s not something that’s likely to cause us any problems.’
He was smart. Just the right garnish of implied threat, then back to smiles and business. She gazed back at him, as if wondering whether she should trust him, then she shrugged.
‘Can’t see why it would,’ she said. ‘He asked me to get him some documents.’ She tossed the padded envelope into his lap. ‘Take a look, if you want.’
He tore open the package and flicked briskly through the pages. ‘Shipping notices?’
‘Yeah. Duty paid.’
‘These fool customs, you reckon?’
‘It depends. They’re bloody good fakes, though I say so myself. If you got an officer who was really on the ball, they might get challenged, but they’d get you through the average inspection.’
Jake took another look through the papers, and for a moment she wondered whether she’d oversold the quality of the forgeries. Then he nodded and smiled.
‘Maybe another service you could provide for us directly. These look good quality.’
‘Tried the rest, now try the best,’ she intoned. ‘Everything’s a marketing opportunity.’
‘So I believe.’ He stuffed the papers back in the envelope and handed them back.
‘Two hundred,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Two hundred quid. I’m out of pocket.’
‘Teach you to do business with the likes of Ken Anstey,’ he said. ‘A walking bad debt.’
‘Unlike Jeff Kerridge.’
He said nothing for a second. ‘I’ll make sure you’re not out of pocket. There’ll be work for you.’
‘Marketing opportunity, then.’
‘Marketing opportunity; exactly. Marie . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Look, this isn’t the time or place. But I wondered if you fancied coming out for a drink sometime?’
She made no immediate response, but sat toying with the envelope, as though trying to compose an answer. Finally she said, ‘Christ, Jake, I thought you’d never ask.’
Afterwards, when he’d driven off, she sat in her car for a while, wondering whether she knew what she was doing. She was only following Salter’s instructions, she told herself. And even if her own instincts about Jake were off the mark, it was still the smart thing to do. Take the opportunity, find a way into the inner circle, get closer to Kerridge.
But she couldn’t fully fathom her own motives. She was attracted to Jake, of course. She couldn’t deny that. And not just to Jake himself, but to what he might be able to offer. Warmth, friendship, company, fun. And maybe sex, she added quietly to herself, as if that was nothing more than a half-joke, an afterthought. But, above all, something straightforward. No strings. No expectations. No ties.
And that was where things became tangled in her head. Because she felt, in her heart, that this wasn’t going to be simple. Again today, she’d had the sense that he was going through the motions, reluctantly doing Kerridge’s dirty work. Quite how dirty that work might get, she didn’t like to think. But her instincts still told her that Jake wasn’t happy, that he was looking for something different.
And maybe she could help him find it. But she knew that, if she did, nothing would ever be simple again.
That second meeting with Jake had been just before another, very different weekend that she’d spent at home with Liam. It had been her first weekend back. She’d deliberately avoided going home too frequently during those early weeks, much to Liam’s irritation. Of course, he’d read the worst into her decision, but really it was just that she wanted to allow herself time to get into the swing of her new life. She had known that it would be difficult, juggling these two identities, establishing a new reality for herself in Manchester. She’d been advised, by Salter and others, that the first couple of months would be critical. ‘It’s like driving a car,’ Salter had said during one of their preparatory meetings, his tone suggesting that this might be a concept unfamiliar to a woman. ‘When you first start, you have to think about everything. How to steer. When to change gear. How much rev to give it . . .’
‘I know what’s involved in driving a car, Hugh.’
He’d nodded sceptically, then continued. ‘It’s hard work because you have to concentrate all the time. But after a while you stop thinking about it. It becomes second nature. It’s the same with this business.’
It was a trite analogy, she’d thought at the time. But he’d been right. Those first few weeks she’d felt exhausted every night. It was partly because she was learning a new business, a new trade. Not just the printing, but everything involved in running the shop. Payroll. Tax. VAT. Bookkeeping. Invoicing. Taking orders. Preparing tenders. Costing up a job so they could actually make a profit on it. Cold-calling and following up prospects. Chasing the slow payers. A new world that she’d vaguely known existed, but had never had reason to explore.
All that was tiring enough. But the really hard part was the concentration needed to sustain her new identity. As Salter had implied, it wasn’t a difficult task in itself. After all, like all the best lies, her legend had been designed to be as close as possible to the truth. She’d stuck with her own name – it had been known for officers to answer to the wrong one – and most of the details of her past had been left broadly unchanged. She knew that, back at the ranch, they’d spent a lot of time carefully checking online to make sure that she’d wouldn’t be exposed by some out-of-date Facebook page or Google reference. The aim, from the start, had been to make her new life as effortless as possible.
That was the theory. But she was acutely aware of the mistakes she’d made during training, infrequent as they’d been. The odd passing reference to Liam or to some real-life work colleague. Some comment that didn’t quite square with who or what she was meant to be. Most had been trivial, and probably wouldn’t have been noticed by a casual listener. But she’d watched herself on the video replays and realized how easy it was to make an error. And, as the trainers had repeatedly emphasized, even one error could be one too many.
So she spent those first weeks thinking carefully about every word she spoke, hesitating before she opened her mouth. Constantly reminding herself that ‘Marie Donovan’ up here was, in some critical ways, a different person from the Marie Donovan back home. At the end of the day, she just wanted to hide herself away, safe inside her flat where there was no danger of saying or doing the wrong thing.
She’d been advised that the best approach for the first month or so was simply to immerse herself in it. She had to become the new Marie Donovan to the point where she no longer had to think about it. Unconscious competence, Winsor the psych had called it, as he talked her through a more sophisticated version of Salter’s driving analogy.
She’d decided therefore that she couldn’t afford to interrupt her immersion by paying repeated visits back home. That would just make the whole process even harder. Liam hadn’t been pleased – well, of course he hadn’t, she acknowledged now – but she’d pointed out that once she’d got through this initial acclimatization she’d be able to establish a routine of regular visits home.
He’d grudgingly accepted that, but set a deadline of a month for her first trip back. She’d planned to leave Friday lunchtime, telling Joe that she was visiting her elderly parents back in London. Almost inevitably, things hadn’t gone smoothly. They’d had to redo a large print job because of some technical fault with the machine, and she’d finally got away later than she’d intended. She had taken the train from Piccadilly rather than facing the Friday night traffic on the M6, and though it wasn’t quite peak time, the carriages were already tightly packed. With no reservation, she’d eventually found a seat next to an overweight man who made no great secret of his resentment at having to move his bag from the spare seat beside him. She’d reached Euston at the tail end of rush hour only to find that the Northern Line was up the creek, the trains sporadic and full.
It was gone seven thirty when she finally arrived at their South Wimbledon house, at least a couple of hours later than she’d expected. She’d been updating Liam periodically throughout the journey, but still he’d seemed to treat her late arrival as a personal affront.
‘I was going to book us a table somewhere,’ he said, looking pointedly at his watch.
‘You still can,’ she pointed out. ‘What about the Italian?’
‘They’ll be booked up by now,’ he said. ‘Friday night, after all.’
She considered some sarcastic rejoinder, then decided just to go with the flow. He was only pissed off because he’d wanted her back earlier, she told herself.
‘Let’s just do the pub, then,’ she said. ‘We can grab a bite there. Better than ringing around the other places trying to find a table.’
He looked for a moment as if he were about to argue, then smiled. ‘Yeah, why not? It’ll be more fun than some overpriced pasta, anyway.’
As it turned out, it was quite a lot more fun. She hadn’t realized, until she arrived back here in her home environment, quite how tense and constrained she’d felt in Manchester. It was as if she’d thrown off some ill-fitting garment and was finally able to breathe properly. At another time, she might have expressed her tiredness by getting irritated with Liam, but tonight all that seemed to melt away. Liam played it just right for her mood, cheerfully pulling her back into the moment, not bothering her with questions about how it had all gone.
Home. That was what this was. Not just the poky little Edwardian terrace that was all they’d been able to afford in this part of London. But all of it: Liam; the Irish pub round the corner that, unlike virtually every other pub in London, really did feel like a local; the neighbours that she hardly knew but who nodded to her and Liam from the surrounding tables as they entered the bar.
She hadn’t realized till that moment quite how isolated she’d felt for the past few weeks. It wasn’t only that she was living alone in that anonymous apartment block. It wasn’t that, apart from Salter and Joe in the print shop, there was no one up there that she’d even been able to call an acquaintance. In the end, it was the fact that she was living a lie. She’d become a person without a past, without a context, without, in the long run, a future even. She wasn’t a great one for nights out with the girls, but down here there’d at least been a few female colleagues who she could join for a drink or two after work, some old college friends that she saw less often than she ought to. There was a life outside the job.
Up there, there was nothing. She couldn’t afford to go out and make new friends, even if she’d wanted to. She couldn’t take the risk of letting people too far into her fictitious life in case they spotted something that didn’t fit or decided that they wanted to know more about her. Once or twice, Joe had suggested going for a pint after work, his manner suggesting that he was inviting her simply as a workmate, rather than with any other intention. She’d eventually taken him up on the offer, but only because she’d thought it would seem odd to keep refusing. That had been OK. Joe himself was hardly the most forthcoming of individuals. But she’d spent the evening on tenterhooks, nervous of saying the wrong thing or simply of saying too much. It had been OK, but nothing like this.
‘Penny for them,’ Liam said, raising his pint in a mock toast.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Still thinking about the job. Takes a while to shake it off.’
‘I can imagine,’ he said. ‘Though probably nothing that a few drinks won’t cure.’
She laughed. ‘Worth a shot, anyway. Nothing to lose.’
The evening had gone on from there. She followed Liam’s advice and had those few more drinks, and she’d found that, yes indeed, all the stresses and strains of the job had quite quickly evaporated. They ate some forgettable pub lasagne, which she found surprisingly enjoyable, if only because, unlike most other meals she’d eaten over the last month, it wasn’t some ready meal she’d bought from the Tesco Metro around the corner. They chatted amiably about this and that, somehow managing to steer clear of anything that would have changed the mood, like Liam’s illness or her career. And finally, not long before closing time, they’d staggered back to their small house, gone to bed and made tipsy love, falling asleep in the warmth of each other’s bodies.
It was only in the small hours, suddenly awake with Liam breathing steadily beside her, that she suddenly thought about Jake Morton. He hadn’t entered her mind all evening, almost as if she’d deliberately boxed him away in some far corner of her head.
She’d agreed to go out for a drink with him the following week. Well, so what? It was nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. It was part of the job, following Salter’s instructions. Building her network, just as when she’d attended Kerridge’s charity dinner.
But she’d told Liam about that. She’d presented it as the tiresome chore it had been, and afterwards they’d had a good laugh over the phone about the naffness of the charity auction, the aspirational pretensions of Cheshire business folk at play. She’d talked about the fat middle-aged men who’d kept trying to entice her on to the dance floor, and about her role as Kerridge’s top-table eye candy. She’d told Jake about every over-ornate frock, every ill-fitting tuxedo.
But she hadn’t mentioned Jake.
There had been no reason for her to, of course. He was just someone she’d happened to sit next to. A brief acquaintance with whom she’d shared some polite chit-chat. Someone she probably wouldn’t see again.
But now she was going to see him again. Not just as a passing acquaintance or as a business contact. She was going to see him for what she was sure Jake himself would see as a date. And she knew that, whatever her supposed good intentions, whatever she might tell herself about this being part of the job, there was at least a small part of her that wanted to see it the same way.
She rolled over, pulling the duvet more tightly around her. Christ, why should she feel guilty about all this? She was just doing her job. OK, she felt some attraction to Jake. She was only human. Alone, a long way from home, struggling with a new life. No one could blame her for being tempted. But that was all it was. She wasn’t going to do anything about it.
For a long while, she lay awake, her mind empty but stubbornly refusing to shut down. Outside, she could hear the occasional hum of a car along the High Street. Inside, there was nothing but Liam’s rhythmic breath, the slow clicking of the cooling radiators. It was nearly dawn before she finally slept.
She awoke late. Liam was already up and she could hear him moving about downstairs, clattering dishes, whistling tunelessly along to some tune on the radio. She pulled on her dressing gown and made her way down the narrow stairs.
Liam was in the process of setting the table in what they rather grandly referred to as the dining room. In truth, the house was little more than an extended two-up two-down, part of a network of terraced streets built at the turn of the nineteenth century for workers at the local mill. Some previous owner had knocked through the two downstairs reception rooms to create a more spacious living-cum-dining room, and they’d set up their Ikea dining table in the rear space, with a view over the tiny garden.
‘Breakfast,’ Liam said. ‘Full English. Well, bacon, egg and sausage. Upmarket sausage, though. None of your girly rubbish.’
‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘Beats my usual takeaway skinny latte.’
‘We can offer coffee, too, madam. Even a skinny latte, if you want it.’ She’d bought him a moderately upscale espresso machine for his last birthday, when she’d been feeling mildly flush after her promotion.
‘You’re spoiling me.’
He paused, halfway into the kitchen, as if this thought hadn’t previously occurred to him. ‘Well, I haven’t had the chance recently. Thought we should make the most of it.’
‘Fine by me.’ She sat herself at the table in the manner of one about to embark on a fine-dining experience and watched him as he brought in the food and coffees. He was looking a little better, she thought, although it was always difficult to be sure. The last time she’d seen him, a month or so before, she’d thought he was having more difficulty with his mobility. Now, he was moving about in a more sprightly way, although she could tell that he was stabilizing himself against the furniture and doorframes with practised skill. He looked more cheerful, too, as if he were simply pleased to see her. As if, she added to herself, she wouldn’t be off again in another forty-eight hours.
The breakfast was fine, even if, as Liam kept pointing out apologetically, the eggs were overdone and the bacon on the cold side. The best thing, though, was the atmosphere, the sense of relaxation and calm between them. This was like it used to be, she thought. When they first met, when they’d first started living together. When they’d been content just to be in each other’s company, not necessarily saying or doing anything much. She’d almost forgotten that it could be like this.
Once they’d eaten, she showered and dressed, and then followed Liam through into what had originally been the house’s second bedroom, but which had long been adopted by Liam as his studio.
‘Couple of new ones,’ he said. ‘Did them while you were away.’
She’d never doubted that Liam had real talent. She knew nothing much about art herself but she’d heard others, who knew what they were talking about, praising Liam’s work to the skies. At least one of his lecturers at art college had been convinced that Liam would be the next big thing, and had done his utmost to promote his work. But, so far at least, it just hadn’t happened. It wasn’t so surprising, he kept telling her. Talent – even if he really did have it, which Liam himself seemed to doubt – was only part of the equation. The rest was a mix of luck, confidence and a knack for unabashed self-promotion. None of those qualities, she was forced to concede, had been noticeably evident in Liam’s life to date.
For her own part, while she had no idea of the commercial value of Liam’s work, she did think it was rather good. Once or twice, he tried to explain to her why he painted the way he did, who his influences were, but all that sailed immediately over her head. What she liked was the semi-abstract quality, the sense that you could almost pin down what he was depicting, but then somehow it slipped away. You were left with a wonderful mélange of colours that always threatened to cohere into something recognizable before once again melting back into uncertainty.
The new paintings were, as far as she could judge, at least the equal of anything he’d painted previously. She could see no sign that his talents were waning or – perhaps more pertinently – that the illness was having any adverse effect on his abilities. Though that didn’t necessarily mean very much. She had no idea how much effort it might have cost him to paint the new pictures, whether he was finding the task harder than before.
‘Beautiful,’ she said, gazing at the pictures. She had the sense that she ought to say something more profound. ‘Really beautiful,’ she added.
‘They’re OK,’ he conceded. ‘Not my best. But not bad. It’s not quite gone yet.’
She had the sense that he was trying to provoke some response with the last comment, but was determined to resist the bait. ‘I won’t ask what they’re about,’ she said instead.
He shrugged. ‘That one’s about eighty centimetres by sixty. The other’s a bit bigger.’
‘Ho, ho. Are they finished?’
‘More or less. Or at least I’ve got to the point where I should abandon them. I keep making minor tweaks, but I’ll probably end up ruining them.’
‘Leave them, then.’
She looked up and peered out of the window at the patchwork of narrow gardens that stretched between the two rows of terraces. It was a perfect autumn day – a clear blue sky, no wind. One of those days when South London could look almost enticing.
‘Let’s go out,’ she suggested. ‘Up to the Common, maybe.’
So they did. They drove Liam’s adapted Corsa – one of the few benefits of his illness had been that he’d qualified for the mobility allowance that paid the monthly rental – and parked up on the edge of Wimbledon Common. They spent the morning walking among the trees, enjoying the dappled sunlight, kicking the piles of newly fallen leaves. Like it used to be, she thought again. With no need to speak, no reason to bicker. No sense of doing anything much, except enjoying the moment, sharing the day. Enjoying each other.
It had been a perfect day, she thought later. Liam had seemed almost his old self, not quite able to skip among the leaves, but certainly stomping amiably behind her, half-resting on his stick, looking pleased to be there. They’d thought about stopping for lunch at one of the pubs on the Common – The Hand in Hand or The Billet, maybe – but everywhere was packed on what might well be the last fine weekend of the year. So, instead, they drove back home, and then took a walk through into the Abbey Mills, a cluster of old shops and craft stalls tucked around the River Wandle just behind their house.
It could be a bit naff, Marie thought, but it was ideal for a day like today. They could wander around, gaze at assorted trinkets they were never likely to buy, grab a pint in the pub, have an early supper in one of the restaurants.
With the sun setting over the pylons and industrial estates to the west, they sat outside the pub, sipping their beers and watching the endless flow of the narrow Wandle.
‘Been a good day,’ she said.
He took a swallow of his pint and nodded. ‘One of the best. For a while, anyway. Mind you, I’m knackered.’
She looked at him. Now he’d said it, he did look tired. Maybe she’d pushed him too far. She kept having to remind herself that he was ill, that he wasn’t the person he’d once been. Looking at him now, she could see that his hand was shaking, that he was struggling even to hold his glass steady.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.’
‘They’re good, you know. Your new pictures.’
‘My . . .’ He looked baffled, suddenly, as if she’d raised an issue that was too complicated for his understanding. ‘What?’
‘You sure you’re OK, Liam? We can head back now if you like.’
‘I . . .’
The change had come over him abruptly, the smiles of a few moments earlier wiped from his face. Now, he looked frightened, as if he’d suddenly stepped into some unfamiliar territory. He peered down at his glass as if wondering what it was. Then he looked back up at her, blinking, his expression returning to something closer to his usual self.
‘Christ, sorry. Just felt – I don’t know – dizzy or something. No, not dizzy exactly. More a bit . . . well, lost . . .’ His voice trailed off, as if he didn’t quite know what he was saying. Or more, she thought, as if he didn’t want to be saying it.
She hesitated, wanting to tell him yet again that he should go back and see the neurologist. But she knew that she’d just provoke another row, and that was the last thing she wanted at the end of a day like today. She felt already as if what had just happened – whatever it was – had cast an unexpected shadow.
‘Shall we get home?’ she said.
He took another swallow of his pint. ‘Yes, let’s do that,’ he said. ‘I must be more tired than I realized. Been having too much fun.’
Yes, that was it, she’d thought, as they’d made their slow way along the narrow riverside path that led back to their house. For once, they’d both been having too much fun.
Later that night, she’d lain awake again in bed, listening to Liam’s gentle snoring and the distant sounds of the night. Liam had collapsed into bed almost as soon as they’d got in, looking all in. She’d half-heartedly watched some Saturday night television, drunk another glass of wine, and then had followed him up. But sleep had proved elusive.
It was all like a dream, she thought. For a few moments, earlier that day, she thought they’d recaptured it, that perfection they’d had when they’d first been together. Briefly, everything had seemed right again, and she could imagine a future – here, with Liam, watching him paint, not worrying about her own career. Just getting by with each other. Now, it felt as if all that had just melted away, like a dream that you can scarcely remember on waking.
She didn’t even know why. OK, so she’d been reminded yet again that Liam was ill. That his condition was worsening. That it would continue to deteriorate. That whatever future there was here was at best uncertain.
But she’d known all that. For a short period, she’d been able to put it aside, pretend that it didn’t exist, or at least that it didn’t matter. Now, everything had come flooding back. Liam’s condition. Her own isolated life and work up north. The reality that she’d have to face again once this weekend was over.
And Jake. Jake who meant nothing to her, except as a potential target for her work. Jake who was firmly on the other side. Jake who could be her entry point into Jeff Kerridge’s inner circle.
Jake who was taking her for a drink in just a few days’ time.
Later, when she was back up north and everything was beginning to slip out of her control, she would look back at that weekend as perhaps the last time she’d felt genuinely happy, truly content. The last time she’d felt really close to Liam.
The last time things had been simple.
Before Jake.