Chapter 78: Linda Booth & Jacqueline Howarth

Bradlow, evening: Tuesday, October 21st

From the moment she’d walked into their flat Linda knew her cousin and her partner were, in Gran’s words, “tiptoeing around her”, exchanging anxious glances. She waited for them to speak while she studied the plaques and cases of medals hung on the wall.

‘You managed to find room for them all then?’ She smiled at Nicki.

The tall woman rolled her eyes. ‘Just about. From the minute she moved in here she mithered me until I nailed the last hook in.’ She had her arm slung affectionately over Jackie’s shoulder as they sat together on the settee.

They made an odd couple, Linda thought; her cousin, plump with black curly hair, and her girlfriend, almost skeletally thin, with a mass of ginger hair and the most amazing green eyes. Chalk and cheese they might be, she corrected herself, but their love for one another was evident.

She wondered how her uncle and aunt were dealing with the news that these two were a couple. All she’d heard, and that was from her dad, was that there’d been a commotion after Jack had told Patrick in the pub last week. Linda gave an inward smile at the picture her thoughts had conjured up, of Ted scratching his head and saying he was flummoxed that they didn’t already know.

There was a clump of footsteps on the stairs outside the flat, the low murmur of voices as people passed.

Nicki lit two cigarettes, passing one over to Jackie. The exchanges of looks, the silent mouthing of words were enough for Linda. She took another sip of the lager they’d poured for her. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘I know there’s something going on. There’s something you’re dying to tell me so spit it out, one of you at least.’

Jackie extricated herself from Nicki’s arm and moved to sit on the buffet next to Linda.

‘It’s about Vicky.’

‘Oh?’ Well, that was unexpected; Linda felt the tension ease in her jaw. ‘Has she been found? A moment of anxiety. ‘Is she okay?’

‘No, and yes as far as anyone knows,’ Jackie said. ‘It’s not that.’ She picked imaginary bits of fluff off her jeans. ‘Uncle Peter’s got it into his head that she’s here in Ashford.’ She cleared her throat. ‘In particular, in the old mill. In the Granville. And he wants me to go with him to look for her in the morning.’

The muscles clenched in Linda’s throat. She put her drink carefully down on the glass-topped table in front of her. ‘Why there?’ She cursed the quiver in her voice, hating the evident sign of her fear.

‘Some hippie types moved in a few months ago,’ Jackie said. ‘With all the news being full of the hassle between police forces and squatters, he thinks there’s a chance she’s there. Although I’ve told him we’ve already looked all over the Granville.’

‘Does Auntie Mary think the same?’

‘She doesn’t know about it. She wasn’t in when he saw some news programme on it. And then when Uncle Ted told him about the commune at the Granville…’

‘Uncle Peter put two and two together?’

‘Yep. And made five.’ Jackie moved her shoulders again in a dismissive action. ‘I think he’s clutching at straws.’

Nicki ground her cigarette out in the ashtray on her lap. ‘But let’s face it, in the last few days they’ve been all over Manchester looking for her and putting up those notices with no luck. I suppose he thinks it worth a try.’

They both spoke with such nonchalance but Linda wasn’t fooled. They were watching for her reaction. She sat as still as she could, even though the pulse in her temple was pounding and her heart was keeping time with the short breaths she took in through her nose. She closed her eyes, opened them instantly as the memory of darkness closed in on her.

‘I need some fresh air.’ She bolted for the balcony doors and pulled at them. They were locked. She scrabbled at the key.

‘Here, let me.’ Nicki’s calm voice broke through Linda’s anxiety.

‘Thanks.’ Linda let the woman reach past her to turn the Yale. Once outside she grabbed the iron rail surrounding the small balcony, comforted by the sturdiness of the metal beneath her hands and breathing in the coolness of the evening.

‘I’m sorry, Lin.’ Jackie stood alongside her. ‘I thought you should know.’ She clasped Linda’s hand, nodding towards some fields just visible over the tops of the houses opposite. A bank of thin cloud blurred the misty lines of the pink and lemon sunset. ‘Remember the hours we spent up there?’

Linda managed a tremulous smile. ‘You mean the hours you spent running round them?’ She nudged Jackie. ‘And insisting I time you on my watch.’

‘Which you never did, because you always had your head in a book.’

Their shared low laughter faded.

‘It’ll all be all right, you know,’ Jackie said.

‘Perhaps.’ Linda couldn’t check the ripple of fear that puckered the skin on her arms again. Neither could she block out the knowledge that there was so much that her cousin didn’t know. ‘But I’ll be coming with you.’ She held her hand up as Jackie opened her mouth to protest. ‘No argument.’