That morning, Flyte had met up with her ex-husband, Matt, for the first time in months. Although it was a Saturday he’d had to go into work and so they’d arranged to meet in a cafe in Islington, halfway between Camden and the City yet not ideal for either of them. An analogy of our marriage, thought Flyte.
‘Sorry I’m a bit late. Popping into the office always takes longer than it’s supposed to.’ Matt rolled his eyes self-importantly, as he set down his briefcase – actually one of those satchel-style bags that even City types seemed to favour these days.
‘That’s fine, I’m off today.’ She squeezed lemon into her tea.
As he folded his coat carefully onto an empty chair, she noticed he’d lost weight since they’d last met, making him look more like the cute, boyish guy who’d chased her on the (reassuringly expensive) online dating site where they’d met. She remembered convincing herself that a white wedding, marriage and children would deliver the feeling of normality that had eluded her all her life. But although married life had been pleasant enough she’d sometimes been overcome by the dislocating sensation that she was performing in a play. And the sex had been more duty than desire on her part.
Still, she would never regret a marriage that had given her Poppy, however briefly. After they’d lost her, the marriage had melted down pretty fast.
After a bit of chit-chat about work, she brought up Poppy’s memorial service, which Matt had seemed set on boycotting – until recently. ‘I’m so pleased you’re coming. Mother will be there too, but don’t let that put you off.’ They exchanged a rueful look – Sylvia had always tried to recruit Matt as an ally against her ‘difficult’ daughter but he’d once admitted to Flyte that he found her mother ‘terrifying’.
‘The priest is lovely – and he knows we’re agnostic.’
‘Atheist,’ said Matt staunchly.
Flyte shrugged. She’d hardly been a diligent churchgoer, having only attended the occasional Christmas or Remembrance Sunday service with her father, whenever they’d been in the same country. But she had still called herself a believer – until the moment Poppy had been taken from them. Recently she’d found herself nursing a glimmer of hope that she might see her daughter again after all, a feeling she pictured as a tiny candle flame that needed shielding from the wind.
Matt played with his teaspoon before clearing his throat. ‘I’ve been thinking of her – of Poppy – more, recently.’ It was the first time he’d used the name Flyte had given her. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick about it all.’ He blinked fast. ‘I suppose it was easier just to try to blank it out.’
Flyte touched his arm. ‘I did the same for two years. I know how hard it is, but once you let the grief in, it actually gets easier.’
‘That’s exactly what Caroline said.’
Caroline?
‘Sorry,’ he said, a smile curling one corner of his mouth, ‘I thought I’d mentioned her. She’s a girl – well, woman – at work. We work on the same account.’
‘Oh right! Are you . . . an item, then?’– taking her hand from his arm she lifted her cup.
‘Not really, not yet.’ Still with that irritating private-happiness smile.
Why did this news enrage her? She had not one iota of desire to get back with Matt. Was she envious of him, wearing that sappy ‘in love’ grin? No. It was the idea of him discussing Poppy with someone else, sharing her precious memory with a stranger.
*
After Matt left, Flyte checked to see whether any of her fellow Hendon probationers had replied to her Facebook messages asking after Sean Kavanagh. Her cover story: that she was planning a class reunion. As if.
There was one message from a guy called Darren who she dimly remembered. He said he’d played five-a-side football with Sean at college and for a while afterwards. But apparently Sean had left the police around eight years ago, and moved abroad – a timescale that would fit with the last time Zeke had seen him at the gym.
Seeing Darren was online, Flyte pinged him a message: Could you call me?
A couple of minutes later, she was swiping to accept an incoming call.
‘So, Sean emigrated? Wow! Where to?’ asked Flyte, acting as though she knew him better than she had.
‘Canada, the lucky bastard,’ said Darren.
‘You say you didn’t see much of him after Hendon?’
‘Yeah, Sean went to Finsbury Park nick and I was posted to Lewisham, so . . .’
It always amused Flyte how a forty-minute journey was enough to deter Londoners from meeting – especially if it involved crossing the Thames, which seemed to operate as some kind of psychic barrier. When she’d lived in Winchester she’d thought nothing of driving twenty miles or more to see friends – until Poppy died, after which she couldn’t bear to see anybody from her old life.
‘So he was at Finsbury Park for what, seven years? Before he went to Canada?’
‘Yeah. He got a job in a private security firm looking after billionaires.’ Darren chuckled. ‘From the pic he posted on Facebook of his gaff out there – Vancouver? – I’d say he was minted.’
‘Did you ever hear anyone call him Shane?’ The only name he was known by at the gym according to Zeke.
‘No.’ A pause. ‘So this is just you wanting to organise a reunion, is it?’ Doubt creeping into his voice. Flyte knew she wasn’t the obvious cheerleader for a drunken reunion, having once overheard a fellow trainee describe her as ‘a stuck-up cow’.
‘Yes! It’s been too long, right?’ Injecting some enthusiasm into her voice. Then, picturing again the glamorous woman on Sean’s arm at the passing-out party, she took a punt. ‘What about Sean’s girlfriend?’
‘Which one?’ chuckled Darren.
‘The good-looking one with the long hair?’ she improvised. ‘He brought her to the end-of-term party?’
‘Oh yeah . . . Bethany something – she was a model. I’d have . . .’ He stopped, thinking better of whatever sexist drivel was about to come out of his mouth. ‘Did you know they got engaged after Hendon?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, but it didn’t work out. No surprises there, given his previous.’
Sean had evidently been a player.
Darren hadn’t heard anything about Sean returning to the UK, but promised to check back on Facebook.
An hour later, he messaged to say that Sean must have deleted his account and with it all his old posts. But he did forward a screen-grab of Sean’s ex-girlfriend.
It was an ad for a well-known brand of hair colourant, featuring a striking young woman who appeared, presumably by computer-generated trickery, to be riding a snarling tiger. Forehead lowered, she glared into the camera, her long hair flying out behind her – the same tawny colour as the tiger’s pelt.
The ad had been posted nine years earlier under the handle Bethany Violet Locke.