Blue_and_Sentimental

John Harvey

For Anna and Lucy

Kiley hadn’t been to the Vortex in years. A celebration of Stan Tracey’s seventy-fifth birthday, December 2001. Bobby Wellins joining the pianist on tenor sax, the two of them twisting and turning through ‘In Walked Bud’ before surprising everyone with a Latin version of ‘My Way’ which, for the duration of its playing and some time after, erased all thoughts of Frank Sinatra from memory. Now both Tracey and Wellins were dead and the Vortex had moved across East London, from Stoke Newington to Dalston. A corner building with a bar downstairs and the club room above, which was where Kiley was sitting now, staring out across Gillett Square, waiting for the music to begin.

The call had come around noon the previous day, just as he was leaving the flat, his mind set on a crispy pork banh mi sandwich from the Vietnamese place across the street from the Forum. The 02 Forum, as it was now less fortunately called, Kiley old enough to wish for things to be left, mostly, as they were.

‘Am I speaking to Jack Kiley?’

He’d assured her that she was.

‘You find people who’ve gone missing?’

‘Once in a while.’

‘That doesn’t sound too encouraging.’

‘I’m sorry.’

There was a silence in which he guessed she was making up her mind. If he moved the phone closer, he could hear the faint rasp of her breathing.

‘Can you meet me?’ she said eventually.

‘That depends.’

‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow afternoon? Somewhere around four? Four-thirty?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘You know the Vortex? It’s just off…’

‘… Kingsland High Street. Yes, I know.’

‘I’ll see you there.’

She rang off before he could ask her name.

Out in the square a group of elderly black men were sitting quietly playing dominoes, oblivious to the cries of small children and the bump and clatter of skateboarders negotiating a succession of mostly successful pirouettes and arabesques.

Behind Kiley, the musicians who had been arriving, haphazardly, for the past ten minutes or so, stood chatting, shrugging off their coats, freeing instruments from their cases, starting to tune up. On stage, the drummer finished angling the last of his cymbals correctly and played an exploratory paradiddle on the snare. With the concentration of someone threading a needle, one of the saxophone players fitted a new reed into place.

Gradually, the composition of the ensemble took shape: rhythm section at the back, piano off to one side; three trumpets; two, no, three trombones; the saxophones, five strong, down at the front of the stage, one—the baritone player—leaning back against the side wall.

The leader stepped forward, called a number from the band’s book, signalled with his hand: four bars from the piano, then four more and the sound of fifteen musicians filled the room.

Smiling, Kiley eased back in his chair.

The repertoire mixed original compositions with new arrangements of the tried and tested; after an extended workout on ‘Take the A Train,’ Kiley got up and made his way to the bar.

Only one woman sat alone amongst a scattering of couples and a dozen or more single men; smartly yet casually dressed, dark hair swept back, Kiley wondered if she might be the person he was meeting, but when he passed close by her table she gave no sign, and by the time he’d paid for his beer she’d been joined by a stylishly bearded thirty-something energetically apologising for being late.

Back at his seat by the window, Kiley saw that a woman wearing a bottle green apron over a brightly patterned floor-length dress had stationed herself behind the domino players and was busily cutting hair, a short but steadily lengthening line of clients waiting their turn. A quartet of youths crisscrossed the square on scooters, revving noisily, while on stage the band strolled its way into the interval number, a slow rolling blues that climaxed all of ten minutes later, electric guitar ringing out over a volley of brass.

As the applause faded, the musicians began to set their instruments aside, the taller of the two tenor players unclipping her saxophone from its sling before crossing the room.

‘Jack Kiley? I’m Leah Temple.’

Kiley reached out his hand. He’d noticed her before, one of four women in the band: piano, trumpet, tenor, and alto saxophones. Tall, auburn hair tied loosely back, she had a way of holding her instrument off to one side when she played; long fingers, large hands. The right or wrong side of forty-five.

‘Let’s go and talk downstairs,’ she said.

The bar was deserted, not yet open for the evening. Leah pulled a stool down from one of the tables and angled it back against the window, waiting for him to do the same. Eyes that had shone green in the lights, he could now see, close up, were flecked with grey.

‘So what do you think?’

‘The music?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I like it. You’re good. All of you. But then you don’t need me to tell you that.’

She smiled. ‘Not bad for a rehearsal band. Afternoons like this, about the only time we can get together. Most of the guys have got regular gigs, pit bands in the West End, sessions. Some of them even get paid for playing jazz.’

‘You?’

‘Once in a while.’

For a moment she looked out into the square. Several of the other musicians were standing outside, sharing a joke, smoking.

‘Look, the reason I rang you…’ She left it hanging, fidgeted a hand back through her hair. ‘I’m sorry, I’m feeling really stupid about this.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘I just feel I’m…I don’t know…making a fuss about nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t strike me as the type.’

She smoothed her hands down her jeans, deciding. ‘It’s my partner.’

‘Who’s missing?’

‘Yes. I mean, I think so. Maybe.’

‘How long since you saw him?’

‘Her.’

‘How long since you saw her?’

‘Ten days now. Eleven, more or less. That doesn’t seem long, I know.’

‘It depends.’

‘I had this gig at Ronnie’s. Upstairs. No big deal. Ellen was going to meet me there but she never showed. I didn’t think too much of it at the time. It wasn’t exactly unusual. But then, when I didn’t hear from her, and she didn’t answer her phone, reply to my texts, that’s when I began to get worried.’

‘You’re not living together, you and Ellen?’

‘It’s complicated.’

Kiley smiled. ‘It usually is.’ How long had he and Kate Keenan been not living together, living together, barely speaking?

‘She’s got a place in Camberwell. I went round there, of course. No sign. No one else in the building had seen her going in or out. Not for days.’

‘You’ve got a key?’

Leah shook her head. ‘There never seemed a lot of point. If we were together, it was usually round mine.’

‘How about where she works?’

‘Freelance. There’s a shared work space in Southwark where she rents a desk. She’s not been there, either.’

One of the musicians knocked on the window and gestured upstairs.

‘I can explain more later,’ Leah said, ‘if that’s okay? If you don’t think I’m wasting your time.’

‘As long as we can eat while we talk. All that music, gives me an appetite.’

The second set was mostly originals, only a driving version of ‘Rockin’ in Rhythm’ reminding Kiley of an Ellington LP, long mislaid, he’d bought for next to nothing in the early seventies—worth a small fortune now, thanks to vinyl becoming newly fashionable.

Just before the finale, the bandleader called Leah front and centre. ‘We’d like to feature Leah Temple on a slower number from the Count Basie repertoire, first recorded on the 6th June, 1938, with Herschel Evans on tenor. “Blue and Sentimental.”’

Kiley didn’t know Evans from Adam, but to his barely tutored ears, Leah sounded a lot like Lester Young.

Session over, Leah guided them to a Turkish ocakbasi restaurant just off the high road, where she recommended the mixed kebab with a side order of grilled aubergine and peppers. She wasn’t wrong.

‘So,’ Kiley said, ‘tell me more.’

Leah skewered a piece of lamb with her fork and dipped it into the chili sauce at the edge of her plate. ‘We met just over a year ago. A&E, where I work.’

Kiley’s face showed surprise.

‘What? You think I make a living from music?’ She laughed. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

‘So you’re what? A doctor? Nurse?’

‘Nurse practitioner.’

Kiley nodded as if he understood the distinction.

‘Ellen was brought in with quite serious injuries. Cuts, abrasions. What turned out to be a dislocated shoulder. She’d had an accident on her bike on the way home. Some idiot opening his car door without looking. Usual story. Ellen swerved to avoid it and got sideswiped by a lorry. Could have been a lot worse.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘She was in quite a bit of pain. A little out of herself after the gas and air. Even so I thought we had some connection. It wasn’t until she came back in again a week later, pretending she’d lost her way to the orthopaedic clinic, that I realised I’d been right.’

‘And the rest was what? Plain sailing?’

‘Hardly. I was just coming out of a relationship, not sure if I wanted to get involved again so soon.’

‘On the rebound.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And Ellen?’

‘Married for twenty-five years. Two kids, one just finishing university, one starting.’

‘You said complicated.’

‘Ellen had never been in a gay relationship before, never even thought about it.’ She grinned. ‘Well, maybe she’d thought about it.’ The grin broadened into a fully fledged smile. ‘The real thing, she said, was a revelation.’

‘To her husband as well, I daresay?’

Leah leaned back a little in her chair. ‘I kept trying to get her to tell him, Derek, come clean. When finally she did, all too predictably, he went crazy, screaming and shouting, calling her all the names under the sun. Told her if she didn’t get out of his sight he wouldn’t be held responsible for what he might do. She came to me, which, of course, he must’ve known she would. By the following day, he’d changed the locks, put her stuff out in boxes on the drive.’

‘Still, she didn’t move in?’

‘Not permanently, no. My place is pretty small. We’d have had to get somewhere together. But Ellen said she needed somewhere of her own, time to sort things out. Twenty-five years, it’s a lot to walk away from. And now Derek’s stopped threatening to beat her black and blue, he’s been moving heaven and earth trying to persuade her to move back in. Texts, phone calls, e-mails. Says he’ll forgive her. Forgive her, mind! Wants them to give it a second chance. At one point he even started waiting for her after work, following her home.’

‘Stalking, sounds like,’ Kiley said. ‘She could have gone to the police, got a protection order. Domestic violence.’

‘She didn’t want to do that. Thought it might make him angry all over again. It was a risk she didn’t want to take.’

‘She was frightened of him, then? Physically, I mean?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

‘He’d hit her before?’

‘No. At least, not as far as I know. And, besides, it wasn’t just that. There were the kids to consider. Not that they’re kids any longer. Boys. Not even that. Eighteen and twenty-one. Both taking their father’s side, apparently. The older one won’t speak to her at all.’

‘All that pressure, must have been hard for her to withstand.’

Leah nodded. ‘I know. Pressure from me, too.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘I’ve got this chance to go to New Zealand. In a year’s time. Hospital in Wellington. Promotion. More responsibility. I want Ellen to come with me.’

‘And she’s what? Not keen? Uncertain?’

‘I think she likes the idea of spending time in New Zealand well enough…’

‘It’s just spending it with you she’s not so keen on.’

Leah laughed. ‘Maybe. The thing is, it should be pretty straightforward. New Zealand’s a lot more liberal than many places. As long as I’ve got the skill set they’re short of, and healthcare’s one, I can get a visa easily enough and Ellen can get one as my partner. We don’t even have to be legally married, but we do need to have proof we’ve lived together in a stable relationship for at least one year.’

‘Which doesn’t exactly leave a lot of time.’

‘Tell me.’

‘And if she doesn’t agree to go, all that means, you’d go ahead anyway? Go on your own?’

‘If I had to, yes.’

‘She knows that?’

‘I think so.’

Kiley broke off a piece of pita bread and used it to wipe up what remained of the sauce. ‘Faced with all that, I just might do a runner myself. Give myself a little more time and space to think, at least.’

‘If it were just that, then fine. I’d understand. But not to go off without a word. Leaving me worried silly.’

‘You’ve spoken to the husband? Derek, is it?’

‘I’ve tried. All I get’s a stream of abuse. And when I went round a couple of days ago, he slammed the door in my face.’

Kiley eased away his plate. ‘You know, if you’re right and she’s really gone missing, the police have got a lot better resources than me.’

Leah shook her head. ‘One step at a time, eh?’

‘Okay. I’ll need a photograph. Addresses. Anything else you think might help. And we ought to take a look inside that flat. Camberwell, you said?’

‘Like I told you, I haven’t got a key.’

Kiley grinned.

At the end of his first month in the Met, walking the beat in North London, the netherland of Colindale, a wily old sergeant, close to retiring, had taken Kiley aside and tutored him in the art of gaining access to whatever, within reason, had been locked against intrusion. From petty cash boxes to shuttered windows and burglar-proof doors. The technology had changed but the methods were the same.

The entrance to the building was a cinch. Ellen’s bike was safely chained up in the shared space beneath the first flight of stairs. In a matter of minutes they were inside the top-floor flat and Leah was reaching round for the light.

Bed-sitting room, bathroom, kitchen. Single bed, neatly made; two-seater settee; swivel chair; a folding table that doubled as desk; concertina file to one side, angle lamp to the other; a shelf unit Kiley recognised as coming from IKEA; a three-high chest of drawers; clothes hanging from a long metal rail on wheels. Inkjet printer, retro-styled radio, small-screen TV. Half a dozen photographs Blu-Tacked to the wall: Ellen and Leah on what looked like Brighton Pier; Leah on stage somewhere soloing on saxophone, bell of her instrument close up to the microphone, eyes tightly closed; a young man, Kiley presumed to be Ellen’s oldest son, flourishing his certificate on graduation day; the other boy, sandy-haired, smiling a little shyly at the camera, and then, younger, twelve or thirteen, standing close by his mother, the pair of them happy, laughing, sea and sky behind.

In the kitchen the sink and draining board were empty; everything washed, dried, put away. Towel folded over the radiator in the bathroom; shampoo, conditioner, and moisturiser in a line. Whenever, wherever, Ellen had gone, she had not done so in a hurry.

‘Your place as squared away as this?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Notice anything out of the ordinary?’

‘Not so far.’

‘How about clothes? Anything missing?’

‘I’ll check.’

It didn’t take long. Ellen’s padded down jacket was no longer to be seen; denim skirt, one pair of jeans, assorted tops—Leah couldn’t remember which—underwear, tights, socks; one—no, two pairs of shoes. Enough for a week away, two at most. The pull-along case usually kept beneath the bed was no longer there; nor the makeup bag Leah knew Ellen liked to take for overnights, weekends. Her passport, however, was still in the concertina file, under P.

‘Any idea where she might go, this country, if she fancied some time away? Anyone else she might go and see. Old friends? Family?’

‘No one I haven’t already been in touch with, no. As for places… Dorset, maybe? The Jurassic Coast, is that what it’s called? Lyme Regis, round there.’

‘Somewhere you’ve been together?’

Leah shook her head. ‘She talked about it, that’s all. Wanting to go. Ever since that film. Meryl Streep? We saw it on TV.’

Kiley took a last look round the room. ‘You think someone else could have been here, taken just the right things, left it just how Ellen would have done herself?’

Leah hesitated. ‘Someone who knew her well, yes.’

‘Her husband, he have a key?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

Back on the street, Leah stopped him, her hand on his sleeve.

‘When Ellen finally plucked up courage to tell Derek about us, he pushed her back against the kitchen wall and held her there with his arm across her neck. So tight she could hardly breath. The bruise was still there, more than a week later.’

Kiley wasn’t sure what to expect when he rang the bell at 25 Forester Road a little after seven-thirty the following morning. The car, a grey Audi Saloon, was still in the drive and the dew still on the grass. A light showed faintly through the glass above the door. It had taken him no more than twenty minutes, Kentish Town to Finchley Central, five stops on the Northern Line. Now all he needed was for Derek Carpenter to still be at home.

He heard approaching footsteps, then the key turning in the lock, the bolt sliding across.

‘Yes?’

The question was testy, just short of belligerent, the door open no more than halfway. Carpenter was medium height, stockily built, fiftyish, fair hair growing thin; dark trousers, striped tie, toast crumbs littering the blue of his shirt.

‘Jack Kiley. I wonder if I might have a word?’

‘A word about what?’

‘Your wife, Ellen.’

‘What about her?’

‘She seems to have disappeared.’

The door opened a little wider. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Kiley gave him his card. Investigations. Private and Confidential.

‘What is this? Some kind of joke?’

‘It’s just a simple matter of wanting to get in touch with her. Make sure she’s all right.’

‘Why shouldn’t she be?’

‘I thought you might know the reason for that.’

Carpenter tore Kiley’s card in half and let the pieces fall. ‘I’d like you to leave.’

‘Maybe not quite yet.’

Carpenter swung the door closed but Kiley’s foot was quicker, wedging it open with the sole of his shoe.

‘Five minutes, Mr Carpenter. That’s all I ask.’

After a few moments’ deliberation, Carpenter relinquished his hold and took a pace back into the hall; Kiley moved his foot away and Carpenter slammed the door shut and thrust the bolt into place.

Tugging at the collar of his overcoat, a man came out of the house next door, cast a glance in Kiley’s direction, and hurried past and up the street towards the tube. Out of sight a dog was barking, impatient to be off on its morning walk.

Kiley crossed the street and took a seat on the low wall opposite. Seven forty-five. Two cars went past, one closely following the other, big four-by-fours, young mums ferrying the kids to school. An upstairs light in the Carpenter house went on then off. A trio of youths slouched grudgingly by, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, the tinny sound from their headphones just audible as they went past.

Ten minutes more and the door to number twenty-five opened and, careful not to look in Kiley’s direction, Carpenter stepped swiftly out, and into his car. Another moment—seat belt, ignition—and the Audi swung out of the drive and away, small plumes of greyish smoke rising behind it in the air.

Back home, Kiley made coffee, switched on the computer, and set to work. Hospitals, hostels; a contact at the National Crime Agency’s Missing Persons Bureau charged with unidentified body identification. More coffee and then a slow trawl through hotels and bed-and-breakfast places within a twenty-five-mile radius of Lyme Regis. Nothing. His back was beginning to ache and the air in the room was dry. He’d twice earlier called the place in Southwark where Ellen rented workspace and got the engaged tone both times. He picked up a sandwich in Pret, a flat white from Bean About Town and took it to the Thameslink train going south to the river.

The building was a converted warehouse, its guts torn out and refitted: rows of open-plan desks, cubicles, pods for private meetings. Natalie Joseph’s office was on the second floor, a view out across Tooley Street towards Tower Bridge and the Thames.

Glancing at his card, she smiled. ‘If you’re looking to rent a space, Mr Kiley, I’m afraid, just at the moment, there’s rather a long waiting list.’

She was late-thirties, small-featured, blue-eyed, fair hair cut short. A look Kate had once told him was made fashionable by Jean Seberg in a film by Godard. Funny how the mind can cling to the inconsequential.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr Kiley?’

He slid a photograph across the desk.

‘Ellen Carpenter. Yes. Her partner called asking about her. She seemed worried. I told her, the last time Ellen was here was… Wait, I can check…’ Her fingers moved fast along the keyboard. ‘See, here…’ She swivelled the screen round so that he could see. ‘Over two weeks ago. Friday.’

‘And there’s been no contact since then?’

‘None.’

There was something else, though. He could see it in her eyes.

‘Anything you could tell me that might help to find her would…’

‘I don’t know, it might be nothing. And I don’t like to…well, gossip, I suppose.’

Kiley smiled encouragingly.

‘That last day she was here. Ellen. I just happened to be looking out onto the street as she was leaving. She was just fitting her pannier onto her bike when this man came up and they started arguing. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you could see he was getting really worked up and angry, and at one stage he pushed her up against the wall, shouting. There was some sort of kerfuffle, Ellen dropped her helmet and he booted it out into the road and stormed off. Another cyclist retrieved it and gave it back. She was still standing there some minutes later, recovering, I suppose. I thought I might try and talk to her about it, the next time she came in. But like I say…’

‘This man,’ Kiley said, ‘fifties, stocky, going a little bald? Most likely wearing a suit?’

‘That sounds like a lot of people round here. But, yes, it could have been.’

‘Thanks.’

She held his hand just a moment longer than strictly necessary. ‘If you do ever find yourself in need of desk space, I think you’ll find our rates very reasonable.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

The Audi was parked on the second level, a block away from where Derek Carpenter worked. Kiley leaned back against one the columns and checked the messages on his phone: a friend encouraging him to join his local walking football team; his insurance company trying to convince him of the need for extra cover in these uncertain times; a selection of attractive young Ukrainian women, all good English speakers, seeking marriage; and an invitation from Kate to join her at the Almeida to see a newly translated version of Ibsen’s Ghosts. He thought he might give the walking football a second thought.

Carpenter exited from the lift, paused to light a cigarette, then headed towards his car.

‘What the fuck?’

‘Good to see you, too.’

‘How did you…how’d you know I’d be here?’

‘I’m a detective, remember?’

‘And I’ve got nothing to say to you, remember that?’

He made to brush past Kiley and reach his car door but Kiley had his feet firmly planted and wasn’t budging.

‘Your wife, Ellen, she’s still missing.’

‘Yes, well, she went missing a long time ago. Her decision, her choice, not mine.’

‘And you were seen threatening her the day before she disappeared.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘On the street in Southwark, near where she works. You pushed her up against the wall and were this close to hitting her. There are witnesses. CCTV as well, I daresay, if I search around.’

Carpenter’s shoulders drooped as the bluster drained out of him.

‘What d’you say,’ Kiley said, ‘we go and get a drink?’

The pub was busy with after-work drinkers, outside and in; smokers blocking the pavement, spilling out into the street. The majority men, white men between twenty-five and fifty; a sprinkling of women drinking and smoking hard to keep up and laughing too loud at jokes that were often at their own expense.

Kiley found space on the upper floor, a corner table wedged between a grimy window looking out onto a blank wall and the secondary toilet door.

‘I didn’t realise anything was up,’ Carpenter said, ‘until she texted me, her, that…woman…’

‘Leah.’

‘Yes, Leah. And I thought, bloody great, she’s coming to her senses at last, keeping her distance. But then, just today, Andrew phoned. Rang me at work. He never calls at work. Wanted to know had I heard from his mum. Seems they’ve been in touch pretty regular since he went down to Bristol…’

‘Bristol?’

‘Uni. Classical Studies. Don’t ask me why.’ Carpenter lifted his glass, didn’t drink. ‘Like I say, they kept in touch. Facebook, Twitter. He hadn’t heard from her in—what?—getting on for a couple of weeks. Wanted to know had I heard anything? Was she ill or something? Told him I’d be the last one to know.’

‘But that’s not true, is it?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘From what I hear, you’ve been keeping pretty close tabs.’

‘Want to stop her making any more of a fool of herself, that’s all.’

‘Fool?’

‘This…’ Carpenter made a face like his beer had gone abruptly sour. ‘This pathetic…I don’t know…cry for attention, whatever it is.’

‘The relationship with Leah, you think that’s what it is?’

‘What else? Hanging round with that…She’s not gay, for Christ’s sake, Ellen. She’s no more fucking gay than I am. If she was, twenty-five years of fucking marriage, don’t you think I’d know?’

Several heads turned in their direction and the toilet door banged.

‘The argument that Friday,’ Kiley said, wanting to bring things back on track, ‘what was that about?’

Carpenter drank, wiped his mouth with finger and thumb. ‘I’d been…what was the expression you used?…keeping tabs on her. Following her, I suppose. And she said if I stopped, kept right away, then she’d agree to meeting, sitting down somewhere, just the two of us, civilised, talking things over. Everything. And I agreed. Agreed and kept waiting for her to get in touch and say okay, you know, a date and everything, and she never did. So I went round there, when I pretty much knew she’d be leaving work and said how about it, this meeting you promised? And she said she wasn’t ready, things were happening, I don’t know, some new stuff she had to consider, and I said, well when the fuck are you going to be ready? And she said she didn’t know, I’d have to be patient, and that’s when it kicked off. I lost my temper and for a minute, just for a minute, it all got nasty.’

‘You pushed her up against the wall.’

‘I pushed her up against the wall and it was all I could do to stop myself taking a swing at her. But I kicked that stupid fucking helmet of hers out into the road instead and got away from there as fast as I could.’

He took another drink, a quick swallow, and looked toward his own reflection in the grime of the window.

‘I didn’t hit her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve never hit her. Never would.’

He set down his glass and Kiley could see his hand was trembling.

‘I just fucking miss her. All the fucking time. And, no, I don’t know where she is and I wish I did.’

He met Leah on the Heath, close to the hospital where she worked. A pale November morning from which the mist had never quite cleared. The occasional leaf still falling, the rest turning to mulch underfoot.

‘I talked to Ellen’s husband,’ Kiley said. ‘I could be wrong, but whatever might have happened to Ellen, I don’t think he’s responsible. And I don’t think he knows where she is. But, like I say, I could be wrong.’

They sat awhile on a bench in the lee of the hill, walked, then sat again.

‘When I don’t think something awful’s happened to her,’ Leah said, ‘I keep getting this picture of her lying ill somewhere, some room, just four walls and a bed and no one to help or hold her hand or…’

She stopped, her breath like grey smoke upon the air.

‘I remember the first time I touched her, Ellen, other than—you know—professionally. Just my fingers brushing her arm at first, like it could almost have been accidental. Then, when she didn’t move away, running my hand along the muscle where it rises from the shoulder up into the neck. All the while thinking she’s going to tell me to stop, ask me what did I think I was doing. But she just stood there, her face turning slowly towards me, and beneath my fingers I could feel her starting to tremble.’

She looked away, as if not wanting Kiley to see her face.

‘What I felt then, those first weeks, first months, it was something I thought I’d never feel again.’

‘And Ellen?’

‘I think it was the same for her. More so, even. As if—what was it she said?—as if her body had been sleeping. And now…I just don’t…I just don’t understand.’

Kiley didn’t know how to respond, what to say. He knew that people responded, some people, in terrible ways when faced with choices they felt unable to make, situations from which they could see no escape. He knew they opened up their arms, took pills, threw themselves in front of trains, climbed up to some high place and stepped free. He knew people who had assumed new identities, slept rough, become travellers, cut themselves off from their past lives so completely they forgot who they were, who they had once been. He knew Ellen could be any one of those. Or none.

‘I ought to be getting back,’ Leah said, rising to her feet.

‘I’ll walk down with you.’

‘No need.’

He watched until only a hint of her auburn hair stood out amongst the withering grey and then not even that.

In Bristol it was raining. Nothing spectacular, just that fine English rain that laced across your face and, without you noticing, seeped into your soul. Kiley took a cab from Temple Meads Station to the edge of College Green. A first-year student, Andrew Carpenter’s accommodation was in a row of terraced houses converted into flats. When he heard Kiley wanted to talk to him about his mother, the blood drained from his face and he steadied himself against the iron railing alongside the door.

‘It’s okay,’ Kiley said, ‘I’ve no reason to suspect anything’s happened to her. No reason at all.’

‘Wait then. We can’t talk here.’

He re-emerged minutes later with an anorak thrown over his shoulders, hood pulled up.

‘Coffee, yeah?’

‘Fine.’

The place was busy with students earnestly staring at their laptops, women feeding their babies while they sipped chai lattes; there was a vacant table upstairs, looking down over a dampened garden.

‘My dad sent you, that’s what you said.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Then what…?’

‘He told me where you were, what you were studying. That you were worried about your mother.’

‘He had no right…’

‘But you are worried?’

‘Yes, yes, of course I am. She’s always, you know, since I’ve been down here, kept in touch. Just a text or something. And now…’ His mouth puckered sharply as if he had just tasted something bitter and unpleasant. ‘It’s that woman, isn’t it?’

‘Leah?’

‘Yeah, her. She doesn’t want her to have anything to do with us, does she? Not any of us. As if we didn’t bloody exist.’

‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘No.’

Andrew looked back at him defiantly, disbelieving, then down at his hands, fingernails broken and bitten to the quick.

‘What I think Leah wants from your mother is to know where she stands. It’s as simple as that. I don’t think that means turning her back on you at all. I think she realises how important you are to her, you and your brother.’

‘What about my dad?’

‘That’s something they have to work out for themselves, him and your mum.’

Andrew stared down at his almost empty cup and then out through the window at the darkening, sodden earth, the false shine of stonework in the rain. What was he, Kiley thought? Eighteen? Nineteen? What had he been like himself at that age? Ignorant. Cocksure. If he couldn’t be a professional footballer, then he was going to join the police. His parents—unimaginative, solid, dependable; his father in the same job since he was seventeen; roast on Sundays, cold meat Mondays, what was still remaining into the mincer for shepherd’s pie on Tuesdays; two weeks holiday every summer, Filey, North Yorks coast, bracing, blow the cobwebs away, get ready for another year. If his parents, either of them, had as much as strayed, never mind left home, walked out, walked away, fallen in love…

‘There’s a photo,’ he said, ‘in your mother’s flat, on the wall. The two of you. By the sea somewhere; it looks like…’

‘Cape Cornwall. Summer before last. We went down there, just mum and I. Sort of treat for doing well in my exams. AS-levels. She used to go there when she was a girl, she said. Her parents. Not been back since.’

‘Looks as if you were both having a nice time.’

‘We were.’

He looked away and Kiley knew Andrew didn’t want him to see the tears in his eyes.

She was staying in St Just, a small grey town a short distance inland and just a few miles from Land’s End. This far out of season there were few visitors and those who were there were easy to find. Ellen Carpenter had taken a late breakfast in a small café-cum-book store—poached eggs and bacon on granary toast—lingering over a latté while leafing through that week’s Cornishman. Small of stature, greying hair; a face that had once been pretty and had grown into something more attractive, eyes that were intelligent and alive. Kiley waited until she was upstairs amongst the second-hand books.

‘Ellen?’

The paperback she’d been looking at slipped through her fingers to the floor.

‘It’s okay. No need to be alarmed.’

‘Who are you?’

Kiley explained, needing to gain her confidence, quell her fear.

There were two seats in the far room and they sat there surrounded by history, biography, people’s lives.

‘You think I’m running away, don’t you? And I suppose I am. It’s cowardly, I know. But whatever I decide to do—and I know I must…make a decision, I mean—it’s going to result in someone getting hurt. Someone I love.’

‘People adjust.’

‘Do they?’

‘I think so, usually. Yes.’

‘So do I. Rationally, I suppose. But people aren’t rational, are they? Not everyone. Not all the time.’

‘You’re thinking about your husband?’

She gave the sleeve of her cardigan a little tug. ‘Derek’s a prisoner to his own feelings. Instincts, I suppose. Faced with something he can’t quite understand, can’t control, he strikes out. Oh, afterwards he’s sorry, even if he can’t bring himself to say so. But that doesn’t stop it happening again. Just the mention of Leah, if I do try to talk about what’s happening, try to explain…Well, he feels threatened, I expect you can understand, another woman especially. And if I had to tell him I was going—we were going—to New Zealand. Moving there…’

‘Maybe if you had someone else there with you when you told him? Then he might not react so…well, violently.’

‘Maybe, supposing that’s what I decide to do.’ She rose quickly to her feet. ‘I’m going down to look at the ocean. Come with me if you like.’

They climbed the steep short path over the headland to the tall chimney stack at the head of the cape, remnant of the mine that had operated there from the last years of the nineteenth century, extracting tin and copper from under the sea, and sat on a bench seat, looking out over the rocks, the water lashing from both directions, throwing up spray. Powerful. Angry.

‘I’m trying not to—and I know being on my own like this doesn’t help—but I keep thinking about those dreadful things you read about in the paper. Men who’ve been rejected. And it is always men. Sometimes there are children involved, sometimes not. Rejected, anyway. And they sit on it, brood, send themselves into I-don’t-know-what…dark places, until suddenly, one day, they can’t keep it down anymore and it’s, “If I can’t have you, no one else will.” And they set homes ablaze and they stab and they kill.’

‘And that’s what’s frightening you? Keeping you here?’

‘Of course it’s bloody frightening me.’

‘Yet you must know, those cases, they’re awful, but they’re rare.’

‘And they still happen.’

‘Yes, of course. But not—’

‘Not what? Not to me?’

‘It’s unlikely.’

‘Unlikely! Is that the best you can do?’

They walked back around the side of the headland, with views across a broad bay towards what remained of a derelict mine, close by the shore.

‘You know,’ Ellen said, ‘along with whatever metals they used to take out of the ground, they used to process arsenic. Great for pesticides, apparently. Not only that. Back in Victorian times, women used to use it as a cosmetic. Dr Simms’ Arsenic Complexion Wafers. Guaranteed to result in clear and blooming skin. Drank it, even.’

‘No idea, presumably, that they were taking poison?’

‘No, but they did. It said so, there on the bottle. Dr Fowler’s Solution. Caution: Poison.’

‘Then, why…?’

‘Because they thought the way they looked was important, perhaps more important than anything else. And because, like people today who read Smoking Kills on a cigarette packet and light up all the same, they think it won’t happen to them. So they’re prepared to take the risk.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘Would I take arsenic to improve my ageing complexion?’ Ellen laughed. ‘I think perhaps not. Would I go back to smoking Marlboro Lights, like I did when I was twenty-one? Not now. No way. But does that make me a coward or just sensible? Risk-averse, is that the term?’

‘I dare say.’

‘It’s not just the as-you-say remote possibility of being the victim of uncontrollable anger that’s preventing me from making up my mind, it’s everything. Do I want to relocate halfway across the world and leave behind everything I’ve spent the best part of fifty years putting together? My two boys, my sons. Anthony, he’d be okay, but Andrew…’

‘There’s always Skype,’ Kiley said. ‘Or so I’m told.’

Ellen stopped on the cliff edge. ‘It’s different for Leah. She doesn’t have children. And she knows what she wants. She wants to go to New Zealand. And she wants me. If I don’t agree to go with her, it means I don’t love her. At least, not enough. That’s what she’ll think. And she’ll go without me if she has to, I realise that. She’s been after a job down there for ages and the chance may not come again. She’s not going to throw it away now.’

A gull flew close overhead and wheeled off across the bay.

‘It sounds to me,’ Kiley said, ‘as if you’ve made up your mind.’

‘Does it?’ Ellen’s laughter caught on the wind. ‘Then you better tell me what it is.’