At home, Mum had left a message to say she was working late.
I kicked about the empty house. In the kitchen, I peered into the fridge. Mum was preparing meals again, but it wasn’t the food that Dad had liked – no shepherd’s pie and steak and kidney pudding. Instead, Mum made pâté and stroganoff and chicken chasseur. She was trying to impress Bob.
I rang Dad. No answer. Why would there be? He’d gone away. Still, I dialled again, letting the phone ring for ages, imagining the sound winding through the empty house in Norfolk.
In the end, I decided to see Dave. Maybe the sight of him would fill this aching gap.
He was behind the counter wearing his headphones. I smiled at him, then shuffled across to Barry White, picked up an album and gazed into his warm and lovely face.
‘Dad has betrayed us both,’ I whispered. ‘You and me, Barry, we’ve been abandoned.’
A fat tear splashed onto the record sleeve, drenching Barry’s ear. I wished Dad would come back so that things could be like they used to be. I wished he was here now, tapping his feet in time to the music. I wished he hadn’t chosen Norfolk and Mrs Wright over this town and me.
Another tear splattered onto Barry’s nose. Dave came across and took the album gently, patted my arm before going across to the turntable and putting the record on. I watched him, sending it spinning, moving the stylus with a practised hand. His hands, I thought, were kind. Long, slim fingers, smooth palms. When the record had finished, Dave slipped it into two bags, stroked it lovingly and held it out to me.
I mumbled about not having any money.
‘S’all right,’ he said, touching my shoulder. ‘Have it.’
It was the most he’d ever spoken to me. I smiled weakly and he asked about Dad.
‘He’s gone away,’ I said. And the thought of that brought a fresh new pool of tears. ‘Great Yarmouth.’
He nodded sagely as if Great Yarmouth was the most remarkable of places to visit.
It all came out. I told him how Dad had taken Melissa, but not me, that I’d been left here with Mum and Bob and it wasn’t fair. I told him how I wanted to be friends with Rachel but she was too ill to come out of the house and that I’d upset my good friend John because I hadn’t wanted to go to the Little Chef. I said that Debra didn’t appear to be holding things against me, but she probably was, which meant I had no one. No one.
Soon I was blubbering and dashing the tears from my eyes and opening and closing my hands dramatically as if I wanted to release my feelings, but couldn’t quite let them go. I knew I was crying not only about Dad, but about Rachel because I’d thought somehow that knowing her would make up for Dad being gone, but in the end she didn’t want me. She wanted Karl. She had terrible scars all over her arms and I had no idea why.
I didn’t tell Dave that last part. I concentrated on Dad, and as Dave listened, he raised his eyebrows, higher and higher until they almost disappeared. He’d had another haircut, I noticed. With shorter hair, he seemed younger. In fact, now I came to think about it, he was quite good-looking. It was amazing to me how different he seemed: I’d always thought he was Dad’s age, but now I realised Dad was older.
I finished talking and his eyebrows came back down. He nodded thoughtfully and went behind the counter. A thick black jacket hung over a chair. Reaching into the pocket, he pulled out a handkerchief.
‘It’s clean,’ he said.
I took it gratefully and then started crying all over again, thinking how once I’d given Rachel my handkerchief and she’d given me a tissue.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, blowing my nose.
I followed his gaze, out through the window at the street. He looked unhappy suddenly and that was my second revelation: not only was Dave a good-looking man, he also had feelings. It was weird to think about him being an actual person. Dave was just Dave. I practised spotting his aura. It was all fuzzy and warm. Sad. Confused. Or maybe that was just me. Now I felt a great surge of love. My Dad’s friend. My friend. He hadn’t abandoned me, gone away to start a new life. Dave was Dave and he was here. I had to stop myself from throwing my arms around him.
‘Who’s this girl you’re talking about?’ he said after a while.
‘Rachel.’
‘The Wright girl? The red-haired girl?’
I nodded.
‘I saw her. This morning.’
‘Where?’
He nodded across at the barber’s next to Trim. ‘I was having my hair cut. She walked past the window with her dad.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure.’
I thought about this, going back over what Mr Wright had said. Hadn’t he told me she’d been sleeping all morning?
I blinked. Two more revelations. Dave cared about his appearance and Mr Wright had lied.
I left the shop. A man with a handlebar moustache was coming out of the barber’s. I recognised him from Residents Against Estates. He’d gone on about there being a serial killer in our midst. Maybe he was one of the ghouls Maggie despised, visiting places where victims had frequented.
Catching sight of my reflection in the window, it came to me how all my intentions to improve my appearance had resulted in nothing. My hair was too long, almost at my shoulders. Flat. Lifeless. It had no bounce. Layers, that’s what I needed. A bit of fluffing up and then I’d be walking down the street in slow motion like an is-she-isn’t-she Harmony Hairspray girl.
Dismissing the suspicion that I might be one of the ghouls too, I went into Trim.
A young woman with sparkly purple eye shadow and spiky eyelashes like insects stood at the desk.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Can I make an appointment?’
She scanned the book. ‘Who with?’
‘Um … Last time I had Margaret.’
Why did I say that?
The woman’s plucked eyebrows shot up. ‘Peggy, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘When? You do realise …’
‘Um, it was ages ago. Two years.’
‘Oh.’ She was recovering now. Coughing, she said, ‘We have a replacement.’ She nodded across at a woman with a bleached perm. ‘Claire. She do?’
‘Fine.’
‘Now? She’s free.’
I felt in my pocket. ‘How much?’
I sat in the chair waiting for Claire with shampoo in my ear and water down my neck. How odd to think this could be Peggy’s vacated place. There was a set of brushes and combs laid out before me. Were her fingerprints on the handles? What about the mirror? Was her reflection imprisoned inside?
My gaze fell on a key left on the table. It was attached to a ring replete with a charm – a silver skeleton with rubies for eyes. It was Peggy’s, I guessed, remembering her skull jewellery.
On the radio, they were playing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Freddie Mercury singing about his mama, a fantasy and killing a man. I listened, biting my lip and wondering what it must be like, to murder someone, to smash their head in with a hammer like Peggy’s killer had done. What emotions had been running through their mind? I thought about Peggy. How had she felt? I remembered that day – how gloomy the orchard had been, full of shapes and shadows. Imagine being alone there; imagine sensing someone hiding amongst the trees, and then the sudden movement, the swing of the hammer, the pain and the blood seeping into the ground.
‘What are we doing today?’
I jumped. Claire was standing behind me. My thoughts quietened.
‘How much off?’
‘An inch?’ I replied, guessing.
She frowned, thinking hard. ‘Do you know what? I reckon a Purdy cut would suit you.’
I looked at her blankly.
‘You know, Joanna Lumley, the New Avengers?’
I knew what a Purdy cut was, but would it suit me? ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. Let’s go for it.’
I agreed, reluctantly, and watched her pick up a lock of my hair and snip it in half. She talked a lot, telling me she’d only been at the salon for a few months. I listened, but didn’t ask her any questions. I was practising my new art of being silent, letting other people fill in the gaps, and soon enough, she started talking about Peggy, lowering her voice. Claire wasn’t that old, late teens. The rest of the women were older. Maybe she didn’t get to gossip that often and was making the most of it now.
‘You know what,’ she said, stopping and catching my eye in the mirror, ‘it’s a bit weird being here. I mean, here. Exactly.’ She pointed at the floor.
‘How?’
She made a face. ‘It’s like she’s watching me. You know what I mean?’
I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.
She continued. ‘Her husband came in – Lenny. The boss called him thinking he’d want to collect her things. Sat right here.’ She gestured to my chair this time. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit creepy?’
I nodded again. It was definitely creepy.
‘But he didn’t take any of it away. None of her brushes and stuff. She had a few keepsakes too, lucky mascots, photos, that keyring.’ Claire pointed at the skeleton. ‘Why wouldn’t he take them? I mean, the key’s just a shop key – opens the storage room – but the keyring. That’s personal.’
I shrugged. Keeping quiet was paying off.
‘Well …’ Claire opened and shut the scissors a few times. ‘It turns out she was having an affair. At least, everyone here says so. And the police came, asking us questions.’ She glanced at a door which I guessed connected Trim with the barber’s. ‘Apparently, the police wanted to see a list of their customers. I reckon they must have thought she was having an affair with one of them – or maybe more. Though I don’t know why she did that because Lenny’s loaded. Loaded.’ She paused dramatically, did some scissoring again. ‘Dodgy money. Apparently. But still … and … do you know what?’
I shook my head.
‘It was rumoured …’ She hushed her voice. ‘They said Lenny knew all about the lovers and he did things to them – for revenge. Makes you wonder why anyone would take the risk.’
I thought of Lenny headbutting Dad.
‘Trophy wife, I reckon,’ said Claire. ‘Picked her for her looks, didn’t expect her to turn out like she did.’
‘Did he wonder where she’d gone?’ I said quietly, risking a question, hoping it wouldn’t put her off. ‘You know … when she disappeared in the first place?’
‘Well yeah, everyone wondered, but they just thought she’d gone off with one of her blokes – run off without telling Lenny. She probably knew what he’d do.’
‘Do you think he cared about her being dead?’
Claire shrugged. ‘Doesn’t seem like it, does it? Maybe it was just pride. He didn’t want her but no one else could have her either. Some blokes are like that.’
‘You mean …’ Our eyes met in the mirror.
She shrugged and looked away. ‘I’m just saying that she’d done the dirty on him and he didn’t care whether she was dead or alive.’
I waited a few moments while she snipped a lock of my hair. Then I asked her if she’d ever actually met Peggy.
She shook her head. ‘Nah, but she wasn’t popular here. Took the piss a bit too much, I heard, if you get what I’m saying. People don’t like to be laughed at, do they? ’Specially men. Think how Lenny must have felt. Her taking the piss like that?’
I nodded wisely.
Dad. The man in the orchard. Who else had she had an affair with?
I asked Claire, trying to keep my question vague. Did she have a theory?
Maybe she suddenly realised how young I was, maybe she thought she’d said too much. Maybe it was because the connecting door opened and one of the barbers, a pimply boy with a Mohican, came in and tipped a wink at her. Or maybe she just didn’t know. Whatever the case, her expression changed. No more chat, she carried on sculpting my hair.