‘I’m not going to steal anything,’ Ursula tells herself as she strides across the Meads landing, sweating under her thick woollen coat as she heads for Mirage Fashions. ‘I’m just going to look.’
It was all she could do not to head straight there after she’d walked back to her van, feeling Paul Wilson’s eyes burning into her spine. She hadn’t though, she’d forced herself to finish her round, trying and failing to push the desperate expression on Nicki’s face out of her mind. She’d thought she was helping her by calling the police to report a suspected domestic abuse situation but she’d only made things worse.
She keeps an eye out for the security guard as she walks through the entrance of Mirage Fashions but surprise, surprise, he’s nowhere near the doors. He’s hovering by the checkout, watching the shop assistants as they work. He’s definitely the laziest security guard in the whole mall. Unlike some of the others, who trail after her everywhere, the old bloke at Mirage Fashions seems to be counting down the days to retirement. Ursula heads for the back of the shop. She doesn’t slump or move furtively. At six foot three she’s visible whatever she does and to try and shrink herself down would only draw unnecessary attention. Instead she walks confidently, shoulders back, as though she’s got a wad of cash in her pocket and a burning desire to spend it. Her eye is drawn by a rail of pretty, multi-coloured skirts. They’d be mid-calf on most women and knee-length on her but she could carry one off with the right top and her favourite boots. She runs a hand up and down the material then plucks at the elasticated waistband. They only go up to a size twenty and she’s a twenty-four but there’s enough give in the cloth that it might actually fit. She keeps her eyes on the security guard on the other side of the room as she unclips the skirt from the hanger and swiftly folds it up. The flatter she can make it the less likely she’ll be noticed once she shoves it under her top. Her gaze flits to the CCTV cameras on the ceiling. She’s standing so close to the rail there’s no way they can pick up what she’s doing. Her heart beats faster as she pulls at the elastic at the bottom of her sweatshirt. Two, three minutes tops and she’ll be out of the shopping centre and well on her way to the van.
‘Careful. That rail’s really loose. If you flick through the clothes too fast it collapses.’
Ursula jolts as a woman, dressed in the store uniform, appears to her left. She’s young, barely out of her teens. Her gaze flicks to Ursula’s waistline and the size twenty skirt in her hands. Where did you pop up from? Ursula thinks as she frantically tries to decide what to do. She really wants the skirt but making a break for it would be too risky. But she doesn’t want to leave without it. The dark cloud she’s spent the last two years running from will descend the second she makes it back to the van and she can’t let that happen, she won’t.
She looks at the shop assistant and smiles brightly. ‘Could you point me in the direction of the changing rooms? I’d like to try this on.’
Ursula glances at her reflection in the changing room mirror, the skirt hooked over her arm. Her cheeks are flushed, there are dark circles under her eyes and her damp fringe is clinging to her forehead. She hastily looks away, peeling off her coat and hanging it on a hook on the wall. She plucks at the hem of her sweatshirt and moves it back and forth to try and get some air to her clammy skin. She wants to sit down to catch her breath but there’s no chair in the cubicle so she sinks onto the floor instead and gathers her knees up to her chest. The sound of voices, and clothes being arranged on rails, drifts from beneath the swing door. The young sales assistant is chatting to a colleague at the entrance to the changing rooms.
‘You know someone else has gone missing? Another man.’
‘No!’
‘Yeah. Last seen heading for the Harbourside at about three in the morning. I heard from Kaisha who heard from someone who works in Costa that he was one of the security guards that works here.’
‘Not Larry!’
‘No! He’s out there, you massive twat.’
The sound of laughter rings through the cubicles.
‘God, that’s really scary. His poor family. That’s the second bloke to disappear on the Harbourside in how many weeks?’
‘Actually it’s three now. I had a look on the internet and there’s been two go missing, a month between them, and then this guy. And the police are still claiming that there’s no Harbourside Murderer.’
‘But if someone is pushing them into the river how come they haven’t found their bodies yet? Surely they’d wash up eventually.’
‘Who says they went into the water? There’s no CCTV there, that’s why the police have got no leads. They could have been bundled into a van then chopped up and buried in Leigh Woods for all we know.’
The young woman gasps. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I’m just saying what other people are thinking, that’s all. Just promise me you’ll stay with your friends on a night out. Don’t get any stupid ideas about walking home alone.’
‘Okay, okay. Jeez. Thanks for that, Lynne. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight now!’
As the voices drift away Ursula slowly gets to her feet, the conversation she just overheard still ringing in her ears. She looks down at the skirt in her hands and makes a decision. With no one manning the rack at the end of the cubicles she’ll be able to walk straight out with it. She can easily get to the exit without being caught.
‘Seriously? You let her use the changing rooms!’ She jumps at the sound of a raised voice and hurried footsteps on the lino flooring. ‘Kaisha, she’s a bloody shoplifter. Her face is on the staffroom wall!’
‘You!’ The door to her cubicle is yanked open and a pink-cheeked woman with a short brown bob glares up at her. The grey-haired security guard appears beside her, swiftly followed by the younger shop assistant. Before Ursula can say a word, the skirt is snatched from her hands. ‘I’ll take that, thank you very much.’
‘I’m sorry, miss.’ The security guard steps forward and takes Ursula by the elbow. ‘But you’re going to have to leave. You’re banned.’
‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to have done,’ Ursula protests as she’s frog-marched along the line of cubicles and onto the shop floor, ‘but you’ve got it all wrong. This is my favourite shop.’
The security guard laughs. ‘Course it is, you haven’t been caught before.’
As he walks her through the entrance and onto the concourse, Ursula tries to turn back but his grip on her elbow is surprisingly strong.
‘Wait! I’ve forgotten my coat. It’s still in the cubicle. Please, just let me go back and get it.’
‘Nice try, love.’ Before she can say another word, she’s propelled out of the shop. ‘Now get on your way or I’ll call the police.’
‘Shit,’ Ursula says as she opens and closes the cupboard doors in the galley kitchen. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Tears trickle down her cheeks as she takes out the last tin of beans from her cupboard and drops two pieces of bread into the toaster. It was a shock, being bundled out of Mirage Fashions like that. Humiliating, too. She’s never been caught shoplifting before and, for once, she hadn’t actually stolen anything. The expression on the shop assistant’s face as she snatched the skirt from her hands is burnt onto Ursula’s brain – anger and revulsion, like she was the lowest type of scum.
Nathan bought the coat she was forced to leave behind. He’d known she’d been eyeing it up in Evans for weeks but couldn’t justify the eighty-pound price tag. He’d popped in to buy it on his lunch break one day and hung it up on the coat rack at home for her to find. She hadn’t immediately spotted it when she came in. She was tired after eight hours spent wrangling five-year olds and all she wanted to do was get out of her clothes and lie in the bath with a book. But as she climbed the stairs Nathan shouted up to her, asking her to help him get the food shopping in from the car. A complaint formed on her lips but she swallowed it back. He was tired too. When he told her to put on her coat she automatically reached for the thin mac she’d chucked over the banister at the bottom of the stairs, only for Nath to point at the rack.
‘No, not that one,’ he said. ‘Your other coat.’
He’d helped her put it on, standing behind her on tiptoes as she slipped her arms into the soft wool mix. When she stooped to kiss him she didn’t think she’d ever felt happier. It was the greatest gift she’d ever been given. Not the coat. Him.
Now, as she stirs the baked beans in the pan, she swipes the back of her hands over her cheeks and tries to blink away the tears. Rain is beating at the glass panel of the back door and the garden beyond is a blur of green and brown and grey.
Let it go. She hears Nathan’s voice in her head. It’s just a coat, Albi. It’s not me.
But I haven’t got you either, have I? And that coat was—
Movement in the garden makes her turn sharply.
There’s a cat crouched under the tree, holding something small and feathery in its mouth. ‘Hey!’ She bangs on the glass, then turns the key in the lock and pulls the door open. ‘Hey! Shoo! Leave it alone.’
The cat looks at her, a tiny fledgling clamped within its jaws.
‘Shoo!’ Ursula claps her hands together, then stoops down, picks up a small stone, and hurls it across the lawn. It doesn’t hit the cat but the motion startles it. The bird falls from its mouth and it springs away, jumping from the grass to the wall.
‘Shoo!’ Ursula shouts again as the cat vanishes from the top of the wall, disappearing into the next garden or the alleyway beyond. She runs back into the hallway and slips her feet into her battered trainers and grabs the nearest coat. She doesn’t give a thought to the fact that Edward will bollock her for using his things as she slips her arms into it and pulls the hood over her head. She just wants to get back to the bird before the cat does.
But there’s no cat in the garden as she hurries through the rain, her trainers slapping against the wet patio then trampling on the grass. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a small white-washed window poking out of the pebbles at the base of the house but she doesn’t stop to examine it. She has to rescue the bird.
‘Please be alive,’ she prays as she scoops up the tiny, still, feathered body. ‘Please, please, please be alive.’