Why Don't You Come For Me? Part 14

'Becky! Charlotte!' It was Gilda's voice, from the bottom of the stairs. 'Harry is here, wanting to know if you're going home for lunch.'

In response to an imploring look, Rebecca shouted back, 'Can't Charlie stay here for lunch?'

'Of course if she wants to.'

'Yes pleeeease,' Charlotte shrilled.

'I'll go and tell him.' They heard a door shutting somewhere below.

Charlotte leaned across the almost empty box and gave her friend a hug. 'I don't know what I'm going to do when you go to stay at your aunty's. Why don't you ask if you can stay here?'

'But I like it with Aunty Carole. I go to stay with her every holidays.'

'Don't you like being at home with your mum?'

'It's all right.'

'At least she doesn't nag all the time, like mine does.'

'No-o. But Aunty Carole's ... well, better at knowing the sort of things I like to do and helping me choose the right sort of clothes. Mum tries, but she's too old-fas.h.i.+oned. She knows she isn't any good at it, so these days she gives me the money and Aunty Carole takes me she knows the right shops. And plus it's sometimes difficult it's a big pressure, you know, being adopted.'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, I feel like I have to be, sort of ... grateful, because you know ... Mum has given me a home and a good education and everything and she's a single parent.'

Rebecca spoke as if she had given the matter a great deal of thought. Charlotte was impressed: that was one of the things she liked about Becky you could have really grown-up conversations with her.

'Plus, Mum is what Aunty Carole calls overprotective. I know it's only because I'm precious to her Aunty Carole says I'm all Mum's got but that makes her a bit weird and freaky about stuff. I often feel like she's watching me, and she asks me all kinds of things, strange things sometimes. Like this one time she kept asking if the girls at school laughed at me? When I said they didn't, I used to feel as if she didn't really believe me. I know it's only because she loves me, but it's a bit intense sometimes.'

'My mother's always asking about scores in tests,' said Charlotte. 'How many did you get, and how many did Tamsin Dyer get, and how many did Aaron Wilkins get. Honestly, it drives me mad. Parents are all a bit hyper, if you ask me.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The arrival of the postcard thrust Jo into a helter-skelter of emotions. Euphoria, disbelief, panic; a series of confused ideas which hurtled by faster than she could keep up with them. Among them were thoughts which she could scarcely bear to entertain. To lose a child is the most terrible thing in the world, but to regain that child might be no less terrifying. Suppose the idealized Lauren in her head turned out to be completely different from the flesh-and-blood reality? Suppose the girl she brought home in the early hours of Sunday morning was not Lauren at all? How would she know? In all her fantasy reunions she had known and recognized her daughter as a matter of course; but these scenes had invariably been conducted in well-lit, well-populated settings, with the ident.i.ty of the child already verified beyond doubt. She had never envisaged a clandestine meeting at midnight, halfway to the middle of nowhere.

What a place to choose Claife Station an old viewpoint situated high above Windermere on Claife Heights, the supposed haunt of the Crier of Claife, Windermere's most famous spectre. She wasn't too clear on the ghost story, but she had certainly derived the general impression that you should avoid Claife Heights on your own at night. She a.s.sumed the venue had been chosen because it could only be accessed on foot, thereby making any kind of police trap or surveillance that much more difficult.

Jo had never been to Claife Station, but she knew of it from magazines and walk books. She checked it out on Google, and found the good news was that it lay on a well-defined path not too far from a car park, but an accompanying photograph of the place was less encouraging. The text explained that Claife Station which had nothing to do with railway lines was a roofless, late-eighteenth-century ruin, built to enable the original tourists to view Windermere in all its scenic splendour, through specially designed stained-gla.s.s windows. In its heyday the viewing station had been a popular place for picnics and parties, but subsequent generations had allowed the building to fall into disrepair, preferring to find their own views from greater or more secluded heights; or else to eschew any views which were not visible from the windows of a moving coach or a tea shop window.

As Jo considered the location on an OS map a new thought struck her suppose it was a trap? What if the abductor wanted to lure her there and kill her? But why? To stop her searching for Lauren? It was not as if she was getting any closer.

Then again, why should anyone want to give Lauren back now, after all these years? Maybe she was ill. Something which couldn't be handled in captivity. Childhood leukaemia? The last and cruellest joke to have your child restored to you, only to watch her suffer and die.

Anything was possible because once the worst of your fears has been realized your child s.n.a.t.c.hed nothing is ever entirely beyond the realms of your reality again.

Three days to go. Three days to think about it. Three days to plan. Three days to wonder. Unable to be still for a moment, Jo matched frenzied activity to frenzied thought. She cleaned the house from top to bottom, made up the spare bedroom, placed a jug of fresh flowers on the window sill, bought a cuddly Dalmatian dog (was twelve too old for stuffed toys?) and placed it in the centre of the bed. Time enough to personalize the room later. She was not sure what a girl of Lauren's age would like in her room. She might be a pink princess or a thoroughgoing tomboy. She removed, then replaced, the Dalmatian half a dozen times a day. Lauren might be bringing things of her own although a significant amount of luggage did not appear to be indicated by a rendezvous at Claife Station.

Jo could neither eat nor sleep. She was aware of Sean watching her with more than usual circ.u.mspection. At times the urge to tell somebody even Sean almost overwhelmed her. The knowledge filled her so that she thought she might explode with it, yet she had to keep swallowing it back. Tell no one, the postcard had instructed. It did not matter whether Sean could be trusted to keep a secret. Telling anyone at all could be enough to break the spell. Even an email to Nerys was out of the question. She had to stay silent for Lauren's sake.

One of their Lakeland walk books included a route along Claife Heights which pa.s.sed the old viewing station. The sketch map which accompanied it implied that the building was easy to find and only a short walk from the road, but Jo decided that the wisest course would be an advance visit to ensure that she could find her way there after dark. She had hoped for a dry day, but it rained steadily through Thursday and she set out on Friday in intermittent drizzle. She took a cross-country route, driving through little-used lanes until she emerged alongside Graythwaite Hall, then headed towards Sawrey and the ferry road. The National Trust car park was described in her book as an old quarry, but any quarrying must have ceased decades ago because the small parking area was surrounded by mature trees. There were already a number of cars and two large camper vans in there, but Jo managed to squeeze her car into the last remaining s.p.a.ce, then sat on the back b.u.mper while she changed her shoes for walking boots.

Judging from the number of vehicles the weather did not seem to have deterred walkers, who all presumably subscribed to the theory that there is no wrong sort of weather in c.u.mbria, only the wrong sort of clothing. The only other human beings in the car park were a foursome, who talked to one another in strident Yorks.h.i.+re accents while they got kitted up for a forthcoming exploration. They seemed to take an age in sorting themselves out, so Jo slowed up too, tying and retying her bootlaces because she was reluctant to set off at the same time as they did. The idea of falling into step and then into conversation with anyone else made her nervous, lest she inadvertently give something away and jeopardize the rendezvous. She knew it was irrational, but their voices indeed their very presence began to grate on her. She was just thinking that she would have to give them a long start when they finally departed, clumping in single file along the road rather than up the muddy track which led through the trees towards Claife Station.

There were signs of recent forestry operations in the wood, and these had left a quagmire scarred by the repeated pa.s.sage of heavily shod feet and even heavier vehicles. Jo had barely been slos.h.i.+ng her way through the mud for a minute before she glimpsed the side of a stone building, standing high above her among the trees. She had not been expecting to see anything so soon, but only seconds later she came in sight of the stone stairs which ascended to the old viewing station. The approach had been constructed to resemble a grand curving staircase built into the side of the hill, but its glory years were long past and now the steps were irregular, sharp-edged and sloping, partly covered in last year's leaves which had melded into a solid ma.s.s, looking for all the world like a rust-coloured carpet which had once been thick and expensive, but was now so badly worn that in places the treads showed through. The patches of bare rock were slippery with rain and the jagged edges unforgiving, so that Jo had to ascend with care and was unable to give the viewing station her full attention until she reached the top.

The remains of the building presented a dismal prospect: a roofless ruin surrounded by temporary metal fencing, which had been erected because of safety concerns according to the National Trust sign attached to it. Dangerous Building. Please Keep Out requested a separate notice. A small information panel had also been wired to the fence, which included an artist's impression showing how the place must have looked in its prime: a miniature turret from a Hollywood-style medieval castle, complete with battlemented top and even a couple of arrow slits. The huge windows which had once afforded views in every direction were now either bricked up, or else gaped like eye sockets in a skull. It might still have been possible to enjoy some of the famous views if access to the building had been permitted, but from where Jo stood behind the wire fence there was little to see except a surrounding canopy of trees.

The commentary from a pa.s.sing lake steamer was just audible, a disembodied voice which floated up from the boat as it moved along the opposite sh.o.r.e of the lake. She glimpsed its blue and white hull briefly as it crossed a gap in the leaves. Otherwise there was no sound except for the birds, noisy now that there was a lull in the rain, their song only interrupted by the occasional car heading along the road to join the queue for the ferry.

Jo began to a.s.sess the place from the point of view of a midnight rendezvous. Anything which took place here could not be seen from the car park, or even the bottom of the steps. After mounting the steps, the public footpath vanished through an arch in the wall which linked the main turret of the viewing house to the remnants of what had once been a smaller chamber built into the rocky hillside, although little of this secondary structure remained except a knee-high outline showing where the walls had once been and a rather splendid window which matched the main archway. She followed the path through the archway and found that it disappeared behind an outcrop of rock, thereafter becoming a narrow track which headed steeply downhill then steeply up again, like a muddy single-file roller coaster, which vanished into the trees after about a hundred yards. It presented neither a good hiding place nor the means for a swift getaway.

It seemed to Jo that whoever planned to meet her would naturally expect her to come from the direction of the car park, and that by taking up a vantage point close to the top of the steps, it would be simple enough for them to be sure that she had come alone. It would also be virtually impossible for anyone to spy on a transaction undertaken here: even if someone with very strong binoculars was standing over on the eastern sh.o.r.e, the small plateau in front of the ruin was almost entirely masked by the surrounding trees.

If it was raining tomorrow night, then anyone waiting here would get pretty wet because there was no shelter at all. But perhaps the viewing station was merely a first meeting place. Maybe she would be taken on from there, or would find some instructions which would lead her somewhere else. On reflection, that seemed a far more likely scenario than someone bringing Lauren up here to meet her.

Another shower began to patter against the leaves, silencing the birdsong. She put up her hood and began to pick her way carefully down the steps. There was a narrow terrace at the bottom of the flight which curved round the side of the hill. Jo followed it, squelching through the mud, until she found herself looking down towards the southern end of the lake, but the aspect was greenish-grey and disappointing. The mountains to the north were hidden completely by the tree-covered Ferry House promontory.

The rain had eased again by the time she retraced her steps to the car park. A different quartet of walkers had returned to their car, where they were in the process of removing outdoor gear. 'Let's try the Sun at Hawkshead,' said one. 'They might have Bluebird bitter, there.'

Their cheerful conversation conjured a faint echo of carefree days, when all that mattered was what you were going to eat or drink trivial things that didn't matter at all now. On the drive home she found that she couldn't recall whether she had eaten that day or not. It was impossible to think of anything but midnight on Sat.u.r.day. At times she almost had to remind herself to breathe.

She checked that she had her maps, boots, torch and anorak in the car a dozen times. Ought she to take a flask, with a hot drink for Lauren? Maybe she should leave a note for Sean, telling him where she had gone ... just in case she did not come back. Tell no one, the card had said. She must not breach the instructions. There could be no leaving of notes.

She set out far too early even to allow for going the long way round. It was easier to stick to the main roads at night, because the narrow lanes were such a pain if you met anything and had to reverse in the dark. Not that you ever did meet much this late, not even in the middle of the season. Reaching the car park too early was as problematical as reaching it late. Whatever happened, she must not deviate from the instructions to the slightest degree. It would be terrible to get this far, only to make a wrong move which put the kidnapper off, so after pa.s.sing Graythwaite she pulled into the side of the road to kill some time. She was well out of sight of any human habitation, and had not seen another vehicle for some minutes, but she switched off the lights and stilled the engine, the better not to draw attention to herself. With the engine silenced she could hear the wind in the trees. The rain had ceased a couple of hours before, but when she eased the window open a crack she could smell autumnal damp, rather than high summer. It made her think of funerals and death. She tried to tell herself that she would always remember this moment the wind in the trees and the smell of wet bracken in a positive way, because this is the night I got Lauren back. It did not work. The darkness around her seemed to bristle with hostility. A sharper gust gathered up a posse of raindrops which had been clinging to the trees, and flung them on to the roof. The unexpected impact made Jo jump in her seat. She had to fight the urge to start the engine and drive on. She must must see it through for Lauren. But growing in her mind was the thought that if sitting here in the darkness, safely locked inside the car where no one was watching or waiting, where no one even knew she was there, induced something approaching terror, then how on earth would she bring herself to get out of the car and face up to the actual rendezvous at Claife Heights?

'You can do it, because Lauren is up there waiting for you,' she told herself but all the time she could hear that other voice, telling her that Lauren was not there. Lauren was far, far away, and the viewing station at Claife was no more than an awful trap, set by someone who had no intention of handing Lauren over. Someone cruel who walked in the shadows: a figure which came tantalizingly close, before receding into the darkness again and taking Lauren with it.

When she resumed her journey she made herself drive very slowly, as if by keeping the car in low gear she could do likewise with her emotions. In the dark she nearly missed the turning for Near Sawrey. There were still lights burning in one of the guest houses here, but when she reached Far Sawrey everyone appeared to have gone to bed. Driving down the hill towards the ferry, Jo glimpsed other comforting signs of life; pinp.r.i.c.ks of light on the far side of the lake marked the position of houses in Bowness and Storrs, but when she turned into the little car park it was black dark. She was surprised to find it completely empty not even the obligatory camper van, whose owners a.s.sumed that a prohibition on overnight stays did not apply to them.

She checked her watch. Eleven minutes to midnight. Still time for another vehicle to arrive. Or maybe they were coming on foot. Perhaps they were here already, watching from somewhere nearby to check that she had come alone. She opened the driver's door, edging around in her seat and extending one foot gingerly towards the ground, as if testing thin ice. As well as the rustle and creak of the trees, she could hear the faint clop, clop of the lake, as wind-driven wavelets. .h.i.t the sh.o.r.e on the other side of the road. It came to her then that the proximity of the water was dangerous. Windermere was extremely deep; there were places along the sh.o.r.e where the bottom fell away immediately. An unwary bather could step as if off a cliff edge into cold water, sixty feet deep.

She forced herself to walk round to the rear of the car, put on her anorak and change her shoes, tying the laces by the light of the small lamp which illuminated the open boot. All the time inwardly flinching, expecting every moment that some attack would come out of the darkness, although none did.

Seven minutes to midnight. It was very hard to think positively of her errand, to have faith that Lauren was waiting for her just up the hill. She tried to spur herself on with this hope, but it was difficult to believe in it. Suppose it was a trap. Did the kidnapper perceive some kind of added safety in disposing of her? If he did, then he had chosen an excellent spot to bring his scheme to fruition. There was no one to see or hear anything. It was miles to the nearest habitation or if not miles, then at least too far away to summon aid by running or screaming. And there was the lake, deep, dark and cold, big enough to swallow a mult.i.tude of evidence. The sound of the water seemed to grow louder when she thought of it in that way, turning into a greedy gulping monster which awaited its prey, far removed from the glittering place of enchantment which was Windermere on a sunny day.

She glanced down at her watch again. The moment had come when she must leave the comparatively safe vicinity of the car and walk up the path. She closed the door and switched on her torch as the courtesy light went out. When she pressed the b.u.t.ton on the key fob, the car's locking mechanism made a dull clunk while the hazard lights sent out a flash of orange, which briefly illuminated the surrounding area before fading slowly until the car became just another lump in the darkness. She stood listening for a moment, but the effects of wind on land and water were producing more than enough noise to camouflage the movements of any stalker.

Jo picked her way along the path, her feet sliding in the mud. There was no other sign of life, nothing to give away whoever watched and waited above or behind her. She reached the stone staircase and began to climb it, step by cautious step. Was she being watched, or were they yet to arrive? Perhaps they were timing it for midnight precisely. She didn't risk s.h.i.+ning her torch on her watch again. That would have meant pausing on the steps, and if she stopped she could not be sure that her legs would obey her and recommence the climb. She had to do it. She reminded herself of how often she had said that she would lay down her life if she could only rescue Lauren. Well, maybe that time had come. Maybe this was the test.

When she reached the top she had to stop and get her breath back. The surrounding darkness seemed to pulse with menace, but she gradually realized that it was no more than her own blood pumping in her ears. The place was deserted. She could feel the emptiness, without even having to s.h.i.+ne her torch behind the mock castle wall or through the gaping voids in the stonework. She checked her watch again. Two minutes to midnight. Would it be better to wait out here in the open, or maybe go through the arch and sit on the flat sill of the window, where the little anteroom had once been? She remained rooted to the spot.

One minute to midnight. For a moment she thought she heard someone coming along the narrow path from Claife Heights, but it was only the wind stirring small branches. She was shaking like a leaf herself. Wherever she shone the torch it wavered like a will-o'-the-wisp. She put her wrist within the arc of light again, but the second hand was crawling at only a fraction of its normal speed. She must not keep looking at her watch. She had to stay alert for any other movements, anything at all which might indicate the presence of another human being, but as each second pa.s.sed, the weight of disbelief became heavier. No one was going to come.

She gave in to the impulse and checked again. One minute past midnight. 'Lauren,' she called softly. 'Lauren.' She raised her voice slightly. As if in response, the rain began to fall again, the sound of it approaching through the treetops like the advance of a phantom army, reaching and enveloping her as it headed north up the lake. Spots clinging to her eyelashes, blurring the bright pinp.r.i.c.k which denoted a single light still burning in Storrs Park. With the rain came a denser sensation of cold and despair. There must be a message some clue as to what she was expected to do next. She began to search frantically, s.h.i.+ning her torch everywhere, kneeling on the wet ground and scrabbling among the loose stones and last year's dead leaves, but in the end she had to give in. There was no sign, cryptic or otherwise. Someone must be coming in person, they must be. She waited in the rain for more than an hour, but in her heart she had always known that no one would come.

Only when she eventually began her descent did Jo allow herself to acknowledge the depth of her fear. The wind was whipping into an angry frenzy now. If a branch came down in the dark she would have no warning. She almost missed her footing on the steps, slipping and hurting the hand she put out to save herself when it encountered a razor-sharp lip of rock. Emerging at last on to the car park, she was so disorientated that for a moment she shone her torch in completely the wrong direction and failed to spot her car. When the pale beam found the vehicle's outline she ran towards it with a sob, scrambling into the driver's seat without stopping to change out of her boots. The thought of staying there a moment longer was unendurable.

She normally never drove in her hiking boots. The soles were too thick to get a proper feel on the pedals. The car shot backwards when she put it into reverse, made uncertain progress into the road, then sc.r.a.ped along the stone wall as she misjudged the weight of her foot on the gas at the first bend. Sod it, sod it! She would never make it home in one piece if she carried on like this. She pulled into the first turning and stopped to change her footwear. There was hardly going to be a problem about blocking the junction at this time of night.

The drive home seemed to take much longer than the outward journey had done. She became disorientated and lost confidence in her route. The lanes all looked the same, twisting and turning between dry-stone walls which were unfamiliar in the loom of her headlamps, meandering on for ever. When she crossed Easter Bridge and saw The Hideaway's outside lights glimmering among the trees, she began to cry with relief. As she turned into her own drive, she noticed that on the opposite side of the lane a single lamp was also burning above the front door of The Old Forge.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

'I won't be around next week,' Sean informed Harry, as he deftly controlled his joypad so that his onscreen character leaped from one rooftop to another.

'Why not?' Harry's eyes never left the screen.

'I'm going down to stay at my mum's for a few days.'

Harry grunted in response, still concentrating on the game.

'Will you look after my knife while I'm away? I don't want to leave it here, in case she starts looking for it again, but I don't want to take it in my bag in case my mum starts mucking about in there, looking for was.h.i.+ng and stuff.'

'Yeah, OK.' Harry tried to sound casual, although he was dubious about where he might hide a large knife at The Hollies, which would guarantee that his mother did not come across it. He had been uneasy about the knife, ever since Sean had shown it to him at the beginning of the summer holidays. His parents would have an absolute fit if they thought he was messing around with knives.

'I'll get it down to yours just before I go. She's been so bad lately that I'm sleeping with it under my pillow.'

'Why? What's been going down?'

'She's been, like, totally weird and jumpy, and last night she went out somewhere in the car and didn't come back for hours. When she finally did come back around two o'clock, I heard her running up the stairs and crying in her room, like she was hysterical. She's a fruitcake, there's no doubt about it. She's been worked up about something for days now. It's scaring the s.h.i.+t out of me.'

'Would you really go for her? With the knife?'

'Survival of the fittest. One false move and I'll have her. I figure I've got to get in first.' Sean paused to concentrate while his character fought of a trio of zombies. 'Otherwise I'm dead game over.'

While this conversation was going on upstairs, Jo was out on the drive surveying the damage to her car. Marcus would be back tomorrow, so there was no chance of getting it fixed before he noticed. She would have to explain it somehow or other, but she was determined not to tell him about the postcard or her abortive trip to Claife Station. Although the rendezvous had not turned out as she had hoped, she could not be certain that it was over. Yes, she was safely back home, but had she been released from the embargo on communicating the facts of the visit to anyone else? She thought not. The important thing was to wait and watch in readiness for the next sign. The abductor would make contact again, she was convinced of it, and the next communication would surely be as confidential as the last, so she did not want to have Marcus on the alert and looking out for things. At least her being at home all the time considerably reduced the chances of Marcus intercepting any communication when it arrived.

It had been something of a shock to realize that she no longer perceived Marcus as being on the same side. Where once he had given her confidence, now he undermined her with his constant hints about seeing the doctor and his refusal to let her return to work. She knew she could not trust him to go along with what she wanted, or do what was best for Lauren. He might well have insisted on informing the police about the Claife Station excursion. She was just considering this when a footfall on the drive startled her. It was Gilda, approaching with something in an outstretched hand. For a split second she thought it was a postcard, with the photo of Lauren uppermost, but then she saw it was a leaflet about the Liberal Democrats, and managed to stifle the cry which had risen to her lips.

'I'm sorry did I startle you?' When Jo did not immediately respond Gilda added, 'Would you prefer me to pop this through the door, or can you take it now?'

Jo made a supreme effort and pulled herself together. 'I'll take it,' she said firmly, holding her hand out so that Gilda was obliged to step forward and hand it over. 'Although I'm afraid I probably won't read it. I'm not really interested in politics.'

'Oh, we should all be interested,' said Gilda. 'Especially women. My mother drummed it into me that women died campaigning to get us the vote we ought never to take it for granted. She had a spinster aunt who was a suffragette. Of course your mother probably didn't have time for politics.'

Jo thought that if Gilda had actually said 'because she was too busy murdering your father', she could scarcely have made her meaning plainer.

'Had a bit of a prang?' Gilda continued. 'I suppose it's easily done. Especially round these narrow lanes.' Jo had the leaflet in her hand now, but Gilda appeared in no hurry to leave, inclining her head to take a better look at the damaged car. 'How did you do it?'

'My foot slipped on the pedal and the road was wet.'

'Dearie, dearie me. Was this last night? I happened to be up late, so I saw you coming home.'

'Why were you up so late?'

'I sat up watching a film and fell asleep in the chair. I'd just gone upstairs and was drawing my bedroom curtains when I saw your car turning on to the drive. I wonder where Jo has been at this time of night, I said to myself.'

Jo said nothing. She transferred the Lib Dem leaflet from one hand to the other and back.

'That business at Mrs Perry's ...' Gilda paused.

'Yes?'

'I'm sorry about that. It didn't occur to me that they wouldn't have known about your little girl what was her name?'

'Lauren.'

'Lauren,' Gilda repeated as if trying it out on her tongue. 'I a.s.sumed everyone would know. You would think at the very least that they would have recognized you from the papers. The story comes back round again every so often when other children go missing.'

'Well, they know now.'

'I'm sure it would have come out. You can't keep things quiet in a little place like this.'

Jo considered retorting that she had managed to keep it quiet until then, but she reined herself in, saying instead, 'Gilda ... how much did you tell them?'

'How do you mean?'

'About me?'

'I don't know that much about you to tell them. I didn't tell them what you did to me at school, if that's what you're asking.' Gilda's expression had hardened and her voice grown cold.

'I didn't meant that.'

'I don't suppose you did.'

'I'm sorry about all that. I was very young and stupid, and I should never have got involved.'

Gilda's face twisted into an expression which suggested that she had just eaten something unpleasant and was trying not to vomit it back. She stood for a moment, gripping her leaflets, before turning abruptly and walking away.

Jo watched her go before she too turned away, pausing briefly on her way back to the house in order to consign Gilda's leaflet to the paper recycling bin. Why had Gilda been up so late? Had it been to observe her returning from Claife Station? After a moment or two she called up the stairs, 'Lunch in about twenty minutes fish fingers, beans and chips. Are you staying, Harry?'

When Harry shouted back an affirmative, she set about preparing the meal, laying everything out for them to sit and eat at the kitchen table, something she insisted on when Sean subsequently wanted to carry their food upstairs.

'So,' she said brightly, affecting to be busy at the sink while they settled down to eat, 'are you seeing much of that new girl Becky who's moved in across the road?'

'Not much.'