Born Under Punches (37 page)

Louise reddened again. ‘No, you idiot. Just to let you know I was here if you wanted, you know.'

‘Thanks.' He smiled. ‘But don't worry, I'm OK now.'

She gave him a look that said she wasn't convinced.

‘I am, honestly. I'm sorted. I'm working and I'm seeing someone else too.'

Louise smiled, her interest piqued. ‘Really? Tell me about her.'

‘Not that much to tell. Her name's Claire, she used to be an art student and she lives near here. That's why I was at your house so early this morning.'

‘Age?'

‘The Spanish Inquisition. Younger than me.'

‘Serious?'

It was Larkin's turn to redden. ‘I don't know. I've only just met her.'

‘And how did you meet her?'

Larkin laughed.

‘You going to keep this up all day?'

Louise smiled, nodded.

‘I met her through Tony Woodhouse. She works with him.'

Louise's mood changed. Her smile quickly switched off. ‘Oh. Claire.'

‘D'you know her?'

‘No,' she said quickly. ‘No.' She looked at her watch. ‘Shall we go for a walk?'

Larkin paid the bill and they set off along the seafront. Brightly painted Edwardian stone houses on one side, sand and the North Sea on the other. Seagulls swooped and whirled. People strolled, walked on the beach. It was a good day to be alive and under the sun.

‘So how's the book going?' asked Louise.

‘Fine, I think.'

‘You think?'

‘Yeah, it's just … you know. You do so much, you start questioning your motive. Am I just looking at the miners' strike and its legacy, or am I trying to resurrect the past? Simplify the present? I don't know. Let's have an ice cream.'

They stopped at an ice cream van, had two Natriani's 99s.

‘Is this about Charlotte, d'you think?' said Louise, pushing her flake into the tube of her cornet.

Larkin bit into his flake, chewed it thoughtfully.

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘Maybe it is Charlotte. But maybe it's something more. Everything seemed easier back then. The world seemed simpler. Black and white. No grey.'

She took a lick of ice cream, smiled.

‘If you don't mind me saying so, it was you that was simpler, not the world.'

Larkin looked at her.

‘I remember you then. You knew what was right and what was wrong. You know who your enemy was.'

He smiled. ‘True. Maybe it was the last time for me. The last time it all made sense. 'Cause then I moved to London, got lost in everything that was happening there then—'

‘The sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll?'

‘Exactly.'

‘So you come back here and try to relive the past. Your past. Or at least make sense of it.'

Larkin laughed. ‘How come you haven't seen me in years and you've got all this stuff figured out?'

‘Woman's intuition. Plus, I'm your sister. I know you better than you think.'

‘Point taken.'

They walked further. Retired couples sat on benches, eating ice cream, looking at the sea. One particular couple were holding hands, talking and laughing. The joy they took in each other's company made it appear as if they'd just met, but the easy familiarity they had with each other showed they had been together for a long time.

‘How do they do it?' asked Louise. ‘How do they get to be that age and still be in love with each other?'

‘Shall we ask them?'

‘I doubt they'd know.'

They walked on.

‘Anyway,' said Louise, popping the final piece of cornet into her mouth. ‘The time you're writing about wasn't that good.' She shuddered despite the warmth. ‘Memory is deceptive. Unreliable. I've never looked on the past in a rosy glow.'

Larkin nodded. ‘Talking of Tony,' he said, ‘something else came up regarding this book. D'you know Tommy Jobson?'

Louise stopped dead. ‘What about him?'

‘Just something in connection with Tony, that's all. You know him, then?'

‘Let's just say, he and Tony go way back. I said it was a bad time back then. A lot of it was down to him.'

‘In what way?'

Louise stopped walking, found a railing, leaned on it, watching the sea. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated. Wondering what to tell Larkin. How much to tell him.

‘Remember what I said about Keith?' she said eventually, her voice measured. ‘How he doesn't think he's Suzanne's father?'

Larkin nodded.

‘Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. I was raped.'

‘What?'

She kept staring at the sea. ‘My flat got broken into. Trashed. While I was in it. That's how Tony got his injured leg. That's how I got—' she stopped, staring hard at the horizon ‘—Suzanne.'

Larkin was stunned.

‘Why … Nobody told me. Mam and Dad never mentioned it …'

‘That's because you'd gone to London. No one knew how to get in touch with you. Where to find you.'

‘D'you know who did it? Did they find him?'

Louise shook her head, said nothing.

‘Louise, I'm sorry … I had no idea …'

‘S'OK. It's in the past. Tony and I split up after that. I just couldn't face seeing him. It reminded me of … that night. Then Keith re-emerged. And he was so good to me, y'know? Flowers, chocolates, coming to see me all the time. They tried to make me have an abortion but I just couldn't go through with it. Couldn't kill what was inside me. Keith said he didn't mind. If I would have him back, he would marry me. Bring up the baby as his.'

‘So why does he keep trying to tell Suzanne he's not her real father?'

‘Because he's a bitter, sad little bastard.'

She looked at her watch, sighed. ‘I'd better get back. The kidsil be home from school soon. Keithil be wanting his tea.'

The way she said her husband's name, Larkin was glad it wasn't him.

They walked back to the car, clouds beginning to obscure the sun.

They drove back to Louise's house, the clouds thickening, matching Louise's mood.

‘He sent his love, by the way.'

‘Who?'she asked.

‘Tony. Want me to send it back?'

She looked out of the window, away from Larkin.

‘If you like.'

He pulled up in front of her house, stopped the engine.

‘Oh, well,' Louise said. ‘I've been out to play and now it's time to be the dutiful mother and wife.'

‘If you're not happy, get out,' said Larkin. ‘Just leave.'

Louise sighed.

‘I will. I'm just waiting for the right time.'

‘There'll never be a right time.'

She opened the door. ‘I've really enjoyed today. Let's, not leave it so long next time.'

They exchanged a chaste, sibling kiss and Larkin drove off to meet Claire.

Louise opened the door, went in, closed it behind her. It slammed shut, reverberating, like the clanging of a cell door.

That's what it feels like, she thought. A cell door. And here I sit, incarcerated.

Condemned.

She thought through her day out. Sunshine and laughter. A life lived on the other side.

She was still thinking of that when Ben let himself in. She smiled at him, said hello, asked if he had had a good day at school. He nodded and mumbled, then wordlessly went upstairs. She knew he would be in his room, sitting at his computer or at his play station, doing whatever it was that teenage boys did With their toys.

She smiled. Thought of the sun. Thought of life lived on the other side.

She was still doing that when the door opened again. Keith entered the living room, put his briefcase down, stopped.

‘Why are you sitting in my chair?' he said by way of a greeting.

‘Is this your chair?' Her voice was light, drifting. ‘Does it have your name on it?'

Keith stepped nearer to her. ‘Now, don't set your lip up to me, or I'll—'

She looked at him, straight in the eye. ‘What, Keith. Or you'll what?'

Her voice was like hard steel, ready to snap, ready to thrust its sharpness into htm.

He backed off.

‘What's for dinner?' he asked, his voice shrunken.

Louise stretched her arms above her head, her feet along the carpet. Like a cat uncoiling.

‘Nothing. I'm having a day off.'

‘What d'you mean you're having a day off? You can't. We have to eat.'

‘Then you do it.'

‘But you can't just—'

She stood up. Keith flinched. Louise smiled.

‘Did I scare you?'

She walked to the door.

‘Where are you going?'

Louise shrugged. ‘Don't know. But I've had a good day today. The best for a long time. And I'm not going to let you spoil it.'

She left the room, made her way upstairs. She opened the wardrobe, looked at the clothes inside. Stylish cothes for going out in, a few years out of date, perhaps, but better than the dowdy shrouds she had taken to wearing recently. She pulled things out, began to change.

Began to admire herself.

Thinking of sunshine and laughter. Thinking of a life lived on the other side.

A cloud passed over the sun. Over her mood.

She held a dress against her body, looked in the mirror, smiled.

But not for much longer.

The CAT Centre was silent, the last client having left half an hour previously.

Claire Duffy was in the art studio, washing brushes, proping work on easels to help it dry, tidying round. Just filling in time until she went to meet Stephen Larkin.

Stephen Larkin. She liked him, he was complex. She liked that in a man. Complicated no, complex yes. There was a lot to him, many doors he kept closed. Perhaps in time he would open them for her. One day.

She dried her hands, gathered her things together.

And heard a noise.

Her heart skipped. She had thought she was the only one in the building.

Her heart began to pound, her legs to shake. She swallowed; her throat was dry. She made her way into the corridor, looking quickly around all the time. The noise had come from the office at the end of the hall. Tony's office. She slowly walked towards it.

And heard another noise.

Someone was in there. Someone was inside Tony's office.

She looked around for a weapon. Something – anything – she could use if she had to.

Found nothing.

Heart too big for her chest and blood moving at a furious pace round her body, she put a hand on the door knob, turned it, opened the door.

Cautiously, she stepped in.

And there was Tony sitting behind his desk.

Claire smiled, relief spreading through her body, face reddening at her own nervousness. She opened her mouth to speak, to let him know how stupid she had been.

But stopped. She looked at him again.

Her mouth fell open, feet rooted to the spot. She could only stare.

For there was Tony behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, arm tied off, works spread in front of him.

A needle in his vein.

Shooting heroin into his body.

PART FOUR

Reckoning

15. Then

Keith was still following.

The act was obsessing him, consuming him.

It was becoming his life.

He had started taking notes:

Times. Places. Days of the week. Goings. And comings.

The notes had become a book:

Searching for patterns, building a structure, a grid, a matrix to store this information. To cross-reference seemingly random events – meals at restaurants, walks in parks, shopping trips, pub visits, country drives – and find a sense, a logic behind it all.

Of course, she could have just been in love, but Keith didn't believe that. She was with the man for a reason. He had tried to find out what. And he thought he had.

He knew the boyfriend's name. Who he was, what he did. A trip to St James' Park to watch a football match had sent him back to his notes. That was totally out of character for Louise. She had always hated football. But he had watched. And gathered information.

Tony Woodhouse.

Keith discovered the fact by buying a programme and asking a scarf-clad fan to name the player seen in a photograph. That, he thought, was using research and detection techniques that would make any member of the CID proud.

Once he had the man's name and profession, it all fell into place. Louise wasn't in love. The attraction to Woodhouse was for two things: money and sex. Woodhouse would soon tire of that, get what he wanted from her, move on to the next one.

And Louise would fall straight back into Keith's arms.

Simple.

Keith had mixed feelings about that day coming. He wanted her back, obviously, but he also enjoyed the following. The stalking. The feeling, of standing alone in the shadows, watching, seeing everything, but remaining undetected.

A ghost.

A living shadow.

It thrilled him, gave him an erotically charged power he had never felt before. It wasn't something he wanted to give up.

It wasn't something he was going to give up.

When Louise came back to him, he could still secretly follow her. Or better yet, keep Louise at home and find somebody new to follow. Somebody younger.

Yes.

He felt his cock stiffen at the thought and quickly looked around.

He was at work in the office. He felt sure someone must have known what he was thinking, seen what was happening to him.

But no. Everyone was going about their business, ignoring him.

Good. As long as they left him alone, he was happy.

He had become a model employee. Head down, work done. No trouble to anyone. If anything, an asset. He was sure his hard work was being noticed, but he didn't care. He lived through his job, not for it, detached himself during the day, lived for his evenings and weekends. His real work. His real life.