Scar Tissue (3 page)

I decided to trust her, and thrust my fingers into the clammy latex.

As I’d thought, the house was decidedly tatty. Rumour, pretty accurate in rural parts, I’d found, suggested he’d picked up the house and contents as a job lot. The kitchen still had an old range, supplemented by one of those microwaves that do everything, playing God Save the Queen while they do it. Some of the furniture was so ugly you couldn’t imagine anyone having conceived it, let alone having spoilt good timber making it. Some of it was so sweetly light I wanted to pick it up and take it home with me. The carpets looked as smooth as silk, but were badly worn in doorways. Someone had replaced old velvet
curtains
with bright new ones, skewing the whole balance of
otherwise
interesting rooms. But Paula wouldn’t let me dawdle, imaging things how I’d like them. She led me lickety-split up the main stairs and into one of the bedrooms with an incomparable view of our scaffolding. The sash windows came in a cluster of three, side by side. She opened the widest, the one in the middle. ‘And if necessary, leave any talking to me,’ she said.

I didn’t argue. The heavy mahogany furniture didn’t encourage arguing. I thought of countless ignorant young brides brought here and forced by this very fireplace into lying still and thinking of England.

The evening sun fell kindly in the rooms at the back of the house, the rosewood furniture glowing like fire.

‘Worth a mint,’ Paula said. ‘Even this stuff, which is fake – see, the grain’s been painted on.’ Going round a house with her when she was preparing estimates was always an education. I particularly enjoyed it when a piece of furniture pernickety couples had claimed was a priceless antique was
nothing more, according to Paula, than compressed paper, worth even less than they’d paid for it at some superstore. The thing was, she’d treat the tat as carefully as if it had been real Sheraton, and expect us to follow suit.

Next on our itinerary was the room I’d peered into. Not only was the duvet dragged sideways, there were a couple of what looked like blue rope fibres on the pillow. There was another halfway to the door. I took photos of the room itself, but doubted if the lens was up to taking details like the fibres. All the same, I tried.

‘Something tied in our rope was here anyway,’ she whispered. She picked up one, and wrapped it in a tissue before stowing in her pocket. And then she grabbed my wrist, touching a finger to her lips.

I heard it, too. The scrape of a key in a badly maintained lock. We were back like lightning into the room the window of which she’d prepared earlier, and out on to the
scaffolding
’s top platform. We’d both had enough practice closing windows tightly and soundlessly. There was a ladder between our level and the next, where we stripped down to our summer shorts. Paula held out her hand for my overall and overshoes. She balled them tightly with hers, cramming everything into a space between the scaffolding and the planks it supported as if it were there to stop a bit of movement. Down the next ladder to the next level.

I gripped her wrist – I probably hurt her a lot. Because though I’d have trusted her to talk the hind legs off a donkey, if necessary, I couldn’t see even an explanation that would con Mr van der Poele cutting any ice with his dogs. No wonder she was on her feet, screaming the place down.

Baying. That’s what they were doing. Baying. I’ve always kept my own counsel about hunting and other countryside issues, never knowing whether my next client would be pro or anti-Countryside Alliance. But I tell you this, I was glad I’d been incarnated as a human, not a fox. There wasn’t a hair on the nape of my neck that was lying flat: I was ready to wet myself with fright. And here was my boss on her hind legs drawing everyone’s attention to our plight. She’d told me to let her do the talking – should I leave the screaming to her as well, or, as my instinct demanded, join in? Those animals must be jumping six feet into the air.

I decided to scream a bit too. Well, the scream more or less came out of its own accord.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ He didn’t say ‘hell’, actually – he used the sort of word that would have driven even Paula’s eyebrows skywards.

A man with a bald patch strode in our direction. From here we could see the regular tufts where he’d had hair implanted. Not that his grooming was our immediate concern.

‘You – you two up there! What the hell are you doing?’

The anger in his voice raised the dogs to new paroxysms of baying. I’ll swear you could hear the snap of their teeth as they bit furiously at thin air they’d much rather have had thickened with a nice bit of my flesh.

I also heard the snap of the whip as he cuffed them back into simmering, resentful silence, legs braced for another attack.

Paula stepped forward to the edge of our platform. A quick flap of her hand meant I was to stay out of sight. I
obeyed. ‘Good evening, Mr van der Poele,’ she said, as if greeting the vicar at the beetle drive.

‘Miss Farmer, is it? Would you care to explain what the hell you think you’re doing on my property?’

She gave him one of her bland, unfurrowed stares. ‘Painting it, Mr van der Poele. Or I was earlier and will be tomorrow. I was just going over tomorrow’s schedule with my employee, here, when we were set on by your dogs. I thought after the last incident you were going to keep them under proper control.’

So she’d complained to him without telling us, had she? Good for her.

‘I’m entitled to set my animals on trespassers,’ he said. ‘Without warning.’

‘Fine. But not on my staff. I have an employer’s duty of care, as I said the other day.’

Van der Poele snarled an order, reinforcing its message with the whip. The dogs whimpered and lay down.

Paula made another of her statements. ‘When you’ve confined them, we will come down and leave you in peace. By the way, did you know that one of your windows isn’t properly fastened? I found it unlocked when I was discussing tomorrow’s work.’

Van der Poele barked an order. Another man appeared, leashed the dogs and dragged them off to the outhouse housing our loo. I hoped they wouldn’t stay there – I’d rather wee behind the bushes than brave them.

For security’s sake, there was no ladder from here down to the ground. ‘So how do we get down?’ I muttered. ‘It’s too far to jump.’ It was dusk, too – and goodness knew what lurked to break an unwary ankle.

We’d often teased Paula about the little rucksack she always carried. She pointed out – rightly – it was high fashion and we could get our own from that nice shop in the Outlet. We didn’t dispute that, merely pointing out that torches and plumb lines weren’t your average fashion accessories. Nor would we wear ours up ladders. To be honest, where she lived the torch might well have been useful: there were no pavements and no streetlights. Just to add to the fun there were no speed restrictions either, so if you didn’t want to be squashed as flat as a hedgehog, it was either dress like a traffic cone or flash a strong beam at any oncoming speedster. Anyway, my camera was safely stowed, and Paula’s torch was already in her hand, its beam illuminating bolts making easy hand and foot holds. When I was down she dropped the torch neatly into my outstretched hands and followed suit.

The van welcomed us phlegmatically enough, starting third go – just enough hesitation to set the dogs off again – and we set off sedately through the lanes. Paula said nothing till I dropped her back at the Hop Vine. I could rather have used another drink, but all she said, as she headed to her car, was, ‘You join the others on the Tenterden job tomorrow. I’ll work on van der Poele’s place myself.’

I opened my mouth to protest – you get attached to a project, and I’d have liked to be able to point at the
newly-painted
eaves and say, ‘All my own work.’ But I thought better of it and simply waved her goodnight.

On the way home I saw bats and a badger, and felt very glad to be alive to see them. But then I came across a lifeless pheasant, its brave tail stuck up like a signal of surrender: life wasn’t all roses, even out here.

‘You don’t want to worry, Caffy,’ Meg said kindly, first thing the following morning. ‘We’ve all got phobias. I can’t go up ladders the way you do, and mention a bat to Helen here and she’ll go all hysterical on you. And those dogs would put anyone off.’

Meg was the oldest of the team, forty at least, and tended to mother us all. Her dark hair was streaked with grey, not from age but from where she’d run distracted painty hands through it when we worried her. Helen, her pale, blonde niece, was the youngest, eighteen or nineteen, and thin to the point where I was worried about anorexia. We all kept an eye on her, making sure she ate well while she was working. On the quiet, I watched to make sure she couldn’t wander off and make herself vomit. But she stayed thin. Perhaps she was just blessed with skinny genes, and when we sank into tubby, waistless middle age, we’d be full of envy, not anxiety.

We were all in Trev, since he lived on the road outside my flat. I’d picked them up from Kingsnorth, once separate from Ashford, but now being swallowed rapidly by the dormitory estates the government seemed obsessed with building. I stuck to country roads as far as High Halden, because I was totally unable to resist the crossroads known as Cuckold’s Corner. Then I joined what claimed to be an Aroad, but was really a glorified lane, with nowhere to overtake the heavy lorry that might just reach thirty if the driver sold his soul. I saw a chance to change the subject.

‘I thought the South East was supposed to be rich,’ I
chuntered. ‘And yet – motorways apart – it doesn’t seem to have a single decent road. Haven’t you ever heard of dual-
carriageways
?’

‘It isn’t as though we haven’t asked for them,’ Meg protested.

Good: with a bit of luck I could keep her on roads and off dogs until she’d forgotten she was supposed to be feeling sorry for me. While I’ve never minded lying my way out of a spot, it’s always seemed to me easier to stick to the truth if possible, probably because it’s easier to remember. Since in general I had a very happy relationship with canines, I wasn’t too sure about Paula’s reason for my no-show at Crabton Manor. Still, she had to say something, and after yesterday I owed her.

‘A lot of very rich people do live down here, it’s true,’ Meg was saying. I must have missed a bit. She ran off the names of several former and current pop stars. ‘But they don’t shop locally – I mean, can you imagine someone like Mick Jagger popping into Paula’s mum’s salon and asking for highlights and a trim?’

I was hard put to imagine anyone popping into Paula’s mum’s salon – even Paula wriggled out of that.

‘And some incomers certainly can’t be described as assets to the community,’ she continued, warming to her theme. ‘There was that supermarket shooting last year – the gangland vendetta?’

I watched in my side mirrors the frantic attempts of the Jag – yes, latest series – to overtake me. Or perhaps he was just trying to hitch up on the tow bar.

‘That’s the one. Imagine being at the checkout when a
murderer pushes his basket ahead of you.’ Helen supplied a satisfactory shudder, like a heroine in a silent movie.

I just sat very firmly on memories of the sort of things that happened in gangland vendettas.

‘And, of course, there was that kidnap at the hotel near Tenterden. But perhaps that doesn’t count, since the gang came down from London…’

And had been pretty incompetent, as I recalled. Even so, reducing such a vile thing to a matter for gossip made me feel uncomfortable. ‘You’ll have to remind me of the turn,’ I said. ‘It’s a while since I was here, and you know how hopeless I am with roads.’

‘If Paula heard you saying that, she’d be furious,’ Meg said. ‘You know how she hates people putting themselves down.’

Helen said languidly, ‘I wouldn’t mind going into Tenterden. I forgot to get myself any lunch.’

If ever there were a green signal, that was it. The van headed purposefully for the Waitrose car park, disgorging Helen and Meg – and then, yes, me too. Tenterden is one of those pretty little towns that I can’t resist. While the others went into the supermarket, I drifted to the High Street. I knew the shops were geared for the tourist market – a steam engine from the preserved railway whistled even as I locked the van’s doors – but I loved the wide village street, the quaint (and stupendously expensive) houses, and the immensely solid church, which looked as if you really could find sanctuary, if not solace, there. It wasn’t nine o’clock yet, and though Paula liked us to be at work by then, we could clip a bit off our lunch break to make up. Just to walk up and
down made me feel more comfortable than I could ever remember feeling back in Brum. OK. I exaggerate. Like a lot of people I didn’t have an idyllic childhood, and in my later teens I was constantly looking over my shoulder. Me, and a lot of my friends. Here, though, the sun was shining, there was enough wind to blow a hint of the engine’s coal smoke into the town, and a wonderful sense of contentment and well-being. Maybe I even started to hum as I ambled along.

If I did, the music choked in my throat. Over by a swish dress shop was – No, I couldn’t, mustn’t believe it was –.

Gasping for breath, I leant a second against the nearest shop window. Antiques. The owner came out, ready to shoo me away, but was soon fussing round asking if I was all right. Half of me wanted to hug her, the other half wished she’d go away and leave me alone, lest her mother-hen act attracted the attention of that man. Even the shop itself might – he liked fine things.

It was him. Had to be. You don’t sleep with a man for nearly three years without recognising certain gestures, certain movements of the head. All that talk about criminals, and who should be almost within earshot but Clive Granville.

Gabbling my thanks to the shopkeeper, I pulled myself clear and dived into a newsagent’s. If I grabbed a paper I could put my head down in that and hope he’d not notice me. And I could buy things, not just the paper I was already queuing for. It was patchily damp from where I’d touched it.

I broke away from the queue, nipping to a stand of sun specs and another of baseball caps. Camouflage. That was better. Retreating to the back of the shop, as a final touch I
rolled up my dungaree legs: now I looked like a rather shabby all-American girl (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms!) with my tan and perkily cut sunbleached hair. I was sure, however, that no cheerleader had ever gone for Joseph’s coat trainers like mine, dappled with a hundred odd colours.

The others would be waiting for me. What if they came looking for me, yelling my name? Not a lot of Caffys in Tenterden. They’d lead him straight to me; and I’d have led him straight to them. More potential victims. I’d left Birmingham not just to save myself but also to protect the few friends I had left. Now I had a brand new group of friends, family, more like, and he could sniff them out and punish them simply for befriending me. I couldn’t bear to think about what I ought to do – except that, in the short term, I’d better get back to them. So I paid up, and slipped gently from the shop into a waxing tide of elderly ladies. It was their shopping hour, just as it had been their shopping hour since William the Bastard had landed not all that far down the road. On one of my free weekends I’d actually walked to the site of Harold’s battle. Poor guy, it had probably been an old lady’s walking stick that had polished him off, not an arrow at all. Or being hacked with huge, heavy swords. I didn’t envy poor Edith Swan Neck, his mistress, her job of identifying him. I’d had to do it once or twice for friends, if not lovers, in the clinical privacy of a morgue, with the relevant bits sanitised as far as forensic medicine could accomplish. It wasn’t pleasant.

And I wanted to make damned sure no one had to do it for me. Which meant staying very much in one piece. It was hard to walk along trying not to have eye contact with anyone but
making sure I saw Clive well before he saw me. I nipped sharply into the pedestrian way leading to the car park and was ready to heave a sigh of relief. But who should be looking into the very smart ladies’ shoe shop (come on, Caffy, is there any other sort in Tenterden?) but Clive himself. He and his female companion, a woman rather younger and even slimmer than I’d been when he selected me, were engrossed in a row of sexy sandals. I scuttered past, hoping, indeed praying, that Helen and Meg didn’t take it into their heads to yell greetings at me as I approached. Yes, they were turning towards me, and yes, their mouths were forming great round O’s. Perhaps I could convince them I wasn’t me. At least I had the paper to shield my face – I hadn’t meant to buy the
Guardian
, but that was what I’d picked up. It would have been Taz’s natural choice. But I mustn’t think about Taz now. I must think about quietly and unobtrusively weaving round the car park and returning to the van by the most circuitous route possible: once anyone identified me with it I’d had it, it was so easily identifiable.

‘Just say nothing, pretend not to be with me and go and open up,’ I told Meg, flipping her the keys.

She took one look at me and caught them, bundling me in ahead of her.

‘Don’t ask. Just start and drive off.’

I was halfway under a dustsheet already.

The bloody van wouldn’t start. Maybe that’s why Paula insisted the damned thing was a he, it was so sodding
temperamental
. Shit. Not like me to swear these days. Neither Meg nor Paula approved.

‘It’s no use,’ Meg almost wept, ‘I can’t do it. You’ll have to try, Caffy.’

If it didn’t start soon, it’d be under the bonnet time for me. Not where you want to be when you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. Not when Granville prided himself there was no motor he couldn’t tame. Motor or, of course, woman. By whatever means.

Just as kindly people were gathering round to help, I got it to fire. I should have handed over to Meg, of course. But I was so intent on keeping the engine ticking over, I stayed in the driving seat. And as I crept out of the car park, my eyes met, as if it had all been staged, the disbelieving eyes of Clive Granville. Despite the shades, he knew me.

I almost threw up. There was only one thing to do. Make sure he didn’t catch up with us.

I ruthlessly carved a Mercedes, driven, by its octogenarian owner, more in the fashion of a Reliant Robin, took to every side street I could find, and finally found myself going in exactly opposite the direction to the one I wanted. It was only after I’d completed a lumbering U-turn that Meg spoke.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘Not your fault,’ I said, truthfully. ‘I know Paula thinks it’s a bit cute to have a van only I can start, but it really isn’t funny. I can’t think why she doesn’t get the sodding ignition system sorted. Fucking stupid not to. She bosses us: why doesn’t she boss the garage?’

‘I know you’re upset, Caffy, but all the same …’ Meg sighed, because I’d sworn, I suppose. ‘And we don’t criticise Paula, remember, not behind her back, do we?’

‘Just shut it, Meg! Please!’ These were my friends. I should be yelling at fate, not them. I took several deep breaths.
‘Sorry.’ Another breath. If I talked normally maybe I’d feel a bit more normal. ‘Did you get some lunch, Helen?’

‘I didn’t fancy anything there,’ she whined.

‘But,’ Meg declared, ‘she can have my egg sandwiches – I’ve bought a baguette to replace them.’ Despite her increasing pudge, Meg wouldn’t miss lunch. Or fail to notice where the speedo needle was. ‘Careful, it’s that very sharp bend coming up.’

She was right. If I wasn’t careful I would roll the van and kill us all and save Granville the job. And no, I wasn’t exaggerating.

The place we were titivating was what looked like a Georgian farmhouse but was probably much older, a medieval manor with a false front, on a rise of ground called the Isle of Oxney. Maybe it had been an island once, when the marshes were still sea. Certainly the land to the southeast dropped away in what looked like old cliffs. From the house you could see Rye to the south and the vast spread of Romney Marsh to the east. Vast to me, at any rate, after my city upbringing (some might think updragging a better term), when the local park was terrifying because there weren’t any houses in it. Even on a perfect day like this there was a strong wind. The roof bore signs of very recent major repairs by someone who knew his job, there were new gutters and there had been a great deal of repointing. Someone had injected a damp-course. Not
surprisingly
, the paintwork had weathered badly, especially where it had to endure the combined attack of wind, rain and sun. My job would be to go up the ladder and strip and fill where necessary. Some of the windows would have to be removed and reputtied. Certainly the whole lot would need a
fungicidal wash and very careful priming. I loaded pockets and pouches with the necessary and with Meg’s help hoisted the ladder. But I didn’t go up straightaway – I sloped off to tuck the van further under the trees. I didn’t think anyone could see it from the road now.

‘You expecting a hot day or something?’ Meg asked, puzzled, as I walked back.

‘A scorcher – didn’t you hear the forecast?’ Painters and decorators are as keen on weather forecasts as sailors and farmers are. Paula admitted, if pressed, to having an unrequited passion for TV weatherman Rob McElwee.

She drifted me away from Helen. ‘What’s really the trouble? Something really upset you back there, I could see that, but I didn’t want to say too much and worry Helen.’

‘I saw someone I don’t want to see ever again.’

‘Easy – tell him to push off.’ Meg thought that not swearing set her kids a good example. They’d confided in me that they thought she was pathetic not knowing the real words and wondered whether they ought to teach her.

‘Not so easy.’

‘Three of us!’ The way she lifted her chin you could imagine sparring with a bully’s mother in the playground – but not, of course, verbally.

‘Even with the whole of Duke William’s army behind me,’ I said miserably. But I couldn’t cough it all up, not now. Not now. Though I knew I’d have to say something about it all soon. I braced my shoulders. ‘Anyway, time to get up that ladder.’