The Siren (15 page)

He looked wary. ‘Like?’

‘I want you to help me. I’ve left Spain behind. I’ve changed a lot.’

Craig leant back in his chair, as if observing her from a few extra inches away would give him better perspective. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I don’t think I deserve . . .’

‘No need to explain. Look, I see girls here night after night, and I’m sure that I’m often seeing them at their most . . .’ he waited for the right word to arrive
‘. . . irresponsible. But it doesn’t mean I assume they’re going to live their whole lives like that, does it?’

She shrugged. ‘I hope not.’

‘Only you know what took you to Spain – and what brought you home.’

‘Right, and I don’t want it following me forever.’

Craig sighed. ‘And you want me to do what, exactly?’

Her hands lay in her lap, her fingers woven together. If she pressed her palms together, it would look as if she was praying. ‘Talk to Dougie for me. Ask him to get Tamsin to leave us
alone.’

‘Us?’

‘When Riley comes home, I want to know I can just have a proper life with him. That’s all.’

Chasing after Kimberly took a combination of luck and judgement and, as Goodhew quickly discovered, a fair amount of speed. By the time he reached the cemetery exit leading on
to Norfolk Street, she was just disappearing out of sight, heading towards the town centre. He ran after her, using his mobile to ring Bryn. ‘Town centre,’ he instructed. ‘Go via
Burleigh Street towards the bus station.’

Goodhew took a longer route, through the terraces named for the market garden that had once extended where they stood: Adam and Eve, Prospect, Orchard. By the time he broke out on to Emmanuel
Road, facing Christ’s Pieces, he was panting hard. He stopped and drew a couple of deep breaths. Damn, where was she? Then he saw her dart out of New Square and towards the centre. He kept
her in his sights this time, and when he saw her running past the closed shops he guessed exactly where she was heading.

Before the last corner, he stopped and waited for Bryn. And when Bryn finally caught up, he had to wait for him to be able to speak. Bryn leant against the nearest wall, first with one hand,
then with both, then he sank to the pavement. Finally he gasped, ‘I’m not very fit.’

‘She’s in the Celeste.’

‘And?’

‘They’ve all seen me before. I thought you could go in, have a drink, see what she’s up to.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘No. Just pretend to be a punter.’

Bryn clambered to his feet. ‘How has this happened to me? I’m the mechanic, you’re the policeman, and I don’t want to get involved.’

‘You didn’t have to run all the way here. And if you really don’t want to go in, that’s fine.’

Bryn glared at Goodhew. ‘Don’t wait for me, then. If I find out anything, I’ll phone you. If there’s nothing to say, then I won’t.’

‘Thanks.’

Bryn checked the state of his hair in the closest window. ‘Now piss off,’ he hissed and disappeared round the nearest corner. Goodhew smiled to himself: he had a strong feeling that
Bryn wouldn’t go anywhere he didn’t want to.

Goodhew wandered across to the other side of Sidney Street and sat down in the doorway of Oxfam. It afforded him a good view of both of Kimberly’s most likely routes away from the Celeste,
so he decided that the best thing he could do was to sit and wait there for as long as it took.

TWENTY

Riley’s hand was small but, when he chose to hold on to hers, his grip was determined.

There were many things about Riley that were proportionately very big for someone barely three feet high. Sometimes it was the additional work he created, the mess and chaos, or the days lost to
colds and sickness and teething. More often it was the way that his presence alone had made her suddenly care about a wider orbit, about the other side of the world and the future beyond her own
lifetime.

Most of all it was the way he anchored her: the way one tiny five-pound baby had possessed the strength to end her desire for self-destruction with his very first breath. In fleeting moments,
she still saw that baby. The toddler that had replaced him had continued to keep her moving forward even when such progress frightened her.

She understood her role; to walk alongside him along the road to his independence, to know when to hold his hand, and when to hold back, and when to eventually stop and let him go ahead. She
wasn’t ready to let go of Riley. Not now. Only one day when he was ready. When the baby, and the toddler and the child would exist only in her memories, and the young man was ready to glance
over his shoulder and wave her goodbye.

The tears flooded her eyes and she stumbled on to the pavement outside the Celeste.

She pulled the hairband out of her hair and hung her head, protecting her face from curious onlookers by covering much of it with one hand positioned like a visor. She could no longer run now;
the resolve had left her muscles, they wanted nothing but to fold.

The path beneath her feet seemed blurred. Only the diffused lights from the bright shopfronts marked her route.

She walked on, blinded by crying, her anguish fuelled by the realization that she was sinking, that the tears filling her eyes were no different from seeing through the eyes of a drowning
man.

She normally shut most people out, yet those she trusted she trusted absolutely. But they could be counted on one hand, and, of those few, Rachel was dead and Jay was only just clinging on.
Which left three, including Riley. Now she needed to protect them, not the other way around; she’d swum too far out of her depth and she was in danger of taking everyone down with her.

Somehow she needed help; asking Craig for assistance had been hard enough, and it had done nothing to assuage her fears. She guessed the Lewtons would never forgive her, and maybe they were the
only ones able to contain Stefan.

There were a few people nearby: she could hear their footsteps as they overtook her or passed in another direction. It took her the length of Sidney Street, and half of St Andrew’s Street,
to realize there was someone walking in the same direction and at pretty much the same pace. Someone who was walking just a few steps behind her.

She wondered where Stefan was, and what he was doing. And who or what was driving him. And, in an irrational moment, she wondered whether it was he who was following her. And in the next moment
she knew: who else would it be but a reporter? Some piece of shit, no doubt, a no-conscience hack just looking for an opportunity to screw her over. Or, worse still, a grimy little photographer
with his finger on the trigger ready to shoot holes in her life. She felt her strength return. She knew what they would do: just push and push until she cracked, then use this as proof that she was
an animal, a social group F piece of trash, and not a fit mother for the innocent little boy. She also knew what she
should
do: keep her eyes cast to the ground and remain tear-stained and
dignified.

She slowed.

Well, fuck it. She wasn’t some reality-show asset ready to be wheeled out at every photo op. Or a criminal. Or even a victim.

She swiped her hair away from her face. She’d slap the fucking camera out of his hand before he had a chance to fire off the first shot. It wasn’t exactly a plan, more a thought and
action so closely coupled that the first wasn’t complete when the second was initiated. She spun round and lunged at him, her arms flailing as they sought out the non-existent equipment. From
close range, she shouted something into his face, spitting the words at him – at that moment feeling like she was capable of killing.

He was fast, though, and caught her hand as she swung at his face. ‘No,’ he said, that was all, just the one simple word but it was enough to make her look at him properly. She
hesitated, then shrank back, but he still hadn’t let go. ‘Walk with me,’ he said and, the entire time, his voice remained calm and even.

She found herself turning back towards home and he fell into step beside her. ‘We can go the long way back,’ he suggested. ‘Then we can talk.’

‘Why?’

‘Good for both of us?’

She nodded and knew she’d gone beyond the point of battling with him. ‘Do you prefer Goodhew or Gary or Detective?’

‘Whatever suits you.’

‘Is this an official conversation?’

He gave a sheepish smile. ‘No, and I’m not supposed to be here either.’

‘I see,’ she said and they spent the next few minutes in silence.

‘I can tell you’re not a great fan of the police,’ he said finally. ‘Since I was about eleven it’s all I wanted to do.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t know, actually. Maybe it started before that, but my grandparents lived across from Parkside Police Station, and I just remember staring out of the window one day and
deciding.’

‘And you stuck with it?’

‘Stubbornness; it’s a character flaw.’

‘And now, in return, you want me to tell you why I started hating the police?’

‘Not if you don’t want to.’

A scowl flashed across her face: this conversation was already feeling cathartic, and that alone should have made her question her own judgement. But her mouth was carrying on, with no
intervention from her brain, and she decided to let it go. ‘Who likes the police, anyhow?’

He didn’t comment.

She pressed him. ‘Aren’t you going to ask what I was doing?’

‘No.’

‘But you’ll sneak round behind my back and try to find out anyway?’

‘Of course, I want to know what’s going on, we all do, and the number-one priority is finding Riley.’ His gaze was steady. ‘But I was there at the fire with you. I
don’t doubt you for a second.’

She stopped herself from making some sceptical reply like ‘Oh, really?’ or ‘So you say’. All along, there’d remained an edge to her voice, but now she didn’t
want to kill the conversation.

And so they continued: a volley of sentences, silence, then words again. Somewhere along the way, the conversation’s self-consciousness dissolved, her preconceptions were forgotten, and
they were just two people.

‘Tell me about Jay,’ he said.

‘You met Anita? She was my foster mum. Bet you knew that already?’ She didn’t wait for a reply, it didn’t matter. ‘She was my third foster home, because I
couldn’t settle at the others, and I didn’t want anything to do with her either. Not at first. I was twelve when I went to her, and I think it’s a vulnerable age . . . maybe every
age is, but for me it was like I had one foot in childhood and one in adolescence, and I seemed to step forward with the wrong one every time. She understood, she always does.’

Hearing her use of the present tense jarred but Goodhew didn’t question it.

‘Sometimes I think you meet people you can’t help but like. D’you know that feeling?’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘And I don’t know why but they’re usually the ones that turn out to be really good for you – or really bad.’

‘Because, once you know you like them, you can’t stay dispassionate like you could at the start of any other relationship?’

‘Or maybe it’s the other way around, and you’re drawn to them because instincts tell you that they have the ability to evoke emotion?’

‘I see, so you’re one of those people that looks for the alternative answer?’

‘I know it’s never good to jump to conclusions, if that’s what you mean.’

Her throat tightened, so she nodded and took several deep breaths until she felt it was safe to speak again. ‘I was telling you about Jay.’

‘Go on.’

‘Anita fostered him, too. He left before I arrived, then came back again when I was fifteen. When Anita and I spent time together she expected respect and decent manners, but she
didn’t ever get that from me. Even so she was always there to go back to whenever I needed her. She believes in all this hippy stuff, you know, free the spirit and it will return to you. And
I was angry when she got charge of me, and I stayed angry, and did all the things angry teenagers do. Were you like that?’

‘No, I was sent away to school . . .’

‘Boarding or Borstal?’

‘Boarding, thanks, and I hated it. I didn’t fit in. I suppose I could have got angry, instead . . . I don’t know . . .’

‘You must know. Sex? Drugs?’

He gave a funny half-smile and shrugged. ‘Old films, actually. Black-and-white ones. Robert Mitchum and Humphrey Bogart. And Veronica Lake. I was in love with Veronica Lake.’

There was no answer to that. ‘Anita’s love is unconditional, she’s just there for you, and I woke one day and saw that, if only I stopped tilting the wrong way, my life
wasn’t really so bad. And when I saw that, I also saw Jay like it was the first time. We were together for eighteen months.’ Kimberly paused. She saw the flaw in telling the story,
chapters she wasn’t prepared to share. She jumped forward: ‘After Jay and I split up, Rachel and I decided to go to Spain, just like I told your boss . . .’

‘And Jay came to Spain and was injured somehow?’

‘In a bar fight.’

‘Was he the fighting type?’

‘No.’ The first time she’d ever heard that type of question, it had stung. Jay had never provoked anything in his life. ‘No,’ she repeated, ‘he was stronger
than that.’

She knew Goodhew didn’t know Jay, so she was the only one who could have detected that there were similarities between the two men. Goodhew’s eyes, too, held the kind of expression
that was built on truth. Only Jay had ever looked at her like that: simple honesty, no agenda.

It shouldn’t be so rare in life, she concluded. They were close to the cemetery already, and she wondered at how most of the journey home had just vanished. ‘Jay can’t remember
the attack. Or at least he’s never told me about it.’

‘He spoke?’

‘He has something called Cerebromedullospinal Disconnection.’

‘Locked-in syndrome?’

‘That’s right, so he can’t talk but he can move his eyes. We learnt Morse code together: we dot with the right and dash with the left. We’re quicker now, though it was
funny the first few weeks we tried it – my co-ordination’s not all that. He said I had a Morse code impediment.’

‘He can hear you, right? So why don’t you just talk to him?’