The Long Fall (25 page)

Five

‘She’s late,’ Mark said, as he and Kate sat at the kitchen island waiting for Beattie, having finally given in and broken out the champagne and pistachios. ‘And where the hell’s Tilly?’

Mark always turned up on time, and considered anyone who did otherwise to be enacting some sort of betrayal. But Beattie’s tardiness was the least of Kate’s concerns. Had she had any say in the matter, she would never have let this dinner take place. At one point she had thought about pleading weakness and taking to her bed, but that would only have put the matter off and made it worse for her in the long run.

No. However much it would feel like she was standing with her feet in two different worlds, she needed to face up to it. If she were ever going to explain Beattie’s presence in her current life, she was going to have to plunge into the evening.

She had called Beattie that morning, ostensibly to thank her for the book.

‘I’m so sorry about tonight,’ Beattie said as soon as she picked up the phone. ‘He asked me out of the blue. I know it’s going to make things very awkward for both of us. But what could I do? I called him because I was concerned about you – you do look so frail, Emma. When he told me what the doc said to you, I couldn’t believe the coincidence. Jessie my eldest had exactly the same thing. The book was so useful to us. I do hope it helps.’

‘Thanks. It looks interesting,’ Kate said. She had, in fact, hidden it under a pile of magazines, but she didn’t want to appear impolite or ungrateful for Beattie’s concern. ‘So how are we going to survive tonight?’

‘I guess we’ll play it by ear. I’ll take my lead from you, and go along with whatever you say.’

Kate blinked. For a moment she doubted if she had it in her to create such an elaborate and impromptu deception in front of both her husband and her daughter. Then she came to her senses. Of course she could. It was what she had been doing all her life.

But she had never had to rely on anyone else before. She hoped Beattie was up to it.

The front door slammed and a clattering in the hallway heralded Tilly’s arrival. Kate offered up her usual thanks that her daughter had got home safely. The roads between the bus stop and the house were the worst inner city sort: dark residential front gardens and great blocks of flats rising from empty concrete courtyards. There were so many murky spots for attackers to hide, or to drag you away to. When Tilly started working at the National Theatre, Kate had wanted to pay for a cab to get her home at night, a plan that had been firmly rejected.

‘What’s the point of me going out to work if you then pay half my day’s wages to get me back? It’s a bit sick, Mum,’ Tilly had said. ‘Everyone else in the whole of London has to get home under their own steam, and so will I.’

Kate couldn’t really argue with that. But she had signed both Tilly and herself up for a self-defence course and extracted a promise from her daughter never to use headphones at night, to walk down the middle of the quieter streets, and to keep her wits about her. Kate had enjoyed the classes, although she wished she had taken them when she was Tilly’s age.

‘God, can I have some?’ Tilly said, breathlessly making her entrance and spying the champagne.

‘“Hello, Mum and Dad. How are you?”’ Mark said, getting up to fetch her a glass.

‘What’s got his goat?’

‘Our dinner guest is late,’ Kate said.

‘Oops. Cardinal sin,’ Tilly said.

‘It’s not a big issue,’ Mark said, tetchily pouring the champagne for Tilly. ‘How was your day?’

‘Jesus. A nightmare.’ Tilly knocked back her drink. ‘It was someone’s birthday and the Ayckbourn matinee cast were doing tequila slammers. Like a bloody zoo. At five-thirty in the afternoon.’

‘The horror,’ Mark said.

Kate was just offering Tilly a pistachio when the doorbell rang, making her jump and drop the bowl.

‘Damn!’ she said.

‘At last,’ Mark said.

‘Fashionably late, Pa,’ Tilly said, as, still in service-industry mode, she fetched a dustpan and brush to deal with the spilled nuts.

‘It was just the bloody food,’ Mark said, returning to the kitchen with two large carrier bags. ‘Where the hell’s your friend got to, then?’

‘Perhaps she mistook the time, or something,’ Kate said, glad of the grace being granted by Beattie’s late arrival.

‘It’s so unlike an American, though.’ Mark sorted the meat and rice dishes from the salads and handed them to Tilly, who slid them into the oven to keep them warm. ‘Or at least any that I know.’

‘Claire was never much of a time-keeper,’ Kate said, trying on the old school-friends disguise. ‘She must have been late for every single class.’

‘I thought people grew out of that sort of thing,’ Mark said, dumping salad onto a platter.

The doorbell clanged again, and, once more, Kate jumped.

‘That’ll be her,’ Tilly said, heading for the stairs. ‘I’ll get it. And Dad? Calm down, dear.’

‘Cheeky cow,’ Mark said.

When did they start talking to each other like that? Kate had no idea.

‘Shit!’ they heard Tilly gasp from the hallway. ‘Dad!’ she yelled up to the kitchen.

Mark and Kate looked at each other, then rushed to the stairs.

Beattie was leaning in the front doorway. Her nose bled into a cut lip, which in turn spilled blood onto her good camel coat. Deep grazes in her knees merged with the ripped nylon of her tights, and she had the beginnings of a black eye.

Kate still remembered how that felt.

‘What happened?’ she said, rushing to catch Beattie as she stumbled into the house.

‘Damn kids mugged me,’ Beattie lisped through her split lip. Mark took her other arm and they helped her upstairs.

‘Go ahead and sort out the sofa,’ Kate said to Tilly. ‘Put a blanket over it and get some cushions at the end for B— Claire’s head.’

‘Bastards took my bag,’ Beattie said as Kate settled her down on the throw Tilly had arranged over the clean white sofa.

‘We need to get you to a doctor,’ Mark said, pulling out his phone.

‘No, no, I’m fine. Just a little shook up.’

‘But they hit you!’ Tilly said.

‘They just shoved. It was the fall that hurt me. Nothing’s broken.’

‘Your eye, though . . .’ Kate said. Beattie looked at her and, almost imperceptibly, shook her head.

‘I’ll call the police, then,’ Mark said, taking himself out of the room.

‘No need,’ Beattie said, but he had already gone. She turned to Kate, panic in her eyes.

‘Tills, could you get Claire a brandy, please?’ Kate asked. ‘There’s some in the dining-room cabinet.’

Tilly rushed off, glad for something to do.

‘It was Jake’s guys again,’ Beattie whispered hoarsely as soon as they were on their own. ‘Different individuals, but they all look kind of the same. They jumped me just round the corner from here.’

‘No!’ Kate said, her eyes wide.

‘They said you hadn’t paid up yet. Said this was just a taster. A warning. Said I’m to tell you –’ Beattie looked away.

‘What? What?’

‘I’m to tell you to look after your daughter.’

Kate put her hands over her mouth and looked in horror at Beattie’s beaten face. She had heard nothing from Jake since she had emailed him asking for proof of his figures. She had imagined that he might be redrafting his demands in the face of her questions. But here was his sign to her that he wasn’t prepared to negotiate. However unreasonable his demands, he had her – and Beattie – over a barrel. There was no way they could tell anyone about his blackmailing without incriminating themselves, which meant he could use as much force as he wanted to make her pay up. And here, now, was the proof of that.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered as Mark came back into the room, still on the phone.

‘What did they look like, Claire?’ he said.

‘Young. Black,’ Beattie said, and shrugged. ‘Sorry. That’s all I took in.’

Mark repeated the information into his phone.

‘And how many were there?’

‘Three.’

‘She says three.’ He listened for a minute, then turned again to Beattie. ‘And when and where exactly did it take place?’

‘About half an hour ago? I’d just turned off the road that leads here from the bus stop.’

‘Bridge Lane?’ Mark asked.

‘I – I think so.’

‘I hate that bit at night,’ Tilly said as she came back from the dining room with a stiff measure of brandy for Beattie.

Mark spoke to the police operator. Then he listened, nodding, writing notes on a pad he had brought in with him.

‘Yes, she can walk. OK, yes. Yes. She’ll be with you. Yes.’ He clicked his phone off and turned to Beattie. ‘They can’t send a car out at the moment – there’s some sort of riot or something going on in Woolwich. We’ve got to take you down to A & E to get your injuries registered. Then we’ll get you to the police station, and they’ll take a full statement. They gave me a crime number, which I’ve put at the bottom there.’ He tore the top sheet off the notepad and handed it to her.

‘Come on then, Claire,’ Kate said, going to help her up. It was wrong, she knew, but her major feeling was one of relief that she was going to be spared the discomfort of a dissembling dinner.

‘Let her have a drop of brandy first, Mum,’ Tilly said, handing the glass to Beattie. ‘She’s had a terrible shock.’

‘Yes, yes of course,’ Kate said.

‘But I was so looking forward to dinner with you guys,’ Beattie said, sipping at the brandy. ‘The food smells delicious.’ She winced as the alcohol touched the cut on her lip. ‘And I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day.’

‘Well, they didn’t say anything about going straightaway,’ Mark said. ‘I’m sure we can eat first. Then I’ll take you.’

Kate hoped that no one heard the tiny groan that escaped her lips.

‘Thank you,’ Beattie said, in tears now. ‘You’re very kind.’

‘It’s nothing.’ Mark patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘Kate, have we got something we can clean Claire here up with a bit?’

‘Of course,’ Kate said. She ran up the stairs to her bathroom, her head reeling. Here was another fiction – the mugging – that she and Beattie had to maintain for the evening. She hoped they both were up to it.

Mustn’t drink too much, she told herself.

As she climbed back down to the living room with the first-aid box and Dettol, Beattie’s gruff voice rose up the stairs to greet her.

‘. . . And she was so clever at school – straight A’s all the way!’

She entered the room and found Mark and Tilly sitting on the armchairs facing Beattie, who was now lying back down on the sofa.

‘Such a pity she had to leave before her A Levels. It was awful what happened to her parents – they were such sweet people. Always welcomed me into their home. I was a little lost, being an outsider – my father’s firm moved him from New York to set up the UK branch when I was fifteen. We only stayed three years in the end. Oh, hi, Kate.’

Kate put a thin smile on her face. At least Beattie had taken the burden of leading the stories off her shoulders.

‘That’s the most I’ve ever heard about Mr and Mrs Brown. Kate prefers not to talk about the past,’ Mark said.

‘It’s not my favourite subject,’ Kate said, filling a bowl with boiled water.

‘I would like to have known her back then, though.’

Kate couldn’t read the look Mark gave her. Was there regret in it? Or just curiosity? Did he find the present-day Kate lacking? She poured a good slug of Dettol into the water.

‘She was quite something,’ Beattie said, looking at Kate warmly.

‘I bet she was.’

‘Enough!’ Kate said, blushing as she brought the bowl and first-aid box over to Beattie.

‘I’ll sort out the food,’ Mark said, discreetly moving over to the kitchen so that Kate and Tilly could help Beattie off with her tights.

‘I’m so sorry, you guys,’ Beattie said. ‘Messing up your evening like this.’

‘It’s hardly your fault,’ Tilly said.

Beattie winced as Kate set to work on her knees with the Dettol water and tweezers, dabbing and picking bits of grit out of the gouges.

‘So you went back to the States then, after Gloucestershire?’ Tilly asked her.

Kate held her breath – she had forgotten to warn Beattie that she had relocated her childhood to the Cotswolds. But she didn’t miss a beat.

‘Yep, to Minnesota. We were forever moving around.’

‘Lucky you,’ Tilly said. ‘I’ve never been anywhere really.’

‘Apart from to stay with your uncle in New York and to West Africa to visit the school,’ Kate said, putting plasters on Beattie’s wounds.

‘But mostly we just go to Cornwall,’ Tilly said, rolling her eyes.

‘We’ve got a house there,’ Kate said.

‘How lovely,’ Beattie said.

‘Open a bottle of red, will you?’ Mark called over to Kate from the kitchen.

When Kate returned to the sofa with the wine, corkscrew and glasses, she found Tilly sitting on the floor telling Beattie about her Greek plans. With all the stress and excitement of Beattie’s predicament, she had nearly forgotten that tomorrow was the day her daughter was leaving.