The Memory of Midnight (12 page)

She could hear him moving around in the study, where he was dismantling all of Richard’s old bookcases, and warmth tingled deep in her belly. The trouble was that her memories of him were
all muddled up with those of Tom now.

Except she didn’t
remember
Tom. She had imagined him, that was all.

So now those weirdly vivid hallucinations were explained, she could get on and sort out everything else that was bothering her. She had promised Richard that she would deal with the rat problem
straight away, so she looked up pest control on the council website and arranged for an inspection. She would have to pay for it, but after two broken nights’ sleep she would do anything to
stop that awful noise.

But when the pest control officer came, he couldn’t hear anything. There was no sign of rats anywhere in the flat, he said. ‘You’ve got no droppings, which is usually your
first indication, and as far as I can see there aren’t no holes in the wall either.’

‘But I can hear them!’ Tess protested.

He shook his head. ‘There’s not much I can do. If you’ve got a little boy, you want to be careful about putting poison down unnecessarily,’ he warned. ‘Besides,
you’ve got a cat.’ He bent to stroke Ashrafar who was preening herself on the bed. ‘She’ll deal with them for free if they do get in. If they’re contained in the wall,
they’ll move on after a while.’

Tess was frustrated. She’d had just as little success with the solicitor when she had asked if there was anything that could be done about Martin harassing her with phone calls.

‘Can’t I get a restraining order or something?’

‘Has he actually threatened you?’

‘No, but I’m sure it’s him who’s been ringing.’

Her solicitor looked dubious. ‘Have you got any proof of that?’

‘No.’ She should have thought to dial 1471 and get the number, Tess realized. ‘No. I just know,’ she finished lamely.

The solicitor was no more encouraging when it came to setting divorce proceedings in motion. ‘I’m obliged to suggest that you and your husband try mediation first,’ she said.
‘You should both be thinking about your child.’

Tess thought about the way Oscar had stiffened his thin shoulders whenever he heard Martin’s car crunching over the gravel drive. ‘I
am
thinking about him! Martin
isn’t interested in him at all.’

‘Nonetheless, he’s entitled to contact with his child.’

Tess had been appalled to discover that Martin could compel access. If Oscar was reluctant, the meeting could be arranged under the supervision of social services, but as things stood, there was
no way she could stop Martin seeing his son.

Her only hope now was that he would lose interest in them both. She had unplugged the landline and was just using her mobile, so unless he actually came up to York, he would find it harder to
harass her.

If he
had
been harassing her.

At least the weather had improved, Tess thought as she let herself in a couple of days later. She had been to the supermarket on the way back from dropping Oscar at school, and
had stupidly bought more than she could easily carry. The temperature had soared and the sun had been pleasantly warm on her back, but it had made for a hot walk with frequent stops to rest her
arms from the heavy carrier bags.

Vanessa would say it served her right for living somewhere without parking.

The door open, Tess flexed her fingers as she bent to pick the bags up again. It was odd how often her hands felt sore now. They would throb as if they were torn and bruised, but whenever she
turned them over they looked perfectly normal. She hoped she wasn’t getting arthritis already.

‘Want a hand with those?’ Luke appeared in the doorway of the study, which was just opposite the door to the flat.

He was wearing a faded T-shirt and jeans that were ripped at the knee. There was a curl of sawdust in his hair, a saw in his hand, and Tess was dismayed at the treacherous kick of her pulse.

That was Nell’s fault. If it hadn’t been for that explicit, arousing dream, there would be no jolt of blood to her head, no sly stirring of heat in her belly.

There had been no more dreams of Nell, but the memory of that throb of pleasure unsettled Tess and made her brittle and tense whenever Luke was around.

Still, there was no point in turning down his offer. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘That would be a help.’

He bent and gathered all the bags up in one fluid movement and she followed, half grateful, half resentful, as he carried them into the kitchen and set them on the worktop.

‘Thank you,’ she said again.

His presence seemed to suck the oxygen out of the confined space and the silence jangled between them. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked after a moment, not looking at him,
concentrating on unpacking the bags. She wished he would leave so that she could breathe properly.

‘Coffee sounds good,’ he said laconically. ‘Black, two sugars. But maybe you remember that too?’

She did, of course, but Tess was too flustered to respond to his smile.

‘Give me five minutes and I’ll bring it in,’ was all she said.

Tess was waiting for the kettle to boil when the phone in her pocket started to ring. Vanessa. Pulling it out of her jeans, she switched it on. ‘Hi,’ she said, without checking the
call display. Vanessa was the only person she had given the number to. ‘Vanessa?’ she said after a few seconds. Sometimes it took a little while for the connection to be made.

When there was still no reply, she took the phone from her ear and looked at the caller display, and everything in her stilled. It wasn’t Vanessa calling at all. Whoever it was, they had
blocked their number.

Slowly, she switched off the phone and stood by the kettle, biting her knuckle worriedly. How could Martin possibly have got the number? It had to be a mistake. Keying in the wrong digit was
easily done. Of course it was just a mistake.

But there was still a pucker between her brows when she took Luke his coffee.

The study was still in a state of organized chaos. Richard’s books sat in lumpy piles under dustsheets, while the old bookcases had been dismantled and were propped against the wall. Luke
had set up a saw horse by the open window and the smell of cut wood on the warm air hit Tess as soon as she stepped in.

The closet.

The kist.

She faltered under the onslaught of memories so vivid that for one awful moment the floor tilted perilously beneath her feet.

‘Hey.’ Luke reached her as she tried to fumble the mug onto a surface. He took it from her and set it down before guiding her over to a pile of books. ‘Sit here for a second.
Put your head between your knees.’

He kept his hand on the back of her neck as she hung her head and drew in some ragged breaths. The warmth of his palm was disturbingly reassuring.

Slowly, the hollow sense of falling faded and Tess’s head cleared enough for her to be able to sit up. ‘Thank you,’ she said to Luke, who was hunkered down beside her,
ferocious brows drawn together in concern. ‘I’m all right now.’

‘You look like shit,’ he said brutally.

‘Same old silver-tongued devil,’ said Tess, but it was an effort.

He straightened, frowning down at her paper-white face. ‘I’m serious. You don’t look well.’

‘I’m just tired,’ she managed. ‘I’m not sleeping very well.’

‘Tough time?’

Her eyes slid away from his. ‘I’ve had worse,’ she said. ‘I’m fine now. Really.’

She summoned a smile, but it clearly didn’t convince Luke, who stood studying her with a worried expression that sat a little oddly on his stern features. She must look as bad as she felt,
Tess decided with an inner grimace.

‘Here, have some coffee,’ he said after a moment. ‘The sugar will do you good.’ He handed her the mug she had made for him and she wrapped her hands round it, glad of the
warmth. She still felt jarred and queasy. Her teeth clattered against the rim of the mug when she took a tentative sip and she saw Luke shoot her a penetrating glance. He’d perched on a pile
of dictionaries, obviously close enough to catch her if she toppled over. Tess wasn’t sure whether to be touched or irritated by his concern.

She didn’t want Luke to think of her as needy and pathetic. She’d had enough of being treated as someone incapable of making her own decisions, a fragile flower who had to be looked
after by a man. But if she was determined to show that she could manage on her own, she wasn’t going about it the right way by practically passing out at Luke’s feet, was she? She
really had to pull herself together and stop being so feeble.

Taking another sip of coffee, she steadied herself and tried a smile. ‘Thanks, that’s better.’ She offered him the mug. ‘Would you like your coffee back?’

‘You have it,’ he said. ‘Your need is greater than mine.’ He leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes on her face, and Tess squirmed a little under his
scrutiny. She wanted to meet his gaze calmly, but her eyes couldn’t quite do it. They kept glancing off the angle of his jaw, skittering from the line of his cheek to the cool set of his
mouth and back again.

‘Have you been ill, Tess?’ he asked abruptly.

‘No!’ Ruffled, she put down the mug and hugged her arms together in an unconsciously defensive gesture. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’

‘You’re really pale, and you’re too thin . . . I hardly recognized you at first. And what the hell happened to your hair?’

‘I had it cut.’

‘It was beautiful hair.’ He scowled. ‘I always liked it long.’

So had Martin. Sitting in the hairdresser’s, hearing the snip, snip of the scissors had felt like an act of liberation. Tess was still light-headed with the defiance of it. Every time she
caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, she was startled and thrilled by her own daring. She looked so different. Older, sharper. More like the person she wanted to be.

She lifted her chin, touched a hand to her hair. The hair that was left. ‘
I
like it like this,’ she said, and this time she was able to meet Luke’s eyes directly.

His expression flickered in appreciation, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. He looked down at his hands, and then back up at her with
those disconcertingly pale eyes – how could she have forgotten how they could look right through you? – and his voice changed.

‘What the hell happened to
you
, Tess?’ he asked quietly.

Tess pushed herself to her feet. ‘Nothing,’ she insisted. What did he want, the whole sad, sordid story? ‘I’m not ill. I’m
fine
.’ Arms wrapped around
herself, she glared down at him with compressed lips. ‘I know I’m not looking my best, but I’ve told you, it’s just because I haven’t slept well since I moved in here.
I think it’s just being in a new place, a new bed. Worrying about stuff. And the noise – it’s awful.’

Luke’s eyes rested on her face for a long moment, before he nodded and to Tess’s relief looked away. ‘I suppose the centre of the city isn’t the quietest of
locations,’ he said as he got to his feet.

‘I don’t mind the pubs. I don’t hear them at the back anyway.’ Grateful to him for accepting the change of subject, Tess let her shoulders drop. ‘It’s the
rats that bother me.’

Luke bent to retrieve the discarded coffee, but paused at that and his brows shot up. ‘
Rats
?’

‘Or something. Mice maybe.’ Tess wished he hadn’t stood up. He was too big, too close. He took up too much air.

Edgily, she moved away, pretending to peer under the dustsheets. ‘I had a pest controller round a couple of days ago. He said there’s nothing there, but there
is
. I can hear
it! It sounds as if something is trying to get out of the wall. It’s driving me mad!’

The mere thought of it made her voice rise in frustration, and Luke lifted his hands in an infuriatingly calming gesture. ‘Would you like me to take a look?’

He was humouring her. Tess’s lips pressed together so tightly they almost disappeared. She wasn’t going to let Luke Hutton write her off as a hysterical woman. She wasn’t going
to be written off as anything.

She remembered the first time he had taken her on the back of his bike. They’d gone to the beach, lain in the sand dunes out of the wind.

I wish I could be like you
, she had said.
You’re so cool, so confident
.
You don’t care what anyone else thinks.
While Tess was awkward and shy, hiding her
insecurities and her grief for her father behind an aloof mask that only Luke seemed undaunted by.

Luke had turned his head to look at her. Tess could still see the curve of his mouth, the seriousness in his eyes, still feel the beat of her heart.

I care what you think,
he had said.
I don’t want you to be cool. I want you to be yourself.

Tess wanted to be herself again, and the Tess she wanted to be wasn’t going to rely on anyone else ever again.

She took a breath, forced calmness into her voice. ‘That’s kind of you, Luke,’ she said, ‘but there’s really no need. I was just trying to explain why I look such a
wreck.’

‘If you’re sure . . .’

Tess’s phone started to ring before he could finish. She could feel it vibrating in her pocket, and she saw Luke looking around in case it was his. Tess was suddenly certain that it
wouldn’t be Vanessa calling. It would be that silent breathing again and weariness sloshed through her. She didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to think about who was calling and
why.

She was doing her best to be herself, but she hadn’t counted on anonymous phone calls and sleepless nights, on a world that kept slipping out of kilter or a sense of inexplicable dread
that slithered at the edges of her mind.

Having checked that it wasn’t his own phone ringing, Luke turned and raised his brows in a mute query. Reluctantly, Tess drew the phone from her pocket as if it might spit at her and made
herself look at the call display. Please let it be Vanessa, she prayed.

Number blocked.

‘Do you want to take that?’ Luke made a gesture suggesting that he should leave, but Tess shook her head.