A Special Relationship (46 page)

‘It’s a bit of a long shot,’ I explained, ‘because what she said was pretty damn vague. But it’s worth finding out what she meant by it.’

‘Uhm ... do you think you could track her down and talk to her?’ Nigel Clapp asked. ‘We have just twelve days.’

Twelve days.
That deadline kept looming in my mind. As did the realization that Maeve Doherty had been speaking the truth: without some new evidence, the court would probably find for Tony. The record spoke for itself.

Twelve days.
I rushed home to Putney and checked my messages. Just one – from Jane Sanjay, informing me she was back in the country, but was down visiting friends in Brighton for a week before starting work again. ‘We’ll do that lunch sometime in the future … and, of course, I’ll see you at the High Court for the hearing. Hope you’re somehow keeping calm …’

Hardly. I re-dialled the Seaford number. Once again, I was connected to the answer phone. Once again, I left a message. Then I went back to work on the
Film Guide.
But unlike my previous proofreading stints, this time I was unable to fall into the rabbit hole of work and cut off from the outside world for a two-hour stretch. This time, I kept glancing at the phone, willing it to ring. Which it didn’t.

So I called back and left another message. Then I started calling at three-hour intervals.

At the end of the day, the phone did ring. I jumped. But it was Rose Keating.

‘Just called to see if there was any news?’ she asked.

‘She hasn’t rung me back yet.’

‘Keep trying, dear,’ she said, though I also grasped the subtext of what she was saying:
we need something new.

By midnight, I must have called another eight times. I slept fitfully and eventually found myself at the kitchen table around five that morning, proofing some more pages. At seven, I tried the Seaford number. No answer. I tried again at ten, at three, at six. Then, when I phoned at eight-thirty, the unexpected happened. It was actually answered. When Pat Hobbs heard my voice, she became indignant.

‘Was that you calling me all the time yesterday?’

‘Ms Hobbs … Pat … please hear me out …’

‘Don’t you go calling me by my name. I don’t know you.’

‘I’m Tony’s wife …’

‘I bloody well remember. You bothered me all those months ago …’

‘It’s an urgent situation.’

‘Is he dead or dying?’

‘No, but …’

‘Then it’s not urgent.’

‘If you’d just let me explain …’

‘Don’t think I will.’

‘It’s just one simple question.’

‘Which I’m not going to answer, no matter what it is. And I don’t want you disturbing me again.’

She hung up. I rang back. The line was busy. I called back again ten minutes later. Still busy. Half an hour later. Still busy. She’d taken it off the hook. I paced the kitchen with worry. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Then I found myself reaching for the phone and calling National Rail Enquiries, and finding out that if I caught the 21.32 from Putney to Clapham Junction, and changed for the 21.51 to Eastbourne, I would arrive in Seaford at 23.22.

I threw a few things into an overnight bag – thinking that, as it was a seaside town, there must be a few bed-and-breakfasts down there. Then I ran for the train.

As I walked out of Seaford station two hours later, I caught that iodine smack to the air that hinted that the sea was near. There was one lone cab outside. I showed him the address – garnered from Directory Enquiries.

‘It’s just three minutes’ walk from here,’ he said, pointing towards a Safeway supermarket opposite the station. I thanked him and started walking. The streets were empty. The lamplight was low, so all I could discern was a small main street with a jumble of Edwardian and modern buildings – including a very modern, boxy branch of Safeway. I turned right before it, and found myself on a street of low-lying shops, at the end of which were a handful of pebble-dashed bungalows. No 26 was the second from the end. It was painted cream. It had lace curtains in the windows. It also had a wooden sign above the door, informing the world that this house had been named: Sea Crest. My plan had been to seek out the house, then find a B&B nearby, and set the little travel alarm I brought with me for six-thirty, in order to be at her door by seven. She might hate the early morning wake-up call, but at least I’d have a chance of catching her before she went off to work (if, that is, she did work). But when I reached her front door, I saw that all the lights were on. So, figuring it was best to incur her wrath while she was still awake, I approached the door and rang the bell.

After a moment, the door opened slightly. It was attached to a chain. Behind the chain, I could see a woman with a very lined face and scared eyes. But the voice was as angry as before.

‘What do you want at this time of night?’

I quickly put my foot into the space created between the open door and the door frame, saying, ‘I’m Tony’s wife, Sally Good—’

‘Get out of here,’ she said, trying to slam the door.

‘I just need five minutes of your time, please.’

‘You don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police.’

She tried slamming the door again.

‘Just hear me out …’

‘At bloody midnight? No way. Now get going or …’

‘He’s taken my child from me.’

Silence. This obviously gave her pause, and it showed.

‘Who’s taken your child from you?’

‘Your brother.’

‘You have a child with Tony?’

‘A son – Jack. He’s about nine months old now. And Tony has …’

I put my hand to my face. I felt myself starting to get shaky again. I didn’t want to cry in front of this woman.

‘He’s what?’ she asked, the voice not so hard now.

‘He’s run off with another woman. And they’ve taken my son …’

I could see a mixture of concern and ambivalence in her eyes.

‘I haven’t had anything to do with my brother for nearly twenty years.’

‘I understand. And I promise you I won’t take up more than ten minutes of your time. But
please
– the situation is rather desperate. Believe me, I wouldn’t be here at midnight if …’

I heard her undoing the chain.

‘Ten minutes, no more,’ she said. And she opened the door.

I stepped on to a patterned, wall-to-wall carpet. It continued down a hallway papered in a brownish floral print. The living room was off this corridor. More Axminster carpet, a three-piece suite in beige vinyl, an elderly television and video recorder; an old mahogany sideboard, on which sat a half-drunk bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, and a half litre of inexpensive-looking gin. There were no decorations on the walls – just a different patterned floral wallpaper: sepia-toned and fading. There was a distinctive whiff of damp in the air.

‘So what do you want to tell me?’ she asked.

Like so many times over the past months, I worked my way through the entire story again. Pat Hobbs sat there throughout the telling, impassive, smoking one Silk Cut after another. I knew she was around ten years older than Tony – and though she wasn’t chunky, her deeply ridged face and sad eyes and the elderly floral bathrobe that loosely covered her frame made her seem almost geriatric. Somewhere halfway through the story, she interrupted me, asking, ‘You drink gin?’

I nodded. She got up and filled two glasses with gin, then added some flat tonic from a bottle on the sideboard. She handed me a glass. I took a sip. The flat tonic was pretty vile. Ditto the metallic taste of the cheap gin. But it was alcohol, and it helped.

It took about another ten minutes to bring her fully up to date. She smoked another two cigarettes during that time. And finally said, ‘I could have told you my brother was a bastard. A charming bastard, but a bastard nonetheless. So, besides saying sorry for your troubles, what can I do about this?’

I took another steadying sip of gin, knowing that if I didn’t win her over now, this entire late-night visit would come to naught. Then I said, ‘Remember when we spoke some time ago, and I mentioned that Tony had just left me, and you asked me…’

I encapsulated the conversation for her, even though I remembered it, word for word.

‘How long have you two been married now?’
she asked me.

‘Around a year.’

‘And he’s already abandoned you? That’s fast work, right enough. Mind you, I’m not surprised. He’s the abandoning sort.’

‘You mean, he’s done this before?’

‘Maybe.’

I looked at her directly now and asked, ‘What did you mean by “maybe”.’

She lit up another cigarette. I could see that she was weighing this all up, wondering if she should involve herself at all in my story. I was asking her to betray her brother. And though she mightn’t have spoken with him for twenty years, her brother was still her brother.

She took a deep drag of her Silk Cut, then exhaled.

‘I’ll tell you – on one condition. You never heard this from me. Understand?’

I nodded. Now it was her turn to tell a story. Two stories in fact, though they were all part of the same central narrative. Then, when she reached the end of her tales, she stood up and went out into the hallway, and returned with an address book, and a scrap of paper and a pen. She found two numbers. She wrote them down. She said, ‘Now you can deal with them. But understand: I’m to be kept out of the picture.’

I assured her that I’d say nothing about her involvement, then thanked her profusely for helping me out, letting her know that I realized what a difficult thing she had just done.

‘It wasn’t difficult at all.’

She stood up, indicating it was time for me to leave.

‘Must get up for work in the morning,’ she said.

‘What do you do?’

‘Cashier for a building society here in town.’

‘You like it?’

‘It’s a job.’

‘I can’t thank you enough …’

She waved me off. She didn’t want gratitude.

‘All right then,’ I said, picking up my overnight bag. ‘But I still appreciate everything.’

She gave me a brusque nod, then opened the door. I was going to ask her where I could find the nearest B&B, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to engage her further. Especially as she had already done so much.

I headed up the street in the direction of town, not particularly worried if all the B&B’s in Seaford were full or shuttered for the night. If I had to sleep on a bench in the station, so be it. The gamble had paid off. A sleepless night was well worth what I had come away with. But halfway down the street, I heard Pat Hobbs’s voice calling, ‘Where are you going now?’

I turned around. She was standing in the doorway of her house.

‘I don’t know. Figure there must be a B&B or a hotel open now.’

‘At nearly one am in Seaford? Everyone’s in bed. Come on, I’ve got a spare bedroom.’

The room was narrow and musty. So too was the bed. There was a small, sad collection of old children’s dolls on a window sill. She didn’t say much to me, except that the bathroom was down the hall and there was a spare towel in the airing cupboard. Then she wished me goodnight.

I undressed and crawled between the sheets. I fell asleep within minutes.

Then it was morning and she was tapping on my door, telling me it was eight and she had to be at work in an hour. Pat was dressed for the building society in a navy-blue uniform with a blue blouse and a blue-and-white scarf depicting the corporate logo of the conglomerate that employed her. An old-style brown tea-pot was on a metal warmer. There was a steel toast rack with two slices of white toast awaiting me, as well as a jar of marmalade and a tub of margarine.

‘Thought you might like a little breakfast,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Tea all right? I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Tea’s fine.’

I sat down at the table. I reached for a slice of toast and spread it with marmalade. Pat lit up a cigarette.

‘Made those calls for you already,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Them two numbers I gave you last night. I called them both already. They’re both willing to see you. What are you up to today?’

‘I’m free,’ I said, genuinely pleased and just a little surprised by such a gesture.

‘That’s good, because the first person – the one who lives in Crawley – said she’s around this morning. And I called the rail station – there’s a train from here to Gatwick Airport at 9.03, but you have to change in Brighton. You get to Gatwick at 10.06, and then it’s ten minutes in a cab to her house. The other woman can’t see you today. But she’s free tomorrow morning. However she lives in Bristol. She’s expecting you at eleven, which means you’ll need to be on a train from London around nine. All right?’

‘I don’t know what to say, except that I’m rather overwhelmed …’

‘That’s enough,’ she said, evidently wanting to avoid any more of my effusiveness. ‘Hope it goes well for you, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.’