Final Demand (22 page)

‘Don't go.'

‘I'm so sorry, Dave—'

‘Stay here.'

‘I'm so sorry for everything. But we just couldn't manage it, could we?'

She turned and kissed him clumsily, on the side of his forehead. She seemed to have even lost the knack of doing this.

Then she got to her feet and left.

As she sat in the minicab Sheila thought: Where have all the words gone? There was so much to say and yet, now the end had arrived, nothing to say at all. It filled her with panic, that after twenty-eight years this was all that was left.

Oh, there were things she could have told him. How she had never wanted to run a pub with him, she had other dreams for her life, but she wanted to be a supportive wife. How she had felt controlled by him, how at the beginning there had been an erotic charge to this but how it had eventually drained her. How she had felt hurt that he had never, once, complimented her about her cooking. She wanted to ask him what went on inside his furious head. Whether it had upset him, that she could have no more children. Whether his memory settled on the same moments of joy as hers did. So many things. What
had
they talked about, all those years?

David had become as unknowable to her as if they had only just met. This filled her with terror. Did other couples feel this, when they broke up? She had no comparison, because no other marriage had been torn apart in the way theirs had been. She and David were set aside from the world, alone.

And now there was nothing left. It was as if the stage set of their life had been dismantled and all that was left, cruelly exposed to the cold light of day, were bits of cardboard. That was all there had been, all the time.

Her heart was breaking. She grieved for him, and for herself.

As she got out at the railway station, she thought of her sister's words:
Do you blame him?

NATALIE LIKED LIVING
above a Thai restaurant. She liked the smell of the food. Her father, she presumed, was eating Thai meals all the time. He too had bailed out, it was in their genes. They were close in this respect. She sometimes wondered about him. For all she knew he was living in a concrete apartment block, jammed up against another one, but in her daydreams he was lounging on a beach – oblivious to her, maybe, but living the sort of existence she had imagined for herself, for weren't they two of a kind?

This hadn't quite happened yet: the sand, the cocktails. She was living in Finsbury Park, fearful of a ring at her bell. The future always shunted itself further away, like a person afraid to be touched. She didn't mind. She had to lie low for a while. She knew nobody in London, not really, just a few acquaintances but she was in no position to make contact. She had sloughed off the past. She had cropped her hair and dyed it blonde; it still gave her a jolt, after three weeks, to catch sight of her reflection in a shop window. Nobody knew where she was, not a soul. When Colin rang her mobile she switched it off. He hadn't rung now for some time.

She was sorry about Colin, of course, but she'd had no alternative. There was no way she could stand trial; they would find her guilty. She knew it; her solicitor knew it. The evidence against her was overwhelming. Colin had to understand that it was a matter of survival. He was a reptile breeder, after all. Look at his lizards, snapping at flies, crunching up crickets. They were doing the same thing, struggling to live, and see how he loved them.

And she was fine, absolutely fine. Leeds had been too small for her grand plans. In her heart she had always been a big-city
girl – the hum and fizz of it, the sheer size that swallowed up a person and set them free.

Besides, who needed friends? Stacey had phoned, on the mobile. ‘Natalie! Where are you? I went to see Colin and he was in such a state.' Her voice had become wary and formal. ‘You didn't do it, did you? All those months, when we were working together . . . It's just that – you know – skipping bail, it does make you look a bit dodgy.'

Natalie got a new mobile number. She had moved on from all that, it was consigned to the past. In fact, she could hardly remember what she and Stacey had ever talked about. It was like her car. She thought she had loved her Civic but back in July she had replaced it with a new Honda, a gleaming, metallic Prelude 2000 Sport. The day she bought the new one her previous car had vanished from her mind as if it had never existed. Who cared?

September was unusually hot. Global warming, whatever. Natalie kept her windows open, breathing in the spicy aromas from downstairs. The pavements gave off the heat of a foreign city. She was jumpy, of course. Who wouldn't be, in her position? She froze when a police car drove down her street but it never stopped at her door. At the back of her mind she knew that they must be searching for her. After all, she was wanted for a major fraud; she was a criminal on the run. When she applied the words to herself they unnerved her. She couldn't fit them to her own life – going shopping in Oxford Street, buying a takeaway.

She was alert, of course, her senses as sharp as an animal's. Men had always looked at her but now she interpreted it differently; the old sexual frisson had gone. That bloke eating sushi along the counter, was he a detective? Was he somebody Colin knew, who would follow her back to the flat and tell Colin where she lived and the next morning he would arrive and batter down the door? For all she knew, Colin was capable of violence. Like her car, she could hardly remember him now. Images occasionally resurfaced – a dumpy bloke in a woolly hat,
wearing tracksuit bottoms with a white stripe down them, the Colin she had first met – but she could no longer summon up the sensation of living with him. He had slipped in and out of her life in such unusual circumstances that he himself had become unreal.

They wouldn't find her. A month had passed and nothing had happened. How many people lived in London – eight million? She was lost in the seethe of it. This didn't unnerve her – why should it? She was fine. Blondes have more fun, she told herself. Soon she would.

Meanwhile Natalie stayed in her flat. It consisted of two rooms, sparsely furnished from IKEA – she could recognize IKEA now – and various oddments belonging to her landlord, a Greek Cypriot she had never met. The place had no phone, which suited her – what would she do if it rang? – but she had found a Yellow Pages in the cupboard. During those hot days she sat there, leafing through it. She was looking for a job.

For she had discovered, to her frustration, that she had suprisingly little ready cash. As luck would have it, the account that the police had discovered – and of course closed, pending investigations – had by far the largest amount of money in it. In the other three building societies, she had deposited most of the cash into high-interest accounts that tied it up, out of reach. To withdraw it would not just mean paying a penalty; it would mean correspondence, and for all she knew the police had traced the accounts and were waiting for her to make contact. And she had spent a lot of cash over the past six months – new car, stuff, things.

So she leafed through the Yellow Pages and wrote a list. As she did so, her stomach fluttered.

L. M. Plant and Tool Hire was situated in a warehouse in Hoxton. Men in overalls straightened up and gazed at Natalie as she made her way to the office. LM was sewn across their hearts.

Bob's your uncle. Anybody can have any name they want.

‘Yes?' said a girl.

‘I'm Lorraine Middleton,' said Natalie. ‘I phoned about a job.'

The girl pressed a buzzer on her phone. ‘I've got a . . .' She looked up. ‘What was the name again?'

‘Lorraine Masterson—' Natalie corrected herself. ‘Middleton.'

The girl frowned. Why did she look at her like that? She pressed the buzzer again. It was a direct line to the police station.
I've found her, Officer. She's right here, standing in front of me.

‘You can go in,' said the girl. ‘He'll see you now.'

The room blazed with lights. Behind the desk sat a bald man. Through the window, in a yard beyond, stood a schoolgirl. She leaned against the wall, a cello case propped beside her.

‘So you're Lorraine,' said the man.

‘Yes.'

‘What little birdie told you our secret?' His eyes narrowed, like the girl's.

‘What secret?' she asked.
Keep your wits, Natalie.

‘How did you know that Samantha was leaving and we have a vacancy, mmm? When we hadn't even advertised yet.'

‘I've been going through the Yellow Pages and phoning people up, on the off-chance.' This was the truth.

‘I see.' His eyes brightened. ‘A girl with initiative.'

‘And when I got to you, somebody said there might be something.' Thirty phone calls she must have made.

‘Tell me about yourself, Lorraine. What previous experience have you had?'

Outside, the schoolgirl shot them a glance, loaded her cello case on to her back and walked away.

There were three empty shops opposite Natalie's flat. One still bore its name: H. White and Son, Fishmongers. Graffiti was sprayed on to its shutters. Something would replace it; a lick of paint, a new name. Only the previous week an NT phone shop
had opened on the corner, next to Finsbury Park tube station. Places re-invented themselves here, like people, and nobody asked any questions. Makeovers, the TV was full of them.

By the end of September she had created three new identities: Lorraine; Sylvia Mullen (when she was interviewed by S.M. Office Supplies); and Mary Wright (M.W. Catering Equipment). As Mr Wigton had suggested, she had simply gone to the Registrar and chosen the names. She was an actress, auditioning for a part. Which one would she land? As Sylvia she was a shy young girl in a fluffy jumper, alone in the big city. Mary was livelier; she had experience in the catering business, she told them, and had come down to London to live with her sister, whose kiddies she adored. These new young women accompanied Natalie, waiting to be given the kiss of life.

One of these outfits, the office supplies place, offered her a job. The trouble was, the business was too small. She had realized that when she arrived. She needed to work in the sort of organization that had a large accounts department, the sort of place in which she would be one of many. Lost in the crowd.

And she was. Nobody noticed her. One night she ate in the Thai restaurant downstairs, sitting alone next to the toilets. The owners had no idea she lived above them. At the next table a girl fed her boyfriend forkfuls of stir-fry, like a thrush feeding her chick. Natalie propped her
Evening Standard
against the candlestick and read the same paragraph several times. Outside in the street a man bellowed; there was the sound of smashing glass. She thought: I could fall down dead and nobody would have a clue who I am. Nobody would know that I had a brilliant idea and made a small fortune, that I married a man who kept tortoise eggs in the airing cupboard. I could raise a few eyebrows; even a few laughs. And – look! – I've got away with it. Who says crime doesn't pay?

For the first time in her life she had difficulty sleeping. She told herself it was the busy road, the foreignness of it all.
I care for nobody, no not I, and nobody cares for me.
Where had she heard that –
Sesame Street
? She had watched it alone, waiting
for the key in the lock. She could tell, by the length of time it took to get the door open, in what state her mother would arrive.

Natalie had pains in her chest. She told herself: I mustn't be ill, because I can't go to a doctor.

At the end of September the weather broke. Natalie drove through torrential rain to Brentford. She was going to a job interview. Her windscreen wipers sluiced to and fro; people scuttled across the road; she slammed on her brakes. London was seized by its Friday-afternoon frenzy; people hurried back to a warm house, with dinner waiting. On the news a voice said: ‘
A twenty-eight-year-old man has been arrested and charged with a series of rapes in the Shepherd's Bush area
 . . .'

Natalie shivered. But she was all right, wasn't she? Her top-of-the-range Prelude had central locking, ECU engine immobilizer and remote keyless entry. Not to mention ABS anti-lock brakes, side-impact protection bars and SRS airbags. She remembered her dream of the night before, when she had finally fallen asleep. Colin laid her on the grass and pulled off strips of her skin, chanting, ‘
She loves me, she loves me not
. . .' like someone plucking petals off a daisy. Her skin tearing off, and she hadn't felt a thing.

T. B. Computer Services was an office building slap up against the raised section of the M4. Natalie sat in the lobby, facing clocks that showed the time in Tokyo and New York. Outside rose giant legs, supporting the motorway. No rain fell there. Nor could the traffic be heard; the lobby was sealed off behind double glazing. Nothing could touch Natalie, for she had a charmed life.

‘Miss Batsford?'

Somewhere in Leeds they were banging at the window but they couldn't reach her, she was miles away.

‘Tracey Batsford?'

Natalie swung round. The receptionist was addressing her. Watch out, Natalie!

T.B. Computer Services sold hardware, software, whatever. It was huge and, according to the personnel manager, expanding fast. There was a vacancy in Accounts.

‘Tell me about your previous experience, Miss Batsford.' The man was Indian, and wore a purple tie that clashed with his sports jacket.

She rolled off the list of her more suitable past jobs – receptionist at a health club, secretary at a firm of accountants. Like all good liars, she knew when to tell the truth.

‘And then I worked in the accounts department of a telecommunications company for two and a half years.'

‘And why did you leave?'

‘I wanted to come to London. It's a bigger challenge.'