Scar Tissue (19 page)

It would have served Sid right if I’d obeyed my next impulse, which was to follow him and shove his equipment where the nurse might have shoved a thermometer. The alternative was to return to the waiting room and confront him when he came out. Or I could have handed the ballpoint complete with its little cargo to the receptionist, telling her I’d found it on the floor somewhere, and then driven off in the ute., leaving Sid high and dry. That would have been very satisfying, but might have meant him taking up an emergency bed someone else might need. The thought I might be nicking official property had somehow escaped me, and when I remembered I found I didn’t care all that much.

Meanwhile, of course, without the ute. I was as high and dry as Sid.

No. Think positive. The William Harvey wasn’t all that far from my flat in Kennington. I could walk it. I still had the key, and could bunk down there. Without sheets and towels not to mention food and drink. There had been times, not so long ago, when I could have managed without any of those, and thought shelter a real luxury. But that was then. Then I perked up. There’d be tea-bags and dried milk and some of the books I hadn’t been able to take with me. And a radio. Now all that was luxury indeed. Leaving the ute. keys but not the pen with the woman on reception, I strode off.

Ashford isn’t, to be honest, your actual metropolis. It’s a huge dormitory sprawl and very little else. Once it was a nice little country town. If you don’t believe me, check out the
Chinese restaurant in the middle of the town, where they’ve got an eighteenth century engraving blown up to occupy a whole wall. Better than flock wallpaper and
machine-embroidered
silk pictures, anyway. I wonder if that was the Chinese restaurant where a triad kept someone kidnapped in the basement for a week. Like we said in that conversation a million years ago, Kent has its fair share of undesirable residents. Anyway, the once thriving market depicted in the old print is a now very pale imitation of its former self, and various stalls had disappeared even in the short time I’d been there. There’s a big out-of-town entertainment area, so the centre, quiet during the day, is like a morgue in the evening. Were it not for some architect – with more sensitivity for looks than the comfort of women pedestrians in strappy sandals – putting down great swathes of granite setts, the place’d be silent as a graveyard at night. As it was, it sometimes sounded as if supernatural fingers were taking a typing lesson. I was padding almost silently in my paint-covered trainers, of course, grateful that if some man emerged who’d had a couple too many in the County Hotel or wherever I could easily outrun him. Not the young woman ahead of me, though. It was clear she’d registered the middle-aged bloke lurching sideways towards her like a giant crab but she didn’t know quite what to do. The matter was partially solved when he collapsed at her feet, grabbing at her knees not because he was attacking her but because there was nothing else handy.

‘I do apol…Terribly sorry!’ He repeated himself a dozen times but seemed to have no idea how to let her go.

I circled so that she could see me and he couldn’t. What I meant to do was grab him by the shoulders and prise him
off. But at last, simply by backing away, she managed to free herself.

He tried to crawl after her. ‘I did apolo – I did. I kept apologising. I did. I positively ejaculated my apology.’

I was fairly sure he’d hit on the word by accident but now he’d found it he was going to have a spot of harmless fun embarrassing a young woman.

‘I ejaculated,’ he repeated, adding in a confidential tone that rang round the square, ‘I often ejaculate.’ He lurched towards her again. I moved in swiftly behind him. ‘I often ejaculate.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ I told him as I grabbed his arms above the elbows, wheeling him round. ‘And prematurely, if I’m any judge.’ A simple shove was enough to pitch him face down again. I didn’t think he was hurt. Drunks seem to bounce, don’t they?

Linking arms with the girl, I propelled her away from him more briskly than he’d ever manage, even assuming he’d get to his feet again. The pace was soon too much for her. Well, she was wearing those strappy sandals. I’d recognised her at once – she was the police station receptionist with the messy mascara. She clearly didn’t recognise me, and I was happy not to introduce myself. What did surprise me was that she was so shocked – I’d have thought she had plenty of practice dealing with the drunk and the insane in her job. But upset she certainly was. She’d been heading for a swim down at the Stour Centre, she said, after a late shift at work.

‘Next time, slam your bag full in the guy’s face,’ I suggested. Then I realised that I had a plan B for the damned eavesdropping pen. ‘Look, you look awful. If I walked you back to
wherever you work, wouldn’t someone look after you? Give you a cuppa? Run you home?’

All this solicitousness must have convinced the poor kid she was at death’s door. Alas, I’d conveniently brought her to a halt by a pizza place that also sold coffee. Plan C. ‘Look, at least come and have a coffee. Sit down till you feel steadier.’

She nodded. ‘My boyfriend – that’s Dave, he’s a trainee manager at the big Asda by the Outlet – is picking me up at half-nine,’ she said. ‘From the Centre. So I mustn’t be late. But I do feel a bit wobbly – must be shock I suppose, though fancy being shocked by a little thing like that. Maybe a swim wouldn’t be a good idea.’

Just about the best therapy, I’d have thought, but I was in selfish mode. I couldn’t justify what I was going to do. I was using her, and I didn’t approve of using people. Even for something good. If getting someone off my back were good, which I certainly thought it would be. And it wouldn’t get anyone into trouble either. Yet. It might of course precipitate a little crisis, with me at the centre, but I seemed to have been dealing with crises reasonably well, weeping episodes apart. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

My plan would mean I had to fork out money I could ill afford for her drink, though. ‘You might do better with hot sweet tea,’ I said thoughtfully, as she collapsed at a table, ‘or hot chocolate.’

To my surprise it was waitress service. The girl who drooped over would clearly have preferred us to order double pizza with plenty on the side, but since we were the only ones in the place she could hardly protest that tables were for eaters only. Messy Mascara proved to have a name, Sherree,
poor girl. Sherree Wagford. I clearly wasn’t going to be Caffy, and rather hesitated to be Lucy, given my current state of paranoia. No, they definitely were out to get me, and I’d err on the side of caution. I told her I was Karen. When the drinking chocolates appeared, we both grabbed our purses. I let her out argue me: she could hardly be paid less than me, and there was a boyfriend in the frame. As I returned my money to my bag, it was easy enough to drop the Judas pen into hers.

We talked a bit about Ashford.

‘It’s really grand these days, with the Outlet and that. And all these nice little starter homes they’re building. We’re saving up for a starter home out Park Farm way, really convenient for Dave’s work, though of course it’d be even better if he worked at Tesco, but maybe he’ll get a promotion there when he’s finished his training. The trouble is, we’re both on shift work, so there are days we don’t see each other. Though they do say that absence makes the heart grow stronger, don’t they? Have you got a boyfriend?’

I shook my head. The less of my voice that disembodied listener heard the better.

‘Pity – we could have got up a foursome, if you like bowls, that is. Dave’s ever so good. I’m still learning and he’s ever so patient. Mostly.’

At last she felt strong enough to walk the few yards to the Stour centre. Waving her across the pedestrian lights, I hoped that Sherree and her bloke didn’t get vocal if they got amorous, and that the spy in the sky wasn’t hovering in Ashford Police Station.

I told myself that my flat felt no worse than if I’d come back from holiday. The mustiness would soon disappear. I opened a couple of windows, not all of them, because by now the evening was quite chilly, at least compared with the previous balmy ones. I tipped everything in the fridge, not a lot, really, into a couple of carrier bags which I tied off. Then, gathering them and what change I could, I nipped down to the phone box. I’d need a lift in from Paula, wouldn’t I? I popped the bags into a convenient litter basket.

‘You left him there! Well, his bosses aren’t going to be too pleased with you. But as his other boss, I tell you, I’m bloody furious with him. How many times did I warn him?’

‘He should have taken notice after just one warning,’ I agreed. ‘Did you find anything to suggest a bug, by the way?’

‘You know, I forgot to look.’

‘It might be worth it. You see, I did – and I found someone had planted a very clever pen on me.’ I explained what had happened to it.

‘You think Sid –?’

‘I’d like to think it was Sid. Because the only other obvious candidates for the job would be either Taz or John Moffatt. Would you do something for me, Paula? On your way over here – not at home and nowhere near your usual route – could you phone the hotel and see if you can find out who’s really paying for my stay?’ If anyone could sound as official as the police, Paula could.

‘What?’

‘Say that you haven’t had an account from them yet, anything,’ I said, deliberately misunderstanding her.

There was a short silence. ‘You don’t think an assistant chief constable could be bent! For God’s sake, C – I really think you’re paranoid!’

‘The pen, Paula,’ I said.

Another silence. ‘OK. And where shall I meet you?’ She sounded almost humble.

‘Not my flat. The Stour Centre?’

‘Half-eight. On the dot.’ That was the Paula I knew and loved. But she added, in a voice I didn’t know, ‘You will take care of yourself? Promise?’

‘Promise.’ But my money had run out and she might not have heard.

One of my favourite escapist books was
Northanger Abbey
, where a naïve but decent heroine has an adventure but is rescued by a kind and pleasant young man. A bit of wish-fulfilment, I suppose, with me as Catherine Morland. Maybe it would work its magic again. I burrowed through the books. No, it must be one I’d thrust at Jan. In any case, I wasn’t a naïve young woman, not any more. What was left? I burrowed again, rejecting book after book. Well, my closest friends would be with Catherine Morland. At last I found a rather battered
Jude the Obscure
. Would that work?

‘You look rough,’ Paula said as she let me into the Transit the next morning.

I didn’t argue. I felt rough. Very rough. The rough you feel when you’re cold and hungry and had a sleepless night.
Those children being hanged, of course. Or did I identify too closely with the self-educated Jude? Whatever it was, something had driven sleep away and the nightmares had come flooding back in the brief moments I had had. Funny: I’d been in real danger, I suspect, for some days, but hadn’t woken so much as whimpering. This time – well, what a good job the neighbours were used to my yells.

‘No electricity,’ I said briefly. Who the hell had told them to cut me off?

She slammed into reverse.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to the Centre. You can get hot snacks there.’

I didn’t argue. The Centre was already full of people all looking refreshingly normal. A sweaty middle-aged couple carrying badminton gear held the door for me. Kids seethed around the pay-desk while the teacher tried to count heads and pay. Wet-haired swimmers with the most enormous bags slung on their shoulders to the danger of everyone else, shouted their preference for the snacks machine. We slipped between the lot, past homely adverts for bowls and women’s cricket and over-sixties aerobics into the deserted café. Deserted because it wasn’t open, of course.

‘Sit down anyway,’ Paula said, heading for a payphone and counting out change. I didn’t argue. A public phone might be safer than her own mobile.

Listening to her was a treat. Sounding just like a bored clerk, she asked for the accounts department. ‘I’m just checking why you haven’t invoiced us for Ms Taylor’s room. Number 703. Kent County Constabulary. No?’

My stomach clenched.

‘In whose name is it booked then? Who? What? Can you spell that?’

I didn’t need to look at the clear block letters on the back of a gas bill envelope she laid before me. TADEUZS MOSCICKI.

The counter staff came in, laughing as if the world was still turning. Paula patted me on the shoulder and flourished her purse again. A big pot of tea appeared in seconds, toast a minute later.

‘Well?’

‘Well what? It’s like it was before. I don’t know what’s happening or who to trust. And, Paula, I’m bloody scared.’

She didn’t shake her head at the swear word. She gripped my hands tightly. ‘So am I,’ she said. And she burst into tears.

The sight of safe, solid Paula crying shocked me as much as anything I’d seen during the last couple of weeks. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve got to hold the business together and everything seems to be against it. Taz can’t wave a paintbrush to save his life; Sid ends up in Casualty; Meg gets her migraines and next you’ll say you’ve got to disappear again. If I don’t get the money off van der Poele, how am I going to pay everyone?’

Well, it was a different set of priorities from mine, but I could see that she was thinking of the greatest good of the greatest number.

‘If I disappear,’ I said firmly, if listening to myself with some surprise, ‘it’ll be to Fullers. I can work away there without anyone knowing and – once I’ve found that priest hole
or whatever – be as safe as houses. And once work’s underway, Jan and Todd’ll be more than happy to pay as we go. Not that they wouldn’t anyway. They don’t expect the whole job to be completed before dipping into their pockets. Come on, Paula, they’d bankroll you interest free if they had the slightest inkling you’d got a cash-flow crisis.’

She nodded, but I could see Jan and Todd would have their work cut out to persuade her to accept their largesse. ‘And it’s bloody van der Poele, isn’t it? Mean bugger. And knowing he’ll be standing there with his watch like some dreadful Victorian father checking what time we arrive.’