Weirdo (6 page)

“How’s school today?” he asked her. “D’you go in the art room?”

Debbie paused, the chalk hovering over the fabric. “Yeah,” she said, “at lunchtime.”

She had fled there when Corrine had stayed behind with the new girl, found Darren and Julian and distracted herself with their company until the dreaded bell had summoned her back to the afternoon’s chores of showing Samantha Lamb to her classes.

“Only,” she put the chalk down and sat back on her heels, lifting up her mug of tea, “there was a new girl.” She took a slow sip, looking down at the beginnings of her new creation. “I got lumbered with showing her around, so I din’t do as much as normal.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “You din’t like her, then?”

Debbie cut him a sideways glance. “No,” she said. “Corrine did though.”

She put the cup down and picked up the chalk, bent back over her drawing, trying not to think of the argument they’d had on the way home, Corrine trying to assure her that she was only being nice to the new girl and that Sam was lovely really, showing her the little pencils she’d given her, white with pink love hearts down the side. Sickly childish things.

“How come?” Alex watched Debbie’s face change, the colour rising in her cheeks.

“Well,” said Debbie, not looking up, “Pinhead made them sit together and she started sucking up to Reenie straight away. Told her that her granddad own the Leisure Beach and she can take her there any old time she like, get free rides and everything.”

“Oh yeah?” said Alex. “Well, maybe that in’t such a bad
thing, Debs. Look, I know you done your best for her, but you and Reenie in’t really got a lot in common, have you?”

“No,” Debbie said, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.

“I mean,” Alex went on, “she don’t like the same things you do, do she? You said yourself you only got her to go down Swing’s the other week ’cos she thought she was in with that, what’s his name, Julian?”

Debbie nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” she said.

“He was a good bloke,” Alex considered, and then said more gently, “and so was that Darren. You like him, don’t you?”

Debbie nodded her head. But it wasn’t his face that danced before her eyes. It was Corrine, standing in the middle of the alleyway on their shortcut home, raging at her: “Now you’ve got that Darren to play with, that in’t even like you want me no more, is it?” Poking Debbie in the breastbone with a hard little finger. “See! You don’t even try and deny it. What do you even care about Sam for?”

Alex put his sketchpad down, slid off the bed and down next to her. The youngest of three boys by ten years, Alex’s own brothers had always been remote, leaving home while he was still a child. Debbie had always seemed more like his real sibling.

“That’s really good,” he said, putting an arm around her, looking down at the drawing.

“D’you think?” Debbie sniffed, glad for a change of subject.

“Yeah,” said Alex. “Let me get some paint. I’ll help you with it.”

On the pavement outside, Francesca laughed. “Oh dear,” she said, placing her hand on Sean’s arm for a moment. “Sorry about that. That’s what you call an Ernemouth welcome. I had it all myself when I started here, especially from Pat. She’s been here the longest, had that job since she was sixteen. Likes everyone to know who runs the place.”

“Well, you must have made a better impression than I did,” said Sean. “She’s like your guard dog now.”

“I have my ways. Now then, we go down here,” she led him down a Victorian arcade, past shops selling jewellery, souvenirs and women’s clothing.

“There’s not much in the way of sophistication here,” said Francesca, eyes flicking towards a display of mannequins in florals that had probably been there half a century. “But what you can find is always in the oldest part of town.”

When they came out at the bottom, Sean thought for one horrible moment that she was about to lead him back to his hotel and that institutional smell of meat and gravy. But instead she stepped to the left, went through a cutting into a square of Georgian houses.

“See there, at the bottom,” she pointed to some much older buildings, remnants of the old Town Wall and a preserved peel tower. “That’s the Tollhouse. The old jail. Where Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, used to take the local girls to make them confess.” She raised one eyebrow suggestively.

Sean laughed politely, wondering if this was a demonstration of how she got her staff onside or whether the vaguely flirtatious, familiar manner was just for him.

“Here we are.” She stopped outside one of the townhouses, and Sean saw that it had been converted into a restaurant. A cream sign hung over the door, black letters spelling out the name:
Paphos
.

“A Greek,” noted Sean.

“The best in town,” Francesca replied. “There’s quite a lot of Cypriots in Ernemouth.”

Before they had got to the top of the steps to the door, a man had opened it for them. Tall and muscular, with thick, jet-black hair and a wide smile that revealed perfectly straight white teeth, he was almost film-star handsome.

“
Kalespera
, Francesca,” he said, taking her hand and making a little bow. “A pleasure as always. And you, sir,” he added, “of course.”

“Did you …?” she began.

“Yes, Achillias said. This way, please.” He swept them past the reception desk and up a staircase, into an empty dining room that had been redecorated in keeping with its original design: mahogany floorboards, duck-egg blue walls, heavy drapes at the window and tables set with crisp linen and silver candelabras. “I put you here,” he pulled out a chair from the table set in the bay window, overlooking the square. “We’ve kept the bookings downstairs until nine.”

“Thanks, Keri,” she said, touching his arm the way she had done with Sean earlier. “I appreciate it.”

Keri looked at her with the same level of admiration Sean had observed in her staff. He took their coats, leaving them with the menus and wine list. Sean felt a stab of hunger.

“Do you want some wine?” Francesca asked him over the top of her menu.

“Sure,” said Sean. “I’ll go a glass of red.”

“Might as well make it a bottle,” Francesca spoke like a true veteran. “Don’t worry, this is on my expenses. Keri, can you get us a bottle of red and some mezze?”

She paused as the waiter departed, then turned back to Sean. “So what was it that you wanted to discuss with me?”

Her turquoise eyes were sharp. Sean leaned back in his seat, tried to appear relaxed. “I’ve never worked a case like this before,” he told her. “Never been to this part of the world either. You can read old reports as much as you like, but it doesn’t give you a feel for the place. That’s what I’m hoping for. A little local insight.”

“I see,” she said.

“Like,” he went on, “can I expect the same kind of welcome that I got from your secretary from everyone in Ernemouth?”

“Probably,” she nodded. “Pat’s a very good introduction to this town, as it goes. You won’t get a squeak out of her yourself, but once she gets home, the phonelines will be burning about the strange man who came into the office today. That’s why I didn’t want them to know what your business is. I mean, she
will
find out. First rule of Ernemouth – walls have eyes and ears around here. I just wanted to give you a head start.”

Sean nodded. “Makes sense,” he allowed. “So what are you going to tell them?”

“That you’re an old friend down from London. Let them make of that what they will. Hopefully they’ll get distracted by their own idle gossip into thinking you’re something you’re not.” She raised her eyebrows, looked over his shoulder.

“Ah,” she said. “Good. Here come our starters.”

Sean studied her as Keri arranged the bowls of dips, olives, pastries and pitta on the table, poured their drinks and then smilingly departed. He realised that she had chosen the seat that had the only clear view of the whole room. Walls have eyes, indeed.

“So,” he prompted, reaching for the bread. “How long have you been here?”

“I’ve worked for the
Mercury
just over three years,” she said, spooning hummus onto the plate. “When I got the job it was just me, Pat and Paul Bowman, the Peter Stringfellow lookalike in charge of advertising. The old editor had been doing everything else himself for years, until he dropped dead at his desk from a heart attack. I had to work my arse off to turn the thing around. But it was good to do it, you know,” she picked up her glass, took a contemplative sip. “We’ve come a long way.”

“And before then?” Sean asked.

“I worked on a national for five years,” she said. “From news reporter to section editor. But, you know – not much chance of ever becoming an editor there.”

“Still,” said Sean, wondering why she would have made a move to a dismal backwater like this. “Must have been a bit of a culture shock coming here.”

“Not entirely,” she smiled.

Sean lifted a triangle of pastry to his mouth, tasted warm, crumbling feta and spinach inside. It didn’t take long for them to clear their plates.

“But what about you? I mean, I’ve done my research about why you’re here,” Francesca said. “I understand why you want your insight. But,” she looked up again without missing a beat, “shall we order our main course first?”

“I know what I want,” said Sean, as Keri appeared soundlessly by his side. “A big plate of moussaka,” he said, looking up at the waiter.

“I’ll have the same,” said Francesca. “You won’t be disappointed.”

Once Keri had gone, she leant forward in her seat, long fingers curling around the stem of her glass. “So what have you got that’s new?” she asked. “Forensics, I presume, DNA? Nothing that anyone’s actually come forward and said?”

“Correct,” he nodded. “You didn’t imagine there was any chance of that happening?”

She shook her head. “Too many people’s lives were ruined,” she said. “When you’re in a small town like this and the spotlight falls on you for such a terrible reason, the collective shame is unbearable. They offered up their sacrifice twenty years ago and expected to get left alone in return. You won’t find many who’ll want to go raking it over.”

“Not even the editor of the local paper?”

The question hung on the air as Keri placed plates of moussaka down, topped up their glasses and left them to their meal. Sean took a few forkfuls. Francesca was right; he wasn’t disappointed. For a while, they ate in silence, and he savoured every mouthful.

“Is it good then,” she eventually said, “what you’ve got? Do you think it’s enough to change the story? To risk stirring up the hornets’ nest and everything that’ll go with it?”

Sean blinked away the memory of Corrine Woodrow’s
eyes, the sudden wave of fatigue that ran through him at the memory, triggering the ache in his legs that the food had been helping him ignore.
The shadow of a young man stepping out from under the trees
…

“The evidence suggests I can,” he said.

They stared at each other across the table. Then Francesca turned her head, gazed out of the window, into the night. “
Ta en oiko me en demo
,” she murmured.

“What was that?” Sean asked.

She turned back to face him. “Then you’re going to need help, aren’t you?” she said.

“If you could have anything,” said Samantha, “anything in the world, what would you most want?”

Corrine’s eyes opened and she squinted against the sun that was warming her as she lay on the soft slope of a dune. Still slightly queasy from the combination of the rides and all the ice cream they had put away afterwards, she had almost drifted off in this sheltered hollow they had found among the North Denes.

“Dunno,” she said, drawing in her bottom lip. “I s’pose … I’d like today to go on forever.”

“Oh, come on,” Samantha shifted herself from her back to her elbow, turning to face her new friend. “That can’t be it – you must want something more, surely?”

Corrine’s mind struggled against the torpor of the Sunday afternoon heat. Three times they’d ridden the rollercoaster today, twice on the Rota, then the Ghost Train, the Superloop and finally the Waltzers, the boy swinging their carriage around as he joked with them, making her dizzy with laughter at the thrill of it all. A walk down the Front after and sweet treats at Mario’s at the top of Regent’s Road, bought with the
five-pound note Sam’s granddad slipped into her hand as they’d left the Leisure Beach.

She didn’t think life could get much better.

Sam’s eyes gazed down at her intensely, somewhere between green and blue they were, the same colour as the North Sea. There was a vague smile on her lips, a piece of marram grass in her hand that she had been chewing, now waving just above Corrine’s nose.

“Go on,” Samantha said, “tell me.” She lowered the grass so that it started to tickle.

Corrine flinched. “Pfffff!” she tried to blow the stem away, inching sideways as she did. “Don’t, Sam,” she pleaded.

But Samantha moved in closer, her head blocking the sun. Her smile deepened, her crooked tooth glinting. “Tell me,” she said, “or I’ll tickle it out of you.”

“No!” Corrine tried to sit up but Sam was faster, pinning her arms down to her sides and sliding her leg over Corrine’s torso, so she finished up sitting on her chest.

“Tell me!” Sam goaded, flicking the stem over the top of Corrine’s nose.

“Get off!” Corrine could hardly breathe. She screeched and kicked her legs up, pitching herself sideways and sending the pair of them rolling down the side of the dune. A wave of hysterical laughter engulfed the pair as they went, landing up in a heap of tangled limbs, sand in their mouths and their hair.

“Look what you’ve now done!” Corrine extricated herself quickly, jumping to her feet, her face a vivid red. “You’ve ruined me hairdo!” She put her head upside down and tried to shake the sand out, staggering on her feet as stars danced before her eyes.

“No I haven’t,” said Samantha, still sitting, still with the
piece of grass in her hand, looking up at her through the curtain of her fringe. “Don’t be such a baby. Sit down, there’s something I want to tell you.”