She swallowed, telling herself to slow down.
Aaron glanced over. ‘You seem deep in thought,’ he said, giving her hair a stroke.
Karin flushed. The likelihood of him proposing in any case was pretty remote.
Mel had got it wrong.
A sharp pain suddenly jabbed her forehead and she tried to massage it away. If she ever did get married, would she write and tell her mother the news? After the event, obviously. Like Birgitta had done to her. But Karin knew that any letter she sent would only come back in the post unopened. Or perhaps her mother would even go so far as to get the police to return it to her, so they could arrest her at the same time. As her dad used to say, Birgitta’s decisions were set in ice.
‘You sure you’re okay?’
The sound of Aaron’s voice snapped her back into the moment, and Karin realized she had become unbearably hot. Her dress was clinging to her and her scalp felt prickly. ‘Yeah, sorry,’ she said. She lowered the window and stuck her head out, not bothering about what it might do to her hair at this speed. ‘I was just thinking about where we might be going.’
‘You’ll soon see,’ said Aaron, holding her hair down until she came back in again and put the window up. ‘You look amazing tonight, by the way.’
‘Thanks. You don’t look too bad yourself.’
The sharp blast of air seemed to work, and Karin visualized them making plans for the future, getting their first place together. A house with a garden where children could play. A log cabin, and plenty of long grass to run around in and be wild. She would be a good mother. Stay home and spend time with her kids. There would be more than one; an only child was a miserable child. She would wrap them in love and laughter, never abandon or ignore them and definitely never send them away.
And Aaron would make a great father.
But what if he ever did find out? What then? Aaron didn’t deserve to be hurt, not again. His marriage had ended badly. Infidelity, not on his part, followed by a messy divorce.
Karin’s heart began to thump against her chest. She wrapped her fingers round her wrist, something the bereavement counsellor had taught her to do at school to force the positive thoughts through. It was the bereavement counsellor who had explained about the post-traumatic stress headaches too. She said Karin had been through a lot. The strained relationship with her mother. Losing her father. Her stepdad’s suicide. She asked if there might be one incident in particular which could be behind such violent headaches. Karin never told her. Apart from her mother, there were only two people who knew the truth.
Will and Louie.
She trusted Will with her life.
Louie, she was never going to see again.
Karin closed her eyes, trying to hang onto these positives. When she opened them again she registered they were heading north up the M6, the sign for Morecambe having fleetingly caught her eye. ‘Erm. Are we going to the coast?’ she asked, turning quickly to look at the sign even though she knew it would have disappeared by now.
Aaron didn’t pick up on the panic in her voice. ‘We might be,’ he said, a boyish grin spreading across his face.
But the signs repeatedly said Morecambe. And after a while there it was. Marine Road West. She could see it up ahead, a building of elegant white curves. Of all the places to bring her. Why here? It was her birthday, a simple meal in Leeds would have been perfect. Couldn’t they just go back to Leeds? Couldn’t she suggest that? Was it too late to turn round?
They swung into the car park of The Midland hotel, gleaming white in all its restored Art Deco glory, and Karin felt herself shaking. As beautiful and magnificent as it was, she never intended coming back here.
Not ever.
It stood before her now like a defiant ghost, keeper of memories she didn’t want to revive. Karin held onto her wrist so tightly her fingers turned white. She thought she had left all this behind.
Mel had heard Will come down for a second time, boil the kettle then go back upstairs. That was nearly an hour ago. Now she was in the kitchen chopping up ingredients for a simple pasta dish.
They had taken Will in on the Room for a Night scheme, another initiative of the charity Karin worked for, but he had been here for nearly eight weeks now ‘as a friend’, which wasn’t really how Mel had understood it would be. She didn’t mind as such, not really. The Ashby Road project was very near its completion, so he would be gone soon enough. It was just that, as Karin was hardly around, the responsibility for Will was falling mostly on her shoulders.
Mel took the same precautions with Will as she had done with Karin in those early stages: stowing her handbag and papers away, changing passwords on her computer and locking it in her desk whenever she went out. Mel was in the habit of such measures in any case, given the nature of her job, handling complaints at the call centre. But taking a total stranger off the street and into the house was a risk. She was also aware of the scare stories surrounding such types, suddenly turning on those who showed them kindness, repaying them with violence. And worse. It had been a gamble taking Karin in, of course, but Karin was different.
Most of the time Will stayed in his room reading, curled up in his sleeping bag on the floor with a mug of tea. All Mel really knew about him was what Karin had told her: that he was born deaf, rejected by his parents, let down badly by the system and ended up living on the streets, which was where he and Karin had become friends. Allies too, apparently. However, Karin’s track record on being able to judge a person’s character was not exactly reliable. Not if Louie was anything to go by.
Will could be any age from twenty-five to forty; his long Russian beard and dark eyes gave away few clues and Mel found his Rasputin stare most unnerving. He seldom smiled. She had begun to feel the tiniest flicker of unease in his presence. Perhaps it was his silence. It definitely wasn’t the same as with Karin. Mel hadn’t wanted to leave her festering on the streets of Leeds, falling prey to anyone who came across her. At the same time, she certainly didn’t want to make a habit of feeding and housing all of Leeds’ waifs and strays. That would be a lifetime’s work. Besides, Mel had her own sob story. Growing up with a sick mother and not much money was far from easy. Her education suffered, as did her youth, both seeming to slip away from her at an alarming rate.
Mel tapped lightly on Will’s door. She knew this wasn’t necessary, but she did it anyway, pushing the door open slowly so as not to startle him. Will was leaning against the radiator, his head bowed into a book. His sleeping bag was in a heap next to a small, tatty rucksack blotted with greasy patches; a few old newspapers were piled on the pillow. His decorating overalls had landed on top of his work boots. They were shabby too, a hand-out, like everything else he owned. His elbow was resting on a tower of books stacked up by his side. Will seemed to be acquiring more and more, perhaps for the first time having somewhere to store them. The ironing board, laundry basket and other household paraphernalia had been pushed into the corner so that Will wouldn’t feel quite so cramped. That was Karin’s doing. The room smelt mouldy, due more to the leaky roof than to Will, to be fair. It was a matter Aaron hadn’t got around to addressing, although he said it was