The wind pulled at her as she walked along the coast road, out of the main town, passed scrappy grass with its ‘No Ball Playing’ notices and the pub that still sold ‘Austerity Lunches’. She was heading to her favourite part of Sole Bay – the trashy harbour end, with its caravan park, dodgy prefab houses growing shells and beach paraphernalia in the gardens, and the black rickety sheds advertising fresh fish for sale. Today, the boats were tied up in the harbour, the fishermen not foolhardy enough to brave the North Sea conditions. There would be no boxes of slippery silver fish or snapping crabs until the weather had calmed.
The call from Jonathan Danby had come a few days after she first spoke to him. Days that were spent going to and from Sasha’s, making sure she ate something, even if it was only a bowl of soup. Days of going over and over the whys and the wherefores of Jackie Wood’s release from prison. Alex tried her best to sound soothing and caring, but however much you love someone, however much you care, after a while your patience runs out. She couldn’t risk her sister doing anything else stupid so she just gritted her teeth and carried on caring. Sasha’s house became ever more claustrophobic. The one good thing was that Jez did come up trumps and was spending each evening there, and the occasional night. She managed to avoid him nicely.
So when Danby called, she was ready to do anything, go anywhere.
‘This’ll be a sympathetic look at her life?’
Not this again. She took a deep breath. ‘As I’ve already told you, it’ll be an honest one. That’s how I’ve got my reputation. Whether it’s sympathetic or not is up to her, in a way. I write as I see it.’ She held her breath.
‘Fee?’
‘As we agreed.’
An inhalation and then a sigh. Smoking, Alex reckoned.
‘Look, I’d be lying if I said I was happy about this, I’m not. But Miss Wood seems keen, for some reason. Says she likes your work.’ Sure she does. ‘Will only talk to you. Doesn’t want me there.’ Alex closed her eyes. All above board. Now there was no reason for Liz to get the jitters and say no. This interview could be gold dust.
‘So the answer is yes, but with certain restrictions.’
‘I don’t do restrictions,’ Alex said. Ground rules have to be set from the outset, parameters defined, otherwise you end up dancing to your subject’s tune, and that just doesn’t work. Alex knew she’d done the song and dance thing with Malone, but that was an exception.
She heard the crackle of cellophane; the flick of a lighter, another inhale. ‘Jackie doesn’t want anyone to know where she is.’
‘I understand that.’ The dance continued.
‘You know what this country’s like; there’ll be a lynch mob after her before you can say “not guilty”. The Mail will be writing editorials about the death penalty and all the other red tops will be baying for blood.’
‘Right.’ She balled her fist. But she is guilty, Alex wanted to shout at him down the phone. She was found guilty. She was only let off on a technicality, some obscure legal thing; the expert witness making a fuck-up, being discredited. Alex had believed him, they all had. And she didn’t see any reason to change her mind now.
‘You won’t have to travel far,’ said Danby. ‘She wanted to go somewhere she knew. Figured it would be easier for her.’
‘So…?’
‘She’s in your neck of the woods, as it happens. Suffolk.’
Alex closed her eyes. She was so close. ‘Fine,’ was all she said.
Eventually she and Danby managed to thrash it out. She was to tell no one where she was going, who she was interviewing – apart from her editor, she lied – and for that Jackie Wood was going to grant Alex one or two mornings of her time.
Deal done.
It was half-term and Gus was at home. Alex had been trying to get him to do some schoolwork; to help her with shopping; to get him chatting to Malone: anything to keep him away from trouble. Smelling the drink on his breath had unnerved her, as had his run-in with a reporter. She didn’t want him to be sucked into something else he couldn’t deal with. And she had started paying for his skiing trip, crossing her fingers at the same time.
He was in the sitting room on his Playstation, swatting zombies. Malone was due round in a couple of hours.
‘Gus?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’m just off out.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Malone’ll be here soon.’
‘What to— gotcha!’ She saw a splat of red on the television screen.
‘Not to babysit you, no. He’s come to see me, but I’m just off to interview someone for the magazine.’
‘Anyone good? Yesss.’ His fist punched the air. ‘More points.’
She hesitated a little too long.
Gus took his eyes off the undead. ‘Mum? You’re looking shifty. C’mon, who is it then?’
Should she lie? Tell a half-truth? What? She sat on the arm of the chair. Tried to ruffle his hair. He jerked his head away. ‘Listen, Gus, it’s Jackie Wood.’
He turned away, his eyes now glued to the screen. More splats of red, more zombies’ heads exploded.
‘Why?’ His voice was flat, his knuckles white where he gripped the games console.
‘I think it could be useful, helpful even.’
‘What are you going to ask her?’
She shrugged. ‘You know, the obvious really.’
He stared at the screen. Even the undead were motionless.
At last he turned and looked at her, blinking slowly, coming out of zombie-land again. ‘You’ve got your coat on.’
‘Yes. Walking, saving petrol.’ Bloody hell, she could have bitten her tongue.
He nodded. ‘So she’s nearby. Come back to the scene of the crime, as it were. How can she do that? How can she come and live here, of all places? Surely there should be some sort of law against it or something? I dunno. Anything?’
‘Gus—’
‘I know, I know, you can’t tell me. Confidentiality and all that. But I don’t reckon you’d make much of a detective.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Didn’t take me long to suss out she’s come crawling back to town.’
Alex attempted a laugh, but it sounded hollow. ‘Please don’t say anything, Gus. Part of my contract is that no one knows where she is.’ And she’d made a right fuck-up of that already.
‘What are you going to ask her?’
She was on firmer ground now. ‘I’ll begin by asking about her time inside, you know, just to get her confidence. Nod sympathetically and all that. Ask about her childhood. How she met Martin Jessop. Draw her out, that’s the plan.’
‘Do you get to ask about, you know?’ He swallowed, his eyes darting around the room. Not for the first time she cursed the fact that her boy had grown up defined by the murder of his cousins. But she believed in telling the truth. What was the point in shielding him when he would find out another way? And probably in a badly thought-out muddled way from his mates.
She gave a small smile. ‘I hope so.’