‘Oh, my God,’ she murmured and slumped back onto the sofa.
Dora hurried into the office and banged in Calvin’s home number. In the sitting room, the credits for ‘Fenland Arts Tonight’ were rolling slowly up the screen. Behind them, Rodney Grey and Lillian Bliss were reduced to razor-sharp silhouettes.
Calvin picked up the phone on the second ring. Dora stared blankly at the TV, and realised she didn’t know what she wanted to say, or at least, didn’t know what she wanted to say first. There were so many things, the words clumped together in her throat in a log jam.
Calvin was ahead of her. ‘Hello, Dora, I was just going to ring you. Don’t worry–’
‘Don’t worry?’ Her voice sounded like fingernails on glass.
‘I know exactly what you’re going to say.’
‘You do? Well, in that case I don’t need to tell you I’ve just torn up our contract, do I? Or that thanks to you and your little friend, every pervert in East Anglia – including my sister – now knows where I live, or that …’
‘Whoa, whoa,’ soothed Calvin. ‘Your sister doesn’t watch the arts programmes, she told me …’
‘Calvin! Your protegée has just announced my address to the nation.’
Calvin coughed uncomfortably. ‘Not the nation, Dora, just East Anglia.’ He puffed thoughtfully. ‘Late Tuesday night? Good film on BBC2? God, hardly anybody’s watching. Look, I’m sorry. What else can I say? That bastard Grey set her up. He tricked her.’
‘What’s to trick?’ Dora hissed. ‘That girl is dangerous. She called Rodney Grey a horrible little bastard, on TV, to his face –’ As she said it she giggled, which surprised both of them. Hysteria, it had to be.
Whatever it was, Calvin suddenly choked and then drew in a long snorting breath.
‘I know,’ he chuckled. ‘Brilliant, wasn’t it? I mean, the guy’s such a complete and utter prick. Did you see his face when she started to tell him about the man with the degree?’ He was wheezing now, almost unable to breathe for laughing.
‘Stop it, Calvin, this isn’t funny. This really won’t do, you’ve got to talk to her,’ Dora snapped. ‘I live here. Muzzle her.’
‘I will, I will,’ Calvin giggled, and hung up.
The phone rang before Dora had a chance to turn around. She bit her lip and picked it up on the third ring.
‘Hello,’ said Sheila. ‘That writer woman you like is on the telly. I just caught the end bit – were you watching it?’
Dora groaned, wondering how much of Lillian’s interview Sheila had seen. Taking a deep breath, she jerked the phone plug out of the wall.
The flat above the shoe shop in Gunners Terrace looked small and shabby – an easy target. The man watched a small, plump woman ring the bell, waited for a few minutes more in his car, watching to see if she got an answer until he was certain there was no-one at home.
As she walked away, rounding the corner, he climbed out of the car and flicked up his collar. They did that in all the films, and on the telly. He crossed the road, slipping his hand into his jacket pocket. The lining was split so he could carry a jemmy tucked up under his armpit. It felt good, familiar, like part of him. It was warm from his body heat. Under his parka he stroked the grooves and the small rough patch where someone had scratched their initials.
Rain dripped off the gutters, and now off him too. Stepping off the kerb he swore as he stepped into a deep pothole, soaking his feet inside his trainers. Bloody weather, bloody roads. He walked slowly towards the door, glancing left and right. He rang the bell to double check. No answer.
Probably Catiana had moved out now she was famous, now she’d got a bit of money. Maybe the other woman was just a cleaner or a Jehovah’s Witness. He grinned, then stepped back and looked up at the grimy first floor windows. At one of them, a large ginger cat pressed his face against the glass. Someone had to be taking care of the cat; perhaps he had struck lucky after all.
Glancing around once more to make sure no-one was looking, the man slipped into the alley beside the shoe shop. Rubbish bins and soggy cardboard boxes were stacked two high. Here, the gutters had failed completely; glistening waterfalls of rain cut swathes into the muddy, weed-choked path.
The alley dog-legged around a flat-roofed, single-storey extension. A crumbling brick wall divided the pathway from the fringes of the recreation ground behind.
The man looked at the wall thoughtfully; it wouldn’t take too much to get up onto the roof. The extension joined on to the flat. He stood for a minute or two considering whether he ought to risk climbing up in broad daylight. From the roof he’d be able to get inside the flat, no problem. In, have a snout around for the stuff he was after, and then out. Maybe twenty minutes, tops. Inside his other pocket was an aerosol can of paint. Good way to confuse the Old Bill. He grinned. Only trouble was the little ball in the can made a helluva noise if you ran, kept banging about, rattling.
‘Are you the builder?’
Startled, the man swung around. A teenage girl, arms wrapped defensively around her chest, peered at him through the rain. Her face was screwed up with cold.
He nodded dumbly, trying to gather his thoughts.
‘Not before bloody time. The manager says to tell you that the damp’s coming in through the brickwork in the store room now. Do you want to come in and look?’ She stepped aside and indicated the open door into the shoe shop.
The man shook his head, still thinking.
‘Er no, I’ve just come to look at the outside today.’
The girl, her hair now dripping, rolled her eyes heavenwards.
‘Bloody typical. Well, I’m not hanging about out here watching you wandering about with a tape measure. If you want anything you’ll have to knock or come round the front.’
‘Wait,’ said the man. ‘You don’t happen to have a key for the flat upstairs, do you? I’d like to take a look at them gutters.’
The girl pulled a face. ‘Nah, it’s completely separate. Didn’t you come last time? The woman who lives up there is out all day today, she told me this morning.’ The girl looked down at her watch. ‘I’m going to go and get me dinner.’ Sniffing, she stepped back into the shop, closing the door smartly behind her.
‘Wednesday is shopping-day, Tuesday is egg-n-chips, Monday is s-o-u-p.’ Dora alternated between singing and humming as she drove back along the bypass into Fairbeach town centre. She smiled at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. If she wasn’t careful she would have turned into a crazy old lady before anyone realised it.
Dora had been out to Ely, trying to fill her head with window-shopping as an antidote to Lillian Bliss’s virtuoso performance on the ‘Fenland Arts’ programme. She’d been to the supermarket first, which on reflection was a mistake. The full-cream jersey milk had probably already turned to yoghurt and the meat was no doubt busy defrosting itself all over the custard doughnuts. She turned off the main road into Gunners Terrace, slowing and easing forward as she reached the corner, trying to catch out the blind spot.
There was a car parked outside the street door to her flat – a small white car with a blue light on top. With a peculiar sense of resignation, Dora pulled in behind it. Before she had a chance to lock the car doors. Sheila appeared, and from a nearby hatchback, a slim ginger-haired girl hurried towards her clutching a notepad. They both began speaking at the same time.
‘There you are. I wondered where you’d got to. You don’t want to go upstairs, it’s an awful mess,’ said Sheila.