Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019

Copyright © Lucie Whitehouse 2019

Lucie Whitehouse asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover photography Face: © Plainpicture / Cristopher Civitillo; Match: Shutterstocl

Epigraph taken from The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin, by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008268992

Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008269012

Version: 2019-01-09

Dedication

For Bridget

Epigraph

I leant far out, and squinnied for a sign

That this was still the town that had been ‘mine’

So long, but found I wasn’t even clear

Which side was which.

Philip Larkin

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Robin surveyed the table with its heap of crumpled napkins and burger boxes, stray fries and onion rings, the pile of bleeding ketchup packets. Aftermath of the cholesterol bomb. They’d had breakfast back in London, too, but as the road signs had started to portend BIRMINGHAM, her stomach started churning, and by the time they’d reached Warwick Services, it had felt completely empty or at least gnawing in some other way that made eating fifteen quid’s worth of Burger King seem like a good idea. Whoppers, milkshakes, the works – no section of the menu overlooked. Now she had stomach ache and she felt sick.

Across the table, Lennie’s stomach was a toddler-style pot under her Blondie T-shirt. She put her hands on it and grimaced. ‘Ugh. I feel like I’ve swallowed a sofa cushion. Full of grease.’

‘It was a two-seater. I got the fluff and loose change from down the back, too.’

Lennie laughed and for a moment, everything seemed brighter. There was still a chance this would all be irrelevant in the grand scheme, wasn’t there? A blip. Once, on one of the long nights when Lennie was a baby, she’d whispered in her ear that together, they could do anything. She would do anything for her, of course; but also, because of her, she, Robin, could do anything. Right, said a snide voice.

She stood quickly and began piling their rubbish onto the trays, crushing her burger box with a savagery that startled Lennie from her texting. ‘Once more unto the breach?’

A thump, hard but fleshy, as if a large bird – a pheasant, even a swan – had dropped from the sky and landed deadweight on the roof. They both jumped but a second later a smirking face loomed at the passenger-side window. For the love of god. Robin took a long breath then pressed the button to lower the glass.

‘Luke.’

Her own eyes looked back from a face that was her own, too, but pale and more defined, the jaw made square by pads of muscle. ‘Shocked you, did I? What are you doing sitting back here? There’s a parking spot outside.’

‘Someone must have just gone.’

Her brother made the yeah, right expression he’d been giving her since he was six. ‘How are you, Lennie? Can’t be many people who’ve staked out their own grandparents. Old habits dying hard, Rob?’

She flung the door open and moved to get out, remembering at the last second that she’d undone her jeans. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Same as you – come to spend time with the rentals. Though just the afternoon in our case.’ He smirked again.

Robin came round to the pavement and stooped to look at the roof. She couldn’t see a dent, but still. ‘Why would you hit my car, you … fuckwit?’ she hissed.

‘Afraid it’ll affect the resale value? What?’ The injured innocence he did so well. ‘You’re going to have to sell it, aren’t you, if you’re as broke as Mum says? Can’t drive an Audi if you’re begging. Even if it was second-hand.’

‘We’re not begging.’ She glanced at Lennie, just getting out, then glared at him: Watch it.

‘Would you be back here if you weren’t?’

‘Hiya, Lennie. Robin.’ Natalie, Luke’s wife, lunged at them. She was like a newly hatched bird, Robin thought, all beak, eyes and pushy hunger, thrusting herself into the middle of every situation to ensure she wasn’t overlooked or slighted in some other unguessable way. Her fringe absorbed make-up from her forehead and hung in damp-looking, fresh-from-the-egg strands.

‘Right.’ Robin opened the boot. ‘Since you’re here, Luke, make yourself useful.’ She handed him a box. ‘It’s only light.’ She wasn’t going to give him an excuse to put his back out and malinger with his PlayStation for weeks. ‘Natalie, have you got a spare hand? It’s just a bag of—’

‘Sorry.’ She held up a set of lilac claws. ‘I’ve just had my nails done.’

On balance, Robin thought as she locked the car, Luke had done her a favour accosting her out here. Better to have the opening skirmish under her belt than walk into an ambush. And being pissed off was useful, armour of a sort. She’d thought she was over the worst but as she’d turned into Dunnington Road, she’d felt a moment of suffocating panic. Here it all was again, as if the sixteen years in between had just fallen away – collapsed: the pairs of Fifties semis facing off across the wide street, their bay windows netted prissily against anyone who could be bothered to peer over the rosebushes or the brace of mid-range saloons in the tiny front gardens. It was all so low-rise, so stunted: nothing reached higher than two storeys. The sky yawned overhead for bleak white acres, uninterrupted. She was seized by a sense of personal jeopardy, actual threat: if she was under it too long, exposed, it would suck out her soul.

As they rounded Terry Willett’s white Ford Transit – the bane of her mother’s existence, herself aside, for twenty-five years – she saw number 17 for the first time and waiting in the ground-floor bay, trapped like a bug between glass and net curtain, her dad. She watched him light up like he’d heard it was Christmas. In a whisk of nylon lace he was gone. ‘Chrissie,’ she imagined him bellowing, ‘they’re here!’

Seconds later, the outer porch door opened. Lennie ran to him, the bag bumping against her back. ‘Hello, sweetheart.’ He held her away to look at her. ‘You’ve grown again, haven’t you? Who said you could do that?’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve got some Creme Eggs in for you – we’ll have one after lunch.’

Lunch.

Lennie turned, eyes wide. Robin shook her head: Say nothing.

They could smell it now, the scent wafting through the open door: roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, carrots, sprouts, peas and god knows what else. Shit. Why hadn’t her mother said something? No – why hadn’t she known? Of course she was going to cook the fatted calf. And that was why Luke and Natalie were here, wasn’t it? Luke wouldn’t drive five minutes to see her but he’d never miss a free lunch.

Over Natalie’s head, her dad winked. When the others had moved inside, he took her bags then pulled her into a hug, crushing her face into his sweater. His smell, it never changed: Ariel detergent, Camay soap and, faint but unmistakeable, the stealthy cigarettes that he disappeared off to smoke twice a day and still believed her mother knew nothing about. Her ribcage buckled as he gave her a final squeeze. ‘Good to have you back, love.’

‘I knew you’d be later than you said so I aimed for three o’clock and it’s a good job I did, isn’t it? Was there traffic?’ Christine slid the potatoes back into the oven, straightened up and retied the apron over her cream blouse and floral skirt. The pattern was yellow roses, not unlike the one on the oven gloves, the blinds and the covered stools. Robin felt like a biker crashing the Women’s Institute garden party.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Hello.’ Christine touched her cheek briefly to hers. ‘I’ll get the greens going now you’re here. So was there?’

‘What?’

‘Traffic.’

Robin glanced at Lennie. A couple of minutes ago, when she was bringing in her suitcase, Lennie had come racing out of the house to tell her there were starters – ‘Cheese soufflé!’ – and pudding, too. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Nothing. And not a word.’

‘But …’

‘We eat. Just do your best.’

The tea towels, Robin noticed, had the roses, too. ‘It was pretty busy,’ she said. ‘Especially round the Oxford turn.’ Before the epic Burger King, they’d had several goes at catching a stuffed pink alligator with a mechanical claw, and they’d lingered round the books in Smith’s so long they’d attracted the security guard.

‘It’s normally worse going into London, isn’t it?’ Christine said, sorting broccoli florets into portions. ‘How nice, to have Elena here.’ She turned and gave her a side-hug. ‘Now, the boys are having a beer, Robin, and there’s lemonade.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Natalie’s not drinking at the moment but don’t make a song and dance about it.’

‘Really? The thinnest woman in the West Midlands? Is she on another diet?’

‘Sssh. They’re trying again. Don’t say anything.’

‘Trying what?’ Lennie whispered.

‘To have a baby.’

‘Oh.’

‘Have you got a drink, Mum?’ Robin asked.

‘I’m going to have a spritzer once everything’s on the table. Would you like one?’

‘No, thanks, I’ll have one of these.’ She picked up a beer from the cluster on the end of the counter. ‘Purity? I haven’t seen this before.’

‘It’s local – the brewery’s out near Studley, I think. Your father likes it.’

Robin flipped off the cap and took a sip. ‘Yeah, I can see why. What?’

‘At least use a glass. And take that jacket off before we sit down, please. And those boots. You look like …’

She couldn’t help herself. ‘A dyke?’

Christine suppressed a shudder. ‘Like you’re going yomping across the Falklands.’

They managed the soufflés without major incident. As he’d pulled out her chair, her dad had murmured, ‘Don’t have a fight, will you? For your mother’s sake,’ and he’d done his best, steering the conversation towards such anodyne topics as the decking that Natalie and Luke were laying in their garden – or rather Natalie’s brother was relaying, Luke having botched it – and the restaurant in Moseley where they’d been for their anniversary, which now had a Michelin star, apparently.

‘A Michelin star in Birmingham – who’da thunk it?’ Robin said.

‘Actually,’ said Natalie, tight-lipped, ‘there’s five.’

The main course proved a bridge too far. The temperature in the room seemed to be rising, the oxygen level decreasing in inverse proportion. Robin had had the same piece of beef in her mouth for a minute but her stomach was drum-taut, painful when it met the table-edge. Glancing to her right, she saw Lennie – genius! – disappear a roast potato into a piece of kitchen roll on her lap. She pushed back her chair to go and get a piece for herself but Luke, obviously afraid of losing his sitting target, cut Dennis off mid-sentence.

‘So, Robin,’ he said, ‘Mum and Dad told me, obviously, but I’m still having problems getting my head around your … situation.’

‘Which part is troubling you?’

‘Well, for a start, how did you actually get fired? We thought, me and Nat, that you were some sort of golden girl down there, the great white hope of Scotland Yard.’ They looked at each other, struggling not to snicker.

‘Luke,’ warned Dennis.

‘What? I’m trying to understand.’

In another situation – any situation with no Lennie – she’d grab him by the collar and bounce his head off the wall. He’d done it to her enough times when his two-year advantage still counted. But then she’d turned eleven and knocked one of his front teeth out and that had been the end of it. The beatings, anyway.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘in layman’s terms, to help you get your head around it, my boss wanted to charge a bad man with a murder he didn’t commit just because he was bad and the public would be better off if he was inside, but I didn’t think it was right, so I said so and he – my boss – didn’t like it.’

‘And you got fired for that?’

‘Yes. They’re quite hot on insubordination in the police. I’m guessing it’s not such a big deal at Carphone Warehouse. Or is it T-Mobile these days?’

‘Robin.’ Dennis put a hand on her arm, calming or admonitory, she wasn’t sure.

‘But from what Mum told me,’ Luke said, ‘it wasn’t just that your boss didn’t like it. The guy – the bad man,’ he made a face that Robin yearned to plunge her fist into, ‘has gone AWOL, hasn’t he? So he’s out there somewhere, a known killer, because of you.’

‘He didn’t do it.’

‘But you don’t know that.’

‘I didn’t have evidence to prove it – I needed more time – but I’m pretty sure.’

‘And that’s enough, is it? The great Robin Lyons says so? “Oh, I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it, let him go – oh look, he’s killed someone else, that’s a shame.”’

‘Beyond reasonable doubt – heard of that? You can’t just lock people up because you think they’re bad apples.’

‘I don’t know why not,’ said Christine. ‘That always seems like a good idea to me. Put them away before they can do the damage.’

Robin gave herself credit for not rising. Even a couple of years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to let that pass.

‘But, sorry,’ Natalie took a prim sip of her water, ‘if you really were highly thought of’ – Princess Di eyes over the rim of the glass – ‘would one thing like that be enough to get you fired?’

‘Ah, that’s the bit she’s not telling us, isn’t it?’ Luke grinned. ‘It wasn’t just one thing – she was on a written warning before. She’s been busting that poor guy’s balls from the moment he started there. This was just the final straw.’

‘Language.’

‘Sorry, Mum, but I’m right, aren’t I? She couldn’t keep her mouth shut and this is what happened. With Adrian, too, I bet – no wonder he dumped her. That poor bas—’

‘Luke!’

A moment of seething silence in which Robin could sense Lennie gathering herself. She put her hand out – Don’t – but it was too late. ‘Ade loves Mum,’ Lennie said, voice tight. ‘He asked her to marry him.’

‘Len, it’s okay. You don’t—’

‘But it’s true. You were the one who said no so even if you had a fight, it doesn’t change that, does it?’

‘He asked you to marry him?’ Christine was staring. ‘And you said no? For god’s sake, why?’

‘Because I couldn’t … I just didn’t …’

‘Oh, you,’ her mother cried, ‘you, you, you. What about anyone else? What about poor Elena? Do you ever give her a second’s thought in all this, when you’re going around acting like you’re—’

‘What? How could you even—’

‘Robin – be quiet. Christine.’ Dennis had his hands out to the sides, boxing-ref style.

Her mother closed her eyes against the cruelty of the world, and the burden it had put upon her.

‘I’m fine, Gran,’ Lennie said. ‘Honestly.’

A hiatus, this time ended by Natalie. ‘So how long will you be here then? Your dad said you’re going to work for Maggie Hammond. That doesn’t mean you’re going to stay, does it?’

‘No.’ Please fucking god. ‘Maggie’s got a lot on so I’m going to help her until I straighten things out at the Met.’

‘Doesn’t she work for the council?’

‘She’s self-employed, they’re just one of her clients. It’s not just benefit fraud; there’s suspect insurance claims and—’

‘From Homicide Command in London to catching scroungers on the sick in Sparkhill,’ crowed Luke. ‘How the mighty have fallen.’

‘Luke, for the last time,’ said Dennis.

Cheeks flaming, Robin stood up. Blood pulsed in the backs of her hands. ‘Better to have fallen than to never even have tried to stand on your own two feet. You …’ The swirl of words and arguments and fury bottlenecked in her throat – she couldn’t choke them out. ‘You’re pathetic,’ she managed. ‘Just …’ She remembered Lennie. ‘Bugger off.’

She swung out of the room and took the stairs two at a time, her mother jabbering away behind her, a diatribe unchanged in twenty years: ‘I won’t have that language in this house; this is my home; I won’t have her behaving like this, Dennis; I just won’t.’

Robin slammed the bedroom door as she’d done a thousand times before, the wall shuddering as it always had. Sudden silence – after a few seconds she could hear herself breathing. She looked around and felt time judder to a stop.

Apart from the boxes behind the door, which Josh had sent the factory’s van to collect from London last week, the room was unchanged since the day she’d packed her bags for university sixteen years earlier. The same blue gingham curtains, chosen by Christine as gender-neutral and successfully, to be fair, given that she and Luke had both hated them; the same pale blue carpet with – yes – the old stain where she’d dropped a leaky ballpoint and deliberately left it. Free-standing wardrobe in white vinyl veneer, the side that abutted the tiny desk still covered with her brother’s Villa stickers circa 1994 and her own picture of Robert Smith in his heyday, all leather jacket and Scissorhands hair.

A vibration in her back pocket. Gid? She’d texted him from Warwick Services, not because she expected anything new today – he wouldn’t be at work; he’d be home with Efie and the boys watching football, cooking, regrouting the bathroom – but for morale, the feeling that on this shittiest of days she still had a line back. Hope.

Not Gid but Corinna: How’s it going over there? What’s the body count?

She thumbed a reply: Nil – for now. Waiting til Amazon deliver acid for bath.

Seconds later, Good thinking. Booze/takeaway/debrief at ours Tues eve? Tell Len Peter has new Xbox game he’s dying to show her.

Wilco and YES. Feed me gin. By the pint.

She slid the phone back into her pocket feeling fractionally better. Corinna the human night-light. When she’d come down to London last month, Robin’d gone to meet her at Marylebone. She’d looked like a beacon as she’d stalked down the platform in her tangerine canvas coat with its fern-print pattern. Black polo neck, indigo skinny jeans tucked into shiny black knee boots – even Rin’s hair had been kinetic that day, cut into a new bob that seemed in perpetual motion.

Len had had a sleepover at her friend Olivia’s house, and so they’d got hammered, absolutely wasted, Robin swinging between rage, incredulity and grief, Rin listening, matching her drink for drink. The next day, they’d staggered up the road like Mick and Keith and eaten their way through spring rolls and meatballs and Vietnamese curry in an effort to staunch the nausea. Afterwards Corinna had done her thing, advising and problem-solving in a way that, coming from anyone else, would have driven Robin round the effing twist. ‘You’ve started looking for your own place?’ she’d said.

‘Online, yeah.’

‘Want me to help? I can while away a dull hour at work on Rightmove.’

‘It’ll have to wait for a couple of months.’

‘Why?’

‘No deposit.’

Corinna had frowned. ‘What do they ask for, a month’s rent? Or a month and a half? Can you take it out of savings? It’s worth it, isn’t it, even if there’s a penalty for early withdrawal?’

‘If it was just a question of taking it out of savings, do you think I’d be moving back? I’m flattered you think I even have a savings account – how long have you known me?’ She’d watched it dawn on Rin that she wasn’t joking, then the volley of silent questions: hadn’t she had a steady job for years? A salary, not massive but solid? ‘My rent here’s a ton,’ she said, ‘and Lennie’s school, even with the scholarship. Then there’ll be a lot of other stuff – you know, moving. A storage locker, maybe.’

‘How much will that cost?’

‘Also, I had some parking tickets.’ She’d hesitated. ‘Which I hadn’t paid, so they’d doubled. Twice. And then there’s the credit cards …’

‘Robin!’

‘I know, I know, I’m an idiot – tell me something I don’t know. The lottery numbers, preferably.’

‘Can I lend it to you? No, don’t get funny, I’d like to. I’ll even charge you interest if it would make you feel better.’

‘No. Thanks but no. I got myself into this mess, I’ll get myself out of it. What I really need you to do is rewind the clock. Make me nineteen again, will you, so I haven’t screwed up my life yet.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘It’s different this time.’ As she said the words, she’d felt them settle on her shoulders like a lead poncho. ‘I haven’t lost my job before, have I? We know I’m relationship poison but I’ve always been able to count on the rest. Work.’

‘You managed before.’ Subtly, Corinna had tipped her head at the next table where a man of about forty moved an expensive-looking pram back and forth with his foot. Going by his wife’s hollow eyes and limp hair, Robin had guessed their baby was weeks old, even days, this one of their first tentative forays back out into the world. Corinna had done that for her, too, back then, broken her circuit between the crib, the changing table and her thesis, and taken her out, to places like this, to the park, a pub by the river. On the surface, the world had looked exactly the same but for her, it had been reconfigured, fundamentally changed. A bomb had gone off in her life, she’d thought, and no one except Corinna had heard a thing.

‘You made a success out of a tough situation,’ she’d said.

‘Yeah, well, this time I’ve done the opposite, haven’t I?’

Back in her childhood bedroom, Robin felt a bead of sweat run between her breasts. Christine had finally got the full set of replacement windows she’d been craving and the room was nursing-home hot. Going over, she shoved one open. Like punching the lid off a Tupperware box. She sucked in as much air as her swollen stomach allowed. Below, dull little portions of garden stretched away on either side, rectangles of winter grass and anonymous shrubs, Homebase panel fencing. The Richardses, their immediate neighbours, had a Little Tikes slide and sandbox in chunky red-and-yellow plastic that confused her until she remembered her mother saying that Karen had ‘given John and Brenda grandchildren’. The right way, Robin had heard: house bought; wedding reception at a hotel in Solihull; tiny feet only thereafter. Rather than too young, out of wedlock, father never disclosed. Not so much given as foisted.

She turned and faced the bunk beds – the fact of the bunk beds. Back then, Luke used to lean over the side and flick snot-balls between the rungs of the ladder as she was falling asleep; now, at the age of thirty-five, she was going to share the beds with her daughter. Everything she’d struggled for in her adult life lay in pieces around her – how had it happened? How the fuck was she going to sort it out?

Chapter Two

If you were really on the edge – and who was to say she wasn’t? – a wet February morning on an industrial estate in Stirchley might be enough to tip you over. Beyond the windscreen, a leaking grey sky bulged over a huddle of building-supply megastores and a near-empty car park, stacks of lumber, sodden nylon holdalls of shingle and sharp sand. In the twenty minutes they’d been here, they’d seen two people, and one of those had been a member of staff pulling a trolley out of the scrubby hedge in front of Toolstation. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. At this hour on a Monday morning her Murder Investigation team would be at full hum, the insect chatter of keyboards and phones stopping only when Freshwater, in all his ferrety majesty, swept in for the briefing, clutching the Starbucks cup he thought made him look au courant and dynamically caffeinated. She felt a swell of deep-tissue yearning that she quickly suppressed. She’d check in with Gid again later, see if anything new had come up.

The wipers made a grudging sweep of the windscreen and Maggie shifted, sending over another waft of her spicy perfume. Shalimar, was it, or Opium? Robin couldn’t remember. At this stage, it was basically her essence, anyway – getting into the car this morning, she’d breathed it in and felt a wave of comfort. Maggie was solid, unchanged in the thirty-five years she’d known her, from the eyeliner and jet-black hair, once natural, now courtesy of L’Oréal, to the revolving collection of chunky silver jewellery set with tiger’s eye and turquoise that she bought on her regular tanning trips to the Greek Islands. She looked less like a private detective, Robin always thought, than a pier-end palm reader, but likely that worked in her favour – who would suspect?

An hour ago, she’d swung her silver Ford Focus away from the kerb at St Saviour’s like they were Thelma and Louise. They’d started late so Robin could walk Lennie to school on her first day but normal kick-off could be six o’clock, or earlier. ‘Cul-de-sacs at dawn, basically,’ Maggie’d said. ‘Shots of people up bright and early, suited and booted and slinging their briefcase/toolbox in the back of the car/van, delete as applicable, are of the essence.’ She’d indicated right at a Tudorbethan pub strung with banners boasting Sky Sports and Gut Buster Burgers. ‘How did Lennie go off?’

‘Okay. I think. Nervous but putting a brave face on. You know what she’s like.’

After she’d turned the light off last night, she’d listened to her daughter flipping around overhead, the slats of the bunk creaking under her weight like a flight of arthritic stairs. ‘Are you all right up there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Comfortable?’

A pause. ‘It’s kind of weird being this close to the ceiling.’

Two or three minutes had passed, another couple of all-body adjustments. ‘Mum?’ Not much more than a whisper this time. ‘I’m sorry I said that about Ade earlier. Sorry I got Gran on your case, I mean, not that I said it. I didn’t like it when Uncle Luke said that about him.’

Uncle Luke’s a cretin, Len – oh, the temptation. ‘I know,’ she said.

A minute or so; another revolution. ‘Mum?’

‘Hm?’

‘You know when you spoke to Ms Brampton? She said I could go back to RPG, didn’t she, when we move back to London?’

‘As long as they have a free place, she said, it’s yours.’

Another pause. She could almost hear Lennie’s mind whirring in the dark.

‘Do you think it’s going to be really different at St Saviour’s?’

No, no, no, my love, it’ll be just the same, just as cosy and sheltered and academically rigorous, and everyone will want to be friends with you straight away. ‘A bit,’ she said. ‘It’s a comprehensive and the area’s not very well off. There’ll be kids there from some tough backgrounds – and boys, obviously. But you’ll be fine wherever you go.’

‘You think so?’

The neediness, so rare coming from Lennie, had been a dart in her chest. ‘Yes. I do. And like we discussed, it’s not forever.’ Please god, let it not be forever.

Next to her now, Maggie snapped to attention. ‘Look lively,’ she murmured as a trolley loaded with sacks of cement nosed through the shop’s automatic doors, pushed by a man currently suing his employers for a work-related back injury. When he wasn’t doing hard physical labour, Robin thought, he must be spending most of his sick leave on the bench press: encased in sportswear, his upper arms looked like Christmas hams. Amazing how bloody stupid people could be.

Maggie waited until she had a straight shot of his face and then, under the guise of texting, took a volley of photographs. ‘We’ll get some of him loading the van,’ she muttered, ‘and Bob’s your uncle. Like shooting fish in a barrel, this one. Here, take this.’ She passed Robin the phone then sat forward to turn on the engine. ‘I’ll go round behind him on the way out so you get a clear view. Then we’ll wait a few minutes and drive over to the site.’

‘Iced buns,’ Maggie said as she dropped her outside Greggs. ‘Get a whole pack. And here,’ she pulled a twenty from her purse, ‘get some sausage rolls as well, or whatever you fancy for lunch. We might not have a chance later.’

Robin waved her away. ‘I’ll get it.’

‘Oh, shut up.’ Maggie reached over and stuffed the note into her pocket. Robin tried not to look relieved.

Inside, she joined the queue. It was mid-morning, lunchtime a way off yet, but the place was already busy, two tills going, a steady stream of customers, nasal-musical Brummie accents dipping and rising around her like carousel ponies. She had the accent herself though she’d never given it much thought until Isobel-from-Berkshire laughed at it in her first week at UCL. It was lighter these days, anyway, after a decade and a half away.

Isobel – god, when was the last time she’d thought about her? But the whole morning had been like that, an extended hobble down Memory Lane. Every time they turned a corner there was something else: the community centre where she’d been forced to do ballet; the bus stop for school; the wooden arch to John Morris Jones Walkway down which she and Corinna had disappeared to do their underage smoking. The same but different. The little precinct at the roundabout but the shops had changed. Gardens had been overhauled, extensions added. Instantly recognized, deeply known, but foreign. Even the general look of the place, the style – years in London had altered her aesthetic.

The déjà vu had started the moment she’d opened her eyes and seen Lennie’s new school uniform looming on its hanger like the Ghost of Christmas Past. She’d been at Camp Hill, the grammar school herself, but for a couple of months when she was sixteen, after they were introduced by a mutual friend, she’d gone out with the baddest of St Saviour’s bad boys, Sean Harvey. When he asked her, she’d said yes because she knew it would piss Christine off and because, let’s face it, he was fit and she was shallow, but she’d grown quite fond of his rebel heart and precocious sexual talent. He’d dumped her after she got her GCSE results – apparently her A-stars had been an embarrassment to him. Given her current luck, she thought, she’d probably find herself sitting in a cul-de-sac outside his house before too long.

Catching scroungers on the sick in Sparkhill. How the mighty have fallen.

‘The site’ just now had been a semi-detached in Bournville where the Christmas Ham, real name Barry Perkins, was working cash-in-hand on a kitchen extension and where they’d filmed him tossing the sacks of cement out of his van like confetti. The client was Hargreaves & Partners, a local law firm acting for Perkins’ legitimate boss. She had quite a bit with them at the moment, Maggie said, and another bigger firm, too, on top of her long-standing contract with the city for suspect disability and unemployment claims. With Luke’s comments ringing in her ears, Robin had listened to the list and felt her soul wither.

‘Foive pound seventy-foive, bab,’ said the woman behind the counter.

Back in the car, Maggie ate a sausage roll in four bites then pulled off again.

Robin buckled her seatbelt. ‘Where to now?’

Sparkhill, just north of her parents’ in Hall Green, was almost entirely Asian, which was why Luke, the bigot, had reflexively chosen it for his scroungers. The shops and restaurants on Stratford Road were a mix of Balti houses and halal butchers, travel agencies and bakeries, the windows of the clothing stores full of salwar kameez and Pakistani suits in jewel-box colours. Maggie turned off by a Sikh temple Robin didn’t remember having seen before. Three storeys high with reflective windows trimmed with blue, it looked more like a call centre than a place of worship. Its red brick was the only thing it had in common with the rest of the street, a shabby collection of Victorian terraced workers’ cottages.

Stratford Road had been buzzing but just a few hundred yards off the main drag, the pavement was deserted bar a single elderly woman wearing an anorak over her sari. The houses had a dormant air, the only indication that anyone in them was awake – or even alive – the flicker of television through a ground-floor window.

Maggie brushed pastry flakes off her trousers. ‘Right. Time to come clean.’

‘About what?’

She laughed. ‘Your face! Relax, will you, I mean me, not you. There’s something I haven’t told you about the job.’

‘What?’

‘Obviously I trust you, it wasn’t that, but I’ve always worked strictly need-to-know on this side of things and because this is probably short-term, you and me, I didn’t know if it’d come up. Also, the fraud’s eighty-five, ninety per cent of my work, so you had to be all right with that. I mean, obviously you’re not going to be thrilled, are you, going from Homicide Command to hanging round Wickes’ car park waiting for scumbags. They’re hardly criminal masterminds, Barry Perkins and his ilk.’

‘Maggie. You know I’d be buggered without this. Without you having offered me a job.’ It wasn’t just the money, she thought; if she’d had to spend another day without doing something, belonging to the world of people who had somewhere to be, work to do, she might actually have gone insane.

‘Oh, stop, I don’t need gratitude.’ Maggie pointed at the bag at Robin’s feet. ‘Pass me those, will you?’ She took the pack of iced buns and pulled one out. The floor heaters had loosened the slab of icing, which slipped sideways across the top like an ill-fitting toupee. Her mouth encompassed the thing without it even touching her lipstick.

‘Anyway, I’ve got a bit of a bone to throw you. It’s hardly Interpol but I do some work for women in tight spots,’ she said. ‘Sometimes just helping them sort a problem, sometimes it’s more serious. You can start off expecting one thing and it’s actually something totally different.’ She took another bite. ‘Like, last year, I had a bigamist. His second wife came to me, she had no idea, just knew something wasn’t right. I poked around a bit and that was it. I found him in the Peak District eventually with a whole other family: three kids, cocker spaniel, the lot.’

‘So it’s personal fraud work?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Not really. Sometimes. It’s all sorts. I’ve had girls about to be sent overseas for marriages arranged by “uncles” who’d basically sold them as British passports – those both came word-of-mouth. One of them lived just round the corner from here, other side of Stratford Road. Her mother was the client – wanted more for her. I got her away, helped set her up elsewhere. Nice girl. She’s in Leeds now, doing a degree – we’re still in touch. I had a girl who was trying to get out of a cult. I’ve also had parents who just wanted to know about their daughter’s dodgy boyfriend. Research.’

‘How long have you been doing it?’

‘As long as I’ve had the business. Since I left the job.’

‘They know?’

‘Of course. And that’s how I get most of the cases. I’ve got a contact – Alan Nuttall, my old DS, DI now – and he rings me if something comes up, a situation where there’s no actual crime, nothing the police can do, or it’s like the bigamist: something’s off and I help find out what. He was prosecuted afterwards, obviously, once it was clear there was a charge to be brought.’

‘You’re a dark horse, Maggie Hammond. I had no idea.’

‘Need-to-know, like I said. And now you do.’

A lot of the Victorian houses Robin knew were Tardis-like, with inner proportions that seemed impossible from the outside, but this one was every bit as small as it had looked from the pavement. Dark, too; there was no fanlight above the front door, and the internal door to the front room was shut, blocking any light that way. As they followed the woman to the kitchen at the back, the phrase ‘down the rabbit hole’ came into her head.

It wasn’t just the lack of light or space, though given her choice of small mammals, Robin thought, she’d say Valerie Woodson was more of a harvest mouse than a White Rabbit. Her shoulders hunched as she scurried ahead of them, and though her colouring was sandy – once-auburn hair fading to an odd peach-grey – her eyes were so dark, they looked like buttons, currants in a bun. Maybe they’d adapted to the conditions.

It was brighter in the kitchen, where she stood dazzled in front of them.

Maggie smiled gently. ‘How about a cuppa?’

The woman spooned Nescafé into mugs Robin recognized as garage giveaways from twenty years ago while Maggie kept up a soft patter about the rain, the lead story in the Post on the table, a pot of snowdrops outside the back door. The kitchen was old but looked-after, the white Formica almost stain-free even as the red plastic handles dated it at warp speed. The fridge was covered with magnets shaped like pizza slices and strawberries, a London bus.

An ‘I heart Devon’ magnet anchored a photograph of Valerie and a girl of fifteen or sixteen. They squinted into the sun, arms around each other, their lop-sided smiles so similar they could only be mother and daughter despite the girl’s extra two or three inches and dark brown hair. She wore denim cut-offs and a turquoise vest top and, unlike her mother – the small visible area of whose shins was the colour of cream cheese – she was tanned. Behind them was a beach, unmistakeably British: windbreakers, buckets and spades, and one egregiously burned fat white back.

‘Torbay,’ said the woman as she carried the mugs to a small table. ‘Five years ago. Six this summer.’ She fetched a third chair from the front room. When they were all sitting down, they were elbow to elbow. Robin moved back a little, let in some air.

At close range, the woman looked ill. Her skin was paper-dry and blotchy, raw around the nostrils from nose-blowing. Her eyes were marbled with pink. When she saw Robin notice how her hands trembled, she moved them quickly under the table as though ashamed of the weakness.

‘She left a message just before eight this morning,’ Maggie had said in the car, ‘Alan gave her my number. I was in the shower, and when I called her back I got voicemail. Phone tag. Anyway, she got hold of me while you were getting the food. Her daughter’s missing, she says, has been for four days. We were in the vicinity so I said we’d come round, talk face to face.’

She sat forward now, silver bangles chiming against the table. ‘So tell us what’s going on, Valerie. As much detail as you can.’

The woman brought her hands back up and wrapped them round her mug as if it were a crystal ball. Plain gold wedding band, no engagement ring. Her nails were unpolished, cut short. In fact, all evidence suggested a complete lack of vanity. Her hair was cut in an unflattering pageboy, and she wore a pilled blue round-neck sweater and the sort of elasticated trousers sold from the back of Sunday supplements. If you saw her on the street, Robin thought, she’d barely register.

‘My daughter’s called Rebecca,’ she said. ‘Becca for short, never Becky – she hates Becky.’ A glimmer of a smile. ‘That’s her on the fridge, obviously. She was sixteen then – we went to Devon after her GCSEs.’

‘So now she’s twenty- …?’ said Robin.

‘Two. Her birthday’s in October.’

‘When did you last see her?’ asked Maggie.

‘Thursday. In the morning, before she went to work. Just before eight, like it always is.’

‘She lives here then? With you?’

Valerie nodded.

‘And have you heard from her at all since? Any calls, emails?’

‘No. Normally she texts me during the day – practical stuff, what’s for dinner – but that day, nothing. Then I found her phone upstairs.’

Robin sensed Maggie shift infinitesimally. ‘Where was it?’

‘On the floor, like she’d put it on the bed and it had fallen off. It was almost hidden by the valance – I called her from the landline down here and heard it ringing but I had to ring again to find it.’

‘How about her purse? Her handbag?’

‘She took those. She’d have needed her Swift card to get on the bus.’

‘And where’s the phone now?’

Valerie stood up and fetched it from the counter, a Samsung Galaxy in a sparkly mint-green case. They looked at it without picking it up.

‘Is it locked?’ said Robin.

Valerie Woodson nodded. ‘I don’t know the code. I’ve tried everything – her birthday, mine, her dad’s.’

‘Her dad is …?’

‘He’s dead. Graeme. He died when she was eight. Cancer.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Maggie.

‘Tell us about Thursday morning.’

‘It was … normal. I’ve been over and over it for anything unusual. She did go to work that day, I know that, because on Friday morning when her bed hadn’t been slept in and I found her phone, I rang the office to check she was okay. I got Roger, her boss, and he said she’d been there all day on Thursday and left as usual.’

‘But she wasn’t there then?’

‘No. He was about to call here, he said.’

‘Where does she work?’

‘In the Jewellery Quarter.’

The Jewellery Quarter. Robin felt a cold hand on the back of her neck.

‘A family silversmith,’ Valerie was saying, ‘Hanley’s. She’s been there since she finished her A-levels; they’ve encouraged her to go on, do book-keeping at college at night so she can take more on.’

‘And has she?’

‘Not yet. She says she will but now there’s the other place so I don’t know when she’d have the time.’

‘The other place?’

Valerie frowned. ‘She’s got a bar job in the city centre, place called The Spot. She’s been there since September. Three nights a week – Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘It would be better to do the evening course, wouldn’t it? But she says she’s saving up for a summer holiday.’

‘Have you looked for her passport?’ asked Robin.

‘Yes. It’s here, still in the drawer with mine.’

‘And have you spoken to anyone at the bar?’ said Maggie.

‘Of course.’ A terse note. The woman heard it and caught herself. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. Just take it steady.’

Valerie exhaled heavily, as if she could breathe out the tension. ‘She wasn’t there that night – she wasn’t supposed to be, she doesn’t do Thursdays. On Friday I called to see if she was in and spoke to the manager. He was annoyed with her for missing her shift, leaving him in the lurch.’

‘Right. And you’ve talked to her friends?’

‘As many as I can. And Jane who she works with at the office. She’s got new friends, though, at The Spot. I don’t know them.’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘Not at the moment. She broke up with Nick in October and there hasn’t been anyone since, as far as I know.’

‘How about him?’ said Maggie. ‘Nick. How did he take the break-up? His idea or hers?’

‘Hers. Well, he wasn’t pleased, he liked her, but as far as I know, he didn’t push it. There were a few phone calls then he got the message.’

‘How long had they been together?’

‘Four or five months. But I’ve been through all this with the police.’

‘Valerie, do you understand why DI Nuttall says she’s not a high-priority case?’

‘Because of her age – she’s an adult. And because there’s no evidence of anything … untoward.’ She looked down, chin quivering. ‘Violent.’ Robin watched her bring herself under control. ‘She doesn’t have any of the risk factors – she’s not suicidal, she doesn’t self-harm; she’s not an addict; she’s not in an abusive relationship. I understand what he was trying to say – people leave, they don’t want to be found, that’s their prerogative – but this isn’t that. This is different. Something’s wrong, I know it. I know my daughter. If she hasn’t come home and she hasn’t rung …’

‘What’s she like as a person?’ Robin asked. ‘What does she like doing?’

Valerie took a wad of tissue from her cuff and pressed it under her eyes. ‘She likes reading. We used to go to the library a lot when she was younger and it stuck.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

‘Novels – all sorts. Historical, thrillers. She likes Jane Eyre – reads it over and over again. Lately she’s been reading a lot of YA, she calls it – young adult. Well, I suppose she is one but it means younger, really, doesn’t it? All teenagers and girls with crossbows. Fantasy. And she likes cooking. Those are hers.’ She pointed to a stack of books on the counter: Ottolenghi and Polpo, two River Cafés. ‘She loves the Bake Off, all those cookery shows on Saturday morning. She watches them then goes shopping down Stratford Road, comes back and cooks. It’s not all my taste, what she makes. Too … herby. Lentils, little beans. What’s that funny stuff – tabbouleh? But she’s good at it.’

‘Wish I was,’ said Maggie.

‘So she’s a homebody, would you say?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. She’s … a mixture. She likes her cooking and her books but if I said she was always sensible … She drinks. She goes out. She’s not a wallflower.’

‘You said she’s not an addict; have you ever suspected she might be taking drugs at all?’ Robin asked.

‘No.’ She seemed to hesitate. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Remember, we’re not police,’ Maggie said. ‘The objective here would be to find Becca, not get her into trouble. Knowing about drugs is for us, to make sure we have the whole picture. We’re not going to go to the police about personal drug use, okay?’

‘Right. Well, maybe. I don’t know. Nothing … serious.’

In the bag at her feet, Maggie’s phone started ringing. ‘I’m sorry, Valerie.’ She took it out, looked at the screen then stood. ‘Will you excuse me a moment?’ She pointed to the hallway. ‘Hello?’ The tinny sound of a male voice on the other end that faded as she moved away.

Valerie Woodson looked at Robin, expectant, and for a moment she was thrown. What now? Her instinct – her training, so ingrained it was second nature at this point – was to get details of Rebecca’s associates, her employers, friends, exes, but how did Maggie work? Did she have to agree formally to take on the case? Did she want to? Writing down names would look like a commitment. And what about Valerie’s side of it – was there some kind of contract? A fee? What were Maggie’s terms?

She played for time. ‘How long have you lived here?’

‘Since I was born,’ Valerie said. ‘I’m the only original Brit on the street now. My parents bought the house in the Fifties, I’ve never lived anywhere else. My dad retired about the time I met Graeme and we bought it from them. They moved out to Worcestershire, bought a bungalow near Inkberrow.’

‘Nice.’ Jesus, the idea of living in one house your whole life. ‘Did you ever see any evidence of Rebecca using drugs?’

The non sequitur took Valerie aback, unsurprisingly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Sorry – I mean, have you ever seen her with them? Found them in the house?’

‘Of course not.’ Now she looked indignant. ‘I wouldn’t stand for that.’

Robin glanced back up the hall and saw Maggie open the front door, step out and pull it closed behind her.

Valerie saw, too. ‘Is it something to do with Rebecca?’

‘I don’t think so. No. The police wouldn’t know to call us about her. We’ve only just made contact with you, so …’

‘That’s true. Yes, that’s true. God.’ She put her face in her hands. ‘Sorry. It’s just … Do you have children?’

‘One. A daughter, too.’

‘So you understand.’

‘A little bit, yes. You must be … extremely worried.’ Quick, she thought, deflect the conversation. The last thing she wanted to get into was her life or how she came to be working with Maggie. Her homicide experience wouldn’t be a comfort, either. ‘Where do they go when they’re out, Becca and her friends?’

‘With her old friends, Lucy and Harry, they go – they used to go, before she started at The Spot – to this thing, what’s it called, The Digbeth Dining Club? Street food, she called it, lots of different stands that …’

The front door – Valerie’s head whipped round. Following her gaze, Robin saw Maggie step inside and close it. For a moment, turned away, she seemed to pause. Then, deliberately, she walked back to the kitchen. Her face was oddly composed, un-Maggie-like. Robin tried to meet her eye but found she couldn’t.

‘Valerie,’ Maggie said, ‘I’m sorry but we’re going to have to go. Something’s come up. I’ll ring you as soon as I can. In the next hour or so.’

The woman’s chair shrieked against the floor. ‘What’s happened? It’s Becca, isn’t it?’

‘Becca?’ Maggie seemed confused. ‘Becca – no. No. Robin, can we …?’

Robin stood, her heart starting to beat faster. What the hell? It was there, she wasn’t imagining it, the care with which Maggie said her name. Disorientated, she followed her down the narrow hallway and back outside. The door banged shut behind them. It had started drizzling again while they were inside, she’d seen it through the kitchen window, but now it was properly raining. ‘What’s going on?’

‘In the car.’

The automatic fob flashed the lights. Robin opened the door then hesitated. As she dropped into her seat, she realized she was begging: Please, not Lennie.

Maggie’s door slammed shut. She bowed her head then took a breath. ‘That was Alan Nuttall on the phone.’

Relief, followed immediately by guilt. ‘So it is Rebecca?’

‘No, it’s nothing to do with this. He was calling to see if I knew about something that came in last night.’

Last night – not Lennie. Sheer, exhilarating relief – thank god. ‘So what was it?’

‘There was a house fire in Edgbaston. They’re still looking for the husband – he’s missing. The boy’s injured, badly injured, but alive. The wife … she didn’t make it.’ Maggie reached across the gearstick and took her hand.

Robin stared at Maggie’s giant turquoise ring. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘What I’m trying to say … Rob, it’s Corinna.’

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