You foul-mouthed slut! And put that cigarette out!
A hand snakes out. Flesh cracks on flesh, the cigarette goes flying in a trail of sparks.
You rotten slag! Ill get the law on you for this! My mumll have your eyes out when I tell her.
Betty, come back. Not that way. Betty!
No need to shout, said Mrs Maguire. You always were too sensitive, even as a child. Stop dwelling on things. Youll never get anywhere if youre always lugging the past along with you. Oliver, thats not to play with. Oliver, put that down There, now look what youve done. Are you not going to chastise him then? Its the only way hell learn.
Therell be none of that, not with my son, Mam.
No? Well, its your business, I suppose. And itll be you who gets to suffer later. But Ill tell you this, my girl. I kept that ornament on that shelf all the time you were growing up, and it never got broken. So make what you like of that!
The streets of home, unchanged but measuring change, familiar sights that no longer include her, that make her a ghost.
Then suddenly a welcoming and welcome voice.
Jane? Jane Maguire! Id know that hair anywhere. I didnt know you were back in Northampton.
Jimmy. How are you? Its good to see you. Still running the club?
Such as it is. Tell you what, Jane, we could do with a few young prospects like you. Remember the Junior AA? By God, you shifted that day! I thought, another two, three years, next Olympics maybe Anyway, what are you doing now? You went to PE college, didnt you?
Thats right. But I didnt take to teaching. I worked as a recreation officer with a cruise firm for a while, but now Im back on the market. Any ideas?
A shrewd examination. Still in good shape? You look it. PE qualifications? Aerobics, physiotherapy, that kind of thing?
I did a bit on the liners. And I specialized in sports injuries at college. Why?
Chum of mine, George Granger, has started a health centre and I know hes looking for qualified staff. Trouble is, its down in Romchurch, just outside London, so it wont be cheap living and I doubt if hell be paying a fortune.
Romchurch in Essex? I did my training in Essex, near Basildon, not too far away
The returning ghost clings to the familiar
Jimmy, can you give me a number? Essex would suit me very well.
Going? said Mrs Maguire. But youve been here no time at all.
Nearly a month. Its long enough.
This job. I thought you said you werent starting till the beginning of September?
Ive got things to do, arrangements to make.
About Oliver, you mean?
About Noll. Yes. And other things.
I dont see how youre going to be able to work and look after him. Hell be a tie. Youre not settled inside yourself yet, I can see that. Why dont you leave him here till you see how things work out?
Leave him with you, you mean?
No need to sound so disbelieving. Ive got used to him. Hes a bit on the spoilt side, maybe, but thats the Yank way, and hes young enough not to have suffered any lasting damage. His old gran will soon lick him into shape
No way!
Well, its a fair offer and for the childs sake, Ill let it stand. Remember that when things start going wrong for you, as they surely will. Its not your fault, you take after your da, God rest his soul, and like him, youre proud and stubborn, never admitting youre in the wrong, always looking for someone else to blame
How dare you! You of all people, after what you did to him and me
There you go. What was it I just said? Well, blame me all you like, my girl, but remember, therell be no excuse for blaming little Oliver, not when hes got a good home waiting for him here.
She left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
Jane stood for half a minute, perfectly still. She forced herself to relax, but when she looked down she saw that her hands were still tightly balled into fists. Slowly, finger by finger, she opened them wide.
Her power over me is finished, she told herself. The power of family, the power of priests. Its all in the past, everything is in the past, my mistakes, other peoples mistakes. The future is mine to make it what I will. Mine and Nolls. Together.
Nothing will make me leave him here.
Id rather
Nothing!
2
It was still raining when Jane Maguire came out of the pub.
Shed had three gin-and-tonics and a packet of crisps which shed only bought because the barman had said, You OK, darling? as she ordered the third gin, as if buying something to eat changed her from a woman with a problem to a working girl on her lunch break.
Coatless, she ran across the car park, feeling as light and easy as when shed been fourteen and one of the best sprint prospects in England. She hadnt bothered to lock the car. Once inside, only a madman would steal it. There were spoors of rain down the windows where the sealing had perished, and the carpet was soggy through the rust holes in the floor.
But at least it started first time. There was always something to be grateful for, as her mother used to say. Including presumably slaps across the leg.
She didnt want to think about that, not after this morning.
She drove steadily, blanking out past and future. Dead on three, she turned into Charnwood Grove. Perhaps once the narrow street had been lined with trees, but now only a few lamp posts rose between the twin terraces of big bayed Edwardian villas confronting each other so self-importantly, like wise guardians of the poor where had that phrase popped up from? It was hardly apt, especially at this time of day. Until the arrival of her mobile rust bucket, there was little sign of poverty outside Number Twenty-nine which housed the Vestey Kindergarten. Mercs, BMWs and Audis gleamed and purred here, most of them newish and many, she guessed, second cars. Fathers sometimes figured in the morning drop, but the afternoon pick-up was entirely female.
As she went up the steps a couple of women, expensively wrapped against the rain, looked at her strangely. Nearly three months of twice daily encounters hadnt got her past the nodding stage with any of them. She didnt blame them. People who drove cars like theirs steered clear of people who drove cars like hers in every sense! She paused in the doorway to confirm their wisdom by shaking the raindrops out of her hair, then stepped inside.
Mrs Vestey did her best with beeswax polish and ozone-friendly aerosols, but on a wet day it was beyond even her powers to stop the school from smelling like a school. As usual she was standing by the entrance to the cloakroom, in which a melee of staff and mothers were preparing the youngsters for the perilous passage from front door to kerb. She was a tall, dark woman with a slightly hooked nose and long white teeth which she flashed in a welcoming smile as she said, Hello, Mrs Maguire. No problems, I hope?
No, said Jane harshly.
No, said Jane harshly.
Oh, good. I feared that you might be going to tell me that the little upset had turned into something communicable. Its a constant nightmare as Im sure you can imagine. So, what can I do for you?
Nothing, said Jane. Ill just pick up Noll and be on my way.
She pushed past the headmistress into the cloakroom and stood there a minute looking at the children.
Then she turned and said quietly to Mrs Vestey, Wheres Noll?
The woman gave her another long-toothed smile, this time not of welcome but incomprehension. At the same time her nostrils flared as though catching a worrying scent.
And Jane knew that the moment was close, the moment when fear became fact. But there were still lines to speak.
Please, Mrs Vestey, she said, has something happened? Has he been taken ill?
Yes, yes at least I understood so said the woman uncertainly. But you yourself
She paused, took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, it was in the assertive tone of someone who needs to get basic facts established in a welter of uncertainty.
Noll is not here, Mrs Maguire, she said.
Not here? Where is he then? Has he been taken to hospital? Why wasnt I
No! Mrs Maguire, interrupted Mrs Vestey, I mean Noll has never been here today. You yourself rang to say he was ill
I rang? What do you mean? Why should I
Someone rang, said Mrs Vestey firmly. But if it wasnt you, then why didnt you bring Noll to school as usual?
I did! cried Jane, her voice rising now and attracting the attention of other parents. I did!
You brought him yourself? And brought him inside?
No, admitted Jane. Not inside. I was going to, but I was very late, so I left him on the steps with Miss Gosling
Im sorry? With whom?
Miss Gosling. For Gods sake, what kind of school is this where you dont know your own staff?
I know my staff very well, said Mrs Vestey. And I assure you, I employ no one called Gosling.
So Ive got the name wrong! cried Jane in a voice of rising panic. Shes the new one. She started last week. I want to see her, where is she? Whats she done with Noll?
And now a little compassion crept into Mrs Vesteys voice as she produced her clinching argument.
Perhaps youd better sit down, Mrs Maguire. I can assure you I have appointed no new member of staff for over a year now, so whoever you left your son with had no connection with this establishment. Mrs Maguire, are you all right? Mrs Maguire!
But Jane was swaying away from her. This was worse than her worst imaginings. Her body was no longer her own. She heard a voice say, Its all my fault. I shouldnt have hit him. The room turned and a carousel of anxious races undulated round her. But she could see beneath their surface concern to the grinning skulls, and the wintry light was flickering at the edges as though cast by flame.
It was time to fall into that flame and let it consume her.
3
Dog Cicero dropped a few threads of cheap Italian tobacco into a paper, rolled it between finger and thumb, lit it, and puffed a jet of smoke at the NO SMOKING sign.
A nurse came out of the door in front of him and said, Cant you read?
He said, Best five card stud man my Uncle Endo ever played couldnt read a word.
She looked at him blankly. He tossed the cigarette into a fire bucket. It had given him what he wanted, the tobacco smell to remind him of his father living and mask the hospital smell, which reminded him of his father dying.
The nurse said, You can go in now.
He went through the door and looked down at the woman in the bed.
He saw a pair of dark green eyes, huge in an ashen face framed in a sunburst of red hair which almost concealed the pillow.
The green eyes saw a face out of an old Italian painting, lean, sallow, with a long nose, a jagged fringe of black hair, and deep watchful eyes. It was a mobile and humorous face. At least the right side was. The left was stiff with a shiny scar running like a frozen river from the ear across the cheek to the point of the jaw. Her gaze slipped away from it. He was wearing a light blue denim jacket, damp around the shoulders.
She said, Is it still raining?
Her voice was soft, with a whisper of a brogue in it so distant he might have missed it if the hair and the eyes hadnt sensitized his ears.
He half turned his head so the frozen side faced her and said, as if shed asked several other questions, Youre in hospital, Mrs Maguire. Its three-fifty. When you fainted, you banged your head.
She sat up, felt pain spark through her skull, ignored it.
She said, Noll, and began to cry.
He said, Im Detective Inspector Cicero of Romchurch CID. Weve put out an alert but we need more details.
I cant stay here, she said urgently. If theres any contact
Ive sent a man to your flat, he interrupted. We borrowed your key. Look, the doctors want to X-ray your head, treat you for shock, give you sedatives, but I said youd want to talk first.
Yes.
The tears had stopped. It wasnt control, just a break in the weather.
He said, Weve got the photo from the kindergarten files. But we need to know what he was wearing.
She said, Black shoes, grey trousers, blue sweater over a white short-sleeved shirt, blue quilted anorak with a hood.
He said, Get that out, Scott. For the first time she realized there was a uniformed woman constable at the other side of the bed, taking notes. Their eyes met. The policewoman, a pretty girl of about nineteen, smiled uncertainly, decided smiles were inappropriate, flushed and hurried out.
Right, Mrs Maguire, said Dog Cicero. Were doing everything we can to get your son back, believe me. I just need to ask a few questions to make sure were not missing anything. OK?
She looked at him dully and he nodded as if acknowledging her agreement.
Your full name is Jane Maguire? And from the form you filled in for the kindergarten, I gather youre a widow?
She nodded. Once.
Could I ask how long it is since Mr Maguire
Beck. She interrupted his search for a euphemism. His name is was Beck. I started using my own name again when I came back.
From where?
America. He was American. He died eight months ago. In a boating accident. He drowned.
Im sorry, said Dog formally. Now, weve got your address. Do you live alone, by the way?
He dropped it in casually. Johnson, the DC dispatched to Maguires flat, would have checked it out by now, but he wanted to see the womans reaction.
She said, I live with Noll. My son. No boy friend, if thats what you mean.
No live-in boy friend, or no boy friend period?
No boy friend, no lover, no one, period! she said harshly.
It was a strong reaction. Worth pressing? Not yet, he decided. First get the facts. Or at least, get her story.
He said, OK. Now, in your own time, tell me what happened. Start when you left your flat this morning.