Alatea took this in fully and realised what it meant, not only to her but to Nicky and to their life together. She said, “He’s here, in Cumbria?”
“He’s been here for days. I thought you would have known. Didn’t he— ”
“Where is he now? Tell me.”
“Windermere, I think. Other than that, I don’t know.”
Nothing else remained to be said, but many things remained to be done. Alatea said good-bye to the woman and like someone in a dream, she gathered everything she’d brought down from the bedroom in the hope of bribing her. It was just as well, she thought, that the woman had refused her offerings. She would need them now herself in the coming days, for she’d run out of options.
She went back up the stairs to the bedroom and threw the jewellery and money onto the bed. From the box room at the end of the corridor, she brought out a small valise. There was little enough time to gather the things she would need.
Back in the bedroom, she went to the chest of drawers. It stood between two windows and the sound of a car door slamming outside drew her attention to the front of the house again. She saw that, on the worst possible day, Nicky had come home from the pele project early. He was now in conversation with the red-haired woman. He was violent faced. His voice grew loud although through the glass of the window, Alatea could not understand his words.
But understanding the words didn’t matter. Only the fact that they were speaking to each other mattered. That in conjunction with Nicky’s expression gave testimony to the topic between them. Seeing this, Alatea saw also that even when it came to escape, she was out of options. She could not leave in her car, for Nicky and the woman stood on the fan of gravel across which she would need to drive. She could not go by foot to the railway station at the far end of Arnside village, for the only route there went directly between her husband and the woman where they stood talking. So she prayed for some kind of answer to come to her and she paced the room until she saw it. It was through the window, just as the vision of Nicky and the red-haired woman had been. But it was the window on a wall perpendicular to that which overlooked the driveway. This window offered a view of the lawn and beyond it the seawall sketched a stony line of demarcation between the lawn and the sea walk along the bay, beyond which was the bay itself.
Today was one of the days during which the tide had ebbed for miles. This meant the remaining sands were hers. She could cross them and make for Grange-over-Sands a few miles away. Another railway station awaited her there. All she needed to do was to reach it.
Just a few miles, then. That was all she needed, and she would be free.
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
Tim had spent the night beneath a caravan at Fallbarrow Park, at the edge of the lake. On his way there from Shots!, he’d pinched a blanket from the Windermere fire station, where a smoke-scented stack of them just inside an open door seemed like a message telling him that here were his means of passing the time until Toy4You was ready for him. He himself was ready for Toy4You. He felt the need for escape like a weight on his chest. Soon, he told himself, he’d have the only answer he’d wanted to the question that his life had become since Kaveh Mehran had sauntered into it.
The caravan provided him shelter from the night’s rain, and against a tyre and huddled into his stolen blanket, he escaped the worst of the cold. Thus he’d slept rough and when he returned to the business centre towards the end of an afternoon the day of which he’d spent sulking round the town, he looked as bad as he felt, most of his bones aching and every inch of him reeking.
Toy4You directed one glance at him and had one whiff of him and said, in brief, “No way in hell.” He pointed him in the direction of the loo, told him to do what he could to make himself less malodorous, and when Tim emerged he handed him three twenty-pound notes. “Go into town and get something decent to wear,” he told him. “If you think you’re going to meet your fellow actors looking like that, think again. They won’t want anything to do with you.”
Tim said, “What’s the problem? It’s not like we’ll have our clothes on, is it?”
Toy4You made a thin line of his lips. “Get something to eat, as well. I don’t want you complaining in the middle of things that you’ve missed your dinner.”
“I’m not going to complain.”
“That’s where they all begin.”
“Fuck,” Tim said as he took the money. “Whatever.”
“Exactly right,” Toy4You said sardonically. “That’s the spirit, mate. Fuck whatever.”
When he left Shots!, Tim headed back for the shops. He found, oddly enough, that he was hungry. He’d thought it unlikely he’d ever be eating again, but a hunger came on him as he passed the fire station again and the scent of bacon on the grill formed a cloud through which he passed. The smell made his mouth water unexpectedly. It put him in mind of breakfasts in his childhood: hot bacon rolls and scrambled eggs. His stomach rumbled accordingly. Okay, he thought, so he would find something to eat. He’d get the clothing first, though. He knew where an Oxfam was in the centre of town, and that would do when it came to trousers and some kind of jersey. No way in hell was he about to purchase something new from one of the other shops. Waste of money, that. He wouldn’t need new clothes after today.
At Oxfam he found a pair of old corduroy trousers, worn in the arse, but they were in his size and that was good enough for Tim. To this he added a polo-neck sweater and as he already had shoes, socks, and an anorak, he needed nothing else. The purchase left him with plenty of money to buy a meal, but he reckoned he’d just get a sandwich from the grocery, perhaps a bag of Kettle Chips and a drink as well. The rest he’d post to Gracie inside a card. He’d write a message about taking care of herself first and worrying about the rest of the world later because no one, he would tell her, was about to take care of her no matter how nice she tried to be to them. Then he’d apologise about Bella. He still felt dead awful that he’d damaged Bella. He hoped the woman at the electronics repair shop could fix her properly.
It was funny, though, Tim thought as he left Oxfam with his purchases and made for the grocery. He was actually feeling a bit lighter. He’d made a decision and relief came with it. It was odd to consider that for so very long he’d felt so terribly wretched when all he ever had had to do was simply decide.
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
They had to wait nearly a half hour at the police station in Windermere, which was where Freddie drove them. They had Tim’s laptop with them as well as the map the boy had printed out. Both of them had thought that simply walking into the police station and announcing they had information about a child pornography ring was going to light a serious conflagration under someone’s office chair, but that had not been the case. Like a doctor’s surgery, they had to wait their turn and as each moment passed, Manette’s anxiety climbed roofward.
“It’s all right, old girl,” Freddie had murmured more than once. He’d taken to holding her hand as well, and he made gentle finger circles upon it, just as he’d done in the early days of their marriage. “We’ll manage it all in time.”
“Whatever it is,” Manette said. “Freddie, you and I both know it could already have happened. It could be going on while we’re waiting here. He could be… they could be… I blame Niamh for this.”
“No point in blaming,” Freddie said quietly. “That’s not going to get us the boy.”
When at last they were ushered into an office, Freddie quickly logged on to Tim’s e-mail and brought up the exchanges the boy had had with Toy4You as well as the photos and videos that had been sent to him. Once again and ever the gentleman, Freddie made sure that Manette couldn’t see what the films were, but she could tell from the expression on the constable’s face that they were indeed as bad as Freddie had indicated.