If that happened, Ben knew Kale wouldn’t stop until he was dead.
At six o’clock he threw back the quilt and got up. It was still dark outside. He turned on the lights and tried to shrug off the disjointed feeling that still hung over him. He showered, treating himself to longer than usual, and under the hot needles he immediately began to feel tired. He was tempted to go back to bed, but he knew if he did he’d feel worse than ever when it came to getting up again in an hour or two’s time.
He went downstairs, switched on the radio and set some coffee percolating. Jacob used to like morning TV, but Ben couldn’t bear to listen to it now. He ate a bowl of cereal standing by the kitchen window while he waited for the toast.
There was a faint paleness in the sky, but not enough to suggest that daylight was on its way. He put his dish in the bowl and spread sunflower margarine on the toast. Sarah had weaned him off butter and he still felt guilty if he spread anything remotely cholesterol-friendly on his bread.
By the time he’d finished breakfast it was almost seven.
He had to be at the studio later that morning for the day’s shoot, a fashion piece for a magazine. But he still had time to kill. He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. The salt and pepper mills lay exactly where he’d left them the night before. At the far end of the table was a ring from the coffee mug he’d almost knocked over the previous morning. He’d meant to wipe it up but had forgotten. The stain would stay there until he did something about it. He looked around the kitchen. Everything in it would remain exactly as it was now, unless he made it otherwise. There was no one to scold him for not washing the dishes, no one to move a chair out of place, to disturb a single spoon except him.
It struck him with a painful clarity how alone he was.
He wondered why he didn’t move to somewhere smaller. The house was far too big for him, and the empty rooms only reminded him of what he’d lost. He felt no sentimental attachment to it. It was part of the life he’d had with Sarah, but that life had ended. It made more sense to sell it and buy a flat, big enough to have a darkroom, not so big that felt lost in it. Time to move on, cut his losses and get on with building a new life instead of living in the shadows of the old.
So why don’t you?
He couldn’t answer that. Any more than he could explain why he had held on to the old toys and clothes of Jacob’s that the Kales hadn’t wanted instead of getting rid of them as he had Sarah’s belongings. He knew that the two issues were connected, but he wasn’t ready yet to face up to them.
Not at seven o’clock in the morning.
Make that five past, he thought, glancing at the clock.
Hours yet before he had to be at the studio. Fuck it.
He went upstairs to get dressed.
It had grudgingly lightened when he set off for Tunford, as though the day felt as unenthusiastic about starting as he did. He turned on the car heater full to drive away the chill as he set off. With luck he’d miss the heaviest of the rush-hour traffic and shave something off the one-and-a-half-hour run.
He would have three-quarters of an hour there at best, and might just catch the Kales at breakfast. He knew there was no real point to the journey, but the town had become his magnetic north. He swung to it automatically when there was no other draw on his attention.
The sleepless night had made him gritty-eyed and irritable. He yawned as he moved into the motorway’s inside lane for the Tunford exit There were flashing red lights up ahead. The slip road was walled off by a line of orange cones, clustered with workmen and earth-shifting machinery.
“Fucking great.”
He could still get to Tunford from the next junction but it would take longer, cutting into the time he could spend there. His mood deteriorated with each mile, and dropped still lower after he took the next turnoff and found there were no road signs. He consulted the map. He would have to come in from the opposite direction to usual, joining the road that linked Tunford and the next town at the halfway point. Tossing the map on to the seat in disgust, he set off again, sure now that Kale and Jacob would have left by the time he arrived.
Although Sandra would still be there, perhaps still in bed.
Ben had never seen her getting up.
It took him ten minutes to reach the connecting road. He pulled up at a give-way sign, waiting for a gap in the traffic.
One of the cars approaching was a rusting Ford Escort. That’s like Kale’s, he thought, a moment before he recognised Kale himself behind the wheel. Jacob was next to him.
The car shot by in a blat of exhaust. He briefly considered the possibility that Kale might be taking his son to school, but somehow he knew he wasn’t. There was a fleeting regret that he wouldn’t see Sandra getting up after all, then he flicked the indicator the other way and went after them.
He hung back, keeping other cars in between himself and the Escort as he followed. He was already certain where they were going even before the scrapyard’s barbed-wire-topped wall came into sight. He drove past after Kale’s car had disappeared inside, then made a tight U-turn and parked a little further down the road.
From there he could see anything that came in or out of the tall gates. He felt a tight anger at himself for not realising sooner what Kale was doing. All this time he’d never given a thought to the fact that when Kale was at work, Jacob wasn’t around either. He remembered the smudges and oil stains he’d noticed on Jacob’s clothes and wondered how he could have been so stupid. He should have known that Kale didn’t want anything coming between him and his son. Including school.
Still watching the gates, Ben took out his mobile and found the number of Jacob’s social worker from his address book. A woman told him that Carlisle hadn’t arrived yet. He rang off and tried ten minutes later, then ten minutes after that, ignoring the woman’s growing irritation until finally Carlisle himself answered. The social worker sounded wary. So you fucking should.
The question boiled out of him. “Jacob’s been missing school, hasn’t he?”
There was a hesitation. “Who’s told you that?”
“Never mind who’s told me. It’s true, isn’t it?” Ben counted to three before the social worker answered.
“There has been some problem about attendance, but—”
“Some ‘problem’? He isn’t going, is he?”
“Mr Murray, I don’t—”
“Is he?”
Again there was a pause. “The situation is being monitored.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly that. And I don’t think there’s any call for being abusive.”
Ben took a deep breath. “I apologise.” He waited until the desire to scream at the man faded. “How long’s this been going on?”
“That’s something I really can’t discuss.”
“Look, if you don’t tell me I’ll ask the school myself!”
“I’m afraid I’m not—”
“Has he been at all since he’s been living with Kale? He hasn’t, has he?”
He could hear Carlisle’s reluctance. “Er... well, actually no, I don’t believe he has.”
Ben didn’t trust himself to speak.
“There’s been some confusion over whether or not Jacob’s been well enough to attend,” Carlisle said, defensive now. “Mr and Mrs Kale — well, Mrs Kale, really — claims that he has a virus. We’ve warned them that we need to see a doctor’s certificate, and that it’s illegal to keep Jacob off school without one.”
And I bet that made a lot of difference. Ben stared across the road at the scrapyard. “Kale’s been taking him to work with him. That’s why he isn’t at school, not because he’s got a ‘virus’.”