He stared at her for a moment in surprise. She had spoken too loudly, she realised, and people at neighbouring tables were eyeing her.
‘I think maybe you’re a bit mixed up, Kathy,’ he said eventually, quite softly.
‘That’s condescending crap!’ she snapped back, and turned away from him. She felt herself trembling, and the thought came into her head, What the hell am I doing? She realised that John, the proprietor, was gazing at her from behind the bar, a slightly puzzled look on his face. He caught her eye and came over to them.
‘All done here?’ he said. ‘Like to see the dessert menu? Coffees?’
They both said no, giving him flat smiles, and without looking at each other.
‘I should tell you that we won’t be open tomorrow night, just in case you were thinking of coming in.’
‘Something on?’ Leon said.
‘Gran’s ninetieth. We’re having a family get-together. Five generations.’
‘Five?’
‘Yeah. Gran’s ninety, Mum’s sixty-six, I’m forty-one, Gina’s twenty-one, and her baby’s almost two.’
‘Wonderful,’ Leon said, without enthusiasm. ‘Give Gran our best.’
‘Yeah, I will. So we’re closing the restaurant to have the party in here. But we’re having open house for our regulars between six and seven to drink the health of the old lady, if you can join us.’
‘Thanks, John,’ Leon said. ‘We’d like to do that, but we’re going up north tomorrow evening. At least,’ he added coolly, ‘I am.’
Later, when they got home, Kathy grabbed him and kissed him and they told each other they were being silly and needed to have a good swim, or a good fuck. Though even while they were doing that, Kathy couldn’t help thinking: What do you mean, you are?
Afterwards, curled against him, Kathy asked him drowsily what he’d meant.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Are you still on?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. I’ve booked a room at the Adelphi. For two nights.’
‘Two?’
‘Yes. I thought we could come back on Thursday evening, give us more time. The train leaves tomorrow at eight p.m. What do you think?’
‘Perfect,’ she said sleepily.
‘You’ll get away from work in time?’
‘Of course. I do have a life…’
16
K athy woke in a sober mood, and sensed the same in Leon. They washed, dressed and breakfasted with care not to give offence. But there was another mood beneath the caution, which Kathy felt and kept to herself, one of private determination.
She stopped first at the incident room in Hornchurch Street to pick up some materials. There was one message for her there, several days old, marked ‘not urgent’ and therefore put aside in the panic over the hold-up. Alison Vlasich had rung. Kathy hesitated, reluctant to be distracted from what she’d planned to do that morning, then dialled the number and arranged to call in to the Herbert Morrison estate right away.
Prepared by her phone call, Alison Vlasich answered the door immediately when Kathy arrived, her face fresh with make-up.
‘I wasn’t sure if I’d catch you in when I phoned,’ Kathy said. ‘I thought you might be back at work.’
‘Yes, I am. I started back yesterday, but I’m not on till eleven.’
‘That’s good, that you’re back. And are you getting out a bit, with friends?’ Kathy looked round the living room for any signs of a male admirer, but all she could see was the striking neatness of it all, as if Alison lived here like a ghost, without disturbing anything.
‘Now and again. Sit down.’
‘Thanks. What can I do for you?’
‘It was about that story at the hospital, about the old woman with the missing daughter, that you asked me to check.’
‘Ah, yes. Did you find out any more about that?’
‘I did speak to the cook, but she couldn’t remember who she’d heard it from. She thought it might have been one of the nurses from Sister McLeod’s ward, but she wasn’t sure…’ Her voice tailed off.
‘I’m sorry. It’s not much help is it? I could have told you over the phone.’
Kathy guessed that Alison needed to feel she was doing something to help, and she said, ‘No, that’s fine. That’s useful. I can speak to Sister McLeod if I need to follow it up.’
‘Do you think you will?’
‘Maybe not at this stage. It doesn’t look a very promising line of enquiry after all.’
‘Oh.’ Alison nodded sadly. ‘I’m glad really. I wouldn’t like to think that there’ve been others. But you’re still working on the case?’
‘Still trying to tie up loose ends,’ Kathy said, and, more to sound convincing than anything more positive, she took from her shoulder bag an A4 envelope she’d picked up at Hornchurch Street. She slid out the photographs onto the coffee table, stills blown up from the security camera shots of North a week before together with file pictures of some of his old associates. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen this man before?’
She imagined what Leon would think of the question: a stab in the dark. And of course Alison hadn’t seen him before. And yet Kathy, watching her shake her head blankly, felt a small pang of irrational annoyance at fate, such as you feel when your lottery ticket doesn’t make you rich, even though you know the odds are fourteen million to one.
‘Sorry. Was it important?’
‘No, not in the least.’ Kathy gathered up the pictures and glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better get going.’
‘Me too. I’ll need to go for my bus.’
‘It’s West Essex General, isn’t it, where you work?’ Kathy said. ‘I’ll drop you off if you like. It’s not out of my way.’
On the road they talked about neutral things: the hospital and the problems and advantages of working for big organisations. Then, as Kathy turned into the carpark, Alison pointed to a side wing and said that that was where Sister McLeod’s ward was.
‘I suppose… I could show you how to get there if you wanted.’
It was as if they both felt compelled to follow through with this, though neither was enthusiastic.
‘Oh, yes,’ Kathy said. ‘Yes, I suppose you could.’
Kathy studied the illuminated information map in the foyer of the hospital, trying to work out the way to geriatrics, but without success. The plan looked like a wiring diagram or printed circuit, with a maze of corridors and departments. Even with a route map she doubted if she could follow the way. Fortunately, when she asked at the enquiries desk, she discovered that the administration of West Essex General had solved this problem. The main circulation routes had recently been ‘themed’, the woman explained, to make it easy to find your way around, the themes being modelled on popular TV series. Thus you might follow the Coronation Street route to obstetrics and gynaecology, or Dr Who to orthopaedics. As she followed Emmerdale to geriatrics, Kathy began to feel that the make-believe world of the mall was leaching out into the world at large, and wondered if the nurses would be dressed like milkmaids. Thankfully they were not.
Sister McLeod was a big, black, irrepressibly cheerful woman whose principal therapeutic quality lay in her ability to dispel introspection and self-pity among the old wrecks in her care. Kathy followed her down the ward to her little office, her banter leaving a trail of wry chuckles and wincing smiles in their wake.
‘Alison Vlasich?’ She pondered as they sat down. ‘Is she a redhead?’
‘No,’ Kathy said. ‘Light brown hair, shoulder length. Thin, pale complexion.’
‘Anaemic-looking? Looks like she needs a good steak and a Guinness?’
‘Yes, I’d say she does.’
‘I think I can place her. In the kitchens, behind the counter. So it was her daughter they found? Poor woman, that’s terrible.’
‘She happened to mention to us that she’d heard stories here of another girl disappearing at Silvermeadow.’