He was back with his paper just as she was coming downstairs. As they walked together into the living room the phone rang. Again she thought, it will be the police. Or Lant himself. Lant. He knows. He must have seen me this morning. She picked up the phone and said, ‘Hello?’
Alex was standing behind her. She said into the phone, ‘Who is that?’ There was silence, no heavy breathing, just silence. ‘Who is it?’ Her voice sounded strained, panicky. There was no answer and she put the phone down.
She turned to Alex. He had sat down, the paper on his knees.
‘Who was that?’ he said. ‘Was it someone you knew?’
‘I don’t know who it was,’ she said, her eyes meeting his. ‘He didn’t speak.’
‘He?’
‘He, she, I told you I don’t know. They didn’t say anything.’
That had been a mistake, a bad mistake for a good liar to make.
Alex said in his quiet gentle way, ‘When my friend George was married to his first wife, they got a lot of phone calls from one of these silent callers. If he answered, there was no one there. When she answered while George was with her she would say ‘Who is that?’ but got no answer either. Of course he didn’t know what she said when he wasn’t with her.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Polly said, though she did.
‘Oh, well,’ said Alex. ‘Soon after that she went off with a chap she’d been seeing.’
After they had had lunch they went to the cinema.
Polly watched the film but after it was over she couldn’t have said what it was about or even who was in it. She was thinking about the money and Lant’s clothes and the phone call. Above all, the phone call. She had never had a phone call like it before. It must have been Lant. He hadn’t said a word, but she knew it was Lant. He might not have seen her that morning, but he had guessed it was she who had taken his case. Somehow he had found out where she lived. Not from the phone book. Only Alex’s name was in the phone book. This address was on her bags while she was waiting in the check-in queues. He must have noted it down either going to New York or coming back. But no, that must have been him in the car park. That must have been him following her. So he would know her address. Why? Because he too would want revenge?
Her address but not her phone number… Directory Enquiries would have given him that. Dial one-one-eight, five hundred. Get the voters’ list online, then give Alex’s name and address. It was easy. What would Lant do next?
Why hadn’t he been to the police? What was he doing? Maybe it was something to do with the money. It might not be his. He might have stolen it. If that was the case, the last people he would go to were the police. That must be the answer.
She felt a huge relief. Lant wouldn’t tell the police because the money wasn’t his. But she must get it back to him. Polly thought of all the films she had seen in which gangsters had money stolen from them. Money they had stolen, but which they still thought of as theirs. The first thing they did was get revenge. Lant would do what her father called taking the law into his own hands…
She must get the money back to him. But she must do it soon. She dared not wait till Monday. That would give him all tomorrow to get his revenge.
She must do it now. Lant might come here and harm her or, worse, Alex. As they came out of the cinema Alex said, ‘I didn’t think much of that, did you? Not the way that woman acted. Real life isn’t like that.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, you’re right.’
She could remember very little of it but she knew real life wasn’t like that.
CHAPTER SIX
‘I HAVE TO GO out again,’ she said.
Alex said, ‘OK, I’ll come with you.’
‘Oh, no, I’m going to Louise’s. You won’t want to come. You don’t like her. I borrowed a pashmina from her before I went away and I ought to take it back.’
He said, his face a blank, ‘I promise not to phone her this time.’
Polly didn’t know what to say. She smiled, her face stiff, remembering. It had been Louise’s birthday, her twenty-fifth. Polly had sent her a birthday card but knew nothing about the party. It was Roz who had gone to the party and, thinking Polly couldn’t go, had told her about it next day. Polly remembered how hurt she had been and how angry. Not to be asked, and she was Louise’s best friend! Next time she was at Louise’s she went into her bedroom and took the handbag. On the way home – it was before she knew Alex – she stopped on the canal bridge in the dark. Holding the bag over the side, she let it slip down into the black shiny water. She could still hear the sound of the splash and feel a drop of water from the spray. Later she found out Louise had sent her a card, inviting her, but it had got lost in the post.
‘We’re due at your parents at seven.’ Alex kissed her. ‘Don’t be long.’
‘I won’t,’ she said. His kiss seemed to burn her as if she was guilty of some crime against him.
She was. She had lied to him again. She ran upstairs, took the money out of her underwear drawer and put it into the biggest bag she had. It was only when she was outside and in the car that she realised she had forgotten Lant’s clothes. They were still dirty. She would wash them tomorrow and send them back to him by post. How easy all this would be if she – and Lant – had come back from New York on a Wednesday, if today was Thursday and Alex was at work. As it was, nothing was easy. She mustn’t be long. She mustn’t give Alex reason to suspect her again.
Lant’s bright blue car was still on his driveway, just as it had been in the morning, but the orange carry-on bag was no longer inside it. It was later now than she had been yesterday, very cold but dry and the sky clear. Far above the street lamps and the bare tree branches she could see the curve of a bright white moon. Lights were on upstairs and down in Lant’s house. Behind the curtains those lights looked orange, the colour he loved. She sat in the dark car on the other side of the street and a little way up. A car was parked in front of hers and one behind hers. If he looked out of that orange window he wouldn’t be able to see her.
As the engine cooled the inside of the car grew cold. She began to shake with cold, wishing she had worn a warmer coat. It was just a quarter past six. She had hoped his car would be gone, his house in darkness, and she would quickly have been able to return the money. Suppose she were to drive round a bit, just to have the heater on. She would get warm but he might go out while she was away. It would be better to see him go out. She shivered with the cold, rubbed her hands, and her upper arms.
At twenty to seven the upstairs light in his house went out. The two downstairs lights stayed on, the one in the front room and the one she could see in his hallway, through the glass panel above the front door. She drew a deep breath, sick with waiting. Her hands were cold as ice. It seemed like hours before that front room light went out. In fact it was ten minutes. She thought, he must go now, please let him go now, or I shall be late and then what shall I say to Alex?
I could phone him. I could phone my mother. And say what? That I’m stuck in a traffic jam? I can’t leave here now, not when he’ll come out at any minute. His hallway light stayed on. Maybe he left it on when he went out. People did that, she did that, to make burglars think someone was at home. The only thief here was herself…
The front door opened and he came out. She thought, now I know for sure it’s him. I wasn’t quite sure before but now I know. In the light from a street lamp and the glass panel above his front door, she saw he was wearing the same black suit with a camel coat over it. His shirt was red, his tie red and black. He didn’t look her way but got into his car, started the engine and turned on the headlights. It was three minutes to seven when he drove away.
She didn’t waste any time but got out of her car, walked quickly across the street and up to the front door. On the doorstep she thought, maybe someone is in and they’ll come to the door when I open the letter box. Trying to be very quiet, she pushed open the flap and put the first envelope in. No one came. There was silence. The other envelopes next, one, two, three. She thought she heard a sound from inside and her hand shook again, the way it had from the cold. Maybe there was no one there. He could have a dog or a cat that made that noise. She waited, listened. Nothing. She put the rest of the envelopes through, heard the last of them fall on to the mat.