‘Right,’ she says, opening the car door. ‘Well. Personally, I think the pair of you would benefit from a good spanking, but there you go.’
She slams the door, starts the engine and winds down the window. ‘And get some Dettol on those cuts,’ she orders. ‘They’ll go septic. Honestly. You should be taking care of your little sister, not treating her like a doll or something.’
She puts the car into gear and drives away. The three girls – two standing, one glowering on the verge between them – watch her leave, silently.
‘Three bags full, Mrs Tonge,’ says Jade. She aims a sly kick at Chloe’s thigh. ‘That’s for getting us into trouble. Come on. Get up. Any more noise from you and we’ll just leave you here.’
Chapter Thirty-six
Everyone who still reads a newspaper has their ritual for doing so: the place and time and posture they reserve for only this activity. Lunch hours, commutes, those snatched moments when the baby’s gone down for her nap; a ritual more personal than anything the television can offer. On a normal day, Kirsty and Stan and their peers skim them all online while the kettle’s boiling and the twenty-four-hour news channels play in the background. While they wait for conference to be over and commissions to come in, they fish through the Reuters and AP news feeds to give them a chance to get ahead of the game; then, mostly, they settle down with their favourite read, though they’d all pretend to the outside world that their favourite read is the paper that mainly employs them.
Martin Bagshawe usually does his reading at the library, but today he buys a bottle of chocolate milk, a Scotch egg, some cheese-and-onion crisps and a copy of the Sun, and reads it while he waits for Kirsty Lindsay to show her face so he can tell which of the five houses he’s looking at is hers. He’s rented a white van with his emergency credit card and bought navy-blue overalls from Millets, because no one ever, in his experience, questions someone in overalls snoozing in a van. He has no idea how long he’s going to be waiting; he just hopes he can spin out the sudoku.
Deborah Prentiss works the early shift at Asda, and reads the paper at two o’clock when she gets home, before she scoots through the housework and goes to pick the kids up from school. She has the same ritual every day: comes in, puts the kettle on and goes upstairs to change out of her hated polyester uniform. Deb takes pride in her appearance; always has, since she was a teenager. She never stays in that uniform for a moment longer than she has to. She reapplies her make-up, brushes out the hair that’s been squashed by the net hat she has to wear in the bakery and, once she’s in a skirt and a decent jumper, comes down and makes a pot of tea. Then she sits at the kitchen table and takes a precious half-hour out to scan the Mirror for scandal and disaster. Despite having been the subject of tabloid speculation herself in her time, she loves it; loves the window on a grim and ugly world from her nice quiet house, and believes every word. She calls it her ‘me-time’.
Millions of people, same blank expression. Soaking up the words and believing that, having done so, they are In the Know. Kirsty, still digesting her phone conversation, catches sight of herself in the mantelpiece mirror and observes that her own face betrays none of the emotions she feels. I’ve done what I can, she thinks. I’m mad to have even involved myself this far. I need to get a grip and call Features before all the assignments have been handed out for the rest of the week. I need to forget about Amber Gordon. It’s the past. She needs to mean nothing to me now.
Martin finds Jackie spread across the centre pages and feels his upper lip curl as he reads her account of herself. He winds the window down and spits on to the tarmac. The road is empty, not a sign of activity behind the neat suburban nets, but the self-employed don’t keep the same hours as the rest of the world. Kirsty Lindsay could come – or go – at any time, and he’ll be here to see it when she does.
Jackie looks old and slutty beneath the make-up. He finds it hard to believe that this woman can ever have excited such intense emotion in him; he feels nothing now, other than a faint contempt and an amused interest in what she has to say. He doesn’t want her back now, and as he reads and sees what a weak woman she is, how easily influenced, he wants her even less – but it feels good to have his suspicions confirmed. He wasn’t dumped because of himself, he was dumped because of other people. The story of his life. He’s been tripped up and blocked all his life, and Amber Gordon is just one in a long line of teachers, officials, bosses and so-called ‘friends’ who’ve stopped him ever, ever catching a break. And now this Kirsty Lindsay, accusing him of something he never did, on the smug assumption that her position would protect her. And all along she’s clearly been protecting Vic Cantrell, which means she’s been protecting Amber Gordon too. In collusion with him. In his opinion, she’s as guilty of his crimes as if she’d done them herself.
Except that she’s not reckoned with Martin. Amber Gordon can wait. For now there’s not a hope of finding her alone; though he hopes fervently that the company she’s in is giving her hell. The world is full of women with no morals. Jackie Jacobs, skirt hitched up to show her legs, is just the tip of the iceberg. You can only do one thing at a time. You have to prioritise. And right now Kirsty Lindsay is his priority. His anger has been building ever since his humiliation in DanceAttack; has become, once again, a gnawing, living thing. And now he’s had a taste of relief, he also knows the best way to get it.
It won’t be long now, he thinks. She’ll have to come out from behind one of these smug suburban front doors, and then I’ll know for certain where she lives.
He takes a bite of Scotch egg and reclines the seat so that only the top of his head, baseball cap and celebrity sunglasses can be seen from the road. He’s enjoyed his preparations, the crafty plans he’s made so that he will not be recognised. Feels like 007, like MI5 and Andy McNab, adrenalin coursing through his veins every time someone turns the corner. It may take a while, watching these houses till he identifies which one is his target’s home, but he’s in no hurry. He’s got it down to a postcode by the surprisingly simple expedient of calling the Tribune and asking for Minty (he remembers the name from overhearing it in the park) on the news desk, and pretending to be a PR with a goodie bag and only half an address. The fact that he knew she lived in Farnham seemed to be enough to satisfy the girl.
He polishes off his egg and smoothes out the page.
Deborah looks down on people who read the Sun with all the righteous scorn of someone who identifies herself as belonging to the left. She doesn’t know it, but the Mirror has gone as big on Whitmouth as its red-top rival, and in the same manner. Speculation, retrospective wisdom from the neighbours (the same big-gob neighbours they’re reading about in the Sun, if only she knew it) and the small amount of information that can be dug up about such anonymous figures as the Seaside Strangler and his harpy girlfriend. There’s only one thing the country loves better than a nice juicy serial killer, and that’s a serial killer’s wife. Deborah assumes the frown all right-thinking people have worn all day while wallowing in the sketchy, blown-up detail, and bites into a custard cream.
Her paper has much the same photo as the one adorning the Sun’s front page: dry, straw-like blond hair, dark glasses and a cheesy grin. In this one, though, she’s halfway through raising her hand to cover her face, so it looks like she’s waving. Who does she think she is? thinks Deborah, and polishes off her biscuit. Sharon bloody Osbourne?