She hears him splutter. ‘Oh, come on, woman. What are you on about? You’ve been trying to get a regular gig on News for years. If you can get her to talk, it’s a picture byline. Good God, it’s probably a staff job, if you can scoop the Mirror.’
She stays silent. Doesn’t trust her voice not to betray her fear. Hears him light a cigarette, prepare to have one more go at persuading her. ‘Fish-and-chip wrappings, Kirsty,’ he says. ‘It’ll make fish-and-chip wrappings of that cock-up you made last week. They’ll forget all about it.’
She pretends to consider.
‘God, look. No, Stan. Thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, but I’m sorry. I’ll give you Dave’s number, look. I’ll call him for you. And anyway, he’ll have it in for me for ever if he thinks I’ve stolen his glory. You know what he’s like.’
‘Well. OK. Don’t say I never did you a favour.’
‘I won’t,’ she says. She can barely breathe. Wants him gone, so she can think. ‘I’m sorry, Stan. I’m dead grateful. Really grateful. But I can’t do it. Gotta go. I’m sorry.’
‘Hang on-’ he starts, but she cuts him off. Sinks back against the step behind her. Sophie’s shed a sweatshirt, unwashed, in among the clean laundry. She picks it up, buries her face in its musky pre-teen scent and breathes deeply. Oh God, the kids, she thinks. What would it do to them?
She is frightened. A different fear from the fear she felt that night in Whitmouth, though the sense of something following, something approaching from behind, is similar: an ancient, long-suppressed fear that creeps through her viscera, leaves her hot and weak. You never know who’s watching, who’s waiting. You can never let your guard down, never feel safe. You can go a year, three years, without an incident, then one day you open your inbox to find that someone you’ve always thought of as reasonable, as civilised and thoughtful, has forwarded a round-robin email saying you’re about to be paroled and must never, ever get out. Or someone goes to the papers claiming to have been drinking with you in a theme bar on the Costa del Crime, or to have bought a house from you in Wythenshawe, or to have been the object of your predatory lesbianism in some random prison, and you’re terrified all over again: waiting for your husband to study those old photos one more time, and this time to look up with dawning recognition on his face. Waiting to wake up one morning with the mob on your doorstep.
They’re already there on Amber’s, primed and ready for action. Dear God, she’s already been thrown to the lions. Those pictures of her house – it was obvious they’ve been out there with their flaming torches and their pitchforks for days. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
She hears the Question Time music start up in the living room. Struggles to compose herself before Jim comes out to find her.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Amber wakes to the sound of breaking glass. She hadn’t realised she’d fallen asleep; had only lain down on the bed to rest for a few minutes at eight o’clock. She sits upright, fully dressed as she has been for the past few days, and ready to run. Wonders whether to turn the light on and decides against. Light will show that she’s home, and at-home is more provocative than away. Some irrational part of her has clung to the hope that, if she keeps a low profile, refuses to talk, refuses to cooperate, the watchers outside will give up and go away. And even as she was hoping, she knew she was fooling herself. This is the third window that’s been broken in the past twenty-four hours.
The clock tells her it’s gone eleven. She’s been out for the count for three hours. She feels for the table-leg she’s been carrying around for comfort – wishes dearly that she lived in a country where baseball was commonplace – and gets carefully out of bed. Her shoes – easy slip-ons for speedy exits – are on the bedside rug; she finds them, in the dark, in seconds.
She creeps through to the spare room. Even from the landing, she can hear the sound of movement out in the front garden: feet shifting and the rasp of a throat being cleared. She can see the curtains wafting in the tiny breeze, a brick lying in a mess of glass in the middle of the bed. They’re back. The neighbours, the drunks, the people who want her to know their Values: they like to come down when the pub closes and share their feelings once the press have gone to bed. The teenage policeman who occasionally stands outside is obviously gone, again. No one to take pictures, so no need to be there. No one throws stones when the police are around.
She retreats to the bedroom, sits against the door and turns on her phone. Thirty-three missed calls, twelve messages. My God, it’s got worse, she thinks. That’s more than yesterday. Has something happened? Something new? Or is it just that my number’s getting passed around, from person to person, until by Thursday the whole country will have it? She ignores them; scrolls through the address book to find the police station. No point dialling 999. It’ll come through to the same people in the end, anyway.
She hunches against the door, listens to the empty ring. Registers, puzzlingly, that the dogs aren’t with her. They’ve been reliable as the sunrise, since Vic was arrested. They follow her upstairs at bedtime to settle, comforting and thoughtful, at the foot of the duvet, and are there to greet her in the morning: the we-have-survived-the-night awakening that gives her the strength to go on. I must be sleeping more deeply than I’d thought, she thinks idly as she counts the rings. I’ve never noticed that they get up in the night and do their own thing.
On the twelfth ring, a voice comes on the line: casual and unconcerned, for someone whose job it is to answer the phone in the middle of the night. ‘Whitmouth Police?’
‘It’s Amber Gordon,’ she says, keeping her voice low, as though the people outside might be able to hear her through wood and stone.
He doesn’t seem to recognise the name. ‘Victor Cantrell’s…’ she prompts.
‘Ah. Hello,’ he says, but his voice doesn’t sound friendly.
‘There’s someone outside my house. They’ve broken a window.’
‘OK,’ he says, but he doesn’t sound unduly concerned. ‘Give me a moment.’
Amber goes back to the corridor and listens. There are definitely people outside. They’re being quiet, deliberately so – she hears a voice stage-whisper and another shush it quiet – but she can feel the presence, not just of people, but of a crowd. Thinks she hears the metallic chink of someone trying the garden gate, tenses as she wonders if the bolts will hold. It’s a feeble protection, she knows. The gate and fence would give under a couple of kicks. She just has to hope they know that there’s a line that can’t be stepped over, a line where protest becomes trespass.
Though that’s not stopped them when it comes to criminal damage. It can’t be long now before someone decides that, with the breaking already done, the entering is the next logical step. She can’t stay here.
‘Ms Gordon?’
Her heart jolts. She’d almost forgotten what she’d been waiting for.
‘We’re sending a patrol car round. They should be there in twenty minutes or so.’
Twenty minutes? I could be dead by then. ‘Can’t they get here sooner? What’s happened to the lad who was on my door?’
‘Limited resources,’ he replies. ‘Maybe you’d like to take it up with the Home Secretary. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but half the forces in the country have been providing backup to the Met this summer.’
How much am I supposed to bear? She feels her eyes fill with tears.
‘If you like,’ he says, ‘they could bring you down here.’
‘What for?’
‘We’ve been calling you all evening. You might want to consider protective custody. For the time being. It’s up to you.’