Hester was round early, before nine. Melissa realized immediately that the other woman’s expression was cool and distant.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she’d said, not quite meeting Melissa’s eye. ‘But when Tilly has friends staying until the middle of the night, could they avoid slamming your front door? It woke me up, you see, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.’
Melissa smiled, awkwardly. ‘I … don’t know what you mean. She didn’t have anyone here last night.’
Hester coughed and her mouth twitched into a tight smile.
‘Well, I’m sorry, Melissa,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I looked out of my window at around 3.30 a.m. and clearly saw that Nathan boy exiting your house. I do apologize if you didn’t know about this … relationship.’
Melissa felt a tumbling sensation inside. The little bastard …
‘Thank you, Hester,’ she’d managed to say, in a controlled voice. ‘I’ll speak to her. And please accept my apologies.’
Hester had walked back into her house without another word. Melissa felt a flicker of relief. Maybe things would go back to normal between them now and they could resume the polite distance that had worked so well.
There had been a loud, tearful row with Tilly, who claimed her mother didn’t let her do anything, but only cared about exam results. Melissa had half wanted to slap her, this ungrateful child who had no appreciation of her riches. Tilly was told her allowance was to be cut for the next month. When she went into her bedroom, she slammed the door so hard the house shook.
She knew the phone call to Saskia wouldn’t be easy but it had taken even more of a sour turn than she had expected. Melissa should have known that the one boundary she couldn’t cross was to criticize her golden son; apparently, they were ‘only doing what young people do’. Melissa told her he was to keep away from her daughter, who was not going to waste her promising future on boys. The phone call ended frostily.
Unpleasant though it had all been, the events of the morning had forced Melissa to take stock. She’d felt lately that she was watching everything through a Perspex screen but now it was time to try and reconnect.
The focus must be on her family now. So they are eating together tonight, whether Tilly likes it or not.
Mark has promised he will be back by seven. Melissa isn’t going to tell him about Nathan; a concession that Tilly accepted with mumbled thanks through the bedroom door. He doesn’t need to know about this.
She is cooking a lamb tagine and can almost taste the warming cinnamon and ginger on her tongue. They will have a hazelnut meringue torte to follow; the raspberries are in her basket, dusky and beautiful, beaded with moisture that might be early morning dew rather than condensation from the chiller.
They will eat together and anyone looking in the window would see an enviable image: an attractive family unit, talking about their respective days and eating a delicious meal made from expensive, organic ingredients.
Half an hour later, Melissa opens the front door and comes into the hallway, which smells of polish and the fresh flowers she had delivered this morning. The cleaner came today and the oak floorboards gleam with warm, honeyed light. She takes a deep, satisfied in-breath and feels something approaching peace.
She’s putting her keys in the little ceramic bowl that Tilly made in her first year at secondary school when she becomes aware of voices.
Coming into the kitchen now, Melissa comes to an abrupt halt.
Tilly is sitting at the table with a woman who is perhaps in her twenties. Melissa doesn’t recognize her. She doesn’t look like anyone Tilly would know, in her cheap sweatshirt with its flower design and her mousey hair pulled into the sort of harsh ponytail that Mark calls a Croydon facelift. The woman looks at her with an open hostility that confuses her further. Melissa’s eyes then shift to a movement on the other side of the kitchen.
A small girl with blonde hair in a straggly topknot is standing there. She stares at Melissa through bright blue, distinctively shaped, eyes.
‘Hey Mum,’ says Tilly, still slightly warily. ‘This is Kerry … and Amber.’ She says the second name in a chummy children’s television presenter voice.
‘They’re looking for Jamie. Any idea where he went?’
HESTER
I could hear the shouting quite clearly from my back garden.
Serves them right! I hope Melissa gives Saskia hell about it too.
But I didn’t spend long listening. I had things to do.
I dressed carefully for the visit to the police station, putting on my smart blue Mackintosh even though the sky was leaden and the air thick with heat. I was rehearsing what I might say as I walked to the bus stop.
‘I believe my neighbour has committed a terrible crime.’
Or:
‘I saw my neighbour hiding something in her kitchen. I think it could be a murder weapon.’
Nothing sounded quite right.
But in the end, I never got that far.
I was mulling all this over when I spied a young woman with a child who looked rather lost coming up my road. She was a common sort of creature; puffing away on a cigarette right over the little girl’s head, face all pinched up. Her large, rather doleful, eyes were framed by spider legs of gluey mascara.
Something about her manner caught my attention and I slowed my steps. She kept looking at houses and then walking on a little bit, clearly searching for something. Or someone. The child was obviously tired, and I heard the woman snap at her in a way that wrenched my heart a little.
Getting closer, I studied the child, who seemed to be about four. She was on the chubby side, with thin blonde hair drawn into an unflattering topknot. When she spotted me, she stared with the wonderful lack of guile that all small children share. It took a second for me to realize that she had Down’s syndrome. Poor little mite. Sympathy flooded my veins.
‘Can I help you at all?’ I said to the young woman, and she looked at me suspiciously before sighing and stubbing out her cigarette on the pavement. I nearly said something about littering but decided against it.
‘I’m looking for someone who I think lives round here,’ she said, with flat northern vowels. ‘You probably don’t know her.’ She eyed me up as though she could possibly make that sort of judgement based on appearance.
‘Well, why don’t you try me?’ I said politely.
She hesitated for a second and a nerve jumped in her cheek. I got the feeling that she was thrumming with tension inside and trying to hide it.
‘She’s called Mel,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I don’t know her second name.’
She blushed hard, no doubt conscious that trying to find someone in a city the size of London with such scant information was a fool’s errand.
But … Mel? Could it be?
‘I know a Melissa,’ I said steadily, excitement flickering like a lit candle. ‘Could that be the person you’re looking for?’
She gave nothing away. But she looked exactly like someone Melissa wouldn’t want as a friend. Something told me, pleasingly, that she spelled TROUBLE.
With a thrill of shock I realize she might be connected to that Jamie character in some way. A sister? Melissa told me he had no ties, but it has to be possible I suppose. This would be very stressful for Melissa.
‘Let me show you the way,’ I said with a warm smile.
I walked her and the little girl all the way to the front door.
And now I am here, in the garden, hoping to overhear what might be happening next door but, frustratingly, she must have the doors shut.
I am running out of things to do when Bertie suddenly presses his nose to the gap in the fence and begins furiously wagging his tail.
The small, pale arm of a child worms through the gap and roughly taps the top of Bertie’s head with a chubby flattened hand. As I get closer I hear a hoarse giggle. Bertie rolls onto his back for a tummy tickle.
Tentatively, I crouch down next to my dog and look through the hole in the fence.