Today is Wednesday. I will go back to London on the first train I can catch, pack my bags while Owen is at work, and leave for Scotland. I can call Fatima and Thea from there. It’s only when a tear runs down my nose and splashes onto Freya’s head that I realise I am crying.
No one at Rick’s Rides picks up when I call, and at last I load the bags onto Freya’s buggy and wheel her out into the cool sunshine. I bump the buggy barefoot across the rickety bridge, and shove my feet into my shoes which are still there on the far side, like strange flotsam and jetsam. Beside them is a print of two larger soles – the imprint of Luc’s shoes – and I can see his footprints trail across the shore, and disappear into the muddy confusion of the track.
I let myself out of the gate, and begin the long walk to the station, talking to Freya as I go – anything to distract myself from the reality of last night and the mess of what’s facing me in London.
I’m just turning onto the main road, when I hear the hiss of gravel and a horn beeps from behind me, making me jump. I swing round, my heart thumping – and see an ancient black Renault, coming to a halt on the verge.
The driver’s window winds slowly down, and an iron-grey head looks out, unsmiling.
‘Mary!’
‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’ Her strong, bare arm rests on the window, the hairs dark against the pale skin. Her perpetually grubby nails tap the paintwork. ‘On your way to the station?
I nod and she says, as a statement, without asking for my opinion, ‘I’ll give you a lift.’
‘Thanks,’ I say awkwardly, ‘but –’ I’m about to use the car seat as an excuse, but then my eyes drop to the pram, where Freya is snuggled into the car-seat adaptor. Mary raises one eyebrow.
‘But?’
‘B-but … I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ I say weakly.
‘Don’t be soft,’ she says shortly, swinging open the back passenger door. ‘Get in.’
Somehow I can’t find another excuse, and I strap Freya into the rear seat and then walk around to the front passenger door and climb silently in. Mary puts the car into gear with a coughing rasp, and we begin to pick up speed.
We drive in silence for perhaps a quarter of a mile, but as we round the corner to the level crossing over the railway, I see the lights are flashing, and the barriers are coming down. A train is about to pass.
‘Damn,’ Mary says, and lets the car glide to a halt in front of the barrier. She switches off the ignition.
‘Oh no. Does this mean I’m going to miss the train?’
‘This’ll be the northbound train for London, they’ve closed for. It’ll be cutting it very fine to get there. But you might be lucky. Sometimes they wait, if they’re ahead of themselves.’
I bite my lip. I have nothing I need to get back for, but the thought of waiting at the station for half an hour with Mary is not a good one.
The silence in the car grows, broken only by Freya’s snuffles from the back seat, and then Mary speaks, breaking the quiet.
‘Terrible news, about the body.’
I shift in my seat, moving the seat belt away from my throat where it has ridden up, and somehow grown tight.
‘H-how do you mean? The identification?’
‘Yes, although I don’t think anyone round here was surprised. There wasn’t many thought Ambrose would have left his children like that. He was devoted to those kids, would have walked through fire for them. A little local scandal? I don’t think he’d have even cared, much less scarpered and left his kids to deal with the fallout.’ She taps the rotting rubber of the steering wheel, and with an impatient gesture sweeps back a frond of grey hair that’s fallen out of her pigtail. ‘But it was more the post-mortem I was thinking of.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ She casts me a quick glance, and then shrugs. ‘Maybe it’s not in the papers yet. I hear stuff early sometimes, what with my Mark being one of the boys. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you, just in case.’
She pauses, enjoying the moment of power, and I grit my teeth, knowing that she wants to be begged for her insider information. I don’t want to give in to her. But I have to know. I must know.
‘You can’t leave me hanging like that,’ I say, doing my best to keep my voice light and casual. ‘I mean, I don’t want you to break any confidences, but if Mark didn’t tell you to keep it under wraps …?’
‘Well, it’s true he normally only tells me things if it’s about to be released anyway …’ she drawls. She bites her fingernail, spits out a fragment, and then seems to make up her mind, or tire of playing with me. ‘The post-mortem found traces of heroin in a bottle in his jacket. Oral overdose, they’re saying.’
‘Oral overdose?’ I frown. ‘But … that makes no sense.’
‘Exactly,’ Mary Wren says. Through her open window I can hear the sound of a distant train, growing closer. ‘Ex-addict like him? If he wanted to kill himself he’d have injected the stuff, of course he would. But then, like I said, I never did believe that Ambrose would leave those kids of his own accord – it makes no more sense for him to kill himself than run away. I’m not one for gossip –’ she brings out the lie without so much as a blush – ‘so I’ve kept my thoughts to myself. But in my mind, I never thought it was anything else.’
‘Anything else than … what?’ I say, and suddenly my voice is hoarse, sticking in my throat.
Mary smiles at me, a wide smile, showing stained yellow teeth, like tombstones in her mouth. Then she leans closer, her cigarette breath hot and rank against my face and whispers.
‘I never thought it was anything but murder.’
SHE SITS BACK, watching my reaction, seeming almost to enjoy my floundering, and as I scrabble frantically for the right words to say in response to something like that, a thought flashes through my mind – has Mary known the truth all this time?
‘I – I –’
She gives her slow, malicious smile, and then turns to glance up the track. The train is coming closer. It sounds its horn, and the lights at the level crossing blink with a maddening regularity.
My face is stiff with trying not to show my reaction, but I manage to speak.
‘I find that … I find that hard to believe though, don’t you? Why would someone murder Ambrose?’
She shrugs, her huge shoulders rising and falling heavily.
‘You tell me. But it’s easier to believe than the idea of him killing hisself and leaving those kids to fend for themselves. Like I said, he would have walked through fire for them, especially that Kate. Not that she deserved it, little bitch.’
My mouth falls open.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said he’d have walked through fire for his kids,’ she says. She is openly laughing at me. ‘What did you think I said?’
I feel anger flare, and suddenly the suspicions I’ve been having of Kate seem like vile gossip. Am I really going to let rumour and innuendo turn me against one of my oldest friends?
‘You’ve never liked her, have you?’ I say flatly, crossing my arms over my chest. ‘You’d be delighted if she were questioned over this.’
‘Truth be told? I would,’ Mary says.