Thirty-two pounds. Not as much as she’d hoped.
She couldn’t take it all, either. But she could turn off the heating, wear more jumpers, put another blanket on the baby. It would be warmer soon. Soonish. Maybe by the time the meter was read and the bill came in, she could have reduced their consumption so much that the shortfall would be negligible.
Or maybe by the time the meter was read and the bill came in, Daniel would be home and they wouldn’t give a shit about being able to pay the gas bill – or about anything else that might ever go wrong in their lives again.
She wondered how much Richard Latham charged for a consultation. She couldn’t begin to imagine what something like that would cost. A token? Or a fortune? She should have asked.
She took twenty-five pounds. Fifty big coins bulging in her pockets and fists. It felt like a lot.
In the kitchen she put the coins in an old carrier bag and left it on the counter top. It gave her a thrill to look at it, sitting there, waiting to change their lives like a pouch of gold coins in a fairy tale. She thought about a beanstalk stretching from this world to the next – connecting the two, allowing passage between them.
She decided to have a cup of tea and think about what Richard Latham might tell her. She didn’t often entertain fantasies about Daniel’s return because it was too painful when they ended. But this felt different, exciting, and she decided to indulge herself just for five minutes, before cleaning the flat.
As she filled the kettle at the kitchen sink, she peered out on to the footprints – five dark smudges across the corner of the yellow-grey forecourt. Her lips tightened as a boy in baggy jeans rode his bike over them. There was nothing she could do about things like that. Nothing. Not without a bazooka.
She wished she could build a barrier around the prints, or stay out there all day guarding them, but she had the house to clean. And a new baby to look after, of course.
Charlie grizzled in his cot and she called through to him in a soft, sing-song voice. Hey Charlie … Hey Charlie Barley … Mummy’s here, baby … Mummy’s right here …
But today it felt automatic, and she had no desire to go through and pick him up and feel the weight of him, safe in her arms. Going nowhere.
Instead she sipped her tea quickly at the kitchen window. As she did, she reached into the pouch of her hoodie to get the elastic that she used to keep her hair off her face while she worked. She took it out, along with a piece of white card with a phone number on it.
It was only when she turned it over that Anna realized it was the photo of Sandra and her dog, Mitzi.
She studied the photo. Sandra’s dark roots were showing a bit in the picture, but her make-up was perfect. A long time ago, perfect make-up was something Anna cared about. She used to get free samples at work and try out different ‘looks’. Hours in front of the mirror applying Cleopatra eyeliner, dabbing at kohl with a makeup sponge, lining her lips so they seemed fuller than they really were.
Often while Daniel played on the floor behind her with bricks or books.
Entertaining himself while she stared at her own stupid face.
It made her clammy with shame.
She put the photo down on the counter and stared out of the kitchen window on to a beautiful garden with curved beds, filled with wrong flowers and not-right shrubs against a backdrop of fuzzy trees.
She blinked, and it was gone.
Before she could even think about how odd that had been, Anna was overtaken by a desperate need for water. Tea was not enough. She leaned over and turned on the tap so hard that water ricocheted off the sink and sprayed across her T-shirt. Anna didn’t care; she was so dry! No time for a glass or a mug or even a cupped hand. She twisted her head under the flow and gulped at the water that hammered out of the spout, greedily sucking it down, as it overflowed and ran into her hair and her ear.
Once, when Anna was four or five, her mother had bought her a paper lily that was packed tight into a tiny plastic bubble only an inch across. They had run a sinkful of water and dropped the little pink knot into it and watched it magically uncurl and blossom into a wonderful flower nearly a foot wide. Anna thought of it now for the first time in years, as she felt the water race through her body like an electrical current, making her alive again, when she had been dry and dead and tightly packed.
After a few moments she straightened up a little unsteadily. Her hair dripped on to her shoulders and she felt lightheaded and foolish.
She should eat something. She had to think hard about what she had eaten – or when – before the two biscuits at the church last night. She got all the way back to a boiled egg for lunch on Thursday. Had she drunk anything since then? She must have. But she couldn’t think when.
No wonder she was hallucinating!
Anna took a slice of bread from the loaf in the fridge, and made toast and another cup of tea.
She needed to take care of herself. She needed to be here when Daniel came home.
12
‘WOULD YOU LIKE a cup of tea, Chief Inspector? And a piece of cake?’
Marvel looked up from the pink velour sofa and confirmed the order, and Sandra Clyde bustled off to the kitchen.
So, this was where the super lived.
Marvel looked around and mentally snorted. Even though Clyde was probably in his mid fifties – only ten years older than him – he lived in the house of an old fart.