Maybe it’s not Tom they were after . . .
She looks at the police car again. She should speak to them. She takes one step forward, another. Then turns around, her head down.
She can’t talk to the cops. Her approach, the whole prison record of her, the shambolic jacket, the bag full of sad belongings. They won’t listen to a word she has to say. As soon as they clock she’s under probation supervision, they’ll shut down. Arrest her. Even attempt to pin the blame on her. An easy solve.
It’s not right. Tom deserves better. She walks swiftly round the corner, only stopping when she’s found an alleyway between two houses where it seems safe to pause for a moment to think. She sinks down on to her bag, head in hands.
Tremors run through her. Was she supposed to be in there when the house went up in flames? She’s seen and heard so much, the dead woman in the bunk below her, the whispered words.
She’s holding her knees close to her chest, terror clawing at her skin. Someone knows the phone is out there, she’s sure of it. The way that it rang and rang so insistently when she turned it on earlier – they must have been sitting there with their finger on redial, pressing it repeatedly until the moment that Anna so recklessly turned it on.
But what are they trying to cover up? The whispered conversation hisses in her ears.
Promise me you’ll leave her alone. I won’t let you do this.
Why won’t anyone help me?
Anna’s been too focused on herself, her own struggles. She hasn’t paid attention to the real threat that’s been surrounding her from the moment of her release. The same threat that led to Kelly’s death. That killed Tom.
Anna’s pad mate might have killed herself, but someone else was responsible for it – they didn’t slit her throat themselves, but they might as well have. Kelly was desperate, she couldn’t see another way out. Why? What did that phone call mean? What do they want?
If Anna doesn’t find out, she’s going to be next. The smell of smoke still lingering in the air around the burned ruins of Tom’s house is a grim warning.
She gets to her feet. She can’t stay here, close to the scene of the fire, of Tom’s death. She needs to get away, find somewhere she can shelter. Collect her thoughts. She pushes her hands into the pockets of her jacket to warm them up and hits a piece of paper. Recollection dawning on her, she pulls it out and reads the folded note with the volunteer’s address written on it. The other side of Oxford.
The only person she half-considered trusting is gone. Can she bring herself to involve another innocent person in this madness? There’s nothing to suggest she can even trust this stranger. But she’s going to have to try. She has no other choice. Once more hauling her bag up to her shoulder, she starts walking, one foot after the other, sounding out a litany to Tom as she goes. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, a crackling of flames constant in her ears.
Part 5
40
Sunday. The sky is grey and oppressive; not as heavy as the air in the car. Something is sitting on Lucy’s chest, slowing her breathing. The radio’s on, some kind of easy listening, and every time the word ‘love’ is sung, she feels her face burn.
Edgar’s focused on the road ahead, only turning in her direction when he needs to check the mirror, glancing past rather than at her. Hard to believe that only a few hours ago, he was . . . She woke in the night to find him reading a notebook intently, the brown envelope Victor gave him ripped open, tossed to one side. When he saw she was awake, he put the notebook aside, turned all his attention to her again. The second time she woke, closer to 6, he was gone, but she went back to sleep. He came in at 8, a coffee from Starbucks in his hand, and before she could ask where he’d been he was kissing her again. She digs her fingers into her thigh. Not the time to think about it.
Too late to stop. It crashes in on her. Not like anything she’s known before. She doesn’t know what happens next between them, though she knows she wants it to happen again. Again and again and again.
He clears his throat. ‘About last night,’ he says. ‘And this morning, come to that.’
Here it comes. The dear John speech. Why it was a bad idea, what he’s got to lose, why they should forget it all—
‘That was extraordinary,’ he continues. Her brain screeches into a handbrake turn. ‘This is going to sound insane, but I can’t stop thinking about you. Even though you’re sitting right here. The way you—’
‘Stop,’ she says, her cheeks hot. ‘Don’t. It’s so embarrassing.’
‘It’s not embarrassing at all. You should embrace it. You’re a natural.’
A natural what?Lucy slumps in her seat, face sinking into her scarf. She feels about twelve, blushing like this. Exposed.
‘I know you’ll want to be open about this,’ he says. ‘And I do, too. It’s complicated, though. There’s my wife . . . and the college. Maybe we should have waited. But I suppose some rules are made to be broken.’
Flashback to the beginning of term, when Lucy was still contemplating the best way to get Edgar’s attention. That’s what she had whispered to him in her fantasies.Some rules are made to be broken.It sounds different coming out of his mouth, somehow.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I should have said no.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t.’
The miles roll by, a silence between them, but not a distance. She feels very close to him. She’s in a state of disbelief – any moment, she’ll wake up to discover it was a shitty one-night stand, or worse, that she made a pass at him and was turned down. His hand creeps to her knee.
