‘Um. I’m not sure she’s registering who they are, to be honest. I’ve just let her think what she wants to think, said I’m coming back to London in a bit to talk things through with you.’
‘Good,’ Kate says. ‘But stay there as long as you need, won’t you?’
‘It shouldn’t take more than a day or so,’ he says.
‘Does everything seem OK with the baby?’
Her voice cracks on this last word.
‘Yes,’ Jake replies firmly. ‘Dad says there’s nothing to worry about, so you mustn’t worry either, OK? Everything is going to be fine. More than fine.’
She allows herself to be pacified, even though she knows he can’t be certain either way. In their bedroom, Kate opens the curtains with one hand, holding her phone with the other. The window is still open in the flat opposite, and there is a young man sitting there, leaning onto the sill to smoke a spliff. He catches her eye and gives a lazy grin. She smiles back, shakily.What if he saw or heard something, she thinks,what will happen then?
She doesn’t say any of this to Jake. Instead she tells him she’s going to have a shower and start sorting things out, although which ‘things’, exactly, she doesn’t specify. They exchange I love yous and she promises to call him later. She hangs up.
Kate doesn’t take a shower. She is still surfing the wave of jittery energy from the night before. She takes Marisa’s diary and the address book down to the kitchen where she brews strong coffee and forces herself to eat a slice of toast. She hasn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime, she realises. She sits at the table, looking out at the garden and the tower beyond it. The sun is low in the sky, partially blotted out by a tall magnolia tree. Along the top of one wall, she spots a magpie and automatically raises her hand to salute it, just as her mother taught her she should in order to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. Then anothermagpie jumps up to join it, then another and another until there are four of the birds lined up next to each other on the wall. Their feathers glitter, white and black. One of them tips its beak into a shallow puddle of water that has gathered between the bricks. She has never seen four magpies lined up like this, on parade. She salutes the final three. What was that old folk rhyme? One for sorrow, two for joy … She can’t remember how the rest of it goes, so she Googles on her phone.
‘Three for a girl, four for a boy,’ she says out loud into the empty kitchen. ‘Huh.’
A motorbike engine starts up somewhere beyond the wall and the mechanical scratch of it sends the magpies flying into the skies. She watches them go, darting into the air in a straight, disciplined line, and then she gets to work.
She flicks through the address book. She looks first for any family members, but there are no listings for the Grover surname and no one recorded as ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’ or Anna, her sister. The book, which is covered in thin fabric patterned with cherries, proves to be scarce on useful information. Marisa has used it mostly for doodles – intricate curlicues and looping flower petals and hieroglyphic eyes all folded in on each other so that the page becomes more ink than paper. But there are a few names dotted about, here and there. Kate checks her watch. It’s a little after 8 a.m. It is not a particularly friendly time of day to call a stranger, but it’s not so unreasonable as to be actively rude.
She takes out her phone and dials the first number, attached to the name ‘Rosie Hodge’. After three rings, a woman answers.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh, hi there. Sorry to disturb you so early.’
‘It’s fine. I’ve been up since five with the kids. What do you want?’
‘I was calling about Marisa Grover,’ Kate says and then she leaves a silence, waiting for the other woman to fill it.
‘Who?’
‘Marisa Grover. I understand you might know her. Your name is in her address book, you see.’
‘Can I ask what this is about?’
‘Um. Yes. Marisa’s been living with us and has been taken ill. Nothing serious, but I wanted to let her friends and family know in case they—’
‘Marisa Grover,’ the woman says, turning the name over. ‘Wait a minute, do you mean the Telling Tales lady?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Ah, right. Well yeah, I’ve commissioned her to do a few books for my kids over the years. She’s very talented. Did you say she’s ill?’
‘Yes, but nothing serious,’ Kate repeats. ‘I’ve been asked to contact her clients and inform them there might be a delay in, erm, their books arriving.’
‘Oh, OK, thanks. I wasn’t waiting on anything from her.’
Kate hears a child squealing on the other end of the line.
‘Shush,’ Rosie says. ‘I’m coming now. You’ll get your breakfast soon enough. Just calm down.’ To Kate she adds: ‘Hope she gets better soon. Thanks for calling.’
‘No problem.’
In this way, Kate methodically works her way through Marisa’s contacts. They are mostly former clients. A couple don’t know who she’s talking about. One is a school friend who hasn’t heard from Marisa ‘for absolute yonks’. A few more don’t answer. Two go straight to voicemail. On the twelfth call, she dials a number for a woman listed as Jas.
