The safe house Read online

  ‘Are we going home?’

  ‘Yes, home.’

  ‘At the heart of it are people who were not what they seemed.’ That is what I had said, so slyly, to the journalist. It had been intended as a warning to Rupert Baird but it had been read and taken as a warning by X, whoever she was. She had demonstrated once more that nothing was safe. My house was burned down and she had penetrated the mind of my daughter.

  When we got home I put Elsie in a bath, to wash everything off her. She was in there pottering and talking to herself while I sat on the stairs outside and stared at the wall, telling a story to myself. I knew nothing about the girl but I knew a bit about Michael Daley. It was possible that if I investigated his life, I might find the shadow from which the girl had emerged. And I thought of the final image in Elsie’s safe house. Mummy and Elsie lying asleep in each other’s arms. There were two possible ends to the story. Elsie and Mummy dead together. Or Elsie and Mummy living happy ever after. No, that was too much. Living. That was enough. My reverie was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Baird, of course.

  ‘I hope you’ve got an alibi,’ he said jocularly, as the estate agent had done before him.

  ‘You’ll never catch me, copper,’ I replied, and he laughed. Then there was a pause. ‘Is that it?’ I asked.

  ‘We heard that there was an incident yesterday.’

  So they were keeping track of me. This was the moment of decision, but I listened to the splashing and knew that I had already made up my mind.

  ‘It was a misunderstanding, Rupert. Elsie wandered off in the park. It was nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure, Sam?’

  We were like two chess players testing each other’s defences before agreeing a draw and giving up and going home.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, Rupert.’

  I could sense the relief at the other end of the line and he said goodbye warmly, saying that he would be in touch, and I knew that this would be the last conversation we ever had.

  I lifted Elsie out of the bath and sat her on the sofa in her dressing gown and put a plate of toast and Marmite on her lap.

  ‘Can I have a video?’

  ‘Later perhaps, after supper.’

  ‘Can you read me a book?’

  ‘Soon I will. First I thought we could play a game together.’

  ‘Can we play musical bumps?’

  ‘That’s hard when there’s just the two of us, and one of us has to be in charge of the music. I tell you what, it’s your birthday in a couple of weeks’ time, we’ll play that at your party.’

  ‘Party? Am I going to have a party? Can I really have a party?’ Her pale face shone under its smudgy freckles. The tip of her pink tongue licked a smear of Marmite from her lip.

  ‘Listen, that’s part of the game, Elsie. We’re going to plan your party and we’re going to put the most important party things into the safe house.’

  ‘So we don’t forget!’

  ‘That’s it, so we don’t forget. Where do we start?’

  ‘The front door.’ Elsie was wriggling happily on the sofa, one Marmite hand in mine.

  ‘Right! Let’s take off the garland of leaves. It’s way past Christmas. What should we put there instead, if you’re having a party?’

  ‘I know, balloons!’

  ‘Balloons: a red one and a green one and a yellow one and a blue one. Maybe they’ll have faces on them!’ In my mind, I had an image of a line of little girls in their pink and yellow party dresses, all there for Elsie. I remembered the parties I’d been to as a child: sticky chocolate cake and pink-iced biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks; pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and pass-the-parcel so that everyone won something, dancing games, Simon Says, and at the end a party bag containing one small pack of Smarties, one plastic thing that would be adored for an hour and forgotten for ever, a whistle, a flat shiny balloon. Elsie should have them all, all those cheap and tacky things. ‘And what’s next?’

  ‘The doormat, the doormat where Fing put a glass of milk.’

  ‘Yes, well, I think we’ve knocked over that milk by now.’ Elsie giggled. ‘What shall we put there instead?’

  ‘Um, what can go on a doormat, Mummy?’

  ‘Well, there’s someone we are very fond of who’s creeping nearer to your Marmite all the time so mind out, and he likes to sleep on the doormat.’

  ‘Anatoly!’

  ‘He can be our watch-cat. What shall we put in the kitchen? How about something we’ve cooked?’

  Elsie jumped up and down, so that the plate slithered and I caught the toast stickily on my palm. ‘My cake! My cake in the shape of a horse house.’

  I remembered. The one at a friend’s birthday party with the walls made of chocolate flakes and plastic horses in the middle, and Elsie had been sick half-way through. I hugged her.

  ‘Horse cake. Now, what’s on the TV?’ She puckered her brow. ‘How about my birthday present to you ? Something you’ve wanted for a long time, maybe something that sings.’

  Her body went still.

  ‘Really, Mummy, do you promise? Can I really?’

  ‘We’ll choose it together this weekend. A canary on top of the TV then, singing away.’

  ‘Can I call him Yellowy?’

  ‘No. Now, what shall we put on the stairs?’

  She was firm here: ‘I want Thelma and Kirsty and Sarah and Granny and Grandpa, because they’re all coming to my party. And that girl I played with today at school. And the other one too, the one you saw me with. I want to send them invitations.’

  ‘All right, all your party guests on the stairs. What’s in the bath?’

  ‘That’s easy. My red boat with the propeller that never sinks, not even in big waves.’

  ‘Good.’ Another boat sailed into my mind, broken and tipping into the crested sea. ‘Where next?’

  ‘My bedroom.’

  ‘What shall we put in your bed then, Elsie?’

  ‘Can we put my teddy there? Can we get him out of the packing box so he doesn’t miss the party?’

  ‘Of course. I should never have put him there in the first place. And last of all, I know what’s in my bed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We are. You and me. We’re lying in bed together wide awake and the party’s over and all your guests have gone and we’re talking about all the birthdays you’re going to have.’

  ‘Are you very old, Mummy?’

  ‘No, just grown-up, not old.’

  ‘So you’re not going to die soon?’

  ‘No, I’m going to live for a long time.’

  ‘When I’m as old as you, will you be dead then?’

  ‘Maybe you will have children then, and I’ll be a granny.’

  ‘Can we always live together, Mummy?’

  ‘As long as you want to.’

  ‘And can I watch a video now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I shut the door on Mary Poppins and went into the kitchen, where I pulled the window wide open. The sound of London invaded the room: schoolchildren on their way home, giggling or quarrelling, syncopated music from a ghetto-blaster, the roar and impatient rev of car engines, a horn pumping into the stop-start queue, an ignored and insistent alarm, sirens in the distance, overhead a plane. I breathed in the smell of honeysuckle, exhaust fumes, frying garlic, urban heat, the smell of the city.

  She was out there somewhere, in that wonderful ungraspable mess, out in the crowd. Perhaps she was close by or perhaps she was gone for ever. I wondered if I would ever see her again. Perhaps one day, across a street, or in a queue at an airport or across a square in a foreign town, I’d glimpse a smooth face tilted upwards in the way I knew so well and stop and shake my head and walk quickly on. I’d see her in my dreams, smiling sweetly at me still. Her freedom was a small price to pay for Elsie’s safety. And I’d look at the newspapers. She had escaped but she hadn’t escaped with the money, not any of it. What would she do now? I closed my eyes and breathed in, out, in, out, to the roar of London. Danny had
died but we – me and Elsie – we had come through. That was something.

  The sound of Mary Poppins singing brightly to the children and to my child drifted in from the living room. I pushed open the door. Elsie was sitting back on the sofa, legs tucked up under her knees, glaring at the screen. I knelt beside her and she patted me absent-mindedly on the head.

  ‘Can you watch this with me, Mummy, the way Fing used to?’ So I stayed and watched, until the very end.

  The following morning, the underground was more than usually crowded. I felt hot inside all my layers of clothing, and I tried to distract myself by thinking about other things as I swayed against the bodies and the train clattered through the darkness. I thought about how my hair needed cutting. I could book it for lunch-time. I tried to remember if there was enough food in the house for tonight, or maybe we could get a takeaway. Or go dancing. I remembered I hadn’t taken my pill this morning and must do it as soon as I got to work. The thought of the pill made me think of the IUD and yesterday’s meeting, the memory of which had left me more unwilling than usual to get out of bed this morning.

  A skinny young woman with a large, red-faced baby squeezed her way down the train. No one stood up for her, and she stood with her child on her angular hip, held in place by the bodies all round her. Only the baby’s hot, cross face was exposed. Sure enough, it soon started yelling, hoarse, drawn-out wails that made its red cheeks purple, but the woman ignored it, as if she was beyond noticing. She had a glazed expression on her pallid face. Although her baby was dressed for an expedition to the South Pole, she wore just a thin dress and an unzipped anorak. I tested myself for maternal instinct. Negative. Then I looked round at all the men and women in suits. I leaned down to a man in a lovely cashmere coat, till I was near enough to see his spots, then said softly into his ear: ‘Excuse me. Can you make room for this woman?’ He looked puzzled, resistant. ‘She needs a seat.’

  He stood up and the mother shuffled over and wedged herself between two Guardians. The baby continued to wail, and she continued to stare ahead of her. The man could feel virtuous now.

  I was glad to get out at my station, though I wasn’t looking forward to the day ahead. When I thought about work, a lethargy settled over me, as if all my limbs were heavy and the chambers of my brain musty. It was icy on the streets, and my breath curled into the air. I wrapped my scarf more firmly around my neck. I should have worn a hat. Maybe I could nip out in a coffee-break and buy some boots. All around me people were hurrying to their different offices, heads down. Jake and I should go away somewhere in February, somewhere hot and deserted. Anywhere that wasn’t London. I imagined a white beach and a blue sky and me slim and tanned in a bikini. I’d been seeing too many advertisements. I always wore a one-piece. Oh, well. Jake had been on at me about saving money.

  I stopped at the zebra crossing. A lorry roared by. A pigeon and I scuttled back in unison. I glimpsed the driver, high up in his cab and blind to all the people below him trudging to work. The next car squeaked to a halt and I stepped out into the road.

  A man was crossing from the other side. I noticed he was wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket, and then I looked up at his face. I don’t know if he stopped first or I did. We both stood in the road staring at each other. I think I heard a horn blare. I couldn’t move. It felt like an age, but it was probably only a second. There was an empty, hungry feeling in my stomach and I couldn’t breathe in properly. A horn was sounded once more. Someone shouted something. His eyes were a startling blue. I started walking across the road again, and so did he, and we passed each other, inches away, our eyes locked. If he had reached out and touched me, I think I would have turned and followed him, but he didn’t and I reached the pavement alone.

  I walked towards the building that contained the Drakon offices, then stopped and looked back. He was still there, watching me. He didn’t smile or make any gesture. It was an effort to turn away again, with his gaze on me as if it were pulling me back towards him. When I reached the revolving doors of the Drakon building and pushed through them, I took a last glance back. He was gone, the man with blue eyes. So that was that.

  I went at once to the cloakroom, shut myself into a cubicle and leaned against the door. I felt dizzy, my knees trembled and there was a heavy feeling at the back of my eyes, like unshed tears. Maybe I was getting a cold. Maybe my period was about to start. I thought of the man and the way he had stared at me, and I closed my eyes as if that would somehow shut him out. Someone else came into the cloakroom, turned on a tap. I stood very still and quiet, and could hear my heart thudding beneath my blouse. I laid my hand against my burning cheek, put it on my breast.

  After a few minutes I could breathe properly again. I splashed cold water on my face, combed my hair, and remembered to remove a tiny pill from its foil calendar and swallow it. The ache in my guts was fading, and now I just felt fragile, jittery. Thank God nobody had seen anything. I bought coffee from the machine on the second floor and a bar of chocolate, for I was suddenly ravenous, and made my way to my office. I picked the wrapper and then the gold foil off the chocolate with shaky, incompetent fingers and ate it in large bites. The working day began. I read through my mail and tossed most of it into the bin, wrote a memo to Mike, then phoned Jake at work.

  ‘How’s your day going?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s only just started.’

  I felt as if hours had passed since leaving home. If I leaned back and closed my eyes, I could sleep for hours.

  ‘Last night was nice,’ he said, in a low voice. Maybe there were other people around at his end.

  ‘Mmm. I felt a bit odd this morning, though, Jake.’

  ‘Are you all right now?’ He sounded concerned. I’m never ill.

  ‘Yes. Fine. Completely fine. Are you all right?’

  I’d run out of things to say but I was reluctant to put the phone down. Jake suddenly sounded preoccupied. I heard him say something I couldn’t make out to someone else.

  ‘Yes, love. Look, I’d better go. ’Bye.’

  The morning passed. I went to another meeting, this time with the marketing department, managed to spill a jug of water over the table and say nothing at all. I read through the research document Giovanna had e-mailed to me. She was coming to see me at three thirty. I phoned up the hairdresser’s and made an appointment for one o’clock. I drank lots of bitter, tepid coffee out of polystyrene cups. I watered the plants in my office. I learned to say ‘Je voudrais quatre petits pains’ and ‘Ça fait combien?’

  Just before one I picked up my coat, left a message for my assistant that I would be out for an hour or so, then clattered down the stairs and into the street. It was just beginning to drizzle, and I hadn’t got an umbrella. I looked up at the clouds, shrugged, and started to walk quickly along Cardamom Street where I could pick up a taxi to the hairdresser’s. I stopped dead in my tracks and the world blurred. My stomach gave a lurch. I felt as if I was about to double up.

  He was there, a few feet from me. As if he hadn’t moved since this morning. Still in his black jacket and jeans; still not smiling. Just standing and looking at me. I felt then as if no one had ever looked at me properly before and was suddenly and acutely conscious of myself – of the pounding of my heart, the rise and fall of my breath; of the surface of my body, which was prickling with a kind of panic and excitement.

  He was my sort of age, early thirties. I suppose he was beautiful, with his pale blue eyes and his tumbled brown hair and his high, flat cheekbones. But then all I knew was that he was so focused on me that I felt I couldn’t move out of his gaze. I heard my breath come in a little ragged gasp, but I didn’t move and I couldn’t turn away.

  I don’t know who made the first step. Perhaps I stumbled towards him, or perhaps I just waited for him, and when we stood opposite each other, not touching, hands by our sides, he said, in a low voice, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

  I should have laughed out loud. This wasn’t me, this couldn’t be ha
ppening to me. I was just Alice Loudon, on her way to have her hair cut on a damp day in January. But I couldn’t laugh or smile. I could only go on looking at him into his wide-set blue eyes, at his mouth, which was slightly parted, the tender lips. He had white, even teeth, except that the front one was chipped. His chin was stubbly. There was a scratch on his neck. His hair was quite long, and unbrushed. Oh, yes, he was beautiful. I wanted to reach up and touch his mouth, ever so gently, with one thumb. I wanted to feel the scratch of his stubble in the hollow of my neck. I tried to say something, but all that came out of me was a strangled, prim ‘Oh.’

  ‘Please,’ he said then, still not taking his eyes off my face. ‘Will you come with me?’

  He could have been a mugger, a rapist, a psychopath. I nodded dumbly at him and he stepped into the road, flagged down a taxi. He held open the door for me, but still didn’t touch me. Inside he gave an address to the driver then turned towards me. I saw that under his leather jacket he wore only a dark green T-shirt. There was a leather thong around his neck with a small silver spiral hung on it. His hands were bare. I looked at his long fingers, with their neat, clean nails. A white scar kinked down one thumb. They looked practical hands, strong, dangerous.

  ‘Tell me your name?’

  ‘Alice,’ I said. I didn’t recognize my own voice.

  ‘Alice,’ he repeated. ‘Alice.’ The word sounded unfamiliar when he said it like that. He lifted his hands and, very gently, careful not to make any contact with my skin, loosened my scarf. He smelt of soap and sweat.

  The taxi stopped and, looking out, I saw that we were in Soho. There was a paper shop, a delicatessen, restaurants. I could smell coffee and garlic. He got out and once more held the door open for me. I could feel the blood pulsing in my body. He pushed at a shabby door by the side of a clothes shop and I followed him up a narrow flight of steps. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked two locks. Inside, it wasn’t just a room but a small flat. I saw shelves, books, pictures, a rug. I hovered on the threshold. It was my last chance. The noise from the street outside filtered through the windows, the rise and fall of voices, the rumble of cars. He closed the door and bolted it from the inside.