Harbour Street

Chapter Thirty-Four

Kate Dewar tried to drive to the end of Harbour Street to turn around. She always liked her car to be facing the right way outside the house when she parked. But she had to back all the way up the street again, because a uniformed officer waved to show that there was no way through. Outside Malcolm’s yard there was a minibus and a van, dozens of police officers in dark-blue anoraks. They were putting up screens so that you couldn’t see anything from the road. Blue-and-white tape, like on television detective shows, but twisted upside down and back to front so that she couldn’t read what it said. She guessed: Police. Do Not Enter. Did that mean Malcolm had been arrested? She shivered at the thought that her son had been working so closely with a killer. Perhaps the investigation was nearly over and life would go back to normal. She and Stuart could continue making plans to move and start their new life.

In the house Chloe was in – she helped Kate carry the shopping down the stairs to the kitchen – but there was no sign of Ryan. She wondered briefly what he was up to, imagined him prowling. He needs a girlfriend, she thought. Someone stable, without too much imagination. She was sorry Ryan was out; he would have known what was going on in Harbour Street.

George Enderby was in the lounge. He’d helped himself to whisky.

‘I put some money on the dresser,’ he said. ‘I hope that’s all right. I spoke to the inspector. She said that I can leave tomorrow, so you’ll be rid of me then, Kate.’ He gave a lopsided grin and she thought that really he would have liked to stay. Or he wanted her to say that she would miss him.

‘We’ll miss you,’ she said, wondering if there was really any difference sometimes between kindness and desperation to please. ‘But Diana will be glad to have you home.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Diana’s moved on. She has a new man. Just like you.’ Kate wondered if he’d been sitting here all afternoon drinking her whisky, or if he’d been brooding in the lounge bar at the pub, buying drinks in return for company. He didn’t seem drunk, but still he was hardly himself.

‘Do you know what’s going on at Malcolm’s yard?’ If he’d been in the pub he might have heard the gossip.

‘No.’ He seemed hardly to care.

Back in the kitchen she put away all the food she’d bought for Christmas.

Chloe was on the sofa in the living room and there was a book face-down beside her. She’d changed into different clothes, though, a pretty top that she usually only wore for going out, and she’d put on eye-liner and mascara. Kate wondered if one of her friends had been round. Chloe called through to her mother, ‘Oh, Stuart phoned.’ Implying that any call for her mother could have no importance and that she’d only just remembered. ‘He said that you weren’t answering your mobile.’

Kate stood in the doorway between the two rooms. She was clasping a huge bag of washing powder to her stomach as if it were a baby. ‘What did he want?’

‘Nothing.’ That breezy voice. ‘He just said to tell you that he’d called.’

Kate phoned Stuart, but there was no response. She left him a message, saying that she was in. ‘Come round, if you’re not busy. It’d be lovely to see you.’ She thought that the balance of power had shifted between them. In the beginning Stuart had been the eager one, turning up on her doorstep, excited. Now she felt more needy, less certain of his affection.

She couldn’t settle and climbed the stairs to the landing close to Margaret’s room. From the round window there was a view over Malcolm’s yard. It seemed to her that the police officers were searching for something specific. They had their own method, she could tell: meticulous, shifting all Malcolm’s gear to one end of the yard. It was almost dark and suddenly the street lights came on and quite clearly she saw Ryan, peering through the railings, trying to see past the screens, along with other rubber-neckers. No doubt there’d already be a photo on his smartphone and he’d have sent it to all his friends. Then he’d move on, pacing the pavement, restless as ever.

Back in the kitchen she tried to phone Stuart again, but still he didn’t answer.