Where There's Smoke

CHAPTER 21

They lost several more clients in the wake of the newspaper story. One was a company that made maternity outfits. Kate almost smiled at the irony of that.

She was aware that the agency was approaching the stage where it was becoming more a matter of survival than of making a profit. She knew she should be taking a more aggressive approach, actively seeking out new clients as well as reassuring the remaining ones. But knowing that was one thing. Bringing herself to do it was something else.

Caroline and Josefina tiptoed around her at the office, hushed and deferent as nurses at a sick bed. They needn’t have bothered. Nothing touched her. Even when one or two clients phoned to congratulate her on being pregnant, her pleasure was a surface feeling, short-lived and shallow. It seemed barely conceivable that it was only a week since the first posters had appeared on the agency walls. Her world had contracted to the journey between her flat and the office. She no longer went to the health club. The one time she went to the supermarket, driven by an empty fridge and cupboards bare even of cat food, she had faltered outside the harsh arena of stacked shelves and fluorescent strip lights. When she had gone in, the brightness and colour was like a migraine. She pushed the trolley down the aisles, avoiding meeting anyone’s eye as she worked her way through the maze. Confronted with the profusion of cans and boxes her mind went blank. She stacked the trolley without any clear notion of what she was buying, walking faster and faster away from the faces that seemed to glance at her with recognition, and whispered conversations that became innocent as soon as she was close enough to hear. Once she heard someone behind her say, “Kate,” and she jerked the trolley into a display of tinned fruit. It teetered without falling, and she turned to see a little girl, laughing as she ran to her father with a bar of chocolate. While the child’s laughter turned to protests, Kate unsteadily steered her trolley from the tins and pushed it away. The nape of her neck was clammy with sweat as she bypassed the rest of the shelves and went straight to the checkout. She took a cab home. Sitting with the carrier bags at her feet, it occurred to her that taxis were a luxury she couldn’t afford now that the prop of the Parker Trust account had gone. She stared out of the window as the taxi pulled up at traffic lights near her home. A tramp entered the illuminated aura of a street lamp. Muffled by a bulky coat and scarf, his head was buried in his turned-up collar, so that only matted tufts of hair were visible. He clutched two carrier bags, and Kate had time to think that one looked as though it had porridge in it, before he passed from under the lamp’s glow. The taxi pulled forward with a brief scrape of gears as the lights changed to green. It came to a halt again almost immediately as a lorry up ahead tried to turn, blocking both lanes. The cab driver barged his steering wheel in annoyance. Kate looked at the ticking meter, then back out of the window. They had stopped by a building site, shielded from the street by a high plywood fence. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw the dark squares that ran along its length. The cab shunted forward a little, and some of the squares caught the light from the next lamp post. The words, KATE POWELL KILLED HER UNBORN CHILD seemed black in the yellow sodium glare. Kate saw how the paper glistened, wetly, and how the wood around each poster was dark with fresh paste. She twisted to look back through the rear window, trying to catch sight of the solitary tramp with his carrier bags. But the street was empty.

“It’s a threat, isn’t it?”

Kate stood over her desk. The smell of petrol filled the office. She had wiped her hands, but they still felt greasy. The telephone handset was slippery in her palm. Collins sounded unperturbed. “Just try to calm down.”

“Calm down!”

“He’s trying to rattle you, that’s all.”

“Well, he bloody well is doing!”

She stared down at the open Jiffy-bag on her desk as though it would ignite by itself. It had arrived with the post. The effect of seeing the poster the night before had faded a little in the daylight. As soon as she arrived back at her flat Kate had phoned the police incident room to tell Collins about the tramp. But the Inspector couldn’t be reached, and the policeman who had taken her message sounded uninterested and patronising. She had slammed down the phone before she shouted at him. Trying to put the incident from her mind, she had gone into work that morning and occupied herself with opening the post. There were no more large brown envelopes, and Kate had begun to relax. Until she had opened the Jiffy-bag. Collins was still unruffled. “He wants to scare you, that’s why he’s doing all this. You’ve hurt him, and now he’s trying to hurt you back by frightening you. If he was serious, he’d have done something by now.”

“He’s already tried to set fire to where I live, for Christ’s sake!”

“If Ellis had been serious about trying to burn down your flat, he’s had enough experience to make a better job of it than that. If he’d used more petrol, perhaps pushed a few rags through as well, then waited for the fumes to build up, that little entrance hall would have gone up like a bomb. There are all sorts of different ways he could have done real damage. If he’d wanted to.”

“So you’re saying I’ve got nothing to worry about?”

“No, what I’m saying is — sorry, just a second.” There was a hollow whisper of a hand being put over the receiver. Kate could hear distant, muffled voices. The cloying smell of petrol oozed into her pores. She looked again down at the Jiffy-bag. Its mouth gaped, and the self-sealing polythene bag that had been inside was draped half out of it like a pale tongue. The oily black ashes that had spilled out when she had dropped it lay wetly on the desk. Kate knew she should clean them up before the surface was stained, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch them. Only one part of the poster had been left unburnt. She could imagine Ellis carefully turning the burning paper, until everything except her face had been consumed. Then he had soaked the ashes in petrol and sent them to her. There was a rattle as Collins took his hand away from the receiver. Then his voice was back. “Sorry about that. Where was I?”

“You were telling me why I’d nothing to worry about.”

Collins overlooked her sarcasm, which made her feel worse. “Try and look at things in perspective. The posters are upsetting and I know they’ve damaged your business. But they can’t hurt you.”

Kate wanted to believe him. “Can’t they? What about this?”

She waved her hand at the burnt remains of the poster, as though the Inspector could see it. “It’s like he’s telling me what he’s going to do! He’s psyching himself up for it!”

“Look, Kate.” The policeman spoke with weary patience. The unexpected use of her Christian name was somehow comforting. “I’m not trying to kid you that Ellis isn’t dangerous. But you’re taking every reasonable precaution that you can, and he’s made himself too conspicuous to get away with what he was doing earlier. He’s got to be more careful where he puts the posters because he knows we’re watching for him, and he’s going to find it more and more difficult to go out in public at all. He’s probably getting frustrated, so he’s looking for different ways to get at you.”

“But if he’s frustrated mightn’t that make him do something?”

Collins took a moment to answer. “I wasn’t going to tell you this. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up, but we’ve had a sighting of Ellis. It was last night, at Piccadilly Underground. A transport police officer spotted him. He was carrying a couple of plastic bags, and when the officer went to challenge him, he dropped them and vaulted over the barriers and ran out. There was a roll of posters in one and paste in the other.”

Kate remembered the bags the tramp had been carrying. “He got away?”

She felt a strange mix of adrenaline and disappointment, as though the outcome were still in doubt.

“Unfortunately, but it proves my point. Every time he pokes his nose out now, he increases the risk of being caught, and it won’t be long now before he is.”

That thought buoyed her up for the rest of the day. It was a fragile optimism, but better than the feeling of being buried alive. A uniformed police constable called around later that morning for the Jiffy-bag and burnt poster, and once that had gone Kate felt encouraged enough to venture out.

It was the first time since Clive had gone home that she had left the office without getting straight into a taxi. It had only been days, but it seemed much longer. The street seemed wider and longer than usual under the grey and agoraphobic plain of the sky. She walked out by the pavement edge, away from doorways and alleys, checking behind her every few minutes. When she reached King’s Cross she felt the uneasy relief that comes with a fading of tension.

She caught the tube for the three stops to Oxford Circus.

By the time she emerged from the Underground, a watery sun was shining through the cloud. Kate turned her face to it gratefully. People thronged past, intent on their own business. The rest of the world was still there, unchanged.

She called in at a cafe and had a cup of hot chocolate. After drinking it she decided she was hungry and ordered a mozzarella and tomato sandwich. The taste of olive oil made her think of summer. It would soon be spring, she realised, with surprise. The thought gave her a further boost.

Kate left the cafe and browsed outside shop windows. She stared into a display of baby clothes. There were tiny sweaters and jackets, miniature jeans and boots. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass and saw that she was smiling. Everything passes, she told herself.

She wasn’t confident enough to walk to the station that evening, though, or not to take a taxi back to her flat at the other end. As the light fell, some of her earlier fears revived. Kate asked the taxi driver to wait until she had unlocked the front door. Dougal was waiting outside by the step. He yowled irritably when he saw her. Even though he had rarely used it, he seemed to have taken the disappearance of the cat flap as a personal slight.

The tom cat ran upstairs ahead of her. There was always a moment of anxiety as she went from room to room, quickly drawing the heavy curtains before turning on the lights. But, as usual, the flat was empty.

She fed Dougal, and grilled herself a piece of plaice. She baked a potato in the microwave, putting it in the oven to crisp while she chopped carrots into strips, then blanched them quickly in boiling water and drained them out onto a plate. Dougal showed more interest in her fish than his own food, and eventually she gave in and flaked a small piece into his dish so he would leave her alone.

She took her plate through into the lounge. She had developed the habit of taking the fire extinguisher with her from room to room, but tonight she resolutely left it in the kitchen. Curling her legs under her, she ate with a fork while she read the brochures she had picked up at lunchtime. They showed push-chairs and prams, cots and cradles. Kate felt almost intoxicated as she looked at them. This was the future, this was what she should be focused on, not the petrol fantasies of a disturbed mind.

When the phone rang she thought it would be Clive. He had already called once, briefly, to say he would be away longer than he expected. His brother’s funeral had been the day before, and she guessed he would call again soon, if only to say he still didn’t know when he’d be back. She set her plate on a shelf, out of Dougal’s reach, and went into the hall to answer the phone. “Hello?”

“Kate?”

It was a man’s voice, familiar but not clive’s, and she stiffened for the instant it took to place it. “It’s Paul.”

She put her head against the wall. Her heart thumped with anticlimax. “Are you still there?” he asked.

Kate straightened, wearily. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. I just thought I’d phone, see how you are — “

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.” She was already lowering the phone.

“No, wait, wait, wait, wait! Please!”

It was that please that stopped her. She hesitated, then raised the phone again. “All right. I’m waiting.”

She heard him breathing. “Look, I’m — I know you don’t want to talk to me, and I can’t blame you. I just phoned because, well, because — oh, shit, look, I’m trying to say I’m sorry.”

Kate was too surprised to answer. Paul waited a moment, obviously hoping she would.

“Kate? I said I’m sorry.”

There was none of the arrogance she’d come to expect in his voice. Even so, she half expected some catch. “You’re sorry?”

It was all she could think of to say.

“Yeah, I know it’s a bit late in the day, but … I just wanted to tell you.”

Curious, now, she tried to detect some hint that he was acting. But he spoke without any of his usual bombast. “What’s brought this on?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, lately, and …” He gave an uneasy laugh. “All right, it was getting arrested that did it. Arrested again, I should say.”

Kate tensed for the accusation. It didn’t come.

“It was … well, it was no joke.” He sounded sober, still shaken by it. “The first time I got arrested, after I’d put the brick through your window, I was too pissed off to think about what was happening. I blamed you. You know what I’m like, it’s always somebody else’s fault, never mine.”

His tone was thinly jocular. He cleared his throat. “I was pissed off this time as well. But I was too drunk to get any sense out of, so they put me in a holding cell to sober up. I fell asleep, and when I woke up I felt like death. It stank of piss and puke, and I could hear all these drunks in the other cells, shouting and singing. Then I heard a couple of coppers coming down the corridor, talking about this drunk they’d picked up for a burglary, but it didn’t dawn on me until they started unlocking my cell that it was me. Even then, I just thought, ‘Fucking coppers, who do they think they are?’ And then I sat up, and saw I’d pissed myself and been sick all down my front.”

He broke off. Kate heard him swallow.

“Anyway, in the end they traced the cabby who’d taken me home. He remembered me because I’d argued with him and then puked in his cab.” He gave a humourless laugh. “Good job, as it turned out. Once they’d spoken to him, they gave me my shoes and belt back and let me go. Trouble was, when I got outside I realised I hadn’t taken my wallet when they’d arrested me, and I hadn’t got a cent to get home with. So I stood there, covered in puke and piss, and I thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I’m thirty-seven, I’ve lost my job, I’ve managed to piss off nearly everybody I know, and I’ve got to walk through the streets stinking like a wino.’ And I just started crying. If I’d had any money on me, I’d have probably bought something and got pissed again, but all I could do was walk home. By the time I got back I was freezing and stone cold sober, and I thought, ‘That’s it,’ and binned all the bottles in the house before I’d got time to think about it. Emptied them down the sink first so I couldn’t change my mind. Then I got the phone book out and phoned Alcoholics Anonymous.”

There was a dramatic pause. Kate wondered if he had rehearsed the ending, expecting a fanfare. But she was immediately ashamed of her cynicism.

“So how often have you been?” she asked, feeling obliged to say something.

“More than half a dozen times now.”

If he resented the anticlimax, there was no sign of it. Kate felt churlish.

“You go as often as you need, wherever there’s a meeting,” he went on. “I still need to go pretty often. There’re twelve steps they say you’ve got to take. The main one is accepting that you’ve got a problem. That’s supposed to be the hardest, that and apologising to people you’ve been a bastard to. Like you. But I’ve finally managed it. And I’ve not had a drink since.”

There was a faint note of pleading now, of wanting his accomplishment to be recognised. Kate relented. “It can’t have been easy.”

“Hardest thing I’ve ever done.” He sounded proud. “Next to this phone call, that is. But I wanted to tell you. I know I gave you a hard time. Not just recently. Before, as well.”

That wasn’t just drink! you’re still making excuses! She felt a flash of the old anger, but it quickly burned itself out.

“It’s a long time ago. Let’s just forget about it.”

“No, I mean it. I know what you think about me, and you’re right. I was a bastard to you. I wish I could blame it all on the booze, but I can’t.”

She tried to find a suitable response. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t believe him. Just that none of it seemed to matter now.

“Okay,” she said, and then, because she knew he expected more, added, “I’m glad.”

She could almost hear him trying to gauge if she meant it. He seemed to decide that she did. “I came to the office this afternoon to tell you, but I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I didn’t think I’d be welcome, anyway. Not after last time.” Kate made no comment to that.

“I saw your friend outside,” he added.

The change of tack threw her. Lucy? she thought.

“You know,” Paul continued. “The guy you were with at the restaurant.”

Understanding came in a rush.

“Outside?” she said, stupidly.

“On the other side of the road. He was in a doorway. I thought he must be waiting for you.”

“He was there this afternoon?”

“Yeah, about four o’clock, but — “

“What was he doing?”

“Nothing, he was just standing there. I couldn’t place who he was at first. In fact, I thought he was a dosser to be honest. He looked like he should have been selling the Big Issue.”

Kate didn’t laugh.

“Yeah, well, he was in a bit of a state, anyway. I wondered about going over and apologising for … well, you know. But then he saw me, and gave me this look, and I thought, ‘Perhaps not’. I’d got myself into enough trouble, and if he’d had a go nobody would’ve believed I hadn’t started it.”

A faintly aggrieved note had entered his tone, but Kate barely noticed. “Did he do anything?”

“Not while I was there, but like I say, I didn’t stay. I just got as far as your office and turned back. He was still staring at me when I left. Look, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

The words wouldn’t come. “The uh … the police are looking for him.”

Distantly, she heard Paul exclaim, asking why, and her own voice answering. There was a roaring in her ears. When it passed Paul was shouting at her.

“Kate? Kate, you still there?”

“… Yes.”

“So this guy’s stalking you, then?”

The effort to explain was too much. “Sort of.”

“Christ! I wish I’d known!”

The familiar aggression was back. “Are you by yourself?”

“Yes, but — “

“I’ll come over.”

It was a statement. Kate felt herself teeter on the edge of acceptance. “No, I don’t think …”

“I’ll be there in about an hour,” he said.

“Paul …”

“Don’t worry. If I see him again you won’t have any more trouble. Listen, have you eaten? I can stop off for — “

“I said no!”

There was a silence. “I only thought — ” Paul began.

“No,” Kate checked herself. She tried to relax her tensed muscles. “I know. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Her anger was directed at herself for being tempted. She waited for him to argue.

“No, I expect you’re right,” he said, after a pause. He gave a strained laugh. “I can’t really blame you, I suppose. Still, the offer stands. If you need any help, just shout.”

The thank you lodged unspoken in Kate’s throat.

“Well, that’s all, then,” Paul said. He seemed to search for something else to say. “Look after yourself.”

She nodded, then remembered that he couldn’t see her. “I will.”

The connection remained for a few seconds, then the line went dead. Kate put down the phone, telling herself she had no cause to feel bad. In her distraction she even forgot what he’d said about Ellis.

She jumped at a sudden clatter from the lounge. She hurried through.

Dougal leapt down from the shelf where she’d left her plate. It lay on the floor with the carrots and remains of the fish scattered around it. The baked potato sat on the carpet like a dead tortoise.

Kate went to fetch a cloth.