‘I’ve met a lot of people who can’t be trusted, but you seem different.’ He pauses. ‘Are you?’
Alice runs her hands up and down the skirt of the dress she changed into in the staff toilets at work. Nervous or not, this is too much, this intensity. She thought they’d make small talk, then segue into chat about their interests, their families and their plans for the future. She thought he’d be as light-hearted and jokey as he’d been in his messages.
She forces a laugh. ‘I don’t think I’d have got the manager’s job if I was untrustworthy.’
‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’ He presses a heavy hand over hers. ‘Are you someone I can trust?’
Alice glances at the bar but the near-teenager is too engrossed in his phone to notice the look she shoots in his direction and the two older men have their backs turned to her. But someone has noticed her anguish. The man with the laptop on the opposite side of the pub has stopped typing and is looking at her with concern. She raises her eyebrows at him, signally what she’s not sure, but he doesn’t move from his seat. Instead his attention returns to his screen and he hunches over, typing furiously. He wasn’t watching her at all, he was staring into space.
‘I asked you a question,’ Michael says. ‘Are you someone I can trust?’
Alice keeps her gaze firmly fixed forward. ‘Yes,’ she says from between her teeth. ‘Of course I am.’
She tugs her hand away from beneath his sweating palm but he’s quicker than she is and he pins her hand to the light cotton material of her skirt.
‘Look at me. Look at me, Alice.’
No, shouts the voice in her head. I don’t want to.
There’s a part of her that wants to shout at him to take his heavy, clammy hand off hers. He’s drunk but he must be able to see how uncomfortable she is, how rigid she has suddenly become. But there’s another part of her, a bigger part, that doesn’t want to cause a scene or risk angering him. He’s not sexually abusing her. He hasn’t touched her boobs or her bum. But that doesn’t make it okay. Hot angry tears prick at her eyes. Of all the men on Tinder, she chose him. It’s like she’s got a sign on her head: complete walkover seeks utter arsehole. Decent men need not apply. Well she’s not going to let him see her cry.
‘Excuse me.’ She stands abruptly, yanking her hand from his, grabs her handbag, shifts to her left and rounds the table. Out of the corner of her eye she spots laptop man packing up his things. ‘I’m just going to use the ladies.’
Irritation flares on Michael’s face. ‘You’re doing a runner.’
‘No, I’m not.’
But I will, she thinks. When I get back.
‘I’ll get you a drink,’ Michael calls after her as she hurries across the pub, following the sign to the toilets. ‘Might make you a bit less uptight!’
Alice’s pulse pounds in her ears as she throws open the door to the ladies’ loo and stalks over to the sink. She grips the cold, ceramic sides and folds over herself, her eyes screwed shut, breathing rapidly through her nose.
‘Arsehole,’ she says, lifting her head, staring into the eyes of her tear-stained reflection. ‘Stupid bloody arsehole.’
She steps into the nearest cubicle, grabs a handful of cheap, rough toilet paper and blows her nose. She flushes it, grabs another handful and returns to the sink. She blots the tears that roll down her cheeks, cutting pale rivulets through the thick foundation that mask her freckles. As she takes a deep, steadying breath, an image of her ex-husband flickers in her brain – curled up on the sofa with his new wife and her burgeoning baby bump – and fresh tears replace the ones she wiped away.
‘Stop it,’ she says to her reflection. ‘Alice, stop it! You’ve got a nice flat, a lovely daughter, a good job and great friends. You don’t need this shit.’
She roots around in her handbag for her concealer and powder and does her best to cover the redness on her nose, then replaces the eyeliner that disappeared down her cheeks. She doesn’t want to give Michael the satisfaction of knowing that he made her cry.
‘It’ll do,’ she tells herself and snaps her handbag shut.
She steels herself before she opens the toilet door. She’ll go back to the table. She’ll pick up her coat, say a cursory, ‘It was nice to meet you,’ and she’ll walk out of the pub with her head held high.
‘Right,’ she says to herself, then she turns the handle, opens the door and steps out of the ladies’ toilets.
‘Hello, Alice.’
Michael is standing at the end of the narrow corridor, blocking her route back to the bar. As his eyes meet hers, her heart stills its frantic thumping. It pauses between beats.
A slow smile forms on Michael’s lips. ‘Did you get lost?’
‘No. Why?’ There’s a quiver in her voice that she’s never heard before.
‘I thought maybe you were waiting for me to join you.’
‘I’m sorry?’
He shrugs, his dark anorak shifting on his shoulders and Alice’s stomach lurches. Clenched in his right hand is her coat.
‘You only had to ask.’ He leers at her. ‘If you wanted a quickie. I’m all for a bit of … fun.’
‘I have to go back to work.’ She steps towards him, gesturing for her coat.
There’s a pause as Michael considers the request, then he lifts her coat and holds it out towards her. She reaches for it, limp with relief. Her fingertips graze the shiny material and she fixes her mouth into a tight smile as she mentally prepares the last words she’ll ever say to him.
It was nice to meet you.
No, it wasn’t. How about, I really must get back to work. Bye then.
Or maybe just: Goodbye.
She raises her eyes to his, the word forming between her lips, then gasps in shock as the coat is ripped from her curled fingers.
Michael holds it behind his back. His smile widens.
‘Kiss goodbye?’
She stares at him, too stunned to speak.
‘I had to take half a day off work to meet you. And I bought you a drink.’
Her incredulity morphs into anger. He took the morning off work to get pissed and shelled out for half a lemonade and he thinks that entitles him to a kiss? What century does he live in? What planet?
‘My coat.’ This time her voice doesn’t betray her. Every ounce of anger she feels is compressed into the two words.
He shakes his head then leans forward, lips pursed. Alice reaches round him, squeezing half her body between him and the wall, and grabs at the coat, dangling from his hands. ‘Just fucking give it to me!’
The air is knocked from her lungs as Michael lunges to the side, his elbow connecting with the small hollow between her collarbones. She stumbles backwards, the crown of her head hitting the wall as her handbag tumbles to the ground.
‘Don’t swear at me.’ His breath is sour, his eyes glassy. ‘Never swear at me.’
Alice presses a hand to her throat, sucking in air, her brain empty. She is vaguely aware of the soft squeak of a door opening and a dark shape in her peripheral vision but all she can do is stare up into the sweaty, open-pored face of the man whose right hand is clamped around her right shoulder, his fingers digging into the soft tissue beneath the hard bone. Michael lowers his face to hers, his dry cracked lips parting, as he draws closer.
He’s going to kiss me.
His wet, red tongue quivers against his bottom lip, saliva glistening on its tip. The revulsion that courses through her body makes her dazed brain spark back to life.
He’s NOT going to kiss me.
Her knee whips through the air then stops suddenly as it finds its target. Michael throws his head back and roars as he falls away, hands clasped between his legs.
Alice doesn’t wait for him to recover. Instead she stoops down, snatches up her bag and her coat, and she runs.
A male voice follows her as she bursts out of the pub, shouting, telling her to stop, to wait. She hears footsteps behind her, pounding the cobbled street as she heads for the Meads, but she doesn’t look back.
Chapter 4
Gareth
It’s the sudden movement across the top left screen that catches Gareth’s eye. Someone is speeding across the shopping centre, running hell for leather. He snatches up his radio, his thumb primed over the talk button. Someone moving that fast can only mean one thing – shoplifter. He pushes a button on the control desk, zooming in on the sprinter, then his eyes widen as she comes into focus. He knows this woman. She works in the ladies’ fashion boutique on the first floor. He’s watched her open up in the morning and close up at night. Given the fact she’s always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave he’s pretty sure she’s the manager. She’s short, not much more than five foot, with vivid red hair that she wears curled up in a bun on the back of her head.
He jolts in his seat as a hand darts across the screen, grasping for the red-haired woman. Male fingers latch around her shoulder. Gareth zooms out to see a tall blonde man in a beige jacket with a black laptop bag slung across his body, then lifts his radio to his mouth.
‘Alpha Charlie Zero. Anyone available on the first floor? Red-haired IC1 female being assaulted by a blond-haired IC1 male. Just outside Superdrug. Over.’
He takes his thumb off the button and stands up to get a better look at the screen. The shop manager looks terrified: her hands are up by her mouth, her eyes are wide with fright and she’s backing away from the man. He’s got something in his hand and he’s waving it in her direction. Gareth’s radio crackles.
‘Bravo Golf Seven,’ says Liam, one of his security guards. ‘I’ve spotted them. En route. Over.’
As Gareth watches, the guard sprints across the expanse and inserts himself between the man and woman. Gareth holds his breath, waiting to see what Liam will do next. He’s already had one warning for aggressively apprehending a shoplifter, on top of another for the state of his uniform. One more and he’s out.
Gareth pans back in so he can see everyone’s faces. The tall blonde man is shaking his head, holding up his hands as though in surrender. He opens his right hand and looks from Liam to the red-haired woman. There’s a small, black purse on his palm. The woman stares at it in surprise then opens her handbag and rummages around inside. Her lips move as she looks back at the man with the laptop and, not for the first time, Gareth wishes he could hear what was being said. He continues to watch as the woman takes the purse out of the blonde man’s hand then scurries away in the direction of Mirage Ladies Fashions.
Gareth’s radio crackles to life.
‘Bravo Golf Seven,’ Liam says. ‘Incident under control. No assault took place. IC1 male was returning a purse to IC1 female. Apparently she dropped it during a scuffle in the Evening Star pub on Broad Street. Over.’
Gareth raises his eyebrows. ‘Received. What do you mean by scuffle? Over.’
‘Not entirely sure. Sounds like she was assaulted but fought back. Not by the IC1, someone else. Over.’
‘Is she pressing charges? Over.’
‘I asked her that and she said no. Over.’
Gareth runs a hand across his face. He wishes he could go down and chat to her, to see if she’s okay and counsel her about pressing charges. But he can’t. He can’t leave the CCTV office when he’s manning it alone, not even for five minutes. At 2 p.m. he’ll swap with one of the other guards, currently on patrol. Until then he’s got to stay where he is.
‘All right,’ he says into his radio. ‘Don’t forget to write it up and file it. Over and out.’
He wheels himself over to the side of the desk and enters the details of the incident into the database, then rolls back to the centre of the desk. He looks from screen to screen, watching mothers pushing babies in prams, dads carrying young children on their shoulders, toddlers having tantrums, two elderly ladies walking arm in arm, a small group of teenagers on the skive from school, a single bloke, a single woman, people frowning, laughing, chatting and deliberating. It’s not a large shopping centre – two floors (three if you count the level where the CCTV office is situated) containing about forty shops. But hundreds of people go in and out of the Meads every day, and he watches them – looking for signs of trouble, for shoplifters and vandals, for the infirm and unwell, for missing children and frantic parents, for accidents waiting to happen (or accidents that already have). Even when he’s on patrol people rarely look him in the eye. The other guards moan about their families – how their wives nag, how their kids fight, and how the dog’s shat behind the sofa again. But in the same breath they’ll tell him what a bloody good mum their missus is, how their kids were ‘star of the week’ at school, and how the dog’s learned a new trick.
Gareth’s just got his mum. He lives in the same house he was born in. You could blindfold him and spin him around and he could still find his way from the living room to his bedroom without stepping on the loose nail in the stairs or the squeaky plank in the hall.
His mum used to wake him up in the morning with a sharp tap on the door and a cup of tea on his bedside table. He can’t remember the last time she did that. Before Dad left maybe? These days it’s him doing the waking up: knocking softly at her door, opening it a crack, holding his breath, looking at the small shape of her shrouded by the duvet, watching for the rise and fall of her chest.
The thought makes him dig in his back pocket for his mobile. It’s 1.40 p.m. and, sure enough, there’s a text from his mum’s carer Sally.
All good. Mum seems coherent today. She was telling me all about your dad and how he won the biggest marrow competition at some fair. I’ve left her with a sandwich and Bargain Hunt on the TV. Yvonne arrived before I left.
Yvonne is his mum’s other carer. Gareth hits reply and slides his thumb over the screen.
Any visitors today?
There’s a pause then,
That man from the church popped in.
Gareth grimaces. William Mackesy, the local Spiritualist Church leader, aka the biggest fraud that ever lived. He taps out a reply: What did he want?
A text pings back: He just wanted to say hello but he did mention something to your mum that freaked her out a bit.
What’s that?
I’m not sure I should tell you.
Tell me!
There’s another pause then Gareth’s phone pings again.
He said he’s been receiving messages from the other side for you and that you should be careful. There’s someone close by who means you harm.
Chapter 5
Ursula
Ursula steps from foot to foot as she fumbles her key into the lock.
‘Come on, come on, come on!’
The key doesn’t turn so she wiggles the handle. To her surprise the door opens. It’s the middle of the day and both of her flatmates are at work. There’s a distinct possibility that she might be about to interrupt a burglar clearing out the house, but Ursula doesn’t care. She bursts into the hallway, slams the front door shut with a kick of her foot and speeds up the stairs to the bathroom. At the sight of the white porcelain her pelvic muscles weaken, she lets out a little squeal of alarm and yanks down her jogging bottoms. She needs to use the toilet, leave the house and get back in the van as quickly as possible. The traffic was terrible at Temple Meads and she’s already running seven minutes behind schedule. Much more and she won’t complete her delivery round on time.
‘Ahhhh.’ She sighs with relief as her bottom hits the seat. As she reaches for the toilet roll there’s a sharp knock at the bathroom door that makes her jump.
‘Ursula, it’s Charlotte. Can I have a word in the living room when you’re done?’
Charlotte? What’s she doing at home? Ursula pulls up her pants and jogging bottoms, washes her hands and reaches for her pink hand towel. But it’s not on the top rung of the metal wall radiator. Matt’s black towel is on the next rung down and Charlotte’s grey towel beneath that, but hers isn’t there. She looks down at the tiled floor then peers behind the sink. It’s definitely gone. As she casts her eye around the small bathroom she notices other missing items – her toothbrush and toothpaste, her shower gel, her shampoo and conditioner, her body cream and her contact lens solution and pot. Charlotte and Matt’s things are still in their usual places so it’s not as though one of them went on a cleaning rampage – something Matt is very fond of doing ridiculously early on a Sunday morning, Ursula’s only day off. So why move her things? Glancing at her watch, she hurries across the landing, throws open the door to her bedroom and steps inside. Then immediately steps back out again. She’s in the wrong room, maybe even the wrong house …
‘Charlotte!’ She hurries down the stairs and through the open door of the lounge. She stops short and gawps at the enormous pile of cardboard boxes crowding the middle of the room.
‘We’re very sorry, Ursula.’
She jolts at Matt’s voice. He’s sitting on the sofa behind the mountain of cardboard, his fingers entwined with Charlotte’s.
‘Sorry? Sorry about wh—’
The pieces slot, Tetris-like, into shape. They’ve packed up all her stuff. That’s why her bedroom has been stripped bare and none of her things are in the bathroom. That’s why Charlotte zipped back into her room without saying good morning when they passed on the landing a little after seven. It’s why Matt cheerily offered her a cup of coffee when she came downstairs. They planned this. They let her think they were going to work and then they let themselves into her room and they moved her out.
‘You’ve been through my things,’ she says, goose bumps prickling beneath the thick cotton of her hoody. ‘My personal things.’
‘Not just your things, Ursula.’ Matt tugs his hand from Charlotte’s and stands up. At a little under six foot he has to tilt his chin up to make eye contact with Ursula but there’s no fear on his face (despite her size). Instead he looks determined, and more than a little pissed off.
‘We knew it was you.’ Unlike Matt’s steady tone, Charlotte’s voice is tight and screechy with emotion. ‘We tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. We made allowances for you, Ursula. We even told you that if you returned our things we’d say no more about it but—’
‘You took her granny’s wedding ring,’ Matt says. ‘That had huge sentimental value to Charlotte. Didn’t it, Char?’
Charlotte nods, her eyes shining with tears. Ursula’s throat tightens. She didn’t know it was her granny’s ring or that it had sentimental value. The little ceramic dish had been in the bathroom for what felt like forever. There wasn’t much in it – some hair bands, toothbrush heads, the knob that had come unscrewed from the cupboard, and a slim gold band with a slit that broke its perfect circle. It had glinted at her in the early morning sun and she’d picked it up and put it in her pocket. She barely even noticed herself doing it. She’d been thinking about Nathan at the time.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says now. ‘I meant to put it back.’
‘Like you meant to put my watch back,’ Matt says, ‘and Char’s mug and my pen and her scarf and my photo frame and …’ He shakes his head. ‘I’d be here all day if I listed it all. We found it, by the way, all our stuff, and some things that belong to our friends. Friends who stayed over on the sofa believing that their belongings would be safe in our house.’
Ursula swallows. She hadn’t meant to take the fancy shower gel from the bathroom, or the book from the arm of the sofa, or the umbrella from the hook in the hall. She’d wanted to return them – she always wanted to return the things she took – but the friends never stayed long enough for her to sneak their valuables back into their bags. Unfortunately there’d been no way she could return Charlotte’s ring to the dish after she’d practically torn the bathroom apart looking for it.
‘There was other stuff we found in your room too,’ Charlotte says. ‘Clothes, jewellery, knick-knacks with price tags attached. Matt said we should go to the police but I don’t want you to go to prison. I just want … I just want …’ Her voice breaks and she sobs.
‘Please, Charlotte,’ Ursula begs. ‘Please don’t do this. I’ll change. I promise. You can’t kick me out. I’ve got no money and nowhere else to go.’
‘You could stay with your mum.’
‘I can’t. Even if she wanted me there I couldn’t afford the flight to Spain and there’s no one, literally no one else in Bristol I can stay with.’
‘Nathan’s mum then.’
‘No.’ Ursula shakes her head violently, tears pricking at her eyes. ‘Please, Charlotte. Let’s talk about this. Let’s sit down this evening, have a glass of wine and sort it out.’
‘I can’t.’ Charlotte shakes her head miserably. ‘I’m sorry but I really can’t.’
Matt presses a hand to his girlfriend’s shoulder and gives it a consoling squeeze. ‘I’m sorry, Ursula. We just want you out.’
Fat tears drop onto the piece of paper in Ursula’s hands. The back of the van is crammed with her belongings, the engine is running and she’s nearly forty-five minutes behind schedule, but she can’t bring herself to release the handbrake and pull away.
She managed to hold it together until Matt held out his hand. When she went to shake it he snatched it away.
‘Your house keys.’
Hot tears welled in her eyes as she unclipped two keys from her keyring and dropped them into his palm.
‘Where do I go?’ The words scratched at her throat. ‘I’ve got nowhere to live.’
Other than Charlotte and Matt, she doesn’t really know anyone in Bristol. There’s Bob, the guy who drops round her packages every morning, but other than a brusque ‘hello’ they’ve never actually spoken. Her boss Jackie is nice but she’s married with two kids and won’t have space. And Ursula isn’t in touch with anyone from her previous job as a primary school teacher. Her thoughts flit from the present to the past, to a bench outside Banco Lounge, six pints lined up on the table, male laughter and the sun making her squint. Nathan is beside her, as small, round and hairy as a bear, his rotund tummy wedged between his lap and the top of the table. His friends … she searches their sepia faces and plucks names from the air. Andy. ‘Randy Andy’, Nathan called him. Joe. Tom. Harry. Even if she could get in touch and they had a spare room, they wouldn’t want her to move in. They blame her for what happened, even if they’ve never come out and said it. It’s why she deliberately lost touch with them. When she lost Nathan half her world disappeared too.
She swipes a hand over her eyes, dampening the sleeve of the Long Tall Sally hoody she bought on eBay, and focuses on the image on her phone. It’s a photograph Charlotte just texted her of an advert in a shop window. She can see the grey shape of Charlotte reflected in it. Something twangs in Ursula’s heart. She’d assumed that Matt was the driving force behind getting her out of the house. She never completely warmed to him, despite sharing a home for over half a year. He’d given her a strange, narrow-eyed look, and wrinkled his nose – just the tiniest amount but enough for her to notice – when Charlotte introduced them for the first time.
‘My boyfriend, Matt!’ Charlotte’s face glowed with pride, before a flash of apprehension dulled it as she glanced at Ursula, looking – hoping – for approval.
They were living together – Charlotte and Ursula, best friends since secondary school – in the two-bedroom terraced house that Charlotte had bought with her inheritance money when her father died. They were happy – happyish – and then Matt moved in and everything changed. All the little routines they’d established – late night sofa chats, girls’ night in, cinema on Sunday – gradually disappeared and Ursula began to spend more and more time alone in her room. Three was most certainly a crowd.
