Страница 36 из 74
Paddy shuffled out of the yard and stood outside with the other mums, holding on to the railings with both hands, fighting a familiar knot of terror with phrases that didn’t mean anything: he’s fine, you’re worrying too much, it’s normal to be afraid, you have to stop this.
A loud, rankling bell ripped through the cheerful sounds from the children, bouncing off the sides of the building. Late parents hurried their children along the road and shoved them roughly through the gates. Miss MacDonald waited for the last few stragglers and pulled the gates closed, shutting them with a latch.
Paddy watched as Pete was put in line, hoping for one last wave from him, but he was talking to his friends.
She walked sadly back to the car, thinking about Michael Collins and how terrifying being a mother was. There was no need to be so scared: she had a photo of Collins now, she could show it to people, get an ID.
She unlocked the car door and climbed in, rolled down all the windows, and lit a cigarette.
Parents were dispersing in the street. Women walked in ones and twos, those with cars pulled out slowly, all a little dazed at the sudden calm after the rush of the morning, looking forward to the next six hours until home time.
The one-way system in the small backstreets cha
A car behind her hooted its horn. Glancing in the mirror she saw a mum she recognized from the school, a pretty woman whose son had a stammer. The woman smiled, pointed at the green light up ahead and the empty road ahead of her. Paddy held her hand up in apology and took the handbrake off. She glanced to the side, looking for oncoming cars, pulling out into the road.
She was focused on the distance, that was why she didn’t see him at first. He was in the corner of her vision, a small blurred head, leaning casually on the bus stop. The silver zip on his black tracksuit caught the sun, glinting like sun-kissed water, and made her look at him.
It was the young man from outside the school, the childless man who crossed in front of her and Pete and watched through the railings. He was standing, body casual but the expression on his face curiously intense, staring straight in at her. Under the black tracksuit she could see a flash of green and white. He was wearing a Celtic top.
U
A bus was between her and the young man but she ran across the road anyway, bolting around the back of it.
She reached the corner no more than five seconds after she’d seen him, but he was gone.
II
The tenements in Kevin’s street were five stories high and in an area so aspiring that every single flat had at least one car. Paddy toured the street twice, looking for a space to stop.
One of the corners looked marginally less illegal than the others and she parked carefully, her car bo
Kevin’s close was nicer than she remembered. She’d only seen it in the evening and the dusty forty-watt bulbs didn’t do justice to the green wall tiles. The neighbors had put plants out on the landing and they flourished in the south-facing light coming in through big wire-meshed windows.
Kevin’s door was firmly shut. She rang the bell and waited for a polite length of time before knocking. She could hear the sound of her knuckle raps echo around the empty hall. He wasn’t in. Considering the trouble Michael Collins had taken to frighten her, he might have freaked Kevin out too.
She took a notepad from her pocket and scribbled her number on the back with her name and a request that he call her. She was holding the letter box open to slip it in when she heard the sound of music.
Bending down, she peered through the letter box. She couldn’t see anything: on the other side of the door was a two-sided brush, the bristles coming up and down to meet in the middle, a device designed to stop drafts and nosy people from doing exactly what she was trying to do: looking into the flat. She tried pushing the bristles apart with her fingers but the letter box was too deep and she couldn’t reach. There was definitely music coming from in there, from the living room, she thought.
Kneeling down on the rough doormat, she used her pen and one of her house keys to hold the bristles slightly apart. She could just see in but not much. She put her mouth to the opening.
“Kevin? Are you in?”
He could be sleeping in the living room, using the music to block out morning noises and sounds from the street. She could see the rug on the floor, the foot of a tripod, the chair where he had put her coat on Sunday night.
Shuffling sideways on her knees like a pilgrim, she changed her point of entry: the living-room door was open, sunlight pooled on a discarded trainer lying on its side, the worn sole towards her. The music was coming from there, the cheerful overture to Marriage of Figaro. It sounded like the radio was on.
She was just about to withdraw her eye, to pull back and shout in again, when she saw the toe of the trainer twitch. The trainer had an ankle attached to it.
SIXTEEN. NEGATIVE NEGATIVES
I
The police broke the door down and Paddy followed the paramedics into the flat.
Kevin was in the living room, limp, lying on his left side, his cheek sitting in a pool of dry, chalky saliva. Behind him, bright yellow sunlight flooded the living room, casting a gray shadow over his face. His eyes were open a little, a slice of white. They looked as dry as the saliva under his cheek. His right hand was clamped at his breastbone, the hand clawed tight. He’d had a stroke, they said, almost certainly.
Paddy’s voice was a strangled whisper. “He’s thirty-five. How could he have a stroke?”
The paramedic pointed to the coffee table in the living room. The boxes of negatives had all been moved. It looked strange because it was the only clear surface in the house. Sitting on the smoked-glass surface was a single line of white powder. “Cocaine.”
“Will he be all right?”
“He’ll be fine,” the paramedic said, avoiding her eye.
“You’ll be OK, Kevin,” she said, raising her voice and sounding more frightened than she meant to. “Don’t worry. They’ve said you’ll be OK.”
Paddy stood in the cozy mess of the hall and watched as the ambulance men took Kevin’s vital signs and declared him not dead, yet. One of them touched his fingertips to the chalky mess under his cheek, rubbing it between his fingers. It was gritty, he said; definitely an overdose. They asked if he was a habitual drug user and she said she didn’t really know but didn’t think so: he didn’t even drink anymore. They nodded as if that was exactly what they expected her to say. One of them seemed to be trembling, which alarmed her.
Two police officers stood in the door of the bedroom, talking quietly. Their summer shirts were so starched they looked like blue cardboard. Start of the shift.
Kevin’s hall wasn’t used to having five people in it. They had to pick their steps. He had dropped things as he came home, ran out to meet people, staggered home after a good night out with pals. She looked around, imagined him seeing it and vowing to tidy it on quiet Sundays but having warm lie-ins instead, lingering over his breakfast, listening to the radio or reading a book.