Looking for Trouble (4 page)

I scoured the house with a black bin-liner, collecting rubbish. I left it by the back door and put the kettle on. I never drank the tea. Kids seem to be born with an innate instinct for knowing when you’re about to start a hot drink. Since Maddie’s arrival my tea-drinking had been transformed from a revitalising ritual to a series of lukewarm or clapcold disappointments.

‘Mummeee!’

She was in mortal danger. I flew into the lounge.

‘I’ve got a splinter,’ she wailed.

‘Where? Show me.’

‘In my finger.’

‘Let me see.’

‘No, no.’ She was hysterical.

It took ten minutes to get a look at it and a further live to reach a compromise over treatment. Cream and plaster till bedtime and if it didn’t come out in the bath, then, and only then, would tweezers be used. Maddie has a great imagination and a very low pain threshold. On the way back to my cup of tea, I fell over Tom and the contents of the bin-bag. He’d laid out a neat trail of refuse from the back door, along the passage and into the kitchen.

‘Dustbin man,’ he beamed. I cleared up while he threw a tantrum. He stopped when I brought out the chocolate chip cookies. Bribery works.

I sat down with a fresh cup of tea when the phone rang. Maddie made no move to answer it.

‘Shit.’ I slammed my cup down.

‘Hello.’ I tried to keep the irritation from my voice.

‘What’s eating you?’

I’d failed. ‘Diane. Oh, kids.’ My old friend Diane hasn’t got children but I make sure she has a fair idea of the trials of motherhood.

She laughed. ‘Just checking you’re still on for tonight.’

‘Yes.’ We were going for a drink. ‘See you in there, about nine.’

My spirits were raised. There was nothing like a good natter with Diane to put things in perspective and take me out of my own little world. The kids began to argue again.

‘Only two hours,’ I reminded myself, ‘they’ll be asleep and I’ll be out.’

Diane was ensconced in one of the cosy corner seats when I arrived at the pub. Half-way between her house in Rusholme and mine in Withington, it’s one of the few locals that hasn’t been done up to appeal to lager drinkers. But it’s still respectable enough for husbands to bring their wives on the weekly night out. No spit and sawdust. Warm, quiet, dull if you like. I like.

After buying a pint of hand-pumped Boddington’s, I slumped into the seat next to Diane and sighed theatrically.

She raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ I took a long drink. ‘Ah, that feels better.’ I didn’t just mean the alcohol. Escape. The prospect of two uninterrupted hours stretching ahead. Time to talk, to listen. Time to be me with the best company.

Diane grinned. She has a slow, lazy grin. Like a Cheshire cat. It lingered in her eyes long after it had faded from her lips.

‘I like your hair.’ It was a dark golden colour, shot through with streaks, cut short and asymmetrical.

‘I’m going off it,’ she said. It was my turn to grin. Diane changes her hairstyle every month. Perhaps it’s hormonal.

‘Go on,’ she said, ‘you first. You look like you need it.’

‘Nothing dramatic. Just work, and kids. I’ve got a new case.’

‘More matrimonials?’

‘No.’ I took another draught of beer. ‘Missing person. Runaway boy.’ I told her all about it, finishing up with my meeting with Giggler and Blue Eyes. ‘I think they thought I was a plain-clothes police officer or something.’

‘No chance,’ Diane snorted.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You’re too messy.’

‘What?’

‘Your hair, shoes. I bet you had your trainers on, didn’t you?’

‘So?’ I bristled.

‘Even undercover, the police look neat and clean. Nice manageable hairstyles, polished shoes or perfect trainers.’

I held up my foot. The trainer was scuffed and stained. The stitching was frayed, the laces grubby. ‘Well, they didn’t like me.’

‘So,’ she stretched out her hands, ‘they’ve no taste. Another?’ She picked up her glass.

‘Not yet.’

Diane walked over to the bar. She was a big, fat woman. She insisted on using that description. After twenty years of being miserable on diet after diet, she’d rebelled. Joined a group formed after the publication of Fat Is A Feminist Issue and had come to like her size and to flaunt it. Tonight, she sported a bright turquoise and gold knee-length tunic with gold leggings. She walked gracefully, light-footed for all her weight.

I stretched and twisted in my seat. My left shoulder ached. It’s the side I carry the kids on, the side that tenses up when I drive, when I’m worried.

Diane set her drink down and tossed me a bag of nuts.

‘Well,’ she pronounced, ‘maybe this’ll be the one that got away.’

I grimaced.

‘You can’t expect to solve every case, can you?’ She opened her own peanuts and picked a couple out.

‘But that bothers me...’

‘Perfectionist.’

‘No, it’s not that. If I’m taking the money, I want to make it worthwhile. Get some sort of result.’ I tugged at the packet of nuts. The plastic stretched but didn’t tear.

‘But if this lad’s disappeared, doesn’t want to be found, then maybe that’s the result. Missing without trace or whatever they call it. Anyway, there’s loads of times when people shell out money for no result.’

‘Such as?’ I tried using my teeth on the packet.

‘Estimates for work, eye tests when nothing’s changed, structural surveys; I had to fork out for three of those before I found a place that wasn’t falling down.’

I grunted and made another attack on the peanuts. Shit. Salted nuts cascaded around the table and floor. I salvaged what I could.

‘Anyway,’ I sighed, ‘there’s that, and the phone isn’t exactly hot with clients, plus the children were driving me…’

‘Don’t talk to me about children,’ Diane groaned.

I bit my tongue. Our relationship has weathered the difficulties of me having a child and she choosing not to, but it hasn’t always been easy. There’ve been times when motherhood has dominated my thoughts and feelings. When I’ve needed to talk about all the contradictions. But not with Diane. She’s happy with an occasional update. She has a rough idea of how hard it can be and she’s glad she’s not a mother.

‘It’s Ben,’ she explained. ‘We had a talk.’

Ben and Diane had been going out for over a year. Their relationship had started off casually through a lonely hearts column and had gained in intensity. At New Year, Ben had suggested that they live together. Diane had declined. Since then things had been just as intense but edged with the unspoken agenda of commitment.

‘He wants children?’

‘He’s always denied it before,’ she began, ‘or at least said he wasn’t bothered either way. But, well, his sister’s just produced one and he’s all gooey-eyed about it. Wants to drag me along to the christening.’

‘You don’t want to go?’

‘It’s in Budleigh-Salterton, for Christ’s sake. Can you imagine it? Hours getting there and back. Church, family. I spent years getting away from all that. Why can’t he just leave things as they are?’

‘Maybe he wants to know where it’s going.’

‘Why do we have to be going anywhere? It’s a relationship, not a bloody day trip.’

‘Things get stale, Diane, if there’s no change on the horizon, no events looming.’

‘It’s been fine up till now.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘Oh, I know he was disappointed about not living together,’ she retorted, ‘but I thought he understood my reasons. Now he seems to be getting all broody. Not that he’ll admit it.’

We carried on in this vein through another couple of rounds, till chucking out time.

I was tucked up and dreaming before midnight.

The bell kept ringing for last orders. Someone was shouting my name. I couldn’t work out who. The pub was deserted. I opened my eyes and Ray appeared round the edge of my door.

‘Sal, phone.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Middle of the bloody night.’

Blinking in the light of the hall, I picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘That lad you’re looking for. I found someone who met him.’

‘Who is this?’ My brain was still befuddled.

‘You said there was twenty quid in it. Bring the dosh, I’ll tell you his name.’

‘Now?’

‘Yeah, Chorlton Street Bus Station.’ Click.

I longed to crawl back under the covers. Instead, I splashed water on my face, pulled on yesterday’s clothes, left a note for Ray and went out into the night.

Once outside, a tremor of excitement enlivened me. This was more like it; the beginning of a trail. The night was cool, still. Dew on the car. Orange street-lamps lit empty roads. I passed maybe a handful of cars on the way to town. No queues, no crazy drivers, just the way I like it. I stopped at a cashpoint and got my hands on some real money.

Parking at Chorlton Street was no problem. The coach station was a glorified bus shelter, several aisles under a roof. Gloomy even on the best days. That night it looked positively menacing. Any excitement I’d had drained away. I felt the familiar clenching in my belly, buzzing in my ears.
That distorted face, spittle on his lips. My own voice, squeaky with fear, begging. The knife shaking in his hand.
I fought to regain control over my breathing, in and out, slow deep breaths. Dragged into my mind a picture of calm and peace. The visualisation exercise that the therapist had taught me. After a couple of minutes, I was capable of getting out of the car.

Blue Eyes was sitting alone on a bench by the shuttered ticket office, a can of Pils in his hand. I sat down beside him. ‘Hello.’ I kept my voice steady.

‘You got the dosh?’

‘Yes.’ I handed over two tenners. He grunted.

‘Bloke called JB He’s seen that lad.’

‘Martin Hobbs?’

‘Yeah. He recognised the photo. He put him up for a bit.’

‘Where can I find JB?’

‘He’s squatting.’ He took a swig from the can. ‘One of those old warehouses off Great Ancoats, back of Piccadilly, somewhere round there.’ It wasn’t exactly precise information.

‘How did you find him?’

‘He was on the ramp, same time as me.’

‘On the ramp?’

‘Station approach.’ He said it derisively. His blue eyes were bloodshot now. He looked pale, ill.

A sound of drunken singing carried over from the side street. Leader of the Pack. Someone was trying for harmonies.

‘How’ll I recognise him?’

‘Lanky bloke, half-caste, wears a flat cap, got a dog.’

‘How old?’

‘I dunno.’ He was irritated, drank from the can again. ‘Twenty, twenty-one?’ He stood up and drained the can, tossed it down.

‘Where will you go now?’ I asked.

‘What’s it to you?’ He walked away.

‘Thanks,’ I said. I don’t know if he heard me.

I wasn’t about to start creeping round old warehouses. JB could wait till tomorrow. But I was pleased. At last something was moving. Someone had met Martin, might even know where he was now. As for me, there was only one place I wanted to be and it didn’t take me long to get there. Bed.

On Wednesdays and Thursdays Ray is in charge of the kids: Breakfast, school run, bedtime, the lot. I lay in bed for all of ten minutes, luxuriating in that small sense of freedom. The smell of toast and clinking of pots drifted up from below. In the old days, I’d have burrowed back under the duvet till lunch-time, but Maddie had buggered up my sleep patterns for good. Ray’s mum, Nana Tello (the kids shortened it from Costello), complained bitterly about waking at five o’clock and not being able to get back to sleep. I was heading for the same fate.

Maddie and Tom clattered up the stairs to yell goodbyes.

‘Mummeee,’ Maddie began, ‘I don’t want to go to school.’ Her lower lip trembled.

‘Well, you’ve got to. I’m going to work,’ I slung back the covers and grabbed my dressing-gown, ‘Ray’s going to college and you’re going to school.’ To eliminate further discussion, I picked her up and thundered downstairs, Tom at my heels. She was still giggling as Ray shepherded them out the door. An improvement on most mornings.

Over breakfast, I considered whether to ring Mrs Hobbs. I’d promised to be in touch early in the week. Best to wait until I’d met JB. Hopefully, there’d be more to report.

I got the bus to town. Parking was a nightmare and I didn’t want to push my luck too many times by doing it illegally.

From Piccadilly Gardens it was about five minutes walk to the station. The long curving ramp had nose-to-nose taxis edging up and down and a constant procession of people moving along the broad pavement. I walked up to the station concourse and back a couple of times. No luck. I hovered outside the Blood Donor Clinic for a while, scanning the steady stream of people for a lanky man, of mixed race, with a cap and a dog.