It was 6.15 by the time he stepped back out onto the pavement. He was running a little bit later than planned, but not too late. The place wasn’t far. From the tourist map he’d
picked up in reception, he navigated the few short turns to get him there.
The buzzer was on a thick metal door between a cut-price shoe shop and a Marie Curie’s. A small, laminated strip reading EANG in a metal slot beside it. No plaque or anything, not even the newspaper’s actual title on display, just the initials of its parent company, East Anglia News Group.
He pressed the buzzer and waited. All the shops on the strip seemed to have closed for the night, but a steady flow of people drifted past. Overweight women pushing prams, trailing overweight children with cartons of fries in their hands. Teenage boys in slouchy jeans and hooded tops, hawking gobs of spit onto the ground. Teenage girls in short skirts and bare legs, shouting to each other and laughing. Most of the women, young and older, had multicoloured haircuts like Julie Boone’s and a similar array of facial silverware. Not so different from the inhabitants of any high street in London, but for their voices. And the fact that, despite the chill of the early evening, nobody was wearing a coat.
A woman’s voice came through the intercom: “
Ernemouth Mercury
.”
“Sean Ward to see Francesca Ryman, please,” he spoke into the grill.
“Do you have an appointment?” the tone was vaguely challenging.
“She is expecting me, yes.”
“Oh.” A pause, a crackle of static. “All right then, sir, come straight up the stairs, and take the first on the left.” The buzz of an electronic lock being withdrawn.
Sean pushed the door open, went up one flight of stairs to the reception where the owner of the voice sat behind a modern
black desk, a banner with the newspaper’s masthead above her on a perspex screen. A small, open-plan office spread out behind her.
A middle-aged woman in a cream blouse and blue cardigan, thick chestnut hair cut into a wavy wedge, and grey-green eyes that ran over him speculatively. Sean gave her his warmest smile but her expression remained cool. “You need to sign here,” she pushed across a book and a pen. “If you’ll just hold on.” Raising the receiver of her telephone, she tapped out three digits.
“A Mr Ward to see you, Fran, says he’s expected, only I don’t have anything written down for you in my book. Oh, OK. That’s right. I’ll tell him.”
She put the phone down and pointed in the direction of the office. “Go straight through, she’s right at the end there,” she said.
The
Ernemouth Mercury
was a small operation. To his left, with their desks arranged around a whiteboard, was the advertising department: two young men with jackets draped over the back of their swivel chairs and hair gelled up, yakking away on the phones; an older guy with the thickened red face of an experienced drinker, hair tinted several shades of blond, sharing a joke with someone on the other end of the line while rearranging his bollocks in his navy-blue trousers.
To his right, four women at desks that faced each other, their screens covered with Post-it notes, all of them tapping away furiously. Two of them were about the same age as the ad boys, dressed in prim black skirt suits with their hair pinned up. The third had bottle-thick glasses and wavy brown hair, dressed more casually in grey sweater, jeans and trainers. The fourth was an older woman with hair dyed a violent shade of
orange, a pea-green blouse and matching eyes that locked on to her screen in deadly seriousness.
Francesca Ryman’s desk was placed before a wall of front covers.
Holidaymaker Special
, Sean read,
Wartime Memories Souvenir Issue.
She had already got to her feet, the smile on her face a contrast to the greeting he’d just been given.
In fact, the editor was distinctly different from everyone else in the room. She looked to be in her early thirties, tall, thin and angular, with a thick head of black hair swept up into the hairstyle her juniors were obviously emulating, only it looked more rakish on her, like she was deliberately subverting office style. She had on a grey, tailored trouser suit, an open-necked turquoise shirt. Her eyes were the same colour as the shirt, large and direct, set above high cheekbones and dark red lips.
“Hello,” she said, even white teeth glinting. None of that local dialect for her either.
“Ms Ryman,” Sean shook her hand. It was smooth and cool, a solid silver bracelet encircling it. He was aware of every head turning, the murmur of conversation and keyboard rattle dropping in volume. “Thanks for seeing me.”
“A pleasure,” she said. “I expect you’re hungry? There’s a place nearby I can recommend that’s discreet,” she looked around the room meaningfully. “Decent enough food too.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Sean. Francesca Ryman was behaving exactly as he had anticipated when he’d spoken to her on the phone before he left London – a bored provincial editor getting a whiff of something big and not even wanting her staff in on it until she thought she had it in the bag. Sean didn’t like the thought of having to place his trust in anyone who made a living from this game. But, when you were a stranger in a strange town, an ally on the local newspaper was
a necessary evil. Besides, Mathers had insisted on him making this contact, had said she would be useful.
The editor put her laptop into her briefcase, shrugged into a black wool overcoat and wound a pale yellow scarf round her neck. As they exited the office, Ward watched the eyes of her staff follow, locked on Francesca with something like awe.
“Night, Pat,” she said to the receptionist, who was belting a tan mac around her waist.
The woman glowered at Sean. “Mind how you go,” she said.
“Now, class, I’d like to introduce you to a new pupil who’s joining us. This is Samantha Lamb, she’s from London originally but she’s got grandparents here, so she’s no stranger to Ernemouth. I hope you’ll all do your best to make her feel welcome.”
Even as Mr Pearson spoke, the look in his narrowed, ice-blue eyes suggested to the class in front of him that should he find out that welcome had been unforthcoming, there would be a price to pay. A tall, thin man in a brown suit, wavy, collar-length brown hair and a pencil moustache, Mr Pearson had a slightly chilling, cadaverous look about him that was enough to intimidate most of his teenage charges, including an inseparable trio of troublemakers – Neal Reeder, Shane Rowlands and Dale Smollet – whom cruel fate had even managed to arrange alphabetically.
Since Miss Lamb had joined the class a week into the new term, it was no longer possible to place her by order of surname. There was only one spare desk left now, next to Corrine Woodrow, who came at the end of the class both by dint of her surname and her results.
“Samantha, would you like to go and take a seat, next to Corrine there?”
Not that there was anything malicious about the girl. In fact, it was a minor miracle she made it into class at all, considering her background. Which was why Mr Pearson was prepared to let her new hairdo slip under his radar. Even if she did spend every lesson doing what she was doing now – staring out of the window, mouth open, swinging one leg back and forth to whatever music was playing in her head. As the nervous-looking new girl approached her, Corrine slowly turned her head and gave a puzzled smile.
“Stuck-up cow,” remarked Rowlands to Reeder, in a low murmur.
Loud enough for Dale Smollet to catch. He was glad that, sitting in front of his two best friends, neither of them could have seen his face as Samantha Lamb walked into the room and stood in front of them, biting her lip with that crooked front tooth, head tilted to hide one eye behind a golden curtain of hair, while the other one flicked despondently round the room and then came to rest back on the floor. Followed her gaze down her honey-coloured legs to her long white socks, noted the curve of her ankles and bit his own lip.
The blonde girl looked scared, which didn’t surprise Corrine. Meeting Pinhead Pearson for the first time did give you the creeps. But Corrine knew he was all right really, so she smiled encouragingly. “All right?” she said.
“Hello,” the other girl replied, still looking worried, putting a blue-and-pink-striped canvas bag down on the top of her new desk. Corrine liked the look of that bag. She lifted the lid off her own desk and pointed to where she had all her books, pens and pencils neatly arranged inside. A page cut out from
Smash Hits
taped under the lid, Madonna with a big black crucifix earring and bright yellow and mauve eye-shadow.
“Put the stuff what you don’t need in your desk, like this,” she said.
The new girl just stared at her.
“And when you’ve done that,” Mr Pearson loomed into view, “here is your curriculum.”
He handed Samantha a piece of paper with her timetable. Her results from the public school she had previously been attending in London put her in the top stream, so Corrine wouldn’t be much help showing her around.
“Deborah Carver,” Mr Pearson looked across to the other side of the classroom. “You have the same lessons as Samantha here, can I trust you to show her how to get about?”
Debbie opened her mouth but it took a while for the words to come out. She had been staring at the new girl with a strange feeling of dread coiling inside her. She didn’t know why, or what it was about her. Later she would imagine that she had been struck by a premonition, that this girl who looked so shining and pretty actually had a black cloud hanging over her head that was about to open up on her world.
On all of their worlds.
* * *
Three hours later they were back clustered around their desks, Corrine and Debbie sharing their packed lunches with the new girl the way they always did with each other.
“So where d’you live then, Sam?” Corrine enquired.
“Marine Parade,” the new girl replied, “North Denes end.”
Debbie managed to swallow the mouthful of sandwich she had been chewing with a gulp of relief. North Denes was the
other side of town from them. At least they wouldn’t have to walk home with her and all.
“That’s where my nana and granddad live,” Samantha went on. “But I’m moving soon.” She looked down into her Tupperware lunchbox, at the remains of her sandwich.
“My mum’s bought a house on Tollgate Street. I’ve got to go there in a couple of weeks. I wish I didn’t have to.” Samantha sighed, passing the final quarter over to Corrine, whose contribution to the meal had been only a packet of cheese and onion crisps.
“You sure?” even Corrine thought this was going a bit far.
Debbie’s throat contracted again as the words sank in.
Samantha nodded. “Not hungry,” she explained. Her eyes rose to meet Debbie’s.
“But Tollgate Street’s really nice,” said Debbie, her face flushing as she thought:
And it’s right near Swing’s
. That pub and the art room were the only places she wanted to spend her life right now. She had deliberately avoided showing the new girl her usual lunchtime hangout. But how long would Corrine be able to keep anything secret?
“It’s not that,” Samantha said, flicking a strand of hair out of her eyes, “it’s Mum. I don’t want to live with her, I want to stay with my nana and granddad.”
“She an old cow then, your mum?” asked Corrine, her mouth still full of sandwich. “Mine fuckin’ is.” Her face curdled into a grimace before she went back to her chewing.
Samantha gave the first genuine laugh she had uttered all day. “She’s a bitch, all right,” she agreed, then paused. “And a whore,” she added, staring at Corrine with a smile.
Debbie gave up on her half-eaten sandwich. Her fingers crumpled it into the foil.
“So’s mine,” Corrine said matter-of-factly. “She nicked all the cash I earned at the guesthouse this summer and it still weren’t enough for her, fuckin’ old slag. Still, I showed her, din’t I, Debs?” She twirled a finger through the permed and highlighted hair that had been worth the black eye she’d managed to disguise by copying the colours of Madonna’s make-up.
Debbie tried to give her friend a look that would tell her to shut up, but Corrine was well away. “So what did your mum do?” she asked.
“Got herself a boyfriend,” Samantha offered her lunchbox again, the mint Club biscuit she had intended on keeping for herself the only thing left in it.
“Really?” said Corrine, accepting the bait, remembering the motley collection of boyfriends she’d put up with in her time. “What is he, a druggie? A biker?”
“He’s a brickie,” Samantha scowled, “and he’s only four years older than we are.”
“Yep,” Corrine nodded her head, “she’s a slag all right, your mum.”
The pair of them dissolved into laughter.
Debbie felt something crawl inside her stomach. This was worse than she’d anticipated.
“Right!” she said, snapping shut the lid on her lunchbox. “Who’s coming outside? I in’t sitting here all lunchtime, this weather.”
“OK.” Samantha shrugged and turned her head slowly towards Debbie, her eyes running up and down her. “We’ll catch you up, then.”
Corrine, who had been poised to jump down from her desk, checked herself just in time.
“I don’t feel like going out,” Samantha explained to her. “Do you?” She smiled at Corrine, saying something with her eyes that Corrine thought she understood.
“Uh, no,” Corrine sat back down. “I’ll stay here with you.” She flicked a glance round to the back of the class, to where Reeder, Rowlands and Smollet were sat in their usual huddle, talking bollocks and throwing paper pellets around the room. Smollet averted his gaze quickly and Corrine saw a flush of red travel up his neck.
She turned back and winked conspiratorially. “I’ll protect you.”
* * *
Debbie fixed her eyes on the poster on Alex’s wall. With her donkey jacket spread face down on the floor in front of her, she began to sketch an outline in tailor’s chalk. A dark pulse of music filled the room.
Lounging on his single bed with his back to the wall, sketchpad balanced on his knee, Alex watched her work, peering up at the icon she was copying. A new poster from his summer travels, the concert promotions that mapped the trails he had taken around the country. Not an inch of his bedroom wasn’t decorated. Magazine photos peered out around The Damned at the Electric Ballroom, UK Decay at the Lyceum and his oldest, most treasured remnant, The Sex Pistols at West Runton Pavilion. The black sunglasses of The Ramones, the quiffs and curls of The Cramps, The Clash standing down an alleyway. Arranged around them were his own sketches, friends captured in moments when their minds were elsewhere. Alex was always trying to nail the essence of a character with his pencil. Like the earnest frown on Debbie’s forehead just now.