The Rumour Page 3

  ‘Couldn’t keep it in his trousers’ is one of Mum’s favourite expressions. One of the more pithy ones, anyway. He never paid Mum a penny for my upkeep. He sent letters for a while, and made promises about coming to visit, about taking me on holiday, but they never came to anything.

  ‘You’ve done it!’ Alfie yells, clapping his hands together, eyes shining with pleasure.

  I smile. He might not see his dad as often as either of them would like, but at least he still has a dad. Even when Michael’s off God knows where chasing the next big story, he always tries to ring Alfie as often as he can, and sends him funny postcards and presents. It might not be the perfect arrangement but, so far, it’s worked. For Alfie, at least.

  When I get home from work Alfie’s having a little nap. Michael’s worn him out on purpose. By the time we reach the bedroom we’ve both stripped down to our underwear. Now that, too, is discarded on the floor. With a six-year-old who could wake up at any second, there’s no time for foreplay.

  It isn’t until my legs are wrapped around Michael’s lean, muscled back, my ankles pressing into him, urging him deeper and faster, that I remember the resolution I made the last time this happened. That it wouldn’t happen again, no matter how much my body craved it. Alfie’s growing up fast. He notices things he never used to.

  Sometimes I wonder whether I should have married Michael when he asked me. Maybe I let what happened with Mum and Dad influence me too much. For all I know, we might have been one of those lucky couples who get to live happily ever after. Not that we’re unhappy now. Far from it. What does Tash say? All the thrills of an affair with none of the rows or the laundry. And, I might add, none of the fear of him leaving me for good. But still, I can’t stop myself from imagining what things might have been like if we’d been together all this time.

  Michael sprawls out on his back when we’ve finished, hands clasped behind his head. I lie on my side and drape my leg across his thigh, my flesh the colour of milk against his skin. We talk. About Alfie and his new school. About Michael’s last assignment. The one thing we don’t talk about is our relationship. It’s as if neither of us dares bring it up. And yet lately, ever since I moved away from London, it feels like another conversation is always lurking beneath the one we’re having, just waiting to break through.

  Michael looks pointedly at the patch of wall in the corner where I’ve peeled off a small section of the hideous old wallpaper.

  ‘Is that as far as you’ve got?’

  I sigh. ‘You try juggling a job at Pegton’s with looking after Alfie.’

  Before I moved in I had all these plans about how I was going to strip the walls and paint everything white till I’d decided on colour schemes. But now that I’m actually living here the reality of redecorating it all by myself seems overwhelming. Michael would probably help – maybe he’s waiting for me to ask – but there’s a part of me that wants to do it all by myself, to prove that I can. My stubborn streak, Tash calls it.

  Michael laughs. ‘Maybe your subconscious is telling you not to put down roots here. Flinstead isn’t exactly stimulating.’

  ‘What do you know?’ I say. ‘There are secrets in this little town you could never imagine.’

  Michael snorts. ‘Let me guess: Mrs Beige from the Bungalow Blandlands has confessed to having the undertaker’s love child in 1973?’

  I slap the top of his thigh. ‘Idiot!’ He’s always taking the piss out of small-town life.

  ‘Or the Flinstead-in-Bloom brigade have finally admitted to guerrilla pruning tactics on their nearest competitors’ rose bushes?’

  ‘Okay, how about this one then?’ I’m determined to prick his balloon. ‘Sally McGowan, the notorious child killer, is living in Flinstead.’

  Michael whips round to face me. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘From some of the mums at school. Why? You don’t seriously believe it?’

  ‘Of course not. But it’s still a story, isn’t it?’

  He reaches for his phone and I tug at one of the curly black hairs on his chest. He’s like a terrier with a rat when it comes to things like this. It’s all those years of writing for the tabloids.

  ‘There’s no point digging,’ I tell him. ‘There’s an injunction that forbids the press from publishing anything about her.’

  ‘I know,’ he says, already scrolling away. ‘I’m just interested, that’s all.’

  5

  Monday mornings are always difficult. It’s taken Alfie ages to accept the fact that the long summer holiday and all those days on the beach are now over and that, yes, he really does have to go to school, even if it’s a different school now. Without the bullies from before. But Monday mornings after a weekend with his dad are doubly hard.

  ‘My tummy’s really bad,’ he says, clutching his sides and pulling an expression of such agony I have to suck my cheeks in to stop myself laughing.

  ‘Hmm. Maybe I should phone Grandma and cancel our tea this evening. What a shame. I think she’s made a trifle.’

  Alfie’s forehead puckers. I think I see the exact moment he starts to feel better.

  Maddie waves at us as we hurry into the playground, against the tide of parents. She’s wearing a fur-collared jacket and brown cloche hat pulled down tight over her forehead like a character from an Agatha Christie novel, and she’s clutching a pack of photographs to her chest. Her granddaughter’s face beams at me through the cellophane. Damn. I’ve left my order form at home again. I hope I haven’t left it too late. They’re stupidly overpriced, but I can’t not buy one. It’s come as a bit of a shock how little I’m earning now I’m outside London.

  ‘You’re late this morning,’ she says, all shiny-eyed and smiling.

  ‘Yes, well.’ I slide my eyes towards Alfie. ‘Someone needed a bit of persuasion.’

  ‘Do you mind if I wait for you at the gates?’ Maddie says. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  Most of the other parents and carers have dispersed by the time I catch up with her.

  ‘What’s up?’

  She sighs and looks over her shoulder. ‘What you said at book club, about that rumour you heard …’

  My heart sinks.

  ‘It’s just a silly piece of gossip, Maddie. I wouldn’t give it another thought.’

  ‘Well, that’s just it,’ she says, her voice now lowered to an urgent whisper. ‘I don’t think it is just a silly piece of gossip. I think there’s something in it.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  She leans in a little closer. ‘I was talking to a friend of mine from Pilates. She’s a former probation officer and she knows all sorts of things.’

  I stifle a groan.

  ‘She said they often house people like that in places like Flinstead. Ordinary little towns that nobody takes much notice of. They let them keep their first names sometimes, or at least the same initials. So that they don’t get confused.’

  I look at my watch as discreetly as I can. Maddie’s lovely, she really is, but I’m due at work in ten minutes.

  ‘Go on,’ I say.

  ‘She said that sometimes they help them set up their own business. It’s easier for them to stay below the radar if they’re self-employed.’ There’s a gleam in Maddie’s eye. She’s enjoying this – the excitement of it, the speculation.

  ‘I’m sure all this is true,’ I say, ‘but it still doesn’t mean Sally McGowan is living in Flinstead. There must be any number of small places like this. She could be anywhere. She might even be abroad.’

  Maddie shakes her head. ‘She isn’t. I’ve been on the internet all weekend. Did I tell you my daughter signed me up for one of those Silver Surfer courses?’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I’ve learned such a lot about different search engines.’ She leans in again. ‘Sally McGowan is in a small, seaside town and she works in a shop.’

  It’s as much as I can do not to laugh out loud. She said it with such conviction as well. I thou
ght Maddie was too sensible to believe everything she reads.

  She waits till a middle-aged couple has passed by before continuing. ‘Have you ever been into Stones and Crones on Flinstead Road?’

  ‘The New Age shop? Yeah, I buy the odd thing in there. Why?’

  Maddie takes a deep breath. ‘I feel bad about saying this because I know Liz is friends with the owner – Liz loves all that hippy-dippy stuff, doesn’t she?’ She pauses. ‘The thing is, my sister-in-law Louise works in the boutique next door and, apparently, Sonia Martins has turned down all her invitations to join the Flinstead Business Group and refuses to get involved in any of the street-party celebrations.’

  She looks at me as if this is incontrovertible evidence.

  ‘And according to Louise, Sonia once told her she used to live in Dagenham, and then, when Louise brought it up some time later, Sonia said that Louise must be mistaken and that she used to live in Dinnington, South Yorkshire.’

  Maddie’s voice is getting higher and faster as she speaks. She’s trilling like a chaffinch.

  ‘But Louise says there’s no way she misheard her. Sonia definitely said Dagenham because Louise remembers having a conversation with her about the film Made in Dagenham. So when you add it all up, this is what we know: Sonia Martins looks like Sally McGowan. She’s a shopkeeper in a small, seaside town who keeps herself to herself and she has an inconsistent backstory.’

  Now I really can’t help but laugh. ‘Inconsistent backstory? You sound like you’re discussing a crime novel at book club.’

  Maddie blushes. ‘I know, and you’re probably right. But it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  6

  The door tinkles as I push it open and step into the fragrant interior of Stones and Crones. I need another scented candle. Well, no one needs scented candles but the smell does help me unwind and relax, especially after a stressful day in the office. I also need to pick up some batteries for the smoke alarm, and this place is right next door to the electrical shop. It’s got nothing to do with Maddie’s ludicrous theory. Nothing at all.

  As soon as the door closes behind me I know it’s a mistake. I feel awkward, ill at ease. My heart thuds so loudly the noise fills my ears, fills the entire shop. Heat flushes into my neck and face. I might just as well have a sign stuck to my forehead saying, ‘I’ve come to get a closer look at you, to see if you’re Sally McGowan, child killer.’ Who do I think I am? The Witchfinder General? I should be ashamed of myself.

  Sonia Martins is sitting behind the counter. Poised and perfectly still, the merest hint of a smile on her heavily lipsticked mouth. Her skin is pale. The sort of pale Mum would describe as ‘Irish white’.

  ‘Morning,’ she says.

  ‘Morning.’ My voice sounds high and tinny, not at all like it normally sounds.

  There is, I suppose, a certain likeness in the eyes. She has the same colour hair too, only hers is threaded with grey. But really, there must be loads of women with hair and eyes like that. Susan Marchant, for instance. And surely, if you didn’t want to be recognized, your hair colour would be the very first thing you’d change. Whatever was Maddie thinking?

  I make my way over to the CD stand and start rotating it slowly, letting my eyes roam over the soothing titles. Zen Mystique Music for a Calm Mind. Angelic Reiki. Music for Crystal Healing.

  I sense her watching me, in that subtle way shopkeepers do. The discreet glance in my direction, just to make sure I’m not nicking anything, then eyes down again. I slide a CD from the rack – Journey to the Temple – and turn it over to read the back: ‘Featuring seven chakra tracks blended together with natural sounds of water and birdsong’. My heartbeat slows. I really should find a yoga class. I used to go once a week in London.

  The candles are on the display table right in front of the counter. Right in front of the woman called Sonia Martins. The woman who refuses to join the Flinstead Business Group and doesn’t participate in the annual street-party celebrations. The woman who in all probability has nothing whatsoever to do with Sally McGowan, who doubtless spent a peaceful childhood in Dagenham, or possibly Dinnington, playing with her dolls and reading Puffin Classics, and grew up to be a kind, gentle soul.

  I check the price on the candles, but even the smallest is £6.99.

  Sonia looks over at me. ‘They smell beautiful, those ones,’ she says.

  I smile in response and wrestle with the dilemma of whether to buy an overpriced candle I don’t need or to leave empty-handed. That’s the trouble with these little shops; once I’m inside, I always feel obliged to buy something, as if it’s a moral duty to support a stranger’s business.

  I replace the candle and grab a packet of incense sticks instead, smiling broadly, as if these were what I was really looking for, the reason I came here in the first place.

  ‘That’ll be £1.75, please,’ Sonia says. Do I detect a subtle tone of disappointment?

  I fumble in my purse for the right money. Her voice is quiet, reasonably educated. A bit like mine, I suppose. Estuary English, it’s called. Somewhere in the middle of posh and cockney, which narrows her down to anywhere in the south-east of England.

  Or possibly not. I’ve read that this way of speaking has spread well beyond the Thames Estuary now. And of course, accents can be picked up. Learned. Discarded too. I think of Barbara’s cut-glass vowels and her occasional drunken lapses into Brummie.

  Sonia Martins slips the incense into a brown-paper gift bag. Our eyes meet when she hands it over. I’m being fanciful, I know I am, but I swear those eyes can see right through me. I smile and turn to leave, aware of her gaze on the back of my neck. The weight of it.

  It isn’t till I’m outside on the street again that I realize I’ve been holding my breath. What am I doing? I must stop this nonsense right now. Put it out of my mind once and for all.

  Dave waves a Post-it note at me as soon as I get back to the office.

  ‘Anne Wilson wants a second viewing of the Maple Drive property,’ he says. ‘I thought, seeing as you’ve already met her, you might like to—’

  ‘Enjoy the warmth of Mrs Marchant’s smile one more time?’

  Dave grins. ‘Something like that. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got two valuations to do this afternoon and I’m behind as it is.’

  That’s one of the things I like about Dave Pegton. I’m just a part-time negotiator now, trying to gain experience in residential sales, and he’s my boss and the owner of the business, but he always makes it seem like we’re on an equal footing.

  ‘I’ll ring Mum and see if she can pick Alfie up today. Then I can catch up on that pile of admin when I come back.’

  Dave sticks his thumb in the air.

  I park at the top of Maple Drive, facing the sea. Today, it is a deep violet-blue and there’s a hazy shimmer on the horizon that shrouds the wind farm so it’s barely visible. I never tire of looking at the sea. It’s part of my soul; it’s etched on my DNA. All those long summer afternoons I used to spend sprawled on the sand with my nose in a book, the sound of the surf rasping on the shore. Then later, as a teenager, huddled around an illicit fire as dusk gave way to night, smoking and swigging from cans, or, if we got lucky, snogging the boys who worked at the funfair on Mistden Pier. I always knew I’d come back one day.

  This time, I wait for Anne Wilson to arrive before getting out of my car. The less time I have to spend in Susan Marchant’s company, the better. I switch the radio on and open the window, watch the leaves on the pavement shift and separate in the breeze. With winter only a couple of months away, golden days like this have to be savoured. The last breath of summer.

  The bulk of the tourists have left now that the schools have gone back. Flinstead is being returned to its inhabitants. It’s as if the town can finally breathe. If the tourists stopped coming, this place would surely die. But oh how glorious it is when they pack up their deckchairs and windshields and trundle back to their cars and don’t come back, when the promenade isn’t cluttered wit
h their plastic picnic tables and their giant inflatables and their sunburnt legs.

  There’s still the odd day-tripper or dog-walker parked up on the esplanade, of course. A man and two children are flying a kite on the greensward. A traditional diamond kite – bright yellow with a long red tail. It dips and soars in the sky, its tail streaming after it. Perhaps I should buy Alfie a kite. He’d like that. In fact, I’d much rather buy him a good-quality kite than those overpriced school photographs. Which reminds me, I must find that order form when I get home.

  I check my rear-view mirror for Anne Wilson’s blue Renault Clio, but she hasn’t arrived yet. The time of the appointment comes and goes and, since there’s no message from her, I carry on waiting. It’s no hardship to be sitting here, with the late-afternoon sun warming me through the windows, the sound of seagulls squawking overhead. Even so, a small kernel of unease has lodged itself in the pit of my stomach. The dead leaves rattle across the pavement. Maybe it’s the thought of dealing with Susan Marchant again. Or maybe it’s my recent encounter with Sonia Martins, how weird she made me feel.

  Susan Marchant. Sonia Martins. Am I going to be suspecting everyone with the initials S.M. from now on?

  My eyes slide to the brown-paper bag on the passenger seat, the one that contains my incense sticks. I must have been in that shop several times since moving to Flinstead, enticed by the gorgeous scents and chilled vibes. If I were someone trying to hide my real identity from the world, someone with demons to suppress, what better place could I choose to spend my days than a peaceful, calming environment like Stones and Crones?

  It must be so difficult having to keep all those lies in perpetual motion, like plates spinning on sticks. How could anyone live like that without going mad? I pull my shoulder blades back towards each other and squeeze them tight to release the tension. So much for vowing to put Sally McGowan out of my mind. She’s taken up residence there like an unwelcome guest.