The Catch Page 6

  Shit. Lost him. I drummed the steering wheel as a bead of cold sweat traced a path from my armpit down to my belt. The light finally changed and I accelerated hard, taking the same right turn in the hope that I could catch up. I was greeted by another road of cracked tarmac and overgrown gardens, an overturned shopping trolley blocking the pavement and a rain-stained sofa opposite, fabric ripped and torn.

  The Audi was nowhere in sight.

  I drove on, took a left, then another, came back on myself. This estate was a maze. I took a right, scanning the street as I went, then another right past a grimy parade of shops. Chinese takeway, newsagent, off-licence. A pub, The Coach and Horses, set back from the road, a squat 1960s design with half its windows boarded up.

  Turning left down another street, I started to think he had—

  There.

  I stamped on the brake. Reversed back up the street.

  Ryan’s black Audi was parked in a side road, tucked in next to a row of crumbling lock-up garages.

  What was he doing here? This was a long way from the smart city office and the Beeston bachelor pad. I pulled my car into the kerb and killed the engine. The Audi was here, but there was no one in the driver’s seat, no sign of Ryan. The houses were built in terraced rows of six, off-white plaster peeling off in ragged chunks. The garden directly opposite was a mess of rubble, weeds and a dented fridge-freezer on its side, stained with rust. I slid down further in the seat, wishing my car wasn’t so conspicuous in this part of the city. A couple of schoolboys walked past, bags of crisps in hand, staring at me with expressions full of teenage bravado.

  Five minutes. Ten.

  A figure emerged from one of the houses, checked the street right and left, and began walking towards the side road where the Audi was parked. He’d changed his suit jacket for a dark leather one, taken off his tie, put on a baseball cap. But it was definitely him. He put his hands in his pockets and walked on.

  Shit. Shit. Had Ryan seen me?

  I couldn’t be sure. But there was now another problem: he almost certainly would see me if his car turned right out of the side road. He would go right past me. Should I drive away now? No. Too suspicious. I slid further down in my seat pulling the brim of my baseball cap lower.

  Please turn the other way.

  When I looked up again, the rear of the black Audi was disappearing down the street away from me. He had turned left. I let out a breath. That was a bit too close for comfort. But what had Ryan been doing here, in one of the city’s roughest neighbourhoods? An area with a reputation for crime and drugs? Why would clean-cut Ryan be visiting a house here?

  There were two ways to find out. One: ask him. Or two: take a look around.

  For today, it would have to be option two.

  I got out, feeling horribly conspicuous in my navy work suit and white shirt, quickly taking off my tie and stuffing it into my jacket pocket. It was weirdly, eerily quiet. I walked slowly up the street, trying to be casual, as if I knew exactly where I was going. The house was about thirty yards down on the left, opposite a white van pulled up onto the kerb.

  That one.

  I stopped outside the house. The tiny front garden was a wreck, the paving slabs cracked and uneven with clumps of thick grass sprouting through. There was no number visible on the door but I could make out a ghostly, faded outline of two digits in the brickwork – 98 – where they might once have been attached. Standing there, I had an uneasy feeling, the tiny hairs at the back of my neck tingling against my shirt collar: someone was watching me. My immediate response was a reckless urge to just walk up and knock on the door to see who answered – but for all I knew that might get straight back to Ryan. Middle-aged white guy in a suit, tall, dark hair, drives a silver Peugeot, d’you know him?

  Instead, I went next door to number ninety-six, where the TV was blaring loud enough to be clearly audible through the front door. A dog barked relentlessly above the noise. I knocked, waited, knocked again. Then once more for good measure.

  No answer.

  I had more luck at number 100, on the other side. The door was opened after one ring of the doorbell and I was confronted by a pair of girls in school uniform, perhaps six and seven, their faces painted in glittery pinks and bright reds, with rouged cheeks and over-drawn eyebrows. I smiled at them, remembering when Abbie had loved to do the same with Claire’s makeup.

  ‘Yes?’ said the smaller of the two girls, with a confidence that belied her size.

  The hallway behind them was immaculate, with two racks of shoes – trainers and ballet pumps, wellington boots and school shoes – lined up in pairs under the radiator.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Is your mum or dad in?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just need to speak to them quickly.’

  The little girl gave me a sceptical look.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s about next door.’

  The girl considered me for a moment longer, then turned and shouted back into the house.

  ‘Mum!’

  A voice floated back from what I assumed was the kitchen.

  ‘Who is it, Ella?’

  ‘A man,’ the little girls called back in unison, before disappearing back upstairs.

  A slim woman in an apron emerged, hair drawn back in a loose ponytail, a wide-eyed toddler balanced on her hip.

  ‘You from the council? ’Cause I already told them—’

  ‘No, I’m here about next door.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Do you know if they’re in today?’

  The woman looked over my shoulder, into the empty street behind me.

  ‘You police?’

  ‘No,’ I smiled. ‘I just wanted to say thanks to whoever lives there. They left their details as a witness when my car got dented in a car park the other day. Just tucked it under my windscreen wiper, absolute lifesaver.’

  ‘Can’t you text him?’

  ‘Wanted to do it in person,’ I shrugged. ‘Most people wouldn’t have bothered to leave the info, and it’s going to save me a lot of grief with the insurance company. Would he be at work now, do you think? I tried his door but there’s no answer.’

  ‘Never seen him, to be honest.’ The toddler grizzled and she bounced him gently on her hip. ‘Only been there a few months and the curtains are always shut. Sometimes hear him going out at night, but late, you know?’

  ‘Does he have many visitors? People coming to the house?’

  It was one question too many.

  ‘Some.’ She eyed me suspiciously, putting one hand on the open door. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Tom,’ I said. ‘Ripley.’

  ‘Whoever comes to his house, I reckon it’s none of my business. Or yours.’

  ‘No, of course, I was just wondering when he might be—’

  But she was already closing the door.

  I turned to go, noticing for the first time that the four hoodie-wearing figures had gathered on the other side of the street and were watching me, eyes shadowed beneath the brims of their baseball caps. Tall and angular, chins studded with stubble and acne, the sour spice of cannabis smoke hanging around them in an invisible cloud.

  I felt their eyes on me all the way back to my car.

  13

  I put my keys in the bowl by the front door and threw my jacket over the bannister. Claire was in the kitchen making curry, the air filled with scents of cumin and coriander that made my stomach growl with hunger. She offered her cheek for a kiss as she stirred ingredients sizzling in the pan. Monday night was training night at the tennis club, and she had already changed out of her work clothes into tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt.

  ‘How was work?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ I fetched an alcohol-free beer from the fridge. ‘Same old thing, you know?’

  She gave me an appraising look. ‘Dress-down Monday today, was it?’

  I looked down, remembering my tie in my jacket pocket. ‘No, just got a bit
stuffy in the car, that’s all.’ I popped the cap off the beer and took a sip. ‘How was your day? That new production going to be ready?’

  She blew her dark fringe off her forehead. ‘Good question. Young Dominic had another wobble today, you know what he’s like. On the plus side, we’ve already sold out more than half the tour.’

  Claire was the executive director of a theatre company that was due to tour Ireland and Scotland over the summer with a production of A View from the Bridge. It was a small, tight-knit company and her role encompassed almost everything – from soothing young actors’ egos to tour management, from fundraising and promotion to driving the minibus – that was not handled by the artistic director, Miranda.

  I opened the cutlery drawer and took out three sets of knives and forks, laying them side-by-side on the breakfast bar.

  ‘You’ve still got time to sort things out, haven’t you?’

  ‘We’ve got another few weeks of rehearsals so we should be all right.’ She added another sprinkling of herbs to the curry bubbling in the pan. ‘Did you get the cat food, by the way?’

  She gestured at Tilly, who had settled her bulk on top of the conservatory sofa, her side pressed against the top of the radiator.

  ‘Ah, bugger,’ I groaned. ‘No, I forgot.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure she can have the other stuff for one day.’

  ‘No, she needs her normal food,’ I said, scratching the cat between the ears. She raised her head and yawned hugely before settling back down. ‘She turns her nose up at everything else and she needs to eat. It’s fine, I’ll just go to Asda to fetch it, won’t be long.’

  I went back out to my car and was about to get in when I recognised a slim figure at the end of the drive: long dark hair, crumpled white linen shirt with sleeves roughly rolled up to reveal intricate tattoos on his left forearm, lines of text in a language I didn’t recognise. Necklaces of leather and silver looped at the top of his half-exposed chest, black skinny jeans ripped at the knees. Fancy sunglasses, despite the grey day and forecast of rain. His soft-top VW Golf GTI was parked across the street.

  He raised a hand in a half-hearted greeting. ‘Hey, Ed.’

  I closed my car door again and leaned against it, blocking his path down the drive.

  ‘Hello, George,’ I said cautiously. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Is Abbie at home today?’ That familiar public school voice, languid vowels with clipped edges. ‘Is she back from work?’

  ‘No.’

  He nodded. ‘I need to talk to her, to explain things.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ I said.

  He moved closer. ‘I’ve had a great deal of time to think things through and I know how wrong I was, how . . . awful I was. But I’m getting help now and confronting my toxic behaviours. I can see now how appallingly I treated her. I know that Abbie was different. She was special, she was that rare person that one could actually feel a fully genuine connection with, a spiritual connection. She’s my—’

  ‘She’s not here,’ I said again.

  George glanced at the big Rolex hanging off his skinny wrist. ‘When does she normally return from work?’

  ‘Hard to say, she has a staff meeting on a Monday afternoon. But she isn’t going to want to see you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I crossed my arms. ‘Because she’s moved on.’

  George smiled, hands clasped together in front of him as if praying. Or begging. ‘But so have I, that’s what I’m saying, Ed. I’ve moved on, I’ve grown, as a person and as a man. I’ve acknowledged my mistakes. I just want another chance.’

  I, I, I. Same old George. All about you, isn’t it?

  ‘She’s not interested, pal. I absolutely guarantee you that for a fact.’

  George threw me a sly little smile. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Suit yourself, George.’

  ‘You’re actually quite a poor liar, Ed, did you know that? Working with actors, as I do, it gives you a keen sense of the honest reality hidden behind dissembling words. A keen nose for the truth behind the performance, shall we say.’

  Not for the first time, I wondered how satisfying it would be to introduce a balled fist to George’s nose for the truth. How satisfying it would feel to knock him on his arse for everything he’d put Abbie through after she’d broken up with him.

  Pretty satisfying, I thought.

  ‘You can’t keep coming here, George. She doesn’t want to see you.’

  ‘I know that her school is on an inset day today, I checked.’ He took a step closer to me, close enough that I could smell heavy, musky aftershave over the top of stale tobacco. ‘Which means she’ll be home by now. I’m not going until I’ve talked to her face-to-face.’

  ‘Listen George, you’re a young guy, you’ve got a lot going for you,’ I said, trying a different tack. ‘You can’t be short of female attention. I’m sure there are plenty of women who would—’

  ‘Don’t patronise me!’

  He made to push past me but I blocked his path. He tried again but he couldn’t have been much more than ten stone soaking wet, and I was bigger, taller, broader – an immovable object between my car and the garden hedge.

  ‘You can’t stop me!’ George shouted.

  ‘On my property, I can.’

  ‘I’m not on your property,’ George said. He tried to barge past me for a third time and I put a palm on his chest, giving him a firm shove back onto the pavement. He staggered, looked down at his chest in shock. Then at my outstretched palm.

  ‘That’s assault,’ he said.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘You assaulted me. You attacked me.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘That’s common assault, you put your hands on me and intentionally inflicted unlawful force. I did a year of law and my father is a QC, actually. You can get six months’ jail time for that.’

  I felt my patience spin out to a single thread, and finally snap. I’d had enough of fending off this over-privileged blowhard, who had already shown time and time again that he was incapble of taking no for an answer.

  ‘I didn’t assault you.’ My voice was a growl in my throat now. ‘But I will, if you don’t leave Abbie alone.’

  ‘Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said, suddenly weary. ‘Just go, you’re embarrassing yourself.’

  ‘You threatened to beat me up.’ He stood in the middle of the pavement, inviting me to make another move. ‘I’m going to stay right here, until you let me talk to Abbie. You know, I should have reported you to the police for what you did before.’

  ‘Report me for what? Having a conversation?’

  ‘You tried to intimidate me.’ George leaned forward to emphasise his point. ‘You threatened me unless I gave up on Abbie.’

  ‘You were stalking her,’ I said, standing my ground. ‘After she’d finished with you.’

  ‘Stalking her?’ He barked a short laugh. ‘That’s funny coming from you, Mr over-protective dad of the year.’

  ‘You were following her, George.’

  ‘Because I loved her, and I still do! And anyway she’s an adult, it was none of your business!’

  ‘Wrong. My daughter’s happiness is absolutely my business. And I gave you a warning, I didn’t have to do that.’

  He took off his sunglasses and put them into his pocket, his eyes narrowing against the daylight.

  ‘You’re a bit crazy, aren’t you, Ed? Does Abbie know what you’re like?’

  I crossed my arms and said nothing. We glared at each other for a few moments longer before he turned and stalked back to his car. In a squeal of tyres he did a U-turn, gunned the engine, and sped off down the street. I stood and watched him go. That’s right, keep driving. Keep going. Don’t come back. I kept my eyes on the tail lights of the VW until they receded and disappeared around the corner.

  I turned to the sound of another car arriving behind me. Abbie pulled into the dr
ive in her little red Fiesta, giving me a wave through the windscreen.

  ‘Hey Dad,’ she said, climbing out of the car with her laptop in one hand, canvas bag full of exercise books in the other. ‘Who was that?’

  I took the bag from her and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  ‘Oh, just some young guy driving like an idiot.’

  She didn’t need to know that George Fitzgerald still hadn’t got the message.

  14

  WEDNESDAY

  Thirty-three days until the wedding

  Following someone discreetly in a car was a lot harder than it looked on TV. I had discovered that the hard way. But that first trip to the Bestwood estate suggested there might be more to find. I called up a new browser window on my phone, typed in a search term and spent a few minutes scrolling through the various options. Nothing too cheap: it needed to be durable, to do the job properly. I selected the item with the highest customer rating – not cheap at £149 – and read through the disclaimer, in capitals, specifying that all purchasers should be fully aware of and compliant with UK law in using the item. The supplier took no responsibility for illegal use.

  I selected next day delivery and clicked ‘Buy Now’.

  It was amazing what you could get online.

  I switched to another window and went to the charity fundraising site JustGiving, pulling up Abbie and Ryan’s fundraising page. The text below their smiling selfie gave an account of Ryan’s mother and her battle against breast cancer. The biggest donation so far was £250 from Steve W, whose message read as if he was a colleague or boss of Ryan’s at Eden Gillespie. I clicked on the box and typed £300 into the donation box. Putting my phone away, I stretched my leg out as far as I could in the footwell, angling my toes towards me and massaging the calf to ease the cramp stabbing into the muscle: I had sat still for too long. Shifting my weight to the left, I slid a little lower in the driver’s seat and scratched my chin, stubble rough beneath my fingers. My Peugeot felt big and obvious, a smart SUV out of place in this neighbourhood, parked at the top of a side street that gave me a clear view of Neilson Road. It was quiet bar a few young mums with pushchairs and pensioners slowly walking their dogs, negotiating cracked tarmac and an old washing machine that lay rusting on its side.