The Trawlerman, стр. 30
Georgia clicked through the last few photographs. ‘Just the one of the house with the police car outside. You know. Murder house. It was in the locals, the Mail and the Telegraph.’
‘I hope it was worth it.’ She replaced the cup on the table. ‘Was it Colin?’ she asked, watching Georgia’s face closely.
Barely a twitch of her face as she asked the question. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It was Colin who told you about the house, wasn’t it? The officer in the photograph, standing behind the woman officer who was crying.’
‘No,’ Georgia said, a bit too readily. When she’d said the name Colin, she hadn’t asked who she was talking about, either.
‘That’s why you didn’t want to sell it, even though it was your best photograph. You didn’t want to get him into the shit because he was the one who leaked it to you.’
‘I don’t even know who Colin is.’ Her hands were twisting round in front of her again.
Alex smiled. ‘OK.’ She stood. That’s what it was like around here. Everyone knew everyone else.
Alex was almost home when she saw the two women dragging suitcases from the light-blue shack, down the boardwalk towards the road, bickering as they went.
The honeymoon was over. They had arrived on a Thursday and they were leaving a week later. It wasn’t just trauma that affected the sense of how time passed. Without work, the days were formless. It was a surprise to realise that it had been seven days since she had first met them by the railway station cafe, on the day that Frank Hogben’s mother had appeared with a knife. Ayman and Mary’s killer had not been found. The suspect, the army veteran Robert Glass, seemed to have disappeared.
Stones caught the suitcase’s wheels.
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ complained Tina.
‘You have to lift it.’ Stella abandoned her case to help her.
‘I’ll do it,’ Tina snapped.
‘Don’t be daft. Let me.’
A taxi waited on the road for them, boot open. They would be sweating in this heat with those large bags. The taxi driver, head down looking at something on his phone, made no attempt to help them.
Alex started to trot over towards the newly-weds. ‘Hey,’ she called out.
They were too busy struggling with the cases to hear her and were already almost at the road when she reached them. ‘You’re going?’
‘Back to normality.’ Stella hefted her purple plastic suitcase into the boot. ‘Worst luck.’
‘Did you have a good time?’
‘Next time I get married I’ll go to Barcelona,’ said Tina.
‘Shut up, Tina. We loved it. Best time ever. We said Zoë can come and stay with us in Folkestone any time. Hope that’s all right?’
‘You did?’
‘She’s magic.’
‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘She actually is.’
Tina’s case was aluminium. Alex watched her as she lifted it, determined to do it on her own to prove a point to Stella, tried to swing it up as high as the boot, and smashed it instead into the back of the car. Her eyes went wide as she realised she had knocked a chip out of the paintwork.
The taxi driver, who had ignored them until now, was out of the car in a second. ‘What the bloody hell have you done?’
Stella and Tina looked at each other.
‘Look at it, you fucking idiot.’
Stella seemed to grow in size. ‘Don’t you dare speak to my wife like that.’
The man rolled his eyes. ‘Two hundred pounds,’ he said.
‘If you’d got off your fat arse,’ Stella said, her face in his, ‘this would never have happened.’
The man seemed to consider the situation. ‘Fifty pounds,’ he said.
‘Let’s call another taxi,’ said Stella.
The taxi driver picked up the case and threw it into the boot. ‘Get in.’
Stella turned and put her arms around Tina. ‘See? It’s OK,’ she said soothingly. ‘It’s all OK.’
Alex noticed that Tina was rigid; as if her muscles were all working at once to hold her in place. She was staring straight ahead of her, eyes wide.
Stella’s voice was low and quiet. ‘Are you OK to catch this taxi, or do you need to wait for another one?’
Tina said nothing; it was as if she had somehow become incapable of any thought.
‘Come on,’ mumbled the driver. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Ssh.’ A gentle noise, like one would make to calm a child. Alex realised she was watching Stella deal with something that had happened more than once.
They stood in strange silence for another minute, Stella stroking Tina’s hair, the taxi driver standing impatiently beside them, until Tina finally seemed to unwind. She nodded and said, ‘Let’s go in this car.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be OK.’ Stella opened the car’s rear door and Tina got in. Walking round to the other side of the car Stella paused in front of Alex, leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Look after yourself, copper. You look bloody rough.’
It had been a strange scene. Afterwards, Alex replayed it, over and over in her head, trying to make sense of it.
Twenty-two
Further down the track, next to the Snack Shack, Curly was hauling fish boxes into the back of his Ford Ranger pickup. The smell was heavy in the thick summer air.
Alex walked across the stones to his old truck. ‘Had a good day?’
‘Not bad.’ Curly swept a hand through his hair. ‘Not good.’
‘Seen Bill?’
‘Yeah. Not good.’
This was a small community. Word got around.
‘What do we do to help him, Curly?’
He pulled a tin of tobacco out of his pocket. ‘Stay out of his way, mostly. He needs to come out the other side of this and be able to look us all in the eye again.’
It was probably true, she thought, but it wouldn’t help the fact that he was broke now. ‘I was wondering. Do you still fish out of Folkestone?’
He looked at her warily. ‘Not often. If one of the boats needs crew, sometimes they ask me.’
‘If I wanted to go