The Trawlerman, стр. 45
She stood and pointed over the cliff behind them. ‘Down there, in the Warren. We used to come up here too, before all this was built. Cider. Drugs. Anything we could lay our hands on. Glue. Heroin. Pills. I got chucked out of school, used to rough-sleep in empty houses. My parents tried to look after me, but I hated them so much back then. Stupid, really. They weren’t that bad. Half the people I called friends were much worse than my mum and dad ever were. Before I knew it, I was in my late twenties, going absolutely fucking nowhere. People used to cross the street to avoid me, you know? Anyway.’
She stopped, opened a tin and pulled out a pre-rolled cigarette, then lit it. ‘So. One day in summer I was coming down from something, I don’t remember what, and I’d been on whatever it was a couple of days and I realised I was starving. Literally starving. Probably filthy, too, but I knew I had to get something to eat, so on my way back into town from somewhere round here, I stopped into the fish bar down on The Stade and Tina was there behind the counter, and I must have looked like shit on a stick. I said, “Sorry. Got no money but I could kill for some of your chips.” And she gave me this look. And it was . . . Fucking hell. What a smile! I was expecting pity. It was like a really sexy little smile. And I looked like hell and was probably stinking but it was . . . wow, you know? She was a married woman as far as I knew . . . and one of the Hogbens, and if you grew up where I did, you never messed with the Hogbens. But that’s the kind of smile a woman gives another woman . . .’
She grinned, looked back down at Alex. ‘Has anyone ever given you a smile like that? You know . . . I bet they probably have. Anyway. I cleaned up basically because I wanted her after that. I knew there was absolutely no way she’d let me near her looking the way I did.’ She turned and dropped back down onto the bench, head turned towards Alex. ‘So what I’m saying is, she saved me. Totally saved me. Tina is the kind of person who saves people. Even a wretch like me. And in return, I kind of saved her.’
‘Nice,’ said Alex.
‘Isn’t it? Smoke still. Drink too much, but you can’t have it all.’
Stella finished her cigarette, stubbing it out in the lid of her tin and carefully putting the remains into her jacket pocket.
‘You didn’t tell me about Frank assaulting Tina.’
‘No,’ Stella said. ‘I bloody didn’t. Because, like I said. You’re barking up the wrong bloody whatsit.’ She picked up her flask and put it in the backpack, slung it onto her back and said, ‘I’ll tell Tina you said hi, shall I?’
Halfway down the slope, she climbed up the steps in front of the memorial statue of the waiting airman, leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. Then she walked off down the sloping grass, the way she had come, without looking back.
Alex had to get to her appointment. She was not supposed to be here.
She walked back to her Yaris, alone at the far side of the car park. Her pace quickened as she saw something white under the wiper. A parking ticket was her first thought. In her hurry to get to the monument she had forgotten to check whether there were any parking restrictions; now she looked around and saw a pay-station by the main building.
The closer she got, though, the more she realised it was nothing of the sort. It was a plain piece of paper torn out from a notebook, folded over, and tucked under the arm of the wiper.
Before picking it out, she looked around. On first view, the car park was deserted.
She lifted it out.
In big biro capitals: PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. STOP ASKING ABOUT ME. YOU WILL MESS UP EVERYTHING.
Underneath that, the name: FRANCIS HOGBEN.
She read it twice, just to make sure. Again, she looked around. On the north side, facing the road, the car park was surrounded by a thick old hedge, mostly hawthorn. Through the hedge beyond the bonnet of her car, she could see a silhouette. There was someone on the other side, watching her.
‘You,’ she called.
The figure didn’t move.
‘Wait. I’m coming round. Don’t go.’
With a crackling of branches, the figure disentangled limbs from the hedge and set off running.
Alex set off sprinting towards the exit, twenty metres away. Stupid office bloody heels.
Thirty-three
She made it to the gap in the hedge but it was too late. She had already heard the car door slam and the engine start. All she saw was a red car roaring away loudly down the hill at speed, round the curve of the road out of sight.
Sure that whoever had been peering through the hedge at her had been the same person who had placed the note on her windscreen, the same one she had seen driving away, she turned and ran as fast as she could back to the Yaris, turned the ignition and reversed away from the hedge, skidding on the tarmac.
They would have a head start, but a bright red car was easy to spot.
At the exit, the road was clear. She pressed hard on the accelerator but the car stalled. Her first thought was that she should have had it serviced. She restarted.
The car spluttered, coughed and stalled a second time.
Third time it wouldn’t even start. The starter motor just ground away to itself. Again she turned off, turned on again, pumping the accelerator.
‘Shit.’
Behind her, a car honked.
Angrily she waved it past her and laid her head on the steering wheel.
Getting out, she looked around for