The Trawlerman, стр. 51
‘Go on out. I just need to have a private word with Tina.’
‘What about? Are you talking about me? They don’t mind me here, honest – do you, Tina?’
‘She’s a delight,’ said Tina.
‘Two minutes.’
Zoë walked a little way down the street, then leaned against a telegraph pole, looking back with accusing eyes.
Tina was still at her doorway, apprehensive, not meeting Alex’s gaze. Alex went up close to her and said, very quietly, ‘Look, Tina. I know your husband assaulted you.’ A nervous flicker of eyelids. ‘All I want to know is the truth.’
‘I don’t want to talk to you any more,’ she said, with sudden anger, and stepped inside the door. ‘I would like you to go away, please.’
Before Alex could say any more, she closed the door hard, forcing Alex backwards onto the pavement.
‘Oh God. What was that, Mum? What were you saying to her? Were you talking about me?’
‘No. It was nothing to do with you.’
‘They’re my friends, Mum. What is it you’re so worried about? They’re lesbians? You always pretend to be better than that.’
‘That’s not what any of this is about.’
They were walking back towards the town now. ‘What then?’
They had nowhere to be but both were stamping along like they were in some crazy hurry to get down the hill and into town. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Zoë.
Alex stopped. ‘Let’s call a cab.’
Zoë scuffed her heels on the pavement. ‘You’re not going to spoil all this for me, are you?’
‘No. No I’m not. I’m glad. Anything planned for the rest of the day?’
Her daughter stuffed her hands into her pockets, shrugged. ‘Just stuff.’
When, finally, they emerged from the taxi, Alex noticed there were three text messages on her phone. Really enjoyed last night and I’d love to do it again; the second read, Are we OK? and the third was a JPEG of a bamboo toothbrush with ALEX written on the handle in biro.
She was in the front room when she saw the bicycle disappearing down the track towards the lighthouses. Zoë, head down, backpack on, cycling into the breeze.
In the heat of the afternoon, she walked down the track to Bill South’s empty bungalow. The bird bath was dry. She looked around for something to fill it with and found a black rubber bucket by his back door. She filled it at the outside tap close by and was carrying it round to the front when she saw the car pull up.
‘You know, I was expecting you,’ she said as Jill got out.
Jill was dressed for work. A blue cotton suit, trousers that ended above bare ankles and a plain white T-shirt. ‘Matter of fact, I called round last night after work, after, you know . . . I heard all about Bob Glass, obviously. Apparently he wasn’t very pretty when you found him.’
‘No. Poor bastard. He wasn’t.’
She looked around. ‘Bill not turned up yet?’
‘No.’
Jill nodded, smiled sympathetically, as if she knew how much Bill meant to her and Zoë. ‘He’ll turn up soon. I know he will. You’d have heard by now if anything had happened to him. I need to ask you this . . . Why did you go looking for Bob Glass?’
‘I wanted to say sorry.’
‘It wasn’t your fault this happened.’
‘Not my fault, but I always knew it wasn’t him. And I felt sorry. He had PTSD. That’s why he was there. He did his training around here. It’s like he was still in the army. He could never move on.’
‘That’s not your fault. You didn’t make him go to Afghanistan.’ Jill stood, hands on her hips, looking down at her feet. ‘You’ve got to stop all this, Alex. You know that, don’t you?’
‘You want to know the reason I wasn’t in last night, Jill? I had a date.’
‘A date date?’
‘Yes.’
Jill’s mouth dropped. ‘No way. No bloody way. With a man?’
‘Yes, with a man.’
‘Go, Alex!’
Alex mimed zipping her lips, and then told her who the man was. Jill whistled. ‘Terry Neill? I was in his house yesterday to let him know about Biosfera. Was that where you . . . ?’
Alex nodded.
‘Jesus. Seriously lovely property.’
‘You don’t have to sound so surprised. It’s not a thing. It was just, nice, that’s all. I was in shock. How was your fireman from Bumble?’
‘Recently divorced. Spent a long time talking about his custody battle for the kids and by the main course I was already on his wife’s side.’ Jill stopped. ‘Wait. This was just after you’d found Bob Glass?’
Alex nodded.
‘Oh. Right. Yeah. I do things like that, too.’
‘What? End up sleeping with men because you’ve had a really shitty day?’
‘Kind of. Yeah.’
It was a summer evening. They walked a little way down the track and sat on the mound of shingle to the north of the Coastguard Cottages and talked, watching kites flying above the beach. From a long way off Alex saw a bicycle coming back down the road; a familiar small figure, spinning along, pushed by the same breeze that was lifting the kites into the air.
‘That argument where people heard Ayman Younis shouting. Bob Glass denied it was him, didn’t he, Jill?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thing is, Bob Glass only ever told you the truth. Even when people didn’t believe him. Why would he have lied about that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe because he knew if he’d been arguing, we’d have been more likely to believe it was him that killed the Younises.’
‘Possibly. But what if it wasn’t him? What if someone else was arguing with Ayman Younis?’
‘I thought you just proved Ayman Younis had committed suicide, so why does it matter who he was arguing with?’
‘Because there’s a reason why he killed himself. Someone stole his money. I went there because I wanted to apologise, but I also wanted to ask Bob if he was telling the truth.’
‘And if he was sleeping in the next field . . . maybe he had heard the argument?’
‘Exactly.’
Zoë was on the