The Trawlerman, стр. 52
Alex stood and walked down the slope towards her. ‘Where have you been, then?’ she asked. ‘Looking for caravans to rent?’
‘None of your business,’ her daughter replied, then pedalled past her towards the back of the houses.
Jill was still teetering her way down the shingle slope in her work shoes. ‘Has she got a boyfriend, then?’
‘Or a girlfriend . . .’ said Alex.
‘You reckon?’
Alex changed the subject. ‘Any cause of death for Bob Glass yet?’
‘Stop it, Alex.’
‘Sorry. I genuinely can’t help it.’
‘Did you have sex with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘You slag.’ She laughed. ‘There was a bottle of what seems to have been methadone in the tent. Wasn’t prescription. Looks like something he bought on the street. May not have even been methadone. People are selling it cut with all sorts of stuff these days. So right now we assume it’s an accidental OD.’
‘Poor bloody man.’
Jill nodded. ‘So if he had heard an argument between Ayman Younis and your mystery man, we’ll never know now anyway, will we? I better go.’
Alex walked her back to her car, still parked outside Bill’s. ‘Did he have a history of drug abuse?’
‘Homeless, wasn’t he? Loads of them do.’
‘Exactly.’
Jill looked at her, puzzled. Alex said nothing; waved at her as she drove back to the world of work. When she got back home, the house still smelt of the flowers she had put into a vase earlier that week.
Zoë was in the shower. Alex sat at the top of the stairs, thinking. When she emerged, one towel wrapped around her body, another round her head, Alex said, ‘Right. I think it’s high time you told me where William South is.’
Zoë walked straight past her to her bedroom without saying anything and closed the door behind her. Alex heard her turn the key.
Thirty-eight
At one in the morning, Alex noticed the light still on under her daughter’s door. She knocked gently. ‘You awake?’
After a few seconds, her daughter’s voice: ‘What is it?’
‘I really need to know about Bill.’
Zoë opened her door, her forehead tilted forward aggressively, like she was readying herself for a blow, but she was wearing one of her dad’s old Tribe Called Quest T-shirts and it looked so huge on her it undercut any attempt at looking fierce. ‘I can’t tell you, Mum.’
‘I won’t make you. Did Bill South make you promise not to say where he was?’
‘Yes.’
Alex had to pause before opening her mouth again because hearing that hurt.
‘He’s somewhere safe, Mum. Don’t try and find him, please. OK?’
‘What about the drinking?’
The teenager blushed. Whatever it was, it would have to be bad if it made Zoë blush these days.
‘Oh God. He’s still drinking?’
‘No. Don’t worry, Mum. He’s fine. Totally fine. He’s safe. He hasn’t drunk for days. I’m not saying anything else, OK?’
She laid her hand on her daughter’s arm and said, ‘You’re a good friend to him, aren’t you?’
Zoë’s shrug was a minimal jerk of her shoulders.
‘Will you pass him a message then? Tell him I think I know what really happened on The Hopeful. So there’s no point in him hiding any more. And I really, really need to talk to him about it. For his own good. It’s really important.’
Zoë frowned. ‘What?’
Alex dropped her hand. ‘He’ll understand. Just tell him next time you see him. Will you do that?’
‘Night. Mum,’ she said, and pushed the door closed on her mother.
She woke in darkness underground again, the smell of earth around her once more, the pressure of roots gripping her chest, her face wet from sweat and tears.
And then it wasn’t just a ceiling that had fallen on her. Now, instead of damp soil, there was the scent of cold metal and oil. She was no longer in the cellar, and a red car had dropped on her and the weight of it was crushing her, making it impossible to breathe.
‘Ssh,’ a voice beside her whispered. A cool hand on her forehead. ‘It’s OK. Go back to sleep now.’
In the morning when she woke, skin clammy, Zoë had gone out. She tried to remember her dream but it had gone.
There was a note by the toaster: We need more oat milk and tahini. Out all day. Love you. x. She was still in her pyjamas when her phone rang at eleven. ‘Which house are you in?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m outside.’
She opened the kitchen door and Terry was there in his open-top Mini and a blue baseball cap. ‘Not dressed yet?’
‘I’m off sick,’ she said. ‘It’s allowed.’
‘Get some clothes on and fetch your passport. I’m taking you for lunch. Or do you have a better offer?’
‘I told you about me and restaurants. I don’t get on well with them.’
‘That’s why. I’m taking you. You’ll be fine with me.’
‘Did you say passport?’ she asked.
He drove her to his house on Greatstone beach, where another car with a driver was waiting, uniformed, with a cap. ‘Fancy,’ she said.
‘That way I can have a drink. I’m treating myself.’
They made the ferry with twenty minutes to spare.
‘What if I’d said no?’
‘I’d have gone alone. Plus, there’s thirty per cent off ferry crossings today so it wasn’t too big a risk.’
The ferry juddered as its thrusters pushed the stern off the pontoon at Dover. Foreign travel always had a smell to it; airports smelt of concrete and kerosene, ferries were fresh paint, salt and diesel. She leaned over the handrail, breathed it all in and watched the milky blue water churn under them.
The ferry was called The Pride of Kent. Why had she never done this trip before, she wondered? Her daughter disapproved of all air travel, but they lived so close to France. She blamed herself for being so self-absorbed. They had not taken holidays at all.
‘Penny for them?’
‘This is good. Thank you for doing this.’
‘I don’t like to sound smug, but I thought so.’ The ferry nosed its way through the harbour entrance as the white cliffs unfolded themselves to the