The women are drawing level now, shreds of conversation drifting across.
‘I think you just have to tell them –’
‘But you know what that place is like –’
‘When I spoke to Pippa about it she said the same thing –’
The women pass, but the kid is still dawdling, and the man can now see why. He’s stopping at each car, looking at the make and noting something on a small red clipboard. The man’s eyes narrow. Just his bloody luck to stumble over the only kid on the planet who wants to be a sodding traffic warden when he grows up.
The boy is closer now, but still too far to read a number plate. Not in this light. He can see the woman, still at her gate, straining forward, trying to see.
The man curses under his breath, reaches for the ignition key and starts the engine.
* * *
When Niamh Kennedy pulls in opposite Monmouth House there are no lights in the tall facade on the other side of the road.
‘Beatriz must be in the kitchen,’ says Fisher, peering up at the windows. ‘Poor woman – I had no idea I would be so long.’
‘These things are always interminable,’ says Kennedy. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll have a large glass of wine, a hot bath, and go straight to bed.’
‘I will,’ says Fisher. ‘I just need to spend some time with Tobin first. Heaven only knows what he must be thinking.’
‘Kids are more resilient than you think. He’ll take his cue from you. As long as you talk to him calmly, he’ll be fine.’ She reaches across and squeezes Fisher’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, Marina. I know you feel overwhelmed right now, but you’re strong. If you were the sort of person who was going to be defeated by this you wouldn’t have got this far in the first place.’
Fisher gives a quick nod, then gets out of the car and strides across the road, not looking back. She holds her head high as she struggles to get the key in the door, but as soon as she hears the car pull away her shoulders slump and she half staggers across the threshold into the hallway.
She stands there a moment, adjusting to the gloom. There’s a pale shape hunched on the bottom step, which lurches towards her, the eyes huge and ghost-dark in the pale face.
‘Where have you been, Mummy? You promised you would look at my drawing. I’ve been waiting for hours. Where were you?’
* * *
8.15pm Saturday
Just now, when I went out to the bins, he was there. Again. Parked down the road, far enough away that he knew I wouldn’t be able to see him – not properly. Then two women went past with pushchairs and I think they must have spooked him because as soon as they got close he drove away.
But it was him. I know it was.
He was there.
* * *
Adam Fawley
7 July 2018
21.54
When I get home, the house is in shadow. Inside, there’s a single light on in the kitchen, and a note saying there’s salad in the fridge if I want it. I pour myself a glass of Merlot and slip upstairs. The door to the baby’s room is ajar. It was Jake’s, before. A couple of months ago we spent a whole weekend carefully packing all his things away. We didn’t discuss it – we didn’t need to. We just knew it was time. And now, everything in there is new. Wallpaper, furniture, bedding, curtains; the piles of baby clothes still in their packaging, even the mobile hanging over the cot. The smell of paint lingers. Yellow paint. Everything is white or yellow – not a scrap of blue or pink in the whole place. Alex has known the sex of our child for months but she’s never let it slip, not once. Downstairs, the list of names stuck to the fridge is as busy with girls as it is with boys. Added, scratched through, question-marked, ticked. We seem to have finally agreed on Lily Rose for a girl, but we’ve been brought up short when it comes to boys. Literally: she wants Stephen for her dad, but I hate Steve; I like Gabriel, but she can’t stand Gabe. Impasse.
I move softly across the landing, inch open our bedroom door and stand for a moment, listening in the twilight.
Outside, I can hear a distant siren, the murmur of traffic on the ring road, a late last burst of blackbird song.
But here, in the room, my sleeping wife moans softly in her sleep, restless in unquiet dreams.
* * *
At just gone 9.00 the following morning Anthony Asante is sitting in the bay window of his apartment, talking to his mother on the phone. He’s pulled one of the blinds to screen out the sun but it’s already too hot for him to sit there much longer. ‘Bay window’ probably has you picturing him in a flat in one of those classic Oxford Victorian houses – four storeys, red brick and stone mullions – but you could hardly be more wrong. This bay window is rectangular and juts from the wall like a half-open door, and the flat is a sleek wood-and-white duplex which anyone visiting can hardly believe even exists in this town, especially this close to the centre. But visitors of any kind are largely notional as yet, since Asante has only been here a few weeks. Even if that weren’t the case, he’s always preferred to keep his private space private. Though he knows he’s going to have to make an exception for his parents. He shifts the phone to his other ear, scrolling all the while on his tablet. He’s good at multitasking,
