'I used to be a nurse, you know.'
'I know.'
'You know what you ought to do,' Vanessa said. 'The perfect solution.'
'Go back to Lincolnshire?'
'Nothing that extreme. Take up yoga instead.'
'Me? Yoga? You're joking.'
'I don't see why.'
'Can you see me sitting cross-legged in some draughty room like a Buddha in tights?'
'It's not like that. That's meditation if it's anything. Yoga's brilliant. Helps you relax. And it's really good exercise.' She grinned. 'Look at me.'
'I don't know.'
'Go on. There's a new class just started. Where I go, that community centre by Crouch Hill. Introduction to Yoga. Give it a try.'
'I'll see. No promises, mind.'
'Okay. Now drink up and I'll walk you home. Make sure there's no bogeymen under the bed.'
The first evening Maddy went along she almost packed it in during the warm-up. All these women – they were all women – taking it in turns to stand with their back to the wall with one leg outstretched and raised as high as possible, their partner holding it by the ankle. One or two actually got their legs high enough to rest their feet on their partners' shoulders, while it was all Maddy could do to manage forty-five degrees for seconds at a time.
It didn't seem to get any easier. Reaching the required position was difficult enough – Dog Head Down or The Pose of the Child – but holding it was even harder. Maddy was acutely conscious of her muscles stretching, legs and arms quivering, the instructor bending over her from time to time and moving her gently but firmly into position. 'That's it, Maddy. Wider, wider. Wider still.'
When it was over she limped home and into a hot bath and vowed never to return. But she did. The next Wednesday and the next and the Wednesday after that. By then it had even stopped hurting.
7
Miracle of miracles, his connection pulled into Nottingham station no more than twenty minutes late. The young taxi-driver chatted amiably as he drove, apologising for the detour necessitated by the tram tracks along Canal Street and up Maid Marian Way. 'Testing 'em, know what I mean? Putting 'em down, pulling 'em up, putting 'em down. Trams they got goin' round, five mile an hour you're lucky. First ones 'posed to be startin' next year. Same they said last year, innit?'
The house was in the Park, a large and rambling private estate near the castle. Victorian mansions originally built for those who had profited from mining and manufacturing, the sweat and labour of others. Now it was barristers and retired CEOs, new heroes of IT and dot. com.
Martyn Miles had made his money from women's fashion and a chain of hair and beauty salons, in one of which Elder's wife, Joanne, had been working when her affair with Miles began.
Miles had bought a tranche of land near the northern edge of the estate, carved out of some burgher's tennis courts and grounds, and commissioned an architect friend to design something modern yet self-effacing, a curve of concrete frontage borrowed from Frank Lloyd Wright and the New York Guggenheim. The emphasis inside was on space and light, everything arranged around a living room of double height, separated from the stone patio and garden by a wall of glass.
When her marriage to Elder had broken down, Miles had moved Joanne in. Since then, things between them had been rocky: the last Elder had heard, Miles, having moved out and magnanimously left Joanne with the keys, had thought better of it and moved back in. But things might have changed again.
Joanne's Freelander was parked outside. No sign of whatever Martyn might have currently been driving, but there he was, stretched out on the sofa, legs crossed at the ankles, pale blue linen shirt toning in with the blue-grey of the room.
'Hello, Frank.' He swung his legs round slowly and smiled. Something colourless with tonic sat within reach on the floor. 'Just holding the fort till you arrived.'
Elder said nothing. Brittle, anonymous jazz played faint through speakers unseen.
Joanne stood close against the glass, smoking a cigarette.
Opening the front door to him, she had turned her head from the kiss Elder had aimed, maladroitly, at her cheek.
'Can I get you anything, Frank?' she said now.
He shook his head.
She was wearing a silver-grey metallic dress that shivered when she moved. Make-up, even expertly applied, hadn't been able to disguise the dark skin heavy below the eyes.
'It's a good thing you came, Frank,' Miles said. 'A good thing. Get this sorted before it goes too far.'
How far was that? Elder wondered.
'These past weeks,' Miles said, 'she's been out of control. Running wild.'
'Don't exaggerate,' Joanne said.
'You wouldn't know, Frank,' Miles continued, ignoring her. 'No way you could, not living where you do. But she's been doing just as she likes, out all hours. Seventeen, I know, Frank, a young woman, but even so. Rolled up here drunk more than a few times, smelling like I-don't-know-what, some poor sod of a taxi-driver outside waiting to get paid. I've tried talking to her but she won't listen. And, besides, you might not think it's my place.'
'All that happens,' Joanne said, 'you end up losing your temper.'
'Sometimes she's enough to make a saint lose his temper.'
'You would know.'
'Okay, okay.' Miles raised both hands in resignation. 'I'll off out and get a drink, let you two talk amongst yourselves. Good to see you, Frank.'
Elder nodded.
Whistling softly, Martyn Miles slipped his feet into a pair of soft leather shoes, pulled on his leather coat, expensive and black, and left the room. Neither of them spoke until they heard the front door close.
'Sit down, Frank. Are you sure you won't have a drink? I'm having one.'
'Okay, a small Scotch'll be fine.'
'I'll see what there is.'
'Anything.'
She poured herself a large white wine, Elder a more-than-decent measure of good malt.
'She's not here, then?' Elder said. 'Katherine?'
'She came in an hour ago, changed her clothes and went out again.'
'She knew I was going to be here?'
'I told her.'
'And you don't know where she went?'
Joanne shook her head.
Elder sipped his Scotch. 'You said she was seeing someone.'
'Rob Summers.'
'Someone she knew from school, or…?'
'He's not a boy, Frank. In his twenties, maybe more.'
'You've met him, then?'
'Not met exactly.'
'And the two of them, it's serious?'
'If it was, it wouldn't be so bad. It's more casual than that, as far as I can tell. His whim, I dare say. When
