As She Left It (17 page)

“Aye,
you
!” Opal had yelled at that one and clattered off upstairs to get away from him.

She went to pour herself a drink of water, letting the tap run and run, waiting for it to come through cold.

Was it the same for Fishbo? It was hard for Opal to think of old men who wore jackets and hats as needing to worry about what the cops might think. Hard for her to think about Pep and Fishbo and the rest of the Mote Street boys except as grownups to her little-girl memories of them, but if she tried—twenty-five and no fool—she supposed that Eugene Gordon arriving in Leeds all those years ago probably hadn’t got a hero’s welcome and might well have had a few set-tos that left him supporting whoever was on the other side from the boys in blue.

She felt the water start to turn and she put both her hands under the tap, letting it stream over her wrists, like her granny used to do when she felt too hot. It didn’t make any difference, though, and it was a hell of a waste of water so she took them out again, held a glass under and drained it in a gulp. In fact, since she was on a meter, she thought, she should probably keep a big jug in the fridge instead of running it cold every time she was thirsty. She’d get herself a jug and start that sometime.

Right
, she thought, sitting down again, drying her hands by pressing them against her neck and shoulders, trying to push some of the coolness from the water drops into her skin.
Right then.
New page.
Who’s next?

Vonnie Pickess. Now,
there
was a puzzle. Because for one thing, Mrs. Pickess didn’t have a loyal, friendly, generous bone in her body—and never mind a bone: try a cell, try a chromosome, try a
gene
(if that was smaller). And for two, Mrs. Pickess obviously didn’t have a problem cuddling up to the cops because she had blabbed to them about Nicola being pals with Craig’s dad, hadn’t she? A big fat question mark for Vonnie.

Which left Zula, Mr. Joshi, Birbal, Doolal, Sanjit, Advay, and Vikram. She put them all on one page, and for a long moment she sat and stared across the kitchen. Because how was she supposed to know whether all the funny little looks and funny little comments that had freaked her out that day over at Zula’s were anything to do with anything? How did she know what to write down and what to ignore?

Start with everything, she decided, and then narrow it down. She had to eliminate people—like Pep already, and Fishbo soon to follow as soon as she could get him to tell her how much the pigs had hassled him when he was fresh off the boat—and she had to eliminate … What would she call them? Inconsistencies? Niggles? Shadows? Knots?

1. Why did Zula want Opal to come back to Mote Street?
   
2. Why did she sleep in Nicola’s room?
   
3. What was Zula on about with the canoes and mountain bikes?
   
4. Why did she offer to help with DIY?
   

Opal sat and looked at the four questions she had written and tried to see any connection to Craig at all. At a stretch, if one of the Joshis knew something they shouldn’t, and if Nicola found out, then it would make sense for Zula to chum up with Nicola and make sure she didn’t spill the beans. That was fair enough. But what would be the point of getting Opal back here? And what could Opal’s hobbies or home improvements have to do with it? No, the more she thought about it, the surer she was that three out of those four … niggles … would be eliminated from her inquiry just as soon as she could think up a way to ask about them without Zula thinking she’d gone off her trolley.

And that left the big one. Question 5: Why did Zula Joshi not tell the police that Craig disappeared at a time her boys had alibis for? It was a straight choice, wasn’t it? Protect Margaret or protect her five sons.

Unless it was
after
the police stopped coming that Zula found out. She could maybe ask one of the boys in the course of an innocent conversation. Less suspicious than tackling Zula again.

She could hear the boys right now, at least two of them anyway, out on the street: an engine running, loud voices, laughter. She could go out and say hello. After all, she’d been here nearly a month and only waved at them so far. She went through into the living room and edged around the armchair in front of the window so that she could see who was there—Vik in one of the cars and his dad standing at the kerb, holding a steaming mug, wearing Zula’s headset with the microphone pushed away to the side so he could drink his tea.
Perfect
, she thought.
I’ll just nip over and say hello
.

But she heard the car leaving as she was smoothing her hair and finding her flip-flops, and by the time she opened her front door, Vikram was gone and Mr. Joshi was standing there on his own.

“Hiya,” said Opal, coming over to stand beside him.

“Zuleika’s not in, love,” he said.

“Well,” said Opal, “it’ll be quiet on a Monday, isn’t it?”

“It is if the dispatch coordinator’s not there to keep it busy.”

“Right,” said Opal, thinking if that was the mood he was in there was no point trying to strike up any kind of conversation at all. “Where is she then?”

“Morrison’s,” said Mr. Joshi. “Doing the big shop.”

“Blimey, I thought she was on a girls’ night out, the way you were talking,” said Opal, and at last he laughed. He took a last swig of tea and then threw the dregs into the long grass and dock leaves behind him.

“She’d rather be in Morrison’s than at the Chippendales any day,” he said. “She’ll be back here with foot spas and paper shredders and ten new shirts that won’t fit me. ‘But they were on offer’. The woman’s a maniac when she gets her hands on a trolley.”

“You should give me a list and I’d bring it home from Tesco for you,” Opal said.

“Me?” said Mr. Joshi. “I’m worse, love. That’s why Zul goes on her own. I bought a garden shed the last time I went. And a garden table and six chairs. Solid teak.”

“You don’t even have a garden,” said Opal, laughing.

“They were on offer,” Mr. Joshi said. Then he sighed. “So you’re back again, are you? Back to stay?”

“Yep,” said Opal. “Thanks to—” She bit it off. “Thanks to my mum never getting her act together to tell anyone I left, I’m still the official tenant. Unless someone tells them I’m not.”

“Bah, that’s nothing to do with anyone else,” Mr. Joshi said, and the easy way he spoke left Opal almost sure he knew nothing and couldn’t care less whether Opal lived there or someone new moved in. And that left her almost sure too that Zula’s funny little hints and odd little looks were summat or nowt, as her granddad used to say.

“True,” Opal said. “But neighbors, you know. I don’t mean you!”

“Ah yes, the Neighborhood Witch,” said Mr. Joshi, wiggling his eyebrows at Mrs. Pickess’s front door.

“Mr. Joshi!” said Opal.

“She’s out,” he said. “She won’t hear me.”

“Yeah, she’s at her book club. Mr. Kendal told me.”

“Book club! How can you read a book on a broomstick?”

“Stop it! She’s not that bad.” But Mr. Joshi, for once, had not a trace of a smile on his face.

“I used to think she was harmless too,” he said. “But we went through a right bad time here while you were away, Opal love. And she showed her true colours then, I can tell you.”

“You mean when Craig Southgate disappeared?” Opal said.

“I never found out for sure,” Mr. Joshi said, “but who else would have told the police that Pep and Fish were the type to hurt a little boy? Filth like that when we’d known them for years.”

Opal said nothing. Zula was right: if Mr. Joshi had found out it was his own son who poured that little drop of poison into a policeman’s ear, he would skin the boy alive.

“It must have been a terrible time,” she said.

Mr. Joshi cleared his throat. “Long ago,” he said. He cleared his throat again. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about old troubles anyway. I should be saying sorry about your mum.”

“Yeah,” said Opal. She never knew what to say when people said that to her. It wasn’t their fault. Why were
they
sorry?

“If there’s ever anything we can do.” That was another thing. What could anyone
do
? Then she remembered why she’d come over and saw a way in.

“I know,” she said. “Zula told me. But”—she took a deep breath and decided to go for it—“she’s done enough, really, hasn’t she?”

“Zul?” said Mr. Joshi. “Likes of what?”

“Oh, I just mean taking such good care of my mum. I mean, they got quite close towards the end.”

“Did they?” said Mr. Joshi.

That’s genuine surprise
, Opal thought.

“And you’re all right, are you?”

“How d’you mean?” Opal asked. “Oh, you mean getting jobs done in the house and all that. Yeah, Zula already told me to ask, but really I’m not planning anything.”

“Eh?” said Mr. Joshi. “What jobs?”

“DIY, like I told Zula. Can’t afford it and wouldn’t know what to do anyway.”

“What are you on about?” said Mr. Joshi. Opal could have hugged him. He didn’t have a clue about any of those so-called niggles, knots, and shadows. Not a single clue. Maybe she had just imagined all the sideways looks that day. Maybe she could cross off the whole Joshi family. Solid alibis, nothing to hide.

“Zula told me that you and the boys would help me out if I needed any work doing,” she said.

“Did she?” said Mr. Joshi, and he looked a tiny bit ruffled now. “Well that’s my dear wife for you. If she’s not buying stuff we don’t need, she’s giving away stuff we do.” Then he turned and looked over the rooftops in the direction of the main road. “Here she comes, talk of the devil,” he said.

“How can you tell it’s her?” Opal said. She could hear a car, but it could have been anyone.

“That is the mating call of a two-year-old Mondeo driven in the wrong gear and weighed down by … ooh … a hundred and fifty quid’s worth of stuff we’ll never find a use for, and another hundred quid’s worth of food we won’t fit in the freezer that’s still full from last time.”

And right enough, Zula’s Mondeo was turning up at the bottom of the street. She waved when she saw Opal.

“Good to see you!” she called through the open window as she drew in beside them. “Stay and have some supper with us, Opal love. I’ve got three hot chickens off the rotisserie and they won’t keep. Sunil, go and sit down. There’s sandals for you try on.”

“Maniac,” said Mr. Joshi to Opal under his breath. “Pop the boot, crazy woman, and I’ll start bringing it in.” He handed two bags to Opal and told her to take them to the kitchen.

When she was on her way back along the passage to the front door for another load, though, she could hear them talking.

“—needed it for the new garage floor and she never even used the bloody—”

“Sssh, Sunil, she’ll hear you.”

“—stuff, probably sold it. So why are you starting up the same way with the daughter now?”

“I’m not starting anything.”

“DIY. She specifically mentioned DIY. I had to act like an idiot to cover—”

“She’s just moved house. Of course, she’s going to be—”

“And why is she asking questions?”

“What questions?”

“And talking about you and her mother. Together. Making a link.”

“She’s going to
hear
you.”

And so Opal went back to the kitchen where she couldn’t hear a thing and opened up the two bags to start putting shopping away, stacking the fridge with lemon and coriander hummus, three for the price of two; 50-percent-extra flat-leaf parsley; and smoked peppered mackerel, buy one get one free.

TWENTY
-
TWO

T
HAT NIGHT, LYING IN
her bed, melting into the plastic on her mattress (planning to unwrap it, squirt it with ten big bottles of Febreze, and take her chances), she could hear whatsisname next door sobbing again, worse than ever. She turned over and fanned the sheet.
Too bad pal
, she thought.
Things come in threes and I’m full up of other people’s problems already. You’ll just have to cry.

But on the floor the next day she brought up a list for an FF Gilbert and was sure, nearly sure, that that was the name she’d signed beside on the clipsheet the van driver gave her. White bread, olive marg, oven chips, pizza … It sounded like him, and she wondered what the two Fs stood for. Fat Freddy, Franz Ferdinand, Full Fat. He’d asked for Gű two-pack individual lemon cheesecakes and there were none. Opal stopped and looked back at the list. Nothing suggested as a substitution. She should check out the back. And she couldn’t explain why she didn’t, except that thinking about him crying like that the way he did, and the way he stood on her step all crumpled and dusty, she thought he needed a laugh more than he needed a pudding. So even though if Dave chose that day to spot-check her pick she’d get the sack, she did a little substitution of her own. Instead of lemon cheesecake, she gave him a lemon, some cheese—half a pound of mild cheddar, the kind he seemed to like—and a cake. A small frosted occasion cake with a smiley face piped onto the butter icing and
Smile!
written in chocolate under it. Would he get it? Was it worth risking her job on the off-chance that he would? She was just reaching her hand into the tray to take the cake out again when she jumped at a voice beside her.

“Off at two?”

“Want a lift home?”

“I’m at Sandford, in the Broadleas.”

“Practically neighbors.”

“Kate’s coming to mine.”

“You can come too.”

Opal couldn’t think of a reason not to, so she nodded.

“Cool.”

“Because we’re going out Friday night.”

“So I’m going back with Rhianne to try on.”

“It’s Tuesday,” said Opal.

“It’s desperate,” Kate said. “I haven’t had more than a peck on the cheek since Christmas and that was from Uncle Bernie.”

“Do you want to come with us?”

“On Friday, she means.”

“And today too. We’ll stop off, get your stuff, and all go down to mine together.”

“I’m going round to my friend’s after work today,” Opal said.

“Yeah?”