Think Yourself Lucky (27 page)

"Longer than that," David said, only to wonder if this was excessively clever.

The man sprawled into the seat opposite him. "What it is, I want to give the wife a bit of sun at Easter."

"Anywhere in particular?" David said and promised himself that Emily would show up before he'd finished dealing with the customer.

"Nowhere that'll break the bank. Let's be honest, you have to watch the cash these days. We don't have too much in the coppers."

"In the, I see what you mean." David was conscious of Bill's surreptitious grin beyond the empty chair, and tried to let neither distract him. "About how much are you looking to spend?"

"Name me a place and then show me the damage. I don't want you thinking I'm stringy."

David glimpsed how Helen tilted her head to catch the meaning as he heard Bill not entirely stifle a sound. "We've some cheap deals on New Zealand just now."

"Let's be honest, by the time we went all that way we'd be coming back. That'd be a turnip for the books."

David was aware that Andrea had laid down the phone on the currency desk. "Well, that's not very helpful," she complained. "Dead."

"What's that?" Helen said.

"I've just tried ringing Emily but it says her mobile's not in use, and nobody's answering at her house."

"Maybe she's somewhere you can't reach her," Bill said, adding "The tunnel."

"Where can we take her that's closer?"

For a moment David was confused enough to fancy that the customer was asking about Emily. He had to drag his mind back to his task before he was able to say "How about Cyprus?"

"They split that down the middle, didn't they? Greeks on one side and turkeys on the other. We're a bit past going anywhere there could be trouble."

Even if Emily was under the river, would her phone be described as not in use? "There's been no trouble for a while," David was hardly aware of replying.

"You're saying everything's humpty-dumpty there now."

"I didn't quite say that." Could the man be some kind of test arranged by David's employers? He had to dismiss the idea as deranged in order to ask "So does Cyprus appeal at all?"

"Let's be honest, both halves think they're right. I'd better keep the wife clear just in case."

He was being nothing else but honest, David was almost goaded to protest. How long before Emily left the tunnel? "Greece, then," he said. "There'll be sun in the south."

"Will there for certain? That's the crook of the matter." The lanky man leaned forward like a conspirator. "On top of that her workings aren't too sturdy," he confided. "We'd better not risk anywhere the food's that different."

Once Emily came out of the tunnel, wouldn't Andrea's missed call show up on her mobile? "There's Malta," David said more desperately than professionally. "They've stayed pretty British."

"They've bandaged that about, now you mention it. So you're saying they'd do us a good English dinner."

"Some of the hotels do." Shoving his chair back felt like taking action, but by the time David reached the racks he was peering through the gaps between the posters on the window in the hope of seeing Emily. He grabbed a Home Abroad brochure and showed the lanky man the Empire Remembrance Hotel. "We've got customers who go back every year," David said as he retreated behind the counter.

"Let's be honest, that looks more like us." The man brought the page within inches of his face. "I expect the exchequer can survive that," he eventually said. "Put us in for a week over Easter."

Suppose the accommodation was fully booked, or the flights were? How many more of the man's verbal antics would David have to endure? He'd typed just the first syllable of the name of the hotel when the phones on the counter and on the currency desk began to ring in chorus. He could have imagined he'd triggered them somehow, and he nearly grabbed the nearest receiver. As he made himself continue typing, Andrea lifted the phone on the currency desk. "Frugogo Bold Street," she said. "Andrea speaking. Hello?"

Why should David be concerned that she'd had to say all this to prompt an answer? He glanced away from the computer just too late. Andrea was swivelling her chair to turn her back to the rest of the shop, and she'd lowered her voice. She might almost have been crouching around it, and he couldn't hear a word over the clatter of the keyboard, where his fingers felt as if they were growing frantic. "Here's your trip if you want it," he said.

He hardly cared how uninvolved he sounded. He was acutely conscious that Andrea had slumped lower in her chair, as though whatever she was hearing on the phone had dragged her down. When he pivoted the monitor to show the lanky man, a shiver passed through the screen. Surely his nerves were the reason, not some furtive activity inside the computer. "That looks like the ticker," his customer said.

David wondered if the man was mangling language as some kind of joke. When he typed the man's name and his wife's—Jerry Barnes needed to be spelled out as Jeremiah, and Deirdre couldn't just be Dee in the paperwork—he felt he was trying to regain control of words. As he turned the screen for the customer to check the information David was aware that Andrea had stood up, but when he glanced towards the currency desk she wasn't there. He charged Barnes' credit card and printed out page after page, which hadn't finished slithering into the tray of the printer when Helen saved her work and hurried into the staff quarters. As David collected the pages he murmured to Bill "What's going on?"

"Looks as if that call upset the boss. Helen's gone to see."

The smell of hot paper caught in David's throat. When he handed Barnes an envelope with the documents in he found it hard to speak. He might have liked to prevent the customer from saying "Let's be honest, I expect we're lucky to get this."

"I'm glad you did," David said without even remotely feeling it. Apprehension had clenched around the core of him. Barnes had scarcely left the shop before David said "Had we better find out what's wrong?"

"I'd leave it and see if they want us knowing," Bill said. "Could be a women's thing. If it's boyfriend trouble we're best staying clear."

Might Rex have been on the phone, or might the call have been about him? David felt as if he was attempting gingerly to disentangle his mind from a fear he'd been afraid to define. He hadn't produced any more thoughts worthy of the name when Bill said "It's all right. Here's Helen."

David saw him take back his first comment as soon as they saw her face. His mouth tasted like desiccated paper again, and he had to leave speaking to Bill, who'd lost his grin by the time he said "What's happened?"

"It's Emily." Helen tilted her head to meet the knuckle she used to dab her eyes. "She's dead," she told him.

"Good God, no. No, no." Since none of this had any effect Bill said "It was never the baby."

"That's gone too. They were in a crash on the motorway." Helen squeezed her eyes shut and widened them before adding "That was her husband on the phone. I think Andrea is nearly as upset as he must be."

"Well, there's a revelation," Bill said, which was his excuse to revert to a hint of a grin. "She's human after all."

Helen straightened up her head to gaze directly at him. "Some things you shouldn't say even if you think them."

David felt as if he were observing all this across an unbridgeable distance from inside the cage of his thoughts. How could he have been responsible for Emily's death? He'd done all he could to achieve exactly the opposite. Or had wishing her the best brought her the opposite to prove to him that he couldn't direct events? He had a sense that he'd overlooked something crucial. His head was aching with the notion, which made the computer screen appear to throb like a dark heart, by the time Andrea came out of the staffroom.

She took up her position at the currency desk and stared out through the glass. Her gaze was so fierce that it might have been designed to parch her eyes of tears or simply to warn the staff not to speak to her just now. David could have thought it contained an accusation, which was one reason why he stumbled to his feet. "Can I have a few minutes by myself?"

Though Andrea didn't look at him he heard a trace of sympathy in her voice. "Go on, David."

He fumbled out his phone on the way to the staffroom. As he sank onto a chair he saw Emily's upturned coffee mug gaping round-mouthed as him from the plastic rack beside the sink. He bruised his elbows on the unyielding surface of the table while he read the first words of the latest entry. He was able to believe it didn't involve Emily even once he read a sentence halfway down the second page:
There's no sign yet of today's selection, but I know they pass the shop on their way to their car
. He still managed to hope that her death was no more than a tragic coincidence until the car took to the road, by which point he could no longer deny the identity of the driver.

He didn't know if the fluorescent light overhead began to throb as he read to the end. Perhaps just his vision did, but it felt as though his pulse had strayed outside him. He covered his eyes with his hands and ground his elbows against the table. He would have to go out soon and face his colleagues, and pretend he knew as little about Emily's death as they did. He was wondering if he should splash his face at the sink to feign tears, because his knowledge was so dreadful that it didn't let him experience grief, when another section of the entry he'd just read caught up with him. He scrolled back through the text and found the paragraph, and as he read it once again the silent thumping of the light grew more defined. "That's what you're doing," he whispered, "that's what it's always been about," but the realisation felt like being shut into a maze that was his mind.

David was at the front door when he heard wheels speeding through the darkness of the park. No doubt they belonged to a skater, but they put him in mind of a car on the motorway, not to mention a mobility scooter. Opening the door crumpled several copies of a free newspaper, and he had to resist leafing through one in search of deaths about which he already knew far too much. A muffled orchestral march paced him upstairs, signifying a funeral or an inexorable advance, unless it meant both. When he stole into Stephanie's apartment he was greeted by the aromas of her lamb and apricot tagine, one of her Moroccan specialities. She should have offered to include that in Andrea's promotion, he thought, and felt his lips writhe into such a grimace he could almost taste its bitterness. He padded down the hall between the holiday postcards, which felt even more remote from him than the views they showed, to say nothing of the jokes on some of them. The kitchen door was open, and Stephanie was at the cooker with her back to him.

She looked disconcertingly vulnerable, especially the bare nape of her neck. Perhaps this was because she didn't realise anybody was behind her. David hadn't managed to decide how he needed to feel by the time she turned and saw him. "David," she said with a start that she tried to disguise with a smile, and then her mouth grew uncertain. "David?"

"What are you asking?"

"How long have you been there?"

"Not long enough for you to lose your sleep about, but I don't think that's what you wanted to know."

Stephanie replaced the lid on the casserole and put her hand over her heart, covering the name on her apron. "Why were you looking like that?"

"Can't I look? Maybe I'm looking like I really am at last."

"David, what's happened? I can tell something has. Don't try and keep it from me."

"You think that's going to solve it, do you?" As Stephanie gave him a reproachful frown David said "You could be right, more than you realise. Someone died at work."

"Oh, David." Her frown vanished as her eyes widened, and she reached for his hand. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "Will a drink help?"

"No need to apologise," he said and moved out of reach to find a corkscrew in the utensils drawer. "I expect a few glasses may help me blab."

Stephanie slid a bottle of Pinotage out of the rack and stood it on the table. "So what on earth happened?" she said as David levered up the cork.

"You haven't asked me who yet."

"I assumed it was a customer from the way you said it."

"None of them this time. One of the personnel. Which would you like it to be?"

"I wouldn't wish anyone dead." Not quite as forcefully Stephanie added "I don't believe you would either."

"That isn't how it works. I've found that out at last." David poured two enthusiastic glassfuls, dotting the table with red drops. "You didn't know you'd shacked up with an idiot," he said, "or maybe you've been too polite to say."

"David, I truly don't know what you're—"

"You don't have to keep saying my name. I still know who I am." He handed her a glass and clinked his against it none too gently, "Absent friends, is it?" he said. "Absent something, anyway."

"When are you going to tell me who it was?"

"Who do you think deserved it most? The bitch you don't like me calling a cunt, do you think it ought to have been her?"

"I don't think any of them deserve us to want them to come to harm, David. I don't think anybody does."

"It wasn't her, maybe you're surprised to hear. How about Bill and his imbecile grin? As long as he thinks everything's a joke it's time for it to be on him, don't you agree?"

"David, I can see you're upset, but I don't understand why you need—"

"Well, it wasn't him either." David took a gulp of wine and kept hold of the glass. "What about the bird brain? Always cocking her stupid head as if that's all she's got in there. Time that was stopped, wouldn't you say?"

"I wouldn't, and if she gets on your nerves that much—"

"I should tell her, are you saying?" David said and downed another mouthful. "Maybe I will."

As Stephanie made to speak he saw a thought overtake her. "Does that mean it was Emily? But you said she was going to have—"

"She isn't any more. They're both gone." He saw Stephanie wince at his brusqueness. "Don't worry, I'm not going to rant about her," he said. "It doesn't matter what I say about her now."