Cold Kill by Neil White

Author:Neil White
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2011-06-08T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Laura checked her watch as Joe drove along the Cleveleys seafront, her side window open, the salt on the breeze making her lick her lips. It was almost two o’clock.

Laura turned her engagement ring on her finger absentmindedly as she thought about how different Cleveleys was to her home, Turners Fold, even though it was only an hour away. And that was how she thought of Turners Fold now, as home. It had taken a long time before she’d been able to think of it in those terms.

Cleveleys seemed a world away from the dark green of the hills around her cottage. Here, the sky seemed brighter, as it soaked up some of the sunshine that glimmered on the sea, vivid blue to the horizon, not the stone-grey of the Pennines. Turners Fold was like all the other cotton towns in the country, characterised by lost industry and grand civic gestures, where old millstone buildings stood alongside imposing Town Halls and theatres, proud emblems of a prosperous past. The buildings in Cleveleys didn’t brag or boast. They were either small redbrick or whitewashed seaside houses, with stained glass awnings over shop windows held up by ornate pale-green iron pillars. The seafront stretched into the distance, the beach below a mix of pebbles and sand, the sea a distant shimmer.

Laura had taken Bobby to the seaside since her move north, but it had been to Blackpool, and so it had been all noise and tack and lights, and then a dash for the car before the stag and hen night parties took over the streets. She imagined that it would be fun if she was a teenager, or with a gang of friends on a pub crawl, but the pavement stands selling cock-shaped rock told her that it was no place for children. She hadn’t taken Bobby back a second time.

Cleveleys seemed different though. This was tea-room seaside, all buttered bread and afternoon dances. Even though she could see Blackpool Tower in the distance, it seemed like a whole different experience.

‘Something on your mind?’ Joe said.

‘Uh-huh?’ Laura said, and when Joe nodded down to her ring finger, she blushed and smiled. ‘I do it a lot. It still seems strange, being involved in wedding plans again.’

‘Strange?’ he said. ‘I thought it was supposed to be exciting.’

‘It is, I suppose, but it feels different to the first time.’

‘I suppose isn’t giving it much of a billing,’ he said. ‘How is it different?’

Laura looked out of the window again as she mulled over her answer. ‘My first wedding was the usual glitzy thing. Lots of frills and white, with bridesmaids and flowers, every girl’s dream.’

‘And the marriage?’

Laura gave a small laugh. ‘Not as good as the day, and maybe that’s the problem. It’s hard to see it as a big new thing, because I’ve been there before, and that’s why we’re doing it much more quietly. But I can’t say that to Jack.’

‘Why not?’

‘Come on, Joe, you’re the one who understands how people tick.

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