The Child Who Never Was by Jane Renshaw

Author:Jane Renshaw [Renshaw, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2020-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

15

That was him. Andy.

She was sure of it.

The man walking along the opposite pavement, hung about with bags from expensive clothes shops. There was a thin woman clipping along on heels beside him, talking on her phone.

‘That’s him, aye?’ said Graham.

She supposed Graham must have got a look at the sketch at some point. He must know, by now, that this wasn’t about building work.

‘Yes.’

She needed to get out of the taxi. She needed to speak to this man, this man who was Oliver’s father, but –

‘Want me to come with you?’

‘Yes! Thank you!’ The kindness made her want to cry.

As Graham opened her door and offered her his arm, she grabbed him, she grabbed onto his golf jumper, and he helped her out as if she were a pensioner.

‘I – I have agoraphobia,’ she whispered.

‘Aye, m’dear. But don’t you worry, eh? You’re safe with me.’

‘Thank you.’

She had her hair in a ponytail again, and was wearing jeans, jumper and fleece in the hope that putting on the Eve persona would have the same effect as last time, but it wasn’t working. Her legs felt weak and shaky as she crossed the road on Graham’s arm – she should have worn her Skechers instead of the grey suede boots with a wedge heel – and she found herself unable to think, unable to remember what her plan was, what she had decided to say.

Her thoughts were skittering about and she couldn’t focus her eyes either; her gaze kept jumping from the parked cars in front of the pub to the grimy windows to the crow on the roof that was pacing slowly along the ridgeline.

‘Andy,’ she said, finally, when they were close enough.

The man’s gaze flicked from Graham to Sarah and widened. He looked behind them and back down the pavement, as if she really was his stalker, as if he was afraid of her. The woman, presumably his wife, was walking on, oblivious.

‘Give me five minutes,’ he hissed at her. ‘Park gates.’

And he followed his wife into the pub, shoulders hunched, as if cowering away from a physical blow. Of course they’d have let him know what had happened, Billy and the Three Little Sexist Pigs. That Sarah had been in the pub asking for him, talking about a child. But Mairi couldn’t have let on that she’d told Sarah he came here on a Saturday lunchtime. Her turning up was evidently a big shock.

The park at the end of the street was a tiny one, just a triangle of grass abutting a wall along one long edge and the backs of houses along the other, the short end of the triangle fenced off from the pavement by high railings. There was a meagre kids’ play area with graffiti on the swings. Someone had had a go at the ride-on chick with lighter fluid, and its once bright yellow face was singed brown and melted into a one-eyed leer.

The place was, understandably, deserted.

Sarah sat on a bench while Graham retreated to a discreet distance and lit a cigarette as he contemplated the graffiti.

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