the memory of the room with the high window. One of his hands slipped round to the front of her jeans. She shifted back to allow his fingers room to reach the button of the waistband.
‘Mummy,’ Lucy called. ‘I’m thirsty.’
‘Oh God.’ Michael drew back, grimacing at Sally. ‘You go and see her, love. I’ll get the drink.’
The following evening, he came home with a personal alarm and a mobile phone.
‘Are you sure I need all these?’
‘I need you to have them.’
‘But the cost. We –’
‘Bugger the cost, Sal.’
She smiled at him. ‘I’m no good with gadgets.’
‘You will be with these.’
She touched his hand. ‘Thank you.’
The alarm and the phone helped at least for a time. The fact that Carla could now contact her at any time was also reassuring. But the fear returned, a familiar devil. Feeling watched was a part of it. So too was a sense of the watcher’s steady, intelligent malevolence. Behind the watching was a fixed purpose.
But there was nothing, or very little, to pin it to. The evidence was skimpy, almost invisible, and capable of innocent interpretations: a small, pale van which one afternoon followed her car round three successive left turns; someone in a long raincoat walking down Hercules Road late at night and glancing up at the windows of the flat; warm breath on the back of her neck in a crowd swirling down the aisle of a supermarket; Lucy’s claim that a man had winked at her in the library when she went there with Carla and the other children. As to the rest, what did it amount to but the occasional shiver at the back of the neck, the sense that someone might be watching her?
To complicate matters, Sally did not trust her instincts. She couldn’t be sure whether the fear was a response to something in the outside world or merely a symptom of an inner disturbance. This was nothing new: since her teens, she had trained herself to be wary of her intuitions partly because she did not understand them and partly because she knew they could be misleading. She lumped them together with the uncomfortably vivid dreams and the moments when time seemed to stand still. They were interesting and disturbing: but there was nothing to show that they were more than freak outbreaks of bioelectrical activity.
The scepticism was doubly necessary at present: she was under considerable strain, in a state which might well induce a certain paranoia. In the end it was a question of degree. Carrying a rape alarm was a sensible precaution against a genuine danger: acting as if she were a potential terrorist target was not.
In November, leaves blew along the pavements, dead fireworks lined the gutters, and mists smelling of exhaust fumes and decaying vegetables softened the outlines of buildings. In November, Uncle David came to lunch.
The ‘Uncle’ was a courtesy title. David Byfield was Michael’s godfather. He had been a friend of his parents and his connection with Michael had survived their deaths and the cooling of his godson’s religious faith. An Anglo-Catholic, he was often addressed as ‘Father Byfield’ by those of the same persuasion. The November lunch in London had become a regular event. In May the Appleyards went to Cambridge for a forbiddingly formal return fixture at the University Arms.
This Saturday was the worst yet. It began badly with an emergency call from Derek, who had gone down with toothache and wanted Sally to take a wedding for him. Sally abandoned the cooking and Lucy to Michael. Neither the service nor the obligatory appearance at the reception did much for her self-esteem. The bride and groom were disgruntled to see her rather than Derek, and the groom’s mother asked if the happy couple would have to have a proper wedding afterwards with a real clergyman.
When Sally returned to Hercules Road she found the meal over, the sink full of dirty plates, the atmosphere stinking of David’s cigarettes and Lucy in tears. Averting his eyes from her dog collar, David stood up to shake hands. Lucy chose this moment to announce that Daddy was an asshole, an interesting new word she had recently picked up at Carla’s. Michael slapped her leg and Lucy’s tears became howls of anguish.
‘You sit down,’ Michael told Sally. ‘I’ll deal with her.’ He towed Lucy away to her room.
David Byfield slowly subsided into his chair. He was a tall, spare man with prominent cheekbones and a limp due to an arthritic hip. As a young man, Sally thought, he must have been very good-looking. Now he was at least seventy, and a lifetime of self-discipline had given his features a harsh, almost predatory cast; his skin looked raw and somehow thinner than other people’s.
‘I’m so sorry not to have been here for lunch,’ Sally said, trying to ignore the distant wails. ‘An unexpected wedding.’
David inclined his head, acknowledging that he had heard.
‘The vicar had to go to casualty. Turned out to be an abscess.’ Why did she have to sound so bright and cheery? ‘Has Lucy been rather a handful?’
‘She’s a lively child. It’s natural.’
‘It’s a difficult age,’ Sally said wildly; all ages were difficult. ‘She’s inclined to play up when I’m not around.’
That earned another stately nod, and also a twitch of the lips which possibly expressed disapproval of working mothers.
‘I hope Michael has fed you well?’
‘Yes, thank you. Have you had time to eat, yourself?’
‘Not yet. There’s no hurry. Do smoke, by the way.’
He stared at her as if nothing had been further from his mind.
‘How’s St Thomas coming along?’
‘The book?’ The tone reproved her flippancy. ‘Slowly.’
‘Aquinas must be a very interesting subject.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I read somewhere that his fellow students called him the dumb ox of Sicily,’ Sally said with a touch of desperation. ‘Do you have a title yet?’
‘The Angelic Doctor.’
Sally quietly lost her temper. One moment she had it under firm control, the next it was gone. ‘Tell me, do you think that a man who was fascinated by the nature of angels has anything useful to say to us?’
‘I think St Thomas will always have something useful to say to those of us who want to listen.’
Not trusting herself to speak, Sally poured herself a glass of claret from the open bottle on the table. She gestured to David with the bottle.
‘No, thank you.’
For a moment they listened to the traffic in Hercules Road and Lucy’s crying, now diminishing in volume.
The phone rang. Sally seized it with relief.
‘Sally? It’s Oliver. Is Michael there?’
‘I’ll fetch him.’
She
