an ornate and old-fashioned wooden sideboard with a speckled mirror. It was covered in a sea of post and fast-food flyers and, looking around awkwardly, Irene began to rifle through, separating the letters from the flyers.
She quickly found one, then two letters addressed to Michael, but on closer inspection, they looked like junk mail. She put them back.
The steps were steep, and covered with a treacherously rucked carpet, so she climbed slowly but was still a little out of breath when she got to the top floor. She took a moment to collect herself, then rapped on the door to Michael’s flat. She waited, then did it again, but there was no response.
‘Michael? Love?’ she called out, hating how quivery she sounded. Nothing happened.
Reluctantly, she walked back down the stairs and found herself hesitating on the second floor.
She felt silly knocking on doors and speaking to strangers about her business, but, in for a penny, in for a pound, she guessed.
Some very strange sounds were emanating from inside the flat there. It sounded like someone was giving birth, having an argument and playing the drums at the same time.
Irene steeled herself once again and knocked gently on the door. Nothing happened for a moment and so she did it again with more confidence this time. The music, if that’s what you could call it, abruptly stopped.
The door opened, and a very overweight woman peered blearily out at Irene. She was somewhere in middle age, with hair in pale-coloured dreadlocks held back by a red scarf. Her skin bore the look of a lifelong smoker and there was a sweetish smell that even Irene recognized wafting out of the flat. It no doubt explained the slightly unfocused look in her eyes.
‘Can I help you, darling?’ she said in a surprisingly high-pitched, girlish voice.
‘I’m looking for my son, Michael,’ said Irene. Suddenly she found she was close to tears. Her knees were hurting, and she was gasping for a hot drink. All she wanted was for someone to say, ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Michael’s fine.’
The woman looked at her and something Irene couldn’t place passed across her face. Maybe something had happened between her and Michael. Irene couldn’t help herself immediately hoping he had used protection and then being disgusted with herself for even thinking like this.
‘I haven’t seen him in two weeks,’ said the woman, frowning now. ‘He hasn’t been answering any of my messages.’
‘Oh.’ Irene felt herself sagging and leaned a hand against the doorframe.
She hadn’t wanted it to be anything other than a silly old bat with too much time on her hands worrying about nothing. But this strange person now looked as worried as Irene felt.
‘Look, you’d better come in,’ said the other woman.
It was probably thinking about all that childhood stuff earlier, but when I got to the school playground, my eyes seemed to fix on Tyler Bennett straight away.
Tyler was one of those kids it was very hard to like, even though I wasn’t meant to say that. He was a three-foot-high block of truculence, with a sulky face and the ability to be ever the wronged party in a dispute.
He was standing now just inside the school gates with a mutinous expression, clearly waiting for someone. The bell was just about to go so I wandered over to him. He greeted me with the sort of look dogs give when they suspect someone is about to take their bone away.
‘Alright, Tyler?’ I said. ‘What are you doing? Bell’s about to go.’
He ignored me and peered out of the gate, little brow so scrunched his eyes almost disappeared.
‘Are you waiting for something?’ The bell rang out clearly.
‘C’mon, mate, time to go in.’ I touched his shoulder and he reacted as though he had been hit, pulling his arm away violently.
‘Woah!’ I said, taking a step back. At that exact moment, as if conjured up from nowhere, a huge, bullet-headed man appeared at the gate, brandishing Tyler’s school bag and breathing heavily.
‘What are you doing?’ said the man, presumably young Tyler’s progenitor.
‘I’m not doing anything,’ I said reasonably, because I’d met plenty of parents like this one. ‘I was just telling Tyler the bell’s gone.’
‘Did you touch him just then?’
I stared at the man for a second. ‘I tapped him lightly on the shoulder in a friendly way,’ I said, my face entirely straight. ‘Because the bell had gone.’
‘That true, Ty?’
Tyler shrugged. After an agonizing moment’s pause he added, ‘S’pose,’ and I was ridiculously grateful to the little sod for not making this worse just for sport.
‘Right,’ said the man. ‘Well, he was waiting for me, wasn’t he?’ He moved closer to his son, as though making a point, before handing the bag to Tyler, whose gaze was flitting between us in wide-eyed fascination. The man’s eyes narrowed further and he said, ‘Wait, do I know you?’
‘I’m a teacher at your son’s school, so I imagine you may recognize me,’ I said, giving the man a broad smile. His type hated that. You can really wrong-foot aggressive people with a bit of sunshine. I should have stopped there, but my annoying weekend, a residual irritation with Anya for abandoning me, and the toxic swill of my thoughts earlier all conspired against me. Before I turned away, I found myself muttering, ‘You have an excellent day, now.’
The man’s cheeks darkened. It was unnerving to see aggression painted even more boldly on his face.
‘You’ve got a real attitude, do you know that?’ he said, his voice a low rumble that got me in the gut, just as it was intended to.
‘I can assure you I haven’t, Mr, uh …’ My brain flailed for Tyler’s surname before it came to me. ‘Mr Bennett. I’m just trying to do my job and get your son in for the start of the new term.’
The man was frowning now, staring hard at my face, and then a malicious grin broke out over his.
‘I know who you are,’ he said.
I formed my mouth into a pleasant smile. ‘Well, as I said, I work here.’
‘Nah,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not from here.’
Did he? I couldn’t think how. His accent was a little more London than the local one, but I still didn’t know him.
‘I don’t think so, Mr Bennett,’ I said. He made a snorting sound, then muttered something under his breath. All I caught was, ‘for you …’
‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.
Bennett did a sort of ‘nya nya’ thing, then shook his head and walked off without saying anything else to his son. Tyler’s thumb had snuck into his mouth during
