Prologue
The two men have been standing there for eighteen minutes. Peggy has been timing them on her stopwatch. They parked on the seafront just in front of Benedict’s café. A white Ford Fiesta. Annoyingly she can’t see the registration but, if she uses her binoculars, she can see a dent on the nearside door. If they have hired the car, the company will have taken a note of this. Peggy makes a note too, getting out her Investigation Book which is cunningly disguised as A Seaside Lady’s Diary, complete with saccharine watercolours of shells and fishing boats.
There are several reasons why Peggy finds the men suspicious. They look out of place in Shoreham-by-Sea, for one thing. Sometimes, just for fun and to keep her observational powers honed, Peggy makes an inventory of people who have walked past her window.
Monday September 3rd 2018 10am–11am
7 x pensioners: 2 couples, 3 singles
1 x man on roller skates, 30s (too old)
4 x singles with dogs: 2 x collie crosses, 1 x pug, 1 x doodle (NB: people always remember dogs)
Woman, 30s, smartly-dressed, talking on phone
Man, sixties, carrying black bin-liner, probably homeless
4 x cyclists
2 x male joggers: one fit-looking, one looking on verge of collapse
1 x unicyclist (probably from Brighton)
The men outside her window do not fit this pattern. They are not cycling, jogging or accompanied by dogs. They are not pensioners. They are probably mid to late thirties, with short hair, wearing jeans and short jackets, one blue, one grey. What would young people call them? Bomber jackets? An ill-starred name if she ever heard one. The men look similar because of the way they’re dressed but Peggy doesn’t think that they are related. One is much darker-skinned than the other and built differently, compact rather than wiry. She doesn’t think they’re lovers either. They don’t touch or look at each other. They aren’t laughing or arguing – the two best ways to spot if people are a couple. They’re just standing there, maybe waiting for something. Occasionally, The One In The Blue Jacket looks up at the flats but Peggy keeps back behind her curtains; she’s very good at disappearing into the background. All old people are.
At first she wondered if the bomber jackets had driven over especially for Benedict’s coffee, which is excellent, but the men don’t move towards the Shack. There’s an alertness about them that Peggy finds most troubling of all, and they both have their backs to the sea. Who comes to Shoreham beach and doesn’t even glance at the shimmering water, looking at its very best today, dotted with sailing boats and accessorised with seagulls? But the crop-haired duo are facing the road and Seaview Court, the block of retirement flats where Peggy is currently lurking in a bay window. There’s no doubt about it. The men are waiting for something. But what?
At 11.05 precisely Blue Jacket takes out his phone and speaks to someone. Grey Jacket looks at his watch which is a chunky thing, visible through her binoculars even at a hundred yards away. The two men confer and get back into their car. The Fiesta pulls out into the road and Peggy leans forward to get the registration number.
GY something. Is that a one or a seven? She needs to go to the opticians and get her prescription changed. Then the car stops just outside her window. Peggy leans back into her curtains which are loosely woven cotton. So loose that she can see through the weave. It’s a little blurry but she thinks that one of the men is leaning out of the window taking photographs. Of Seaview Court. The Fiesta revs up and it’s gone.
11.07
Chapter 1
Natalka: the linking words
She knows immediately that something is wrong. It’s not anything tangible, the post is neatly stacked on the half-moon table, the flat is silent apart from the sound of seagulls mugging someone outside, the art-nouveau clock ticks serenely, set in its stainless steel sunset. But somehow Natalka knows. It’s as if the molecules have rearranged themselves.
‘Mrs Smith?’
She tries the Christian name too, although Mrs Smith is not one of the cosy ones.
‘Peggy?’
No answer. Natalka pushes open the sitting room door. The air hums with something like electricity, as if a device has been left on, but Natalka knows that Mrs Smith turns the radio on for The Archers at two and then off again at fifteen minutes past. She can’t stand the Afternoon Drama. ‘Full of self-obsessed people talking about their lives. That or time travel.’ It’s now six o’clock. Time for the evening call, to help clients get ready for bed. It’s insultingly early for bed, of course, but Natalka has five other clients to see so what can she do?
She enters the room. Mrs Smith is sitting in her armchair by the bay window. She likes to look out to sea and even has a pair of binoculars to spot rare birds with or, Natalka suspects, spy on passing ships. But she’s not looking at anything today. Mrs Smith is dead. Natalka knows that even before she checks the pulse and notes the half-open mouth and misted eyes. She touches the old lady’s skin. Cool but not cold. Natalka makes the sign of the cross in the air.
‘Rest in peace,’ she mutters as she dials the number for Care4You.
‘Patricia Creeve.’ The boss is in. Miracle.
‘Mrs Smith is dead.’ Natalka doesn’t believe in wasting words.
‘Are you sure?’ Nor does Patricia.
‘No heartbeat.’ In moments of crisis, Natalka often forgets prepositions and connectives. All the linking words.
‘I’ll come over,’ says Patricia. ‘God rest her soul.’
It’s an afterthought but Natalka doesn’t think any the worse of her boss for it. It’s going to be a long night.
Natalka sits on the sofa to wait for Patricia. She would never just sit down in a client’s house, unless they specifically wanted a chat and Peggy wasn’t exactly the chatty sort. She was always polite but she knew that Natalka had a job to do and a limited time in which to do it. Now it feels odd to be sitting doing nothing, facing the silent figure in the chair which is angled to look out over the sea. Natalka gets up and walks to the window. There’s the wide blue sea with white-tipped waves and seagulls circling in the paler blue above. It’s a picture postcard view, if you don’t look to the right and see the power station and the sinister trawlers with Russian names. Suddenly Natalka realises that she has her back to a corpse. She also has the strangest feeling that she’s being watched. She spins round but Peggy hasn’t moved. Of course she hasn’t, Natalka tells herself. Peggy is dead. She’s not about to start dancing a mazurka. One floor below, Natalka hears a door open and shut. Then there are heavy footsteps on the stairs and Patricia is in the room. Natalka had left the apartment door on the latch.
Natalka gestures towards the chair and Patricia comes over. She takes Peggy’s hand with professional detachment but her eyes look sad.