Susan Lewis - Home Truths

‘Do you want to come to the point?’

‘What I’m saying is …’ She broke off as Fliss, the café’s owner, came to collect their mugs.

‘Two more, ladies?’ she offered.

As Angie’s longing flared up, Emma said, ‘We’ve already used our voucher, Fliss, but thanks anyway.’

Fliss looked surprised. ‘Oh, I think we forgot to put it through,’ she declared, ‘so we’ll treat the next ones as though they’re your first.’

Angie could have kissed her, although realizing that Fliss had guessed at their straitened circumstances made her feel she was paying with a small piece of her pride.

With a wink Fliss scooped up the twenty-pound note the youngsters had left, and instructed a baffled-looking server to clean the table ready for a couple of newcomers to sit down.

‘Bugger, I was going to pocket that,’ Emma muttered.

‘Not if I’d beaten you to it,’ Angie retorted, knowing that neither of them were serious. Or not very, anyway. Stealing from Fliss, a good friend for many years, would never be an option, no matter how desperate they were. ‘So,’ she said wryly, ‘I’m guessing your brilliant idea is to do away with good reputations, such as they are, and rob a bank?’

Emma’s jaw dropped in amazement. ‘Oh my God, you read my mind. So, do you think we could do it?’

‘No. So what’s next?’

Emma broke into one of her more mischievous grins. ‘You are so going to love it,’ she announced. ‘I’ve thought it all through and I reckon we can pull it off, no problem at all.’

Angie said, ‘Are we still talking about the bank?’

‘No, no. I’m talking about finding ourselves a couple of rich blokes whose lives would be complete with someone like us. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should carry on working, it’s important what we do, but you’ve got to admit we’re never going to meet anyone with more than a couple of halfpennies to scratch their bits with the way we’re going now. So, we’ve got to get with the dating programme. As you know, it all happens on the Internet these days. People twice our age are going on dates. They’re even having sex – OK, don’t go there – but they’re finding new lives, even getting married again, so if they can do it, why can’t we?’

Knowing she was nowhere near to wanting a relationship with anyone who wasn’t Steve, Angie said, ‘Don’t you have to pay to be a member of those websites?’

Emma grimaced. ‘Probably, if you find someone you want to meet, but initially you can just go on and have a look, see if there’s anyone suitable. Of course they’re all going to say they’re rich, and half of them are probably psychos, but what do we have to lose?’

Angie’s expression was one of pure irony.

Emma laughed. ‘OK, I get that it could all go horribly wrong, but there’s a chance it won’t …’

‘What if you end up with some creep who pretends to like kids, but doesn’t?’ Angie interrupted. ‘Or does, but in the wrong way? No, I’m sorry, you’re on your own with this one. I’ll come along as back-up if you go on a date … What is it?’ she asked, following Emma’s gaze to the window.

‘Not what, who?’ Emma responded curiously. ‘Isn’t that Craig over there? Your Craig, from Hill Lodge?’

Spotting him on the opposite corner, holding tightly to his guitar as a couple of youths in hoodies and combat gear crowded him up against a wall, Angie’s heart sank. ‘Yes, that’s him. Oh God, please don’t let them be trying to recruit him. I’m going over there,’ she declared, getting to her feet.

Emma’s hand shot out to stop her. ‘Don’t mess with them, Angie. You of all people know what they’re capable of, and you have two kids to think about.’

Angie desperately wanted to argue, but knowing her sister was right, she watched with growing dismay as Craig took something from the hoodies, put it into an inside pocket and walked away – with his guitar.

The best she could hope for was that he was delivering, not selling or using. Whatever, he needed to be much more careful than this, because the last thing he’d want was to find himself back in prison after the hellish experience he’d had there before. The other inmates had bullied and abused him so badly that the poor lad lived in mortal terror of the police and his probation officer now, certain their only purpose in life was to send him back inside.

Her phone rang, and concern for Craig vanished as a stranger’s voice said, ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Watts?’

She was immediately tense. It was someone after money. Or maybe someone had found Liam and with a wave of sadness she realised that hope was no longer first to her mind. ‘Yes,’ she replied cautiously, looking at Emma who was raising her eyebrows. ‘Who’s this please?’

‘It’s DC Leo Johnson, from Kesterly CID. We’d like to talk to you, Mrs Watts. Could you come to the station today?’

Today? Sunday? Her head was suddenly spinning, her heart thudding thickly. ‘What’s it about?’ she asked, trying to stay calm.

‘We can discuss it when you get here,’ came the reply. ‘Shall we say in an hour?’

‘Yes. No! Wait. Is it about my son, Liam? Have you found him?’

‘It would help if you could bring something of his when you come,’ the detective told her, and before she could say any more he’d rung off.

‘It’ll be about DNA,’ Emma said decisively, as they drove along the seafront heading back to the house. ‘I can’t think why else they’d want something of his.’

Knowing that had to be true, Angie tried desperately not to connect with what it could mean. ‘But they already have it from when … From when he was arrested. Don’t they automatically take it these days?’

‘But he wasn’t charged, so I think by law they have to delete it.’

Angie’s nails were digging into her palms as she gazed out at the heaving grey mass of waves in the bay. They were doing what they always did, swelling and dipping, hurling on to rocks and drowning the beach. Why did they seem so ominous?

Was Steve watching? Did he know what was going on?

When they got home she waited in the kitchen while Emma went up to Liam’s room. It wasn’t that Angie never went in there, if anything she spent far too much time sitting amongst his things trying to work out what more she could do to find him, even trying telepathically to reach him. It was simply that Emma had decided she ought to be the one to go up there today.

She came back with a light-blue Donald Duck toothbrush that made Angie want to cry. All his life he’d had the same one, changing it every few months for a newer model of the same. Right up until he died Steve had also owned a Donald Duck toothbrush to match Liam’s, in spite of using an electric one for the actual job.

Angie took it, doing her best not to engage with the role it was about to play, and after insisting she was all right to drive, she left Emma in the house trying to find someone to be there for the kids when they got back so she could follow Angie to the police station.

By the time Angie was left to wait in a room that was soulless and smelled of sweat and cheap polish she was somehow managing to breathe normally, though only just. So many terrible and terrifying scenarios had been racing through her mind this past hour that she’d lost sight of any good that might be about to unfold. Did anything good ever unfold in this awful space with no windows, just a roof vent that seemed clogged by leaves and a small, thick glass panel in the door?

‘Mrs Watts?’

She looked up from the table where her hands were clasped tightly together and her eyes, until then, had been on the ring stains that formed random patterns over the chipped surface.