Susan Lewis - Home Truths

Angie looked up into the kindly grey eyes of Brenda Crompton, a fellow volunteer. The ex-Salvation Army major was regarding her curiously, seeming to sense something was amiss and trying to decide whether or not to ask. Apparently concluding she should, she settled herself into the chair that the disabled woman had just vacated.

Angie smiled at her. She saw that there were only a couple of clients left at the other tables, and noticing the time she realized no more were likely to come now.

Brenda signalled to someone in the kitchenette and a moment later Bill, an elderly man with a cheery demeanour, put a fresh cup of tea in front of Angie. At the same time Brenda pushed a half-empty plate of biscuits towards her.

Angie’s mouth watered almost as stingingly as it had earlier in the afternoon when the snacks had first come out. But the jammy dodgers and Hobnobs, donated by Brenda and her husband, were for the clients, not those who were supposed to be helping them.

Brenda winked and taking a biscuit herself she bit into it, cupping a hand beneath her chin to catch the crumbs.

Though Angie understood this was Brenda’s way of telling her it was all right to have a little treat, she still couldn’t allow herself to take one. If she did she might never be able to stop and she couldn’t bear anyone to know just how hungry she was. ‘Watching my waistline,’ she joked, and suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt her spirits lift a little, for she’d been paid cash in hand at the chippie. This meant she should be able to dish up a decent meal tonight.

Brenda watched fondly as Angie’s conscience allowed her to crunch into a Hobnob. It appeared she was about to say something, but there was a sudden crash in the back room so she got up to go and investigate. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised Angie, and added with a nod at the plate, ‘why not finish them off before they go stale?’

Wondering how Brenda had realized she was so hungry, Angie watched the older woman go, hips swaying like a saucy tambourine, and felt grateful and embarrassed and so ready for another biscuit that she crammed a whole one in her mouth at once just as her mobile started to vibrate.

She should have let the call go to messages instead of blowing crumbs on to the table and down her front as she tried to say hello, but she didn’t.

‘Mrs Watts?’ Luckily the caller didn’t wait for her to confirm it. ‘It’s DC Leo Johnson here from Kesterly CID. I have some news regarding Liam’s DNA.’

Angie stopped chewing, every crumb turning to dust in her mouth as her heart dropped to a dull, heavy beat of dread. Realizing she was unable to swallow, she grabbed a tissue and emptied the half-chewed biscuit into it.

‘Are you there, Mrs Watts?’

‘Yes,’ she replied thinly. ‘I’m here.’ Oh God, please don’t let this be … She couldn’t even put her fear into words, it was too awful.

Leo Johnson was saying, ‘… so I thought you’d like to know that Liam’s DNA wasn’t a match to the DNA taken from the victim …’

Angie didn’t hear what else he was telling her. She could hardly bring her own voice past her throat as she said, ‘Did you say that it wasn’t a match?’

‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. ‘They got the results back this morning. I called as soon as we heard. I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she mumbled, feeling oddly light-headed and something else she couldn’t understand, for it was too far out of reach. ‘Do they still want to talk to him?’ she asked dully.

‘Given that his name’s on a list linked to the main suspect, that’s likely. On the other hand, if there’s nothing to say he’s in the area, or still in touch with his former cronies they’ll probably let it go.’

Did that make him safer? It should if no one was going to try and force him to talk, but it still didn’t mean he was no longer being controlled by the London gangs. He could be anywhere, in any city, working for them in any capacity …

Or maybe he’d managed to break with them.

Whichever way, it still didn’t tell her where or how he was.

What she did know though, was that he was no longer a suspected killer.

An hour later, with her chip-shop earnings in her purse, Angie was in Asda searching out as many two-for-one and half-price deals as she could find up to twenty-five pounds – the most she could allow herself to spend. Pizzas, chicken nuggets, three lasagnes for six quid, a bag of white potatoes, a day-old French loaf, a round lettuce for forty p … Grace preferred fresh food and if it could be kind of vegan that would be good, because she loved animals and fish and she didn’t want plants to die for her either, but she understood that she had to live. (She also understood that more often than not it was easier – cheaper – if she could just go with the flow and if that meant eating eggs, cheese, and a portion of chicken with her Sunday roast, she’d do it.)

In a rush of recklessness Angie added a bottle of Chilean Sauvignon to her trolley – special offer, reduced from seven quid to three ninety-nine – and realized how utterly insane it was to be celebrating the fact that her absent son was no longer a suspected killer.

In her world, today, given what she was going through, that had to be worth celebrating, though.

After making sure she had all the ingredients for Zac’s unicorn cake she wheeled her trolley to the checkout to wait in line. Grace was determined to bake the cake for her brother, and knowing it was her daughter’s way of trying to cut down on costs made Angie’s heart ache. It was true, novelty cakes at the bakery were far too expensive for them to afford, but Grace shouldn’t have to be worrying about things like that. She shouldn’t have to be giving up her smartphone either, when the contract ran out in the next few weeks, but Angie was afraid it was inevitable. Zac’s gym club membership would now have to go the way of his rowing club and archery fees. The SkySports package Steve had signed them up for when Zac was four – a birthday treat for their sports-mad youngest – had already been cancelled. Zac didn’t know that yet, for it didn’t run out until the end of the month, nor was he aware that the Adidas X16.1 football boots he had his heart set on for his birthday would have to be downgraded to a cheaper pair, probably second-hand from Depop. He wasn’t going to like it, Angie was certain of that, in fact he would probably have a serious rant about it, until Grace took him aside to explain why he had to understand that things were different now.

Though their finances had held together for a while after Steve had gone, everything was collapsing so fast now that Angie couldn’t even see what might fall next.

They were going to lose the house at the end of the month.

It wasn’t until after she’d paid the bill that she realized with a pang of shame that she couldn’t possibly justify a bottle of wine for herself and Emma when she was depriving Grace and Zac of so much. So, wheeling her trolley from the checkout, she joined a queue at the information desk in the hope of receiving a cash credit for her crazy idea of a celebration. She eyed her trolley for more items she ought to put back, and realized she’d been rash, unthinking, acting as though the twenty-five quid she’d earned at the chippie was going to magically replace itself like some fairy-tale egg …

Deciding to ask for credit on her entire trolley so she could start again, she fought back a wave of misery and frustration and after inching forward a few feet she found herself tuning into a conversation behind her.

‘Oh, that’s really generous of you, that is. Really generous.’

Angie turned and saw an elderly lady watching an obviously well-off woman of around forty emptying a full bag of groceries into a foodbank box.