Nicola Barker - Behindlings

The male officer quickly interjected again, ‘Do you have any reason to believe that she’ll know where to find you in Canvey, sir? Is she aware that you’re staying at this address currently?’

‘She may know,’ Ted piped up, struggling to be helpful, to improve the atmosphere, ‘if she has access to the net.’

‘It’s down,’ the female officer snarled, still glaring at Wesley — his cheek, his bad hand —‘since first thing this afternoon.’

The male officer glanced over at Ted, supportively. ‘Her grandparents do have a computer, though. So she may well have looked at the site last night. From what we’ve been told she was certainly aware of it.’

‘Down?’ Wesley frowned, dropping his hand to his side again.

‘Yes,’ the officer nodded, ‘some kind of virus.’

Wesley stared at him, as if in doubt of his sanity.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said.

‘Why?’ the female officer snapped.

Wesley shrugged, his face closing, ‘It just is.’

He turned to Ted, ‘Give me your phone.’

Ted scrabbled around in his jacket. He pulled out his mobile. Wesley took it and stuck it into his trouser pocket, ‘I’m getting back to dinner. Will you see the officers out for me, Ted?’ He left.

Ted stared — round-eyed — at the two officers. He swallowed. He took a deep breath –

The Pond…

Frogspawn throbbing and bubbling in the shallows…

The sweet, yeasty stink of thick, green pond-weed…

Then he indicated — summoning all the intrinsic authority of real, quality agenting (a straight arm pointing, a smile of untold promise and efficiency) — towards the wide-yawning doorway and its heavy muscle of straight, black-tiled tongue beyond.

The infamous Saks was just about as smoked-up, packed-out and crazy as she’d ever imagined it might be. Friday Night. The town’s outer periphery. Depths of winter. Canvey.

Jo steeled herself, then pushed her way in, pulling back her hood as she staggered through the door, mopping her cheeks and lifting her chin — her eyes two wide saucers of anxious misanthropy — before forging a determined but unsteady (was that really her feet squelching so audibly?) route to the bar.

After five minutes of standing around in a thick scrum of drink-seekers (each part of her duly poked, nudged and trodden on by a dozen oblivious elbows, rumps and feet; fivers and tenners scything through the air like tiny, paper jack-hammers) she found herself a stool (walked straight into it, banged her thigh, nicked her calf), felt its seat with her palms, blindly, and then gratefully straddled it, holding her legs high off the floor (bent hard at the knee) like a tenacious spider riding out a flash flood on a bobbing wine cork.

Ten minutes later and she’d somehow connived to grab — wonder of wonders — a second stool. She yanked off her coat, slung it over, rested her sodden feet on its highest rung and linked her arms around her knees, struggling — and almost managing — to create a small, shoulder-high sanctum amidst the heinously convivial Friday night commonality.

During a brief lull she stood up and ordered herself a beer, then quickly sat down again, clasping her hands around the bottle and shuddering with an ill-concealed social anxiety. Cold. Cold — And way too busy in here

She was still very wet; dripping, in fact. But when she glanced around (bending her head at the neck, like a tortoise blinking up from the shelter of its shell into the mean spring sun) it felt like she was the only one. Everybody else seemed as crisp, high-baked and cheerfully compacted as a creaking oak barrel of quality ship’s biscuits. Dry. Dry as Oscar Wilde in mordant humour. Dry as an actor’s mouth before the first twitch of the curtain. Dry as a maiden Aunt’s favourite pale sherry…

Roasted, seared, dehydrated.

Dry

She felt disgustingly conspicuous. And she was certain that when she’d first arrived she’d caught a glimpse of that nosy girl from the bakery over by the door. The one who…

Jo whimpered miserably under her breath –

Losing it.

Didn’t want to seem… to seem… paranoid but there were almost certainly several others… from the… the…

Past

— A man with a ponytail standing by the cigarette machine. A pal of one of her brothers, maybe?

From the basketball team? Athletics?

Tennis

Oh God, yes.

Jo swigged hard on her drink and gazed at him, almost stupefied by those characteristics which rendered him familiar. He suddenly disengaged himself from the conversation he was having (with another man; ludicrously tall, in a football shirt) shifted position slightly and returned her stare. Cold. Very bold. Slightly stroppy.

Jo panicked, shifting her eyes sharply sideways as she rapidly detached the bottle from her lips. It immediately repaid her clumsy manoeuvrings by bubbling up and then foaming over –

Shit

He was laughing at her

Look at him laughing

No—

Don’t look

Her coat slipped off the stool as she shook her fingers clean, assisted — in part — by a woman squeezing past her to get to the Ladies. A man close by stood on the hood, then apologised.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you okay down there?’

He bent down to retrieve it the same moment she did. Their heads collided.

‘That’s… Yes, I’m…’ she retrieved the coat and held it tightly on her knee, blushing furiously. She sucked her tongue. She chewed on her thumb nail. She glanced over towards the door, repeatedly.

Only two more people entered in the course of this brief but torturous duration; a woman in heels with burnished auburn hair who was afforded a wild welcome from a group in an alcove to the left of the bar (was there some kind of loathsome Texan-themed eaterie through there?), and a very thin man.

The thin man wore a baseball cap (his cursory nod to modernity) and an incongruously ancient brown leather waistcoat. He seemed, if anything, slightly older than the majority of Saks’ Friday night revellers and — this single detail distinguished him, more so, even, than his greying temples — he was absolutely sopping.

He peered around the bar intently as he kicked the door shut behind him (Jo held only a partial view from her stool, but — as luck would have it — all major obstructions between them were sentient, prodigiously convivial and in perpetual transition).

Jo noted that he was carrying a heavy rucksack on his back, that his baseball cap was khaki and featured a logo she vaguely recognised (not one of the major sports corporations, something a little more specialised, more… more niche-y; she gave it a sharp but sneaky double-look), that his boots were cleanish (from the rain) but that his ankles and his calves were exceedingly muddy.

A walker, she decided.

A stalker, potentially –

Behindling

Must be

Instinct drew him from the crowds by the door to the crowds by the bar. He bumped into several people inadvertently, struggling to move forward with his bulky load, finding it difficult — at first — to focus properly in the bright light, the smoke.

The bag was obviously very heavy.

Jo watched him dispassionately for a while. Then it grew too painful. She reached out her hand –

Oh the legacy of working in a caring profession —

and touched his arm.

He swung around at her touch, hitting a man carrying two beers, who slopped them, cursing, onto the wooden floor. He didn’t think to apologise. Instead he squinted down at Jo, his mouth a lean line of almost geometric disapproval.