Chapter 42
Anna knows the way. She went out with someone for a short time in first year who lived in a house up the Woodstock Road, and she’d go up after her lectures were finished to hang out with him.
It was a brief relationship, but passionate, and she remembers the joy with which she’d make her way there, the sense of anticipation. Now, it’s one of dread.
She knows how thin the ice is where she’s walking.
Any moment it could crack beneath her feet and swallow her whole.
She smelled the acrid smoke from the remains of Tom’s house, she heard the screech of the brakes of the car as it tried to hit her after she left prison.
She remembers Kelly’s muttered words before she died.
She doesn’t understand how, or why, but danger is stalking her, closer than ever.
She’s at the street now, close to the address on the piece of paper.
Safety, at least for now. A warm drink, maybe a bed for the night, and she can regroup, work out how the hell she’s going to get out of this mess, discover what she can about the dead woman and who was calling her on the hidden phone.
Now she’s at the house. It’s nice; semi-detached.
Spacious. Much bigger than Tom’s. Bigger than the student flat she used to visit all that time ago.
She glares down at her grubby clothes. Instinctively, she pulls her jacket straight, brushes her fingers through her hair to make it halfway respectable, then gives up. She’s not here to impress.
She’s here for sanctuary.
She rings the bell. After a moment, a woman opens the door slightly and peers out, full of caution. It’s the volunteer from the hostel, the one who gave her address to Anna. Anna nearly collapses with relief – at least she’s found the right place.
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna says, ‘I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘Not another of your waifs and strays,’ a man’s voice says from further within the house. ‘This is not the time.’
‘She needs help.’ The woman opens the door fully, gestures Anna in. ‘Come through here.’
Anna follows her into the kitchen at the back of the house. It’s warm, cosy, plants on the windowsills and books on the table. A scent of flowers in the air. So normal that Anna nearly collapses with relief.
‘Tea?’ the woman says, and Anna nods. The woman has brushed, shiny hair, and as Anna sits down at the wooden table, she feels conscious again of her scrappy clothes, the fact that she hasn’t washed since early this morning.
The woman brings a steaming orange mug to Anna and hands it to her before sitting down opposite.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name,’ Anna says. ‘But you were kind earlier, giving me your address. My name is Anna. Anna Flyn.’
The woman nods. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I’m Rachel. And as I might have mentioned, I do some work with people who need help to get back on their feet. I think that’s what you’re looking for.’
Anna hasn’t heard it stated so subtly before, so gently. It’s easy to say yes, that’s me, in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
‘No judgement here,’ Rachel says. ‘I understand how hard it can all be. Why don’t you tell—’ She’s interrupted by the man, who pushes open the kitchen door.
‘Seriously, Rachel, now is not the time. This is more important. Tell her to come back later. Tomorrow.’
Rachel ignores him, returning to the question she was about to ask Anna. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’
Anna takes a deep breath, scratches reflexively at her arm.
The patch of skin on her arm is itching – her personal weathervane.
Too much tension in the air, too much emotion emanating from the man, who has now taken up position leaning against the kitchen counter, the set of his mouth grim.
But Rachel is smiling in an encouraging way, so Anna knows she should feel safe, even if she doesn’t.
‘I was meant to be staying somewhere tonight,’ she says. ‘But—’
‘Where was it you were meant to be staying?’ the man says, speaking for the first time.
‘A house. Near Cowley Road.’
Another person comes into the room. Much younger, this one, in her early twenties by the look of it. Pretty, too. She stands next to the man, a strained expression on her face.
There are too many people in the room. They’re too close to her, looking at her with an intensity that wrinkles her skin.
‘I’ve just got out of prison.’ The words burst out of Anna’s mouth. She’s suddenly angry with this audience gawping at her, like she’s an alien that’s landed unexpectedly in their kitchen.
‘It’s not like it’s tattooed on your head,’ the man says, his voice surprisingly mild, considering how worked up he was only moments before. ‘But yes, I was wondering.’
His honesty disarms Anna, the defensiveness she’s surrounded herself with lowering a touch. ‘Sorry,’ she says.
‘I understand,’ he says. ‘It can take time to adjust. But you’re in the right place. We’re good people here. My name’s Edgar, and this is Lucy, one of my students.’ He points at the young woman. ‘Look, we’ll sit down. Stop standing over you.’
They join her at the table. Anna looks over at all three of them, assessing each in turn, prodding at them in her mind.
Each of them smiling reassuringly, even though there’s an undefined tension in the air, some sense of conflict.
It’s not directed at her, though. She can tell them what’s happening. Or some of it, at least.
‘I got out on Friday. There was an . . . incident in the prison, which meant that I had to be interviewed about something before I was released. This solicitor represented me in the interview. I got out very late and he ended up putting me up in his house here on Friday night. He was going to give me some work, too. Starting on Monday, like I told you,’ she says, looking at Rachel.
‘I stayed in the hostel last night, but I was going to go back and stay with him tonight. So I went to his street.’
‘What happened?’ Rachel says.
‘I didn’t get very close. But I could see it.
It was one of those terraces, you know, off Cowley Road.
’ The smell’s in her nostrils again, heavy at the back of her throat.
‘There were police nearby. I didn’t talk to them.
Only an old man who was passing. He said that someone had died. So I panicked. That’s why I came here.’
‘Why were the police at the house, Anna?’ Rachel says. She’s speaking very quietly.
‘It had burned down.’
The tension in the air shifts, a chain of electrical reactions, a spark lighting another and another. Anna looks at each of them, seeing strain, alarm cross each of their faces.
‘What was your solicitor’s name?’ Rachel again. Quieter still.
‘Tom Wright.’
The words land like stones.