Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 13.1

HE KNEW she wasn’t Chinese, he knew she wasn’t Spanish, he knew she wasn’t Korean. He knew she wasn’t black, and therefore not African, Indian nor Hispanic. She wasn’t tall, she wasn’t short, she wasn’t fat, she wasn’t thin. She didn’t have an eye-patch, she didn’t have an S-shaped scar on her cheek, she didn’t have a nose piercing in the shape of a sickle. She had not uttered a word.

If he closed his eyes, he could picture everything within the cab, from the leather headrests to the alloy door handles, but when he turned his head to where she sat, the visual fabric diffused into a black hole. On occasion he would see an empty seat beside him.

He had looked at her; he remembered doing so. He had looked upon her when he truly believed she would be the last person he would ever look upon again.

Leon would remember her. He remembered everybody. Vince had never considered this an estimable quality. Vince didn’t have to remember. Many so-called virtues irritated him: faith, honesty, empathy, modesty, punctuality, reliability, consistency. Yes, people with such fibre were needed for his business and the world in general. Success cornered him into being a hypocrite. But Leon offered Vince the sort of banter that took the tedium from the cloying silkiness of his life.

Vince hoped she was ugly, sow-faced, saggy-breasted and weak-chinned. But the police had shots of her leaving the Nexus beside him. He could barely stand to look. He could barely stand to hear her name. Nancy Hutchens. She wasn’t ugly. And Vince had been right; she had been none of the above. She had a heart-shaped face, brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a cocktail dress, a tiara of some kind and lots of eyeliner. She would probably not be so pretty the next morning.

The photograph had not jolted his memory. He still could not imagine her on the seat beside him in the limo. He would not have made the connection even by the sight of her face.

The police told him that the woman claimed she had left the limo prior to the crash. Was this true?

Vince hesitated at this revelation. She probably feared exposure or of getting sued. He would rather not speculate but was grateful her wishes accorded with his. Vince decided to confirm this fact. The police had then showed him a photo of some peacock called Cora. Vince would rather it was nobody. A woman who didn’t exist, like the one Leon had picked up at the restaurant after dropping off Nancy and which Vince could not give a description to. A fictional woman. Vince had told the police he couldn’t confirm.

But the truth remained that a non-fictional woman had punctured a hole in his throat from where she had pushed her breaths into his lungs. Why did his life have to be saved in such a repugnant way? Anything else would have been preferable: the hurling of rope over a cliff face; the pressure of a tourniquet over a gushing artery.

But the pain of mangled legs was nothing next to the torture of suffocation. A cold sweat would occasionally descend upon him at the thought of it. Vince had initially thought he had sustained a throat injury before realising Dennis’s recreational sweet had taken a trip of its own. This eucalyptus delicacy comprised onion-like layers beginning with a mellow opium-based narcotic to get him in the mood. Amphetamine next, for a little euphoria in the small hours, concluding with a coke hit. Suck, don’t bite, Dennis had instructed. To elucidate his point, he had molded the sweets into little penises. Suck it, he had said; suck it slow and you will never want the night to end. The shape happened to form the ideal cork for any throat.

Vince had awoken in the hospital bed on account of her. Sunlit squares on the ceiling had fuzzed into focus on account of her. He was still Vince who could speak, think and remember his own name on account of her. He should be grateful. He tried, God how he tried. Thank you. He had uttered the words once to himself in the bathroom. The vocalization spurred a tingling in his larynx and briefly suspended his swallowing reflex.

He had encountered her at his final breath in a deep, dark ditch where he believed daylight would never find him again.

Thank you.

He had clawed at her dress, his vision speckling over and his chest lurching violently, uselessly.

Thank you.

He had finally blacked out at the point at which his fist had stiffened over the hem of her dress.

Thank you.

Vince had not experienced a blinding white light at the end of a tunnel. He did not feel born again. He did not discover a new Vince that looked upon the world with fresh eyes and heightened clarity. If anything, he had become more of a creep.

He would rather have died in the crash like Randy Savage or Marc Bolan. Death by crash had a certain poetry. A survivor sweating and swearing on a calf-stretcher was simply distasteful and undignified.

If she should seek him out, and he hoped she would not, Vince would compensate her. Yes, compensate her in an orderly, proper and business-like fashion. He would then hope to never see her again.

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Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 12.3

Vince nodded. A small nod. A mere slit of eyeball was visible beneath an indifferent lid. Nancy couldn’t tell whether Vince hung onto the suited man’s every word or was not really listening. Vince’s forehair clung to his brow in small fronds and his skin possessed a pomegranate tinge.

He had nodded. He had understood.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doin’?’ Angry Spice gusted into Nancy’s ear.

Nancy didn’t turn. She clutched her bag. ‘Mr. Jonas?’ Her voice did not sound her own.

‘I asked you a question, Cheap Shoes!’

‘Mr. Jonas.’

The besuited man, silver-haired and clipped beard did a take. His hawkish eyes did a disdainful meander from Nancy’s head to her toes. The physio, lost in his task, proceeded to lift Vince’s right leg again for a repetition. Vince remained in an apparent fug. But in a gruff whisper, his words gathered. ‘Amy, I told you no one from the press is to disturb me.’

‘I…I’m sorry, Mr. Jonas.’ Amy Spice betrayed a quaver within her customary self-assurance. ‘I can promise you this will never happen again.’

The pressure in Nancy’s chest exploded. Her eyes steadied upon Vince’s dressing on his throat and gravity kept shifting from one foot to the other.

Amy cut Nancy’s reverie. ‘You just got yourself a P45, Missy,’ she spitfired. ‘Time to meet your fate in the form of Mr. Blakemore downstairs. He’s dyin’ to meet you.’

‘Not now, Amy,’ Vince grunted.

Momentary silence before Amy piped up, ‘But Mr. Jonas…’

‘My solicitor has enough on his schedule at this time.’

The besuited man, Vince’s accountant, Nancy presumed, drew his eyes away, seeing nothing more of interest here. The physio continued to manipulate Vince’s right leg in a wholly proper manner.

Amy’s superior tone regrouped. ‘It’s time to sling your ‘ook, but if I ever see your cheap shoes here again, I will call the police myself and have you up for trespassing.’

Throughout Amy’s threat, Vince continued to stare ahead, eye slitted with indifference. And then feeling Nancy’s scrutiny, he rotated his torso and looked at her. His expression did not change yet his gaze had transmuted to a skulking appraisal. His red-rimmed eyes were haunted, his pupils huge.

How deep is your love?

Nancy shuddered. This time he took her in. He would know her from this point on. But Nancy stood on a knife edge of wanting him to recognize her and not wanting him to recognize her at all. His trip to the unknown had imposed a vigilance upon him. He had been to hell and now he appraised her from haunted eyes, violet-rimmed and hooded.

Vince restored his former posture, unceremonious to rest his shoulders upon the cushions. ‘Check the schedule, Amy. Cancel the two-o’clock meeting. No more visitors today.’

Amy’s tone was crisp. ‘Sure thing, Mr. Jonas.’

Nancy’s speech centre short-circuited; her windpipe became a tube of elastic bands pulling inwards, tighter, tighter.

Amy took her by the elbow but Nancy’s leg muscles had numbed over with apathy. Her right ankle keeled over.

The doorframe, floor and Amy’s clasp offered no support. Nothing here could stop a brickload of desolation from tumbling upon her. She could imagine nothing more repugnant than uttering the words, ‘do you not remember me?’

Nancy clenched her teeth and allowed Amy to usher her past the wheelchair and back down the stairs. Nancy cared little that Amy thought Nancy was a stalker or a crazed fan. Let Amy see Nancy’s hair tumble, let Amy hear the soft hitching at the back of Nancy’s throat.

Once Nancy’s heels had landed upon the marble tiles below, Nancy managed to raise her had. The elastic bands encircling her throat constricted her words. ‘I can take it from here,’ she uttered. And Nancy pulled her elbow away.

Amy’s black eyes remained unimpressed but she walked in front and grabbed hold of the handle before opening the door.

Nancy let herself out.

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Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 12.2

Before Nancy could respond, the woman disappeared from the doorway. Nancy drew her thumb nervously over the strap of her handbag and entered the converted chapel.

The porchway opened out into a huge foyer. The décor belied the stately façade. A mahogany staircase snaked up to a spindled landing lined with oak-panelled doors. Tinted windows cast flints of wine-gum hues on sage walls, retaining that chapel feel, but modern art and nightclub shoots brought an uneasy conflict. Nancy’s overall impression was churchy, period, glitzy and decadent.

Unapologetic, black and square, a wheelchair blotted the view. It had been parked on the landing, next to the second door on the left. The thing kept drawing her attention. Never had Nancy seen anything so displaced.

Angry Spice jabbed her stilettos across the lemon-scented tiles towards what appeared to be a reception room behind a desk. Male voices and coattails cavorting at the doorframe deterred her. Movement drew her eye. From an adjoining door, an Aaron-sweatered man in jeans jaunted towards the desk. Nancy decided to remain by the porchway entrance. She watched him hunker down and pull a drawer open with a clatter. He had china blue eyes framed by an angelic face where black-framed glasses rested. She could imagine him drinking black coffee over a poetry book like one of those beatniks in a film noir scene.

The man straightened his longs legs, screwdriver in hand and ambled her way. On passing, his eyes met hers. His moist lips turned up in a faraway smile that troubled her. Nancy lowered her gaze as his slapping sneakers retreated behind her. Did he turn his head?

Angry Spice’s blustering syllables cut through the general chatter in the next room. An overdone chirp followed, the sort reserved for hobnobbing and flirting. Nancy’s calves twitched and her palms grew hot fondling her bag. The wheelchair at the head of the stairwell kept prodding her awareness; the thing was calling to the errant side of her, goading her. Another chirrup and Nancy’s calves spurted into action. Protocols and expectation made her want to go the other way. Yes, she had nicked stuff, lied and said sod-off at inapt times just to remind herself that she could.

Her palm landed upon the griffin-shaped Newell post.  Two steps at a time, Nancy leapt upwards. Post modern quadrangles of violet and orange drifted past. Her heels tapped the mahogany steps in allegretto. The tip of her tongue tracked each molar and her breastbone pulsed. Her reckless action felt good, despite the ensuing humiliation and possibly a court injunction.

Nancy levelled up with the wheelchair – a functional looking thing, probably a loan from the hospital. She stepped towards the door adjacent. Footfalls echoed across the lower landing. Nancy stood at the top of Eastcote Bridge overlooking the crash site, about to leap.

She brought her head closer, lining her sights with the gap.
Footfalls gathered momentum behind her. The fullness in her breastbone pushed throat-wards, bringing waves of vertigo. She glimpsed a wine carpet, a fridge, a drinks trolley, a large HD screen muted on News 24. A large hospital-style bed, pillows plumped, satin sheets, tenting over the body – his body. Jasmine oil or something like it pricked the air. Vince gazed at a spot ahead of him, or rather just above, in profile view. A silk pyjama top covered his chest and a heavy dressing concealed his throat. A chair had been pulled up beside him, where a besuited man roosted, knees crossed and going through a ledger. At the foot of Vince’s bed, an all-in-white physio manipulated Vince’s right knee with infinitesimal pivots. White towels swathed the bed beneath Vince’s feet. Such a bland face and flicked hair could only have seen fashioned by a wet shave and a narrow comb. On lowering Vince’s leg he adopted a remote yet enraptured look.

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Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 12.1

A CLUSTER of elms skirting a hawthorn hedge provided the ideal screen for her black Fiat Punto.

Her journey north on the M1 had gone without event, although the traffic through Rotherham had been heavy. The motorway’s mundane aspect gave way to banks of green she had rarely seen in the flesh. Big skies and craggy outcrops north of Leeds should have uplifted her but instead instilled a sense of foreboding. Well, Sheila would have found it all boring. The last leg, Satnav assisted, left her feeling like a splinter pushing into deeper countryside. Tarns and forces glimmered within fells of rust and mauve. Derelict barns and twisted groves haunted roadsides that would appear unused. The weirdly-named Gaping Burdott informed her destination near.

Once through the village of Quinton Marsh, she pulled into a lay-by to check her bearings. Little did she realise the tall hedge reflected in her rearview mirror formed the back perimeter of Vince’s property.

After crawling up the lane and exiting her Punto, she loitered at the foot of a tree-lined driveway cleaving acres of lawn. The Little Chef’s offering of ham sandwich and tea reeled in her stomach. Every cell in her body told her not to proceed but going back was inconceivable. She wanted to know. She wanted to know before Vince’s publicist informed the media; she felt she had the right to see for herself.

Two men and three women emerged from the building. They chatted on the steps next to a pair of Aston Martins. The grey listed building that formed the backdrop had been tastefully extended from a chapel-like structure at the centre. A book listing Yorkshire’s most haunted buildings could have included a vista rather like the one now presented to Nancy. Turreted chimneys pushed into the treetops; arched windows dotted jutting walls and deep gables.

The five separated out. Three got into the larger model. The couple loitered behind to chat on the steps. They could have been guests at a wedding, but today was an ordinary day. The woman checked her pockets. The man extended his hand and waved at the occupants of the other car before it moved off. Nancy ducked away as the car crawled down the drive with a soft crunch upon gravel. She could see no reporters and attributed this to the misinformation Vince remained in hospital with a possible convalescence in his Knightsbridge apartment. The car hit a ramp which seemed to trigger an opening mechanism for the gates. The second Aston Martin soon caught up and followed the other into Lime Tree Drive, one of the through-roads of the village of Quinton Marsh.

Nancy waited for stillness to resume before stepping next to a brick pillar enclosing an intercom system. She had readied her words: the spiel practiced on the housekeeper about Dennis, the poker night and Leon, but the gates didn’t close for some reason. Nancy stepped through the threshold onto the drive and into another world. No sniper gun singled her out, no Dobermans bounded her way. Nancy idled forwards. A misted white sky bore down upon her, the elms closed in. The arched windows watched but did not watch at the same time. The ambiguity made her stomach churn. Nancy’s gait gathered momentum as she continued forwards. She glanced behind and saw the gates were still open. The gravel crunched beneath her feet and the oak panel door atop a wide patio of Lakeland slabs loomed ahead. Nancy boarded. The sensation likened that of a stage. She disliked the openness of such an alien place. She craved her former seclusion next to her Punto.

Nancy approached the door and raised her hand. She curled her fingers into a fist.

She was being watched.

The door burst open.

Nancy’s shadow reeled back. The physical Nancy froze upon the Lakeland slabs. A pair of black hooded eyes delineated with black eyeliner and soiled with distrust glared back at her from the gloom. Chocolate skin, long braids, bands of scalp and a silk pantsuit that tapered to a tiny waist. The woman could have been a member of a failed girl band ten years ago, or perhaps the sixth spice girl. Pissed-off Spice, Nancy thought.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the woman demanded in a brash tone.

Nancy’s lower lip slackened but no words came.

The woman’s black eyes flicked sharply about. ‘Where’s the delivery van? I was expecting a delivery man!’ The woman’s glare once again burrowed into the imposter on her step. ‘You know we‘ve been expectin’ a delivery at this time, didn’t you? You’ve been watchin’ with your stupid little watch and your dumb little notebook, am I right? You had better not be what I think you are or I’m gonna set the dogs on you!’

Nancy resisted the urge to step back. ‘I’m not from the press.’

The woman’s salmon-like lips bunched up, colouring her pissed expression with incredulity. ‘Not from the press, huh?’ Her beaded necklace clinked as she crossed her arms. ‘That’s interesting. Let’s see if I can guess what this little surprise visit is in aid of, shall I? So far, I’ve had a homeopath, a chiropractor and a therapist. We ain’t had a counsellor yet. That’d be good. Perhaps you could help me with a little anger management!’

‘You don’t understand…’

‘Oh, but I think I do,’ the woman sneered. ‘But today’s your lucky day. I fancy a little humourin’. If you ain’t from the media, maybe you’d like to come on in and have a little chat out back with Mr. Jonas’ solicitor. He loves to interview people. Before you know it, you’ll be collectin’ your P45 and walkin’ the streets beggin’ to clean toilets for a living.’

Angry Spice jerked the door wider. ‘Wanna take your chances, Miss Cheap Shoes?’

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Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 11.2

A clear dialing tone returned. Three or four rounds and then a soft female voice cut in.

‘Hello?’

The woman had a cosmopolitan cadence that was hard to define – French? Italian?

‘Can I help you?’

Nancy pinched the card between her fingers. ‘I…I’m sorry to bother you. I was enquiring after Mr. Jonas’ health.’

‘Who is this?’

‘I am…I mean, was a good friend of Leon…Leon Fairchild. Mr. Jonas’ PA?’

A pause and then the woman came back, ‘and you are…’

Nancy licked her lips. ‘My name? Er…My name is… Nora…Nora Clements. My husband and Leon used to play poker with another good friend, Dennis. He owns a restaurant in Birmingham.’

The woman did not seem to take this in. ‘Yes, I am sorry that you have lost good friend. Bad news.’

‘Leon was a lovely man. Gracious. And a great card player. I will miss him so much.’

‘Yes, yes, the woman agreed and let the silence hang.’

Nancy’s chest tightened. ‘But Mr. Jonas, has he made any progress. Is he still critical?’

‘Er…er…I am just housekeeper, Mrs. Er…Clements. I have little news about Mr. Jonas.’

Nancy’s heart sank.

‘But I know he will be coming out of hospital to stay here at the end of the month.’

Nancy squeezed the card tighter. ‘Did he…did he say so himself?’

‘I…I do not understand.’

‘Did he express the words himself, that he wished to recuperate at the Retreat?’

‘Oh, no, no. The doctors recommended this. It is closer to the private clinic. It is more peaceful here.’

Nancy could see she could get no more from the housekeeper. ‘Thank you,’ Nancy decided to close. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you.’

Nancy had the notion the crash was still happening all around her; in this room, in the library, at the council offices, in the newsagents, even the sales room walls of LossLess Insurance Company. If she could tear down the grey partitions bearing flo-charts, ab-calendars and whiteboards, she would find fracturing metal and frissoning glass. The grille would be exploding against the granite floor and the seats would be shooting backwards. The world’s indifference crushed her. Something was happening and no one was aware. She wanted to scream it out but feared no one would understand.

Nancy combed her hair. Top to bottom in long sweeps. A black fastener kept every strand from her face. Nancy pulled out the top drawer of her dresser containing a selection of eye-shadow. She went for a pad of white and an accompanying dusting brush. The bristles rested over the powder, snagging particles in between. She raised the brush and the bristles tickled her cheek. A whisper, a white patch, gesso-like. She drew the brush in a loping arc over her lips. She paused. More white. She drew the brush over her nose and blended out into the first mark. A scratching sensation sweeping across. More white. Blending and blending again, over forehead, temple, cheeks and chin.

Nancy settled her fingers onto a black eyeliner pencil. She brought the pencil to the bridge of her nose. She superseded her existing eyebrow with a thick, black line radiating out from bridge to temple. And again, but this time, thicker at the bridge, tapering towards the end. Nancy paused when she sensed someone entering the house. Her mother.

And now the other eyebrow. A matching arc, perfectly symmetrical with the first. The convergence of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose made her appear angry.

When she was done, she put on Vince’s overcoat. The heavy shoulders sloped away from her neck. If she squinted, she would almost pass for a man.

‘Nancy.’ Sheila’s voice. She was sounding pissed already. ‘Oi, Nance! You didn’t stock up the fridge like I told ya. Alexis and Danny are comin’ later!’

Nancy brought the pencil to her throat. She drew a small slit at the crease just below her voice box.’

‘Nancy!’ Sheila squawked. ‘Are you deaf, or what?’

Nancy rested her hand upon her lap now that she was done. In a guttural croak, she uttered, ‘Change the disc, Leon, I fancy something classic, something smooth.’

‘Nancy!’

‘Change the disc, Leon, I fancy something classic, something smooth.’

‘Oi, Nancy, get your bitchin’ arse down here right now!’

Nancy closed her eyes and held her breath. One, two, three, four, five, six…

‘Christin’ cursed bloody sod! Just wait til you get down ‘ere!’

Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…

The downstairs landing fell still. A door slammed. Cutlery crashed. Nancy kept on holding her breath. She wondered how long she would have to wait before passing out. The pressure within her lungs caused her chest to quake and the pulse in her ears to squish. She would never reach the point Vince had reached. The thought terrified her.

She exhaled in a shudder. Later, she would go to the off-license and stock up on crisps, coke, chocolates, vodka and brown ale.

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Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 11.1

SHEILA never talked about Nancy’s real father. According to Sheila, the twat who spawned her a daughter was a jailbird who had the nerve to deny Nancy was his.

Nancy took the bus to Kersley on a clear January morning. The man who opened the door to her wore trousers and a plaid shirt three sizes too big. His splodgy silver eyes appeared to have been plonked upon his doughy head in a hurry. He scowled at her without actually scowling. It was an expression she imagined he always wore owing to his job as a panel-beater. He informed Nancy whose hands had gone clammy despite the chill, that he had let the past be. He had paid his dues and preferred not to get involved. Charlie Percival lived in a semi with a wife and two daughters. Nancy suspected the three women in his life did not know of Nancy’s existence. Nancy was also certain that Charlie Percival was not her real father. Nancy didn’t think Sheila really knew who the father was either.

Sheila didn’t understand Nancy’s despondency. Why would she want to get all obsessed over a deserting loser? Sheila’s friend Alexis said so too. Alexis said that the world is full of selfish pricks dressed up as honourable men. The trick is to pick one most likely to honour the CSA when the bastard decides to sod off. Nancy didn’t want Alexis telling her about the world. But Alexis vowed to take Nancy out for a drink on her eighteenth birthday to cheer her up.

Nancy tried to imagine her father with Sheila and couldn’t. Sheila was rarely without a man. In the early years, boyfriends came and went with the full moon. Longevity crept in as Sheila got older, ending with Neil.

Nancy didn’t like some of Sheila’s boyfriends but she disliked the segues even more. Without a boyfriend, Sheila retreated into a cave. Her hair corkscrewed up and mascara-smudge crept further down her cheeks. The kitchen wall still bore a scar from Sheila’s fist print. Glebe Hollow is full of cheating sluts, according to Sheila. She demonstrated their deserved fate by trying to insert the head of one such slut between the park railings down Brick Lane. Sheila did not appear so riled when Kenny had given her the clap. As usual, Sheila went off in a minibus to Blackpool with her work friends for Bacardi Breezers and shopping therapy.

It was during one of Sheila’s jaunts that Nancy got sacked from her job at the Weston Hill Care Centre.

…

Nancy rested Vince’s overcoat across her lap. The dense fabric weighed like the black upon her eyes. Gently, she pinched the silk lining between finger and thumb and created a ripple. An inner pocket stopped her. Slowly, she inserted her fingers and drew out a leather booklet. She opened it up and found membership cards; Raffles of King’s Road, the Harvard Club of NYC, Il Cormorano of Grisolia, Italy and Les Caves du Roy of St Tropez, France. Stylish logos implied a world full of privileges; private suites, leather armchairs, open fires, casinos, Jacuzzis, steam rooms, valets, yatchs and more. Her dour four walls that passed itself as a bedroom was no place for the objects upon her lap. They should not be here.

A pouch in the front enclosed several business cards. Canvas textured, they had been embossed with an image of a converted chapel or ruin of some kind at the head of a tree-lined lane. The Retreat. She fingered several other business cards similarly embossed with supposed properties belonging to Vincent Jonas: a flat in Knightsbridge, an apartment in New York, a chalet in Cannes and a cottage in Milan. Nancy reckoned Vince seldom dished these out.

She reexamined to the Retreat – located outside the village of Moreton Morrell in Warwickshire. She turned the card over to find a phone number. Nancy pulled her bag over and dug out her mobile. Detached, she watched her hands smoothly activate the screen, tap and draw the phone to her ear. 

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Nora by Charles Jay Harwood Chapter 10.2

‘Hey, Nance,’ someone called her from behind. Nancy turned to confront Danny Wheeler, landlord of the Hatchet Inn. The big man’s small features seemed to gravitate towards the centre of his face, leaving large areas of space around his dimpled chin.

‘What a mindblower, eh?’ he gruffed. ‘Our Cora, the Cinderella who flew off when the clock struck twelve.’

Nancy’s tone came out sharp. ‘What are you on about?’

‘Our, Cora,’ he repeated as though Nancy wasn’t keeping up. ‘She was the one with Jonas when the limo crashed. She’s your mate, ain’t she? It’s about bloody time a local face put this place on the map!’

Nancy stalked from the shop before Danny could add something. Her pistonning legs conveyed her straight across Bedworth shopping centre. She sought out the bulk of Tesco superstore where Nancy knew Cora did her Sunday shop. The broadcast was probably live but Nancy could wait. She could wait all afternoon.

In a dazed cocoon, she made a meander towards the magazine section and plucked a copy of the Daily Mail. The front bore a huge picture of the crash site. In the café, Nancy absorbed the Mail’s take of events, a freak accident, according to Rob Stillman the managing editor. He wrote,

‘…the black limo sedan suffered a double tyre blowout before it skidded for nearly two miles. The vehicle then plummeted from the Eastcote Lane Bridge. The driver, Leon Fairchild, PA to tycoon and Nexus nightclub chain, Vincent Jonas died instantly.

Mr. Jonas himself remains critically injured but stable within an induced coma. Police are now trying to track down a woman who was photographed leaving the nightclub with Mr. Jonas before the crash. Until the subject comes forward for questioning, police have suppressed the pictures under privacy law.’

Nancy knit her lip. The story had evidently been printed before Cora had made the decision to don her makeup and milk the public eye.

Nancy turned the page to where the story’s focus shifted to the possible causes of the crash.

‘Repeated kerbing is a likely culprit,’ according to Ella Kelroy, a crash site investigator. ‘Tyre fatigue due to repeated pulling on and off the kerb is similar to aircraft metal fatigue. A potential hidden killer, the structure amasses fractures and stresses over a long period before breaching without warning. As both tyres had already been compromised, it only took one blow-out to spur another. Even new tyres can accrue stresses if kerbing is intensive and if the road is pot-holled…’

Nancy continued to glean. She couldn’t find the answer to the one question she really needed to know.

A bustle caused Nancy to glance up. Within the cosmetics aisle, a small melee trailed a crown of gold fuzz. Nancy stuffed the newspaper into her bag and closed in on her target. As she neared, she saw Robbie Probert standing too close to Chantelle, next door’s fourteen-year-old daughter. Cora plucked body exfoliater from the top shelf as though no one were there.

Nancy got the gist from the buzz. ‘Your’e lookin’ great, Cora,’ Robbie’s rakish friend, Strike remarked. ‘You’ve come through great considerin’what you’ve been through.’

‘Yeah, but the damage is on the inside, ain’t it?’ someone else countered. ‘It’s all in the ‘ead, post traumatic, that is. Stevie had it after he got burgled.’

And then someone else wondered, ‘what’s ‘e like, Cora? Did you flirt with ‘im? Has he got a big cock?’

Robbie’s simper froze when he spotted Nancy. She seemed to have that effect on people, kill the fun; make the other feel caught out. ‘Hi, Nance,’ her ex piped. ‘How’s your mam?’

Nancy merely drew her eyes away and addressed Cora. ‘Can we speak in private?’

Strike tittered without changing his expression. Cora’s eyes brushed against Nancy’s as she dropped the exfoliater into her basket. She nudged through the small crowd and allowed Nancy to lead her into the baby aisle.

Nancy’s voice came out as a harsh whisper. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

Cora overdid the nonchalant shrug. ‘Me weekly shop. What do you think?’

‘It wasn’t you in the limo, you lying tart.’

‘It might have been. How would you know, anyway?’

Nancy checked herself. ‘You had already buggered off with Bex before the shoot. You’ll be exposed for what you really are when he starts talking.’

Cora’s blithe expression galled. ‘Well, he ain’t talkin’,’ she asserted, billowing chemical flora into Nancy’s breathing space. ‘No one’s talkin’. The press are gagging for it, so I thought, why the hell not? I would have had my moment of glory and spent my little windfall.’

Nancy could barely stand to look at her. ‘You’d stoop that low for money.’

‘Don’t get all sanctimonious with me, Nancy. We’re all in the same boat ‘ere. Anyway, I should take some lessons from your bloody mother, the way she scoots around in that soddin’ chair. She’s the biggest benefit cheat around.’

Nancy’s mouth knit. She shoved Cora against a wall of nappies behind her. Cora stumbled too readily, her heels scuffing across the tiles. She wanted the wall to topple, but nappies proved an efficient shock absorber.

Cora thought she’d emerged the bigger person. She straightened herself up and jutted out her chin. She strutted off.

No one’s talking. No one is saying a word.

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