My phone buzzes, and when I read the words in the message, I feel a rush of nausea mixed with an excitement I am ashamed of. Then a fist bangs on my rather dirty car window, and I only just manage to swallow what I’m sure would have been a very manly scream. I wish I’d taken another cigarette from Priya to keep for later. By later I mean now. Today is turning out to be a very bad day indeed.
I wind the window down by hand—that’s how old my car is—and get a clearer view of my angry-looking ex-wife.
“Are you following me?” she asks.
Her face is blotchy and I can see that she has been crying. She’s carrying her coat, despite the fact it’s freezing outside, as though she might have left in too much of a hurry to put it on.
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
“How dare you interfere with my mother’s health and living arrangements!”
“Now, hang on. I don’t know what she told you, or what kind of state she was in just now, but she’s been getting progressively worse over the past six months. You would know that if you ever paid her a visit.”
“She is my mother and this is none of your business.”
“Wrong again. I have power of attorney.”
“What?”
Anna takes a tiny step back from the car.
“There was an incident a while ago. I tried to tell you, but you kept ignoring my calls. She asked for my help; it was her idea.”
Anna’s face reddens as though it has been verbally slapped.
“What’s this really about? Are you trying to sell my mother’s house out from under her? Is that it? Trick her into giving you money, because you’ve realized that life is a bit harder on one salary?”
The low blow she delivers in self-defense stings.
“You know it isn’t like that,” I say.
“Isn’t it?”
“Regardless of whether or not we are together, I still care about your mother. She was good to me and to us. What happened to Charlotte was not her fault.”
“No, it was yours.”
It feels like she just punched me in the chest.
Anna looks as though she might regret saying the words as much as I regret hearing them. But that doesn’t make them less true. I take a breath and carry on.
“Look, your mum isn’t well, and someone needs to do what’s best for her.”
“And that’s you, is it?”
“In the absence of anyone else, yes. She’s been seen wandering around the town, lost, wearing just her nightdress in the middle of the night, for God’s sake.”
“What? I don’t believe you.”
“Fine, I’m making it up. I suppose you weren’t in Blackdown yesterday either?”
I didn’t mean to blurt the accusation out like that, but the look on her face tells me a lot more than I expect her response will.
“Have you finally lost what was left of your tiny mind? No, I wasn’t here yesterday,” she says.
“Then why is there a pay-and-display ticket in your car that says you were?”
She hesitates for just a second, but it’s a second long enough for me to see, and she knows it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I suggest that from now on, you stay away from me, my car, and my mother. Do you understand? Maybe just stick to looking after your own family, and doing your job, given what has happened.”
I see her then, my daughter in Anna’s face, her eyes. People always say that children resemble their parents, but sometimes it’s the other way around. It brings it all back and I can’t hurt her any more than I already have.
“That’s good advice,” I say.
“This is some form of harassment. You shouldn’t be here.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
She pauses, as though I have started speaking a foreign language she is not fluent in.
“Are you agreeing with me?” she asks.
“Yes. It would appear I am.”
I study the face I have loved for so long now, and enjoy the unfamiliar shape it makes when surprised. Anna is rarely that. Even though it goes against everything I know about what not to do, I want to see how she reacts to what I shouldn’t say.
“The dead woman was Rachel Hopkins.”
I feel physically lighter once I’ve said her name out loud.
Anna’s face doesn’t change at all, as though she didn’t hear me.
“You do remember Rachel?” I ask.
“Of course I do. Why are you telling me this?”
I shrug. “I just thought you should know.”