Freeing Grace Read online

  I’d already wasted the best part of a fortnight looking for Mrs Harrison. I carried with me a hefty envelope from Perry, but I’d given up hope of delivering it to the bloody woman because she obviously didn’t exist.

  You couldn’t say I hadn’t tried. Day after day, I’d invaded the public buildings of Mombasa, reciting her name at bemused officials. I’d tried the post office, the police station and the hospital. I’d sidled up to street hawkers, taxi drivers and shopkeepers. I even asked a priest in the cathedral. They were all very polite. They all thought long and hard before shrugging.

  So I’d climbed dutifully into the jeep and driven for miles along scarred and crumbling roads, hassling bar staff and hotel managers up and down the coast, feeling like a total jerk. I’d drawn a complete blank, and the whole thing had started to seem bloody silly, frankly. Perhaps it was all a complicated hoax.

  Finally, that very morning, I’d rammed the envelope into the bottom of my bag and emailed Perry to tell him I was throwing in the towel. Sad for Matt, of course, but I told myself that he’d get over it. I’d wasted more than enough time. I was moving on.

  I decided I’d have a go at Mount Kenya. The challenge would keep all that nasty reality at bay for another week or so. I was intrigued by this troubled, vibrant region; the place had cast its spell, and now that I was free of Perry’s quest I thought I might get to know it better. With this thought, I’d checked out of the Durham Hotel. Then, deciding to have one last decent cup of coffee before I left, I settled myself happily on the hotel’s wide verandah—wicker chairs, ceiling fans and bougainvillea. I leafed through my guidebook while a flock of tiny birds had a barney amongst the electric-blue flowers of a nearby tree.

  Even though I’d given up, when the manager—Yusuf—brought my coffee himself, I collared him and asked the question, one last time. It was out of habit, really. I’d already tried the waiters.

  When I mentioned the name, he frowned. ‘Deborah Harrison,’ he whispered. He broke the name up into six syllables and said each with great care. It made me feel sleepy. Eventually, inevitably, he shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

  Par for the course. Still, I handed him the photograph. He examined it for a full thirty seconds, holding it in one hand and, with the other, tracing a line around Deborah’s silhouette. Behind us, the squabbling birds broke into a new round of hostilities.

  Without looking up, and without any apparent surprise, he murmured, ‘Yes, I know this woman.’

  It came out so casually that for a moment I thought I’d misheard. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He inclined his head, thinking. ‘The name is different.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s her?’

  He handed back the photograph. ‘There’s a man who comes in here sometimes. Rod Jennings. He owns a campground out at Kulala Beach, off the Tanzania road. Beautiful place. One of the last they haven’t ruined.’

  ‘And you think this Jennings bloke might be able to shed some light?’ I held up the picture, squinting doubtfully at the freckled, glowing face.

  Yusuf shrugged. He looked very unhappy, suddenly, as if he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. His brow was creased with anxious wrinkles.

  ‘The woman in that photograph’—he jerked his chin towards it—‘looks exactly like Susie.’

  ‘Susie . . . ?’

  ‘Susie. His wife.’

  The further I bumped down that hellish track, the wilder my goose chase seemed. I was tempted to turn back.

  The dashboard had turned orange under a film of dust, and so had I. Then, between the trees, I spotted an indigo streak spilling along the horizon. The Indian Ocean. I cheered out loud.

  The track opened out into a sandy clearing, littered with tents, mosquito nets and washing strung haphazardly among the trees. There were rickety picnic tables, a concrete shower block and watery, dancing light. Skirting the clearing, I parked next to a rusting white pick-up truck and sat for a few minutes, enjoying the sudden peace. My ears were ringing.

  The occupants of the tents weren’t much in evidence, except for a couple of scrubby-looking white guys, wearing sarongs and doing their washing on a slab of concrete underneath a tap. The water was gushing up over their clothes and spraying them while a crowd of monkeys cheered from the branches. On a low, wooden building nearby I could make out a cardboard sign: Office.

  I was halfway out of the jeep when the office door opened and someone stepped into the bleached light. It was a white man of about my age, perhaps a bit older, wearing faded shorts and carrying a broad-brimmed hat. He was no tourist: he belonged here. It was unmistakeable. He had a sort of presence too, a poise that you don’t see very often. He held himself with easy self-assurance. A young German shepherd padded quietly alongside him.

  I leaned awkwardly against the jeep as he loped across, putting on his hat and glancing unhurriedly at me. He had bone-white hair, and the type of hide you could make into a shoe, the kind you get from living your whole life in the sun. I guessed he might be an inch or two taller than me. Thinner too, but I remember thinking that I’d want to have him on my side in a dark alley.

  ‘Hi,’ I croaked, with an ingratiating simper. ‘Jake Kelly.’

  ‘Rod Jennings.’ He shook my hand, and I was tongue-tied. Faced with the guy, I hesitated to ask the question. I mean, how would it sound? Hi, I’m after a woman who’s somebody else’s wife and they tell me yours looks just like her. He was going to think I was a bloody blithering idiot. I’d be lucky if he didn’t thump me.

  In the end, he helped me out. ‘You’re after a room?’ He spoke calmly, rather distantly. He sounded like a newsreader for the BBC World Service.

  ‘Er, no.’ I tried not to shift from foot to foot. ‘Some friends asked me, while I was in Kenya, to try and find someone.’

  He stood very still, watching me, an odd little smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

  I ploughed on, feeling sillier than ever. ‘Um, a woman called Deborah Harrison. A journalist. Her husband last heard from her in Mombasa.’

  He didn’t react, so I pulled the crumpled photo out of my wallet. ‘This picture’s a bit out of date, apparently. Her husband’s in his fifties. Actually—’ I cackled desperately—‘the manager at the Durham Hotel said it looked a bit like your, um, wife.’

  One of Rod’s eyebrows lifted, just a fraction. ‘Who, Yusuf ?’ He took the picture out of my hands, regarded it sardonically, and then shrugged. ‘Similar hair colour, I suppose. But no. Wrong woman, Jake. Susie’s not technically my wife, but she’s been with me, on and off, longer than I care to remember.’ He handed the photo back, and a peaceful smile crossed his face, as though he did care to remember.

  ‘Ah well.’ I sighed. ‘My hopes weren’t high.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re wasting your time,’ he said, moving away to drop the tailgate on his pick-up. This is a small community, and we don’t get many rogue English bluestockings.’ He chuckled gently. ‘But I’ll keep an eye out, tell her to call home if I spot her.’

  He began to load up the truck with crates of empty bottles. He seemed to be in a hurry, all of a sudden. ‘Right then,’ he called briskly, without looking around. ‘You’ll be off now?’

  I picked up a crate. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  ‘No need.’ He glanced towards the beach. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be done in a jiffy.’

  But I had nothing better to do, and he seemed to be in a rush, so I stayed. His parents still farmed inland, he told me over the clatter of crates. He was on his way there right now, because his father had slipped a disc and was yelling for help. He asked where I was going next. I said I hoped to get in some climbing, and we talked briefly about Mount Kenya. He didn’t push advice onto me, didn’t know it all, didn’t tell anecdotes to show how clever he was.

  Once we’d slung the last crate aboard he stood for a moment, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘You’ll be heading back to Mombasa, Jake?’

  I opened the door of the jeep. ‘Yep, I’m off.
Probably make tracks for Mount Kenya first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ He waited until I’d started my engine, then swung easily into his seat. ‘C’mon, Cheza,’ he called, and the big dog jumped up behind, shaggy tail gently swishing.

  I motioned to him to go ahead of me. This was his place, after all, and it was hardly fair to make him drive in a coppery cloud of my dust. Raising a hand, he began to rattle up the track.

  We set out in convoy, but Rod was much gunnier at negotiating the obstacles—I supposed he could do it blindfolded—and as the minutes passed I began to drop further and further behind. Creeping around yet another pothole, I watched the pick-up disappear among the trees. Feeling mildly depressed, I stopped the jeep on a wider section of track.

  I was hot. I had dust up my nose, sweat in my clothes. Insect bites. Heat rash in places I’d rather not think about. I imagined all that irritation floating away into the kind waters of the Indian Ocean.

  ‘Bugger it,’ I said, jamming the stick into reverse.

  Five minutes later the jeep was parked in its original spot, and I was strolling to the edge of the beach. The sea spread itself out in bands of darkening blue, winking coquettishly at me all the way to the horizon. Just below the bar, where a group of palms leaned across the sand, three figures were bent over a board game of some sort.

  I was in the water within seconds, and it felt like a warm bath. I lay in the pale, glimmering shallows, running my fingers along the seabed. The sand was the colour and consistency of my mother’s sugary fudge. I swam out a couple of hundred yards until the creamy turquoise darkened, and then dived down to the bottom and scraped up a handful of fudge sand.

  I think it was then that I decided to stay at Kulala Beach. Just for a night or two; just while I washed away the grime, and the frustration of my pointless search. I didn’t intend to disappear forever, like the mythical Mrs Harrison.

  Wading back through the shallows, I took a closer look at the group I’d spotted earlier. Two of them—a man and a woman—were battling over a soapstone chess set with frowning concentration.

  It was the third figure who caught my attention. A girl with long silver hair like something out of a fairytale, and an absolutely mountainous bust. Seriously, it was spectacular. She wore a rather inadequate halterneck bikini—the skimpy little top simply wasn’t up to the job—and a tiny skirt of tie-dyed cloth knotted around her waist. Around her neck, wrists and ankles were shells on plaited leather thongs. She was reclining on her elbows in the sand, drawing in it with a purple toenail, and pouting. I’d have said she was bored. She yawned, caught my eye and waved. Perhaps that proved she was bored. Anyway, I waved back. Then she pointed at a cold box beside her, held up a bottle of the local beer—Tusker—and beckoned me over.

  Obviously I didn’t need to be asked twice. Would you? I couldn’t believe my luck. I was out of the water and across the scorching sand in about five seconds flat, rubbing my hair with a towel. She passed me the beer as I dropped down beside her.

  ‘Hi,’ she whispered, her head tilted close to mine. ‘I thought you looked lonely.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘My name’s Karin.’

  The bottle hissed happily as I prised off the cap. ‘Jake.’

  Her accent was European, perhaps Scandinavian. Things were looking better and better. She murmured, ‘We have to be quiet as little mice, because Susie and Erik are so busy with their very important tournament.’

  She rolled her eyes and jerked her chin towards the others. Their heads were bent over the board, and the man’s brows were drawn together. He was bearded and earnest and probably ate mung beans. The woman— Susie—sat very upright on a driftwood log, smiling down at the field of battle, hands in the pockets of khaki shorts. She looked as though she smiled often; I could see the lines radiating from the outer corners of her eyes. Beside her feet lay a long row of the black pieces she’d already taken prisoner. There weren’t too many left on the board.

  Something made me look twice. She was in her thirties, I’d have guessed, and there wasn’t much of her. On one tanned arm hung twisted copper bangles, the sort I’d seen sold on the streets in Mombasa. Her hair was bleached and tangled, pale honey streaked with beeswax. She’d hooked it back behind her ears. There was sand in her hair and on her cheek and up one arm, as though she’d been lying on the beach.

  I stared, stupidly.

  The leaves of the palms shivered in the first breath of evening. Still smiling, she glanced across at me and for a second she met my gaze. She blinked, and then the smile was switched off. I thought of a gazelle, wary and poised for flight.

  Abruptly, she turned back to the board and moved one of the pieces. The sea breeze stirred her hair, tugging fretfully at her shirt. Her opponent lit a cigarette, shaking his head. He had only a few pawns and a bishop left, huddling loyally in front of his king. Karin was laughing at him. I felt her silvery hair brush my shoulder. Steadily, luxuriously, she drew one of her purple toenails along my calf. I should have been in heaven, but I hardly noticed because my mind was racing.

  Susie’s eyes glittered, the same blue-green as the sunlit sea, and there was a little constellation of freckles scattered across her cheekbones. Although she was tanned to a light gold, there was a small white patch on her nose where she’d peeled.

  I knew that face. I knew it very well indeed. And I couldn’t believe my eyes. I leaned closer.

  ‘Mrs Harrison?’ My voice sounded horribly loud. ‘Deborah Harrison?’

  Everything seemed to freeze. It was odd, like the silence before thunder. Slowly, very deliberately, she lifted her face and looked right into my eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Then she lifted her queen, swung it like a mallet, and knocked Erik’s bishop clear off the board and onto the sand.

  ‘Checkmate,’ she announced, standing up. And she walked away.

  Chapter Ten

  She’d tried to keep her chin up. Really, she had.

  In the weeks following the lost pregnancy, Leila was as cheerful and efficient at Kirkaldie’s as ever. She had time for everybody. She covered for another pharmacist whose mother had died, arranged birthday drinks for the boss, and mediated between two technicians who loathed one another. She even flirted valiantly with the mechanic at the local MOT garage, but he still failed her car.

  But the bleakness slithered in, a chill draught under the door. It didn’t lift; it didn’t lessen. It drained her energy. It engulfed her in the dark hours and stole her sleep. She did her best to hide it from David— after all, he was bereft as well. He didn’t need to have her burdens dumped on him.

  When she looked at him she felt guilt. David would make the perfect father; but he was childless. And time was running out for him.

  One Thursday, the pharmacy was ridiculously busy. Leila worked all day with barely a break, just a hurried sandwich for lunch, and there was still a queue at closing time. She managed to appear upbeat and energetic until the doors were locked behind her, but by the time she reached New Street Station she felt as though she had lead weights in her shoes. She trudged along the platform, past metal seats and timetables, towards the arch of tired light at the far end. There were the tracks, stretching away into open space, their paths ever parallel but never touching.

  The station heaved with commuters. Leila leaned against her usual pillar, turning up her collar against the wind, winding her scarf around her ears. An ungainly figure came hurrying along the platform towards her. With a sigh, Leila recognised Jodie, a genial, frizzy-haired school leaver who worked at Kirkaldie’s.

  ‘Hi, Jodie.’ She forced a smile of welcome as the girl skidded to a halt, bent double, gasping for breath. ‘You nearly missed it this time. The train’s just coming in, look.’

  ‘Thought I had missed it.’ Jodie sold shampoo and photo frames and sparkly lipstick. At seventeen, she was an odd mix of patronising maturity and irritating childishness. She lived with her parents in a suburb two stations be
yond Leila’s, and had adopted Leila as her train friend.

  ‘Had to stop for passport photos,’ she panted.

  ‘Sounds glamorous.’

  ‘I’m sodding off to Spain when I’ve saved up enough money, getting out of this dump. Going to get a job in a bar.’

  Leila offered the girl a polo mint, shouting above the exuberant bellow of their train as it slid alongside them. ‘Alone?’

  ‘That depends on whether my useless boyfriend gets his act together.’

  ‘What does your mum think?’

  ‘Doing her nut.’ Jodie pushed her tongue through the hole in her mint. ‘Thinks I’ll get trafficked as a prostitute.’

  The carriage was rank and steamy. There was only one pair of empty seats, a little distance from the door, but Jodie was a very competent young woman. Aiming for the valuable spot with her elbows out, she barged past less determined commuters, plonked herself down in triumph, and signalled to Leila by furiously patting the space beside her. Leila slipped apologetically between her fellow travellers and sat down.

  Jodie grinned. ‘Got a seat, for once.’

  ‘You certainly did. Another mint?’

  Jodie pulled off her anorak as the train gathered speed, and continued to talk. Leila let her mind wander, features set in listening mode, as they rattled towards the suburbs. Sitting next to Jodie was like having your head in a metal dustbin while someone hammered on the outside with a spanner. Leila felt wearied by the sheer irrelevance of it. Mind you, the whole world seemed irrelevant, nowadays.