The Secrets of Strangers Read online

  It’s only as she is stepping out into the dissolving night that she remembers the donation box. It’s not compulsory, but to light candles without paying feels like stealing. She has a couple of two-pound coins ready in her pocket. Ah, well, never mind. She’ll settle up on Wednesday when she goes in for choir practice.

  The one-legged pigeon flutters to land at her feet. He lives on one of the gargoyles and he knows her very well. Clever bird! She rummages in her bag for her plastic sandwich box.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she murmurs, tipping it upside down. ‘You’re in luck, Hoppy.’

  The pigeon is already pecking as crusts cascade onto the asphalt. Yawning, Mutesi holds her watch close to her eyes. Five past seven. She’d dearly like to go home and make tea in the Grandma mug Emmanuel gave her. She longs to curl up under heavy blankets with her eyes closed. That is a luxury—drifting away while the rest of the city suffocates on trains and buses. But it’s Monday, and she has to meet Brigitte and Emmanuel at Tuckbox. Mutesi’s job is to give her grandson breakfast before walking him to school. They will share a cheese toastie and a pot of tea. He will talk and talk, and she will smile and smile. Mutesi counts her blessings every day. The blessings keep the horrors at bay.

  She stoops to check the man’s tin mug is empty before sliding her coins into it. There. Her gift has been delivered straight to a place where it’s needed, with no middleman. She’s never quite sure whether this is true of the donation box.

  It takes a little over ten minutes to walk along the High Road, past the GP surgery—cheeky young locum she saw last time tried to put her on a weight-loss program, as though she’s anything but healthy and fit for her age!—under the railway bridge. Fire engines scream past, scattering a queue of cars, and she spares a thought for whoever’s life is being turned upside today.

  Tuckbox is another world again: humid and neon-lit, cheerfully noisy with the hiss and gurgle of the coffee machine, the rumble of conversation, music from a radio station. The front counter faces the door, with cabinets forming an L-shaped border around a busy kitchen. Customers queue at the counter, or hang about as they wait for their takeaway orders. Most seem fixated on phones or newspapers. A young man and woman stand gazing into one another’s eyes. A trio of teenagers in school uniform has just ordered. One of them sees something on her phone and holds it out to the others, who double up with laughter.

  The café’s owner is polishing his glass-fronted cabinets. He’s a tall, handsome figure, always upbeat, though Mutesi knows the poor man buried his wife about a week ago. Tragic thing. Cancer, and so quick. Brave of him to be back at work already.

  ‘How are you today, Robert?’ she asks.

  He lights up at the sight of her. ‘Keeping on keeping on,’ he says. ‘Lucky to have customers like you.’

  ‘You won’t take some time off?’

  ‘Nah. Helps to keep busy. If I think about Harriet too much I’ll turn to mush.’ He’s still smiling, but his voice is fraying. ‘The thing is, she was my life, you know? Home isn’t home without her.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I wake up and she’s not there.’

  A timer beeps loudly in the kitchen.

  ‘No rest for the wicked,’ Robert mutters, and he winks at Mutesi before skidding behind the counter to take trays of golden-brown pastries out of the big oven. Next he’s helping the new runner at the back service counter. He’s a hands-on boss, always ready to pile in himself.

  Mutesi orders tea and a cheese toastie before looking for a table.

  Ah! Good! Emmanuel’s favourite spot in the window corner is free. She sits and waits, takes delivery of a pot of tea from a girl in a black T-shirt with tuckbox in white letters across the front. Snatches of conversation reach her from the booth nearby. Did one-ninety, dead lift, made it look easy … Apparently someone missed leg day last week and is suffering for it.

  Brigitte and Emmanuel are late. Never mind. Mutesi is just taking that first heavenly sip of tea when they come scurrying in from the street. Her grandson looks smart in his green school uniform, a satchel slung across his chest. She feels her heart swell at the sight of those bright eyes, the broad forehead and sticking-out ears. His lashes flick upwards like sunbeams. She knows her survival has been worth something, because this beautiful child is the result.

  At five foot nothing, Brigitte is several inches shorter than her mother-in-law. So clever, so loving—Mutesi can’t imagine anyone else who might be good enough for Isaac. Emmanuel gets his enormous eyes from her, and his white teeth and lovable grin. She’s wearing a beret over short, braided hair, her mouth muffled by a scarf. She feels the cold.

  ‘Late again,’ she gasps, shivering. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry!’ Mutesi stretches her arms wide so that both mother and son can fit into her embrace. ‘You have a lot on your plate. And how is the handsomest and most brilliant schoolboy in the world?’

  The most brilliant schoolboy has his mittened hand stuck high up in the air. The rule at his smart school is not to speak until the teacher says you may, and he’s taken to doing the same at home. It began as a game but now it’s a habit. Mutesi strongly disapproves—he is only six years old. Six! Why are they teaching him to behave like a soldier? Children should never be soldiers. Never. Never.

  ‘Mummy lost her phone,’ he says. ‘She rang it but the battery was flat and now she has to go straight away because she has an important meeting.’

  He has plenty to say about the lost phone, the bad words Mummy used and how he heroically found it in the bathroom. Mutesi keeps her listening face on for him, but she and Brigitte are both distracted by raised voices nearby. A young fellow—wild hair, wild eyes—is yelling at the café’s owner. Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve come to get her! What the fuck have you done with her? Robert is making calm down gestures, pressing downwards with his big hands as he talks. He seems to find the whole thing quite amusing. He may be a generation older than the shouting boy, but he’s a head taller.

  There’s a powerful shove to Robert’s shoulder, a final curse—fucking evil—and words that Mutesi doesn’t catch over the music and a roaring coffee grinder. The whole thing is over as suddenly as it began. The young man bangs out through the street door, briefly colliding with a woman in a dark overcoat who’s just coming in. The next moment he’s pelting past the windows.

  Café life pauses. There’s a collective moment of nosiness. Then the milk frother starts up, and the smoothie blender. Someone laughs. Conversations resume. Robert’s joking with a group of women in jogging clothes, tapping the side of his head. They’re chortling. The woman who was almost knocked over is waiting at the counter, talking on her phone.

  ‘That man used his outside voice,’ says Emmanuel, pouting in disapproval. ‘And bad words. Uh-uh. Naughty.’

  Mutesi tugs gently on his ear. ‘Maybe he didn’t like his coffee.’

  ‘Or he didn’t take his pills this morning,’ says Brigitte. ‘I must go. Emmanuel, you’ll read to Grandma, ask her to sign your reading diary?’

  Emmanuel’s hand is back in the air.

  ‘I forgot my book. I think it’s in my bed.’

  ‘Not again!’ Brigitte rifles through his bag. ‘Miss Soames will fuss.’

  ‘Look who’s back,’ says Mutesi, nodding at the door.

  Brigitte is too vexed to look up from her search. ‘It’s been a crazy weekend. Isaac’s flight to Montreal was delayed and—’

  Her sentence ends in a shriek as Mutesi hurls herself at both mother and son, shielding them with her own body.

  ‘Get down,’ she says. ‘On the floor. Now.’

  FOUR

  Abi

  Her hand is on the door of the café when it swings towards her and someone comes thundering out.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mutters instinctively, stepping back as he barges past without so much as a glance in her direction. Charming. She has a fleeting impression of furious energy. Curly hair, heavy eyebrows. Grey cable-knit sweater and jea
ns. Not at all bad-looking, actually—hot, her vacuous sister Lottie would say—but seriously short on manners. He’s obviously in a hurry. Well, fair enough. So is she.

  Tuckbox smells of coffee and toast, and it’s heaving this morning. The place aims for functionality alongside shabby comfort: a brushed cement floor, crimson walls, black-and-white photographs of sweeping landscapes, newspapers scattered around. Customers can choose between wooden tables, retro-style booths with red vinyl seats or worn leather armchairs grouped near the front window. Abi immediately notices a heavily pregnant woman making camp with a toddler and an elderly man. The young mother’s in maternity jeans and fleece-lined boots, sporting a Baby on Board badge. Go on, Ms Fertile, rub it in. The little girl has white hair tied like a miniature fountain. Spindly legs in woollen tights stick straight out as she perches on her chair. She’s pretending to spoon-feed a toy Roo, opening and closing her own mouth while scolding the baby kangaroo in a bossy imitation of a grown-up. Abi watches, enchanted despite her jealousy, aching with the absence of someone who has never existed. She forces herself to look away, only to spot Renata from number 96 and her posse of yummy jogging mates. Dear Lord, was there no escape?

  The barista catches her eye and taps an espresso cup to show she’s already on to it. Funny how matey you can become with someone you meet for only ninety seconds every day. It generates a kind of intimacy. Sofia is from Italy but she has a Romanian boyfriend. She’s here first thing in the morning, often locks up at night. She’ll do anything for her employer. Customers can be such jerks, but Robert’s a great boss, she once said. Treats us all like family.

  Right now, the man in question is delivering coffee to Renata and the yummies. He’s in pretty good shape for an older guy: strong jawline, waves of dark hair with a frosting of silver, and he does this eye-crinkling thing when he smiles. He’s dressed as always in an open-necked shirt. Renata is flirting openly with him, throwing her head back as she laughs. Despite being the mother of four-year-old twins she has the body of a teenager, which perhaps explains her choice of lycra for early-morning jogs on Tooting Common.

  Abi’s phone is ringing again. Might be the clinic.

  No, not the clinic. Charlie.

  ‘Charlie! What’s up? I’m in Tuckbox, just about to grab my coffee. Bit short of time.’

  ‘Of course you are. It’s your default setting. Sorry, I can’t stop thinking … Have you heard anything yet?’

  He sounds so very hopeful, just as she was until she did that bloody test last night. He’s on tenterhooks, and he’s going to be broken-hearted. She wishes she could spend today with him.

  ‘It’s only seven-thirty,’ she says. ‘Give ’em a chance.’

  ‘Let me know when you hear, won’t you? Whatever the news?’

  ‘You could call them yourself if you like.’

  She’s watching the coffee machine, mesmerised by dark liquid spilling into a cup. She doesn’t have time right now for either his hope or his disappointment. She doesn’t even have time for her own. She doesn’t have time for agonising discussions about whether they should finally accept defeat. She hasn’t time for being hurt again. All of that can wait. She glances at her watch. Four minutes to the train. It’s enough. She’ll be into the station, up the stairs and onto the platform with a good twenty seconds to spare. She will think about Kelly Bradshaw today.

  ‘Um, did you do a … you know, a test?’ Charlie’s anxiety jabs at her across the ether. ‘I saw the empty box in the bin earlier.’

  Someone’s screaming obscenities. Who the hell would be starting a riot in a café at this time of the morning? Ah. It’s the curly-headed guy. He’s back. She presses her palm over her free ear.

  ‘Sorry, can’t hear you—some idiot’s yelling. I’ve got to grab my coffee and run.’

  ‘We’ll try again if it’s negative, won’t we? Abi?’

  It’s just sound. She’s stopped listening. For the first time in days—in months—in years—she isn’t even remotely thinking about either childlessness or work.

  ‘Fuck,’ she says. ‘He’s got a—’

  The world explodes. A single report, a shock wave so shattering that her eardrums seem to burst. She’s hurling herself to the ground. As both hands jerk to cover her ears, her phone spins from her grasp.

  Pandemonium. The café’s erupting like a fairground ride gone wrong: high-pitched screeches, someone screaming, It’s a bomb! People are crawling under tables while others claw their way through a panicking bottleneck at the door. A little boy crouches on the floor beside a woman in a beret. The child’s arms are curled over his head. A man in a suit actually trips over the poor kid—falls against a chair, scrambles up and legs it. Sofia has grabbed a couple of schoolgirls by their clothes and is dragging them towards the courtyard at the back, yelling for others to follow. This way! Come on, come on!

  The second shot is overwhelming. For a full minute Abi can hear nothing except ocean waves. The air is opaque with gunpowder and fear.

  She meets all kinds of second-hand violence in her work: endless lurid photographs of wounds, bloodstains and bodies in mortuaries. She’s heard witnesses describing attacks, pathologists discussing fatal trauma—but it’s all two steps removed. By the time it arrives in court there’s a pattern to the violence. There’s an order. It’s neatly packaged.

  The real thing isn’t ordered at all. She knows this now. It’s barbaric and ugly and confused and unimaginably loud. Her first instinct is to get out of Tuckbox, her second to tell Charlie what’s happening. That’s when she misses her phone. Every contact, photo, message and diary entry is stored in that little object. It’s her handle on life. While sane people are running for their lives she’s wasting precious seconds in turning back and bending to snatch it up from the floor.

  She never sees who hurtles into her. Someone heavy, someone running full tilt. The impact knocks her off balance as she stoops, sending her sprawling, her forehead knocking against the radiator with a sickening thud. The pain is immediate. Her vision swims, her knees buckle. She’s conscious, but for a moment or two her mind seems blank.

  It’s all over. Tuckbox seems to have been abandoned. The radio is playing a jolly Christmas song but there are no other human voices. By contrast with the Mary Celeste eeriness inside the café, a human herd is stampeding out on the street. Pounding feet. Shouts. Leave this area now, get back, move! Car horns, a roaring engine. A motorbike mounts the pavement as it U-turns. Painfully, dizzily, she uses the radiator to support herself as she stands up. It’s okay, it’s okay. The gunman will be long gone by now. She’ll leave her contact details with the police, catch the next train, get to court, take a couple of ibuprofen and begin the Bradshaw trial.

  As she turns to leave, she realises her mistake. The gunman is still here. He’s about six feet away from her, pacing in manic circles with a shotgun in one clenched fist. Tuckbox looks like a battleground. Abandoned bags, coats and pushchairs lie scattered haphazardly between the tables. A mountain buggy has somehow ended up on its side. The pregnant mother, elderly man and toddler are all trying to hide under one small table. The schoolboy is clinging to the woman in the beret. Abi hears him whisper: Mummy, is that man going to shoot us too? His mother lays her mouth on his head. She’s in tears. Shush. No, but shush.

  But the really, really terrible thing is happening on the kitchen floor. The café’s owner is dying, cradled in the arms of a man in a red-and-blue bobble cap. She thinks of a painting, a Renaissance pietà with its limp body and grieving bystanders, though instead of Jesus there’s a middle-aged guy in jeans and a paisley shirt. Blood is coursing out of his neck, soaking his clothes, pooling on the shining concrete. So much blood. He seems to be staring at the ceiling through half-open eyes. It’s deeply unnerving. Dead on arrival at St George’s Hospital, the notes will say, but she suspects this man was more or less dead on arrival on the floor of Tuckbox Café.

  Someone crouches over him, holding towels to his wounds while speaking into hi
s ear. She’s past middle age, a black woman in slacks and a cardigan. She catches Abi’s eye.

  ‘Would you please call for an ambulance?’

  Her accent is strong, but her words are clear. Abi nods, immediately tapping 999 into her keypad. The woman raises her voice, calling to the people across the café.

  ‘Everyone should leave now. Brigitte, please take Emmanuel away. Just go quickly. I will see you later.’

  It’s good advice. Best not to hang around. Abi is almost at the street door—her balance still unsteady, phone clamped to her ear—when she finds herself face to face with the gunman. He’s standing right in her path, breathing like a wounded animal, chest and shoulders rising and falling fast. His gaze is fixed on her face as though he has something vital to tell her.

  ‘I think I’ve killed Robert. I think I’ve killed … Jesus, have I killed Robert?’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ she lies.

  She’s racking her brains to come up with a strategy. She’s met plenty of off-the-wall guys in her work, but none of them were carrying loaded shotguns. All she can come up with is an article she once read in a magazine in the fertility clinic: ‘What to Do if You’re Hiking in the Wilderness and Meet a Bear’. You keep absolutely still, apparently. Don’t run. Don’t shout. On no account must you panic. Speak calmly and reassuringly (what is reassuring to a bear, for God’s sake?). Back away, keeping your eyes on the animal at all times.

  ‘Look,’ she says, ‘this has nothing to do with me or any of these people. Just move away from the door and we’ll all be on our way.’

  The emergency operator’s voice is loud, clear and penetrating.

  Emergency. Which service do you require?

  The crazy guy seems horrified by the voice. He’s shouting incoherently, and he’s a blur of action—breaking open the gun, shoving in cartridges from his pocket, slamming it shut again, all in a couple of seconds. In the same movement he’s taken aim at Abi’s phone. It’s his sheer competence that appals her. She’s pretty sure he could have reloaded with his eyes closed. A whimper of dismay ripples from the people behind her.