‘Have the police told you anything?’ she asked, testing her cup with her fingers, still too hot to drink.
He shrugged. ‘Not really.’
He was a wreck, she thought, greying hair dishevelled, unshaven. She guessed he was in his late forties or early fifties, something like that. The skin on his face blotchy, his eyes bloodshot, stubble peppering his jaw. A pleasant face beneath the stress, but no more than that. His clothes were decent enough, but it didn’t appear that anyone was looking after him. Maybe he wouldn’t let them. She had clients like that, people who felt that accepting help was a sign of weakness, that it undermined their independence, reduced their selfesteem, or those who were so angry at their failing abilities that they wouldn’t countenance assistance, denying there was a problem, bitter and hurt.
She’d showered today, washed her hair, even put a load in the washing machine. Seemed like a big deal at the time, functioning. But her clothes weren’t ironed and she knew she looked wiped out too.
‘Did he know them? Luke?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘But the descriptions,’ he went on. She saw a glint of anger in the cast of his eyes. ‘You read them?’
‘Yes, it didn’t sound like anyone I could think of.’
‘So you think it was random? They picked on him out of the blue?’
‘I don’t know.’
A man dressed in a Santa suit wandered up to the counter, setting off banter among the staff and customers. Louise wanted to weep.
She wondered why Andrew Barnes expected her to have any answers. What had driven him to come and see Luke? Surely he’d enough going on dealing with his own situation. She felt a flare of irritation with him. Edgy, she moved her drink towards the middle of the table. ‘I’m just going out for a smoke, won’t be long.’
He dipped his head, picked up his own drink.
She had to go outside and across the road to escape all the no-smoking notices. Other people ignored the exhortations near the entrance and clustered there; she could see two women sucking hungrily on fags and a man in a wheelchair and another youngish lad with a drip. She didn’t feel proud of smoking again and she didn’t want to flout the rules. The first drag made her cough and her mouth felt dry, her tongue rough; she wished she’d brought her drink out with her.
When she went back to the café, Andrew Barnes had gone.
The man probably didn’t know whether he was coming or going. His son had died trying to help Luke; maybe he’d needed to see the cause of his bereavement. She wondered if he had spoken to Luke and what he’d said. She could have asked Andrew about the fight if she’d only taken the chance instead of running off for a fag. It had been at his house after all. How had it started? Thinking about that, about Luke’s fear and the violence of what they’d done, made her stomach turn.
She hadn’t seen Carl since Saturday, when he’d rung first then come round with takeaway and a couple of bottles of wine. They’d kept in touch by phone, but there had not been any time and she needed to concentrate on Luke and Ruby for now.
She asked him to take the Christmas tree away – see if anyone he knew could make use of it. Ruby stayed close, as if she was frightened to leave Louise. ‘You can go round to Becky’s,’ Louise had told her, ‘or she can come over.’ Thinking that seeing her best friend might be a break for the girl; but Ruby shook her head.
They’d watched a film on telly, a mindless rom-com. Carl laughed too loudly at the slapstick and she wished he’d leave.
At midnight Ruby went to bed and Carl asked Louise if she’d like him to stay. She shook her head and hugged him, said she’d barely slept but wanted to try and get a good night tonight. Thanked him for the food and the wine.
After he’d gone, she stood in the back garden to have the last fag of the day. There was a full moon rising, bright and luminous, a ring around it, mother-of-pearl. It illuminated the whole of the landscape, bouncing magnesium white off the blanket of snow. The lights in Angie’s were off now; Angie would be sleeping in the warm fug of the living room, Sian upstairs.
