Closing In

by E.D. Thompson

Genres: Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

A GOOD LIFE. BUT NOT HER ONLY LIFE.

Christmas is coming and Caroline is in the thick of things with her job as a local newspaper journalist. Craft fairs. Tree festivals. Prize draws. Parties.

Her home situation is more complicated - but whose isn't? There will be quality time with her beloved family during the holiday, and all will be well.

Then, out of the blue, a figure in the crowd jolts her shockingly back to a previous life - one beset by secrets. The past rushes in like a wrecking ball, threatening to blow apart everything she cherishes.

What will it take to protect her loved ones and her carefully constructed world?

And how far is she prepared to go to prevent the past from closing in?

Release date: October 13, 2022

Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland

Print pages: 336

Sample

I only saw him from the back, and in a long black overcoat that gave no more than an approximation of his shape and size. My hands, holding the new pyjamas I’d chosen for Ray’s boys for Christmas Eve, seemed to lose their grip and I hung the garments shakily back on the rack. Part of me wanted to pursue him through the throng of shoppers, spin him round, find out if it was really him. The other part wanted to bolt.

Because if Mark was here, in the town where I lived now, where I had worked and built a life for the past thirty years, then he had come for me – hadn’t he?

Or could it be coincidence, him turning up?

All around me, Christmas shoppers were lifting down merchandise and examining it. ‘Do you not want those?’ a woman asked, looking at the pyjamas.

I was, as they say, lost for words and could only shake my head.

The festive party music suddenly seemed oppressive. Had it always been this loud? And I was too hot. I should have left my coat in the car. Someone said, ‘Are you all right?’ but the voice floated away before I could catch it.

A huge yawn reared up in me so that I couldn’t hold it in. Now the shop was starting to swim and I felt unsteady. I thought there was something I was meant to do, something important, but I couldn’t remember what.

I kept picturing Mark – if it was Mark – striding away from me through the people and clothes and tinsel. He’d got that limp from jumping into a haystack when he was fifteen, not knowing there was a pitchfork in it. I had given up wondering if I would ever see him again. To be perfectly honest, I had thought he might very well be dead.

Someone knocked over a display of children’s slippers. I looked at the mess and heard tutting. Was it me who had sent the slippers scuttling? Did I do it?

‘Here, come and sit down.’ I turned and saw someone in a shop uniform, someone who belonged there, someone to help me. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’

I must have gone with her, because next I was sitting, sweating, on a blue plastic customer chair by a pillar. The Christmas music had receded and instead I thought I heard the gentle tap as a stylus dropped onto a vinyl record, and the black velvet hiss as a track began.

Another assistant materialised, interrupting: ‘Is she drunk?’

Was I drunk?

There were people, faces, crowding round, arms full of clothes on hangers, gawping at me. Did I know any of them? All of them? Were they waiting for me to say something? But I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say.

‘I’m … I’m …’ I began, struggling to think of the next words and failing.

‘Do you think you’re going to be sick?’ The voice sounded like we were underwater.

Why now? Why had Mark come now?

I heard someone suggest calling a first-aider, and I wondered if there had been an accident somewhere.

Another huge yawn.

Then someone was putting something into my mouth.

I tried to push them away with both hands. How dare they!

‘Caroline. It’s all right. They’re just dextrose tablets. You’re having a hypo.’

We were still underwater, but I knew this voice and tried to remember whose it was.

‘Are you family?’ someone asked, far away.

‘Yes,’ the familiar voice responded.

I peered out and recognised Eric Haffey, though I couldn’t have told you his name for a while yet. Although he definitely wasn’t family, he knew me and might understand what was happening. I heard him tell the small crowd that I was Type 1 diabetic and was experiencing an episode of low blood sugar. Meanwhile, he continued to stuff me with dextrose tablets.

Woozily, I knew he was right. That was the thing I needed to do – boost my blood sugar, quickly. I crunched up the tablets and held out my hand for more.

I don’t know how long it took, though it’s usually not very long, until, gradually, I felt my awareness return and smiled apologetically at the remaining concerned faces. ‘Sorry. Did I give everyone a fright?’

A more senior assistant had arrived. She quizzed me slightly and told me her mother had Type 2 before inviting me to rest in their in-store café – in other words, please take this sideshow elsewhere as you’re impeding the happy march of capitalism.

‘Can you stay with her?’ she asked Eric.

‘Of course,’ Eric replied. ‘Caroline, you need to eat something.’

Now it all made sense. Everything dropped into place. I’d had a hypoglycaemic attack. I had taken my insulin but hadn’t followed up quickly enough with food to balance it. Stupid of me. Really stupid. You’d think I would know better after more than forty years of managing the condition.

This also explained the so-called sighting of Mark. I had imagined all sorts of things, when my blood sugar had fallen really low – ghosts, talking walls, tigers in the house. Silly stuff. Something about a hypo brought a rush of creative thought, little of it reliable. I could easily have imagined spotting an old flame in a crowd.

Oh, but what a flame.

‘Would you like a doughnut?’ Eric asked, lifting a pair of silver tongs at the self-service counter.

‘I’d prefer a croissant,’ I told him, and he grabbed one for me.

‘Tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee, please. And since when did you start carrying dextrose tablets with you?’

‘Since you told me you were diabetic.’

I had promised myself a few days earlier that I would attend the Chamber of Trade Christmas dinner dance with Eric, as I had agreed, but wouldn’t see any more of him after that. Eric was all right, but we had no chemistry – at least, not as far as I was concerned. Now that he had so obviously come to my rescue, however, letting him down would be harder.

‘Did you miss a meal?’ he asked, as we sat opposite each other at a Formica-topped table by the Christmas tree.

‘I suppose I did. I popped in for one item, but then I got sidetracked. I was probably already dipping by that stage, or my judgement would have been better.’

An in-store television was switched on across from us, playing an infomercial for a battery-operated toy with which to entertain a cat.

‘I’m thinking of getting a kitten,’ Eric suddenly announced.

‘Really?’ Eric was serious and measured. I couldn’t imagine him with such a little bundle of fun and claws and teeth.

‘Barry in work, his cat’s just had a litter and he’s trying to find homes for them. He’s got two black-and-whites, one tortoiseshell and one marmalade.’

‘I’ve always wondered how a single litter can contain so many different varieties. Human families all tend to look pretty much the same.’

‘Although when you’re a child, people like to say, “You look just like your dad,” or “You take after your mum.” Who did they say you looked like?’

‘Oh, always Mum. She was petite, like me, and I’ve got the same eyes.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, are you just speaking in the past tense, or have both your parents passed away, Caroline? You’ve never talked about them, and I’ve often wondered.’

‘Mmm.’ I sipped my flat white. ‘They were very young. Dad was just forty-three and Mum was forty-one.’

‘You can’t have been very old when you lost them.’

When I lost them. Mum and Dad were always a little bit lost to us kids, but the thing was, we didn’t actually mind. They made up for it by being so … special. And then they died.

‘Seventeen. But let’s change the subject. What are your plans for Christmas?’

‘Oh, just a quiet one, you know. I’ll cook for Mum and me at our place.’

‘Turkey and all the trimmings?’

‘No, no. You need a family to enjoy a turkey – now there’s just the two of us, it’d only be a reminder of happier times. We’ve tried goose, and last year we had a leg of lamb, but this year it’s going to be fish. Confit salmon with lemon and parsley salsa. It’s a festive southern-hemisphere recipe my sister sent me.’

‘Sounds delicious.’

‘You’d be very welcome to join us. And bring your daughter, of course.’

His eagerness tugged at my heart.

‘Sorry, Eric – Tabby and I have a standing arrangement.’

‘Don’t be sorry. It was just a thought.’

Eric insisted on walking me to my car. ‘Sure you’re OK to drive?’

‘I’m fine now, thanks.’

People are often amazed at how quickly I bounce back from a hypo. One minute they’re wondering whether to call an ambulance, the next I’ve wolfed a bar of chocolate and I’m as sharp as anyone. Eric had seen it once before, when we went for a pub lunch and the food took a ridiculously long time to arrive, so he had witnessed the speed and completeness of my recovery and wasn’t overly anxious this time. Good for him.

‘I’ve booked a taxi to take us to the hotel on Wednesday,’ he said. ‘The Christmas dinner.’

‘I’m looking forward to it.’ I’m not.

‘Safe home.’

‘Thanks.’

I slammed my door and Eric stood aside, but did not walk away, instead holding up one hand in something between a wave and a salute.

For just a moment, I wished I liked him more. But then I retracted the thought. My life mightn’t suit everyone, but it pleased me very much just as it was, and there wasn’t room in it for Eric.

I would go home and cook something quick. I would be happy with a toasted sandwich from the sandwich press Tabby had bought me for Mothers’ Day – a clever model where the non-stick plates popped out. I never used our old one due entirely to the deadly chore of trying to clean it.

When I pulled into my driveway, Gareth and Elaine were attaching fairy lights to the outside of their house. Gareth was up the stepladder and Elaine was feeding the lights to him.

‘Hi, Caroline!’ Elaine called. ‘Have you been shopping?’

‘That was the plan,’ I replied. ‘But I got derailed.’

Elaine and Gareth did their Christmas shopping early, I knew, because they led very busy lives, especially at this time of year. Elaine would have all their presents wrapped and labelled already, I was quite sure.

Gareth was a Scout leader and Elaine took Brownies. Gareth bivouacked and whittled and walked for miles and engaged dozens of children for hours, sometimes days. Elaine encouraged hordes of little girls to bake buns and mount climbing walls and grow vegetables. And all the two of them really wanted was to have their own baby. Babies. And somehow they couldn’t.

Gareth turned on the steps to me. ‘Ever wished you hadn’t started something?’ he said.

‘It’ll look great when it’s finished,’ I told him. ‘Very festive.’

I’d have to get my tree soon. The man from the garden centre delivered, and had even been known to bring mine into the house and erect it for me, which was a huge boost. Standing a Christmas tree upright and tightening the screws to hold it there wasn’t a job for a five-feet-two woman in her early fifties.

‘Why on earth do you insist on a real tree?’ Ray’s wife, Jodie, would always ask, as if I were completely mad.

Maybe it was because we’d always had an artificial one when we were kids. Mum wouldn’t stand for the mess of a real tree, and Dad wasn’t going to contradict her on matters of décor.

I don’t think we bothered with a tree at all, when we were first married. Christmas Day was spent with my in-laws. Doris reigned in the kitchen, Bob kept the coal fire stoked like a furnace, and Auntie Jean perched in the corner in fear of Shane, Bob and Doris’s mild-mannered rough collie. We would get there in time for Janice’s call from New Zealand, where she had already had Christmas Day and was winding down, and then it was lunch, crackers, paper hats and wine, thank God. Doris would insist on us staying for the big salad tea at six o’clock, and then we would get out of there, race home and jump into bed.

I’ve made it sound like an ordeal, going to Doris and Bob’s, and it wasn’t. It was good to have somewhere to belong on Christmas Day. I’d had a few where I had been quite alone, and that was no fun at all.

Anyway, as soon as we’d had Tabby, Christmas moved to our place. Doris and Bob and Auntie Jean came to us. We didn’t have a big house, but we had chosen an early seventies build, with one ‘through-room’ precisely because we wanted to have space to entertain. My parents had made exactly the same choice, but in their case it was to accommodate friends their own age, whose parties my brother and I used to spy on delightedly from the stairs. My house was more family-oriented.

For Tabby, we always had a real tree, one far too big for such a house, but I loved the size of it and the smell, and it didn’t bother me one bit that it shed a few needles. That was why we had a vacuum cleaner. Tabby brought home little things she had made to decorate it, at school and at Brownies, and these were the decorations I loved most – a tiny, painted clay angel, a gold star made of carefully folded paper, a bauble covered with patterned fabric and a length of colourful paper-chain.

This year, I expected Tabby and I would kick off with the usual drinks invitation to Gareth and Elaine’s. They filled their house with neighbours first thing on Christmas morning because, I thought, it pushed away the emptiness of no little children in pyjamas running round tearing open presents from Santa.

Indoors, I threw my bag down in the hall, hung my coat on the newel post and picked up the mail from the mat. A couple of cards, which I would get around to, and two brown envelopes, which I would open when I’d got my sandwich on.

Bread was difficult to manage, when you lived alone. A whole loaf meant you were stuck with exactly the same thing for days. A smaller loaf cost almost as much as a large one, so seemed like bad value. In my bread bin I had the tail end of a sliced wholemeal and a couple of brioche rolls that never seemed to go hard. I switched on the sandwich toaster and went to the fridge. There was some cheddar cheese, which I could brighten up with a spread of Branston pickle, and a new bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. It might not sound much, but there was pleasure to be found in little things like something appetising to eat and drink.

I poured a glass of wine and switched on the radio to keep me company as I prepared my sandwich, but the music was too abrasive and I soon went looking for a CD of carols, instead. I chose the recording from Trinity College, Cambridge. Most people went for King’s, but in our house, we knew better. One year, when Tabby had been two or three, this had been her going-to-sleep music, for months after Christmas. At Easter, I had put my foot down and said she had to choose something else or carols wouldn’t feel special and Christmassy any more.

I wasn’t superstitious, or even particularly spiritual, but this scenario had happened so often: I would be thinking about Tabby and at that exact moment my phone would ring and it would be her. That evening it happened just like that.

‘Hi, Mum. What’re you up to?’

‘Just grabbing some food.’

‘You haven’t eaten yet? It’s late.’

She means ‘Be careful’. Tabby worries that I’ll have a hypo in the house on my own some day with no one to notice and feed me sugar.

‘It’s fine. I had a croissant earlier, when I was out shopping.’

‘Ooh. Buy anything nice?’

‘Nope. Nothing. Sorry. How are you, anyway? Were you ringing for anything in particular, or just for a chat?’

‘No chat tonight, I’m afraid. I’ve got a date! So I’m just about to jump in the shower, but I wondered if you super-quickly had any bright ideas of what I might get Noah and Lucas for Christmas. Do you know what Santa’s bringing them?’

‘Now hang on a minute, you can’t just drop “I’ve got a date” into the conversation and change the subject! Tell me more.’

‘There’s not much to tell yet. Let me see how tonight goes.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘No “meet-cute”, I’m afraid. A few of us from work went to Foxy’s for Carla’s birthday.’

‘So you’ve danced with him!’

‘He saw me home on the night bus.’

‘Are you saying he stayed over?’

‘Mum, I am not doing this. Don’t make me sorry I mentioned it. And I haven’t got time to talk, anyway. It’s a first date, and that’s all I’m saying. If it starts to look promising, you’ll be the first to know.’

‘Just tell me he’s not Australian. I don’t want him taking you away to the other side of the world where I can never see you.’

‘He’s not Australian.’

‘Good. Well, in that case, I hope you have a lovely time. Are you going for a meal, or …’

‘It’s just a drink, Mum. Now leave it. But I have tomorrow morning off, and I thought I’d get some Christmas shopping done – I just don’t know what to get anyone, this year.’

‘I’m struggling myself. I thought I might buy the boys an “experience” rather than a thing – maybe theme-park tickets, or something like that. They’re a bit old for dressing-up costumes, and I don’t want to be a bore and give them clothes. Art stuff, maybe? They both still draw a lot.’

‘OK. That’s food for thought. Now I really have to run, so tell me, quickly – how are you? And the boys? And work? Everything all right?’

‘All fine,’ I replied. ‘Everything’s fine.’

But it wasn’t.

Time to do the Friday dance. I quite liked my job at the Gazette. In fact, I liked it a lot. I must have done, to stay at the same desk for thirty years. But everybody loved a weekend. That morning, I had the softest of starts – Fergus, the editor, wanted a colour piece on a Christmas craft sale and coffee morning being held at a church hall in one of our outlying villages.

‘Jamie can take you, and if Lesley Lunt is there – as she surely will be – tell him to put her on the end of a row in the photographs so we can cut her out.’

Jamie was the staff photographer who had replaced Ray. He wasn’t half as good, or half as nice. Lesley Lunt was a local councillor who seemed to do nothing but get herself photographed at local events. She would be grinning out of every page of the Gazette, if we didn’t curtail her.

‘Bring us back some goodies from the cake stall,’ Madeleine on the front desk said, as I burrowed into the small stationery cupboard at her feet for a new notebook.

‘Owl’ I banged my head as I rose.

‘Honestly, Caroline – you do that every time! I’m going to buy you a helmet.’

Jamie appeared, grumpy as usual, and paused to look at the diary for the day’s markings, the local term for his booked assignments. ‘Aw, this is a joke,’ he moaned. ‘How am I supposed to get from St Colman’s to fucking Riding for the Disabled in five minutes? That’s a half-hour drive.’

This happened a lot – people phoned in their requests for a photographer and they all got written down in the diary, but no one really bothered to look at it from the photographer’s point of view. Consequently, he got a list of appointments that crisscrossed the borough. He couldn’t possibly service them all. Everyone agreed there should be a better system, but nobody ever came up with one.

‘Let me see,’ I said, pulling the diary towards me. I didn’t much like Jamie, but I could understand his annoyance. ‘OK. I’m going to pick out the ones that’ll make a big impact on the page, and those are for you,’ I told him. ‘Everyone else, I’ll ring round and explain that we simply can’t make it, but we’ll happily use their pics, if they take their own and email them to us by Monday evening.’

‘And you’re taking responsibility for that?’ Jamie was wary of Fergus, who sometimes seemed to expect miracles of his photographers.

‘I am.’

‘And I’m a witness,’ Madeleine added.

‘OK.’ Jamie seemed satisfied. ‘You ready?’

I loathed the drive to the church hall. As well as being taciturn, Jamie went much too fast up the dual carriageway. I asked him to slow down. I asked politely but made my discomfort unmistakably clear. He ignored me. Ray would never have done that.

When we arrived, I did a quick check of my blood sugar with my trusty old glucometer – if I wasn’t running high, I could enjoy myself and have tea and something sweet while Jamie took his pictures.

‘Don’t drip blood on my seats,’ Jamie said.

I licked my finger.

4.2: excellent. I could have something nice.

‘Caroline! Thanks for coming. And you’ve brought your lovely photographer – aren’t we lucky?’

That was June Black, stalwart of the Women’s Institute, the ladies’ choir and the Blooming Marvellous committee, which kept the towns and villages of the borough in seasonal colour. She was sitting in the lobby with a companion at a green-felted card table upon which rested a battered Quality Street tin f. . .