Page 80 of Last Letter Home
‘Thank you, sir.’ Paul felt nothing. As they filed out, he was aware that Ivor lagged behind.
‘We did our best here, sir,’ he could hear Ivor’s voice, reasonable but with a touch of the plaintive. ‘I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but . . .’
‘Not disappointed at all, Captain. It’s simply that this job’s come up. Someone needs to do it and you are the lucky ones. I’d be glad about it if I were you. Getting out of this hellhole. That’ll be all.’
A moment later, Ivor pushed past Paul, his expression as thunderous as the lowering sky.
Thirty-eight
A little past midnight, the vibration of her phone tugged her from a deep sleep.
‘Is that Briony?’ It was a voice she faintly recognized.
‘Mmm. Who is this?’ She fumbled for the lamp switch.
‘I am sorry to ring so late. It’s Gita, Aruna’s mother, you remember?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Gita.’ She sat up, suddenly alert. The image came to her of an older, rounder version of Aruna, dressed in an emerald sari at the wedding of her other daughter. Gita had a proud, upright bearing despite her lack of inches, and intelligent dark brown eyes that saw everything. Had she given Gita her phone number once? She must have done. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘I’m afraid there might be. Aruna phoned me, very upset. I think it’s to do with her young man, a quarrel of some sort. We could hear that he was there, but we are too far away to do anything tonight and I thought perhaps you might be able to help.’
‘I’ll try to, Gita.’ She slid out of bed, wide awake now. What could be going on?
‘You live close by, maybe you could ring or visit, find out if she is all right.’
It was a couple of miles to Aruna’s, certainly nearer than her friend’s parents in Birmingham, so she promised Aruna’s mother that she would do what she could, and Gita ended the call, full of effusive thanks and begging Briony to phone her as soon as she found out what was happening.
Maybe Gita was exaggerating the problem. Briony sighed and brought up Aruna’s number. The call went to voicemail, so she texted and waited, but no reply came. Then she thought of Gita’s anxious voice and reached for yesterday’s clothes where she’d left them draped over the back of a chair.
As soon as her car slid into the crescent of old red-brick semis where Aruna lived in a first-floor maisonette, Briony realized that something was up. Curtains twitched at bedroom windows, where light gleamed, silhouetting sleepy inhabitants peeping out. She parked in a miraculously free space and climbed out to hear voices, one angry, the other conciliatory. Pulling her coat round her against the cold, she hastened along the curve of parked cars, and at the sight of Aruna’s house stopped dead in shock.
It was Aruna she saw first. Her friend was leaning out of the upstairs window, casting items of clothing into the street. One by one, trousers, shirts, a jacket, flew like diving seagulls to land on the front hedge or the pavement beyond. There was a pause and Aruna’s tragic face gazed down, then she vanished inside, presumably to fetch more.
Briony drew back as Luke appeared from behind the hedge, but he was so busy snatching up his clothes and stuffing them into a holdall that he didn’t see her. She glanced round as a pair of trousers sailed past her to straddle the wing mirror of a car. Luke caught them up, then opened the rear door and shoved everything inside.
‘And don’t come back, ever,’ Aruna yelled down. She was sobbing now and her words were slurred. Briony, back pressed against the sharp branches of the hedge, was appalled.
‘Aruna, for Chrissake,’ came Luke’s hoarse whisper. ‘If you won’t let me help you, go to bed. I’ll call you in the morning.’
‘You can have this too,’ was Aruna’s drunken reply and a heavy object bounced off the hedge and fell with a soft crunch on the pavement near Briony’s feet. She looked down to see a washbag with dark liquid pooling round it.
Luke’s footsteps and she straightened to see his anxious face staring back at her in surprise. ‘Briony!’ he hissed, squeezing her arm as though to assure himself that she was real.
‘Can we get some sleep now?’ a tired male voice rang out from across the road. Then, above, came the sound of Aruna banging the casement shut. All around, neighbours’ windows clicked closed, one by one lights were dimmed and the street returned to silence.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Luke whispered and Briony quickly explained.
He bent down wearily and picked up his washbag by its zip then dropped it into next-door’s wheelie bin.
‘What happened? Will she be all right?’
‘I think so. She’s drunk, but not that drunk.’
‘I must go and find out.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ He pulled her back gently.
‘Why not?’
