Dead Wrong - [3]

Rebecca gave me the name and number. I got through straightaway. ‘Debbie Gosforth? Hello, this is Sal Kilkenny here. I’m a private investigator. Rebecca Henderson asked me to get in touch with you.’ I explained what Rebecca had told me, then asked when we could meet.

‘Not now,’ she said quickly, ‘I’ve one of the children off ill. But I’m at work tomorrow – eleven till three. I could meet you after that? Or Monday – I’m at home Mondays, but I’d rather it was tomorrow if you can.’

I hesitated, reluctant to use up the middle of a Saturday if I could avoid it. ‘Could we do it before you start work?’

‘Yeah, that should be all right.’ She described a cafe near the Corn Exchange where we could meet. She sounded subdued over the phone; maybe she was tired from looking after the child she’d mentioned, or worn down by the experience of being followed by a stranger.

‘How will I know who you are?’ she asked.

‘I’ll wear a red jacket.’

‘Not a pink carnation?’

I appreciated her attempt at humour (even if it wasn’t exactly original) but her tone was too wistful to really pull it off.

There’s no point in driving into town on a Saturday. Parking’s difficult to find and outrageously expensive into the bargain. I got the bus into Piccadilly Gardens. It was a few minutes’ walk down Market Street to the Corn Exchange.

Traffic was snarling up around the terminus and there seemed to be a lot of police vans around. As I reached the top of Market Street I ran into a crowd of people. I thought there’d been an accident, or maybe a robbery. The police helicopter flew overhead very low down. I turned to ask the man next to me if he knew what was going on.

Before he could answer, there was a great bang. Then nothing. A gust of air. I felt the surge in my stomach. A blast of wind and dust, strong enough to affect my balance. A cloud of smoke plumed into the sky. I thought I could hear screaming, lots of screaming. It was a chorus of alarms, shrilling and screeching.

They’d bombed the Arndale Centre.

Chapter Two

Now if you’d asked me which building in Manchester I’d blow up, given the chance, the Arndale Centre would have come out tops (followed closely by the ghastly Piccadilly Plaza complex). Not just because of its ugly facade, like a giant toilet all beige tiles and no windows, but also because of how the place made me feel when I was in there. It was horrible on the outside and terrifying on the inside. I always got lost and could never get out as quickly as I intended. It’d suck you in, just one more bargain, oh, just pop in there, in here, over there. When I finally made it to an exit I’d stagger out into the fresh air, reeling with exhaustion, blinking at natural light, appalled at how far I still was from the bus home. And how little of my list I’d actually bought. Best policy was to steer well clear of the place. Oh, I’d pop into the shops on the outside edge, off Market Street, but I’d be careful to come back out the same way and not get drawn into the back- the never-ending land of artificial lights, fancy tiled floors and piped music.

So it wasn’t my favourite place. But this, this was terrible. My mouth was dry, I kept trying to swallow but I couldn’t. My heart was racing and the rush of adrenalin had made my wrists prickle and the back of my neck burn.

This was real, this was savage. Standing there in the almost silent crowd, realisation dawning. Murmurs, whispers. ‘A bomb.’

Turning to each other, looking into each other’s eyes and finding our own disbelief and horror mirrored there. There was clamour from the sirens and the alarms, the helicopter above, but we were quiet. Quiet and calm.

I stood for ages, bewildered. I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. The police asked us to leave, to clear the area. It finally sank in that there was no way I’d be meeting up with Debbie Gosforth today. A clutch of German football supporters in Lederhosen and multi-coloured knitted top hats asked me the way to their Princess Street hotel in subdued voices.

At long last I turned and began to walk home. It would be pointless waiting for a bus. As I made my way down Wilmslow Road people were stopping to exchange stories. Strangers in the city talking to each other with ease, united in crisis.

I’d no idea how many people might be dead, dying, hurt. Shocked rigid that this had happened here on a bright Saturday morning in a place always thronging with people.

The news hadn’t reached my household. Ray Costello and his son Tom were in the garden, along with Maddie and Digger. I stood there, waiting for some reaction. Nothing. Ray finally clocked that I was behaving peculiarly.

‘Sal?’ he enquired, throwing the ball to Tom and walking my way.

‘There’s been a bomb,’ I said, ‘in town.’

He paled. ‘Oh, God.’

I was so glad that there was someone at home to tell. It wasn’t always easy living as we did, two single parents, each with a child, but I realised how much of a family the four of us were and how important that was to me. Ray and I don’t have a relationship, not a sexual relationship, though people often assume we do. We started out as co-tenants, sharing the rent and the chores and taking turns to baby-sit, but over time we’ve become good friends and the arrangement has grown into something solid. We’ve built a home together, somewhere we belong, safe and welcoming. A good place to raise our children.