should think so,’ Taheera says. ‘There’s a tour every half hour. Shall we?’
‘I’ll give it a go,’ Emma shrugs, laughing, as if she’s not sure she’ll make it. ‘I’ll try anything once.’
Chloe shakes her head, rooted to the spot, trying to understand what she’s seen.
‘You coming?’ Emma says.
The other two women are walking across the open space that surrounds the building. Taheera looks back, inviting, shaking out her straight black hair. Chloe looks up and sees someone falling from the tower, long hair streaming out behind. It can’t be. She looks again and there’s nothing. Taheera and Emma are walking away from her. She can’tstay here alone, so she forces herself to step forward, longing for the claustrophobia of the shopping street.
As they get closer to the building, Chloe thinks she might be sick, but she doesn’t tell them that. They climb a wide flight of steps.
‘I’ll sit here, by the wall of the church,’ she says, pressing her back into the warm stone and sliding down until she’s cross-legged.
‘They call it a minster, actually,’ Emma says. ‘Are you not coming in?’
Taheera glances at her watch and looks out across the open space as if she’s expecting someone. A young man is working his way round a tour group towards them. He’s taller and slimmer than the man who was shouting outside Meredith House last night.
He stops a few feet away and flicks a glance to Emma and Chloe, as if he’s waiting for an introduction.
‘Hey! You made it,’ Taheera tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear. It makes her look instantly younger.
‘Yes, I made it,’ the young man says.
‘Hiya! I’m Emma, pleased to meet you.’
Emma holds out her hand to shake his and Chloe thinks she sounds a bit forward, a bit desperate. Taheera doesn’t introduce him, just suggests they go inside. That suits Chloe, the fewer people she has to talk to the better.
‘I’ll stay here,’ she says, ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache.’
‘Are you sure?’ Taheera looks concerned.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You’ll stay right here, on the steps?’ Taheera says. ‘I don’t want you wandering around getting lost.’
‘I won’t budge. Promise.’
Chloe watches them go in, Emma leading the way. As the young man passes, Chloe catches a glimpse below the hem of his jeans. He’s wearing an electronic tag round his ankle. His hand reaches for Taheera’s and together they disappear inside the Minster.
CHAPTER THREE
Doncaster
After a run of night shifts, Sean slept until mid-afternoon. He’d got two nights off and was hoping to get into town before the estate agents’ shop closed. He pulled the little square of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. Fabulous studio apartment to let in sought-after square, a few minutes’ walk from Doncaster centre. He dialled the number. Getting a place of his own had been on his mind for a while, but it had to be the right place, at the right time. When he had everything sorted, he would tell his nan. A woman answered the phone and invited him to come in right now, if he was in the area. She’d be happy to take his details and set up some viewings, including the flat he’d got his eye on, and there were others that might appeal. He thanked her and said he’d be there shortly.
The afternoon was beginning to cool as he rode his moped up the hill through the Chasebridge estate. He usually tried to avoid this route, but today he stopped near the top of the slope, beside the playground. It looked as if someone had lita bonfire at the foot of the slide. A patch of asphalt had sunk into a hollow, its edges curled up, like burnt bacon. There was something about the girl in Maureen’s newspaper that was pulling him back to where he’d sat on the swing, a witness to something he didn’t understand at the time. He never told his dad what he’d seen that day. Jack Denton’s moods had taught Sean to be wary of starting conversations for fear of them
Salomé Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk