All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,6

from you right now?’

‘I do now, miss.’

‘You know that I know you don’t have final period free today, so there’s no reason in the world you should be heading outside right now.’

‘I know, miss, but I was just looking for—’

Miss Jalloh held up a hand to silence him, fingers splayed, before counting them off one by one. Kat had seen her perform this trick before: the moment she folded her little finger into her palm the bell rang, electronic pips repeating throughout the building.

‘How do you do that?’ said Wesley.

Miss Jalloh smiled sweetly and answered by pointing him back along the corridor. ‘To final period, if you please.’

The school had stirred to life, chairs scraping and voices tumbling over each other, the shouts of teachers’ final instructions competing with the excited babble of their students. Kat fought the urge to run. Stepping out from the wall, Miss Jalloh’s all-seeing eyes flicked to her, and Kat braced herself for punishment or fright. Neither came – almost at once the teacher’s attention reverted to Wesley.

‘Sorry, miss,’ he said, and turned around to pass Kat without so much as a glance.

The classrooms behind her boiled over into the corridor. Kat waited for somebody to notice. She would almost have welcomed a gasp or scream, anything but the vacant tide that broke around her, as if she were a boulder in the flow of a river, unworthy of attention. Smothering her rising panic, she hurried past the unseeing Miss Jalloh and out of the building.

Then she ran across the car park to swipe her pass at the gate. Ran towards home until her lungs burned and a sharp pain in her side pulled her up short. Doubled over, she tried not to see the pavement through her ankles, the thread of her jeans embroidered in her hands.

A breeze made something rustle on her back. Kat reached under her arm to find a piece of paper stuck to her blouse with chewing gum. It was folded in half once, and inside was a scrawled, smudged message.

I see you.

contactthelonelypeople

Kat clutched the message to her chest. Somebody had seen what had happened.

Somebody had seen her.

3

The Peak of Human Ingenuity

Wesley had known for a while that there was little hope for his future, but he would have thought he was at least qualified to wash cars. The one-hour tutorial before he was even allowed to hold a sponge suggested otherwise.

‘The second coat of wax is where it really counts,’ said Dave zealously, Mum’s latest boyfriend. ‘It might seem like overkill, but a good shine can really make up a customer’s mind.’

Although he was there to work, Wesley had known in advance that the whole endeavour would be set up like a bonding experience. Still, Dave seemed more interested in romancing the electric lime Ford Focus at his fingertips than playing dad-in-waiting. Even though he owned the used car dealership, he’d stripped down to a T-shirt as soon as Wesley arrived and started filling buckets with water (‘power hoses damage the paintwork!’).

While Dave dabbed on the second helping of wax, Wesley watched him closely. He was better looking than the last couple of boyfriends: head shaved to fuzz, tattoos so dark on his black skin they could have been etched there at birth. This was the first time Mum had dated anyone since they finally got away to their own place. Two months together and counting. Long enough that Wesley needed to worry.

‘How long have you had this one?’ he asked. The oil-stained forecourt was only big enough to hold seven or eight cars, parked in two tight rows.

‘A few months,’ said Dave. ‘I think the colour might put people off.’

Usually, Wesley would refuse to do anything like this with one of Mum’s boyfriends. They always got on better without them. It had been an unspoken rule with his older brother Jordan that they would never relinquish any of their power to some new bloke on the scene. Except Jordan had betrayed all that when he left.

If only Mum hadn’t looked so hopeful when she asked. Plus, the extra money would finally give him the chance to contribute.

‘All right, grab the chamois,’ said Dave.

‘You sure you two don’t want some alone time?’

Dave whipped the cloth at him playfully, and they spent the next few minutes quietly buffing the wax like it might magically transform the car’s fortunes.

‘That’s the ticket.’ Dave beamed, showing off his wheeler-dealer silver tooth.

The repetitive work did little to take Wesley’s mind off Kat Waldgrave. He