there was nothing. The last person to contact me had done so yesterday morning from a withheld number. Tommy’s number.
I considered Jason’s hairbrush. Some of the blond strands snagged in its teeth still had the white root-plugs attached. I’d watched enough TV to know that the root was the part of the hair they used for DNA testing.
I looked at the withheld number on the screen.
It had been weeks and still, I was unable to forget the child from the off-licence.
I imagined Jason’s face were I to be able to come to him with the wonderful news I’d found his son.
Maybe Tommy’s phone call was an opportunity? Maybe he was the one person who could help me get definitive proof as to the boy’s identity? If I could make Tommy believe that his interest in me was reciprocated, then I’d be able to visit and spend time with him – and hopefully, through his association with Keith, get access to the child, all without sounding any warning bells.
I got to my feet. I was a fool to let this chance pass me by. I needed to get closer to the boy. Without the metal security cage between us. Without spying on him in the street. Tommy. Tommy was the key.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I spent the rest of the day at work checking and rechecking my phone as though, if only I looked at it enough times, I could make it ring. But it had remained infuriatingly silent and now, as I returned home to find there was still no sign of Jason, a new and horrible collection of fears began to take shape.
In two years of marriage we’d never gone this long without talking. Did it mean I’d overstepped a mark there was no coming back from? And what of the folder I’d found? What else might he be keeping from me?
I got changed in a daze and as I got back in the car, I kept reminding myself I had a plan. A good, solid plan. All I needed was some of the boy’s DNA. Proof. Proof would put everything that was wrong, right. For the next few hours at least, I decided to keep my mind focused on that.
I was less than a mile away when I saw the Angel of the North. Scarecrowing up out of the dusk, it stood next to the motorway, beaconing me in. I took the next turn-off and soon I was on a narrow B road, framed on both sides by high black hedgerows. I navigated the weaves and dips of what quickly became little more than a bumpy countryside lane. The car’s headlamps cut through the darkness. Before long, I saw a sign advertising the pub Tommy had described. I slowed down and hunched forward over the steering wheel, searching the gloom for the entrance. Around the next corner my headlamps picked out a tall wooden pole, a square board announcing the pub’s name amidst an elaborate coat of arms insignia. The Ravensworth Arms: Public House and Inn.
I pulled into the car park and got out. In front of me was the pub. A long, narrow building built out of sand-coloured stone, its ground floor was ablaze with light. Meanwhile upstairs, thick curtains swagged the windows of what were presumably the hotel rooms for hire. Undeterred by the chill October wind, a collection of smokers stood by a bench near the far end of the building.
I headed for the small door set forward into an eaved vestibule and tried not to lose my balance as my metal-heeled stilettos sliced into the car park’s softer sections of grass and mud. Inside, orange lights burned in bowl-like glass shades fixed to the ceiling and the air was warm and hop-scented. A few people at the bar looked over at me and whispered. There was no one dressed in anything more formal than a jumper and jeans. I must look odd standing here in my high heels with my hair curled and pinned.
I scanned the pub from left to right. Tommy had said he would be here tonight with or without me, but it was almost 9.30 p.m. I was two hours later than the specified time. I started to worry that I’d come all the way here for no reason when I saw him. Sitting apart in a snug situated towards the back of the room, he was nursing a pint in front of a fire. I approached where he sat. Wearing jeans and a