with Felicity’s imminent departure and that it will pass.
He starts in the parks. There is a small collection of tents and awnings by the bowling green on Christ’s Pieces and he calls out a greeting as he approaches. They all know who he is. He stays a while with the dark-eyed mother and baby and the sixteen-year-old Scottish boy whom she seems to have adopted.
‘I’m sorry,’ Joe says, when the boy comments upon his absence over the last few weeks. ‘I had some personal problems I needed to sort out.’
‘It’s not about the stuff,’ the boy says, looking down at the sandwich wrappers. ‘It’s – you know – someone to talk to. Knowing someone gives a shit.’
In his absence, the street people have become angry. The failure of the police to find Bella’s killer has convinced them that no one cares what happens to the poor and the miserable.
‘You remember that hostel I mentioned in Peterborough?’ Joe says. ‘They’ve got a space for you. They can help you find work. Even go back to school if you want.’
The boy looks back at the woman and the sleeping child. ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘I’m needed here.’
Talking to the homeless usually makes Joe feel better about his own life. Tonight, every encounter seems to depress him more. Once he leaves the parks and hits the streets, he finds it harder to track down the people he’s looking for. Their number seems to have diminished. This should feel like progress but doesn’t. There is a nervousness in the city tonight, and even those people who know Joe shrink away at his coming, as though he too has become someone to fear.
In his pocket he has a pack of giant chocolate buttons for Dora, her favourite treat. She isn’t by the market. He knows that she sometimes sleeps on deck of an empty boat at Jesus Green Lock but there is no sign of her there tonight.
The vague sense of unease that has dogged his footsteps since he left home assumes a more solid form as he approaches the skatepark on Jesus Green. Taking seriously the possible sighting of Ezzy at Bella’s funeral, the police have been on the lookout ever since but there has been nothing further.
‘Have you seen Dora?’ he asks Kirk, the old soldier.
‘Who?’
‘Dora. In her sixties. Wears a green coat and a blue hat most days.’
‘Daft old bird, pulls a trolley around? I think she’s down by the pond.’
‘OK, I’ll try there. Thanks, Kirk, look after yourself.’
He is glad to leave the skatepark behind. Even in the darkness, the sound of skating seems to haunt the place and he can’t quite push away the thought of Ezzy, small and slight but phenomenally strong, hurtling towards him with a blade in her hand.
It’s a fair walk from Jesus Green to Silver Street pond, and he thinks he might call it a night soon, whether he finds Dora or not. He leaves Sidney Street to walk past Boots on Petty Cury, because she sometimes sleeps in the doorway, but she isn’t there tonight. From there, he passes through one of the quieter, older parts of the city centre. As he walks down Free School Lane, the buildings keep out what little light the moon and stars throw down, and there are no streetlights. He quickens his pace, knowing how quickly a skater would speed along the smooth road surface. Telling himself that it is Shane, not Ezzy, who broke into his flat doesn’t help. The dread of her follows him like an ink-black shadow.
And whilst Ezzy might be long gone, Shane haunts the city still. He has seen it in the faces of the homeless tonight. They are living in perpetual fear.
He is halfway along the narrow street now, the furthest point from potential escape and his heartbeat has been picking up for several minutes. The university buildings on his left are empty at night and the street is overlooked by dozens of small black windows, without blinds, curtains or shutters. He has no reason to believe himself in danger on this particular street, but the anxiety he has sensed tonight among the homeless is infecting him too.
Something falls at his feet. Small stones, or maybe a broken tile from a roof. He steps away from the building and looks up in time to see a shadow dart behind a chimney stack. He sets off again, faster this time. There cannot be anyone on the roof. People do not climb the roofs of