‘Oh, that’s awful.’
‘And when the Velodrome first went up the roof leaked. Probably be the new Concert Hall next,’ I said.
‘I hope not,’ she said, ‘I intend to be a regular there.’
‘On a student grant?’
‘An occasional regular, then.’
Later I rooted out the evening paper. Tina Achebe was the main story, whole front page. Despite all the ‘Gunchester’ stories a murder is still big news in the city.
There was a photo of the house in Levenshulme, quotes from a neighbour who had heard arguments on the Wednesday night and Thursday morning and had alerted the police when she couldn’t get an answer from the house. The report said there were signs of a violent struggle but there was no detail about the cause of death. There was a grainy photograph of Tina and Jimmy posing formally in front of some blossom trees. Where did they get the photo from? No charges had been brought, the report said, but Mr Achebe was assisting police with their enquiries.
I had a bath, tried to relax. All the while images of Tina and Jimmy churned round my mind. And I struggled to convince myself that whatever had happened I couldn’t be held to blame. I’d just been doing my job. There’d never been any atmosphere of violence around Jimmy. I wouldn’t have taken the work on if I’d sensed anything like that. It was a losing battle. In bed I lay awake far into the night waiting for exhaustion to release me.
Birdsong. A note of cheer on a cold March morning. Then I remembered Tina. Dragged myself out of bed and down to breakfast.
Sheila was there, finding her way round the kitchen. I didn’t think it was fair to confide in her. I’d passed off the police call of the previous evening as routine enquiries.
I had promised Agnes we’d call at Kingsfield but I needed to check if Ray could look after Maddie. We often did separate things at the weekends, each of us only responsible for our own child.
Tom and Maddie were glued to Saturday morning television. I asked them where Ray was. After three goes Tom managed to disengage long enough to answer. ‘He’s taken Digger for a walk.’ I’d have to wait.
They arrived back an hour later. Digger, with mud up to his belly, stank to high heaven. Ray shut him in the kitchen.
‘Can you look after Maddie for a couple of hours?’
‘Sure, when? I said I’d take Tom over to my mother’s.’
‘Nowish. I just need to ring this woman up and check.’ I got through to Agnes. She was ill.
‘Some sort of flu, I think,’ she said. ‘I’m really not up to it.’
‘Shall we leave it till next week?’