Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [64]
His wife watched these emotions flash across his face and fought to stop her grin getting wider. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yes. Alice, as if you hadn’t noticed, is a very sensible child. Anyway, she has to do it.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘She does?’
‘Yes. The term is almost finished. After the summer she’ll have to go on her own.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says the school. We got a letter about it, remember?’
Carlyle grunted. He remembered various letters, but none in particular.
‘The school,’ Helen dropped her mug in the sink, ‘insists that all kids Alice’s age have to be able to go to school on their own. The Headmaster says it’s part of the process of becoming more independent as they grow up.’
‘Becoming more independent?’ Carlyle sniffed, not liking the sound of that one little bit.
‘Exactly.’ Helen put a hand on his arm. ‘You can’t remain a paranoid parent forever.’
Oh can’t I? Carlyle wondered. Just watch me.
Helen squeezed his arm gently. ‘She’s got to start sometime.’
‘I know, I know.’ Carlyle pressed his thumbs to his temples. He could feel a headache coming on. He really needed something to eat. Breakfast, however, would not solve his problem. Far worse than the dangers of the big, bad city (most of which, he knew, were just down to media hype and invention) was the realisation that the golden years were coming to an end. His daughter was leaving him behind.
Almost on cue, there was a call from the hall. ‘I’m off!’
Helen skipped out of the kitchen and gave Alice a hug. Carlyle sheepishly followed. He smiled at his daughter and tried to ignore the spasm of discomfort in his guts. ‘Go carefully.’
‘Yes, Dad!’
He looked her up and down. She looked younger in her uniform than she did in jeans and a T-shirt. He bit down on his fear once more. ‘Will you get the bus?’
Alice pulled on her jacket. ‘I’ve got plenty of time, so I might walk. I could pick up Sarah on the way.’
Carlyle looked at Helen.
‘One of her classmates,’ his wife explained. ‘She lives in Hatton Garden.’
Carlyle turned back to his daughter. ‘But you’ve got your Oyster card with you?’ he asked.
She sighed theatrically. ‘Yes.’
‘And your mobile?’
Another sigh, even more dramatic this time. ‘Yes. And I’ll text Mum when I get there.’
Carlyle glanced again at Helen, who nodded in confirmation.
‘And you’ll text me?’ he asked his wife.
‘Yes, on your work mobile. That way, you might just manage to pick up my message.’ Helen had never been overly impressed by her husband’s insistence on having two phones. In addition to his work-issue handset, Carlyle always carried his own cheap, pay-as-you-go mobile. Currently, it was a Sony Ericsson J132, which had cost him just a fiver at the Carphone Warehouse on Long Acre. He had bought it a couple of weeks earlier and would change it again in a couple of months. Meanwhile, very few people had the number to his personal phone, or even knew that he had one. Carlyle saw this as an attempt to keep at least some of his communications private in an increasingly trackable world. It was so private, in fact, that he had been known to go for days, even weeks, without remembering to check it.
‘Okay.’ He grabbed his daughter and gave her a tight hug, before she squirmed away. ‘Have a great day at school.’
‘I will.’ Alice kissed her mum on the cheek and bounced through the front door. ‘See you later.’ Ignoring the lift, she disappeared round the corner towards the stairs.
Carlyle listened to her footsteps on the stairs until they faded to nothing. He turned and noticed Helen’s eyes welling up. ‘I know,’ he said, putting his arm around her and pulling her close. ‘I know, fucking hell.’
TWENTY-ONE
Sitting in the front seat of the BMW, Rosanna Snowdon cursed the late-night traffic. She was hoping that the congestion would ease, so she could manage to make it home before she had to throw up. The bottle of supermarket Rioja after taping the latest edition of London Crime – on top of the two double vodkas she had taken to relax before recording her show – had not been a good idea. She had vowed to go easy on