The Harbinger Read online

  Ellie laughed aloud at the intonation of the question. Sue’s and her mum’s run-ins were legendary, although they generally agreed to differ on matters in hand regarding the committee. Sue thought her mum could be a bully. Ellie couldn’t disagree.

  “She will be joining me, and I can see the thought has brightened your day.”

  Sue made no comment, other than an “umphh” as she grabbed the items used to make Ellie’s and her mum’s cappuccinos, and then busied herself putting them together. The coffee machine gurgled, hissed and spat. When eventually finished, Sue placed them on the counter, and Ellie’s resolve over the cakes had finally been overcome.

  “Could I have a piece of coconut cake and a piece of Bakewell tart as well, please,” she asked politely.

  Sue looked pleased with the extra sale as the faint hint of a smile made the wrinkles at the side of her mouth twitch. “Of course, love,” she said in local parlance. “You go to your table, and I’ll bring them on a tray.”

  Ellie made her way through the minefield of detritus that always seemed to accompany children and end up on the floor—from school rucksacks to cuddly toys, carrier bags and mothers’ handbags. Any moment, she expected to step on a Lego brick.

  Finally seated, she chose to have her back to the window, facing the way she’d come in. Although the vista showed a beautiful, darkening winter landscape featuring the entrance to the park, she wanted a rest from the cold. She’d had her fill for one day.

  Ellie heard her mother coming before she could see her, the distinctive tap, tap of high heels on the wooden floor as she walked towards the café. She knew her mother was wearing her high-heeled boots, but for the life of her, Ellie couldn’t understand how she managed to stay upright, especially when patches of the ground were still viciously icy underneath the snow. Thank goodness she didn’t have far to walk.

  She saw her mum poke her head around the screen at the entrance, scanning everywhere before her gaze alighted on Ellie. She lifted her arm in acknowledgement and made her way through the same obstacle course that Ellie had.

  Ellie had to admit her mother looked chic. As she made her way towards Ellie, she noticed the bright red skirt beneath her mother’s black coat with the collar turned up in a stylish way, the corners turned out to make wings. She wore a matching red scarf knotted loosely at her neck with a black roll-neck silk blouse showing above. She looked as though she’d had her hair restyled too, in a slightly shorter style. Highlighted, no doubt, thought Ellie, espying the new auburn glints.

  “Hello, darling. I’m sorry I’m a couple of minutes late. I had to take extra care walking. There is black ice on some areas of the pavements.”

  Ellie looked at her mother, her face neutral. “Mum, you should get better footwear. Something with some grip. The last thing we need is you going base over apex and breaking a hip. People don’t heal as well as they age. You of all people should know that.” Ellie now scowled. Her mother was an ex-nurse, so she should know better.

  “Oh, darling, for goodness’ sake, don’t go on. I’m not in my dotage yet. Although…”

  Ellie rolled her eyes, but the rattling of the tray stopped her making any further comment. Ellie smiled at Sue, and Sue smiled back. Her mother, well, did what she always did when Sue was around and ignored her existence. Once the items were on the table, Ellie placed the money for their purchases on the tray, along with a healthy tip. In some way, she hoped it made up for her mother’s ignorance and rudeness. “Keep the change,” she said and nodded at Sue with thanks. Sue walked away, whistling.

  When she looked at her mother, she was already taking in a huge gulp of foamed milk. Ellie shook her head. “Mum, I do wish you’d play nice. There’s no need to ignore her.”

  “There is every need, and I don’t want to waste my time talking about her. Now, how are you, darling?”

  There it was—the question Ellie always dreaded. She was running out of answers to give. “I’m fine, Mum. I don’t know what else to say. I’m as fine as I’m ever going to get. That’s the truth of the matter. Here, I got you a Bakewell tart.” Ellie placed the plate with the tart on it in front of her mother and handed her a fork. Although Ellie looked at the scrumptious coconut cake, her appetite was diminishing fast. It wasn’t often she felt like eating anything these days. Now she stared at some food, which would later likely end up in the bin.

  Dee Hanray surveyed her daughter with sorrowful eyes after demolishing the first mouthful of food, washed down with a swallow of coffee. She wiped the corner of her mouth with the paper serviette, disturbing the corner of her red lipstick line. Ellie smiled inside but didn’t mention it to her mum.

  “It grieves me to admit it, but the woman knows how to cook. This Bakewell is superb.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Of course, she can cook. She had her own café for forty years until the council condemned the building. I’m just glad we were lucky enough to get her.”

  Her mother looked stern. “Yes, well, you know my theory about that. I’m still convinced she crossed someone’s palm with silver.”

  Ellie felt a flash of anger. She hated her mother’s illogical ideas. “Who would that be exactly? The man who has almost total control is Michael Devlin. Are you suggesting she slipped him a few quid? He’d spend more than she could afford in dog food. If you don’t start thinking before you make accusations, one day you will end up in serious trouble.”

  Her mother blushed. “Oh, I’m not suggesting for a moment Michael did anything wrong. He wouldn’t. He’s a good man.” Dee looked ashamed as she digested the implications. Then, unexpectedly, she added in a hushed voice, “Are we going to do anything to mark Alex’s birthday?”

  Ellie stared at her with shock registering on her face. She’d been avoiding thinking about it for weeks. Now, suddenly her mother had made it resurface. Ellie shook her head and then stumbled words left her mouth. “I thought I would just have a quiet day. However, I’m open to suggestions. Let me know if you think of anything.” Ellie’s head began to throb. The headache had appeared with no warning.

  Dee put her mug down with a clatter on the saucer and rose from her seat. She made a show of checking her watch. “I’m sorry that I have to cut short our chat today. I have an appointment at the opticians at four-thirty, so I had better be off. I’ll call you at the weekend, darling. Thank you for the coffee and cake.” She bent down and kissed Ellie on the forehead, grabbed her belongings, and scurried away.

  Ellie stared at the piece of coconut cake sitting on the table before her. The headache was making her feel nauseous. She asked Sue to put it in a doggie bag so she could take it home and have it later, or so she hoped. Another good reason for her not to eat—while her mother was grilling her.

  Inside, Ellie could feel emotions rising to the surface. Anniversaries and appointments still stunned her, sending her tumbling into some kind of eerie darkness. She’d cleared her phone of various appointments—school plays, doctors, clinic and goodness knows what, relating to Alex, each one creating a miasma of sickness. Her dad was kind enough to do the initial ringing round to try to save her from getting upset. Some forgotten ones still crept through, the ones she buried deep... those that almost destroyed her.

  2

  When Ellie awoke in the early evening, the thudding headache had receded to a mild throb. A couple of ibuprofen would be enough to relieve it. She ambled towards the kitchen in the ambient light, clicking up the heating on her way past the control at the bottom of the stairs, and then turned on the lamps on the ground floor. The last thing she did before entering the kitchen was to reach out and touch the framed photograph of Alex she’d had mounted behind glass.

  His smiling face beamed down at her, caught between a half-smile and a belly laugh. The photographer had put some gel on his newly cut hair in an effort to give it a tousled look. What it had done was turned his hair a couple of shades darker and made him look mischievous. In an effort to elicit a smile on cue, he told Alex jokes. The resulting ph
oto came from… “Why do bananas put sunscreen on before they go to the beach? So they won’t peel.” She would remember that joke forever, and more importantly, how her son had reacted to it.

  Her hand instinctively reached up and stroked his cheek with the back of her index finger. She closed her eyes, imagining she was doing it for real. Then, suddenly, her hand recoiled. To her horror, she felt the coolness of the glass beneath her touch instead of the warmth she remembered. Her eyes were wide now, as the memory of him laying before her at the morgue, covered only with a white sheet up to his chin, flooded into her consciousness. Ellie put the palm of her hand against the wall as her knees weakened. He had been cold then, too. Not her vibrant boy, filled with life and love for the world around him. Cold… like a corpse.

  A sob caught her throat, causing her to gag. She rushed into the kitchen and hung her head over the sink, leaning heavily with her elbows. No sickness came, only waves of nausea, but the headache returned vigorously to its previous fierceness. There was nothing else for it. She would have a very early night and hoped sleep would dissipate her symptoms.

  Ellie made herself a mug of tea, grabbed the cookies from the box, and put them into the biscuit barrel before retrieving the untouched coconut cake from its brown bag. Two ibuprofen went on a plate with the cake. She stopped briefly and looked around the kitchen to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She prayed sleep would come quickly and give her some respite from the continuing wakeful nightmare that was her life.

  Holly took in a deep breath as she tried to control her anger. She sat on the edge of her daughter’s bed and exhaled the air in her lungs… loudly. She hoped her daughter Leah got her point.

  “Leah, we keep going over the same things every night for the past few weeks. You say there’s nothing wrong at school, yet you seem very reluctant to go. Trying to pull the sickness rabbit out of the hat before dinner then wolfing down a large portion of bean casserole is not going to work with me. I know you’re not struggling with the lessons because I’ve asked. Is that it? Are your lessons too easy and you’re bored?”

  She stared intently at Leah, who pulled the duvet up under her chin, as though protecting herself from some kind of attack. Holly didn’t want to be hard on her daughter, but they needed to find the underlying cause of the problem. Her bright, polite, gregarious, fun-loving daughter had changed during the last few weeks into a mawkish, sullen, and quick-tempered nightmare. Not to mention difficult to live with.

  Leah stared back, the long light blonde hair framing a face set in defiance. Ice blue eyes carried the same look. Holly threw up her hands in despair as she stood up.

  “Leah, I’m going to have a word with your dad this evening. We’ll see if he can get some kind of sense out of you at some point during the weekend.”

  Her daughter didn’t answer. She just stared ahead, seemingly alone with her own thoughts.

  “Okay, if you’re not willing to talk to me, this is easy to do. Turn off the light and get some sleep. Don’t forget to put in the clothes you’ll need for the weekend at the bottom of your rucksack. Don’t forget to cover all the bases with your footwear. You know what your dad is like for suddenly coming up with an idea out of fresh air, even in the depths of winter.” Her speech delivered, Holly turned and left the room, closing the door with a slight bang behind her.

  Holly kept her promise and phoned Phil the minute she got downstairs.

  “I’m at my wits end with her, Phil. She’s twelve years old, albeit a little more mature for her age, and I’m walking around my own house on eggshells, just in case I say or do something to upset her. When I do upset her, she flies into a rage and tries to make out whatever it is as if it’s my fault. She’s tried every trick in the book for me to keep her away from school. I’m getting nothing from her. So I don’t know where to look now. The school says everything is all right there, as far as they know, and she’s still with all her old friends so one would assume it’s okay on that front. Is she saying anything to you?”

  There were a few seconds silence on the other end of the line, as though her ex-husband was trying to formulate an answer that would appease her. He believed in the laid-back approach to child rearing. Holly was distinctly old-fashioned in her parenting, strongly believing the child should be aware there are consequences to any action.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “I have noticed a difference these last few weekends I’ve had her. Quiet and moody. Not the usual get up and go. I just put it down to premature hormones. The approaching teenage years and all that. She hasn’t said anything or even hinted at any other worries she may have. Not to me, anyway. Do you think the doctor might be able to help?”

  Holly shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “Don’t you think he might be in the same position as we are? If she won’t tell him what’s wrong, how’s he going to give her the correct treatment?” In her frustration, Holly screwed up her eyes and dragged her thumb and forefinger across them. When she lifted her lids, she saw stars.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll keep her in the house this weekend. We’re due a heavy snowfall anyway, so it’s a good excuse to stay home. I’ll try to engage her as much as possible, see if I can wheedle out some kind of clue. I don’t like the idea that something’s upsetting her. She’s twelve. Her life should be carefree, and if it’s not, I want to know why as much as you do.”

  Holly was content he would do his best to resolve the situation, but she wouldn’t have felt so isolated had he been in touch with her about it first. It felt as though he had the benefit of doing all the good stuff with Leah while she had the burden of being the stricter, more responsible parent. They needed to have a long talk soon. Things were going to have to change.

  The following Thursday, Ellie had to forgo her sit in the park. She had a new project in the early stages and needed as much time as possible dedicated to it. No matter how she felt on the inside, she still had to earn a living. However, the thoughts of her boy persisted at a deeper level, and she knew she would have to deal with the guilt sometime soon.

  Imprisonment in the house all morning with her laptop for a cellmate gave her a primal need to get a little fresh air and exercise, just for a short while. She decided to set off a little earlier before meeting her mother at the library, and have a brisk walk around the streets, away from the deep snow that persisted in the park. The roads had it piled in the gutters thanks to the snowploughs, but the pavements were safely walkable.

  At the end of the road, she turned right onto Freemont Avenue, keeping up a brisk pace to ward off the cold and giving her time to walk a little further before her visit to the library. The still freezing temperatures meant the streets were mainly deserted, but as she approached the large academy school that served the local area, she saw a group of girls a short distance from the entrance. Their backs formed a shield as they stood in a semi-circle facing the tall wall of the school’s perimeter. For a moment, Ellie suspected they had bunked off class to have a crafty smoke—until she heard the jeering.

  “You fat slag,” a high-pitched voice screamed loudly.

  “You think you’re better than us just because you have a few fucking brains?” said another voice, loaded with such viciousness that Ellie had difficulty associating the comments with a group of children.

  The jeering and cheering continued as she neared the group. When the chant of SLAG! SLAG! SLAG! rendered the air, Ellie became very worried. The group had taken on a mob mentality. One of the girls grabbed for a handful of hard snow from the top of the pile in the gutter, and as fists and feet began to fly from the others, Ellie broke into a run. She saw the chubby girl ram the snow into the face of a tall, willowy girl, who lifted her arms as she tried to protect herself. Her light blonde hair was flying in all directions as she tried to avoid punches to her body and the hard snow pushed into her face.

  “Hey!” Ellie shouted at the top of her voice. “What do you think you’re doing? Leave her alone!”


  On hearing the sound of Ellie’s voice, their actions became frozen, as though they were participating in a game of statues. The entire groups’ heads had turned in one direction, obviously towards the ringleader waiting for further instructions. The tall, chunky girl in charge glanced up, noting Ellie’s presence, and took off at a racing run in the opposite direction, quickly followed by the others. The leader moved unusually quickly for a big girl. The victim had her head bowed and her hands on either side of her body, resting against the wall in an effort to keep herself upright. By the time Ellie reached her, the girl’s knees were sagging.

  Ellie barely got her words out in a whisper such was the exertion she’d made.

  “Are you all right?” she asked the girl, who still hadn’t raised her head. Ellie was still gasping to catch her breath. “Are you hurt? Should I call an ambulance?” She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, but she immediately flinched at the contact.

  “No! Please don’t.” A look of panic, or it may have been fear, crossed the girl’s face. “I think I just want to go home, but my mum’s at work. I need my mum.”

  Ellie wanted to see any damage for herself before she made any final decisions on the girl’s fate. “What’s your name?” Ellie asked gently as she cupped the girl’s chin in her hand and lifted her head. She could see there was blood on the ground and wanted to know where it was coming from.

  “My name’s Leah Simons. Please, could you phone my mum at the library, so I can go home and be with her?”

  As Ellie scanned Leah’s face, she found the site of the blood’s source. There was a ragged gash down the side of her face running from eye to chin, with blood still dripping freely from it. Ellie retrieved a clean tissue from her bag and pressed it on the site of the wound. “Here,” she said, in a matter of fact manner. “Keep some pressure on your cheek while I talk to your mum. Would you like to sit down somewhere?”