He put a foot on a step and began to climb. Memories of Shane went through his mind, but he knew he had no reason to be fearful. Shane was a long time ago.

But what about the young woman killed in Blackley?

The stairs went straight upwards with a landing to his left, but the landing was bordered by solid wooden panels, so he couldn’t see whether anyone was hiding there, crouching behind, waiting to pounce. Rupert kept his back against the wall, only the occasional creak of a step or the brush of his clothes interrupting the silence.

He reached the top of the stairs and looked around. He exhaled loudly. No one there.

Then he heard the creak of a door, the sound of someone moving on carpet.

‘Who’s there?’ he said, his voice weak. ‘Shane? Is that you?’ He heard something behind him, the fast rumble of feet along the landing. He turned around quickly, a shout caught in his throat. He went to scream, but suddenly an arm went around his neck.

He fell backwards, pulled down. There was stale breath on his cheek, coming at him in short bursts. He ended up on the floor. Then Rupert gagged as something was rammed into his mouth. A cloth, he could feel it in his throat, his cheeks pushed out. There was someone on top of him, hands around his neck. Rupert tried to push him off, but his opponent was heavy and strong. Rupert reached up and tried to scratch at his face, but there was a scarf there, tight around his attacker’s face. He tried to get more breaths through the cloth, but it was impossible, his attacker’s hands squeezing hard.

As he looked up, the last thing Rupert saw were his attacker’s eyes, calm, cold, his head tilted slightly to one side.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Laura checked her watch as Joe drove along the Cleveleys seafront, her side window open, the salt on the breeze making her lick her lips. It was almost two o’clock.

Laura turned her engagement ring on her finger absentmindedly as she thought about how different Cleveleys was to her home, Turners Fold, even though it was only an hour away. And that was how she thought of Turners Fold now, as home. It had taken a long time before she’d been able to think of it in those terms.

Cleveleys seemed a world away from the dark green of the hills around her cottage. Here, the sky seemed brighter, as it soaked up some of the sunshine that glimmered on the sea, vivid blue to the horizon, not the stone-grey of the Pennines. Turners Fold was like all the other cotton towns in the country, characterised by lost industry and grand civic gestures, where old millstone buildings stood alongside imposing Town Halls and theatres, proud emblems of a prosperous past. The buildings in Cleveleys didn’t brag or boast. They were either small redbrick or whitewashed seaside houses, with stained glass awnings over shop windows held up by ornate pale-green iron pillars. The seafront stretched into the distance, the beach below a mix of pebbles and sand, the sea a distant shimmer.

Laura had taken Bobby to the seaside since her move north, but it had been to Blackpool, and so it had been all noise and tack and lights, and then a dash for the car before the stag and hen night parties took over the streets. She imagined that it would be fun if she was a teenager, or with a gang of friends on a pub crawl, but the pavement stands selling cock-shaped rock told her that it was no place for children. She hadn’t taken Bobby back a second time.

Cleveleys seemed different though. This was tea-room seaside, all buttered bread and afternoon dances. Even though she could see Blackpool Tower in the distance, it seemed like a whole different experience.

‘Something on your mind?’ Joe said.

‘Uh-huh?’ Laura said, and when Joe nodded down to her ring finger, she blushed and smiled. ‘I do it a lot. It still seems strange, being involved in wedding plans again.’

‘Strange?’ he said. ‘I thought it was supposed to be exciting.’

‘It is, I suppose, but it feels different to the first time.’

‘I suppose isn’t giving it much of a billing,’ he said. ‘How is it different?’

Laura looked out of the window again as she mulled over her answer. ‘My first wedding was the usual glitzy thing. Lots of frills and white, with bridesmaids and flowers, every girl’s dream.’

‘And the marriage?’

Laura gave a small laugh. ‘Not as good as the day, and maybe that’s the problem. It’s hard to see it as a big new thing, because I’ve been there before, and that’s why we’re doing it much more quietly. But I can’t say that to Jack.’

‘Why not?’

‘Come on, Joe, you’re the one who understands how people tick. For Jack, it’s his first wedding, but for me it’s not, and the last time I went through it, the life afterwards turned sour pretty quickly. What if it happens the same with Jack?’

‘Do you think it will go the same way?’

Laura thought about that, her fingers playing with her engagement ring again. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘That took a while to come.’

Laura smiled. ‘No, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘It will work out.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘It’s this, all of this,’ she said, waving her hand to the window.

‘What, the north?’ he said, an eyebrow raised. ‘Is it that bad up here?’

‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ she said, laughing now. ‘It’s not as simple as that. I like it up here. It’s my home. It’s Bobby’s home. I love London, but I like the open spaces, the slower pace of life here, but the wedding makes it all so damn final. I don’t think Jack will ever move back to London, and once we are married this will be it.’

‘If you like it here, what’s the problem?’

‘Because for every day we stay up here, it makes it less likely we’ll ever go south again, and I’m a long way from my own family. From Bobby’s family. And Bobby will get settled, and he’ll meet a northern girl, and then that’s it. Leaving the north will mean leaving Bobby, and I’ll never do that. And what if me and Jack don’t work out? I’ll be stuck up here, on my own, just waiting for the occasional visit from my son.’

‘Jesus Christ, Laura,’ he said, laughing. ‘You’re thinking too far ahead and waiting for it to go wrong. This could be it, happy ever after.’

Laura didn’t reply.

‘It’s just pre-commitment nerves, that’s all,’ Joe said.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she said, then she turned to look at Joe. ‘Do you know when we got together?’

Joe shook his head.

‘It was right after his father died,’ she said. ‘Was I just a crutch? I’m older than Jack. Not by much, just a couple of years, but I come with a child and baggage, and sometimes I think he could have done better.’

‘You’re quite a catch, Laura McGanity,’ he said, his voice softer now.

Laura blushed quickly. ‘I wasn’t fishing for that,’ she said.

He smiled, his eyes warm. ‘I know, but you shouldn’t go into your marriage thinking that you are not worthy of your husband. You’re an attractive woman, intelligent and funny, and your age makes you even more so.’

Laura felt her cheeks burn red. ‘I was lonely though, back then, I’ll admit it. I’d had a couple of boyfriends, but they didn’t go anywhere. They were just someone to wake up to for a while. So was it the other way round? Was Jack my crutch?’ She laughed. ‘You know, this makes us sound just a little needy.’

‘I’ve never heard you talk like this before,’ Joe said. ‘You’ve got the jitters, that’s all. If you and Jack were not meant to be, he would have been just another boyfriend. Love is like that, complicated and messy. It’s not all star-crossed fate. It’s just two people meeting at the right time, and if you click, feel that spark, well, that’s love. What was it like the first time you got together?’

Laura turned to look out of the window and thought back to their first kiss. Comforting Jack at his father’s house, the death still raw. She was holding him, and then there was the touch, and the kiss, and yes, the spark. She remembered the excitement, nervous and lightheaded, and then the ecstasy as they made love, like a dizziness that made her want to cling onto him.