School Reunion

Chapter Four

Thursday the 10th

Batttersea, London

Jake walked out of his house towards the tube station, and stopped dead when he saw the local paper. A murder, nothing too drastic; but still, a waste of life. It was his reoccurring nightmare.

They'd been stabbed walking home from work one night. He could just imagine the blood running out of him, along with his life. Did they feel the blade or not? It would hurt.

He shivered and tried to forget about it on the tube towards his kitchen.

Holloway, North London

Katie thought that there was something familiar about the man sitting opposite her on the train. Something about the set of his forehead, the shape of his eyes and his mouth seemed to remind her of someone.

She got off and checked that she was at the right station: she managed to get back onto the train before it pulled out and left her stranded in Camden.

Newcastle

Narinder Jawanda looked up the train timetable on her computer while her sister made lunch.

"It'll be fine," Parminder said to her. "I'm going back home tonight, remember Jolly?"

(A childhood nickname, given in irony; Parminder was Jazzy)

"Oh? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Good luck with the ferry. How's the packing?"

Parminder made a face. "I haven't started yet."

"Really? I finished yesterday."

"How's the novel coming along, sister dear?"

"How's the diet, sister dear?"

"Fine."

They stared laughing at each other simultaneously. "Mam would be so cross at us arguing like this," said Narinder.

"Mam?" mocked her younger sister. "You've gone native."

They compared homes throughout their risotto and it wasn't until the taxi arrived that Parminder remembered her empty suitcase.

Cross-Pennines train

Heading south

Hamish could barely believe it! Jocasta had finally agreed to come down to the class reunion with him!

He had his earphones in but didn't hear Coldplay - instead he was looking at Jocasta: her hair glinting red in the weak Northern sunshine; her blue eyes watching the rolling landscape; her pale pink, perfectly sculpted lips mouthing the words to a song...

"Seen something?" she asked, turning towards him.

"O-oh, nothing," he replied quickly. An awkward pause. "What are you listening to, Jo?"

"Jocasta, please, and No Words."

"There must be. What's the title of the song? Or are you still annoyed with me?" he said, ticking her neck slightly.

"Oi!" she said, giggling. "I hate been hopelessly ticklish. You're annoyed by someone and you end up paroxysms of laughter."

"I'm thirty-six and I don't know what that means."

"Ever heard of this wonderful book? It's called a dictionary."

He smiled at her sweetly.

Wigan

"Hurry up, Stuart!" Benjamin shouted at the young man. "You need to make sure that we have enough glasses and enough food for the party tomorrow!" Ben sat down at the table and hoped that something bad would happen. The property price always goes up when the place is notorious.

Reading

Jennifer smiled at the desk top while talking to the imposing man on the phone. "Oh?" she said. "Easy. I can find you Vancouver in County Durham." A short blast.

"Yes, but next Monday is the earliest I can - yes, I am 'just' the photographer, but I manage-"

Jennifer slammed the phone down. "Prat," she mouthed at her assistant, Mathew. The phone rang again, and after another short blast she shouted "Monday or nothing!" Silence.

She put the phone down and whispered "Round one to me."

Mathew smiled. "D'you want me t'go an' find Vancouver while yeh go off drinking avec vous amis?"

"They are not my friends. Not for years and years-"

"An' years?"

"Shut it. Now then. We can take your car because it's got the equipment in, but we can't listen to that hideous whining."

"Qu'y at-il de mal à Fred Astaire?"

"Mathew," she said, clambering into his car after a long walk in muteness. "If you keep showing off your French GCSE then by the time we get to Cambridge you will be dead and I will be in custody."

"Ok," said he, switching on Hand in Glove to annoy her.

The Royal Clarence

Wigan

8:47pm

It was only eight in the evening, but Gaia was already on her second glass of wine. The rain fell hard against the glass roof and she was terrified. Let's just say that Gaia had a... tricky... relationship with bar stools.

There was a voice behind her. "Honestly, Hamish. You forgot any smart clothes? What about meeting your old friends tomorrow?"

"Goodness: you've aged twenty years in one train journey!"

"I'm sincerely old already; my idea of a 'good night in' is Fox Glacier Mints, Midsomer Murders box-set and a novel with a sad ending."

Gaia grinned at the young woman's monologue and turned round to see them. She raised an eyebrow at the man. Hamish, had the woman said?

"I'm sorry," she said to the two bemused faces. "But did you go to Eastbourne Comprehensive?"

"Yes," he replied. A silence. "Are you Irish?"

"Yes. I've just arrived here from Dublin, but my family are from another part of Ireland originally - then we moved to Manchester when I was seven. I went to Eastbourne as well." She sipped her wine, willing him not to be as thick as she remembered.

"Gaia Smith!" he shouted, and the entire bar turned to stare at them all. "I remember you!"

"Hamish Dylan. Finally. Is this your. . . wife?"

"Yes," he said quickly.

Swindon

"Nina?" asked her husband Victor. "Aren't you meant to be going to that school thing tomorrow? Because I have some important work at the uni I need to do tomorrow-"

"Yes, I know," she replied, taking their son Ernest. "Ok, Brian Cox; you go and keep your job."

"Of course. Because I get the sack then II'd have to look after the kid while you went out to work as a prostitute in some London back street."

"It doesn't bear thinking about; you looking after the lad."

Victor smiled after his wife and went off to work.

Southwold

"D-a-a-d..." said Sadie, Robert's youngest daughter, peeping around his bedroom door. "Where are you going tomorrow?"

Robert smiled at the eight year old. "School," he replied.

15:o8 Saturday 19th July

Suffolk Police Station

The four police officers looked down at the grainy CCTV footage.

One figure looked down as they lit up a cigarette. They were facing the wall with the camera.

One figure stole in from the dark street, up the alley. A gloved hand crept out and grabbed the blue tarpaulin from a bin and covered their head.

The smoker saw the attacker, but no one else did. A flash of the knife twice, and they fell to the ground while the murderer fled.