The Overnight Part 7

"I know you're the man for it. Maybe you already realised we need someone to run Lorraine's reading group."

Wilf presses one forefinger against the length of his lips so hard they're still pale when he releases them. "Wasn't that supposed to be tomorrow?"

"Still is. Too late to tell everyone who's coming that we've cancelled, even if we knew who they were. You're working late anyway, and I remembered how you said at your interview you love nothing more than reading."

"I don't know which book she chose. I may not have read it."

"Planning anything tonight?" When Wilf only lifts a cupped hand as if he's trying to catch words to feed into his mouth, Woody says "See, I knew I picked the right guy. Remember how you told me you can get through a book in an evening. Lorraine chose the Brodie Oates novel. Shows she was doing her best to be part of the team. Shouldn't give you any trouble, that size of book."

Ray sees Wilf decide against responding and Woody 92 take this for agreement. "Thanks, Wilf," he says, and even more briskly "Anything to add, Ray?"

It's less a question than a dismissal. "Can you let us in, Wilf?" Ray says so as to feel in some kind of charge, and has to point out that Wilf is presenting the wrong side of his badge to the plaque on the wall. As they reach the staffroom Nigel looks up from the latest Woody's Wheedies sheet. He seems uncertain how bright he should allow his eyes to grow. "Ray," he says, not so much a greeting as an expression of sympathy, and in the same tone "Wilf."

"Nigel," Ray feels bound to respond in as similar a manner as he can produce, though he thinks Nigel may be overdoing it a little. He runs his card under the clock and stuffs his rustling package into his locker, then heads for his desk. He hasn't switched on his computer when Mad emerges from Woody's room, followed by a policeman and a policewoman with expressions as identically sombre as their uniforms. "Thank you," the woman says without acknowledging that Mad is close to tears. As the pair tramp out through the staffroom, Mad mumbles with her back to Ray "Can I stay in here a few minutes?"

"Have your break if you like."

Apparently she doesn't. She sits behind him in Nigel's chair, facing the wall and Nigel's dead computer. Ray feels shut in, as though the emotion she's trying to restrain has merged with the windowless concrete. A m.u.f.fled sniff he a.s.sumes he's meant to notice escapes her, prompting him to ask "Would it help to talk?"

"They said I couldn't have locked my car."

"You think you did."

"I more than think." She swings around to stare not quite at him with a fierceness that almost dries her eyes. "They said there wasn't any sign it had been broken into, but that just means whoever did knew how to, mustn't it?"

"A child would be able to do that, you think."

"It's only Ross who says it was a child, and he didn't see what they looked like. I didn't even see anybody in the 93 car." She turns her stare on Ray without toning it down much. "Besides, I'll bet some children these days know how to do that and worse."

"I expect that's possible."

"Saying it's my fault the car was stolen is like saying I wanted, I wanted Lorraine dead."

"Good heavens, I shouldn't think so. I'm certain n.o.body--was "Somebody wanted it," Mad says and glares through Woody's door at the security monitor, where grey figures foreshortened to dwarfishness are roaming the maze of the screen. "Maybe when the police have finished with my car they'll be able to hunt them down."

"Let's hope so. How did you get here today?"

"My father had to change his hours to bring me. My parents wanted me to take a couple of days off, but I don't think I've got the right. It's like saying I was harmed as well."

Ray meant to entice her away from her pain, but she seems unwilling to renounce it. "I think that's very--was he's compelled to start to say with no idea how to continue. He's glad that Woody gives him an excuse to interrupt himself. "Oh, you're still here," Woody says to Mad as he strides towards his office. "Any problem?"

She dabs her eyes with the back of her hand so swiftly she might almost just be glancing at her watch. "Only getting over being interviewed."

"Is that going to take much longer?"

"Ray said I could have my break."

"Did he? I guess you'd better be taking it, then." As if she can't or shouldn't hear, Woody tells Ray "At least she came into work."

"Did someone not?"

"Ross called in sick. The police are having to go to his home."

"I hope they won't be too rough on him." Ray wishes Mad weren't hearing him ask "Did they know he and, well, Lorraine had started going round together?" 94 "Not from me they don't. Did I miss something? Did you know about it, Madeleine?"

"Yes," she just about admits.

"Really? Pity, then. Kind of proves what I've come to think."

Since she doesn't respond, Ray says "What's that?"

"It's my experience it doesn't help the store if personnel get too close."

"Oh," says Mad.

"That's my experience," Woody says as if he didn't grasp or doesn't care that she meant she could do without hearing. "The girl I was telling you I phoned, Ray, I don't believe having her here would have helped me keep my mind on the job."

With enough dignity for the person referred to as well as herself, Mad stands up and walks out through the stafriendroom, where Nigel is intoning "Gavin. Greg. Jake. Agnes. Jill."

"Don't sound like that or you'll have me in tears," Jake pleads.

"You're starting me off too," Agnes warns him or Nigel.

"The hardest part was telling Bryony last night why I was weepy," says Jill. "And you may all think this is stupid, but I felt guilty because she couldn't remember who Lorraine was."

"I'd like to see anyone call you stupid for that," Agnes challenges.

When Greg clears his throat Ray thinks he means to answer her until, presumably to Nigel, he says "We don't want customers seeing anyone's upset, do we? It could put them off."

"We can't afford that." Woody has been watching two dwarf police leave the shop, but now he makes for the stafriendroom. "Give me the floor a moment, Nigel."

'Take as long as you need. It's your time, after all."

"No, it's the store's." Woody lets more than a second of it gather mutely before he says "Okay, I know everybody's shocked and grieved about our loss. We wouldn't be 95 human otherwise. Does anybody want to take a moment to say anything?"

"We ought to send flowers," Jill says.

"Already ordered. On their way."

"When's the ...8 Agnes has to start again. "When's the funeral?"

"I believe next week."

"Maybe some of us should go," Gavin says without a trace of a yawn.

"Sure, if it's your day off or you can swap with someone, but I've thought of another way we can remember her. Each of you and everyone that isn't here just now get to take charge of half an aisle of Lorraine's. That way we don't need to hire anyone else and it's like saying she can't be replaced, which she can't be, am I right? And I guess you all know what else that means."

"Do we?" Greg asks as though his colleagues may not have grasped it.

"Everyone will need to work the overnight s.h.i.+ft," says Woody to a silence Ray imagines full of shrugs and other expressions of unenlightenment. "Why don't we think of it as a tribute to Lorraine."

Greg makes an enthusiastic sound, Nigel slightly less of one until he increases it to match, as Ray becomes aware of listening and that Woody may have finished his oration. The risk of being caught idle digs its claws into Ray's stomach. He switches his computer on and wills the blank grey screen to show some life. The opening icons gradually surface, and their colours seep up to fill them. What's the significance of the thin rectangular icon halfway down the middle column? He can't recall having seen it before, and it's unidentified by any word. He's tempted to open the program to discover what it is, but clicks on Staff instead.

The time clock feeds its details to the computer for him to check before forwarding the information to head office. He brings up the November staff record onscreen and 96 scrolls in search of Lorraine's name. He's copying the details of each of her last days into a separate file when he notices there's a stranger on the screen. It isn't a name. It could be a smaller version of the unfamiliar icon, so blurred that he can't be certain where its outline ends and the slightly paler background starts. Peering closer makes his eyes feel drawn out of focus. It appears among the entries for every day he has examined so far: just the minute after midnight is attributed to it on the first day of November, while it has three minutes to its credit on the next afternoon, and five the following day. It must be showing the times when some error crept into the system. As it rises yet again to meet his scrolling it puts him in mind of a grub. Seven minutes on the afternoon of the fourth, eleven the next night, thirteen early on the sixth... He hears footsteps behind him and twists around. "Calm down, Ray," Woody says, displaying his palms. "It's only me."

"Do you mind glancing at this? There's something I don't understand."

"Show me."

He sounds more edgy now than he implied Ray was. Ray turns Ms back on him and is scrolling upwards through the doc.u.ment when he glimpses at the foot of the screen a movement that makes him think of a worm retreating into mud. The line that credited the stubby lump with thirteen minutes in the shop has disappeared, not even leaving a s.p.a.ce. When he scrolls through the days he has dealt with, and then down as far as the latest s.h.i.+ft, he can't find any sign of the trespa.s.ser. "Am I seeing it yet?" Woody says.

"It isn't here, but I'll show you where I think it's coming from." This seems so urgent that Ray closes the program without saving any changes. He's bewildered when it closes as if there weren't any, and still more bemused to see that the nameless icon has vanished from the desktop. "It's buried itself," he protests.

"Was it crucial?"

"I don't know. I hope not." As he reopens the time clock 97 program he's afraid the entries may have been corrupted, but they look unaffected. "It must have been one of those things computers do for no reason," he decides aloud.

"We can do without that. I'll leave you to get on with it, then."

The staff meeting has come to a muted end. Even the dispersal of footsteps is subdued and wordless. Woody's pallid flattened reflection dwindles into the computer screen, and then its depths swallow him. His office chair squeals on its axis and releases a creak, but Ray still feels watched; he could almost imagine that he's being spied upon from wherever the unknown icon and its smaller version hid. He makes himself concentrate on his task, and has arrived at the twelfth of the month without encountering any intruder when the building seems to quiver. Only his eardrums and perhaps the image on the screen are doing so as someone pounds on the back door of the shop. "Always more stock. That's what we're here for," Woody cries and dashes through the stockroom.

Very soon Ray hears the m.u.f.fled clank of the bar on the delivery door, and thinks the trundling of the pallet truck is just audible too, a noise like an underground restlessness. It seems to descend and eventually to rise again, followed by a second clank. Perhaps that sounds so final because he's copying the details of Lorraine's last day, which appears never to have ended, since she didn't return to the clock. The notion catches in his throat, and he has to hold a long not quite steady breath, then swallow. He's closing the program when Jill says overhead "Manager to counter, please. Manager to counter."

Her voice is ominously controlled. Ray glances at the security monitor and sees her boxed in by a pair of tills, one forefinger resting in the middle of her upper lip as though it's holding her pensiveness in place. She doesn't lower it until he's nearly at the counter. "What's the situation, Jill?" he's just not too breathless to ask.

"It's Lorraine's father. He wants to know where ...8 98 "Where is he?"

"He said he'd wait outside. Shall I page Woody?"

"He's busy as usual. I'll deal with it," Ray says, only to find n.o.body outside the shop.

The fog is hulking less than a hundred yards away. A single floodlight is visible, a drowned dripping sun raised like a trophy on a pole. The late November sun has been reduced to a greyish glow with no ident.i.ty apart from the murk. The ruminations of the motorway seem enmeshed in the fog; the constant suffocated murmur sounds as though the obscured landscape is struggling to breathe. As Ray steps onto the tarmac that glistens like mud he remembers the ambulance crawling into view, its approach heralded by the fireworks of its pulsing lights, altogether too festive a spectacle. When he opens his mouth the chill of the fog he's tasting s.h.i.+vers through him. He can't quite shout or even say "Mr Carey." Instead he forces a cough.

He's wondering whether the murk has smothered the sound when he hears a tentative footstep, followed by several more a.s.sured or at least more rapid, and a figure blunders into sight opposite the travel agency next door. Ray sucks in a harsh breath that tastes like grief, because the face above the muddy shoes and grey trousers and padded grey coat--a face squeezed smaller by a fat grey hood--is Lorraine's. Of course it's only a version, one bearing a moustache like a couple of yellowing brushes. Its skin is so pale and loose and wrinkled that Ray senses the man has lost a good deal of strength, but as he veers towards Ray his tired eyes try to brighten. "Are you from the shop?"

"I'm a manager. Ray," Ray says, stretching out a hand as he steps forward.

"Just one?" When Ray uses both hands to clasp his right, which he offers as though he has almost forgotten how, Mr Carey peers at Ray's gesture before submitting the faintest of smiles. "Just one manager," he amplifies.

Ray isn't sure if the smile is volunteered as an apology or a plea that Mr Carey is ent.i.tled by his situation to make 99 feeble jokes. As Ray feels his lips s.h.i.+fting to imitate it, Mr Carey lets the smile drop. "Where was she?"

Ray relinquishes the cold slack hand. He mustn't point; he cups his fingers to indicate the ma.s.s of fog beyond the splintered tree-stump. "Over there," he murmurs with all the regret and gentleness the words have room for.

"Can't you remember exactly?"

"I should be able." Whether Ray would prefer not to be is another matter, but Mr Carey's melancholy feels like a suppressed accusation. As Ray glances back from heading for the scrawny grove he sees the fog thicken and close with a hungry eagerness over the shopfront. The shop has been erased by the time he's past the tree that's farthest from the one Mad's car felled; even the glow from the display windows is indistinguishable from the murk. "About here," he says, he hopes no louder than enough.

Lorraine's father is pitiably keen to join him. As Ray bows his head towards the black surface, Mr Carey paces away and halts about six feet from him. "Here?"

"About, I think, I'm afraid, yes."

"So close."

Mr Carey is gazing past him. Ray turns to see the outlines of the shop entrance and the windows drifting in and out of visibility like a mirage. Could some illusion of the kind have mocked Lorraine in her last moments? He hopes the idea hasn't occurred to Mr Carey, who says only "Did you leave her out here in this?"

"I think we thought it could be worse to move her."

"Worse," Mr Carey echoes as though sadness won't let his voice rise to a question.

"We put a coat over her and someone was with her all the time."

"Even though she'd already left us. I do know that. Thank them for me and her mother all the same."

"Won't you come inside?"

"Will I feel closer to her there?"

How can Ray answer? He s.h.i.+fts uneasily, aggravating 100 an impression that the tarmac is so thin underfoot he can sense the cold dark earth beneath it. "I should," Mr Carey decides. "I'll be meeting her friends."

The sound Ray makes is neutral. Perhaps Mr Carey doesn't hear it as he heads for the shop, talking volubly now. "We kept meaning to surprise her at work. We'd have liked to watch her when she didn't know we were. Never put anything off if you can, isn't that what they say? I never understood why till now. Her mother's being looked after by her sister in case you were wondering. She'll be asleep for a while on the sedatives, that's why she isn't with me."

Ray would like some of this to mean Lorraine has a sister. Mr Carey reaches the pavement in front of Texts and halts with one foot on the tarmac. "Have you children yourself?" he seems to hope.

"A little daughter."

"Just one?"

He seems unaware of echoing his previous attempt at a joke, and Ray thinks better of drawing attention to the similarity. "She's our only child so far."

"Ours too. They grow up before you can catch your breath, you ought to realise. They're meant to, that is." His gaze slips past Ray as though to lose itself in the fog, and then he drags it back. "Would you care to see?"

"Of course, if you'd like me to."

Though Ray is unsure what he's inviting, he has sensed too much of a plea to refuse. He takes a pace towards the shop entrance to encourage Mr Carey to follow, but Lorraine's father lingers as if the tarmac has caught his shoe while he unzips a pocket and takes out his wallet. He uses a s.h.i.+vering finger and thumb to widen a slit in the leather and extract a photograph the size of a credit card, which he displays on his outstretched palm. It shows a small Lorraine in a white blouse and striped tie and with her hair in not quite symmetrical pigtails. Her eyebrows 101 couldn't be higher, nor her grin wider or prouder of itself. "It was her first school photograph," Mr Carey says. "She was five."

The fog flaps closer behind him, as though the photograph has attracted it or something it conceals or is exhaling. Ray can only think he's imagining this nonsense to prevent himself from being too distressed by the photograph. "They'll all want to see it, I expect," Lorraine's father says abruptly and hurries into the shop.

Ray is afraid the alarm will play its trick. Only Frank the guard greets Mr Carey, however, by frowning at the photograph as though it's being proffered as identification. Mr Carey is too intent on heading for the counter to notice. "Were you friends of my daughter's?" he asks Agnes and Jill.

The women draw together as he holds the photograph out to them. Having blinked at it, they raise their eyes with such care that they look wary of spilling the contents of the lower lids. After a pause during which tiny violins chirp overhead like birds trapped in the shop, Jill says "That's ...8 "My little Lorraine before she grew up, well, nearly did. At least now I can see she must have been with people she liked. She never told us much about her time here, but her mother was right, you don't need to say you're happy if you are. We were never that demonstrative a family." He rests his tired gaze on the photograph long enough to be making a silent wish before he asks "Was she a credit to you?"

The violins have chirped a relentlessly cheerful bar or several by the time Ray grasps that the question was aimed at him. "To the shop, I should think she was," he exclaims. "We'd all say so, wouldn't we, girls?"

"I would," Agnes says with more than a hint of Lorraine's defiance.

"And me," says Jill, then drops her gaze as though it has been tugged down by her teeth on her lower lip.

"Would you even if it wasn't true? Don't worry, it 102 would only prove you were her friends. I'm glad her mother will be meeting you."