Read Online Crying Out Loud by Cath Staincliffe - Free Book Online

containers, defying gravity with their overhangs. The feel as you enter is of a sweeping space, a hotel or conference centre, perhaps. The atrium soars twenty stories high and each floor has vistas to the Pennine hills that fringe the city to the north and the east. A bank of lifts whisk people heavenward to their fates: for adoption, bankruptcy, custody hearings. There’s a café on the ground floor where Valerie had arranged to see me. I had described myself (grey wool pea-coat, turquoise scarf) and she waved me over. A woman in a navy trouser suit with silver-grey shoulder-length hair, expertly cut. Valerie had fantastic bone structure so, although her face was heavily lined with age, she was still very attractive. She’d paid attention to her teeth, too: they gleamed white and regular.
    Valerie had finished a snack and I refused her offer of a drink and sat across the table from her.
    â€˜You went to see Heather?’ she asked. ‘How was she?’
    â€˜Upset.’
    â€˜It’s still very raw,’ she said. ‘You don’t put any store by Damien Beswick’s retraction?’ There was a no-nonsense, teacherish tone in her voice which got my back up.
    â€˜I’m keeping an open mind,’ I said, ‘still building up a picture of events. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’
    She weighed me up for a moment. ‘OK,’ inviting me to proceed.
    â€˜Just describe that day,’ I said.
    â€˜Heather rang me in a complete state, mid-afternoon. Charlie had told her he was off to some sales convention in Birmingham but she didn’t believe him. He’d more than enough work on and he’d never touted for jobs outside the north-west before. She thought he was using it as an excuse to go see this other woman.’
    â€˜Libby Hill?’
    Valerie nodded.
    â€˜Heather had already told you about her?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yes. He’d agreed to stop seeing this woman for a few months. They didn’t want to mess up Alex’s exams and I think Heather hoped he would come to his senses. But then she suspected he’d broken his promise and asked me to help her find out one way or the other. She thought if we used my car Charlie wouldn’t notice.’ Valerie shrugged and rearranged her plate on the tray in front of her. ‘It all seemed a bit  . . . seedy.’ She looked up. ‘I suppose it’s the sort of thing you do all the time, in your line,’ she said dryly.
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ I agreed.
    â€˜So, I tried to dissuade her but she was set on catching him out and I owed Heather a lot. She’d been brilliant when my own marriage was breaking up.’ She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say no.’
    â€˜How did you know each other?’
    â€˜Through church.’ Valerie caught sight of someone across the foyer and waved hello. She turned back to me. ‘I went round there, called for Heather and we parked a few hundred yards down the main road. When Charlie came out and turned right at the junction, we would go after him. We didn’t have long to wait. He set off about four.’ She frowned. ‘It really was the most horrible, awful irony.’ She gave her head a little shake. ‘As you probably heard from Heather, we followed him until the turning for Thornsby and off he sailed. The opposite route from Birmingham. Heather knew he must be going up to the cottage. She was furious – hurt, too. We went back to hers and I didn’t feel I could leave her like that so I stayed with her. Alex was there but he didn’t know about any of it.’
    â€˜Didn’t he realize something was going on?’
    â€˜No, he was in his room most of the time. Meant to be cramming in revision for his mocks but it sounded like he’d got some video game playing. We do advise them to revise to music but not that sort of racket.’ She was being sardonic. ‘Heather had to tell him to turn it