Celia chose the café beside the park on Saturday morning.
Children in Halloween costumes were already gathering outside for an afternoon trail. A small vampire sat beneath the window eating a teacake with great seriousness.
I arrived early. Celia was earlier.
She had ordered tea for herself and left the other place empty. I appreciated that more than I expected.
“I’ve told them,” she said before I sat down.
“The police?”
“Yes.”
I took off my coat.
“What have you told them?”
“Before I say it, will you let me finish?”
“Yes.”
She took a tissue from her sleeve, folded it and laid it beside the cup. I noticed that she’d chosen a table facing the entrance. Every time the bell over the door sounded, her eyes moved towards it.
“Why did you ask me?” I said. “Why not Vivienne?”
“Because Vivienne’s known me too long. She keeps saying it will be all right before I’ve explained.”
That answer surprised me. It was also the first thing Celia had said about these conversations that I could understand without qualification.
“I can’t promise that.”
“I know.”
She looked briefly relieved, then frightened again. The café was filling. People squeezed past our table carrying drinks, apologising without looking at us. We were only two women having tea to anyone who happened to glance our way. I wondered whether she had chosen the place because that ordinary appearance might hold us steady.
She looked towards the window, where a parent was adjusting a child’s plastic fangs.
“I went to the hall.”
For a moment, the café’s noise seemed to continue without reaching me.
“To see Martin?”
She nodded.
“He wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“Beth. Money. Things that had got out of hand.”
The waiter came to take my order. I asked for tea because it was the first word available. He left, and neither of us spoke until he was out of earshot.
“You said you were collecting a present.”
“I know what I said.”
“Why not tell us he wanted a conversation?”
“Because Beth would have thought I was going behind her back.”
“Were you?”
She drew away from the table.
“I was trying to make things easier.”
“For whom?”
It was the question Beth had asked about the delayed support. Hearing myself use it made me think of the five of us around the estimate, knowing so little about what else was happening.
Celia turned her cup on its saucer.
“He was upset. Angry. He thought we were telling her what to do.”
“And you wanted to explain that we weren’t?”
“Something like that.”
It was a phrase with room to hide several conversations.
“What money?” I asked.
She looked up sharply.
“You said Beth, money and things getting out of hand.”
“The help we’d offered. He didn’t understand it.”
I thought of David Rook, the supplier reference, Helen’s receipts. Those were different pieces of information. I couldn’t fit them together merely because Celia looked frightened.
“Did you give him information about her?”
“I didn’t give him her new address.”
That was narrower than the question.
I let the silence remain.
Outside, the little vampire dropped half his teacake. His mother picked it up, wrapped it in a napkin and carried on speaking to another parent. The morning was full of problems that ended there.
“What happened at the hall?” I asked.
Celia swallowed.
“We spoke. It wasn’t a good conversation.”
“And then?”
“I’ve given my account to the police.”
“Then you don’t need to give it to me.”
“I need you not to think the worst.”
I looked at her hands. They were shaking, but shaking had never told me whether someone was frightened of an injustice or of being found out.
“I think you went to see him and didn’t tell us. That’s what I know.”
“You make it sound so cold.”
“I’m trying to keep it from becoming something I don’t know.”
She looked down.
My tea arrived. I thanked the waiter, although I no longer wanted it.
“Does Beth know?”
“Not from me.”
“She should hear it accurately. Not through the street.”
“I know.”
“Please don’t ask me to keep it from her.”
Celia pressed her lips together. Then she said, “I won’t.”
We finished neither cup. At the till, she tried to pay for mine. I paid it myself, not because accepting tea would make me dishonest, but because I needed one ordinary action under my own control.
Outside, she touched my arm.
“I have been a good friend.”
It was not a question.
“You’ve helped people,” I said.
She waited for more. I had no honest sentence that would do what she wanted.
After she left, I wrote down the conversation and contacted the police with what she’d told me. I did not assume that saying she’d already spoken to them made my own account unnecessary.
Then I messaged Beth to ask if she was available for a call.
She replied almost immediately.
They’ve told me Celia saw him. Did you know?
I looked towards the park gate through which Celia had disappeared.
Only since this morning, I wrote.