Page 38 of All Our Missing Pieces

‘If you want me to be your friend,’ Beatrice hissed, ‘you’ll stay out of my business. Got it?’

Before I could retaliate, saying again that it was Orla’s business she’d been prying in, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Orla’s tread was distinctive – brisk and light, always the tap of leather-soled shoes rather than the thump of trainers.

As if we were one person, Beatrice and I slipped out through the door and waited on the landing.

‘Girls.’ Orla rounded the corner of the first-floor landing and stood looking at us, perplexed. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘We were looking for you,’ Beatrice said.

‘There’s an estate agent downstairs who wants to speak to you,’ I explained.

But I realised that the man from Digby Marchant would have long since given up and continued to the next potential property listing. If he wanted to give Orla his sales pitch, he would have to try again another time. And Beatrice, by the simple use of that word ‘we’, had made me complicit in something – something harmful and wrong.

I knew, just as surely as Beatrice must have known, that I would never tell Orla what I’d seen that morning. I didn’t want to betray Beatrice and I didn’t want to hurt Orla, and therefore I would keep quiet.

Beatrice smiled and opened the door to her own bedroom, and I headed back to find Luke. As I turned to walk down the stairs, I saw Orla’s gaze moving from me to Beatrice, puzzled and worried.

TWENTY-SIX

Beatrice expected to need her trusty A–Z map book to locate the address Neil had given her when he’d called to say his grandfather would be delighted to meet her, and asked whether she was free on Sunday. Her carefully worded email to the Irish National Adoption Contact Preference Register had left her Hotmail account several days before, but from what little she knew about bureaucracy she wasn’t expecting a response any time soon, so she’d taken Neil up on his offer – she might as well continue with her own investigation in the meantime.

As it turned out, she did need the A–Z – but only to consult the index and flick through to the page it led her to.

It was the same page she’d consulted multiple times already, from the first time she’d used the map to find Damask Square. The paper was already dog-eared and smudged with the prints of her fingers, grimy after getting off the bus or Tube. Tracing her fingers over the grid from the top and right of the page, she found they met at a location just a couple of hundred yards from Damask Square.

It was one of the council estates just off the main road – Beatrice had walked past it almost every day. Past, but not through – there’d been no need for her to deviate from her accustomed route and, besides, part of her had felt apprehensive about venturing into the estate, as if she didn’t belong there; it wasn’t for the likes of her.

Well, all that was about to change.

Pulling back her hair and checking her reflection out of habit, Beatrice tucked the map into her purse and headed outside.

It was a hot summer day. She’d expected when she arrived in London that the city would be permanently shrouded in fog, either raining or about to rain. This spell of glorious weather had taken her by surprise, and she still never quite trusted it. Within a few feet of leaving the house, she realised she was dressed too warmly in her jeans, college sweater and sneakers, and could feel perspiration springing out on her top lip. It wasn’t quite as stifling as New York at the height of summer, but it came close.

If she went back and changed, she’d be late. She’d always had it drummed into her by her mother that lateness was the height of rudeness, and she didn’t want to be rude, so she carried on.

The council estate wasn’t bordered by a high wall; one minute she was outside of it, the next she was there, surrounded by low buildings and taller ones, squares of unkempt grass and paved areas with children’s play equipment in them.

She’d steeled herself to expect gangs of marauding youths, selling drugs or at least using them, and she found herself clutching her purse extra tightly by her side. But there were no gangs, either – just a group of women and children in their Sunday best, chattering as they strolled home from church; an old man walking a greyhound; three teenage girls in headscarves sitting on a bench, sharing a packet of sweets and giggling over their mobile phones.

The individual buildings weren’t marked on Beatrice’s map, and the estate was larger in real life than it had looked on paper. She passed Osprey Court – a long, four-storey building – and Eagle Heights – one of the tall towers – and deduced that Hawk Heights must therefore also be a tower. So she lifted her eyes and headed for the two remaining towers that loomed over her, piercing the clear blue sky.

Then she heard the sound of running feet behind her and wheeled around in fright.

But it was only Neil, hurrying towards her, smiling. He was wearing either the same shorts he’d had on the day she met him or an identical faded camouflage-print pair, and a green-and-white striped T-shirt. Beatrice felt relieved – her decision to dress down, albeit too warmly for the weather, was vindicated.

‘I thought it was you,’ Neil said. ‘I recognised your hair.’

Reflexively, Beatrice swished her ponytail – then wished she hadn’t.

‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘Thanks for meeting me.’

She held out her hand for Neil to shake. He looked taken aback, but did so.

‘You’re welcome. Gramps’s flat is in that building over there – looks like you were headed in the right direction.’

‘Is he—’ Beatrice began, then stopped herself. All the questions she wanted to ask – Is he very old? Is he very poor? Why does he live here, of all places? – seemed even ruder than being late would have done. ‘Has he lived here long?’

‘Forty years,’ Neil said. ‘He and my nan moved here when it was built, with my dad and my aunties. The post-war housing boom, you know – loads of families got moved to places like this. They thought they’d really come up in the world – and not just literally.’