Free A City of Strangers by Robert Barnard

was awfully pleased that your mother took the initial action in this.”
    â€œOh—well, yes, I think she was shocked for my sake. I had an unpleasant brush with the Phelans in the past.”
    â€œI know. Do you think this could be the beginning of her—well, getting out a bit, taking an interest in things?”
    â€œOh, I think it would be very premature to hope for that. Mother is a confirmed invalid, you know.”
    â€œYes. I’ve not called these last few years because she made it clear she didn’t want it. But do remember, if there’s anything I can do, Adrian . . . ”
    He pressed her hand, and they all went through the front door and evaporated into the night. Adrian went back to Willow Bank to talk things over with his mother, Daphne Bridewell knocked on the door of the basement flat to The Laburnums to report to Carol Southgate, and Algy Cartwright went into the empty silence of Rosetree Cottage and turned on the television for A Taste of Death. In York House Jennifer Packard prepared to be niggled at for the rest of the evening over her “cheap gibes” about the free market, and at Ashdene Evie’s car was not in the garage, and the house was still. Steven Copperwhite let himself in by the gate, and spoke to the two cats sitting on the living-room windowsill: his cat Runty and Mrs. Bridewell’s cat Victoria—the gangster and his moll. They were something to talk to. Once inside the house he went through to the living room to pour himself a whiskey, then went down the hall to the study. There on the desk were the piles of student essays waiting to be read, the manuscript of The Burden of Male Dominance, just returned from Macmillan’s, and the smaller manuscript pile of You’re Only Young Twice. That feeling of dissatisfaction, of having taken a wrong turning, of being in a blind alley, returned to him.
    He picked up the phone and dialed again the well-remembered number. This time his ex-wife answered.

Chapter
SIX
    T he bus was crowded on Monday morning, and Adrian Eastlake had to go upstairs. It was his day for a late start at the Social Security office, but the bus seemed to be full of early Christmas shoppers. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the fug of pipe and cigarette smoke, and went resignedly down the back.
    Looking down to the pavement at the next stop Adrian thought he saw a head, a bulk, he knew. Seconds later he heard heavy tramping up the stairs, then saw in the convex mirror the well-remembered face surveying the upper deck. Jack Phelan, shaven, less dirty than usual, but still extremely unprepossessing. Adrian looked down at his lap. His heart thumped with relief when he saw someone sitting near the stairwell start to get off, and Jack sink into the vacant seat, take out a packet of cigarettes, and begin generously adding to the fug.
    What was Jack Phelan doing, going into town at twenty to ten? He was usually still on his doorstep, in trousers and pajama top, first can of the day in hand, trading insults with neighbors off to work. With a sinking heart Adrian remembered he had to ring Dr. Pickering later in the day. He had been rung by Mrs. Bridewell shortly after the meeting at the Packards’, suggesting that she should contact their ex-neighbor first, and then he do the follow-up early the next week. Adrian suspected that she had been put up to this by Lynn Packard. Adrian was very used to people doubting his abilities. Daphne Bridewell had told him later that her phone call had met with no greater success than a promise from Dr. Pickering that he would “think over” what she had said. Now it was his turn. Decisions, action, initiatives. . . . Like most inadequate people Adrian felt that the world was continuously calling for evidences of his own inadequacy.
    Jack Phelan smoked continuously the two and a half miles into Sleate.Past the jail they went, past new red-brick office buildings with mirror