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  ‘So here is the first of our speakers today. We are incredibly grateful to be joined by the leader of Sheffield City Council, Councillor Cranford Hardstaff,’ Vivienne announced.

  The crowd reaction was mostly polite applause but there were a few jeers among them. Hardstaff pretended not to hear them as he waved and took the microphone.

  ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen – and how wonderful it is to see so many young people here today because the future is yours and, looking around me, I believe our planet is in good hands,’ he began, to another smattering of applause.

  ‘As the leader of Sheffield City Council, I am proud of our record as protectors of the environment through our ground-breaking Green City Strategy, which sets out our aim to make this a zero-carbon city by 2050 by initiating significant reductions year-on-year and making this great city a responsible and safe place to live for many generations to come.’

  ‘What about the trees?’ called out someone from the back of the gathered crowd, winning a few cheers of support. Hardstaff ignored the intervention. Martin shrank a little further into the shadows.

  ‘We will make Sheffield a climate-resilient city for all, offering sustainable and affordable energy for homes and businesses, modern, reliable and clean journeys for everyone and a green and innovative economy.’

  From behind him, Martin heard a lone voice yell out ‘Bollocks!’ and was pushed forward as someone leaned on his shoulder. Whoever it was pressing down on his small frame then propelled an object with their spare hand.

  A lager can fizzed through the air, spitting out some of its contents over the people in its path until it hit the council leader on the side of his head, just as he was about to outline how, under his guidance, the authority was tackling the causes of pollution. He winced from the unseen blow as audible gasps sounded around him, the lager soaking his red and black checked shirt and the microphone giving a loud whistle through the PA system as he dropped it.

  ‘What the fuck–‘ he said as he recoiled with the shock, holding up his arms for protection in case the rest of the four-pack was soon to be hurled his way.

  As the people closest to him recovered their own poise and turned to assist the soaked leader, Hardstaff spun to face where the can had been thrown from. There were at least ten people in the vicinity but Hardstaff saw only one face.

  ‘You!’ he growled, glaring at where Martin was still steadying himself from the push in the back and wondering what had just happened.

  Their eyes met. Hardstaff hateful, Martin bewildered. Then a couple of council security men bundled the councillor away to safety.

  ***

  Hardstaff had the rest of the weekend to stew over the assault and to plan his retribution against the eco activist who clearly had a vendetta. Two could play that game.

  ‘Perkins!’ his voice roared out before the hapless assistant had even been given the chance to take off his coat. Of course, Perkins had seen the coverage of the incident on the news and hardly needed this early reminder that it might be a challenging start to the new working week.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, tentatively edging into the lion’s cage.

  ‘Bestwick’s café,’ he barked.

  ‘The Better World café in Broomhill, yes sir.’

  ‘I want Environmental Health around there to give it a hygiene inspection and I want them there first thing tomorrow. Tell them we’ve had an anonymous tip that they’re breaking the law.’

  Perkins looked confused. ‘Tomorrow, sir?’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ shouted Hardstaff. ‘First thing. No excuses. Tell them it has to be done on my orders.’

  There was no margin for doubt. Perkins slipped away to make a strong coffee and consider the best way to communicate the council leader’s wishes.

  Hardstaff growled to himself.

  ‘I’ll have you, you bastard,’ he hissed under his breath.

  He had a plan to make sure the health inspectors found exactly what he wanted them to find.

  ***

  The instruction had been clear enough. The target was the Better World café, which was the second from the left in a terraced row of four shops on Hampshire Street. He was to find a way to access the building around the back, where the kitchen was, and to deposit the load there.

  With a rucksack slung over his shoulder, his well-worn jeans and the grey woollen hat on his head, the young man could have passed for one of the thousands of students who lived in this part of town. He took no chances of being noticed by anyone, though, and approached the job from the back streets, which took him straight to the rear of the terraced block.

  He stopped, pretending to check his phone, as he took a last look around to make sure there was no one to see his next move. It was well after two in the morning and the streets were quiet, with only the noise of an occasional car on the main road a hundred yards away breaking the still silence of the night.

  Two black and two blue wheelie bins narrowed a driveway between the block of shops and a row of terraced houses, and he quickly slipped past them. It was unlit down the driveway, which was helpful. A wall, around seven feet high, protected the back yards of the shops and this presented a momentary concern, but there were also doorways built into the wall. He worked out which of the shops was his target and tried the corresponding door. The knob turned and the door opened. No lock. Trusting.

  The back yard was shallow and bare, save for three bins and a pile of loose bricks. He closed the door behind him quietly and scanned the back of the shop. This might be the trickiest part.

  There was a square window. It was made of white PVC and might not be as easy to force as one of the older wooden ones. He looked at the door, which was older and – bingo! – had a letterbox.

  He smiled and began to think this might be the easiest £100 he had ever made.

  Prising the letterbox open with his gloved fingers, he kneeled to make sure there was nothing obstructing it on the other side and took out a short length of plastic pipe from his rucksack, jamming it into the letterbox. He picked up a small stone from the yard and dropped it into the pipe, hearing it roll down the length of it and fall with a small clunk onto the floor inside. Perfect!

  Reaching into his bag again, he tugged on the tied brown sack and felt the contents jump and wriggle as he pulled it out. He untied the sack, wrapped the opening over the end of the pipe, holding it firmly, and slowly tipped the bottom of the sack until sixteen mice were sent scurrying down the pipe to plop on to the floor of the kitchen.

  He jiggled the sack to make sure they had all gone and pulled the pipe from the letterbox, packing it and the sack into his bag again.

  At the door in the wall he stopped and looked back, allowing himself satisfaction at a job well done. He had no idea who wanted this carried out. The instructions had come from the bloke who occasionally paid him a few quid, cash in hand, to collect and distribute stuff, on the understanding that it wasn’t his place to ask questions.

  Whoever it was, though, he reflected, really didn’t like this café.

  6

  Evelyn Dawes glanced again towards the entrance of the six-bed bay when she heard more footsteps approaching, attempting nonchalance again but unable to hide the slight trace of disappointment in her eyes when the sound proved to be another false alarm.

  He was late. He had been there every day since the one after they had brought her to the hospital and he always arrived for his next visit by the time he had promised. Until today.

  Maybe he had grown tired of coming to see her. Maybe her cold silence had scared him off at last. That had been the aim at first, when he turned up at her bedside with his hair too long, that awful scruffy beard and always in jeans and a T-shirt. Didn’t he have any proper clothes? She didn’t want him to visit, not at first, and had barely spoken a word to him. She had definitely not said a kind word to him – about how she was quite touched by his concern (even though it was largely, by his own admission, his fault she was here in the first place) an
d how she enjoyed the fact that someone was taking the trouble to spend a little time just chatting to her. She hadn’t experienced that for a long time. He did all the talking.

  He had even brought her some food the day before last. Made it himself, apparently. He said he ran a café, only it wasn’t a real café; it was one of those vegan ones. She didn’t know much about vegans, except that they seemed, from the telly, to enjoy making a lot of noise telling ordinary people why they should be vegans as well and she didn’t like that. Like those Jehovah’s Witness people, turning up on your doorstep unannounced and wanting to talk about God and things. They all seemed a bit too full of their own importance for her, but Martin wasn’t like that. Not really. She turned up her nose when he told her about what was in the food and wouldn’t touch it while he was there but she had some after he left and it was quite nice, even though she didn’t normally eat that sort of thing.

  Evelyn felt completely justified in her hostility at first because if he hadn’t made such a fuss about that tree and had let the council people cut it down, then the branch wouldn’t have broken off and hit her. She was cross with him for that and he deserved to be made to feel bad about it.

  But she hadn’t put him off. He would turn up, all cheery, pull up a chair and just chat. He’d always start by asking how she was, never seeming to mind that she wouldn’t specifically answer him but would roll her eyes or pull a face or something. He always seemed to have been given a briefing by the nurses anyway, so he was more aware of her progress than she would have liked him to be. Then he would usually say something irritatingly upbeat to her, like: ‘I hear you’ve been able to get to your feet today, Mrs Dawes. That’s great!’

  Then he would start talking about his day. He told her all about the rally in the Peace Gardens and how such a lot of people came, about how they all had a great time and about how somebody threw a beer can at the council leader. He seemed a little upset at this, but it made her smile. She never liked that man when she saw him on the telly. It’s a good job for him he wasn’t her councillor because she wouldn’t vote for him. Shifty bugger.

  Martin also told her a lot about the people who came to the café. It sounded such a happy place. She was beginning to feel as though she knew some of these customers. She thought it might be nice to go there one day, when she was out of hospital.

  At times, especially at first, she would occasionally close her eyes and pretend to be going to sleep, but even that didn’t stop him talking, telling her his little stories. She would always listen. Perhaps he knew she was listening really. She would never tell him, but secretly she really enjoyed hearing him talk.

  She couldn’t just start being nice to Martin, even though she wanted to. Her antipathy was too entrenched now and Evelyn felt she would lose face if she started being friendly to him, after digging in her heels so deeply at first. Besides, what would she say? She never got out of the house these days, apart from to go to the shop, and never spoke to anybody. She certainly never had interesting conversations, not like the people at the café did. All she ever did was sleep and watch telly.

  There was no point in her saying anything. He would find it boring and would stop coming. It was better if she stayed silent; left all the talking to him.

  But she was starting to look forward to his visits more than she cared to admit and now she might have spoiled it for herself. He might have taken the hint and decided not to bother coming any more.

  He was never late.

  But then, there he was, bustling into the bay with his cycle helmet on, carrying a dark blue drawstring bag, and her heart lifted. Inside, she was beaming.

  ‘I am so sorry I’m late, Mrs Dawes, but I have had a morning like you would not believe,’ he said as he straight away pulled open the bag to take out two apples and two pears. He added them to the bowl on the window ledge and rooted out the grapes that were shrivelling in the dry heat of the hospital ward.

  He did not so much as attempt to prompt her into an acknowledgement of appreciation for the gift and she offered none. Instead, she looked towards the clock on the wall opposite her and pretended that she was not especially aware what time it was, let alone what time he had said he would arrive. Martin was so busy with the fruit that he missed the show.

  ‘I’d literally only just opened the café door this morning when I had a visit from the council health inspectors. They never let you know when they’re going to do an inspection but they only did my place three and a half months ago and it’s usually only once a year but that was no problem. I always keep everywhere spotless because high standards are so important, don’t you think, and I always get a five-star rating.

  ‘Anyway, we’ve got one of our gourmet evenings tonight and the visit set me back with everything I wanted to get on with because the first customers arrived while the inspectors were in the kitchen and Maggie, one of my assistants, phoned in to say she’d got child-care issues and that she was going to be a bit late and… nightmare! Anyway, we managed and the inspectors seemed happy when they left, but that’s why I’m running a bit late. Oh, and there was another strange thing happened this morning.’

  He finished with the fruit and collected a brown plastic bucket seat from the stack in the corner of the bay, placing it down by the side of Evelyn’s bed.

  ‘Pete from Original Spin, the record shop next door, usually comes to the café at about eleven for a coffee and to pick up a sandwich for his lunch. Well, he came in today and looked as if he’d had an even more difficult morning than I’d had. He told me he’d opened up and his stockroom was infested – I mean, like, full – of mice! It’s a good job they didn’t manage to get into my place, with the inspectors coming around. That would have been unfortunate timing. Anyway, Pete had spent all morning trying to find somebody who could lay some humane traps to catch the mice before they got anywhere else in the shop. God knows where they’d got in from!

  ‘Anyway, enough of all that – how are you today?’ Martin leaned in and smiled, encouragingly.

  Evelyn had been bursting to react to his tale of woe but maintained her veneer of disinterest and pulled another of her faces.

  ‘I’m told the physio is going well, which is excellent. Well done, you. The nurse said if you carry on making good progress, they could have you home in a week.’

  She didn’t want that. She was enjoying being taken care of in hospital. She was getting used to being given attention. Maybe she would have to pull back a little on what she allowed the physio to put her through.

  ‘Oh, I was going to tell you something else before I forget. You know I’ve mentioned Mr and Mrs Miller from Whitham Road, two of my regulars – lovely couple – anyway, I was telling them about you, and they said to pass on their regards.’

  Talking to someone about me? Strangers passing on their regards?

  Evelyn was touched and though she said nothing, this apparent concern of a couple she had never met warmed her. She listened as Martin chatted and fussed for 25 minutes more and thought about the day when she would pay a visit to the café and have a cuppa with Mr and Mrs Miller.

  ***

  Martin wheeled his bike through the front door and into the hallway.

  What a day that had been! Maggie’s continuing child-care difficulties meant that she had to leave mid-afternoon, not long after he had got back from seeing Mrs Dawes at the hospital, and she hadn’t been able to do the late shift for the gourmet evening. So, as well as assisting Justin the chef, he’d also had to wait on all the tables. They were fully booked, as usual, and it had been hectic, though he never liked to complain about being busy.

  It was almost half past ten and Martin realised, as he cycled home, that he had not eaten since snatching a late lunch. He was almost beyond hungry but decided he should, at least, have a couple of slices of wholemeal toast and a jasmine tea before heading for bed.

  He unclipped his helmet and unzipped his jacket, hanging both on the handlebar of the bike, ready for the next morning. The
house seemed particularly quiet after so much interaction with so many people at the café. The quiet was kind of soothing at the end of such a busy day, but it would have been nice for there to be someone waiting for him at home; someone to listen to him say how busy it had been and to tell him to put his feet up for a minute while they made him a couple of slices of wholemeal toast and a jasmine tea.

  Martin sighed. There hadn’t been a special person in his life for 19 months, two weeks and three days. He wondered where Jody was now.

  He sighed again. Better not to go there.

  The photos. Martin had been telling Mrs Dawes about his trip down part of the Cleveland Way, walking from Saltburn along the North Yorkshire coast to Scarborough in four blissful days, and he had been so happy with the photos he took along the way that he had a set of prints made. He’d described the walk and the sights – Staithes was always a favourite and he had an overnight stay there – and had told her he would bring in the pictures to show her.

  For a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of enthusiasm to encourage him when he suggested it to her, but he might have been imagining it.

  He was still not sure what to make of Mrs Dawes. She appeared not to want him to be there at all, but the nurses said she was always happier after he had been and that they had noticed a general improvement in her spirits in recent days. They told him he was doing a great job.

  That was good. Despite her lack of communication skills, he was developing a bit of a soft spot for Mrs Dawes. He could tell she was a real character and found it so easy to talk to her. Perhaps she would be more forthcoming when she has fully recovered from the trauma and was back at home. Maybe then they would pop over to each other’s houses, for chats.

  The photos. Martin remembered he had put them away upstairs, in the spare room. He skipped up the narrow staircase, finding an extra surge of energy at the thought of sharing his happy memories of the Cleveland Way, and opened the door to the spare room, making a mental note to tidy up one day as he switched on the light.