Page 29 of The Tapes

TWENTY-THREE

I’m frozen, unsure whether to dart for the gate, hide in the shadows, or stand still. The headlights were on me for a second, maybe less, arcing wide as Mark swung the car around before pulling into his parking spot.

I daren’t breathe. The car is barely five metres away, idling quietly. Mark is going to open the driver’s door and ask what I’m doing here.

Except he doesn’t. He’s sitting in the car, phone lighting up his face as he talks to someone on speakerphone as if he’s about to get booted off The Apprentice . His voice is muffled but the anger apparent.

I assume he was on the phone while driving, which is why he didn’t spot me as the headlights silhouetted me against the office.

Carefully, so carefully, I take a step backwards, edging into the shadow.

One step, two – and then I’m at the side of the office, peeping around the corner towards Mark in his car.

He jabs angrily at his phone, then punches the steering wheel before swearing loudly at himself.

A few seconds pass and then he opens the car door and clambers out, before slamming it with an echoing clang.

Mark crunches towards the office but, just as I think he’s about to head inside, he stops at the door and pulls out a vape device.

He leans against the front of the building and sends a sweet, chocolatey plume of mist into the air as he pokes his phone again.

It looks like he’s starting another phone call and, as soon as it connects, there’s no hint of a ‘hello’.

‘I didn’t hang up, you must’ve done,’ he says. There’s a second of silence and then a furious: ‘Well maybe it cut out then? I don’t know.’

A pause.

‘Why would you say that?’ — ‘Oh come off it’ — ‘That’s ’cos you listen to your mum all the time’ — ‘She acts like a psycho, I told you that’ — ‘I didn’t call your mum a psycho, I said she acts like one’ — ‘It’s not the same thing.

If you’re a psycho then you’re always a psycho.

If you’re acting like one, then you’re temporarily one’ — ‘Maybe try listening, then. I didn’t call you or your mum a psycho! ’

Mark goes quiet but he’s pacing outside the front door, not quite reaching the corner where I’m hiding, though not far off. There’s a force to his movement, as if he’s trying to stomp a hole through the ground.

When he next speaks, he’s slightly calmer, though perhaps it’s exasperation. ‘Fine. All I’m saying is that they can’t prove anything.’ A pause. ‘Exactly. Just tell them I was with you. We were watching TV. What’s the problem?’

I strain, desperate to hear the other half of the conversation but there’s nothing.

Mark’s stopped pacing now and is standing somewhere near the door.

He sighs, almost theatrically, as if he knows he’s being watched.

‘We’ll talk about this when I get home,’ he says. ‘I’m at the yard but I’ve got to go.’

Mark has another puff on his vape, then slips it into a pocket, before fumbling in another for keys.

A few seconds later, he swears under his breath, then heads back to the unlocked car, where he scrambles inside before returning with a set of keys.

As he walks, he tosses them from one hand to the other, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath as he nears the office.

I’m waiting for him to go inside, so I can dash away.

Only a few seconds now. So near.

Except something cramps in my leg. It happens so fast that I have no time to think, instead acting instinctively as I shift weight from one foot to the other.

A crunch of gravel booms through the silent night, just as Mark reaches the door.

He stops, looks down to his feet, and then along the line of the office to where I’m huddled behind the corner.

Time slows. Time stops. And then: ‘What do we have here?’