‘What are you doing to Jenny?’ Andrew demanded.
Ollie coughed from the winding. He was trying to force Andrew backwards but only half-heartedly, not wanting a fight. ‘What?’ he gasped.
‘Jenny. She broke up with you, so what’s the problem?’
Ollie pushed again and this time Andrew stepped backwards and released him. They eyed each other for a moment. Andrew could feel his pulse racing in a way it rarely did. He was full of adrenalin, trying to contain his anger. Ollie was bemused.
‘Jenny?’ he said.
‘You know what I’m talking about – the phone calls, the card.’
Ollie shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. I don’t even know who you are.’ He wrung his hands again and then his eyes widened. ‘Hang about, you’re him, aren’t you?’
‘Who?’
Ollie clicked his fingers. ‘You’re Andrew.’
Andrew suddenly felt self-conscious. It was no surprise that Jenny’s former boyfriend knew the name of who she worked for – and yet he felt at a disadvantage, wondering what Jenny had been saying about him.
Ollie was suddenly on the offensive, lunging forward and making Andrew stumble towards the cubicles. ‘You reckon I’m stalking her? She’s the crazy one.’
‘What?’
Ollie whirled a finger close to his ear. ‘She’s nuts, mate. Snooker-loopy – and she’s got one hell of a thing for you.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘She’s always saying things like, “Andrew wouldn’t do it like that”. She goes on about you all the time. I knew Jen was never that into me, but since she shacked up with you, she’s totally lost it.’
Andrew stared at him, struggling to take it all in. ‘Shacked up?’
‘Whatever. Seriously, pal. She’s a mentalist. If you’re getting dodgy phone calls or whatever, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was her.’
Ollie pushed past him, leaving Andrew stunned and staring at himself in the mirror. He had no idea what to think. ‘Hey!’ he called, just before Ollie got to the door.
‘What?’
‘I’m, um… sorry, I suppose.’
Ollie looked him up and down. ‘Mate – she does this to people. You must know that.’ He rocked back and then seemed to stand slightly taller. It was like someone had hit the jackpot on a fruit machine when he stepped forward again. As if he’d just realised something that should have been obvious. ‘You don’t know, do you?’
‘Know what?’ Andrew replied.
There was an awkward moment where Ollie pushed the toilet door fully closed, blocking out a little more of the singer. There was a hint of a smirk on his face. ‘I thought you’d know. I guessed she was shagging you. Don’t matter to me – but she gets night terrors. Screaming, shouting, waking up and clawing at the air.’ He held his arm up, showing red crescent moons on his wrist.
‘Jenny did that?’ Andrew asked, unsure what to make of it.
‘Middle of the night. Scared the hell out of me. Not her fault, I suppose – it’s not like she was awake.’ Ollie took another step forward. He scratched his head, confused. ‘Hang on a minute, you don’t know any of it, do you?’
‘Know what?’
Ollie laughed humourlessly. ‘About her brother.’
As Ollie pushed his way out of the toilet, Andrew stood and stared. He couldn’t find the words to query that Jenny had always told him she was an only child.
Twenty-Seven
Andrew couldn’t sleep.
The clock next to his bed read 12:34, its block-like red digits taunting him through the darkness. He’d not bothered trying to close his eyes. He had lain and then sat in bed, thinking. When he got bored of that, he opened the curtains and watched the city below. Long lines of street lights stretched far into the distance, but there was a dwindling number of headlights zipping back and forth. It was the early hours of Wednesday morning and, though Manchester was busier than many places, it was far from a city that never slept. It was a city that dozed a bit when it was dark.
When Andrew had hired Jenny, he’d spoken to her references – both university lecturers – and then checked her name against old school records. In terms of that, everything checked out. She had a national insurance number in her name and a bank account. He’d seen her driving licence. For all intents, she was Jenny Mays.
Jenny had told him she was an only child whose parents lived abroad. He’d never pushed too much, not really needing to know, but figured there was money somewhere along the line. She hadn’t bothered haggling over her initial pay, nor subsequent pay rises.
Within a few days of her starting, he’d forgotten what life was like working without her. She took things over with a natural flair and they’d become friends. He certainly saw her more than anybody else.
Deep down, he’d always known there was something more to her than he wanted to acknowledge. She threw herself recklessly into situations with seemingly little – if any – concern for herself. At times, she could be fearless, so much so that it became something more. She’d had a man hold a knife to her throat and not flinched; she’d attacked Iwan, who was twice her size and could crush her while barely breaking a sweat.
If he was honest with himself – really honest – there was a part of him that was scared of her. Scared of what he feared she was capable of.
Months previously, when Andrew had been trying to find out who shot a pair of teenagers in broad daylight, Thomas Braithwaite had taken a sinister interest in what Andrew did. He said Jenny had an ‘interesting’ past. He had purred it, delighted with what he knew. Andrew could have followed it up then and yet he hadn’t. He’d continued turning up to work as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had been said. He’d pushed it to the back of his mind, pretending he didn’t want to know.
Now he’d heard something similar from Ollie.
Jenny apparently had a brother. It wasn’t simply that she’d never mentioned him, she had specifically told Andrew on more than one occasion that she was an only child.
Why lie?
If Jenny had a brother, why not say – even if they weren’t in contact? Even if they’d not seen each other in a long time? It was a big jump from omitting him to denying he’d ever existed. What did that mean for the rest of what Jenny had told him about her life? Did her parents really live abroad?
Andrew had done the basic checks but there were so many more he could do. Police contacts could find out certain things and he knew someone in the births, marriages and deaths department at the register office. It would take a lot of work, but he could find the truth one way or the other.
The problem was that, by doing so, Andrew knew he would be crossing a line from which he couldn’t retreat. He liked Jenny. He respected her. It was close to the point that it was hard to imagine doing the job without her.
Which left him with one lingering question he couldn’t answer.
Did he really want to know the truth?
The clock now read 01:38. Another hour passed in which he’d done nothing but stare out the window and wonder.
Andrew thought about going back to bed but instead he padded through the flat, heading for the kitchen. He dumped a spoonful of espresso powder into the machine and then thumbed the button to start it whirring. He’d catch up on the sleep at another time.
He leaned against one of the stools and closed his eyes, breathing in the bitter aroma of the coffee as the machine continued to pop.
It took Andrew a few moments to realise that the muffled jangling was his phone ringing in the other room. He raced through the flat, skidding on the smooth bedroom floor and reaching the phone next to his bed a moment before it rang off: Jenny.
It was as if some sort of psychic connection had been made because he’d been thinking about her so much. Now here she was.
‘Jen?’ he said.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ Jenny replied, her voice croaky, tired.
‘What’s up?’
‘Can you co
me over? It’s really important.’
‘Are you safe?’
‘I… yeah. Just come.’
Andrew didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the previous day’s clothes from the floor and pocketed his phone. The coffee machine had just finished bubbling as he snatched his keys from the counter and then flew out of the flat, charging for the lifts.
The roads were as empty as Andrew had ever seen them as he drove along Deansgate. He reached a red traffic light but edged through anyway when nothing came from the other direction. He was soon on Oxford Road, cruising past the railway station, Palace Hotel and the row of shops and restaurants before he hit the university.
As he passed under the Mancunian Way bridge, a gaggle of student sorts were staggering across the road, giggling into the night and then nearly tripping over the kerb on the far side before bursting into more laughter. Andrew slowed and then sped up again, zipping past the Aquatics Centre and the Academy before finding Jenny’s street close to the hospital.
All was still, with a murky orange glow from the nearby street lights, leaving everything in shadow. Andrew parked and then hurried across the road towards Jenny’s small house, instantly seeing why she’d called. There were two downstairs windows, one on either side of the front door. The one to the left had a large sheet of cardboard wedged into the space where there was now a circular hole surrounded by spiky, dangerous-looking glass.
Jenny had the front door open before he’d knocked. She was smiling, one hand on her hip, wearing a pair of red and white pyjamas, as if nothing had happened and she hadn’t given him an SOS call in the middle of the night.
‘You took your time,’ she teased.
Andrew stopped to look at the hole in the window. ‘When did this happen?’
‘A little before I called you. I was sleeping upstairs.’
Andrew stepped towards the window but couldn’t see much in the gloom. He followed Jenny inside and she closed the door behind him, then he trailed her towards a small kitchen. A brick was in the centre of the room, surrounded by hundreds, thousands of glittering shards. The sink was full of dishes, but there was a sprinkling of glass on top, with even more sharp splinters littering the edge of the floor.
Andrew didn’t dare risk stepping further inside. He turned back to Jenny, who was standing in the hallway. ‘Did you call the police?’ he asked.
‘Too much hassle. They’ll come out, take photos, ask the neighbours and all that – but no one will have been up at this time. It’ll drag on and on, then nothing will happen. I’d rather it was just done with.’
Andrew took one last look in the kitchen and then switched off the light. Jenny led him through to her living room, which was beautifully cosy. There was a television in the corner, with two armchairs facing it and an array of beanbags underneath the window. There were no posters, movies or CDs. Nothing to show the things in which she might be interested.
‘If I knew how to fix a window, I’d do it myself,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll have to call a glazier in the morning. I’ll have to google it.’
Andrew watched her tap away on her phone for a moment, trying to figure out if there had been any tremor to her voice. It didn’t sound like it.
‘Jen…’
‘What?’
‘Aren’t you bothered about who might have thrown it?’
‘Kids, innit? You get loads of it round here. Either that or someone drunk on their way home when the pubs shut. Some bloke down the road had his car windows put through a couple of months ago. The glass-fitters must love this area.’ She sniggered and it sounded genuine.
Andrew continued to watch her for a little longer until she bounced up, showing him her phone.
‘Right, I’ve got a number for a glazier. I’ll call him in the morning. He reckons he’s twenty-four hours, but it’s a bit tight to call him out at this time.’ She was smiling as if they were on another adventure.
‘I’m not complaining, Jen – but why did you call me if you’re all sorted?’
‘I can’t really stay here now. I was wondering if I can kip at yours? I’ll sleep on the sofa. I can sleep anywhere, me. Planes, trains, buses, boats, benches. You name it and I’ve probably slept there.’
On any other day, Andrew would’ve said it was fine in an instant. Of course it was – what else was he going to say?
Except that Ollie’s stinging words were jabbing at the back of his mind – ‘she’s got one hell of a thing for you’ and then ‘She’s a mentalist. If you’re getting dodgy phone calls or whatever, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was her’.
There were things Jenny couldn’t have done – the brick through his car window for one; the heavy breathing phone calls for another… or most of them. Jenny had been upstairs when Andrew got the call at Darren’s house.
But, if Ollie was right, could it be true that Jenny had put the brick through her own window?
Andrew was sweating and had to gulp away his guilt-riddled suspicion, trying to act as if everything was perfectly fine. He stood, speaking too quickly.
‘Course you can,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the sofa and you can have the bed. Before that, let’s get a board in the window. I don’t think the cardboard will last long.’
Twenty-Eight
After an uncomfortable night on his sofa, during which Andrew hardly got any sleep at all, it was a busy morning. First they returned to Jenny’s, where the glazier duly fitted a new window while Andrew helped her clean up the inside. He again asked her about contacting the police, but Jenny insisted she didn’t want to.
In the afternoon, he dropped her at the office, saying he had a few errands to run, and then set off towards Liverpool.
As he drove, Andrew was aware that he felt protective of Jenny – probably some sort of father–daughter thing, though he didn’t have a daughter to confirm those feelings. He was wary, too. It was hard to forget what Ollie had told him. He hadn’t entirely discounted Ollie as the person who was harassing her and perhaps messing with Andrew’s mind was part of his plan. Although Andrew knew that might be the case, he hadn’t felt that when he’d been with Ollie in the toilets of that pub. Ollie seemed genuine.
But if it wasn’t him, then who? Andrew struggled to believe Jenny had sent the Valentine’s Day card to herself, let alone broken her own window. And, even if she had, what about the calls? In the first, a man’s voice had asked for Jenny. She’d need an accomplice.
More to the point, if it was Jenny, if she had somehow set all this up, then why?
Before he knew it, Andrew was outside Thomas Braithwaite’s expansive house. Steepling iron gates were attached to a thick wall that stretched far into the distance in both directions. There were cameras at regular intervals along the top, pointing outwards towards the street. Andrew parked the car and headed across the road. He didn’t need to buzz because, as he neared, there was a ‘ping’ and the gates hummed inwards.
It was a long, imposing driveway that led towards the house. Perhaps as a reflection of the compared wealth, Braithwaite’s house was significantly more extravagant than Jack Marsh’s. It was like a smaller stately home, with three floors that each had seven windows. The lawns that surrounded the drive were perfect emerald green, with long straight mow lines stretching into the distance.
Andrew had visited a couple of times before and it never ceased to amaze him how breathtaking the house was.
Iwan was standing in the front door, arms crossed, waiting. He said nothing as Andrew passed, ducking into the massive, echoing tiled hallway. A staircase was in front, looping up to the second floor, and there was an enormous canvas painting of someone in a red coat riding into battle.
Still silent, Iwan led Andrew through more hallways until they emerged into a room lined with books. Cases climbed high towards the ceilings, all stacked with various tomes. There was a drinks cabinet in the corner, while one wall was entirely given over to a huge map of the UK. It was at least twice Andrew’s height, with his head roughly in line with Manchester.<
br />
Braithwaite was in an armchair with a newspaper on his lap. As Andrew entered, he folded it over and dropped it into a rack next to the seat. He uncrossed his legs and stood, offering his hand for Andrew to shake, which he did. After that, Braithwaite nodded at Iwan, who took the hint and disappeared out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Braithwaite seemed slimmer than he had at the football, possibly more tired as well. ‘Mr Hunter,’ he said as the door closed. ‘Wonderful to see you again.’ He motioned towards the violin case in Andrew’s hand. ‘And am I to understand that you have something for me?’
Andrew passed across the case and Braithwaite took it, smoothing the hard outer shell. He didn’t open it.
‘Did you enjoy the football?’ he asked.
‘I suppose.’
‘And what about your interest in Mr Marsh? How’s that coming along?’
‘Fine.’
Andrew was well aware that Braithwaite was trying to be charmingly intimidating, letting Andrew know he saw what was going on in his life. He stood, hands at his side, watching as Braithwaite continued to stroke the violin case.
‘How are the women in your life?’ Braithwaite asked smoothly. An afternoon DJ with a calming voice that made middle-aged divorcees go weak at the knees. Andrew found it chilling. ‘The pretty one in your office,’ Braithwaite added. ‘Are you watching your back when she’s around?’
‘Why would I be?’
Braithwaite smirked and suddenly Andrew was full of fury. He clenched his fists, hiding them behind his back so that Braithwaite couldn’t see.
‘How are your kids?’ Andrew snapped. ‘Alexander’s at university in Lancaster, isn’t he? What about Ruby? Isn’t she at boarding school in Hampshire?’
Andrew stopped himself from saying any more by digging his nails into the fleshy part of his thumb and pinching as hard as he could. The room was like a fridge.
Something Buried: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller Page 16
