by D. E. White
She blushed and Holly hastily explained a ROSC was ‘return of spontaneous circulation’, and meant the patient had a decent chance of survival.
The shift continued without any major hassle and Holly was grateful for the comforting familiarity of work. It took her mind off the shit going on at home. She was still trying to process everything in her mind. Her heart went out to Bailey. It was a dangerous game and if Joey or Gareth found out, they’d kill him with no questions asked. And what about Jay? Had he left his boy and buggered off? She couldn’t imagine doing that to Milo. Was Jay there the night of the crash? And what was he doing – protecting his son or drawing hers into danger?
To add to her problems, and despite her hopes to the contrary, a text came in at one in the morning, and seeing Tom’s number come up, Holly winced:
Fucking evil bitch. Don’t forget I know your secrets.
For fuck’s sake! What was wrong with him? He’d got what he wanted, with his new relationship and devoted girlfriend. But he didn’t have Milo, a tiny voice reminded her, and that cold clench of fear, now seemingly ever present in her stomach, turned to ice. All her life people had gone missing, died, run away, and just now when, in a weird way, some of them seemed to be coming back, Tom was trying to take her son.
‘Are you all right? Holly?’ It was little Sara, tagging along behind her to the toilets.
‘Fine, sorry. I just need the loo before I go back in. I’ll see you in there.’ She hoped this was a subtle enough way of saying she wanted to have a moment on her own. Sara was a sweet girl, but very clingy at the moment. It would be up to Holly to give her the confidence to get through these first difficult weeks, but for now, she needed to sort out her own life.
She went into a cubicle, put the lid down and sat on the toilet seat, scrolling through the texts. Anger surged, and she tapped out a message back:
There is no secret. I made a mistake! It never happened, I just didn’t realise at the time. Dev never passed the message to Niko so it wasn’t me!! BUT I will tell yours if you don’t stop hassling me.
After a moment’s thought she added a kiss, just to piss him off. She was free, but of course Tom would never believe that. Not that it mattered. Even if he carried out his threat and went to the police, Dev was here to back her up, and Niko would only repeat what he had said in court. The weight had lifted from her shoulders, and she felt confident enough to send the direct threat.
Five minutes passed, and she needed to get back in the control room. She frowned at her phone, and sighed. It was just such a mad thing to do, to wind up your ex when you were playing the perfect dad-to-be with your new girlfriend. Maybe they were both doing it together, having a laugh to see if they could wind her up? No, surely Beth couldn’t know Tom’s own dirty secret … or could she?
Holly walked back to her desk, automatically smiling at Sara. But there was still something else nagging at her nerves, prodding her conscience. If Jayden was going after everyone involved in Larissa’s murder, did he know the whole story? And which version of the truth would he believe? Holly dragged her thoughts back to work.
On her left, Noah was taking a call, confidently going through the triage and concentrating hard. Ruby was listening, ready to prompt him if he struggled, still sitting a bit too close. On her right Sara was stumbling nervously over the first few questions.
‘That was good, Sara, just be a bit more assertive at the beginning, yeah? We need their location as soon as you can.’
The girl nodded. ‘It’s really hard, isn’t it?’
‘You’ll be okay.’ It was Noah, who was now typing up his notes under Ruby’s watchful eye. ‘I still brick it every time the phone rings.’
‘You do?’ Sara looked relieved.
‘Yeah, and Colin’s quit already. Colin was on our course,’ Noah told them. ‘Fuck, how do you spell diarrhoea?’
***
When Holly caught the bus home there was still no reply to her text, but she took it to be a good sign. Tom had nothing else to blackmail her with, but she still held his secret. She watched the darkness and the streetlights. It was nearly morning, but the blackness still stretched across the sky. Bloody winter, she couldn’t wait for summer.
Holly scrolled idly through her social media, yawning. Perhaps Jay did the same. Maybe he’d been keeping tabs on all of them via Insta or something. The thought was enough to chase away the tiredness for a moment. Flicking her mind away from her family she went back to Dev. Cath was right, his Insta feed was full of him working out, muscles gleaming with sweat, and she skipped hastily over these, feeling like a perv. He’d got out and made some money, and a name for himself.
As well as a visit to Donnie, visiting Niko might provide some answers. He had previously tried to pull in both Holly and Dev when they were in the fitness industry, and if he knew that Donnie was up and running again … She supposed it depended on how desperate he was.
The boy in hospital intruded into her whirl of thoughts. What sort of dad had Jayden been? And where the hell had they been all these years?
She was so deep in thought that she nearly missed her stop, staggering blearily to her feet just in time. The spattering of icy rain woke her up properly as she fumbled with the front door key.
Milo was eating breakfast and her aunt was putting a load of washing on as Holly kicked her boots off and walked into the kitchen.
‘Hi, Mum!’ He waved his spoon, dripping milk across the table as he did so.
‘Hi, sweetie. You nearly ready for school?’ Holly yawned and ruffled her son’s hair. ‘Hi, Lydia. I’ve told you before, you really don’t have to do my laundry.’
‘I know I don’t, but I can see how exhausted you are and I’ve got half an hour before I need to go.’ Lydia was scrutinising her niece’s face. ‘Was it a bad night?’
‘Not really, just the usual, thanks.’
‘I’ve got karate club after school today,’ Milo informed her, ‘and I can’t find my belt.’
‘It’s in your cupboard, and I only said you could go and watch again. You can’t do karate with one leg in a cast,’ Holly told him, making a mug of coffee to sustain her for the duration of the school run, before she could fall into bed.
‘I know that, but I need to be there to watch the black belts do their grading.’ Milo rolled his eyes and hoped nimbly off on his crutches.
‘Fine. Don’t forget we’re going to the hospital after I pick you up,’ she called after him.
‘I know!’
‘Thank goodness that cast comes off soon, he’s itching to get back to normal and start working off that energy,’ Lydia said, smiling at Milo, who was stuffing his karate belt into his school bag. ‘Go and get dressed or you’ll be late, and I’ve got to get home and pick up my dog!’
‘I want to walk Oreo too!’ Milo said, pausing on his way to the door.
‘Another time. Go and get ready!’
When the boy had hopped carefully into the downstairs bathroom, Lydia turned to her niece. ‘By the way, DI Harper came round earlier.’ Despite the early morning, Lydia had a full face of make-up and was dressed in one of her velour tracksuits, with black fluffy mules poking out the bottom. She could pass for ten years younger than she actually was.
‘He came here? Why this early?’ Holly blinked back to full alertness as caffeine and adrenalin mixed.
‘He wanted to tell me to be careful. You know he was always very kind when Jayden was in all that trouble, and he … he tried so hard after Sian’s death to help.’ Lydia paused, her cheeks reddening, although Holly couldn’t see why she should be embarrassed about it. ‘Anyway, he said that if Jayden was alive and he did contact me at all, to let him know.’
‘Why would he come over to my house to tell you that? How did he even know you were here?’ Holly demanded.
‘I don’t know. He said that with everything going on, he’s worried that there might be trouble on the estate.’
‘Lame excuse. What did he want really?’ Holly asked,
remembering suddenly that she’d seen him at the hospital. Was he still stalking their family?
‘I’m just telling you what he said. He told me to get in touch right away if Jayden contacted me, for our own safety.’ Lydia set her mouth in a thin line, and clearly wasn’t going to give anything else away.
Holly sat down on a pile of schoolbooks, and hastily got up again, picking up the top book and shoving it in Milo’s bag. ‘Have you thought about what we’re going to do if Jayden doesn’t come back for his son?’
Her aunt pushed a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, fiddled with her watchstrap. ‘Alexi and Roman are dead. If it was a revenge thing then it’s done now. There’s nothing to stop your brother coming back to claim his son.’
‘I’d say there were loads of reasons! Firstly that he’s officially dead, and secondly the Balintas will take him out if he sets foot on the Seaview. And that’s just if Gareth and Joey don’t get there first.’
‘They left you alone. It’s still giving me nightmares that you went to their yard …’
‘That’s because they don’t have any grudges against me, and they think I have something they want. Jay took one of their girls, and a load of contacts. Niko said some of them were Joey’s customers too. Granted he could do a bit of bartering with them, but I’m pretty sure they’d enjoy hurting him first. Anyway, my head’s a mess at the moment. Don’t leave for Spain just yet, will you, Lydia? Let’s get this sorted first.’ She smiled at her.
‘I said I’d only go when you’re settled, Holly. As soon as things are easier for you, you’re happier about everything, and Milo is a bit bigger then I’ll go. You could always come too, you know.’ Her aunt smiled, folding clean school shirts into the ironing basket. ‘In the meantime, the rental makes me enough cash to live on. I wish I’d got into the rental market earlier, you know. If I had, I’d have a whole string of villas in Spain by now! But it was never easy for a woman to take control of business interests in our family. Your mum tried after she left home, to get into property development, but then of course she married young …’
Holly, tired and emotional, didn’t want to talk about her mum, but filed this piece of information away for future reference. Her mum had never mentioned it. ‘Thanks, Lydia, but we’ll just be the ones who visit all the time. I need to sort Tom out too. He had a total hissy fit when I even mentioned the idea of moving out there with you, and I can’t afford any more legal fees.’
‘I know, love. Right, if you’re okay, I’m off to walk Oreo. It’s good having a dog again, so you did me a good turn even if you did nearly get yourself killed. All right, I won’t say any more about it! You’re working another late shift for overtime this week, aren’t you? Is it Thursday?’
‘Half six till half six, but then I’ve got my five days off, thank God.’
‘You need some rest. You need to look after yourself, Holly,’ her aunt told her sternly.
‘So do you.’
‘Yes, well all this business isn’t helping. I don’t like looking back and dragging up the past. There’s nothing like being told your dead nephew is alive to fry your brain!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault, is it?’
Holly nodded, then shook her head, her brain foggy and exhaustion shutting down her body. But she had no intention of getting more than a couple of hours’ sleep. It was time to visit Donnie.
***
Cath was at the school gates, dragging her kids along behind her. ‘Hey, you got a car!’
‘Insurance company finally came through on the rental, and my leg’s okay now. Christ, I can’t wait to get into bed. You aren’t working tonight, are you?’
‘Nah. Two days off. It’s all right for us part-timers.’ She was grinning through her exhaustion.
‘I don’t know how you do it all with all your kids,’ Holly told her honestly.
‘Yeah I’m just Wonder Woman. Right now, this superhero needs a kip. I’ll ring you later, babes.’ She pushed the older kids through the gates, kissing them, adjusting collars, stuffing a stray glove into Kian’s backpack.
Holly waved Milo off, and watched Kian, Ronnie, and Sean march off towards the senior school, while the younger ones followed Cath towards the nursery and primary school. Someone jostled her in the crowd and she fell against the chain-link fence. Blinking, expecting an apology, she looked over her shoulder, but the throng of milling parents hid the culprit. Just for a second she almost thought she saw Dev, but dismissed it as her imagination. Holly rubbed her shoulder, pulling the strap on her bag higher up her shoulder. Must be just a latecomer hurrying off to work.
A kid with red hair and freckles reminded her of Bailey. Her heart went out to him. It took courage to break free, and he wasn’t just running, he was grassing his family. A brave man or a stupid one?
Ignoring the rain, which had now become a downpour, she made it back to the car and dumped her bag on the passenger seat. A ten-minute drive and she could grab a hot shower and fall into bed for a couple of hours. Her phone buzzed with a text and she automatically delved in her bag for it:
You killed her.
Right, that was it. Exhaustion, the stress of the last few weeks, and worry about the divorce all coiled up inside of her, finally exploded into fury. Enough. She called Tom, but his phone went to voicemail, so she tried the landline.
‘Beth, it’s Holly. I need to speak to Tom urgently. Is he at home?’
‘No, he’s on campus today. Is Milo okay?’ Her voice was pretty, light and childish.
Holly took a deep breath, felt dizzy and leant her head against the coldness of the car window. ‘Look, Beth, I’ve been getting texts from Tom’s phone for the last few weeks, really vicious weird stuff.’
‘Did you ask Tom about it?’ Beth was wary. ‘Because I can understand that this isn’t an ideal situation for us all.’
‘An ideal situation? It’s a fucking nightmare. I love Milo, and all I’m doing is trying to keep some sort of a life going. You know I didn’t have a clue Tom was seeing you. It’s funny, isn’t it – I thought he might be planning a holiday, or a day out or something, and that’s why he was being all secretive, but all the time he was meeting you.’ This was not a good idea, Holly thought suddenly, but she couldn’t stop herself. She had never really talked to Beth, had no idea what Tom had told her, but it wasn’t going to be good.
‘I … I’m sorry but these things happen. I don’t know anything about any texts, but I can ask Tom if you like.’
‘Don’t bother; he says he didn’t send them. But they came from his phone …’
‘You think I sent them?’ Her voice was sharper now.
‘I don’t know, did you?’
‘I don’t even touch his phone, Holly, and I trust him a hundred per cent, so if he says he didn’t send the texts then he didn’t. There must be some kind of mistake … I need to go now. I’m sorry you’re upset, but I want us all to be …’
‘Friends? Please tell me you weren’t going to say friends.’ Holly ended the call, shaking. Beth was either totally naive, or sharper than she had imagined.
The girl on the phone today had alternated between uncertainty and something harder, sharper. But then she was pregnant; it made you feel odd things, and certainly made your emotions all over the place. Holly mentally shrugged it off, but she sat and watched the rain pouring down her windscreen in gushing channels for a good few minutes before she found the energy to drive home.
***
When she woke, just after lunch, she felt groggy and slightly dizzy but at least able to think straight. Bloody night shifts were just hell on earth, but she needed to sort out dinner for Milo, get her stuff ready for tonight and get over to the Seaview. She poured a coffee, made a bowl of cereal and took them over to the sofa, curling her legs under her. Daytime TV was crap but strangely comforting, so she flicked across the channels to find a chat show.
Her phone had two voicemails and she quickly checked them whilst she ate. The
school had her home phone number, which had a ring to wake the dead, but it was always her first thought.
DC Karen Marriot was her first caller, merely saying that she wanted a chat about Jayden’s son, and to ring back when she had a minute. She added that it wasn’t urgent.
Tom, clearly alerted by Beth, had left a message saying he was fed up with her bitterness, but he thought that someone must be using his phone. It was his old number and although he had updated the school, he had forgotten to tell Holly. He reeled off a new number as she rolled her eyes. Did he really think that was even remotely plausible? It was a pathetic attempt to explain his behaviour.
But the messages had never come this early in the day before. Holly finished her cereal and flicked back through the messages, checking dates and times, pleased that she had had the sense to keep them. No, there was really only one explanation, and she shivered slightly at the thought. It wasn’t her going crazy, it was her ex-husband.
***
The rain was still spitting sullenly as Holly made her way to her dad’s house. It was strange and familiar at the same time, following the muddy path, taking the cut-through that led round the back of the recycling centre. Her legs carried her all the way to the front door, without her having to emerge from her thoughts. Discovering she was shivering, despite her coat, Holly told herself firmly to grow some balls and get on with it.
She thumped on the door, watching through the glass panels as a distorted figure approached, hearing them fumbling with a lock and chain.
The two shops next door were closed, and the kebab store had a broken window behind the rusty security bars. Litter circled the scrubby bit of grass outside the house, whirling into a tidal wave of filth as the wind caught it.
‘Hey, Holly.’ He was grinning at her, dark hair shaved close to his head, his face grey in the murky afternoon light.
‘Niko!’ Holly found herself checking she had come to the right house. What the hell was bloody Niko doing here?
Chapter 19
‘Niko? Who is it?’ Donnie appeared behind the other man, his bulk filling the doorway. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.
