It sinks without trace.
Then, bam!
A furnace is lit in my gut. Flames of comfort and joy lick all the way through to my head and toes.
I’d intended on only havin’ one swig. Now, I reckon there’s no harm in another before I put it back.
Boom.
The second gulp spreads familiar fire throughout the rest of my body and has me crackling and beaming.
I’ve got my mojo back.
Confidence replaces shame. I am the MAN of the house. Without me, Paula would be no one. I deserve the odd drink. I actually owe it to myself to unwind once in a while. It ain’t healthy to feel uptight all the time. So I wet the bed. So what? The sheets can be washed, can’t they? If she hadn’t come home unexpectedly early from her business trip, then I’d have cleaned myself up, done some tidying in the house and she’d have been none the wiser. In a way, it’s her fault. Actually, there’s no ‘in a way’ about it.
It is her fault.
All her fault.
And she knows it.
That’s why she’s being so nicey-nicey about everything.
I sit on the bed and cradle the vodka. It’s only a small bottle. Third of a litre. No harm in finishing it. I go to the en suite and lock the door. Sit on the loo and take my time. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to empty it. Yeah, I know an amateur would struggle all night with that amount, but not a seasoned pro like me.
I put the top on and feel pleasantly buzzed. Emptying my stomach of all that food means the booze is racing happily through my bloodstream. I don’t care now.
No worries. No doubts. No insecurities.
There’s a white plastic panel on the front of the bath. It comes off at one end. I slide the empty bottle in there and click it back into place. Paula’s stocked the bathroom very considerately. Spare toothbrushes, paste, mouthwash, bottles of water, tissues, make-up remover and enough toilet rolls to wipe every bum in London. I open the mouthwash and gargle with some foul peppermint liquid, then I brush my teeth and head downstairs. I can hear Paula in the kitchen, runnin’ water in the sink.
I walk in and go straight to her. Ignore the disappointed, tired look she is giving me. ‘I’m sorry, babe. I know I fucked up. I’m sorry.’
I don’t let her answer. Don’t want this to turn into a conversation. I never win them.
I hold her tight.
She’s awkward in my arms. Trying to be distant. But I know it won’t last. I left my robe unfastened and I’m pressed against her. I kiss her neck. Hold her head in my hand. ‘I love you, Paula. Love you so much.’
I press her head against my head.
Then I kiss her.
And she’s lost.
As lost as I am.
The clocks are being turned back. It’ll be like it used to be. Like it should be.
7
Paula
At moments like this, I close my eyes and remember the good times. The best of times. The day Danny and I married in Gretna Green.
Gretna.
How much soppier can you get than that? Teenage lovers who tied the knot over the most famous anvil in the world. And do you know what? If Danny hadn’t done some extra jobs after school we wouldn’t have had enough to afford the application fee for the civil ceremony and the tickets to the tiny Scottish village.
I remember, that coach journey lasted all day. During a brief break at a service station near Carlisle, I shampooed my hair in a sink in the toilets. Dried it beneath a hand dryer, burning half my scalp with the ends still wet.
Then there was the dress.
Not a white one with a twenty-foot bridal train, but a horrendous buttercup-yellow midi thing. It had a zip that didn’t fasten properly. My beau wore a cheap black suit, white shirt and black tie. It was comically short in trouser and sleeve length but neither of us cared.
The coach hit a dropped pallet and blew a tyre near Kirkandrews. As a result, we arrived so late in Gretna that the marriage hall had long shut. Danny scoured the streets and found the registrar plastered in a pub. Fortunately, he was in sufficiently good spirits (twenty-year-old malt to be precise) to open up and officiate for us.
Our honeymoon suite was a damp back bedroom in an old semi-detached B&B run by the scariest couple this side of Fred and Rose West. The walls were covered in magnolia woodchip that sagged and peeled where the damp was too bad. There was a red lamp shade over a bulb so bright that when it was on, the whole room looked like a hooker’s window in Amsterdam. The tiny bed had busted springs and holey sheets that snagged your toenails but we couldn’t have cared less. It was our marriage bed. An altar upon which our bodies could be blessed.
And blessed they were.
I don’t think I have ever felt happier than I did in Gretna.
We came away as man and wife. The happiest couple in the world. So confident in ourselves and our love that we headed down here to London to search for jobs. The big city. The big adventure. It all seemed so marvellous.
Now here I am. The wife of an alcoholic. The wife of an ex-con.
Afraid to leave.
Frightened to stay.
Too mentally tired to push my drunk of a husband away from me.
Somehow, I have to find enough courage to regain control of my life.
8
Annie
Cars are gridlocked behind my stranded Golf and the abandoned Range Rover. According to Control, after he shot out my car, Richardson ordered a woman out of a black 630i BMW and he and his Adonis of an accomplice drove off up the hard shoulder.
I’m now waiting for a recovery truck and a traffic car to take me back home. I sit with the radio on and surf the Web on my phone. There’s already camera-phone footage of the incident on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. I’m praying Tom hasn’t seen any of it.
After half-an-agonising-hour, a PC called Ellie Reed picks me up in a traffic car. She’s a bright blonde in her early twenties. After asking if I’m okay, she has the maturity not to refer to my Waynetta Slob shabby blue fleece, baggy track pants and old trainers that were absolutely okay to wear for a quick rush to the supermarket, but are now an embarrassment.
We come off at the next roundabout and drive into the nearby village where I know there’s a chemist. I buy a box of blackcurrant Dioralyte sachets and some soluble ibuprofen suitable for Polly and then head home.
En route, my son Tom rings. ‘Mum, where are you?’
‘Have you been watching the news?’
‘No, Polly’s been crying. I’m at my wits’ end.’
I wince. And then feel annoyed that he’s guilting me like that. ‘Well, you’re a big lad, Tom, and she is your daughter, so why don’t you comfort her and say Nanna will be back with her medicine just as soon as she can.’
‘I’ve done that. Course I have. But when she’s sick, Mum, she just wants you.’
Now I do feel guilty. Not that I should. But I do. Tom gets stressed when he can’t cope and I’m sure Polly senses it. ‘Twenty minutes and I’ll be back.’
‘All right. Bye,’ he says tersely.
‘Bye.’
I hang up and wish he were more resourceful. Before Lily’s death he was a real doer, full of confidence and get up and go. When she and my Jack died, it was as if he wanted to be with them. He ran a bath in the middle of the night and took every pill he could find in the house – headache pills, laxatives, antibiotics and a few painkillers Jack had left over from when he had back trouble. Fortunately, the combination made him violently sick. Nevertheless, he spent a night in A&E with medics pumping his stomach clean and detoxing him with fluids. Someone in the hospital told a reporter and the following day it was all over the news.
YOUNG FATHER TRIES TO KILL HIMSELF AFTER TRAGIC DEATH OF WIFE AND FATHER.
That’s the mental burden Tom faces every day.
Ellie does the return journey to my house in fifteen, not twenty, minutes and I thank her for her sensitivity as I shut the door and say goodbye.
I still live
in the place Jack and I bought when we married a decade ago. On and off, we’d been together since we were sixteen. We were the proverbial childhood sweethearts. Then I got pregnant and we broke up because Jack felt trapped. Then he came back and felt trapped again, and so it went on for a good twelve years before we finally settled down.
Home is a large mid-terrace, made of local stone that a hundred and fifty years ago was as bright and warm as honey. Now traffic pollution has rendered it a tobacco brown, each slab of nicotined stone desperate for a good scrub.
‘Why didn’t you ring?’ growls Tom as I enter the back door. ‘You’ve been out for hours.’
‘Long story.’ I put my bag and the medicine down on the table. ‘How’s Polly?’
‘She’s asleep now,’ he says exasperatedly. ‘But she’s barely stopped crying while you’ve been out.’
I bite my tongue. ‘Did she eat anything?’ I start to fill the kettle at the sink.
‘Bit of toast.’
‘And she kept it down?’
‘Seems to have done. Though all she really did was lick the jam off the bread.’
‘It’s a start.’ My phone rings, a muffled buzz, meaning it’s still in my handbag. I dig deep and pull it out just before it trips to voicemail.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that DI Parker?’
‘It is.’
‘Ma’am, this is DC Garnett,’ says a young male voice. ‘DCI Brookes from Regional Crime asked me to call you about the incident with the Range Rover.’
‘Do you want tea, or coffee?’ asks Tom, heading to the abandoned kettle.
‘Tea,’ I answer.
‘Pardon?’ says Garnett.
‘Tea it is,’ chirps Tom, clattering mugs out of the cupboard.
‘Hello? Are you still there?’ asks the DC.
‘Yes, I am.’ I glower at my son and put a hushing finger to my lips. ‘I’m sorry, I am at home and being asked questions, please go on.’
‘I’ve been told to inform you that the occupants of the Range Rover are still at large, but a man has been found in the boot of the vehicle. He was bound and gagged.’
My interest is piqued. ‘Alive?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I understand he is unharmed but is currently on the way to hospital to be checked out as a precautionary measure.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘I don’t, ma’am. Do you need me to find it out for you?’
‘No, no, it’s okay. I’ll find out soon enough.’
‘Indeed, ma’am. In relation to your own statement, DCI Brookes asked me to find out your availability for today and tomorrow.’
‘I’m at home the rest of today and then back in work in the cold case unit tomorrow afternoon. Tell him I’ll send a draft as soon as I can.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘You have my numbers, so please call if something crops up.’
‘I will, ma’am. Thank you and goodbye.’
The phone goes dead and I feel a little chuffed for having trusted my instincts and chased that 4x4 once it left the supermarket.
‘What do you know?’ I say to Tom, proudly. ‘I may well have saved someone’s life when I went out for that medicine.’
He glances blankly at me while pouring hot water over tea bags in matching brown mugs. ‘I forgot to tell you, I think the washing machine is broken. I put some of Polly’s stuff in on a forty, but it’s not draining.’
I look at him and smile. ‘I’ll ring someone. Right after I’ve had that cuppa.’
9
Paula
It’s morning now.
Danny is sleeping off his bender and I am outside my office in Shoreditch trying to clear my mind before I go inside. I run our small clothing business from here. I say small – that’s typically English to underplay things. It’s actually grown rapidly in the last few years, since I took it online, and I now employ about half a dozen people here in the office and others in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. It’s bottom of the price range, cheap but fashionable stuff. Our USP used to be vintage coordinates. I spotted that teenagers were going crazy on vintage wear but lacked the experience of matching things. So, I simply paired them up, had them modelled by online influencers and opinion formers and threw what cash I had into marketing. These days we do vintage, retro and modern, selling everything as outfits – skirts with matching tops, shoes, handbags and cardigans.
I walk through the foyer and take four flights of stairs to the couple of tiny offices we rent. You’d be amazed how much a London address impresses people. There’s a lift but I grab whatever exercise I can, whenever I can. I swipe a key card over a scanner next to a brass sign engraved Cloth Eared Kids Ltd, a reference to Danny and me when we were young and took no notice of anything people said to us.
The reception area is tiny but neat, decorated in greys and pinks, with its grey counter, topped with a pink vase always holding fresh flowers.
Phones are ringing, so I get no more than a smile and a wave as I head down the corridor to my cupboard come office. My executive assistant, a fantastic woman in her early fifties, spots me heading for my desk and is standing in the doorway before I can even get my coat off and put my bags down.
‘Tea, or are you going straight out again?’
‘Tea, please, Liz.’
I slide my laptop out of my bag and onto a raised docking station while she heads to the galley kitchen down the corridor.
Liz is a year out of a nasty divorce. The kind that left debts and negative equity in a home that her gambling-addicted husband had secretly racked up a second mortgage and a stack of loans on. First thing in the morning, you can see the strain of it all on her face. There’s tension in and under her eyes, a rawness and redness from broken sleep that won’t leave her until mid-afternoon when she’s so immersed in her work she’s forgotten the world of trouble she’s in back home.
Within five minutes, Liz returns, carrying two mugs of black tea and a plate of freshly sliced lemons.
‘Thanks.’ I take the tea and zing it up with a slice of lemon as she takes a seat opposite me. ‘So, how long do I have you for?’ she asks.
‘I need to go around three. Four at the latest.’
‘Can you do a working lunch with the finance people?’
‘Food and money shouldn’t be on the same table.’
‘Then see them twelve to one and I order sushi for afterwards?’
‘Deal.’
‘And do you have time this morning to go through the shortlist for new Asian buyers?’
‘Sadly not. Have you got it down to three?’
‘Four.’
‘Okay. You pick the best two from the four and get them in for interview.’
‘Fine.’
I clasp my hands and prepare to give her what she’s waited patiently and professionally for. ‘So-o-o – let me tell you about the Americans.’
Liz braces herself.
‘There’s nothing to worry about. The trip to New York went well. Yes, I have agreed to sell, but one of their conditions is that I stay on as Group CEO for the next three years, and I am hoping you’ll stay too.’
‘Of course, I will.’ She looks relieved.
‘If you do, then that will complete your long service retention contract and give you a very nice little bonus, if memory serves me right.’
‘And after three years? What will you do then?’
‘Goodness. I haven’t thought that far ahead.’ This is an absolute lie. I know exactly what I’m going to do. Hopefully, the money from the deal will have helped finance my split from Danny. Three years from now, I’ll leave London. Maybe even the UK. Start a new life somewhere. Hopefully, with someone new. I will be a completely new me, cleansed from all of my past.
My mobile phone rings. I’d put it down on the desk and it’s now vibrating and flashing at me.
Instinctively, Liz picks it up.
‘No,’ I snap. ‘Please don’t answer that.’
She frowns at me.
‘It’s Danny.’ I spin my phone round so she can see the screen. ‘He’s started drinking again.’
‘Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.’ She pulls a genuinely sympathetic face. ‘Do you want me to ring the clinic for you?’
I shake my head. ‘No, no, thank you. But when we’re finished here, you can get Finnian Docherty for me.’
Liz winces at the mention of my lawyer’s name. Fin Docherty is a qualified solicitor, private investigator and general hard ass. What he’s not, is a nice person. At least that’s his reputation. However, when times get tough, Fin is the guy you need on your side.
‘Has it really come to that?’ asks Liz.
‘No, but it’s coming to it,’ I answer. ‘I want to talk to Fin and get his advice before I tell Danny I’m filing for a divorce.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she says sympathetically, then adds, ‘Is there anything I can do to help you – other than ring Mr Docherty?’
‘Actually, there is. I’m not going back to the house. I’ll stay at a hotel tonight, but can you find me a place near here to rent?’
‘Of course. One or two beds? Any idea of price range?’
‘One is fine. And I don’t care about the price. I just want warm, clean, cosy and alcoholic free.’
‘Understood.’
I fall silent as she makes notes. Divorce will be messy. Not just because all divorces are. Not just because Danny is against us splitting up, as he has been for the past five years, but because he has a hold over me. One that I have now determined has to be broken. No matter what the cost.
‘Anything else?’ asks Liz, pen now resting.
‘No, thanks. Just get me Finnian, please.’
10
Annie
This morning, my sister Dee returned from her five-day stay at a girlfriend’s in Cornwall and is staying with us. She’s looking after Polly and Tom while I start my new pattern of shifts on what’s officially known as the East and Central Midlands Historic Serious Crime Investigatory Unit.
Dead and Gone: A Gripping Thriller With a Shocking Twist Page 3
