by Val McDermid
‘You . . . You set up Joshu, knowing those doses of morphine would kill him?’
‘What would you have done? He was a nightmare, you know that. He was off his face half the time, and if I had died, he would have never let go until he’d got his hands on Jimmy and he’d have completely fucked him up. I couldn’t chance that, Steph. You’ve lived with Jimmy, you know what a sweetheart he is. I couldn’t leave him in Joshu’s hands. I’d tried everything to get him to back off. But he wasn’t having it. I didn’t have any choice.’
Stephanie reached for the glass of Prosecco and drank it in one. Scarlett laughed with delight. ‘That’s more like it. More like old times, Steph.’ She refilled the glass, reaching over to squeeze Stephanie’s arm. Stephanie flinched and drew back but Scarlett didn’t seem to mind. Stephanie had understood Scarlett’s single-mindedness, the drive that had taken her from a no-hope background to the high life. But understanding how it had turned into this cold-blooded ruthlessness was still a step she was finding it hard to make.
‘You killed Joshu to protect Jimmy. Then you killed Leanne to protect yourself.’
Scarlett looked put out. ‘Well, how would anyone have been better off if Leanne had grassed us up? We’d have been sent to jail in disgrace and Jimmy’s life would have been over. And Leanne would have been sitting pretty even though she was as guilty as us.’
‘How do you work that out? Leanne being guilty, I mean?’
Scarlett shrugged prettily. ‘She saw what she saw and she didn’t tell the cops at the time. She tried to blackmail me later. In my book, that makes her as much of a criminal. She had no right to get off scot free and with my son thrown in. And I won’t deny that her last job as my body double saved us a lot of aggravation about what to put in the coffin.’ She grinned at her own cleverness.
‘But Leanne supposedly went back to Spain weeks before you “died”.’ Stephanie made contemptuous quotation marks in the air. ‘What? You kept her prisoner all that time?’
‘It wasn’t hard. Simon had the drugs. He kept her sedated in the dressing room where he was supposedly kipping down. The weight fell off her, which made it look even more authentic. Then when we were ready for my big death bed scene, he upped the dose. She didn’t know anything about it. You could say she spent her last couple of weeks totally blissed out. People pay good money for that kind of thing, Steph.’
If that was an attempt at humour, it fell flat on its arse as far as Stephanie was concerned. ‘And the text I got this morning, supposedly from Leanne? That was you too, was it?’
Scarlett looked ridiculously pleased with herself. ‘Of course it was me. I had to think on my feet with that one.’
‘Not fast enough,’ Stephanie said. ‘We already knew Leanne wasn’t in Spain. We met the delightful chap you sold her house to.’
Scarlett looked mildly disconcerted. Capitalising on that, Stephanie went on the offensive. ‘And Jimmy? What was that about? You kidnapped Jimmy. You’ve put me through hell this last week. I’ve been insane with worry. I’ve hardly slept. I’ve been terrified for him.’
For the first time, Scarlett looked as if contrition might be within her emotional range. ‘Yeah. I felt really bad about that, Steph. If I could have found another way round it, I would have. But I couldn’t just ask you for him back, could I? You’d never have been able to explain that to social services, and they’d have thought you’d murdered him or sold him or something.’ She gave a weird little half-laugh. ‘So I had to kidnap him off you. We did it in America to draw attention away from anything that might point to us. Simon did the dirty deed. Lots of heavy-duty disguise and totally different shoes to change the way he walks. Simon drove up to Canada with him, got him across the border with a couple of Romanian passports, and then they flew back from Toronto. Piece of piss, really.’
‘But why? Why make it so complicated? Why didn’t you just make Simon Jimmy’s guardian in the first place? Or even Marina, if she was in on it?’
For the first time, Stephanie thought she saw something shifty flit across Scarlett’s face. ‘Either of them, tongues would have wagged. The hacks would have been all over it. Why was some Romanian nanny getting custody of Scarlett Higgins’ kid and taking him off to Romania? What sort of life was he going to have? Or why was some doctor getting the kid? Was he Scarlett’s secret lover? And why was he taking the kid off to Dracula’s back yard?’ She sighed. ‘Questions, questions, questions. I don’t want to sound mean, Steph, but you were the boring option. My mate, my ghost writer, the woman who was there when Jimmy was born, the person who more or less lived with us through the cancer. You’re his godmother, and that made you the obvious person to take care of him.’
‘And I did take care of him.’ Stephanie’s chin came up in defiance. ‘I couldn’t have taken better care of him if he’d been my own. You want to know the truth, Scarlett? He feels like my own. Never more so than this last week, after you took him off me.’
Scarlett dipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘I’m glad to hear it. But now I need him here with me. I’m sorry. When I asked you to take him on, I didn’t mean it to be temporary. I’d convinced myself I could let him go. Told myself he’d be better off without me, just with you.’ She was serious now; there was emotional depth to what she was saying, unlike when she’d been talking so nonchalantly about murder.
‘What changed things?’
Scarlett twirled the stem of her glass between her fingers, making the bubbles dance in the glass. Outside, it had started to rain, the rising wind throwing handfuls of drops against the windows. To Stephanie, it felt like a film set. It was hard to believe she was living through this disturbing scene for real. Any minute now, Nick was going to burst in with Simon and Jimmy, telling her she’d fallen for a grotesque practical joke.
‘What changed things?’ She sighed. ‘We thought there would be more kids, me and Simon. Giving Jimmy up – I’d squared that with myself on the basis that we’d have kids together. But once we’d been here a few months and nothing was happening, Simon ran a few tests. Turns out that the chemo I had for the breast cancer fried my eggs as well. I’ve got more chance of flying to the moon than I have of conceiving again.’
‘So you wanted Jimmy back. Since you couldn’t make a replacement, you thought you’d just snatch him back.’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘He is mine, after all, Steph. Not yours.’
‘No, he’s not mine. But he’s not yours either. He’s not a possession. He’s a little boy we both owe a duty of care to. He’s the one both of us should have the honesty and the decency to put first. What’s best for Jimmy, that’s how it should be.’
Scarlett’s old smile was back. The lopsided, charming one that always provoked an answering smile in whoever was the target. This time, the old magic failed. ‘And that’s how it’s going to be from now on. I made a mistake, letting him leave my world. Now I’ve fixed it. He’s going to stop here with me, Stephanie. You just have to accept that.’
The icy certainty in Scarlett’s voice made Stephanie’s skin crawl. The unspoken threat was in her level gaze. This was a woman who had organised two cold and calculated murders already in pursuit of what she wanted. Implicit in her words was the menace of what she would exact from Stephanie if she didn’t simply walk away from a boy who was, after all, not her son. Nobody had to know what had happened here.
Except Nick, of course. Honest, passionate, inconvenient Nick.
As if to bolster up what she hadn’t said, Scarlett added casually, ‘You’ll have to stay the night. The roads round here are bloody awful. Even the locals regularly come off those bends and plunge to their deaths. You and Nick would be taking your lives in your hands if you went off in the dark in the middle of a storm.’
It was, Stephanie thought, like being trapped in a Brothers Grimm tale. Most of which, if she remembered rightly, didn’t have a happy ending. If they stayed the night, would they make it to morning? Would their food be drugged? Would their thro
ats be cut in the night, their bodies fed to whatever wildlife roamed the forest? She was sure there must be wolves, or at least wild boars. And everybody knew that pigs ate anything and everything. Would wild boars be any different?
Or would they be doped up and put in the car, sent crashing down a sheer drop to certain death? Such a terrible tragedy, and all arising from a desperate desire to talk to that nice nanny and that helpful doctor who were closest to the boy who’d been mysteriously kidnapped. Simon had always been so convincing with her, he’d have no trouble with the local police who, she was sure, were understandably close to the local orphanage and its benefactors.
Thus far, Scarlett had always done what was necessary to achieve her goal. She kept it simple, but she kept it ruthless. Letting her believe her plan was working might be the only way to survive this. Stephanie let her eyes drop. ‘OK,’ she said, hoping she sounded defeated. ‘We’ll be gone in the morning.’
‘You think you can convince Nick the Greek to keep his mouth shut about Jimmy? It’s not like we have to tell him about the other stuff, after all.’
Like he’s not smart enough to work it out for himself. Stephanie managed a sly smile. ‘He’ll go along with whatever I say. It’s not like this is an official visit or anything. He’s got no authority here.’
Scarlett appeared to accept what Stephanie had said, but Stephanie caught another of those flashes of ice behind her eyes. Scarlett was keeping the peace, that was all. They weren’t safe, her and Nick. Quite the opposite. They were like Damocles, sitting at dinner waiting for the hair suspending the sword above his head to snap. All they could be certain of was that at some point, they would be killed.
Knowing what she knew now, there was no way Scarlett could allow them to leave alive.
10
‘That’s settled, then.’ Scarlett topped up both glasses. This time, Stephanie joined in the celebratory clinking of glasses. ‘You’ve no idea how much I missed you, Steph. The one good thing about not having to keep things hidden from you any more is that you’ll be able to come and visit. There’s even a little outbuilding on the edge of the forest with a wood stove. You could come out here to write, if you wanted to.’ There was nothing to distinguish her cheerful expression from the one Stephanie had grown used to over the years.
‘That might be fun.’ It was beyond bizarre, she thought, desperately trying to come up with a plan that would mean safety for Jimmy and life for her and Nick. Nothing she could think of worked. Whether they went with or without him, they’d never feel safe again. Scarlett was cunning, clever and ruthless, and Simon appeared to be entirely in thrall to her narcissism. Stephanie and Nick would never know the day or the hour. The only thing they could be certain of was that their knowledge was a death warrant where Scarlett was concerned.
But Stephanie had meant what she said about Jimmy being her primary concern. By any measure, putting the child first meant ensuring he didn’t grow up in a household where murder was high on the list of approved solutions to complex problems. They had to walk out of here with Jimmy. She had a feeling that if she said as much, Scarlett would laugh and say, ‘Over my dead body.’
Well, maybe that could be arranged.
Stephanie, who had never done anything more violent than set a mousetrap, let her mind race through the dramatic climaxes of films she’d seen and books she’d read. Scarlett turned away from her and opened the fridge. ‘I’m sure there’s olives and cheese in here, we can have some nibbles while Simon finishes cooking,’ she said. ‘You two must be starving.’
Stephanie knew she’d simply have to act without thinking about it. In one smooth movement, she picked up the knife Simon had been using on the onions and stepped up close behind Scarlett. With her left hand, she grabbed the thick tail of hair, twisting it round her hand and yanking it backwards. Scarlett yelped in shock as her head jerked back, exposing her soft throat to the sharp blade that Stephanie drew from left to right. The knife was so sharp that neither woman felt the impact of the cut.
A sudden gusher of crimson spurted forward, staining the packed contents of the fridge and splattering against the brilliant white interior. Stephanie pushed Scarlett away from her and stepped back. Her former friend crumpled to the floor, blood spreading in a pool from the grinning gash in her throat. Air gurgled in the blood, a gruesome sound Stephanie thought she would hear for ever in her nightmares. Spasms racked Scarlett’s body and her hands twitched and contorted as they tried to reach the wound.
Stephanie threw the knife down. Then she remembered all those TV dramas and picked it up again, taking it to the sink. She grabbed a nearby towel and rubbed the handle clean, then ran it under the hot tap. It would be identifiable as the murder weapon, but it wouldn’t have her fingerprints on it. She did the same with her Prosecco glass. She didn’t think she’d touched anything else, but she kept hold of the towel. She felt like she was outside her body, watching herself do these things but not actually part of them.
She glanced down at her clothes, checking for obvious bloodstains, but saw none. The blood had all spurted forward, leaving her clean. She took a deep breath then turned back to the mess she’d made. The blood wasn’t flowing any more, just seeping. It was amazing how fast someone could bleed out. And how much mess that blood could make.
Stepping carefully to avoid contaminating herself with Scarlett’s blood, Stephanie made it to the door. Using the towel, she opened it and stepped into the cosy hall, carefully shutting the door behind her. Ahead of her, a wide wooden staircase rose to the upper floor and Stephanie climbed carefully, taking her time over each step. She remembered having felt like this on the one occasion she’d smoked dope; her body didn’t seem to be a living thing any longer. It was more like a giant robot suit inside which she was manipulating the controls.
On the upstairs landing, light and noise spilled from a doorway. Stephanie walked unsteadily to the doorway and made herself smile. ‘You look like you’re having fun,’ she said. Jimmy and the two men were putting the finishing touches to building a Lego railway, testing the motors in the trains and the levers that moved the points.
‘It’s the most fun I’ve had in years,’ Nick said, looking as if he meant it.
‘I’m sorry I’ve got to break it up,’ she said. ‘Jimmy, we need to go home. If there’s anything you want to take with you, grab it now, because we really do need to be on our way.’
Nick was first to react. He scrambled upright and hoisted Jimmy into the air. ‘What do you say? Anything you can’t live without, Jimmy?’
‘Wait a minute,’ Simon said, struggling to get to his feet in the tight corner where he was penned by Lego and a toy chest.
Jimmy looked around, frowning. ‘My DS,’ he said, pointing to the small Nintendo console lying on the bed. Nick scooped it up and headed out the door. Stephanie moved back to block the exit.
‘Wait a minute,’ Simon said, lunging towards the doorway. But Stephanie didn’t budge, and his reluctance to hit a woman bought Nick and Jimmy valuable seconds. He gripped her upper arms and tried to shift her bodily out of the way, but Stephanie resisted. ‘What have you done, you mad bitch?’ he shouted. ‘Where’s Scarlett? Scarlett?’
Finally, he used his superior weight against her and simply pushed her back. He ran down the stairs, shouting Scarlett’s name. The yelling stopped abruptly as soon as he opened the kitchen door. By the time Stephanie had recovered her balance and made it to the bottom of the stairs, he was kneeling in Scarlett’s blood, cradling her head in his lap. ‘She didn’t leave me any choice,’ Stephanie said. ‘It was me or her. You know that.’
Simon didn’t even turn his head. ‘My love,’ he kept repeating, his voice cracked and broken.
Still moving like a woman in a trance, Stephanie carried on out the front door towards the little car. She was only a ghost, after all. She’d never been here. A single thought kept reverberating inside her head. You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.
You can’t kill som
eone who’s already dead.
How to Speak Like a Scarlet Harlot
all round the houses: by a circuitous route; indirectly
all sorts: all kinds of things
arsed, as in ‘can’t be arsed’: can’t be bothered
arsing about: messing around
Asian: British Asian as used here; from the subcontinent, i.e. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh.
beam ends, as in ‘on their beam ends’: also, ‘on the bones of his arse’: lacking funds; without a cent to their name
Benidorm: Benidorm is a satirical comedy series set in the Spanish resort of the same name, characterized by vast high-rise hotel complexes and ‘English pubs.’ Benidorm is the destination for many cheap package holidays for people who are interested in getting as much cheap drink and sunshine as possible in seven days. Dante would have included it in one of his circles of hell.
blagging: bluffing
a bob: a buck (literally, a pound), money: a shilling, in old predecimal money. A nickel would probably be the closest equivalent in relative value.
bones of one’s arse, as in ‘on the bones of his arse’: lacking funds
the bottle, as in ‘Has she got the bottle?’: nerve
braces, as in ‘belt and braces’: suspenders; so, belt and suspenders, metaphorically, would be thorough
carry on (as in ‘all Joshu’s carry on’): carry on baggage
CCTV: closed circuit television; spy cameras.
chalk, as in ‘not by a long chalk’: measure; so the expression means no way; by no means
chops, as in off their chops: a bit crazy; or drunk. Dependent on context
clogs, as in ‘pop one’s clogs’: die
come the, as in ‘come the toff’: pretend to be posh
