by Rob Roughley
‘Oh, he loved me all right but not in the way you think.’
Lasser saw a horrid smear of satisfaction on the girl’s face.
Suzanne juddered to a stop her hands coming up to her mouth, eyes suddenly engulfed by a terrible realisation. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It was always about pleasing him wasn’t it, Mother?’
‘No!’ Suzanne shook her head and took a step back.
‘Did you never wonder why I wanted to spend so much time sleeping over at my friends, why I hated to be in the same room as him?’
Suzanne tried to think, tried to make sense of her words. Her mind suddenly filled with images of Jonathan, the smile on his face as he watched Kelly cross the room, the way he would simply walk into her bedroom unannounced. She remembered the times her daughter had asked for a lock on her bedroom door and Jonathan had refused, ‘no secrets in this family, young lady.’ The truth had been there all along and she had known, God help her, deep down in the places we never acknowledge, she’d known what he’d been thinking and now her daughter was confirming her worst fears.
‘Kelly, I didn’t...’
‘Don’t you dare tell me that, don’t you dare stand there and say that you didn’t know!’
‘But I didn’t, do you honestly think I’d have let something like that happen?’ Suzanne’s voice rose in despair.
Kelly shook her head slowly her eyes lit with vicious intent. ‘And all that time, I had to listen to him whinging about how you didn’t love him anymore, about the affairs you had behind his back...’
‘What!’ Suzanne lurched forward again.
Kelly shook her head and took a backward step. ‘He told me all about them, the man he worked with, Zoe’s dad and don’t forget the headmaster of my own fucking school!’ she screamed and suddenly lunged forward, her long hair streaming out behind as she flew at her mother. Lasser plucked her from the air and held on tight. Suzanne had a sudden image of Alan catching her in the park as she headed for the duck pond, hair in ribbons, wearing polka dot shorts and a pink Little Miss Precious T-shirt.
‘I hate you!’ Kelly screamed and tried to break free. ‘He told me you didn’t love him anymore, he used to cry and put his head in my lap and then...’
‘No!’ Suzanne clutched at her own hair as if trying to drag it out by the roots.
‘And I let him because I thought he was my dad, and all this time he wasn’t.’
Lasser watched as Suzanne snapped to a stop and sank slowly to her knees, caught in the twin glare of the headlights her face crumpled. Seconds ago she’d felt ecstatic to have her only child back safe and sound. Convinced that they could overcome any future problems together and now the realisation that things could never be the same smashed through her brain with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
‘He told me I was the only good thing in his life, the only precious thing he had left,’ Kelly whispered.
Lasser tried to imagine what the girl had gone through, the one man she should have been able to trust had turned out to be her abuser and then to discover that he wasn’t really her father after all... ‘I’m so sorry, Kelly,’ he whispered.
She twisted and looked up at him; he could see the hurt shining from her dark brown eyes, the pain lodged in deep and endless.
‘If it hadn’t been for Steve, I would have killed myself,’ she said with utter conviction.
108
Jodie staggered over to the window; it felt as if she had just smoked a fat spliff a good trip gone bad. Holding the phone to the side of her swollen face she tried to swallow, pain bloomed behind her right eye and she gasped.
‘Jodie, where are you?’ Zoe’s voice sounded as if it was actually inside her head whispering like a guilty conscience.
She looked down into the deserted courtyard; she saw Steven pop open the boot of the Jaguar and then bend down to pick something up from the floor. When she saw the long auburn hair dangling, she gasped and dropped the phone.
‘Jo, tell me where you are!’
Jodie couldn’t move, couldn’t take her eyes from the scene below. Reynolds dumped the body into the boot and tried to slam it shut, once, twice he tried, he swept a hand through his hair and lifted the lid again pushing the girl's hand back inside. This time it closed and he turned away walking back to the door, she saw the lights flash on the car as he beeped the alarm.
‘Jo...!’
The sound of her sister’s voice cut through the horror, Jodie fell to her knees and grabbed the phone. ‘Zoe, call the police,’ she hissed.
‘What? Listen, Jo...’
‘She’s dead, oh Christ, Steve’s killed her....’
‘What...?’
‘The new apartments at the top of Hall Lane,’ she heard the door to the stairwell bang shut and almost dropped the phone again. ‘Zoe, he’s coming back...’
‘Who?’
‘His name's Steve Reynolds, for God’s sake just call the police,’ then she was dashing for the door. She felt sure she could hear him climbing the steps, hear his heavy tread as he drew ever nearer, grabbing the security chain she slipped it into the clasp with jittering fingers.
‘Jo?’
‘Just call them,’ she hissed into the phone, holding it up to her mouth with both hands. Then the handle turned and she gasped in fear and staggered back. ‘Zoe?’ She shook the phone, as if this would somehow reconnect her to her lifeline, but the phone droned in her ear, her sister had gone.
109
Lasser eased his grip as Kelly Ramsey stood rooted to the spot. Suzanne remained kneeling on the rutted tarmac as if in prayer, her hands clasped together, eyes closed.
‘Who told you about Jonathan not being your father, Kelly?’
She was looking at him or rather through him, her mind fixed on some internal landscape. ‘Steve,’ she whispered.
‘And how did he know?’
Kelly threw a withering glance at her mother. ‘She told him.’
Suzanne snapped open her eyes. ‘I swear, I never said a word,’ she scuttled forward on her knees. ‘I mean, why would I tell him something like that?’ she looked at Lasser in bewilderment.
‘Because you love him, that’s why,’ Kelly spun towards her. ‘But it’s me he loves, he told me, he said that he couldn’t stomach you for standing back while that man...’ she stopped as if unwilling or unable to say the word.
Lasser sighed. ‘Your mother’s telling the truth, Kelly.’
‘What?’ she looked at him with a hint of uncertainty in her eyes.
‘I think it was Jonathan who told Reynolds that he wasn’t your biological father.’
‘No, you’re wrong, he said it was her, he said....’
‘I think when Steven Reynolds found out what your stepfather had been doing to you, he went to see him and that’s when Ramsey told him you weren’t really his child.’ Lasser spoke the words, thinking aloud.
Kelly snapped her head from side to side, her dark hair writhing. ‘No, Steven would have done something about it if he’d known.’
‘But he did know, you already said that he hated your mother for standing by while it happened.’
Kelly’s eyes flitted from left to right, her haunted dust smeared face pale in the full moons glow.
‘But he promised me everything was going to be all right, he said he’d make sure it never happened again...’
‘And did it?’
‘No!’ her eyes flashed in triumph.
‘But you were having sex with him by then weren’t you, Kelly?’
This time she stepped back as if Lasser had thrown a punch, he could see Suzanne from the corner of his eye scrambling to her feet. ‘What are you saying, you bastard!’
Kelly looked towards her and sneered. ‘So what,’ she thrust her hands onto her hips. ‘You can hardly stand there looking shocked when you would fuck anything that moved.’
‘And what about Christy?’ Lasser asked.
Suzanne looked back and forth at them both her mind clatteri
ng like a cheap washing machine on fast spin.
Kelly shrugged. ‘I thought she wanted me.’
‘But she didn’t?’
‘Hey, that’s her loss.’
It was like watching a little kid rummaging in an adults wardrobe. Trying on shoes that were too big, the dress too long, smearing lipstick across their face and slapping on a ton of eye shadow, a parody of the real thing.
Lasser turned the cigarette packet over in his pocket. ‘Reynolds had no interest in saving you from anything, Kelly,’ he said quietly.
The bitter smile died on her lips.
‘If I’m right then he was blackmailing Jonathan, using the fact that he’d been having sex with you to make money off him...’
‘That’s not true,’ she whispered, her eyes suddenly cautious, her tongue flicking at her upper lip.
‘So why did he never go to the police?’ Lasser asked.
‘He...’
‘Even when you went missing, he kept quiet.’
‘He loves me,’ she sounded like a little girl, hoping that if she said the words often enough then that would somehow make them true.
Lasser took a step towards her. ‘If that’s the case, then why didn’t he make sure that man was put behind bars, why let him get away with it?’
‘Because, we were going to go away together...’
‘Come on, Kelly, the man’s married.’
‘Shut up!’ she screamed.
He suddenly thought of Rachael Sinclair, Bannister had said that she had been blackmailing the solicitor, and he had also been convinced that she hadn’t been acting alone.
‘He preys on the vulnerable, Kelly, you, Rachael Sinclair,’ he tossed out the name just to see what her reaction would be.
Kelly whipped back her hair and tried to laugh but the noise morphed into a strangled sob. ‘What are you talking about, he doesn’t even know Rachael.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘What about Jodie Moss?’
Kelly’s face suddenly closed down, all emotion vanished. ‘What do you know about that bitch?’
Suzanne shuffled forward and Kelly glared her into immobility.
‘So you do know her?’ he asked.
‘Of course I know her; she was fucking the man who had pretended to be my father.’
Lasser tried to process the information, but he couldn’t make the switch, he’d said the girl's name in desperation. Apart from the fact she was Zoe Metcalf’s sister he knew nothing about her.
As his phone began to ring, all that changed.
Mother and daughter watched in astonishment as Lasser ran to the car and scrambled behind the wheel, the phone trapped between his shoulder. The driver’s door was still open as he reversed, the front wheels slammed down off the grass verge.
He threw Suzanne a dark look and yanked it closed then he was swerving past the Range Rover, the wheels spinning in the damp grass. Smoke poured from the tortured tyres, as he bulleted away, rear end fishtailing as the red lights diminished and vanished altogether.
Silence descended, Suzanne stood in the headlights glare her emotions in overdrive. The past ten minutes had left her feeling demolished; the wrecking ball that was her daughter stood looking at her with an expressionless face.
She couldn’t seem to focus; it was as if she were caught in a tragic loop of recrimination and despair. Kelly was back, surely that was all that mattered? Yet she couldn’t reconcile the image in her head with the reality of the girl who stood looking at her with such malice. Suzanne thought back to the night of the prom it now seemed a lifetime ago. Kelly had come skipping down the stairs, dressed in her hippy regalia with a wide smile on her face, happy and excited looking forward to the party.
She lifted her head, Kelly was watching her, it was as if her daughter had been abducted, fundamentally changed into someone she no longer recognised.
‘I saw the way you looked at him.’ Kelly’s voice was no more than a whisper.
‘What?’
‘The night of the party, Steve came out to watch me go and I saw the way you looked at him. You couldn’t wait to get shut of me, so you could go to him...’
‘That isn’t true, Kelly, I never....’
‘Don’t lie, he told me it wasn’t the first time.’
Suzanne opened her mouth to snap a vicious reply and found that even her hypocrisy had its limits.
‘Christy was out for the night and that animal who pretended to be my father was with one of his sluts. Steve knew what you would do, he could see straight through you.’
‘I...’
‘Did you tell the police about Jonathan? I bet you lied, I bet you said he was with you all night...’
‘Kelly, listen to me, I...’
‘I’ll never listen to you again; everything he said about you is the truth...’
‘Kelly, that man lies, he twists things...’
‘You mean like Dad did?’
Suzanne looked down the darkened lane as if it were an endless road leading straight to purgatory. Everything Kelly had said was the truth, she had looked at Steven Reynolds with longing, she couldn’t wait for Kelly to go then she could...
‘You’re pathetic, do you realise that, trying to act like a teenager with your false tan and...’
‘Shut up,’ Suzanne began to walk towards her on leaden feet.
‘He told me you wouldn’t take no for an answer, he said he tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen. Every time he was alone you were there trying to worm your way in.’
‘Kelly, I’m warning you.’
‘Begging him, pleading ...’
Suzanne’s hand shot out, the sound of her open palm cracking against her daughter’s cheek sounded loud in the darkness. Kelly’s head whipped to the left, her hair streaming across her face. When she looked up, her mother was staring at her hand in disbelief.
‘Kelly, I’m so sorry...’
‘You know something Mother, you sound just like him, that’s exactly what he used to say after he...’
‘Please, I...’
‘I used to think I had the best parents in the world,’ she smiled sadly. ‘It just shows how wrong you can be,’ turning away, she began to walk slowly towards the gates.
110
‘Bastard!’ Lasser cursed as the Audi slammed into one of the potholes, the front of the CD player popped off and dropped into the foot well.
‘Please, you’ve got to hurry,’ Zoe Metcalf sounded hysterical, her nerves shredded.
‘Listen to me, Zoe; I’m going to hang...’
‘No, no, please you can’t...’ she pleaded.
Lasser flicked on the main beam, the lights cutting into the tunnel of darkness. ‘I need to call for assistance, two minutes and I promise I’ll ring you back.’
‘She said he was trying to get into the flat, she said the other girl was dead...’
Lasser gritted his teeth, ‘Two minutes...’
‘No...’
He cut the call and slowed down while he searched for the station number, trying to keep one eye on the road, multi-tasking. At the junction, he threw a quick look right and slammed on the brakes as a late night taxi swept by missing it by inches. When the phone began to ring out, he slammed the car into gear and set off the tyres squealing for grip, the airbag dangling in his lap like a grotesque growth. At the Cherry Gardens roundabout the lanes went from two to one the taxi in front loomed in the windscreen.
‘Come on, for fucks sake!’ he didn’t know if he was cursing the car in front or the fact that no one was picking up the phone. As soon as he cleared the roundabout, he pulled out; surging past the taxi, the driver shaking his fist and mouthing obscenities as Lasser flew past. At the Tesco lights he turned left and slammed his foot back on the accelerator.
‘Jesus, come on!’ he wondered if Meadows had deserted his post, he was probably on the phone to his wife seeing if she had taken any anonymous phone calls about last year’s Chr
istmas party.
The canal bridge appeared out of the darkness and he barrelled over, his teeth jarring together as the wheels slammed back onto terra firma. With a snarl, he cut the call, scrolled down one slot, and pressed the redial button.
Zoe answered immediately. ‘Are you there yet?’
‘Won’t be long...’
‘But you’re going to be too late!’ Her voice echoed around the car like a never-ending accusation.
‘Have you tried to ring her back?’ Lasser asked.
‘Yes, but she isn’t answering, he’s killed her, oh, God, he’s killed her!’ she wailed.
Lasser glanced at the speedometer the needle hovered just below a hundred; the scenery flew past in a blur. He shot under the railway bridge heading into Hindley town centre. Left at the closed down Town Hall, passing the boarded library and fast food outlets he was forced to slow down by a group of late night revellers who seemed to have trouble keeping to the kerb. Lasser leant on the horn and swerved past, he could hear the expletives fading as he accelerated away.
‘Five minutes, Zoe, and I’ll be there...’
‘But...’
‘Are you sure she said his name was Steven...’
‘Reynolds, of course I’m sure,’ she snapped. ‘He lives next door to Kelly Ramsey.’
Lasser reached the top of Market Street, past St Paul’s church, a tattered banner proclaiming that ‘The house of Jesus is always open for business,’ hung in tatters over the doors. Then he opened the taps as the narrow road began to thread its way out into open countryside. The two-up, two-downs vanished replaced by semis and then detached houses that gradually became more substantial, hidden from the road behind large hedges and towering brick walls. He missed the entrance to the newly built apartments and slammed the brakes on, the car snaking across the road its tyres screaming.
‘Zoe, I’m there, I’ve got to go...’
‘No!’
This time he didn’t hesitate, clicking off the phone he fought for reverse gear, the engine whining as he hurtled backwards. Then he was pulling into the courtyard, empty apart from a red Jaguar. He pulled up directly in front of the car and climbed out surrounded on three sides by the four storey apartments the walls festooned with ‘To Let,’ and ‘For Sale’ signs.
