by Tom Bale
On into his bedroom, where a sudden crushing weariness bore down on him. Without bothering to switch on the light, he wriggled free of his shirt and stamped out of his jeans, mashing them into the carpet as he collapsed on to the bed.
He didn’t expect sleep to come easily, but it was virtually instantaneous: more like passing out than dozing off. His very last fear, the one he carried into oblivion, was that the evening’s tragedy would feed into the nightmares that had stalked him since childhood: his parents’ fatal accident re-imagined in endless gory detail.
But it wasn’t the accident he dreamed of, or Hank O’Brien, or Mum and Dad. It was Cate. He dreamed that she had loved him all along, and it broke his heart to know he wasn’t worthy of her.
CHAPTER 10
The call came at just after three a.m. The dead hour.
The landline extension was on Gordon’s side of the bed. He jerked awake, registered the time on the clock radio and knew immediately that it was bad news. Nobody phoned with good news at three in the morning.
Even as his hand reached out to pick up the phone, he was praying: Please don’t let it be about Lisa. He thought it unlikely. His daughter was a plain, undramatic woman in her late twenties, in good health, not given to risk-taking. Even so, he felt a frisson of alarm which didn’t entirely fade until the phone was at his ear and he heard and recognised the caller’s voice.
It was Jerry Conlon. And Jerry was nothing to do with Lisa; had never set eyes on her.
But Gordon was still right about one thing.
****
He listened to thirty seconds of explanation. Jerry Conlon was pushing sixty, a lifelong drinker and smoker, and on the phone some of his words got lost in the phlegmy South London growl. Fortunately Gordon knew the man’s speech patterns well enough to fill in the gaps.
Afterwards, Gordon couldn’t think of much to say. Part of his mind was still rejoicing that Lisa was safe. So he said, in a cautious whisper: ‘Yes, yes, absolutely,’ and after Jerry had spoken some more: ‘No, you were right. Yes. Do that.’
And then, because it seemed there was nothing else to be discussed, he terminated the call. But as he leaned out to replace the handset there was an ominous stirring on the other side of the bed, and Gordon knew with a familiar sinking feeling that he hadn’t got away with it.
****
The bedside light snapped on: Patricia, wide awake and springing into action, pushing back the old-fashioned silk eiderdown and reaching for her glasses, as though there might be documents to read, orders to give.
‘A problem?’
‘Could be. That was Jerry.’
Patricia sat bolt upright, her expression fierce enough to boil water. Gordon flexed the muscles in his arms and legs, trying to stay relaxed, but he could feel the sleep oozing from his veins.
‘He’s concerned about O’Brien,’ he told her. ‘He hasn’t been able to reach him this evening.’
‘You mean he’s not answering his phone, or he’s gone missing? What, exactly?’
‘Both. Jerry wonders if he’s out on a bender, but Hank hadn’t said he was planning on anything the last time they spoke.’
‘And when was that?’
Gordon flinched. He had enough self-respect not to wriggle out of sight beneath the covers. He could try it, in a light-hearted fashion, but Patricia wouldn’t see the funny side.
She thrust out her hand. ‘Phone.’
****
While Patricia dialled the number, Gordon found himself wondering if her first concern, like his, had been for Lisa, or whether it had even crossed her mind that her daughter might have been in distress.
‘Jerry, it’s me. The full story, please.’
Closing his eyes for a moment, Gordon imagined he could feel the body of his wife thrumming with a furious energy; almost enough to make the bed vibrate. Then he realised it was actually his own body trembling, probably because he was tired, and anxious – and fearing his wife’s overreaction.
Sighing, Patricia said, ‘And what time was this?’ Gordon strained to hear the other side of the conversation, but all he could make out was a distant low-pitched rasp, like someone sweeping concrete with a stiff broom.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Go at seven. Make sure you’re not seen. You have keys, don’t you?’
‘Hasn’t he looked inside?’ Gordon hissed.
Patricia held up a hand to command silence. ‘Seven o’clock. If he’s there, you should be able to rouse him. If not, you call me.’
She passed the phone back to Gordon, who went to say goodnight to Jerry, only to find that the line was dead.
‘Well?’ he said, because some degree of analysis was now unavoidable.
‘This could be bad.’ Patricia had crossed her arms and was staring intently at the far wall. ‘This could be very bad.’
****
Patricia Blake was a large woman, although Gordon preferred to think of her as ‘solid’. She had always been that way: solid, well-built, wide at the hips and shoulders. Thirty years ago there had been a softness in evidence as well, in her eyes and her skin; even in her manner when the occasion called for it. But time and bitter experience, rather than wearing her smooth, had instead created furrows and ridges in her character, had made her coarse and abrasive.
She remained a handsome woman, however, and Gordon knew he wasn’t the only one who thought so. She took great care of herself. Her hair and nails were regularly and discreetly maintained, so that from one month to the next her appearance barely changed at all. Her hair was longer than many would consider appropriate for a woman in her mid-fifties, but in public she wore it piled up in a chignon, which lent her a somewhat sexy, girlish quality. In a certain light – admittedly a rather low light – Gordon fancied that she bore a resemblance to Leslie Caron in her middle years.
To many people, Gordon was aware, his wife was regarded as a sour old battleaxe. He could understand that. What successful middle-aged woman didn’t attract such epithets? And Patricia was never one to hold back her opinions: she had pricked a fair few egos over the years, and made enemies as a result—
‘Gordon! I hope you’re not dozing off?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘I was saying, Jerry last spoke to him yesterday afternoon. O’Brien didn’t mention any plans for the evening beyond a drink at his local pub.’
‘Perhaps he met a friend and went on somewhere?’
‘Mm. Jerry said there are lights on at the house, but no sign of Hank.’
‘Do you think he might have been taken ill? A heart attack, or a stroke?’
‘I hope not.’ Patricia shuddered. ‘Not after everything we’ve invested in him.’
‘But if he could be in the house, unable to call for help ...’
‘Jerry suspects the alarm code has been changed. Hank mentioned upgrading his security a few weeks ago.’
‘Then why didn’t—?’
‘Why didn’t Jerry action it there and then? That is a question we’ll address when this present crisis is resolved. He didn’t say anything to you about it?’
‘About the security? No, of course not.’
Patricia nodded, but her eyes were narrowed, as though some doubt lingered. ‘If necessary he’ll have to disable the alarm. But if O’Brien’s in there, sleeping off a night on the tiles, he’s going to wonder how and why Jerry obtained a set of keys.’
****
Silence for a minute or two, mulling it over. It was three-fifteen, and Patricia had told Jerry to call again at seven. Gordon tried to calculate how many hours were left for sleep, but his brain refused to do the arithmetic. Three or four – and then only if Patricia agreed that nothing could be achieved by staying awake. Sometimes she enjoyed batting a problem back and forth, the way a cat will toy with an injured bird, not to find a solution but for the sheer pleasure of it.
‘There’s no sign of a disturbance at the house?’ he asked. When Patricia shook her head, he said gently: ‘Then let’s not get too despond
ent. Perhaps Hank has acquired a lady friend.’
‘I sincerely hope not. If he’s seeing somebody and we don’t know about her, it raises the question: what else don’t we know?’ She exhaled loudly, nostrils flaring. ‘This comes back to Jerry. If O’Brien’s hiding something, it means Jerry isn’t doing his job properly. And he’s going to suffer for that.’
Wisely, Gordon said nothing. For Patricia, issuing threats was a form of therapy. It helped to purge the anger from her system.
He shifted across the bed, snaked out one hand beneath the covers and located her thigh, which he began to stroke. ‘Lie down.’
She cast him a glance. ‘You’re not seriously expecting ...?’
‘No. No, I’m not.’ Gordon was hurt. She didn’t have to sound quite so appalled. ‘Let’s go back to sleep. If there is a problem, we need to be fresh and alert in the morning.’
She made another huffing noise, but he could sense that he’d won her over. She turned off the light and shuffled down, coming to rest with her head lying sideways on the pillow. He could just make out her eyes, shining with a malevolent glow.
‘All these years,’ she said. ‘Everything we’ve put into this, and just when it’s coming to fruition—’
‘Ssh, I know. I know, my darling.’
‘I won’t stand by and watch it fall apart. I mean it, Gordon. I won’t let anything stop us from getting what’s rightfully ours. Anything,’ she said again, much too vehemently for a quiet bedroom in the bleakest hour of the night. ‘Or anyone.’
CHAPTER 11
Dan couldn’t remember much about his dreams the next morning; only that they had involved an intense desire for Cate which, upon waking, provoked a nanosecond of guilt – before such trivial concerns were obliterated by his first clear memory of the previous evening.
I ran down a pedestrian and left him dead at the roadside.
He buried his face in the pillow and held out until his heart was pounding, his body awash with an almost delirious need for oxygen. Then he flipped on to his back and drank the air in hungry gasps, watching black spots dance across his vision. It was a vain attempt to solve his problem. There was only one decent thing he could do now.
Confess. Call the police, or better still hand himself in. There was a station in Hollingbury, just across the road from the Asda supermarket where they did the weekly shop. Probably less than a mile away.
Dan had only a vague idea of the procedures, but guessed it would be far from pleasant. Would he be released upon completion of his statement, or held in custody? The thought of confinement – and more than that, confinement in the company of violent, dangerous men – tempered his enthusiasm for the idea.
He sighed. From downstairs came the sound of the toilet flushing, then Joan’s heavy footsteps on the kitchen floor. A burst of music from the radio, before she lowered the volume. Any second now the alarm on his mobile phone would be trilling—
His mind jumped back to radio.
TV.
News.
He sat up too quickly, making his head spin again. Thought about skipping a shower, then decided he shouldn’t depart from his normal routine. Trudging into the bathroom, he automatically locked the door, then with a shudder he flipped the bolt back, barely able to comprehend how it would feel to have that mundane power taken away from him.
There was a sour smell in the room, a couple of nasty stains on the floor where Louis had been less than diligent in cleaning up. Dan found a bottle of detergent and used a wad of toilet paper to remove the mess. Another foretaste of prison life: mopping up other people’s bodily wastes.
By the time he had shaved, showered and dressed, it was almost seven o’clock. Descending the stairs, holding fast to the nonchalant expression he had perfected in the bathroom mirror, Dan felt he was beginning the first day of a new life, in an unwelcome new skin.
The skin of a liar, a coward, a killer.
****
As their surrogate mother, Joan prided herself on preparing breakfast for ‘her lads’. Somehow Louis was able to get away with declining, grabbing an apple or a cereal bar because he was invariably running late. Thus it fell to Dan to submit to a proper breakfast, knowing it gave shape and purpose to the start of his aunt’s day, even though he would have been happier with toast or a pot of yoghurt.
Joan didn’t seem to notice anything untoward as they exchanged greetings. She indicated the mug of coffee already waiting for him, then went back to monitoring the bacon under the grill.
‘Ready in a jiffy.’
‘Lovely. Thanks.’
‘Louis said not to wake him till nine.’
She sounded doubtful, but Dan shrugged. ‘It’s up to him to know his own timetable.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Yes, it is.’
The radio was on at a low volume, tuned to the BBC. Dan couldn’t change it to a local station without arousing suspicion. He took his coffee into the lounge, put the TV on and went searching for local bulletins. Joan came in as he caught the tail-end of a weather forecast.
‘More rain, likely as not,’ she remarked. With some good-natured tutting about poor table manners, she had brought his plate in on an ancient wooden tea tray.
Dan had dreaded this moment, having to fake his eagerness to consume a plate piled high with scrambled egg, bacon, mushrooms and toast. In fact, his stomach gave an urgent grumbling at the sight of it, and he realised he was starving.
While he ate, he switched back and forth between the two main channels and eventually saw both segments of local news. There was no mention of any hit-and-run in West Sussex; mostly it was the same old bureaucratic shenanigans and travel chaos.
Once or twice Joan popped in and stood, dishcloth in hand, watching the screen with her head tilted to one side. Clicking her tongue, she would issue one of her customary pronouncements: usually ‘Shocking, the way people treat each other,’ or ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I really don’t.’
When Dan carried his plate out, having devoured every last scrap, she said, ‘I do hope your car starts all right.’
It threw him for a second. Somehow he’d managed to forget all about the Fiesta. There was no way he could use it in daylight. As he pictured them now, the dents were practically an imprint of Hank O’Brien’s body.
‘Oh, er, no.’ He smothered his confusion in an air of weariness. ‘I don’t want to risk it cutting out on me. I’ll walk.’
Joan nodded, but went on gazing at him. She was his dad’s older sister, short, grey-haired and comfortably plump. But there were times, especially when she frowned, that he could see enough of a family resemblance to imagine how it might be to have his father standing here now, regarding him with the same tender concern.
‘Daniel, dear ... is everything all right?’
‘Fine. Just had a bad night.’ He took a glass from the cupboard and ran the cold tap. ‘You haven’t seen my blue fleece, have you?’
‘I think I put it in your room. Unless it’s still in the ironing pile ...’ Mumbling to herself, she made for the dining room, where newly washed clothes were stacked on a chair ready to be ironed or put away.
As soon as she was gone, Dan rooted around in the odds-and-sods drawer and found the spare key for the garage. He slipped it into his pocket and took a sip of water. Joan returned, looking mystified.
‘Are you sure it’s not upstairs?’
‘Maybe. I probably just didn’t notice it.’
With a chuckle, she said, ‘You men are all the same. Can’t see what’s right under your nose.’
Dan struggled to maintain his smile, imagining how the same feeble defence might be offered up in court.
CHAPTER 12
Cate spent a restless night trying to sleep, one minute too hot, then too cold. Even with an entire king-size bed at her disposal, there never seemed to be enough space to stretch out and relax. It already worried her how often she ended up sleeping diagonally. If the opportunity for another serious relationship ca
me along, she wasn’t sure how she’d feel about relinquishing half the space she had at present.
She feared that this was how it began, the conversion to permanent spinsterhood – with an unwillingness to compromise on the little day-to-day preferences.
Bloody Martin. She had turfed him out with a promise, made under duress, that she would call him in a day or so, once she’d had a chance to let the news sink in. It was his plaintive declaration that had done her in. I’m not sure if I’m having a kid with the right woman.
But what did he mean by that, exactly? That he wasn’t committed to the relationship with Janine? That he regretted running out on Cate, and wished he was having a child with her?
If so, he certainly won top marks for irony, not to say bare-faced cheek. This was the same Martin who’d told her, time and time again, that he wasn’t ready for the demands of parenthood: ‘I don’t want the little brats interfering with my lifestyle.’
And when she had caught him shagging Janine, he’d had the temerity to blame the affair on Cate. In his view, their marriage had soured because of her unrelenting desire to have children, which had compelled him to seek relief elsewhere. As he had put it: ‘We want different things, that’s all.’
‘Yeah,’ she had agreed. ‘I want a child, and you want to act like one.’
****
And now this. Cate told herself it was the hypocrisy that upset her most, but the doubts had come creeping up on her during the night. The truth was, she didn’t just feel angry; she felt jealous. Her longing to be a mother was as powerful as ever, but there was precious little sign of a prospective father on the horizon.
And that prompted a truly ghastly thought: perhaps she didn’t just envy Janine because of the baby growing inside her – but because Janine had Martin and Cate didn’t. Was it possible that she still had feelings for her ex-husband?
