A text came through and, seeing that it was from him, she didn’t ignore it, as she had been doing all the others.
She opened it.
‘U were shaggin him!’
Oh, dear. Outrage. She sighed, and deleted it unanswered.
A door opened somewhere in the hinterland behind the front desk. She pricked up her ears. Kayley?
She came to the front desk, winked at Jenna, then had to go through a number of forms with the sergeant before she could speak to her.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Jenna breathlessly.
‘I’ve been arrested and charged,’ she said, as cheerfully as if she’d been telling her about a holiday booking. ‘I should be devastated, but I feel really like a weight’s been lifted. I feel good.’
‘I knew that you would, babe.’ Jenna quoted the old song, smiling back at her. ‘So, what’s the score now, with Jason?’
‘They’ve got to look into it, of course. For all they know, I could be lying to save someone else’s skin. And they need to get hold of Harville and Mia.’
‘What have you been charged with?’
‘Perversion,’ she said grinning. ‘It sounds so bad, doesn’t it?’
‘Not accessory?’
‘No, because I didn’t know what they wanted my bag for – though I could have guessed. And I was blackmailed into it. They might charge me later if they decide not to believe me, though. That might depend on Harville.’
She looked glum.
‘I don’t like the idea of everything depending on Harville,’ said Jenna.
‘Neither do I.’
‘Mia, though?’
‘Mia would fess up, I’m sure she would. She’s all right, underneath it all. I don’t think she’s happy about Jason going down, either.’
‘So, are you free to go?’
‘Yeah. They’ll send me the court details when they get a clearer picture of who else will be in the dock with me. Ugh. In the dock. I expect I’ll lose my job now. Mum’ll kill me.’
‘You can work for me,’ said Jenna without thinking twice.
‘Oh, get away. I’m not a showbizzy type.’
‘You don’t have to be. I could find a place for you.’
‘Could you, really?’
‘Leave it with me. First of all, we need to pin down Lawrence Harville and Mia, make sure the police can get hold of them. We don’t want them going to ground.’
‘I think they were going to look for them straight away. Mia’s easy – she’ll still be in her pit, at the pub.’
‘Yes, I bet you’re right. As for Lawrence – well, I think I can deal with him. Will you come back to the house with me for back-up?’
‘Oh, is this a covert operation?’ Kayley was thrilled. ‘Sign me up. I always fancied myself as a spy.’
‘Excellent. What are we waiting for, then? Let’s get going.’
They were allowed out through the back door, again, and hurried to the car, Kayley making sure she pulled the brow of her baseball cap down over her face in trademark shifty-villain style.
‘There’s press all over the front of the house,’ Jenna warned her. ‘I’m going to go in first, and you can wait in the car ten minutes, then come to the door. Tell them you’re my financial advisor, if they ask.’
Kayley laughed out loud. ‘I look so like one,’ she said, looking down at her jogging pants and tattooed arms.
‘That’ll give them something to gossip about while we’re working, then,’ said Jenna.
The throng had not thinned while Jenna had been out – if anything, it was worse. Jenna had to elbow her way through them, keeping her head low and her mouth sealed.
Once in the house, she took out her phone and called Harville.
‘Jenna.’ He sounded surprised.
‘Lawrence. I’ve been thinking things over, and I think you’re right. I can’t stay in Bledburn. There’s no point hanging on to the Hall.’
‘Right. Good. Well, how about a private sale, then? Get your lawyer to call my lawyer …’
‘Can’t we do things a little less formally? I’m up to my eyes in legal shit as it is. Why don’t you come round? I’ll give you the keys and get the hell out of here. I’ll stay in a hotel, till the trial is over.’
There was a silence. He was bound to suspect trickery, she thought, but she mustn’t start to beg or sound desperate, because that would be the biggest giveaway of all.
‘Very reasonable,’ he said, at last, ‘for a woman who was completely unreasonable yesterday. Do you have something up your sleeve? Something like a kitchen knife, for instance?’
‘Lawrence, I’m sorry about that. I was stressed. Can I wave the white flag? I’d like to make it up to you.’
She had put just enough subtle promise in her voice to hook him, it seemed, because he changed his tone straight away.
‘Well, in that case, OK.’
‘If you’re nervous, you can bring a friend.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think that would be appropriate, do you?’ He chuckled softly then hung up.
Jenna punched the air.
A few minutes later, Kayley knocked and was admitted.
‘He’s coming,’ said Jenna eagerly.
‘Shit,’ said Kayley. ‘What do you want me to do then?’
‘I want you to – have you got a phone? Good. I want you to go up to the attic and lurk there. As soon as you hear a knock at the door, call the police. Tell them Harville is here. The rest should be easy enough.’
Kayley did a mock salute. ‘Yes, partner,’ she said. ‘Gorgeous house, isn’t it? Shame Lawrence let it go to rack and ruin. You’ve got your work cut out for you.’
‘I know. But I’ll get there. Quickly, then – I have no idea when he’ll get here. He’s out and about a lot, is our Lawrence.’
Kayley bounded up the stairs, apparently given a new lease of life by her new criminal status. Jenna paced around the ground floor, trying to get her thoughts straight and her courage up. The idea that this could go horribly wrong insisted on inserting itself into her mind, filleting through her resolve.
Perhaps it was a bad idea, after all. Perhaps she should put him off.
She took out her phone, but it was too late. He was at the door.
His smile was pure, triumphant smarm as she opened it.
‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d see sense.’
‘Come in,’ she said tonelessly, the urge to break his nose never stronger than now.
‘Ah, the old place,’ he said, filling his lungs appreciatively. ‘Soon have it back up to scratch. Harville Hall for the Harvilles. If you want, you can stay over, any time you like.’
‘I’ll be sad to leave,’ said Jenna. It occurred to her that perhaps she should take him out in the back garden, where he would be less likely to hear the police arriving. ‘There’s something I wanted to ask you about – something I found outside.’
‘Oh yeah? I thought you were going to pour me a nice drink, and get comfortable.’
‘We can do that outside,’ she said, leading him through the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of wine and two glasses on the way.
‘Oh, I’ve done it all out here, in my time,’ said Lawrence, stepping out on to the blazing back patio. He took off his jacket and slung it over a rusty garden chair. ‘Up against a tree, on the lawn, behind the bushes.’ He chuckled. ‘Can get a bit waspy, but if you pick your time …’
He put a hand on Jenna’s shoulder, as if it were his God-given right.
She bristled, and put the drink things down on the low wall that enclosed the sides of the patio.
‘The thing I wanted to ask you about,’ she said, trying not to sound too steely. ‘Come down and see.’
She found the paving slab with the iron ring that she and Jason had spotted before and theorised about the existence of a cellar.
‘Here. It made me think you might have a cellar. But the deeds don’t mention anything underneath the house.’
; Lawrence put the toe of his shiny shoe against the iron ring and nudged it.
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘But no. There’s no cellar. I don’t know why that ring was put there. Maybe one of my kinky ancestors liked to chain his women to it. Hm, there’s an idea.’
The look he gave Jenna was equal parts lust and menace.
She looked around, nervously. Not that she’d be able to see the police cars coming.
‘Or her men,’ she suggested.
‘Yes, I suppose so. Why, are you that way inclined?’
‘Not really. But are you sure there’s nothing underneath? It’s such an odd thing to put there.’
‘Like I said.’ Lawrence sounded surly now. ‘And I’m glad you’re not a Miss Whiplash type. I don’t like pain.’
‘So, about the ghosts you were talking about,’ she said, keen to keep matters away from his expected seduction of her. ‘Do any of them have names, or stories?’
‘Oh, yes, our dear Harville ghosts? Yes. I grew up with little Fay.’
‘Fay?’
‘Fairy Fay. That’s what we called her. I think her name was actually Frances and she was the wife of my great-great-great-grandfather.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She disappeared. She was there one day, and gone the next. Never found. Never explained. I thought you’d have heard of the case. It was a favourite scary story round here.’
‘Somehow it passed me by. Perhaps it was only known to the circles you moved in.’
‘That’s probably it. Too good a story for the riff-raff.’
‘Thanks. That would be me, would it?’
‘Oh, come on, Jenna, don’t take offence. We both know what we are. I’m old money, you’re new money. I think we should get together and make middle-aged money.’
‘Except you ran out of old money,’ Jenna pointed out. ‘Or you wouldn’t have had to sell up.’
‘Well, I took a few hits,’ said Lawrence. ‘Had a run of bad luck. But I’ve made it all back now, and more.’
‘By selling drugs.’
He scowled and grabbed her upper arm in a painful grip.
‘Don’t start all that again, Jenna. It won’t get you anywhere. Now where’s that good time I was promised?’
She tried to fight him off but he was stronger and managed to get her into a tight lock. His mouth was almost on hers, and she sensed there would be teeth, when an almighty bang on the door caused both of them to freeze.
‘Who is it? Who are you expecting?’
‘Nobody,’ whispered Jenna. ‘Let me answer it.’
The door banged again.
‘Police,’ bellowed a loud male voice.
‘You bitch, what have you done? Set me up?’
‘No, it’s probably for me, perhaps they’ve charged me with something else. Let me get it.’
‘I don’t trust you.’
He wouldn’t let go and she couldn’t elude him, but both of them heard the footsteps on the stairs, and the opening of the door.
‘What’s …?’
Lawrence let go of Jenna as a squad of police officers burst into the house, truncheons drawn.
‘In here.’ Kayley’s voice was high-pitched and urgent. ‘He’s got Jenna, in here.’
He was surrounded. There was nothing for him to do but to surrender himself into custody.
‘This isn’t over,’ he snarled to Jenna as they led him off.
‘No,’ she shouted after him. ‘I’ll be giving evidence at your trial.’
There were more statements to be taken, heels to be kicked at the police station, photos to be papped, disgusting cups of coffee to be drunk, but eventually the story seemed to be straight, and understood in everyone’s minds, and Jenna was sent back home.
Jason was released the next day.
Jenna’s PR had been on the phone until she had earache from the number of entreaties not to go and meet him from prison, but she ignored them all.
The photographers were lined up along the road on either side of the prison gates. Jenna stayed in her car, parked a few hundred yards away, watching the great grey gates between the high blank red brick walls. There really was something about a prison that struck a unique kind of horror into the heart, she thought. And Jason had not just been observing it from a distance – he had been in there, inside those cold walls with their barred windows.
At least it was only for a couple of days. He had been prepared for a lot longer.
Her hands flew to her handbag, and a strange flame rose from her stomach to her throat as she saw movement at the gate. It was being opened.
She lunged for the door handle and her eyes filled with tears at the first sight of Jason, impossibly small in front of those huge grey spikes, accompanied by a uniformed officer who stood looking after Jason as he pulled his cap down over his face to hide from the press.
He ran the gauntlet of them, and at the end he found Jenna, who had abandoned her resolve to wait in the car until he found her and bounded out on to the tarmac, shouting his name.
‘Jen,’ he cried, spotting her.
The feel of him, his reality, in her arms again, lifted a burden she hadn’t even been fully aware of. She felt light again, and capable of anything. There was nothing that could spoil this, nothing, ever.
‘I love you,’ she said, and he repeated the words back to her before preventing further utterances by sealing her mouth up with a long, extravagant, passionate and very public kiss.
‘Tomorrow’s front page,’ she whispered, breaking apart.
They had somehow staggered, lips still locked, across the forecourt to the car, in a hail of click-click-clicks.
‘Who cares?’ he said. ‘They can print what they like. Perhaps it’s just as well they’re here.’
‘Oh?’
‘Otherwise I might have you right here, up against this car.’
She shivered with the thrill, letting him kiss her again with her back to the car door and his jeans-clad erection grinding into her, before they were interrupted by something other than the relentless photographing.
‘Our Jay! Hello! Remember me?’
He buried his face in Jenna’s neck, breathing a heavy sigh into it, before straightening up and turning to the voice.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Have you met Jenna?’
‘We have met,’ she said, eyeing Jenna dubiously. ‘She never said you two were …’
‘He was supposed to be in hiding,’ said Jenna. ‘Or I would have mentioned it. I didn’t want to lie to you.’
‘You could have said he was alive, at least! I was in bits.’
‘Look, can we have this conversation somewhere out of the public eye? Get in the car – we’ll talk at the Hall.’
‘Ooh, the Hall,’ said Jason’s mother. ‘It’s been a while. No, let me give my own son a hug. Thank you!’
Jason submitted to a quick squeeze, then sloped into the back seat of the car, keeping his head down as they drove off through the predictable phalanx.
The same predictable phalanx met them outside the Hall, but the three of them hurried past and into safety.
‘Now,’ said Jenna, shutting the world outside. ‘I think we could all use a drink.’
‘How did you swing it?’ Jason was first to speak, taking a glass of red wine and sitting down at the kitchen table. ‘I thought I were in for a five-stretch, minimum.’
‘It was Kayley. She knew the details of the raid, and Mia and Lawrence’s part in it.’
‘She knew more than I did, then. What happened? Attack of the guilty conscience?’
‘Pretty much, yeah.’
He stared into the glass. ‘I’d hoped Mia might …’
‘Well, she’s being questioned, right now. I can’t see her sticking to Harville’s story.’
‘So she’ll go down?’
‘I don’t know. Possibly. Probably.’
He swished his wine around in the glass, his dark eyes fixed on it as if hypnotised.
<
br /> ‘Have you ever put in way more than you’ve got out?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ replied both Jenna and Kathy.
He half-smiled at them.
‘That was me and Mia.’
‘That was me and you,’ said Kathy with an ironic little laugh.
‘That was me and, oh never mind,’ said Jenna. ‘You loved her more than she loved you. It happens. But it never stops hurting until you can take courage and move on.’
‘She didn’t deserve you,’ said Kathy, stoutly. ‘I never liked her.’
‘You never thought anyone deserved me,’ said Jason, patting his mother’s arm. ‘Did you?’
‘Well, I was right an’ all. You’re made of better stuff than that shower on the estate.’
‘So you were always saying,’ he replied. ‘But that’s what all mothers think, isn’t it?’
‘Not all of ’em have my grounds,’ she said, a tad darkly.
‘You are an astonishing talent,’ Jenna reminded him. ‘I saw some of your pictures on your mum’s wall. Amazing stuff.’
‘So,’ said Jason after a pause. ‘Harville’s inside now? Hope he’s got the same cell as me. My cell mate’s a big lad with a short fuse.’
‘It must have been awful for you.’
‘Not much different from school, to be honest. Most of the same people, even. Food was better.’
‘I always knew you were innocent,’ said Kathy with a dramatic depth to her voice. ‘I told everyone. My Jase isn’t into drugs. It’ll be that Mia, putting him up to it. But I couldn’t prove it, of course. Was it really Lawrence Harville behind it all?’
‘It really was,’ said Jenna. ‘Bastard. I hope he gets put away for a long time.’
‘He’ll wriggle out of it,’ predicted Jason. ‘Mia’ll be too scared to say a word against him, even if Kayley isn’t.’
‘I won’t be!’ said Jenna.
‘I bet they don’t even call you,’ said Jason. ‘He’s got good lawyers.’
‘So have I.’
‘You could’ve told me,’ wailed Kathy, apparently not happy to be left out of the conversation. ‘Your own mother and you couldn’t find a way to tell me whether you were alive or dead. I’ve been to hell and back, I have.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jason. ‘I know. But I thought you’d know I was OK. You know me. I can look after myself. I’ve had to.’
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