The Girlfriend: A Josie Cloverfield Detective Novel

by Jack Carteret

  “Oi! Can it, Attwood!” The feeling of walking on eggshells was starting to grate on my nerves. I was completely exhausted and needed his sarcasm like I needed another night without solid sleep.

  “Sorry, Dude.” Liam reached out and patted my knee, but we were still on shaky ground, and I could swear I felt it moving.

  “Anyway, I’m going to go over to this pub at the weekend and…..”

  “Take in a show?”

  “I’ve had enough now, Liam.” Something about his obstructive anger had hurt my feelings and I could feel a kind of thickness in my throat which was about to start affecting my speech noticeably. I began to get to my feet.

  “Dude, don’t go. I’m really, really sorry.” Liam grabbed my arm and tugged me back down onto the bed. “Pleeease…”

  “Ok.” It was all I could say whilst I tried to swallow down the emotion.

  “So, I wonder why Hannah decided to become a stripper. It can’t have been for the money.” Liam was trying hard, and I appreciated his effort.

  “Well, no, I guess not.” My voice was back properly and I felt safe to continue. “I keep thinking about that diary of hers, though. It had Rebellion written all over it. There was, like, a whole sheet of it. Rebellion, rebellion, rebellion…. In fancy writing, like 3D and stuff. There was even a line which said maybe it’s time to have a rebellion of my own? Could that be what this was? The stripping, I mean.”

  “Sounds pretty likely. But what was she rebelling against? I mean, you can’t have a rebellion without a reason.”

  “True, Liam. But God knows what it was. Did she ever say if anything kind of big and troubling had happened to her at any point?”

  “Dude, we just weren’t that close, I guess.” Liam shrugged apologetically. “So, do you think she was having an affair with Matty Jameson?”

  “No, I really don’t. I think she kind of strung him along a bit, but it seems like she just wanted her portrait painted. Maybe just another part of the rebellion.”

  “But then, he would say that, wouldn’t he? It makes sense for him to try to distance himself from her.” Liam said, chewing his bottom lip in thought.

  “Wow, Liam! That’s just what DI Thorn said about you!”

  “Well, it might be right in this case.”

  “And it might be wrong.”

  “He might have been strung along and been so angry that he killed her.”

  “Killed her?” I was open mouthed. “Liam, for God’s sake! You weren’t so keen on having false accusations chucked at you, so why do the same to someone else?”

  “Really, Dude? Really?” Liam’s voice had suddenly raised in a way that made my eyes fly open. “So, you’re happy to see me as the number one suspect, whilst you do all you can to protect some perv of a university lecturer who had more reason to do something to Hannah than I did!” Liam was actually shouting at this point.

  We’d had our rows over the years, the way people who are totally comfortable with each other can; but nothing like this. We’d never been this angry with one another.

  I was so furious with Liam that I began to get to my feet once more. This time, he let me pull my duffle coat back on without trying to stop me.

  “You have it so wrong, Liam.” I began, as soon as I was ready to go.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. You see, if the Police became aware that Matty Jameson painted your girlfriend in the nude, they would still suspect you. That painting alone doesn’t give Matty Jameson motive. It gives you motive, you idiot!”

  “What?” Liam’s jaw dropped.

  “Your girlfriend went behind your back to become a stripper and have her naked frame painted by another man.” I paused long enough to watch Liam process the whole thing. “For the same reasons that I am reluctant to hand them Hannah’s diary, I am also reluctant to tell them what I discovered tonight. Not because I’m doing all I can to protect some perv of a university lecturer, as you call him, but to protect some ungrateful little git of a best friend who doesn’t deserve me risking all sorts of trouble to clear his name!” Now I was the one who was shouting, and Liam was looking worried. God, I was furious with him.

  I strode out of the room, with Liam calling out after me.

  “Dude? Josie? wait.”

  “Go to hell!” I flew down the stairs and out through the kitchen door before the first of the angry tears had even begun to sting my eyes.

  I flew down Liam’s street, not wanting him to catch up with me and knowing that, because he’s a really good guy at heart, he would certainly give it a go.

  It wasn’t that I was being a prima donna who wants the drama of being chased, all tear-stained and vulnerable, through the streets. It was simply that I had more or less had enough and really did not want to go over it all any more.

  I was exhausted and I wanted to go to bed. And, well, ok….. I didn’t want to have to forgive Liam right there and then. You see, I’m very much of the mind that a genuine apology for something that’s not, like, murder or something awful, is usually something that must be accepted. If Liam had caught up with me and apologised, just as I felt sure he wanted to, then I would have accepted it.

  But, you see, after all the ducking and diving, the intruder in my house, lying to the police, and all the rest of it, I just wasn’t ready to shrug my shoulders and politely accept unreasonable crap being thrown at me, even if the crap-thrower was my very stressed and very scared best friend in the world.

  I slowed down a little once I had developed a sweaty top lip from my exertions, and realised that I was panting like an aged Labrador on a hot day. When I was just a couple of streets from my own house, I started to think about whomever it was who had broken into my house just the night before.

  Now that they had Hannah’s diary, would they even need to come back? After all, I’d clearly been in the house at the time and the intruder hadn’t done anything to me. But what if they’d read the diary and thought I might actually know something I shouldn’t, which I probably did if I could but work it all out? What if they had decided that I needed to be silenced?

  After all, surely the only person who would come looking for Hannah’s diary would be the same person who must surely have something to do with her disappearance. It seemed less and less likely that Hannah had gone of her own accord. Or did it? The whole thing was so confusing. Had she run away? Had she met someone who then stopped her going home? Had she simply been abducted by someone, a stranger perhaps?

  As I slowed down to my normal saunter, I realised that these questions must be the very same which absolutely tormented the families of the missing time and time again. Hannah’s family must have been suffering a living nightmare. The pure helplessness of not knowing must be truly appalling.

  Then there was the diary and the intruder; whomever had broken into my house the night before must surely have known that I had the little book. Which meant that they must have seen me take it.

  Just as I was wondering how on earth someone could have seen me on that deserted canal footpath, I heard the light pattering of footsteps somewhere behind me. They weren’t big, noisy, purposeful steps; rather they were the sort of footsteps that were produced by someone actually trying to be quiet. I realise how that sounds, but I was on red alert and I know what I heard!

  My scalp was positively tingling with fear and I was torn between simply breaking into a sprint, or my version of the same, or turning around and surprising my stalker with a sweeping blow from my swinging rucksack.

  I was suddenly dismayed at the thought that the only book not in my locker was actually tucked away under my mattress at home. I didn’t even have the weight of the photocopy of Hannah’s diary to rely on, although, in the circumstances, that was probably a good thing.

  At least I would still have that piece of evidence. Some comfort that would be when I was in a total body cast in hospital, drinking every meal through a straw as I recovered from the dreadful injuries inflicted by my attacker.

  That f
inal thought was enough to make me do something other than meekly mooch along waiting for someone to put a sack over my head. I spun around so suddenly that I actually surprised myself.

  “Whoa, whoa! Hey, don’t shoot, ok? It’s only me, Josie.”

  I blinked in confusion for a few seconds, trying to work out what on earth Rich Richard was doing there. Of all the people I would have expected to see wandering around on the Moss Park estate at half past ten on a Thursday night, Rich Richard most certainly wasn’t chief among them.

  I had slid my rucksack off my shoulder and had been swinging it around by the straps, ready to strike. In all honesty, the pencil case, scientific calculator, and solitary Golden Delicious apple were unlikely to have been weighty enough to have made any sort of impact upon a would-be attacker, even if you allowed for the pure shock of it all.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” My voice was so aggressively bad-ass that it totally sounded like someone else was speaking.

  “Looking for you.” Rich Richard had backed up a couple of steps and was eyeing my almost-empty rucksack with undisguised curiosity. “What’s with the bag swinging? Are you planning on trying out for the University hammer throwing team, or auditioning for the Christmas Panto?”

  As much as I wanted to laugh, my heart was still cantering along and I was still recovering from sweaty-top-lip number one when number two followed hot on its heels. I slung my bag back over my shoulder and slayed the sweat moustache with the back of my rough wool mitten which I had pulled out of my pocket.

  “Richard.” I said in a low and pretty exhausted way. “Why are you looking for me?”

  In my mind, Rich Richard came from the good part of town; the very good part of town. By my way of reckoning, he was at least two, if not three, bus rides away from home, and wandering around on one of the county’s roughest council estates late at night. That was not normal behaviour. I mean, not normal for someone like Rich Richard.

  In truth, the estate never scared me. Why would it? I had grown up here and I knew it like the back of my hand. And, like most of the lifelong residents, I had a general air of belonging.

  I’m not saying that in a cynical social-engineering way, although I could go on and on about that subject until the cows come home, but in a very practical sense.

  As weird as many of the folk on the estate found me, they still accepted me as someone who lives there; someone who belongs; one of their own. Rich Richard stood out horribly, in a kind of easy meat way; a please do mug me, it’ll so be worth the effort way.

  When I added that to the ever-so-quiet footsteps, I started to feel a little bit unnerved by his presence. My spider senses were tingling again!

  “I really need to speak to you, Josie.” He said, smiling happily as if we were sharing a Kit-Kat in the canteen.

  “Here? In the middle of the night?” The suspicion in my voice was evident.

  “It’s barely half-ten, Josie.” Rich Richard looked at his watch, then turned big, confused eyes on me.

  “You know what, Richard? That wide-eyed sort of innocence only works when it’s puppies running through the house with toilet rolls on the telly.”

  “Christ, Josie, you’re suspicious!”

  “Too right I am! You are so unbelievably out of place here, not to mention the fact that you have my mobile number and you could have called to speak to me, rather than skulk about in a dark street.”

  “Look, I’m sorry if I startled you; I really didn’t mean to. And yes, I could have called you, but this is kind of…. well, delicate, I guess.”

  “What is?”

  “Well, there is something I think I need to tell someone. I don’t think it has a bearing on things… well, Hannah’s disappearance. Anyway, I don’t think it really makes a difference, and I don’t really want to tell the Police my private business, especially seeing the way they treated you and Liam. But, at the same time, I just wanted to tell someone, and since you’re kind of, well, investigating it all, I thought you’d maybe hear me out.” Richard spread his hands wide, palms up, kind of plaintiff fashion.

  I searched his face, although I honestly could not tell you what I was looking for. You see, I really didn’t know Rich Richard well enough to know if he was lying or not.

  I tried instead to think of reasons why he would lie. Chief among them was that he was the person who had broken into my house and swiped the original diary; the same person who had been lurking, or possibly lurking, in the library as I had gone through the photocopy, and had been creeping up on me to…. what? What could he possibly have hoped to do?

  When I thought about it sensibly, stalking someone through the streets of a housing estate is not the smartest plan ever; you see, there’s usually someone milling about, whatever the hour, and also the streets are so narrow that, the minute a scream is heard, about sixty faces appear at assorted windows.

  In truth, the same sixty faces might very well refuse to give statements to the police but, out of them all, someone would come flying out if they saw a man attacking a woman. Still, his motive might not have been to clock me over the head in the street.

  He might simply have been following me home, ready to break in when I was safely inside. Again, my scenario failed to stand up to scrutiny; if Rich Richard had broken into my house the night before, he already knew where I lived and had no need to follow me.

  I was so tired that I could hardly think anymore.

  “So, what is it that you want to tell me?” I said, my voice riding the surf of a really deep sigh.

  “Here?” Richard looked furtively about him, as if for a witness of some sort. “I mean, can’t we go to your place or something?”

  I looked at him incredulously. I supposed, in Rich Richard-land, a household was ever-ready for sudden and unexpected guests. In Josie-land, however, there really never was a good time for such a thing.

  Even if I could be assured that my mum was still absent, somewhere out in the dark dank world at Snatcher Harris’ side, I still did not want to invite Richard in. Not because of the issue of my vaguely suspecting him of having something to do with Hannah’s disappearance, but rather it was something worse; well, worse to me in that moment.

  Richard was not one of us; he was one of them.

  I’d have felt no more comfortable inviting him into my shabby and impoverished abode than I would have if he was actually Fliss Hardcastle, or someone very similar.

  “That’s not such a good idea, Richard.” I said, hearing the utter flatness in my voice.

  “Why not?” The very fact that he couldn’t simply sense my discomfort and misgivings and simply move on had kind of made me angry.

  Seriously, how could he not look about him and take a wild guess at why I wouldn’t want to invite someone from the good part of town into my home?

  “Because my mum might be there.”

  “So?”

  “Alright, Richard.” I started, my annoyance rising exponentially. “Because my mum, if she is there, is more than likely going to be as drunk as a skunk. If she’s as drunk as a skunk, there’s a good chance she’ll be yelling like a banshee.” I was giving him the works, and I knew it. I was so needled by what I saw as a casual lack of insight into my world that I could feel myself warming up horribly under my duffle coat. My breath felt hot, like I could breathe fire right out of my flaring nostrils if I put my mind to it. “If she’s yelling like a banshee, there’s a good chance the cops will arrive and lock her up for a Breach of the Peace.” Richard’s eyes were getting wider by the second. “And even if she’s fairly lucid, there’s a very good chance that she won’t be alone. There’s a strong likelihood that she will be in company with Snatcher Harris, a one-toothed heroin addict who smells like an open drain on a hot day! And, trust me, your lovely mummy and daddy will not be at all pleased if they found out you had spent quality time with Snatcher Harris! Does that answer your question?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Richard said quietly.

  Then, as I rapi
dly blinked to disperse hot and angry little tears before they fell, I could hear a rumbling sort of a noise coming from Richard. Well, from his chest, to be precise. At first, I thought it must be some kind of truly spectacular bout of indigestion or something similar. It took a few more seconds before I realised that it was suppressed laughter that refused to be denied and was doing all it could to make its way out of him.

  “Erm… are you, like, actually laughing?” I asked in a voice which tended to suggest that his life might depend upon his answer.

  “Yeah. Sorry… it’s just…Snatcher Harris? Seriously, that’s a name?” Richard finally gave in and the laughter just boomed right out.

  “Yes, Snatcher Harris. That’s my mum’s current boyfriend.” As I watched him holding his belly and laughing hard, I began to see the funny side and felt pretty bad about how harsh I’d been. “Hey look, I’m sorry, ok? It’s just that a lifetime of being looked down on can make you pretty touchy, you know?”

  “Yeah, it’s ok, I get it.” Richard was still laughing, although it was in its final stages. “Look, shall we just go and sit in my car instead?”

  “Ok. Where is it?”

  “I parked it on Dunmore Street.” Richard said, squinting a little, as if he wasn’t sure he’d got the name right. “That’s where I was when I saw you. I wasn’t so sure it was you, so I thought I’d better not drive alongside you, in case it wasn’t you and I got reported to the Police or something.”

  “Ok.” I laughed. “If it’s still there, we’ll sit in your car.”

  The idea that Richard had spotted me and simply got out of his car to approach me on foot seemed pretty feasible and had made me feel secure enough to sit in his car with him.

  As we rounded the corner of Dunmore Street, Richard silently pointed to a battered old Peugeot parked under the bright light of a street lamp. The council had been experimenting with some kind of designing-out-crime type of a deal, and had installed the sort of high wattage lighting that made the Moss Park estate as brightly lit as a football stadium. It was almost like perpetual daytime on some streets, like that place in Lapland, and I sometimes wondered if Moss Park could now be seen from the Moon.