by Sharn Hutton
“NO!” screeched Rachel, “I bloody can’t! Are you telling me Jerry’s a bigamist now too?”
“No! No!” Isabell grabbed Rachel’s forearms. “Shh, please! My Mama will hear you.”
“Get off me, you mad cow!” Rachel shook her loose and backed away. Isabell grabbed her again, this time by one elbow and steered her back toward the car.
“Mama cannot know who you are,” she hissed. “Be quiet or you will ruin me.”
Rachel’s jaw flapped at the impertinence of the woman. “What the hell is the matter with you? Can’t you just move on and give us all a break? What are you hiding me for?”
Isabell huffed out an exasperated sigh and looked away to the floor. A muscle jarred in her cheek and Rachel paused to examine her expression: fat spidery eyelashes, clogged with mascara, encircled eyes that flicked back and forth to the tick of a thinking clock.
“Isabell? What’s going on?” Rachel demanded.
“Nothing. Don’t worry yourself about it, just go.”
“No, no, no, you’re up to something. I can see that scheming look in your eye. Tell me, Ibbie.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Oh, am I? I think I’ll just ask Mama then, shall I?” Rachel pushed away from Isabell and made a break for the door, but Isabell was fast and got in front to block her path, grabbing her wrist to hold her firm.
“No, for God’s sake, no.”
Now Rachel had her on the hop. Isabell was looking worried. “Out with it,” she demanded.
Isabell slumped and chewed at her lip. “Oh for God’s sake, they have to believe it. They have to think that we’re still married or it’s all over.”
“What?”
“They’ll cut off my allowance. You can’t tell them.”
“I can do whatever I like and I most certainly don’t have to do anything for you,” Rachel growled, “Least of all pretend you’re married to my husband.” She snatched her arm away.
“Please, Rachel, Please. I’m begging you.”
“Why should I?” Rachel scoffed and shook her head, marching back to the car and pulling open the driver’s door.
“Without their money I can never pay it back,” Isabell blurted out and that gave Rachel reason to pause. She looked back to Isabell and squinted her eyes. “Keep talking.”
“Don’t tell them and I’ll pay it all back.”
“How long you talking—I’m not interested in minimum payment crap.”
“I don’t know, two years, maybe three.”
“Eighteen months, and I want proof you can cover it.”
Isabell scrunched up her face with the pain of it.
“Or we can just have a nice cosy chat with Mama right now…”
“Alright, alright,” Isabell spat, “You win.”
Rachel couldn’t quite believe it: Isabell had agreed. “Right, well great. Looks like the shoe’s on the other foot then doesn’t it, Ibbie?” Rachel sneered, climbing behind the wheel, “Who’s getting blackmailed now?”
Isabell scowled, but the deal was made and Rachel pulled the door closed quick to shut her out.
Her heart was thumping nineteen to the dozen as she backed out of the driveway, crunching terracotta beneath the tyres, but, by God, it felt good.
SIXTY-NINE
BENEATH THE FLAPPING BEDCLOTHES, static popped fine baby hair into a shock of mouse. Lit golden by the bedside lamp, it filled her vision. A few seconds quiet, a giggle and then all wiggling arms and legs and pointy elbows. Bright shafts of sunlit joy brought hope to Rachel’s bedroom.
Pushed up on podgy elbows, her baby giggled at the soft flop of cotton. Warm and safe in a maternal embrace, the love flowed between them unhindered. Rachel sighed and marvelled at the change. Everything had become so much easier. With Jerry abroad and very definitely not going to help, there was no longer any point in clinging to the vain hope that he was about to swan in and rescue them. She had ceased to be drowning, waiting for salvation and learned how to swim.
The heath visitor had put in their two-penn’orth of course, saying that it didn’t ‘follow guidelines’, but to hell with them. She’d realised that actually nobody knew the answer, that it was up to her and her instincts. It was worth a try, anything was worth a try. If the milk wouldn’t stay in, maybe solids would. Three months of endless screaming was quite sufficient, thank you very much. Three months of sleep deprivation and exhausted delirium. Three months of madness.
Milk still posed a problem, of course, but nothing like before. Had her digestive system turned a corner of development? Was she reacting to her mother’s newfound confidence? Rachel didn’t know, but it seemed that all that extra substance in her diet meant she was getting all the nutrition that she needed during the day and was only waking once at night now, for the ten o’clock feed.
She smiled and coo’ed and played. They laughed together, mother and child. The fractious Peanut had become a chubby smiling Cupid. She had become Elaina.
SEVENTY
RACHEL CLICKED THE HIGH CHAIR TRAY IN PLACE, securing Elaina in a circus-quilted fortress. A willing prisoner, she whomped the spinning bunny suckered to her tray with an open palm. Apparently it was hilarious. As long as it floated Elaina’s boat, that was the main thing. “Yeah, you get him!” Rachel smiled and considered breakfast.
Cut flowers, bought in a rare moment of indulgence, stood on the windowsill. Their pinks and purples glowed jewel-like in the sleepy stretch of morning sun that reached into the kitchen. Rachel basked in its welcome while toast browned. She surveyed the room and considered the day ahead. Ever present laundry skulked in the machine, waiting to be hung, but yesterday’s was folded and put away. No backlog there to weigh her down. Another day, another fresh start. She knew that she could do this now. Perfection was neither possible nor required.
She pulled a jolly cow-faced bowl from the cupboard, spooned in some baby rice and mashed in a raspberry. Elaina drummed her tray in anticipation.
Kettle filled, Rachel bopped her head in time to the thumping plumbing of the kitchen tap. “If a job’s worth doing,” she muttered and scanned around for the iPad to tap ‘Plumbers’ into the search engine. A couple of local ones came up. “Never fear! Super Mummy is here!” she said as she pulled a silly face at Elaina, who chortled and gave the spinning bunny what for.
The home phone chirruped out a couple of rings and Rachel scooped it up. An unfamiliar Southern USA drawl crackled down the line. “Good morning, Ma’am. I’m sorry to trouble you so early. My name is Detective Dinwiddy. Is this a convenient time to talk?”
“Er, sure.” Rachel leant back against the table, intrigued.
“Are you Mrs Rachel Adler, wife of Jeremy Brian Adler?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that I am investigating his disappearance under suspicious circumstances.”
Rachel made a long blink and rested harder on the scrubbed pine. A cloud moved across the sun.
“Mrs Adler? Are you there?”
“Yes. Yes, what do you mean?”
“This Sunday past your husband’s hotel room was discovered in a state of bloody disarray and I do not mean that in the cussing sense, Ma’am. He has not been seen or heard from since. It is my intention to track him down. Can you tell me anything about what your husband was doing in Las Vegas?”
“TEKCOM,” Rachel blurted, struggling to focus “They went out for the exhibition, Jerry and his boss. Well not exactly his boss anymore, I suppose.” Her thoughts wandered.
“What do you mean by that, Ma’am?”
“They were in competition, redundancies, the best man wins sort of thing.”
A pregnant pause then, “Was there animosity between them, Mrs Adler?”
“God yes, the man’s a pig. I mean… You don’t think…?”
“Mr Spink is currently detained for questioning. Do you know of any appointments your husband might have had? Contacts? Places to visit?”
“No.” Rachel h
adn’t bothered to quiz Jerry on what he’d be doing on his business trip. She’d been too busy hating him. That stuck in her throat. “I’m sorry, we didn’t talk about it. You should call his work.”
“I’ll do that. I don’t like to be indelicate, Ma’am, but was everything well within the home? I mean your marriage. Were you close?”
Rachel thought about all the times she’d pushed him away, exhausted and annoyed. “I guess we’ve been better,” she managed in a small voice.
“I see. Can you think of any reason why your husband might disappear?”
Rachel thought about their cross words and her scathing comments on his ineptitude. “No.”
“Anything else that might help with my investigation?”
“I can’t think. I don’t know.” Rachel rubbed at her brow.
Dinwiddy gave her his number in case she thought of anything. She could call anytime, day or night. He said she shouldn’t worry about the time difference and that he’d be in touch, she could count on it.
Rachel returned the handset to its cradle in a fug. Why the hell would Jerry go missing? Bloody disarray?
She sank into the seat beside Elaina’s high chair, then immediately jumped up again to call his mobile. It was switched off or dead. Just when she was finding her feet: she wanted to tell him about it, to tell him that everything was going to be all right.
The shock was clearing to expose a hollow in her chest and she hugged at herself in cold comfort. Now Rachel didn’t know if she could ever tell him, if she would ever speak to Jerry again.
SEVENTY-ONE
ISABELL SAT POUTING AT THE TV, petulant arms crossed. She hated the bloody middle cushion. Her mother luxuriated in the corner to her right, flipping channels. Her father sat upright, reading a book to her left.
Flip, flip, flip.
“It does no matter how many times you flip, you will no find Seven Vidas. Stop already,” Isabell snapped.
Flip. One of the international news channels came on.
The camera panned across Las Vegas by night. At first the usual neon lit parade that was The Strip, but then it cut to the Monte Carlo, black smoke belching from its windows, the strobing lights of the fire department flickering in the foreground.
“The Strip in Las Vegas,” said an out of shot narrator, “known for its wild night life and excess, always has a very different feel to it in the cold light of day, but especially so today after the still unexplained and potentially deadly fire that tore through the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino on Saturday night.” A microphone-clutching reporter appeared on screen, the blackened Monte Carlo by day behind her. Blonde hair shone in a bouncy blow dry. Shocking pink tipped fingers curled around the mic shaft.
“We have an extraordinary eye witness and resident of the Monte Carlo on the night of the fire with us here.” The camera pulled out to include a smart-suited middle-aged man. “This is Ed Baker. Ed, can you tell us what happened?”
Ed looked tired and serious. His brow was furrowed with concern. He took a deep breath, then began. “At first I didn’t realise that anything was wrong. I got up to go to the bathroom in the night and when the light went on I realised my bedroom was hazy with smoke. There were no flames and no noise to speak of then. My colleague was in the room next door so I went round and banged on her door until she answered.”
“Surely there were fire alarms?” interjected the reporter.
“Initially no, but as the smoke increased then they went off. By that time Oona and I had already knocked on half the doors on the floor.”
“So you saved all those people from inhaling life-threatening smoke. Staying in the building to help others?”
Ed shrugged. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Ed, but it doesn’t end there, does it? You’ve set up an emergency centre, haven’t you?”
“It wasn’t just me. My colleague Oona and I have organised the emergency centre and it’s been paid for by the company we both work for, Mango Europe. It wouldn’t be possible without them. Many people are being treated in hospital still and the large number of patients means that they have been disbursed through a lot of different medical centres around Las Vegas.” Ed looked into the camera lens. “Worried relatives can call the helpline any time to find out about their loved ones. Calls are free and the operators will be able to give them basic information about their relative’s status and whereabouts. There is also a drop in centre in the MGM Grand across The Strip.”
“Thank you, Ed.” The reporter shook her golden mane with enthusiasm and turned back to face the camera. “And here’s that all important number…”
Isabell watched the screen impassively. “The MGM Grand, that’s where Jerry’s staying,” she said, scooping an emery board from the coffee table to buff at a nail.
“A wonderful heart-warming twist to a horrific tale, where real people come to the rescue of their fellow man.” The reporter was making a segue. “Now this isn’t the only story breaking here in Vegas. Earlier today the Channel Six News Team was on the spot to catch another story. A British man is missing, presumed murdered. Here’s the report.”
The image cut to a sandy-uniformed police officer who cleared his throat and looked into the camera with the demeanour of a hopeful puppy. “My name is Detective Dinwiddy,” he said in a southern drawl, “I am investigating the disappearance and suspected murder of one Jeremy Brian Adler, a British man.”
Three pairs of eyes widened on the sofa and snapped to the screen.
“Do you have any suspects, Detective?” barked a voice out of shot.
“Well, I am still conducting my investigation,” he nodded slowly over to someone beside the camera then back to the lens, “But there are certainly some individuals I would like to interview.”
Dinwiddy held a photo up and the camera zoomed in. It was Jerry’s passport photo.
“This is the victim, Jeremy Brian Adler, age forty-two. I want to find out about his movements on Friday and Saturday just gone. If anyone has any information I’d be grateful to receive it at the LVMPD. Thank you.”
The image flicked into a news studio, where a smart-suited anchor man sat behind a desk. “Let’s hope the American public gets behind Detective Dinwiddy,” he said. “It’s an ongoing investigation, so we’ll be sure to bring you developments as they happen, here at Channel Six. This is the number you can call if you have any information…”
Isabell stared silently at the TV and Mama jumped to her feet. “Ibbie! Did you hear that? Ibbie! Oh my God! You husband, he is missing! He is murdered!”
Papa growled out a sigh from his corner “Only Jerry…”
“Arlo!” Mama scolded, “Ibbie! Ibbie? Are you OK?”
Isabell managed a long blink and replayed the information in her head. Jerry dead. Jerry murdered. Murdered? Isabell’s head swam and she lowered herself back into the now friendly cushions of the sofa.
Domitila flapped around the room squawking unintelligibly and crossing herself.
If Jerry was dead then she didn’t have to pretend anymore. If Jerry was dead then she could be the grieving widow in black and not the bitch in scarlet. If Jerry was dead then she didn’t have to lift a finger to persuade anybody: it was done. Her family would flock to her side to look after her. If Jerry was dead then everything would work out just how she wanted. She was going to be sick. She pushed out of the sofa and rushed to the toilet.
When the spasms abated she sat down hard on the lid and snapped the lock over to keep Mama out. Isabell’s manufactured world wobbled in and out of focus. Without Jerry to spar with the pretence, which had become her reality, would be impossible. She’d acted out their marriage, long after it was finished, for the benefit of her parents, to protect them from the shame, to protect herself from being cut off by her family, at least that’s what she’d told herself.
The truth of it was simpler: who wanted to be alone? No family; no children; no husband; no friends. And the weather: always rai
ning, so grey this place. She shuddered and scratched at the thin white scars scored into her thigh. No razor blade was needed to make the final cut. No more reason required to feel the pain. It was real and unmasked, demanding to be recognised: her marriage had failed and now Jerry was gone.
Emotion pulled at her face. The phone. She dove out of the cloakroom and made for the kitchen, Mama and Papa following in her wake. She swooped up the handset and stabbed out Jerry’s number to find it switched off. Her mother’s arm draped around her shoulders and the dread of abandonment became undeniable reality.
A genuine tear escaped down her cheek.
“Is OK, Ibbie.” Her mother squeezed her to her chest and Isabell inhaled the smell of home that lingered on her mother’s clothes. Together they rocked to and fro. Comfort and protection unwound taut muscles and softened Isabell’s shoulders into a droop. She leant on her mother and her mother stood firm. “I’ll look after you, Ibbie,” she soothed, “No worry.”
SEVENTY-TWO
ADAM FLINCHED AWAY FROM THE JABBING IN HIS RIBS. “Hey, wake up. Wake up. What you doing there? I thought you’d blown long ago, man. What you doing out here?”
Adam traced the dark outline of a woman through bleary eyes. Rita. Rita had found him.
“Has somebody been at you? Why ain’t you gone home?” She twitched her hand under her nose and crouched down to look into his face.
