Hope’s fingers had wrapped around her hand – warm and clammy and thrumming with vitality. ‘Sorry. Am I hurting you, Mum-Mum?’
‘No, love.’ Bev had felt sleep and heavy medication trying to pull her back to the depths of slumber. Her heavy lids had started to close of their own accord, rebelling against her wish to keep them open so she could drink in the sight of her beautiful girl ; ignoring the sulky wanker who held her on his lap. Even as she’d drifted back to the blackness, she’d silently bet that Rob was loving every minute of this. Surprised that he had deigned to visit, though they were at war. Perhaps he’d heard disapprobation in the doctor’s voice when he’d refused to visit the gravely injured mother of his only child. That narcissist had always set an inordinate amount of store in being thought well of by strangers.
‘I’m so glad you’re not going to die, Mum,’ Hope had said.
Bev had felt those skinny fingers tenderly stroking her hair. ‘No, doll. It takes more than a car crash to kill your . . .’
She woke many hours later to find Doc standing by the bed. ‘Bev! You’re awake!’
Disorientated, Bev now blinked hard in the grey dawn light. It seeped in through the hospital room’s tall windows, making out the hollows and highlights in Doc’s angular face, rendered ghoulish by the night light’s directional beam.
‘How long have I been asleep?’ she said, smacking her lips. Not waiting for an answer. ‘Hope and Rob the Knob came to visit. I’m not sure I didn’t dream it.’
Doc shrugged. ‘Who knows? I’m here now, though.’
‘I crashed the car,’ she said, appraising her exhausted-looking friend, glad that he was back in town. Acknowledging the searing pain in her head when she spoke.
‘I know. I heard. Do you want a glass of water?’ Doc picked up her plastic jug and marched around the bed to the en suite, not waiting for her response.
‘Get me some painkillers before I die, will you? I feel like my head is falling off. My arm’s itching like a bastard under this cast.’
Gingerly trying to sit up, Bev allowed Doc to fuss around her and give her ibuprofen that she was certain the nurse wouldn’t allow on top of the codeine she’d taken hours ago.
‘What made you come back?’ she asked, recalling all that had led up to this point.
‘They got in touch with me on my burner. The cops. Traced my number through your phone. Are the police on your case?’
Bev nodded. ‘It’s all Rob’s fault. And that douche, Jerry Fitzwilliam.’ She closed her eyes, uttering a silent prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that she’d been the only person hurt in the accident, beyond the odd bit of whiplash suffered by those who had performed emergency stops.
Doc raised an eyebrow. ‘Were Rob and Fitzwilliam behind the wheel?’
‘Piss off, Doc. If you’ve come back to Manchester with the sole intention of making me feel bad, just sling your hook back to Chalfont St Bollocks. OK? I’ve got Rob trying to prove I’m an unfit mother, Fitzwilliam leaving me threatening messages. Mo thinking I’m self-sabotaging by publishing some masochistic sex site called redhotslut.com or some shit. Jesus. I might as well just bloody give up if you’re not on my side.’ She remembered then, what Rob had said about Doc’s possible involvement in the slanderous website. ‘Are you behind redhotslut?’
Peeling the wrapper aggressively from a Mars bar he’d taken out of his bag, Doc took a huge bite of the chocolate bar and chewed in morose silence. Finally, he swallowed noisily. ‘Is that what you think of me? Is that the extent of the trust between us? Think it through, for God’s sake! I’m the one who warned you about this online shit. I trek all this way overnight to visit you, and you think I’m your stalker? Seriously?’
Bev realised that Rob had merely been twisting and stirring things, as usual. ‘Course not. I’m just tired and in pain and sick to the back teeth of my crappy life.’
He offered her the Mars bar, with the caramel dangling like tiny stalactites from the place where he’d bitten.
She waved him away and sighed heavily. Closed her eyes until the flashes of pain forced them back open. She focused first on the large utilitarian clock on the wall. ‘Who the hell eats that crap at 5.30 a.m.?’
‘Breakfast, innit?’
‘Not for me it isn’t. They leave you lying like a dog in a manger in this place. All I wanna do is call my baby girl and tell her I love her and that I’m going to fight ’til I get her back. I bet Rob won’t bring her in to see me again. Maybe I did dream she was here. He’s such a dick. Anyway, then I’ve got to get hold of Angie and see if Jerry really has sussed I’m Beverley Saunders and not Cat Thomson. It certainly sounded that way, judging by his messages. If it’s not my ex, it’s got to be that nutter. Rob has the motivation, but Jerry’s the only one with the resources to get my place turned over and dig up enough dirt about me to put all that shocking crap up online. If he knows I was cat-fishing him, he’s going to be angry. Though he must have a tech-savvy nerd on the payroll, because he never struck me as some computer whizz.’ For the briefest of moments, Bev scrutinised her friend and wondered again if she was missing something ; if Doc could possibly be behind the trolling and stalking she’d fallen victim to.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Stop being ridiculous. Doc’s not capable of having men follow you on a damned train. He wouldn’t harm a fly!
‘Well, we both saw how Fitzwilliam killed my computer,’ Doc said. He took a swig from his Coke bottle. Narrowed his bloodshot eyes, pointing. ‘I saw how aggressively he behaved towards you in his secret shag-pad. How long before he has one of us or his wife bumped? You’ve got to take him down.’
Though it even hurt to grimace, Bev shuffled herself up the hospital bed using her good arm. ‘We, Doc. We’ve got to take him down. And Tatjana, the girl in the bin . . . she’s the key. It proves what he could be capable of. I’ve not come across the “film” mentioned in his email to the pimp. The Dark Net’s a giant and grim place. But if we find it and it’s incriminating, we’re home and dry.’
‘Jesus. That’s a big, “if”, Bev. In the meantime, we’re in over our heads.’
Doc rubbed his face and ran his hands through his hair. As he did so, he gave off a pungent whiff of stale marijuana and damp, and an earthy tang of compost. He smelled of neglect. Bev could see that, though he’d spent the last couple of weeks in his parental home like some overgrown teen, he’d somehow aged. Despite the dire situation she found herself in, she was surprised by the pang of pity and wave of overwhelming affection she felt for him. Here, in the midst of her hard, lonely, chaotic existence that was marbled with danger, addiction and poverty, she realised she had a friend.
‘You really care, don’t you?’ she asked.
Doc nodded. Opened his mouth to say something, but only breath came out. Then, when the moment had passed, he smacked his lips and slapped his knees. He stood. ‘Let’s get you out of here. Get you in your own bed. Then, we can sit and eat Jaffa Cakes and look for this Tatjana film properly. OK?’
She shook her head. ‘Look at the bloody time, James! They’re hardly going to let me out at the crack of dawn.’
‘We’ll see about that.’ Doc flashed her a mouthful of yellowed teeth and winked.
Ten minutes later, Bev was being pushed through the double doors at the end of the ward by Doc, dressed as an orderly.
‘Where are you going with that patient?’ the staff nurse shouted from the comfort of her padded typing chair, stationed behind the main desk.
‘X-ray,’ Doc said, tapping at the face of his watch as though he was late for an urgent appointment. ‘Can you release the doors, please?’
The staff nurse rose to her feet and started to waddle towards him, her dark blue A-line skirt swishing from side to side in her wake. ‘Who are you? I don’t recognise you.’
CHAPTER 36
Bev
Doc flashed the lanyard around his neck to the inquisitive sister. ‘Jim. I’m new from the agency.’
She seemed to consider his explanation. Nodded. Returned to the desk and buzzed them out.
He pushed the wheelchair into the corridor, saying, ‘Yesssss’ under his breath.
‘Where the hell did you get this get-up?’ Bev asked, cradling the cast on her broken arm. For a moment she was so amused by their getaway that her her pain was momentarily forgotten.
‘Nicked it out of a dirty laundry cage,’ he said, taking his backpack from her and swinging it onto his back. ‘Amazing what people leave lying around big hospitals in the early hours of the morning.’
‘And the lanyard?’
He grinned, illuminating that dismal place with its shiny, bumpy vinyl flooring far better than the unfriendly glaring strip-lighting overhead. ‘Iron Maiden backstage pass. 2004 world tour!’
When the taxi pulled up outside Sophie and Tim’s, Doc helped Bev up the stone steps, holding her elbow as if she was a frail, elderly woman. Dithering with each step she took, thanks to the agony of the bruising – outside and in – and the hangover-like effects of strong codeine, Bev bit back self-pitying tears.
‘Come on. You can do it. Only three more steps,’ Doc said, speaking softly.
She shook him loose. ‘Sod off, Doc. You’re making me feel like an invalid.’
‘You are an invalid! Jesus, Bev! Would it kill you to accept a little help off someone who cares?’
Stopping on the penultimate step, panting with the sheer effort required to propel her towards the front door, she glared at him. ‘I’m standing here with my arm in a sling and my arse hanging out, still wearing a hospital gown, for Christ’s sake. I’ve lost—’
‘I’m helping you to get up the stairs after a serious car crash,’ Doc said. ‘Not stripping you of your dignity. Stop looking for the bad in people, and give me your arm.’
‘Shhh! Keep your voice down, gobshite.’
Inside, everyone was still sleeping. With a heavy heart, she unlocked her damp basement flat. The sharp whiff of mildew stung in her nostrils immediately. She sneezed four times in a row.
‘Ow. My ribs.’
‘This place is a dump,’ Doc said. ‘Even by my standards. You’ve got to get out of here.’
‘I’ve got no option. They’re chucking me out on my arse, anyway. Believe me, I’m working on it.’
She allowed him to help her onto her bed.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said, disappearing off into the kitchenette.
Bev was relieved to see that her doors and windows hadn’t been breached in her absence, at least. But as she lay there, listening to the tinkle of a teaspoon inside a ceramic mug in the kitchen, she realised that the laundry basket full of clean towels and T-shirts, that had been wedged up against her chest of drawers for days, had been moved. Or had it?
Ignoring the twinges from her battered and broken limbs, she struggled to her feet and approached the heavy hand-me-down piece of oak furniture.
‘I could have sworn this basket was . . .’
Tugging the top drawer open with her one good hand, she peered inside at her underwear. Blinking hard, she registered the mess. A slattern elsewhere in the home, Bev always kept a clearly compartmentalised undies drawer : knickers on the left. Bras stacked neatly on the right. Socks and stockings balled in a line at the front. What she beheld now was lingerie pandemonium.
‘He’s been back,’ she said. ‘How the hell has he managed that?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Doc asked, standing in the doorway bearing two steaming mugs.
Clinging onto the chest of drawers, Bev gasped as something else struck her. ‘The deadlock. The deadlock on the front door.’ She felt as though ice were seeping out of her every pore. ‘I always put the deadlock on the Yale, but it wasn’t on, just now.’
‘Were you in a hurry when you left?’
‘Yeah, but it’s muscle memory, isn’t it? I always, always deadlock it. When we came in, it just took me one turn of the key to unlock. I’ve only just sussed it. And someone’s been through my undies drawer. Either Fitzwilliam’s been in, or he’s paid someone to rifle through my things. I’m telling you, Doc. Wipe that incredulous look off your mush, because I’m not going nuts.’
‘I never said that. This is how I normally look. I’m the last person to judge.’
‘Well, I’m telling the truth.’ She stumbled over to her computer, switched it on and put her own name into Google’s search engine. Her spoof Twitter account was the first thing that appeared in the listings. ‘Look at this! It’s a disgrace.’ She pointed to the latest in the Twitter feed of @Beverley_Saunders. ‘Constant, too. One tweet every fifteen minutes, dead on. Look!’ The blush crept into her cheeks, momentarily melting the icy sensation of dread, replacing it with searing embarrassment. Picture after picture loaded up onto the screen of some porn star in an almost yogic pose, either being screwed by a well-endowed beefcake or entered by some projectile or other. In some photos, there were two or more men, making full use of every available orifice. Bev’s head had been Photo-shopped onto each image convincingly. ‘Only consolation is, at least the world will think I’m super bendy and have a damned thigh gap.’
‘He’s using a programme like Hootsuite to time the tweets,’ Doc said. ‘Wow.’
‘Search for that film of Tatjana, Doc. Angie showed me some snaps her nanny was using to blackmail Fitzwilliam. If those are anything to go by, the men in the footage will be wearing animal masks, and I’ll bet it was filmed in a posh penthouse. Find it now, and we can end this. Or else I’ll force you to look at my new porn makeover for the rest of the day.’
Doc flushed red, shunting her out of the way. His fingers started to fly across the keyboard. ‘Get back on the bed and drink your tea. I’m going in.’
An hour later, Bev woke to find Doc standing over her. His colour had drained almost entirely away.
‘What is it?’ she asked, almost forgetting why he was in her bedroom while she’d been asleep . . . until the pain kicked back in, bringing crystal clear recall with it. ‘Why are you standing over me like an avenging bloody angel?’
‘I’ve found it,’ he said. ‘The footage of Tatjana’s death. I had to get behind the paywall on a snuff site to access it. It’s had more than five thousand hits, too.’ His mouth was downturned ; his eyes bloodshot as though he’d been crying or had seen something disturbing enough to make his capillaries pop. He chewed the inside of his cheek. ‘It’s really not pretty. Wanna see?’
Levering herself into the typing chair, with Doc standing behind her, they watched the gruesome home video together. The action took place in the living room of Fitzwilliam’s secret apartment. Wooden floors and leather sofas. There were five men, all naked but for latex masks that covered their heads entirely – a pig. A bulldog. A horse. A cockerel. And a wolf. The men from the stills that Gretchen had stashed in her shoebox. Their voices were muffled and eerie.
In the footage, the naked girl lay on one of the sofas as each of the men took turns.
‘It’s definitely Tatjana Lebedev,’ Bev said. ‘Same girl as the photo in the Evening Standard. Poor little bleeder.’
Bev watched on, feeling her heart quickly shattering on this girl’s behalf. Stomach churning with revulsion at the sort of gang bang she’d taken part in before, though she had, importantly, been a consenting adult and had made it out sore but happy, as opposed to dead.
In the film, Tatjana was clearly passive, her speech heavily accented and slurred. It was clear she’d been plied with drugs and alcohol. The Wolf took centre stage only fifteen minutes in, forced her to wear an SM ball gag and began to strangle the girl, mid-coitus.
‘Hold it!’ Bev said, her voice wavering, barely able to make herself heard above her thudding heartbeat. ‘Scroll back a little and freeze the frame.’
Doc rewound the film. ‘What is it?’
‘There!’ Bev said. She pointed to the hip of the portly pink-skinned man wearing the pig mask. On it was a birthmark she had seen before. A red blotch, roughly the same shape as
Australia. ‘There he is. That’s Jerry Fitzgerald.’
They watched the grim recording to the end, to the finale where Tatjana’s head lolled to one side and the men began to argue over what had come to pass ; watched to the point when The Wolf returned from the kitchen bearing a meat cleaver and roll of black bin bags.
Bev inhaled slowly and sighed long and hard. In Russia, there dwelled a distraught and ruined mother who had also lost a daughter. Except unlike Hope, Tatjana would never be going home.
‘Well, if Jerry Fitzwilliam didn’t kill her,’ Doc said, pointing to the savage canine face that filled the screen, hand outstretched towards the camera, ‘who the fuck is he?’
CHAPTER 37
Bev
‘Just keep reading the plaque. Pretend to be interested,’ Bev said out of the corner of her mouth. She stole a glance at Angie from over the tops of her sunglasses. ‘You look better, anyway. You’ve got colour in your cheeks.’
At her side, a smile flickered on and off Angie’s gaunt, perfectly made-up face as she wheeled her daughter’s pushchair back and forth, back and forth. Her semi-feral son was a way off, climbing onto and jumping off a bench, just where the museum’s famous tyrannosaurus rex presided over the gallery, skimming the ornate stucco ceiling with his giant bony head. ‘That’ll be the gin I had at lunchtime,’ she said. ‘Dutch courage. Every time I go out, I’m worried Jerry will be there, watching and waiting for me.’ It was suddenly apparent that her eyes were glassy with sorrow or, more likely, fear. ‘He keeps sending me horrible emails.’
‘Listen,’ Bev said, scanning the space for eavesdroppers and suspicious-looking types who were clearly not at Manchester University Museum simply for something constructive to do with their toddlers on a rainy Wednesday morning. ‘I wanted to see you to give you the heads-up.’
Tightrope Page 24
