Tightrope

by Marnie Riches

  She hadn’t heard Sophie swear that prolifically since Rob had visited them in his Mitch days, during one of those times when he and Bev had only been in contact to arrange visits to his parents in order to see Hope. Rob had showed up at 3 a.m., drunk as a lord, hurling stones at Sophie’s bedroom window at the front of the little terraced student house they’d shared. As an encore, he’d pissed on her plaque in the little front garden that had declared, ‘You’re nowhere closer to God than in the garden.’ Sophie had been incensed, then. Now, Bev had finally crossed a boundary she’d never be able to retreat behind again.

  ‘You’ll see, Soph,’ Bev said as one of the uniforms restrained her friend, ushering her back to her armchair and her coffee table full of tear-sodden tissues. ‘This wasn’t my fault, and Tim was telling you terrible lies. I’m sorry for your loss. I really am. But he wasn’t who you thought he was. And I’ll be here for you when you need me.’

  ‘Need you? You’ve ruined my life!’ Sophie had started to weep. Her face contorted and puckered up. Her words came out in grief-distorted bursts of rage. ‘I’ll never need you. I’ll see you rot in prison for the rest of your cursed days.’

  As Bev was carefully installed in the back of the squad car, she saw the body bag that contained Tim being carried on a stretcher by the forensics people into the garden ; ushered with some difficulty into a van, whereupon presumably he’d be transported to the morgue for autopsy.

  It seemed ironic that The Wolf should be eviscerated and carved up on a slab, given how he’d carved up a teenage girl, perhaps on the kitchen floor of that Ealing flat. Except Tatjana’s remains had been dumped, whereas Tim’s would receive a proper burial.

  The squad car pulled off the gravel drive. Bev sniffed, observing the nosy neighbours, all gathered in a huddle just outside the garden gates, speculating on what this to-do might possibly be about.

  What had it been about? Bev examined her feelings for the dead man who had fathered her most beloved daughter. If she was convicted of murder or manslaughter and sentenced to a long stretch in prison, Tim would have effectively ended her life too. No. There’s no sympathy there, she decided. I hated him and I’m glad he’s dead. I wish I could console Sophie, and being the cause of her husband’s death will always haunt me. But right now, I’m just crapping my pants that I’ll lose my baby girl forever.

  ‘All right, back there?’ the officer in the passenger seat asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  Bev fought back a sob of desperation. ‘Fine.’

  Days in a holding cell came and went as Bev awaited the police’s verdict as to whether Tim’s death could be described as having mitigating circumstances or not – compelling enough to get her off the hook. Could they believe that she’d only intended to threaten him with electrocution so that she would extract the truth about Tatjana’s murder? Would the post-mortem reveal what had actually come to pass in that en suite?

  ‘They’ll prosecute you for “Threat to Kill”,’ her defence lawyer had said. ‘Kandice with a K’ had been sent from the same solicitors’ firm that had originally botched her divorce. Not some hotshot legal eagle from the top 500, but a £130 an hour hump from a local firm that had offices above a barber’s shop in Wythenshawe. Marginally better than the Legal Aid she didn’t quite qualify for. The best she could afford, since Angie’s assets had been frozen, and still too costly, at that. Kandice with a K had spelled her prospects out for her : ‘That’s very serious, Beverley, and carries a pretty muscular prison sentence if you’re found guilty. It’s not as if you didn’t have other options. You should have just called the police.’

  ‘But I already explained—’

  ‘I know! I know! We’ll make the best case for you we possibly can.’ Kandice had placed her hands authoritatively on the table top, in the interview room that smelled of sweat and impending doom. ‘But first, I need to know how you’ll be paying for my services.’

  Bev had sighed, closing her eyes, wishing that when she opened them, this nightmare would be over. ‘I’ve got sod all money at the moment. Until I get paid for my last job. You know. Things are difficult for me since my divorce.’ She’d shaken her head sorrowfully, hoping for sympathy but getting none ; observing the stiff body language of the solicitor. Bev had pondered whether Kandice, with her out-of-date suit and her plastic beads, would be worth her fee.

  ‘I’ll sell my car. It’ll be fine as long as you can get me off quickly.’

  Kandice’s shoulders had returned to their normal position. ‘We’ll see. You can demonstrate how Tim had been stalking you, so that will help. That woman at the Brackenrigg Inn. We’ll be able to get her witness statement for the break-in. The balaclava and black outfit he wore have been retrieved by forensics. All of that can be proven. We’ll see what the police find on his personal computer equipment and in his office at home, too, with regard to the fake website and Twitter accounts in your name. If your little recording bears out your statement that he attacked you in the bathroom and that you had a scuffle, I may be able to get some leniency.’

  ‘I didn’t bloody well kill him!’

  Kandice with a K treated her to a sarcastic smile that cracked her heavy make-up. ‘No. But the live toaster doesn’t look good for you, Beverley. That’s premeditation and you had a demonstrably good motive for murder. As I said, “Threat to Kill” is what you’ll be prosecuted for at best. But you’ve got no criminal record and you having your daughter to consider means you’re unlikely to be a flight risk. I think I can get you bail. That’s assuming someone will pay it for you . . .’

  ‘How can this be happening? How? Why does my life always go to shit? I solved a cold murder case, for God’s sake, and now, I’m facing prison! How is that fair?’ Bev slapped the scuffed tabletop. Felt the urge to throw her chair across the room and understood then why the furniture was bolted down.

  ‘Life isn’t fair, I’m afraid. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. You shouldn’t have tried to take the law into your own hands, should you?’

  ‘No.’ Fuck off, Kandice with a K, you sanctimonious heifer.

  Bev’s only other visitor during that dark time had been Doc. She’d not been allowed to see him during questioning, though the policewoman who had arrested her had told her that he’d showed up later on the day of her arrest to give evidence. Her heart had lifted slightly at the thought that she had an unlikely hero, but a hero nevertheless.

  She’d been dozing on the narrow bed in her cell when her fortunes had started to change. The door had clanged open and the custody sergeant had marched into her cell, displacing the air of desperation with his detached authority.

  ‘You’ve been bailed,’ he’d said. He’d surprised her by smiling warmly. ‘Come with me and I’ll process your release.’

  Her muscles screaming in complaint from the thin mattress, Bev had levered herself up and had looked at him quizzically. ‘Who? Eh?’

  ‘Bail. Your friend, James Shufflebotham. He posted it. He’s waiting for you.’

  In the foyer, now, Doc was leaning against the counter, legs crossed awkwardly, fingers laced together. She overheard him, chatting to a uniformed officer as though they were old friends, showing the guy his Metallica tour T-shirt that had faded from sheer age and regular use. His hair hung lank on his shoulders. His trainers were grey with dried-in mud.

  ‘You look terrible,’ Bev said, clasping him in a fleeting, awkward hug. ‘And you smell of bacon.’

  Doc grinned a yellow-toothed grin. His Adam’s apple pinged up and down in his scrawny neck. ‘I know, right? The smell in here really clings.’ He turned to the officer he’d been chatting to, winked and guffawed with laughter. ‘Sorry, mate. Only joking.’ Turned to Bev, whispering. ‘Not really joking.’

  Seeing her friend, standing there, smiling as if the world were still turning, drumming a tattoo on the counter with his long, long fingers as though his head was full of rock music and Lego dreams, Bev felt optimism surge inside her for
the first time since she’d been allowed to take Hope away for the weekend. She took her personal effects from the plastic box that the uniform pushed towards her. Hot, fat tears started to fall as she struggled to do up the buckle on her watch.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ Doc said, taking her dry hand into his clammy palm and nimbly fastening the watch. ‘Don’t be sad, man. It’s going to be OK.’

  ‘I’m not sad,’ Bev said. ‘I’m tired. I’m frightened. And I’m wondering why my knight in shining armour is a metalhead wearing a four-day-old T-shirt and stonewashed drainpipes.’

  CHAPTER 48

  Bev

  ‘Rob! Wait!’

  Though she’d followed her ex right across Manchester’s city centre, trying to engage him in a conversation about the apocalyptic solicitor’s letter that had landed on her doormat, Rob had spent the last twenty minutes walking briskly away from Bev, as though he had neither seen nor heard her.

  ‘I want to talk to you, bastard! Stop!’

  Her words had no effect whatsoever. Rob just shuffled on in those too-tight shiny grey trousers that he wore to work.

  Finally, some two hundred yards ahead, he slowed, coming to a stop outside the King Street Townhouse Hotel. He went inside. Bev followed, momentarily nonplussed as daylight was swapped for low-level lighting and boutique hotel glamour. She caught a glimpse of him as the lift doors ahead closed. He was heading for the roof terrace, she calculated.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, she eventually reached the summit to find him, sitting at a low table on the large veranda, facing a blonde woman, whom Bev could only see from the back. The woman wore her hair in a chignon in just the same way that Sophie wore . . .

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Bev!’ Rob said, leaping to his feet, causing the steaming coffee on the table to slop from the two cups into their saucers.

  But Bev’s attention had been caught not by Rob’s scowl, or the stunning view of Manchester’s vertiginous rooftops beyond the glass railing but by the woman. She had turned around and wore a look of dismayed surprise on her beautiful face, as though she’d seen a ghoul made from cack.

  ‘Sophie,’ Bev said, neither shouting, nor questioning but simply stating her friend’s name, as if her betrayal was a foregone conclusion in Bev’s shitty life.

  ‘You? What the hell are you doing here?’ Sophie had that frost and bitter edge to her voice that she’d had in her early Holy Jo days, when Bev had been nothing more than a problem neighbour named Boo. ‘You’re supposed to be emptying my basement flat. You agreed you’d be gone by lunchtime.’

  ‘I’ve not come to pick a fight with you, Soph. I’m here to ask Rob why the hell he thinks it’s OK to get his solicitor to file for a restraining order against me, so that I can’t come within 150 yards of my own daughter? Just at a point where I was about to gain custody.’

  ‘Security!’ Rob shouted over her head to the waitress. ‘Can you call them, please? We’ve an unwanted visitor, here. She’s on bail for murder.’

  ‘I am not on bail for murder, you slandering tit.’ Bev looked at the glazed barrier that was the only thing separating Rob from a rapid death by pavement. She realised with some regret that pushing him from the roof terrace of a tall building was not a practical solution for her woes. Not currently. ‘It was self-defence.’

  ‘With a live toaster!’ Sophie said, her eyes already glassy with tears. Balling her fists.

  ‘Don’t do this, Rob. Please,’ Bev said. Trying to remain dignified. Failing, unable to keep the desperation out of her words. ‘For Hope’s sake. A girl needs her mum.’

  Sophie had started to back towards the adjacent table, wrapping her arms around her slender body as though she was in mortal peril. ‘I don’t blame Rob,’ Sophie said. ‘You’re a danger to everyone you meet. I thought I could help you, but there’s nothing but bad in you.’

  Though there was a large part of her that ached inside for Sophie’s lot, Bev’s fatigue won out. She took four steps towards her friend so that they were nose to nose. Looked into her bloodshot widow’s eyes, that she’d still managed to adorn with eyeliner and mascara. ‘Listen, you. Your husband was worse than all the Jerry Fitzwilliams put together. I’d take a look at that snuff video of Tatjana Lebedev’s final minutes before you start pointing the finger at me, you sanctimonious twat.’ She poked Sophie in the arm. ‘And you can work your mouldy basement up your bony arse. I’m out of there by twelve. Stick it. Stick your fucking Christian charity and your faulty toaster and all, while you’re at it. All right for me to blow my tits off with it, but not Tim’s. The meat-cleaver-wielding Wolf? Fucking hypocrite!’ Turning back to her ex-husband, Bev could feel her anger being rapidly supplanted by sorrow. It wouldn’t do to cry in front of these two. ‘I’m going to fight you, you know. You don’t know how my trial will play out.’ She thumbed herself in the chest. ‘I was backed into a corner and I did what I could to defend myself. I’m innocent. And I’m getting my Hope back. And you can fuck the fuck off.’

  Get out. Get out now. She could see the security guard emerging onto the veranda at the far end. You’re going to blub. Don’t cry.

  ‘I’m going to prison,’ Bev said, placing her origami creations carefully into the compartmented box she’d fashioned from a Sainsbury’s veg crate and Sophie’s discarded Amazon packaging. Sneezing when the dust tickled her nose, blowing the debris of crumpled up, tear-sodden toilet roll across the coffee table and onto the floor. ‘I don’t know why I’m even doing this. I may as well just leave the lot and let that cow clear it out.’

  Doc took four books from the bookshelves above her desk and dropped them into an old cardboard box that didn’t entirely look sturdy enough to bear the weight. ‘You won’t be going to prison, for Christ’s sake. You’re like Wonder Woman or some shit. You’ve gone viral, wrestling Fitzwilliam in that ridiculous bikini. You, pushing him in the pool is the biggest trending “angry GIF” on Giphy!’

  ‘Rubbish. Everything I touch turns to stone. You should keep away from me.’ She picked up a photo of Hope from her desk, polishing it carefully with the sleeve of her fleece. Among the dusty artefacts that she had in her possession, this silver-framed school portrait of her baby girl, at a time when she’d just lost her first front tooth, was always dust- and fingerprint-free. The shine of her daughter’s smiling eyes caused despair to lodge uncomfortably in her throat and an ache to snake around her already breaking heart, squeezing tight. She clasped her hand to her chest, admiring her child ; saying a silent prayer that she would not become but a confusing, painful memory to Hope Mitchell.

  Doc took the photo from her, wrapping it carefully in two-ply newspaper and setting it carefully on the top of an almost full box. ‘Stop it. You can’t see into the future. You’re catastrophising. Gordon the Klepto would rip you to shreds in group therapy.’ He took some strapping tape, severing a strip from the roll with his teeth, and started to seal the box.

  Bev forced a smile. ‘You can’t see into the future either, Doc. How do you know the cops won’t work out who did the hacking for me? We’re gonna be waving to each other through barred windows.’

  ‘Are you finished, you big pessimist?’ Doc said, crouching. ‘Just chill your boots and stop worrying!’ He picked the box up with a grunt, the muscles taut in his long skinny arms. The bottom of the box gave way suddenly, spilling the contents all over the floor.

  ‘No!’ Bev cried, spying Hope’s photo as it scudded to a halt by the sofa – the wrappings open and shattered glass scattered around it like the fragmented memories of happier times. She picked the remnants of her precious keepsake up. ‘It’s a sign.’ Cut her finger on the jagged edge of the glass that still clung to the frame. ‘That’s it. It’s over. I’ve ruined everything.’

  She sucked the blood from her thumb. Doc stood, still clutching the collapsed box with her wrapped effects covering his trainers, opening and closing his mouth as if seeking words of comfort that just wouldn’t take shape on his tongue.

  ‘Look.
It’s not like—’

  Bev’s phone rang shrilly, interrupting his explanation. She glanced at the screen. Kandice with a K calling. Closed her eyes. ‘What now? What final nail in my coffin is this?’ Pressed answer and listened . . .

  ‘I’ve got news. Are you sitting down?’

  CHAPTER 49

  Angie

  ‘Of course, I didn’t have a clue what Jerry was up to. None of it. I’m as scandalised by this as anyone else,’ Angie said, her voice just the right side of tremulous. ‘Jerry kept me in the dark about all of it. He made sure he kept me compliant and unquestioning.’

  ‘And how did he do that, Angela?’ the prosecution asked, treating her to an encouraging smile.

  Angie looked over at her soon-to-be-ex-husband, standing in the dock, looking very much like he’d spent two months on remand. That high colour, typical of a man who enjoyed too much fine red wine and sirloin steak, had drained, giving him the porridgey complexion that she had seen in the other inmates, on the one occasion she’d visited him in prison. Maybe that was why they called it porridge, she mused. Even the bespoke tailored suit didn’t detract from the air of despondent resignation that now dogged his every move like a lingering fart.

  The judge cleared his throat. Peered at her through his bifocals, looking somewhere between a sheep and the modern-day Pharisee that he was with that ridiculous long wig and those red robes.

  Angie snapped out of her meandering reverie. Realised the judge, the barristers, the jury, the court artist, the entire gallery of this grand Old Bailey courtroom . . . they were all watching her expectantly, awaiting more of her tale of woe and subterfuge.

  She toyed with her pearls, happy that her rash had crawled up her neck. The bruises were no longer there, but let the jury see how her hand shook. Let them see how easily she wept. ‘He beat me, of course. He strangled me. He forced me into sex.’

  ‘Objection!’ Jerry’s barrister was on her feet, her legal outrage ringing loud and sharp in the lofty, mahogany-panelled space.