Something Buried: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller

by Wilkinson, Kerry

  The room was massive – at least as big as Andrew’s flat. The living room had a bar in the corner, plus a wide window that looked out over the city below. There was a wet-room bathroom and a bedroom almost as big as the living room, with a four-poster bed and eighteen pillows; Jenny actually counted.

  Andrew tried the windows, but they wouldn’t open any further than a few centimetres. ‘Famous or not, the hotel don’t trust you to not jump.’

  ‘Do you reckon that’s why rock bands throw TVs through the windows?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘So, no way out of the room…?’

  Andrew pressed himself against the glass and peered down. ‘No – and it would be quite the plummet. The lift has that camera pointing at it on the ground floor. If Jack Marsh left his room, it would have had to be down the stairs.’

  They moved back into the corridor, walking in one big loop around the floor. Neither of them spotted a security camera and the only thing of any real interest was a fire door at either end. Both had a sign reading ‘warning: this door is alarmed’ above. They soon found themselves back near the lift. The stairs were adjacent and no key card was needed to open the door.

  Andrew was out of breath by the time they’d descended four floors. He rested on the banister, staring up and around. The walls were whitewashed, the steps hard – nothing to see. No reason for guests to use them instead of the lift. Jenny said nothing about Andrew’s lack of fitness, waiting until he was ready again and then they continued down. When they reached the first floor, Andrew motioned Jenny through the door and they did another loop. There was a window at the end of one of the corridors, but it didn’t open any further than the one in their room. When they reached the door again, they headed back into the stairwell and continued down to the ground floor.

  As well as the door that opened into reception that needed a key card from the other side, there was a space underneath the stairs, sealed by a locked door that read ‘Maintenance Only’. There was another door opposite with a red and white no entry sign and the words ‘Staff Only’.

  Andrew turned to Jenny. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘You know me.’

  Jenny was through the staff door before Andrew could say anything – not that he was going to stop her. It led into a far darker corridor with the outline of a door at the end. Andrew moved ahead and opened the second door, which led into another corridor, this one clanging with the sound of pans and voices. It smelled of something spicy and meaty.

  ‘Can I help you?’ a voice asked.

  Andrew turned to see a young woman in an apron and cook’s hat. She had been smoking an e-cigarette that was hastily being pocketed.

  ‘We’re a bit lost,’ Andrew said.

  She eyed him and Jenny suspiciously. ‘There’s only the kitchens back here.’ She nodded to the door behind her. ‘Reception’s that way, or the door you came through, obviously.’

  ‘Is there a way to get outside?’

  ‘Through reception.’

  ‘Yes, but is there another way?’

  ‘Why?’

  Andrew was beaten, but Jenny jumped in, gripping his arm firmly. ‘My husband likes to know where all the fire exits are. He gets a bit panicky.’ She squeezed him and gazed up adoringly. ‘Poor love.’

  The kitchen worker peered between them again, though her features softened. She pointed past them towards the direction of the noise. ‘There’s a fire exit that way.’

  ‘Is it alarmed?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘Yeah, but no one’s going to bother about that if there’s a fire.’

  She stepped to one side, freeing the door that would lead back to reception. Andrew took the hint and passed through it, finding himself in the bar. Once closed, it was almost impossible to know it was a door at all. It was covered with the same dimpled padding as the walls around the bar and, from what Andrew could see, only opened one way.

  They headed back to the lift, but couldn’t say much as there was already a bickering couple inside, arguing about how much money they’d spent in the Arndale Centre.

  When the lift opened at their floor, Andrew and Jenny headed to the room. Once they were inside with the door closed, Jenny sat on the bed, bouncing up and down. ‘Do you reckon Jack Marsh could have left by the fire door close to the kitchen?’ she asked.

  Andrew rested against the wall. ‘Maybe. It doesn’t mean he’s involved in anything that happened to Michelle, but it is a way out. The police would know about the door, though. They would’ve asked staff about it, wondering if anyone saw him around – plus it’s alarmed. And how would he know about it? If he was determined to do something to harm his girlfriend, it seems like a weird plan. Wait until he’s holed up with his teammates in a hotel, then sneak out a back door. Even if he did, how would he get back in?’

  ‘Hmm…’ Jenny didn’t seem quite so sure.

  ‘There’s every chance Michelle simply fell in the canal,’ Andrew added. ‘There are a few every year.’

  Jenny motioned to the room: ‘Why are we doing this then?’

  They looked at each other and Andrew didn’t have an answer. Perhaps, because numerous people did drown in the canal, there was the odd one that police didn’t investigate properly, especially when the victim had copious amounts of alcohol in his or her system.

  ‘Do you reckon the alarms on the fire exits work?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Have you ever thought about it, though? All these places – hotels, offices, shops and so on. They all say their fire exits are alarmed because they don’t want people to exit through the wrong place – or because they’re worried of some potential break-in. Imagine how much all that would cost. You could stick up a sign saying there’s an alarm and no one will bother to open it because of that – or you could actually install the alarm system. One costs a lot more than the other but the outcome is the same.’

  ‘I think—’

  Andrew didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because Jenny was bounding away from him, out of the room, towards the opposite end of the corridor. He called after her first and then started jogging, but it was already too late. She arrived at the fire exit a moment before he did. There was a horizontal bar across the door and it looked like it opened onto a set of metal stairs.

  ‘Ten quid says there’s no alarm,’ Jenny said, one hand on the bar.

  Andrew tried to sound firm: ‘Don’t open the door, Jen.’

  ‘Twenty?’

  ‘We’ve already aroused the suspicions of the guy checking us in because I live down the road – then the cook because she knows we went through a staff-only door. What’s going to happen when that alarm goes off?’

  ‘You’re assuming there is an alarm.’

  Andrew glanced up towards a small metal box that was pinned to the wall above the door. ‘That looks like an alarm to me.’

  ‘Pfft. If Jack Marsh left this hotel, he could’ve gone out through the fire exit, down the stairs and he’d be on the road,’ Jenny said. ‘Easy-peasy. The police wouldn’t bother checking because why would they? Something says it’s alarmed and you believe it.’

  ‘Jen—’

  Too late.

  Jenny heaved the bar down and shoved the door open. A split-second later, an ear-piercing shriek rattled through the corridor, making Andrew wince. He stuck his fingers in his ears, but it barely dimmed the racket, which was so loud it actually hurt.

  ‘Oops,’ Jenny mouthed.

  Seven

  Andrew weaved around the escalator and found himself at the end of a long tunnel in between two stores. Shoppers passed on either side of him, but the Arndale Centre was nowhere near as busy as he’d seen it in the past. Being the biggest shopping centre in the middle of Manchester meant it was bedlam in the run-up to Christmas, not to mention the Boxing Day sales. Not so much in April.

  Jenny quickly caught him, bouncing excitedly on her heels as Andrew nodded towards the fire door at the end of the tunnel. ‘Do you r
eckon that one’s alarmed?’ She grinned. ‘You’re never going to let me live this down, are you? You cause one little evacuation and suddenly you’re the person who sets off alarms.’

  ‘I thought they were going to throw us out of the hotel.’

  ‘We’re not even staying there! Anyway, I reckon that deputy manager bought it that I was suffering from low blood sugar and collapsed. He definitely seemed concerned.’

  Andrew raised his eyebrows. ‘The one thing you’re definitely not suffering from is low blood sugar.’

  At the mention of sugar, Jenny turned towards the American candy shop that hadn’t been there the last time Andrew had been in the centre. The window was filled with boxes of hyperactivity-inducing cereal, the colours of which were so luminous, Andrew felt slightly dizzy looking at them.

  ‘No way,’ he said.

  Jenny grinned as she set off, nodding towards the next rank of shops. ‘C’mon, it’s over here.’

  Andrew followed until they reached the type of clothes shop he would have normally been too intimidated to even look at, let alone enter. The window was full of skinny, stick-like mannequins dressed in barely there outfits which would no doubt cost something in the region of a small principality’s gross domestic product. Jenny had no such issues, breezing inside and heading straight for a rack of short dresses. Andrew had little option but to follow. He stood at her shoulder, wondering if he seemed more like her weird father or a creepy older boyfriend. Neither was a good look.

  Jenny removed something short and purple from the rack and turned, holding it in front of herself. ‘Megan’s over there,’ she said, nodding towards the other side of the store.

  Megan Halfpenny had changed a lot from the picture Andrew had seen of her in school uniform alongside Jack Marsh. Her gingery hair was now a much brighter red and had been woven into some sort of physics-defying cross between a plait and a bun.

  There was another member of staff talking into a phone behind the tills, with Megan off to the side, chatting to a customer and doing a lot of nodding.

  Jenny took something silvery from the rack and headed towards Megan carrying both dresses, chirping a ‘come on’ in Andrew’s direction.

  ‘Stunning,’ Megan was in the middle of saying, still nodding at the other customer. ‘You look utterly stunning in that.’

  The woman to whom Megan was talking definitely did not look stunning in the dress she was trying on. She turned sideways to look into the full-length mirror but that didn’t stop the dress being a snot-coloured green, with weird puffy bits around the arms. It wasn’t her fault, but the outfit made her look as if she’d been partially inflated. With Megan still nodding enthusiastically, the customer also started nodding.

  Andrew figured day one of training to work in a clothes shop must be nodding and complimenting customers while pretending said customer didn’t look like a dropped blancmange in an appallingly ill-fitting pink dress.

  After even more nodding, the customer turned back to the changing rooms. ‘I think I’m going to get this,’ she said.

  The woman disappeared, while Jenny held up her two dresses, smiling at Megan and saying she was going to try them on. A moment later, the two women were off in the changing rooms, leaving Andrew alone with Megan. She smiled awkwardly at him and he smiled back – or tried to, at least. It might have been some sort of grimace. Sometimes it felt like his face did its own thing and he was left dealing with the consequences.

  At least one ice age passed before Jenny and the other woman emerged. The one with the snotty dress thanked Megan and then headed to the tills, while Jenny stood in front of the mirror and turned to Andrew. She was wearing the purple dress, which looked as if it had been made for her. It clung perfectly and she did a small curtsy.

  ‘Well,’ she said to Andrew, ‘what d’you think?’

  ‘It’s, er, purple…?’

  She rolled her eyes, turning to Megan. ‘He’s useless. What do you think?’

  ‘Stunning,’ Megan said. ‘You look utterly stunning in that.’

  Jenny smoothed down a crease that wasn’t there. ‘Yeah, it’s not bad…’

  ‘If you buy today,’ Megan said, ‘you get ten per cent off in our sale – plus, if you sign up to our mailing list at the counter, you get another ten per cent off.’

  Jenny turned back to her, padding forward in bare feet, changing tack with astonishing ease. ‘Can we have a quick word about Jack Marsh?’

  There was a pause in which Megan stared at her open-mouthed. ‘Um…’

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Jenny added hastily.

  ‘I already said no to the papers.’

  ‘We’re not journalists. We want to stick up for Jack.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Private investigators.’ Jenny nodded at Andrew. ‘Well, he is. He’s got the ID card and everything. I’m Jenny and he’s Andrew.’

  Megan glanced quickly towards the counter, where the first customer was typing her PIN into the card machine. She opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped herself. ‘How are you sticking up for Jack?’ she asked.

  ‘People are saying he’s done something and we’re looking into how true it is.’

  Megan frowned slightly. ‘How do you think I can help? I’ve not seen him in three years.’

  ‘You can give us some background, though.’

  The first customer called ‘thank you’ and waved towards Megan, then headed out of the shop.

  Andrew shuffled awkwardly on the spot, unsure how he could help. Standing up to gangsters twice his size: no problem. Young women: not a chance.

  ‘I can take a break in half an hour,’ Megan said. ‘There’s a food hall on the top floor and we could maybe talk then…?’

  ‘Okay,’ Jenny replied.

  ‘It’s just…’ There was a pregnant pause in which Megan looked at Jenny and Jenny looked at Andrew. Eventually, Megan decided to spell it out: ‘I’m on commission,’ she said, almost apologetically – though not quite.

  Jenny nodded, continuing to look at Andrew, having apparently figured that out already.

  ‘How much?’ Andrew asked as reality finally dawned.

  ‘Three hundred,’ Jenny said.

  Andrew half-coughed, half-choked.

  ‘Minus the discount,’ Megan added.

  ‘So still two hundred and fifty odd,’ Andrew replied, recovering.

  Neither of the women replied initially, until Jenny lofted her satchel. ‘I don’t have any money on me.’

  It was, of course, typical. She’d carry around chocolate, cakes, biscuits, a picnic for five people – but money? Why would a person need that?

  ‘Fine,’ Andrew said, removing his wallet from his pocket and handing it over. ‘But, technically, that dress will be mine.’

  Jenny winked. ‘You’ll look stunning in it.’

  Andrew couldn’t figure out what the food hall smelled of. It was definitely something fried, and might have been meaty, though there were also hints of rotting carcase. Jenny had already eaten a fresh doughnut and had taken to untying and retying her shoelaces, presumably to give herself something to do with her hands that didn’t involve eating.

  Megan appeared a little after thirty minutes had passed. She bought three tacos loaded with oozing brown meat, fluorescent green guacamole and sour cream.

  ‘How did you know where I worked?’ she asked, sitting at their table. She didn’t sound too concerned.

  ‘Facebook,’ Jenny replied. ‘Plus Instagram and Twitter. Pretty much everywhere, really.’

  Megan shrugged. ‘Do you know Jack?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘Not directly.’

  ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘To ask you about the Jack you knew.’

  Megan started picking at her food, scooping the guacamole out first with her fingers. ‘What are people saying he’s done?’

  Jenny glanced to Andrew, who offered the tiniest shake of his head. ‘We can’t really say,’ Jenny replied.<
br />
  ‘So you want me to tell you what I know, without you saying why?’

  ‘I suppose…’

  Megan crunched into the first taco and then wiped her mouth with her finger. She chewed and swallowed, then added: ‘It’s to do with a girl, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Jenny said.

  She shrugged. ‘What else is it going to be?’

  Jenny was unfazed. ‘When did you first start going out with Jack?’

  ‘Thirteen or fourteen. We’d been at the same schools all the way through from when we were five. It was one of those things that happened almost just because. I don’t even remember him asking me out, or the other way round. We were hanging about all the time and then we were boyfriend-girlfriend.’

  ‘Didn’t he end up leaving school at some point?’

  Megan cracked open the rest of the tacos and started to eat with a fork. She had a mouthful of beef but nodded, making an ‘mmm’ sound. ‘I think it was the year we did our GCSEs. He was too young to sign a proper football contract, but they had his parents sign this thing that meant he got this special tutoring. I don’t remember properly. You’d have to ask him.’

  ‘Were you still going out then?’

  ‘Yeah. He said we’d stay together forever, but I guess that’s the type of thing you say as a kid. I think I knew it wasn’t going to last.’

  ‘What changed?’

  Megan squished her lips together and puffed out a breath. ‘He did – but it wasn’t really his fault. I was annoyed then, but now I reckon it was always going to happen. He had all these people around him – agents offering him money and cars, older players talking about things they’d get up to, journalists making him feel important.’ She paused, licking her lips. ‘Other girls as well.’

  Jenny continued: ‘Were the women a problem?’

  Megan shook her head. ‘Not then. It was more his mum being in his ear all the time. She’d tell him I wasn’t good enough for him. I was some council-estate chav and he was going to be a superstar. She was terrified I was going to get pregnant and that he’d be stuck with me.’