A Secret Life

by Christobel Kent

  Take that too because if you don’t, he’ll use it. Evidence: your evidence not his. She almost stopped with that thought. It was outrageous, it was mad, it was extreme, to be thinking in terms of evidence. But that was where they were. Today she’d been in a police station. Just from one telephone conversation with Tim – I lied, she’d said, defying him – and the playing field was laid out.

  He’d known this was where they were going. Had he even wanted her to find him with Lydia? She stopped, dead, as something suggested itself. Where had she put it? The phone.

  She scrabbled on the bed and there it was, hidden in a fold of the bedcover and as she saw it she saw a greyish smudge of dust from the suitcase, too, for a mad second she thought she was going to have to change the sheets, so Tim wouldn’t be angry. Too late for that.

  And she knew Tim. He started things and sometimes they didn’t finish the way he liked. For some mad reason, sorting the clothes frantically in the suitcase, thinking: shoes, where?, listening for Tabs, at the same time she was remembering when they’d had the drive laid and the border finished too far from the kerb and he lost it. Screaming at the Hungarian blokes until they just got in the van and drove away, back door banging. If things got away from him, he got angry – because control was all important, when you were doing accounts, wasn’t it? If she’d had a fiver for every time he’d said that.

  She’d read something. In a newspaper? Tim said newspapers were a waste of money but one of the supermarkets gave them away free and she would sit in the car, in the supermarket car park and read, luxuriously, disposing of it in the car park’s waste bin before going home.

  It had been about surveillance. Husbands watching wives? She remembered that piece, of course she did, remembered thinking Tim would like to do that, as she read that there had been husbands – controlling, possessive or simply divorcing husbands – who installed an app on their wife’s phone called, find my phone, or something. She stared at the apps, half of them she never looked at, no more than wallpaper. Frowned. Saw nothing.

  ‘Tabs?’ Tabs came to the door of her room, jeans on, trainers on, backpack on, sweatshirt on inside out. Little Tabs, obedient, hurried, sensitive to every tone of voice, anxious. All the signs you could look for, if you thought to do it, and she’d been trained to, before she went to work in the school, the signs of a child uncertain in her own home, a child from a place of danger not safety. Was that what Georgie had been doing while she ran around after Tim all this time, trying to keep him happy? Keeping them in a place of danger.

  ‘Make sure you’ve got everything,’ she said, in a whisper, and obediently Tabs went back in, without a question or a murmur. Georgie hurried back into Tabs’ room and scooped up the pile of clean washing that sat on her chair, folded and ironed, that would do. Dropped it into the suitcase.

  Slammed it shut.

  Lugging it on the stairs, too big, too awkward, Georgie stopped, panting, the suitcase painful against her ankle. Her back to the wall and Tabs upstairs, waiting to be told what was next. She’d known what he was like, known she didn’t love him, worse. Had known he frightened her for years, ten years and more, the look that came into his face when things didn’t go his way.

  And still now, the house was holding her back, the dishwasher to unload, Tabs’ school uniform to fold. Tabs: Tabs was holding her. Tim had paid for Tabs, he had got Georgie pregnant with another man’s sperm. He had wanted the wife and kid.

  And the thought sprang, alive, into Georgie’s head as she stood there on the stairs: that if she said one word, one word against him, it would only end one way.

  With that thought Georgie felt herself begin to shake and in that moment the mobile rang, in her hand. And she dropped it: she didn’t know why or how. Still ringing it skittered down the stairs ahead of her and tipped by the sudden movement and the weight of the suitcase she could feel herself teeter, losing her balance.

  She went down.

  The pain in Frank’s leg was astounding: it throbbed, up his side, but there was no blood. He held it stiff in front of him, in his two hands: he couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to. If he opened his mouth in that moment he thought he would vomit.

  Standing over him Mark crossed his arms, the tyre iron dangling from a hand, looking towards Eddie for instruction. Covertly Frank moved his arms back, straight down, hands palm down on the ground to either side of him. Mark was frowning across at Eddie still, impatient now. Frank raised his knees, slow.

  In the twilight Eddie’s face was white: he was old, wasn’t he? Years out of the gym. He wasn’t up to physical force any more. And with the calculation, before he even knew he was going to do it himself Frank pushed, all the strength he had going into it, his body had never felt so heavy but he was off the ground and up. He heard a grunt come out of him that turned Mark’s head, too quickly. He caught the tall man off balance, and with the advantage lunged, elbow up, and jabbed him sharply in the throat.

  The tyre iron fell and Frank went after it. The leg stood up under him, but the pain was still there, like fire. He straightened, with the bar in his hands. Mark was swaying: he had both hands at his own throat, and his mouth moved but nothing came out.

  ‘It wasn’t you, then,’ Frank said. ‘Holly? You didn’t kill Holly.’ Raped and strangled: he’d been so sure. What kind of man could do it? Fuck a dying woman. A man who’d do anything for money, who’d fucked on screen for money, that’s what Frank had thought. What did he know? You wouldn’t do that unless you hated the woman.

  Mark was shaking his head now but it wasn’t clear what he meant by it. He was looking at the bar in Frank’s hand. He was probably wondering if Frank had the balls to use it: Frank was wondering that himself. He didn’t want to. Why were they making him?

  ‘He’ll let you go down for it, though,’ he said. ‘You know that?’

  Mark looked at Eddie and Eddie was murmuring, saying something, but he seemed to be having trouble forming words.

  ‘Don’t—’ said Eddie, faltering, taking a stumbling step towards him and still Frank didn’t understand.

  ‘Was that the favour you were doing for your mate on the phone?’ Jerking his chin up, talking to Eddie like he was Matteo, or some guy Matteo had just put out on the street.

  Eddie was pale, blue round the mouth. ‘It was a bit of fun,’ he repeated, but the words sounded mumbled. ‘I don’t know that Holly from Adam, she was the one—’

  ‘She was the one what?’

  ‘It was her idea,’ said Eddie.

  Out of the corner of his eye Frank saw Mark shift, one foot to another, looking for his way out of this. ‘I never knew anything,’ he said, his voice rising, pleading to Eddie for confirmation. ‘It was just an evening out.’ Eddie didn’t look back at him, his hand was under his coat again, rubbing at something.

  Eddie was looking at Frank, and Frank looked back at him, ignoring Mark.

  ‘Her idea? Did she know him, then? Did Holly know this mate of yours, the one you were doing the favour for?’

  He should go. But he kept talking: slow old Frank, always the last one to the party. He needed to understand. ‘The husband is your accountant, right?’ No answer, which was confirmation. ‘That was him on the phone, the one you chucked out the window.’ Still no answer.

  ‘So – you owe him one, I bet. All these years moving your money around. Your property. I read somewhere these days accountants are like lawyers, they have to tell the police if anything illegal is going on. That right?’

  ‘It’s just,’ Eddie began, ‘it’s just maximising resources.’ But it was as if he ran out of breath, he sounded old, feeble.

  ‘And the rest,’ said Frank. ‘So you were doing him a favour, setting his wife up? And where did Holly come into it?’

  Mark was saying something, he’d stepped forward again, his long face pale in the darkness, ‘She was his—’ but Eddie shook his head, sharply, the old Eddie at last, and with the movement took a step towards Frank, then another.

&
nbsp; ‘That didn’t sound like leverage, on the phone, when you chucked it out the window, it didn’t sound like blackmail. It sounded like something had gone wrong,’ he said, and then Eddie was right there, leaning heavily against the Jag’s bonnet, the driver door between them. And Eddie began to shake his head, eyes watery. ‘Not—’ and then he seemed to topple, clutching at one side.

  There was a moment when everything seemed to hang suspended, and Frank was out from behind the door, round it and grabbing at Eddie as he went down.

  ‘You,’ he said sharply across Eddie’s body, heavy against his legs, to Mark who was backing away again. Stopping him, rabbit in the headlights. He was never a killer, Eddie had picked the wrong guy. ‘Get over here.’

  It was a split-second thing. Do you run or do you stay? Frank would never know, would he? Just do it.

  Between them they hauled Eddie into the back. Frank straightened, reached for the keys, reluctantly, and handed them to the guy. The ex-porn actor, lanky streak of terrified nothing, but Mark took them. You never knew. You just had to try.

  ‘You’re driving,’ Frank said, and then he was in the back, leaning over Eddie, ear to his mouth, listening for a breath. ‘Just find a fucking hospital.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It all went through Georgie’s head as she tumbled, the suitcase catching her sharply above the ear. Tabs behind her bedroom door, Holly dead, Cat on the machine that was pumping shit into her veins. The hard lump of cancer in her.

  Tim on the way home, his face above the steering wheel in the dark. Calling to make sure she was still there, in his house, with his child.

  And then abruptly it stopped, Georgie stopped falling, wedged at the bottom of the staircase with the suitcase below her and the phone under it, still ringing.

  ‘Mummy?’ Tabs’ voice from upstairs, from behind the bedroom door.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she managed, grappling for the phone.

  She struggled upright, shoved the case out of the way and grabbed it. It wasn’t Tim, it was Cat.

  ‘Georgie?’ She sounded terrible, her voice low and dead. Georgie heard her try clearing her throat, a painful sound. ‘Sorry, it’s the chemo,’ she said, ‘I’m not supposed to be feeling bad yet, would you believe it—’ trying to joke, failing. Starting again. ‘George? I just – I just – there’s something I need to tell you, George.’ A sound in the background, another voice pleading with her that was silenced. A door closing.

  ‘I can’t talk,’ said Georgie, desperate suddenly. Tabs in car, Tim on his way home, suitcase packed. ‘Can you – look, I’ll call later, in an hour—’ Was that all it would take? They’d have to drive for more than an hour before she felt safe.

  But Cat had interrupted her, her voice a low painful rustle she barely heard, words she could hardly make out. There was something in the sound of her voice that made Georgie stop. ‘Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m at home,’ a hint of the old impatience, mixed with pleading. ‘Look. Georgie. You have to understand. You have to believe me. I had no idea. Not that it was still going on. I’d have never—’

  Leaning back against the wall, Georgie drew her knees up under her. ‘What do you mean?’ she said stupidly, but Cat was still talking.

  ‘I thought it was over long ago,’ she said, dully. ‘Him and Holly, I thought – I’d never have—’

  Around her the house was quiet, breathing, waiting. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Georgie said, though she did, she could feel it rising, lifting her hair at the roots, something dull and awful, something dangerous and twisted, rising like a storm. ‘Him? Him? Who’s him?’

  ‘Tim,’ said Cat, blurting it, anguished. ‘It was Tim, he was the one Holly was in love with all this time. Since way back. Since we all worked together they’ve been an item. I swear I never knew – well—’

  Here it comes, thought Georgie. She said nothing.

  ‘Well – I knew there’d been something, but that was fifteen years ago.’ Cat faltered then. ‘That was before you—’

  ‘Before I got pregnant.’ Georgie spoke dully. She felt as though she had been in a car that had crashed, her ears were ringing. Then something roused her. ‘No – no. Wait. He’s – he wasn’t – he’s been fucking his secretary this past year.’ It came out too blunt, too brutal. ‘He—’ She stopped.

  ‘Well, he might have been fucking someone else—’ and Cat made a sound of distress, almost a moan, but Georgie had not space to feel sorry for her, not in that moment. ‘I’m so sorry, Georgie. I didn’t know. I thought Tim was a good guy. He was so keen for you to have the evening out, he contacted me, he transferred me a hundred quid to pay for drinks.’

  He hadn’t said anything about that. Georgie tried to get her head around it. ‘A hundred pounds,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes – well he would have been keen, I suppose. To get me out of the house. To get me—’ she stopped, trying to fit it all together. The money, Lydia and Tim waving them off – and not just so they could have a night together. But—

  Cat didn’t seem to have noticed she’d even spoken. ‘I had no idea,’ she said again, slowly ‘All I know is, Holly was in love with him, all right.’

  ‘How do you know? How can you know?’ Georgie felt sweat on her forehead, found herself thinking stupidly Was the heating on full blast? Tim would be angry – he would—

  Cat cleared her throat. ‘I got a card from her, from Holly, in the post this morning, I only opened it when I got home, an hour ago, I was feeling shit, I didn’t even recognise her writing—’ she broke off, and when she spoke again she sounded desolate. ‘She said by the time I got the card it would all be done, they’d have gone together, gone away. Her and Tim.’

  A silence, into which everything she had learned about Tim over fifteen years, learned and never admitted, settled and took shape.

  ‘He was just using her,’ said Georgie, and she heard herself, cool and distant, clear-headed, the old Georgie, the prehistoric, pre-Tim Georgie. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? He’d have been stringing her along – had been all these years. A bit of a shag when he didn’t have anyone else. Promising her all sorts.’ She thought of Holly, that next morning, in the bathroom with her. Her bony knees, looking a bit rough, excited underneath it. Making sure it had gone off all right, their plan. Georgie and Mark. A kids’ rhyme from the playground was in Georgie’s head then, Mark and Georgie, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

  Did I really, she thought of the image on her phone, did I really do that—

  And the side of her hand was at her mouth now, rubbing hard against her lips, like she was wiping something off. I didn’t. I didn’t. And then the sickness, the creep of shame hardened into something else. Rage.

  ‘They set me up,’ Georgie said, her voice hoarse. ‘Holly and Tim between them, and that man – that man. His name’s Mark, I don’t know where they found him.’ She thought of the other man in the camel coat, sidestepping her in Soho, the look on his face. The client.

  Cat seemed stunned into silence, and Georgie went on, still cool, adding it all up.

  ‘They set us both up,’ she said. ‘You were dead to the world, weren’t you? Out for the count. That wasn’t like you, when I knew about the cancer I thought it was just that, you’d gone for it. But he spiked both our drinks, between them they did and Holly got you into bed and sent me back out, with him. To kiss goodnight.’ She paused. ‘He could have done it in there, in the room, with you passed out but maybe he thought you’d wake up, make a noise, maybe Holly didn’t want to see it—’

  Dead Holly.

  ‘All I remember is bits. The staircase. The railings. There were bruises—’

  ‘Bruises?’

  ‘I saw them next morning.’ She was brusque, dismissing them: it wasn’t the bruises she cared about. ‘I don’t remember – it. But he’s got evidence. On his phone.’

  ‘Evidence?’ Cat sounded like she was going to pass out again.

  ‘I’ve got it too,’ said Georgi
e, ‘he sent it to my phone. He’s been following me. I think he scratched my car.’ It sounded completely nuts. Tim and Mark, monitoring her every move. Gathering more evidence.

  And maybe – maybe—

  Maybe Tim hadn’t been on a conference last weekend – she’d thought of that already, except she’d assumed, since this morning, that he’d been with Lydia. But maybe he hadn’t been with Lydia, either. Maybe he’d been in London last Friday night, at least, he might have gone to Bournemouth after that, of course. A weekend with Lydia and then he had come back to his wife. Wanting his tea on the table, wanting to fuck her. Feeling like a man.

  Georgie didn’t know where this language had come from that was in her head. This rage. She felt as though she had been turned into something else, not even someone. What was she worth? Would Dad even take her in, if he knew, her and Tabs scuttling away in the dark? She took a breath: speak it out loud, speak it plainly. ‘They set me up. He used her for that.’

  She could hear Cat hesitate, before she spoke. ‘In the card,’ she said. ‘The card she sent me, Holly said Tim wanted a divorce, he wanted your— he wanted Tabs, she was helping him get all that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgie. ‘Yes.’

  Put Tabs in the car. He won’t get her. I get her.

  ‘Georgie,’ said Cat, pleading, ‘Georgie, say something.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ said Georgie. ‘Listen, Cat. You do something for me. I know you’re feeling bad – you’ll feel worse tomorrow. You need to call the police. You call the police and tell them it was Tim.’

  ‘Tell them what was Tim?’ Cat sounded panicked now.

  ‘Tell them. About him and Holly. Because I might not be able to. Because he’s on his way home right now. Tell them I think he used her – then he killed her.’