Informant

by Susan Wilkins

  Kaz dabbed gently at the oozing wound with a wet towel. ‘I think he’s more interested in killing Joey right now. And me.’

  Glynis grabbed a bit of bog roll to wipe away the tears and snot, then fumbled with the straps on her shoes. ‘Hate these bleedin’ things. I got more corns than an old granny.’

  Kaz knelt down in front of her and unfastened the shoes. Glynis kicked them off. The heel on one had cracked when she fell.

  ‘What am I gonna do Kaz? I can’t live with him. All these years, he ain’t changed. He’s still the same bastard he ever was.’

  Kaz sat down next to her on the side of the Jacuzzi. ‘How much money you got?’

  Glynis seemed taken aback. ‘I’ve got a bit put by.’

  ‘What about Dave?’

  Glynis shot her a nervous glance. ‘How d’you know about that?’

  Kaz patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry, no one’s gonna tell on you. Runs a betting shop, don’t he?’

  Glynis nodded. Her eyes were bloodshot with booze and ringed with claggy mascara, but she still looked like a frightened child.

  Kaz watched her; on the surface they couldn’t be more different. Glynis had always been the daft dolly bird, tottering everywhere on spiked heels. Even as a teenager Kaz had despised her. But scratch the surface and the same fear and desperation had blighted both their lives. Kaz could see that now and she made a decision. Sean wasn’t getting his own way, not with Glynis, not with any of it. She took Glynis’s hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Listen to me. Sean’s got enough on his plate. So for now all you gotta do is disappear. You leave here tonight. You got somewhere?’

  Glynis nodded. ‘Me and Dave’ve got a flat in Eastbourne. But he’ll soon find that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m gonna talk to Joey and we’ll sort this out. I’ll get you some money. We got business contacts in Ibiza. You go out there for the winter, we’ll find Dave some kind of job.’

  Glynis stared at her in frank disbelief. ‘Always thought you hated me, you and your mum. I tried to be mates with Ellie, but she always made me feel so stupid.’

  Kaz gave a dry laugh. ‘Mum became a junkie and I ended up in jail. I don’t think you’re the stupid one Glynis.’ She pulled out her phone. ‘Right, give me a number where I can reach you . . .’

  Kaz scanned the coffee shop. It was beginning to fill up with the lunchtime crowd. Her phone trilled and she pulled it out, expecting it to be Helen. What she found was a text from Glynis informing her that she was back in Eastbourne and hiding out. Kaz had been big on promises after the party, when she hustled Glynis into a taxi and sent her off into the night. But now she had to deliver and that wasn’t so easy. Joey had done his usual disappearing act and wasn’t answering his phone.

  Kaz tapped out a reassuring reply to Glynis and as she looked up from her text she saw Helen sweeping across the room towards her. She was towing a large, wheeled case stuffed with files and legal briefs. Her cheeks were pink, her blonde hair slightly awry. At the sight of her a nervous ripple swept up from Kaz’s stomach, she could feel her neck and face reddening. She thought about standing up in the hope that would make her feel more in control of her own body, but she couldn’t quite manage it. All she could focus on was Helen.

  No one else in her life had ever had this effect, caused this mixture of desire and confusion. Was this what was meant by ‘falling in love’? And would Helen notice and be scared off?

  Helen brought the trolley to an abrupt scraping halt, plonked down on the chair opposite to Kaz and swept her hair back angrily with one hand.

  ‘Bloody judge! Misdirected the jury utterly and completely. They were out for all of half an hour – not even time to review the evidence. My client gets four years. He’s nineteen years old with a mental age of about eight.’

  Kaz sat and watched, mesmerized by this display of energy and passion.

  Helen exhaled heavily and finally looked at Kaz. ‘Sorry. You must’ve been waiting ages.’

  Kaz smiled. ‘Not a problem. You want a coffee?’

  ‘I want a large vodka and tonic.’ Helen’s brow puckered into a frown as she realized what she’d said. ‘Sorry! I can’t seem to get anything right today.’

  Kaz reached across the table and put her hand over Helen’s. ‘Stop saying sorry. I’m just . . . pleased to see you.’

  Helen checked her watch. ‘Shit. I’ve got a case conference at two.’

  ‘Then you should at least have a sandwich. Let me get you something.’

  ‘Never took you for the mother hen type.’ Helen had smiled as she said it, but her tone was sharp, almost a rebuke.

  Kaz sat back in her chair, she felt as though she’d been slapped, gently, but a slap nonetheless. She dropped her gaze to the table top. ‘I was only trying to help.’

  Helen took a deep breath, scrunched up her face in frustration. ‘Karen, I’m sorry, I . . . I don’t know . . .’ She sighed, raked her fingers through her hair.

  ‘Bad morning. Happens to us all.’ Kaz longed to touch her, stroke that hair, soothe her. But she didn’t think Helen would take kindly to such a display of affection in a public place. She watched Helen paint on a smile.

  ‘So what have you been up to? How was “Uncle” Sean’s homecoming?’

  ‘Fine.’ What Kaz wanted to say, what she’d hoped and planned to say was that she was in a mess. Sean’s return had thrown everything into chaos. War was about to break out in the Phelps family and she was slap-bang in the middle of it. She needed to talk it through, chart a sensible course. Above all she needed to know that Helen really cared about her. But she said none of it.

  As she watched Helen checking her phone she imagined tracing a line with her finger over the contours of Helen’s face, easing the furrow between her brows, stroking the straight, perfect nose, running down across the slightly parted lips.

  Helen clicked the phone off, turned to Kaz with her professional lawyer’s face.

  ‘Listen, there’s something I need to tell you. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings.’

  Kaz could tell from the tone that what was coming wasn’t going to be good. Also, unusually for Helen, she wasn’t meeting Kaz’s eye. Her gaze seemed to be focused somewhere off to Kaz’s left.

  ‘What happened on Sunday was . . . well, it was lovely.’

  Kaz could feel the body-blow coming, moving towards her in slo-mo. Trying to ward it off was a reflex action. ‘But? There’s always a but, is that what you’re gonna say?’

  Helen shook her head apologetically. ‘The thing is . . . I’m seeing someone.’

  Kaz felt her stomach lurch.

  ‘What, you mean a bloke? You’re seeing a bloke.’

  Helen managed to meet Kaz’s intense gaze. She gave a slightly dismissive laugh.

  ‘No no, nothing like that. Her name’s Julia. We’ve been together for about a year. She works in PR. She’s very up on the arts. You should meet her, she’s got some very useful contacts. Galleries, that sort of thing. She knows loads of artists.’

  Kaz’s face remained totally impassive. She’d had a lifetime’s practice masking her emotions. Even though she wanted to scream and howl, she inclined her head to one side and released her breath in a quiet sigh.

  Helen watched her; she was annoyed with herself, annoyed with everything. She should never have got into this situation. ‘I think what happened on Sunday took us both by surprise. I should never’ve . . . I’m not saying I regret it. But . . . Well, I didn’t want you to be thinking it was the start of something . . . I feel really bad and I wanted to be honest with you.’

  Kaz nodded, tipped her chair, balancing it on the two back legs. She was retreating into the tough jail persona, hiding behind the intense, intimidating stare. Helen watched the metamorphosis with a sinking heart. Kaz disguised her desperation with a flippant shrug. ‘Okay, so dump her. I mean why not?’

  Helen blinked in surprise. ‘That’s hardly fair on her.’

  Kaz laughed. ‘Since when
was life fair?’

  Helen couldn’t hold Kaz’s look. The hard-eyed resentment took her back to their earliest encounters, the junkie kid who hated everyone. Okay, Helen had made a stupid mistake, given in to an impulse she should’ve resisted. But she couldn’t take responsibility for every fuck-up in her client’s fucked-up life. As for the notion she’d dump Julia for Kaz, it was too ridiculous to contemplate. Julia suited her, understood her. Julia was partner material. After all, being in a civil partnership was acceptable nowadays. If at some time in the future she decided to go down that road, Julia wouldn’t compromise her potential political career.

  Helen looked at her watch, she had to wind this up. ‘I’m going to be late for my meeting.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her before?’

  It was the obvious question, Helen felt cornered. But she wasn’t going to go there. No way.

  ‘I meant to. I . . . the opportunity never came up.’

  ‘That’s bollocks.’

  Helen caught Kaz’s sullen gaze, got up, grasped the handle of her trolley. ‘I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry. And I don’t want this to alter anything between us. In fact I’d like you to meet Julia. She knows all about you. You’ve been a big topic of conversation.’

  ‘You told her about Sunday?’

  Helen hung her head. ‘No. Not that. Obviously not. Look, I’ve got to go. Phone me later and let’s talk about this properly. I . . . don’t want to lose you.’

  Kaz shot her a savage look. ‘But you don’t want to lose Julia more?’

  Helen’s chin quivered. She looked as if she might cry and Kaz was glad.

  When Helen finally spoke, her voice was a whisper. ‘I’m really sorry.’ She turned and walked away, towing her legal paraphernalia behind her. Kaz watched until she was swallowed up by the crowd. She didn’t look back.

  Kaz sat stock-still for at least five minutes. She was hardly breathing. Her mind was blank, at least her thoughts seemed very distant, her body felt odd, the limbs loose and unconnected. Then she took out her phone and clicked on Joey’s number. It rang a couple of times and surprisingly he answered.

  ‘All right Kaz.’

  At first she didn’t speak.

  ‘Kaz?’

  She took a deep breath and this seemed to energize her. ‘Joe, I been thinking. That bloke you talked about, does loft apartments or flats or whatever. Maybe he could find me a place.’

  There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. ‘So you don’t wanna live in a scabby hostel any more? I’m glad you finally seen the light.’

  Kaz exhaled slowly, she felt as if her legs had been kicked from under her.

  ‘Yeah, I seen the light.’

  30

  Natalie Phelps had been in lock-down since she arrived at Woodcote Hall. She was on strong medication to help with the withdrawal. Mostly she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. She kept dreaming about Jez; one minute he was preparing a fix for her, then he went out of the room, simply disappeared. She shouted and shouted, but he wouldn’t come back. Then this woman appeared. She looked a bit like Kaz, only Kaz had run away long ago, so it couldn’t be her.

  Natalie’s dreams were usually full of dread, but the stuff they’d given her helped. Not as good as crack, but almost. She was still floating, up there somewhere, not down in the deep, frightening places. Trouble was, they kept waking her up. They wanted her to eat. A thick glutinous soup was spooned into her mouth. Was it chicken? She’d been a vegetarian since she was twelve; it made her want to throw up. She tried to refuse it. They asked her what she would like to eat instead and she said candyfloss. She and Jez would go down on the front some days if it was sunny and he’d buy her candyfloss. It stuck to her fingers and her cheeks, pink and sweet and tacky, she loved it. Candyfloss was definitely her favourite food.

  She was sitting in her armchair watching the afternoon sun slipping across the sky and down behind the trees on the far side of the park. She liked the armchair, it was old-fashioned, well-worn leather with a high back; the wings of it hugged her and kept her safe. She could sit there all day staring out of the window and mostly she did.

  The door opened and Doctor Iqbal entered. There was a nurse behind him and then someone else. She didn’t know the nurse’s name, but she recognized her. She was middle-aged and motherly and always patient. She never told Natalie off, never hassled her. She was as unlike Ellie as it was possible to be. Natalie’s attention went immediately to her and they exchanged smiles.

  Doctor Iqbal pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Natalie. He reached out, lifted her hand from her lap and enclosed it in his.

  ‘Much more colour in your cheeks today. Have you been eating your dinner?’

  Natalie nodded then grimaced. ‘But not the Brussels sprouts. They’re gross.’

  Iqbal smiled. ‘My daughter’s like you. She hates Brussels sprouts.’ He released her hand, adjusted his glasses. ‘There’s someone here I want you to meet Natalie. She’s a friend of mine. And she’s going to help you get better.’

  Natalie glanced beyond the nurse to the younger woman standing behind her. There was no mauve tunic; she was wearing a nice shirt and smart grey trousers. Natalie was rubbish at people’s ages, but she guessed the woman was quite old, maybe thirty. As Doctor Iqbal turned to her, she stepped forward and smiled.

  ‘This is Nicci. She knows a lot about the things that have happened to you. She understands how hard it’s been.’

  The woman squatted down, rested her elbow on the arm of Natalie’s chair.

  ‘Hello Natalie. Doctor Iqbal says we can go outside, have a bit of a walk round the park. It’s a lovely day. Do you fancy that?’

  Natalie thought for a moment. ‘Is it cold? I always feel the cold.’

  Doctor Iqbal got to his feet. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll wrap you up nice and warm. And I think maybe today we’ll use a wheelchair, so you can ride a bit and walk a bit. How does that sound?’

  Natalie glanced from him to Nicci. She had a kind face. Her eyes rested gently on Natalie and the smile carried reassurance, a sense of safety.

  Natalie nodded slowly and her eyes drifted to the window and the blue sky beyond. ‘Yeah. Nice.’

  Nicci stood up, glanced at Iqbal. Their eyes met and he gave her a curt nod. ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’

  The nurse wrapped a soft blue blanket round Natalie’s shoulders as Iqbal disappeared out of the door.

  Nicci turned back to Natalie; though her eyes were underscored with dark shadows and her face drawn, she still looked like a lost kid, eighteen going on eight. An image of Sophie flashed through Nicci’s mind. Woodcote Hall was like the childhood haven Natalie had never had. Nicci watched her snuggling into the blanket and gazing up gratefully at the nurse. The Phelps family between them had done a lot of damage in the world, but that wasn’t Natalie’s fault. Whatever happened now, Nicci resolved, she had to make her bosses remember that.

  31

  Kaz had never tried to follow anyone before. She’d spent a sleepless night crying and plotting. Who was this fucking bint that Helen was ‘seeing’? Julia? What kind of poncey name was that? Kaz had wandered the streets all day, now she was sitting in the coffee shop in the foyer of Helen’s building hiding behind a copy of the Evening Standard. She was consumed with raging jealousy so she didn’t realize how ludicrous she looked: a baseball cap, a newspaper, an empty cup, it was like a scene from a bad thriller. In the early hours, as she’d tossed and turned, she’d come up with a plan that would teach Helen Warner a lesson she’d never forget. She was a Phelps after all, she was Terry’s daughter and she wasn’t about to let some posh slag break her heart and get away with it.

  The plan she’d formulated at four a.m. involved Joey’s Russian minders and the kidnap of Julia. When the old bill fished Julia’s stinking corpse out of the Regent Canal then Helen would realize that she’d fucked over the wrong woman. The only problem was all Kaz had was a first name; she didn’t know who Julia was or wher
e to find her.

  It was six thirty when Helen finally came out of the lifts and through the security scanners. She had a raincoat on and was towing her little trolley with its overstuffed briefcase. Her face looked pinched and pale. She headed straight out into the street. As Kaz got up to follow it dawned on her how mental this was. She hadn’t thought it through at all. What if Helen took a taxi or a bus? How did she normally travel home? By tube? Kaz had no idea. And would she even be meeting Julia? Probably not.

  Kaz was coming out of the coffee shop when she realized that less than a yard away a vaguely familiar figure was staring at her and beaming.

  ‘Karen, how are you?’ He held out his hand.

  It was Neville Moore. As he shook her hand he gave her a concerned look. ‘Are you all right? You look upset.’

  Kaz took a breath. She struggled to focus on him. ‘I . . . er, I’ve been having a bit of hassle from the cops . . .’

  He nodded earnestly. ‘Helen told me. We’re going to have to do something about that. Can I buy you a coffee and you can fill me in on their latest antics?’

  Kaz felt close to panic. Helen had disappeared and she found Neville Moore vaguely intimidating. What if he rumbled her? Maybe he’d already guessed that she was stalking Helen.

  ‘Nah, it’s okay.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘I was gonna leave Helen a message. She told me to keep her updated. But I know she’s busy.’

  Neville Moore appeared to be scanning her face. He had that dead-eyed lawyer look, although he continued to smile. ‘Well unfortunately I think you may have just missed her.’

  ‘It’ll keep. You must be on your way home. Don’t wanna hold you up.’

  He nodded. His expression was bland, unreadable. ‘I’ll have a word with Helen in the morning. She’s got a lot on, so I’ll see if I can maybe come up with a new strategy for you myself.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Kaz finally managed to escape. She got out into the street and didn’t know which way to turn. Helen was long gone. She felt lost, abandoned, and a primal fear engulfed her. She hurried down a narrow canyon of towering office blocks and broke into a sprint. She ran as if her life depended on it. She only slowed down when she reached Cheapside and had to weave around homeward-bound commuters and the crush of pavement drinkers outside every pub.