by H Elliston
I covered my badge. “No. It’s a ploy. My friend’s attempt at getting us free drinks.”
His lips twisted to one side.
“I swear.”
He leaned backwards as though I were breathing out germs. “We have our wires crossed. My brother wouldn’t act in such a way over a computer virus, and his car’s about the only thing that is fine. The only time limit round here is your editor’s deadline. Now, I’d better get back to my friends.”
“No. It’s... Wait. Act how?” I asked, realising I’d lost his interest. He downed the last of his drink while I thought about things. No timer. Perhaps he was right. It wasn’t the same. How cruel of me to question this poor, grieving guy on a drink-fuelled whim.
He waved his empty bottle at a friend. On moving away, he said, “Alarmed, paranoid, jittery. How’s that for your headline?”
CHAPTER 2
The doorbell chimed through my house. I closed my vampire novel, jumped to my feet and headed down the hall in my dressing gown. I opened the front door to Laura. “Hi. Come in. How did the rest of the night go?”
“Totally embarrassing.” Laura rubbed her bloodshot eyes. “I couldn’t believe it when I got your text. I needed you to rescue me from the sleazy stripper, not desert me.”
“I really am sorry. After I came home to change my dress, the taxis were all booked up and I couldn’t get back into town.”
A few seconds later, Emma staggered through the front door. I didn’t need to ask if they’d stayed out late, their puffy eyes were answer enough.
Emma flopped onto the sofa in my dining room. “You’d have loved it last night, Chelsea. It was wild. My head’s banging this morning though.”
“Give me a minute.” I dashed upstairs to wash and dress, then returned feeling refreshed.
Emma yawned before speaking. “Jayne took loads of photos. I told her to email them to you this morning. Print them out and we’ll head to town for a bite to eat. I’m starving.”
“Sounds great.” I handed the Dictaphone back to Emma, then booted up the computer and logged into my emails while my friends sighed and groaned on the sofa behind me. “Found them.” I sent the photos to print, then deleted all the spam mail without reading a single one.
“Why did you leave?” Emma asked. Her eyes were closed at this point.
“I’d been chatting to a guy about my strange email, when my dress got totally soaked in beer for the second time by some lunatic who—”
“What email?”
While the printer growled, throwing out photo paper, I opened the old email and pointed to the screen.
“What is it?” Emma asked, snapping forward from her hangover. “What’s that ticking noise?”
“A countdown timer.”
Emma moved and stood behind me, resting her chin on my shoulder. “’Your number’s up.’ What on earth does this mean? Oh my God! Who’s calling you a slag?”
Exactly what I wondered. “A man in the pole-dancing bar mentioned the same phrase.” I swivelled my chair to face Laura. “Laura thinks it’s a virus. You heard that guy talking about his brother’s text message, didn’t you?”
She shook her head and dug around inside her bag.
“People have to pay for what they’ve done,” Emma read out loud, pointing at the screen. “Look, even your full name’s been included, Chelsea.”
“Yeah. I know.” I stared at Laura, puzzled by her disinterested face. “You were standing right behind me Laura. You must have heard.”
“I heard music.” She jangled her keys in the air and said, “Ready to go?”
Something in her tone sounded unconvincing.
Emma tapped my shoulder. “Heard what?”
I pointed to the words on the screen hoping to jog Laura’s memory. “’Tick, tock. My number’s up. Slag.’ That’s what the man said last night.” When Laura shrugged her shoulders, I raised my voice. “Some guy named Daryl died. He sent a text message to his brother with those exact words, and that was his last communication. And I mean his last… ever. Don’t you think it’s creepy that I got an email with his final words typed in it?” I waited for Laura’s memory to return. Perhaps the alcohol had erased it.
“It does sound kind of creepy when you put it that way,” Emma conceded. Then, a few seconds later, she said, “It’s just a prank, a virus or something. It won’t mean anything. Chill out. Just reply telling them not to contact you again, then delete the email. Shall I do it?”
“The bar was full of weirdoes,” Laura muttered. “We shouldn’t have gone inside. My mistake.”
“Laura, do you remember me telling you that my car’s been scratched?” I raised myself out of the chair and pushed it over to Emma as a hint.
“Vaguely,” Laura muttered.
“Poor thing,” Emma said, fluffing my hair. “You’re not having a very good weekend, are you? Hopefully we can change that.” She winked, sat down and clicked on reply. She wrote a message full of profanities, pressed send and deleted the original email. She brushed and clapped her palms against each other. “All done.”
The email existed only in my head now. Shame Emma couldn’t delete my memory, too.
We piled into Laura’s black BMW convertible and drove the scenic route to town with the roof down. After eating a late breakfast, we laughed at last night’s photos. “Jayne needs a new camera,” I said. “There’s a scratch on the edge of each photo. Look.”
“It’s not Jayne’s. It’s Paul’s,” Laura said. “I let her borrow it because it looked more like the sort a reporter would have.”
I slid a photo of Laura and me, pressed cheek to cheek, into a slot in my purse. Next, we spent countless hours trudging round the shops, then stopped at a café again late afternoon.
I collapsed onto a chair and looked at my friends. I was worn out, and wondering why they’d insisted on shopping until either my legs buckled, or I’d bought a few sexy tops.
Emma finished her drink. She kissed us goodbye, gave me another sly wink, which puzzled me, then left to continue shopping on her own.
I walked back towards the car with Laura.
The bruised sky began dropping rain, so we picked up the pace. A man bumped me from behind as he barged past on the pavement, knocking my shopping bag out of my hand. I picked it up off the ground, then faced him expecting an apology. My stomach dropped heavily. The face was familiar. It was that of a muscular man struggling to open his umbrella.
“Sorry, Ladies,” Carl said, politely. “Not broken anything, have I?”
I shook my head.
Laura nibbled her lip.
“Do you know what the time is?” he asked.
I shook my head again. “Nope. Sorry.”
He smiled then walked away, almost ran.
“I’ve not seen him in ages,” Laura muttered.
“I have. I see him around town on my lunch break sometimes.”
Carl was my date on the evening Laura’s parents died. Horrific memories of that night came bulldozing back.
My mobile rang from inside my handbag and I was glad of the distraction. To escape the rain, Laura and I dipped under the supermarket overhang. I answered the call.
“I may have found you a plus one for Laura’s wedding,” my friend Jayne’s bouncy voice chimed through the phone.
“A what?”
“A date, silly. I know you don’t like me using that word. You’re meeting Phillip tonight at 7pm at the café bar on Queen Street.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Please don’t set me up, Jayne. You never pick the right guys. Besides, you know I’m not into—” I gulped. “Dating.”
“Look, everything’s arranged now. You need to get back out there. I think you’re ready.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Go on, Chelsea,” Jayne said.
“No.”
“If you go, I promise I’ll not set you up again, unless you ask me to.”
This part sounded tempting. “Umm…”
“Nice one. Seven o’clock. Have fun.” She hung up.
I stared at my phone, rattled. Oh, God. What have I got myself into? Jayne was wrong. I wasn’t ready to put myself back into the dating game. Not until Laura married Paul on Saturday. Once she’d made a fresh start, maybe I could.
My gaze shifted to a sheepish-looking Laura. “Did you know about this?”
She sucked her lips in.
Of course you did, I thought, as it dawned on me why she’d taken me clothes shopping. “So who is he? Spill.”
We left the shelter, and made a run for it to Laura’s car.
She began reversing. “Jayne bumped into a guy she knows in the pole-dancing bar yesterday. Phillip is one of his friends. I don’t know him, but Jayne said he’s great, just needs cheering up.”
I groaned. “Cheering up? Screw this! I’m cancelling.” I lifted my bag to get my mobile, secretly pleased to have an excuse to call the date off.
Laura removed her hand from the gear stick and set it on my arm. “Give him a chance. You deserve to find someone wonderful, like I have with Paul. You don’t really want to stay single forever, do you?”
I thought about the question and gave a little shake of my head.
“I don’t blame you for what happened last year, Chelsea. I’m not stupid. I’m aware that’s why you avoid dating these days, and why you stopped seeing Carl.”
I gazed out of the window and didn’t respond.
“It’s like you’ve put a whole section of your life on hold to punish yourself. Bad things happen and sometimes we can’t control them. You’ve helped get my life back on track. It’s time for you to do the same.”
“Carl wasn’t my type anyway. Too many muscles and too few brain cells.”
“That’s beside the point. Anyway, I would be so thrilled if you at least try to go out with a man again.”
“I’ve been on dates this year.”
Laura rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but we had to trick you into it. And then you refused to answer the poor guy’s phone calls. At least this guy’s not one of our friends.” She glanced at the time. “It’s too late to cancel.”
I dropped my bag in the foot well. “Fine. I’ll go if it will stop you all pestering.” I didn’t hold out much hope, and I’d certainly never pictured my future husband to be someone who’d frequent pole-dancing joints.
Laura parked outside my house and we dashed inside.
“I’ll wait down here while you change.” Laura entered my dining room. “Do you want me to switch a light on? It’ll be dark by the time you get home.”
“I doubt I’ll be out that long,” I muttered to myself, climbing the stairs. “No, thanks,” I shouted down to her. “I’m saving energy.”
After changing into my new pink top, but applying minimal makeup in some kind of protest, I walked downstairs. Laura insisted on dropping me off in town. She knew I’d be nervous about travelling by car on a date, after last time.
We pulled to the curb for the start of my torturous evening.
Laura practically pushed me out of her car. “Go on. You might enjoy yourself.”
“Thanks for the lift.” I slammed the door shut and guessed she wouldn’t drive off until I entered the bar. I was right. Laura drove away the very second I pushed the door open. I smiled, knowing she’d be in the arms of her fiancé shortly. Paul would have been missing her all day.
I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window by the entrance and scanned the room. The clientele was mixed, the atmosphere classy and relaxed, but not pretentious. A short guy with spiked hair, about my age, late twenties, waved on the approach. “Are you Chelsea?” His voice sounded serious, nervous.
Jayne must have described my appearance very well.
With every step he took nearer to me, my heart thumped with dread. “Yeah, I’m Chelsea. Hi.”
“Thought so. Hi. I’m Phillip.”
For a second, I thought I recognised him, then moved towards the table I’d seen him come from, my feet dragging heavily across the floor. I took a seat and decided to give this date a chance now that I was here.
Phillip ordered our drinks. Once the preambles were finished, his mind seemed to drift with every sip. His face struck me as a solid mask of misery. His lips curved downward, and tight lines striped his forehead as he picked at a coaster. Striking up a conversation proved difficult to the point of impossible. Laura had warned me that he needed cheering up, but this was off the scale. Perhaps being out of the dating circuit had caused me to lose my touch.
“Seen any great movies, lately?” I asked. “Or do you know any jokes? I could do with a laugh.”
He shook his head but didn’t speak.
After counting the bubbles rising in my glass, I racked my brain for excuses to leave: left bath running, feel sick, need to kill Jayne for setting me up. I almost laughed, before realising in a mood such as his, he must not have wanted to be here either.
I put on my best carefree smile, threw my arms in the air and said, “This is crazy. We should tell our friends to stop with the match-making.” I hoped I’d judged the situation right. I waited, gnawed the inside of my cheek, almost regretting what I’d said because he took a while to answer.
“I agree.” His solemn face opened into a surprising, attractive smile. It suited him.
I breathed deeply in relief, not unlike tasting fresh air for the first time. “At least we’re both being honest now.”
“I know. This has been a disaster. No reflection on you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, relaxing into my chair. “I’m relieved. I haven’t been on a proper... date in ages.”
“That explains your frown when you walked in.”
“That obvious?” I laughed. “I’m glad we’re on the same page now. I didn’t much fancy sitting here feeling awkward. I’ve had more fun at funerals.”
To my surprise, his smile vanished. His chest puffed so broad that I thought a couple of his shirt buttons would pop off and strike me in the face.
I raised my glass to my lips. “Sorry. Did I say something to upset you?”
A maddening few seconds of silence ensued.
“It’s not your fault.” He fiddled with the cardboard drink coaster again. Tore a strip off. “The thing is, I was at a funeral last week.”
I spat my drink back into the glass.
“A close friend of mine died, which is why I’m not in the mood for a date. My mates pushed me into this. I only came here to stop them pestering me.”
“Me and my big mouth.” Ditto, I thought, while wishing I could shrink into my seat. “I’m so sorry.” Watching a muscle twitch in his jaw had me picking at my nails. I bit back the words, ‘Can this get any worse?’ “I didn’t mean to make a joke. It just came out. If I’d known—”
“Don’t worry. How could you have known?” His brief smile portrayed the picture of forgiveness, but his stiff posture contradicted it.
I had one shorter fingernail now.
It certainly was a date to forget, and I couldn’t help thinking that someone, somewhere, really did have it in for me this weekend.
“It was my fault for saying something thoughtless,” I said.
“He was one of my best mates. Kind of knocked the wind out of me.”
I made a gentle hum of support. I swirled the wine and soda in my glass which bordered on empty, then slid it away. “What happened to him? Sorry. I’m being nosey, aren’t I?”
Phillip stared straight at me. “It’s okay. He fell and broke his neck.”
“Oh,” I said, lost for further words. Once again, I searched my brain for a polite lie to excuse myself from the date. I didn’t know how to respond. The awkwardness we’d managed to get rid of had returned.
While I fished inside my bag to locate my purse, Phillip leaned across our table and lowered his voice. “Well, they say it was an accident, say he slipped off the edge of a hill. But, his brother’s not so sure.”
Hearing his spooky voice, a shiv
er of déjà vu wriggled through me. I dropped my bag. It seemed, suddenly, I’d been reminded of the guy I spoke to yesterday. I focused on Phillip’s serious face. “My friend said you were at the pole-dancing bar in town last night. Is that true?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “That’s when they arranged this date.”
I shuffled in my seat. My bag remained open, the contents spilled across the floor. “I think I may have spoken to your friend’s brother.”
“Lee? Yeah. He was there. Great bloke.”
Our table atmosphere was now highly charged, although not in a pleasant way. I didn’t want to cause him pain by prying, yet found it increasingly hard not to speak my mind. My curiosity won out. “My number’s up!” I blurted, loud enough to cause the people on the neighbouring table to stare. “That’s what Lee told me.”
Phillip shrugged. “Strange, huh? Those were Daryl’s last words. The last time anyone heard from him. He was already dead when I found him.”
I gulped. “Yikes!”
“Exactly. I can’t get the image out of my head.”
“How terrible.”
“Sure was.”
I twirled my ponytail. “Why do you think Daryl sent that text to his brother?”
“The whole thing’s a mystery. But his number’s definitely up now, isn’t it?”
I shuddered at his cold-hearted comment. “Did Daryl normally call his brother a slag?”
Phillip shook his head. “‘Ladies’ man’ is more his style.”
I thought about what I’d overheard last night. “Didn’t he smash his computer?”
“More like took a sledge hammer to it,” he said. “His flat was a state. Trashed. Looked like he’d been burgled. Although, there were no signs of a break-in.”
“Except for the trashed house.”
“Daryl wasn’t himself for weeks before.” The drop in Phillip’s voice, now soft and kind of cautious, made me lean across the table. “I assumed he’d broken up with his mystery girlfriend, but he didn’t talk about her. She didn’t even attend the funeral. Lee’s desperate to find out who she is.”