An Old Score

by Edie Baylis

  Even though Ken had disappeared, the apartments would still be available and they did deal specifically with people who had dementia? What did he think about something like that?

  She made sure she’d omitted she’d already seen the apartments, but for once Robert hadn’t nit-picked over the details. His face set, he’d told her not to waste time waiting for commission – he’d fund the purchase and they’d sort things out at a later date rather than risk their mother’s well-being.

  She’d acted suitably thankful, which had stuck in her throat, but it didn’t matter. Despite the recent setbacks, things were now back on track. More than back on track. Things were finally moving forward in her favour.

  Entering the garage with a spring in her step, Helen put her large handbag on the floor and moved the usual toolboxes in order to get to her things. Her mother would be having another one of her ‘episodes’ – that much was a certainty – just to make sure that Robert had no doubts on his conscience about uprooting and institutionalising her.

  Kneeling on the floor, Helen took three bottles from her bag. These higher strength tablets would give mummy dearest that last little push required. The combination of the pills had already had the desired effect and her research had been spot on. Although it had taken some time to fully kick in at a high enough level to cause adverse effects, it stood to reason that increasing the dosage would also increase the side effects.

  Helen smiled. One more episode of being on a different planet would be all it took.

  Unscrewing the top of the Benztropine, she emptied a new bottle of multivitamins into a clear sandwich bag, replacing them with the anticholinergics.

  Ok, so how she’d go about making a fast sale of Footlights was yet to be decided, but she’d worry about that another time. Getting her mother to have a final screwy turn was the most pressing thing and with Robert now on side, there was absolutely nothing to stand in her way.

  Helen carefully moved the toolboxes and other items back in front of her secret hiding place, happy in the knowledge that regardless of what Ken had done to scupper her plans, she was still well on the way to achieving her goal.

  Almost there, in fact.

  If she hadn’t been so distracted with how well things were turning out, she might have noticed or at the very least, sensed James silently watching through the connecting door to the house the entire time.

  Twenty Eight

  LENA SMILED SERENELY at the doorman as she walked through the reception at The Feathers. She’d seen him glance at that muppet on the cloakroom desk which could only mean one of two things: One, they were admiring her sheer beauty and acknowledging what a lucky man Jonah was, or two – that busybody, Gwen, who’d never made any effort to hide her dislike, had tried her utmost to turn everyone against her.

  Gwen had already dropped her in it with Jonah, but none of that would be an issue for much longer. Whether Gwen liked it or not, she’d soon be making her welcome. Lena smiled, knowing she would relish every single bloody minute of it.

  Lena struggled to heft all of her bags into one hand so that she could open the VIP entrance, glad when one of the dancers rushed to open it. She splayed her hand on the now open door, making sure the girl got a good look at the massive diamond on her ring finger - a fine choice of the biggest and most expensive ring she’d been able to find in Hatton Garden. What a rock!

  Smugly walking through without even so much as a thank you, Lena continued up the stairs, her four inch stilettoes clacking loudly on the gilt-edged steps.

  Four days to go until her engagement to Jonah was official and the preparations for getting the room just as she wanted it had better be well underway, otherwise someone’s head would roll. Hopefully Gwen’s – but then that would spoil all of her fun.

  Walking into the plush maroon and gold VIP suite, Lena looked around, pleased to see that as instructed, the twelve foot high photograph of her and Jonah taken four months ago during another function was pride of place behind the raised stage at the back of the room.

  The tables, all at varying levels separated by illuminated glass, housed strips of neon lighting underneath and were all prepared exactly to her specifications. The specially ordered silver and gold table decorations from Harrods looked the business.

  She plonked her bags down on a crescent shaped velvet bench surrounding one of the many tables, glad to get the weight from her hands. The last thing she wanted was to snap one of her nails because she didn’t want to waste time organising getting that fixed.

  At least she’d got her clobber sorted. Several days she’d traipsed around all of her favourite boutiques and stores in Oxford Street searching for the perfect outfit. After much procrastination, she’d purchased two. They’d set her back an absolute fortune, well – set Jonah back an absolute fortune, but she’d made an extra special effort with him since their row the other night, so he’d be ok about the extra expense. She’d acted like the dutiful wife-to-be and accepted she’d made an error by ramping up the heat so quickly. She must keep things at a steady pace and not allow her impatience to scupper everything she’d worked for.

  Faithfully apologising to Jonah for overstepping the mark and interfering in ‘his’ business, her suitably contrite attitude and promises of never doing it again had cooled the situation down. He was still in the foulest of moods, but it couldn’t all be to do with her. Making the occasional reference to the baby helped too.

  But even the baby wasn’t a fool proof guarantee of success. Despite Jonah’s desire for children of his own, Lena realised if she overstepped the mark too much he could well go through with chucking her out, regardless of whether he believed her to be pregnant or not. It was never obvious which way men like him would turn. She was on thin ice and she knew it.

  Lena glanced at one of the bags she’d placed on the seat. In that one there was a beautiful 24-carat gold tie pin she’d bought as an engagement present. It had three inset diamonds and Jonah’s initials engraved on it. He’d like that. Good job, being as he’d paid for that too.

  She wondered what he’d bought for her? Presuming he had? Ok, so he’d got her this stunning ring, but that wasn’t exactly a present. She’d better check he’d got something for her, otherwise it would be embarrassing on the night and she wasn’t having that.

  ‘Hello, Lena. I thought I saw you heading this way.’

  Immediately recognising Gwen’s voice, Lena turned and smiled graciously, even though she wanted to smash Gwen’s two-faced head through one of the glass tables. Play it nice, remember, she reminded herself as Gwen eyed her many bags from the top London shops.

  ‘I’ve been busy getting my outfit for the weekend. I hope you and your partner can make it?’ Lena asked sweetly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I forgot you’ve never had a partner or husband.’

  Gwen smiled, ignoring the barb. ‘I wouldn’t miss it. I must say, those decorations you’ve arranged look wonderful.’

  Lena grinned once again, her face hurting from the effort. She picked up a handful of the faceted glass piled in a silver bowl and let them run through her fingers. ‘It does look great, doesn’t it? Jonah will love this theme.’

  ‘I take it he hasn’t seen it?’ Gwen raised an eyebrow.

  ‘No, I didn’t want to bother him with details. Men aren’t any good with this sort of stuff, but he’ll love it. I could think of nothing more fitting than a diamonds theme. It encompasses our sparkle perfectly, don’t you think? I’m having the same theme for our wedding too. I know exactly what I want.’

  I bet you do, Gwen thought caustically, watching Lena tip the handful of pretend diamonds back into the silver centrepiece. Yes, Jonah would really love the theme of diamonds... She bit back a smile. Lena’s choice underlined just how little she knew about the man she was marrying.

  And why was she being so nice? Jonah had mentioned they’d had a blazing row the other night about her sticking her nose into things at the club and Lena must have guessed it had
come from her, but acting like butter wouldn’t melt didn’t wash. The scheming little bitch was not on the level and Gwen was determined to find out what she had planned – apart from rinsing everything from Jonah - that one was obvious. There was more... but what was it?

  ‘Miss Taylor?’

  Both Lena and Gwen turned to find a woman standing in the doorway.

  ‘Yes? That’s me. But not for much longer...’ Lena threw Gwen a smug look. ‘Can I help?’

  The woman shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but the man downstairs said I should come up. I’m from Fancy Fondants and have the cake you ordered. Can I ask you to look at it just to make sure you’re happy?’

  Lena clasped her hands together and squealed excitedly. ‘Is it downstairs? I’ll come now.’ Without a second’s hesitation, she hurried towards the stairs.

  As the double doors closed behind Lena and the woman from the cake shop, Gwen glanced at the pile of bags around the table, her eyes focusing on the handbag amongst them.

  Hurrying over, Gwen pulled Lena’s phone from the bag. She had one chance to find some incriminating evidence against the little gold-digging cow and this was it.

  JAMES TRIED ROBERT’S number once again. Voicemail. He couldn’t leave a message – not on such a delicate subject. Did Robert ever answer his phone or just not bother if it was him who was ringing?

  Robert had never given James the impression of ever liking him, but then again, he’d never given anyone the impression that he liked them, because he didn’t. Robert seemed to dislike everybody. Surly and rude, the man was unapproachable and had the social finesse of a brick – but then James could hardly talk. It wasn’t like he was much better when it came to being sociable, but that was because he was shy, nothing else.

  James ran his hand across his forehead and stared at his call log. Four calls he’d made to Robert so far. Was it even the right number? He didn’t think he’d ever called him before in all the years he and Helen had been married. He did know though that he hadn’t quite worked out what to say in the event Robert did answer. He’d sat up all night to work it out and was still none the wiser.

  Helen had slept soundly beside him, not a care visible on her face, whilst he’d been going round in circles manufacturing one single possibility that would explain what he’d seen, other than the one he didn’t want. And he hadn’t been able to think of one, apart from that he’d imagined or dreamt the whole thing. The fundamental problem with that theory was that he knew he hadn’t. He didn’t know anything else for definite apart from that. And he wished more than anything that he could say otherwise.

  James looked back down at his phone on the off chance that Robert had returned his call and he’d somehow missed it or become deaf to it ringing, but unsurprisingly, that hadn’t happened either.

  He was trying his utmost to be rational. Trying to think of any marginally believable excuse for it, but he knew what he’d seen and also knew that what he’d seen pointed towards something so horribly unpalatable he didn’t quite know how to deal with it.

  Correction – he had no clue how to deal with it.

  On one hand he should be overjoyed that it meant his wife wasn’t mentally ill, depressed or lumbered with a dreadful condition such as Parkinson’s. That should make him happy, shouldn’t it? And that did make him happy, but the rest didn’t. Not even slightly.

  James’ fingers fumbled as he pressed his phone again. Still no missed calls? Did he even have a signal? He peered at the network work. Yes he did. Of course he did.

  It was a possibility, no – likely, that Helen – his very own wife would actually do something like this. But deep down he knew the truth. Those pills weren’t for Helen. They never had been. They were for Dulcie.

  He'd seen Helen putting them into a bottle of Seven Seas Multivitamins. He’d watched her. She’d tipped all of the vitamins out and replaced them with those Benz... benzo things. And the others too. The Fluoxetine and the Temazepam. She was always rattling on about getting new vitamins for her mother to try, but they hadn’t been vitamins at all. They’d been those drugs.

  Since coming to this conclusion halfway through the night, James had been ravaged with nausea and deep-seated panic that would not lift. Two hours he’d spent on Google when he could bear lying next to Helen no longer, his mind spinning like a roundabout.

  By 5am he’d found enough information to answer his questions and it sickened him to the core.

  The drugs contraindications he’d found on two drug databases: ‘...can cause dementia-like symptoms... irritability... confusion... memory loss...’

  Helen was manufacturing her own mother’s dementia. But why?

  Then it had struck him. For the money. Helen was doing all of this for the money. But how long had she been doing it for? She’d been going on about the dementia for months, so it stood to reason that she’d been feeding those pills to Dulcie for months too. This would make everyone believe and see it with their own eyes about Dulcie’s worsening erratic behaviour.

  Helen wanted the money from Footlights. She’d sell it. He’d seen her loan statements.

  For the first time ever, James felt an intense dislike for his wife. Jesus Christ.

  Picking up his phone again, James hit redial. If nothing else, then he’d leave Robert a message asking him to call back.

  Twenty Nine

  JOE FOUND IT NIGH ON IMPOSSIBLE TO SIT STILL. He’d waited what seemed like years at Alan’s bedside and the doctors still hadn’t come round so far today.

  He glanced at his phone for the ten thousandth time and his heart lurched seeing a text from Teagan. Barely able to open the message quickly enough, he stared at the text:

  I can’t do what you asked. It’s not right.

  Joe blinked and read the message again in the hope that it had somehow changed, but it hadn’t. For fuck’s sake.

  A wave of fear slid along his spine. Slightly worse than not hearing anything from the doctor or Teagan refusing to help was not hearing anything further from those two nutters. Taking it in turns with Dave, they’d spent last night in alternate shifts – one awake, whilst the other got some kip – just in case they returned.

  Having no idea when the men might show up again – because they would, was decidedly worse than knowing when to expect another visit. Not that there was much point in remaining ‘on guard’, as Dave put it. Dave didn’t realise that whatever they did, when those men wanted to speak to them again – or do whatever it was they were going to do, and the less he thought about that, the better, they’d be doing it anyway.

  However, even a futile plan was better than nothing.

  Hearing footsteps, Joe glanced up but the doctor coming down the corridor flanked by a pair of nurses, walked straight past.

  Joe’s instinct was to leg it and disappear from the area completely. It wasn’t him they were after anyway, was it? Despite his urge to exit stage left, he couldn’t leave Dave on his tod to deal with this – although it was an extremely tempting thought.

  Joe’s eyes moved to the figure lying motionless in the bed. Apart from the noises from the machines surrounding him, there didn’t seem to be any sign of life in Alan, but he refused to dwell on that. If he thought there was no point and Alan wouldn’t come through this, then they might as well all throw themselves out of the window right now. Alan would get through this. He had to.

  Joe’s nerves were frayed; completely and utterly splintered. His eyes tracked to Dave sitting motionless in a chair against the wall. He hadn’t moved for hours either. They were both on tenterhooks, knowing that the doctors were due to give them an update at some point today. Just when that update would be, no one knew. And sometimes it was better not knowing.

  Dave’s silent treatment had returned too. Apart from there not being much to say, the general atmosphere hadn’t been helped by another visit from the police investigating Alan’s attack. First thing this morning the banging on the door had sent both Joe and Dave into a frenzy,
initially presuming it was those men again.

  He didn’t know which was worse – the police or the nutters? Ok, so obviously the nutters were worse, but the two detectives awkwardly sitting at their kitchen table staring at both of them in turn, waiting to hear whether they’d remembered anything further to ‘help with their enquiries’ had only made a bad situation worse.

  Joe would be lying if he said Teagan’s words about telling the police hadn’t tormented him on more than one occasion. And he’d also be lying if he’d said what was going to come out of Dave’s mouth hadn’t been terrifying him either.

  Although his vocal cords felt severed, Joe realised that if he hadn’t spoken up, Dave would have blurted out something– probably everything. He’d seen the tell-tale twitch over Dave’s left eyebrow – the one that occurred without fail when the bloke was under pressure. From this alone, he knew the man was very close to folding, so he’d had to say something.

  Blathering that neither of them could think of any situation or person who would want to do this to Alan, Joe imagined sweat forming deep puddles around his socks as both detectives silently scrutinised him, knowing without any doubt that he was hiding something. His theory was compounded when one of them felt the need to mention that withholding information or ‘perverting the course of justice’, was a criminal offence in itself and they should both ‘think back very carefully’ if they wanted to help their friend.

  Well, Joe did want to help Alan. He wanted him to be back to normal. He also wanted to help Dave and more importantly, himself. Opening his gob would not achieve any of that and the threat of going to jail was nowhere near as much of a deterrent compared to the threat of what those nutters would do.

  Unfortunately, Dave didn’t agree and the minute the police left, he’d let him have it both barrels. But he must have had some reticence to speak to the police, otherwise if he’d felt that strongly about it, he’d have just told them. But he hadn’t.