by Alex Marwood
Amber’s eye pop. She’s not seen the murders from the business perspective. ‘No, I suppose we can’t,’ she says.
‘Especially with Innfinnityland out of action,’ continues Suzanne. ‘A total waste of an asset. We’re going to have to invest capital in finding another use for the space.’
Yes, thinks Amber. That Strangler’s one selfish bastard. She waits while Suzanne rattles her fingernails a bit more, wonders what’s coming next.
‘Twenty-six cleaners,’ she says eventually. ‘It’s a lot.’
‘Most of them on minimum wage,’ Amber points out.
‘That’s still …’ she turns to the calculator, taps away, ‘twenty-three-grand-odd a month. That’s a lot to be paying for cleaning.’
‘It’s a lot of cleaning,’ Amber replies. ‘Coke and ice-cream aren’t the easiest things to get off.’
‘Still,’ says Suzanne. ‘We’re not made of money.’ She fingers the strand of pearls around her neck, looks at Amber patronisingly. ‘You’re discovering the down side of management, I’m afraid,’ she says. ‘Sometimes you have to make the tough calls. That’s what we pay you for.’
Not enough, Amber thinks. ‘Can I just … get it straight what it is you’re after here, Suzanne?’
She smiles, tight-lipped. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’d say twenty per cent?’
Amber feels like she’s going to have a heart attack. ‘Twenty per cent? Off the wage bill?’
‘Oh, no,’ says Suzanne airily. ‘Wherever you want to find it.’
Her mind’s racing. ‘You mean, off the whole budget?’
Suzanne Oddie meets her eye icily. ‘Yes, Amber. That’s what I mean.’
Dear God. She wants me to lose a hundred thousand pounds off a budget that’s already creaking at the seams. I’m using the cheapest everything. There isn’t anywhere to get any of this stuff cheaper, unless I go to China myself and bring it back on foot.
‘Suzanne …’ she begins.
The smile again. ‘Yes?’
‘I … that’s a lot to ask out of the blue.’
‘Oh, it’s OK,’ says Suzanne. ‘I’m not asking you to do it by tomorrow. It’s over the whole year.’
‘Yes, but … twenty per cent?’
Suzanne looks down at her pad. ‘And how much is it we pay you, again?’
She feels a blush. She’s not counted her own salary into the mix. ‘Twenty-two thousand five hundred.’
‘Hmmm.’ Suzanne makes a note.
Martin feels strong, powerful, confident. Feels the way he’s always thought he should. It’s as though Saturday night has taken a big syringe full of self-esteem and shot it directly into his veins. He rarely leaves the house before noon, but today he’s been striding the streets of Whitmouth since nine o’clock, earwigging the shuffling crowds, listening to the talk on the streets and bathing in his glory. I exist now, he thinks. I really exist. They’re all wondering who I am.
He strolls up Mare Street, past the scene of his triumph, and feels the swell of pride as he sees the yellow tape flapping in the wind. Lets himself indulge in a moment’s sensual memory – the whore staggering from side to side, hand hopelessly clutching the gouting wound. He had to jump back a few times to avoid getting gore on his new trainers. I need to be more careful, he thinks. That’s not the way to do it, not if I don’t want to get caught. I need to learn a thing or two from that other guy. Try something less messy next time.
But he doesn’t think the next time will need to come for a while. This is the best he’s ever felt. My God, he thinks. I haven’t even thought about Jackie Jacobs in a couple of hours. She’s nothing to me now. She doesn’t deserve me. Not now I’m Someone. I deserve better than her. Her and her prison guard Amber Gordon. They can’t keep me down any more.
As he’s thinking it, someone brushes his sleeve as they hurry past, apologises, and he looks up. It’s that journalist who chatted him up on the beach: Kirsty Lindsay, flashing him a smile as she hurries on towards the front. Wow, he thinks. I’ve been so caught up in my triumph that I completely forgot to look up what she wrote on Sunday. He makes a mental note to check the Tribune website when he gets in, but decides to follow her for a while first. She won’t be able to brush him off the way she did before. When she notices him, she’ll see he’s Someone too.
She’s dressed down for the day in jeans and a mac, but he sees that there’s a nice body under the clothes. She’s not spectacular, not flashy like the mayfly beauties who totter past him on the strip at night; but she has the sort of solid, womanly good looks, the evidence of self-respect, that a Someone should be aiming at. She’s talking on the phone, has an oversized computer bag hanging off her shoulder, clamped to her body by her other arm, and looks younger than he remembers from their brief meeting. He waits till she’s got a few feet further on, then falls into step behind.
Whoever’s at the other end of the phone isn’t happy with her. ‘I know, darling, and I’ve told you I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s not like I’m here for a fun day out. I can think of a lot of places I’d rather be.’
She stops, and he almost runs into the back of her. He quickly diverts to read the small ads in the window of the newsagent’s. He doesn’t really need to bother with the pretence, as she’s too absorbed in her call to notice what’s going on around her. I should warn her, really, he thinks. To pay attention. People get pickpocketed all the time because they’re not paying attention. Maybe that would be the way to get her talking. She’d be grateful …
‘Yeah, yeah, I know, Jim,’ she says. Her voice is less posh than he remembers; he’s surprised by that. ‘And again, I’m sorry. What? Yeah, I know. Blimey. Like women haven’t been complaining about that for centuries.’
He’s beginning to be concerned about the tone of her voice when she lets out a laugh. ‘I told you not to call me when I’m at work,’ she says.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she says. ‘Nag, nag, nag, bitch, bitch, bitch. Here I am working my arse off to keep you in the style you want to be accustomed to and all you do is complain. You don’t even keep the house clean.’
Martin doesn’t really understand what’s going on. It doesn’t sound like a happy marriage. She’d never talk like that to me, he thinks. You’ve got to have respect in a relationship, or it will never work.
She laughs again. ‘Yeah, not a chance. I wish I could, but there’s no point. I’d just have to come back tomorrow, and I’ve got copy to file this afternoon. What? Yeah. Pissing down, and the sort of wind that tears your knickers off. Yup. Yes, I am, you dirty sod. The Voyagers Rest. The Trib really know how to treat a girl, don’t they? Still. No. Not yet. Tomorrow, probably. Yeah. I’ll give you a call later. Yes. I promise. Promise. Yes.’
She hangs up, drops the phone into her bag. Walks on, then turns abruptly into Londis. He follows her in and watches her buy an egg sandwich and a bottle of sparkling water.
*
Amber’s head is so full she feels it will burst. Meetings with Suzanne Oddie always leave her feeling wrong-footed, ill-educated and unimportant, but today’s has left her terrified.
They’ll hate me. All of them. The ones I sack and the ones who will have to take on the extra work for no extra pay. And who do I sack? Who? There’s no way to reframe this; no way to make the outcome a good one.
A little voice says: Jackie. She pushes it down. Being a selfish house guest doesn’t mean she deserves to lose her job.
Shit, she thinks. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
She sees Vic, working the waltzer. A couple of girls in the queue have obviously noticed him, are nudging each other and passing comment the way girls always do. She feels a sharp ache in her lower back, is suddenly aware again of the bruises on her thighs, as though the sight of him has set the pain off. I hope he comes back soon, the Real Vic; I can’t take much more love from the Other One.
Vic sees her, and a smile flickers across his face. He’s feeling right on top again; he’s got the old adrenalin surge. Feels like it will la
st for days this time, like it did in the old days. Yeah, he thinks at the departing back. But I’ll be home tonight anyway, won’t I? When I feel like it.
He spots the girls in the queue, gives them a treat with his sparkling eyes. Sees them look at each other and burst into a fit of giggles. It’s so easy, isn’t it? he thinks. Just so damn easy. Women, they’re just there for the taking. A flash of your arms and a Bacardi and Coke, and you can do anything you want. That’s why I stay with her. She’s not a pushover. A woman with a bit of self-respect, that’s what I like. That and the other.
Not so much self-respect yesterday, he thinks.
The girls come round again; they’re pretending not to look, simpering into each other’s eyes. He knows the routine. Three more circuits and they’re all his.
He steps over to the nearest gondola, sets it spinning, raises shrieks of fear-filled pleasure from the tarts inside. The graze on his knuckles is beginning to scab over, and splits slightly when he grips the seat-back. He quite likes the feeling. It makes him feel alive. He spins the gondola again and listens to them scream.
Amber doesn’t want to stay in the park. Feels as though everyone – though only a couple of cleaners are on duty, emptying bins and rushing over to the rides when the Tannoy calls for an emergency mop-up – knows about what Suzanne’s just said in their private meeting. She goes back to her office and collects her bag and coat, leaving her umbrella behind. There’s no point, on a day like today; it’ll have gone inside-out before she’s got as far as the rock shop.
The Corniche is virtually deserted, though it resonates with the delicious scent of frying onions from the burger vans. Amber walks towards the bus stop, feeling miserable. Everything aches, partly from tiredness, partly from Vic, partly because (she’s noticed) bad news always shows up first in her shoulders.
She walks on, eyes a knot of people gathered by the town hall, shouting questions. Press, she guesses. In the middle she recognises a couple of local councillors, hair brushed and business suits on specially for the occasion. She realises with a frisson that one of the journalists – close to the outside of the crowd, Martin Bagshawe standing near by seemingly hanging on her every word – is Jade Walker. Christ, she thinks. I’ve got to get out of here. She steps up her pace.
Kirsty’s got her MP3 out. ‘… So what you’re saying, in effect, is that they asked for it?’
The leader of Whitmouth Council glances at his head of PR and goes into denial mode. ‘I would never suggest any such thing,’ he replies. ‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’
Martin Bagshawe hangs back, strains to hear what they’re saying, but finds it hard over the sounds of the seafront. Hears her say ‘asked for it’ and thinks: My God, she’s fearless. And he remembers Tina and her taunting, and thinks, Yeah, but she’s not wrong, is she?
‘Not really,’ she says.
‘I was just saying that there has to be an element of personal responsibility involved,’ says the councillor. ‘It’s not the same thing at all.’
‘Personal responsibility not to get randomly murdered?’
He smiles uneasily, wishing he’d never got into this corner. ‘You wouldn’t walk barefoot across a minefield, would you?’
‘If I knew there was a single landmine somewhere in several thousand square miles and I needed to get home, I’d probably take a punt on it, yes,’ she says. ‘Are you saying that men are helpless victims of their own urges, then?’
‘No. Of course not. But the fact is that there is a man who seems to be just that at large in this town,’ he says, ‘and like it or not, our young women – our visitors – need to take this into consideration. We do have a problem, with a minority of our visitors, of overindulgence in alcohol, and alcohol makes people careless. We’re simply begging these young women to keep themselves safe, that’s all. We don’t want any more deaths in our lovely family resort.’
She’s vaguely aware that someone is earwigging them, glances up to see a small, ratty man in an anorak, pretending to read. He’s familiar, but it takes her a moment to place him. Oh yes, the bloke from the beach. One of those weirdos who pop up wherever there’s news, gawking and looming and trying to get on camera. He gives her a ghastly smile, the sort of smile that suggests that he’s not had much practice at doing it. ‘It’s time somebody said it was wrong,’ the weirdo tells them. ‘There’s thousands of decent people in this town, but you’d never know it from the way the press go on.’ He pauses, seems to find something wrong with what he’s said. ‘Most of them,’ he adds. ‘Most of the press. Not all of them.’
The councillor takes the opportunity to slide away from an awkward conversation, glad-hands the little man as though he’s a visiting dignitary. She wonders whether it’s worth persisting. But there’s a press conference in twenty minutes down at the police station, and she should head there, in case there’s actually any news.
She glances over at the far pavement and catches sight of Bel, hurrying away. Christ, she thinks. That’s the last thing I need. Please don’t let her have seen me.
‘… dressed like tarts, howling under my window,’ the man is saying. He casts a look so full of longing at Kirsty that the skin on her back crawls. The councilman puts a calculated hand on his upper arm, just above the elbow, the way a kindly vicar would do.
‘And we want you to know that we hear your concerns,’ he says.
Kirsty takes the opportunity to turn away while the hand is still there. The last thing she wants is to get sucked into another discussion with the bloke from the beach. She feels twisted with tension. Bel looks like she’s heading for the seashore. I’ll go the other way, she thinks. I can take a detour to get to the police station. She pops the MP3 into her bag, throws Rat Man a grin and a propitiatory little wave, and turns back to the far pavement.
Amber takes refuge in the shadows between the whelk stall and the bucket-and-spade stall, and watches which way Jade goes. Watches her hunch against the wind and turn up her collar to shield her face from the horizontal rain. She turns up the alley by the Cross Keys, heading for Fore Street.
Crazy, she thinks. What am I doing, hiding? This is my home. My town.
But she wonders. Every day she’s thought of this woman, if only in passing. A single day’s acquaintance, and they have been constant companions ever since, though it looks like their outcomes have been different. Jade looks like she’s thrived, she thinks; as if rehabilitation has been as good for her as it was bad for me.
She can taste bitterness in her mouth. Feels as though life’s been unfair, knows it’s been unfair: somehow, Jade has been rewarded where she has been punished. Look at her, she thinks. Walking about in broad daylight, her head held high, while I’m scurrying through the shadows. Does she even think about me? The way I think about her? Half love, half rage, the friend I never got to have, the source of everything rotten in my life?
She realises that there are tears on her face, mingling with the rain. Stops in her tracks and grips at the strap of her bag while a wave of grief breaks over her, shocks her with its power. I was a child. And everything – everything – got snatched away in one wicked afternoon.
She dashes the back of her hand across her eyes and strides back to the Corniche. She’s the interloper, not me. And if she’s going to invade my territory, she can answer some questions.
Martin tries to look unfazed, though inside he is squirming with embarrassment. I can’t believe I said that, about the press. She’ll think I think she’s like the rest of them now, even though I tried to get across that I’d said it wrong. I’ve blown it, and I didn’t even manage to talk to her properly. I’ll have to keep trying. She’ll want to listen to me once she sees who I am.
He shakes off the councillor’s clinging hand, and walks on towards town without bothering to say goodbye.
Kirsty hurries inland, checking her watch. Ten to three. The press conference begins in ten minutes. She needs to get up there, to where the crowds are beginning to gather, to get thro
ugh the cordon with her credentials and find herself a spot where she can record what’s said. It won’t be easy, in weather like this, and taking notes in the rain is the Devil’s own business. And that’s when you’ve got a working brain.
She stops by a shop selling brightly coloured plastic beach toys, stares at fluorescent windmills as they rattle in the breeze. Maybe I should buy one for Sophie. Yeah, because what’s missing from Sophie’s life is a windmill on a stick. Get a grip, Kirsty. You’re here to do a job. You can’t let your concentration slip. You’re only as good as your current job, you know that. Doesn’t matter how much you’ve done before: one cock-up and you’re dropped, that’s how the world of freelance works especially with half the staff of the News of the World wandering the streets looking for work. She’ll be avoiding you as much as you’re avoiding her; the stakes are equally high for both of you.
A tap on her shoulder. She turns. Bel has stepped back a pace, is regarding her with the same mix of fear, curiosity and disgust that she feels herself.
‘Amber,’ says Bel. ‘That’s my name. Who I am. Amber Gordon.’
Kirsty takes a moment to find her voice, and is amazed by how steady it is when it finally comes.
‘Kirsty,’ she says. ‘I’m Kirsty.’
Noon
Jade is being Madonna. Everyone’s being Madonna this summer, though the older girls are finding bits of lace and fingerless gloves in dressing-up boxes to look the part more convincingly. Jade’s had to make do with wrapping a cotton scarf they’ve found, damp and slightly grubby, tied to the lychgate of the church, round her head, and hitching up her ra-ra skirt to show a greater expanse of thigh. She stands on the church wall and gyrates, flinging her hands above her head and clutching them together to flex her chest muscles.
‘Like a vir-gin – pooh!’ she pants, for the dance is energetic and her stamina spud-fed. She runs her hands up and down her body suggestively. ‘Fucked for the very first time.’