by Alex Marwood
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Call me back later?’
‘I’ll try, darling. We’ll talk about this when I get home, OK?’
‘OK,’ he says, small-voiced.
‘I love you,’ she says, automatically.
‘Love you back,’ he replies automatically. They don’t even think about what they’re saying any more, when they say it.
She sends him away, picks up the line. ‘Kirsty Lindsay?’
‘What time do you go to bed?’ Stan asks.
She doesn’t even blink at the overfamiliarity; knows he’s talking about her paper’s initial print deadline. ‘First edition’s about eleven-thirty,’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘FYI,’ he says, ‘the name’s Stacey Plummer. The girl. And the cops have taken some man in for questioning.’
‘What for?’ She’s alert, back on the job, the wine draining from her brain as though someone’s pulled a plug. ‘Do you know? What did you hear?’
‘Something to do with fingerprints in the mirror maze. Ones that shouldn’t have been there. Employee at Funnland, apparently, but not to do with that bit of it.’
‘Ah, shit.’ She subsides. ‘There must be hundreds of prints in that room. It’s a public space, for God’s sake.’
‘Apparently not,’ says Stan. ‘They have someone standing on the door handing out plastic gloves. Obvious, really. I’d never thought about it; the place would be covered in handprints in minutes if they didn’t. So, no, actually. It’s got fewer prints than your average surgical suite. Just the odd wodge of snot at waist height where some kid’s slammed into a mirror. And according to my source, the cleaning supervisor’s a real dragon lady and cleans the room herself. There’s not been a smudge in there since the millennium.’
‘Your source?’
‘Security guard. Jason Murphy. Drinks in the Cross Keys.’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’
‘Talking of which, I’m going down there,’ he says. ‘Pub nearest Funnland. See if I can pick anything up. See you there?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she says. ‘I’m going to make a few phone calls first. Stacey Plummer?’
‘Yup. Double “m”, no “b”.’
‘Ta,’ she says. ‘I owe you.’
‘Buy me a drink.’
He hangs up. She speed-dials through to the paper, to tell them to hold off on her copy.
Chapter Twenty-four
In for questioning. What does that mean, ‘in for questioning’? Does it mean he’s under suspicion? Is it the same as ‘helping the police with their enquiries’, or is it more definite, something that follows on from that? Amber racks her brain to remember what was said of herself and Jade all those years ago and realises that, shut away in the police station at Banbury, they had had no idea of what was going on in the outside world. Behind those walls, before the crowds saw the six o’clock bulletin and began to gather – shellsuits and placards and broken house-bricks, the good people of Oxfordshire showing their solidarity with the Francis family – it had just been them and the impassive policemen and the sincere social workers and Jade’s mum bawling in the hall (her own, in transit to their Far East resort, took three days to be found and return) and Romina pacing and fiercely smoking and, later, solicitors. It had only been when her lawyer had suddenly stopped her and advised her to take care what she said that she had realised that they weren’t getting out of there, that they weren’t part of the routine; that the police had known all along that it was them, and were just waiting for their versions to crack apart.
She prowls the house like a caged animal, afraid to go outside, afraid to show her face in case the news has got round the estate. Which it will have. They couldn’t have been more public about how they went about it if they’d tried. And of course they probably were trying, she thinks. Five women are dead, and all they seem to have done is hold press conferences. It’s no good just doing something; they need to be seen to be doing something. The frisson of murder always turns to outrage against the police if they are too slow to point the finger.
What does it mean, in for questioning? Do they know something I don’t know? About Vic? Have I been blind?
Mary-Kate and Ashley trot up and down at her heels, shadowing her as she walks. He’s been gone sixteen hours now. Sixteen hours. That’s not a cup of tea and a quick chat, is it? Christ, what I would do for a cigarette. Five years without them, and the longing is just as ferocious. She wonders if Jackie has left any behind and finds herself turning over the kitchen drawer in search of a pack, though she knows he would long since have found and disposed of it if she had. Damn it, Vic. Day after day I’ve gone without sleep. What have you done to me?
He hasn’t done anything. Amber, what are you like? There are a million reasons why his prints would be in there. He works there just like you do, for God’s sake. He could have come in looking for you. He could have gone in to get out of the rain. They could have been there for years: maybe you’re not as thorough a cleaner as you think you are.
It can’t be him. Not Vic. Something like this can’t happen more than once in a lifetime, can it? Not unless you’re doing something to make it happen.
But she knows it can. A murderer has precisely the same chance of winning the lottery as any other ticket holder. Is just as likely to be struck by lightning, or be gunned down by terrorists, or succumb to swine flu. Defying the odds does not, in itself, confer protection against it happening again. And she’s watched enough Jeremy Kyle and Trisha to know all about self-esteem, to know that people without it invite trouble into their lives without even realising they’re doing so. No, she thinks. No, that’s not me. It can’t be. There’s another explanation. There has to be.
Yes, but … Amber, you don’t know anything about him, really. All these years you’ve lived together and really, you know no more about him than he knows about you. Not even what he gets up to while you’re at work. He could be doing anything. He could be doing a doctorate in astrophysics, for all you share the detail of your lives.
The morning has come and gone. She has sat and paced and lain and listened to the sounds of the world outside: to the shouts and the bang of car doors and the bellowing of fighting dogs and the rev of engines. To the late-night cries of drunks and the yells of school-bound children. Sometimes she speaks to the dogs, simply to reassure herself that she still exists. They raise their heads, thump their tails, and for a moment she is comforted.
Amber’s lying on the bed, half dozing with tiredness, when she hears a key in the front door. Sitting up, she swings her legs over the side of the bed, has to stop because the sudden movement has made her dizzy. She clutches the coverlet and closes her eyes until the moment passes, then calls out, ‘Vic?’
He doesn’t answer. She can hear him in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors, filling the kettle.
‘Vic?’
Still no answer. She finds her feet and goes downstairs.
In the kitchen, he has his back to the door, and is staring at his tea mug as though in a trance. ‘You’re home,’ she says. ‘Thank God.’
He doesn’t answer for a moment, then says, ‘Do you want a cuppa?’
She has to hold herself back from snapping. A bloody cuppa. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t. I want to know what’s just happened.’
Vic shrugs, muscles bulging beneath his T-shirt. She steps forward, goes to … she’s not sure what. Hold him? Touch his shoulder? He shrugs her hand off as it approaches. ‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘I stink. I’ve not had a shower since yesterday.’
She snatches the hand back, stands uselessly in the middle of the kitchen. His back is rigid, but she notices that he’s tapping his foot restlessly as he waits for the kettle to boil. He’s tense, she thinks. He knows he can’t get away with just not talking about it. Even with me, the most unquestioning woman in history.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘They order in from the Antalya. Whatever you want. I didn’t know that
. Did you know that?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Funnily enough, I didn’t.’
He hurries on, the words rattling out with the random intensity that suggests a headful of cocaine. ‘Yeah, well, that’s where they go. ’Cause they’re halal so they don’t have to worry about that. Don’t know what they do about kosher. Probably don’t bother. I mean. Do you know what the difference is, anyway? Kosher and halal? Anyway. I had a lamb burger. It was OK. And a fry-up for breakfast. They get those in from the Koh-Z-Nook. They put chillies in the eggs, if you ask.’
She interrupts. ‘Vic.’
He turns round at last. Glittering eyes, excited; like he’s just had a big night out and hasn’t come down yet. He looks like the man who’s won the jackpot. ‘What?’
‘What happened?’
She expects something; some reaction. Discomfort, embarrassment, shame – a need to explain. Instead she sees white teeth, the upper lip drawn back in a way that suggests a snarl as much as a smile, and eyes that hold no life at all. It’s the smile of a shark.
‘You know what happened, Amber,’ he says calmly. ‘Why are you asking?’
She stays silent, breathless. She doesn’t want to ask. Suspects that she knows the answer.
‘Been up all night, have you?’ He stares at her. His eyes flick up and down her body.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I have.’
‘And what have you been thinking?’
‘What d’you think I’ve been thinking?’
Vic turns away, back to the kettle.
‘I never know what you’re thinking, Amber. Because you never tell me. You’re the number-one secret keeper, aren’t you? You should’ve joined MI5.’
No, she thinks. No, he’s not going to get away with this. I’m not going to just … there was a reason why they took him away, and I want to know.
‘You owe me an explanation,’ she says. ‘Come on. I’ve been up all night and morning. I’ve been going out of my mind.’
He turns back and mocks her with his laugh. Props himself against the worktop, mug in hand, and crosses his legs at the ankles.
‘How can you be so …?’ she begins, falters, loses her thread. ‘Why are you being like this?’
‘You look like shit,’ says Vic. ‘It’s no wonder, really.’
‘No wonder what?’ She hears an edge of panic in her voice. ‘Vic, what have you done?’
He slams the mug down on the counter; hot tea splashes urgently into the air. She starts, then registers the momentary hiatus between the action and his face assuming a matching expression. He’s playing me, she thinks. He’s just pretending to be upset. He’s not feeling anything at all.
‘You’re sure you want to know? You won’t get to unknow it, Amber. Once you know, you’ll know for ever.’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I do. For God’s sake …’
He pauses for effect. Looks at her, gleefully. ‘You actually think it,’ he says. ‘You think I’ve killed those girls, don’t you?’
She feels it like a punch to the solar plexus. Feels the air hiss from her lungs, hears her back teeth clash together. It’s what’s been going through her head all night and all day since they fetched him away. How could it not be? Only a lunatic would refuse to countenance the idea, in the circumstances.
‘I don’t know,’ she replies guardedly. ‘Would you blame me if I did?’
A mirthless, bitter laugh: ‘True love, eh, Amber?’
‘Well, what would you think? If you were me?’
He smirks. Triumphant. Ready to pounce.
‘Do you want to know then?’ he says again.
‘Yes,’ says Amber, ‘I do.’
‘Go on, then. Ask.’
She fights for control. He’s loving this game. I don’t know why, but he’s loving it.
‘Right,’ she says, slowly. ‘Why did the police arrest you?’
The smirk again. ‘They didn’t arrest me.’
Deep breath. Count: one, two, three, four, five. ‘OK. Why did the police want to question you?’
Vic picks up his cooling tea and slurps a mouthful off the top, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Why do you think they wanted to question me?’
‘Because they found your fingerprints on the mirrors …’
‘Right,’ says Vic. ‘So if you knew, why did you ask?’
She can’t stop a swearword leaking out. ‘Shit,’ she says. ‘Don’t be like this. I have a right to know.’
Vic laughs.
The tension is unbearable. She feels as though the tendons in her neck are going to snap in two. Again she breathes, again she counts. Vic really does seem high on something. Maybe it’s just adrenalin.
‘OK.’ She starts again. ‘Right, OK. Can I ask why they let you go, then?’
‘Because I told them why I was in there,’ he says.
‘Looking for me?’ she asks sardonically.
‘Hah!’ His laugh barks out. ‘No. But I was looking for something.’
‘Fuck sake, Vic,’ she says. ‘Stop talking in riddles.’
‘You’d better sit down,’ he says.
‘Why?’
No one ever tells you to sit down when it’s good news.
*
She leans her elbows on the tabletop and watches the tears drip on to the Formica. ‘Why?’ she asks, hopelessly. ‘Why, Vic? You don’t even like her.’
She’s never known him so cruel. What would they think now, all those people who tell her what a gentleman he is, how lucky she is, what a catch she’s got? Would Jackie be so keen to brace herself against the mirrors and hitch her skirt up if she could see him now, reclining against the cooker, smiling as she cries, as though he’s won a victory?
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she shouts. ‘Are you some kind of fucking psycho?’
Vic shrugs. The smile hasn’t wavered.
‘Why?’ she asks again. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Dunno, really,’ he says. ‘Because she was there? No, I’ll tell you what it was. Because she wasn’t you. That’s why. It was because she wasn’t you.’
She hears her own weeping as though it is coming from the far end of a tunnel. As though she’s hearing it from underwater. The dogs jitter in the doorway, unsure whether to offer comfort or run away. ‘But you don’t even like her,’ she says again.
‘You don’t have to like a woman to fuck ’er,’ he says crudely. ‘Surely you know that, by your age?’
‘Vic!’ she protests.
He shrugs again. ‘I told you I didn’t want her staying here,’ he says.
‘But you didn’t shag her here.’
Silence. She looks up. He doesn’t even have the grace to look discomfited.
‘Oh shit,’ she says. ‘Not in my bed. Tell me you didn’t … in my bed.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Not in your bed. Even she thought that was beyond the pale.’
Why am I crying? Why am I fucking crying? I should be roaring, I should be yelling and throwing things. Not behaving like some broken reed.
She heaves a breath into her lungs, feels it shudder through her body.
‘So,’ he says. ‘Now you know. I told you I didn’t want her here.’
‘How long?’ she asks.
He shakes his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does to me.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Amber.’
‘Fuck,’ she says. Snatches up his tea mug and lobs it at his head.
The tears stop the moment the door closes. She’s astonished at the speed at which they dry. She watches him walk down the path, then pulls the curtains. She doesn’t want the world seeing in.
Amber collapses into the sofa. Lies full out and puts her feet, still in shoes, up on the arm. He hates that. Hates it. Well, who gives a fuck? She drags the blue fleece throw down from the backrest and pulls it over her. She lies there, dry-eyed and weary, and stares at the ceiling.
She’s got an image in her head now, and it won’t go away. Jackie Jacobs in the hall
of mirrors, impaled against the wall by her common-law husband. For some reason her mind has dressed her in a red polka-dot halterneck dress, the sort of thing Marilyn Monroe would wear. She’s got scarlet nails, and they’re clutching on to the back of his strong, familiar neck. Her face is screwed up into a snarl as she bucks against him; a million howls of orgasm, a million pumping buttocks.
Fuck.
She closes her eyes, presses her palm and fingers across them.
Come on. It didn’t look like that. She’s rarely seen Jackie in anything other than trackies and a T-shirt. The night they all went out for Vic’s birthday, she wore a short, tight denim skirt; meant to be white, but more like grey. She’s not got a double life as a glamourpuss, a secret identity that seduced him with surprise.
Shit. Her mind’s eye sees her now, with that skirt hitched up over her hips. She’s not even bothered to take her knickers off properly; just kicked her pink stiletto heel through one leg for ease of access. And she’s going unh-unh-unh-unh as he hammers away between her thighs.
Stop it. Stop torturing yourself. What are women like? Why do we have to dwell, when the facts are sufficient without the detail? She doesn’t need these images, conjured up from the interior of her brain, getting in the way when she needs to think, needs to make decisions.
What am I going to do? Do I even care that much? When I strip away the humiliation, the outrage, the disgust that my good nature should have been abused this way, do I honestly, really care?
She’s stunned by how indifferent she feels, in her core. Part of her simply watches herself, fascinated like a scientist watching a bug. Six years lost, and a part of her knows only too well that her tears earlier were as much to do with doing what would be expected as with actual pain.
Shit.
Mary-Kate comes in and stands by the sofa. Sniffs. ‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Hey, honey.’
The dog stands up on her hind legs and scrabbles to get up beside her. Amber reaches out and puts a hand round her tiny, surprisingly round belly, and pulls her on to her chest. She stands there wagging, smiling her doggy grin; Amber moves her after a couple of seconds, because her paw is digging in to one of the bruises Vic left the other day, during his quickie.