by Alex Marwood
I hate him.
Do you? Or are you just thinking that because you think you ought to? Seriously, do you care enough to hate him? Have you just been hanging on here for the sake of getting to stay in one place for a while? God. Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s not just saying it to justify himself. Maybe I have brought this on myself.
A voice from the past – her mother’s: What do you expect, Annabel? All the things he’s done for you, and this is how you repay us. You’re such an ungrateful, nasty child …
Amber closes her eyes and scratches behind the dog’s ears. ‘At least,’ she says, ‘now I can sack her without feeling shitty about it, eh, Mary-Kate?’
Mary-Kate wriggles forward and covers Amber’s cheeks with wet doggy kisses.
‘Fucking bitch,’ says Amber, though she’s not sure, really, who she’s talking about.
Chapter Twenty-five
Although he thinks he might have a talent for it, Martin decides against a career as a private detective, because he quickly discovers that following people is seriously expensive.The bottom’s dropped out of the private detective market anyway, since the Milly Dowler scandal.
Kirsty Lindsay is a very busy woman. Since he located her outside the daily police briefing, he has followed her all over town, and laid out what would usually be a week’s living money on entrance fees and related expenses. He has followed her into the amusement park, ridden the train on the pier three carriages behind her, bought five cups of tea, two glasses of cola, a bacon sandwich, a chicken burger, three pounds’ worth of tokens for the machines in the arcade, two newspapers and four bus tickets and now, after a trip to the cash dispenser, has spent fifteen pounds on the entrance fee to DanceAttack. But he still hasn’t worked up the courage to talk to her and, to his astonishment, she’s acted like she’s not noticed him at all.
He waits by the dance floor and watches as she works the room.
She stands out like a nun in a brewery in a crowd whose average age barely brushes the legal drinking limit. He nods with approval as she buys fizzy water at the bar. Anyone weaker than her, or himself, would have to get slammed to bear the relentless thump-thump-thump, the sweat-haze hanging beneath the too-low ceiling, the flashing dance floor, the jangling earrings, the blue alcopops, the pinprick irises, the jerking pelvises and faint sense of menace that characterise Dance-Attack or any of its clones around the country. The noise and the crowded isolation would normally fill him with despair, but tonight he is not alone.
Though she, it would seem, is. Her colleagues have left her to it. It’s been four days since the last murder, and now that Vic Cantrell – Vic Cantrell, who’d’ve thought it? – has been released, the nation is drifting back to Britney and Katie and how-dare-they spending cuts and inner-city looting. Now it’s a quarter to midnight and she’s standing on the edge of the dance floor, opposite him, and glancing at her watch. It looks like she’ll be joining the other journalists any minute now. He needs to act, or lose her.
He walks across the dance floor towards her, sees her clock him and a look – recognition, speculation – cross her features. He doesn’t turn his eyes away, as a stranger would do; holds her gaze until a group of teenage girls totters across his path and obscures his view. When he catches sight of her again, he sees that she is dripping, her plastic water glass on the floor, and two yobs are lurching unsteadily, propping each other up in trainers that must be sizes too large for their feet as they gesticulate apologetically. Kirsty waves, shrugs, dismisses them. Nice, pleasant; far nicer than he would have managed.
This is his opportunity, though, to be her knight in shining armour. He hurries forward as she gets a Kleenex from her bag and dabs ineffectually at her damp thigh. Positions himself in front of her close enough that, when she straightens up, the only thing she will see is him.
She comes upright, jerks back slightly as she sees his smiling face. Recovers her composure and looks at him seriously.
‘Hello, Kirsty,’ he yells.
Kirsty takes a step back, and he follows.
She takes her time to reply. Polite if chilly interest, no fear. ‘Hello,’ she says carefully.
‘Let me get you another of those,’ he says, his best suave voice.
‘No,’ she says, ‘thank you. I was only drinking it out of … politeness.’
She waits for him to say something; they stare at each other while the ceaseless bim-ba-bim-ba-bim-bim-bim-bim of the identikit techno track shakes the air.
‘What can I do for you?’ she asks eventually. Cool and in control. He’d expected, somehow, more pleasure at his presence.
He can’t hide his surprise. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asks. It’s unthinkable that their encounter on the beach would have no significance for her. Not after the way she made it so clear she wanted to talk.
A flicker of something. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought it was a flicker of incomprehension. ‘We’ve met before …’ she ventures.
‘On the beach,’ he says, the subtext of the statement so clear that she can’t fail to remember.
‘Ah, right,’ she says. Glances over her shoulder as though she’s expecting someone, then looks back at him again, with seeming indifference. Playing her cards close to her chest. Fair enough. ‘I remember. And you were down at the town hall earlier.’
He feels satisfied. He knew she’d remember. ‘That’s right. That’s me.’
Kirsty feels increasingly vulnerable. It’s not that often you find yourself face to face with a green-inker, especially one who seems to have been following you. ‘Mmm,’ she says, and tries to edge backwards again. She glances over her shoulder once more, vainly hoping that someone will have noticed her plight, but, lost in the crowd, she and her unwanted companion don’t exactly stand out. The bouncers have drifted to the other side of the dance floor and are watching, cross-armed, a couple of lads square up to each other. The bar staff, sweating, never raise their eyes from the beer pumps, except to register the features of their current customer in case they try to do a runner.
She turns back. Takes in that he has the eyes of Simon Cowell and the mouth of a beaver. ‘OO-K,’ she says. ‘Well, great to meet you again.’
‘Let me buy you a drink. We’ve got so much to talk about,’ he pleads, and accompanies the question with one of those expansive gestures you see in soap-opera pubs. In the crowded circumstances, it’s an error; the remains of his own pale-brown drink slop on to the naked back of a young woman, elicit a shriek of protest. He glances at her, looks amused. Turns back to Kirsty and cranes in towards her recoiling face. ‘Silly slag,’ he says.
For a moment she think he’s referring to herself, then realises that he is expecting her to agree. He can’t tell the difference between newspaper comment and real life. She pulls herself together and plasters her smile back on. ‘Thanks, but you’re all right,’ she tells him. ‘I’m not drinking tonight. And I’m off in a minute. Deadlines. You know.’
‘Oh.’ He looks affronted. Kirsty switches the headlight beam of her smile to full. ‘Thanks, though. I appreciate the offer.’
This is going well. She tries once again to step back, and runs up against a solid wall of bodies. He is frowning, confused. ‘But we were going to talk,’ he says.
She’s surprised. ‘Were we?’
‘I was going to show you around.’ He clearly thinks he’s reminding her, that she should know what he’s talking about.
‘Oh,’ she says, and tries to sound familiar with the inside of his brain, to construct a convincing lie. ‘I know. It’s just … I’m on a deadline. Maybe another time? If I give you the office number …’ I won’t be there, she doesn’t add. Because I work from home.
He knows he’s being fobbed off. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Now. I’ve been waiting to talk to you all day.’
Shit. So he has been following me. He didn’t see me with Bel, did he? There’s no way he can put the two of us together. Surely?
‘You can’t go back to London. N
ot yet.’
‘Farnham,’ she says. ‘We don’t all live in London. Journalists. It’s not all Docklands penthouses.’
‘Farnham, whatever,’ he says, and his tone is changing. ‘I thought you were different.’
‘I …’ says Kirsty.
‘You’re all the same. You don’t care what the rest of us think at all, do you?’
‘It’s just a job,’ she says. ‘It’s a living.’
‘You think you’re famous ’cause you’re in the papers,’ he says.
‘No,’ she corrects. ‘I make other people famous by putting them in the papers.’
She knows she’s made a terrible mistake as his head jerks back in offence. God, Kirsty, you should know by now not to get smart with the punters without a few other hacks around as back-up. Look at him. He’s bonkers. A creepy little bonkers man, and he’s not going to go away.
‘Oh,’ he bellows over the music. ‘So you do think you’re important then?’
‘Look,’ she protests, carelessly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you, and if I have, I’m sorry. That’s all I can say—’
He pulls a wad of crumpled paper from his pocket, waves it in her face. He has a blood-blister under his thumbnail; must’ve shut it in a door or something. She glimpses the headline on her piece from last weekend: TWELVE ALCOPOPS, A KEBAB AND A MURDER: AN AVERAGE NIGHT IN WHITMOUTH’S SEEDY UNDERBELLY: he’s printed it off the internet. It’s a rubbish headline and she knows it, but she doesn’t write headlines and she doesn’t choose pictures. ‘This is my home!’ he squeals, and flecks of spittle land on her face. ‘How dare you? If you won’t talk to the real people who live here, then you don’t have any right to judge!’
She reels. Knows that what he says is at least partially true. If anyone would agree with what he’s saying, it would be Jade Walker, the wicked girl, the child with no conscience. But Kirsty’s as prone to journalistic double-think as the next hack; can remember only her good works, will always deny her bad, pass the buck, avoid personal responsibility. Just like everybody in every office everywhere. ‘That’s not my fault!’
‘You know it’s your fault!’ he cries. ‘This whole place needs clearing up. I thought you got that. It looked like you got that. From what you said here. And you don’t at all, do you? You’re just – taking the piss, and—’
A voice – deep, confident – speaks from behind Martin’s left shoulder, and her face melts with relief. ‘Is he giving you trouble?’
Martin looks behind him and feels a wave of emotions. Victor Cantrell. Amber Gordon’s bloke. You’re kidding. She knows Victor Cantrell? How can she know Vic Cantrell?
He turns back and sees her drinking in the chiselled features, the thick dark hair, the Elvis cowboy shirt, the neat-cropped facial hair, with something that looks like gratitude.
‘I think you need to leave the lady alone, Martin,’ says Vic.
It isn’t possible. How’s it possible? It’s some sort of – conspiracy. Some sort of … plot to fuck me up.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I’m doing here,’ says Vic calmly. ‘What matters is that I’m telling you to leave the lady alone.’
‘Fuck off,’ says Martin. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’
‘I know enough, Martin. You need to stop making a nuisance of yourself.’
‘I’ll do what I want.’
Vic does something that frightens him. A tiny backward jerk of the elbow combined with a half-pace forward: too small to attract the bouncers, clear enough to make his intent plain. Martin hops back, feels a rush of fear and frustration. ‘But I know her!’ he shouts. He really feels like he does. After following her the last two days, after reading everything she’s ever written deep into the night, he knows her as well as anybody.
‘No you don’t,’ says Vic. ‘You’re just being a nuisance.’
Shit, Vic knows her, he must do, or he wouldn’t be saying that. Martin’s mind flashes back to yesterday afternoon, to looking in through the window of the Kaz-bar to see what she was up to.
With a leap of understanding, he realises who her companion was – though he couldn’t see her clearly, what with the candlelit gloom and the pair of huge dark glasses she was hiding her face with. Amber Gordon. Oh my God. They’ve known each other all along. They’re all … in it together.
‘Look,’ says Vic, ‘we’ve had to see you off once. I don’t want to have to do it again. You’re a bloody nuisance and you need to stop.’
Suddenly, Martin finds himself in tears. He turns away, swiping at his face with a sleeve. It’s not fair. Everyone, always ganging up on him, setting him up, screwing with his head. It’s this town. It’s the people. They’re all … sick. Conspiring to keep him out, to keep him down, to refuse to recognise that he is Someone. She’s been one of them all along.
He turns back and screams impotently at Kirsty Lindsay. She’s stepped back, can probably barely hear him over the music, but his self-control is gone. ‘You … you bloody bitch! I’ll get you! You’ll see! You’ll fucking see!’
Victor Cantrell repeats his elbow move, laughs in Martin’s face as he recoils. Martin ducks back into the crowd. He knows when there’s no point fighting. But someone’s going to pay. Someone. He can feel sweat on his forehead, feels himself tremble. Wants to grab a glass and ram it into one of the laughing faces around him.
He contents himself, for now, with shoving at a couple of backs as he strides for the exit. For now.
She watches the man leave and realises that she is shaking. Looks up at her rescuer’s face. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘’S’OK,’ he replies. ‘He’s trouble, that one. Proper little stalker.’
‘Well – thanks. I thought I might be in trouble there.’
The man shrugs. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he says.
Kirsty sighs. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m going to call it a night, I think.’
‘You don’t look like a slag, anyway,’ he says. ‘But then again, there’s no other reason you’d be here. Are you a slag? You can’t tell, these days. Maybe you are.’
She’s shocked. Sees a glittering half-smile on his face and doesn’t like it. She can’t bear DanceAttack for one minute longer; wants out of Whitmouth. Blushing, she pushes away from him without another word.
Chapter Twenty-six
I’m going to enjoy this. I’m actually going to enjoy this.
Amber sits in her office, slowly and carefully applying her make-up. She’s been locked in here since soon after her shift began. She showed her face briefly in the shadows of the main concourse as her staff arrived, then half sprinted to the administration block to put a layer of MDF between herself and the world.
Now she’s covering up: the way she does every day. Foundation and blusher and highlighter, wiping away the lines and the shadows, as her fictions wipe away her past. They will not know. Her hands no longer shake and her eyes, soaked for hours with teabags, betray no tell-tale puffiness.
It’s nearly two o’clock; the tea-break ritual approaches. Amber draws lines of black on to her eyelids and waits to take her revenge.
The cafeteria is full when she enters. Steam and food smells, and the rumble of weary mundanity. Another night, like any other.
But no. Tonight, she’s New Amber: no bullshit, no advantage taken. The cleaners think she’s a pushover, the lenient boss who’ll overlook most infractions in pursuit of a quiet life. Well, not any more. She’s been a yes-woman all her adulthood, rolling over and going with the flow, but not any more. Vic, the staff at Blackdown Hills, Suzanne Oddie, her mother and stepfather, every shitty man she’s followed till he was done with her, every landlord, every employer, every woman who’s deigned to be her friend, and it’s got her nowhere. Taken her further down the road to nothing. Christ, if she hadn’t obeyed Deborah Francis and Darren Walker unquestioningly one summer day twenty-five years ago, none of this would have happened. But not any more. After today, she’s don
e.
‘Moses,’ she says. He looks up, smirking, expecting the usual timid word of reproof, and his face falls as he sees her expression.
‘Yuh?’
‘It’s no-smoking in here.’
‘I wasn’t …’ he begins, and trails off as he sees that she’s deadly serious. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters.
Amber folds her arms. Counts one, two, three beats. ‘It’s time you stopped,’ she tells him. ‘I don’t care what you do to your lungs, but doing it indoors is against the law. You’re not to do it. There’s a whole park to smoke in. Do it outside, or I’m going to have to give you a written warning. Do you understand?’
He glares at her from beneath heavy eyebrows. Then, saying nothing, he gets to his feet and, making an exaggerated show of picking up his Gold Leaf and his brimming Styrofoam cup, he stalks from the café.
She realises that the tables within earshot have fallen quiet. People are exaggeratedly not looking at her. Right, she thinks. This is what it feels like to be boss. They don’t like you. Big fucking whoop. None of them liked you in the first place, not really. Not in any genuine, remembering-you-when-you’re-out-of-the-room sense. Not in a calling-to-see-you’re-OK-when-you’re-in-trouble sense, like yesterday. You’ve been brown-nosing all your adult life in the hope that people will like you, and all it does is make them despise you. Make them think they can take advantage. Make them think they can take your hospitality and—
Clutching her clipboard like a shield, she walks forward. She hears an outbreak of whispered comment behind her back and smiles grimly. Just wait, she thinks. If you don’t like that, wait till you see what’s coming next.
Jackie is at her usual table, holding forth to Blessed. There she sits in her leather jacket, her sugar-pink trackies (the ones that proclaim her shrivelled backside JUICY), her Nike knock-offs, dangling gold hoops in her ears and a Diamonesque J dangling between her breasts. She’s talking about men. Isn’t she always? Amber stares at this woman and hates and hates.