by Knight, Ali
The girl took off her helmet and ruffled her hair back down. Caught unawares Bea looked like an extra from Roman Holiday. She picked her hot pants out of the crack of her bum, then did a little youthful jump up the steps and unlocked the door. A moment later Nicky crossed the street and rang a variety of doorbells until she found someone to let her in.
Bea’s flat was on the first floor. Thrash metal blared out from behind it. She had to knock loudly three times before Bea heard her and opened the door. Nicky jammed her foot in the entrance before Bea had a chance to slam it back in her face. Bea’s mouth was a mean line, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
‘Get your foot out of my door.’ She had to shout over the music.
‘Let me in.’
‘Piss off.’
‘You’re lucky you’re not in jail,’ Nicky shouted. ‘I could have had you arrested for that stunt you pulled at the river. You’re going to talk to me, however long it takes.’ Bea tried to stare her out, but after a long moment she gave a sarcastic little laugh and opened the door. Nicky followed her into a living room and watched as Bea sank into a low sofa covered by a throw, under a dirty window. She tucked her legs underneath her like a fawn and started fiddling with an earring.
‘Turn the music off.’
‘What?’
‘Turn the music off.’ Nicky said it louder this time.
Bea waved dismissively at the iPod on a shelf unit made of reclaimed wood planks and brick struts and after Nicky turned it off they were plunged into a silence so profound it was as if Nicky had been thrown into a swimming pool. ‘Did you take photos of me, of Adam and me?’
‘Why the fuck would I do that?’ She spoke quickly and spat out the words. ‘Why would I want your ugly face near me?’
‘Did you get someone else to take a picture?’
Bea stretched her legs and flipped her shoes off onto the wooden floor. They landed next to a half-drained cup of coffee. ‘Worried your husband might find out?’
‘Just answer the question.’
Bea paused, but not for long. ‘I didn’t take your bloody picture.’
Nicky sat down on an armchair covered in a matching throw to the one on the sofa. It seemed more conversational to sit and she wanted to get Bea on side. She was facing a fireplace where the grate and the mantelpiece were gone, and the square hole was filled with magazines and books. A blue neon sign that said ‘hurt me’ hung above the hole, a black wire trailing away behind the bookshelf. ‘How long did you go out with him?’
‘More than nine months.’ She sounded indignant. ‘We were very, very close. We shared a lot.’ She said it as a challenge.
‘How often did you go to the house?’
‘You mean Hayersleigh?’ Bea picked up a cushion from the sofa and twiddled with one of the tufts at the edge. ‘Have you been there?’
Something in her voice made Nicky pay greater attention. ‘Yes.’
Bea looked like she’d been given news that was unpleasant. ‘Well, well.’ Her voice had turned quiet as the envy, plain to see, churned through her heart. ‘He won’t stay with you, you know. You’re way too old.’
Nicky didn’t rise to the insult. ‘So you went out with him for nine months, but he never took you to the house.’
‘He doesn’t love you! I’ve known the family all my life. Adam and I go way back; we practically grew up together.’
‘I thought you said you’d never been to the house?’
‘My parents are friendly with his dad. We used to hang out in London in the holidays when we weren’t at school. And then when we met up again recently . . . well . . .’ Her voice paused so she could rub it in. ‘We got together pretty quickly.’
‘So you’re a real pal, trying to frighten his girlfriends like you do.’
Bea pulled herself up to vertical on the sofa. ‘You’re not his girlfriend!’
‘No, I’m not. So tell me, did you and Adam plan that I should end up falling in the Thames?’
A cruel little smile spread across her face. ‘That was funny.’
‘Did you plan it?’
‘What do you think? Of course not! I was nowhere near you, anyway. I never touched you.’ She paused. ‘I hear your balance starts to go funny when you get old.’
Nicky counselled herself to not get sidetracked into a pointless slanging match, however tempting. ‘Did Adam talk about his family much? Did he talk about the house at all? I really want you to tell me about him.’
‘Yeah, well, Adam hasn’t had it easy, has he? You know that, don’t you?’ She could layer on the sarcasm as thickly as a Vegas showgirl her make-up, Nicky thought sourly.
‘Bea, you know him better than I do.’
‘Yes, I do!’
‘So please, tell me about him. Tell me some of your stories.’
Bea sat back on the sofa. Most people relished being asked for their expertise, however banal the subject. She ran her hand down her tiny shins and grabbed her ankle. Bracelets clanked on her skinny wrist. It seemed she really wanted to talk about Adam. Nicky listened to a story that Bea was excitedly relating about a music festival they’d been to together when their car got stuck in the mud and had to be pulled out by a tractor, but she was thinking about another scenario. Were the photos of Connie an excuse to get her to the house? Why had she been taken there? What was so different about her?
Bea’s music festival story ran out of steam so Nicky asked, ‘Did he go to the country house often?’
‘No. No one goes there much. Adam and his dad constantly argue about that place; Adam wants to sell but his dad won’t hear of it. There’s some long-running dispute with the airport owners. If they ever sold the airport would buy the land as they’ve been given permission to expand. Adam’s always saying the guy who owns the airport is a crook who should be in his dad’s court. His dad refuses to sell to him. It’s a mess.’
‘How did Adam’s mum die?’
‘He never talks about it. An accident when he was tiny. That was all I heard.’
‘What about his friends, his family?’
‘Aunt Connie was a substitute mum before she got ill . . . and there’s Rob from circus training, Davide—’
‘Was he at school with Davide?’
Bea nodded. ‘Yeah, they go way back.’
‘So is he Adam’s closest friend, would you say?’
‘Kind of. They hang out a lot.’
‘Even though he lives in Spain?’
Bea frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Doesn’t Davide live in Spain?’
‘Hello! Not that I’ve heard.’
The bump in the legs from the man behind. The hand on my bag as we shoved it in the locker. ‘Here, let me help.’
Had he planned to meet her on that plane? Had Adam not met her by happy accident? Had he set her up? And running through her mind was the desperate question: why? Why? Why?
‘Er, like, hello? I haven’t got all evening!’ Bea was leaning forward and staring at her. Nicky sensed she thought she’d got the upper hand.
‘Did Adam ever tell you he was looking for something at the house that explained his background or his family?’
Bea ran her fingers through her spiky hair. ‘There’s nothing to explain, that’s the tragedy. His mum died when he was eighteen months old. It totally fucked his father up because they were really in love and now he’s had to live his life without her, and Adam never had a mother. That’s enough to be getting on with, isn’t it?’
‘Did he ever tie you up?’
Bea’s eyes widened. ‘I’m not telling you that, you twisted cow!’
‘During sex? At other times? Did he ever handcuff you?’
She snorted, but she was listening, her eyes taking Nicky in, assessing. She was jealous, only she had no idea how far from the truth her overactive imagination was taking her. ‘You’re married. I’m going to tell your husband what you’ve been doing, you dirty slut.’
‘Cut the self-righteous crap, Bea.’
> ‘You know something? You’re talking about him as if he no longer exists. It’s already over between you, isn’t it?’ A vindictive smile spread across her small features. ‘Did your fuckerama of a weekend not go as planned?’
‘How did you know we went away for the weekend?’ Nicky rose slightly from her seat, sensing Bea had unwittingly revealed something. ‘How did you know?’
Bea closed her eyes and hesitated for a moment too long. ‘Adam told me.’
‘No he didn’t.’ Nicky felt she was beginning to understand. ‘You’ve been following me – or him.’
Bea didn’t disagree, and she was the sort to disagree violently if she felt the need. ‘Have you got a car?’ Something about their journey to Hayersleigh had stuck in her mind: the way Adam squealed away from that junction in Chelsea.
‘No.’
‘Do you know Struan Clarke?’
‘Who?’
‘Struan Clarke. Middle-aged guy with a tattoo of a snake on his arm.’
Bea wrinkled her nose as if the idea of anyone that old was distasteful to her. ‘No. Never heard of him.’
‘Ever heard of Greg Peterson?’
‘No. Leave Adam alone, he’s mine. We’re soulmates, we have a connection, we depend on each other.’
‘Sure you do, Bea. Don’t worry, you can have him. Once the police are finished with him.’
‘Police?’
‘That’s right. The police have been questioning him about bludgeoning Struan Clarke to death with a crowbar. You obviously mean so much to him that he called you first, isn’t that right, Bea?’
She had no answer to that and sat mute on the sofa. Nicky rose and let herself out of the flat. As she came down the steps of the building, her mind a swirl of unpleasant revelations, she heard the angry scrape of a sash window opening above her. Bea’s spiky hair poked out. ‘He’s ashamed of you. That’s why he took you to the house. To hide you away.’
Nicky hurried down the street as Bea’s voice became shriller and louder, a witch’s cackle behind her. ‘He was planning to hide you away because you’re so ugly!’ And the terrible thing was that Nicky couldn’t disagree with her. Amongst the diatribes and the hate and the jealousy was the kernel of truth: Adam had had a plan. He had set out to meet her and had manufactured their sitting together on the plane; then he had saved her when she ended up in the river, and maybe he had saved her from Struan Clarke . . . and it was rough justice indeed to hide her away, but what was he hiding her from?
A thought so horrible came to Nicky that she stopped dead in the street and it seemed as if the people walking past her speeded up. Had he also saved her from her own husband?
The man who had lost two blondes.
Outrage tore through her heart. She was going to find out why. She was going to find out. Her steps echoed on the hot pavement below her, beating out a new determination.
36
Maria had buzzed Nicky into the building and was now standing at the door of her flat, a bright flowered apron covering her summer dress. Her dark features were a question waiting to be answered. ‘Something that couldn’t wait till next week?’ She swung the door wider and beckoned Nicky inside. ‘I’m so glad you called – now we can eat together.’ Whenever Maria was in she cooked, and she did it very well. With parents who were originally from Calabria, she retained a reverence for and expertise with ingredients that rendered Nicky’s attempts in the kitchen amateurish at best.
‘What is that divine smell?’
Maria laughed. ‘You know I only ever get visitors at mealtimes? Sardines stuffed with raisins. Sounds disgusting; tastes divine.’
‘Do you need a hand?’
Maria gave Nicky a look of pity. Don’t insult the master, the look said. ‘You have to soak the raisins to get the cloying sweetness out of them. English raisins don’t really work in this.’
Nicky smiled. English supermarket ingredients were always inferior, tasteless, mushy. Nicky took Maria’s word for it.
Nicky suddenly felt exhausted and slumped into a chair next to Maria’s small kitchen window. Geraniums in the window boxes fluttered lazily in the warm evening breeze. Maria’s flat was tiny but perfectly formed – a bit like Maria herself.
‘Come on, spit it out,’ Maria said kindly, pulling a bottle of white wine from the small fridge. Maria was in her mid-forties; she was a friend, a colleague, and was known for dishing out not only good food but also very good advice.
So as Maria swished raisins around a Pyrex dish filled with warm water Nicky told her everything about the last few days: falling in the river, what happened with Adam at the house, her changing the story she told the police, her talk with Bea, and the most recent revelation that Adam had not met her by accident. By the time she had finished Maria was sitting opposite her at the tiny café-style table, the raisins long forgotten, her mouth an O of shock.
‘Where’s the photo?’
Nicky pulled it from her handbag and put it on the table.
Maria stared at it for only a moment. ‘Are you a fucking psycho?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You let this man go? You changed your story to the police and now he’s free to either hurt you again or attack someone else!’
‘I know it sounds weird but I think there’s more to the story that I have to try to uncover—’
‘Nicky! Listen to yourself!’ Maria shook her head as she realized how she sounded. ‘God, Nicky, I’m so, so sorry. You’ve been through a terribly traumatic few days. I’m horrified at what you have endured. It’s not right, or at all just. You were basically kidnapped by some power-crazed –’ she struggled for the word – ‘maniac, who by the sounds of it psychologically tortured you. We need to find you someone who can help you get over it. A counsellor, maybe.’
‘I . . .’ Nicky was at a loss for words. ‘But he saved me from that intruder—’
‘You said he was talking to him!’
‘I . . . yes, but—’
Maria leaned nearer to her. ‘Nicky, listen.’ She put her hand on top of hers. ‘This man must go to jail. He will have done this before, and will almost certainly do it again. It is a pattern of behaviour. Being good-looking simply gives him the opportunity. He is the worst kind of predator.’
‘But Adam saved me. Didn’t he?’ She saw Maria make a great effort at self-control. Nicky hadn’t expected to meet such opposition, but she rallied. ‘Why was my photo in that man’s car?’
Maria shrugged. ‘Because Adam gave it to him? Sounds to me that they knew each other and were planning . . .’ Maria changed the subject fast. ‘And what about this mad girlfriend? She basically pitched you into the Thames. They’re working together, which is even worse!’
‘Well, what about the other stuff? Turns out there’s more than meets the eye about Greg! There’s another dead bloody girlfriend – and this one was pregnant!’
‘Oh Nicky,’ Maria’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘We are talking about what happened over the last few days, not about something from – what? – ten, fifteen years ago!’
‘Liz told me to stay out of it. She completely changed when I found out about Francesca. Something is going on, I can feel it.’
Maria leaned further across the table and shook her by the arms, making Nicky wince. ‘You are a journalist. You work in facts. You respect the truth. R-e-a-l-i-t-y. This is not something you feel!’
‘Greg has been acting really weird. It’s like he . . . like he knew what had happened to me!’
‘OK. OK, OK.’ Maria looked ashen. She was still holding Nicky by the tops of her arms. She stopped and traced the outline of the bandage under Nicky’s thin, long-sleeved top. ‘Take this off. Now.’
Nicky tried to protest but her heart wasn’t in it. Maria pulled her top over her head and stared at the bandage still on one bicep and the livid bruises and scrapes visible on the other. There was a long silence and then Nicky saw that Maria’s eyes were full of tears. ‘He did that to you?’ The silence told her al
l she needed to know. ‘Nicky, is there anything else you want to say?’ Nicky shook her head. She couldn’t meet Maria’s eye. There was a long pause. ‘Where is Adam now?’
‘I don’t know.’
Maria looked like she’d had the life kicked out of her. As if she’d discovered that something she had always believed was based on a lie. ‘You think this is connected to Grace, don’t you?’
Nicky nodded.
‘I want to make sure I’ve got this right. You think Greg did something to that girl, Francesca, that he was involved in Grace’s death, and that he is somehow connected to Adam or Adam knows what Greg’s done, and that even though Adam kidnapped you and you had to fight for your life to get away he was trying to help you in some way.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You do understand that if you believe this, you are saying you are married to one of Britain’s serial killers? Do you really think Greg is a multiple murderer? That he murders the women he loves, and his sister covers it up?’
‘He’s coming back. He’ll be here tomorrow. He left a film shoot to come back after my conversation with Liz!’ Nicky looked out through the window as a bumblebee that should have gone to bed hours ago banged itself continually against the glass, smashing its head and body against an invisible obstruction, killing a little bit of itself with every knock. She felt a roar of voices in her head, rising in volume to a scream. She felt Maria’s hand on her wrist.
‘I phoned Greg to tell him I was worried about you. I didn’t know where you were! That’s why he’s coming home!’
‘Christ!’
Maria still held Nicky’s hand. ‘Nicky, listen to me. The world is full of bad men, brutal men, psycho men. They are young, old and in between. You had the misfortune to meet one. You escaped with your life; you were very lucky. But life isn’t a game of joining the dots. There is no pattern. There is no relation between this and Grace or Greg. There is often no tying up the ends in life. Grace’s death is a question you will probably never know the answer to. With each year that passes, the likelihood of a resolution fades still further. Time is the great killer of the truth. Her death will resonate with you always, particularly if justice is not served.’ Nicky felt a tear roll down her cheek. ‘Remember, when you think about this later, that the reason you like me is because I tell it to you straight.’ Nicky felt Maria grip her hand almost too tightly. ‘Does maybe a part of you want to tie your experience to what happened to Grace?’