If He Wakes

by If He Wakes (retail) (epub)

  From the gardens she went to a paved walkway beside the river, and then up toward the Edwardian bandstand that was a magnet for visitors and tourists no matter what the time of year or weather. In summer it was host to concerts and regattas. Local artists would set up shop along the bank and row boats could be hired. There were also pleasure boats that would take out tourists on sightseeing cruises.

  Wooden benches flanked the river, and mature trees grew between the thick black iron of the Edwardian lampposts. It was where the day-trippers came, where families fed ducks and where, on a winter afternoon, if you looked out and forgot the icy chill, you could remember what summer felt like.

  The river cruises had long since finished for the season but shoppers and tourists always made the place busy and Suzie had to dodge several people until she reached one of the empty benches. The loud, energetic, house music set at one hundred and forty beats per minute was interrupted by Della's voice, which seemed to be stopping and starting at a similar speed.

  At just five foot, Suzie often got mistaken for a child. It was something she'd had to battle against her entire life, and now, as Della spoke incomprehensibly in her ear, Suzie stretched out her hamstrings and pulled off her hat so the teenagers leering by the neighbouring bench could see she was a grown woman. She had short brown hair cut in a spiky style which, when sprayed, added another two inches to her height. Put this together with her four inch heels and Suzie never felt small in her working day, but with both her hair and feet flat, she felt vulnerable.

  Giving one last glare to the group of teenagers, who had long since lost interest, she concentrated on listening. Della always seemed to talk in riddles. In Suzie's mind, she was a very immature girl for her age and she couldn't understand why Rachel employed her. Why Rachel employed anyone, in fact, to do things that she surely could do herself. Rachel was busy, but then, wasn’t everyone? Yet Rachel was the only person she knew who employed someone as a kind of, what exactly was Della? Suzie supposed a household help and nanny, although she’d never asked. But that was where Suzie and Rachel differed. Suzie could barely justify the expense of employing a weekly cleaner whereas Rachel employed someone to clean daily, hourly even, as Suzie wasn’t entirely sure what else it was that Della did.

  ‘Sorry what?’ Suzie asked and listened as Della stuttered over her words. She was talking about the retail park, about Rachel breaking her ankle but Suzie couldn’t make any real sense of it. Della was in her early twenties and had the annoying habit of talking fast and not pausing for breath. The easiest way to deal with her was to ask her a series of sharp, short questions where Della could only answer yes or no. After six questions, Suzie ended the conversation and paused for a second to process what Della had just told her.

  Rachel had been in an accident and was waiting for her at the hospital.

  She had gone to the retail park after all. To catch her husband being unfaithful and now this had happened. Suzie watched an elderly couple take pictures of each other as they posed at the bandstand. Their breath caught like smoke in front of their faces, their gloved hands on the decorative railings as they laughed at each other. A family with a toddler strolled past, the pushchair bouncing over the paving stones as they went.

  ‘She should've called me,’ Suzie muttered to herself, thinking of Rachel alone at the hotel, watching her husband meet his mistress and then crashing her car at the sight. ‘I would've ripped off his fucking face.’

  The mother of the toddler turned abruptly, Suzie's words had been louder than she intended. She flushed and turned back the way she had come, running with purpose.

  It didn't enter her head to go home and shower, or to get changed out of her running clothes and trainers. Her mind full of adultery and dishonesty, she was blind to her surroundings and could only feel the dank cold seep out from the river behind her. Her heart pounding as she passed the city walls and ran to the busy roads, to the fumes of cars and the streets swarming with shoppers and buskers. She got into her car, wiped her gloved hand over the inside of the windscreen, too impatient for the heaters to clear the fog, and drove through the juddering traffic straight to the hospital and to Rachel.

  * * *

  She was sitting in a wheelchair, just outside of the waiting room. Her leg was propped up on the rest and although she shook her head, making motions as if everything was okay, Suzie knew that her friend was very far from fine. She rushed over to her side, Rachel's elfin face was swollen from crying, her green eyes puffy and red rimmed. Her usually immaculate clothes looked stained and crumpled, her sleek bob was in disarray and there was a stale, ripe smell to her.

  In all the years that Suzie had known Rachel, even the disastrous time back at high school when Rachel insisted on camping for her Duke of Edinburgh award in the floods, Suzie had never seen her in such a state. Putting a hand on her shoulder, she looked around the waiting room for someone in authority. Besides the woman at reception there seemed to be no one. Rows of blue padded chairs and walls filled with posters describing alarming symptoms stared back at her. There were two other patients, both at the far side of the room, and opposite them a youngish woman with blonde dreadlocks and fluffy boots over what appeared to be pyjama bottoms. She watched them with narrow eyes, her hands clasped around a colourful satchel. Suzie couldn't tell if she was a patient or visitor but before she had a chance to find out, Rachel grabbed her hand tight. Suzie went to the nearest chair and perched on the edge of it, leaning in close.

  ‘You went there?’ Suzie whispered after a moment. ‘You went there and saw Phil? Saw him with her?’ She squeezed Rachel's hand. ‘What a bastard.’

  Rachel didn’t even look up and for a moment, Suzie wasn’t sure if she’d heard. ‘Why didn't you call me?’ she asked in a lower voice. ‘I would've come. I would've driven you. You shouldn't have gone there on your own. You shouldn't have seen that alone. No wonder you went into the back of someone.’

  Rachel shook her head absently at Suzie's words, ‘I thought you were at the bank. I didn't want to…’

  ‘I haven't been to the bank yet,’ Suzie interrupted, ‘and even if I was, this is much more important.’ She took a moment then wrapped both her hands around Rachel's cold one. ‘Who was she?’ she asked. ‘Was she young? Don't tell me she was young. Was he screwing someone younger than us? Someone from work?’

  ‘No,’ Rachel said, her voice barely audible. ‘She wasn't anything. There was no one. He wasn't there to see anyone.’

  Suzie leaned forward as if she hadn't quite heard. ‘But…?’ she pointed to Rachel's propped up leg and Rachel started to cry again. Silent fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Suzie dug about in her pocket trying to locate a tissue but found nothing. She glanced about the waiting room, hoping to find a passing nurse or a doctor but only saw the dreadlocked woman. She was staring back at them, enjoying the drama with a smirk, and there was no way Suzie was going to ask her.

  ‘But you did see him?’ she asked Rachel in a whisper. ‘After what we found this morning, he was there?’

  Rachel nodded. Then shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said in a tight voice and covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh Suzie, I shouldn't have gone there. I shouldn't have gone. I didn't see anything.’

  Suzie watched Rachel cry into her palms and was at a loss. That morning it had been pretty clear what Phil had been up to. After what they'd found, Suzie would've bet her life that Phil was having an affair. It was suddenly so obvious, and she realised that her friend’s perfect life wasn’t so perfect after all. She’d felt such a rush of emotion then, when it became apparent that Phil was being unfaithful, that she would’ve done anything for Rachel. She would’ve gone to the retail park for her, she would’ve confronted Phil; Rachel shouldn’t have been doing that alone.

  ‘No,’ Rachel said between sobs from behind her hands. ‘It can't have been,’ she lifted her face. ‘No, not Phil. It wasn't Phil.’

  ‘But earlier…’ Suzie began and Rachel shoo
k her head, stopping her.

  ‘What we found this morning was nonsense,’ Rachel sniffed noisily and ran a hand over her cheek, her mascara was all down her face giving her a greyish complexion. She swallowed and straightened herself. ‘It meant nothing.’

  ‘Rachel,’ Suzie said carefully. ‘What we found this morning was proof.’

  * * *

  They'd just come back from meeting a new client when it happened. They were both high off the success of landing a new job and getting it from right under the noses of rival company, Tailor Made Events. Suzie had heard about it from Mandy in the coffee shop. Between ordering a double espresso, Mandy told Suzie about the party her daughter was going to on Saturday. A twenty-first birthday over towards the Tattenhall area in a renovated house overlooking the golf course. Suzie started listening when she heard that address, it was one of the most affluent areas in Chester, offering quaint village life but just fifteen minutes from the city centre.

  The birthday girl had tried to organise the party herself. It was to be a nineteen-twenties theme, Great Gatsby style, and her parents had spent a small fortune on three hundred glitzy invites and a jazz band, but, apart from that, she had forgotten everything else. She’d only just realised that she needed extra rooms for her guests and that the band wouldn't play all night and everyone would need feeding. Suzie had listened as Mandy relayed how the father was willing to pay any price at such short notice.

  It was the perfect opportunity.

  Suzie and Rachel had only been working together for three months, and if Suzie could get this job, it would prove to Rachel that their joint venture hadn't been a mistake. Farrell McFadden Events could work. Rachel could start to wind down her private catering business and Suzie wouldn’t have to take on the soulless gigs. No more budget weddings. No more styling and photographing B&B’s, restaurants and businesses. She’d be photographing the good life. Glamour and prosperity. She’d be photographing wealth.

  So far, they’d worked together on a few smaller jobs, some hotels and modest corporate meetings, but it wasn't enough for Suzie to show Rachel the full extent of her ambition. A twenty-first party in the affluent area of Chester could be just the event to share her vision with Rachel. They would style and manage it together, the catering done by Rachel and Suzie as photographer with images to sell on to the guests afterwards.

  Suzie had used all her charm and flattery in getting the name and number of the girl from Mandy and after a short conversation with her, Suzie had arranged a meeting with the family that very morning. It had gone better than expected. The Edwardian detached was set in an acre and a half of perfectly landscaped gardens and just walking up to the entrance made Suzie want to grab her Canon with the wide-angle lens. The girl was on the brink of tears at the start, but after two hours of discussing art deco backdrops, marquee hire and oversized champagne glasses, she was delighted. When they went on to describe Rachel's signature hors d'oeuvres that included smoked salmon on a lemon herb blini, and the photo booth, how Suzie would photograph the guests as if she was paparazzi, they were falling over themselves to give them the job. By the time Suzie was explaining repeat orders of photographs and featuring some of the pictures in Cheshire Life magazine, the father was almost writing a blank cheque. They could name their price.

  They had less than a week to pull off a Gatsby style party for three hundred and when they got back to Rachel's and were sitting in her open plan kitchen with the morning winter sun streaming through, they were both giddy and slightly panicky. Then it happened.

  * * *

  Rachel had been talking about how it was going to be tight, not only because they had limited time to organise and plan the twenty-first Gatsby party, but because she was trying to arrange a holiday as well. She had it in her mind that her daughters should experience Father Christmas in a Nordic setting whilst they were still young enough to enjoy it. With Katie at fourteen and Jessica at sixteen, Suzie thought they were far too old already, but she knew better than to voice her opinion on matters like this with Rachel, so she kept quiet and went to fill the kettle instead.

  ‘Phil thinks we shouldn't take them out of school,’ Rachel was saying, ‘but as I explained to him, I'm booked up all Christmas week. I’ve three big charity dinners to cater for in town as well as my consultation work with the council and I like to do a bit of volunteering around this time of year, if I can fit it in, so if we're going, it'll have to be at the beginning of December. It'll be the week after the Gatsby party so it’ll be a squeeze, but Katie's fifteen next year. How much longer will she want to come on family holidays? And Jessica! Little Jessica is going to be an adult soon, she’s leaving college next year so if we’re doing it, it needs to be now and it's a price difference of thousands! Not just a few hundred, but thousands.’

  Suzie had barely been listening. With no children of her own she couldn't really empathise with the whole 'school holiday' dilemma. She only understood that it was business; a higher demand for something meant a higher price. It went with the territory, if you were lucky enough to have children, then you had to endure certain things. Like paying more for a holiday, and besides, Rachel could afford it. Suzie only had to look at her big detached house, the car in her drive, the expensive coffee that was in her cupboard and the sound of her cleaner, Della, hoovering upstairs, to realise that for all Rachel’s moaning about prices, she had the money in the bank.

  She stared out at Rachel's large garden whilst the kettle boiled and thought instead about her honeymoon. In a matter of months she'd be Mrs Adam Staple. Lying on a sun bed, somewhere tropical, her new husband by her side and hopefully, if this party went to plan, a great new business on the go. In a few short years, if Suzie allowed herself to dream, she could be standing in a house like this, maybe not as big as Rachel’s, but certainly similar, and perhaps, if she was really lucky, with a child of her own. She could be the one who was gleefully moaning about child-care and overpriced holidays. Suzie smiled, excitement fizzing inside her.

  As Rachel went on to talk about how the experience of visiting Norway would be so much more educational than sitting in a classroom, Suzie got out the mugs and checked her phone. Adam hadn't yet called back. When she'd been paying for her coffee that morning, her bank card had been refused. Mandy was fine about it, said she trusted Suzie wouldn't leave the country, but it was embarrassing all the same. She needed to call the bank, but wanted to speak with Adam first. Her fiancé was the one who managed the accounts, sorted the cash, fiddled the books. He dealt with everything financial, so she wanted to check with him before she started up blue murder about a frozen card. Could be that he was holding something back for tax deduction or something similar, which she knew he sometimes did.

  She idly tried to remember when he’d said their self-assessments were due, when she'd become a partner in his business, the dates of their fiscal year and what cash sales she’d had that month. Or if she should use the other bank card, the one he said to lay off for a couple of weeks, where she might have put it, when she realised that Rachel had suddenly gone quiet.

  All the talk of thieving airlines and husky rides had stopped.

  She turned around to see Rachel hunched over the laptop, her shoulders rigid.

  ‘What's wrong?’ Suzie asked, walking toward her, ‘what's happened?’

  Rachel didn't answer. She simply turned slightly so Suzie could see the screen. Twitter. Rachel was on Twitter and as Suzie made sense of the page, she could see that she was on the private messaging section of the site.

  ‘I'm not sure what to think of this,’ Rachel said and pointed to the top message. Suzie read it aloud.

  ‘Meet me today at two, room booked at the hotel on Chester retail park. I'll bring champagne. Can't wait to see your hot body.’

  She looked at Rachel who had gone pale, a confused look on her face. Leaning forward she looked at whose account Rachel was reading.

  ‘Big Smiles 33,’ she said. ‘Is that you?’

  Rachel sh
ook her head tightly and navigated the screen back to the inbox. Suzie could see a whole array of messages; some pictures that she couldn't make out and all were addressed to someone named Shutterbug1718.

  ‘I was on a travel agent’s site,’ Rachel said, staring at the screen. ‘One that specialises in Santa trips. They're doing special offers via Twitter so I went to it. When I get to their page, I'm on Twitter and see I've got a notification. A direct message. Then I find this,’ she waved at the screen. ‘Then, I realise I'm not logged in on my Twitter account, I'm logged in on someone else's.’ Rachel paused and looked up at Suzie. ‘Automatically logged in.’

  Suzie had taken a sharp intake of breath. ‘So who else uses this laptop?’

  Rachel had stayed silent.

  ‘Jessica?’ Suzie had asked. ‘Is it Jessica's account? Is she meeting her boyfriend?’

  ‘Jessica hasn’t got a boyfriend!’ Rachel spat out. ‘She’s too busy studying. She wants to be a vet, she wouldn’t be meeting people in a hotel. And besides, she despises social media. She’s on a digital detox, or something or other. The only phone she has is this huge old retro thing. She doesn’t even text. This isn’t Jessica.’

  Suzie had paused for a moment.

  ‘Katie then,’ Suzie had suggested carefully. ‘You think it might be…’

  ‘Katie’s fourteen!’ Rachel said. ‘I’d know if she had a Twitter account…’

  ‘But…’

  ‘We don't let her use any of these sites.’

  Suzie went to argue, but Rachel put her hand up to stop her.

  ‘We don’t allow Katie on it and she understands. Cyber-bullying and all that. And the girls know they’re not allowed on my laptop. This is a work laptop, the girls know not to touch it. The only people to use this are me,’ she'd paused, swallowed, ‘and Phil.’