Best Eaten Cold: The stunning new psychological thriller you won't be able to put down.

by Tony Salter

  Looking at the name above the counter set me to thinking about the mysterious Jax and I messaged Daz to see if he could meet later. Uncle Daz always had time for me – whether or not I deserved it – and we agreed to meet at The Grenadier for an early pint. I had no messages from Julie which was ominous.

  It was after eleven by the time I got back to the flat and I was ready to settle down for volume two. A part of me was relieved that I knew what was coming; if the renewed collapse of my mother's world had come as a surprise, it would have been devastating – as, of course, it had turned out to be for her.

  It was still a harrowing read. There's something about an unexpected relapse that gives it extra power to cause pain and suffering; it comes suddenly, out of the blue, but you know what's happening instantly, and everything – all of those dark thoughts and emotions – flood in, rushing back in an uncontrollable wave.

  After the fiasco on my first day at nursery, my mother was in hospital for a couple of days and the diary was silent but, on her return, she wrote down her thoughts and feelings without pulling any punches. Both the importance of the incident and the sudden unexpected reoccurrence were brutal blows and the tone of her writing changed from one entry to the next.

  Her confidence and optimism were suddenly nowhere to be seen; every word on the page oozed paranoia and excuses, blame and shame. I was shocked at how quickly things changed and even more so at how negative she was about Granny. It was almost as though Mum was accusing her of having been responsible for what had happened.

  Unsurprisingly, the following week's entries were messy and confused. There was a small hint of a return to her old self when she started work but it was only for a few weeks and was mixed up with frequent outpourings of her resentment of Granny. It seemed as though the more Granny helped out with me, the more angry and irrational Mum became.

  Her daily entries stopped the day after the Facebook posting about Granny. Mum transcribed word-for-word the post which she had apparently made on her Facebook group and wrote underneath 'Does anyone who knows me believe I could write this? I am better than that! Someone is doing this to me.'

  And, apart from a last, defiant curse on the day of her death, that was it. Whatever she thought or did during those final days was too personal and private even for her diary.

  I closed the diary, tied the ribbon neatly and put it back in the box. Reading the second volume had done nothing to ease my sense that something was missing. The words on the page didn't quite fit with the facts they were describing nor with what I'd been told by my dad.

  Until the end, there was nothing manic in her writing, no lack of coherence or logical thought, only a set of events that could only be explained by Mum having some sort of self-destructive second personality which was completely separate and independent of her normal self. If that was true, why didn't the other 'self' ever appear in the diaries?

  I didn't know why, but reading everything laid out in detailed chronology, something seemed off. The timing was too perfect. Each step was so organised, structured and planned as though some sadistic deity was toying with her. She had talked about God and religion many times throughout the diaries and there was definitely some guilt there. Could her Catholic upbringing have played a role?

  I was surprised at how calm I still felt after the initial shock of hearing her voice though her words. I also understood my suspicions might be driven by a desire to prove that my mother hadn't actually been mentally ill.

  Whatever the reason, I needed to see this process through and the next step was to speak to Daz and my dad and to see if there were any clues on her phone. I would get it analysed as soon as I could and then, when I'd read through the diaries at least one more time, I would open her final letter to me.

  There was a phone shop just around the corner in Sloane Street with a big 'We sell antique phones' sign in the window. It seemed like a good place to start.

  'Good morning, I'm Serge,' said the young guy behind the counter. 'How can I help you?' He really was young. My mum's phone was probably at least ten years older than he was.

  'Hi. I've got this old phone,' I said, handing it to him. 'I need to get the data off it, please. Something in a format I can read. Is it possible?'

  'Yeah. Not a problem,' said Serge as he picked up the phone with two hands and twirled it confidently with the tips of his fingers. 'iPhone 5. It's a classic. Pretty good nick too. Let me know if you want to sell it. I'll give you a good price.'

  'No ... Maybe ... Look, I don't want to think about that right now,' I said. 'I only want to know if you can get the data off it. Can you do that?'

  'Of course,' he said. 'Easy. Do you want the full analysis? Emails, texts, apps, photos, system history, the whole shebang?'

  'If it's not too expensive, that would be great.'

  'I could do it for ninety euros including the memory tab, but I won't have it finished before the end of the week. OK?'

  'That's fine,' I said. 'Take good care of it. It was my mother's.'

  'Don't worry. It's in safe hands.'

  And that was that. With Serge's help, I should have dug a couple more jigsaw pieces out from behind the sofa by the following week and might have a more complete picture. Meanwhile I was in waiting mode again and my old hamster friend was wearily climbing back onto his wheel.

  I called Julie a couple of times during the afternoon but she didn't reply or ring back. Everything was happening all at once and my life had suddenly become untethered in a way which teleported me straight back into my fifteen-year-old self. I could almost feel the spots growing on my face.

  I had no regrets about reading the diaries and it was wonderful to know Mum really had loved me, but that relief was only part of a truckload of more challenging thoughts and emotions – regrets, fears, confusion and, for the first time in years, biting loneliness.

  And now it looked as though I might have blown everything with Julie. What an idiot I'd been. I was finding it difficult being the junior partner in the relationship, but I wasn't ready to break up with her yet, and not only because of the money and the crazy lifestyle. Being with her was amazing. I was probably more in awe of her than in love with her, but the two things were not so far apart. How often do you get to live with a goddess, after all?

  In amongst everything else, I would need to find a way to mend things between us.

  The Grenadier had been serving pints for over three hundred years and the walls oozed history and permanence. I remember Gramps talking about being a regular in the 1970s and I know my dad often used to go there after work when he lived in London.

  They still had the same surprisingly-good sausages sitting on a heated dish at the bar and Daz had already lined up a couple by the time I arrived – along with pints, of course. Daz never seemed to change; it might have been the beard, his open smile or the fact that his clothes were always the same, but he definitely wasn't showing his years like my dad was.

  In a way he'd filled a mother-shaped hole in my life growing up. He was always around and his burly, hairy bear-frame was wrapped around a sensitive – almost feminine – personality. There were definitely times when I felt more comfortable talking with Daz than with my dad.

  The two of them couldn't have been more different. Dad was a product of his environment – one of the last vestiges of the near-extinct sub-species of stiff-upper-lip Englishmen who were bred to serve as army officers and civil servants in the days of empire. He tried hard, and we were very close, but it was always more natural for him to bottle up his thoughts and emotions rather than risk exposing them to the open air.

  Two sausages each and a pint-and-a-half of familiar banter settled us deeper into the corner of the bar and it was time to get down to it.

  'Who's Jax Daniels?' I said, watching Daz carefully.

  He definitely twitched and his eyes widened for a brief moment. Jax wasn't just anybody.

  'Now, I haven't heard that name for years,' he said. 'And I hoped I wouldn't. I knew she'
d be back though. Her sort never actually get out of your life.'

  'But who is she?'

  'That's a long story and a half,' he said, sipping his pint. 'But before I tell you, you'd better let me know why you're asking.'

  'OK. Fair enough. You remember a couple of weeks ago? When we were helping Dad to clear out of the house?'

  'Yeah. So what?'

  'Well, after you'd gone, Dad gave me Mum's diaries.'

  'He did what?' Daz said, pint glass frozen in mid sip. 'I never knew about any diaries. Your dad's never said anything about them to me.'

  'He never read them. He left them shut up in a shoebox at the back of a wardrobe.'

  Daz was shaking his head slowly as he stared out of the window. 'All these years,' he said, a strange, sad smile poking its way out through the bush of his beard. 'All these years and she's not quite left us. Have you read them?'

  'Yes,' I said. 'I finished them a few hours ago. I'll tell you more about them some time, but not today.'

  'All right. You let me know. It would be magic to hear her voice one more time.' Daz was staring at the table with a glazed look. He was somewhere else. In a different time.

  But I needed him here with me and waved my hand in front of his eyes. 'Hello. Earth to Planet Daz. Anyone in there?'

  He looked at me, eyes soft with his memories. 'Sorry. Miles away.'

  'Well I've told you why,' I said. 'Now it's your turn. Who's Jax? She was important to Mum, but I've never heard of her.'

  'OK. I'll tell you. But it's complicated.'

  I pointed to his empty pint glass and raised an eyebrow. 'I've got all night. What about you?'

  And so we sat tucked in the corner as night fell and the pub filled with laughter and opinions. We were in our own bubble. Daz talking and me asking the odd question. I realised early on that I'd been right to ask Daz rather than my dad. He seemed to know more about this mysterious Jax than anybody.

  I prided myself on being a modern, tolerant person without any of the built-in hangups which were still knocking around when my parents were young, but I was still shocked when I heard about my mother's relationship with Jax. My mother had been a lesbian before she met my father? I wasn't expecting that.

  A bigger problem was trying to square their relationship with the way Daz described Jax. If he was telling it straight, the implication was that Mum had been blind, stupid and totally naive and that didn't fit with anything I'd been told about her before.

  He really didn't hold back and I've never heard such a comprehensive character assassination. From the picture he painted of Jax, she was the embodiment of pure evil – Satan's favourite daughter. I'd always understood he must have been in love with Mum, but he wasn't the type to let jealousy get in the way of the truth. He was best friends with Dad after all.

  I was probably being a bit harsh in any case. You don't need to be naive or stupid to fall in love and, although I'm not convinced love is blind, it's often quite shortsighted. Looking at my own romantic set-up, I wasn't in a great position to cast stones.

  When he'd finished, I knew a lot more about Jax Daniels than I wanted to, but I had one more question.

  'Do you think she could have had anything to do with Mum's death?' I asked him.

  'Jax? I'd love to blame her, but don't see how. She'd been out of the picture for years. Your mum always made her own decisions, for better or for worse. She had her inner demons and they ended up taking over. Why are you asking, anyway?'

  'It was only a couple of things I read in the diaries. It did sound as though she was becoming more and more paranoid though,' I said, managing to add a nervous laugh. 'She even thought Granny might've been behind things at one stage.'

  Daz's laugh was more open than mine. 'Well, your mum certainly did pick 'em. I don't want to speak out of turn and you know I love Virginia to bits, but your gran is the second most manipulative bitch I've ever met, and I've met a few in my time.'

  'Knock yourself out,' I said, with a smile. 'She's my grandmother and she's always been wonderful to me, but I totally see where you're coming from.' It was hard to find anything Daz said offensive, even when he was being exceptionally blunt.

  'Anyway,' he said. 'I'm sure it was paranoia. Fabiola was in a bad way towards the end and I'd be surprised if she hadn't been looking for outside forces to blame.' He looked at me, holding my gaze without blinking. 'After it happened, we were all a bit crazy. It was such a shock and no-one could believe she was actually gone. I think all of us were looking to find someone or something to blame.'

  'It must have been awful.'

  'Yeah. Pretty grim,' he said. 'I'll never figure out how your dad managed. He somehow managed to hide his grief from you, even though he'd decided to blame himself for what had happened and it was eating him up. I think I tried to blame everybody – God, the universe, Jax, Virginia, myself – and I'm pretty sure your grandparents just blamed Fabiola.'

  'Such a waste,' I said, lost for anything more substantial to say.

  They called last orders and the noise of the crowded bar rose to a crescendo, melting our bubble and letting the real world back in.

  We didn't need anything more to drink, but sat there for another five minutes, not speaking and letting the laughter and shouting ebb and flow over us. When we eventually stumbled out of the pub and said our goodbyes, I felt disengaged from reality, blinking and confused. It had been a crisp, sunny afternoon when I arrived and then, three hours later, I drifted out blank-eyed into the inky blackness of a London night and the world had changed.

  I found my way home to bed on autopilot and slumped on top of the duvet like a sack of hops.

  Toyboy

  December 8th 2013

  I've been a useless wife for too long; the whole passport mess was the last straw and we had a huge fight at the airport. I really lost it.

  It was all my fault. I've started to see ghosts and villains everywhere. Rupert has actually been wonderful and, since we've been in Italy, I've been doing my best to let him know how grateful I am. I hope he can see that. I think he can.

  I'm sitting alone on the terrace of Alberto's house as the morning mist floods a white lake into the valley below. It's beautiful.

  Last night, me and Roop had our first romantic dinner out in ages. Sam stayed with Alberto and Maria and we walked down to a small trattoria in town. It was a perfect evening in every way and I can still feel the warm glow in my stomach.

  I'm sure things are going to get better from now on. I can feel it.

  The bees are all around me now – shimmering darts burning sunlight from their wings in golden vapour trails. I start to run in aimless panic. What Winnie-the-Pooh brainlessness convinced me to stick my hand into the hole anyway. I don't even like honey.

  The first sting burns into my arm in a frenzy of boiling acid and I scream out loud like a four-year-old. Big mistake. My open mouth is a perfect round bulls eye and the stream of bees flows in before I have time to think.

  The second explosion of pain is enough to make everything certain. I'm going to die this time. What a pointless, pathetic way to go ...

  I snapped up in bed with my eyes wide open; my heart was hammering and, for a few seconds I couldn't breathe. My phone was still buzzing on vibrate but it must've fallen onto the floor and I couldn't find it in the dark. What time was it anyway?

  By the time I'd found the light and the phone, it had stopped ringing and my heart rate was returning to normal. The sensation of small soft bodies in my throat was still real and, as I got up to go to the bathroom, I was gagging reflexively and waiting for the stings to come again.

  My face in the mirror was reassuringly unswollen and a few seconds spent gargling tap water sent the bee memories back to honey land. Relieving myself of a bladderful of last night's beer took a bit longer, but I eventually staggered back to bed.

  The message light was winking its devil's eye at me ominously. One-thirty in the morning. It had to have been Julie.

  'Sam. Sam. Where
the hell are you?' It didn't sound like I was forgiven. 'I'm about to get on the red-eye from JFK. I'll be landing at Heathrow at eight-thirty. Can you come and pick me up? I've only got hand baggage. See you there. Don't be late.'

  That was a disaster. She wasn't supposed to be back for two more days. The flat was a mess. I was a mess. I'd planned to make everything perfect for her return – shiny clean flat, fresh flowers everywhere, well-stocked fridge, dinner on the table, champagne in an ice bucket and me, fragrant, groomed and grovelling.

  I realised I had no time to panic. Military planning and precision were required. There were still risks but I might just get away with it. I texted Susie, our cleaner, and asked her to drop whatever else she was doing and get here first thing. I gave her detailed instructions for flowers and food and the promise of a hundred euro tip if she had everything in shape before nine o'clock. Hopefully she would be up early and pick up the text in time.

  I took the box with the diaries and tucked it high up in the wardrobe behind the wedding hats. They should be safe there but I wanted them out of the flat as soon as possible.

  The best thing I could do about myself was to get some more sleep, so I set my alarm for six-thirty and went back to bed.

  Julie's flight landed early of course, but I was there in time, smartly dressed, showered, shaved and hopefully no longer oozing stale alcohol from every pore.

  Her kiss was cold and close-lipped, but her eyes seemed pleased to see me and to be home.

  'How was your trip?' I asked, as we walked out to the car park. 'Why are you back early? I thought you were going to be back on Thursday.'

  'Crap, as you're asking,' she said. 'Our biggest investor has changed CEO and the new guy is a total arsehole who wants to make his mark. Nothing I can't deal with, but things would have been easier without the whole Imperial fiasco looming over me.'