“Flick, why didn’t you tell us? We’d gladly share—” Kirsten began.
“That’s not the point. This is my problem, no one else’s. My job at Polecats stopped me from drowning. Do you think it was easy for me to take off my clothes and dance in front of people? Have I ever stripped off in front of you, Kirsten? At least when no one knew, I could pretend I was someone else, pretend I worked on a till in a gas station but now I can’t do that. I can’t do any of this. I’m putting the house on the market. You’ll have to find somewhere else to live.”
Flick looked at their white faces and got to her feet. “You’re not to tell anyone what I’ve told you. Henry knows, but not Stef. And there’s no point asking me about it because I won’t say another word.”
Flick stayed in her room all day. She ate nothing and drank nothing other than water from the bottle she kept by her bed. A heavy weight lurked inside her, pressing her down, crushing her. She tried writing to Beck, but once she registered a sea of paper balls lay around her, she gave up and wrote a different letter instead. Still addressed to Beck but not a letter she intended to send.
A tiny part of her thought he might turn up to take her out for the picnic he’d promised. A larger part of her knew she needed to be booked in for a lobotomy for letting that enter her head. But Flick changed her clothes and put on her best black lace underwear and hoped.
He didn’t come.
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The pain in her chest grew so bad she thought she might be having a heart attack. In a way she wished she was and that she’d have to go to hospital so someone could look after her and take responsibility for whether she lived or died.
* * * * *
Beck had the hangover from hell. He couldn’t tolerate any assault on his senses. Movement, light or sound could kill him. Too ill to sleep, he sat on one chair in the lounge and Giles sat on the other. It was some consolation that Giles looked worse than him. The whites of his eyes were bright red.
“How are you feeling?” Willow whispered.
Giles grunted. Beck tried to reply but his tongue had disappeared. What had happened to it? He felt a stab of terror until he realized it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He reached for the water, drank a whole glassful and winced from the increased pain in his brain.
“Could you face anything to eat?” Willow suggested. “Some tomato soup?” The thought of it made Beck want to throw up.
“Better not, in case they have to operate,” Giles muttered. Willow stared at him. “Why would they need to operate?”
“Clearly more than a hangover. Has to be something really serious. If I don’t feel better soon, ring for an ambulance.”
“I hope you’re not going to take after Gertrude. One raving hypochondriac in the family is enough.” Willow turned to Beck. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Nnnn.”
“Beer? Wine? A kick in the head?”
“Nnnn.”
Thursday night had been one of the best nights of Beck’s life and last night one of the worst. Willow had interrogated him until he’d given her almost the whole story and he guessed she’d rung Kirsten and her mother and by now half the population of West Yorkshire knew Flick danced in a strip club.
Beck imagined introducing her to his parents. His father would probably have a stroke. His brother would fancy a different sort of stroke. His mother would put on one of her faces and pull Beck into the kitchen to let him know exactly how she felt. They might be desperate for him to settle down, but not that desperate. It was over. It hadn’t even begun. In two weeks he’d be back in York and he’d never see her again.
* * * * *
First thing Monday morning Flick went to Henry’s office in Ilkley. She arrived before he did and when he saw her, he ushered her upstairs.
“Take a seat, Flick.”
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She didn’t look at him. “I’d like to put the house on the market.”
“Sit down,” he repeated in a firm voice.
She sat.
“Why do you want to sell your house?” Henry asked more gently.
“I’m going to run away to a place with no extradition treaty before the police ask for my passport.”
“Alternatively?”
“No really, I’m going to pay everything off, give Stef a lump sum and then disappear.”
“Try again.”
When she did tell the damn truth, no one believed her, Flick thought.
“You know my situation. I need to sell the house and the car.”
“Where are you going to live?”
“In a tent in one of your fields?”
“I don’t think Celia would approve.”
“No, I don’t think she would.” Flick sighed. “No one approves of me and it hurts.”
“I approve of you, Flick.”
“Only because we’re having an affair.”
Henry laughed. “Oh yes, I heard about that.”
“Giles didn’t say anything to Celia, did he?”
“Fortunately not. I think I might have had trouble getting her to believe the truth.”
“I’ve had enough,” Flick said.
“You’ll be fine. You’re gutsy and feisty, you’ll bounce back from this.”
“So what do you think of the fact that I was working as a pole dancer?” She looked him straight in the eyes.
“I was surprised.”
“You don’t think my breasts are big enough?”
“Flick!” He shook his head.
“I’m not doing it anymore.”
“Right, so I should sell my ticket?”
“You wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that.”
“That’s exactly what I’d be if I was caught in a place like that. Dead. You’re quite enough excitement for me with your clothes on.”
She groaned. “I feel terrible. Beck is disgusted along with Kirsten and Josh. Willow hates me. Giles too, I expect, now he’s sober.”
“Actually Giles has said very little. He spent the whole weekend feeling rather ill.”
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Good. “I have to be realistic, Henry. I’ve done the best I can, but I can’t afford the house. Will you come and value it?”
Henry leaned back in his chair. “When did you last have something to eat?”
“Why?”
He stared at her. “You don’t look well. I’ll come and value the house this afternoon if you come to Betty’s now and have breakfast.”
“You’re not ashamed to be seen with me?”
“Well, I’m not sure I like the shocking pink shirt but the denim skirt’s nice.”
Flick smiled.
She hadn’t thought she’d be able to eat but she did and felt better afterwards. Henry didn’t lecture or question her, just chatted about inconsequential things. He promised to come round to the house at five, so Flick bought a local paper and drove home. She needed another job and if the house sold as fast as Henry had suggested, she’d need another place for her and Stef to live. One bedroom was enough if she put a futon in the living room, though she guessed she’d end up on that when Stef came home for the holidays. One more year and her sister could look after herself. If she even hinted at more study, Flick would strangle her.
Picking up her mug of coffee, she sat at the kitchen table. Because Flick was trying to delay the inevitable she didn’t turn straight to the jobs but started reading the article on the front page about a flock of sheep that had besieged the garden of some local resident. Apparently the sheep had figured out a way of getting over the cattle grid at the edge of the moor. They rolled over the bars. They’d found a way out. And Flick had always thought them stupid. They had a problem and dealt with it. As she had to. There was always a way out. She just had to find it.
The phone rang, she jerked and spilled coffee all over the paper. Flick leapt for the kitchen roll before the brown pool swam over the ed
ge of the table. The machine picked it up.
“Flick, are you there?” Kirsten asked. “I’ve got something to tell you. I want to see you happy again so I made Josh drive past Giles’ place this morning and post that letter you’d written to Beck. I’m sure things will be okay between you if he knows how you really feel. I thought I’d better tell you so if he rang you’d know what he was talking about. See you tonight. We’re bringing wine and I’ll cook.”
Flick’s blood stopped moving in her veins. The letter had not been for Beck’s eyes. It had his name on the envelope but it wasn’t for him. She’d meant to put it with her collection of letters-never-to-be-sent. She had a box of them under her bed; pleading letters to a couple of ex-boyfriends, venomous letters to the rest, a vitriolic diatribe to a hairdresser who’d wrecked her hair the day before the school dance, biting letters to teachers who’d picked on her, a furious letter to Grinstead’s, a sad goodbye to her parents and a no-holds-barred invective to selfish Stef. With them should have been a letter to a guy who’d made her heart stop the first time she’d seen him, a guy who only a few days ago had looked at her as though she 191
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was the most special person in his world and the next time he saw her he’d behaved as though she wasn’t fit to breathe in the air he breathed out. A letter full of love and hate. God, why hadn’t she burned it?
Flick tried hard not to panic, but little surges of terror seemed hell-bent on invading every organ of her body. She couldn’t keep still and paced around the kitchen chewing her nails. Maybe he hadn’t seen it. He’d have gone to the dig first thing. So it was possible—probable it would be waiting for his return.
Waiting unopened in an empty house.
They were all at work. So she could go over there, break in and get it back. Why bother? He already hated her. How much worse could the letter make things? A lot worse for her. She didn’t want him to know how she felt. That was the whole bloody point of her box. It was the way Flick opened and emptied her heart but not for others to see.
She couldn’t let herself be hurt anymore.
Couldn’t stand it.
She’d break into the house.
What was she thinking?
She couldn’t do that.
Then she thought about what she’d said in the letter.
Yes, I can.
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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Celia headed straight for him, her face bright red with excitement.
“Alexander, Alexander!”
Beck sat in the entrance to the tent, sweltering in the heat, writing furiously in his notebook. He was in such a bad mood no one dare speak to him. Any little thing that had gone wrong he’d treated as a major catastrophe. He’d snapped at Isobel when she’d made a joke about him misidentifying an artifact. He’d told Dina she was an idiot and she’d burst into tears. He’d poured scorn on Matt after he’d announced he also had phobias about frogs and flip-flops. He’d decided to keep out of everyone’s way and write a new murder scene—a stripper strangled with her rubber snake.
“Alexander? There you are. Such wonderful news.”
He’d been dreaming since Thursday night? Maybe it was only Wednesday. He’d never laid eyes on Felicity Knyfe? He was in Italy instead of Rich? Beck waited. Celia would get there in the end. If she didn’t, he doubted he’d have missed much. On the other hand, if she didn’t shut up soon he might have to throttle her. If he’d had a rubber snake handy, he might have tried.
“I’ve had the most fascinating telephone conversation. It’s such thrilling news I had to rush straight down here to tell you. Yorkshire Television is coming to do a news item about the dig.”
She waited—presumably for him to scream in excitement. He didn’t. Sadly it didn’t put her off.
“They want to interview me too. I’ve always thought I’d be a natural on the screen. Good bone structure, you see. I’d have been a perfect partner for that good-looking chat show chappie, had he not married the walrus in a suit. Anyway, they’re coming this afternoon and you, of course, have the starring role.”
“Isobel can do it.”
“Isobel can do what?” Isobel asked as she came back to the tent carrying a tray of dirt-encrusted pottery.
“A TV interview,” Beck said.
“Not in my job description. You’re in charge, you’re the boss, as you so clearly let us know earlier today. You can bloody well do it.”
Beck chewed at his lip. He started to speak and Isobel glared at him.
“Don’t bother trying. I’m not going to do it,” she said.
“Somebody has to.” Celia stared at him.
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Beck clenched his fists. If he hadn’t lost his temper with Isobel, she’d have done the interview, now he’d have to.
“They’ll be here around four thirty. Perhaps you ought to go and change Alexander, darling,” Celia suggested, looking in a pointed way at the rings of perspiration on his shirt. “And maybe have a shave?”
* * * * *
Flick parked well away from Hartington Hall and crept through several fields in order to reach Giles’ house unseen. On the way she snapped a branch from a small tree and stripped off the side shoots and leaves as she walked. She was chewing a whole packet of bubble gum, watermelon flavor, because she was going to copy an idea she’d seen on TV. Stick the gum to the end of a stick, push it through the letterbox and poke it down to the pile of post. Letter gets stuck. Pull it up. Run away. Couldn’t fail. Except when she got there, the letterbox sat at ground level. Sprawled flat on her stomach, her eye pressed against the opening, Flick could see nothing on the mat. On the other hand, peering through the frosted glass in the top half of the door, something on the hall table looked like her letter. She stuck her arm through the letter box and tried poking the stick up toward the table but couldn’t reach far enough. Flick walked round the house. No windows open at ground level. The good news—
one small first floor window at the back stood ajar. The bad news—a shiny new box on the front of the house said Adamson Alarms. Disappointing but not disastrous. If it was like the security system at Timble, the motion detectors would be confined to the downstairs rooms and maybe one on the landing with nothing in the bedrooms. She could at least get inside upstairs without setting bells ringing. In theory. A dangerous assumption. It was quite possible Giles had gold bullion on the upper floor and the alarm would sound as soon as she pushed open the window. Flick paused to think for a moment or two. How important was this? Very. What if she got into trouble with the police? Since she was already on their naughty list that hardly seemed relevant.
Before too much thinking talked her out of it, Flick put the stick between her teeth and climbed on top of the wheelie bin. From there she scrambled onto the flat roof of the kitchen extension. The window frame was reachable with one hand but it would leave her dangling while she brought over the other hand. It would still be difficult to pull herself up, despite her legendary skills as Cat Woman. Fortunately the window opened away from her so she could knock it back before she leaned across. If the alarm went off, she’d run. If she fell, she’d run, barring the intervention of a broken ankle or death.
Flick reached over with the stick and pushed the window ajar. She’d expected the stick to stay in her hand so she almost fell when it stuck to the window. The bubble gum idea had worked, sort of. The stick now hung down from the glass like some defunct wind chime. Flick grabbed the frame with one hand, letting herself swing out 194
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so she could reach up with her other hand. So far so good. She hung onto the wooden sill with both hands but when she tried to pull herself up, she couldn’t. The words of the letter jumped into her head. Pig-headed bastard who couldn’t see the truth if it was tattooed on his penis. She scrabbled against the wall with her trainers and tried to walk herself up. To her intense relief, her toes caught on the brickwo
rk and she rose about a foot. It was far enough for her to get her elbows on to the window ledge. She panted heavily, more from fear than exertion. Wedging one arm inside, Flick grabbed the internal sill with her fingers and forced her shoulders through the gap. For a few moments she feared she’d get stuck with half of her inside and half out. This was too hard.
So it’s okay to leer at women’s breasts so long as you don’t know them? You pathetic, hypocritical wanker.
Flick flinched as she remembered what she’d written. She exhaled deeply to collapse her chest and little by little squirmed through. Only when she lay in a quivering heap on the bathroom floor did Flick realize she couldn’t go out the same way. No possibility of her swinging back to the roof and too far to drop. New plan.
Rush downstairs, grab the letter, hope she could open the front door and then leg it. If she couldn’t open the door, she’d try the back door. If she couldn’t get out that way, she’d break the kitchen window with a saucepan. A plan, not a good plan but Flick didn’t waste more time.
She bolted downstairs, slipped on the last but one step and careered into the hall table, sending a vase of flowers crashing to the floor. As she scrambled through the debris she took in two things. One—what she’d thought was a letter was a flyer from
“Clean as a Whistle” and two—the alarm was not deafening her. Her heartbeat returned to a thousand beats a minute.
Flick stopped moving and looked for the motion detector. It winked at her from the corner of the hall. So the system was either confused by her speed of light descent or not armed. She waited until she was breathing normally and then stood up. The little white box winked again. Armless. Flick groaned at her joke.
No sign of her letter in any room downstairs so she went up. She opened the door to Giles and Willow’s room and closed it. No need to look in there. Beck’s room was neat and tidy. The bed made. No socks or pants littering the floor. All his clothes hung in the wardrobe, his shoes lined up below. Anally retentive. Perhaps it had been a lucky escape after all. But he was reading a book by Mo Hayder and Flick loved her. She grabbed Beck’s pillow and pressed her face into it, inhaling traces of soap, aftershave, er…sweat. She could have been in that bed with him. She could have lain there while his fingers touched every part of her. She wondered what he’d do if he came back and found her lying in his bed like Goldilocks, only naked. Would he eat her in a nice way? Flick thrust the pillow back in place and stared in disbelief as a glass of water toppled over the book.
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