Alex was next on the list. No, Tony Miller. I had to message him to let him know I was on my way. Like Ellie, I’d lose signal soon, I had to give him a timescale. Poor Meg, stuck with a madman like Tony Miller. How was he passing the time? They’d been together for the best part of a day. My mind flew into an unfettered panic. Would he rape her? Had he done so already? Would he threaten her? He’d already hit her, but she was unhurt enough to walk with him unnoticed from the hotel to one of the cars. I had to believe this was all about Ellie. Meg had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t anything to do with her. She was just bait for Ellie.
On my way. No more than 2 hours. Ellie coming too. We’ll give you what you want. Don’t harm Meg, she’s done nothing.
I didn’t tell him Ellie was ahead of me. I hoped we’d be able to talk first. I didn’t want her blundering in there on her own.
There was no reply from Tony. I tried to focus on what needed to be done, I felt sick whenever I thought of Meg. She worked with people like Tony Miller all the time. She knew what these guys were like. I had to trust that she’d be using her skills from work to keep him calm.
I heard the sound of a car horn. I’d veered across the carriageway into the path of an oncoming car while typing the message on my phone. I pulled the car back to my side of the road, cursing. I’d have the police after me if I wasn’t careful.
Making much more effort to focus on the road, I scrolled through my phone contacts and rang Alex. I placed my phone on the passenger seat and put it on speaker phone. At least I’d be able to focus while I was talking to her.
‘Pete, hi! Thank God you rang. I thought I’d never hear from you. Where are you?’
‘I’m driving over to see Tony Miller now. He hasn’t harmed Meg ... I don’t think he’s harmed her. The woman I slept with last night – sorry, Ellie, you know her name – she’s driving over there. She went ahead of me. What do you know, Alex?’
‘I’ve called some contacts, I can tell you what’s going on. There’s one body in the hotel, a kid called Jackson Deakin. Your guy, Tony Miller, had torn out the lining and concealed his body under the bed, that’s why it took a while to find him. Miller has a police record – your lady Ellie is named on there, no surprises with any of that I guess. They don’t know it’s Tony yet.’
‘Okay, we know that, it explains why the police took so long to find a body. What else?’
‘Meg hasn’t been placed in the room. They don’t know what’s gone on in there yet. Forensics will probably detect her eventually, but she’s not in the picture at the moment. They’ll find out it’s Tony Miller too, at least he’s known to the police already. It’s a hotel room, there’s all sorts of DNA in there ... it will take some time to process all that.’
‘You’ve seen this more times than I have, Alex. I take it you actually watch the reports on your TV show? What are the chances of Meg getting out of there unharmed with a nutter like Tony Miller on the loose? It’s Ellie he wants. However his crazy mind is working, Ellie is the one who can talk him down off the ledge. Has he ever hurt anyone before?’
‘Nothing on his record. It’s the usual thing. A loner. Lived with his mum. Mum died, he went a bit crazy. Forms unhealthy associations with women in the spotlight. He’s never hurt Ellie. Done some crazy stuff, but not hurt her. No sign of him hurting anyone else either. This Jackson lad is the first.’
‘I don’t want the police to know yet. I want to keep me and Ellie quiet as long as we can.’
‘Okay, so long as you’re sure? I talked to my pal in CID, he thinks it’s a hypothetical for a show idea, but the local cops could get someone round there very fast. Just give me the word.
‘I did one more thing, I hope you don’t mind. You remember that Special Forces guy we used to interview on the radio – when we were living ... when we lived in Manchester – Jason Davies. He’s watching your house. He lives half an hour away from you. He’ll see you when you go in. The minute you need him, he’ll be there. I’m texting you his number. Why don’t you dial into his phone when you go in? If you get in a scrape, he’ll be there in seconds.’
‘That’s good, Alex, that’s a great idea. He does know not to do anything until I get there? I don’t want him messing it up.’
‘He’s good, Pete. He’s there already, watching. It’s all quiet at the house, lights on. Meg’s car is in the drive, they used her vehicle to drive over.’
‘Okay, great, thanks Alex. I’m shitting bricks about this guy, he’s obviously got a screw loose. But Meg’s dealt with people like him before, she’ll know how to keep him calm. Ellie knows him too, not in a good way, but he’s never hurt her before. Do you think I’m doing the right thing – should I call the police?’
I never got my answer to that question. I was suddenly aware of two bright white headlights dazzling me. I swerved and undergrowth scraped all along the sides of the car as I veered off the road. The car came to an immediate and violent stop. The next thing I remember is coming round in the darkness, dazed and sore.
I can’t remember the number of road deaths that I’ve reported on the radio due to the misuse of mobile phones. It’s one of my pet peeves, alongside silly beards and vaping. Yet, ever the hypocrite, I was guilty of the crime that I so readily condemn others for.
Texting and driving at the same time. Not quite texting, but too busy concentrating on my phone call and not looking at the road. In the dark. On a wet, rural stretch of road. What a pillock! I got exactly what I deserved. We might have saved some lives that night if I’d pulled over to call Alex.
It was like waking up on holiday when you know something isn’t quite right, but you have to remember where you are to figure out what’s going on. My head was resting against the airbag when I woke up. I noticed I was dribbling first of all. All down the airbag.
I wiped my mouth. It was dark. Though my headlights were still on, I could see that I’d run off the road into an area of woodland. I could hear Alex’s voice: ‘Pete, are you okay? Pete? Pete?’
Slowly, my brain rebooted and I worked out what had happened. Shit, who had I nearly hit? Were they okay?
I started to move. I couldn’t feel any blood. I wriggled my fingers and I could move my feet. Thank God for that. Slowly I found the seatbelt button and released the strap. The car had come to rest at an angle, it was leaning downwards, I had to prise myself out carefully. It was difficult to get my footing.
I could still hear Alex on my phone. Where had it gone? Moving up the bank where the car had come to rest, I worked open the rear door. I could see the light from my phone, it had landed in the passenger area. I picked it up, putting it upside down to my mouth.
‘Alex, hi, I’m here. I just had a crash ...’
‘Bloody hell, Pete! Are you alright?’
‘Yeah, I’m just a bit dazed. I don’t know what happened to the other vehicle, I need to make sure they’re okay. This could make a mess of things if the police turn up. How long was I out?’
‘Not long. A couple of minutes maybe. I could hear you breathing, it sounded horrible from my end. You sure you’re okay?’
‘Yes, fine Alex, thanks. I need to find out what happened to the other people. I’m going to ring off, then I’ll call you back. Five minutes tops.’
I ended the call and began to orientate myself. I was standing in bracken. Wet bracken. Wherever I was, it was muddy and slippery. Great place to crash, Pete. I turned off the car engine – it was still running. I turned the lights off too, deciding to use the torch on my mobile phone to navigate my way back towards the road.
What had happened quickly became apparent. I’d veered off the road, across an overgrown grass verge and into a lightly wooded area. The car had gone down a small bank and hit a tree. I probably hadn’t even been out cold, just shaken for a bit I reckoned. The front of the car was crunched.
The road was quiet, I couldn’t see evidence of any other vehicle. Maybe the engine had stopped and they were out there in the darkness
somewhere. The light from the torch on my phone was not a lot of use, and there was no way I was going to be able to reverse my car out of the wooded area. That was going to require a tow truck. I’d report the incident to the police in the morning, tell them I got caught by a deer running across the road. Meg would be fine by then.
I couldn’t see anything on my side of the road, so I decided to cross over and take a closer look. There was nothing. No evidence of any vehicle there. I walked up and down, trying to figure out where the near collision had taken place. I found it soon enough. I could see tyre marks all over the verge. It looked as if they’d come to rest on the grass after swerving to avoid me. The little shits, though, they’d driven off and left me there. They might have checked to make sure I was okay.
Maybe they were pissed. Perhaps they had a reason for not getting involved. In the circumstances, that wasn’t so bad, but leaving me on the roadside in the dark was a scummy thing to do. I might have been dead. However, it was good that my car would go undiscovered. I couldn’t get a clear enough view in the darkness, but I reckoned I was deep enough into the trees to go unnoticed, even in daylight.
Okay, so nobody killed, nobody hurt. I needed to get my arse back to the house as soon as possible. I looked down at my phone. Two bars flickering to one bar, I was about to hit the dead zone in the journey across country. No data service available, so a quick check of Google Maps was out of the question.
My mind was still struggling to return to its normal ninja-like sharpness. I’d been shaken by the accident. I was wet and muddy and looked like a tramp. Not the best Saturday night out I’d ever had.
I needed to pee too. Desperately. The road was quiet enough to risk doing it there and then along the roadside. So I did. It seemed safe enough. I was in full flow when out of nowhere a set of car lights came on full beam, exposing me to the world in my urinating glory. There were calls of ‘Screw you, arsehole!’ and ‘Don’t tell me, it’s the cold that made it so small!’, the sound of a car horn, then the roar of an engine as a car sped off along the road into the distance.
I finished peeing and pulled up my flies. My phone was vibrating in my pocket. It would probably be Alex, wondering what was taking me so long, no doubt concerned that somebody had been hurt. It was Alex, but she had some worrying news.
‘Pete, you need to get home fast. I was trying to check in with Jason, he was telling me there was activity in the house—’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means that they’re still there, Meg’s still fine?’
‘That’s what I thought, but I’m really worried. Jason went to get closer to the house to see what was going on and now I can’t raise him on his phone. It just goes to voicemail.’
‘He’s probably turned his ringer off if he’s up close to the house. He’s special ops, he’s not going to get caught out by a Nokia ringtone!’
‘I know, I know. But he rang off when he said he heard raised voices. I’m worried, Pete, do you think we should let the police in on it? The last thing he heard was a woman’s voice shouting. She was urging someone to stop—’
The adrenalin kicked in, my mind sharpened once again. Things had got tense in the house – was Meg in danger? Had Ellie gone storming in? I tried to work out if she’d had enough time to reach the house.
‘Alex, what else did he say? Did he say who was shouting? Was Ellie there? Alex? Alex?’
Shit! I’d lost the signal. I’d hit the rural dead zone, where mobile phone signals go to die.
Chapter Thirteen
It was a strange time to be taking a trip down memory lane, but I remember being really calm when the phone signal died. I was in the middle of nowhere, it was only to be expected. I got one of those déjà vu moments, though, in spite of the stress of the situation. It was the rural location, it took me back in time to a place and moment many years previously.
It reminded me of a holiday that Meg and I had enjoyed in Cornwall, not so long after we were married. We were all loved up, our relationship problems had been a million miles away at the time.
Going to Cornwall had felt like driving to the end of the world. Just when you think you’re there, you discover that the long, sticky-outy bit takes forever to drive across. Why couldn’t they have stuck Penzance closer to the top, surely it would have been better for tourism?
This was the days before satnavs, or at least devices which were affordable by mortals. We thought nothing of reading maps then, in fact, it was part and parcel of a nice journey together. Meg would read the map and tell me which turn-offs to take. I loved listening to her voice as she outlined the turns and roundabouts coming up ahead, and we’d work together to navigate to the ends of the earth. Penzance.
We’d had a well-timed moment of excitement when we saw Falmouth signposted. It turned out we’d both nearly gone to college there. We were beginning to flag, we’d been on the road for close to seven hours by that stage. Meg spotted it on the map first, then the signposts started to appear.
‘I was going there to study journalism years ago,’ I announced, ‘but I didn’t fancy any of the girls in the prospectus.’
‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you?’ Meg had asked. ‘You seriously chose your college based on the pictures of the other students?’
‘Yes, there were some right uglies in the brochure. Universities need to learn to wheel out their best totty for the prospectus photo shoot. And I’m not being sexist here, I mean male and female totty. Didn’t you even consider the hotness of the guys?’
‘Never, you pervert!’
‘If I’m going to study somewhere, I don’t want to be stuck on the set of The Addams Family. Anyway, what put you off going there?’
‘Well, the distance for starters. I made the right call on that one, it’s bloody miles from where Mum and Dad live – lived.’
It was still catching her out. It’s hard to make adjustments when people die. Things stay the same in your mind, you have to keep reminding yourself that people are gone. Meg had told me early on that she’d lost her mum and dad really young. In her teens. It’s cruel that. She was an only child too. Her family just disappeared off the face of the planet, there had never been anybody for me to meet. There was nobody left except for some distant relatives whom she’d never met. I didn’t dwell on it, I was enjoying the conversation about Falmouth. It was a simple slip on her part, no big deal, she was enjoying the conversation too.
‘Now I think about it, Pete, my reason for not going is as ridiculous as yours. Only not quite so pervy!’
‘Go on then, why didn’t you go there? If you’d been in the brochure, there would have been at least one bit of totty on the prospectus and I’d have certainly gone to track you down. A hottie like you would pull in the crowds!’
Meg laughed, flattered I think that I always found her so attractive.
‘It was actually the photos in the prospectus that put me off. You must have noticed it too? It was the days before computer graphics and fancy software. But it was still crap. They’d got this photo of four students – two geeky blokes and two bland-looking girls—’
‘Ah, so you admit it! It does matter how people look!’
‘It’s true the guys didn’t do much for me, but it was more that they’d taken the same picture and stuck it in front of different backgrounds. Same students, same picture, terrible cutting out. But there they were. In the library, in the lecture theatre, in the college grounds. Looking exactly the same! It was like they only had four students in the whole place. It put me off. I went somewhere where the lecturers looked hotter!’
We laughed at that one. A silly thing, but it was very revealing. I hadn’t thought about it for years. There were a lot of harsh truths in that memory.
Most importantly, it showed how much we loved each other’s company. Sure, a lot of our relationship was based on sex and mutual attraction. I don’t see anything wrong with that, it’s only a problem if that’s all you have. Meg and I loved hanging together. We coul
d find joy in the simplest of things. A boring, seven-hour journey to Penzance? We should have been bitching at each other over Meg’s map-reading skills. But we didn’t. We found our pleasure in the simple things. The lack of sex was a symptom of our relationship difficulties. It was the closeness I was missing, the comfortable feeling of being with someone. I missed my pal. It had all got so serious. I wanted my best friend back. Maybe that’s what I’d seen in Ellie. Of course she was sexy, but she was easy company too.
I don’t think I’d ever made the connection before, and it was funny that it should take being stranded in the middle of nowhere and a random memory to make me realise it. I finally understood why Meg was so desperate for the baby. I saw why it was such a burning force in her, something that she felt we had to achieve. She felt exposed. She had nobody left. She was on her own. If we ever split up, she had no sisters or brothers to console her, no mum and dad to run to. It was only Meg. And she wanted to make a baby. With a child, there would be something more than her in the world. Of course, it was all the other reasons why people want to start families too. But I suddenly got it, the penny had finally dropped.
As I started walking along the roadside, checking my phone for a signal and looking behind me in the hope that a car or lorry might come along, I realised something that I should have thought about a little more carefully before I’d risked messing everything up by sleeping with Ellie.
I loved my wife deeply. I wanted to protect her and give her the child that she so desperately craved. I wanted more than anything to make her happy. Happy, like being in the car on the way to Penzance. Happy, like we’d been so many times in our lives. I’d been a dickhead sleeping with Ellie. I should have been working on my own relationship, not finding solace elsewhere with the first woman who gave me a smile and let me into her knickers.
Don't Tell Meg Trilogy Box Set Page 16