‘You’re going to try and wriggle out of it, you bastard! Come on, it’s me. I’m dying to see you again, Pete. What have you got to hide?’
The truth was, I had a lot to hide. However, I was ready for some easy company. Alex knew me of old, it would be great to see her again. There’s only so much time you can spend in the company of work colleagues, fat blokes in bars and single mums. Eventually you need real company, a friend, and that’s what Alex was offering. I’d missed that easy companionship since Meg went.
‘Oh bollocks, okay then, but you know that I’m living in a static caravan don’t you? You’ll get none of your celebrity lifestyle up here. It’s all beer, litter on beaches and bad internet connections where I live. Although I do hear a rumour that Stephen Fry is thinking of moving in.’
Alex burst out laughing and that darn towel dropped down a few more tantalising centimetres. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d say that she was doing that on purpose. Intentional or not, it was making me think back to our life together. It was so long ago. We were much younger then. She probably wouldn’t even fancy me, I’d got a bit wider around the waist and I’d abandoned the gym some years ago. I was still in good nick compared to other blokes my age, but I wasn’t the young buck that she’d once known.
She looked hotter than ever, mind you. Alex had improved with age. I guess it was the expectations of a life spent on TV. No saggy bits or dark circles under the eyes allowed. She had to keep in shape and look her best. A few days on a static caravan site would probably be a nice change for her.
‘Okay, okay, you’ve ground me down. When are you coming?’
‘Last show wraps Thursday night at ten o’clock, and there’s a debrief meeting on Friday. How about I hop on the train at Euston and join you on Saturday morning before lunch? Do I need to bring anything?’
‘Those times work fine for me, and no, don’t bring anything. I’ll pay for guest service over the weekend; they’ll deliver towels and extra bedding. I’ve got two spare rooms here. I’ll move all my crap out of one of them. It’ll be good to see you.’
‘Don’t put yourself to any trouble, Pete. We’ve shared a bed before, and I’m quite happy to go top-to-tail if we need to. You don’t still fart like you used to, do you? Actually, maybe I will have that separate room!’
We both burst out laughing, remembering some of the fun we used to have together, and I caught a momentary glimpse of nipple as Alex moved backwards and forwards.
As it turned out, she would share my bed again. But not before I met Rebecca.
I had a couple of days before Alex’s visit, and the more I thought about it, the more appealing it became. I started planning some of the things that we could do while she was staying with me, it would be good to catch up. After Meg, Alex knew more about me than any other person. We’d spent five years of our younger lives together. Even if it hadn’t worked out for us, that counts for something.
My static caravan needed a makeover before she arrived. She was always the tidier half of our relationship. The spare rooms were packed with boxes, I’d need to move them over to the self-storage warehouse where all my other belongings were kept.
I’d been surprised by how little of life’s crap I actually needed after Meg left. The caravan came equipped with all the basics: beds, cooker, microwave, TV, kettle. Once I’d got my clothes, toiletries and tech, that was all I needed.
I’d brought much more than was necessary for such a small space, so Alex’s visit would give me the boot up the butt that I needed to clear it all out. The advantage of working the early shift is that you get an afternoon that you can use productively. I did exactly that, leaving the office promptly and heading straight back home. Home was now the caravan park. I’d long ceased to make my way back to Ashbourne Drive on autopilot.
It had taken a few months to lose that habit. I’d finish my shift and jump into my car, with thoughts of Meg and home on my mind. A couple of times I even got as far as the drive before I realised my mistake. I never wanted to enter that house again. I’d got my stuff and then let the clearance guys move everything out to the storage units. I didn’t want to know, it was too painful. I gave them instructions for gathering together the junk that was now sitting in the boxes in my two spare rooms, but didn’t go back again. I’d paid people to take care of it all, it’s why I was so short of cash, but I knew I’d be okay again, once the house was sold and I was back on my feet.
I’d barely even opened the boxes that I’d loaded into the back of my car. They were full of books, paperwork and the stuff of life, but everything was online nowadays and I didn’t need most of it anymore. I read books on my smart phone, kept my bank accounts in the cloud, and watched TV on demand from Netflix. There was nothing holding me to that city, I could walk away whenever I wanted, start afresh and forget the past.
I loaded up the last box into the back of the car, slammed the boot shut and set off for Boxed In, the warehouse where my old life had been locked away for the past six months. As I got closer to the industrial estate, I found myself getting nervous. I’d never even been to the storage unit, all I had was a key and a unit number.
It wasn’t what I’d expected at all. It was a vast space, lined with storage rooms in all sizes. Each had a solid green metal door and a locking mechanism which looked pretty secure. I hadn’t got a clue where my unit was, so I signed in and asked the chap at reception to guide me through the maze.
‘Hello, Mr Bailey!’ he said cheerily. I knew what was coming. He’d heard me on the radio. There would be no anonymity here.
‘I was only listening to you on the radio this morning. Thanks for using our service. Anytime you want to give us a mention ...’
How many times had I heard that one? I don’t know what he thought it would do for his business. A mediocre local mini-celebrity, one step up from the High Street butcher, mentioning a storage warehouse. Did he think that all of a sudden the entire population of the city would hear my words, realise that they’d got a load of junk that needed to be stored more effectively, and beat a path to his door? People have funny ideas about the power of TV and radio. Sure, some things take off, but Boxed In Ltd was unlikely to be one of them.
I exchanged pleasantries and tried to steer him off the scent. He didn’t take the hint.
‘Terrible business with you and your missus,’ he persisted. ‘So many people dying, it was a tragedy. Shocked the whole city it did. It must be hard to keep your life going after all that?’
I didn’t take the bait, instead I made non-committal responses and tried to remember where in the maze of storage rooms my own unit was located.
‘There you are, Unit 205!’ he announced.
I was damned if I could work out where we were, the place was huge. I could make no sense of the numbering system. You could get lost in there for days. My guide through the labyrinth hovered for a while, no doubt hoping that he’d get a look inside. I made it clear that it was time for him to get lost, in a nice way of course, and he finally took the hint.
I felt in my pocket for the key. There were several different sizes of storage room, and I’d got one of the bigger ones. No wonder it was costing me an arm and a leg. If Meg would only make up her mind what was happening with us, we could move on, divide it all up, throw it on the fire, whatever.
I inserted the key into the heavy padlock and opened the clasp. The door slid upwards, like a garage door. It was dark, and I could just make out the silhouettes of my former life. I looked around for a light switch. It was right next to me. The storage unit lit up.
My life with Meg came rushing at me at great speed. A lot of furniture had been thrown out and destroyed. Our bed, for instance. It was soaked with the blood of Tony Miller, nobody would ever be sleeping on that again. One of the settees had gone too, the one covered in the blood of Jason Davies. I got a flashback to the moment when I’d found his body, his throat slit, his head pounded by a baseball bat. I wanted to be sick. I’d begun to put those images beh
ind me, now they were back with me once again.
The second sofa was to my left, piled with boxes. It had borne witness to everything that went on in the house that night ... the stories it could tell.
I needed a break, it had been overwhelming to see all my stuff again. I headed back to the office at the entrance of the warehouse, taking a long detour along the way as I made wrong turns and kept hitting dead ends. You needed a sat nav to get around that place.
The guys in the office found a trolley for me and I loaded my boxes from the car onto it. After two trips, all my stuff had been moved into the storage area.
I’d settled down a bit since first seeing all of our belongings stuffed into that one place. It had been a shock, much more than I’d expected, but it was over, the nightmare had ended six months previously. I offloaded the boxes and played the inevitable game of cardboard-box Tetris that was required to squeeze it all in. There was no way I was going to move up to a bigger storage area, it was costing me enough already.
After a while, it became evident that there was no way I was going to get everything inside, not without a reshuffle. The removal guys had thrown it in, they didn’t give a toss whether it had been done in the most sensible way. This job was going to take longer than I’d thought.
I moved the boxes out into the corridor to give me the space to organise things a bit more strategically. There was nobody in the warehouse, it was all quiet. Like me, most people dumped their junk, locked the doors and seldom came back. I wondered if anybody would even notice if everything got sent to the tip.
I began to come to boxes which I hadn’t seen before. They’d been packed by the removal guys, and I hadn’t got a clue what was inside them. My curiosity was aroused, and I started to open up the flaps to get a sense of what was inside. There would be stuff in there which had been in the loft for ages, things that had been long forgotten by Meg and me.
I started to open up boxes and rummage around inside them. I hadn’t got a clue what I would find. It was the proverbial Aladdin’s cave, only there was no gold or precious jewels, only endless heaps of junk that should have been thrown out years ago. Then I came across a box packed with things I’d never seen before. Most of it was rubbish: childhood toys, musty old Enid Blyton books, birthday cards which seemed to increase from age six to seventeen years old. But tucked at the bottom was an old shoebox with two elastic bands around it to keep the contents safe inside. I opened it up and found a bundle of photographs. I’d never seen any of this stuff. It all belonged to Meg. She’d never shared any of it with me before.
Chapter Three
She looked directly towards his smart phone, which he’d propped up along the skirting board, directly opposite.
‘You filmed it. Good,’ she said, as he got up from his kneeling position and hoisted up his trousers, then buckled his belt once again. She took a moment to tidy herself up, pulling her short skirt down from around her waist. Downstairs they could hear Melissa Drake finishing her call to the office.
‘Am I too flushed?’ she asked, as he switched off the video recorder on his smart phone. They’d watch that later, on the HD TV. It would become a part of their personal porn collection. It might even make it to one of the porn websites, depending on how visible her face was. For regular videos they used masks, the Venetian kind, the type people wore at masquerade balls. She always kept a couple by the bed, it was a thing of hers. He didn’t mind. The hotter she was, the better, as far as he was concerned. Sometimes she’d tell him to put on a mask. He’d know then that the camera was coming out. It was getting uploaded to a website. It would be another of their secrets; it gave him a thrill to think of strangers getting off on watching them together.
‘Have you got a tissue?’ she asked, hearing the sound of Melissa’s footsteps as she made her way up the stairs. He handed her one and she swiftly wiped herself down. She finished straightening her skirt as Melissa re-entered the main bedroom. He distracted her, seeing that his companion needed a moment to cool off. She looked out the window, pretending to survey the garden.
‘I’ve not been able to raise Mr Elliott – Glenn – I’m afraid, but if you can leave me a mobile phone number, I’m sure that he’ll get back to me as soon as possible. I really don’t see a problem with dropping the price slightly. It’s been on the market for a long time, and I think the owner is keen to get rid of it.’
‘It was a terrible business. We saw the news reports at the time. What a shock for the poor bloke. Does he still live locally?’
He had the answer already. They knew exactly where Pete Bailey was living. He didn’t expect Melissa to tell him, she was too professional and old school to make such a rookie error, but he wanted her to think that they were deadly serious about buying the property.
Nowadays you could find most people from the information that was freely available online. Pete was easy. They knew where he worked. It had been all over the papers at the time, the journalists had loved that one. He was one of their own. He was on the radio most days, and they could be sure of his whereabouts when he was broadcasting live. They’d followed him home from work one day, and he’d led them directly to the Golden Beaches Holiday Park. That’s all they needed: mobile home pitch, car number plate and work location. All they had to do was to wait and watch.
‘Yes, he’s still local,’ Melissa answered, ‘but I think he’ll be moving on after all this. Poor chap, it’s a lot to happen to one man.’
The woman turned around, she could feel the flushing in her face had subsided. She’d been standing there at the window, thinking about what they’d done. In that house, the murder place, where it had all happened. Pete would come next. They knew where he lived, and now they’d seen the house itself, she was desperate to move on with her plan.
‘Is anybody else interested at the moment?’ the woman asked. ‘What’s the competition like?’
Melissa thought that she was looking a bit hot and bothered. She’d put the boiler on when she’d arrived to take the chill off the place, maybe it was running a bit high.
‘In actual fact, somebody else will be coming around later today. The office mentioned it to me a few minutes ago. I won’t be doing the viewing, it’ll be Glenn, but I’ll make sure I speak to him before he sees them. If you want to put an offer in, yours would take priority, of course. What sort of price are you thinking of?’
They’d both done this before. Estate agents were easy. It was simply a matter of dropping the offer below the asking price: not so low that it would be rejected out of hand, high enough to show that they were serious. They didn’t want to be seen as time-wasters or carpet-treaders. The woman looked at her companion.
‘I was thinking maybe £3,000 below the asking price?’ she suggested.
‘Yes, something like that. I reckon we’d have to paint through, and the garden needs sorting out. How about £4,000 below asking price, but we’d go to £3,000 if he knocked us back? Do you think that will work?’
Melissa tried to contain her excitement. As an estate agent, she was playing her own games. Glenn Elliott had been back in the office when she rang, but she wasn’t going to tell them that. She needed to leave them hungry. She had to sow the seed of doubt that they might not get the house. It was true that somebody else was coming to look around later, but she sensed that these two were hot to trot. All of her antennae as an estate agent were vibrating, she could feel that an offer was imminent.
‘I think you’re in the right ballpark, I’m very confident that the vendor will be interested in that offer.’
‘May we take a look out the back?’ he asked, glancing briefly at his female companion before he spoke. Melissa didn’t spot the signal, but then she wasn’t ready for it in the way the woman was.
‘Of course, of course,’ Melissa replied, feeling in her pockets for the keys. ‘Let’s head downstairs and I’ll open up the back door. It’s a bit stiff, I think. The handover notes for the house say it needs a good shove to get it open. The sooner
somebody’s living in this place again, the better, if you ask me.’
They walked downstairs and Melissa struggled to open the door.
‘Here, let me help,’ he said, moving in to assist.
‘I can’t budge it,’ she said. ‘Thanks, see if you can get it open.’
‘I see you put the boiler on,’ the woman said, distracting Melissa. ‘Is it playing up or does it seem to be working okay?’
This was his cue. While Melissa gave the usual reassurances about the boiler, he slipped one of the keys off the metal ring on which they were stored. There were plenty of keys on there, along with duplicates – they’d be in and out of the key cabinet in the office all day. He gave the door a pull and it came open.
‘Ah, well done!’ said Melissa. She led the way outside. The woman followed, the man held back. He was making sure that he’d left them a spare back door key, when Melissa popped her head around the door. She almost caught him moving the coloured key covers around so that they’d think it was a key from another property that had been lost. He smirked as he thought of the confusion that he was about to subject them to. Somebody in the office would be in real trouble when they realised that one of their keys had been misplaced.
‘Everything alright, Mr Simpson?’
He covered up his tracks.
‘Yes, no problem. I was taking a closer look at this door to see if I could make it easier for you next time you’re doing a viewing. It’s actually a hinge problem rather than a damp problem. I’ve tightened the screw using the edge of one of these keys. That should do the job until we can get workmen into the place.’
He’d said exactly the right thing. It’s what all estate agents look for. The minute viewers start talking about a house as if they’re already in there, it’s as good as sold.
Don't Tell Meg Trilogy Box Set Page 27