Don't Tell Meg Trilogy Box Set

by Paul J. Teague

  He kept thinking back to Meg’s face that night in the home. She had been pleading with him to intervene and he’d done nothing. Was he going to do nothing again? He didn’t know, he needed to sleep.

  Morning came too soon. He was awoken by Mavis. She was dressed already – he must have slept in. That was unusual for him.

  ‘There’s a phone call for you. Says it’s important. Bob Taylor, I think.’

  Thomas got out of bed and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t had enough time to think it through yet. If Bob wanted to talk to him about the inquiry, he’d need to keep quiet about his doubts for now.

  ‘Hi Bob, it’s Tom.’

  ‘Hi Tom. Sorry to ring you first thing on a Sunday but it’s important. It’s about the inquiry.’

  Of course it was. Thomas said nothing, just gave an uh huh to confirm that he was listening.

  ‘I’ve been, um, thinking it over,’ Bob began. ‘I’ve … er … I’ve changed my mind.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I ... I think we’re doing the wrong thing, Tom.’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘I think we’ve ... I’ve been too ... hasty. Yes, I’ve been too hasty.’

  ‘Did they get to you too?’ Thomas asked.

  Bob ignored him.

  ‘Look Tom, I know I came to you and said ... Look, I know it was my idea to start all of this. But I think it was wrong ... I didn’t actually see anything ... I shouldn’t have started it. I was annoyed with Gary ... I let it cloud my judgment ... I’m not going to take part in the inquiry.’

  ‘They came to see you last night, didn’t they?’ Thomas said.

  ‘Look Tom, I know I set the ball rolling with this. But I think it has to stop here, before it goes too far. Think of your family, Tom. The girls ... think of the girls. The children are the most important people in all of this. We’ve gone far enough. Whatever ... whatever it was they were doing – and I don’t know, I’m only guessing – whatever they were doing, it’ll stop now. Now they’re being watched. The children will be okay now ... won’t they? But we have to stop, Tom. Please.’

  Bob was going to betray the children. They’d got to him too. He hadn’t got the courage to face his bullies. Thomas didn’t know what to do. He listened to the hum of the line as he heard Bob Taylor stifling his tears at the end of the phone. They were going to abandon the youngsters at the Woodlands Edge children’s home. They were going to become forgotten children.

  ‘Where’s Ivy’s?’ Alex asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied, running the names of the various cafés through my head. They were not something that was on my radar in any particular way. I tended to stick to the chains.

  ‘I’ll take a look on my phone,’ Alex said. ‘Hopefully they’ll be online.’

  I turned the postcard over in my hand. Meg had written this. She’d touched it, thinking about me as she wrote it. She was ready now. It must have been my birthday that made her send it: the anniversary of me sleeping with Ellie, the event that started everything.

  We could talk at last, move on with our lives. And she wanted to introduce me to somebody. That had to be the baby. Was it my child or Jem’s?

  Immediately my thoughts began to taunt me. If it was my child, she’d have contacted me sooner. Why wouldn’t she? The only possible reason for delay had to be her finding out that it was that bastard Jem who’d fathered the child, forcing himself on her without consent. I still struggled to say the word ‘rape’, it was too painful. But that’s what he’d done: drugged and raped my wife. My best friend.

  I looked for clues on the postcard. Meg wouldn’t have known that our post was being collected and forwarded by the estate agent. She’d have expected to post it first class to arrive the next day. She wasn’t listening to the local radio station either, or she’d have known that I had followed her down to Blackpool. Blackpool was only two hours drive from the home that we used to share, she would have known that I would drop everything to attend that meeting with her at Ivy’s.

  Damn, she’d think I’d ignored her intentionally. Why didn’t she just send an email or something like that? A postcard. Only pensioners still use those. There was no address. Just a date, her note and signature. She’d added an X too. Was that her reaching out to me? I’ve never got used to the younger generation adding rows of Xs to notes and emails. It was something I saved for people I love.

  ‘Ivy’s is in the town centre,’ Alex said, looking up from her phone. ‘Shall we go? They might be able to help us, and at least we can leave a message for her there.’

  The doorbell rang. I went over to the window to see who was standing at the door below. Surely it wasn’t my friend from the finance company again? We’d paid him, he should be happy. Damn, I’d forgotten about the car. We’d have to do something about that or I’d lose a fortune paying for taxis.

  ‘I can’t see who it is,’ I said to Alex. The bell rang again. ‘I’ll go down. Probably some time-waster.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Alex said. ‘You need to rest. You’re going to screw up that leg of yours if you’re not careful.’

  Alex soon returned, chatting happily to our guest. It was DCI Kate Summers.

  I went to stand up to shake her hand, but got a terrible pain in my leg as I did so.

  ‘God, that hurt!’ I winced. ‘Sorry DCI Summers, you’ll have to settle for a hello.’

  She laughed.

  ‘I see you’re busy messing everything up again,’ she smiled at me. ‘Not content with a trail of carnage in your home town, I see you’re intent on making an impact in Blackpool.’

  ‘It’s beginning to feel like that. Look, I’m sorry I barged in on your meeting like that. I’m sorry if it embarrassed you. I know it was wrong. I was just so surprised to see you down here.’

  ‘Well, seeing as you stood me up yesterday, I thought I’d better come and see you first. And explain.’

  ‘How did you find me here?’ I asked.

  DCI Summers laughed again.

  ‘You’re a police officer’s dream,’ she said. ‘You leave a trail of crap wherever you go. Your fight with a bus was recorded in the log, and I did a check call to find out which hospital you were in. I got your address from the radio station. So here I am.’

  ‘Great detective work,’ I said. ‘It makes me feel safe just knowing you’re here. But why have you come?’

  ‘You’re not going to like this, Pete, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but they’re investigating your wife, Meg.’

  I collapsed back into the sofa. Here we were again. Meg. I looked at Alex. She’d sensed how I was feeling.

  ‘What now?’ I asked, after a silence.

  ‘I can’t give you all the details, Pete, but it’s why I’m down here consulting with the local constabulary. Meg is the connection – and, in a roundabout way, you too.’

  ‘Is this to do with the deaths?’ Alex asked.

  She was always on the mark with her incisive line of questioning.

  ‘Yes,’ DCI Summers replied. We know that Meg lived at the Woodlands Edge children’s home for a couple of years. We know that someone is killing off the old guys who were involved in an inquiry there in the nineties. She has to fall under suspicion.’

  ‘Does she know I’m here in Blackpool?’ I asked.

  ‘Look, Pete, you know I won’t tell you her address and I won’t be telling her yours. You know I can’t do that.’

  She paused before continuing.

  ‘I’m speaking to you because your name keeps coming up. Whoever we talk to, your name is usually in there somewhere: Bob Taylor, June Dodds, Steven Terry, Charlie Lucas, every one of them has mentioned your name. What’s going on, Pete?’

  I sighed and rubbed my hands across my face. Alex stayed quiet, looking between me and DCI Summers.

  ‘Where do I start?’ I replied. ‘As you say, it’s all about Meg. I’ve been trying to track her down. You know that. She’s done a great job of hiding from me. I’ve used all of my jou
rnalistic tricks, but she didn’t want to be found. I’ve been trying to get to know her a bit better. She kept a lot of secrets from me about her life before we met. We’ve been digging, and the more we dig, the more we find.’

  ‘Anything I need to know?’ she asked. ‘Last time you didn’t fill me in ... Well, both of you know how that ended. You two are like the two members of the Famous Five who never retired. You need to promise to let me know if you find anything. This is a murder investigation. You know how that all plays out, right? People get killed. You’ve seen it before. Twice already. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.’

  ‘Do you have any leads on the murders?’ Alex changed the subject. ‘I’m assuming they’re murders. They can’t be suicides?’

  ‘No, they’re murders alright,’ DCI Summers said, ‘and whoever is involved must have been connected with that home in some way. Did you know that Meg had a boyfriend who killed himself at the home, Pete? She must have told you that.’

  I felt ridiculous.

  ‘No, she never told me.’

  ‘You need to be careful, okay? Meg has a ... Look, Meg’s only involved because she was in care at the home. We’re working through anybody that we can trace who was in Woodlands Edge at the time. I’m down here because she got flagged on the computer system due to what happened last year. I’ll be heading back home after tonight and I’m not expecting them to need me again. My advice is to let the police do their job. Seriously, Pete, and you, Alex. You know how this ended last time. You know how it ended the last two times. Keep your noses out of it and let the police handle things. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Alex, looking at me with a straight face.

  ‘You buggers!’ DCI Summers said, looking between both of us.

  She knew as well as we did that we had no intention of backing off. We’d keep pushing and pushing until we got our conclusion. However things turned out.

  Alex and I were keen to get over to Ivy’s and speak to the staff there.

  ‘It’s almost a week since I was supposed to meet with Meg. I’m really pissed off about that postcard taking so long to reach me. What would you think if somebody was a no-show?’

  ‘I’d think you were a wanker!’ Alex teased. ‘Actually, I’d probably do exactly what you’re doing now: look at all the angles and figure out that I’d screwed something up, or convince myself you didn’t want to see me again. She says she knows what happened to you after she left. She must know that I was staying with you at the time; the papers will show her that. What did you tell her about us, Pete? I know I was always a touchy subject for Meg.’

  ‘You can say that again!’

  I stopped for a moment and thought. I’d felt embarrassed when DCI Summers had exposed how little I knew about my wife. Yet I hadn’t told her the full truth about my own past. She knew Alex and I were close. However, I’d missed out the bit about the pregnancy – and the miscarriage – and the living together. I’d convinced myself over and over again that it was irrelevant. Alex and I were history. We were still friends; we hadn’t had some spectacular break-up, but it was in my past. The past is the past. Maybe that’s what Meg had thought. Perhaps I was being too tough on her, expecting her to trawl up the unhappinesses of her childhood. Maybe I had been her chance to move on.

  ‘Did you ever talk to anybody about us?’ I asked Alex. ‘You know, the baby and everything?’

  ‘No. I think about it a lot, but I don’t talk to anybody. Why would I? I buried it. I didn’t deal with it at the time, and the longer you don’t talk about something like that, the harder it becomes.’

  ‘Do you think it affected us more than we thought?’ I asked. ‘Do you think we skimmed over it all too lightly? I wonder if we should have carried on with the counselling.’

  ‘I think the answer is probably yes, Pete. But it’s too late now. It’s done. It was a different time and we were different people back then. And you might have a child already. I know you’ve convinced yourself it’s Jem’s, but what if it is yours? What if you are a dad? You’d still be a lucky devil, if you ask me.’

  I did have a tendency to focus on the negative. Alex was right, this could all work out well for me. Once again, it depended on finding Meg. She wanted to get in touch with me now, and that was good.

  ‘Shall we get a taxi?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. And I’m taking care of the fare!’ Alex replied.

  As we walked down the stairs to meet the taxi, we passed the little shit from the upper floor.

  ‘Was that the pleece?’ he asked, not even bothering to say hello. ‘I know the pleece when I see ’em. Was she askin’ about me? What did the stupid bird ’ave to say?’

  I felt as if I’d walked onto the set of EastEnders. I’d never heard him speaking at a normal level. Shouting was his default volume.

  ‘Yes, she was from the police,’ I said, and then the devil in me made me follow up with a little lie. I wanted to piss off the little git.

  ‘She was responding to complaints from the neighbours about shouting. There are concerns about somebody getting a bit physical with their partner. I didn’t say anything, of course. I don’t need to say anything, do I?’

  I hoped I was doing his girlfriend a favour. Even if he played a bit nicer for a few days, it might help her.

  ‘Fuckin’ pigs!’ was all I got, and he stomped up the stairs.

  ‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ Alex said. ‘That poor girl has to take control of the situation herself. She’ll have to walk away from it. There’s nothing you can do. She’ll keep going back to him until he finally grinds her down.’

  I knew she was right, but I wanted to help her. Short of kicking the shit out of that guy, any attempt at which was unlikely to end well for me, I’d just have to let it run on.

  I’d passed Ivy’s many a time but I was completely blind to it. Now a coffee shop, it looked like it had started life as a run-of-the-mill café. It wasn’t the kind of place that I’d frequent, so I’d blanked it out.

  ‘Shall we get a drink?’ I asked Alex. ‘My leg is hurting after being crammed in the back of that car, and I could do with a sit down.’

  We placed our orders and looked around the place. The proprietor was called Ivy Davies. I wondered if she was an absent owner or if she actually worked there. The girl that had served us was young, eighteen or nineteen maybe, she seemed a bit vague to be of any help.

  I checked my phone.

  ‘Can you see a Wi-Fi code anywhere?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s a sign by the counter. You have to ask for the code,’ Alex replied, pointing to the location of the poster.

  I walked up to the counter, my leg still sore, and asked the girl for the code.

  ‘I’ll have to check,’ she said.

  She poked her head around the swing door to the kitchen.

  ‘Ivy, there’s a man out here wants to know the password for the internet. What is it?’

  I heard a ‘Just one moment, luv!’ from the kitchen, and then a much older woman, probably in her mid-to-late sixties, stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth.

  ‘Are you the gentleman wanting the Wi-Fi password?’ she asked.

  I nodded. She beckoned me over and whispered the password conspiratorially.

  ‘It’s P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D,’ she whispered, ‘but keep that to yerself. We don’t want any of those cider criminals hacking in or whatever it is they do.’

  I almost burst out laughing, but managed to keep a straight face. I suspected that the Russians would have already managed to infiltrate the coffee shop’s security systems.

  ‘Are you Ivy Davies?’ I asked, eager to get back to the table to share my new password anecdote with Alex.

  ‘Yes, that’s me. Can I help you?’

  ‘I was supposed to meet a lady called Meg Bailey here last Wednesday. You might know her as Meg Yates. Do you know her? Is she a regular here?’

  Ivy looked blank for a few moments. Then her eyes lit
up.

  ‘You mean Meg Stewart. Yes, I know Meggy. I’ve known Meggy since she was a teenager. You’re not the reason she was so upset last week, are you?’

  ‘I think I might be. We were supposed to meet here last Wednesday, only I didn’t get her message. Do you know where she lives? I want to get in touch with her.’

  Ivy’s expression changed.

  ‘You’re not one of those reporter fellows who come round here fishing for information, are you? If you are, you can buzz off now. I don’t want you troubling Meggy anymore. She’s had quite enough of your type!’

  ‘No, honestly, I’m Meg’s husband, Pete – or Peter. Did she mention me?’

  ‘I learned a long time ago not to pry into Meggy’s private life, and if you ask me, a lot of folks these days would do well to follow her lead. But she didn’t mention any husband. What did you say your name was? Peter, was it? The only person I ever heard her talk about that that young David, the poor boy who hanged himself. That was a terrible business. And her so young, too.’

  I nodded. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about, but thought it was probably one of the lads who’d died at the home, perhaps even the boy that DCI Summers had mentioned.

  ‘Would you be prepared to give her a message from me? If I leave my address and contact details, would you pass it onto her?’

  I leant over the counter to grab the pen left by the waitress and scribbled my details onto a paper napkin. I handed it to Ivy who studied it.

  ‘Ooh, that’s a rough spot if you’re living there. Full of unemployed people who don’t want to do a day’s work. I’m not so sure I’d want her walking around there with that new baby of hers. Gorgeous little thing he is.’

  I sensed Alex looking over in my direction. She was clearly dying to know what we’d been talking about.

  ‘What’s the baby’s name?’ I asked.

  ‘Tommy – Tom, she called him. After her father. Now that was a sorry affair too. Poor girl. I hope you’re not going to be causing her any trouble, not now she’s found that young man and all?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, suddenly jealous and concerned. Had Meg moved on? Already?