Chain Reaction

by Gillian White

  His mum said tearfully, ‘I know Jody, and my son is not capable of such an act.’ They ignored her. They yawned and examined their fingernails.

  No, Jody Middleton was a rapist as far as they were concerned, and that was that.

  A roar of hate and a spray of hisses and stones thrown by the idle and the curious had followed the van after his first appearance in court. The vengeance of the masses.

  And now he has witnessed a murderer about his gruesome business, but there’s no one to talk to, no one who’ll listen, no one who is as afraid and lonely as Jody Middleton, fugitive, aged eighteen and a half years old.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Grange, Dunsop, Nr Clitheroe, Lancs

  ‘HOW VERY DIFFERENT IT is when we’re dealing with one of your friends,’ sneers Jacy when Belle comes white-faced off the phone. ‘A totally different ballgame.’

  Belle gasps at the nerve of the man. ‘Poor Peaches is nothing like your friends! She’s never in trouble of any kind, not for as long as I’ve known her, and she doesn’t deal in mindless drama and hysteria as a way of life. If Peaches says she’s in danger then she’s in danger, so I won’t come to London with you today, but if you want a lift hurry up because I want to leave right away to pick her up from the station. As it is she’s hiding in the Ladies’. She says she thinks people are after her. It’s crazy, completely crazy! Why on earth would anyone be stalking Peaches with evil intent?’

  But Jacy, caught up with his own immediate and highly important agenda, hasn’t the time to stop and chat for it is this morning he sets off for London with Cyd and Darcy, to the studios in Shepherd’s Bush owned and run by the great, the worshipful Walter Mathews with his garden parties beside the Thames. Today Jacy’s fate will be decided. And Belle’s, too, though he’s sure she doesn’t know it yet.

  ‘Probably some sort of breakdown,’ he says. ‘We don’t want her here. Not now. Not just when everything is about to take off. We don’t want the press coming around and finding some woman weeping in the flower beds.’

  ‘You selfish fool, Jacy! You’re telling me the press would be more appalled to find an unhappy Peaches, than your two mindless cretins snorting God knows what in the greenhouse. Pack it in. Peaches needs me, and I’ve already promised her she can stay with me for as long as she likes.’

  ‘Whose house is it? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  Jacy is in the bedroom getting prepared for his big day. If he takes much longer he will miss the train and Belle’s not going to hang around and wait all morning. Peaches is waiting, hiding in the Ladies’, and Belle is impatient to be off. ‘Stop preening. Do take that moronic look off your face, you look fine, just fine. And don’t disturb your hair again, it’s great as it is.’

  Jacy has done his best but if only he’d stop moistening his lips and screwing up his eyes. He’s wearing silk this morning—a buttermilk silk shirt with flouncy sleeves and a tight pair of black leather jeans with an Indian-style jerkin and an excess of Indian jewellery round his neck, on his fingers, round his waist and through his ears. The Big Chief turned civilised? Belle thought twice about telling him he looked like a cloned Gary Glitter. That would only throw him into total disarray and hold them up for another half-hour. He’d gone out and bought male make-up, and coloured hair gel for men, and she’d had to stop him laying it on too thickly so he was left with an orange ring round his neck as though he hadn’t washed for weeks. Still, some of the lines on his face are less prominent, and he’s almost erased the bags beneath his eyes. He does look better, if slightly powdery. And that old sparkle is back in his eyes.

  ‘Does it really matter what you look like?’ she asks. ‘Surely it’s the sound you make they’re going to be interested in.’

  ‘You know naff all about it.’

  For everyone’s sake Belle hopes this highly risky exercise proves worthwhile. It does seem an extraordinarily lucky break, but only based on Cyd’s word. Perhaps this Mathews guy mentioned the matter in passing, hoping to get Cyd off his back and out of his garden, not expecting to be taken seriously for one moment. Misreading the signals—that would be typical of Cyd.

  Give them their due, they’ve worked at it single-mindedly since the day Cyd and Darcy arrived. They are all as desperate as each other to find fame and fortune again, and why not? Belle was excluded as she’d known she would be, the coffee-maker, the washer-upper, while the talented trio went through their paces. She was supposed to sit and listen, but only allowed to give praise, no negative criticism. They worked all night sometimes, in order to have enough material prepared for a serious recording session. There was such a short amount of time; they’d been so hastily summoned. Belle is torn between hoping for the best for Jacy’s sake, or the worst, for her own. She has begun to worry that she might not be able to cope with another six years of Jacy hell-bent on self-destruction.

  ‘I’m scared,’ he confessed last night, back from the loo for a third time. ‘Really shit-scared.’

  ‘You’re bound to be frightened with so much at stake. But just remember, I love you whatever happens. It makes no difference to me what you do. It’s you I care about, and I swear I always will.’

  Was that honestly true, or habit, she’s so used to saying it? She held him, she rocked him like a baby until he finally slept.

  All she wants to do is marry Jacy, live in a cosy house and raise a family. She’s done everything else, so has he, been there, got the T-shirt, and it wasn’t much of a place. Another bout of wild living like the last one would be bound to kill poor Jacy. Or maybe it would be different a second time round… especially with a wife and children. He has been to hell and back so perhaps he has learned his lesson.

  But Peaches’ alarming phone call put most of this out of her mind as she hung around in the hall for the three stooges to present themselves. Hurry up, for God’s sake, hurry! She imagines Peaches’ terrified face, looking out for her. She’s obviously worked herself up into believing something quite paranoid, God knows why or who put it into her silly little head. Belle wouldn’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t something to do with that smarmy, superior jerk she arrived with to view The Grange. She’s often wondered since that short visit exactly what that relationship was. She’d nearly laughed out loud when Dougal called Peaches his fiancée. However, the sale of The Grange seems to be going through OK, according to the solicitors, so, baffling though it is, Peaches and her odd companion must have decided in its favour.

  Jacy, of course, is now all mixed up as to whether they need to sell or not. ‘What if I start bringing in the readies again? I need somewhere to live in style. The last thing I want is for people to know that I live in a Close.’

  That same old chestnut again. Belle had lost patience with it. ‘You needn’t tell anyone where you live.’

  ‘They’ll find out,’ he said quickly, with his egotistical logic. ‘They’ll certainly want to know if we ever get huge like we were.’

  Huge? ‘Listen. You mustn’t hope for too much this time, Jacy.’

  He turned and looked at her with such withering scorn she kept her mouth shut after that.

  So, he has decided to wear his boots with the snakes on. Fair enough; Belle’s not going to comment. Even Cyd and Darcy have managed to make themselves look presentable, interesting anyway—especially the way Cyd is toting that leather handbag—a miracle of sorts thanks to decent haircuts, new outfits and a generous number of hot baths.

  Belle chases to the station. In terms of the red Jeep she drives, that means reaching forty miles an hour on the long straight stretches of road. She hurries more from worry over Peaches’ mental condition than to get the boys to the train on time. She was planning to go with them, for support, as usual—someone to find the carriage number, fetch the drinks from the buffet, grab a taxi at the other end—but as soon as Peaches phoned, all that went by the wayside and to be honest, Jacy hadn’t seemed overly disappointed. Perhaps he’s grown up now. Perhaps he feels he can cope without me, thou
ght Belle, with a mixture of worry and relief.

  She drops them off with cries of, ‘Good Luck! Phone me!’ parks the Jeep and hurries straight to the Ladies’. No sign of Peaches. People come and go, give Belle some strange looks—what’s she doing loitering in here? She can’t pretend to do her hair one more time. One cubicle remains locked, Belle notices. Either someone in there is very ill, or—no, surely not—it can’t be Peaches?

  Belle knocks on the door with some trepidation, and calls softly, in case it is a stranger. ‘Peaches?’

  A pause. Then a breathless, ‘Tusker, is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me! Come on, let’s go and get a drink. You must be in desperate need of one.’

  ‘I’ve been here since I phoned you,’ says Peaches, creeping nervously out, as if she’s afraid that Belle is not Belle at all but some clever mimic determined to fool her. Her large blue eyes are terrified and, having assured herself that Belle is no impostor she flings herself into her friend’s waiting arms and hangs there limply, like a frightened child after a nightmare.

  ‘Oh Tusker, Tusker, thank God, I thought I wasn’t going to make it.’ And Belle can see in the mirror that Peaches is searching the white-tiled room over her shoulder with darting eyes. Peaches’ heart is thudding hard. Belle takes her scared little friend’s cold hand and she grips it. ‘We can’t stop here for a drink. We have to move on at once before their people spot me…’

  ‘Their people? What is this?’ Belle thought that Jacy was paranoid but this takes the biscuit. She tries to laugh it off. ‘Have you got yourself involved in an espionage ring? Or are you laundering drugs for the Mafia?’

  ‘Worse,’ cries Peaches dramatically. ‘Stop talking, we’re wasting time. Quick, you go, I’ll follow.’

  So bemused is Belle by the overpowering fear of her friend that she doesn’t stop to ask more questions. She sets off across the concourse, sympathetically keeping to the walls which she senses Peaches needs to do, and heads directly for the car park. ‘I’ll get in the back and lie down on the floor,’ says Peaches, still wide-eyed and hysterical.

  This is bizarre. Something is very wrong. Has Peaches flipped her lid? Does she need serious medical attention? Could she even be dangerous? Belle attempts to study her friend in the driving mirror but there’s no sign of her.

  ‘Don’t speak, just drive,’ commands Peaches. ‘I’ll try and put you in the picture, and then you tell me what you think.’

  ‘Let me just ask one question first. Do Charlie and Mags know you’re here?’

  ‘Nobody knows,’ says Peaches intriguingly. ‘At least, I hope nobody knows. You didn’t tell anyone, did you?’

  Damn. So Belle is on her own with this. She had hoped Charlie and Mags might know what is going on. Perhaps Peaches’ parents know, they were always a very close family, or has she cunningly concealed her mental condition from everyone? Perhaps there’s some simple answer. Belle must reassure her, it’s best to reassure the mad. ‘Only Jacy, and he’s far too concerned with his own self-importance to take anything in just now. He’s probably already forgotten you’re coming.’

  ‘He’s not here?’ asks Peaches.

  Belle attempts to sound firm and sensible. ‘There’s no one at home but me.’

  “Thank God. Oh, thank God.’

  Askance, Belle listens to Peaches’ tale of love as she drives along. The voice from the floor at the back often breaks, and pauses while tears take over. Bastard, thinks Belle, when she realises the extent to which her gentle friend has been used and discarded. What the hell were Mags and Charlie doing, to let her get involved with such people in the first place? She is angry beyond belief, stabbed by pity and righteous indignation to discover that even now the foolish Peaches believes that James Henry Albert still wants her; in spite of the news of the royal engagement, in spite of the fact that he has not been in touch with her for weeks, or answered any of her letters or phone calls.

  Some women are so sad, thinks Belle, unable to see herself in this bracket at all.

  Peaches’ sinister conclusions are a difficult and complicated matter. Yes, Belle can see that it does look odd to make an appointment at an expensive clinic under the circumstances, but then again, surely no one would dare to carry out such a foolhardy plan…

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought at first,’ Peaches admits, her voice coming muffled from the back, almost lost by the revving of the Jeep’s unhealthy engine. ‘I thought I was going insane, probably affected by the shock of seeing them together like that. I sat and thought for ages, really I did, and then I started to get scared, knowing how powerful these people are, the things you read about Secret Services and what goes on behind the scenes, stuff ordinary people know absolutely nothing about. And then I thought, how easy it would be—just a prick in the arm and you’re asleep, and you wake up not pregnant any more. Or worse, they could be planning even more ghastly things for me. What if they shut me up for good? They could inject me with powerful mind-bending drugs and get me certified…’

  ‘Steady. I think that’s probably going a bit over the top.’

  ‘Why? There’d be very little risk when you think about it, and I’ve had loads of time to do that, all the way here in the train. Mummy and Daddy have no idea that I’m pregnant—’

  ‘But Charlie and Mags…?’

  ‘They’d never dare make a fuss once they realised what had happened to me. They’d be terrified. And they didn’t know about my appointment at the private clinic, either. All that would happen is that I’d lose my baby, a common enough event at this early stage, and if they locked me away, well, the doctors could say whatever they liked—that I’d made up the whole story about Jamie and me in my deluded state. Everyone would say how sad. And I’d be so befuddled with drugs I wouldn’t even know what was going on.’

  ‘Dear God,’ says Belle. ‘This is unbelievable. I just don’t know what to think.’ But Belle does realise the enormity of the threat to the Royals if the press should get hold of Arabella’s story. Do such awful things as Arabella’s imagining really go on in this country today? It’s hard to tell. Perhaps they ought to go to the press, not for blackmail purposes but for immediate protection. At least the press, unlike the police or the services, are independent—or are they?

  ‘The important thing is for me to see Jamie,’ says Peaches stupidly, as they pull up and park outside The Grange. ‘Whatever is happening I know that Jamie himself can’t know anything about it. He’d never do anything cruel or unkind.’ And then Peaches hesitates before she makes her staggering request. ‘You live so much nearer, Tusker, I though you might be able to get me there.’ As Belle alights from the Jeep, Peaches changes the subject again as if she’s afraid she has gone too far too soon. The old terror is back in her voice. ‘You get out and look round, and if the coast is clear I’ll follow you.’

  As the truth dawns, Belle listens to her old schoolfriend with mounting horror. It’s good there’s no one at home so they can sit on cushions as they did in the old days in Matron’s sitting room, playing the old music… nothing of Jacy’s for once… and eating sticky popcorn while Arabella goes on and on about the depths of her love for James, about the sinister Sir Hugh Mountjoy and his threats in the Brighton tea rooms, about the pressure she is under to move into The Grange. ‘In spite of the fact that I consistently refused unless I could speak to Jamie first, they carried on with the purchase,’ she moans. ‘Dougal Rathbone is on the phone every day asking me what I’ve decided and telling me time is at a premium. Now, of course, I see why. All the time they were plotting to many him off to this horsey creature just because it’s convenient Establishment politics. And I can’t bear it, Tusker. I just can’t bear it.’

  ‘And you expect me to run you up to Scotland so we can confront him? How on earth d’you think we could possibly achieve that?’

  ‘Church,’ answers Peaches swiftly, ‘the Sunday ritual. Every Sunday morning They go to church. They don’t bother with too much security there
. All the locals worship Them—well, they would do, as most of them depend on Them for their bread and butter.’

  ‘What would you do if you did get anywhere near him?’

  ‘I’d make a scene,’ says Peaches determinedly. She has obviously thought this all through. ‘Then the press would see and the thing They are all so ashamed of would be out in the open. There’d be no more need for poor Jamie to play along with their stupid games. He would be free to choose and I know he would choose me—yes, Tusker, don’t look at me like that. I am not mad, I have never had the slightest mental problems in my life, I have never seen a psychiatrist or even a psychotherapist. I am quite depressingly normal, in fact, and always have been. The only abnormal thing about me is my low IQ.’

  ‘What about the fiancée?’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about her.’

  ‘What if she really loves him?’

  Peaches raises a silken eyebrow. ‘Come on, Tusker, get real.’

  Reason tells Belle not to touch this one with a bargepole. ‘What if I refuse to help you?’

  ‘Then I’d do it alone,’ says Peaches defiantly. ‘And you would have to live with the consequences if my plans broke down, if they caught me before I got there and the men in white coats—’

  ‘That might happen anyway, once you’d made your first move towards him.’ Oh, this is quite ridiculous! Why are they sprawled here on the floor talking about this ludicrous fantasy and taking it all so seriously. ‘Peaches, what do you hope to achieve?’

  ‘Love and marriage, of course.’ Such a pathetic answer, and Belle, knowing the feeling well, groans with some of her own anguish. ‘I am determined, Tusker,’ says Arabella, brushing the interruption aside with an obstinate look on her pretty, doll-like face. ‘For the sake of my child. For the sake of Jamie’s future happiness.’

  Oh God, oh God. She is driven by some missionary zeal. Do it or die. Belle is shaken by Peaches’ crazed resolution. She is clearly obsessed and suffering even more tortures than she shows. How the hell can she bring her to her senses? At the very best she’ll end up in prison for a night. ‘Let me get this perfectly straight. You absolutely refuse to consider that Jamie might not want you, despite all the signs that shout otherwise. Is that really how it is?’