Before I Say I Do

by Vicki Bradley

  Rachel’s sobs got louder. She must have realized that Jenny wasn’t coming back for her. They’d left her behind. Kayleigh knew how she felt. She’d been discarded for Jonny too.

  She observed the pathetic child blubbing in the woods and it made her angry. Is that what Jenny thought of her? That she could be dropped just as easily as Jenny had abandoned Rachel?

  Kayleigh felt a lump in her throat and tears forming. She swiped them away. She wouldn’t get upset. She wasn’t a stupid little baby.

  Rachel had wrapped her arms tightly around herself and she was looking wildly around. Kayleigh stayed hidden in the bush. The sun had sunk lower, so Rachel couldn’t see that she was here. That was good. Kayleigh didn’t want to be seen. Not by anyone. She didn’t want them to know that she’d followed them to the woods, like a lost puppy, when Jenny had gone off with Jonny.

  ‘I know you’re there.’ Rachel’s voice wavered. ‘You might as well come out.’

  Kayleigh stayed perfectly still. Silent. The dark was setting in, making it harder to pick out shapes. Soon Rachel wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.

  ‘Come out, it’s not funny.’ Rachel’s voice grew loud. She span around in a circle, peering into the growing darkness, and Kayleigh smiled.

  Rachel didn’t have a chance at spotting her. It was so dark now.

  ‘I’m not playing anymore.’ Rachel sat down right where she was, crossing her legs and folding her arms like Kayleigh used to do in assembly back in primary school. Things had been easier then. She’d had Jenny’s whole attention. Now everything was changing and she was getting left behind. If only it was just her and Jenny, like it used to be. An idea flashed into her head. A way to make it like it was before.

  Kayleigh crept from her hiding place over to the brook. It was hard to see anything, so she moved carefully. She crouched down next to the brook and reached inside, trying not to make a noise. She felt around the bottom, her fingers becoming cold, until her hand came across what she was looking for – a large rock.

  She slowly retraced her steps. The wood around Kayleigh felt different now. The birds had stopped singing and the evening air was chiller. All she could hear was Rachel’s ragged crying.

  There was a snap.

  Kayleigh silently cursed the twig. She was so close now. Rachel was shaking and turned her head towards the sound, but Kayleigh stepped quickly to the side, so that Rachel couldn’t see her in the gloom. It was like playing ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf’.

  Rachel stopped holding her breath and, turning to face forwards once more, gave a noisy sigh of relief. It was short-lived.

  Kayleigh lifted the rock high and then brought it down in a swift motion, as hard as she could, smashing it into the back of Rachel’s stupid head. That would teach Jenny. That would teach them all.

  Rachel’s head cracked and the rabbit toy fell to the floor as she fell forward onto her face. Her body jiggled on the grass like a broken wind-up toy, so Kayleigh lifted her arm and struck Rachel’s head again – anything to stop her jerking body.

  She heard a roaring noise as she delivered another blow. The back of Rachel’s head exploded, red and pink everywhere.

  Kayleigh stared at the mess.

  Rachel had stopped moving, but she could still hear the noise. Kayleigh realized it was her. She dropped the rock and clamped her hands to her mouth. She stood there, waiting for her own breathing to quieten as she stared down at the dead child.

  Kayleigh had to be quick. First, she picked up the rock. Then she saw the toy rabbit’s eyes staring up at her, as if a silent witness. She grabbed it too, just in case, before running over to the brook and wading in, heading up stream and away from the direction Jenny and Jonny had gone.

  When she was a good five minutes up stream, she paused to wash the rock, rabbit toy and herself carefully in the water. She made sure all the blood was gone. She carried on splashing upstream, knowing that it would take her out of the east side of the wood. Then she could swing back and head towards home.

  Her legs were cold, and she couldn’t feel her toes inside her trainers, but she didn’t care. Rachel was dead. And now Jenny would be sad and would turn to her best friend for help. Jonny would be no use and Jenny would grow to hate him. She would blame him for distracting her, when she should have been looking after Rachel.

  Kayleigh struggled in the dark, but she knew she would still be home before her dad was back from the pub. He stayed until kicking-out time. And he would be so drunk, he wouldn’t notice anything wrong anyway.

  Mum was on night shift, so she wouldn’t get home from the hospital until morning, and then she would sleep for hours. Kayleigh would be able to hide the rock in the back garden in the rockery tomorrow morning and the toy rabbit she would destroy, so that no one ever knew it was her.

  It was perfect.

  Chapter 54

  Julia Talbot

  Monday

  It was the meeting I’d been dreading. The last time I’d seen him was on the stairwell with the fire behind him. It felt like a lifetime ago, but it had only been a few days.

  The monitors by my bed beeped and whirled. I was attached to them by two pads that were stuck to my stomach. They were monitoring my baby – our baby. I was mesmerized by the lines leaping up and down; nervous they would change from a healthy jagged peak to a flat line.

  A nurse poked her head through the door. ‘Are you ready for a visitor?’ She was smiling at me, thinking I’d be thrilled to see my fiancé and the father of my baby. I nodded, managing a weak smile.

  Mark was wheeled into the room and the nurse left us alone. He was dressed in a white and blue hospital gown and was clutching a bunch of pink and white roses. He handed them to me and tried to kiss my cheek, but I pulled away. He looked crestfallen. He sank back into his wheelchair. An unpleasant silence filled the room. I gingerly put the flowers onto the bedside cabinet, trying to avoid touching anything with my bandaged palm.

  ‘How are you?’ I asked. He looked like a prisoner of war, his skin grey with bandages on his neck and arms.

  ‘The doctors said I should be fine. Minor burns, smoke inhalation. They’ve got me on heart meds. Just have to take it easy. You?’

  ‘A few bumps and scrapes.’ I lifted up my plastered wrist. ‘Nothing serious.’

  He gazed at my stomach and the monitors. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He?’ I smiled to myself – of course Mark thought it was a boy. He’d want to play football with him and drag him to games. I stopped myself, remembering that everything had changed between us. ‘The doctors say the baby seems fine, despite everything.’ I thought of the fire and how close we’d all come to death.

  ‘I’m sorry—’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I left you down there.’ The words tumbled out of me; the guilt I’d been carrying making me ready to burst.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Mark said. ‘You couldn’t have saved me. We all would have died. The police nearly didn’t make it out themselves.’ He lowered his head.

  It’d never occurred to me that he felt ashamed. It was me who’d brought Lucy into our lives. Me who had put the people I loved in harm’s way. I saw Rachel’s smiling face, forever seven years old.

  ‘I didn’t know I had it in me to save myself over another person.’

  ‘You were saving our baby.’

  I looked out of the window, watching a few white clouds drifting through an impossibly blue sky. An idyllic day.

  ‘So, what happens now?’ He lifted his face and met my eyes. I saw his desperation and fear. Was it fear of losing me or fear of losing his perfect family unit?

  I shrugged and shook my head.

  ‘What do you want to happen now?’ he asked.

  I had no idea. A few weeks ago, I’d been about to marry the man of my dreams. Now I was pregnant by a man I didn’t even know, who had hurt me more than I had ever thought possible. The past few years had been a complete lie. Had he ever loved me at all?

  ‘I
’ve been an idiot.’ He reached his hand out towards me, but I didn’t take it. He put it on top of mine. I felt numb. ‘I love you, Julia. More than anything. I can’t believe I nearly lost you.’

  ‘What makes you think you haven’t lost me?’ I turned back to the window.

  ‘I never loved her,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you? I was just scared. Forever is so final. Can you forgive me?’

  It was a question I’d been asking myself over and over again. Perhaps I could have forgiven an affair, but it wasn’t just that. He’d been lying about everything: the drugs and the money. The thought of being a single parent scared me, but not as much as trying to go back to him. I would never trust him again. I would never trust anyone again.

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’ I fiddled with the edge of my plaster cast to avoid looking at him. ‘It wasn’t working.’

  ‘Only because of Lucy.’ He leaned towards me. ‘She was constantly there, pulling us apart. Everything I did she would criticize. Now I understand why. She was in love with you. Completely in love. She got between us.’

  ‘This wasn’t Lucy.’ Sharp anger in my voice. He couldn’t lie his way out of this one. ‘You did that all by yourself with the coke and the other women.’

  ‘There was only one.’ His cheeks were colouring but there was a pain deep inside his eyes. He had loved Emily Hart. In that moment, I knew it would never work, however hard we tried.

  ‘It’s the truth.’ His hand pressed harder onto mine. ‘I wouldn’t lie.’ Lying to me was all people had ever done.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I pulled my hand from under his and crossed my arms. ‘It’s over between us.’

  ‘But the baby.’

  ‘What about the baby?’ Anger rose in me.

  ‘Don’t you want to try to be a family for the baby’s sake?’

  ‘You can be a father for the baby but it’s over between us.’

  ‘How are you going to cope financially?’ He cringed a little as he said it.

  He had to be kidding. ‘Easier without your debt.’

  ‘You can’t do this on your own. You can’t even book a holiday by yourself, for fuck’s sake.’

  When he didn’t get his own way, he always berated me, but not anymore. ‘I’m tired. I need to rest.’

  ‘You haven’t given me an answer.’

  ‘How many times do I have to say it? You and me are done.’ I picked up the assistance buzzer and pressed it, calling for the nurse.

  ‘You’re upset,’ Mark said but his voice wavered with uncertainty. ‘You need some time.’

  The nurse entered and smiled at us both.

  ‘I’m tired,’ I said. ‘Can you take him back to his room?’

  ‘Of course,’ the nurse said. ‘Come on, you, it’s probably time you rested too.’ She wheeled Mark to the door and pulled it open. He glanced back, but he was looking at me differently. Everything had changed and he knew it.

  I was left on my own. But not completely alone. I placed my bandaged hand gently on my stomach. The lines on the monitor leaped higher as it picked up both our heartbeats.

  Chapter 55

  Alana Loxton

  Saturday

  Loxton sat in Mamus´ka Café in a corner, watching the world go by. She took a deep breath in, savouring the coffee flavours and baked bread. It was quiet, the breakfast rush just finishing up.

  Kowalski came through the door, spotted her and strode over.

  ‘I ordered you a latte.’ She motioned at the mug opposite her.

  He took a sip. ‘Perfect, thanks. How are you doing?’

  ‘Not bad,’ she replied, trying not to think of her suspension. ‘The smoke inhalation cough has just about gone. You?’

  ‘Still coughing up black crap in the night.’ He shrugged and took another sip of his latte.

  ‘You should go back to the doctors,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll give it a couple more days.’ He picked up the menu, his eyes running down the photos.

  ‘How’s the case?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re going to charge Webb this afternoon with everything, including Rachel Hughes’s murder,’ he said. ‘Jonny Cane might be acquitted in the end. Shame he didn’t live to see it.’

  ‘I really thought Webb loved Talbot like a sister.’ Loxton shook her head. She always prided herself on spotting the suspect before anyone else. Rowthorn had nearly died and Emily Hart hadn’t been as lucky, all because of her mistakes.

  ‘She must have loathed Talbot to do all of that to her.’ Kowalski looked away.

  Loxton suspected the opposite, that Webb loved Talbot, but that love was unforgiving. ‘I think she got a taste for murder. Once she’d crossed a line with Rachel Hughes, that line was rubbed out for ever. There was no going back. Webb reverted to her old ways of coping when Talbot began to slip away from her again.’

  ‘What happened with David Steele?’ she asked.

  ‘He was arrested at an airport trying to get out of the country in a complete panic. He wanted to get out of the country before the insider trading and money laundering caught up with him. He’s been charged for both those offences now and he’s looking at serious time. Rowthorn will be as well, once he’s recovered.’

  ‘And Jonny Cane was involved in all of that too?’

  ‘Yes, he was in terms of the money. But it looks like he’ll be acquitted after death of Rachel Hughes’s murder. The team are looking at the owner of the Night Jar, too. Seems he was paying the bankers for the insider information and doing very well out of it.’

  She shook her head.‘I bet the bank director isn’t happy.’

  ‘The media have gone crazy for this case,’ Kowalski said. ‘The trial will be a circus.’

  ‘Is Winter letting you back on it?’

  ‘I’m not in Winter’s good books. He hasn’t forgiven me.’

  She shook her head at him. ‘He’d be an idiot not to get you involved. You’d be officer in charge if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘And Talbot would be dead. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘It was a complicated case,’ she said. ‘We all made mistakes.’

  ‘All we can ever do is our best,’ he said. ‘Are you getting breakfast?’

  ‘You and your stomach – you never stop,’ she said with an amused smile. ‘I’ve already eaten.’ The truth was she didn’t feel like eating. She couldn’t stop the nervous energy rushing around her stomach long enough to eat. She kept going back to who had leaked the press information. That person hadn’t cared that she’d been suspended. Was it Winter, or had it been someone else?

  She hated goodbyes but she knew that when she walked out of that café door she wouldn’t be coming back. She’d only known Kowalski for a couple of weeks, but she was going to miss him. It was rare to meet someone you could connect with as easily as they had.

  ‘It’s been good working with you . . .’ She put her hand out towards him.

  He ignored her hand. ‘Are you ready to take on the leak now?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, retracting her outstretched hand, ‘but it’s not going to be easy. I’m suspended. I’m not even allowed in the building.’

  ‘I hate a loose end too,’ Kowalski said. ‘It’s time we found out who’s responsible for the mess you’re in.’

  ‘And remind me how we’re going to do that?’ His optimism amazed her.

  ‘I got the phone records for Saunders’s mobile. Got someone to check calls coming in at the time we found the body and when Talbot was arrested.’

  ‘How did you do that?’ She knew as soon as she said it that she didn’t want to know the answer.

  ‘Let’s just say it was through a friend.’ He winked at her. She shook her head at him, amazed.

  ‘You want to have a look?’ Kowalski pulled out an unmarked envelope from his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘You don’t know who it is yet?’ Her mind was racing over all the officers she knew at Southwark CID.

  ‘I wanted us to look together,’ he said. �
�It’s your career they’re trying to ruin.’

  It was Kowalski’s career he was risking as well. Her eyes lingered on his for a moment and she was grateful she’d met him.

  ‘Let’s get this over with.’ She ripped open the seal and pulled the sheets out, scanning the phone data; a number was highlighted at the important dates and times. A two-minute phone call to Saunders when they found the body in the river. Long enough to tell him about the body and where to find Talbot for an exclusive.

  ‘Whose number is that?’ she said.

  Kowalski pulled a sheet of paper out from behind the phone records. She took it and read the report. The phone number was attributed to someone she knew.

  Kanwar.

  Loxton’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be. She rushed through the phone record to the time when Talbot had been arrested. It was the same number. The papers shook in her hands as she tried to control her fury.

  Kowalski shook his head in disgust. ‘I didn’t think Kanwar was capable of that. How much was Saunders paying him to leak information?’

  ‘Alec would be pretty desperate to get his career back on track after everything that happened.’

  ‘It explains why Kanwar was so against you when you were suspended,’ Kowalski said. ‘He wanted to make himself look innocent by being so incensed about the leaks. And when he saw you in the station with me, he must have worried that we might try and find out who had really leaked the information.’

  Loxton slid the papers back into the envelope, her anger growing. ‘This is damning. But now we have to prove it properly.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’ Kowalski said. ‘I’ll tell Winter I found this envelope left on my desk. Job done.’

  He was right. She would be off the hook and it would be up to the DPS to deal with Kanwar. Loxton could go back to the real work of catching killers instead of corrupt cops.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t mention it – ever again. We could both lose our jobs.’ He smiled at her.

  She nodded. ‘I still might. I disobeyed Winter’s orders.’ She folded her arms in front of her chest. She felt cold suddenly as she considered the repercussions for her career.