by Alison James
Lucy leans back against the radiator, eyes half-closed, trying to slide the fingers of her right hand underneath the bracelet and relieve the pressure on her wrist. The pain is becoming unbearable.
Suddenly she is aware of Denny standing near her. She can smell the musk in his cheap aftershave, and glimpse the blinding white of his trainers through her dry, gritty eyelids. ‘I can sort that for you if you like.’
When she opens her eyes, he’s pointing at her wrist.
‘I can get that off for you. That’d be cool, yeah?’
Lucy nods warily. Denny starts to rummage through the toolbox left behind by Adele’s father’s friend. He pulls out a large pair of pliers and sizes them up against Lucy’s arm, but it’s obvious that there isn’t enough space between bracelet and flesh to get purchase on the metal. He eventually finds a fine hacksaw blade and, with difficulty and a lot of wincing on Lucy’s part, inserts it under the bracelet and starts to work it to and fro. The metalwork is thin and malleable, and after a few minutes it snaps in two. Lucy touches the weal on her wrist tentatively. The skin is broken and it still hurts, but at least the insistent pressure has stopped.
‘That better, princess?’
Lucy gives Denny a reluctant nod of assent. ‘Thanks.’
‘Only I reckon one favour deserves another, don’t you?’
She stares blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
He reaches for a lock of her hair, darkened with sweat and dirt but still luminously blonde. ‘I’ve always fancied you, you know that don’t you?’
She shakes her head vigorously, but Denny is undeterred.
‘Always thought you were a classy bit of stuff. A cut above your slapper mate, Adele.’ He lets his thick finger trail down her cheek and neck to her collarbone. ‘No one would ever think the two of you were such good friends.’
Lucy’s laugh is derisive. ‘Yes, because friends keep one another prisoner.’
Denny’s huge paw is now cupping her breast, rubbing his thumb over her nipple. ‘No one in their right mind would choose her over you. Who would have thought you’d turn into such a looker?’ The strangeness of these words doesn’t have a chance to sink in, because he’s now inserting his other hand into the waistband of her jeans. Lucy shrinks away from his touch, but he grips her firmly. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not feeling a bit deprived of Vitamin F? Bit of the old in-out? Must have been a while since you had a seeing to.’ He nips the side of her neck with his wolf’s teeth. ‘How long is it now since you broke up with that scruffy-looking geezer you were shagging?’
At the mention of Noah, Lucy’s self-pity flares into blind fury. While she might have accepted that she and Noah can no longer see one another, she hasn’t stopped thinking about him. She thinks about him all the time, and hearing Denny belittle him feels like a violation. She lunges at him, using her fingernails to leave scratch marks down his face. The raised setting of her engagement ring catches his cheek, leaving a half-centimetre cut.
‘You little bitch!’ he snarls, baring the long incisors that were nibbling her seconds earlier. He jumps away from her and pulls out his knife, exposing the blade. ‘You’ll regret doing that. I reckon it’s time someone taught you a lesson. Taught you not to be so up yourself.’
Lucy can’t run from him, but she continues to lash out at him wildly, so possessed by anger that she’s even prepared to risk the knife. As the tip of the blade catches at the skin of her wrist, the flat door is unlocked and Adele stands there. Her eyes widen in shock. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
‘It’s true what they say about posh birds. Bit of a witch, your mate, isn’t she?’ Denny’s hand goes to the gash on his cheek and he holds up his bloodied fingers as proof. ‘Me and her were having a bit of private time, but she got all psycho on me.’
‘Oh, I get it,’ Adele’s slanting eyes flash at Lucy. ‘The minute my back’s turned, you make a move on my fella. Trying to sweet-talk him into letting you go, were you?’
Still fuelled by rage and frustration, Lucy laughs out loud. ‘Come off it, Adele! He’s hardly my type, and from what he’s just told me, you’re not really his type either.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’ Suddenly the old Adele is back, proud and prickly, but also strangely vulnerable. Her body shrinks down like a balloon losing air.
‘Ask your “fella”,’ Lucy says, sliding down the wall again and onto the carpet with a clatter of her chains. ‘You know: the one who hasn’t even told you his real name.’
Adele kicks off her high heels and stalks off into the bedroom, beckoning aggressively to Denny. ‘You and I need a bleedin’ word. In private.’
A row ensues, and Lucy can piece together the gist of it from the raised voices. Adele claims that she has been disrespected, which prompts an indecipherable but jeering response from her beau.
Their arguing is interrupted by Adele’s phone ringing. Lucy hears her snarled ‘Hello!’ as she answers. Then her voice changes abruptly. ‘Yes, this is she… this is Lucy Wheedon… What? Oh.’ After a few seconds she must have hung up, because in her normal voice she says to Denny. ‘Christ. We’ve got a huge fucking problem.’
Thirty-Five
‘Why didn’t you tell us that Knightons are already selling your house?’ Adele spits, whirling into the living room again.
‘You didn’t ask,’ Lucy replies mildly. ‘Anyway, I only asked their advice. I haven’t actually instructed them.’
‘Well they remembered you. In fact, someone in the office remembered you very well, and when I came in using your name and address and my mobile number, it must have looked dodgy. They were very polite, of course, the guy who just phoned didn’t come right out and say I was pretending to own the house. He just said “an issue has been flagged up” and started talking about lawyers, and money-laundering prevention, and me having to produce all sorts of documents before they could proceed with selling the place.’
‘Well that’s just fucking brilliant,’ says Denny sourly. ‘Well done. They’ll probably have the police going over to the house now, or at least asking questions.’
‘Hardly my fault,’ Adele hisses. ‘And anyway, we can’t keep her here,’ she points at Lucy – who seems to have dropped down their list of concerns – without even looking at her. ‘We were going to have to get rid of her anyway: take her somewhere else. It takes weeks for a sale to go through. Apart from anything else, Mum’ll be bringing the kids back soon. She can’t hang on to them for ever.’
‘And we can’t exactly let Blondie go either,’ Denny raises his voice. ‘I mean, think about it. The second we let her go, she’s going to go straight to the authorities and tell them what we’ve done.’ Only now does he look in Lucy’s direction. ‘And don’t pretend you wouldn’t, because we all know that’s exactly what you’ll do.’
‘So what was your fucking plan then, eh?’ Adele shrieks, hands on hips, hair whirling round her head. ‘Only you don’t seem to have thought this through, do you?’
‘My plan?’ The tendons in Denny’s neck bulge. ‘My plan was the same as your plan, remember? To keep the merry widow here a couple of weeks while we forced through a quick sale, and as soon as the money had transferred, piss off abroad. Start a new life.’
‘Well that’s not going to work, is it?’ Adele hurls herself onto the sofa and snatches up a packet of cigarettes. She places one between her lips but carries on speaking. ‘Apart from anything else, what about Paige and Skye? Am I just supposed to take them away from the rest of their family?’ She jabs at the wheel of her lighter, trying to spark a flame and shoots a furious look in Lucy’s direction, as if this is somehow all her fault.
‘I don’t give a shit about your kids, okay?’ Denny tells her with a curl of his lip. ‘What did you think was going to happen? That you and me were going to play happy families? You’re dreaming, love.’
He strides into the bedroom and comes back with a fistful of clothes, which he starts to cram into his sports bag.
‘Den!�
� Adele whines. ‘Don’t do this.’
‘You know what…’ Denny snatches up Lucy’s keys and tosses them onto the carpet at her feet. ‘You may as well keep the bleedin’ house, darling. It’s too much bloody hassle. I’ve got sixty-seven K; that’ll do me for two minutes’ work.’
‘Hang on,’ Adele stabs her cigarette into the ashtray and wheels round to face him. ‘You can’t keep all the money. Half of that’s supposed to be mine, remember?’
A strange look crosses Denny’s face: an expression that sends a chill shiver through Lucy’s insides. ‘Oh no it’s not. Never was, never will be.’ He gives a hard, dry laugh. ‘You’re even more stupid than I gave you credit for if you thought you were ever going to see a penny from me.’
‘But Den… you and me…’ Adele’s voice trails off.
‘Why do you think I came after you? You surely didn’t think I really fancied you?’ His leer is mocking.
Adele stares, open-mouthed. ‘So that’s it then? You’re leaving me?’ Her voice trembles, and her eyes are suddenly glassy with tears.
‘No,’ says Denny, his voice low; deadly. ‘Not yet. There’s something I need to do first.’
He strides over to Lucy and unfastens the chains from her ankles, then, with the speed of a big cat, crosses the room and grabs Adele with a single swift, decisive movement. She’s caught completely off guard and off balance, and within a few seconds he has her on the carpet with both hands pinioned above her head. Yanking the length of chain towards him, he twists it round her wrists. Adele screams and lashes out with her feet, but Denny has already darted over to his bag and pulled out a roll of duct tape. He slaps a length of it over Adele’s mouth, although nobody would be able to hear her above the acid house from the flat upstairs. Then he winds a length tightly round her ankles. Trussed like an animal around her arms and legs, she’s completely powerless. Denny tosses her onto the sofa like a bag of laundry.
‘Denny, for God’s sake, what are you doing?’ Although she’s now free, Lucy finds herself too shocked to even move. She stumbles towards Adele, but he holds up a huge hand in warning.
‘Leave her,’ he barks.
‘But why?’ Lucy strains to make her voice heard over the music. ‘Why not just take the money and go? What has Adele ever done to you?’
He gives her a curious glance. ‘Have you really not worked it out yet, princess?’
Lucy shakes her head.
‘Two words,’ says Denny, holding up a pair of thick fingers. His voice is slowed down, heavy. ‘Joanne Beckett.’
Thirty-Six
‘You really didn’t catch on, did you?’ Denny says, his voice gravelly with bile. ‘Either of you. It never occurred to you, because you didn’t give a shit about poor little Joanne, even though you were both there when she died.’
Lucy edges towards the door to the hallway, thinking that the best thing she can do now is to try and get help, but Denny is too quick for her. Blocking her path, he strides into the hall and locks the front door from the inside, pocketing the key.
‘Oh no you don’t, Mrs W, not yet. I need you to hear what I’ve got to say.’
Adele’s eyes are rolling wildly in her face, trying to communicate something to Lucy. That she should scream for help? But the music’s still thudding from upstairs, no one will hear her if she does. And besides, some perverse part of her wants to hear what Denny has to say. He has closed the living room door and is leaning against it, tattooed arms crossed.
‘The thing is: I know exactly what happened to Joanne. I know, because I was there. Me and a bunch of my friends drove down there that afternoon.’
Lucy is suddenly back at the reservoir on that baking-hot day. She can hear the carefree shouts, the splashes as bodies hit the water. And the older boys who were there too. The vague sense of recognition when she first met him must have been because Denny was one of them, no longer recognisable as the skinny adolescent after countless hours in the gym and almost as many hours under the tattoo artist’s needle.
‘My real name’s Jason Fox. Jason Dennis Fox. Ring any bells?’
‘No,’ Lucy says quietly, although the name is vaguely familiar.
‘You?’ He prods Adele’s torso with his foot until she shakes her head. ‘Renard is fox in French. An educated bird like you would know that, though, wouldn’t you?’ Denny grins at Lucy, clearly proud of this piece of cultured word play. ‘But what you wouldn’t know is that my mum’s name before she married was Beckett. Sandra Beckett. Her younger sister is Sally Beckett. Joanne’s mum.’
Lucy’s hand goes to her mouth. ‘So you’re Joanne’s cousin?’
He gives a slow, sarcastic hand clap. ‘Give the girl a prize. Yes, she was my cousin. Except closer than a cousin, because after I got in trouble with the police, I fell out with my mum and dad and I lived round at my auntie’s for a bit.’
Lucy suddenly remembers the bikes in the garage. One belonged to Jamie Beckett and the other to Joanne’s cousin.
‘And she lived in Chandler Drive. Joanne. Chandler. Does that ring a bell?’
The name on the passport. Not randomly generated, but deliberately selected as part of Denny’s twisted little game. How obvious it is now, with hindsight. And yet she’d dismissed the uncomfortable reminder of the dead Joanne as a coincidence.
‘I knew she wasn’t supposed to be down at Blackwater. But she went there with you,’ He points at Lucy, ‘You were the speccy four-eyed kid from the posh house, so I figured I’d let her get on with it and have a bit of fun. And then I see this piece of shit…’ he jabs at Adele with a finger, ‘… pull the rope out of her hand so that she falls and cracks her head open.’
‘It was an accident,’ Lucy says quietly. ‘A tragic accident.’
‘Oh no,’ Denny is shaking his head firmly. ‘It was no accident. She did it on purpose. She was showing off, trying to impress the other lads. Broke my fucking family apart with the grief.’ He gives Adele a look of pure loathing. ‘Oh, and I know it wasn’t your fault, Blondie. But you knew exactly what she did and you kept quiet about it. You lied to the police.’
Lucy is pressing her fingers into her temples, trying to wrap her mind around this new perspective on a piece of her past. ‘If you knew what happened, why didn’t you speak to the police yourself?’
‘Because I was out on parole from Young Offenders, and I was breaking the terms of my bail by being there. I was so terrified about the prospect of going back inside that I kept quiet. I didn’t tell anyone what I knew. Not even after I carried Jo’s coffin into the church.’ A look of anguish passes over his face, and for a few seconds he looks human; vulnerable.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Lucy quietly.
Denny carries on as though he can’t hear her. ‘And I did come close to saying something. But then I thought, nah, her little bitch of a killer is a kid: she’ll get punished as a kid. I wanted something much worse for her. I decided I would wait. Wait until the right moment.’
He extracts the knife from his pocket and holds the blade up towards the light bulb, making it flash. Lucy’s gaze turns automatically to Adele, bound and helpless, and her heart begins to thump.
‘Anyhow, the family ended up moving away,’ Denny continues. ‘They couldn’t deal with the memories; needed a fresh start. And I fell in with some not very nice people and ended up inside again. After I got out last year I moved back to the area anyway; didn’t know where else to go. Saw a girl I vaguely fancied on a night out and picked her up. It was only after I’d slept with her a couple of times that I realised who she was. That she was that Adele Watts. My first instinct was to dump her, but then I thought to myself “This is it. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for.”’
There are tears on Adele’s cheeks now. Lucy makes to move towards her, but Denny holds up a huge hand.
‘So I made out I was really into her. Because why not: she was easy. Bit of a slag, your mate. Always up for it. And while I was stringing her along and trying to figure out how I was goin
g to get my own back on her, just like magic, you appear looking for help getting away from an abusive husband. And I can’t believe my luck. Another person who was down at Blackwater, and one who’s done all right for herself. Got a load of fucking money.’
Lucy recalls, with dawning realisation, his earlier remark about her having ‘turned into a looker’.
‘And the fact that you’re here now, darling…’ Still holding his knife aloft, Denny chucks her playfully under the chin. ‘Well, it couldn’t be more perfect really, could it? You were there to witness what she did to Joanne twenty-four years ago, and you’re going to witness what I’m going to do to her now.’
Lucy stares in horror, first at Adele, then at the knife blade. ‘No. No! Please tell me you’re not…’
‘Oh, but I am. I’m going to slice her fucking neck.’
Under the length of duct tape, Adele gives a muffled scream and starts to kick her legs wildly, impotently.
‘No!’ Lucy cries. ‘Denny… Jason, you can’t! Please stop this.’ She tries to pull the knife from his hand, but he swats her away like an insect with one huge arm.
‘Squeamish are you? I’m not surprised you’ve not got the stomach for it, a posh bird like you. Tell you what…’ He fishes in his pocket and pulls out the key to the front door of the flat. ‘Seeing as you don’t fancy watching, you can leave. Leave me to it and save yourself. After all, she’s been a pretty shit friend to you, hasn’t she? She’s lied to you, tried to swindle money out of you, she’s even tried to take your house. Not much of a friendship, is it?’
Dumbly, Lucy holds out her hand for the key. He’s absolutely right about Adele not deserving loyalty from her. Adele has unilaterally destroyed what was left of their friendship. She has tormented Lucy, mocked her. It was she who sent Denny to pursue her, causing her to lose Noah and, potentially, her new job. Her knees shaking beneath her, she stumbles towards the front door. Out of the corner of her eye, there is a metallic flash, then a guttural groan from Adele that makes Lucy turn back, despite herself. Denny has clumps of Adele’s hair in his left fist, and the knife blade is at her throat.