by A J Waines
‘How fascinating. Am I allowed to ask why?’
‘No,’ he said simply.
‘When do you need it?’
‘As soon as you can. It’s a bit of an emergency. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘And should I be caught or killed, are you going to disavow any knowledge of my actions?’
‘Forever the actress, eh?’ he said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice.
‘Life is one long TV drama, darling – didn’t you know?’
Chapter 61
Jody came good. She turned up on the doorstep looking pleased with herself the following evening.
‘That was quick,’ said Daniel, sleepy in his lounge gear, ready for bed.
‘You said it was important.’
Her hair was elaborately whipped up on her head in a fancy roll and she wore high heels, a long camel-coloured coat and fishnet gloves. She was the antithesis to him; bright eyed, dressed to the nines and raring to go. Obviously one of those people who came alive after 10pm.
He beckoned her inside, but she swung round to the taxi waiting outside his gate. ‘I can’t stay,’ she said. Nevertheless, she insisted on giving him a breathy blow-by-blow account of how she’d carried it off.
‘I invited him to a friend’s cocktail party last night,’ she said. ‘In my business there’s always someone having a party and I figured if an offer involved free booze, free food and armfuls of attractive women, he’d be there in a shot.’
‘Good thinking.’
The velvety chug of the taxi and roar of a passing motorbike meant they had to lean closer to hear each other speak. As she stretched towards his ear, a curl of her hair worked itself loose and stroked his cheek.
‘I waited until he’d had a few drinks, then claimed he had an insect in his hair. I decided on a woodlouse – that seemed fitting.’
Daniel laughed.
‘I got him to undo his ponytail and pretended to rifle through his scalp to capture it. In the end, I showed him a dead one I’d brought along in my pocket.’
‘No hitches?’
‘Nope…’ She drew her lips into a tight ‘O’.
‘I’m sure if he’d known, Rick would have appreciated the sleight of hand.’
She handed over the plastic bag. ‘I hope there’s enough for what you need in there,’ she said, a serious edge to her voice.
She must know exactly what this was about, he realised, and privately respected her for not probing.
He thanked her by placing his hand on top of hers. She smiled at him.
‘Sorry, got to dash,’ she said, turning to the taxi again. ‘Got a last-minute interview for Elle magazine at eleven o’clock in The Savoy.’
Against all better judgement, he found himself waving her a playful goodbye as she disappeared into the taxi.
Chapter 62
A shrill bell told her it was time for lunch, but Sophie wasn’t hungry. Before the ringing stopped, Tanya launched herself off the top bunk, almost standing on Sophie’s hand as she clambered down. She gave Sophie an oafish snarl and left the cell.
Sophie stayed on the bed hugging her knees. She dreamt of soft silk trailing against her tanned legs, of running her fingers over the luxury cashmere throw she and Daniel kept at the end of their bed. She craved the flavour of fresh carrots and peas; the only vegetable they seemed to get in here was potatoes. But today she missed, most, the smell of fresh croissants at the local deli, Mr Bubble’s bubble bath and more than anything, the act of running her fingers through Ben’s hair.
She flinched at the sound of someone being yelled at in the corridor. Inmates regularly swallowed batteries in this place. They swapped nicotine patches for cigarette lighters to burn their own skin. They bit their arms and legs hard enough to draw blood. It wasn’t about attention-seeking, it was about diverting the pain into something they could control. Once in here, you lost control over everything else.
As soon as she’d arrived, Sophie had signed up for library duties, had a fitness induction and applied to do a course in first aid. But so far, she’d only made the waiting lists. It meant interminable bleak periods of hanging about, dragging time out in slow motion.
Too much time to think. Mull things over.
She’d replayed her visit from Daniel time after time in her mind. What had he been talking about? Accusing her of having an affair and going on about Rick punishing him for something. It had thrown her completely off balance.
Their meeting hadn’t gone the least bit how she’d imagined it in other ways too.
Daniel had been stand-offish, almost hostile, behaving as if he couldn’t get their divorce sorted out fast enough. He’d even pulled his hand away when she’d reached out to him. That tiny reaction had hurt her more than anything.
Part of her had been hoping they could come back together over what had happened. She was prepared to move past Daniel’s dalliances with other women, was ready to find a way through this mess.
But he wouldn’t have a bar of it.
This couldn’t be happening. Her affair? Was Daniel losing his marbles too?
That wasn’t all she’d been ruminating on. She still couldn’t work out how she’d turned from a capable, radiant woman into a monster in such a short period of time. She simply couldn’t relate to the person who had stabbed her husband. There were no words to describe how utterly preposterous and out of character her actions had been.
She’d replayed the months between September and February time after time. Daniel’s adultery and his claims that he was innocent had worked its way under her skin in a manner she couldn’t comprehend. During those five dark months it had eaten away at every rational thought, chewing at the sensible and loving aspects of her personality, gnawing at all her senses, poisoning each moment from the instant she woke to the moment she went to sleep. She’d seen her GP, started taking antidepressants, but things had only got worse.
An unfathomable mystery.
But she couldn’t wipe out or rewrite the past. She was stuck with it. The present was intolerable too, trapped with a woman who sneered at her, grunted whenever she asked a question, but mostly ignored her altogether. Living a lonely, desolate, deprived existence based on penance. All Sophie had was the future – and that held fears of its own.
Her father hadn’t been to visit yet; a setback in his condition had led to a spell in hospital and her mother was in cloud cuckoo land; in complete denial about her MS as well as Sophie’s situation – sending jolly letters, dictated to her carer, about garden birds and Mrs Dean’s whisky marmalade as though Sophie had just started boarding school.
Then there was Ben. Missing him was like suffering a spear in her back every day. The precious life she was meant to be taking care of. The new words he’d be coming out with over breakfast, the newly mastered skills he’d want to show her, the cuts and bruises he’d run to her with. She should have been there to embrace every minute. The giggling, the grouchy tantrums, the tears.
Only she wasn’t. He’d been left without the one person who was supposed to be by his side every step of the way.
They needed her and she’d let them down completely.
Chapter 63
The process had been remarkably straightforward the second time. Ben had barely struggled as Daniel stroked the cotton bud inside his cheek. ‘Tickles…’ he’d yelped, giggling.
Then he’d put the other sample in the envelope. He’d sent them off to the same DNA company, but had given his mother’s address to avoid confusion with the first test he’d done. Soon after, an email had arrived explaining that an unmarked letter would be sent to the address he’d given within five working days. How very businesslike.
He got the call he was expecting six days later.
‘A letter has arrived…’ Franciska was trying to be neutral, but sounded like the back of her throat was filled with small stones. ‘Is it what I think it is?’
‘Will you open it?’
‘No Daniel, I don’t think
I can. I think you need to open it yourself.’
He could hear her shallow breathing.
‘I’ll come over as soon as I can.’
Forty minutes later, he ripped open the envelope and read the contents. While his mother pleaded with him for the result, he stood rooted to the spot, not saying a word.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. His entire world had just gone black and been smashed to pieces.
He handed her the letter, too broken inside to utter the words out loud.
Ben’s DNA was a match.
For Rick. From the strands of his hair.
Rick!
Rick who’d insisted Sophie was too ‘stuck up’ for him.
They’d slept together.
Just over four years ago, before Rick went to Sydney.
He was listing the stark facts in his head, tracking each one as they escalated into an insurmountable panic of their own. But he couldn’t take in what they meant.
Rick and Ben. Father and son.
Daddy…
Daniel needed to throw up and bolted for the downstairs toilet. It all seemed so blindingly obvious now. How could he have been so stupid?
And Sophie. He couldn’t even bring himself to think about the part she must have played in all of this.
Lying through her teeth…
A collage of pictures ran their own slide show in his head. Treasured snapshots from a previous life which, from that day onwards, would make him recoil with humiliation. Sophie smiling in the maternity ward, strands of her hair folding the wrong way across her perfect parting as she handed the tiny wailing bundle to him.
Warm, starched towels wrapped around the honeyed baby smell. Everyone congratulating him, and the smile he couldn’t keep from his face every time he thought of this tiny person who had made them a family.
It was all one big fat lie.
Daniel dropped his head, utterly crushed. All those times he and Sophie had talked about Ben, been with Ben, the times he’d seen Rick play with Ben – and Rick was Ben’s true father all along.
He was a complete idiot. The mortification made his mouth go dry.
As if reading his mind, Franciska handed him a glass of brandy, pouring one for herself.
‘Unbelievable…’ she kept muttering. ‘Absolutely unbelievable…’
In that moment he made a decision.
Apart from Franciska, he wasn’t going to tell a soul about this and would certainly not allow the two people directly involved to know the truth. He was going to play this one very close to his chest.
He had no recollection of getting back in the car and setting off home. He should never have had any alcohol, but he didn’t think he’d have been able to drive at all without it.
He slammed on the brakes at a zebra crossing to avoid a woman with a shopping trolley who’d left it late to cross, forcing his mind to concentrate on the road.
As he pulled up outside his house, a heaviness dense with outrage and devastation filled his head. There were no words big enough to encompass all the feelings he was trying to deal with, piling up inside him one on top of another.
An energy in his body was pumping his blood around too fast. A fuse had been lit inside him and if he didn’t wallop something in the next ten minutes, he feared something in his brain was going to rupture.
He couldn’t pull it all together to consider sensible things like ‘taking it all in’ and ‘not doing anything rash’. He had no idea what he was going to do, rash or not, because right now he was having trouble seeing straight and stopping himself from hyperventilating.
He made it inside the house.
What he needed to do most was hit something long and hard. Ideally Rick’s face. He checked his watch: 5.20pm. Rick always did something after school. Either straight down to a pub for a drink or to a game of squash, pool or darts somewhere. More often than not, it would be followed by a curry. Daniel thought about leaping back in the car again to find him and flush him out, but he had no idea where to start.
Chapter 64
‘Just dropping off what’s yours, mate,’ Rick said, handing over a thick envelope. ‘It’s all there.’
It wasn’t like him to make the trip all the way up to Camden to hand over Stuart’s share, but he had an ulterior motive in insisting he pop round with it. Stuart wouldn’t risk being underpaid and as he huddled over the bundle of notes to count them on the table, Rick wandered over to the fridge and slipped the keys into his pocket. Simple.
‘This is for the latest job, right? Three hundred quid for both, yeah?’
Rick nodded.
Stuart straightened up. ‘Cheap at that price. You happy with them?’
‘They’ll do.’
‘I haven’t heard from Hank, yet,’ Stuart said, ‘but it shouldn’t be long. The pocket watch has got the best spot in his window, apparently. Should make the sale any day.’
Rick shrugged. He hadn’t intended to mention the watch. Stuart obviously hadn’t heard the bad news. That the ‘precious find dating back to the sinking of the Lusitania’ had already encountered an insurmountable setback. A timepiece collector – one of the world’s experts, regrettably – happened to be browsing at the Portobello Market and had stopped at Hank’s antiques gallery. Intrigued by the memorabilia, he’d examined the watch, and in those twenty seconds their neat little scam had gone down the pan. Rick knew it was only a matter of time before the police would be knocking on their respective doors.
‘No rush,’ Rick said.
‘Sweet. I’m heading off for a bit,’ said Stuart, cradling the wad of twenty-pound notes. ‘Me and a mate are heading up to Scotland.’
‘Nice. Why all the way up there?’
‘His aunt just died and left him a crofter’s shack of some kind. Might be worth something.’
‘How long will you be gone?’
‘Dunno. Ten days, maybe. Play it by ear.’
Maybe Stuart had already heard about Hank’s unfortunate visitor and was doing a runner without letting on.
‘We’re heading up in his campervan,’ he said, glancing at the clock above the doorway. ‘Should be here any minute.’
Stuart was a happy bunny with dosh in his pocket, about to clear off for a while. Rick nodded and left him to it with a jolly wave. He jiggled the keys he’d pinched in his pocket. Sometimes life just handed you stuff on a plate.
Chapter 65
‘Is this about Rick?’ asked Louise, cautiously, as soon as Daniel told her who was calling.
‘Do you know where he is?’
Daniel heard a sound through the handset that could have been either a sigh or a passing car. ‘No. His school rang me. He didn’t show up for work this morning.’
‘He’s not answering his phone.’
‘I know. The tenant upstairs said he left the flat carrying bags and a suitcase.’
Daniel didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
‘You able to meet up?’ he asked.
‘Meet up?’
‘A quick chat. Just coffee somewhere.’
She drew a sharp intake of breath. ‘About Rick?’
‘Mostly.’
‘Do you know Balham High Road?’ she asked.
‘I can get there in around thirty minutes.’
‘I’ll see you in Café Réale – it’s by the supermarket.’
Daniel parked behind the high street and once he’d reached the main road, he spotted Louise heading towards him. It had been over ten years since he’d last seen her, but the hunched shoulders and short pixie steps gave her away. Her hair was curly, a mousy-brown colour, and still in the same style as in her teenage years; halfway between Bette Midler and a cocker spaniel. She was wearing a purple smock over a denim miniskirt that was both too short and too tight. She could have just about got away with it if it hadn’t been for the red trainers. He recalled how there was always something about her that was out of place.
He allowed her to lead the way.
The café was
dark and pokey inside and Daniel wondered why, out of all the cafés along the high street, Louise had chosen this place. Daniel looked away as she hitched up her skirt even further and perched herself on a high stool at the window.
‘This your local?’ he asked, placing the mugs on the grubby ledge.
‘It’s cheap,’ she said, pulling up long hockey-style socks that looked out of place on someone who was thirty-something.
His mug had a chip in it, but he couldn’t be bothered to go back to the counter.
‘I really need to talk to Rick,’ he said.
He locked on to her eyes, but she dropped her gaze and began fiddling with sugar cubes in a dish.
‘I told you, I don’t know where he is.’
She dropped a cube from several inches into her mug, sending splashes of coffee over the edge. ‘What’s he done now?’ she said with resignation.
Daniel tried to hook his feet over the bar of the stool, but his legs were too long. ‘Did you know that Rick stitched me up with some wild scheme to make it look like I was having an affair?’
He wasn’t going to reveal the truth about Ben unless he absolutely had to.
Daniel pulled out the digitally altered photographs and put them down, one after another, beside her mug. Louise spluttered as a mouthful of coffee went down the wrong way. She clutched her throat, then composed herself.
‘Oh, Daniel…’
‘Rick went to considerable lengths to set me up.’
‘I didn’t know anything about these. Honestly. But Rick has been so odd lately; very secretive, getting drunk all the time, missing Mum’s birthday, not turning up when we’ve arranged a drink. It doesn’t surprise me he’s doing crazy things. But this?’ She pressed her fingers into her temples. ‘Actually, he does seem a bit out of control. He’s been ranting on about someone who’s going to suffer.’
‘That’s probably me he’s referring to – but I don’t know what I’m supposed to have done. Do you?’