The Wicked Girls

Chapter Nineteen

Amber comes down the steps of the police station to find that there’s already a knot of onlookers on the pavement outside. News travels fast in Whitmouth. The car is taped off in the Koh-Z-Nook’s car park, jailed as an accessory after the fact. Blessed and Jackie, as the ones who actually found the body, are going to be in the station for a while longer. She’s going to have to take the bus home. She sets off to walk up to the Funnland stop.

It’s nearly ten, and the Corniche is full of strollers and mobility scooters: the morning demographic. Dodging around them, Amber doesn’t hear her name being called until she’s nearly at Klondike Junction. She looks around, confused, then spots Vic, arms brown and shapely in a white T-shirt, leaning against a minicab parked up in the layby fifty yards back. He waves. Her heart leaps. She crosses the road and walks back to him.

‘What are you doing here?’

He wraps an elbow round her neck, kisses her cheek. ‘I heard.’

‘You heard?’

‘Jackie called me. I came down to see if you were all right.’

‘Thank God you did. I was dreading the bus.’

‘C’mon.’ He opens the car door. ‘I’ll take you home.’

She sinks into the back seat and closes her eyes. She doesn’t recognise the driver and is slightly surprised, as most of them live on the estate. Vic gets in next to her and closes the door. ‘Back to Tennyson Way, please, mate,’ he says.

She feels the engine rev, and the car moves forward. Knows he’s watching her and opens her eyes to look. He’s smiling. ‘How are you doing?’

She sighs. ‘Oh, you know.’

‘Not really,’ he says. ‘That’s why I asked.’

Amber closes her eyes again and lets her head drop back against the headrest.

‘You must be starting to think someone’s got it in for you,’ he says.

Her eyes fly open again. ‘Vic! My God! What a thing to say!’

He shrugs his shoulders, all blue-eyed innocence. ‘I was just saying. You must’ve thought it yourself, Amber.’

The driver is watching her in the rear-view, a glint of amusement in his eye. Amber clams up and turns her face away. Vic slips a hand round the back of her neck and strokes her hairline. She shrugs him off, stares out of the window.

‘Don’t be like that, babe,’ he says. ‘I came to pick you up, didn’t I?’

Mary-Kate and Ashley come bounding out the second she opens the door, and the fact that he’s let them in tells her more about his mood when he got home than anything he’s said so far. They circle round and round on tiny paws, gazing at her with all the rapturous joy of the innocent. Amber scoops them up and rains kisses on their heads. She’s never felt such pure and simple affection as she feels for these loving little beings. Wishes that human relationships were as simple.

She goes through to feed them, notices that the washing machine is on and nearing the end of its spin cycle. Fastidious as ever, she thinks. Nothing stays in the laundry basket for long in this house.

‘D’you want a cuppa?’ he asks.

She shakes her head. ‘I’m dead beat, Vic. I’m going to have a wash and a lie-down.’

‘OK. I’ll just get this lot hung out,’ he says. ‘It’s good drying weather.’

She’s brushing her teeth when he comes in and stands behind her, looks at her in the mirror. She looks back, relieved that, despite everything, the row is clearly over. And then he touches the small of her back and she sees that Other Vic is not quite gone yet.

His arms slip round her and he folds her into a bear hug, presses her crotch against the basin. Shit, she thinks. He’s still here. This is not her Vic, this man with the manically cheerful grin, the sudden physical gestures. He does sometimes come home in moods like this, but she’s never learned to accept them. He won’t let her go. She doesn’t feel as though she’s being hugged, she feels pinioned.

‘Hey, Amber,’ he says quietly. She can feel his breath on her neck, feel his torso pressed against hers. He kisses her throat, just above her collarbone, and she has to struggle with the urge to push him off. He was so angry yesterday. She should be grateful that the mood has passed so quickly. She forces herself to relax, to raise a hand and caress his face. She can feel the beginnings of a hardening in his crotch. Oh shit, she thinks. Asks herself why she thinks it. It’s been weeks since he’s touched her like this, and God knows she’s longed for it to happen. She should be grateful. Should be glad.

‘How was your night?’ she asks, by way of distracting him. ‘I didn’t ask. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, babe,’ he mumbles, and turns her to face him. He’s fully hard now beneath his jeans. He grinds his groin against hers. She feels a stir in response, but it feels nasty, dirty. ‘It was OK. I went to a bar. Had a few drinks. Calmed down. I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to hurt my girl, you know that.’

‘You believe me?’ she asks.

Vic pulls his head back, looks down into her face with a strange, detached good humour. Starts to manoeuvre her towards the landing. She goes unwillingly, more to avoid new disagreements than from any desire to participate. ‘It doesn’t matter if I believe you.’

‘Oh, Vic,’ she says, ‘if you can’t trust me, then what’s the point?’ ‘Trust’s not the point,’ says Vic. ‘It’s whether I forgive you that’s the point. And I forgive you.’

He thrusts a knee between her thighs, pushes her against the landing wall. Puts a hand round one of her buttocks and humps himself against her, like a dog.

I don’t want this, she thinks. I want to talk. I don’t understand men. The way they can just ignore everything when their hormones are leading the way. I can’t just…

She can feel his hands working their way up, tugging at her trousers.

‘Vic…’ she says. ‘I’ve had a shitty night. I’m all sweaty. And I’m tired.’

He’s not looking at her any more. Has his jaw dug into her neck. ‘I’ll sort you out,’ he says. ‘I’ll make you sweat some more before we’re done.’

‘I…’

He’s got the trousers down to the tops of her thighs. Shit, she thinks, he’s going to do it anyway. Whether I like it or not.

The bear hug’s back, and he’s picking her up bodily, hauling her into the bedroom. ‘That’s it,’ he croons. ‘That’s right.’

Shit, she thinks, just go with it. Just get it done with and, maybe after, he’ll let you talk. Lucky Jackie’s not coming back any more, she thinks. Lucky she’s not going to walk in and see this. God knows what she’d think, after this morning.

By the bed, he puts a foot behind her ankle and pushes her so that she tumbles backwards beneath him. Hoicks down her pants and grips her pubis proprietorially. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘That’s it. You know you want it.’ With the other hand he unbuttons his jeans and pulls his cock out. It’s thick, engorged, purple.

He climbs on top and begins to thrust.