The Wicked Girls

Chapter Twenty-three

Kirsty learned years ago that work is the great solace. In fact it was Chris, her counsellor at Exmouth, who introduced her to the concept. For a year she had felt as though her head was full of wasps: repetitive thoughts blocking everything else out. They found out quickly that she was barely literate, that what time she had spent at school had been wasted by the expectations of her teachers. At eleven, she had never learned to concentrate. Now, whenever she tried, pictures of Chloe would burst into her head: pictures of her mum, her brothers, the crowd outside the crown court; and she would be angry, tearful, hopeless.

Then one day she’d spent a whole hour with Chris, reading slowly through, of all the mad unteacherly choices, a chapter of James Herbert’s The Rats. For an hour, someone else’s peril was at the forefront of her mind. She wanted to read on and find out what would happen next. So, through graphic descriptions of people being chewed alive, she learned the solace of reading, and from that she slowly learned the solace of learning, and then of writing, and then of asking questions and hearing answers and making something of those answers. And one day she discovered that she had become a success story – the child who was rescued. And she’s never forgotten.

After she left Bel in the café, she had two hours to turn her copy round and, as ever, the rush of delivery, the fix that keeps her coming back, was fierce. Every day it’s the same: the eleven o’clock post-conference call, the moment of panic as she realises the extent of the task ahead, the scramble to find out as much as humanly possible and translate it into a thought-through, shaped and crafted story, the rush of damn-I’m-good that catches her by surprise every time she presses Send and her words fly through the ether to end up on strangers’ breakfast tables. There is no time to think of anything else.

And tonight she hits her deadline just as she always does. She’s filing for the home-news pages of the daily paper today; tomorrow and the next day it’s more of the same; and another feature for the Sunday. People love salacious detail, says the editor, and the Trib’s sales figures bear it out.

Within three minutes of sending, and calling in to say she’s sent, and cracking open the quarter-bottle of Soave she’s found in her mini-bar, she is in tears. She sits heavily on the orange candlewick bedspread and lets the tears flow, mouth open as if to catch them as they pour down her cheeks. She wishes she hadn’t agreed to meet Amber, has always coped with the past by simply not allowing it in. Kirsty can go for days – weeks, sometimes, even – without thinking about it. By living in the present, by planning for the future, she had thought that she had come to terms with history.

She wishes she’d had more time to prepare. A million questions circulate in her mind now that she is no longer in the presence of the person she can fire them at. In some ways, that day feels more like a film she once saw than a drama in which she took an active part. It seems so distant, so unrelated to the person she feels herself to be, that, though it plays out in her mind often, it has the glossy Technicolor unreality of events once seen on a cinema screen.

She wonders if Amber feels the same, or if those awful events still hit her with the sick, giddy panic that still occasionally rips Kirsty from her sleep, when her guard is down. She wants to know how Amber copes with lying, day by day, to the people she loves the most. Most of all she wants to know if Amber is afraid, as she is afraid. And if she is, which fear assails her the most: the violence of strangers or the destruction of those she loves.

The thought of Jim, and of the children, wrenches out more tears. Jim’s kindness, his confusion when he encounters deceit or malice, is both his great strength and his great weakness. The thought of his hurt, of the loss to the children, if they ever found out that they had been loving someone who didn’t exist, leaves her gasping for breath. He thinks she’s a good person damaged by life. She knows, deep down, that she is – must be – rotten to the core, and that the one thing she must do is protect them all from the ugly truth.

She cries until she is weary, her shoulders aching, the skin beneath her eyes red-raw. And when she’s calmer, when she thinks the danger that she might simply spill the truth in a destructive attempt at shriving has passed, she calls her husband.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Where do we keep the spare batteries?’

‘Top left drawer in the garage,’ she says. ‘What’s run out?’

‘Someone forgot to switch his Duelling Monster Truck off again.’

She feels tired and distant, but comforted by the commonplaces of life going on without her. ‘He’s got to stop doing that.’

‘Yeah,’ says Jim. ‘He’s not going to, though, is he, while he’s got no incentive.’

‘What do you think?’

‘Make him pay for his own?’

‘Out of his pocket money?’

‘It’s what it’s meant to be for.’

‘Mmm.’ She thinks. ‘He doesn’t really get enough pocket money for battery-buying.’

‘Tough,’ says Jim. ‘Sorry. How else is he going to learn?’

It feels good to talk about something so mundane. Even the fact that they’re avoiding the elephant in the corner – the endless, terrifying outward trickle of their savings – is somehow comforting.

Her nose is blocked and she’s breathing through her mouth. She doesn’t want to give the game away by blowing her nose, but her experimental sniff alerts him anyway. ‘Are you OK?’ he asks.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Just tired. And missing you.’

‘Oh, darl.’ She can picture him, lying out on their big corner sofa, heels up on the backrest now she’s not there to protest. He’s probably got his specs off by this time of night, his eyes big and vulnerable without them. ‘I hate it when you go away.’

Now he knows about them, she sees no point in hiding her tears any more. Indulges in a huge honking blow into a wodge of bog paper.

‘Eww,’ she hears him say, ‘thanks for sharing,’ and she giggles despite herself. How can one person be so able to make you feel better? What a responsibility to heap on someone else’s shoulders.

‘What’s your room like?’ he asks. ‘I want to imagine you there.’

‘Bit early for that, isn’t it?’ she teases.

She hears the smile across the ether. ‘Give me an image to take into the bath with me.’

‘Well,’ she looks around, tries to find something to describe. She stays in enough of these salesmen’s hotels to know that they all look alike.

‘I’ve got a four-poster tonight,’ she informs him – an old, old game they’ve played since they met – ‘with naked ladies on the posts.’

‘My favourite type,’ he says solemnly. ‘Does it have curtains?’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Red velvet ones with gold fringing.’

‘Sophisticated,’ says Jim.

‘Sexxy,’ she says, emphasising the ‘x’. ‘The floor is gold as well. Real gold, I think.’

‘Must be cold.’

‘Underfloor heating. Ooh. And I’ve got a platinum ice bucket.’

‘Classy,’ he says. ‘Is there room service?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘But there’s a bistro.’

‘A bistro?’ She hears him sit up. ‘Baby, I’m dumping the kids and coming straight there. Why didn’t you say you had a bistro?’

‘It’s open from twelve a.m. to nine a.m.,’ she reads from the information card. ‘And serves a variety of mouthwatering mains and light snacks. Lasagne is their speciality, apparently.’

‘Bugger,’ says Jim. ‘I wish you’d said…’

‘I didn’t know, Jim,’ she says. ‘You know the Trib. Always springing surprises on you.’

‘So did you file?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, I filed,’ she says.

‘And what’s the latest?’

‘Nothing you won’t see on the news tonight. A poor old bat of a clapped-out prozzy, and the poor girl’s still not got a name. No bag, no phone, no wallet, no friends who’ve noticed she’s gone yet.’

He pauses as he thinks about this. ‘Ah, I see,’ he says, gently. The fear of dying unnoticed has always plagued her. ‘Awful,’ he says. ‘Sorry, Kirst. You must hate this job sometimes.’

‘It’s OK,’ she says, mournfully. ‘It goes with the territory, doesn’t it?’

‘I guess. I miss you, you know.’

‘Me too.’

‘You still home the day after tomorrow?’

‘Please God,’ she says. ‘How are you all doing? Kids eaten yet?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did they have?’

‘Bread and gruel. Why don’t you just jump in the car and come home?’

Kirsty sighs. The thought of home, of a warm bath and a back-rub, is almost unbearably attractive. ‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, darling. It’d be nearly midnight by the time I got there, and there’s a press conference at eight tomorrow morning.’

Press conference. A couple of Plod standing on the station steps, mechanically reading out a statement and then replying, ‘I’m afraid we can’t comment on that for the time being’ in response to every question. ‘And if I don’t make myself go out digging tonight, I’ll just have to add it on to the end of the trip. I’ll make it up to you,’ she says. ‘At the weekend.’

‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘Shall I send the brats on a sleepover?’

‘Why not? Either that or we can just lock ‘em in the cellar till we’re done.’

The Soave seems to have gone already, though she doesn’t remember it going down. Weak, watery stuff, made for girls, not pros. She rolls off the bed and checks the fridge. A half-bottle of chilled Beaujolais and some vodka miniatures. She checks the card, and sees that the wine is £11.25. Holy cow. She’d have picked something up at Londis when she was in there, but she’d promised herself that tonight was going to be a dry night, after the other day. Hadn’t been planning on spending the afternoon with someone she once committed a murder with, of course. She shrugs and cracks the screw-top, pours half the bottle into her toothmug. I’ll think about my drinking tomorrow. No one’s going to begrudge me a glass or two tonight.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘I was wondering…’

‘Uh-huh?’ The wine is sour and thin. She’s never liked Beaujolais. Really has to want a drink to want to drink it. Takes another gulp and screws her face up as she swallows. I know what he’d say if he was here in the room. Sometimes, this staying-away thing’s a blessing.

‘I was wondering maybe if I oughtn’t to be retraining. I don’t know how much longer I can fool myself that I’m going to get back into what I used to do. And we can’t carry on like this for ever.’

She thinks. ‘It’s a thought, I guess. No luck today then?’

‘No. Nothing.’

They’re silent for a moment, then, ‘I hate this,’ he says. ‘I hate being a useless appendage. I never thought I’d be on the scrapheap at forty-two. It wasn’t the plan.’

‘Oh, Jim. You’re not. You’re not either of those things. I wouldn’t know what to do without you. You know that, don’t you?’

She hears him sigh.

‘We’ll get through this,’ she assures him, and refills her glass. ‘It’s not for ever. There’s more to come, I promise you.’

She’s got beeps. Takes the phone away from her head and sees that it’s a withheld number. ‘I think that’s work,’ she tells him. ‘I’d better go.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Call me back later?’

‘I’ll try, darling. We’ll talk about this when I get home, OK?’

‘OK,’ he says, small-voiced.

‘I love you,’ she says, automatically.

‘Love you back,’ he replies automatically. They don’t even think about what they’re saying any more, when they say it.

She sends him away, picks up the line. ‘Kirsty Lindsay?’

‘What time do you go to bed?’ Stan asks.

She doesn’t even blink at the overfamiliarity; knows he’s talking about her paper’s initial print deadline. ‘First edition’s about eleven-thirty,’ she says. ‘Why?’

‘FYI,’ he says, ‘the name’s Stacey Plummer. The girl. And the cops have taken some man in for questioning.’

‘What for?’ She’s alert, back on the job, the wine draining from her brain as though someone’s pulled a plug. ‘Do you know? What did you hear?’

‘Something to do with fingerprints in the mirror maze. Ones that shouldn’t have been there. Employee at Funnland, apparently, but not to do with that bit of it.’

‘Ah, shit.’ She subsides. ‘There must be hundreds of prints in that room. It’s a public space, for God’s sake.’

‘Apparently not,’ says Stan. ‘They have someone standing on the door handing out plastic gloves. Obvious, really. I’d never thought about it; the place would be covered in handprints in minutes if they didn’t. So, no, actually. It’s got fewer prints than your average surgical suite. Just the odd wodge of snot at waist height where some kid’s slammed into a mirror. And according to my source, the cleaning supervisor’s a real dragon lady and cleans the room herself. There’s not been a smudge in there since the millennium.’

‘Your source?’

‘Security guard. Jason Murphy. Drinks in the Cross Keys.’

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’

‘Talking of which, I’m going down there,’ he says. ‘Pub nearest Funnland. See if I can pick anything up. See you there?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she says. ‘I’m going to make a few phone calls first. Stacey Plummer?’

‘Yup. Double “m”, no “b”.’

‘Ta,’ she says. ‘I owe you.’

‘Buy me a drink.’

He hangs up. She speed-dials through to the paper, to tell them to hold off on her copy.