The Wicked Girls

Chapter Thirty-seven

They’re heckling the politicians on Question Time when her phone starts to ring in her bag. She considers not answering. Jim’s had a good day. He’s come home full of hope and grand cru Chablis consumed at the Paternoster Square Corney & Barrow, and it’s raised her own mood for the first time in days. She doesn’t want the world intruding any more. Wants to pretend, for this night at least, that life is sweet, and calm, and hopeful. Then she answers anyway.

Crackling, then shouting, down the line. ‘Hello? Hello?’

‘Stan?’

‘Hello?’ he yells again, then swears. ‘Hang on.’

She waits. His voice comes on, quieter, clearer. ‘Bloody hands-free,’ he says. ‘How are you?’

‘OK,’ she says. ‘You?’

He doesn’t bother to answer. ‘Where are you?’

‘Home,’ she says.

‘I’d’ve thought you’d’ve been down at Whitmouth.’

‘No. Dave Park’s taken over there now. I’m home.’

‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Dave bloody Park.’

‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘I think I’ve had my fill of Whitmouth, truth be told.’

‘Sod it,’ he says. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got his phone number, have you? No, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter.’

‘OK,’ she says. Shrugs pointlessly.

‘Anyway, it was you I wanted,’ he says.

Jim is frowning, and fiddling with the remote. He hates people talking on the phone while the telly’s on. Any second now, he’ll turn the volume up to make his point. She gets off the sofa and takes the call through to the hall. Plonks herself at the foot of the stairs, by the pile of laundry that always sits there, and starts sorting socks.

‘I was hoping,’ continues Stan, ‘we could do an information swap.’

‘Uh-huh?’ she asks.

‘I’m on my way down there now. For the Mirror.’

‘The Mirror? For real?’

‘Yeah, well,’ he says, ‘all they’ve got down there at the moment is some twelve-year-old on work experience. The rest are all chasing Jodie Marsh or something. They thought they might need someone with a bit more experience for this.’

‘This?’

‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Are you not checking the wires?’

‘Not since teatime. I’m off duty.’

She hears a twitch of astonishment. Stan’s never off duty. He’d be seeking out the broadband in intensive care. ‘Right. Well, there’s something come up,’ he says. ‘The Mirror’s got it as an exclusive, in that they’ve got the dobber on retainer ’cause that’s where she saw the photos and made the connection, but it’s been up on PA for an hour or so now. It’ll be everywhere tomorrow.’

Get to the point, Stan. ‘Uh-huh?’

‘Someone’s rung in and the whole Cantrell story’s gone a lot bigger. I need… you know. Her number, if you’ve got it. You know, ’cause you…’

‘Stan,’ she interrupts, ‘what are you on about?’

‘I’m going down to doorstep Amber Gordon,’ he says. ‘I’m giving you the heads-up. I thought you might want to come too. Being as… you know, you’re a mate. And freelancers have to stick together, sometimes, and I owe you a couple. And because I think I might need a chick. They all seem to think that doorstepping’s just a question of sticking it out for longer than anyone else, but sometimes, you know, you just need a woman, not a man, and…’

‘I don’t suppose,’ she says, ‘if she hasn’t wanted to say anything so far… if she’s going to talk it’ll have been negotiated.’

‘No,’ he says, ‘you’re not getting it. It’s not about her bloke. Well, it is, of course it is, ’cause no one would have spotted it otherwise, but…’

She knows what’s coming immediately. Feels fear wash through her like Arctic ice. Drops the socks she’s rolling into a ball and clutches the phone tightly because she’s afraid she’ll drop it too.

‘Turns out our Mrs Cantrell is actually Annabel Oldacre,’ he says.

A ‘no’ falls from her mouth. Not the ‘no’ he takes it for.

‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘No,’ she says again.

‘It’s a pretty definite ID,’ he says. ‘Victim’s sister, apparently.’

‘But she barely knew her,’ she blurts. ‘They only met when-’

She pulls herself up short before she lets any more out. She barely remembers Debbie Francis herself, she’s more of a blur of piercings and nickel-studded leather than she is a face. She feels her skin crawl at the thought of how close she’s come to exposing herself; feels iced water trickle down her back. In the other room, a burst of applause.

Stan continues as though he’s not noticed. ‘Well, yeah, but she went to every day of the court case, apparently. I guess they must’ve thought it would be some sort of closure, or something. But she certainly got a good chance to study their faces while she was there, didn’t she? Anyway, what are the odds?’

‘Not as long as you’d think,’ she says. ‘Surprisingly short, if anything. They’re the same odds it would be for anyone, actually, with her social status and where she lives factored in. The fact that she… has a history… makes no difference to the odds. There’s the odd violent death in Whitmouth every year, even without a serial killer. Someone’s got to be married to the people who do them.’

‘Mmm,’ says Stan. ‘You’re right, I suppose. Anyway. It’s a story, isn’t it? Thing is, once it’s pointed out to you, it’s obvious. You’d’ve thought they’d’ve got that bloody great mole taken off her face when they changed her name, wouldn’t you? It’s sort of like they wanted her to be recognised. And “Amber”. They didn’t exactly fish about for a name, did they?’

‘I…’ She catches sight of her reflection in the window by the front door. Stares into it, studying her face for signs of the child that once lived there. She sees little that she recognises: her face was always less individual, more common-or-garden, than Bel’s, even without that mole; the sort of face you see streaming from school gates by the score. And besides, I was fat then, she thinks. My features were blurred by years of chips and ketchup.

‘You coming, then?’ asks Stan.

Are you fucking kidding me? she thinks. I’ve got to be as far away from Annabel Oldacre as I can get. I should be on the next plane to Australia. Tell Jim I’ve been sacked, leave journalism, get a job selling pizza in Queensland or somewhere, except that no country worth living in would accept a residency application from the likes of me, and anyway that’s just the sort of job the papers have been spotting me in for years. Getting a career, getting a degree, being a social-services success story – that’s been the best cover I could have found. Hiding in among the jackals who seek me, the greatest camouflage. The only thing better would have been to find some way of joining the police.

‘I – shit, Stan.’ She scrabbles for excuses. ‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t. Even if it wasn’t Dave Park’s territory, now. We’re going up to Jim’s mum’s tomorrow. In Herefordshire. I’ve got to pack the kids’ stuff, get the house closed up…’

‘Jesus Christ,’ says Stan. ‘Priorities?’

‘Yeah, it’s called a family,’ she says, knowing how much it’ll annoy him, hoping it’ll make him hang up in disgust.

She hears him splutter. ‘Oh, come on, woman. What are you on about? You’ve been trying to get a regular gig on News for years. If you can get her to talk, it’s a picture byline. Good God, it’s probably a staff job, if you can scoop the Mirror.’

She stays silent. Doesn’t trust her voice not to betray her fear. Hears him light a cigarette, prepare to have one more go at persuading her. ‘Fish-and-chip wrappings, Kirsty,’ he says. ‘It’ll make fish-and-chip wrappings of that cock-up you made last week. They’ll forget all about it.’

She pretends to consider.

‘God, look. No, Stan. Thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, but I’m sorry. I’ll give you Dave’s number, look. I’ll call him for you. And anyway, he’ll have it in for me for ever if he thinks I’ve stolen his glory. You know what he’s like.’

‘Well. OK. Don’t say I never did you a favour.’

‘I won’t,’ she says. She can barely breathe. Wants him gone, so she can think. ‘I’m sorry, Stan. I’m dead grateful. Really grateful. But I can’t do it. Gotta go. I’m sorry.’

‘Hang on-’ he starts, but she cuts him off. Sinks back against the step behind her. Sophie’s shed a sweatshirt, unwashed, in among the clean laundry. She picks it up, buries her face in its musky pre-teen scent and breathes deeply. Oh God, the kids, she thinks. What would it do to them?

She is frightened. A different fear from the fear she felt that night in Whitmouth, though the sense of something following, something approaching from behind, is similar: an ancient, long-suppressed fear that creeps through her viscera, leaves her hot and weak. You never know who’s watching, who’s waiting. You can never let your guard down, never feel safe. You can go a year, three years, without an incident, then one day you open your inbox to find that someone you’ve always thought of as reasonable, as civilised and thoughtful, has forwarded a round-robin email saying you’re about to be paroled and must never, ever get out. Or someone goes to the papers claiming to have been drinking with you in a theme bar on the Costa del Crime, or to have bought a house from you in Wythenshawe, or to have been the object of your predatory lesbianism in some random prison, and you’re terrified all over again: waiting for your husband to study those old photos one more time, and this time to look up with dawning recognition on his face. Waiting to wake up one morning with the mob on your doorstep.

They’re already there on Amber’s, primed and ready for action. Dear God, she’s already been thrown to the lions. Those pictures of her house – it was obvious they’ve been out there with their flaming torches and their pitchforks for days. It’s going to be a bloodbath.

She hears the Question Time music start up in the living room. Struggles to compose herself before Jim comes out to find her.