24 Hours: An intense, suspenseful psychological thriller (2 page)

I
t was so hot
. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t the intense sunshine that knocked us backwards as we stepped out of the airport building. Brightness that made us both scrunch our eyes against the glare.

‘Wow.’ Beneath the spike-topped palm trees I squeezed Polly’s hand tighter. ‘We’re going to get a brilliant sun-tan in this, aren’t we, Pol?’

The look she gave me was impressively disdainful for a six-year-old.

‘Sun-tanning isn’t good for you, Mummy. Just like cigarette-ing.’

‘Wow!’ I repeated, stumped. When did my daughter join the moral majority? My mother must have got to her.

Sid would be horrified.

Polly was fumbling around in her rucksack as I unlocked the tiny hire car and slung the bags in the boot.

‘All right?’

‘I am now,’ she agreed solemnly, placing pink heart-shaped sunglasses on the end of her snub nose. I hadn’t taken my own shades off for most of the flight in case anyone noticed my puffy eyes; mere slits in a pale and horribly woebegone face. I told Polly I was pretending to be a big star. She pondered this information for a moment.

‘Like Taylor Swift?’ she asked.

I had no idea who that was. ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Exactly like him.’

‘Her,’ she corrected.

‘Fabulous,’ I said now. I felt very far from fabulous; very far indeed. I put the car into gear; it took a massive bunny-hop forward. ‘Whoops! Sorry, Pol.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said kindly. ‘You can’t help being a rubbish driver.’

Shades of her father.

‘No, well,’ I wasn’t going to argue. I was all done with arguing. This was our new beginning. Tentatively I put the car into the correct gear. ‘Let’s go and have an adventure.’

T
he adventure would have started
a lot earlier if it hadn’t taken me three laps to find the exit from the airport, and four attempts to find the right junction off the motorway, trying simultaneously to map read whilst also driving a left-handed Hyundai. But eventually, sometime around dusk, we wound our way up to the small white-washed town perched on the very top of the hill.

After a hair-raising episode squeezing the car through tiny Moorish streets so I could unload near the house I’d rented from my colleague Robert, during which time various Spanish men shouted at me a lot about things I chose not to understand, we finally reached our destination.

Unpacking, we marvelled at the pretty little house; at the lemons growing in the courtyard, the tiny marble pool just big enough to dunk yourself in. We bought eggs and bread and water from the shop at the end of the street and after supper, when it was cooler and I could breathe again, I bought Polly ice-cream at the bar in the square whilst I drank a cold beer. I clasped her solid little body against mine and thanked God she was here with me.

But when she went to bed that night, I sat beneath the lemon tree and opened a bottle of white Rioja and tried desperately not to succumb to the overwhelming sadness that I had felt for the past three and a half days; the past three and a half months. The past three and a half years.

I failed.

Lying on a sun-lounger in the dark, the sky a canopy of speckled silver above me, the sadness won.

The tears slid noiselessly down my face and collected in pools in my ears.

I had spent every last penny I had coming here; my refuge from
him
. I had saved Polly and myself – temporarily at least – so why did it feel so horrible and sad?

Because a great crack had been riven in me, one that could not be fixed or filled; not now, maybe never. I could pour the wine in, I could fill it with cigarette smoke – but the gap would still be there.

Desperately I searched the heavens for a shooting star to wish on. But that night, there were none.

A
s I reach
the ground floor, two nurses walk past.

‘Did you see the news crew outside earlier?’ one sniffs. ‘And the photographers. Bloody vultures.’

‘They offered Lisa McCormack fifty quid to tell them what state the bodies were in.’

Trying desperately not to imagine Emily now, or the condition she may well be in, I follow them through the swing doors, towards signs to the exit.

As the dawn predicted, it is a bland, colourless day here.

I don’t even know
where
here really is. Only the tiny sliver of sea I glimpsed from the windows upstairs says we are probably still in Devon.

‘Did she take it? The money?’

‘Joanne!’ The other nurse laughs, digs her friend hard in the ribs. ‘What do you think?’

‘What? She might have been tempted! We can’t all be angels.’

‘I think they’re bloody bastards.’ The nurse shudders. ‘Probably hacking everyone anyway. That’s what they do these days.’ Turning towards a ward, she offers Joanne something. ‘Polo?’

I need to catch my breath.

I sit on a chair in the corridor and try to think, but I am so tired and shocked, I can’t get my thoughts straight. I squeeze my head between my hands, attempting to force back memories.

Fear. I remember fear. Pure and unadulterated: believing I was about to die. About to suffocate in the smoke.

I stand and head towards the exit.

I am not meant to be here. I am meant to be dead. I know without any doubt that my life is in danger.

And crucially, most vitally: I have to reach Polly before hers is too.

I have to get somewhere safe before Sid arrives here. He has been so angry since I stopped him seeing Polly. I am sure this is to do with him somehow.

Because they
will
call Sid, undoubtedly. If they realise that I am not dead. That the body in the mortuary is Emily’s, not mine.

How long do I have?

I am not dressed for the cold outside, and I have no money.

At the end of the corridor a door swings open; in the main reception waiting-area, a television talks to itself in the corner.

The morning papers adorn the news-stand outside the little shop. I read a headline.

My scalp prickles. I pick up the paper, my hand shaking almost uncontrollably. I scan the article.

‘All right, love?’ the fat girl behind the counter looks worried. She is taking money from a man for a Kit-Kat; ringing it up in her till. ‘You look a bit wobbly.’

My mind is working furiously. The man thanks her and leaves. The till must be full of money. Her coat is over the back of the chair.

‘Actually, I don’t feel too good.’ I hold a hand to my head. I am not lying. ‘Could you fetch someone for me?’

She puffs up like a great robin redbreast in her scarlet jumper, validated by the task in hand. ‘Of course, my love, don’t you worry. You just sit there and rest.’

‘Thank you.’ I am treacherous.

She bustles off down the corridor. I glance around. At the information desk fifty feet away the receptionist is on the phone, oblivious to me. Otherwise it is eerily quiet.

Quickly I stand and press a few buttons. To my infinite relief the till opens immediately. I help myself to the notes: I wish my hand would stop shaking. I take the voluminous navy coat off the chair and wrap it round me. ‘Sorry,’ I mutter to no one. I hurry to the sliding doors, then outside, where the cold hits me.

At the tea-stall across the road, a small gaggle of photographers are gathered, cameras slung round their necks as they smoke and banter. I walk very fast to the taxi rank; I throw myself into the back of the first cab. At least my pyjama bottoms could almost pass for the latest trend of baggy trousers. Nevertheless, I pull the coat closer.

‘Can you take me to the nearest town please?’ It’s such an effort to speak, my voice is still barely more than a whisper.

They explained the pain in my throat was caused by smoke inhalation; they promised it would wear off gradually. But it hurts.

‘You’re
in
town, love.’ The driver glances at me as if I am mad. I probably do look like I’ve escaped the asylum.

‘Oh,’ I say, looking behind me. A multi-pierced teenager in a wheelchair and spotted dressing-gown smokes furiously beside the doors, but no one else goes in or out. ‘Of course. Can you take me to the nearest shopping centre then please?’

The driver sighs as if I’ve just asked him to take me to Timbuktu.

‘My bag got stolen,’ I offer.

He turns the radio up, pulls away, uninterested.

I have a sudden thought. ‘Actually, can you wait one minute?’

I get out and run to the photographers at the tea-stand. They look faintly amused at my dishevelled appearance; my hair all sticking up on end. One of them offers me a cigarette. ‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I’d rather have a cup of tea. Did you hear the news?’

‘What news?’ the one with psoriasis perks up. Someone orders me a tea.

‘That artist’s wife. The famous one. Sid Smith.’

‘The one that did all that religious porn? Won the Booker prize?’

‘Turner Prize,’ I correct him absently.

‘Whatever,’ he scratches at his inflamed cheek. ‘So?’

‘His wife’s dead. Laurie Smith. In that fire.’ I turn to go.

‘Is she? In the Spa? Poor cow,’ he says. ‘He gave her the right old run-around, didn’t he?’

‘Did he?’ I feel shaky again.

‘Ran off with that singer.’ Someone hands me a cup of tea. ‘The young half-caste. Dead fit.’

‘Well, she’s dead and gone now.’ I take the tea. ‘Laurie Smith. Poor cow,’ I agree sadly.

But they have lost interest in me; already reaching for their phones, calling news-desks and editors.

I get into the car and, warming my cold hands on the cardboard cup, sit back for a moment. There are so many things I need to do, I don’t know which to do first. I need to speak to my mother, to make sure Polly is safe; I need to get clothes; I need to speak to Emily. She’ll know what to do.

I can’t speak to Emily.

Horror crawls through my head as realisation hits me afresh.

I can’t speak to Emily ever again.

My best friend is dead and I killed her: I might as well have done.

Inadvertent or not, I killed her: because it was meant to be me in that mortuary.

N
o one gets
married thinking it’s going to fail.

Do they?

My wedding day was a start, I thought; the seal on something precious, a beginning, and the best day of my life, before Polly was born. On a hilltop on the south-eastern tip of Cornwall, overlooking a becalmed turquoise sea, I married the man I had fallen so deeply for the year before. We ate local lobster and chips off long trestle tables in the sun, and afterwards we had a party in Sid’s studio. We had no money but it didn’t matter: we decked it out with wild flowers, pinks and yellows and blues, and Emily twisted the same blooms through my loose hair. I wore a simple flowing silk dress, all bare feet and obvious euphoria, utterly lost to love.

‘You are beautiful,’ Sid whispered as we stood before the registrar but when I met his eyes – eyes the colour of the sea – he seemed distant, almost as if it hurt him to say as much.

I just held his hand tighter, my poor lost boy. I knew he was scared.

How scared, I didn’t realise yet.

‘I’ve never seen you so happy,’ Emily said. It was gallant, because I knew what she
really
felt. ‘Shame for the poor lobsters though. Pair for life, they do.’ She pulled a face at me, puffing out already-round cheeks. ‘Till you served them up as lunch.’

Typical Em. My mother, on the other hand, didn’t say anything. She just cast her eyes to heaven at my inappropriate hair and lack of shoes, but she too was high on adrenaline. Sid was most charming when he chose to be, and despite his lack of income, she’d decided eventually, and of her own accord, that his potential might be huge.

And the best thing was, everyone we loved was in that place. Apart from my father, who had refused to come. It was no surprise; I’d only asked him out of duty in the end.

On our wedding night, whilst people still danced to the local skiffle band and drank cheap rosé under a crescent moon, Sid took me out to the tumbledown old barn where he kept his motorbike and the sit-down lawnmower that had packed up the first time he’d used it. He pulled the tarpaulin off a painting that leant against the wall; a small oil I’d had no idea he’d been working on. I stood, speechless, staring at it.

It was a nude of me sleeping, curled safely in the middle of a bed.

‘Sid’s Bed
’, he’d called the picture.

It turned out to be the one truly loving gesture of the entire relationship. That, and my eternity ring.

But I didn’t know that yet.

I loved that painting. Not through any kind of vanity but because, fool that I was, I thought it symbolised what I meant to him. Because I thought he saw me differently than anyone else had ever done. Truly, I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d married a man I believed was a true genius – and he loved
me
beyond all else.

I had lost myself entirely.

I
n the early hours
, when everyone had finally left, Sid stood me in the middle of the darkened studio and studied me.

I had felt something building in him as the night had darkened; something I did not understand, but something that I was aware existed in him. Something I had glimpsed only once or twice before.

He reached forward and pulled the straps of my dress roughly from my shoulders until the dress fell in a puddle of silk round my feet.

He didn’t speak – his expression was inscrutable, and so I followed his lead, paralysed by his gaze. There was something deeply unfamiliar about him as he stared at me, standing there in a pool of moonlight, until eventually I felt more naked than I ever had before.

Then he picked me up, right off my feet, and for a moment he held me so tight I felt I couldn’t breathe. I made a sound, some kind of protestation.

In response, he threw me backwards onto the studio bed so hard I hit my elbow on the wall, crying out in pain. Still almost fully dressed himself, Sid tugged at my underwear until he ripped it, tearing the sheer lace, tearing my skin – and it was not an act of passion. It was more frightening than that.

An act of ownership, perhaps – and it was as if he had disappeared into himself. Sid wasn’t quite there; in his place was a man I had no real understanding of yet. I was overwhelmed, but I was obsessed, and I relinquished myself willingly; gave myself up to him so completely that, by the end, I was almost crawling on my knees.

When I fell asleep, near dawn, I was utterly spent and slightly deranged. And deep down, I couldn’t say that it was entirely a shock; this savage side of my new husband. He lay next to me on the single bed in the studio, smoking, staring at the ceiling. And he did not hold me or hug me, though he grasped one of my wrists tightly between his long thin fingers.

The next morning I was bruised and sore, and I could not quite meet his eyes when he opened his; I turned back to the white-washed wall. But he rolled me over gently and kissed me tenderly; made me look at him; made love to me so slowly I was shaking – and so I thought it would be all right.

Six weeks later, I found with shock that I was pregnant. It wasn’t meant to happen; I hadn’t even been sure I could actually conceive, having suffered with endometriosis from adolescence. But I was quickly elated by the idea of our baby – too quickly, it turned out.

In retrospect, the pregnancy only marked the beginning of the end. Sid didn’t want to share; Sid liked things his own way. My new husband, the genius. His star was in the ascendant, though it was a painfully slow trajectory that took its toll on both of us, for varying reasons. Yet to become the
enfant terrible
of the British art scene, he was still unequivocal, brilliant and passionate – and eventually, when success came later than expected, utterly spoilt. Where did a baby fit into that? Into a life honed specially for his ‘talent’?

Sid’s Bed
. I came to hate that painting. But I had been right about one thing: it did symbolise what I meant to Sid. He painted me, therefore he owned me. I was on
his
bed; he thought I was his possession to do with what he pleased; to pick me up and lay me down again.

He picked me up and laid me down again one too many times.

T
he week
in the Spanish sun after Sid and I finally split was a sort of tonic, I supposed, and against the odds, maybe, Polly and I still managed to have some fun. We sat on the windy beaches of the Costa de la Luz and tried not to swallow the sand that was blown up by the incessant gusts. We looked for tall ships out on the headland where the Battle of Trafalgar had been fought (not, as Polly insisted, in Trafalgar Square).

We drove along the coast to pretty Tarifa where I was not reassured to read that the town had the highest rate of suicide in Spain – ‘because of the winds’ apparently. Enough to send anyone mad, being constantly buffeted – although the surfers seemed to like it. We ate strange-coloured tapas in the bars on the small square near our house, and Polly was welcomed by everyone. Wrinkled old Mires in particular loved her. She had worked for Robert, the owner of the house, for years, and she was an amazing force of life, despite her prehistoric appearance.

And at the very least, we were away from the fights and recriminations and the awful crushing sadness that came with seeing the man I’d once believed I would spend my whole life with, knowing that, actually, everything was falling apart. That everything was irretrievable.

But during those long Spanish evenings, I would stop pretending things were fine. I’d switch on my mobile to see that Sid still hadn’t called me and promptly switch it off again. And then, whilst Polly slept, I drank too much, chasing oblivion. I hadn’t drunk properly for years, not since the incident after the Turner Prize that ended with me falling badly. That ended with a midnight dash to A & E.

But now I drank until I collapsed across the old four-poster, desperately seeking sleep’s sanctuary. I dreamt strange, vivid dreams, often about Sid, often about looking desperately for something I’d mislaid: something nebulous, intangible. And worse, sometimes about happier, far-gone days that had slipped through my grasp.

I kept drinking until the morning Polly found me asleep outside, sprawled on the sun-lounger, wine glass smashed on the tiles beside me where it had fallen from my hand. Groggy, gazing blearily at my daughter’s chubby face, I knew I had to get a grip of myself before the alcohol did – again. Full of self-loathing, I pulled Polly onto my lap, kissing her shiny head that smelt of sun-tan lotion until she struggled to get away.

‘All right, Mummy!’ she protested. ‘I am a bit old for kisses, actually.’ She was all of six, her tummy a gentle swell above the frilly skirt of her green swimsuit. Sensing my sombre mood, she relented a little, patting my hand kindly. ‘You can kiss me again later if you need to. I’m going for a swim.’

As she splashed into the tiny pool I felt a huge stab of guilt. I swept up the glass and in the dark little kitchen I brewed strong coffee and chucked the rest of the wine down the sink.

On our last day, it rained. It seemed a fitting end to the week, somehow; it was still warm, the rain was gentle and the air velvety. After breakfast, we sat on the swirly iron bench under the lemon tree and drew pictures, ‘for Daddy’. I had a nasty moment when I realised Polly had drawn in Robert’s posh leather visitors’ book, but we managed to change the sandcastles into a kind of calling-card, incorporating our names and address, which Polly insisted on writing in full. ‘
London, NW5 1HX, the World
,
the Universe
.
Very lovely ice-creams
’, Polly wrote laboriously, her tongue stuck out in concentration. ‘
We will come back for more.
’

Mires hugged Polly fiercely when we left and I tried to give the old lady twenty euros, but she refused, and I was worried I’d offended her.

‘Send me a photograph,’ she asked in her broken English, pointing at my daughter, and I promised I would.

E
ngland matched
my mood that night, dark and chilly. As we stood shivering on the platform for the Stansted Express, I longed for the warmth of Vejer.

As the train pulled in, my phone finally rang.

It was Sid.

‘Hi.’ I felt strangely nervous.

‘Hi.’ Long pause. ‘Put Polly on.’

‘Oh.’ I swallowed. ‘Is that it?’

‘Yep.’ Shorter pause. ‘That’s it.’

‘Right.’ I looked down at my small daughter who looked so like her father; at her tangle of dark curls, the smattering of freckles that had come out in the sun. Only her eyes were like mine, a dark blue that Sid called cobalt. ‘Hang on a sec. We’re just getting on the train. Maybe I should ring you—’

‘Don’t be difficult, Laurie,’ he sounded infinitely bored. ‘I know you love to be, but really. Don’t bother.’

Oh God. I had not missed
this
. Sid was the only person in the world with this strange power over me; so quick to rile me. And God knew, he tried to. I bit my tongue against my retort and pulled my daughter onto the train, depositing her in the first seat available.

‘Oh, and while I’ve got you there, I should probably tell you now,’ he drawled. ‘You’ll only see it in the gossip rags tomorrow.’

I felt a stab of pain.

‘What?’ I said quietly.

‘Jolie.’

‘Who?’ I slid our case under the rack.

‘Jolie Jones.’

‘Who?’ But I knew who he meant really.

‘You met her at Randolph’s. She sang.’ Randolph was Sid’s agent – born without a soul, apparently, or any sign of conscience, and no compunction about showing his contempt for me. A Northern oik made upper middle-class: and my nemesis. I think his real name was Rick. ‘She is a singer?’

‘Oh yes.’ I pictured the tall young woman, willowy and beautiful, a brown-skinned beauty. I’d only met her once or twice at parties I’d felt out of place at; twice my height, wandering around in tiny dresses with a shimmering Afro or multi-coloured braids down to her waist. Skinny-ankled, fragile-framed; she looked like she needed a man to literally hold her up. ‘The one who cried at your
Eve
show. What about her?’

‘We’re together.’

Perhaps she did need a man to hold her up.

‘
Together?
’ My mind refused to process this.

‘Yeah, together. Put Polly on. I don’t have much time.’

I passed my daughter the phone, shepherded her into a double seat, sat beside her, furious tears blurring my vision. Randolph must be overjoyed, I thought bitterly. A media match made in heaven – and not me.

‘Daddy. We went on a plane and I had Pringles and Coca-Cola in a tiny can, and a lady got locked in the loo and shouted a lot.’

I stared out of the window, savagely blinking away tears before Polly noticed.

‘The uniform man said she was a … a mother’s ruin.’

I could hear Sid laughing on the other end. So this was how it would be from now on. Him – and me. Him, and Jolie. And me.

‘Yes,’ Polly nodded seriously. ‘It was hot, but I weared a hat.’

Pause.

‘I’ll ask Mummy. Next weekend?’

She passed me the phone. I couldn’t talk to him again.

‘I’ll call you back,’ I mumbled. I switched it off.

I
had loved
Sid so very much, although sometimes, God only knew why; and I had fought so hard to make my marriage work and when it didn’t, I felt lacerated with guilt – mainly on Polly’s behalf.

Separating was the hardest thing I had ever experienced. But no one, not even my worst enemy, could say I hadn’t tried. Now I had to try harder to get over him.