24 Hours: An intense, suspenseful psychological thriller (21 page)

I
f love was simple
, everyone would love the right person – and so life would be simple too.

But it’s not, of course. It’s not.

Nothing allows for the unequal fractions that don’t add up; the chase that ends in disaster; the thwarted passions; the hurt inflicted.

On Friday morning, whilst Polly was still asleep, I tidied away every single trace of Sid I could still find in the house, apart from the photos of him in her room.

The previous evening, Mal had rung a few times. I sent all the calls to voicemail; didn’t bother to listen to the messages. I was exhausted and shaken by Suzanne’s actions earlier. I didn’t know who to believe and I just couldn’t get enmeshed any further in the tangle of their relationship.

I sat at the kitchen table, staring out into the darkness, and then eventually I rang Emily. The house felt horribly empty and lonely: we’d had no real interest yet from a buyer but increasingly I was desperate to leave, to start afresh somewhere new. I rattled round in it when Polly was in bed; everything reminded me of something.

I really wanted to speak to Emily – but she didn’t answer. I left her a message.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I really am. I know it’s only because you care. Please call me back.’

But she didn’t.

In the morning, I dropped Polly at the classroom door and then asked to speak to the head-teacher, Mrs Webster. I explained what had happened yesterday with Suzanne O’Brien.

‘I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding?’ gruff Mrs Webster met me at the door of her office. ‘These things can happen, unfortunately.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ I was adamant. ‘I hardly know the family, and she has an unhealthy interest in me and Polly.’

‘Why?’ the older woman raised a quizzical, bushy brow.

‘It doesn’t matter. But surely you and your staff are aware that no child should be released to anyone they don’t know?’

‘Yes, of course. But it’s hard, Mrs Smith, in a case like this one, when a parent says she’s collecting on behalf of another parent – and the child happily goes along with it.’

I imagined my trusting, gregarious daughter, keen to befriend anyone – and the thought only made me more angry.

‘If there’s any doubt, obviously you should call the parent first.’

‘Well, we will in future, in your case. Though,’ she smiled pleasantly, but the smile didn’t reach her lined eyes. ‘It’s not always easy in this day and age to know which parent to call.’

A deft swipe. I opened my mouth to retaliate but in the end there seemed no point.

Sid called. ‘You are bringing Polly tonight, aren’t you?’

My heart sank. I hated Sid’s openings at the best of times, and this was the worst.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ he snapped.

‘You never normally want her there.’

‘Well,’ there was a pause. ‘Things change. Things do change sometimes, Laurie.’

‘Do they?’

‘If you want them to.’

‘Sid,’ I sighed. ‘What does that even mean?’

‘You know what it means. Please bring her.’

Around eleven, Maeve on reception stuck her head round the door.

‘Another cancellation?’ I finished the notes I was transcribing.

‘Er, no,’ she looked worried. ‘Your eleven o’clock’s here but – so is – well, actually, so are the police.’

It was the same gap-toothed officer they had sent to my house when I’d reported the ‘supposed’ intruder a while ago. I greeted her at the door.

‘I thought I should pay you a quick visit, Mrs Smith,’ she was courteous, efficient – but there was a definite undertone. ‘I know that you reported your daughter missing yesterday. She’s home safely?’

‘Yes,’ I said carefully. ‘There was a … the woman who took her, Suzanne O’Brien—’

The officer interrupted me. ‘Yes, Mrs O’Brien.’

‘Ms,’ I corrected, then felt foolish. ‘Sorry. Carry on. Have you spoken to her?’

‘Yes.’ I thought the officer looked longingly at the chair opposite my desk. ‘I have.’

‘And you’ve given her some sort of warning?’

‘Well, actually,’ she shifted the weight from one foot to the other. ‘
Ms
O’Brien has made a complaint against you.’

‘Against
me
?’ I gaped at her.

‘She says you have been hassling her.’

‘Hassling
her
?’ I shook my head in disbelief.

‘Yes.’ She met my gaze.

‘Is that an official term – “hassling”?’

‘Look, I don’t know what’s happened between the pair of you but—’

‘Nothing’s happened between us, except she has visited me here, made various allegations, and then took my daughter from school yesterday without my knowledge. How am
I
hassling
her
?’

‘She says …’ the woman looked at her notebook. ‘That you are “displaying an unhealthy interest in her and her husband”.’

‘Really?’ I expostulated. ‘Her husband? Who she’s no longer with.’

‘That may be the case, I don’t know,’ the policewoman looked at me coolly. ‘But, yes, really.’

‘Right. Well, I would like it on record that she is, in my professional opinion, mentally unstable.’

‘That’s as maybe. But if you continue to visit her at her house, and threaten her, then she may have grounds for some kind of injunction.’

‘Threaten her?’ I was starting to sound like a parrot.

‘One of her neighbours verified that you were indeed seen to be admonishing her severely, in front of her small son.’

‘I see.’ I felt a strange calm descend on me now. ‘And did this neighbour know what had happened prior to my “admonishing” her? Have you spoken to her ex-husband about this?’

‘We’ve left Mr Cooper a message. We will be talking to him, I can assure you.’

‘Fantastic. You do that. And now if you don’t mind, if you haven’t got anything more helpful to say, I’d like it very much if you left my office.’

‘Look, Mrs Smith,’ the officer softened a little. ‘I understand that divorces are very stressful. That emotions run high.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘Well, yes,’ she regarded me for a moment, ‘I
am
telling you actually. You have made a couple of allegations that frankly, could be seen as … emotional. And now this.’

‘So you think I’m mad.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

‘Not mad, no. Just … under pressure.’

I opened the door for her. ‘I can assure you, officer, that I won’t be going anywhere near Suzanne O’Brien, or her family, if I can possibly help it. And that it was her who took my daughter, not the other way round. So if anything ever happens …’ I faltered, I couldn’t bear to say ‘to Polly’; my stomach rolled over even thinking the words, ‘I will not be held responsible for my actions towards those who ignored me.’

Which, some might have said, wasn’t exactly furthering my cause.

‘
I
wondered
when you would turn up,’ Randolph says, yawning so widely I can see his gold teeth. His rumpled silk pyjama top is open to the swollen waist: I look away from the mat of fair hair on his chest, which is almost eye-level for me and, frankly, stomach-turning.

‘I must say, you’re not looking your best,’ he pushes back the greying blond mane from his once-handsome face, now rapidly going to seed. ‘What the fuck have you been up to? Or rather,’ he smirks, ‘what
haven’t
you been up to?’

I look at the tiny broken veins on his nose, and I remember with a visceral thud how much I detest this man. A man whose singular skill is to make money from the talent of others.

‘Where’s Sid? Where’s Polly? And my mother?’

‘Your little angel?’ he pulls the door back. ‘You’d better come in.’

I practically sprint inside the penthouse, yelling, ‘Polly, Polly?’

I see Toy Bear on the Eames chair in the corner, and my heart soars and I race to the first door, and wrench it open and—

And then, behind me, Randolph actually laughs. ‘They’re not here, dear Laurie.’

‘What do you mean, not here?’ I spin round.

‘They left at least an hour or so back. Hence me trying – and failing – to get some beauty sleep.’

I turn and I stare at him and then I raise my good hand and slap him as hard as I can round the face. I put all the anger and frustration and fear of the past twenty-four hours, of the past few months, of the past few years, into that slap and it is so hard, it hurts my own hand more I think than it hurts him. Still, I feel a creeping sense of triumph as I wait for him to hit me back. But he doesn’t.

‘You little bitch,’ he holds his reddening cheek incredulously, and his measured honeyed tones slide. Suddenly he sounds like the Northern bully that he really is. ‘You
hit
me.’

‘How dare you laugh? How dare you fucking laugh at me?’ I run round and round the apartment, opening every door, looking for my family. Looking for a clue. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind. Where the hell is Polly? Where are they all?’

‘Sid took them off. What’s the fucking drama, you lunatic?’ He studies his face in the mirror; my fingerprints lie across his cheek.

‘You let Sid take them?’

‘Yes of course I let him take them. Polly’s his daughter too.’ There is malice to his tone. ‘In case you forgot.’

I am far beyond rising to his taunt.

‘But,’ my hand is throbbing violently now. ‘Why were they here in the first place?’

‘Because. He asked me to collect them.’

‘Sid did? Sid asked
you
to collect Polly and Mum?’

‘Yes. Sid did.’

I try to compute this. Randolph walks to the Louis XVI drinks cabinet where he pours himself a whisky and downs it in one. For all his sanguine demeanour, his great meaty hand is slightly trembling; I can tell from the way the decanter chinks on the glass.

‘Give me one,’ I say and I hold my own throbbing hand out. ‘Please.’

‘Well,’ he stares at me and then he does as instructed. ‘I’m not going to argue with you. You’re stronger than you look.’

Do I sense a grudging admiration as he hands me a glass? Is that what it takes to impress in his warped world?

I drink the whisky, which makes me choke. ‘Where did he go?’ I demand.

‘I don’t know. Home, I expect.’ But he doesn’t look at me now, and I don’t believe him.

‘Can I use your phone?’ The alcohol has gone straight to my head, singing up through my veins, buzzing into me.

‘Sure,’ he gestures to the handset on the table. ‘Go nuts. I’m going to put some clothes on.’

And as I dial Sid, I look at the Hirst on the wall, so right for Randolph. I never liked Hirst, so flashy and false, so very – contrived, and I remember the night Sid and I were last here, about a year ago, celebrating some nonsense, the highest sale ever for a piece of modern art, some obscenity like that, and Jolie had just had her first big hit. She sang right here in the room, using a little breathy voice that she saved for the select few, her pretty Afro glittering and her skin gleaming like licked caramel, wrapped snugly in her shimmering white dress, and then out on the balcony, Randolph introduced her to his beloved protégé; to my husband. It was just after we’d been to Paris, just after Sid had taken off internationally and we might still have had a chance, mightn’t we?

Although deep down, I knew it was too late. It was only a matter of time.

And Randolph took Sid out to smoke; to deliberately court the girl as I watched from inside, being bored to tears by some gallery owner who was more bored by me, and I saw that Randolph lit the cigars, one eye on Sid and his other eye steadfastly on me.

And I watched him, offering Jolie a suck of the big hand-rolled Havana, and her taking it, giggling up at Sid, wrapping her voluptuous mouth around the cigar, fully aware it was positively pornographic – and I thought, why would she not fall for him? Slant-eyed, snake-hipped, scowling genius: my beautiful nightmare.

Every part of me knew Randolph meant no good. He thought I had too much power over Sid, which was laughable, because no one had power over Sid – not even Sid, really. When Sid made what Randolph considered a bad decision – like when he turned down the NYC show in favour of taking six months off the merry-go-round, or when he turned down the Sultan of Brunei’s multi-million dollar commission to create a work about his racehorse – well, then Randolph blamed me.

So Jolie suited Randolph, in the light of things to come – she was at the top of her game, fashionable and, despite her mockney tones and her street urchin game, extremely well-born and privately educated. And it was only later that I learnt she could belt it out too; belt out the songs with a voice as loud and guttural as any docker, that she would fight mean and dirty for this man whom she had decided that night at Randolph’s that she wanted.

I listen to Sid’s phone ring out, and with the other ear, I can hear Randolph talking now, quietly, in the other room, and I wonder who else is here. Sid does not answer and the voicemail doesn’t kick in and so I hang up the handset and creep towards the bedroom door, and then I realise that Randolph’s on the phone himself.

‘Yes, of course it’s definitely her,’ he is saying, ‘she’s here, right now,’ and then I push the door open, and he jumps like a guilty child.

‘Is that Sid?’ I say, and I hold my hand out again for the phone, and he says ‘No’ and then snaps it shut.

I snatch it from him, and now he does push me, hard, and he’s a gorilla of a man, greasy curls hanging round a degenerate face. He pushes me, and I go flying back across the room, falling, skidding on the parquet floor. His phone drops to the floor and I scrabble for it and look at the display and the last number dialled, I recognise: it’s Sid’s number in Islington.

‘So are they there? Are they safe?’ I say, panting with the exertion, and I stand and Randolph comes at me again.

‘You know, I never liked you, you jumped-up little tart,’ he snarls, and he shoves me again, but it’s more than just a push, it contains the venom of violent action. ‘You fucked it all up, didn’t you?’

And there is force in the contact that makes me remember I am alive still and I feel an overwhelming urge to laugh. Somehow, it seems entirely appropriate that I am here fighting with this man, who represented everything I hated about my life with Sid.

I scramble back up and he slaps my face, and I am stunned, falling back, but I get up yet again, and I lunge for the phone which has gone skidding under his huge ornate bed, the floor beneath which is like some overgrown teenager’s, littered with old underwear and plates of half-eaten food.

But he is nearer, and he reaches it first.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he says, and I think he’s going to stamp on my hand, but he doesn’t; he drags me up forcibly and throws me onto the bed and for a moment, I lie there limply, winded and confused. Is he going to assault me now too? But he just dials again and then he says, ‘Police, please.’

And I suppose that at least if the police come Mal cannot get me and nor can his mad wife, if it
is
her who has ever meant me harm. And if Randolph is calling the police, then perhaps my fears about Sid
have
been my own overwhelmed paranoia.

And in fact, lying here, exhausted, racked with desperation to see my daughter is safe, I am almost incredulous now that I have ended up in this sorry and pathetic state. Incredulous that my best friend is dead – and I still don’t know who did it. That I still don’t know who it is that wants me out of the way for good.

Randolph and I lock eyes across the vast expanse of his opulent bed, which stinks of him; of his nasty fetid existence.

We lock eyes – and I know that this journey is nearly done.