Bad Friends (24 page)

Perhaps I was imagining it, but DI Fox seemed to have lost interest in my case.

‘Maggie,’ he half-sighed. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But I just got another text. I think it might be Joseph Blake again.’

‘I don’t think so. His parents have shipped him off to some nutty monastic retreat in the Pyrenees. Actually, I was going to call you. We’re pretty sure now that the perpetrators of your flat break-in are the French family.’

‘They sound like something out of the Krays.’

‘Yeah, well, they’d probably like to think they are. They’re a nasty little lot, running a protection racket in London Bridge; they don’t like all the yuppies taking over. They’ve got various illegal gaming-rooms going on and they resent the buildings being snapped up by all and sundry.’

‘Yuppies?’ I was offended. ‘I’m not a yuppy.’

‘Okay, you’re not a yuppy. But they are two-bit thugs and the turnover of your place smacks of their style – or lack of it. The trouble is, there ain’t a fingerprint in your flat which we don’t recognise as one of yours, or your,’ he cleared his throat, ‘your various blokes.’

‘Various blokes?’ I spluttered.

‘You know what I mean. Your mates. The real point is, Maggie, I’m up to my eyes in all this terror stuff in town – and
with the Christmas bomb threat, and bleeding hoaxes coming out of our ears, I just ain’t got the manpower to post someone to watch over you. We’ve upped the plod presence on your patch anyway – but I think you’ll be all right now the Frenches know we’re on to them. Just stay in touch, okay?’ He was ready to hang up.

‘Well, actually –’ I stopped. For some reason I felt a bit daft. ‘It’s just – I think, I’m sure I did mention these texts before, quite nasty ones, and now, if you say Joseph is out of the picture –’

‘Yeah, we were looking into the texts, weren’t we?’ It was definitely a sigh this time. ‘You got another one?’

‘Yes. I mean, it is just a kind of vague threat.’ It sounded a little pathetic out loud. ‘“
You’re cornered
”, this one says.’

‘And you’re quite sure it’s nothing to do with that charmer I met the other day?’

There was a long pause.

‘Maggie?’

‘You mean Alex?’ I thought about Bel’s words on the phone from Thailand. ‘I dunno. I really hope it isn’t, anyway.’

‘You do know he’s got a record, don’t you, mate?’

‘Yes, DI Fox, I do know.’

‘Yeah, of course you do. Well, give me the number they’re coming from and I’ll see if we can trace it.’

Before I left the office I emailed Alex back.

Then I picked up my stuff and carried it past the desks to say goodbye to the girls. ‘Good luck, everyone,’ I said as cheerfully as I could manage, resting the box on a chair. ‘Thanks for being so brilliant.’

‘Are you really going?’ Donna asked, coming round her desk. ‘Really truly? What will we do without you?’ She hugged me tight, the sweet smell of cocoa-butter enveloping me. ‘Aren’t we even gonna have a goodbye drink?’ A guilty look crossed her face. ‘I’m sorry about what I said the other day,’ she muttered, staring at her boots. ‘It was well rude. I’ve learned so much from you.’

Sally looked glum. ‘Oh God. It’s just us against them now.’

I picked up my box. ‘You’ll all be great. Just don’t let the bastards grind you down. And remember – there are other programmes outside the inestimable
Renee Reveals
.’

‘What a shame you won’t be working on any of them.’

Charlie.

I’d wanted to get out before he arrived. He smiled at me like Judas must have smiled at his good friend Jesus.

‘See you,’ I smiled rather feverishly at the others, walking quickly to the lift. ‘Keep in touch.’

Charlie followed me. ‘Don’t do this, Maggie.’

‘It’s too late, Charlie. I’m doing it.’

‘Maggie –’ He grabbed my arm. I shook him off impatiently and jabbed the lift button.

‘Maggie, I –’

‘Leave me alone, Charlie. Do your worst, tell everyone about the summer if you want. I’m not ashamed any more.’

The lift doors slid open and Renee stepped out like a ghastly apparition. I stepped in.

‘Goodbye, Charlie. Renee.’ I smiled pleasantly although my heart was thumping. ‘I wish I could say it’s been fun.’ I pressed
Ground
. ‘But I’d be lying.’

I drove straight to Barbara Bailey’s and thanked God she was out when I arrived.

‘I’ve come to collect the dog,’ I said politely to the housekeeper.

She looked worried. ‘Mrs Bailey, she not here. I think I check her first; you not mind?’

‘Mrs Bailey is expecting me. I’m in a bit of a rush, actually.’

‘I try call her.’

As soon as she’d scurried into the back of the house, I opened the sitting-room door. My heart soared as I saw my scruffy little dog rushing around the huge back lawn, barking at the trees that bowed like courtly dancers in the wind, at the wood-pigeons pecking at the half-empty stone fountain.

‘Digby!’ I rushed towards the French windows.

‘Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, Maggie.’ That voice, like nails on sandpaper. I jumped guiltily. ‘Can I help?’

‘I’ve,’ I cleared my throat as I turned slowly, ‘I’ve just come to get the dog. My dog.’

‘And you’ve cleared it with my boy, have you?’ Malcolm sauntered towards me, hands in pockets, his barrel chest as puffed out as the pigeons Digby was hounding.

I stared at him. ‘No, actually.’

‘Well, I think you better had, don’t you?’

I had the strange sensation that my life was flashing before my eyes suddenly, rather like a drowning woman’s would.

‘Why? Alex wasn’t interested in Digby when he left me.’

‘He left you, did he? That’s not what I heard.’

‘What?’ I was confused.

‘I thought you abandoned him. I think you’d better leave the dog.’

‘Look, Malcolm, why do you care? You’re so foul to Alex anyway –’

‘Foul?’ His strong, cruel face darkened.

‘Yeah, foul.’ I moved towards the door, towards my dog. Then I turned back. ‘I mean, why exactly
do
you despise your eldest son so much? I don’t get it. Especially when he obviously reveres you.’

‘I don’t despise him,’ he scowled.

‘You do. You certainly act like you do, anyway.’

Malcolm stared at me as if he’d never even countenanced this before. ‘I just get frustrated,’ he said slowly. ‘He’s had every chance I never had, because he had the best education money could buy –’ He did so love the sound of his own opinions.

‘But I’d say it has served him pretty well, that education.’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged noncommittally. ‘Maybe I’m tough because I had it so rough myself as a kid – and it shaped me really. If you’d seen the beatings my dad dealt my poor mother –’

Oh, the old boo-hoo. Only Renee could match Malcolm for the working-class hero bullshit, and I was sick of it, quite honestly.

‘So you’re punishing Alex for your childhood, are you?’

Digby had spotted us now, bounding to the door in great excitement, barking madly. I opened the door and knelt to let the dog slather my face with big pink licks.

‘You know, Malcolm, nothing’s as valuable as a parent’s love. I learned that the hard way too, actually. And Alex needs you.’

‘Needs me?’ he snorted. ‘He’s thirty-two years old.’

‘Yeah – needs you.’ I stood up. ‘You’re his dad.’

I’d never seen Malcolm stuck for words before.

‘It’s watching the boy trying to destroy himself that makes me mad.’ His voice was gruff but quiet now, almost gentle. For a split second I glimpsed the man behind the posturing.

‘Don’t you think that you might be just a tiny bit responsible?’ I picked up the dog. ‘He’s trying to fill the socking great
hole your contempt has drilled in him. It’s just, he’s not filling it with the right things.’

The housekeeper appeared, scurrying like a frightened mouse. ‘Mrs Bailey, she not answer phone. Please can you –’

Malcolm held up a sturdy hand, his fingers straggly with coarse hair. ‘It’s all right, Gemi. Maggie can take the dog. I’ll square it with the missus.’

‘Oh.’ Gemi looked hugely relieved. ‘Thank you, Mr Bailey.’

I looked at Alex’s father and I wondered if my words had made an impact. ‘Yes, thank you, Malcolm. Come on, Dig. We’ll see you around.’

When I left Malcolm’s I went to see Gar. I felt like I was saying goodbye to everybody; I felt like I was on the run… like the predator was closing in.

It was Susan’s day off and an insipid-looking redhead called Annette was on duty, reading the
Sun
next to a fake white Christmas tree festooned with gaudy tinsel. She barely raised her eyes as I walked past.

Gar looked more dishevelled than usual somehow, although she managed to pat my hand after I’d hugged her tightly. I felt horribly anxious about the fact I was planning to leave town again.

‘Hello Maggie,’ she said, and I looked at her in surprise.

‘She’s been all right, has she?’ I asked Annette when she came to give Gar her pills.

‘As all right as she ever is, you know.’ Insipid shrugged slouchy shoulders. ‘Aren’t you, dear?’ she yelled at Gar.

‘She’s not deaf, you know,’ I said stiffly. ‘Just a bit –’

‘Senile?’ Insipid sniffed.

‘She’s not senile,’ I snapped. ‘She’s got Alzheimer’s. There’s a difference, you know.’

‘If you say so. She had another visitor yesterday, that perked her up – didn’t it, dear?’ she shouted again.

I bit my tongue. ‘My dad, you mean?’ I moved the poinsettia I’d brought with me onto Gar’s bedside table, noticing with
irritation that beneath the top layer of scarlet leaves, the next layer was already shrivelled and dead.

‘No, not your dad. I know Bill, lovely man, he is.’ She looked almost girlish for a minute. ‘No, this was a lady I think. I’m not sure, I weren’t here yesterday. Leanne said.’

My blood ran colder than it had all day. ‘Who was she?’

‘Said she was a relative. She’s been before. I think she left something for Vera.’ Insipid had lost interest now. She snapped the lid back on the pill bottle.

‘What?’

‘Should be over on that shelf. That’s it – that big scrapbook.’ I picked up a red cardboard book like I’d had in my childhood to record my holidays, and flicked open the first page. I gasped in shock.

There were family photos here, family photos of me and Gar and my mother. Only wherever I should have been, my face had been cut out.

‘Dad,’ I said urgently, ‘can you come and collect Gar?’

‘What?’ He sounded confused. ‘Why?’

‘I can’t explain now. It’s just – I’ve got to go to Pendarlin.’

‘Why?’

‘Please, Dad. I just do. I’m worried someone strange has been visiting Gar – and Susan’s on holiday. Can you just have her for the weekend?’

‘Really, Mag, you’re making me nervous. I –’

‘I know what you’re thinking but I’m fine, honestly. I’d take her down to Cornwall, but I don’t think she’s fit enough to travel that far.’

‘Maggie –’

‘
Please
, Dad. Just for the weekend. I’ll be back on Monday, I swear. It’s not like the summer, honestly.’

‘But why do you need to go so badly? Why now? What about work?’

‘I’ve – I’ve resigned,’ I confessed in a small voice.

‘I see.’ There was a short silence, then a deep sigh. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m altogether surprised.’

‘And I just – I need to get out of London. I just – I really need some space to clear my head. Please.’ I heard my voice crack slightly.

Another sigh. ‘Well, if it’s really that important to you, Mag, then –’

I nearly cried with relief. ‘You’re a star, Dad, an absolute star.’

‘But when you come back, Maggie, we need to sit down and talk properly, okay? I’m worried about you.’

‘Okay.’ I was sheepish. ‘We will. I promise.’

After I’d gone back to Greenwich to collect Digby from my father’s – where Jenny had him practically chained to the kitchen table – and listened patiently to her lecture about looking after myself, and eating properly and driving carefully, and that my dad would really like me back on Monday, and after I’d hugged her tight for a moment, clinging on a bit like I was five, I sat in the car in the dark outside the house. The dog panted damp hot breaths down my neck, impatient to be off.

‘Looks like it’s just you and me, buster.’ I started the car, thinking wistfully of Seb and last weekend and a chance for happiness already lost. Then I stamped the memory down and set off across London for the motorway. The sky was the twilight-stained blue-orange of a winter city filled with too much light, busy for a Thursday night, the streets crammed with horns and sirens and atrocious driving.

Eventually shaking off the suburban traffic, we shot along the Embankment, the river a dark and oily flank beside us, the Houses of Parliament on the opposite bank like something from a Gothic fairytale, down plain old Nine Elms Lane, heading for Chelsea Bridge. Passing the Dogs’ Home, Digby let out a pitiful whimper, pushing his cold nose into my placating hand.

At the roundabout, I realised suddenly how very near I was to where Seb was having his drink. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have just one, just to say goodbye. I hesitated until the van behind me started to beep impatiently, and then I found the big pub quite easily – The Latchmere, pinioned by the busy intersection; the billboards advertising the upstairs theatre – a new production of
Twelfth
Night
. I stared at the swirly writing for a moment, at the photograph of a grim-faced Sebastian and a jester-type guy and a grand woman with swept-up hair wearing a black veil, and I laughed out loud. It wasn’t quite the West End show I’d been expecting, but at least it existed!

A police car screamed past, narrowly missing a young girl in nothing but jogging bottoms and a crop-top despite the December cold. She ran across the road clutching a huge bottle of cider against her jutting ribs, her great gold hoops swinging as she went, and I shivered. The brightly lit pub looked like a cosy oasis in a chilly urban night; through the windows I watched people laughing, joking, toasting one another, rapt in deep and serious conversation. People living. Two men kissed passionately and then I spotted Seb and a tall skinny woman with dishevelled hair leaning across to hand him a pint – then he was gone from sight.

I felt like such an outsider – never more isolated, in fact. I should just leave. But I didn’t. I sat there in the car, watching still, like a stalker myself. I’ll just pop in for a second, I decided eventually, when Digby started to whine and snuffle. I’ll just have one for the road.

I looked for a parking space. Spotting a small side-street under the railway bridge, I turned right across the traffic as a small neat figure, hood up, stepped out without warning in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, the car stalling as the figure slipped safely into the shadows under the bridge without a backwards glance.

My heart had stopped. It couldn’t be.

I leapt out of the car and screamed her name – but she’d disappeared already.

I was transfixed, staring after her, blocking both lanes, a transit van beeping furiously somewhere behind me – but I couldn’t move. Then Digby barked frantically, and I snapped out of my trance as the Number 44 bore down on me from one direction, an ambulance with all lights flashing from the other.

I was sure I’d just seen Fay.