Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (27 page)

‘You remember that clearly, do you?’ Jack snapped.

‘Yeah, cos I don’t really like them, but Annabelle says I should eat all that healthy shit for the baby, so, you know.’ She shrugged. ‘I chopped it up and took it back upstairs with me.’

Jack whipped his head at Annabelle. ‘Where were you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Annabelle said. ‘Bathroom, study perhaps.’

‘It’s a big house,’ Lilly interjected.

‘So you can’t be sure then, that Tanisha was there all night,’ said Jack.

Annabelle spluttered. ‘What?’

He tried to check his building rage. ‘In this huge house of yours, you can’t know for certain that Tanisha hadn’t left. She could easily slip out and you’d just presume she was upstairs.’

Annabelle shook her head. ‘It’s not like that. I check on her all the time.’

He slammed his hands on to the table top and all three women gasped. ‘Tonight, Chika Mboko died and I need to know if Tanisha killed her.’

‘I didn’t,’ Tanisha whispered.

He breathed out though his nose and raked his hands through his hair, dragging his fingernails into his scalp. He had nothing. In fact, he had less than nothing. He had a witness who would swear that Tanisha was at home eating fruit. He needed to change direction.

‘Why did you and Chika fall out?’

‘Huh?’ Tanisha moved back in her chair.

‘You used to be friends, but you fell out,’ he said. ‘I want to know why.’

Her answer was instant and mechanical. ‘She said I stole her phone and I never.’

‘See, that just doesn’t ring true to me.’ He folded his arms. ‘All that bitterness over a phone.’

‘I’ve known grown men fight in the pub over football,’ Lilly commented.

‘The thing is, Chika intimated that it was about much more than that,’ he said.

Tanisha narrowed her eyes. ‘What did she say?’

‘That it was complicated. Those were her exact words.’ Jack rubbed his nose with a finger. ‘And a row over a phone doesn’t sound that complicated to me.’

Tanisha leaned right back in her chair, folded her own arms so that she and Jack were in mirror positions.

‘I arranged to meet her so that she could tell me exactly what did happen between you,’ he said.

‘She wouldn’t have told you shit,’ Tanisha laughed. ‘She would have dragged you over there and made up some crap.’

‘I guess we’ll never know,’ said Jack. ‘Which, from where I’m sitting, looks bloody convenient for you.’

The house is in darkness, except for the winking LCD light of the alarm. Trick cranes his neck to look through the window and lets out a whistle.

‘You ain’t winding me up? This is really your gaff?’

‘Shush,’ Jamie puts a finger to his lips. ‘You’ll wake my parents.’

Trick is still shaking his head in disbelief as Jamie puts his key in the lock, and taps in the alarm code. Jamie’s never considered his home to be particularly posh. All his schoolmates live
somewhere
similar. Many of them have another house as well, in Norfolk or, more often, France. The way Trick is acting you’d think it was a mansion or something.

He shuts the door as gently as he can, but Trick is already
crashing
through to the dining room.

‘For fuck’s sake keep quiet,’ Jamie hisses. ‘If my dad catches us we’re dead.’

Tricks nods his understanding and slips inside.

‘My old man’s a right bastard as well,’ he stage whispers. ‘Proper handy with his fists.’

Jamie’s stunned. His dad’s pretty crap, always going on, always looking at Jamie with his disappointed face, but he’d never beat him.

‘One time he broke my mum’s cheekbone,’ Trick tells Jamie.

‘What did you do?’

‘Wrapped a baseball bat round his head.’ Trick sniffs. ‘We never heard from him no more.’

‘Sorry.’ Jamie pats his friend’s arm.

‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.’

Jamie turns the dimmer switch so that the room is bathed in a low light. Enough to see, but not enough to wake his folks.

Trick’s eyes are wide and he spins around like he’s crossed through the wardrobe into Narnia. He lets out a bewildered giggle.

‘What is this?’

Jamie would have thought it was pretty obvious, what with the table and chairs. ‘The dining room.’

‘You have a special room just to eat in?’

Actually, the Hollands almost never use it. His parents eat out most nights and if Jamie’s home from school he’ll pick at a microwaved lasagne with the telly on in the kitchen. Dad always complains that it’s an easy room for their cleaning lady, Anjia, and that they shouldn’t have to pay for it. Jamie doesn’t want to explain any of this to Trick.

‘Let’s just get out of here,’ he says.

They’d meant to come hours ago but the time had danced away. Hanging out with Trick is like that. Plans get made but never pursued. Hours stretch and bend and disappear. Total freedom. After a lifetime of having every moment of his existence
scheduled
and timetabled, Jamie has never been so happy and he would gladly stay with Trick for ever.

There are downsides of course. Trick hoovers down the
powder
at an alarming rate. He calls himself a meth monster and it’s no lie. And there’s a reckless side to him. Sometimes it’s exciting, like when he rubs himself against Jamie’s arse in broad daylight. Sometimes it’s scary, like when he runs across the road, narrowly avoiding oncoming buses, or steals a pile of chocolate from a newsagent’s.

‘Stay here,’ Jamie warns and leaves Trick fiddling with the candlesticks while he creeps upstairs.

The door to Mum and Dad’s room is shut, but his heart still pounds as he passes. He’s glad to reach the end of the hallway and his own room. It feels strange being inside. There’s his duvet and posters, his wardrobe full of clothes. Was it only yesterday that this was his life? It seems like years ago. Like a fading memory.

He opens his drawer and takes out Uncle Theo’s cash.
Underneath
are a handful of postcards, a beaded necklace he bought on a school trip to Provence, unused book tokens, an iPod and a chap stick. They don’t seem familiar at all, as if they belong to someone else.

He shuts the drawer, glad to leave this existence behind. At the door, he has second thoughts, scurries back and retrieves the iPod. He’s spent hours loading it with all his favourite tracks.

With any luck he can sell it.

Carla Chapman is manning reception and she hates it. She’s supposed to be a copper, not a glorified secretary, smiling at the great unwashed as they come to tell their tales of woe. She should be out there on the street solving crimes, not filling in Incident Report Sheets.

She hears along the canteen bongo drums that Jack McNally has bagged himself another SAO. A murder. What she wouldn’t give to be involved in that.

Actually, she’s a bit miffed that Jack hasn’t been in contact. After she trawled through all those hours of CCTV footage for him and found that vital piece of evidence, you’d have thought he’d have asked her to get on board. One good turn and all that.

It could be that he assumes she’s got a full work-load. Or that she’s not on duty today. There’s no way he would know that she’s been plonked on flipping reception doing meet and greet.

She pulls out her phone. Maybe she should text him, offering her assistance. Something professional and helpful, with just a hint of the naughty. Before she’s even decided what to say, a punter comes in off the street. It’s a woman. Not local by the look of her, with dark hair cut and coloured in a way that smells of money. Her suit is the same. Definitely designer.

‘Can I help you?’ Carla trills.

The woman steps to the counter and places a leather briefcase at her feet. ‘I don’t know.’

Carla smiles encouragingly. The woman seems lost and
nervous
. Carla would place a bet that she’s never stepped a foot in a police station in her life.

‘My son’s disappeared,’ she says at last.

‘When?’ Carla asks, pulling out a missing person’s report sheet.

The woman frowns, or at least tries to, but she’s got one of those foreheads that won’t move. Probably full of botox.

‘I last saw Jamie on Monday morning, before I left for work.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Sixteen.’

Carla stops filling out the form. Teenaged boys go missing every day of the week. It usually turns out they’ve spent the night at their mate’s and forgotten to ring home. No big deal.

‘Have you tried to call him?’ she asks.

‘He’s switched off his phone.’

‘What about his friends? Have you given them a call to find out if he’s there?’

‘I don’t know his …’ The woman looks pained. ‘He goes to boarding school and his friends will all be there.’

‘What about a girlfriend?’ Carla asks.

The woman bites her top lip. It’s completely unlined. Botox, no doubt about it. ‘No girlfriend.’

Carla tries not to sigh and pushes the form across the desk. ‘Why don’t you fill out the details and if we hear anything we’ll get in touch, but to be honest with you, boys of that age usually turn up when they get hungry.’

‘I think he might have already been back,’ the woman says. ‘Some of his things might have gone.’

‘Might have?’

‘I can’t be sure.’

‘Like I say.’ Carla taps the form.

The woman takes out a fountain pen from her inside pocket and scans the form, writing out her name:
Mrs Sally-Anne Holland
.

‘If you need to call, I’d prefer you to contact me and not his father,’ she says.

‘Why’s that?’

Mrs Holland looks up at Carla as if pleading with her to
understand
. ‘I haven’t told him Jamie’s missing.’

‘Surely he’s noticed,’ Carla laughs.

‘He thinks Jamie left for school on Monday and, as he boards, my husband simply assumes he’s in school.’ Mrs Holland gulps, a string of delicate seed pearls bobbing at her throat. ‘I don’t want to worry him, you see.’

Carla cocks her head to one side. Something doesn’t ring true. This woman has come out of her way to attend a police station a long way from home, and now she doesn’t want her husband involved.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Mrs Holland says. ‘Jamie is probably at home right now, working his way through the fridge and I’m making a fuss about nothing.’

‘It won’t hurt to at least log it,’ says Carla.

Mrs Holland shakes her head. ‘No, I’ve wasted enough of your time, please excuse me.’

With that, she puts away her pen and leaves. As she gets to the door, Carla notices the red soles of her high-heeled shoes. Louboutins. Six hundred pounds’ worth of unadulterated sex appeal. When she makes DI she will stomp about in those every day and every copper in the station, including Jack McNally, will come begging at her feet.

The toaster was on the blink. Again. The bread wouldn’t pop and black smoke was pouring out. Lilly took a knife and tried to gouge it out.

‘That is a very bad idea.’ Karol leaned across her and turned the toaster off at the socket.

He was wearing nothing but a pair of cotton boxer shorts, his chest vast and firm. He caught Lilly looking and coughed in embarrassment.

‘I did not hear you come back last night,’ he said.

‘It was gone three and you were fast asleep,’ she replied.

He turned the toaster upside down over the sink. ‘Did
everything
go as you wished?’

‘Well, Tanisha wasn’t charged.’

Two slices of carbonized toast slid out in a flurry of crumbs.

‘Common sense prevailed,’ said Karol.

‘Lack of evidence prevailed,’ Lilly replied.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Sam stood at the kitchen door. He too was bare chested, his pyjama bottoms slung low on his hips, further elongating the long strip of his hairless torso.

‘Tell me he didn’t stay over,’ Sam demanded.

‘I had to go out.’

‘I slept on the sofa.’

Lilly and Karol spoke at the same time.

Sam eyed them both with suspicion. Lilly in her dressing gown, Karol almost naked. Together in the kitchen.

Lilly cleared her throat. ‘One of my clients was arrested late last night, it was her foster-mother who woke you up when she came to ask for help. I spent the night at the police station so Karol kindly offered to babysit.’

‘Do babysitters,’ Sam spat out the word, ‘often walk around undressed?’

‘You are quite right, Sam, I will get my clothes now.’ Karol headed out of the room.

‘Do you have to be so rude?’ Lilly hissed.

‘Do you have to be so obvious?’

Lilly sighed. ‘Don’t you think if I’d been having a night of
passion
I might have opted for something a little more alluring?’

Sam took in her tatty dressing gown, with toothpaste on the lapel, and the fluffy bunny slippers.

‘He still shouldn’t be here, Mum, we don’t know him from Adam.’

‘He works for me,’ said Lilly.

Sam rolled his eyes. ‘As a secretary. I bet you haven’t had him CRB checked. He could be any sort of weirdo or paedophile.’

‘Or he could be an Al-Quaeda terrorist, or working for MI5.’

‘Now you’re just being stupid.’

‘I‘m simply making the point that sometimes we have to place our trust in people.’ Lilly turned to the fridge. ‘Now do you want some bacon?’

Mrs Ebola answered the door. Her face heavy with barely
contained
sadness.

‘Is Demi there?’ Jack asked.

Mrs Ebola showed him in. The flat was cold. No central
heating
and the gas fire was switched off.

‘She is very upset,’ said Mrs Ebola. ‘She won’t come out of her room at all.’

‘Can I go up?’ Jack asked.

Mrs Ebola nodded that he could and led him to the stairs.

‘Please excuse the mess,’ she clucked.

He smiled. The carpet was worn, the paintwork marked, but the place was spotless. His ma said exactly the same thing
whenever
the McNallys had visitors. She would spend hours on her knees scrubbing the floors, her fingers red and rough from the industrial quantities of bleach she insisted on using, but if a
neighbour
should so much as put a toe over the step, Ma would put her hand to her head.