Snatched (6 page)

Forcing herself to hold her tongue as they drove on through the backstreets of Rusholme at breakneck speed, Leanne dug her nails into the sides of her seat and held on for dear life. It sickened her to have caught him out in a lie about his ex, and he would pay for that before the night was out. But she wouldn’t press him for answers right now – not when he was already driving like a maniac.

And definitely not when they were just minutes away from coming face to face with Sue. There was no way she was giving
her
the satisfaction of seeing them having an argument. No, she would walk into that hospital with her head held high and her hand in Terry’s. And if Sue didn’t like it –
tough
!

Sue wouldn’t have liked it. But, fortunately for Leanne, she wasn’t there to see it. She was still in town, and Terry – for once – was the furthest thing from her mind. Although, normally by now, when the club was closing and they were getting set to head back to Julie’s place with whichever men they’d picked up, he’d be the
only
thing on her mind.

By now, she’d usually either be stone sober and wracked with guilt for even
thinking
about doing the dirty with another man; or pissed out of her head and sobbing that she couldn’t live without Terry. Either way, she’d managed to ruin every date she’d had in the last year. But, so far, tonight’s date was proving to be a whole lot better than she’d expected. Although she wasn’t sure why, because her man, Chris, was nowhere near as handsome as Terry; and there was
no
excuse for the slacks and slip-on shoes that he was wearing. But he was so laid-back and easy to talk to that she’d felt herself warming to him as the night wore on. And unlike the losers she
usually
got lumbered with, who spent the night sighing and looking at their watches, and generally making it obvious that they were only tolerating her for the sake of their mate who’d copped off with Julie, at least he was making an effort to get to know her.

And it was working, because by the time the lights came up and the music stopped, she found that she was actually looking forward to continuing their chat back at Julie’s. It remained to be seen whether anything
else
would happen when they got there, but it was a promising start.

At least,
Sue
thought it was, but Julie obviously didn’t agree.

‘I am
so
sorry,’ she apologised when they headed into the toilets to re-do their make-up before the doormen kicked everyone out.

‘What for?’ Sue asked, elbowing a group of younger girls out of the way so they could get to the mirror.

‘For landing you with such a
gimp
,’ Julie replied guiltily. ‘I promised you a good one this time, and I
swear
he was better-looking this morning. But I think he must have had a fight with the ugly monster on the way over.’

‘Don’t be tight,’ Sue scolded, taking her lipstick out of her bag and slicking a fresh coat on. ‘He’s not that bad.’

Snorting softly, Julie said, ‘Hey, I know I told you to behave ’cos it’s my birthday, but you don’t have to lie to me, mate. I bet you’re dying to tell him to sling it. But I reckon you’ll have a fight on your hands getting rid of this one, ’cos he’s well into you.’

‘You reckon?’

‘God, yeah. Haven’t you seen the way he’s been drooling over you all night?’

‘Can’t say I noticed,’ Sue lied, smiling slyly as she smacked her lips together.

‘Yeah, well, he has,’ Julie said. ‘And if it wasn’t for mine being so loaded, I’d be helping you to do a runner. But there’s a nice pair of Pradas down the road with my name on them, and I reckon I’ll be able to wangle them out of him if I play him right.’

‘You’ll be lucky to get Shoes-R-Us, never mind Prada,’ Sue chuckled. ‘You know what they say about men with money – the more they’ve got, the tighter they hang on to it. Anyway, you don’t even know if he
has
got money.’

‘Course he has,’ Julie said confidently. ‘And he’ll cough some of it up if he wants a bit of what I’ve got to offer, don’t you worry about that. Only thing is,’ she said now, giving Sue a sheepish grin, ‘he won’t come back to mine.’

Raising an eyebrow, surprised to hear that Julie’s legendary pulling powers had failed her for once, Sue said, ‘So why the hell are we wasting time doing up our faces when we could be out there nabbing a cab?’

‘I’m not saying he doesn’t
want
to,’ Julie told her quickly. ‘But he’s expecting some really important business call, or something, and he’s got to be at the hotel when it comes through. So he wants us to go there instead.’

Frowning at her in the mirror, Sue said, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Sorry, mate. I’ve already kind of said yes.’

‘Aw,
what
?’ Sue groaned, giving Julie an exasperated look. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘’Cos it’s the
Lowry
,’ Julie said, as if that made all the difference. ‘And they’ve not just got a room, they’ve got a
suite
.’

‘Yeah, and you’ve got a whole flat.’

‘But I
want
to go.
Please
, Sue . . . you know I’ve been dying to see what it’s like in there. And it
is
my birthday, so you’ve got to. Just this once, and I swear I’ll never ask again.’

Sensing that Julie wasn’t going to quit until she got what she wanted. Sue flapped her hands. ‘All right, fine.’

‘Eh?’ Narrowing her eyes, Julie drew her head back. ‘That was a bit easy, wasn’t it? I thought it was going to take all night to persuade you.’

Pointing out that the night was almost over already anyway, Sue said, ‘And I wouldn’t start trying to put me off now I’ve agreed to it or I might just change my mind. Oh, and you can stop being mean about Chris while you’re at it, ’cos he’s not that bad.’

‘You what?’ Julie squawked, her face a mask of disbelief and disgust. ‘I’ve hooked you up with loads of decent-looking blokes in the past few months, and you haven’t had a good word to say about any of them. Now you get landed with Sir Dwayne of Dweebdom, and you reckon he’s not that bad?’ Shaking her head, she threw her hands up in surrender and headed into a toilet cubicle, muttering, ‘You must be more pissed than you look, mate!’

‘Not yet,’ Sue called after her. ‘But I’m sure I will be once we’ve raided their minibar. It’s all free at them hotels, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, aye? Planning on making a night of it, are we?’

‘Well, you’ve been nagging me to make more of an effort for long enough, so you can’t say I’m not trying. And, who knows . . . if he’s good, I might just stretch it to
two
.’

‘Hey, hang on a minute!’ Julie laughed, coming out of the toilet with her skirt hoisted around her waist while she tugged her knickers up. ‘I know I said I wanted a good crack at my fella, but don’t you go committing me to a whole bleedin’ weekend of him. A shag’s one thing, but I’m not being bored to death having to look at the fat bastard in daylight, an’ all.’

‘Not even for a pair of Pradas?’

‘
No
man’s worth that much sacrifice.’

Laughing, Sue said, ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d met my Terry.’ Pulling herself up short, she cursed under her breath, wondering why the hell
he
’d come into her mind.

Wondering pretty much the same thing, Julie said, ‘What you thinking about
him
for, you silly bitch?’

‘I wasn’t,’ Sue lied. ‘It just slipped out.’

‘Yeah, well, slip it right back in,’ Julie told her bluntly. ‘He’s getting on with his own thing, and you’re supposed to be getting on with yours.’

Muttering that that was exactly what she’d been trying to do, Sue turned back to the mirror and fiddled with her hair, to hide the fact that thinking about Terry doing his own thing had just made her feel sick.

‘Oi!’ Julie prodded her sharply in the ribs. ‘If you ruin my birthday getting all miserable over that ex of yours, I swear to God I’ll swing for you!’

Mumbling, ‘I’m not getting miserable,’ Sue took a deep breath. Then, turning round, she held out her hand, saying, ‘Right, give us your phone.’

‘Why? Who you gonna call?’

‘Well, not
him
, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I can’t just stay out all weekend without telling Nicky where I am, can I?’

‘By God, I think she means it,’ Julie snorted, reaching into her bag and handing the phone over. ‘But won’t she be in bed by now?’

‘Which is exactly why they invented that little thing called
texting
,’ Sue told her sarcastically.

‘Yeah, well, hurry up,’ Julie said, glancing around and seeing that they were the only people left in the toilets. ‘If I get out there and he’s legged it before I get to see the inside of his suite, you’re dead.’

Sticking two fingers up at her, Sue dialled Nicky’s number and left her message. Then, handing the phone back, she grinned.

‘Right, then. Let’s go and get this birthday party
really
started.’

4

Jay Osborne was deep in thought when she reached the hospital. For a supposedly tight-knit community like that of the Fitton estate, where everybody dipped in and out of each others’ business like biscuits in tea, it amazed her that no one had been able to tell her where to find Sue or Terry Day. But they’d had plenty enough to say
about
them.

Sue, despite the odd murmurings of sympathy, seemed to be looked upon as a ‘bit of a slag’ by most of her neighbours – and a terrible mother by them all. While Terry was classed as scum for abandoning his family the way he had – and a pervert, apparently, for taking up with a girl less than half his age. And the kids hadn’t escaped the venom, either, with Connor – now that the neighbours knew he wasn’t actually dead – being labelled mardy; while Nicky, despite them all saying how good she was to her brother, was seen as a weirdo for spending all her time indoors instead of running wild with her mates. And, yet if she
had
been that kind of girl, Jay had no doubt that they’d be calling
her
as much of a slag as they called her mother.

Under the impression that she must be dealing with the family from hell, Jay had been surprised when she’d checked them out back at the station to find that they didn’t have any major convictions between them. Sue had been cautioned for assaulting Leanne Miller some months earlier, but it had never gone to court, due to a lack of cooperation on both sides. And, apart from a couple of old convictions for fighting, the only recent notes on Terry related to allegations of domestic violence, and trespassing on his estranged wife’s property without her consent – none of which had progressed to formal charges, because Sue had apparently refused to take it any further when push came to shove.

All of which seemed like the usual tit-for-tat games of an estranged couple, in Jay’s opinion, which made her curious to know why everyone seemed to have turned against them so vehemently.

Traditionally, communities like that tended to be pretty evenly divided when there was a marriage breakdown; some siding with the victim, the rest with the villain. But, in this case, it seemed that neither of the Days had much support. And Terry’s troubles seemed to have extended to work as well as home, according to his foreman, who had told her, when she’d contacted him to try and get Terry’s address, that Terry had been forced to change shifts a few weeks back after suffering months of harassment from the workmates on his regular shift.

So, were they just horrible people who deserved everything they got? she wondered. Or were the neighbours and workmates just a particularly vindictive bunch? Either way, the Days certainly seemed to have a lot of enemies – any one of whom could have been the shadowy figure seen running from the scene after the window had been smashed tonight.

When Carole Miller had finally returned her call and given her Terry’s address, she’d gone straight over there, only to find that Carole had beaten her to it and he’d already left – leaving several scantily dressed drunken teenage girls having a party there in his absence.

Wondering if maybe there was some truth to the pervert rumours after all, Jay had reminded herself as she headed over to the hospital that whatever Terry Day had or hadn’t been getting up to with the Lolitas, at least he’d had the grace to tear himself away and go to his son in his hour of need. And one parent was better than none, given that the boy’s mother still hadn’t turned up.

Jay had left three messages on Sue Day’s phone now, trying to convey the urgency of the situation without shocking her with actual details. Although she’d been sorely tempted to spell it out, if only to give Sue a kick up the backside for switching her phone off. Surely the whole point of having a mobile was to make sure that you could be reached in an emergency, so God only knew what her poor kids had been going through if
they
’d been trying to get hold of her tonight – which was very likely, Jay thought, since it had now been ascertained that the electric had run out at some point before the fire had started. But maybe that was the exact reason why she
had
turned her phone off: so that her kids couldn’t interrupt whatever fun she was having with a trivial thing like needing money for the meter.

There was still no sign of Nicky, and the fire crew were convinced that if she
had
been there she’d left before they arrived. And, if that were true, then Jay could think of several possible reasons why.

She could have nipped out to get money off her mother for the electric, for example, unaware that someone had smashed the window and started a fire in her absence. Or maybe she’d panicked when the house was attacked and had run out to escape the fire, forgetting that Connor was still inside. Or she could have been injured, and was now wandering the streets in a state of shock. She might even have started the fire herself and run away. Or maybe she just wasn’t as conscientious as everyone seemed to believe, and had simply sneaked out as soon as her mum’s back was turned, leaving her little brother alone for the night.