Something Wicked (28 page)

‘It looks so different from up here.’

‘I know.’

‘I wonder if I can see where I live.’ Jenny slid her way along the window, her hand shading her eyes as she gazed past the Arndale shopping centre, Piccadilly Gardens and the prison,
before turning towards Oxford Road and the universities, which were just out of view. She pointed a thumb. ‘It’s off that way somewhere.’

Andrew smiled. She looked like an adult with her hair down, tights, skirt and a coat, but the moment anyone saw the view for the first time, they became a child in wanting to spot where they
lived.

Jenny had seemingly forgotten the reason they were there, walking in an echoing circle around the combined living room and kitchen. Andrew suddenly felt embarrassed by it all: posh leather
sofas, an all-glass coffee table, a too-expensive coffee machine with so many knobs, he didn’t know what half of them did. Then there was the customary large television and surround-sound
speakers. He’d spent so much on everything and barely used any of it.

As she continued walking, Jenny stopped in front of a painting hanging to one side of the television. Most of the canvas was unpainted white but in the centre there was a gothic-looking spidery
figure, undoubtedly female, painted from the back. She had a flowing black dress, with tendrils dribbling down to the far reaches of the canvas. She was gazing into the distance of the picture,
where there was more white.

‘What is it?’ Jenny asked.

‘I’m not really sure. I was in a gallery in Liverpool and liked it.’

‘I like it too. She has the whole world ahead of her.’

Andrew had seen the painting every day for many years and that was exactly why he liked it: the cleanness of the white canvas coupled with the darkness of the woman. In his mind, the figure was
staring into a future of infinite possibilities. He was uncomfortable that they thought the same about it – as if Jenny was scratching away at his thoughts, his soul. This was why he
hadn’t particularly wanted to bring her here.

Jenny continued staring at the artwork, taking a step forward to have a closer look at the textured blobs of paint. When she turned, he could tell something had changed slightly. Her big brown
button-like eyes were now full of questions.

Andrew didn’t want to hear her say the words, so answered anyway. ‘Yes, I’ve got a bit of money.’ She held her hands out to the side, no doubt wondering why he
didn’t spend his days at home enjoying the view. Or go on holiday and not come back. He’d heard it all before. ‘If you want to know why I still get up and come to the office every
day, it’s because I like it. I suppose I like people.’

He’d not seen it before but now recognised the irony that Jenny had told him she was the opposite, not understanding people and, to a large degree, not wanting to.

She turned away from the painting towards the window again. ‘Did you win the lottery?’

‘If only.’

‘Did you inherit it?’

‘In a manner of speaking . . .’

There was no escaping the fact he was going to have to tell her now. Jenny was gazing directly at him, pulling the information from his mind. Andrew sat on the sofa, falling into the
comfortable, warm, soft leather that prickled his guilty conscience every time he went anywhere near it. Jenny joined him, sitting in the opposite corner and folding her legs as if it was story
time. In many ways, it was.

‘I did something bad. I didn’t steal the money and it’s not like I killed anyone but still . . .’

She placed a hand on his knee and, for a moment, it felt as if she was a mate reassuring him. Then he wondered if she’d seen someone else do that in a film and was merely doing what she
thought she should.

‘You know I used to be married to someone named Keira but I’ve never told you what happened when we broke up. We met at university . . .’ He counted on his fingers. ‘. .
. sixteen or seventeen years ago. We were together for most of our three years there but come from completely different places. Not just geographically – I grew up on a council estate, her
dad inherited wealth of his own and then made even more. He worked in the City in London but owns this huge place in Cheshire, among others. After me and Keira had been going out for a little
while, she took me down to meet her parents. Her mum was fine but her dad . . . well, he wasn’t.’

Jenny removed her hand from his knee and started chewing her fingernails. ‘Why not?’

‘He didn’t like who I was. From his point of view, a man should be able to look after his wife and family. He wanted her to go off with one of the sons of someone from his banking or
country-club crowd. He wanted grandchildren.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

Andrew smiled weakly. ‘Eventually. At first, he’d just blank me. It was pretty clear he wasn’t pleased but, from his point of view, he thought his daughter was having some
university fling and that it would be over by the time she took her exams a couple of years later. We were only nineteen or so at the time.’

‘But you stayed together?’

‘There was no reason not to. We always had a good time. I felt as if I could actually be myself around her and she probably felt the same. She would have grown up in that environment of
being expected to live up to certain standards, so there was probably a hint of wanting to do her own thing too.’

‘What happened when you graduated?’

‘Wait here.’

Andrew headed to the chest of drawers in the bedroom. The top drawer was full of boxer shorts and socks, like any self-respecting person’s. Everyone knew the top drawer was for underwear
and he was nowhere near enough of a maverick to break that taboo. The middle drawer was nightwear but the bottom drawer was an assortment of everything else: belts, ties, a pack of tiny pants his
parents inexplicably bought him for Christmas one year, some maracas he once bought on holiday when he’d taken leave of his senses, and everything in between. Buried underneath a handmade
pocket game of backgammon he’d never used was the small box Andrew was looking for.

In the living room, he handed the hardened red velvet tub over to Jenny. She popped it open and took out his wedding ring.

‘The day after Keira’s final exam, we flew to Las Vegas and got married. It was her idea because she knew that if we planned anything, her father would stop it. They didn’t
even know we’d gone. We didn’t bother hiding anything when we got back. My parents were a little disappointed we’d not told them but were otherwise delighted. At Keira’s
house, it wasn’t quite like that. In front of me, her dad said she’d thrown her life away and that he hadn’t brought her up to make such stupid decisions. It went on and on until
we eventually left. They didn’t speak for about six months after that.’

‘Wow.’

Jenny was still running his old wedding band through her fingers. It was white gold, thick and heavy. She placed it back in the box and handed it over. Andrew put it on the coffee table.

‘After six months, her mum got in contact and they slowly drifted back together again. It wasn’t as if her dad liked me but he just about tolerated me because it enabled him to see
his daughter. There was a strange sort of truce for a few years. Keira did a small amount of teaching and then went back to study for her Master’s. I did a little bit of work for her
dad’s bank. It was at a time where it felt like he was judging whether I might amount to what he wanted me to. I think her mum made him sort things but I wasn’t happy and went into
social work. That’s what my criminology degree was partly for but it was at a time when councils were cutting their budgets, so it was really unstable. I ended up doing odds and ends of
private staff profiling for companies, which was awful. I was trying to get back to the social work but it was always a struggle. Then we started to think about children.’

‘How old were you then?’

More counting on fingers.

‘Twenty . . .
seven
– I think. Around there. We’d been married for five years and were still living in Manchester. We’d been renting this place in Chorlton –
nothing special but nice enough. We were at that age where everyone around us was buying houses and having kids. Because we were married, we were getting the question all the time. When they were
talking to Keira, people would do that thing where they tilt their heads and touch their stomachs, then say, “It must be your time soon?” Either way, we were thinking about it ourselves
but didn’t have the income. I was still struggling between jobs and she had a Master’s degree with no one interested in hiring her. She thought we might be able to ask her parents for a
bit of money – not loads, just enough for a deposit on a house to get us going. In terms of what she would have been due as an inheritance, it was nothing. Her dad still wasn’t keen on
me but we figured that we’d been married for five years and together for almost eight, so he’d had time to get used to it.’

The memory still felt raw but so close that it could have been yesterday. Andrew could picture their old house. In many ways, he wished he still lived there. It had a homely feel to it, unlike
his apartment, which had the amazing view and state-of-the-art appliances, but none of the warmth.

‘We went there one Sunday and Keira asked them over lunch. Her dad was all right at the time. He said he’d think about it, which was better than an outright “no”. Later
that afternoon, Keira’s mum wanted to show her something upstairs – I don’t really remember – but it left her father and me alone. That’s when he said he didn’t
want me married to his daughter because he thought I was a scrounger who wasn’t good enough for her. He said the fact we’d asked for money proved I wasn’t up to looking after her.
He wasn’t shouting, it was as calm as I’d ever seen him. He added that if I thought he was going to stand by and watch us destroy his family name by bringing children into the world
then I’d have another think coming.’

‘How could he stop you?’

Andrew snorted a disbelieving laugh. ‘I’ve been thinking about that ever since but it’s difficult to describe unless you know him. He’s a big guy anyway: taller than me,
with big shoulders – you know the type. It’s not just that though. You know those people who walk into a room and everyone turns? He’s like that. There’s something about him
you can’t put into words. When he looks at you, it feels as if you’re the only two people in the world. But if he doesn’t like you, that makes it the worst thing you can think
of.’ He swallowed, before adding: ‘I know that sounds stupid.’

Jenny didn’t reply but reached out and rubbed his arm.

‘Anyway, he said that he’d find a way to break us up before we ever had a child. He said he’d do whatever it took. He was staring at me as he said it. I don’t know if it
was a threat – “Whatever it takes” – but it sounded like it. He said he’d destroy my life, that he knew a lot of people and he’d make sure I never got a job. He
said he’d do his homework and make life hard for the people around me, like my parents.’

‘He actually said that?’

‘He said he’d look into buying the houses around them and then renting them out for the lowest price possible. He wouldn’t have cared if the places got trashed but it would
have made their lives a misery.’

‘Did you believe him?’

Andrew let out an even deeper breath, sending a patch of hair at the front of his face flapping into the air before dropping back into place. ‘I don’t know . . . I did then. I
probably still do. It’s hard to know. I’ve not seen him since that day but I can still picture what he looks like. Were you ever scared of monsters under the bed as a child?’

‘No.’

Typical.

‘Okay, well, I feel a bit like that, like there’s this thing in my past I can’t quite forget. For months after, I’d see bigger, older guys in suits from the back and
think it was him.’

‘What did you do?’

‘He said there were two options. One, he’d destroy my life; two, he’d pay me to go away.’

Andrew waited for a shocked reaction that didn’t come. Instead, Jenny’s gaze held steady. He couldn’t work out if it was the type of thing she might have expected from him, or
if she didn’t understand the implication.

‘He said he’d give me a lump sum of money but the condition was that I had to break up with Keira and make it completely final. I had to tell her I didn’t love her and
didn’t want children. I couldn’t leave things open that there might be a reconciliation. Not only that, I only had twenty-four hours to decide. If she hadn’t gone to them saying
it was all over by the end of the next day, then he’d put things into place to ruin me.’

This time Jenny did react but it was more mechanically than he might have thought: a simple nod. ‘So you took the money?’

He hung his head. ‘It didn’t feel like I had a choice. When I saw Keira yesterday, that was the first time in eight years.’

‘Do you still love her?’

Andrew rocked back. It wasn’t that the question was utterly unreasonable, more that Jenny had been so blunt in asking it.

‘I don’t know,’ Andrew lied before moving on quickly. ‘I used the money to buy this place and didn’t do much for a few years. Then I decided I should probably do
something, so set up the business on a bit of a whim. It was vaguely related to what I studied. I didn’t really know what I was doing at first, then someone I was supposed to be following
killed herself and I decided it wasn’t something I could do half-arsed. That pretty much brings you up to date.’

‘Wow. You’re really interesting.’

‘Er, thanks.’

Andrew was sick of talking about it. He’d hardly told anyone that story and now he was going to have to go to the office each day and sit across from someone who knew what he’d done.
He’d taken money over the person he loved. Who did that?

Wanting to change the subject, he picked up Jenny’s backpack from behind the armchair and passed it over. Jenny unzipped it, lips still pursed thoughtfully, although she didn’t seem
to know what to say.

For once.

She took out the photograph of Kristian Verity and shuffled closer to Andrew, holding it out so they could both see. It was still as hard to make out as it had been in the first place, the ink
running to the edge of the frame.