The Collared Collection (13 page)

Her hands shot up to cover blushing cheeks, ‘Oh, don’t remind me – it was a disgraceful thing to do, wasn’t it? Even though I have to admit it was exhilarating and made me feel really good. But to do it in front of two impressionable young boys – what must they think of me?’

‘They were definitely impressed – judging by their faces, I think it was all they could do not to cheer you on. Polly looked quietly delighted too.’

‘Did she?’

‘Damned right! The plonker deserved it – Alex and Sam must have been terrified; bobbing around in the middle of the ocean, with scant supplies of food and fresh water – especially when it got dark, with no sign of rescue.’

‘Yeah, you’re right!’ She lifted her glass. ‘Here’s to me: Dragon Lady.’

David chinked his glass of tonic water to hers. ‘Did you have a good time yesterday on the beach?’

She smiled, ‘It was magic, thanks – just like when the kids were toddlers. Too bad they have to grow up into great hairy beasties …’

‘Would you like more children?’

That caught her off-guard, ‘Oh … err … I don’t know. Dominic and I agreed that two was enough and since he buggered off, I’ve not really thought about it. The immaculate conception’s been done, I hear. Why do you ask?’

‘I just wondered.’ He spoke softly, without so much as a trace of smirk.

A change of subject was in order, she felt, before she got herself into hot water. ‘I hate to admit this, but I rather liked Freckle Face, didn’t you? I’ve not had very much to do with her before now, just tight-lipped and scrupulously polite exchanges when the boys were coming or going.’

‘I suppose she was quite sweet – and she doesn’t deserve to be stuck with Captain Pugwash. Nobody does.’

She giggled, the wine going straight to her head. ‘She won’t be – she’s going home to her mum and dad on the train. Today. Score one for the biter bit.’

‘You aren’t gloating, are you? That’s a very unbecoming trait in a sexy lady.’ His eyes delivered an unmistakable ‘come to my bed’ invitation.

Before she sank without trace, a memory zinged in for attention and an alarm bell rang between her ears. ‘Can I ask you something, David?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Are you married?’

‘Yes, next question?’

Her stomach hurtled south to her trainers – she felt strangely detached from her body and she had to grab at the edge of the table to stop herself falling. With the tiny shred of dignity she had left intact, she asked in a whisper, ‘Were you going to let me in on your guilty little secret – or were you having too much fun laughing behind my back?’ If she didn’t fear she’d collapse in an ignominious heap, she’d have got up and walked away – whether she could find her own way home or not.

He reached for her hand across the table – she tried to drag it from him, but he was too determined to hang on. ‘Callie, I am married, yes, but my wife left me more than two years ago. She met someone at my last station.’

‘His truncheon bigger than yours?’

He half-smiled. ‘Apparently, they’d been sleeping together for months – the cuckolded husband is always the last to know.’

‘Don’t you dare try and make light of this,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been dumped on way too many times in my life and it’s not going to happen again.’ She felt tears well.
Damn.

‘It won’t, Callie, I won’t let it – she’d never come back … and anyway, I wouldn’t want her to. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll start divorce proceedings tomorrow. Know any good lawyers?’

‘But why did you continue to wear your wedding ring? There’s a tell-tale trace of a white mark on your finger.’

He looked down and examined the non-tanned band of skin. ‘You still wear yours.’

‘That’s different.’

‘Because you’re a woman?’

He had a point. ‘Err … I suppose.’

‘I just did – I don’t know why. Then when I was promoted recently and moved stations, I took it off. It was symbolic, in a way – putting the past behind me and moving on. Why don’t you take yours off? I’ll buy you a new one, one day.’

‘That was a pathetic proposal.’

‘It was, wasn’t it? I’ll try harder next time and go down on bended knee.’

‘Mmm … what does Mrs Bennett do, is she a cop too?’

He shook his head, ‘No, that’s Dr Bennett, GP – she does regular stints as a police surgeon and that’s how we met. It was a short but not very sweet marriage.’

‘Any children you’ve been hiding under a bushel?’

His head shook again. ‘No.’

She felt confused and hurt and scared all at once, which dulled her appetite considerably. She thought she believed what he’d told her – it would probably be easy enough to verify the facts. But she should be able to trust him implicitly …

When they pulled up outside Ginny’s house, Callie’s car wasn’t there and no lights were on. ‘Oh, it’s Tuesday,’ she remembered, ‘she goes to Pilates class and they normally have a quick drink in the pub afterwards.’

He snorted. ‘With Ginny, there’s no such thing as a quick drink.’

‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ she asked, letting the front door swing open.

‘Please, then I’d better drop into work for a while – in case they think I’ve retired and someone else has been given my desk. I’ll see if Mike is free to stand guard.’

As she reached to switch on the light, she squealed and pinned myself to the wall when a large shape loomed out of the darkness. For a split second, she thought Balaclava Man had got her.

She was really annoyed, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mike! You scared the shit out of me, you idiot! Actually, we were just talking about you …’ The words shrivelled and died in her throat. He looked ghastly. ‘What on earth is wrong?’

‘Ginny’s dead.’

Chapter Twenty-three

A woman was wailing; a primitive, guttural sound that belonged in the jungle, not in civilised society – why didn’t someone shut her up? Belatedly, Callie realised that awful noise was coming from her. David had hold of her, practically carrying her to a chair. She tried to make her feet walk, but they just dragged, in total absence of co-ordinated movement. She thought she must have put the wrong feet on, when she got dressed that morning … when Ginny was still alive.

She felt completely disorientated and was aware of a pulse thumping in her head. ‘It can’t be true …’ she said weakly, automatically sipping at the glass of water Mike had thrust into her hand.

‘I’m so sorry, Callie,’ David whispered, kneeling in front of her. His eyes, glistening with tears, searched hers.

Mike did his best to console her, when someone should have been consoling him, ‘She didn’t suffer, Callie – she would have been killed instantly.’

She tried to focus on Mike’s face … Ginny had invited him to watch
It’s A Wonderful Life
with her, a significant benchmark – she wanted him big time and Callie was sure the feeling was mutual. Now that would never be … The words ‘killed instantly’ echoed around her head. She stared into space, trying to absorb what she’d been told. Her head swam with the absurdity of it all … how could Ginny be dead? She was sitting in her house, surrounded by her things and she could feel her presence all around her. She thought she even caught a faint whiff of her fragrance every now and again: Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent. Ginny was allergic to most perfumes and that was one of the few that didn’t turn sour on her skin … she couldn’t touch Chanel, no matter what the number … and they’d spoken only a few hours ago – Callie had called her at the office when they’d stopped to eat, to say they’d be back later than planned. She was busy, with a client waiting … but alive, very much alive – and as usual, full of life. Callie wished she’d been there, then she’d still be alright – somehow, she could have saved her.

‘What … what happened?’ she asked Mike, after a long time spent trying to lasso scattered wisps of thought into some sort of sense – though she wasn’t at all sure she could bear to hear details of the way her friend had died. But she needed to know …

He paused for a deep breath. ‘A car accident.’ The whites of his eyes were shot with hundreds of tiny red veins, where he’d been weeping.

‘An accident?’

‘Well … not exactly.’

She suddenly snapped alert and started to interrogate him; ‘Tell me! I have to know.’

David suggested, his hand squeezing hers. ‘Why don’t we leave this until later, Callie? You should lie down.’

‘I don’t want to lie down!’ she shouted, ‘Tell me, Mike, please – I really do need to know.’ She tore her hand free, cuffed away tears from her face, ignoring the box of tissues David offered.

‘She was shunted on the flyover – her car flipped over the barrier, hit nose down onto the dual carriageway below. By sheer fluke she missed all the other cars. Honestly, Callie, it would have been over in seconds. We have to draw comfort from that.’

Comfort? Where exactly was the comfort in that, she wondered? Her imagination projected a frame by frame sequence; Ginny’s car hit from behind, up-ending, tipping over the crash barrier, then plummeting – dear God, how frightened she must have been in those final few seconds. Was she hopelessly aware that she was falling to her death? She must have been …

‘OMIGOD! She was driving my car! It should have been me who died! NO! NO! NO!’ She dissolved into a fit of hacking sobs and Mike put his arms around her. She heard David making a furtive call, mumbling into his phone. Though she was worn out and found it difficult to get enough air into her lungs, she couldn’t stop howling. Locked in a mutually succouring embrace with Mike for she didn’t know how long, she was vaguely aware of a knock on the door. David jumped up to answer it. Who would be calling at this hour? She had no real concept of time, except she knew it was late …

David came back, followed into the room by a small, Pre-Raphaelite redhead dressed in jeans and a scruffy shirt, who could have been aged anywhere between thirty and forty-five.

He said quietly, ‘Callie, I’d like you to meet Michelle, my … err … wife. I asked her to come and give you a sedative – as I told you, she’s a police surgeon.’

Callie stared blankly ahead. ‘I don’t need a sedative,’ she slurred. ‘Ginny’s dead …’

Dr Bennett squatted on her haunches and took her hand. ‘I know, Callie – it is alright if I call you Callie?’ She nodded. ‘David has explained the trauma you’ve been experiencing lately and I strongly advise you allow me to give you something to calm you down so you can rest. Your body needs to recoup some of its strength; I’m here to help you, that’s all.’

Michelle looked intently at her, expecting some sort of response, while Callie’s floundering brain tried to put her and David together – it didn’t compute. Accepting she was too tired to argue, she glanced up at David, who dipped his head in encouragement. Mike too seemed to be willing her to capitulate. Oh what the hell, she thought, and held out her arm to receive the giant syringe the doctor was brandishing like a deadly weapon.

‘OK, give it your best shot.’ She hadn’t meant to be amusing – that was the furthest thing from her mind – but Michelle smiled. Maybe she was just being kind …

As she speared Callie’s arm with the accuracy of an Olympic javelin thrower, she said, ‘Of course, this is a little irregular, but any friend of David’s …’

She suspected Dr Bennett was a vet masquerading as a people doctor – she’d stuck her with enough tranquilliser to keep a bull elephant comatose for a month. Obligingly, she went out like a light.

Callie opened her eyes and squinted at the clock radio. 14.48. She hoped it was Wednesday, not Thursday – or even Friday. She really had no concept of how long she’d been asleep. Her mouth felt like a gorilla’s armpit – annoyingly, there was no glass of water handy. She manually unstuck her tongue from where it was Velcroed to the roof of her mouth, and then ran it over her teeth to remove the top layer of fur.

She knew she should leap out of bed and do something to keep herself occupied, but instead she just lay there, churning everything over in her mind. Her head hurt dreadfully, but what did that matter? Ginny had been killed because she was driving
her
car. Would she ever be able to come to terms with that? She was filled with dread – the dread of having to get through whatever remained of her life without Ginny’s friendship and support. How exactly was she going to manage that?

Belatedly, it registered that she was in bed, in Ginny’s spare room that she’d occupied since she came to stay. She wondered who’d drawn the short straw and had to give her a fireman’s lift up the narrow stairs – whoever it was had removed her jeans and sweater, leaving her modesty intact with knickers and a T-shirt. She found it hard to summon the energy to care.

It seemed to her a reasonable assumption that Balaclava Man had struck again, but surely he could spot the difference between her and Ginny a mile off? He’d have to be myopic not to – Ginny was several inches taller than her and of much slimmer build, although she conceded that might be difficult to spot, seated in a car. Hair, however, was not – and Ginny wore a short blonde bob, quite different to Callie’s shoulder-length auburn locks. Then a solution started to form … if Ginny was on her way to Pilates that could explain a lot.

When she enrolled in the class, she went along to her first session in rhino-bottom tracksuit pants and an aged George Michael T-shirt, only to find everyone else kitted out in designer sportswear, jewellery and inch-thick makeup. Ginny, being Ginny, made her second entrance with her legs encased in Lycra and wore a trendy leopard-print leotard, plus sweatbands on both wrists. And as for the achingly hip trainers – she probably had to take out a second mortgage for those. But – and this was a huge sonic boom of a but – Ginny was surprisingly gauche about prancing around in her kit, perhaps because it was tighter than a second skin and she felt it unbecoming to her professional status. If she went to the class straight from the office, as she usually did, she changed in the Ladies’ and rammed a baseball cap right down over her eyes, hoping not to be recognised as she left the building. With no hair peeking out of her cap, it could conceivably have been a case of mistaken identity.

Ginny was, after all, driving her car.