The Grass Tattoo (#2 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (21 page)

They walked casually to the ticket machine and through security, boarding the last flight to Heathrow. It had gone beautifully again. They were home free.

Chapter Seventeen

“What the hell have you done, Joanne? When is all this supposed to happen? I can’t be any part of it, you’ve gone too far now. And have you even thought about the girls? What do you think it will do to them if their mother ends up in prison? You selfish, stupid cow.”

Joanne watched her husband rant, looking him up and down in absent distain. He’d always been weak; she’d been the man in their marriage for years. Her face twisted in disgust and her next words came spitting out.

“You’re pathetic, Declan. You’ve always been pathetic. I’ve been carrying you for years. With your gambling, and your stupid friends from school. You haven’t taken off that bloody uniform since you were ten; you still need them to like you. Who cares if they bloody well like you? They’re nothing, just another incestuous little Northern Ireland clique.

And don’t you dare bring my daughters into this; it’s their future I’m doing this for. To give them the life they would already have, if you’d ever stepped up.”

She turned her back, catching his reflection in the wall mirror, and then spun round again, venomously. “I even make more money than you - what a man!”

Then she walked towards him and stood with her face perilously close to his. “And, if you even think about telling the girls anything...
anything
negative about me, even by a hint or a look, then Daddy’s little girls will get these.”

She leaned forward into her Chanel shopper and pulled out some folded sheets. “They’ll find out exactly what the man they worship is
really
like. You can keep these for your office wall, I have plenty of copies.”

He grabbed the sheets from her and pulled them open, tearing at the edges. They were pictures of him with a woman. In the car, the street, at the races, and...Oh shit, in bed, in every position. And he’d no idea who she was! Joanne had faked the pictures somehow but they looked real, and the idea of his young daughters seeing them, made him want to vomit.

“How did you make these? I’ll get them looked at, it’ll be easy to prove they’re fakes.” Then he looked at her murderously. “You cold bitch, how could you even think of hurting your children like this.”

He threw the pages on the floor and reached for her arm, grabbing it with his left hand and clenching his right into a fist. He stood above her, his face so red that it was almost purple. They stood locked in position, silently, his left hand grasped around his wife’s slim upper arm, his right fist poised one inch from breaking her perfect fucking nose. He hated that nose, it sneered without even trying.

After a moment’s anger he threw her to the ground dismissively, like the soiled rubbish that he thought she was. She fell back against the Louis Quinze card table that she’d been given on leaving chambers in London, breaking a corner off it in her fall. But only her pride was hurt. She sat on the floor leaning back on her hands and laughed tauntingly up at him. “You can’t even beat me up like a man...”

Declan turned on his heel abruptly and walked out, heading for the car before he killed her. His kids were all that mattered now. Her silver Aston was parked across the broad driveway, deliberately blocking him in. He pulled at its door angrily. Locked.

He looked inside it, disgusted. It was immaculate. Not a single sign of the kids, or anything human. She was a cold bitch. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

He climbed into his own BMW, pushing Izzy’s CDs off the seat, and gunned the engine, ramming it directly into her car. Back and forth, back and forth, until he’d shunted it right off the path and onto the lawn, virtually destroying it in the process.

He saw her standing at the window watching and she waved sarcastically at him, then he raked out into the avenue and turned left onto the Malone Road. Heading for the outer ring-road and the countryside, where he could drive and think.

His mobile rang immediately and he glanced at the screen. It was her, probably bitching about the state of her car. He ignored it and knocked the phone off, driving at 80mph past Newforge Lane and on through the lights, heading for the back roads past the Giant’s Ring. He drove and drove until the evening had changed into night and his boiling blood had finally dropped to simmering point.

Then he vaguely recognised a road. Where was he? The area looked familiar. He searched around for a signpost, and then realised that he’d driven the forty miles to his parent’s small house near Armagh. Homing instinct. He stopped the car outside their immaculate semi and rested his head back on the seat support. How had he let Joanne get them into this mess, and how the fuck did he get out of it?

The car clock said 9.30. He’d lost time driving and thinking. But it hadn’t been wasted, he’d made a decision. He felt better instantly and looked through the windscreen. His father was leaning against the gatepost, arms folded, watching his eldest son wisely.

Declan held up a spread palm, indicating that he’d be five minutes. He switched on his mobile, ignoring the answerphone ringing back; it would only be Joanne. And he started to make the call that he’d decided on. He would phone Caitlin Watson, she would be the quickest route to Joe and his minders.

He already knew how insane it would all sound, ‘my wife’s intending to blackmail and possibly kill your husband, and I think she’s already killed other people’. He knew that it would be the end of his peaceful existence, and he also knew that it was exactly the right thing to do.

But before he could do anything, his father walked towards the car. He lowered the driver’s window out of respect. “I’ll be there in five minutes, Dad. Tell Mum to put the kettle on.”

“Have you and Joanne been fighting again, son? It’s just...she’s been ringing here for the last hour, really frantic about you.”

Yeah...Frantic, but not for the reasons his father thought. His father was still talking and Declan half heard him say ‘Bob Leighton’.

“What did you say, Dad?”

“Joanne was worried that you were upset about Bob Leighton dying. She said that you two were friends?”

“Leighton?”

Declan heard his own voice saying the name but he still didn’t believe it. The urge to vomit hit him and he opened the car door, throwing up on the grass verge and narrowly missing his father’s feet. Fuck, he was already too late. She’d done it, she’d actually killed someone and she wanted him to know that she had. She was warning him to keep quiet.

“Sorry, son. I’ve upset you now. I should have waited until you were in the house. It was over the weekend, apparently. He was found up in Donegal. They think it was natural causes. Probably grief…after his poor wife...”

Declan knew that tears were running down his cheeks because he could feel them. But they weren’t tears of grief for Bob Leighton; he’d hardly known the man. They were tears for his own life. Leighton hadn’t died of natural causes, he would bet a fortune on it. Somehow, Joanne had killed him. He had no idea what to do next.

***

Declan genuinely had no idea what to do, or where to go. He couldn’t go home and he couldn’t stay with his elderly parents. If Joanne was capable of killing Leighton, she was capable of anything. He had to protect them now.

After a cup of tea to pass himself he left his parent’s small house, with a promise to return for Sunday dinner with the girls. His father walked him out to the door. He was getting greyer and more stooped now; more vulnerable somehow. Was this the point where the child noticed that they had become the parent? All he knew was that he had to protect them, they were good people. He’d been brought up by good people to be a good person; but he’d taken a detour.

Yes, he knew he was a snob and vain, and that money mattered far too much to him. But never as much as it had, and did, to Joanne. God, how could he not have seen what she was like, what she must always have been like. It was slotting into place slowly, as he turned over the car and drove away, waving at his mother standing at the window.

All at once he could see the signs that he’d missed. Joanne defending criminals and always justifying their actions. Preferring dinner with them to a night at home with the girls. Back then, he’d thought she was just being a zealous young defence barrister, ambitious and excited by the law. But now, he could remember the secret smiles with her dark looking clients. Smiles that said ‘you’re only guilty if they can prove it’. Morality didn’t even come into it.

He’d been blind then, but he could see it all now. She hadn’t just loved criminal law, she’d loved criminals, admired them somehow. The secret smiles had said ‘we’re smarter than the rest. Sexier, more powerful somehow’. How had he missed it for so long?

Should he go to the police? But what about his parents, what about the girls? He couldn’t leave them there; they couldn’t be allowed to turn out like her. Carina was only fourteen, still too malleable for Joanne. The thought made him shiver.

She’d be in prison soon anyway; he’d make damn sure of it. Then he’d get custody and he’d make sure that she never saw them again. It wouldn’t be much of a loss - they’d thought their nanny was their mother for years. He’d been their only consistent carer.

He made a sudden decision and quickly threw a U-turn, heading back towards Belfast. He would book in somewhere and do some serious thinking. He couldn’t tell Caitlin Watson now; it might put her in danger. This had to be planned in a way that blind-sided Joanne. No, he’d think first and then call the police...

The charity race meet was on at Antrim on Thursday...maybe he would go to that. Fuck! He couldn’t believe that he was thinking of gambling at a time like this. Once an addict…

But then again…it might help him think, clear his head. Yes, that was what he’d do. He’d clear his head and the answer would come to him in couple of days, without her shrill voice shouting in his ear.

Declan’s thoughts were broken suddenly by his mobile ringing, and he picked it up; Joanne again. He ignored it. He’d call her tonight when he was ready. He was clearer now and he knew what he had to do. He’d let her know that her free days were numbered before he went to the police. He owed her that much.

***

Teresa filled the pint glass with draught Guinness, splashing it carelessly on the floor, and whole-heartedly resenting the skinny t-shirted lad waiting in front of her. She looked forlornly past him at the bar’s front door, willing Stevan to appear. But it was his night off and she was stuck here serving these boys.

Then it came to her: these were boys, and Stevan was a man. Maybe not so different in years, but there was a world behind his eyes. She thought of his strong brown arms and his wide smile, her thoughts taking her much further. They’d shared feelings that she’d never had before, and she couldn’t bear being without him now. She sighed and looked at the wall clock with its sloth of an hour-hand. Eighteen long hours until she saw him again. Except that she never would.

***

The young driver stood at the waiting area in Terminal One carrying a sign for ‘Armstrong’ and Stevan wondered again why Alik always picked such English names. He shrugged and gestured Kaisa towards the man, smiling widely.

“Armstrong?”

The look was Delhi but the accent was pure ‘Sarf London’ and Kaisa laughed, happy to be back. She gave the boy her full wattage smile and Stevan watched him melt into a puddle. She knew her power well.

“We have no bags. Where are we going?”

He loved the anonymity of London. You could be whoever you wanted to be and no one gave a shit. It was just one big theatre.

“To the Randle Hotel, sir. Your uncle insisted on it. It’s a five star in Kensington.” The driver started to describe it in detail, as if they couldn’t possibly know the place. Then Stevan looked down at his scruffy jeans and Kaisa’s woollen hat, acknowledging that they looked like mature students, at best.

They walked down the single flight of stairs leading to the short-term car-park, and soon they were in the back of a quietly elegant Jaguar, driving swiftly through the Heathrow tunnel and onto the M4 motorway, towards London. Kaisa was tired from her earlier tears and she curled up against him, just as she had always done as a little girl. He stroked her hair gently. Sleep, pet. She looked so innocent. But the things that she’d seen, and the things that she’d done...

***

Joe Watson yawned loudly without covering his mouth and Michael tutted mentally, disapproving. He’d have disapproved even more if he’d known why he was so tired. Joe smiled at his secret life that would soon be in the open, when Ausra was with him 24/7. He couldn’t wait. But for now, he needed to focus on the work piled-up in front of him. He lifted the top file, and read the summary. ‘Roads’. Boring.

A better idea struck him. “Have we heard anything back from the Conduct Commissioner yet?”

Michael sighed. Joe had the attention span of a goldfish at the best of times but he was worse than usual today, jumping topic every five minutes.

“No, Minister. Nothing yet.”

“Well, there must be something better to do than this lot.” He gestured to the files. “Go and find it for me.”

He waved the young man out impatiently, and two minutes later he was back with an envelope marked ‘Urgent and confidential.’