The Wicked Girls (19 page)

‘
Eighteen
tampon-disposal units? Seriously?’

‘You need one in every cubicle,’ says Amber.

‘Why can’t we just have them out in the washroom? And leave bags on the cisterns?’

Amber shrugs. ‘Up to you. I’d’ve said it was a false economy. What with the plumbing, and the cleaners resigning. I think
you’re overestimating the average punter’s sense of communal responsibility.’

‘Mmm,’ says Suzanne; looks suspicious that a cleaner should be using such long words. Drums her nails again on the desk. Then
she looks up, sharply. ‘Well, we need to make economies somewhere, Amber.’

Why? She wants to shout. Why? Thanks to the murder, and its I’d-forgotten-about-Whitmouth effect, we’re having the best
season in living memory. There’s queues thirty minutes long just to get in through the front gate. ‘Really?’ she asks, faintly.

‘Yes. We’re in a recession, you know.’

Ah, she thinks, yes. The recession. ‘But we’re doing well here,’ she argues, aware that she’s wasting her breath. ‘Just judging
by the amount of rubbish we’re carting out, numbers must be well up.’

Suzanne doesn’t look at her. Has she always avoided my eye like this? wonders Amber. Was I just so keen to please that I didn’t
notice? Suzanne flips the page as she speaks. ‘Yes, well, but these murders are upward blips in a general downward trend.
We can’t rely on them for ever.’

Amber’s eye pop. She’s not seen the murders from the business perspective. ‘No, I suppose we can’t,’ she says.

‘Especially with Innfinnityland out of action,’ continues Suzanne. ‘A total waste of an asset. We’re going to have to invest
capital in finding another use for the space.’

Yes, thinks Amber. That Strangler’s one selfish bastard. She waits while Suzanne rattles her fingernails a bit more, wonders
what’s coming next.

‘Twenty-six cleaners,’ she says eventually. ‘It’s a lot.’

‘Most of them on minimum wage,’ Amber points out.

‘That’s still …’ she turns to the calculator, taps away, ‘twenty-three-grand-odd a month. That’s a lot to be paying for cleaning.’

‘It’s a lot of cleaning,’ Amber replies. ‘Coke and ice-cream aren’t the easiest things to get off.’

‘Still,’ says Suzanne. ‘We’re not
made
of money.’ She fingers the strand of pearls around her neck, looks at Amber patronisingly. ‘You’re discovering the down side
of management, I’m afraid,’ she says. ‘Sometimes you have to make the tough calls. That’s what we pay you for.’

Not enough, Amber thinks. ‘Can I just … get it straight what it is you’re after here, Suzanne?’

She smiles, tight-lipped. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’d say twenty per cent?’

Amber feels like she’s going to have a heart attack. ‘Twenty per cent? Off the wage bill?’

‘Oh, no,’ says Suzanne airily. ‘Wherever you want to find it.’

Her mind’s racing. ‘You mean, off the whole budget?’

Suzanne Oddie meets her eye icily. ‘Yes, Amber. That’s what I mean.’

Dear God. She wants me to lose a hundred thousand pounds off a budget that’s already creaking at the seams. I’m using the
cheapest everything. There isn’t anywhere to get any of this stuff cheaper, unless I go to China myself and bring it back
on foot.

‘Suzanne …’ she begins.

The smile again. ‘Yes?’

‘I … that’s a lot to ask out of the blue.’

‘Oh, it’s OK,’ says Suzanne. ‘I’m not asking you to do it by tomorrow. It’s over the whole year.’

‘Yes, but … twenty per cent?’

Suzanne looks down at her pad. ‘And how much is it we pay you, again?’

She feels a blush. She’s not counted her own salary into the mix. ‘Twenty-two thousand five hundred.’

‘Hmmm.’ Suzanne makes a note.

Martin feels strong, powerful, confident. Feels the way he’s always thought he should. It’s as though Saturday night has taken
a big syringe full of self-esteem and shot it directly into his veins. He rarely leaves the house before noon, but today he’s
been striding the streets of Whitmouth since nine o’clock, earwigging the shuffling crowds, listening to the talk on the streets
and bathing in his glory. I exist now, he thinks. I really exist. They’re all wondering who I am.

He strolls up Mare Street, past the scene of his triumph, and feels the swell of pride as he sees the yellow tape flapping
in the wind. Lets himself indulge in a moment’s sensual memory – the whore staggering from side to side, hand hopelessly clutching
the gouting wound. He had to jump back a few times to avoid getting gore on his new trainers. I need to be more careful, he
thinks. That’s not the way to do it, not if I don’t want to get caught. I need to learn a thing or two from that other guy.
Try something less messy next time.

But he doesn’t think the next time will need to come for a while. This is the best he’s ever felt. My God, he thinks. I haven’t
even thought about Jackie Jacobs in a couple of hours. She’s nothing to me now. She doesn’t deserve me. Not now I’m Someone.
I deserve better than her. Her and her prison guard Amber Gordon. They can’t keep me down any more.

As he’s thinking it, someone brushes his sleeve as they hurry past, apologises, and he looks up. It’s that journalist who
chatted him up on the beach: Kirsty Lindsay, flashing him a smile as she hurries on towards the front. Wow, he thinks. I’ve
been so caught up in my triumph that I completely forgot to look up what she wrote on Sunday. He makes a mental note to check
the
Tribune
website when he gets in, but decides to follow her for a while first. She won’t be able to brush him off the way she did
before. When she notices him, she’ll see he’s Someone too.

She’s dressed down for the day in jeans and a mac, but he sees that there’s a nice body under the clothes. She’s not spectacular,
not flashy like the mayfly beauties who totter past him on the strip at night; but she has the sort of solid, womanly good
looks, the evidence of self-respect, that a Someone should be aiming at. She’s talking on the phone, has an oversized computer
bag hanging off her shoulder, clamped to her body by her other arm, and looks younger than he remembers from their brief meeting.
He waits till she’s got a few feet further on, then falls into step behind.

Whoever’s at the other end of the phone isn’t happy with her. ‘I know, darling, and I’ve told you I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s
not like I’m here for a fun day out. I can think of a lot of places I’d rather be.’

She stops, and he almost runs into the back of her. He quickly diverts to read the small ads in the window of the newsagent’s.
He doesn’t really need to bother with the pretence, as she’s too absorbed in her call to notice what’s going on around her.
I should warn her, really, he thinks. To pay attention. People get pickpocketed all the time because they’re not paying attention.
Maybe that would be the way to get her talking. She’d be grateful …

‘Yeah, yeah, I know, Jim,’ she says. Her voice is less posh than he remembers; he’s surprised by that. ‘And again, I’m sorry.
What? Yeah, I know. Blimey. Like women haven’t been complaining about
that
for centuries.’

He’s beginning to be concerned about the tone of her voice when she lets out a laugh. ‘I told you not to call me when I’m
at work,’ she says.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she says. ‘Nag, nag, nag, bitch, bitch, bitch. Here I am working my arse off to keep you in the style you want
to be accustomed to and all you do is complain. You don’t even keep the house clean.’

Martin doesn’t really understand what’s going on. It doesn’t sound like a happy marriage. She’d never talk like that to me,
he thinks. You’ve got to have respect in a relationship, or it will never work.

She laughs again. ‘Yeah, not a chance. I wish I could, but there’s no point. I’d just have to come back tomorrow, and I’ve
got copy to file this afternoon. What? Yeah. Pissing down, and the sort of wind that tears your knickers off. Yup. Yes, I
am
, you dirty sod. The Voyagers Rest. The
Trib
really know how to treat a girl, don’t they? Still. No. Not yet. Tomorrow, probably. Yeah. I’ll give you a call later. Yes.
I promise.
Promise
. Yes.’

She hangs up, drops the phone into her bag. Walks on, then turns abruptly into Londis. He follows her in and watches her buy
an egg sandwich and a bottle of sparkling water.

*

Amber’s head is so full she feels it will burst. Meetings with Suzanne Oddie always leave her feeling wrong-footed, ill-educated
and unimportant, but today’s has left her terrified.

They’ll hate me. All of them. The ones I sack and the ones who will have to take on the extra work for no extra pay. And who
do I sack? Who? There’s no way to reframe this; no way to make the outcome a good one.

A little voice says: Jackie. She pushes it down. Being a selfish house guest doesn’t mean she deserves to lose her job.

Shit, she thinks. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

She sees Vic, working the waltzer. A couple of girls in the queue have obviously noticed him, are nudging each other and passing
comment the way girls always do. She feels a sharp ache in her lower back, is suddenly aware again of the bruises on her thighs,
as though the sight of him has set the pain off. I hope he comes back soon, the Real Vic; I can’t take much more love from
the Other One.

Vic sees her, and a smile flickers across his face. He’s feeling right on top again; he’s got the old adrenalin surge. Feels
like it will last for days this time, like it did in the old days. Yeah, he thinks at the departing back. But I’ll be home
tonight anyway, won’t I? When I feel like it.

He spots the girls in the queue, gives them a treat with his sparkling eyes. Sees them look at each other and burst into a
fit of giggles. It’s so easy, isn’t it? he thinks. Just so damn easy. Women, they’re just there for the taking. A flash of
your arms and a Bacardi and Coke, and you can do anything you want. That’s why I stay with her. She’s not a pushover. A woman
with a bit of self-respect, that’s what I like. That and the other.

Not so much self-respect yesterday, he thinks.

The girls come round again; they’re pretending not to look, simpering into each other’s eyes. He knows the routine. Three
more circuits and they’re all his.

He steps over to the nearest gondola, sets it spinning, raises
shrieks of fear-filled pleasure from the tarts inside. The graze on his knuckles is beginning to scab over, and splits slightly
when he grips the seat-back. He quite likes the feeling. It makes him feel alive. He spins the gondola again and listens to
them scream.

Amber doesn’t want to stay in the park. Feels as though everyone – though only a couple of cleaners are on duty, emptying
bins and rushing over to the rides when the Tannoy calls for an emergency mop-up – knows about what Suzanne’s just said in
their private meeting. She goes back to her office and collects her bag and coat, leaving her umbrella behind. There’s no
point, on a day like today; it’ll have gone inside-out before she’s got as far as the rock shop.

The Corniche is virtually deserted, though it resonates with the delicious scent of frying onions from the burger vans. Amber
walks towards the bus stop, feeling miserable. Everything aches, partly from tiredness, partly from Vic, partly because (she’s
noticed) bad news always shows up first in her shoulders.

She walks on, eyes a knot of people gathered by the town hall, shouting questions. Press, she guesses. In the middle she recognises
a couple of local councillors, hair brushed and business suits on specially for the occasion. She realises with a frisson
that one of the journalists – close to the outside of the crowd, Martin Bagshawe standing near by seemingly hanging on her
every word – is Jade Walker. Christ, she thinks. I’ve got to get out of here. She steps up her pace.

Kirsty’s got her MP3 out. ‘… So what you’re saying, in effect, is that they asked for it?’

The leader of Whitmouth Council glances at his head of PR and goes into denial mode. ‘I would never suggest any such thing,’
he replies. ‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’

Martin Bagshawe hangs back, strains to hear what they’re saying, but finds it hard over the sounds of the seafront. Hears
her say ‘asked for it’ and thinks: My God, she’s fearless. And he
remembers Tina and her taunting, and thinks, Yeah, but she’s not wrong, is she?

‘Not really,’ she says.

‘I was just saying that there has to be an element of personal responsibility involved,’ says the councillor. ‘It’s not the
same thing at all.’

‘Personal responsibility not to get randomly murdered?’

He smiles uneasily, wishing he’d never got into this corner. ‘You wouldn’t walk barefoot across a minefield, would you?’

‘If I knew there was a single landmine somewhere in several thousand square miles and I needed to get home, I’d probably take
a punt on it, yes,’ she says. ‘Are you saying that men are helpless victims of their own urges, then?’

‘No. Of course not. But the fact is that there is
a
man who seems to be just that at large in this town,’ he says, ‘and like it or not, our young women – our visitors – need
to take this into consideration. We do have a problem, with a minority of our visitors, of overindulgence in alcohol, and
alcohol makes people careless. We’re simply begging these young women to keep themselves safe, that’s all. We don’t want any
more deaths in our lovely family resort.’

She’s vaguely aware that someone is earwigging them, glances up to see a small, ratty man in an anorak, pretending to read.
He’s familiar, but it takes her a moment to place him. Oh yes, the bloke from the beach. One of those weirdos who pop up wherever
there’s news, gawking and looming and trying to get on camera. He gives her a ghastly smile, the sort of smile that suggests
that he’s not had much practice at doing it. ‘It’s time
somebody
said it was wrong,’ the weirdo tells them. ‘There’s thousands of decent people in this town, but you’d never know it from
the way the
press
go on.’ He pauses, seems to find something wrong with what he’s said. ‘
Most
of them,’ he adds. ‘Most of the press. Not all of them.’