24 Hours: An intense, suspenseful psychological thriller (16 page)

Panic is rising like a force-field when I hear a car pull up beyond the hedge. My heart leaps. They’re here after all. The relief rushes through me like a shot of adrenaline. I rush back to the pavement.

A dirty white van pulls up opposite and a young couple tumble out. They head towards a house on the other side of the road, bickering about something in a language I don’t know – Polish perhaps. She hits him lightly on the arm and he turns and grins at her in a way that says he’s not bothered; that he’s not taking her seriously at all in fact. He holds out his hand for her and she hesitates and then takes it.

And then suddenly another woman’s voice cuts through the night, making me jump.

‘Are you … sorry, are you looking for Christine?’

It’s my mother’s next-door neighbour, blinking at me across the garden gate. Her name escapes me, but I know we met over burnt sausages at a street party here last summer. She said timidly that she liked Sid’s work, though of course ‘it was very shocking’ and I said nothing much back, got busy with Polly so I didn’t have to talk about him.

‘Linda. I’m Linda. From next door.’ She knows I don’t remember; looks at me anxiously, mole-like, small screwed-up face peering over gold-rimmed glasses. ‘Oh my goodness, it
is
you. We thought you were … so you’re not …’ she trails off. ‘You’re all right then?’

‘I’m all right, yes,’ I agree, blank. How does she know what I’ve just been through?

‘We saw it on the news – your poor mother, we thought – just dreadful, the shock, and I was watering the Japanese pots – so delicate, actually, those new azaleas – but then, well …’

And then I realise what she means. She thought I was dead. Everyone thinks I am dead. Only Sid knows. Only Sid knows he failed. My brain is slow, so much has happened. Linda blinks at me; almost flushed with excitement. ‘Here you are.’

‘Yes,’ I say again, impatient now. ‘But my mum’s not. I’ve just been knocking.’

‘She
was
here. Briefly. Poor Christine. She came back and I saw her.’ She draws nearer to confide in me. ‘The reporters were all waiting.’

Oh Christ. My poor poor mother.

‘When?’

‘About …’ she looks worried. Like I’ll hold her to it. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. About an hour ago?’

‘Did you talk to her? Was my …’ I can hardly get the words out. ‘Was my daughter with her? Polly?’

‘The little girl?’ She frowns. ‘I’m not … I think so. It was all so quick. It’s hard to … I was just going to bed actually, turning in. I get so tired since, you know, the medication, and there was such a clamour, and then …’

‘And then?’ I prompt.

‘And then they were besieged really, it was a little frightening. Swallowed up, almost. I was going to call Stan, but then a man shouted and he got them, he got those reporters out of the way. And they all went off in his car.’

‘A man?’ I shake my head. ‘What man?’

The glare from the streetlamp hits Linda’s glasses; they glimmer with refracted light.

‘What man?’ I repeat. ‘Was it John?’ Please let it be John. Kind, reliable John: the antithesis of my arrogant father. But I already know it wasn’t him. Although, I realise, I also know it can’t be Sid. Because Sid was at St Pancras half an hour ago.

‘A man with a car like Morse. Well, sort of like Morse.’

‘Morse?’ I shake my head, uncomprehending.

‘Yes, you know.
Inspector Morse
. John Thaw. It was so sad, wasn’t it,
Morse
was such a good programme. I do love Oxford, don’t you—’

‘For God’s sake!’ I can’t help myself. ‘Please. I need to find my daughter and my mum. Urgently.’

She looks aghast, whether at my rudeness or her own stupidity, I don’t know.

‘The car?’ I stare at her.

‘I don’t know the make. A different colour maybe, too.’ She presses her fingers to her forehead, conjuring memory. ‘I’m not good with cars.’

She is on the verge of tears, I realise. I soften my voice, as I would with a child or a client.

‘Linda. Please …’

‘I didn’t see. Long, grey maybe. But I didn’t see the driver.’ Linda is tearful. ‘Not really.’

So, if it isn’t Sid, who is it? Who the hell has taken my family?

T
hat night after Mal left
, and the cloud covered the moon, my sleep was interrupted by dreams that terrified me.

Around five, I woke sweating and confused.

My body entwined with a man. With my …

With Sid.

Another man, watching. In shadow, in the corner.

I got up and splashed my face with cold water, opened the window a little, lay down again. I closed my eyes but they were hot and sore. Chasing sleep, I turned the pillow, pummelling it into submission, searching for the cool spot, but I never found it.

What was the best part of my marriage?

Before the swing of the accidental punch; the punch he’d learnt at his mother’s side.

And when I eventually gave up on sleep and got up just after dawn; boiled the kettle and made some toast which I ate standing against the kitchen counter looking into the garden; pulled the Shreddies from the cupboard and persuaded my best beloved from her bed; sang, ‘Polly put the kettle on’ at her behest for only the five-hundredth time since she’d been born, I did not think of it. I dropped her off and kissed her rather absently for me, tired and distracted. When I drove to work, and when and when and when, it still did not click.

But walking towards my office, past the big church on the corner where the Africans came in magnificence, in orange and yellow head-dresses, children in snowy starchy frills and patent leather; well then I remembered the woman yesterday, Suzanne O’Brien, and her accusations. I still couldn’t quite fathom what the thing was that troubled me so much; it was like a tiny worm in an apple, burrowing away, only I couldn’t quite see it – just the browning hole on the outside.

And then there she was in front of me, and the strange thing was, I didn’t even feel surprise. That woman, Mal’s wife, here again, waiting outside the Centre. I ducked my head instinctively, but still she stepped forward as I drew parallel.

‘Mrs Smith—’

‘Laurie,’ I said automatically.

‘I wanted to apologise.’

Smarter today; same raincoat, black skirt, Titian hair pulled back hard from her face. Different expression. Slightly hangdog, perhaps.

‘I know – of course, you can’t see me as a client. But please … let me just talk to you. To explain.’

I was about to refuse – but something in her eyes made me change my mind.

‘I can’t right now.’ I looked at my watch. ‘But I … I think I have a gap in about an hour? If you give me your number …’

‘Sure.’ She scribbled something on the back of a receipt and presented it before I could change my mind. ‘An hour is good.’

‘Do you know Cathcart’s?’ I pointed over the road. ‘Meet you there just before – around eleven?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and I read relief on her face.

‘I’ll see you there.’

I
found
it hard to concentrate on my first client of the day, which in turn made me feel guilty. Mal’s anger in my kitchen last night haunted me. My own oblique feelings about him did too. How was I being dragged into this?

But life is not smooth and straightforward, is it? We overlap each other like Venn diagrams. Sid and I split, he’d already met Jolie. They got together; and then I met Mal – who in turn was linked to Suzanne. We take a piece of each other and move on.

Or not.

In the end, everything boils down to choices, doesn’t it? And sometimes we are brave and bold and we decide to do something we wouldn’t normally; to take a risk.

Other times, we yearn for danger – but we play safe instead. When we are calm and when we tuck ourselves away.

So, I chose to meet Suzie O’Brien – just like I chose to go with Sid when he came back for me. The first time. And then the next time.

I chose to hear her out.

S
he was already there
when I arrived. I ordered a coffee and came to sit opposite her. And waited.

I was good at waiting, it was part of my job. Do not talk over people, let them speak and it will come out, usually.

‘I realise,’ she clasped her mug of tea between rather mannish hands, ‘I realise that yesterday must have made me seem rather mad.’

‘A little …’ I semi-shrugged. ‘A little … extreme, I would say.’

‘So I wanted to explain. To make you see that I am not a mad woman. Really.’

‘Why did you come and see me yesterday?’ I looked her in the eye. ‘What did you want to tell me?’

‘What I said really. Just more calmly, perhaps. I wanted to tell you not to trust him.’

‘And why would I believe you?’ I was frank. There was no point beating around any bushes. ‘Why would I not just think you had an agenda?’

‘Because …’ she looked down at her tea. A single leaf floated on the milky surface. ‘Because it would be wise to. Mal gets a little … obsessive. Like I said.’

‘And are you still together?’ I looked at the fat gold ring on her wedding finger. She caught the direction of my gaze.

‘Old habits,’ she said ruefully, twisting it round her finger. ‘It’s, like, the final step, isn’t it? But, no, we’re not. We tried to make it work, and then I threatened to leave him and got a new job, and then he begged me to give it another try, for Leonard’s sake he said, and I did. And that’s when we went to Spain.’

‘Right.’ But it wasn’t really all right; nothing felt any clearer.

‘It was against my better judgement. And then he got all funny about you. It was such a strange coincidence really. Seeing your name, and he remembered it.’

‘Sorry,’ I gazed at her, at the delta of tiny lines around the hazel eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘We went to Vejer. We saw your name and address in the book.’

‘What book?’ I stared at her blankly.

‘The guestbook. In that lovely house.’

‘Whose house?’ I was confused. ‘Do you mean Robert’s?’ She couldn’t do.

‘I guess so, yes. And by that time, when Mal saw your name, well, it was obvious it wasn’t working out with us, and I told him on the last night that I wasn’t coming home with him. I’d already been offered a transfer by the bank.’

‘Mrs O’Brien—’

‘Suzie.’

‘Suzie. I don’t know what the hell you’re on about.’

‘He saw your name in the guestbook, of that nice house in Spain. He recognised your name and he started ranting about you and then, well, that was that.’

I had a vague recollection of Polly drawing ice-creams in Robert’s book, of her carefully and proudly copying out our name and address, tongue stuck between her lips in concentration.

I suddenly felt sick.

‘I didn’t understand at first.’ She was still talking. ‘I barely remembered you, that was the truth. It’s been a long time, a busy time since we met you then. But Mal, well. He harbours terrible grudges.’

‘I am really confused, Suzanne.’ I couldn’t compute what she was saying.

‘I had already secured the tenancy on a flat in Streatham, but he said he would fight me tooth and nail for custody unless I agreed to move north of the river. And I just wanted to make everything easy for Leonard, I felt so guilty anyway about the split, and so I agreed.’

I understood the guilt part.

‘So,’ I stared at the clock above her head, hardly seeing it. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you and Mal went on holiday to the same place as me, and that you saw my name somewhere and he came to Tufnell Park to … what?’

‘To find you.’ She sat back in her chair, and she was triumphant, her cheeks slightly pink beneath the freckles.

‘To find
me
?’

‘Yes. That’s why he came here.’

‘And that wasn’t a coincidence?’

She pulled a face. ‘What do you think?’

‘I really don’t know to be honest. Why?’

‘Because. Mal said you ruined his life.’

Jesus Christ.

And the tiny worm of worry that had been niggling at me all morning suddenly appeared from the slash in the apple.

Vejer. Mal had looked at that photo of Polly in my kitchen last night, and he’d known it was Vejer – and yet I hadn’t said so. It could have been anywhere; it was a close-up, the church wall behind us could have been any church in the Mediterranean sun. So how had he known? I stared at Suzanne O’Brien in horror.

He couldn’t have known. But he had.

I
am trying very
hard to hold back the tears, having just asked Linda if I can borrow some money. She has agreed readily, in on the drama, buzzes off to accumulate all the spare cash she and her husband Stan have in their neat little house. She is glad to lend the money to me, as if it will somehow make up for not knowing where my mother and daughter might have gone. Stan hides upstairs behind the net curtains watching television; they seem to have a set in every room. Occasionally I hear muttering voices, but he doesn’t appear.

To my intense frustration, Linda doesn’t have a phone charger – but she does have my mother’s mobile number. I store it in my new phone, and then I ring it three times, but each time the call goes straight to voicemail.

I call Sid, but he doesn’t pick up either. And then I feel like I can’t breathe, like all the air is being squeezed out of me, so I ask Linda to excuse me and I go into her bathroom with the coy-faced flamenco doll whose skirts drape coyly over the loo-roll, and I give in to my tears. I sob, mouth opening in a silent scream, until Linda knocks tentatively on the door.

‘All right in there, Laurie?’ her voice is timid, and amidst my own emotion, I feel terrible for worrying this woman so in the sanctuary of her own home. I dry my eyes on the fluffy pink towel with ‘
Lady’
embroidered in the corner and notice too late I’ve left dirt and blood behind.

‘Fine, thanks,’ my voice sounds gruff. ‘Sorry. I’ll be out in a sec.’

When I do come out, five minutes later, Linda hands me a cup of tea and a jam tart from a box of Mr Kipling’s. I don’t like jam much, but I eat it anyway because she looks so pleased when I take it, and because I can’t remember when I last ate something.

‘Thank you for your help,’ I say. ‘Could I just use your phone quickly?’

There is one thing I have to do before I go; that I have put off since this morning. I feel sick and ashamed about it.

Fingers hovering anxiously over the keys, finally I ring Pam Southern, Emily’s mother. To my enormous and guilt-ridden relief, she doesn’t answer, but the answer-phone kicks in and it has her mobile number on it. I scribble it down on Linda’s neat telephone pad. I guess Pam is headed down south, to the hospital, if she is not already there. Taking a huge breath, I ring the mobile – but it’s dead.

Just like my best friend.

And will Pam ever forgive me for taking her daughter to her death? For being alive still myself, for pretending to be Emily?

Time will tell, I guess.

I hang up as Linda sticks her head round the door. ‘Can I get you anything else, dear?’ she asks, and again I sense her semi-enjoyment. What a story to regale the bingo club with.

I shake my head, sitting forlornly on her sofa, staring at the television that chatters away to itself in the corner, sound down – and then Sid rings my new phone. I contemplate it for a split-second: I pick up.

‘Where the hell are you?’ he is angry.

‘Looking for our daughter.’

‘Why weren’t you at the bloody station?’

‘I was.’

‘So?’ Even more impatient.

‘So. I changed my mind. I know, Sid.’

‘What?’

‘That you tried to kill me.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Laurie—’

‘Sid, do you know where Polly is?’

‘She’s with your mother, isn’t she?’

‘Apparently. Only I don’t know where Mum is either.’

‘What the fuck are you on about? You’re acting pretty crazy, Laurie.’

‘I’m not.’ I am. But there’s good reason. Isn’t there? I am so tired, so blurred, I can’t get a grip on much right now. ‘Look …’ I start, and then I hear a woman’s voice behind him, interrupting. Jolie. ‘What?’ he snaps. She responds; I can’t hear her.

‘Sid. I’ve got to go. Just know this. If you hurt a hair on Polly’s head, I will kill you myself. And I will do it by the slowest, most horrible way possible.’

‘Christ, Laurie … this is really infur—’

My phone bleeps and, to my sheer amazement, I see my mother’s name come up.

Hands shaking, I try to switch the calls, but all I’ve succeeded in doing is cutting off both of them. I call my mother back but it goes to the answer-phone. She’s probably trying to call me again.

I ring again and again. I hear Linda walking upstairs now, Stan is turning the television down, saying something.

I call my mother again.

A pause … and then the line goes dead.

‘Mum?’ I shake the phone first in disbelief, and then frustration and call her back. It goes to the voicemail again. ‘Fuck.’

I jump as I realise Linda is there, Stan standing behind her in the shadows. ‘Problem?’ she looks a little less elated now. ‘Can I just say …’ She falters.

‘Yes?’ I prompt; trying not to snap at her.

‘I had a thought,’ the colour in her face is subsiding a little, but she is still thoroughly overexcited. ‘Well, it was Stan actually.’

‘What?’ She’s lost me. ‘Stan took my mum?’

‘No, no!’ her voice is a yelp. ‘I mean, it was Stan who caught a glimpse … you know.’ She looks towards where he skulks; calls to him, as if to a disobedient dog. ‘Come
on
, Stan. We haven’t got all day.’

Stan appears, wary, in the doorway; he’s wearing a pyjama shirt open over a vest, obviously dressed quickly to come downstairs. He is a scrawny, rather frail-looking man who frankly has seen better days.

‘Hello, Stan,’ I say, hopefully.

‘I saw them. Your mother. She looked very …’ he considers the word carefully, ‘anxious.’

‘Right.’ My poor mother. What hell have I got her into?

‘And your girl. Pretty little thing.’

My stomach contracts painfully.

‘Yes?’ I prod him on. ‘So …?’

‘The man with the car.’ Pause. I try to contain myself. I can see Stan’s vest under his shirt. ‘He was a big chap.’

‘Big?’

‘And fair.’

Oh God. An unspoken fear that has been circling somewhere high swoops down on me now.

‘Did he … what car was it?’ I’m useless with cars. I try desperately to remember what he drove. ‘A big silver one?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Stan looks troubled, ponders carefully. Looks up at me, light in his eyes. ‘Yes. Possibly.’

Nothing like Morse then.

‘And did he, could you see …’ I indicate the top of my head. ‘Was he slightly balding here? Right on top?’

Stan casts his eyes upwards in thought. ‘I’d say so, yes.’

Mal.

But he’s in America.

Isn’t he?