Blood Tracks (18 page)

His phone went off. He grappled around for it in the pocket of his hoodie.

“What?”

“Get out of there now,” Stevie barked. “He’s come back and he’s heading for the back garden. I can hear that dog from here!”

Declan looked around in panic, ready to run, but the man was already approaching him.

“Can I help you?”

Declan noted the man’s distinct accent
. What is he? German? Austrian?

“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” Declan gasped. “I’m just looking for my cat. I think he may have crawled in here. He’s just a kitten – he keeps getting lost.” Declan’s performance screamed “liar” to anyone watching.

“I suppose you think it must be easy to break into my property? Who’s going to stop you? After all, I hardly look able to. Be warned though, you don’t want to mess with me.”

“No, honest. I wasn’t going to rob you or anything. It’s just my cat.”

The man gave a wheezy laugh that shook his bony frame. “If you really do have a cat down there,” he said pointing to the cellar, “then I’m afraid my dog will have torn it apart by now. Why don’t you give me your address and maybe I can send you the pieces in the post?”

Declan laughed nervously. “You’re joking, right?”

“I’m not known for my sense of humour.”

“It’s okay. I don’t reckon he went in there after all. He’s probably found his way home by now.” Declan stood up to leave. “I’ll let you get on. I’m sorry for coming on to your property.” He started to walk away, hardly daring to believe that the man would let him go.

The man held up his hand to stop Declan. “I won’t bother the police about this because I have friends who could easily find out who you are and where you live. They would pay you a visit that would leave a lasting impression on you. Now run home to your
moeder
and don’t ever think of coming back here. And remember, don’t be afraid of me, be afraid of who I know.”

“It looks worse than it did yesterday,” Kylie groaned, as she swished the little net through the murky waters of the fish tank. “All those flakes have gone gooey.”

“Don’t worry,” Gina said. “Danny will be okay about it. I’m sure there’ll be something he can put in it to clear the water.”

The noise of a taxi engine sent them both to the front window.

“They’re back!” Kylie tottered to open the front door.

Gina’s mum and Danny bustled into the hallway. Tom was behind, laden down with bags.

Gina’s kisses and hugs stopped abruptly when she got to Tom.

He smiled at her, saying, “Gina, you missed a great weekend!”

“Yeah, Gina, it was the best. You should have come,” Danny said, bounding into the living room.

Kylie tried to intercept him. “Danny, don’t panic, but I had a little accident. Put a bit too much food into your tank. It looks worse than it is, doesn’t it, Gina?”

“Yeah, it’ll be easy to sort out,” Gina said optimistically.

Danny’s face fell when he saw the green hue of the water. “Are the fish all right?”

“They’re all fine. I’ve counted them,” Gina said.

“Don’t worry about it, Danny boy,” Tom said. “I’ll sort it out.”

“Well, I’ll be off then.” Kylie sidled towards the door.

“Thanks so much. Have you girls had a good time?” Clare asked.

“Yeah. Kylie’s been great.” Gina smiled.

Tom rooted through the numerous bags. “This is for you, Kylie. Just a small thank you.”

Kylie clapped her hands, taking the Tiffany’s bag and pulling out the small rectangular box.

“Oh, Tom!” she gasped, as she pulled out a delicate white-gold necklace. “It’s beautiful and it’s from Tiffany’s!”

“Well, Clare and I wanted to show you how much we appreciated your help with Gina.”

Gina bristled.
Clare and I…! Your help with Gina!

“Don’t look so fed up, Gina.” Tom was looking directly at her. “We’ve got a present or two in here for you.”

Tom plonked himself down in her dad’s armchair.

“I’ll be off,” Kylie said, blowing a communal kiss.

“Gina, you would have loved Paris.” Her mum’s eyes sparkled. “It’s such a beautiful city.”

“No, Disneyland was loads better,” Danny interrupted. “I wasn’t into all the Mickey Mouse stuff, but the park had brilliant rides.”

Tom looked pleased with himself. “Well, seeing as this trip was such a success, we ought to think bigger next time.”

Next time? He’s trying to take over our bloody lives,
Gina thought.

“I’ve been thinking about summer. I think this family deserves to go somewhere really, really special.”

Gina was becoming more agitated. There was something in Tom’s pompous tone that unnerved her.

“Where?” Danny asked, wide-eyed.

“Somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, all of you,” he said teasingly. “Somewhere I know your dad was desperate to take you.”

“Trinidad?” her mum said in disbelief.

“Trinidad!” Danny punched the air.

“
Trinidad!
” Gina said in outrage.

“Yes, what could be better than fulfilling Marty’s ambition to take his family home?” Tom proclaimed proudly. “We can visit relatives, go to his childhood haunts, we could even scatter his ashes there…he’d have liked that, wouldn’t he?”

Gina was flabbergasted. “You’ve got no right! There’s no way
you’re
taking us. Why are you doing this? Are you trying to buy yourself a family…? Because we’re not for sale!”

Tom looked rattled. He smoothed his hair back with his hands. “I’m doing this for your dad.”

“You weren’t even a good friend to my dad,” Gina said.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” her mum snapped. “Tom
was
a good friend.”

“Well, it seems to me that you were happy to come here and play at being ‘Uncle Tom’, but you never let my dad into your
real
world, did you? The world of your posh clubs and rich associates. Didn’t you think he was good enough to mix with them?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Tom said. “Years ago, before you’ll even remember, I took your dad to all my clubs; tried to introduce him to good contacts in the business world. Isn’t that right, Clare?”

Her mum nodded.

“But it was your dad who wasn’t interested,” Tom said.

“Well maybe that was because of the kind of people you deal with,” Gina said accusingly.

“No, it was because your father lacked ambition,” Tom barked back.

Gina glared at him. Tom immediately looked remorseful.

“I’m sorry, Gina. I shouldn’t have said that.” Tom turned to her mum. “I didn’t mean it, Clare. I thought I could handle all this abuse, but I’m beginning to wonder if I can.”

“Gina, apologize to Tom,” her mum said angrily.

“So you’re siding with him?” Gina said.

“There are no sides,” her mum said wearily. “This isn’t a battle.”

“It is, and I’m not going to let him win,” Gina said, storming from the room and grabbing a set of keys from the kitchen drawer.

Gina ran all the way to the allotment. She unlocked the creaking wooden gate and surveyed her dad’s plot in confusion. It looked like a digger had turned over the earth. Great mounds of soil had been piled up at the sides.

Gina’s attention was caught by the flapping doors on the shed. She looked in and found that floorboards had been ripped up, exposing the grass below. Their table, chairs and gardening equipment had been thrown into one corner like it was a scrapheap.

“What the hell has he done to Dad’s allotment?”

“Gina!” Mum had followed her, puffing and panting. “What’s happened here?”

“It’s Tom! He told us he was going to look after Dad’s allotment but he’s wrecked it.”

Her mum stumbled around for an explanation. “Tom must have some reason for this.”

“Then you phone him now and ask him.”

“I’ll phone if you promise that afterwards we can talk about you and Tom.”

Her mum phoned and Gina listened in.

“Tom, I’m with Gina at the allotment. We just wanted to know what’s going on with it. We’re a bit surprised by how it looks.”

There was a momentary silence before he made a laughing sound. “God, I’m sorry. It must look terrible to you. Don’t worry, I had to get rid of all the bad soil. I’m going to cover it with some good quality stuff.”

“And the shed?” her mum asked.

“Well…the floorboards were rotting. I’m getting a new one, bigger, better. I wasn’t going to tell you until it was all done. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

Gina shook her head and her mum said, “It would have been good to be consulted, Tom.”

“Yeah, sorry, Clare. I suppose that I’ve been overenthusiastic.”

“It’s okay. You meant well. I’ll see you later,” she replied.

“Mum, he’s lying. Our shed wasn’t rotting.”

Her mum put a hand up to silence her. “Tom’s explained things and I’m happy with that. Now forget the allotment. We need to talk about you and him. This appalling behaviour towards him has got to stop. I understand about Trinidad, but Tom’s heart is in the right place.”

Gina looked gravely at her mother. “We’ve got to get him out of our lives, Mum. You don’t really know him.”

“For God’s sake, I’ve known Tom for years.”

“He’s up to something,” Gina blurted out. “At the warehouse…there’s something going on.”

“What are you talking about?” Her mum sighed.

“We saw him…me and Declan. In the middle of the night. Tom came back to the warehouse, slashed open a sack and got something out.”

She saw her mum’s face cloud over. “What the hell were you doing in the warehouse in the middle of the night!?”

“We were trying to find the sack. Tom had this code, you see, written on a piece of paper, and Declan sussed out that it identified a particular sack of cocoa beans. So we went looking for it, but then Tom came in and took something out of one of the sacks…we couldn’t see what it was, but it must have been something dodgy, otherwise why would he have waited to get it until night-time? Anyway, once he’d got whatever it was, Tom left and we were locked in the warehouse all night,” she said breathlessly, waiting for the revelation to hit her mother.

“Was this the other night, when you told me you were at Becky’s sleepover?” Her mum’s hackles were rising.

“Yes,” Gina replied meekly.

“So, let me get this straight.” Her mum crossed her arms, her voice irate. “You lied to me and then sneaked off and spent the night with Declan in Tom’s warehouse, where you spied on him, because you thought you’d found a secret code that meant he was coming back to his warehouse to get something out of a sack, is that right?”

“You make it sound bad when you say it like that, but yeah.”

“And do tell me again, what exactly was in the sack?”

“Well…we couldn’t see, could we, but he definitely took
something
out of it,” Gina said with conviction.

“So, in fact, it could have been a handful of cocoa beans, for all you know?”

Gina hesitated. “Well yeah…but…no! Why would he come back at night to get some beans?” she said triumphantly.

“Why the hell shouldn’t he? Maybe he had to check them urgently. Maybe he was worried that they were damaged cargo he had to do something about.”

“But the next day, when I asked him what he’d done that night, he said that he’d just gone home.” Surely this was the winning blow?

“So what? Maybe he didn’t think it was even worth mentioning that he’d gone to his
own
warehouse
before
going home. He’s not answerable to you, young lady. You and Declan have either got two of the most fertile imaginations or you’re just being unbelievably malicious, coming up with this ridiculous story to try and turn me against Tom.”

“No, it’s true, Mum, honest!”

She watched tears prick her mother’s eyes. “For God’s sake, Gina, your mind’s so twisted against Tom that I bet you jumped at the chance to believe some rubbish that Declan told you. I’ve a good mind to tell Tom that you broke into his warehouse.”

“No! Please, you mustn’t tell him!” she panicked. “I didn’t break in anyway, Declan just stayed in there after work. We didn’t do any damage.”

Her mum’s lips pursed. “So, what
did
you and Declan do all night, locked up in there?”

Gina couldn’t meet her mother’s stare. “Nothing, Mum, honest. Nothing happened.”

“I thought Declan was good for you but it sounds like he’s just winding you up even more than before.”

“He’s not.”

“Maybe I should stop you seeing him.”

“You can’t! It’s not his fault. I made him spy on Tom. He didn’t want to,” she said protectively. “He’s done it for me. Please don’t stop me hanging around with him. I like being with him.”

“Yeah and I like having Tom around and so does Danny. Tom cares about us. He’s been a great support to me.”

“Is there something going on between you and him?” Gina asked in trepidation.

“No, it’s too soon for me, but who knows what will happen in the future.”

“But what about Dad?” Gina’s lips trembled.

“Can’t you understand? I will never forget your father. I will always love him, but he’s dead, Gina and I’m still alive.” She struck her chest. “So let
me
have a life!”

“But please, Mum, not with Tom. He’s involved in something illegal. He knows what happened to Dad. Dad didn’t kill himself!” she said fervently.

Clare threw her arms up in the air, and looked to the sky. “Enough, Gina! I can’t go on like this. Your dad sent you a text, for God’s sake. He was saying sorry to you for what he was about to do. What else do you need? Wouldn’t it be simpler for all of us if we could believe that it was just a terrible accident? That your dad didn’t kill himself and leave me with the guilt of thinking that I failed him? Do you have any idea how that makes me feel, Gina? And, all this time having to cope with you and your relentless denial and your paranoia about Tom.”

“But—”

“But nothing! You’ve got to stop it, Gina,” her mum shouted in despair. “Wake up now and accept what happened. It’s time to move on, look to the future, and if I want Tom around, then he will be, and you’ll just have to get used to it!”

Clare had just laid her exhausted head on the pillow when her mobile rang.

“Hi, Clare,” Tom said. “Sorry to ring you so late but I just wanted to know if Gina had settled down. I stayed with Danny as long as I could, but I thought it’d be better if I was out of the way when you got back. She really upset him.”

“I know and after he’d had such a great weekend too. He’s fast asleep now. I had it out with Gina and when we got home she went straight to her room. I let her cry herself to sleep. Listening to her nearly killed me but I’ve decided that I’ve got to try a bit of ‘tough love’. If she won’t go back to see Dr. Havers then I have to think of my own strategies to bring her out of this.”

“You’re doing the right thing, Clare. I’m sorry that my Trinidad idea upset her. I really wanted to make her happy.”

“It’s a lovely suggestion, Tom, but you know how Gina’s been about you since the inquest. She’s focusing all her anger on you. It’s out of hand. She’s even been making Declan spy on you.”