Damaged Goods (11 page)

Jack slapped his forehead repeatedly and picked up his car keys.

‘McNally, you are one big eejit.’

Lilly landed on her back and a pain jarred her spine.

‘I don’t have any money,’ she said.

The man leered at her, his mouth pulled back from his teeth. ‘You think I’m a mugger? Baby, you’re gonna wish that I was.’

Lilly shuffled backwards through the hallway, following the trail of bloodstains left by Grace as her body was dragged from the kitchen to the bedroom. ‘So what do you want?’

The man followed her, his large frame blocking the way, blotting out the light. Eventually, Lilly could go no further and was pressed against the door to the bedroom.

‘What do you want?’ Lilly repeated.

The man leaned over her, the heat of his breath filling her face.

‘You should have stayed out of my business,’ he said.

Lilly’s mind raced. This wasn’t some kid desperate for his next fix, he was a man, easily thirty, smart, clean and well-dressed. Was he a dealer? Had she stumbled into something she wasn’t supposed to see?

‘I don’t know who you think I am but you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know you and I don’t care about your business,’ she said.

‘Is that so?’ asked the man.

Lilly nodded her head with the vigour of a toddler.

‘So tell me,’ he said, his mouth so close to her ear she could feel as well as hear his words, ‘what were you doing at Tye Cross asking about me?’

Lilly’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘Max.’

She froze, but only for a second. This was the man who had killed Grace. She launched herself towards him with a force from deep inside her and toppled Max from his feet. He fell back with a crash that Lilly hoped would stun him for long enough for her to jump over him and head for the door. She rose to her feet and leaped. The door was only feet away and she was sure she could make it. She let out a roar of anticipation that turned to a howl when she felt strong hands grabbing at her legs and bringing her to the ground.

She scrabbled with her hands, reaching towards escape, but her body was held tight.

She tried to struggle free but Max was far too strong and pulled her down the hall. Holding her around the waist he forced them both towards the bedroom, kicked open the door and threw Lilly inside.

She landed on her back again and screamed in pain.

‘Keep quiet or I’ll kill you,’ said Max, and pulled out a flick knife.

Lilly had always considered herself to be one of life’s fighters. As a child she’d been bewildered to learn that the band played on as the
Titanic
sank into the black waves of the Atlantic. She would have made a boat out of the string section and paddled to safety on a cello.

If yesterday she’d been asked what she would do when faced with an armed attacker she would have envisaged herself kicking, scratching and biting. Instead she found herself paralysed by fear. She didn’t even scream, but held her breath, her eyes locked onto the blade arching towards her.

He was going to kill her. He was going to cut her open and she was going to die here, just like Grace had died.

She heard the pounding of her blood in her head and felt the sharp pain as the knife cut into her throat before everything went black.

Jack lumbered his way up the stairs to number 58 and found the police tape broken, the door wide open. Damn the woman. She shouldn’t be in there on her own, it was a crime scene for God’s sake. Authorised entry only, she knew that.

‘Couldn’t you just wait for me to get here?’ he called through the door.

He waited for the smart-arse reply but none came. In fact he could hear nothing at all.

‘Lilly?’

No answer. She’d been and gone and hadn’t even shut the door behind her. Was that bare-faced cheek or ineptitude?

Then he saw it. Lilly’s bag lay on the floor in the hallway, its contents escaping onto the carpet. A lipstick ground into the carpet, bright red and oily on top of an inky stain of Grace’s blood.

At the bottom of the hall the bedroom door was open. Jack crept towards it and peered through. Everything was dark. He waited until his eyes adjusted and he could make out a shape on the base of Grace’s bed.

He moved closer, his heart pounding. It was a body. It was Lilly.

‘No, no, no,’ he howled and sprinted forward.

Her neck and chest were sticky with warm blood. He held her head in both hands to find the wound but he couldn’t see a thing. The heavy velvet drapes obscured the daylight and Jack did not dare move to open them.

‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ he chanted as he searched his pockets for his mobile, his hands locating his wallet, his warrant card, a packet of chewing gum, anything but his phone.

At last he felt it deep in an inside pocket. He grabbed for it but his hands were slick and it fell from his fingers and landed on the side of Lilly’s face.

‘Ouch,’ she muttered, and passed out again.

Disoriented by the brightness of the neon strip directly above her and the violent way in which her aching body was being thrown from side to side, Lilly realised she was no longer at the Clayhill Estate.

She uttered the immortal lines. ‘Where am I?’

‘Could you not think of anything more original than that?’

Lilly turned towards the voice and focused on the face to her left. Soft lines and dark hair. It was Jack.

She shook her head, still confused.

‘You’re in an ambulance on the way to Luton General.’ His voice was gentle now. ‘I found you in Grace’s flat.’

Suddenly the mist lifted and Lilly could see the equipment all around her and could hear the wail of the siren outside.

She wasn’t dead, she was in an ambulance. Max had tried to kill her but somehow she wasn’t dead. Her system flooded with adrenalin, making her heart quicken and her skin prickle. It felt good.

She struggled to sit up. ‘Did you go to Mrs Mitchell’s flat?’

‘What?’

Lilly tried to clear the rasp in her throat. ‘Did you check out what she’s saying? I’m telling you she’s lying about seeing Kelsey with Grace.’

‘Jesus, woman, I was a bit busy to worry about that,’ said Jack.

‘You’ve got to arrest Max.’

Jack rubbed his head; he looked confused, frightened even. ‘Lie down, Lilly, you’ve lost a lot of blood.’

She instinctively felt the wad of bandages that had been taped over the wound under her chin.

‘He tried to kill me, Jack. It was him. He followed me to the flat and attacked me.’

‘We’ll discuss it when you’ve been seen by a doctor,’ Jack said.

‘He cut me open, Jack, just like Grace.’ Lilly’s voice began to fade. ‘He killed her, ask him.’

‘I will.’

The momentary high was gone and Lilly felt hot and sick. She let her head flop back down. As she looked up into Jack’s face she tried to smile but her facial muscles seemed frozen.

He lifted his hand and reached over to her face. She thought he was going to touch her cheek and longed for the contact but instead he patted her head.

‘I’m glad you’re all right.’

Yes, yes, yes. Lilly noted her doctor’s concern at her intention to discharge herself. Yes, she understood that she had suffered a serious injury. Yes, she realised that they would rather observe her progress through the night. Yes, she appreciated that she needed to rest.

She signed the forms precluding her from blaming anyone if she died in the next twenty-two years, collected her prescription of antibiotics and a flyer for a ‘victims of violent crime’ support group and called a taxi to collect her. More than anything in the world she wanted to see her son.

Jack poured himself a large glass of Jim Beam. He hardly ever drank spirits. Christmas and New Year perhaps, but his hands were still shaking and, despite three attempts to scrub them with a wire brush that had scraped skin away, his fingernails were still encrusted with dried blood. Each cuticle was outlined like a perfect black rainbow. He held the glass with both hands and swallowed its contents in one gulp.

The sight of Lilly slumped on Grace’s bed played in his mind again and again.

He’d seen many dead bodies before. During his police training, at home, in Belfast, he’d come across worse, much worse. But this time it was different. This time he’d been terrified.

When he’d realised she was still alive he’d held her unconscious body in his arms until the ambulance had arrived, not wanting to let her go even then. As the medics stemmed the bleeding and inserted a drip he had continued to stroke her hair.

‘Leave her to us now, mate,’ said a paramedic, gently but firmly removing Jack’s hands.

But on the way to the hospital his tenderness had failed him and he couldn’t even bring himself to touch her.

What was that about? he wondered. He really was an eejit.

‘
I’m glad you’re all right
.’

What sort of a thing was that to say? He might as well have shaken her hand.

‘He’s a cold fish, our Jackie,’ his father used to say.

But it wasn’t true. His feelings were the same as anyone’s, he just couldn’t let them out.

Later, when he’d spoken to the doctors and gathered himself, he had so many things to tell Lilly, but she’d already discharged herself. To be honest, he was relieved.

Jack topped up his glass and picked up the phone. He wanted to call her now but what would he say? ‘I’m sorry I was such a tosser but I really am glad you’re all right.’

He was so bad at this stuff. For him actions always spoke louder than words.

But what exactly did he intend to do? It had better be good, because no actions and no words were all Lilly was getting right now.

He abandoned the glass and swigged straight from the bottle. Max Hardy was what he would do. He’d arrange for uniform to drop Lilly’s car back at her home, pick the bastard up first thing in the morning and nail him before lunch.

Lilly opened the cottage door and wondered if the doctors hadn’t been right. She felt like a deflated balloon, devoid of energy.

David opened his mouth in shock at the sight of her. ‘What happened?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘That’s ridiculous, tell me,’ he said.

Lilly looked up at him, and her eyes pleaded with him to leave it. ‘I can’t, I just need to sleep.’

She crawled to the sofa and lay down. The worn linen of the cushion felt like home beneath her cheek. It smelled of moss, berries, wine and wood. Most of all, it smelled of Sam. David nodded that he wouldn’t pursue it tonight, but his eyes told her it wasn’t over and he would want an explanation in the morning. It was the look her mother had worn when Lilly came home from parties too drunk to stand, her shoes covered in vomit.

David fetched the duvet from her bed, placed it around her and smoothed it over her back. Then he tucked something into her hand. It was a Kit-Kat. The gesture brought a sob to Lilly’s throat.

‘I can’t stay, Lil, Cara’s been ringing. She’s under the weather herself,’ he said.

Lilly nodded and turned over. When she heard the door shut behind him she let the tears come.

Tonight someone had actually attempted to murder her, and here she was alone. David couldn’t wait to get away, and Jack – well, ‘
I’m glad you’re all right
.’ That spoke volumes.

Lilly wiped her eyes and nose on the end of the quilt.

She was a sad woman. She had alienated everyone and the result was that she had no one.

‘Mum?’

Sam stood in the doorway to the hall, his hair askew and eyes full of sleep. Lilly lifted the duvet and her son jumped in beside her. He looked puzzled by the dressing.

‘I had an accident but I’m fine,’ she said.

They shared the chocolate under the covers.

‘We should brush our teeth, Mum,’ said Sam.

‘I suppose we should.’

Neither made any attempt to get up, instead they snuggled their sugary faces into the sofa cushions. Lilly shushed her son back to sleep and lay stroking his hair and kissing his head until her misery subsided.

Things would work out. They always did. Whenever there had been no money in her mum’s purse and no food in the fridge they had looked down the back of the comfy chair and in every pocket in the house until they gathered enough for a tin of chicken soup. Elsa never gave up and they had never starved. Tomorrow was a new day and Lilly would go back to work, all guns blazing, and Jack would arrest Max and this mess would be sorted out.

Lilly let her heavy eyelids close, and for the third time that night gave herself up to the darkness.

William Barrows smiled as his last patient left. These weekend appointments were excruciating, but many of his clients had to work in order to pay his fees. Inconvenient, really.

As he turned off his computer he caught himself humming a silly tune he had heard this morning on the radio. Even the leaden density of the night air didn’t dampen his spirits.

At the conference he had thought his wife knew about the hobby and that catastrophe was close, but he had given Hermione too much credit. She lacked both the wit and the imagination to understand him. Just when Barrows thought his most dissolute secret had been discovered she announced that she had known all along that he was gay. He laughed at the memory.

To be fair, it was an intelligent guess on her part. He and his wife rarely had sex, and when they did succumb he could hardly be described as an enthusiastic participant. No amount of lacy underwear and spicy pillow talk could produce an erection and Barrows usually resorted to spending twenty minutes in the bathroom beforehand for him to emerge with a penis hard enough to make intercourse possible. He recalled one occasion when Hermione had begged him to kiss her ‘down there’ and he’d been physically sick afterwards.

It was a testament to the woman’s ego that she didn’t blame herself for her husband’s lack of virility. Many women would have questioned their allure and vowed to lose half a stone.

Since Barrows made no attempt to hide the fact that he found other women, of his own age at least, even more repulsive than his wife, it had been safe for her to assume he wasn’t having affairs. In the circumstances his being a closet homosexual was not at all far-fetched. She must have suspected for years. Presumably she didn’t care as long as no one else knew.