Derailed (38 page)

Scarlett grabs my arm and drags me into the car. 

Then the reporters crowd around the car, trying to get a picture of Scarlett. “Move, you arseholes!” I say, wishing I could accelerate and knock them down like skittles. I rev the Porsche. They scatter. Finally, we’re able to get on the road.

After dropping off Milton at his offices, Scarlett and I make our way to the morgue. 

As I drive, Scarlett draws her knees up to her chest and rests her face on it. “It’s true,” she says in a quiet voice, “I did not kill Bradley, Ritchie. I know what you’re thinking, but I swear on my mother and father, I did not kill him. Yes, we had our problems, but I loved him so much. With all my heart. I loved him even more the days leading to his murder. He was so lovely, so kind, so pleasant. ‘My old Bradley,’ I called him. I fell in love with him all over again.” She looks at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Do you believe me?”

“Sure,” I say.

She nods, then looks out the window. “My own father doesn’t offer to go with me to the morgue to identify Bradley’s body. Sad, isn’t it?”

Not knowing what to say, and feeling bad for her, I shrug. “
I’m
here, Scarlett. Fuck Milton.” I turn to give her a defiant look. “He should be helping you, and he’s not, so fuck him.”

She smiles. “Thank God I have you and your impertinent self around. You make me feel really safe, Ritchie.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, feeling sorry for her.

“Bradley must be happy, probably smiling down on you right now.”

Her words bring a lump to my throat. Taking my hands off the steering wheel, I raise both thumbs to the skies.
You’re welcome, bro.

RITCHIE

I get all choked up when I see my friend lying on a slab. I loved him like a brother, and in spite of everything, in spite of all his threats, I wish he hadn’t died. It cuts me to know that he died thinking of me as a betrayer.

Scarlett isn’t doing so well. Her legs buckle like a new-born colt under her when she sees Bradley’s body. I have to literally hold her up. She throws up after that. 

Next I drive her to the funeral home. It’s a state funeral, but she gets to make a lot of the decisions regarding flowers and other stuff. Scarlett can barely manage to handle
anything
. She just cries and cries when they talk about the coffin and stuff – puts her head on her knees and sobs. Wails even.

Even I get teary eyed when I see just how broken she is. In the end I’m left to arrange almost everything.

After spending the day with her, seeing her throw up, her raw, grief, her pain, I doubt Scarlett is behind Bradley’s murder. Nobody can be such a fantastic actor. Actress. 

As for Rival – she would not harm Bradley. Besides, where the heck would she get a gun from?

Trouble is; if I were a detective, I would conclude that Rival is the one with the motive to kill Bradley, not Scarlett.

RIVAL

I know that I am the lead suspect in Bradley’s murder, and that when I leave Dunhill, I will probably be arrested. But I am most anxious to go home because of Holly and Phoebe. Arena and Bear have picked them up from Scarlett’s mother’s house and have kept them at their place. But to lose both parents overnight has to have been hard on them.  

After five days at Dunhill, I am finally discharged. Vlad picks me up from Dunhill and drives me to Arena’s place. 

It’s wonderful to see my girls again. Phoebe runs up and throws her arms around me. “Mum, I missed you.”

Holly doesn’t run up to me. She stands with a book clutched to her chest, her blue eyes hard like diamonds.  

“Holly, honey?” I say, holding out my arms.

“Where is he?” Holly snaps.

“Who, baby?”

“Where is my daddy?” She slaps at the book in her hand. “I want my daddy. Where is he?” She opens the book and flashes it at me. It is a photo album filled with pictures of Bradley. My heart goes out to her. 

“Honey, I…I…sweetheart –”

“You killed him,” she says, her voice blazing with anger. “I know you did.”

“No, I didn’t, Holly!”

“You’re a LIAR! You killed him because he loved Scarlett more than you. He didn’t love you. You shot him in the dark, I know you did. You fix it. Now. Today!”

At the sight of her raw pain, I start to cry. “Holly…I…I didn’t kill Daddy.”

“I want him back, Mum. NOW!” Tears rolls down her cheeks.

“I wish I could, Holly, but I ca – ”

“No, don’t say that!” she cries, flinging out her arms and stomping her foot. “I want him back and you…YOU have to bring him back, because you killed him. Now fix it. I know you can.”

Phoebe walks over to Holly and puts her arms around her. “Don’t cry, Holly.”

Holly shoves Phoebe away. “I want him b…back. I want him back. I haven’t seen him for days and I miss him. I w…want my dad.”

Arena rushes over and tries to hug Holly, but Holly shrugs her off too.

Suddenly Ritchie appears. “Holly, sweetheart?”

Holly doesn’t look at him.

“Honey?” He reaches for her. She shrugs him off. After a moment’s hesitation, he scoops her up and hugs her hard.

She hits him several times on the head. “I don’t want you to hold me. I want my
daddy
to h…hold me. He knows how.”

Ritchie refuses to let go of her. Everyone in the room, all the adults and the children, are now crying.

A glassy-eyed Ritchie hugs Holly tight and whispers, “It’s going to be okay, sweetie.”

“N…no, it’s not. I want him. Today, now. I don’t want him to go to heaven. I don’t want him to go to a better place.”

“Honey, who’s been telling you all these things?” Ritchie asks.

“Scarlett. She told me that Mum shot Scarlett too. I know Mum killed dad. I hate her, Uncle Ritchie. I hate her.”

“No, sweetie, it’s not like –”

“She’s a ra…raven lunatic and I hate her!”

Stunned, I stare with both hands clamped over my mouth at my daughter.

“How ’bout for now, you pretend, okay? Just pretend I am your daddy? Hold me like you would hold your daddy. Pretend, Holly, just pretend. Please?”

After a slight hesitation, Holly’s little arms wrap around Ritchie’s neck and she buries her face in his chest. “Dad…Daddy…Dad…”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Please come back. I need you, Daddy. Please…”

I run out of the room, unable to stand the pain anymore, my heart splintering with grief. Scarlett has brainwashed my kids before she gave them back to me. How do I fix this? I cover my face with my hands and sob.
Bradley, help me here. Our babies are in so much pain. Help me fix it. Please.

Hours later, Holly has calmed down, but she becomes really withdrawn and refuses to talk to the adults or to interact with the other children.

She won’t even look at me. When I try to hug her, she shrugs me off and gets angry. Most of the time she’s hiding in a corner, paging quietly through her photo album.

She even ignores Puppy, who senses her sadness and tries to cheer her up with some cheek licking.

Patience, I tell myself.

I’ve moved some of my things into Arena’s granny flat where I will be spending my days until I am in a position to make decisions. At night, I sleep with Phoebe in my arms. Holly refuses to lie in bed with us and chooses to sleep on the couch, her photo album firmly in her clutches. 

“Give her time,” Ritchie says when he sees my tears and my hopelessness. “She
will
come around.”

I nod.

“She came around the last time in spite of all Scarlett’s brainwashing, remember?”

He’s right. I feel a little hopeful.

Silently, I blame myself for everything. If only I didn’t go after Bradley and Scarlett. If only I didn’t seek revenge. If only I let go and left things to the universe to handle, maybe Bradley would still be alive, and maybe my daughter would not be in such pain. He was her mainstay, not me. Whenever I was away, Bradley made sure he was there for our girls. What if I am arrested and charged over Bradley’s murder? Who will my girls have then?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

RITCHIE

It’s 9:30 a.m. and I’m heading to Mabel’s house. I haven’t been able to sleep knowing that Rival’s arrest is imminent. And to make matters worse, I’m deeply troubled by little Holly’s raw grief over the loss of her father. It makes me hug my children over and over again, and it makes me drive very carefully. If anything should happen to me, I’d hate to think how my kids would cope without me. 

Mabel throws open the door. “I know you,” she says before I can introduce myself. “Ritchie, right?”

A blast of cigarette smoke assaults my senses, causing my eyes to water and my throat to burn. “You’re the bloke on TV. The one the reports thinks is having an affair with that bitch.” She jerks her seventy-something head toward Scarlett’s house.

“But I’m not,” I say, sounding wounded.

“I believe you.”

It’s my turn to be taken aback. “Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” She motions for me to come inside, then turns and shuffles into the house. “Saw you visit Rival the night Bradley was arrested.”

“Oh?” I follow her inside, along a dark passage and past a beaded curtain. I balk at the sight of three old women seated in her hazy living room. All three are smoking cigarettes and drinking rum. The same three old women who drove a Valiant and bullied me something terrible almost a year ago. I had made a mistake of calling the driver Nana. The three Driving Miss Daisies who hurled insults at me and called me a monkey from Africa too. I’ve never quite recovered from their public and humiliating bullying.

“H…hi,” I mutter, feeling like I’m six and facing my school principal. Principal
s.

“Hello!” one of the nanas say.  “Great looking piece of arse you are.” 

She did not say that. The upside is: they don’t recognize me. I relax.

The third nana squints at me, a knowing look in her eyes, once blue, but now greyish from cataracts.  

Mabel points her walking stick to a faded mustard and red couch that looks like something Mother Cat and her babies have been using as a scratching post.    

“Thanks, Mabel,” I mutter as I sit down, aware that nana number three has summoned her dittos and is whispering to them.

“It’s Maybelline,” Mabel corrects, patting down her hair. “Like the makeup. That’s my
full
name.” Slowly and with great difficulty, she lowers herself onto a couch across from me.

“Maybelline – nice name,” I muse.

She beams. “Saw you spend the night with Rival. Saw you leave around six the next morning. Saw you come back the following evening with flowers.”

All the times she talks about, they were in the evening or while it was dark. How the hell did she see all this?

“You use binoculars?” I ask, more as a joke.

“Night vision goggles.”

“What!”

“My son, Stevo, he’s in the army, so I asked him to pinch me a pair. He said, ‘What do you want a pair of night vision goggles for? It’ll be as useless as a pork chop in Jerusalem.’” She chuckles. “Turned out to be extremely useful you know.” With a mischievous gleam in her eye, she pats a finger on her lips.

“Ah.”

“Have we met before?” one of the nanas asks in a very wary voice.

I shake my head from side to side, my body slowly tensing up. “I would have remembered.” Luckily, I can lie easily. Sadly for me, dementia hasn’t come calling – their memories are crisp.  

“Mm.” She looks at the other nanas, both of whom have their hands cupped around their ears. “He says he would have remembered us.”

They remove their hands from their ears.

Mabel drops her head back and yells, “Brianna! We have a visitor. Bring us another glass.”

“Are you…are you from South Africa?” one of the nanas asks, sitting forward and watching me intently through her gold-rimmed glasses. 

I vigorously shake my head. “Australia.”

With her eyes fixed to mine, the interrogating nana takes a drag on her cigarette. It’s such a long drag, the cigarette almost burns itself out. It’s clear she’s not buying my lies. It is also clear her lungs are going strong even though she looks as old as the earth.

“You want Diet Coke with your rum?” Mabel asks. 

My face spasms at the thought of drinking Diet Coke. “Got any Coke?”

“Nah. Gotta watch my sugar.”

“Okay, Diet Coke is fine.”

“Diabetes can be a bitch, darling,’” she says as she removes a pack of Camels from her pocket and thrusts it at me.

That’s right – avoid diabetes at all costs, but bring on lung cancer. 

I shake my head and graciously decline. “Thanks. Look, I appreciate your time, Mabel –”

“Maybelline,” she corrects.

“
Maybelline
. I need to ask you a few questions about the shooting.”

She takes a drag on her cigarette and exhales a plume of smoke, adding to the haze in the smoke-filled room.

“I know you’ve talked to the cops and the detectives, but I…I don’t think Rival shot Bradley, and I want to help her.”

Two women in their thirties walk in to the room carrying drinking glasses and ice.

“Brianna and Sarah,” Mabel says, waving toward them. “My daughters.” 

“Hello,” Brianna says in a shy voice before she pours me two fingers of rum and adds Diet Coke to it.

“Hello, nice to meet you both,” I say to the women. “My name is –”

“Ritchie,” Brianna says, handing me the rum. “I know you. You’re Bradley’s friend. Seen you around a couple of times.”

“You’ve also got something going on with Rival,” Sarah pipes in a smug voice. “And now you’re having an affair with the slut he married.” She clasps her hands. “It’s all so
Young and the Restless.”

“No, no, no!” Brianna says, taking a smoke from her mother’s pack and lighting up. “It’s more
The Bold and the Beautiful
.” With each word, she puffs out a ring of smoke. Artful.   

“
Dynasty
,” Mabel says, taking another drag on her cigarette. “Bradley was a politician, remember? Hotshot and all. And that bitch, she’s got ticket on herself, remember?”