Lemonade and Lies (5 page)

With luck, by the end of half-term I’d have the car back. The garage had finally got the part and now the only thing the mechanic needed was a
window-of
-
opportunity
to fit it. Yeah, right! Still, I was optimistic. Things seemed to be heading in the right approximate direction.

The bus didn’t come. So we started walking through the back-lanes, once again passing the RSPCA rescue centre. Millie and I had to drag Tom away from the gate and only the promise of a visit to the pet store - for window shopping only - moved him on.

“What’ve you got in yours?” Millie asked her brother, an hour later, when we’d spent some time in Pets Galore and had finally come in for a landing at the burger bar, conveniently just one block away from the pet shop.

The serious business of Kiddie Meals was under discussion and the type of toy in the current series. The kids were pleased because these things came free. What can I say?

“Same as before,” said Tom.

“Swap you then.” Millie wasn’t overjoyed with hers, but still, I couldn’t see the deal going through, for Tom was unlikely to go for a tiny doll that fitted on the tip of your finger.

I broke up the party before the discussion turned into a blood-bath and led the kids on a mystery tour. We were off to the cinema. A half-term treat that wouldn’t break the bank (there’d been some money-off-vouchers in the West Briton).

I loved the film. Millie was a bit more cynical about the possibility of an injured dolphin being able to swim again with a prosthetic tail. But it was in 3D and an off-beat version of the Free Willy type. Tom tried hard not to cry. I think the film reminded him of Rupert, the dog he’d left behind.

It was a feel-good movie and even Millie, despite her attempt to remain cool and separate herself from anything sentimental, came out smiling.

We all returned home in a cheerful mood and I let myself believe that my family had finally become used to its new place in the universe, man-free, dad-free.

That’s what made our homecoming even worse. From happiness to despair in one easy step. I tried to reassure the kids; then took them to their rooms. But Millie refused to stay in her own bedroom - it was on the ground floor, backing onto the garden. Instead, she went upstairs with her brother and flung herself under his duvet. Maybe she thought higher ground would be safer.

I papered over my own fear for the time being, for kids pick up on that sort of thing. They’re not stupid. Just under five-foot tall and still learning about life’s oddities. I read them one of my stories until they both fell asleep.

Then I went downstairs and looked around the wreck of my front room. A wave of nausea engulfed me and I fled to the bathroom to throw up. The place had been burgled. No . . . more than burgled. It had been ransacked. Maliciously trashed.

Everywhere you walked there was the tooth-jarring crunch of glass underfoot. Drawers had been pulled out, their contents spewed carelessly across the floor. The sofa had been slashed.

I’d left the television switched on,
a strategy meant to fool burglars
. It now lay marooned on its side in a corner of the room, still doggedly relaying images. Evidence of Japanese engineering skills. The DVD player had been discarded like so much junk, its case ripped apart, the entrails scattered.

Bill would have been depressed. It had taken him days of going through specs to choose all his techie toys. Now the front room was a junkyard, its contents worth scrap value.

Papers were scattered everywhere and the stuffing pulled out of cushions. How could anyone be so cruel? Druggies maybe, looking for money for a fix. But if they wanted cash, why hadn’t they taken my laptop? Why was the TV still here? It didn’t look as if anything was missing, nothing I could think of. Vandalism. Pure, mindless vandalism.

I picked up the phone to call the police, but changed my mind and dialled James first.

“I’m coming over now.”

“Thanks. Meanwhile, I’ll call the police.”

“Wait till I get there,” he said.

“No! I need to call the police.”

“Jill.”

“What?”

“I
am
the police.”

“So, Detective James McDonald . . .” I said the words quietly, but no one who knew me would be fooled by that. “You didn’t think it pertinent to tell me you were a policeman?”

He smiled. The pertinent thing hadn’t put him off. “It’s Detective
Inspector
.”

“Really?”

“But my friends call me Jamie.”

“Oh? And what makes you think I might be one of those?”

He stopped smiling. And started to sense I was pissed.

“Look, I see where you might be angry.”

“You do?” My face was syrup, but inside I was all lemon. Seething, turbulent, bitter. He’d made a fool out of me. Okay, maybe I didn’t need much help in that department lately. And I suspected I was just as mad at myself as I was at him.

He went quiet.

“So, not in finance then. How many more lies did you spin?” In truth he’d told me hardly anything about himself, but when you’re mad, you’re mad.

“That wasn’t a lie. I told you my job had to do with finance and it does. I work for the Met in the Economic and Specialist Crime Unit.”

“The Met?”

“The Metropolitan Police Service,” he explained (like I was some kind of idiot).

“I’m not some kind of idiot,” I said. “I know what the Met is. But they’re in London and we’re in Cornwall.”

James McDonald joined me on the shredded remnants of what had once been a perfectly serviceable sofa. I hadn’t invited him. But stuff like that didn’t seem to bother him.

“Have you called the local uniforms?” he asked.

“Not yet. Not when I’ve got my very own policeman on tap.”

“Look, I know you’re pissed-off and scared, but being smart-arsed isn’t going to help.”

He was wrong. It always helped. And who was he to say how I should feel?

“What gives you the right to give me orders? Sneaking around behind my back,” I said, “pretending to be someone you’re not. I want answers – now!”

There was a second’s hesitation. Like he was riffling through the facts, selecting things on a need-to-know basis. Maybe I was at the bottom of the pile. It was a thought that made me even angrier, for I was on the front line. It was my kids who were frightened to close their eyes at night. My house that had just been trashed.

“You may not believe it, but I was trying to protect you.”

“Duh!”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I made a balls-up of it.”

“You think?”

He didn’t answer. And I needed answers. For me, for my kids.

“Why are people following me?”

“Your husband . . .”

“I knew it. The bastard! What’s he done?”

“Got himself in hot water with some real nasty characters.”

“But why come here? These people aren’t retarded, are they? They must know he doesn’t live here anymore. That he’d
never
come back.”

“The man’s on the run right now, who knows what he’s thinking? But he’s just a small link in a much larger chain. It’s the big guy I’m after.”

“And who’s he?”

“Better you don’t know.”

I gave Detective Inspector James (call me Jamie) McDonald one of my best sarcastic looks.

“Okay, but I’ve been trying to spare you some worry.”

“Yeah? And how’s that going for you?”

His sigh was impressive. But I could tell that he’d finally decided to let me into this exclusive loop of his.

“All right. What do you know about your husband’s business?”

“
Ex
-husband.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s a psychological thing,” I said.

“Sure.”

“Not much. He didn’t encourage it. And I had the kids and work to keep me busy. I left him to plough his own furrow – he seemed happy enough – and by then he was earning good money from his recruitment agency.”

“Yeah. The recruitment agency,” he said and looked like a mouse who’d found the cheese.

“What – it
wasn’t
a recruitment agency?”

“Oh, he recruited staff all right. But what kind of staff and for who?”

“For whom.”

“Never understood grammar.” He laughed, and something about the easiness of it made me feel better
which was crazy, obviously, for someone had just broken into my house.

“English grammar aside,” I said, “who was this lamebrain, stupid-arse bastard of an ex-husband of mine recruiting?”

“Small fry at first. Low level stuff mostly, till he moved on to specialists.”

“Specialists?”

“Your ex filled gaps in the criminal fraternity’s job market.”

“That’s crazy! This is Bill we’re talking about. He was a charmer, sure. But more of a used car salesman than some blue sky thinker.”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“He got cocky. Outgrew his skills. Started off with blue collar workers, mules mainly . . .”

“Mules?”

“Mules, you know? Carrying drugs over borders. People with no brains looking for quick, easy money. Except it isn’t. And they’re often set-up to get caught, divert attention away from the real transport.”

“Bill would never have anything to do with drugs. He hated them. Watched some of his mates go down that road.”

“Funny how the lure of money can heal wounds,” he said.

Why are policemen so bloody cynical? Bill was no angel, but I couldn’t believe he’d be mixed up in anything like that. I’d lived with the bloke for a long time. I’d have noticed something.

James McDonald could see I wasn’t buying.

“The evidence is solid,” he told me.

“So you said.”

“He moved on to white collar stuff. Geeks recruited for cyber crime and guys good with figures for money laundering. They left a paper trail right up to Bill’s door.”

His look was apologetic now. Like he finally got it. That it would be a bad thing for the father of my kids to be on some wanted list. And that Bill’s door could be
my
door. Jesus! It couldn’t be true. I tried one more time.

“The whole thing’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but true. But he got too ambitious. Wanted more than his finder’s fee. Upset a few powerful people, mostly from what we used to call the Eastern Bloc.”

“Shit.”

The weakness in my legs came on suddenly. And the sick feeling, as I remembered the face at my window. Swarthy; the deep tan gave it a raw, weather-beaten look. I recalled the dark, brooding eyes and the piercing in one ear that had given the man that gypsy appearance along with the coal-black, untamed hair. An Eastern European face?

“The guy at the window . . .”

“Probably Viktor Aleksei Kabak. We know he’s here and gunning for your hus . . . sorry, ex-husband.”

“And who’s he when he’s not following innocent people and looking through their windows?” I needed to know. I didn’t
want
to know. I wanted to pretend none of this was happening and go back to how my life had been before. It hadn’t been perfect, but it had been better than this.

I gripped my hands tightly together and dug the nails deeply into my flesh, like some kind of penance for being so stupid, for not realising just how high on the shit-scale that bastard ex-husband of mine had been. What he’d done to us.

James McDonald looked grim. “Jill, I don’t think you’ve got a handle on this yet. It’s very serious.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“And these are dangerous men. You need to get yourself and your kids somewhere safe until this blows over.”

“Leave my home? The place I fought to keep when that creep Bill bailed on us and left me carrying all the bills?”

“Haven’t you got somewhere you could go for the time being? What about your parents? A short holiday. The kids might like it.”

“What – run away to some God forsaken piece of remote Scottish real estate when I’ve got a job and a life down here? No way.”

“The man said your kids were in danger.”

“You think I don’t know that? But this Kabak also claims I have something belonging to him, which I don’t, so maybe we can’t read too much into what the scumbag says.”

James McDonald didn’t answer, but a fleeting look passed across his face.

Another time I might have realized its importance. And if I hadn’t been so busy thinking about my kids, whether or not to take all this to the local police, or if I’d actually
paid
the house contents insurance, I might have given that look the consideration it deserved. It was a clue to something even more sinister.

Still, everyone has the gift of hindsight. The gift of prophecy would have been more useful. But it’s one I’ve never been blessed with.