The Edge of Sanity (5 page)

Shivering despite the central heating Daniel and she had almost bankrupted themselves for last winter, she grabbed up her dressing gown, pushing one arm slowly into it as the answer phone kicked in.

Hi. Jo and I are busy, right now,
Daniel’s recorded message reached her ear,
but please leave a message and we promise to get back to you
.

Jo swallowed back a tight lump in her throat. She had fallen in love with his voice. She had never even met him, yet her insides had turned to goo when she had first spoken to him on the phone. He’d rung her place of work, checking on an advertisement he had placed, and she had hardly heard a word he had said, listening instead to the seductive timbre of his voice—dark and sultry, like decadent dark chocolate.

He’d melted her heart and got her tingling right down to her toes by the end of the conversation, which had been peppered with innuendo, she recalled with a ghost of a smile. And when he had called into the office … ooh, scrummy … the flesh had
way
exceeded the fantasy. He was at least six foot tall.
And
rather well toned under the shirt, Jo—and one or two other girls—had drooled as they’d noticed.

The girls had ribbed Daniel, of course, which was when Jo realised he was actually quite shy—a total turn-on. If he had said
Do you fancy a quickie?
instead of
a coffee
she’d have said,
Yes, please
. And best of all, it wasn’t contrived. It was all Daniel. Quiet, unassuming, and seemingly unaware of his obvious attractions; he was just Daniel. Her Daniel.

Yes, he had his faults, she had come to realise. He was broody and introspective sometimes. Thinking things through was his way. Daniel tended to size people up before he opened up, which he didn’t do easily. Jo was fairly sure that had something to do with being brought up by a father who wasn’t much of one, though Daniel didn’t often talk about his childhood. He’d never hidden his feelings where it mattered though. She traced a hand over the space in the bed where Daniel should be. When they were alone together. When they made love. Until now.

Jo’s heart skipped a beat as Daniel took up his own invitation to leave a message. Back-to-back, the words could have been spoken by two different people. The light-hearted tone, which characterised the Daniel she had fallen in love with, was gone.

‘Hi, it’s Dan … Daniel,’ he said, sounding bone-weary with exhaustion. ‘I just wanted to let you know that I’ve, er, made some arrangements vis-à-vis the sale of the boatyard.’

Arrangements? Jo grabbed up her dressing gown. Already? But then, he would, she supposed. If there was one thing Daniel was, before their lives fell apart, it was decisive. If only he had been so decisive about doing something to help them pick up the pieces. Talking to her, for a start.

‘And I wanted to, er, check that it was okay for me to call around later,’ Daniel went on, and then waited.

Jo debated. Should she pick up?

‘Okay.’ He sighed, as she hesitated. ‘Well, I’ll assume it is then, unless I hear otherwise. We need to … to talk, Jo. Properly. Sort things out, yes?’

So now he finally wanted to talk—to sort “things” out. As in divide up the assets, possibly? Jo’s heart sank. She stopped listening and trailed to the bathroom; somehow she didn’t want to hear his goodbyes.

She showered and dressed quickly, angry with Daniel—and with herself for sinking into a sea of depression, waiting listlessly for a shift in the emotional tide, instead of swimming against it. She had wanted to be dead herself at first, when Emma had gone. There was no way to deny it. Every fibre of her being no longer wanted to
be.
Black, empty nothingness was what she had felt, what she craved, where she could curl up alone, on her own in the dark where life couldn’t touch her.

But she had clung on—with her fingernails it sometimes seemed to her—because she had to. To be there for Kayla. Though, the truth was, she hadn’t been. Every conversation they had lately ended in argument. Or Kayla would go on the defensive—all tight-lipped belligerence. Why, when they needed each other so badly?

Because she was hurting. Jo knew, yet didn’t have a clue how to reach her. She seemed to have skipped a whole chapter of Kayla’s life. She was growing up. Growing away. Joanne could no more make her communicate than she could Daniel. But she
would
, God give her strength. Kayla was in danger of going completely off the rails, if Jo didn’t make more effort to get through to her. Somehow they kept misreading each other. Missing each other. As they had this morning, thanks to her own incompetence. She had to ditch the booze, starting now, she decided, heading downstairs to back up her resolve with action.

Daniel had accused her of overreacting when she had tried to talk to him about Kayla. He’d insisted Kayla’s behaviour was just normal teenage rebellion. Okay, rampaging hormones in mind, maybe it was. Perhaps, as Daniel had suggested, she did just need some space. But how much? When did not crowding her become not being there for her?

Surely, it wasn’t normal for Kayla to eat barely enough to sustain a mouse. Well, okay, Jo supposed that could be construed normal, size zero icons in mind, but there was a line over which it crossed into anorexia. As for Kayla locking herself in her room, not just for hours as kids did, but forever it seemed, emerging only to trail out of the front door? No, not normal. Not on. Jo selected a bottle of white from the rack, uncorked it, steeled herself to pour it resolutely down the sink, and then followed it with another.

Her daughter needed her. And Jo needed to be there for her. She wished Daniel was. Oh, Daniel—her anger gave way to soul-aching sadness—why have you shut me out? They were so alike, he and Kayla, whereas Emma had taken after her, a regular little chatterbox.

Jo swallowed hard and trailed to the hall mirror, attempting to pile her hair on top of her head in some way that allowed her to actually see. Daniel loved her hair. She turned away, leaving it loose. At thirty-seven, it was probably time to think about going shorter anyway. And Daniel had gone, hadn’t he?

Gone fast, as it happened. He’d obviously wanted to. She couldn’t blame him. They’d been slowly killing each other over the last few months.

Jo clattered the last of the breakfast things into the dishwasher, and then mechanically set about sorting whites from coloureds. She had been angry with Daniel, bloody angry, but only for refusing to show his grief. To let the pain out and allow himself to miss Emma. Allow
her
to miss Emma.

Was that the truth though? Or had she finally voiced it, cruelly, horribly? An accusation buried so deep, even Jo didn’t know she was harbouring it.

She had blamed Daniel.

Why, oh, why, couldn’t he have just left the boatyard and come in, comforted her, faced her. Was it really
that
hard?

He must have known she would be thinking about her. Everything she touched in the house was Emma. She couldn’t even bring herself to wipe the handprints from the banister. Daniel should have known. Sometimes grief slipped silently out of the shadows to hit her so hard, she would reel from the impact. Wasn’t it bound to on her birthday? And in its wake came the suffocating wave of despair, which seemed to wash away every ounce of strength she possessed. So she had searched for a crutch.

And then, fuelled by alcohol, which, far from numbing the pain, only ever brought things into sharp focus, she had provoked him, deliberately trying to prod him into some display of emotion.

She had attacked him—her heart plummeted as she recalled the shock on his face, the hurt in his eyes—but the most brutal thing she could have done was to blame him. He couldn’t have been more hurt if she had taken a knife to his heart.

He didn’t even retaliate. She wished he had. Any reaction would have been better than none. Emotionless, she had called him. It wasn’t true. She knew him too well. She had watched him be the best father to Kayla and Emma a man could be. Been there when he had wiped away their tears, hugged them; tickled them into hysterics. He’d even played dressing up dolly, for God’s sake. Six-foot tall, and he had sat cross-legged on the lawn dressing Barbie in cool colours and streaking her hair to match.

She had pushed him away. And she kept on pushing, because he kept coming back for more. Was she crying now for herself, or for Daniel? For Kayla or Emma; so short a life snatched away. Jo didn’t know anymore. If only Daniel had remembered the seatbelt.

Jo wiped her nose on the back of her hand. And how many times had
she
done the school run too distracted to do all the right checks?

****

He could’ve pulled out of the sale, up to a point. Daniel had held on to the hope that Jo might change her mind. She wasn’t likely to, he knew. But he had hoped …

Of course, Sod’s Law had it that a process normally fraught with pitfalls ran like clockwork. No glitches in the legal work. Land searches completed. Accounts in order. The sellable assets, the house, hire-fleet and land represented a good percentage of the sale price. And he had a buyer keen to complete, a business rival looking to expand. Tony obviously knew a good thing when he saw it. God was smiling on him, after all, Daniel thought wryly.

As soon as the funds were available, they’d be spirited away. Six hundred thousand to pay off the business debts, the rest in a deposit account to help fund a smaller property for Jo, and that was it. All Daniel had worked for, all he had ever wanted in life—the boatyard, his home, his family—gone.

The Mortgage Adviser passed him his receipt, smiled, and bid Daniel a pleasant day.

He envied her optimism. ‘You too.’ He nodded. She was exceptionally pretty, he noticed. How old must she be? Early twenties, he guessed. Her whole life ahead of her. The thought crept uninvited into his mind.

Why hadn’t he talked to Jo, on that day of all days? Left the damn final checks on the boats, which didn’t matter anyhow, and gone in to try to comfort her? Because he was too scared of opening doors better left closed.

Because he was a coward.

Daniel broke eye contact with the girl and turned abruptly for the door.

****

There he goes, arrogant little sod. DI Short paused, a chip poised at his mouth as he watched Charlie Roberts swagger from his block of flats, not a care in the world. While Rachel Meadows …

Devastated, she was, poor kid. Traumatised for life, probably. Not going to press charges though, naturally. His appetite gone as he watched Roberts saunter jauntily towards him, DI Short deposited his chip disgustedly back in the wrapper on his passenger seat. He should shut the little runt in a cell with Rachel Meadows’ mum and a pair of gardening shears. She would soon cut the sonofabitch down to size.

He didn’t blame Rachel, not really. They could hardly provide her a safe house and promise her immunity against scum like Roberts. She wouldn’t want to be looking over her shoulder when he got back into circulation, which he soon would. And he might well seek Rachel out to
teach her a lesson
, the snivelling little coward.

DI Short watched on, his stomach churning for other reasons than hunger as Charlie Roberts blew cigarette smoke high in the air and talked leisurely into his mobile, no doubt lining up his
gear
for the night, a smirk all over his smug face.

As free as a bird, to do exactly what he liked, when he liked, to whomever he liked.

There was nothing DI Short could do about it, though, not right now. Apart from stretch his legs, possibly? Yes, a brisk walk was called for after all that cholesterol, he decided, as Roberts slowed his swagger to give two passing youngsters an appreciative once-over.

‘Girls, you are so beautiful, you just brightened my day,’ he called after them, at which they blushed and fluttered eyelashes, taken in by the slimy chameleon’s charms.

Yes, DI Short smiled tightly, and I’m just about to put a damper on it, Charlie, you ‘orrible litte specimen. ‘Oh, tsk, tsk,’ he said as he swung the driver’s side door wide, stopping Charlie’s cocksure strut rudely mid-stride, ‘you really should watch your step, my old son.’

****

Time-is-money-habit of a lifetime, Daniel checked his watch. What the hell were they doing out there, sweeping the tracks? It seemed to be taking an eternity to get out of the station.

Still, time was something he would have an abundance of now. The thought served only to deepen his sombre mood. Daniel was a doer. He didn’t relish the thought of having nothing to actually do, much less the prospect of starting over, alone. Right now, though, alone was exactly where he wanted to be, with his thoughts, if only perplexed passengers would stop attracting his attention as they fumbled for the
doors open
button.

At last, the train lurched into life as Daniel rose, thankfully for the last time, to help a young family scramble aboard.

A chocolate-coated-toddler in stroller was parked to the side of him; he assured the mother it was no problem, and the little girl, aged five, six maybe, was scooped onto her mother’s lap.

Daniel kept his eyes firmly averted. Interpreting the graffiti until it merged into one glorious multi-coloured snake, he stared out of the window, the rhythmic roll of the train eventually enticing him to much needed sleep.

The train slowed to a halt, doors opened and closed. Daniel’s eyes opened, and closed. It might be his station. His mind tried to tug him awake but his body refused to budge. He was finally reeled back to reality by a melodic little voice, which had taken the place of the muted discordance escaping the earphones of the teenager who’d been sitting next to him.

A train hurtled past in the opposite direction, catapulting him to full consciousness. Daniel righted himself in his seat, eased the crick in his neck, and tried to turn his attention away from the little foot dangling over the edge of the seat next to him, bouncing in time with her tune. ‘
Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the Yellow Brick Road,
’ she sang softly.