The Shoplifting Mothers' Club (12 page)

AFTER FINALLY FALLING asleep, Jessica awoke to a knocking at the door. The old Longines watch – a present from her parents on her 21st birthday – revealed it was 2:00 p.m.

‘Jessica,’ her mother’s unusually frail voice called.

Jumping up, she slung an old dressing gown around her shoulders.
Please let it be all right. Please let it be all right.

But instead of finding a couple of coppers, there, standing in the hall with a face like thunder, was Ronald.

Panicked, Jessica asked, ‘What are you doing here? Are the kids okay?’

His shock of grey hair was standing on end. He had an old Mercedes convertible and Jessica suspected he’d driven the entire way from Surrey with the top down. ‘I assume so, they are with Elise, aren’t they? I’ve come to take you back.’

Jessica turned and drew her mother in under her arm, leading her to the kitchen and asking if she might put the kettle on. ‘Let me sort this and we’ll go out looking for Dad again. Then we’ll visit the police station – there must be something more that can be done.’

Ronald, to his credit, allowed the older lady to leave the room and shut the door to the kitchen before he completely lost it.

‘What have to fucking well done to us?’ He grabbed her arm and dragged her into the living room, shoving her onto the sofa. A cloud of dust puffed up at the motion, indicating poor Mum really had let things go under the strain of looking after Dad.

‘What are you talking about?’ Jessica rubbed her arm.

This was new. Ronald had never been the violent type. What on earth was going on?

‘I think you know. How could you embarrass me like that – getting arrested for bloody theft?’

How on earth had he found out? Then she remembered – the appointment with DCI Gerry Courtauld – 9:30 a.m. today. It was hours ago now. But how had he got in touch with Ronald so quickly? In order to survive this life Jessica would have to start paying more attention to the small things. Such as appointments with police detectives who had powers of arrest.

‘Just tell me what happened, Ronald.’ Tiredness was providing a welcome blanket of indifference.

‘I was working at home and this guy,
a cop
,’ he spat the word out, ‘came to the door looking for you.’

Oh God.
Jessica felt sick. How much had the DCI told her husband? If Ronald discovered the existence of the Club, he might confront the BIBs – which in turn meant Rachel would suffer.

‘You’ve been shoplifting?’

‘Look, Ronald, you don’t understand–‘

‘I think I do. When the DCI discovered I was a lawyer, he filled me in on the whole thing. I told him that I would advise you to come back and give a statement about those stupid cows you are in cahoots with – you’ll get the immunity if you testify.’

Her heart sank at the revelation. ‘Ronald, I can’t do that. Rachel will be excommunicated by every child at school.’

‘You think that going to jail will help her?’ Ronald was wearing a malicious scowl that Jessica had never seen before. ‘If the child is nuts, it’s because the mother is inept.’

How dare he!
But Jessica was conscious of the proximity of her mother. The last thing Suzanne Drummond needed to hear was that her daughter was a shoplifter.

‘Don’t I have to be found guilty, first?’ Jessica knew he hated it when she questioned his take on the law. ‘Hang on, you didn’t tell the cops I absconded, did you?’

Jessica finally reached her limit of tolerance. All the put downs; the lack of partnership; the poverty; the pathetic sex – being married wasn’t worth being married to
him.
‘Ronald, I do not require any further legal advice from you. As a lawyer, you’d make a brilliant gardener. No wonder you do so many long hours – clearly you are a little slow when it comes to advising your clients.’

‘HOW DARE YOU!’

‘No Ronald, how dare
you
presume to speak for me. I am a grown woman.’

‘Then act like one.’

At his raised voice Mum came running. ‘Is everything all right, dear?’ Jessica hated that the poor woman had been given something else to worry about.

The conversation would have continued in its childish manner if it wasn’t for two policewomen, who were tapping on the flyscreen at the front door and waited to be acknowledged.

The police weren’t there for her, but Jessica wasn’t at all thankful, because the solemn, purposeful stares on the young’s faces could only mean one thing.

Something bad had happened to Dad.

‘I need to get back to Surrey. Will this take long?’ Ronald asked, inappropriately. The cops gave him the once over and, dismissing him as a prat, didn’t bother responding. The prettier of the two, a blonde with sparkling brown eyes, walked towards Jessica’s mum.

‘Mrs Drummond? Why don’t we sit down on that sofa in there and have a chat?’

‘THEY SAID THAT DAD was found under the pier. Must have found his way onto a bus near the house, and then fallen off soon after reaching the coast. They said he was in the water for at least twenty-four hours.’

Elise made a funny sucking sound at the horror of it. ‘Jessica, I am so sorry. And yes, of course I’ll look after the kids, if it’s okay with Ronald.’

After ringing off, Jessica went in search of her mother. Because of the nature of Dad’s death, there had to be an autopsy, so it was difficult to begin to arrange the funeral. Suzanne Drummond was in the conservatory, where Dad kept his ridiculous collection of cacti. Jessica remembered how they had been the butt of many a family joke – the crude little group of bulbous plants that held her father’s attention for hours.

‘This one looks as if it might need water.’

‘Cacti needing water? How strange.’ Jessica watched as her mother gave the plants a drink, and then, overcame with another wave of sadness, decided it was a good idea to make tea. ‘How about I find some bread and do some cucumber sandwiches too?’ she suggested to the grieving widow.

‘It’s a little too early to start talking funerals, although by the look on the face of your husband the other day, you should be careful.’

‘Ronald is certainly a closed shop.’
In every way imaginable.

‘Only momentarily. Do you remember our conversation at all?’ Luckily he didn’t sound annoyed, more bemused, but Jessica had a suspicion he was merely saving the best for last, and would suddenly announce he was calling from her mother’s front gate, and appear with a pair of handcuffs and one of those armour-plated vehicles.

‘Do you remember, Jessica?’ he asked again.

Jessica could barely remember her name, at that point. ‘My dad just died in horrible circumstances. I’m sorry if I–‘

It was too much. She couldn’t go on. First Rachel and the roof, then Ronald refusing to pay, next the arrest thing and now her father. Jessica put the phone down without disconnecting the call and sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed.

Finally, she was able to pick it up again. ‘Are you still there?’

‘I needed to stay on the line, to make sure you were okay.’

‘Like you care, you want to lock me up.’ It probably wasn’t wise to speak to a detective like that, but a quiet spell in a small, darkened room might not be all bad. If it weren’t for the children and Mum, she’d be begging Gerry Courtauld to take her down, or away, or whatever was done to criminals.

‘For what it’s worth, I think you can be a lot more than you have allowed yourself to be at present.’

What the hell did that mean?
‘That doesn’t even make sense.’

‘It does if you think about it. The stealing, the husband, the whole thing: it doesn’t seem to be working for you. People make mistakes. It’s okay to move on.’

‘Are
you
going to let me move on, Detective Inspector?’

Unfortunately, the answer was implied. He was back to being all business. ‘Given what you are going through at the moment, I’ll give you a few days before we go ahead and attempt to bring your accomplices to justice. Just use this number and text me with the date of the funeral. We’ll meet a couple of days after that.’

‘Oh.’ What else was there to say? First one funeral, and then another, of a different sort. Jessica didn’t have much to look forward to, did she?

‘You heard that, right?’ DCI Courtauld said. ‘We’ve agreed to text and then meet? I don’t want to have to come down to the Isle of Wight and drag you off to a magistrates’ court.’

‘No,’ Jessica replied. ‘I understand. If I don’t text or call, I’ve really had it.’

‘Perfect. Take care of yourself.’

The relatives and friends began arriving, and Jessica was soon tired of receiving all of the heartfelt condolences. Dad had been ill, and his quality of life diminished, but it was unfair and incongruent that he’d conducted a brilliant, successful life, only to end up dead under a pier in his pyjamas. It was the image of him, floating there face down; the thought of it, that was difficult to bear. And obviously, it was the same for her mother. It was one thing to lose a loved one to a disease, quite another to have the loss turned into a circus. There was a police investigation – questions of Mum, of Jessica, of how he got to the pier – and then there was the problems organising the funeral, with the autopsy still not scheduled thanks to a shortage of morticians.

Ronald had not even bothered to call – let alone offer to come to the funeral. According to Elisa, we hadn’t checked on the kids either, let alone come to pick them up. Rachel had cried every single time Jessica had called her – and the only reason she would reveal is that she failed a Math test. Although Elise insisted the little girl seemed happy enough, Jessica was fearful that something would happen to Rachel that no one expected – just like before with the fall from the school roof. Add that to the impending requirements placed on her by Gerry Courtauld and the police, and Jessica could draw only a single conclusion from her life at present.

It was a mess.

An irredeemable, revolting mess.

CAREFUL TO KEEP HER side of the bargain this time, Jessica texted then met with the DCI just over a week later. She hadn’t spoken to the BIBs, but Elise relayed the information that Rachel had duly informed all her classmates that her ‘pop’ had died, so it was unlikely they were suspicious of her absence and the lack of ‘bootie’ she’d managed to snare for the Club.

They were in Clawson Starbucks, which seemed to have become a mid-morning crèche; five toddlers were conducting sprint races along the length of the café, and prams were blocking every other walkway.

‘Good choice,’ Jessica mumbled, hoping that the mums weren’t from Berry Street Primary or worse, in Rachel’s year and thereby friendly with the BIBs.

‘It is, actually. Good cover. Who’d notice us here?’

She remained unconvinced. They were the only ones not screaming, and their table wasn’t covered in spilt
Frappuccinos
. They stood out. ‘If you say so.’