The Wicked Girls (24 page)

‘A
bistro
?’ She hears him sit up. ‘Baby, I’m dumping the kids and coming straight there. Why didn’t you say you had a
bistro
?’

‘It’s open from twelve a.m. to nine a.m.,’ she reads from the information card. ‘And serves a variety of mouthwatering mains
and light snacks. Lasagne is their speciality, apparently.’

‘Bugger,’ says Jim. ‘I wish you’d said …’

‘I didn’t know, Jim,’ she says. ‘You know the
Trib
. Always springing surprises on you.’

‘So did you file?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, I filed,’ she says.

‘And what’s the latest?’

‘Nothing you won’t see on the news tonight. A poor old bat of a clapped-out prozzy, and the poor girl’s still not got a name.
No bag, no phone, no wallet, no friends who’ve noticed she’s gone yet.’

He pauses as he thinks about this. ‘Ah, I see,’ he says, gently. The fear of dying unnoticed has always plagued her. ‘Awful,’
he says. ‘Sorry, Kirst. You must hate this job sometimes.’

‘It’s OK,’ she says, mournfully. ‘It goes with the territory, doesn’t it?’

‘I guess. I miss you, you know.’

‘Me too.’

‘You still home the day after tomorrow?’

‘Please God,’ she says. ‘How are you all doing? Kids eaten yet?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did they have?’

‘Bread and gruel. Why don’t you just jump in the car and come home?’

Kirsty sighs. The thought of home, of a warm bath and a back-rub, is almost unbearably attractive. ‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I’m
sorry, darling. It’d be nearly midnight by the time I got there, and there’s a press conference at eight tomorrow morning.’

Press conference. A couple of Plod standing on the station steps, mechanically reading out a statement and then replying,
‘I’m afraid we can’t comment on that for the time being’ in response to every question. ‘And if I don’t make myself go out
digging tonight, I’ll just have to add it on to the end of the trip. I’ll make it up to you,’ she says. ‘At the weekend.’

‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘Shall I send the brats on a sleepover?’

‘Why not? Either that or we can just lock ‘em in the cellar till we’re done.’

The Soave seems to have gone already, though she doesn’t remember it going down. Weak, watery stuff, made for girls, not pros.
She rolls off the bed and checks the fridge. A half-bottle of chilled Beaujolais and some vodka miniatures. She checks the
card, and sees that the wine is £11.25. Holy cow. She’d have picked something up at Londis when she was in there, but she’d
promised herself that tonight was going to be a dry night, after the other day. Hadn’t been planning on spending the afternoon
with someone she once committed a murder with, of course. She shrugs and cracks the screw-top, pours half the bottle into
her toothmug. I’ll think about my drinking tomorrow. No one’s going to begrudge me a glass or two tonight.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘I was wondering …’

‘Uh-huh?’ The wine is sour and thin. She’s never liked Beaujolais. Really has to want a drink to want to drink it. Takes another
gulp and screws her face up as she swallows. I know what he’d say if he was here in the room. Sometimes, this staying-away
thing’s a blessing.

‘I was wondering maybe if I oughtn’t to be retraining. I don’t know how much longer I can fool myself that I’m going to get
back into what I used to do. And we can’t carry on like this for ever.’

She thinks. ‘It’s a thought, I guess. No luck today then?’

‘No. Nothing.’

They’re silent for a moment, then, ‘I hate this,’ he says. ‘I hate being a useless appendage. I never thought I’d be on the
scrapheap at forty-two. It wasn’t the plan.’

‘Oh, Jim. You’re not. You’re not either of those things. I
wouldn’t know what to do without you. You know that, don’t you?’

She hears him sigh.

‘We’ll get through this,’ she assures him, and refills her glass. ‘It’s not for ever. There’s more to come, I promise you.’

She’s got beeps. Takes the phone away from her head and sees that it’s a withheld number. ‘I think that’s work,’ she tells
him. ‘I’d better go.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Call me back later?’

‘I’ll try, darling. We’ll talk about this when I get home, OK?’

‘OK,’ he says, small-voiced.

‘I love you,’ she says, automatically.

‘Love you back,’ he replies automatically. They don’t even think about what they’re saying any more, when they say it.

She sends him away, picks up the line. ‘Kirsty Lindsay?’

‘What time do you go to bed?’ Stan asks.

She doesn’t even blink at the overfamiliarity; knows he’s talking about her paper’s initial print deadline. ‘First edition’s
about eleven-thirty,’ she says. ‘Why?’

‘FYI,’ he says, ‘the name’s Stacey Plummer. The girl. And the cops have taken some man in for questioning.’

‘What for?’ She’s alert, back on the job, the wine draining from her brain as though someone’s pulled a plug. ‘Do you know?
What did you hear?’

‘Something to do with fingerprints in the mirror maze. Ones that shouldn’t have been there. Employee at Funnland, apparently,
but not to do with that bit of it.’

‘Ah, shit.’ She subsides. ‘There must be hundreds of prints in that room. It’s a public space, for God’s sake.’

‘Apparently not,’ says Stan. ‘They have someone standing on the door handing out plastic gloves. Obvious, really. I’d never
thought about it; the place would be covered in handprints in minutes if they didn’t. So, no, actually. It’s got fewer prints
than your average surgical suite. Just the odd wodge of snot at waist height where some kid’s slammed into a mirror. And according
to my source, the cleaning supervisor’s a real dragon lady and cleans the room herself. There’s not been a smudge in there
since the millennium.’

‘Your source?’

‘Security guard. Jason Murphy. Drinks in the Cross Keys.’

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’

‘Talking of which, I’m going down there,’ he says. ‘Pub nearest Funnland. See if I can pick anything up. See you there?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she says. ‘I’m going to make a few phone calls first. Stacey Plummer?’

‘Yup. Double “m”, no “b”.’

‘Ta,’ she says. ‘I owe you.’

‘Buy me a drink.’

He hangs up. She speed-dials through to the paper, to tell them to hold off on her copy.

In for questioning. What does that mean, ‘in for questioning’? Does it mean he’s under suspicion? Is it the same as ‘helping
the police with their enquiries’, or is it more definite, something that follows on from that? Amber racks her brain to remember
what was said of herself and Jade all those years ago and realises that, shut away in the police station at Banbury, they
had had no idea of what was going on in the outside world. Behind those walls, before the crowds saw the six o’clock bulletin
and began to gather – shellsuits and placards and broken house-bricks, the good people of Oxfordshire showing their solidarity
with the Francis family – it had just been them and the impassive policemen and the sincere social workers and Jade’s mum
bawling in the hall (her own, in transit to their Far East resort, took three days to be found and return) and Romina pacing
and fiercely smoking and, later, solicitors. It had only been when her lawyer had suddenly stopped her and advised her to
take care what she said that she had realised that they weren’t getting out of there, that they weren’t part of the routine;
that the police had known all along that it was them, and were just waiting for their versions to crack apart.

She prowls the house like a caged animal, afraid to go outside, afraid to show her face in case the news has got round the
estate. Which it will have. They couldn’t have been more public about how they went about it if they’d tried. And of course
they
probably
were
trying, she thinks. Five women are dead, and all they seem to have done is hold press conferences. It’s no good just doing
something; they need to be
seen
to be doing something. The frisson of murder always turns to outrage against the police if they are too slow to point the
finger.

What does it mean, in for questioning? Do they know something I don’t know? About Vic? Have I been blind?

Mary-Kate and Ashley trot up and down at her heels, shadowing her as she walks. He’s been gone sixteen hours now. Sixteen
hours. That’s not a cup of tea and a quick chat, is it? Christ, what I would do for a cigarette. Five years without them,
and the longing is just as ferocious. She wonders if Jackie has left any behind and finds herself turning over the kitchen
drawer in search of a pack, though she knows he would long since have found and disposed of it if she had. Damn it, Vic. Day
after day I’ve gone without sleep. What have you done to me?

He hasn’t done anything. Amber, what are you like? There are a million reasons why his prints would be in there. He works
there just like you do, for God’s sake. He could have come in looking for you. He could have gone in to get out of the rain.
They could have been there for years: maybe you’re not as thorough a cleaner as you think you are.

It can’t be him. Not Vic. Something like this can’t happen more than once in a lifetime, can it? Not unless you’re doing something
to make it happen.

But she knows it can. A murderer has precisely the same chance of winning the lottery as any other ticket holder. Is just
as likely to be struck by lightning, or be gunned down by terrorists, or succumb to swine flu. Defying the odds does not,
in itself, confer protection against it happening again. And she’s watched enough
Jeremy Kyle
and
Trisha
to know all about self-esteem, to know that people without it invite trouble into their lives without even realising they’re
doing so. No, she thinks. No, that’s not me. It can’t be. There’s another explanation. There has to be.

Yes, but … Amber, you don’t know anything about him,
really. All these years you’ve lived together and really, you know no more about him than he knows about you. Not even what
he gets up to while you’re at work. He could be doing anything. He could be doing a doctorate in astrophysics, for all you
share the detail of your lives.

The morning has come and gone. She has sat and paced and lain and listened to the sounds of the world outside: to the shouts
and the bang of car doors and the bellowing of fighting dogs and the rev of engines. To the late-night cries of drunks and
the yells of school-bound children. Sometimes she speaks to the dogs, simply to reassure herself that she still exists. They
raise their heads, thump their tails, and for a moment she is comforted.

Amber’s lying on the bed, half dozing with tiredness, when she hears a key in the front door. Sitting up, she swings her legs
over the side of the bed, has to stop because the sudden movement has made her dizzy. She clutches the coverlet and closes
her eyes until the moment passes, then calls out, ‘Vic?’

He doesn’t answer. She can hear him in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors, filling the kettle.

‘Vic?’

Still no answer. She finds her feet and goes downstairs.

In the kitchen, he has his back to the door, and is staring at his tea mug as though in a trance. ‘You’re home,’ she says.
‘Thank God.’

He doesn’t answer for a moment, then says, ‘Do you want a cuppa?’

She has to hold herself back from snapping. A bloody cuppa. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t. I want to know what’s just happened.’

Vic shrugs, muscles bulging beneath his T-shirt. She steps forward, goes to … she’s not sure what. Hold him? Touch his shoulder?
He shrugs her hand off as it approaches. ‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘I stink. I’ve not had a shower since yesterday.’

She snatches the hand back, stands uselessly in the middle of
the kitchen. His back is rigid, but she notices that he’s tapping his foot restlessly as he waits for the kettle to boil.
He’s tense, she thinks. He knows he can’t get away with just not talking about it. Even with me, the most unquestioning woman
in history.

‘Have you eaten?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘They order in from the Antalya. Whatever you want. I didn’t know that. Did you know that?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Funnily enough, I didn’t.’

He hurries on, the words rattling out with the random intensity that suggests a headful of cocaine. ‘Yeah, well, that’s where
they go. ’Cause they’re halal so they don’t have to worry about that. Don’t know what they do about kosher. Probably don’t
bother. I mean. Do you know what the difference is, anyway? Kosher and halal? Anyway. I had a lamb burger. It was OK. And
a fry-up for breakfast. They get those in from the Koh-Z-Nook. They put chillies in the eggs, if you ask.’

She interrupts. ‘Vic.’

He turns round at last. Glittering eyes, excited; like he’s just had a big night out and hasn’t come down yet. He looks like
the man who’s won the jackpot. ‘What?’

‘What happened?’

She expects something; some reaction. Discomfort, embarrassment, shame – a need to explain. Instead she sees white teeth,
the upper lip drawn back in a way that suggests a snarl as much as a smile, and eyes that hold no life at all. It’s the smile
of a shark.

‘You know what happened, Amber,’ he says calmly. ‘Why are you asking?’

She stays silent, breathless. She doesn’t want to ask. Suspects that she knows the answer.

‘Been up all night, have you?’ He stares at her. His eyes flick up and down her body.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I have.’

‘And what have you been thinking?’

‘What d’you think I’ve been thinking?’

Vic turns away, back to the kettle.

‘I never know what you’re thinking, Amber. Because you never tell me. You’re the number-one secret keeper, aren’t you? You
should’ve joined MI5.’

No, she thinks. No, he’s not going to get away with this. I’m not going to just … there was a reason why they took him away,
and I want to know.

‘You owe me an explanation,’ she says. ‘Come on. I’ve been up all night and morning. I’ve been going out of my mind.’

He turns back and mocks her with his laugh. Props himself against the worktop, mug in hand, and crosses his legs at the ankles.