I Will Make You Pay (ARC) Page 8
He blushes and finishes the last of his drink. ‘I wouldn’t
normally have taken it, Mel, but she seems nice – this
Alice. And these kinds of cases are so frustrating all round.
We both know there’s not much we can really do without
surveillance. I’ve said I won’t play bodyguard per se, but I’m happy to do twenty-four-hour surveillance once a week.’
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Melanie lets out a long sigh. ‘OK. Well, strictly be-
tween us, I’m very happy you’re working on this too,
because we both know I’m highly unlikely to get the
manpower to do much unless things escalate. Forensics
have found nothing so far, so our guy clearly knows what
he’s doing. I’m a bit worried about the mother, actually.
Whether she’s genuinely some kind of target too and we’re
missing something. Or whether this guy just referenced
her to wind Alice up some more. We’re checking the
finances. Who would gain if the mother comes to harm.’
‘So what’s the security at the mother’s nursing home
like?’
‘Not bad at all. They’ve got cameras and good door
security. I’m sending uniformed round once a day to keep
the pressure on them. But their protocols seem good.’
She pauses. ‘Might be worth you popping by to double-
check; make sure they don’t just let you sweet-talk your
way in. If you have time.’
‘Good idea. I’ll do that.’ Matthew then lets out a long
huff of air and stares into Mel’s eyes.
‘Are you thinking about the Rachel Allen case, Mel?’
She nods.
‘Yeah. Me too.’
When they were in police training college together,
there was a stalker case in Devon that they studied as part
of their training. Matthew and Mel spent time with the
team involved. A waitress in her early twenties was be-
ing stalked by a bartender who had developed a crush on
her. Lots of phone calls and texts. Flowers, chocolates and
teddy bears delivered to her flat. There were no threats
as such and the bartender had no record of violence.
Matthew and Mel had to report back to their colleagues
on how it was all going. One of the police recruits was
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reprimanded in class for cracking a joke – I wish someone would send me flowers and chocolates.
The feeling on the investigating team was that the guy
was probably harmless and the crush would blow over.
Matthew remembers the signal from the old-timers that
they were probably wasting their time…
Until Rachel Allen was found strangled in her shower.
Matthew has never forgotten the photographs.
The bartender had climbed in through a window
of her flat and lost it when she screamed for help. He
strangled her with the belt of her dressing gown. In his
interview he said that he knew that they were destined
to be together. But Rachel kept fighting it…
‘OK, Matt.’ Melanie’s face has darkened and Matthew
wonders if she is remembering those dreadful photographs
too. ‘Ideal world we find this guy while I can still waddle.
We keep Alice safe and get enough evidence for a prosecution. That will also get me brownie points with the
boss so I can go off on maternity leave to eat a lot more
carrot cake. Which means that anything you can do to
help me, I’ll be grateful.’
‘I’ll stay in touch, Mel. Anything I get, I’ll share. Let’s
see how this Wednesday goes and talk again.’
‘Good. Thank you. And dare I ask how your Sally
managed to have such a neat little bump? I seem to re-
member she was barely showing at this stage.’ Mel is
staring, crestfallen, at the huge expanse stretching her
shirt to the limit of the fabric and forcing her to sit back
from the table.
‘Absolutely no idea. But if it’s any consolation, the
neat little bump that was Amelie has suddenly turned into
the devil child. Strictly between us, I have an exorcism
booked for Monday.’
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Him – before
His gran talks a lot about ‘work’ but he doesn’t understand
any of it. He can see that teaching is a job. And driving
a bus and being an astronaut or a superhero. But he can’t
see how making cups of tea and sandwiches can be a job.
That’s what his gran says she does on Wednesday
nights. She does it in the daytime too on Monday, Tuesday
and Friday, but Wednesday is different. She says it’s called
a night shift. My job is to make sure everyone is comfortable.
Sometimes people can’t sleep so I make cups of tea and sandwiches. Help take people to the bathroom. That sort of thing.
He asked his gran why she couldn’t stay home and
make him cups of tea and sandwiches and call that her job but she said, Life doesn’t work like that.
I do things for you because you’re my little soldier and I love you. I don’t get paid for doing things for you, darling. I do it because I love you. A job is when you’re paid for things. So I can pay our bills – for the flat and the food and your football club.
He had said lots of times that he would pay her to
stay home on Wednesday nights. They could go to the
thingy in the wall which gives out money. He could pay
her lots more than the stupid job. But she said it didn’t
work like that. And there wasn’t enough money in the
thingy in the wall.
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He loves his gran ever so much but he gets fed up
when adults say the same things over and over again.
Life doesn’t work like that…
He feels in his pocket to find a sweet that George gave
him in school at break-time. Good. He is sitting on his
bed in his room with his little rucksack, ready for their
new secret. Gran says he has to promise to be quieter
than a mouse. And brave. They are going to play a sort
of game – like hide-and-seek but he will have to hide
and snuggle up for a sleep for quite a few hours. So he
has two juice cartons in his little rucksack and a packet of
biscuits and a torch. And the sweet which George made
him promise to save so they wouldn’t get in trouble in
class. He looks at the rucksack and worries that his gran
has told him to pack a torch. He hates the dark but she
has told him not to worry – that the torch is just in case.
‘You ready, my little soldier?’ His gran’s voice through
the doorway sounds a little bit weird. And when he walks
through to their little kitchen and sitting room, her eyes
have that funny look when the words and the feelings
don’t quite match. Like a lie, but not a wicked lie like
a robber or a murderer. Just a lie to avoid trouble, like
when he told the teacher everything was fine at home.
He looks at his gran and decides not to say anything more
just now about the dark and the torch. He will ask about
that when they get there.
* * *
They walk down the stairs holding hands. He hates t
he
stairs because they smell of toilets and you have to mind
your feet. And then afterwards they walk right along the
high street for miles and miles to the bus stop. This makes
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the funny feeling in his tummy come back. When his gran
goes to work on Wednesday nights, she always says that
she isn’t too far away. He used to sleep at a lady called Jan’s flat on Wednesday nights, but Jan has moved away so he
can’t stay over anymore. His gran can’t find anyone else,
and that’s why they have to keep their secret. She says there will be terrible trouble if he tells anyone she can’t find a
new babysitter, and people will come to take him away.
For weeks and weeks his gran has said he must just
be brave; and that when she was a little girl on the fam-
ily farm, she often had to stay on her own when her dad
was out lambing at night. It was perfectly safe, and so he
is to go to sleep like a good boy in his bedroom and he
mustn’t answer the door or ever, ever tell anyone their
secret – and she will be back before he knows it. Before
he wakes up. But he sees now that it isn’t true about her
working nearby. It’s miles and miles away…
He has been trying to figure out if he could run and
run and find it in the dark but he can’t remember the
turnings already. Too many.
The bus is a double-decker and his gran lets them sit
upstairs. It’s cold and it also smells a bit like the stairs and the toilets in school, but his gran puts her arm around his
shoulders and they play I Spy. And he wins.
When they get off there is a lot more walking, and
then they get to the place his gran works. It’s called the
Daisy Lawn Nursing Home but he can’t see any daisies
or even any grass. It looks a little bit like a school but
with no playground. He wonders if the people who live
here don’t get to play.
They go in through a door around the back so no
one will see. His gran has a special card to scan to get in,
which she wears on a ribbon round her neck. She puts her
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finger up to her mouth to say that they must be quiet like
mice and she leads him along a corridor to a small room.
The room does not have a window but has lots of
shelves with all sorts of things. Blankets and pillows and
boxes and stuff.
His gran takes down some pillows and blankets and
spreads them out in the corner to make a sort of bed for
him. She says this is where he will sleep for the new secret
but he is to be ever so quiet and ever so good.
He doesn’t like the little room. Not at all; it is even
smaller than his bedroom and he hates that it has no
window.
‘Can’t I come and help you with the tea and the sand-
wiches? I’ll be very good.’
‘No, darling. You’re not really supposed to be here
when I’m working but I need you to get more sleep so
you’re not so tired in school. It has to be our secret, so
you need to go to sleep now and I’ll come and check on
you whenever I can.’
‘What if I need the toilet?’
‘Do you need the toilet now?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’ He keeps very still and tries to
think for a moment – to feel properly, deep inside, if he
needs a wee. He shakes his head. ‘I’m OK.’
‘OK. Good. I’ll come back soon and ask you again.
How does that sound?’
‘Can you leave the light on?’
‘Yes – of course. And if there’s any problem, you have
your torch.’
‘What problem?’
‘Never mind. Try to go to sleep now so you won’t be
tired in school. I have to go and do my work. Be a good
boy for your gran. Yes?’
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Once she is gone, he looks around the room and can
hear his heart in his left ear. He used to worry that his
heart had moved up into his head and that it would ex-
plode but his gran says this happens when it’s too quiet
and he’s not to worry. It’s normal. He looks at the towels
on the shelves and he counts the towels and then he tries
to count sheep.
It doesn’t work. He is sort of tired but also not tired.
He takes the sweet from his pocket and pops it in his
mouth. It is pink but is not the strawberry flavour he was
expecting and it tastes a bit like cough medicine. At first
it is just a bit odd but then it gets hotter and hotter in his mouth until he feels that his mouth is on fire and he is
going to choke. He sits up, coughing and spluttering and
realises it is a joke sweet. Some of the other boys were
talking about this very thing last week. George has played
a prank on him. He is furious and spits out the sweet on
to the blanket but it is too late. His mouth is burning.
Hot like a volcano.
He tries to be quiet but it’s no good. As he coughs
and wheezes, the door of the room swings open. He is
terrified that his gran is going to be ever so cross but it
is worse.
It is not his gran. It is a very fat man with a bright red
face, wearing some kind of uniform. The man steps to the
right, so he can see him properly around all the shelving.
‘So what the hell is going on in here?’
77
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alice
I check the window to see Matthew Hill’s car still parked
outside. Wednesday. I wave and he flashes the lights in reply. He texted at 6 a.m. when he first arrived, and I
offered coffee but his message said he has a flask and will
wait on the drive unless I need him.
I let go of the curtain and sit back on the bed in
Leanne’s guest room. I feel utterly exhausted. Couldn’t
sleep. I remember the glow of the digital clock by the
bed: 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m., blinking in green digits on
black. I check my watch – 8 a.m. now. Plenty of time for
a shower to try to wake myself up a bit, then a final check
of my notes before I set off for the interview.
Under the stream of hot water, I try so hard not to
think of the day. Of that man. I think instead about the
actress Melinda Belstroy and wonder what she will be
like in the flesh. You can never tell. I’ve called it wrong
so many times – looking forward to meeting a celebrity,
only to find them dull. And on other occasions being
surprised to sit laughing and enjoying the company of
someone whose politics make me shudder.
Melinda Belstroy is fronting a new campaign for a
bipolar charity, seeking support and tolerance in the work-
place. She has only just admitted to having the condition
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and I’ve been lucky to secure this interview in person.
The people in Melinda’s league normally only meet the
national press. We’re lucky in the provinces to secure a
quick phone call with someone like her. But Melinda ap-
parently saw a feat
ure I did on mental-health awareness
in schools. She retweeted it and we’ve chatted on Twitter
quite a bit since. So I got lucky when I bid for this chat.
There was no way I was going to hand this interview
over to someone else, just because the editor wants me
to take a break. In my ideal world I’ll be pitching again
soon for some shifts on the nationals, and this will be
good for my cuttings.
Dry and finally dressed, I check my iPad for my re-
search notes and questions. Last night I watched that
documentary again by Stephen Fry. The one where he
questioned whether he would press the button which
would allow him to be free of bipolar disorder. I will ask
Melinda at the end of the interview. Yes. A bit of a cliché
perhaps – but it will round things off nicely.
Downstairs, I check the wall unit which operates the
alarms and cameras as Leanne taught me, to make sure
that everything is fine before I leave.
Outside, Matthew winds down his window and says
that he will drive me but I shake my head. He remon-
strates but I’m really determined. I’ve agreed that he can
follow me all day but I don’t want to have to explain to
Melinda what’s going on. I want Matthew to be discreet.
I promise him that I will keep his car in sight and he
finally gives in.
The traffic isn’t too bad. I feel nervous – this is the
fifth Wednesday after all. The light bulb, the flower on
my car, the phone call and then the cake box. Will he
do something today?
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Teresa Driscoll
I bite my bottom lip and glance in the rear-view mir-
ror to see Matthew directly behind. He’s ex-police and
has a good reputation. He must do a lot of surveillance.
This will be OK, Alice.
I am meeting Melinda at her agent’s holiday home
near Salcombe, and as the satnav steers me to the private
drive, I can hardly believe it. The house has three storeys
with huge balconies to make the most of the glorious view
over a small bay. Like Leanne’s home, there are private
gates, which open after I confirm my name into the little
speaker. I say that Matthew in the car behind is also with
the paper and will be sitting in on the interview, if that’s
OK. They don’t seem to mind, which is a relief.
Melinda is dressed down in jeans and white shirt and
no make-up. I think she looks better this way, and as we