Between Two Thorns (18 page)

“Get up!” she hissed in her ear and Cathy struggled to comply, the pain making her whimper despite her efforts to hold it in.

She was steered out of the study and up the stairs. It was the first time her mother had intervened, and, whilst she was still reeling from the violence, a part of her was elated that not only had she stood up to her father at last, but her mother had too. Perhaps she had changed also, perhaps she’d thought about why her daughter had resorted to fleeing the family home and wished she’d protected her when she’d had the chance.

Her mother was silent all the way up to her room. She helped Cathy to the bed and turned to leave. “Thank you,” Cathy said, and her mother paused in the doorway.

“I didn’t do that for you,” she said, not turning around. “You deserve every one of those bruises for what you did to us. Just don’t let anyone else see them, or next time I won’t stop him.”

The door was slammed shut and then locked. Just like after he’d beaten her for reading the wrong kinds of books and admiring the wrong kinds of ideas. Then she realised that nothing had changed and there was no escape and, just like before, she sobbed into the pillow as the welts burned their way to bruises.

 

 

19

 

Sam slapped his hand against his forehead.

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

Leanne’s hands were on her hips, her head tilted. It was her favourite position when she was about to launch into a prize rant.

“Sorry, love, I ran out of cash and the new cards haven’t arrived yet.”

“Did you chase the bank?”

“…No.”

“Why didn’t you ask me for some more?”

He shrugged and didn’t feel like he could say it was because he’d been trying to keep out of her way. She’d been prickly since she came home on the Friday night and he wasn’t certain he could do or say anything that wouldn’t make it worse.

“Oh, bloody hell, Sam! I ask you to get one thing – and it was alcoholic – and you still forgot!”

“It was this bump on the head!” he said, following his wife out of the dining room and into the kitchen. “I’ve been all over the place this week.”

“Give it a rest. You’ve only got that bump because you were off your face with Dave.”

“I was only at the pub because you were out. Again.”

“So it’s my fault you had so much you can’t even remember where you left your wallet?”

He backed off, not wanting the special night in to be ruined by another row. “We’ve got beer in the fridge,” he said, trying to slip his hands around her waist as she stirred something on the stove.

She shoved his hands away and went to the sink. “Oh, we’re saved. I’m sure some cheap pilsner will really bring out the subtle flavours.”

He winced. She was getting sarcastic and that was a step up the danger scale from just being annoyed. After sarcastic was shouting, then it was tearful, then it was sleeping-on-the-sofa time.

“I’ll go to the shop now. I’ll be back before it’s ready, OK?” When she nodded he approached her cautiously and kissed the back of her neck. “Can I have a tenner?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She dried her hands and got out her handbag.

Sam looked up at the ceiling as she rummaged, feeling like a boy waiting for his pocket money. He hated it when they were like this.

He took the note silently, a twenty, and she went back to the cooker. “Get red, and not some cheap crap, OK?”

He saluted her. Bad move. He left the kitchen.

In the hallway, as he slipped his shoes on, he looked at the framed picture that used to be his favourite. It was a photograph of them together at university, when her hair was long and her clothes loose and floaty. His hair was tied back in a ponytail that was long gone. Now he had the short hair of a grown-up with the mortgage and nine-to-five job they both swore they’d never have. Leanne’s job was more than nine-to-five though, and since she’d swapped the bohemian look for the crisp suits and high heels of the corporate life, she’d tightened up, got thinner, less fun. He’d done his best to keep up by getting a challenging coding job at a start-up with prospects but he just couldn’t bring himself to go the whole hog and sell out completely like she had.

It was hard to believe the photo had been taken nine years ago and the friend who took it was now dead. That day had been perfect; they were slightly pissed and laughing their arses off about Pete not knowing what a douchebag was. It was puerile but it still made him smile all these years later. The picture captured them holding onto each other, laughing so hard they could barely stand up. It reminded him that there was a time when they didn’t fight constantly, a time when they seemed to be walking in step with each other, instead of in different directions.

He grabbed his keys and the phone rang. Please don’t be Dave, he thought as he picked up. “Hello?”

“Oh. Is that Samuel?”

Sam banged his forehead against the door. “Yeah, is that Mr Neugent?”

“Yes.” There was a long pause. “Is Leanne there?”

She came out of the kitchen. “Who is it?”

He slapped a hand over the mouthpiece. “Dave.”

“It’s Marcus, isn’t it?”

“It’s Saturday evening, for Christ’s sake,” Sam said as she took the phone.

“Hi, Marcus,” she said in her phone voice. “Oh, it’s charging, sorry. No, it’s no problem, go ahead.”

“Bollocks,” Sam muttered and chucked his keys back in the pot on the hallway table. He went to the fridge, grabbed a beer and opened it.

“I need to go out.” Leanne said from the door a minute later. “There’s a big function on tonight and Marcus had someone else lined up to go but they’ve called in sick–”

“So he wants some other bird to hang off his arm?”

“I happen to be the assistant director of the EMEA region,” Leanne said, storming over to the oven to switch off the hob. “Not just some bit of skirt to wheel out for the clients. Bloody hell, you just can’t accept that I have a career, can you?”

“Bollocks! What I can’t accept is how that arsehole runs your life. It’s Saturday night! This was supposed to be a special night in and now you’re just going to drop everything to go and laugh at his jokes and look pretty for the fat businessmen there who don’t give a shit about how clever you are.”

“‘Special night in’? Says the man who couldn’t even be bothered to buy a bottle of wine?”

“I forgot!”

She pushed past him, heading for the stairs. “That says it all, doesn’t it? And now when I have to go to work, you get on the high horse. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Go to work? You’re off to some swanky hotel aren’t you? You’re gonna be drinking wine and eating canapés and making Marcus feel like he’s got a bigger dick than everyone else, when, let’s face it, he
is
the biggest dick in the room.”

“It all comes down to dicks for you, doesn’t it?” she was marching into the bedroom now. “You just can’t handle the fact that I have some direction in my life. It isn’t my fault you don’t know what you’re doing with yours!”

“I thought I was being married to you,” he said and she stopped.

“We just want different things,” she said. “If you don’t want to be a high flyer, can’t you at least support me?”

“Not if being a high flyer means you spend more time with that cock than with your own husband.”

She groaned and went to the wardrobe. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might like to spend time with ambitious, dynamic people?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” She pulled a dress off a hanger and started to take her jeans off.

“So you’re saying you prefer to see him than me? Is that what this is really about?”

“No, for God’s sake, Sam, just… just let me get ready will you?”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

She froze, one foot in the jeans, one foot out. “What did you just say?”

“I was just wondering how ambitious you are. Are you shagging your boss?”

He saw the tears well and felt awful. The balloon of anger inside him popped.

“You know what? I’m going to stay at the hotel tonight. I don’t want to come back here.”

“Lee, I’m sorry, I’m a twat.”

“Then you can lie there,” she pointed at the bed, “thinking about whether I’m shagging Marcus and why on earth I may well want to do that! Now sod off and let me get ready!”

She pushed him out of the bedroom and slammed the door in his face. “Lee,” he called through it but she didn’t reply. “Leanne, I’m sorry.”

“Piss off, Sam.”

“I didn’t mean–”

“Piss off!”

He banged the door with his palm. “Fine!”

He went back downstairs, took another forty out of her purse and threw on his jacket. Keys grabbed, he banged the door as loud as he could as he left.

By the time he got to the pub he’d worked himself into the perfect amount of self-righteousness to get completely slaughtered. It wasn’t his fault, it was Marcus.

“Pint, please,” he said to the landlord.

“Argument with the missus again?”

“It’s her prick of a boss,” Sam said, passing over the first of the notes, wondering whether he could get drunk on sixty quid. “Honestly, I’m royally fucked off with it all, you know?”

“Yup.”

“We were supposed to be having a night in, then he calls and it’s all out the window.”

“Yup.” The pint was set down, Sam took a long drink and pulled out his mobile to text Dave.

The reply was quick enough. “Sorry m8 at wedding free wine free beer nuff said.”

“Bollocks,” Sam muttered and took the pint over to a table to nurse it by himself.

The place was starting to fill up. Halfway through the second beer a hen party came in, all feather boas and raucous laughter. Sam sank lower in his chair, worried that a miserable bloke on his own would just be impossible for them not to ridicule.

“Excuse me.”

A damn ugly man holding a trilby and wearing a dodgy raincoat was standing in front of him. He looked like a noir fan who took it too far.

“Samuel James Westonville?”

“…Yeah.”

The man sat down, dropped the hat onto the table. “I have your wallet.” He pushed it across the table.

“Blimey!” Sam opened it. The cards were still there and more money than he remembered too. “You’re an honest bloke, thanks. Let me buy you a drink!”

“Orange juice, please,” the man said, pointing at a bust leg. “The painkillers don’t agree with whisky.”

Sam got the drink and went back to the table. “Where did you find my wallet?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” the man said.

Something about this guy wasn’t quite right. “Who did you say you are again?”

“I didn’t. My name is Max. I’m a private investigator.”

Sam nearly choked on his beer. “You’re shitting me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A private investigator, eh?” Sam hurried on, seeing that the guy had no sense of humour. With a face like that it was no surprise. “Is that how you found me?”

“I saw you leave your house and followed you here.”

That spooked him. “OK. How did you know where I live?”

“It’s printed on your driving licence.”

“Oh. Yeah. OK.”

“So, Mr Westonville, I found your wallet in the grounds of the Holburne Museum, which is currently at the centre of my investigation.”

“You did? How the arse did it get there?”

Max stared at him. “You don’t remember being there?”

Sam shook his head.

“When did you realise your wallet was missing?”

“Tuesday morning, on the way to work. I thought I’d lost it at the pub round the corner. That’s near the museum actually. I was a bit worse for wear, woke up with a sore head. But it wasn’t at the pub when I checked. I don’t remember going into the museum though. It would have been closed by then.”

“It was in the grounds.”

Sam shrugged. “Sorry, mate, no idea how it got there.”

“Could it have been stolen?”

“Maybe.”

“So you were at the pub on Monday evening?”

“I… yes, I must have been.”

The detective leaned forwards. “You don’t remember? Think carefully. It’s very important, Mr Westonville. What was the last thing you recall about Monday night?”

“I was at work… I met up with Dave, he’s my best mate and we were planning to have a couple of jars.”

“Jars?”

“Beers. I wouldn’t normally on a Monday night but my wife called and said she was going to be home late and then up, up and away, Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as goosey goosey gander, where shall I–”

Max held his hand up as Sam blinked at the beer. “Let’s go over that last part again, Mr Westonville.”

“Call me Sam, please,” he said after another drink. He placed his palms flat on the table. “OK. So… Leanne called and I was a bit pissed off with her so I twinkle, twinkle little star, how I sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye!”

He clamped a hand over his mouth, sucking in deep breaths through his nose. “What the fuck is in this beer?” he said once he’d stopped, pushing it away from him.

“Mr – Sam, I need to ask you a few more questions, but we need to talk in private. Would you come with me, please?”

Sam looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I want to see some ID first.” Nothing about the way the man acted made Sam want to be anywhere private with him.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any you’d recognise.”

“Well then, sorry, but no. No offence, but you could be anyone. Thanks for bringing my wallet back. I’ll buy you another drink if you like, but if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to stay here, in a public place.” He glanced at the beer. “And I’m going to move off the beer and onto spirits.”

“I understand,” Max said, standing up. He didn’t seem offended. “Have a good evening, Mr Westonville.”

Sam leant back in the chair watching the PI leave. He wondered whether he should just go home, but the thought of returning to an empty house with a failed romantic dinner half cooked in the oven made him miserable. He flipped through his wallet, double-checking everything was there, then ordered a whisky. Sam smirked at the memory of Max, glad to have the wallet back and well on the way to drunken oblivion, judging by his fuzzy head and the gobbledegook he’d spoken.

The hen party left, the regulars got more drunk, and one of Leanne’s favourite songs came on the jukebox. Just as he was sinking into the maudlin phase, berating himself for losing his temper with her, he saw a slender hand rest on the back of the chair opposite.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

The blonde looked like she had stepped out of a movie. She was too beautiful for his local pub; her blonde hair shone despite the dingy lighting, her lips were deep red and eminently kissable.

“Um… no,” he said. “Are you waiting for someone?”

She smiled, and it made him want to rest his chin on the table and drool. “Looking for someone,” she said.

She was wearing an old-fashioned suit and it reminded him of the detective for some reason, though through the lust and drunken fog he couldn’t work out why.