The Bad Things (14 page)

Kate stayed sitting, looking up at her. ‘You can leave, Alex. I’m not keeping you here. I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all. Can I ask you to be discreet, please?’

‘Discreet?’

‘I know you’re a journalist, but could I ask you not to say anything until we have traced any members of Jackie Wood’s family.’

Alex stared at her. ‘I thought there weren’t any?’

‘Probably not. But we have to be sure.’ Kate thought it unlikely Alex would say anything – at least, not yet. This was her exclusive and she wanted to keep it that way.

‘Okay. But in return could I ask you not to release the name until I’ve told Sasha?’

Kate was surprised. She thought Alex would ask her not to tell the media about Jackie Wood until she had filed her copy. She nodded. ‘There’ll be a press conference at about six and I’ll have to do it then. There are various TV companies and newspapers sniffing around as we speak.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And I’m sorry you had to find the body like that. It can’t have been easy.’

‘No,’ Alex replied. ‘I shouldn’t think it ever is, is it?’

Kate watched as Alex left the room.

She drummed her fingers on the table. Why did she feel that conversation had all been a bit of an elaborate dance? And the kitchen knife. How did Alex Devlin know the weapon was a kitchen knife?

14

Alex sat in her office and stared out of the window. The bare trees and neglected pots still wouldn’t sprout any foliage or flowers, no matter how many times she glared at them. Even if she narrowed her eyes, they didn’t look any prettier. It had taken her a while to stop shaking, but a large slug of brandy helped. She reasoned she needed it. She was finding it hard not to see Jackie Wood, lying at that awkward angle in the tiny bathroom with her dead eyes and the bloom of red over her clothes.

How was she going to find out where Millie was buried now?

The sky hung leaden again; threatening more rain and making the afternoon seem even shorter. Malone had gone back to wherever he went back to, saying he had things to do and would see her later. Thankfully, there was no sign of Gus, until she heard the door slam.

She went downstairs and braced herself.

‘Hey, Mum,’ he said, coming into the house and shrugging off his coat, leaving it on the floor; his mate Jack trailing behind him and munching an apple. ‘Have you heard?’

Alex walked into the kitchen. ‘What?’ she asked, before she could stop herself, knowing what he was about to say.

‘Her. The murderer. Jackie Wood. Someone’s killed her.’ His eyes were shining.

‘Stabbed to death,’ said Jack, almost, she felt, with relish. ‘Lots and lots of stab wounds. I heard. Blood everywhere. Drowning in blood.’

What was it with these boys that death meant so little to them?

Alex opened up the fridge. ‘Have you eaten? I’ve got ham, tomatoes, a bit of salad? I can make you a sandwich.’

‘Muuum? Did you hear what I said?’

‘I did, darling. Now, food?’ She reached in and brought out a packet of ham, waving it in front of their faces.

She felt rather than saw the two boys look at one another.

‘Okay,’ she said, shutting the fridge and sitting down, peering at the packet of ham which looked as though it had a blue-ish tinge, ‘I do know about it. I found her body.’

Alex swore their mouths dropped open. ‘Really? You’re not shitting me?’

‘No, Gus, I am not “shitting you”, as you so delicately put it. I went to do my next bit of the interview, and there she was, on the floor, dead.’ She shivered at the memory. Perhaps she was wrong to feed their violent fantasies, but she did think they needed to hear what actually happened, from her. She could just imagine what gruesome spin active young minds could put on it. ‘It was not exciting or thrilling; it was rather depressing and horrible to see someone dead like that. There was a lot of blood. It’s the first dead body I have ever seen, and I don’t want to see another one. Not like that, anyway.’ She hoped her flat, even tone would discourage any macabre interest.

‘Did you call the police?’ asked Gus.

‘I did. They arrived with forensic vans and tape and people put white suits on and they put a cordon around the caravan.’

‘Wow.’ Gus saw her face. ‘Sorry. I know it wouldn’t have been nice for you.’

‘No it wasn’t, sweetheart.’ And she wanted to put her arms around her son and hold him close to protect him from the evil in the world; to protect him from the knowledge that his mum wasn’t perfect, that she had secrets she couldn’t share. She felt overwhelmed by the love she felt for Gus right at that moment, and wanted nothing more than to shut out the world, keep them both safe. But she knew she couldn’t do that. She’d learned the hard way that the world always came knocking on the door.

Jack took another bite out of his apple. ‘Where was she?’

‘What do you mean? In the caravan, I told you.’

‘No, I mean, whereabouts in the caravan?’

‘In the bathroom. Why?’

‘Just wondered, that’s all.’ He grimaced. ‘They’re pretty small, aren’t they, those caravan bathrooms?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘So she was sort of squashed in there?’ He swallowed his piece of apple, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Alex shook her head. ‘Jack, I don’t think we need to go into all the grim details, do we? A woman has lost her life in the most horrid way and we shouldn’t relish it.’

The crunching of the apple as Jack bit into it again sounded loud. ‘No. Sorry, Alex.’

‘Okay,’ she said.

‘But she’s definitely dead, isn’t she?’ Gus suddenly looked anxious.

‘She looked it to me.’

‘That must have been awful for you, Mum.’ His face twisted. ‘But I’m glad she’s dead, I really, really am.’

‘What do dead people look like?’ This from Jack.

Alex ignored him, and reached out her hand to Gus. ‘I know you are.’

He nodded and squeezed her hand.

‘And I had to give a statement and go to the police station and all that sort of stuff.’

‘Cool.’

She sighed.‘No, Jack. It wasn’t “cool”. It was tiring and a bit frightening.’ For a moment all she wanted to do was to close her eyes. She was more than tired. Exhausted. But she pulled herself together, all brisk efficiency again. ‘Food?’

Teenagers, they were always hungry, so she made them a ham and salad sandwich and left them to it, going back upstairs to her office.

She had to regroup.

What had she succeeded in doing, besides getting herself into deep shit? How long would it be before the press got hold of the story? And Sasha? What was she to do about her sister? She hadn’t told her she was going to see Jackie Wood, that was one problem. But the other was that she now wasn’t entirely convinced Sasha hadn’t had anything to do with her murder. What if Sasha had killed her? What if she confessed to her, then what should she do?

This was ridiculous. Her exhaustion was getting to her, making her get everything all out of proportion. If she looked at it logically, Sasha wouldn’t even know where to find Jackie Wood, or have the strength to stab her in such a vicious way. Surely she could rule Sasha out of the equation. Couldn’t she?

She examined the tips of her fingers, which still bore traces of the ink used to take her fingerprints, then ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth as if she could feel where they had taken the DNA sample. At the time she’d felt that if she were as cooperative as possible then DI Todd might leave her alone. She tried to answer the policewoman’s questions about Jackie Wood and the article calmly, but Alex knew she had become uptight and defensive. What had she said? What the fuck had she said? She rubbed her eyes with her fists. She’d kept quiet about Malone, tried to say as little as possible about Sasha, then she had gone on about being under suspicion. There was no doubt she was bloody well under suspicion. She knew as well as anybody that the first people the police look at are the family of the murder victim – well that one was out, wasn’t it? – and the next person is the one who found the body. That was her.

Taking a tissue, Alex rubbed the remainder of the ink off her fingers. She was absolutely sure she hadn’t said anything that would lead the Detective Inspector to Malone, or Sasha – wasn’t she?

She had to stop staring out of the window and go and see Sasha, do some work, something. Oh God. She dropped her head into her hands. The interview she had now with Jackie Wood was dynamite. Not what she wanted at all. Not as Alex Devlin, sister of Sasha and aunty to Millie and Harry. Maybe as Alex Devlin, journalist. But she couldn’t do that, despite being the only bloody journalist who knew that the woman in the caravan who had been murdered was Jackie Wood. The only bloody journalist who’d known she’d been holed up in the caravan anyway. The police couldn’t – and wouldn’t, as DI Todd made clear – keep it under wraps forever. When she and Malone had left the caravan site, the local news organizations were already turning up. As soon as the body was officially identified, everybody would be descending on Sole Bay.

The journalist in her wanted to be the first to break the story. The sister in her wanted to protect Sasha from all the publicity that would surely follow. More opening of old wounds. More old pictures flashed on the TV screen. A happy Millie and Harry, dirty faces, grinning. Opening Christmas presents. Building a sandcastle. Sasha laughing. All that. More fending off calls. So, to be journalist or human? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She also had to make sure nothing about her and Martin Jessop came out. Even after all these years it would be a hell of a story, especially when news programmes had to be filled 24/7.

She drummed her fingers on the desk, trying to think everything through logically, but it wasn’t working. She opened the desk and took out the key with its fob that Malone had handed to her.

Think.

Her phone suddenly sang out its grungy tune, startling her. She answered without looking, thinking it would be Gus or Malone.

‘Alex Devlin?’ The voice was young, polite, and vaguely familiar.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

‘It’s Ed Killingback. From
The Post
.’

She sighed, her finger reaching for the off button.

‘Wait. Before you hang up, please listen to me.’

Something in his tone made her finger hover, just for a moment.

He went on quickly, as if he knew he was on borrowed time. ‘I know the body in the caravan was Jackie Wood’s. The woman who helped kill your niece and nephew.’ He left a silence. An old journalistic trick; most people abhor a silence in a conversation and rush to fill it. That’s how she often got some of the meatiest lines for her articles. He probably was just making some sort of guess and was waiting for her to confirm it, so she said nothing.

‘Okay, fair enough,’ he said eventually. ‘But it was her, and I know you were there; you found her body. I haven’t had any confirmation from the police, so all we have is speculation—’

Too damn right.

‘…and the fact I saw you talking to DI Todd; but I am going to run with this tomorrow and thought you might like to talk to me. Give me your side of the story.’

‘My side of the story?’ Dear God, he knew something. She broke out into a sweat.

‘Yes. How you found her, what you were doing up at Harbour’s End, that sort of thing. Best to set the record straight.’

If that was the record he wanted setting straight, then maybe she should speak to him. However, she was curious. ‘Why are you so interested?’

He chuckled. ‘I have been interested in this case for years, since I was a journalism student, actually. It’s fascinating. You know, the fact that Martin Jessop killed himself, that Millie’s body was never found. Jackie Wood’s role in it all. Whether she really did know what Jessop had done. It’s like an unsolved murder mystery from the telly. And now she’s dead. You can surely see what a great story it is. A great human story.’

She felt unbearably sad at his excitement. This was her life he was talking about, that he wanted to splash all over the paper, and she knew that next month most people would have forgotten all about it while she would be left to pick up the pieces of Sasha that remained.

‘Alex? Alex? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ How did he know? ‘But I think we really should meet. You’ll get a better press from me than you will from other tabs.’

Alex slumped in her seat. How could she be so naive as to think the whole thing wouldn’t be splashed all over the papers tomorrow? Maybe even on the local news tonight. She hadn’t been thinking straight. These days even the BBC went with ‘locally named’ rather than waiting for official confirmation – all in the rush to be first with the news. Sky – never wrong for long. They were all at it. And after being able to hide from it for fifteen years, now she didn’t seem able to get away from being the news.

‘Look,’ she said, making a decision, ‘I’ll meet you, okay? I’m not promising anything, but I will meet you.’

‘Really? Where?’

She thought for a minute, already regretting it. ‘There’s a café on the beach that’s open all year round. It’s called Jim’s, it’s just where the beach huts start.’

‘I know the one, I’ll see you there in what, an hour?’

Alex nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. ‘All right. There’s something I have to do first, but I’ll see you then.’

‘Okay. And, by the way. Did you know he had another lover, not just Wood?’

‘Who did?’

‘Martin Jessop.’

She pressed the off button without saying goodbye. She reckoned he’d gone beyond the need for pleasantries.

‘You did what?’ Sasha straightened up from her crouching position and threw the garden shears on the ground. She pushed her hair back off her face, leaving a grubby mark across her forehead.

Alex had gone round to Sasha’s with her heart in her mouth, dreading having to tell her what she had done, and wondering what her reaction would be to the news of Jackie Wood’s murder.

There was no reply when she knocked on the door, so she took out her key and let herself in.

‘Sasha?’ she called.

No reply.

She went through into the kitchen, resisting the temptation to look in the cutlery drawers or at the knife rack, but she did notice the dirty plates, the sink full of greasy water and saucepans, the sound of the washing machine. Peering through the window into the gathering gloom, she could just about make out Sasha in the garden, clearing weeds and the detritus of summer and autumn. On her good days it was her therapy. She said jobs in the garden helped her not think about anything else, provided a distraction from her thoughts, which was why her garden was always well kept, neat, and full of colour in the summer months. She liked spring for the explosion of new life. She said she wanted somewhere lovely to sit for when Millie came home. Alex wished she could spend some of that energy inside the house sometimes.