Warhol's Prophecy (37 page)

‘Hailey,’ Rob persisted. He took a step towards her.

‘He kept ringing me at work,’ she said, a note of anger in her voice. ‘I wouldn’t return his calls. I didn’t want it to go on.’

He glared at her.

‘You were fucking him, weren’t you?’ he said sharply.

‘No,’ she protested. ‘It didn’t get that far.’

‘How far
did
it get?’

‘We had lunch a couple of times. I wanted to thank him for what he did for Becky. He got the wrong idea. He kept pestering me.
He
wanted an affair. Not
me.
’

‘You fucking bitch,’ Rob said quietly. ‘You fucking two-faced bitch. You were giving me a hard time about what happened with Sandy, and all the time you were getting shafted by this cunt.’

‘Don’t start lecturing me about affairs, Rob. You’re not in a position to do that.’

‘At least Sandy didn’t try to
kill
you,’ he shouted.

‘Rob, please. You’ll wake Becky. I don’t want her to hear this.’

‘No, I bet you don’t. That would take some explaining, wouldn’t it? “Sorry to wake you, darling, but Dad’s a bit upset because the man who’s been fucking Mum has just tried to kill him.”’ He took another step towards her, and for a second she thought he was going to strike her. ‘I hope it was worth it. I hope he was good.’

‘It wasn’t
like
that,’ she snarled.

‘Well, what
was
it like,’ he roared. ‘Tell me.’

She saw tears in his eyes.

‘Wasn’t his fucking dick big enough?’ Rob continued venomously. ‘Didn’t he make you come? Is that why you finished it, or did you think that spreading your legs a few times was payment enough for him finding our daughter?’

He raised his hand and she stepped back involuntarily.

She saw the fury in his expression.

And the pain.

‘Now you know how
I
felt,’ she said, tears suddenly coursing down her cheeks. ‘Rob, I didn’t mean any of this to happen. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I was so mad at you because of what happened with that slag you worked with. But I didn’t have an affair with Adam Walker. I swear to you. Something happened, or nearly happened, but I stopped him. I didn’t have sex with him.’

‘And you expect me to believe that?’ he rasped.

The knot of muscles at the side of his jaw pulsed furiously.

‘That cunt came here, didn’t he?’ he growled. ‘He came to this house. I shook hands with him. I thanked him. And all the time he was fucking
you.
He was laughing at me. So were you, you fucking bitch.’ He pushed her to one side and wrenched open the sitting-room door, pounding up the stairs.

Hailey followed.

‘Rob, please,’ she called after him.

‘Keep away from me,’ he told her threateningly.

‘All right, call the police if you want to. Tell them who it was. Tell them what Walker’s been doing,’ she blurted.

‘No. You know him so fucking well,
you
sort it out.’

She saw him pull an overnight bag from one of the wardrobes. Watched as he hauled open drawers and cupboards, and stuffed clothes inside.

‘What are you doing?’ she wanted to know.

‘Getting away from you,’ he snarled.

‘Rob, please. Think what you’re doing.’

‘What
I’m
doing?’ he spat. ‘We spent time in those fucking Relate sessions trying to save a marriage that looks as if it wasn’t worth saving.
I
was supposed to be the bad guy.
I
was the one who was breaking up the happy home, wasn’t I? Until Mr Adam fucking Walker came along. If you’d kept your eye on Becky that day,
none
of this would ever have happened. Because then he wouldn’t have had to find her, and you wouldn’t have had to spread your fucking legs to thank him.’

He snatched up the bag and barged past her.

When they emerged on the landing, Becky was standing in the doorway of her room. She was clutching a small teddy bear and crying softly.

‘Dad,’ she said, her voice cracking.

He crossed to her and kissed her.

‘I’m going away for a while, sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘Your mum will explain.’

He looked round and shot Hailey a scathing glance, then he made his way down the stairs.

‘Rob,’ Hailey called after him.

He slammed the front door behind him.

‘Why were you and Dad shouting?’ Becky wanted to know.

Hailey swept her up into her arms and held her tightly, both of them weeping.

‘Where’s Dad going?’ the little girl sobbed. ‘When is he coming back?’

Hailey wished she knew.

H
AILEY LOOKED ACROSS
at the glowing red digits on the radio alarm: 2.03 a.m.

Outside the storm had abated. The thunder and lightning replaced by rain spattering insistently on the windows.

In the bed beside her, Becky slept fitfully, tossing and turning in her sleep, occasionally moaning aloud. Some bad dream, Hailey assumed.

Like seeing her parents shouting at each other?

There had been lots of tears that night: from Becky and from herself. She had lied

(
what the hell else was she supposed to do?
)

about why Rob had left the house. Saying that he had been called away on business, and wasn’t sure when he’d be back.

The lie had worked for the time being.

It’s a pity not
all
lies work as effectively, isn’t it?

Becky had asked about the raised voices. Hailey had found it more difficult to explain
that.
Even now, she wondered if her daughter believed her. Only natural. She didn’t know what the hell to believe herself.

How many times had she looked across at the phone?

Who should she ring first? The police?

Tell them about Walker.

Frank Burnside?

Find out if Rob was staying
there.

She swung herself out of bed and crossed to the window, peering out through the curtain of rain into the deserted street beyond.

Walker?

That was who she
should
be ringing.

The irony was not lost on her, but it didn’t force a smile. She didn’t know what would ever make her smile again after the events of the last few days. How long had she tried to avoid him? And now she needed to speak to him –
wanted
to.

Perhaps she should call Caroline Hacket. He might even be with her.

Then she looked back at the clock and remembered the ungodly hour. Any calls would have to wait until morning.

Wouldn’t they?

Hailey crossed to the bed and pulled the duvet up around Becky’s shoulders, then she bent down and kissed her little daughter on the cheek. Satisfied that she was well settled, Hailey edged out of the room and made her way downstairs.

She stood beside the phone in the hall for a moment, then picked up the receiver. Her index finger was shaking as she pressed the digits.

It was ringing.

She swallowed hard. Waiting.

Still it rang.

Put it down.

Two more rings and she’d try again tomorrow, when . . .

The phone was picked up.

‘Hello,’ said a voice thick with sleep.

‘Adam,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s me, Hailey Gibson.’

She transferred the phone to the other ear.

‘We need to talk,’ she said.

Silence.

‘Adam, are you still there?’ she persisted.

‘Talk about what?’ he said sleepily. ‘I thought it was all over between us.’ He coughed. ‘Besides, have you seen the time?’

‘Meet me on Friday,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘Why not tomorrow?’ he wanted to know.

‘I’m too busy. Can you meet me, or not?’

Another silence.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘The Happy Brig.’

‘Just like old times,’ he said, but the laugh that followed was grating and hollow. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Adam . . .’

He hung up.

T
HE ROOM WAS
small.

Rob had stayed in Travelodges before, so he knew what to expect: the basics. Bed, bathroom, TV, tea- and coffee-making facilities: that was about it.

He’d unpacked his meagre supply of clothes, and now he lay on the single bed gazing at the ceiling.

What a fucking night!

Almost killed by a nutter in a car, then discovering that his wife had been unfaithful with the man who had tried to kill him.

He rubbed both hands across his face and let out a deep sigh. Thoughts were still spinning around inside his head.

And, worse still, an idea was beginning to form that he could barely stand to entertain. What if Hailey had
known
that Walker planned to kill him?

He sat up slowly, the very thought almost unbearable.

What
had
gone on between Walker and his wife?

Had his own affair with Sandy Bennett driven her to such lengths, such frenzies of rage? How far would she go to gain revenge on him? He knew he had hurt her, and hurt her badly.

But surely not this . . .?

She couldn’t want him dead.

Could she?

Rob swung himself off the bed and padded into the bathroom, slapping on the light.

The fluorescent light above the mirror sputtered into life and he studied his tortured reflection. His red-rimmed eyes, his pale skin.

He shook his head. His reflection imitated his movement.

The face he was gazing at was that of a man totally at the end of his tether. Shattered, drained, as if every emotion has been torn from him.

She had betrayed him with another man. Lied to him.

(
As he had done to her
)

But surely she would not have plotted to kill him? To rob their daughter of a father?

He refused to believe it, and yet there was something gnawing away at the back of his mind. Some cancerous thought that refused to leave him: a feeling of such terrible malignance that it ate into his subconscious.

He wouldn’t believe it.

He
couldn’t.

Tears began to flow from his puffy eyes and he gripped the sink tightly, watching that tortured visage before him.

‘Why?’ he whispered.

He pushed his head forward, connecting with the mirror, pressing his flesh against the cold glass for a moment.

Then he drew back and repeated the action. Harder this time.

The impact left a small white mark on his flesh.

He held onto the sink so hard it seemed he might pull it off the wall.

For the third time he drove his head against the mirror – so hard this time that he felt momentarily dizzy. Still the tears ran down his cheeks.

‘Why?’ he said again as he did so. And the word was accompanied by an angry crack.

The mirror had splintered. The glass was split cleanly from top to bottom.

Rob studied his distorted reflection in it.

Saw the blood running down his face from the gash just below his hairline.

He watched as droplets of crimson fell into the sink and flowered.

Rob felt little pain from the wound. In fact he looked at it with something akin to bemusement, watching the red trickle coursing down his face as surely as the tears that still flowed from his eyes.

The real pain was inside him.

Inside his heart.

Inside his soul.

And it was excruciating.

H
AILEY WAITED FOR
the ringing phone to be picked up, the receiver of her own jammed between her shoulder and ear as she typed. The words flickered on the screen before her, but she hardly saw them.

She’d managed barely three hours’ sleep the previous night, and it felt as if someone had attached lead weights to her eyelids.

The phone continued to ring.

She sat back from her keyboard, stifling a yawn.

Perhaps later she’d ring Becky’s school and make sure
she
was OK. The child hadn’t wanted to go to school that morning, and there’d been more tears.

After last night, life looked like being one endless catalogue of tears again, she mused.

Still the phone was ringing.

The answerphone wasn’t switched on, so the person she sought was home. They just weren’t answering.