Eye for an Eye (25 page)

He reached the café as a cloudburst raked the street with liquid bullets. By the time he took a seat by the window, the worst of the storm had passed. He ordered coffee and a bacon sandwich. No garnish, bacon not too crisp, and bring the pepper.

The room was empty and he wondered if he had missed Beth, or if she had forgone breakfast and headed straight to her shop. Before his own breakfast was served, he decided to call Maureen and stared out the window while he waited for her to pick up.

‘Hello?’

‘Maureen?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘How about Hello Dad.’

‘Dad? Is that you?’

‘The one and only,’ he said, his gaze drawn to a scruffy man shambling along the pavement on the other side of the road. New trainers, and filthy jeans tattered at the heel, looked out of place.

‘This is a surprise, Dad.’

‘Pleasant one, I hope.’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s been a while.’ The young man stepped into the traffic, forcing cars to swerve out of his way. He looked pale, almost drugged. But something seemed oddly familiar about him. ‘How are things?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘Mum said you visited her.’

Gilchrist turned from the window. Maureen had this annoying habit of evading questions. ‘I said, how are things?’

A pause, as if she was trying to calculate the depth of his annoyance. Then, ‘Sorry, Dad. I’ve been busy. You know how it is. Exams and stuff. And then with Mum not keeping well. I’ve got a lot on my mind. Sorry.’

And an equally annoying habit of making him feel a fool after he’d made his point. The waiter came with his order, and Gilchrist nodded for him to place it on the side.

‘How’s she keeping?’ he asked.

‘Same as yesterday. Terrible pain. Just waiting to die.’

He shifted the phone to his other ear. Of his two children, Maureen was closer to their mother and possessed an uncanny ability to rile him with nothing more than a flick of her tongue. The way Gail used to.

‘Jack told me she was on medication.’

‘Yeah, well, you know what Mum’s like.’

No, he wanted to say. No, I don’t know what Mum’s like any more. She’s changed. She won’t let me near her. And you won’t tell me what’s going on. He took a deep breath, let the moment pass, then his need to know overpowered him. He hated himself for asking, but Maureen was closer to Gail than anyone. Even Harry.

‘What did she say?’ he asked.

‘About what?’

‘About my visit.’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I do.’

Maureen took a second to respond, as if deciding whether or not to tell him. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded flat and dead. Gail at her worst.

‘She said you didn’t stay. That you never said a word to Harry. That you couldn’t stand being in the same room as her. That you’d been drinking.’ She hesitated, as if waiting for feedback. But Gilchrist was damned if he was going to play along. ‘Would you like to hear more?’

‘Sure.’

‘She said you never even asked how she was keeping, Dad.’

Gilchrist caught the rise in her voice, and felt his teeth grit. ‘That’s not true—’

‘If it’s not, then why would Mum say it?’

‘Because she hates me—’

‘No she doesn’t.’

‘She wants to hurt me, Mo.’

‘She wants you to feel some of the pain she felt, Dad.’

Gilchrist felt his fingers tighten around his mobile.

‘Did you know Mum cried every day for two months after you split up?’

‘I wasn’t exactly doing backward somersaults with joy myself, you know.’

‘It still didn’t stop you from splitting up.’

‘In case it’s slipped your mind, your mother left me. Not the other way around.’

‘It takes two to tango, Dad. Have you ever asked yourself why she found someone else?’

‘I know why she found someone else.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

Gilchrist hated that Maureen had finagled the argument around to this topic. He felt there were certain things in life that children should not know about their parents. Or maybe he was just being old fashioned.

‘I’m waiting.’

‘Your mother fell out of love with me, Mo.’

‘Oh, no, Dad. You’re not getting away as easy as that. Mum loved you. Mum’s always loved you. She still loves you. Don’t you see that?’

‘Are we talking about the same person, here? The same woman who told me she was glad to have found Harry because at long last she had someone who cared for her? And sexually satisfied her?’ He regretted his last comment the instant the words left his mouth.

‘How can you say that?’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘No it’s not. It’s bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit.’

‘Watch your language, young woman.’

‘Oh, piss off, Dad.’

Gilchrist rubbed his forehead, waiting for the burring on the line to announce they had been disconnected. He could never win an argument with Maureen. Ever since the age of twelve, when she had shouted at him on the beach and accused him of favouring Jack over her, she had known how to skip her way around him. Rationally or otherwise.

‘You still there?’ he asked.

‘Barely.’

He heard her sniff. ‘Listen, Mo. I’m sorry.’ He took a deep breath, then let it out. ‘Your mum and me, we loved each other once. Some parts of us still do. I believe that. But after a while, it just ... we just drifted apart.’ He held on to the phone, praying for some response. But it was Maureen’s turn to say nothing. ‘These things happen, Mo. People change. Families split up.’

‘But why did it have to happen to
our
family, Dad? Why did we all have to split up? Can you tell me that?’

He pressed the phone to his mouth, wished it was his lips to her hair, the way he used to when he came home from work and crept upstairs to her bedroom and kissed her sleeping face. He had no answer for her. He had no answer for himself.

‘I have to go, Dad.’ She gave another sniff.

‘Listen, Mo, I—’

The line disconnected.

Silent, Gilchrist lowered his mobile. He felt abandoned. He felt as if he had just taken Maureen to the station and was watching her train depart, listening to the sound of its wheels on the tracks fade from his senses, knowing that when it did, when he could no longer hear their metallic rattle, then that would be the last sound he would ever hear of her.

He powered down his mobile.

But Maureen’s voice echoed in his mind.
Why did it have to happen to
our
family, Dad? Why did we all have to split up? Can you tell me that?

It happened because, because ...

Because I had a job. Because I put that job before my family. Because I made no effort to spend time with my wife, or watch my children grow up.

Because, because ...

‘Because I failed you,’ he whispered. ‘Because I failed all of you.’

CHAPTER 24

He reached This and That around 9:40. The tinny rattle of the overhead bell and the fragrance of pot-pourri put him at ease through its familiarity. The shop was deserted, except for Cindy.

She looked up. ‘Hi, Andy.’

‘Is Beth in?’

‘No-oh.’ Cindy frowned. ‘I haven’t heard from her. It’s so not like her.’

Gilchrist pulled out his mobile.

‘I’ve already tried calling her,’ Cindy said. ‘And left two messages. I even tried your number, but I couldn’t get through.’

‘Switched off,’ said Gilchrist. He placed a hand on Cindy’s shoulder and squeezed. Beth’s phone rang six times, then her recorded message cut in.

He slapped his mobile shut.

‘Do you think she’s all right?’ asked Cindy.

‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,’ he said. ‘Probably just overslept.’

‘I hope so,’ Cindy said, and put her hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve been so worried about her, what with that creep in here the other day. You read about these things, but you don’t think they’re ever going to happen to you.’

‘Cindy, I’ll check it out. Okay?’

She seemed to collect herself. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a spare key to her flat.’

Outside, he ran down South Street, his mind clattering in time with his feet. In the two years he had dated Beth, she had never missed a day, was never sick, never late, always arrived at her shop at least five minutes early.

When he reached her apartment, he stabbed Cindy’s spare key into the lock.

The hallway was redolent of wood polish, its perfume warm from the central heating.

Heavy silence stilled the rush of his breathing.

‘Hello?’

Nothing. Only the steady ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall, a wedding present to Beth’s parents from her Uncle Alex.

‘Beth?’

The pendulum swung like an inverted metronome.

‘Hello?’

Then Gilchrist caught it, a hint of something out of place, an undercurrent of something sour, a tainted smell that reminded him of a school gymnasium. Stale sweat. His right hand slid to his chest and he wished he had a gun.

He eased forward. The floor creaked.

He stopped, listened, was about to take another step when the floor creaked again. Was someone in the living room?

The door lay open. Not there. Beth’s bedroom?

He cocked his head, straining to hear. On full alert now. If the creak had been caused by Beth, she would have heard him calling, she would have called back. He passed the spare bedroom door on his left. Ahead, Beth’s bedroom door lay ajar, just a fraction.

He reached for the handle, heard the rush of movement behind him, lifted his arm in time to deflect the blow to the back of his head.

Another blow, this time to his shoulder.

He stumbled against the wall, saw a lump of wood flash at him, felt something explode against his side. He swung his arms for balance, scattering ornaments off an antique table, then fell to the floor.

He lay there, stunned.

Legs. Jeans. Tattered and frayed. New trainers.

He twisted to his side, caught a leg as it swung past his face. He gripped hard, heard a cry, felt the floorboards shudder as a body landed by his side. He fought to hold on but something crunched against his mouth and he lost his grip. Then another hit to his head, as hard as wood.

His fingers clawed, clutched for some grip, found it.

Then arms flailing at a casual jacket. Shit. The body moved away from him.

He followed it up, dropped the jacket.

A hit to his ribs stole his breath and almost felled him. He saw the next blow coming. A cricket bat. Christ.

Ducked. It hit the wall by his ear.

Ducked again. Glass exploded as the mirror shattered.

And again. Ducked lower. Skimmed off his back.

He fell to the floor, rolled to his side. The bat thudded the carpet, once, twice.

He bumped against the wall. Nowhere to go. Lifted his legs.

Hard wood cracked against his calves.

He gasped with the pain, shouted, ‘You’re under arrest.’

The bat hesitated for no more than a second. But long enough.

He rolled the opposite way, into the far wall, pulled his legs up and over in a backward roll, and jumped to his feet as the bat clattered against the radiator then dropped to the floor. It had been thrown.

Escaping. Oh no you’re not.

He dived at departing legs in scruffy jeans that slipped through the doorway and back-heeled the door shut, missed catching his fingers by a hair.

He pulled himself to his feet, stumbled against the wall, struggled to stay upright. He stuck a hand out, palmed the wall as the world steadied, then staggered into Beth’s bedroom.

Empty.

His breath tore in and out of his lungs in fiery bursts that seemed to pierce his ribs. ‘Beth?’

Back in the hallway, he kicked at the spare bedroom door.

‘Oh, God, Beth.’

She lay on the bed. Naked. Ankles and wrists tied to the four corners. Mouth gagged. Eyes bruised. Her body heaved with the effort of trying to free herself.

Gilchrist ripped the gag from her mouth.

‘I’m okay I’m okay don’t let him get away catch—’

‘Beth—’

‘Catch him catch the bastard don’t let him get away catch him catch the bastard.’ She gulped for air, then screamed, ‘Catch the bastard, Andy.’

Gilchrist slipped her right hand free then stumbled from the room.

Outside, he looked left, right.

Shoppers, pedestrians.

He ran across the road.

Tyres screeched. A horn blared. ‘You fucking blind?’

‘Did you see someone running?’ he asked a woman.