He's After Me (20 page)

That was Jude. And the ‘old guy’ she’d left him for was Dad.

At least, that’s how he’d perceived it in his twisted mind. He’d thought he had some sort of romantic
thing
going with her. That she’d got him off because there was something going on between them.

I sit there stunned, trying to take it all in.

It’s sick. What is wrong with him? Couldn’t he see she was just doing her job? She was a lawyer, that’s all, a professional, albeit a very attractive one, who had defended him successfully before she moved on to her next brief. End of story.

But not for Jem.

Jem is the one who’s got to be in control. Why didn’t I listen to you, Zoe? He’d created that entire relationship in his head. Hence the photographs. As far as he was concerned, they loved each other and it was my wicked father who was coming between them.

Poor, deluded Jem.

And then the truth smacks me in the face.

None of this was about me! The only reason he went out with me was to get at Jude! Jem had used me and I’d allowed him to.

I taste the bitter bile of resentment rising in my throat. This is all her fault!

Why didn’t she warn me? Why didn’t she tell me what a weirdo I was going out with? Why did she let me get involved with him in the first place?

But even as I ask the questions, the answer’s obvious.

Because she didn’t know.

James was my boyfriend, I’d boasted to her. Nice, pleasant, well-bred James who was at Oxford, studying Medicine. Pretty common name really. She’d invited us round for dinner, couldn’t wait to meet him, but I’d ignored the invitation. I had to. I was lying through my teeth just to impress her.

It wasn’t Jude’s fault. It was mine.

‘This guy is unpredictable,’ says Dad, getting to his feet. ‘I’m going back to the apartment. Jude’s there on her own.’

‘You don’t think he’d do anything, do you?’ asks Mum, her eyes round with fear.

‘He’s got photographs of her.’ My voice is a whisper, but Mum and Dad stare at me as if I’d shouted it out loud.

‘On his computer.’

Dad looks stricken.

‘Go!’ says Mum.

‘He won’t hurt her!’ I protest but my words sound hollow, even to me. I try to explain. ‘He’s just got this thing about women, that’s all … He thinks we all let him down.’

Dad makes for the door. ‘That,’ he says, ‘is exactly what worries me.’

He wasn’t going to stop there. No way. Anna had it coming to her, the bitch. How could she do this to him? He’d thought she was different, but they were all the same when it came down to it. Bitches! Whores!

That’s what he’d sprayed on the front door. He felt like spraying it over the whole town.

And then the door had opened and Livi had come out.

Little Livi.

A
fter Dad leaves, Mum says she’d better make us something to eat.

‘I’m not hungry,’ I say, but she ignores me and starts bunging pieces of chicken in the microwave and peeling veg. I think she needs to keep busy.

‘Where was Livi going after school?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know. She’d left before we came back from the police station.’ I’m exhausted. This horrible day seems to be going on and on and all I want to do is go to bed.

‘Well, give her a ring and tell her dinner will be ready soon.’

‘Dad’s got my phone!’ I remind her.

‘Use the house one.’

I do as I’m told but her number goes straight to answer phone. ‘Her mobile’s switched off.’

Mum tuts. ‘Ring her friends then.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know! You know who she goes round with more than I do!’

Actually, I haven’t got a clue who Livi is keeping company with nowadays. She changes her friends as often as she changes her clothes and, personally, I’ve been too absorbed in what’s been going on in my own life lately to notice! I ring round a few girls from her class whose numbers I find in the telephone directory. No one has seen her. I distinctly get the impression that Livi doesn’t go round with them any more.

‘No luck?’ says Mum. ‘Keep trying.’

I roll my eyes. What’s the big deal? Livi can eat when she comes in.

‘Try Cora Pugh,’ suggests the next girl I ring.

‘Cora Pugh? Wasn’t that the kid Livi had a fight with? No way!’ I shake my head in disbelief.

‘Ring her,’ says Mum. I flick through the directory until I find a Pugh who lives on the estate near school and ring them. It’s the right number. Cora comes on the line.

‘Do you know where Livi is?’ I ask.

‘Livi who?’

‘Williams?’ I say sweetly. How many Livis are there?

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Her sister.’

‘What for?’ she asks rudely.

I suppress the urge to tell her to mind her own business. I can’t say, ‘Her tea’s ready,’ or she’d laugh out loud at me. So instead I say, ‘My mother’s concerned that she hasn’t come home from school yet.’ And as soon as I say it, I realize that’s exactly why Mum has asked me to ring around.

There’s silence, then she says suspiciously, ‘What’s this got to do with me?’

‘Nothing. I just thought you might know where she is because you’re a friend of hers.’

‘Yeah, I am. She’s my bezzie mate.’ She sounds flattered. For the life of me, I can’t imagine Livi feeling the same way about her.

‘D’you know where she is then?’ I persist.

‘Dunno. She left school at lunchtime.’

‘Lunchtime!’

‘Nowt to do with me!’ she says immediately.

‘No, I know that! Only, do you know why?’

There’s a pause.

‘Maybe she was going to meet someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Dunno. That’s all I know. Got to go.’

She’s on her guard now, it’s obvious. I’m not going to get another word from her.

I don’t need any more information anyway. I’ve had my suspicions for a while. It’s pretty obvious who she’s skiving off school to spend time with.

Ferret.

Also known as Steven Ferris, to give him his proper title.

I put the phone down and gaze sorrowfully at my poor mum. What on earth did she do to deserve daughters like us?

He’d thought she might run back inside when she saw what he’d written but she didn’t.

She just stood there and read it then turned round, cool as a cucumber, and said, ‘No we’re not. Not all of us.’

‘W
here the hell has she got to?’ says Mum when I tell her Livi left school at lunchtime. She looks in such a state, I admit that I think she’s with Ferret.

‘Tell her to get home, NOW!’ she says, through gritted teeth, and I want to oblige, I really do, but the trouble is, I haven’t a clue where Ferret hangs out and the only Ferrises in the phone book deny all knowledge of him. I try Cora again but she doesn’t answer. I try Livi but it clicks straight through. And all the time my poor mum is pacing the floor and biting her nails down to her elbows, and the hands of the clock are moving on, and there is no sign of my little sister.

‘I’m phoning your father!’ she says at last.

When Dad comes back again, this time he’s got Jude in tow. Both of them look shaken.

‘What’s up?’ I ask as he shoulders his way through the door.

‘You don’t want to know,’ he mutters.

‘Yes I do,’ says Mum. ‘What’s happened now?’

Dad looks at Jude. ‘It’s all over the front wall of Williams & Barnes,’ she says, her voice trembling.

‘What is?’ Mum looks from one to the other. ‘Tell me!’

‘Filth,’ says Dad bitterly. ‘Stinking, foul abuse about Jude and me. We’ve just had a phone call from security.’

My heart sinks. It’s Jem, getting his own back.

‘Have you found Livi?’ asks Dad.

Mum shakes her head. ‘We’ve tried everywhere. I don’t know where she is. Anna thinks she might be with this boy she used to know called Fer … Steven Ferris – but I’m not sure …’

Her voice trails away and she stares at him miserably. It’s like they understand each other without having to speak.

‘I’m calling the police!’ he says decisively and takes out his phone.

‘Why?’ I say in surprise. ‘She’ll turn up, she always does. She’s done this before.’

Everyone looks at me sadly. Then Jude moves over to Mum and places her arm round her shoulders.

‘Do it,’ she says to Dad. ‘Do it now.’

He could see straight away, Livi wasn’t scared of him.

She was on his side.

Livi wasn’t scared of anything.

He should’ve picked her in the first place, he thought. He’d made the wrong choice. He’d selected the wrong sister.

Livi understood. She knew it was all Jude’s fault.

Livi would do anything for him.

Anything.

I
 must be the dimmest person in the world. It had simply never occurred to me that Livi was with Jem.

Even when the squad car arrives, I still don’t get how serious the situation is. They’ve already checked out Ferret and confirmed that he hasn’t seen Livi for days. Apart from being an annoying little shit, he seems to be harmless.

‘We’ve got an alert out for Jermaine Smith,’ says the officer. It’s DC Blane, the one I spoke to at the station.

‘He’s got her,’ says Jude. ‘I know he has!’

Mum nods in agreement, trying not to cry.

I stare at them blankly. It’s obvious when you think about it, she’s with him. They all look terrified.

‘Don’t worry.’ I say. ‘He hasn’t kidnapped her, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘You don’t know that,’ says Dad.

‘She’s run off with him!’ I say. ‘She’s mad about him.’ The world and his wife could be against Jem but Livi would be there for him through thick and thin.

‘I think she’s right,’ whispers Mum.

‘Nevertheless, we’ll put a Missing Persons out on her straight away.’

Blane walks outside to speak privately into his radio and Mum and Dad exchange anxious looks, afraid to speak.

‘What’s your concern?’ asks Dad when he returns.

The detective hesitates, like he’s not sure how much information he should be divulging.

‘Jermaine Smith has history.’

‘What sort of history?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, sir.’

‘I represented him last year,’ Jude’s voice rings out crisply. ‘He had petty larceny on his record, that’s all.’

‘Really?’ says DC Blane, raising his eyebrows, and we know there’s more to it than that. ‘Then you’re obviously not aware that Smith has an obsessive, addictive personality. When he meets someone he likes he falls madly in love with them. Literally. He won’t take no for an answer.’

Jude flushes, like she’s been caught out not doing her job properly. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘if I could just take a few details.’

We give him all the information we can about Livi and he scribbles it down. Meanwhile my parents become visibly more distressed.

After a while my father says savagely, ‘If he harms one hair of her head … !’ and I say, ‘He wouldn’t do that, Dad!’ but my words are cut off as the officer’s radio crackles into life.

‘What are you defending him for?’ says my father through gritted teeth as Blane goes back outside to answer it.

‘I’m not! I just know he wouldn’t hurt Livi. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not in that way.’

‘You don’t know the first thing about him!’ says Dad furiously.

He’s right. Let’s face it, Jem has always been a complete mystery to me. That was part of his charm. But I am absolutely convinced, whatever else he has done, Jem would never deliberately harm my kid sister.

Then DC Blane returns to the room and clears his throat.

‘I’m afraid,’ he says, ‘there’s been an incident.’

When he told her where he was going next she’d said she’d come with him.

He’d actually hesitated. ‘It’s dangerous,’ he’d warned her, but she’d laughed. She was really up for it.

You could hardly blame her. Jude had messed up her life, just like she’d messed up his.

W
e tear through town, blue lights flashing, siren wailing. Bizarrely, all I can think is, Livi would love this.

But Livi’s not here.

As we approach Dad’s apartment we can see the flashing lights of police cars up ahead. They’ve closed the road. The area below the building has been taped off and floodlights are directed up towards the flat roof of the warehouse. It looks as if they’ve evacuated the whole building, because a small crowd has gathered across by the harbour.