The Footballer's Wife (16 page)

‘Want a cup of tea, love?' Len asked. It was probably the fifth time he had asked her if she wanted a cup of tea.

‘No, Dad, I'm fine,' she said. Len wasn't comfortable; he could hardly sit still in his chair. Charly watched him for a moment.

‘What's up with you?'

‘Me? Nothing, why?' Len asked.

‘Where were you last night?' Charly asked, realising there were a few things that were going to need answering close to home.

Len looked at Jimmy and then back at his daughter, slowly taking the time to answer. ‘I was at home.' Charly looked at him, sensing there was more to come. Len looked at Jimmy again, who didn't seem to be providing much support. ‘And then I was arrested and taken in for questioning.'

Charly gasped. She didn't want to think that her dad had anything to do with Joel's murder but if the police were questioning him, and given the circumstances, what else could she think? ‘And what did they say?' Charly asked, avoiding the obvious burning question that she really wanted to ask. Her
dad had every reason to want to kill Joel and Charly knew that somewhere in him he still had the temper but she didn't want to think about this as a possibility. She couldn't.

‘I know me and Joel didn't exactly see eye to eye, Charly, but I didn't do it,' Len said. Charly looked away from him. She didn't want to be having this conversation.

‘So they just questioned you for a bit and let you go?' Charly asked.

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something. ‘Yes,' Len said, cutting him off. Charly looked at the pair, knowing that they were keeping something from her.

‘What? Tell me,' Charly said just as there was a knock at the door and Terry entered.

‘You alright, sweetheart?' he asked. Just seeing someone who had a direct link to Joel made Charly crumble. ‘Come here,' Terry said, helping Charly to her feet and giving her a hug.

‘We'll get you back to the house. Least there's big gates there,' Terry soothed. Charly was grateful. The last place she ever wanted to be was the apartment where things had been at their worst with her and Joel.

‘Thanks.'

Charly got to her feet and Terry picked up her bags as Len and Jimmy took her arms. She looked at her dad. ‘What were you about to say?'

‘Nothing.' Len smiled sadly at his daughter. ‘It'll keep.'

*

Everywhere Charly looked there were reminders of Joel. Football trophies he'd won as a kid, pictures, clothes. Everything held a memory or made her think of something that she needed to do now that he was gone. She was sitting staring at a picture of Joel with his dad, thinking that she really should ring his father but that she didn't even know his number (Joel's dad had, emigrated to Benalmedena two years ago and Charly had only ever spoken to him on the phone). Jimmy entered the room and stood behind Charly. When he had been standing there for over a minute without speaking, Charly said, ‘What's the bad smell impression for?'

‘Char, there's something I need to tell you.' Jimmy hung his head.

Charly looked at her brother. He seemed nervous. There was no need to be. Whatever he had to say would just go in somewhere and mix
with all the other feelings of numbness and loss she was experiencing at the moment. ‘Go on then, what else?'

Jimmy looked at her. ‘Mum's back,' he said quickly, as if throwing up the words.

‘No, she's not,' Charly said bluntly; she wasn't ready to take this in. There was no way Shirley was back. God only knew if she was even alive.

‘She is. She gave Dad his alibi.'

Charly took in this information as well as she could. Her mother, who she would have killed to see any other day of her life but today, was back? And she'd given Len an alibi, meaning that he'd obviously needed one. Charly shook her head as if this would somehow make the raw facts of the day go away.

‘Sorry, Charly.'

‘Where is she now?'

‘Dad said she went round to Maureen's.'

Charly began to giggle. She couldn't help herself. Maureen, her mother's cousin, hadn't had a nice word to say about Shirley since she'd left, but knowing her mother's lot they would be sitting there thick as thieves by now.

‘What's funny?' Jimmy said, genuinely perplexed.

Charly continued to laugh. Nothing was funny,
she thought, but she couldn't help it, she felt as if the giggles were beyond her control. Charly felt calm as she laughed. The fact that her mother had disappeared out of her life for over a decade and had suddenly reappeared didn't seem to matter for that brief moment as she sat laughing. Jimmy was standing, his face contorted into a smile as if hoping to contract this infectious laughter. But Charly suddenly stopped dead and looked at her brother. ‘What the fuck is she doing back, Jimmy?' she demanded, suddenly feeling the weight of everything that had happened today. ‘Where's she been? Why does she think she can just waltz back in and everything will be alright? Why?'

Jimmy crouched next to his sister and grabbed her wrists. Charly looked at him and then at his hands, wondering if she had looked like she was about to do something dangerous. ‘Forget her, she's not worth it. You need to sort stuff out with you now. Fuck Shirley Metcalfe. Or whatever she's calling herself these days. She's nothing to us.'

Charly looked blankly at her brother as if he'd gone mad. They'd both waited years hoping that one day Shirley would come back. Charly blinked slowly as heavy tears began to roll down her face. ‘Course she is. She's our mum.'

Tracy looked up to see her son Scott standing in the doorway, his eyes bloodshot. ‘Bloody hell, son, you look like shit!' she exclaimed. She had just poured herself a well-deserved vodka. The clock, after all, had just struck midday.

‘I feel like shit,' Scott mumbled as he sloped into the house.

‘Vodka?'

Scott looked at the tumbler his mother was proffering and shook his head. ‘No, couldn't stomach it.'

‘What's up with you, then?' Tracy asked, sparking up a cigarette. She had a fair idea what was wrong with him but didn't want to make any assumptions. She knew her son too well, though; he was a soft arse and all this stuff about his ex and her murdered boyfriend would have knocked him for six.

‘The police have had me in. They thought I'd done it. I might not have wanted us to split up but I'm not about to knife the nob-head, am I?'

Tracy thought carefully about what to say next and then decided to just say the first thing that had come into her head anyway. ‘Bet you're glad though, aren't you?'

Scott looked at her in horror. ‘No, I'm not! I don't want to see anyone dead, ta very much, Mum.'

‘Sorry, me and my big mouth.'

‘Yeah, you and your big mouth. Button it, if you've nothing nice to say.'

‘So, you been at the cop shop?' Tracy decided to change tack.

‘Yep. They think they know it all, that lot. They haven't got a clue. He's a bloody footballer – for all they know some deranged dick-head City fan could have hunted him down and yet they're looking at me because I used to go out with Charly. And it's all over the papers.'

‘I know, I read them yesterday.'

‘Why didn't you call me?' Scott asked pathetically.

‘Ey, stroppy knickers, I did call you. Your voicemail was telling me that I couldn't leave a message and that I had to call back later.'

‘Oh. Sorry,' Scott said quietly.

‘I should hope so. I'm on your side, Scott, not anyone else's.' Tracy took a large swig of her vodka. ‘So then, what did they say to you? You have an alibi?'

‘Course I do. I was out at the Admiral all night. Pissed out of my head with the lads from work.
They had a lock-in. Which means that the landlord is never going to speak to me again because he's up for serving alcohol without a licence, but a lot of people, as pissed as they were, say that I was singing “Shaddap You Face” on the karaoke when the police think that he was murdered.'

‘Saved by Joe Dolce.'

‘Am I laughing, Mum? I could've been royally fucked. What if I'd just gone home and gone to bed? They could have made out that I'd done it.'

‘There's such a thing as forensics these days, you know. Haven't you ever watched
CSI
? They might have tried to pin it on you, but whichever clown did this will get found out soon enough.' Tracy loved
CSI
. She could happily sit making her way through every episode Sky had to offer while simultaneously making her way through a bottle of vodka. Kent didn't understand
CSI
. He said it was way above his head. Tracy had pointed out to him that
Teletubbies
was way above his head.

Scott sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I feel really sorry for Charly,' he said, tracing the grain of the table with his index finger.

Tracy couldn't believe what she was hearing.
Where
, she wondered sometimes,
did she get him from?
‘What do you feel sorry for that little slapper
for? She's been swanning around the place, lapping it up since she chucked you. And now what? Boo hoo, poor Charly because things have turned out shit for her?'

‘What is your problem with her?' Scott demanded.

Tracy had always had a problem with Charly. She didn't like the girl but she wasn't about to roll over and admit that it was just plain old dislike that made her react the way she did to Charly Metcalfe – to any Metcalfe for that matter. ‘She treated you like shit.'

‘No.' Scott shook his head. ‘That's not it. There's more to it. You were down on her from the day I brought her round here, giving it all that about the Metcalfes as if they were the scum of the earth and we were somehow royalty.'

‘That's not true. I knew her kind. I knew she'd hurt you.'

‘Well, thanks very much, Mystic Meg, but you didn't know anything of the sort.'

‘She did though, didn't she? They're all the same, that lot.'

‘Is it Len? Is it cos you and him once went out with each other?'

‘It's nothing to do with him and I won't have that fat bastard's name mentioned in this house again.'

Scott relented. ‘Fine. All I'll say is that I don't hold any grudges against Charly, and neither should you.'

‘I'll hold a grudge with who I want, when I want,' Tracy said truculently.

Scott got to his feet. ‘Course you will, Mum. Why am I thinking otherwise?' He walked towards the front door.

‘You need toughening up, lad. Take a leaf out of our Markie's book . . .' Tracy shouted after him. ‘Then you wouldn't get mugged around so much.' Scott had closed the door behind him before Tracy had managed to expel the full extent of her rant.

SWING WAS SITTING
outside a cafe that was offering all-you-can-eat English breakfasts for five euros. It was a tatty place but they did a good cup of tea and the owner, Mike, a tattooed, balding ex-con, just wanted a quiet life and as such made the best breakfast in Benalmedena and kept himself to himself.

Swing took a handkerchief from his pocket with his initials JR embroidered on one corner – his real name was John Russell – and mopped his brow. The fact that his initials were JR but at times he felt more like Sue Ellen wasn't lost on him. Since the debacle at the wedding the year before where, as Markie's best man, he let slip after too much booze and a couple of Es that he'd slept with the bride, Swing had become persona non grata within the Markie and Mac empire. He and Markie had made an uneasy truce and Markie had made it clear that
he could come back and earn but that he didn't want any dealings with him; he had to work through Mac. Mac was alright, Swing thought, but he was getting on a bit and his incessant stories about the old days, blokes he'd never heard of who were still serving twenty in Strangeways because they were being loyal to some nob-head who'd long since died, could grate.

Swing wiped the handkerchief across the top of his bald head and pocketed it again. ‘Everything alright?' Mike asked, clearing Swing's plate.

‘Lovely,' Swing said, patting his non-existent stomach. Swing was a gym man. That was one of the reasons that a trip to the Costas wasn't something that particularly floated his boat. He spent as much time in Fizeek, Bradington's number one steroid gym, as he could. He felt like training kept him sane. He wasn't into steroids, not any more. He'd seen too many people messed up on them. But here in the apartment where they were staying, the thing that they tried to pass off as a gym was like one of those all-in-one affairs from the Argos catalogue. Swing could have lifted the entire thing above his head if he wanted to.

He quite fancied the idea of opening his own place out here, but that took time and money. He
had plenty of time; it was money he was short of. He hated the fact that he was still at the beck and call of Markie even though he wouldn't even look him in the eye these days. They'd grown up together, been mates throughout school. But one stupid mistake – and it
was
a stupid mistake in Swing's opinion; Markie's ex Mandy had been nothing to write home about – and he was cast aside, forever to do what Mac wanted him to do. And Swing was finding that what Mac wanted him to do was increasingly more extreme. He felt that Mac was becoming ruled by his ego. But Swing wasn't about to tell him that; he needed the work too much. Take this weekend, for instance. Swing had been sent on a wild goose chase. He'd had to come over here on a false passport, in Mac's name, and now he was sitting here like a lemon, waiting for Mac to turn up, to receive further instructions, like some half-baked Bond villain. Where was Mac? he wondered. His plane was due in at eleven; he should be here by now. Swing wondered how many passports Mac had and why he felt the need to have so many; it was hardly like he was Ronnie Biggs.

Swing watched a taxi draw up at the side of the road. He pulled his aviator shades down and watched Mac get out of the car. He had a small
weekend bag with him; he didn't look like he was intending to stay long, but you never knew what Mac was planning from one minute to the next.