The Footballer's Wife (29 page)

‘They're bloody good,' Markie said to him, amusing himself. The man nearly jumped out of his skin at being spoken to.

Once outside, Markie grabbed his phone and called Charly. ‘Everything alright?'

‘No. Dad's been arrested.'

Markie checked the time. It was midnight. ‘Where is he?'

‘Bradington. They're questioning him there but they might move him to Manchester. I don't know how these things work.'

‘I'm in Manchester now. You at the house?'

‘Where else would I be?'

Markie knew it was a stupid question; she barely left the house. ‘I'll come and get you and then we can go to the police station together. What about your mum?'

‘She's there too; she's being done for providing a false alibi.'

Brilliant
, Markie thought as he hung up the phone. He was sure that Len hadn't done this, and he had a good idea who had.

*

Mac rummaged in a bag next to him. ‘What do you call this, Tracy?' He produced photocopies of the original documents that Tracy had given to Mac. They must be the ones she had sent to the police. Her jaw fell open; she quickly shut it again.

‘I don't know,' she lied. ‘Them papers I got from the office for you?'

Mac slammed them on the bed and pushed his face up to Tracy's. ‘Don't give me your shit, Tracy. You know what these are because you sent them to the coppers.'

‘I didn't do anything of the sort. I don't even know how to work the photocopier. Tammy does all that.'

Mac sneered. ‘Fuck off, Tracy, don't play dumb. You wouldn't let a silly little thing like a photocopier stand in the way of stitching me up.'

‘Why would I want to stitch you up?' Tracy asked, alarmed. She was looking around the room for a way that she might be able to get out and get to Markie so that Mac couldn't harm her.

‘No point in thinking you're going to do a bunk. You're staying put.' Mac walked over to the door and made sure it was locked. ‘Why would you want to stitch me up?' he pondered. ‘Because you're ruthless and you're fucked off with me? I don't know, you tell me.'

‘I didn't send anything to the police,' Tracy reiterated. She was just about to blame Tammy again but Mac interrupted her.

‘So why are your fingerprints all over it?'

Shit,
Tracy thought. If he had someone on the inside then they would have access to her fingerprints. She'd been done for shoplifting a few years ago. If she'd known a Curtis Steigers CD was going to lead to all this she wouldn't have bothered nicking it.

‘I didn't do it!' Tracy said again desperately. She quickly thought of something that might save her. ‘I stuck some paper in the copier the other week. I don't know; my fingerprints will be all over the office, won't they? I work there now.' She wanted to kick herself; she should have put gloves on. But then again she didn't think that she'd be faced with Mac accusing her of shopping him to the police.

‘Bollocks, Tracy. You had the hump because I'd gone underground. Do you know the shit this could have got me in if someone hadn't got to them first? What am I saying? Course you did – why else go to the trouble of trying to hang me out to dry?'

Tracy threw her head back and stared at Mac. She wasn't getting out of this so she dropped the
damsel-in-distress façade and spoke in the slow measured voice of the bitch that she was. ‘So, you do it then? You knife the poor little bastard? And for what? Twenty-five grand? Aren't you the big man, Mac?'

‘You think that if I had anything to do with Joel Baldy being stabbed I'd be sitting here chewing the fat with you about it?'

‘Get over yourself, Mac, you nob,' Tracy said disparagingly.

He turned around, gathering all of his strength before lunging at Tracy, grabbing her by the throat. ‘You're out of your depth, Tracy. Markie gave you a job because we needed a bit of help. Then you have to go biting the hand that feeds you.'

‘When our Markie finds out about this he'll fuck you off and then where will you be?' she hissed.

‘Are you serious? Do you think any of your kids give a flying shit about you? How long would it take, Tracy, before anyone noticed you missing?'

Tracy looked at the lamp on the bedside table. It was just within her reach. Maybe Mac should have chosen a less salubrious hotel after all, one that glued its lamps down. Tracy leaned across and, before Mac realised what she was doing, grabbed the lamp, pulling it quickly in one sweeping motion
towards him, smashing it into his face, sending him reeling backwards. Tracy knew she had little time to stand around and watch Mac come back for more. She ran to the door, twisted the lock and ran out of the room. She could hear Mac following her but she didn't look back. Seeing the fire exit ahead she ran for it, not knowing if she was going to get out of this alive. But right now, she didn't have a choice but to keep running.

*

‘I was at the hotel the night that Joel Baldy died,' Len said, looking directly at the interviewing officer for his reaction.

‘Which hotel?'

‘Heartbreak Hotel. Which bloody hotel do you think? The Hilton, the one he was found dead in,' Len snapped.

‘Alright, Len, no need to lose your rag,' the accompanying officer, who had been sitting silently at his colleague's side until now, piped up.

‘I'm not . . . I was there about the time you lot say he was killed.'

‘Murdered,' the interviewing officer corrected.

‘Murdered . . . And my car was in Manchester at
the time that it was spotted and Shirley was just trying to help when she said she'd been with me all night but she hadn't. I wanted to find Joel and make him pay for what he'd done to my Charly, but I didn't kill him.'

‘We know you were there that night, though, Len.'

Len hung his head. If he kept denying it, hoping to call their bluff and see exactly how they knew what they said they knew, then it could backfire on him. Anyway, he was tired of pretending. He nodded slowly, not being able to raise his head to meet the copper's eye. ‘I know. I followed him back to her room. I hammered on the door but he didn't answer. He knew it was me, so I just left.'

‘Just left?'

‘I wasn't going to kick up a stink, was I? There were people asleep – it was a hotel. I'd had enough of being in the papers the weeks before he was done in; I didn't need the press camped on my doorstep for causing a ruck in some swanky hotel.' The irony wasn't lost on Len that the press were camped on his doorstep regardless of whether he did or didn't do anything wrong.

‘Mr Metcalfe, do you expect me to believe that
on the night that Joel Baldy was killed in cold blood, you were there, but after you had followed him to the room where he was awaiting a young model coming back to spend the rest of the evening with him, not only didn't he answer the door, but you just walked away?'

‘That is exactly what happened. I knew that I needed to calm down and I wasn't going to get anywhere banging on the door so I came home.'

‘Yet until tonight you never thought to tell us any of this? Thought that a shonky alibi from your ex-wife would see you through?'

‘It's not like that – you're painting me in a bad light.'

‘I don't need to paint you in a bad light, do I? You've done that yourself well enough in the past. Two years inside for GBH?'

‘You can't be seriously suggesting that an isolated incident decades ago is the mark of who I am now,' Len said, but really he was surprised that it had taken the police this long to bring it up. ‘I served my time. Never put a foot wrong after that.'

‘Maybe you did before it, though.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Len asked, glaring at the copper. The police officer brought out some notes that he had at his side. ‘I'm now
showing Mr Metcalfe notes taken in this police station on December 10th 1974. You were accused of rape, weren't you, Len?'

Len sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘No, I was not,' he said, horrified.

‘Sorry,' the copper said, sounding like he really wasn't, ‘actually the allegation was dropped. The alleged victim didn't want to go through with pressing charges.'

‘What alleged victim?'

‘I couldn't say. It's just that your name isn't as clean as you like to pretend it is.'

Len was racking his brains. Who would have said something like this about him? And why had he never known about it? ‘You lot'd have hauled me in for that. You're winding me up, aren't you?'

‘Why would we?' The police officer leant back and looked at his colleague as if to say,
We've got a right one here
.

Len could feel his blood beginning to boil. He wanted to grab this smarmy sod by the throat but he didn't think that would exactly help his case.

‘Who's this person, then, who made this claim all those years ago? Come on.'

‘Like I said, Len, I can't say. Anyway, getting back to the job in hand . . .'

‘Tracy Crompton,' Len said.

The officer folded the notes away. ‘Come on now, Len. After you tried the door and Joel refused to answer . . . what happened next?'

‘Tracy Crompton,' he said again, shaking his head. Is that what she'd thought of him all these years, that he was a rapist? He felt sick.

‘Len!' the copper barked. He'd obviously asked him a question that Len hadn't heard. Len looked up and tried to think what had happened after he had left the hotel room.

‘Nothing happened. I went home.'

‘Right. Let's go over this again, shall we?'

Len wasn't getting out of there any time soon – he could tell that much – but when he did there was one person he needed to get something straight with and that was Tracy.

*

Tracy ran down the concrete stairs of the fire escape, taking them three at a time. One thing she had on Mac was that she was as wiry as a whippet. She reached the fire door that was the only thing standing between her and freedom and kicked it. It didn't budge. She could hear Mac closing in on her.
She looked at the handle – above it was a bolt encased in glass, she smashed it with her bare hands, drew it back to open the door and ran out into the street. Tracy didn't have a clue where she was running to, just that she needed to get to where Mac couldn't harm her. She ran towards the main drag, knowing that the bars would be busy, but as she ran she panicked – maybe the bars were a bad idea. Mac would know the bouncers on every door and she hardly had the time to start explaining that she was Markie's mum and that Mac was a psychopath who wanted to silence her. As she headed down the main hill into the city centre, she could see the police station next to the town hall. She quickly changed her trajectory. Never would Tracy Crompton have thought that she would voluntarily run into a cop shop. But there was a first time for everything. The heels she was wearing were beginning to hurt but she didn't have time to bend down and take them off to run in her bare feet.

She charged across the road and made the mistake of turning round. She could see Mac, flagging slightly but still hot on her heels. ‘Come here now!' he shouted. Tracy didn't even waste any of her precious energy telling him where to go, she just kept running. She heard a sudden thud, then a skid and a crash and
looked round to see Mac in the middle of the road on his back and a Transit van with a concertinaed front end against a pedestrian island in the middle of the road. Mac was struggling to sit up. The driver of the van got out, rubbing the back of his neck, and shouted, ‘Where the fuck did you come from?'

Tracy didn't wait to hear Mac's answer; she could see him getting to his feet. She began running again. Away from the road where Mac was and around the back of the town hall, bringing her out onto the main road that ran through Bradington. She ran across the city square and saw a car come round the corner that she was sure she recognised. The driver didn't see her but the lights at the crossing changed and the car slowed to a standstill. Tracy couldn't believe her luck. It was Markie with some girl at his side. As Tracy ran towards the car and banged on the passenger window, she saw that the girl accompanying him was none other than Charly Metcalfe.

*

Charly looked up to see Tracy hammering on the car window. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

‘What the fuck?' Markie said, pulling the car over
to the kerb. ‘Where the bloody hell have you come from?'

‘Let me in,' Tracy demanded, wild-eyed.

Markie popped the central locking and Tracy scrambled into the back. ‘Drive!' she demanded like a woman possessed.

‘No. We're off there,' Markie said, pointing at the police station. ‘I'll take you home in a bit.'

‘I don't want to go home!' Tracy shouted. ‘Alright, don't drive. Just get me in there without Mac seeing me.'

‘Mac?'

‘Will you stop fucking around?' Tracy said, slapping the seat in exasperation. The lights had turned green. Markie put his foot down. ‘Not that way, that way!' Tracy said, pointing behind her.

‘Alright, Miss fucking Daisy, give me a minute.' Markie put the car into reverse and turned around to go the long way to the police station. Tracy leaned back in her seat. Charly peered around at the woman who'd never so much as given her the time of day. She looked exhausted.

‘You alright, Tracy?' Charly asked.

‘Do I fucking look alright?' Tracy panted.

‘Jesus Christ,' Charly mumbled, folding her arms and facing forward. She didn't need this.

‘What's she doing with you?' Tracy asked as she tried to catch her breath.

‘She's got a name,' Charly said.

‘I wasn't asking you.'

‘Well, she's telling you,' Markie said, indicating that Tracy would be better off buttoning it.

‘What is
Charly
doing here?' Tracy asked, drawing sarcastically on Charly's name.