IT WAS NEARLY a month since Joel Baldy’s death and the police were no nearer to finding the murderer. The CCTV footage showed nothing incriminating. There wasn’t a single person with a motive to kill Joel who had showed up on the hotel’s security tapes from that night. This wasn’t wholly unusual, according to the papers, who had been following this story with morbid fascination. If it had been a lower-end hotel there would have been CCTV all over the place, but due to the salubrious reputation of the place, the security cameras were at a minimum and were mostly trained on the reception area and the valet car park beneath the building. Likewise, the staff who had been working on the night in question didn’t have much to offer the police. There had been the obvious sightings of Joel Baldy falling through the door on his way to the glamour model’s room in which he was found murdered, but this sort of thing was fairly normal and the reception staff had just raised a knowing eyebrow when they saw someone famous follow someone else famous to their room. Whoever it was could have got to the room by simply asking another guest if they could let them through the carded security doors. One guest, a young woman visiting Manchester for the night, had come forward and said that such a thing had happened to her on the night in question, but she had been so inebriated that she couldn’t give any sort of description other than to say that it’d been a man. The computer log showed that the time she swiped her card coincided with around about the time Joel was attacked, but without a description the police were no nearer to knowing who had attacked Joel.
The press themselves had been holding their own kangaroo court and had decided that there were a number of people who had every reason to want Joel Baldy dead. Scott Crompton was high on their list. As Charly’s cuckolded ex-boyfriend he had every reason to be jealous of the young footballer, but neither they nor the police had anything that linked Scott to the murder. Len Metcalfe too was being routinely hounded at his place of work and his home. His private life was now a topic of debate across kitchen tables up and down the country. This loner of a man whose wife left him and his kids years ago and who, it seemed, had conveniently popped up at the time that Len needed an alibi. Len was keeping a dignified silence. Gone was the angry Len who only a short time ago had been in the press for hitting football stewards and abusing photographers. In his place was a calmer man, one who spoke politely to the waiting paparazzi, insisting on his innocence and pleading with them on an almost daily basis to leave his family alone and afford them some peace.
There had been a few mentions of Markie Crompton but as he wasn’t directly connected to Joel in any salacious way that the press could work out yet, speculation surrounding him had been short-lived. And then there was Charly. The press hadn’t come out and directly accused her of being linked to the murder; but the Great British Public had. Websites and forums were jammed full of speculation about her involvement in Joel’s death. There was a lot of sympathy for Charly, but there was an equal measure of cynicism; people who thought that she’d been in it for the money and was now just biding her time, playing the grieving widow until such a time when she could claim what money was due to her.
Tracy didn’t know what to think. And she didn’t particularly care. She’d thought at first that Len was going to be charged with the murder and she could sit back and gloat as he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But that wife of his was still floating around and sticking to her alibi. The one thing that concerned her – concerned probably wasn’t the right word, bugged was more accurate – was that Mac hadn’t called. She had left a number of messages for him and had received nothing in return. Tracy wasn’t soft enough to start thinking that something might have happened to him and that a search party needed sending out; she knew when someone was avoiding her. And spending a dirty afternoon with someone in a hotel only to disappear off the face of the planet, last seen heading for a Spanish island was, in Tracy’s opinion, a good example of someone who was avoiding her. Tracy was convinced that Markie was hiding things from her. She didn’t think that his business partner could vanish for a whole month and Markie not hit the roof and demand that someone find him. But he hadn’t. Tracy wasn’t quite so stupid as to think that she and Mac had had something beautiful together; not quite yet. But she had fancied him rotten and she didn’t like being ditched. She did the ditching in her relationships.
Tracy was in the Leversmith district of Bradington, wondering if Michelle Bennett of 43 Thorncroft Crescent was going to be true to her word and pay up this week. Tracy had had very few altercations in the first weeks of her new role as Collections Manager. A few women had refused to pay her, told her to come back or tried to get their husbands to deal with her, but Tracy had a very persuasive knack, it seemed. She had thought in the first week that it might be beginner’s luck but a few months into it she knew it wasn’t, it was something she was genuinely good at. Michelle answered the door. She had the money ready in her hand.
‘Thanks, love, same time next week?’ Tracy said.
‘Yes, course,’ Michelle said, smiling nervously.
Now that Tracy had established her rounds, people just expected her and paid up. And if she did encounter someone who was unwilling to play the game and cough up the money then she’d enjoy telling them that this wasn’t an option. There wasn’t a downside to this job, or so it seemed to Tracy.
Hearing her mobile phone ringing, Tracy pulled her handbag up to her ear before delving in to answer it. Private Number. Tracy didn’t usually answer numbers she didn’t recognise but since Mac had gone she’d changed her policy. ‘Hello.’
‘Trace, it’s me. Call me from a payphone.’ It was Mac.
You bastard, she thought. Ringing up like this, totally out of the blue. ‘On what number?’
‘The one in the car.’
‘What car?’ Tracy asked. But the line had gone dead. Tracy walked over to the car that Markie had lent her and opened the glove compartment. Nothing. She looked in the boot, under the mats, in the arm rest, even under the pedals, until she finally flipped down the sunshield on the passenger side and found a neatly folded piece of paper. She pulled it out and read it. Sure enough, there was a mobile phone number. Tracy looked around to see if anyone was watching her. She quickly drove to the nearest call box and jumped out. She was fully expecting it to be vandalised but it was working. She rummaged around in her pocket and found a pound. Mac was going to have to call her back. She was damned if she was standing there firing her hard-earned cash into a payphone to talk to someone on a mobile – those things ate money. Tracy pulled the receiver to her mouth. ‘Jesus!’ she shrieked. ‘Who pisses on a public phone?’ She spat on the receiver and wiped it with her sleeve. She punched in the number she had memorised and waited for it to ring.
‘Hello?’ Mac said.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Tracy demanded.
‘Been over in Palma.’
‘That much I know. Bit of an extended holiday though, isn’t it? A month!’
‘I thought the police might come looking for me.’
‘What for?’
‘What d’you think?’
‘Bloody hell. Joel Baldy. What the hell would they come looking for you for?’
‘He owed us money, didn’t he?’
‘Did he?’
‘There was a file in the office. They got a warrant to search the offices; your Markie said. Once I heard that I thought it best to lie low.’
‘Yeah, they did, but they didn’t find anything.’ Tracy didn’t want to say too much. She wanted Mac to tell her what he was driving at. ‘What’s in the file?’
‘They found nothing?’
‘Don’t think they knew what they were looking for. Anyway Mac, like I said, what’s in the file?’
‘When Baldy first came to Rovers we bankrolled some of his gambling. It’s fairly normal stuff. These lads come to the big city, green as grass; we know they’re going to make a mint once their contracts are signed and they need some cash to look the part in the meantime. A lot of the time they’re so young their parents hold the purse strings till they’re twenty-one. So while they could be out living the high life they’re holed up in their flat waiting for Domino’s to drop off the pizza their mum’s ordered. We supply bridging finance. Footballers usually pay up straight away; scared to death of any aggro. But Joel Baldy wasn’t a case in point. I’d been on his back for a while. He owed us twenty-five grand. I wouldn’t mind but twenty-five grand was change to a little shit like him.’
Tracy was listening intently, her mind whirring.
‘I don’t trust the coppers, they’ll be after me,’ Mac continued. ‘If they’ve had your Markie in, then they’ll have me in, I guarantee it.’
‘Why don’t you come home and stop being paranoid. Face the music.’
‘I am home.’
This was news to Tracy. ‘Well, if you’re home they’ll know because your passport will have come up, won’t it?’
‘No. I can’t explain now. But it won’t.’
Tracy wasn’t sure that Mac was the innocent man he was making himself out to be.
‘Trace, I need a favour.’
Here we go, Tracy thought, raising an eyebrow. She wasn’t a big fan of giving out favours; she was far better at receiving than giving.
‘Can I come to your house tonight, when Kent’s out? I’ll explain everything then.’
‘Get there for ten,’ Tracy said quickly. With Kent out and a desperate Mac who she hadn’t seen for a month, Tracy knew if nothing else she’d be in for a good time.
*
The knock at the door came at ten o’clock sharp. Tracy answered it. She wasn’t Mac’s number one fan at the moment but there was one thing he was good for and it was that one thing that was the reason she had agreed to see him; not because she wanted to help him. Tracy was wearing her dressing gown and nothing underneath it. This wasn’t her usual tea-stained dressing gown though; this was a new fake silk one that she’d bought from her special knicker shop in the market. The way she slinked to the door, she half reminded herself of Joan Collins in Dynasty. Mac was standing at the door looking wild-eyed; she opened it and he stepped in. At first it was as if all of Tracy’s efforts had gone to waste. But once the door was shut Mac moved towards her. He looked around nervously. ‘Don’t worry, the coast’s clear,’ Tracy assured him as he ran his fingers over her, desperate to touch her after a month apart.
Their lovemaking was hard and fast and as it came to a shuddering abrupt end for both of them, Tracy slumped back on the kitchen table trying to catch her breath.
‘Still a dirty get, I see,’ she said appreciatively.
‘Well, I’ve not spent the last month at finishing school, if that’s what you were wondering.’
Tracy smiled at him as she pulled her dressing gown from the floor and wrapped it around herself. But now that he had finished what she wanted him for, she was back to loathing him again.
‘What have you spent the last month doing?’ Tracy should have stopped there, but restraint wasn’t her strong point. ‘Other than moping round after your ex.’
Tracy put her hands up in a placatory manner. ‘What our Markie said, not me.’
‘Well, your Markie needs to keep it buttoned where that’s concerned. It’s none of his business.’
‘You could have called. I thought we were getting on.’
‘We were,’ Mac said shortly.
Tracy lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Right, let’s try again. Forget I said anything. What have you spent the last month doing?’
‘Seeing a few people,’ Mac said without meeting her eye.
‘What people?’ she asked. He wasn’t getting off that lightly. Mac’s gaze fell on Tracy.
‘I need a favour,’ Mac said, buttoning his fly and tucking his shirt back in.
‘You said on the phone.’
‘You said that the police hadn’t taken the file. Can you get me it?’
Tracy sized Mac up for a moment. ‘I suppose so. Why can’t you go in and get it?’
‘I need to stay out of the office. Once you’ve got that file I don’t mind going in but if I go in myself and get it I think they’ll have me for perverting the course of justice.’
‘But it’s alright for me to pervert the course of justice?’
Mac laughed. Tracy knew he was thinking that it was rich, her beginning to care now about staying on the right side of the law. His reaction only served to make her dislike him even more.
‘You can go in and pick a file up and walk out with it. Doesn’t mean you’re doing anything bad, does it?’
Tracy wasn’t altogether buying this, not that she was about to tell Mac. ‘I suppose. Alright, which file is it?’
Mac described what Tracy was looking for.
‘OK, I’ll get it first thing.’
‘Great,’ Mac said, checking his pocket for his phone and preparing to leave.
‘Where you going?’ Tracy asked.
‘Got stuff to do. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? Once you’ve got the file for me.’
‘What you going to do with it once you’ve got it?’
‘Shred it. What else?’
‘Why don’t I just save you the bother and shred it for you?’
Mac looked at Tracy momentarily. ‘No, Trace,’ he said, ‘I’d like to do it myself.’
‘Fair enough,’ Tracy replied affably. But as Mac turned to the door Tracy’s eyes narrowed; Mac had just done himself absolutely no favours. He might as well have come straight out with it and said that he didn’t trust her.
‘You need to tell our Markie what you’re up to. He’s got shit he needs to straighten out,’ Tracy said, as if she was conducting business as usual.
‘Yeah,’ Mac mumbled in agreement. He walked out of the door looking preoccupied; he didn’t even kiss Tracy goodbye. She watched him go, wondering what was going on in his head, what his next move would be, but knowing one thing: she would beat him to it.
*
It was midnight and Tracy had let herself into the office. She found the file that Mac needed and leafed through it. There was a record of exactly how much Joel Baldy had borrowed, how much he owed, and a list of cryptic notes about his lack of payment that weren’t too hard to decipher. The last notation said, ‘Next time he pays up or we go to level three.’ Tracy didn’t think a person had to be Einstein to work out that level three wasn’t a rap on the knuckles. She pulled the rest of the paperwork out of the file and leafed through it. There were a number of famous names among this little lot and Tracy flicked through them with interest.
Once she had made sure that there was nothing else in the office that might alert the police to any wrongdoings of Mac’s, she walked over to the door. Next to the door was the photocopier. Tracy fired it into life and stood back to inspect it. It would probably take her all night to work out how to make this thing do what it was meant to, but she didn’t care. She was going to make two copies of everything in this file and then she was going to post one to the police. Nobody took Tracy Crompton for a mug, especially not some half-arsed extortionist like Mac Jones.
*
There was a knock at the door. Tracy was sitting in front of the TV in her dressing gown watching a cookery programme, wondering exactly who it was who took the advice of these chefs and parboiled then roasted a load of spuds to make the perfect chip. The Wing on the estate did the perfect chip in her opinion; her definition being that it was a chip and she hadn’t had to cook it. She wasn’t getting up to answer the door. Let Kent get it, she thought. She’d had a hard day’s door-knocking herself; she wasn’t about to start answering them in her spare time. The knock came again, this time louder and harder. ‘Kent!’ Tracy shouted. There was no response so she climbed out of her chair. ‘If you want something doing, kill Kent and then do it your bleeding self,’ she mumbled. But before she had chance to get to the door, Kent had beaten her to it. She walked into the hall and two police officers were standing at the door.
‘We’d like to speak to Tracy Crompton.’
‘Why, what’s she done?’ Kent asked suspiciously.
The copper at the front, who seemed like the one who did all the talking, looked at Kent as if his days were numbered. ‘That’s something we’ll be discussing with her, isn’t it?’
Tracy pulled her dressing gown tightly around her. Her mind was racing. She hadn’t done anything really illegal for a while. She’d helped Karina shift some hooky gear on eBay but there was no way they could link her to that. And it was years since she’d been allowed to have a catalogue account so it couldn’t be that either.
‘It’s alright, Kent, I’ll talk to them.’ This couldn’t be anything to do with Mac, could it? she thought, but quickly dismissed this as paranoia. Nothing in what she had sent anonymously to the police implicated her in any way, she was sure.
Kent stepped back, letting Tracy go to the door.
‘Could we come in, please?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Tracy said cockily.
‘Of course you would, and I’d prefer not to have to take you in for questioning, but sometimes these things happen, don’t they?’ the copper said, matching Tracy’s pluck. The younger police officer behind him smiled to himself.
‘You can come in if Laughing Boy there wipes the smirk off his face,’ Tracy snapped.
‘Now, Mrs Crompton. Let’s have less of the abuse towards a police officer.’
Tracy stood back and allowed the coppers into the house. She quickly looked outside to see if anyone on the street was watching – she’d be a laughing stock if people thought she had just rolled over and let the police in her house. But then, she had to remind herself, she’d never really cared much what her neighbours thought about her, even when it came to cooperating with the police.
Tracy sat down at the kitchen table. The police officers followed suit. ‘What d’you want?’ Tracy asked wearily.
‘Cup of tea’d be lovely, thanks, I’m spitting feathers.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Tracy said, not making any move to get out of her chair. ‘Like I said, what do you want?’
Kent was hovering around in the background.
‘No tea?’ The officer doing all of the talking turned to his subordinate. ‘That’s not very nice, is it?’
‘No, it’s not.’ The pipsqueak shook his head.
Tracy eyeballed the pair.
‘We came here to talk to you about a very delicate situation but it looks like we’re just going to have to come right out with it.’
Tracy was maintaining an icy composure but there was something about the way the copper was enjoying what he was saying that made her think she might have been better off putting the kettle on and breaking out the Garibaldis. The copper pulled a picture out of his jacket and threw it on the table. It was a CCTV image and it wasn’t the clearest she’d ever seen but there was no mistaking who was pictured. It was Tracy with Mac at the hotel in Blackpool. He had his arm around her and was kissing her. Tracy looked at it with horror.
‘This is one of the last sightings of Mac Jones. The landlady of the Shangri-La in Blackpool gave a statement saying that between 2.35pm and 4.49pm on the day in question you and Mr Jones were there together.’ Tracy wanted to jump up and cover Kent’s ears. ‘Seemed like you had a very nice time, too,’ the policeman added for good measure.
‘And how would you know that?’ Tracy asked, wondering how on earth she was going to get Kent to believe that this was all a huge misunderstanding.
‘We have a statement from the owner of the Shangri-La stating that when asked if everything was alright as she had heard some noises that she thought to be someone in pain, you and Mr Jones took the landlady’s innocent question as a slight and replied.’ He read the statement out in a slow monotonous drawl ‘–“That wasn’t pain, it was shagging, love. You might want to try it one day. Loosen yourself up a bit.”’ He folded the statement up and looked at Tracy. She wanted to thump him.
Kent walked out of the room. ‘Kent!’ Tracy shouted, jumping to her feet. Kent didn’t turn around; he marched straight ahead and out of the front door. He slammed it behind him with such ferocity that the boarded-up top part of the door that Tracy had been meaning to have fixed for over a year fell out onto the floor. She ran back to where the police officers were sitting. ‘Happy now?’ she demanded.
‘Well, Tracy, if you will go playing away with someone who’s now wanted for questioning, these things will bite you on the arse.’
‘Wise words,’ the pipsqueak agreed.
‘Alright, Confucius, I don’t need a bloody lecture. I don’t know where he is. He’s my bloody business partner, he’s my son’s business partner and he’s done one, leaving us in the shit.’
‘But you were conducting an affair?’
‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’
‘Everything. Answer the question, please.’
‘What went on with me and Mac is nobody’s business.’
‘We’ve got pictures saying it is.’
Tracy looked at him. She wasn’t going to win this argument. And there was something about the fact that it was being conducted with her in her dressing gown that made her feel she was at a distinct disadvantage.
‘You’ve just wrecked things between me and my other half so what else do you want from me? I don’t know where Mac is.’
‘Have you heard from him since that day?’
Tracy didn’t falter for a moment; one thing she had on her side was that she was a natural born liar. ‘Not a word.’
‘After this picture was taken, where did you go?’
‘I went off to see Kent win an Elvis competition.’ A knowing look passed between the two police officers. ‘And you can knock the funny looks on the head. This isn’t some moral crime you’re here for, is it? Where I get my kicks is nothing to do with the Bradington constabulary. After the Elvis competition me and Kent went back to our hotel and then got the coach home the next day. Call the Ponderosa if you don’t believe me,’ she said, referring to the hotel she and Kent had stayed at.
‘We do because we already have. Thanks, Tracy, but nice to know where to come when I’ve forgotten how to do my job.’
‘Anyway, what you after Mac for?’
‘It’s come to our attention that Joel Baldy owed your boyfriend quite a bit of money. You knew that though, didn’t you, Tracy? What with you working for him and Markie now.’
‘No, I didn’t. I deal with any women on the books who’ve fallen behind on their payments. Pretty-boy footballers aren’t my bag, officer. All extremely legitimate though, the business. But then again, you know that, don’t you, otherwise you’d no doubt be blagging my head about that an’ all.’ Tracy wanted this pair of halfwits out her house. She had to get hold of Kent. He was a soft arse, but he hadn’t deserved to find out that Tracy was having an affair in such a cruel and unexpected way.
‘No need to be defensive about the business, Tracy. I’m sure it’s all above board. But just so you know what to say to Mac Jones if he does get in touch. He needs to answer a lot of questions and he’s not helping himself by staying away. He’s making himself look like he’s very definitely got something to hide.’ The policeman got to his feet and his sidekick copied him. ‘Be sure to call us if you hear anything, won’t you?’
‘I’ll be straight on the blower,’ Tracy said sarcastically.
‘Good, because you’re the nearest thing he’s got to an alibi at the moment.’
‘Get lost. I’ve just told you, I was with Kent that night.’
‘Well, according to Mac’s passport he was in Majorca the same day, flew out that morning. But as these pictures prove, things aren’t always what they seem, are they?’ Tracy looked at him with steely conviction but underneath she was quaking. What had she let herself in for here? It looked as if Mac knew far more than he’d been telling her if he’d planned to make it look like he was out of the country on that day. Tracy didn’t have a clue what was going on.
As the officers left, Tracy pulled her mobile phone out of her dressing-gown pocket and called Kent. There was no answer. She ran upstairs and pulled on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a jumper and shoved her hair into a ponytail. Stepping out into the cold night air, she closed the door behind her. Seeing the board on the floor she picked it up and placed it back in the hole it had fallen from. She looked at it; it’d do. No one in their right mind would break into the Cromptons’ house anyway, Tracy thought, knowing that although everything else might be falling in around her, her hard credentials were still firmly intact.
*
Markie was sitting at the bar of the Glasshouse sipping a neat bourbon and wondering when Mac was going to make an appearance. He had had enough of all this bullshit. Mac needed to come back and face whatever music he needed to face like a man. Markie had been hauled in yet again and informed that not only did he have a personal gripe with Joel through his loyalty to Charly but he had a professional one too. The police knew about the loans that his business gave to new footballers and Markie had spent hours convincing the interviewing officer that he had nothing to do with that side of the business.
Markie didn’t think for a second that Mac was responsible for murdering Joel Baldy; Mac was a lot of things but an amateur he wasn’t and killing someone so high profile was amateurish. But he could do with showing his face and sorting out this mess himself so that they could all get on with their lives. Anyway, Markie wondered, what good was a dead Joel Baldy to Mac? He owed them money, something they were never going to see now that he wasn’t around to pay it. Markie had managed to make sure that Mac’s side of the business was covered in his absence. It wasn’t something that either of them talked about but since Markie had spent a few years inside, they had both ensured that their businesses – although better when they were both around – didn’t suffer if either one of them suddenly wasn’t there. Leanne’s boyfriend Tony had filled in as far as running the club doors was concerned. And Karina’s ex-boyfriend Gaz had stepped in to oversee Mac’s collections that weren’t being handled by Tracy. Swing, that idiot, who Markie still couldn’t bring himself to speak to, had stepped into the breach to up his collections when he had returned from a week’s holiday to find Mac AWOL.
The stool next to where Markie was sitting angrily scraped away from him. He looked across to see who was making such a point of sitting down: it was Kent. Markie was so unused to seeing his mother’s boyfriend in this setting that he didn’t say anything for a moment. Kent looked at him. ‘Markie,’ he said as if he was here for Men’s Business.
‘Kent. To what do I owe this pleasure?’ Markie was genuinely interested; he couldn’t imagine what had brought Kent down here.
‘Where’s Mac?’ Kent asked angrily, his eyes narrow.
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Haven’t seen him for weeks,’ Markie said truthfully.
‘He’s been having an affair with your mother, but I suppose you’d know all about that,’ Kent spat bitterly. Markie’s eyes widened. It had been on the cards but Markie hadn’t thought that anything was really going on. He shook his head.
‘I don’t think he is.’ Markie wanted to protect Kent, the poor sap. ‘He’s still not over his wife passing away. I think someone’s winding you up.’
‘Coppers just came round our house with some pictures of them in a hotel in Blackpool. All over each other they were. Day that Baldy kid was murdered. Same day I’m singing my heart out and your mother’s there, cheering me on, bold as brass. She came and watched me that night like nothing had happened.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’ Markie asked. He wanted to calm Kent down. He didn’t need him going over the edge in the club; he knew he could be volatile where Tracy was concerned. But Markie’s mind was reeling – his mum and Mac? They’d been friendly enough but he’d thought it was just two old people flirting. The thought of them actually being at it turned his stomach.
‘A large one of anything you’ve got.’
Markie waved the bartender over. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a familiar figure. It was his mother, marching towards him.
‘Nice of you to make the effort,’ Markie said, looking at her shoddy attire. She wouldn’t have been allowed through the door if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was his mother.
Tracy glared at him and pulled at Kent’s arm. ‘Kent, come home, I’ll explain.’
‘How did you know I’d be here?’
‘I knew you’d come and find our Markie. What’s that got to do with it? Come on, let’s get off and have a talk.’
Kent turned to Tracy. Markie wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. There was something utterly tragic about seeing a man so usually buoyed up by life being serious because he knew that he had been made a fool of yet again by his other half. ‘I know you, Tracy. And I know that if you hadn’t done anything you’d be screaming blue murder at the fact that anyone suggested you had. You’re as guilty as sin.’
‘No, I’m bloody not. I work with him.’ Tracy turned to Markie. ‘Don’t I? Tell him.’
Kent turned to Markie. ‘And does she book into hotels and canoodle with everyone she works with?’
Markie held his hands in the air. ‘This is a conversation you two need to have. Alone.’ He got off his stool and walked away, leaving his mum and Kent to it. He couldn’t spend a moment longer watching poor old Kent fall apart.
*
It was 4am, Kent’s bags were packed and Tracy had done more pleading in one evening than she’d ever done in her life and she was now officially over it. Kent had made himself clear; he was leaving and she most definitely wasn’t going to Memphis with him. She was gutted. Well, if that was the way he was playing it then fine, but she was going to tell him exactly what she thought of him.
‘You can stop clip-clopping round on your high horse now, I’ve heard enough,’ Tracy said wearily, dragging on a cigarette.
‘I’m going.’
‘So you keep saying. Well, if you’re going and you’re going to be such an arsehole about it, you might as well know that yes, I was shagging Mac Jones and yes, he was a better shag than you.’ She pointed at a neglected plant on the window sill and continued, ‘In fact that plant’s probably a better shag than you.’
Kent looked at her, hurt burning in his eyes. ‘You’re only out for yourself, aren’t you? Always have been, always will be.’
Tracy stared back at him. She felt totally numb, as if she’d shut down. She knew she was being cruel but didn’t care. She’d nothing to lose now; Kent was going and she was going to be on her own. She might as well stick the boot in. ‘Am I?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I’ve had enough of you and your me, me, me attitude. Elvis this, Elvis that . . .’
‘That’s rich. You do what pleases you, whenever it pleases you. Paul last year – you wanted him back ’til you found out he had no money.’ Kent was referring to Tracy briefly getting back with the father of her kids when she believed he’d come in to some money. As soon as she found out he hadn’t she shipped Paul out and Kent back in. ‘Mac this year. I’m nothing to you, am I? Just some voice you fancied on the radio a few years ago and thought you’d try your luck with.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ Tracy mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She sighed. She couldn’t be bothered with this any more. ‘If you’re going, get gone.’
‘I am going, aren’t I? You don’t deserve anyone who cares about you,’ Kent said, pulling his bags to the door. Tracy sat down and pulled out another cigarette, lighting it as Kent struggled to get his stuff into the car. He didn’t say goodbye. He simply shut the door behind him.
Tracy sat at the kitchen table drawing on the fresh cigarette. She would have liked to have cried; she quite enjoyed feeling sorry for herself. But she couldn’t even muster any self-pitying tears. She was just pissed off. Pissed off with herself for having been found out, pissed off with Kent for having left before she’d had a chance to jet to Memphis with him, but most of all she was pissed off with Mac. All of her feelings towards him had soured. She now just saw him for what he was; a weak man who couldn’t face the music and someone who had buggered off leaving everyone else to muddle through. Tracy didn’t like being taken for a mug and that was exactly what Mac had done. Here she was, manless and holidayless.
She’d met Mac with the file that he’d requested and he’d once again gone to ground. He hadn’t been interested in her at all; all he wanted was to get the contents of the file from her and be on his way. Tracy had noted all of this with malevolent interest. He didn’t have a hope in hell of staying hidden once this information came to light, she knew that for sure; the police would catch up with him sooner or later. Tracy hoped that he got just what he deserved. And she was going to do everything in her power to make sure he did.