THE CEMETERY WAS situated on a bleak hillside overlooking Manchester. Joel had been advised to make a will – all young footballers were, Charly had recently found out – and one of his requests had been that he be buried rather than cremated. She thought this an odd choice for Joel. She would have thought he’d have favoured a grand gesture – having his ashes scattered across the main stand at Manchester Rovers, or being given a Tibetan sky burial. For a footballer the whole thing was very understated. But this is where he had chosen. Apparently he had been walking here one day on his own and liked the quietness and solitude. Charly found it hard to believe that this was the same Joel who needed prising away from his PlayStation. But maybe the other side to Joel that she had always suspected was really there. She just wasn’t the person he was ever going to share it with.
Charly had been in two minds whether to go. The last few weeks since Mac Jones had been charged with Joel’s murder had seen Charly’s emotions put through the wringer. The full details of what had happened that night had yet to emerge, but Mac had followed Joel and in what could only be a premeditated attack, had stabbed him. He was claiming that it had all happened in the heat of the moment. That he was there to pick money up from Joel and that Joel had attacked him with a knife, but Mac had gone to great lengths to make sure that no one knew he had been in the room that night: plastic shoe covers, gloves. Hair covered, clothing that wouldn’t shed telltale fibres. His two mistakes had been bribing a policeman who was now himself being brought to trial and forcing the disgruntled Swing to do his dirty work for him. Swing had turned grass and gone to the police telling them everything. How Mac had got him to fly to Spain with a passport that was in Mac’s name but with a picture of Swing the afternoon before the murder took place. He then sent him back to Manchester with yet another false passport the following day to go to the lock-up where Mac had left all the evidence from the previous evening and then bury it on the moors. Mac thought that he could trust Swing, but it seemed that Swing thought that he was being taken for an all-round mug by both Markie and Mac and was willing to take what was coming to him, which wasn’t as bad as it could have been as his lawyers had cut a deal due to the evidence that he had provided. Charly couldn’t forgive him. Not that she knew him and he’d be losing any sleep over it, but he had known who had killed Joel and kept it to himself for weeks.
Throughout the past few weeks Scott Crompton had been a rock. As had Markie. They had both been present at the church service today; quietly watching on in the background to make sure she was OK. Charly had asked Markie that he not tell his other sisters and brother about his link to her and he had agreed, assuring both Charly and Tracy that he was going to respect their wishes and keep it quiet. Charly had been waiting for Tracy to finally confront her dad with her accusations. If there was truth to Tracy’s claims of rape then she couldn’t blame her. Charly, however, couldn’t help thinking that secretly Tracy would have made more of this years ago if her father had really attacked her. And that as Tracy had a history of dramatics and crying wolf, this whole episode smacked of the same.
Charly walked over to the grave. Holding her up to one side was her dad, to the other her mum. She was angry. Charly found that her feelings towards Swing and Mac were slightly more ambivalent than they were towards her deceased husband. Looking back over the time since Joel’s death until the police arrested Mac, Charly knew now that she had been in shock. She was only now emerging into the cold light of day, an angry young woman. Joel was dead and both her parents were tainted by this hideous turn of events. Len had been cleared, but his reputation had been tarnished and Shirley had been charged with providing a false alibi and was currently awaiting a decision from the police whether she would stand trial or not.
Joel’s dad was at the other side of the grave crying. Charly couldn’t even look at him. She knew they were crocodile tears and that he was secretly delighted that his son had left the bulk of his money to him. He was welcome to it. She had been doing a lot of thinking about her time with Joel and had come to realise that what she had put up with was abuse. Shirley had been gently trying to bring her around to this, suggesting to her that the way that Joel had treated her hadn’t been normal or acceptable. She’d found it hard to see at first. But now she could. Any dealings on this level with her mum were difficult however. Taking advice about how you should allow yourself to be treated from someone who deserted you as a child was hard to take. Charly knew that she might be upright and holding it together but she was fraught.
She looked into the hole in the ground where the coffin was being lowered. She was barely aware of the crowds that had gathered at the cemetery; there was nothing to stop people attending a public place like this and they’d turned out in force. She could see people holding up their camera phones and the thought briefly entered her head that she couldn’t quite believe that they wanted a photograph of a funeral. Who were they going to show it to? What sort of down-the-pub banter accompanied such a picture? But then she knew that anyone with a camera was a potential paparazzi. A picture of Charly crying at her murdered husband’s funeral could probably earn some hard-up kid a hundred quid. But she wasn’t going to cry. She could tell. There was nothing about this whole day which was going to make her shed another tear. She felt that she had cried enough and now just wanted to get this over and done with.
The vicar had finished his speech, none of which had meant anything to Charly. His talk of a talented young man snatched in the prime of his life was fair enough, but the whole devoted husband bit had been way too much. They’d only been married two minutes and Charly was most definitely coming round to the realisation that Joel had been nothing short of an unremitting shit.
Charly took the vicar’s cue and bent down, scooping a handful of earth and throwing it in on top of the coffin. Opposite her Joel’s dad did the same thing and then let out a sob and shouted, ‘My beautiful boy.’ If anyone caught Charly’s face on their camera phone at that precise moment they would have made themselves more than a hundred quid. It was a look of pure disgust. For what she had married, for his father’s crocodile tears, for being a victim of her own starry-eyedness and – she had to finally admit to herself – her greed.
Charly turned to walk away, her mum and dad still linking her arms. As she walked to the car where Terry was waiting for her, aware of the stares she was drawing from all around, she saw Tracy standing by a tree glaring at Len. Charly walked straight over to Tracy and grabbed her by the arm.
‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ Tracy asked indignantly.
‘Not today, Tracy. Of all days, not today.’
Tracy looked down at her arm as if to indicate that Charly should think about letting go right now. ‘I’m here to pay my respects.’
‘Well, that’s good of you. Your lot are over there.’ Tracy could see Markie and Scott heading over to them.
Tracy watched her sons approach and then turned her glare back to Len.
‘I want a word with you,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘But not here. Your lass is right. It’s no place for what I’ve got to say.’
Charly was shocked but tried not to show it. She never thought she’d see the day when Tracy Crompton was actually respectful of someone else’s wishes when they contravened her own.
*
Tracy marched toward the Metcalfe house. It was the day after the funeral and the country’s press seemed to have finally had their fill of Len’s daft head and had decamped to hound some other unsuspecting poor sod. The fact that Tracy hadn’t been allowed to say what she wanted to say the previous day rankled, but even she knew that kicking off at a funeral with a load of photographers waiting in the wings to dredge up her previous history with the papers wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had. She’d been ready for him yesterday, though. She hadn’t felt sick or guilty like she had in the past; she was genuinely ready to tackle Len about what had happened between them years ago.
She hoped that Shirley wasn’t there but if she was she was going to ask her politely to leave.
Tracy knocked on the door. Len answered it, the door pulling tight when the security chain reached its limit. ‘Oh,’ he said when he saw that it was Tracy.
‘Can I come in?’ Tracy asked flatly. She wasn’t about to start begging this idiot on top of everything else.
Len quickly undid the lock and stepped back into the house to let Tracy through the door. ‘No Shirley?’ she asked.
‘No. She’s at Charly’s.’
‘Well, just so you know, Kent’s waiting in the car for me, so I won’t be long.’ Tracy was lying. She had tried to contact Kent a number of times but he had refused to take her calls. She had even gone to the radio station to meet him from work but he had walked straight past her, refusing to even look at her. This had enraged Tracy but there was little she could do about it. She didn’t want Len thinking that she had come here on her own.
‘I wanted to talk to you, too.’
Tracy looked at him. What could Len possibly have to talk to her about? ‘Did you tell the police I’d . . .’ He seemed unable to say the words that he wanted to use. ‘. . . attacked you back in the seventies? There’s a note on my file.’
Tracy was amazed that that was still there. She thought that Bradington police force would have screwed that up and put it in the bin years ago. ‘Raped,’ Tracy said boldly. ‘I told them you raped me but I knew they’d make me out to be the town bike so I withdrew my statement.’ She was looking directly at Len, bravely staring him down. His face fell in horror.
‘I never did anything of the kind! I loved you.’
‘Ha!’ Tracy laughed bitterly. She couldn’t believe that he was denying it or, worse, that he obviously had no recollection of the events of that day. ‘You were pissed out of your mind and you couldn’t stand it that I’d got someone else – Paul – so you came round and wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
‘That’s not true,’ Len said, shaking his head as if this would somehow shake the truth of that day into his consciousness. ‘You went off with Paul, rubbing my face in it, and I just had to put up and shut up.’
‘Bollocks,’ Tracy said angrily. ‘Whatever you think now, or whatever rosy little picture you want to paint of yourself as jolly old Len, back in 1974 you were a mad bastard when you drank and I got the brunt of it that day.’
‘No, you didn’t. That never happened,’ Len said. He obviously couldn’t believe it.
‘It did. And I’ve got our Markie to prove it.’
‘Markie?’ Len said, his jaw dropping.
‘Come on, Len, even you’re not that much of a numbskull. What d’you think him and Charly are all cosied up for? They worked it out. And it doesn’t take Einstein once you look at our Markie side on and know the history between us.’
‘Markie?’
‘Yes, Markie,’ Tracy said irritably. She couldn’t believe she was having to spell it out.
‘Oh God!’ Len said, sliding into a kitchen chair and holding his head in his hands. ‘I don’t remember . . .’
‘It happened, Len. And then you got slung away for GBH, remember that?’
‘Course I remember that.’
‘Well, there you go. Why is it such a shock to you that you’re a nasty bastard?’
‘I’m not a nasty bastard, Tracy, I’m not. You knew me better than anyone. Tell me I’m not a nasty bastard.’
‘I can’t do that, can I, Len? What I’m telling you is that you are. Or at least you were.’
Oh God,’ Len said again, beginning to sob. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Tracy looked at him. He seemed small and pathetic and as if he couldn’t harm a fly. A strange feeling came over her. Tracy was a woman who could hold a grudge for years over absolutely nothing. But she didn’t want to hold this against Len any longer. It was done. He knew about Markie; what he did was up to him. And as fearful as she had been about Len in the past, she knew now that she needn’t have been, that he couldn’t hurt her now. He wasn’t the violent drinker he had been when she had known him, he was a fat little ball who ran the local club and liked to keep his nose clean and tell himself that he was a pillar of the community. She was done. She turned and walked out of the house. As she opened the door, Len said again, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘So you’ve said,’ Tracy said quietly. ‘And so you should be.’
*
Charly was sitting in a curry house in Tooting with her mum, looking out at the road with its furniture shops and assortment of cut-prize frozen food emporiums. ‘So this is it. Nothing much to it, is there?’ Shirley asked.
Charly shrugged. ‘I suppose not,’ she said, dipping her poppadom in the mango chutney and taking a bite. ‘I’ve made a decision.’ She looked at her mum.
‘Right . . .’ Shirley said slowly, waiting uncomfortably for this to have something to do with her.
‘I need to get off my backside and do something.’ She looked at her mum. ‘I’ve been waiting around scared to death of what’s going to happen next. Scared to death of when you might leave . . .’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Maybe not, but I can’t affect whether you stay or go, can I? I’ve just got to lighten up and start to get back on my feet. I’m sitting around worrying about you, about when something else bad about Joel is going to come out. But what else can come out? He’s dead and he’s not coming back and the simple fact is, he was horrible to live with. How long would I have gone on putting up with everything he threw at me? I could be the one that’s dead. And yet I’m bleating on about how much I loved him. What does that say about me? I’m pathetic.’ Charly sighed, angry with herself again.
‘You’re not pathetic. You need to give yourself a break. I’ve a feeling that if I’d met Joel he’d have got a pasting off me to beat the one he got from your dad, but that doesn’t mean to say that you could have done anything other than what you did at the time.’
‘I should have stayed with Scott.’
Shirley laughed. ‘Come on, love . . .’
Charly smiled as the waiter placed her chicken tikka in front of her. She and Scott were good friends but should never have been anything more. He was a gentle, lovely guy, but he wasn’t what she needed in a boyfriend. In fact, she knew that the last thing that she needed for a long time was any sort of boyfriend. She needed to be on her own and to get her life in order. ‘Maybe not,’ she said. ‘Tell you what I wouldn’t mind doing after this . . .’ Charly shredded some chicken and popped it into her mouth. ‘House hunting. Well, flat hunting.’
‘Here?’ Shirley asked, surprised.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I think I need a break from the north. I can go back to modelling, get Leanne to get me work, most of it’s done down here anyway. Might as well put my notorious name to some use.’
‘But what about your dad? What about Jimmy? What about your friends?’
Charly didn’t want to point out to herself let alone her mother that she didn’t really have any friends. ‘Well, Bradington’s only two hours on the train,’ she said.
Shirley pushed her hair self-consciously out of her face. Neither said anything but Charly knew exactly what her mum was thinking: she had spent ten years being only two hours away from her real life.
‘Well, I think that it’s a big decision, but no one could blame you if you did decide to move. I know this might sound like a stupid question, but how are you fixed for money?’
‘I’ve got some. Not as much as people probably think but, you know, enough to get by for a bit.’
Charly had decided that she wasn’t going to kick up a fuss about anything that was in Joel’s will. His dad was to receive the lion’s share of anything that he had saved and he was welcome to it. The effort that she had gone to to make herself financially secure before Joel’s death seemed shallow now. She might have a document saying that she was his wife and was entitled to half of everything but legally they hadn’t been married for long enough for her to make any claim stick and she didn’t want to. She had a car that was paid for, and Joel’s dad had said that he would make sure that she was taken care of. Until now this had meant making sure that the house was still paid for every month, and he had promised to transfer an as yet to be agreed sum to Charly. He had mentioned thirty thousand pounds; her lawyers weren’t happy. They felt there was far more money that she was due but to her that was the means to starting a new life somewhere else and worth far more than a million pounds only to be left sitting rocking in a mansion with no idea what to do next.
‘Where would you live in London?’
‘God knows. I don’t know anywhere, really. I’ve only ever been to parties and hotels in the West End as far as I remember. But I don’t think I’ll be able to afford anywhere within shouting distance of there, will I?’
Shirley laughed. ‘You could always move to Tooting.’
‘I wouldn’t mind being a bit nearer the action.’
‘If you want action Streatham High Street’s only up the road. It’s all going on there.’
Charly smiled. She wasn’t sure if moving to London would make a difference to how she was feeling but at least she would be doing something. And doing something on her own. Without the help of Joel, without the help of Scott, even without the help of Markie, who had stepped into the role of Lord Protector recently. And Charly knew that if she could make a life for herself without relying on anyone else, especially a man, then that in itself was progress.
*
Tracy was standing in the office with Tammy, who was still dining out on the notoriety of her colleague Mac Jones. Every time the phone rang she assumed it was the press and took great delight in refusing to make any comment or letting them speak to Markie. Tracy was glad that she had aligned herself with Tammy. The girl was great at her job and with Mac out of the picture she was being as helpful to Tracy as she was to Markie.
Tracy was tiring of her rounds but with Mac gone she was going to talk to Markie about getting someone else in and that someone else was going to be her daughter Karina. She hadn’t been having the best time of late. She spent most of her time with Gaz and was looking thinner by the day but Tracy knew that a few weeks with her mum and she’d sort her out. Karina was mouthy enough to be good at collections and skint enough to need a job. She was also, if rumours were to be believed, spending too much time with the curtains drawn watching bad daytime TV and keeping herself topped up with coke when Izzy wasn’t around. Tracy didn’t understand the point in getting hooked on things. She enjoyed getting wellied with the best of them but her central belief had always been that when it stops being a party and starts being just what you do to get out of bed in the morning, something’s got to give. The fact that Tracy had got out of bed on some mornings in the past and had a tumbler of vodka and a line of coke the thickness of a millipede wasn’t the same. She had made sure there were other people around and that the day turned into an all-day session – justifying to herself that she was just a partyer, not a drunk or a cokehead.
It was beginning to feel like a family business. ‘Who’d have thought it, Markie, eh?’ she said. Markie was looking out of the window distractedly onto the street below. ‘The Cromptons. It’s like Dallas, isn’t it.’
‘What the fuck?’ Markie said quietly.
‘What?’
‘The old bill.’
‘What about them?’
‘I don’t know “What about them”. They seem to be heading in this direction.’
A moment later the door opened. DI Hannigan walked into the office and came towards Markie. Tracy knew that this must have something to do with the Baldy case, or at least Mac, if Hannigan was doing the arresting. He was flanked by four other police officers.
‘How many coppers does it take to change a lightbulb?’
The look that Hannigan gave Markie suggested that he wasn’t in the mood for any of his smartarsed jokes. ‘Markie Crompton, we are arresting you for kidnapping and extortion. You have the right to remain silent but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used against you in a court of law.’
‘I’ve got something to say, alright,’ Markie said as one of Hannigan’s flunkies slapped the cuffs on him. ‘What the fuck are you on about?’
‘Your mate, Mac. He’s not going down quietly. Seems you and him had some little sideline, lending people money and then when they couldn’t pay up you sold their houses from under them and pocketed the cash. Well, when you were keeping them in a lock-up against their will and beating the living shit out of them for days on end, what did you think you were doing? Because where I come from, that’s kidnapping and extortion. And thanks to your mate not wanting to see out the rest of his life in the nick, he’s told us a few things about you.’
‘Fuck off, I don’t believe you.’
‘What you believe doesn’t really come into it, does it?’ He turned to the other officers. ‘Get him in the van, lads.’ Tracy and Tammy looked on, speechless.
Tracy finally found her voice. ‘You can’t take him away!’
‘Why not, Tracy? Not like he’s any stranger to the nick, is it, love?’ Hannigan said as Markie was bundled out of the door. Tracy could hear him talking to the coppers, telling them they’d better have their story straight. But Tracy knew Mac. He was a vindictive bastard and he might have kept things ticking over when Markie was inside, but there was no way he was going to rot himself and leave Markie a free man. Not when he could get his sentence reduced.
Tammy was staring at Tracy, waiting for her to suggest what to do next. Tracy looked back at Tammy. ‘What?’
‘What now?’
Tracy thought for a moment. Markie was her son and she loved him dearly, or so she told herself because that’s what mothers were supposed to think, but recently she’d have happily seen him strung up. All that stuff with Charly Metcalfe, ducking around behind her back and wanting to find out who his real daddy was like some sad case off Surprise Surprise. And even when everything came out she was sure that Markie believed Len’s version of events over hers. Pathetic. And then there was this all-the-lads-together thing with Mac. Markie knew that he was up to something when he was away but he protected him – well, more fool him. She looked directly at Tammy and smiled. ‘Looks like I’m in charge,’ she said.
*
Charly’s new flat was tiny compared to the luxury she had been used to. She was standing beside one of the many tea chests that Scott had brought in the van from Bradington for her. ‘Look at you, eh?’ Scott said. She could tell he was trying to sound upbeat, but his voice was tinged with sadness. ‘All grown up in London.’
Charly walked over to him and hugged him. He held onto her, both standing in silence for several minutes.
She had chosen a flat in an unassuming area near Islington. It wasn’t the best flat she’d ever seen in her life, but it was near central London and that’s where she wanted to be. There was private security and the car park was gated. Charly knew that wherever she went, if the press wanted a story on her then they’d follow her. Living in a gated mansion hadn’t stopped them so she chose to look on the bright side and think that it meant she could live where she wanted.
‘Will you tell Markie that I’ll come and see him the next time I’m up?’ Charly asked. Scott nodded. Yesterday she had tried to visit Markie; he had been remanded in custody after his arrest. Len had asked if he could accompany Charly and she had told him in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to do some bridge-building with his new-found son then he could do it on his own. But Markie hadn’t wanted to see Charly, let alone Len. She was worried about him. What the police had on him didn’t look good. Charly couldn’t believe that after everything Mac had sold Markie out.
‘Is there anything you need me to do before I go? Shopping or anything?’
‘No. I want to go out and about and find my bearings when you’re gone.’
‘You’ll call if you need anything, won’t you?’
‘Course I will, Scott.’ Charly smiled tenderly at her ex. He walked to the door and turned around to look at her.
‘You look after yourself.’
She smiled. ‘I will.’
Scott closed the door behind him, leaving Charly alone. She walked through to the small living room. When she had lived in the large house in Hale and the flat in town she had always felt as if she was just being allowed to play there, that they weren’t really hers. But standing here now, looking at this manageable flat, one that she could afford to furnish and pay for herself, for the first time since she’d left home at the age of seventeen she felt like somewhere was hers. She might have some ghosts that needed laying to rest but she was free to live her life how she wanted to live it. And although a strange feeling for Charly, it was a great feeling and one that she wasn’t going to throw away again lightly.