I woke up on Thursday morning with the worst hangover I’d had in years. My head thumped as I tried to lift it off the pillow, the room spinning as I tried to focus. I winced as I thought about the curry I’d demolished last night while scheming with Ray. He’d had two of the bloody things — a tikka masala, as well as a Prawn Balti.
Shit. Ray.
I tried to sit up, but my mind spun cartwheels. I shut my eyes, hoping that would help with the motion sickness. Jesus, what a wreck.
If I hadn’t been so hung over, I would have jumped straight out of the bed from the shock of it.
There he was, my childhood sweetheart, lying next to me snoring so gruffly I was surprised I hadn’t heard it as soon as I was conscious.
Oh God — how did I let this happen? I shut my eyes again and clasped my head with my hands, trying to squeeze out the banging headache. Within seconds the nitty-gritty details of the night before came trickling back, whether I wanted them to or not.
After Ray’s dangerous suggestion of trapping Monty, we’d ordered the Indian takeout to keep our energy up as we plotted and planned. It had been me that had suggested the wine to go with it. I needed the alcohol to help numb it all and to forget the fact that we were potentially planning to frame an innocent man.
“He ‘int innocent, Suze,” Ray had said. “They just ‘int got the evidence to nail the bastard. That don’t make him innocent.”
The alcohol had warmed us up, helping to ease some of the pain from the last week. We’d ending up talking about old times, the times we kissed behind the lockers at school and when we got ourselves kicked out of the library. Encouraged by the memories, Ray had gone out to get more booze. At the time I’d thought he’d just get another bottle of wine — I could have handled that — but he came back with a bottle of Smirnoff triple-distilled vodka and some Sailor Jerry. Before I knew it, we were doing shots for each memory we could recall.
Somewhere between the scheming and the drinking, the mood had turned. Was it me who had initiated the change? I let my mind wash back over the evening.
Ray had been finishing his fifth or sixth Sailor Jerry with Coke, and he’d looked at me in that way he always used to, as if I were the most interesting person in the room.
“You know,” he said, staring down at his hands, unable to make eye contact. “I have missed you, like. Over the years and that.” He gently reached out a hand to mine. “I ‘int ever met anyone else like you, you know.”
“What’s so special about me?” I said, despite myself.
“Well, frankly, you’re the biggest control freak I ever met,” he grinned as he squeezed my hand. “You were Miss Independent, even back then, and, frankly, a bit of a bitch sometimes. But you’ve also got a heart of pure gold, and you always have.”
It was a bit of a back-handed compliment, but before I knew it, I was leaning in towards him, and we were kissing. It had been years since we’d kissed, but we both fell straight back into our natural rhythm. He smelt different than he used to, more mature, somehow.
I cringed as the memory flooded my mind, hands frantically seeking the familiar places they hadn’t touched for years. I glanced at Ray’s body next to me and grimaced as the guilt swamped me. Teigan was still missing, my precious baby girl, and I’d spent the night getting pissed and having sex. God, if the papers got hold of that.
I jumped as I heard a sharp knock on the bedroom door. Ray shot awake at the sound of it, groaning as the shock of the hangover hit him.
“Shhh!” I elbowed him hard in the ribs.
“Suzanne?”
Steph. When had she come back last night? I hadn’t heard her.
“One sec,” I called back through the door. “Hide!” I hissed at Ray, shoving him out of the bed.
“Jesus, Suze, give me a second, like!”
The door flung open so hard it bashed against the wall.
“Steph!” I pulled the covers up, not to maintain my own privacy, but to shield Ray from her. Too late.
“For God’s sake, Suze. I knew he’s here — you guys made enough of a racket last night.”
My own mother had died before I hit the teenage years, but I imagined that this was what it must feel like to be caught by your mum. Horrific.
“Steph, can we have a little privacy?”
She stormed in. “No, I’m sorry Suze, I’ve been holding back all morning giving you ‘privacy,’ but enough is enough.” She tossed the iPad onto the bed. “Look at this.”
My eyes glanced to the time at the mention of “all morning,” with the emphasis on all. Then I saw what she meant — it was half eleven already. But then the more important information grabbed my attention.
“Devoted” mother grieves for missing daughter by inviting random man with several bottles of liquor to her house late at night.
Below the caption was a slightly blurry picture of Ray carrying the bottles of vodka and rum; he was standing just inside my front gate, so it could only have been taken by a neighbour just across the road. Sneaky bastards.
Only one week on from her daughter’s disappearance and she’s having parties with an unidentified gentleman. What next for this “heartbroken” mother?
“Pfft,” spat Ray as he peered over my shoulder. “Hardly no party. And what’s this ‘unidentified’ crap ‘bout? I’m her dad, like.”
I scrolled down, feeling increasingly sick as I read them all, only partially as a result of the alcohol.
Steph was standing over me, hands on her hips, in full disapproving parent mode. “I know you’re struggling, Suze, but think about what you’re doing. The press love to pin it on the parent. You can’t give them any reason to suspect you.”
My eyes welled with tears as the regret billowed out of me. Any sympathy I’d created from my statement at the press conference had surely gone down the drain, but that wasn’t the worst part. I imagined Teigan, cowering away in Monty’s hiding place, being tossed a newspaper depicting me and Ray having a jolly. I could see her, curled over the picture, silent tears running down her face as she read it, her heart breaking at the thought that neither of us cared.
I couldn’t bear it.
“Everyone get out,” I hissed, standing up from the bed and storming to my en-suite. I fished through the wicker basket, hoping there was some paracetamol or something in there to help my banging head.
“I told you to leave,” I yelled, knowing they were both still standing in my bedroom.
“Suze, calm down like, that’s just the press being dickheads–”
“Both of you. Get out!”
Half an hour later, once Ray had scrambled his clothes together and left with his tail between his legs as Steph frowned her disapproval, I sat back down on the bed and searched for her contact details on the iPad.
The one productive thing to come out of last night was our plan to expose Monty Shepherd for what he was — a monster in a suit. I knew there was only one person who could destroy him as quickly as we needed, one woman who could turn anything around and make even Mother Theresa look like a scoundrel.
I finally found her number and paused as I went to call her. I never would have thought I’d be going to Nancy Thompson for help — not in a million years — but desperate times, as they say.