For the Love of Liverpool Read online

  ‘I’m going home,’ Trev insisted.

  Max shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’

  ‘I can’t go on me own.’

  ‘And I’m not risking a dud passport again. You can do as you like. I’ll get you to Paris and the train to Dieppe, then you catch the Newhaven ferry. Somebody will be driving to London, so hitch a ride. You make your choice and get on with it, Trev. I’m staying in France.’

  ‘And if I get caught?’

  ‘You keep your gob shut about me, or I’ll get your knees broke. But there’ll be no kidnap, because . . .’ Max opened his bag, ‘I went to Saint-Martin-aux-Fleurs – that’s what the village is called in French – and look what I found in their bin.’ He spread open a copy of The Times and handed it over. ‘You can get English newspapers, but you have to order them, and they come a day or two late. They found the rest of Gentleman Jim’s stash. It says so here.’

  ‘When did you go?’

  ‘Last night. I knew you’d no idea that we were near the place, so I spiked your drink and went on a mooch.’

  Although Trev wasn’t the best reader on the planet, he wasn’t as daft as he was treated. ‘It’s a scam,’ he declared. ‘They’re trying to winkle us out of the woodwork. I’ve not got me glasses – they must be in the car, and I’m not walking that far. What’s it say?’

  ‘It says they found four boxes at an undisclosed location, rumoured by nearby residents to be a graveyard. Looks like the reason Jim went for the kid was because she pinched some pearls from the stuff he took home. The woman who owned the pearls says the kid can have them after what her dad did to her. They had to take the top of her skull off. I reckon she’s been through enough without being snatched by us.’

  Trev sighed. ‘It’s a load of cobblers, all of it. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s been put there for a reason, just mark my words. And we had a plan.’

  ‘So we make a new one. Stop here, improve our French, work in a vineyard. It’s a fresh start.’

  ‘What about me mum?’

  ‘She’ll manage. She’s a tough old bird.’

  ‘And the wife and kids?’

  Max glanced skywards. ‘You can’t stand Yvonne, and the kids get you down. Stay and get yourself a nice piece of French skirt.’

  Trev stood up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Max asked.

  ‘Back to the tent. I need to think.’

  ‘Sure you can find your way?’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’ Trev stormed off in a thunderous mood with a headache to match. He didn’t want to live in France; it was full of French people. There were plenty of jokes about the French, and he even remembered one. For sale, one French machine gun. Never used, and dropped only once. White flag included.

  Max stayed where he was, bare arms and legs soaking up the warm sunshine. Even now, in the month of May, this was blissful weather. But something was bothering him, buzzing round like the damned mosquitoes that forced him and Trev to sleep under nets. Trev was angry, and it wouldn’t surprise Max if the fool attempted the kidnap himself. Shit.

  He stood up and looked round the area described by many as the heart of France. The word beautiful was not enough. The way people lived here now, in the twenty-first century, could be traced back to medieval and earlier times. There had been fierce battles in the area, yet peace ruled now. To keep this, to hold on to his dream, Max would go to any lengths. First, he had to warn the kid’s grandparents. It would mean another midnight walk and a letter written with his left hand, but he would do it.

  If Trev got out of order . . . well, he would be dealt with. Who would miss Trev, anyway?

  Eight

  Amber Simpson had to get out of the stifling, ugly flat she had occupied for what felt like a lifetime. She would never again eat anything Chinese, because the stench from the restaurant was beginning to choke her. There was probably nothing wrong with whatever was served in the Golden Willow, but it had infiltrated its way into her nostrils for too long, and she was at the end of her tether. Sometimes, she wondered whether she stank of the stuff, or whether she only imagined that it had made its way into her clothing.

  The annual bonuses would be through soon enough; she knew Alex Price well enough to understand that he had no intention of denying his colleagues their share, and Chillex was exceeding all expectations. She had some money saved, and although interest rates were poor she had managed not to touch her deposit account. The car was off the list for now, because she was going for a flat of her own, a mortgage rather than a rented place. Alex might help; she knew he’d made sure that the old dears who managed Charm had got somewhere decent to live when they’d moved here from Warrington.

  In her hands, she held details of a two-bedroom apartment on Mossley Hill Drive. It overlooked Sefton Park, had high ceilings and some of the original stained glass windows. It was pristine, newly refitted and a definite contrast to her current scruffy abode. Two large bedrooms, massive living area, decent kitchen, new bathroom – oh, it called out to her. At under £200,000, it was a snip. She had a deposit, would ask for advice from Alex, and mortgage rates were currently favourable.

  Closing her eyes, she pictured the scene from earlier that day when she had followed an agent through the flat. If the man hadn’t suffered from verbal diarrhoea she could have been in her element, but she hadn’t been able to tune out his monotone as he’d indicated original ceiling roses, architraves, deep skirting boards and sash windows. She’d heard, though she hadn’t listened. Men who were not Alex Price held no interest for her anyway, and she preferred the company of women for the most part. Well, most women. She didn’t like Katherine Price, and Martina from Checkmate was a bit of a bore, too. Marty had no chance where Alex was concerned . . .

  Did anyone have a chance with him? After all, he was married, and he was decent. His wife wasn’t decent. She’d inveigled her husband into giving her a directorship, a post that had never been advertised, although the Price company always advertised internally as well as through the media.

  Amber looked at her furniture. The bed was all right, and the main bedroom at the Mossley Hill Drive flat had furniture built in – wardrobes, dressing table and drawers. The second bedroom would be her office and keep fit room, but that vast living area required furniture. She needed couches, armchairs, bookcases, pictures for the walls, a statement clock, rugs for the oak floor, a TV, dining furniture. Charity shops. The hospice place took in loads of furniture, and she could clean it, perk it up with cushions and throws. Her eyes lit upon the coffee table. Right. Fine sandpaper, a dab of paint, rough it up so that it would look deliberately distressed. Oh, yes. It was all doable.

  Then she would throw a housewarming party, show everyone that fabulous Victorian fireplace. Mr and Mrs Price were going to have pride of place at the top of the list. She would need a designer dress, so the charity shops of Liverpool North and South would require visits. In fur-coats-and-no-knickers territories, otherwise known as debtors’ retreats, she would find something startling yet smart. Let him see what he was missing by fastening himself to a Londoner with a plum in her gob and a tendency to look down on other women at the table. Director of Design? Mrs Price couldn’t direct traffic.

  ‘I can still save,’ she told herself. ‘Eat at work, shower at work, and I won’t need to heat the apartment except in the evenings and on my days off in the dark weeks of winter.’

  She put her plans onto the laptop. First, see Alex to get advice about mortgages. Get the mortgage after making an offer a bit lower than the asking price. If that worked, the furniture problem would be solved in part. If necessary, pay the full price for the flat and buy second-hand items. There was a site on the internet, a place where one could buy curtains that had hung in stately homes: velvets, silks and the like. It might well be beyond her means, but trying never did harm.

  Amber was a girl with a plan. She’d had a plan many years ago, and it had led to anorexia, bulimia and time in an institution where she had applied herself to t
he business of staying alive. She knew the absolute value of every food type. A certain amount of the right sort of fat helped maintain the skin; protein was vital, as were carbohydrates as long as they weren’t always refined sugars; Tuesday was a small cake day, while Saturday was celebrated with a Milky Way. Amber ate fruit and vegetables every day, and her body was honed to perfection. Girls with plans had a better chance of success . . .

  She smiled. If anything unfortunate were to befall Mrs Price, Amber Simpson would be there to comfort the widower.

  Pete took some leave from the plastering job and turned down most offers of evening work in clubs. He drove Britney and Chelsea to school before spending the day with Troy, taking him to parks, teaching him the rudiments of swimming in the shallow pool at the baths, fastening him in the car seat while they went to pick up his sisters in the afternoon, reading to him at bedtime. He left Monica to her scrubbing and bleaching, since those activities kept her quiet.

  Troy. Why had he allowed his idiot wife to choose their names? There was a big-mouthed woman on TV who stated that you could judge others’ level of education by the names they gave to their children. Mind, looking at the names with which she’d saddled her own three, Big Mouth should really swill her own back yard before jumping on the mess of others. He grinned. The nasty bag made money out of hating people. Monica was a dedicated hater, too, only she didn’t get paid for it.

  But why had he let that crazy woman get away with Kylie, Britney, Chelsea and Troy? They each had a decent middle name – Anne, Jane, Marie and Peter – but he had been allowed no say in their first names. ‘I’ve been weak,’ he said as he walked into Alex’s house one early evening.

  Alex and Kate shared a frown. ‘Weak? How?’ Alex asked.

  Kate tutted. ‘I’d have sacked Monica years ago,’ she said. ‘Give her the P45, Pete.’

  ‘I let her choose the kids’ names. I turned away when she started making the house into a showpiece – the area doesn’t merit spending so much on a semi. I’ve given in to her just for a peaceful life, an easy way out. And with working all day and some evenings, I escaped quite often. Now, I see to the kids during the day, then I come here and make my Kylie-Anne’s evening meal, then go back and sleep on the sofa and try to stay unconscious by blocking out the voice that’s screamed at me down the years. She’s bringing a counter-suit because I dress for performances. I don’t know why she’s bothering, because as my lawyer says, “If one partner says he or she can’t hear music, then the dance is over.”’ He scratched his head. ‘Sorry. I’ll go up and see my eldest. She’s taken a sudden fancy for eggs.’

  Upstairs in the loft apartment, Pete found his daughter in a pensive mood. She was staring at herself in an over-mantel mirror when he arrived. ‘What’s up, doc?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll get fat and ugly,’ she replied softly.

  ‘You’ll swell up a bit, but you’ll never be ugly, love.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Dad.’

  He stood behind her, his large hands cupping her shoulders. ‘Whatever you decide, I’ll back you up.’

  ‘Even abortion?’

  ‘Yes. See? I didn’t even hesitate. You’re fourteen, a whole adult lifetime in front of you. A child will slow you down and force you to take a longer road to wherever you want to be. So you can get rid of the problem, keep the baby, or give birth and hand her or him over to some poor couple who can’t have kids. You could do a lot of good that way.’

  She placed a hand on her belly. ‘It’s growing. Every day, it splits into more cells. Forty weeks they take.’

  ‘Yes, they grow quickly. Wait till they need shoes; then you’ll know exactly how fast they grow. The size changes before the leather’s worn out. But never mind about all that now, love, because we’ve a few weeks before you need to make your decision.’

  She pushed out a heavy sigh. ‘I’m happier here, Dad. Can we have omelettes? There’s a bit of that nice ham left.’

  ‘Of course we can. I bought salad this afternoon.’

  After the meal, Kylie washed up while Pete watched the news. As darkness descended from the heavens, they were both nodding towards slumber when his mobile rang. Fishing it out of a pocket, he yawned before answering. Almost immediately, he was on his feet and yelling, ‘You’ve done what?’

  He listened for a while, shouting ‘Hello?’ loudly when the caller ended the conversation. Frustrated, he pressed a button to reconnect, but the phone he tried to reach had gone dead. ‘Oh, Kylie-Anne,’ he said, his voice almost cracking with emotion.

  She jumped up from the chair in which she’d been dozing. ‘What, Dad?’

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Who’s gone?’

  ‘Your mother. She’s getting on a plane with Britney and Chelsea, but she’s left Troy at home. That little lad’s on his own, two years old and his mum buggers off and abandons him. Go down and find Alex, tell him what’s going on. I’ll get our little lad.’ He grabbed his keys and fled, almost tumbling down the stairs in his haste. Red hot anger raged until the pit of his stomach felt as if it had been burnt by a white-hot poker. Bloody, bloody Monica.

  In the car, with his body drowning in adrenalin, he had some difficulty with steering and with control of the clutch pedal. ‘Don’t crash,’ he ordered himself. God, he was livid. That bitch was taking Britney-Jane and Chelsea-Marie to . . . who knew where? She’d left the baby because she couldn’t manage him – Troy-Peter was only a boy, and didn’t matter. Last and least important was the fact that she had emptied their joint account. ‘Good job I stashed some, then.’

  As he turned right off Queens Drive towards Bootle, his mind wandered about of its own accord to when he’d first met Monica. She’d been funny, sharp, quick-witted and good company. She’d sung a lot, laughed a lot, made love a lot. She’d given up singing for painting walls, dropped laughing for buying furniture, and when it came to the other business, there’d been nothing since Troy.

  Living without physical contact with her had presented no problem. A careful man, he had a mistress who was the very soul of discretion, and he must talk to her later; she had to know that he would be occupied for the immediate future, at least.

  Pulling onto the driveway of his house, he got out of the car and listened keenly; the baby wasn’t crying. He had to do this right. Police? What did a man do in a situation like this? Then he remembered Molly Partington, a social worker who lived at number 62. She would know, wouldn’t she?

  She did. Molly rang her boss’s private number before informing the police that a child well below the age of twelve years had been abandoned by his mother. ‘His dad’s going into the house now, and I shall go with him. The mother’s gone abroad with two of her three daughters.’ She paused. ‘I’m a neighbour and a social worker, yes.’

  A man interrupted her. ‘Kylie is staying with me and my wife.’

  The social worker turned and recognized Alex immediately. ‘Mr Price – the one who owns clubs in town – is looking after the oldest girl. What? No, it’s not an emergency, because Mrs Hargreaves left only about two hours ago, and there’s no sound of distress. Yes, I’ll stay on the phone while we go in.’

  ‘John Lennon, then,’ Alex said to Pete, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘I’ve tried calling her back, but there’s nothing. She must have changed the card in the phone. You followed me,’ he said, his tone betraying relief. He scratched his head before thanking his temporary landlord. Some people were so good.

  They crept into the house like three burglars looking for loot.

  Pete entered the fourth and smallest bedroom alone. Little Troy lay curled in the foetal position, one arm thrown over a stuffed toy, dummy held in his hand. Soft breathing said the child was in a deep sleep.

  ‘He’s OK,’ the relieved father whispered to Alex and Molly.

  The neighbour relayed the message via her phone to the police. When she had finished, she informed Pete that a police car was on its way. ‘No blues and twos,’ she inf
ormed the two men, ‘but they have to come out when there’s a child involved.’

  Alex was the first to notice that Pete was weeping. ‘He’s fine, Pete.’

  ‘I’ve got to take responsibility for some of this, you see. If I’d cared enough for my kids, I should have locked her in the garden shed. This is about Kylie. Monica can’t face the idea of our daughter arriving home with a baby. She’s as shallow as they come, self, self, self.’

  Alex placed a hand on the man’s arm. ‘I know all about selfishness.’

  ‘She won’t come back,’ Pete wept. ‘And the girls will miss their friends, they won’t get an education—’

  ‘I’ll get them home, I promise.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘No idea yet. Interpol, private detective, whatever it takes.’

  ‘We don’t know where they’ve gone.’

  Alex smiled. ‘That’s the easy part. The police will find out which plane they’re on and where it’s going to land. Go downstairs and look for travel brochures. An organized woman like Monica will have marked her destination. It will be an apartment, self-catering, outside some main resort.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s methodical. Britney and Chelsea will talk, so Monica will need to keep them away from the crowds for a while. Go on. Find brochures. Look in the kitchen as well as the sitting room.’

  Pete sniffed. ‘She’s methodical enough not to have left any evidence for us to find.’

  ‘Go. You’ll feel better if you’re doing something.’

  When Pete had left the landing area, Alex asked Molly to stay near the child. He then descended the stairs and waited at the open front door for the police. They knew him well. Not only had he closed his clubs to give them a free hand after drugs had been found, but each year at Christmas he donated to police widows and their dependants.