For the Love of Liverpool Page 15

  A car drew up and two detectives alighted. ‘Mr Price,’ the driver said by way of greeting.

  Alex waded in straight away. ‘The oldest daughter is staying at my house. The father has taken time off his plastering work to help look after her and the others. Monica, Britney and Chelsea Hargreaves are on a plane, probably from John Lennon. I want you to find out the flight and its destination. Monica, the mother, abandoned a two-year-old boy in this house. He’s fine; a neighbour’s with him. Pete will look after them all. It’s a good job Pete had no booking tonight.’

  ‘I see. Powder Puff Pete? I’ve seen him; he’s brilliant.’

  Alec motored on. ‘The oldest teenager is pregnant and was ordered by Monica to have an abortion or piss off. Kylie chose the latter option. I want the police at the plane’s destination to arrest Monica and fly them all home.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Is that doable?’

  ‘Let me try.’ The detective returned to the car in order to talk to base while his companion entered the house to check on the abandoned boy.

  Pete, having failed to find travel magazines, returned to Troy’s bedroom and lifted his son, wrapping him in a blue blanket. ‘Hiya, kid,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see Kylie, eh?’

  The child yawned, offered his father a beaming smile and said, ‘Ky-we.’

  ‘Yes. Another ride in the car.’

  ‘Wide in ca-a-ar,’ announced Troy to the assembly on the landing.

  ‘Not much wrong with him,’ commented the CID officer, grinning at the little boy.

  Pete stopped. ‘There might have been. She knows I work in clubs some nights, and I don’t take my phone on stage. This little beggar could have been alone in his room right through till morning, and he has big back teeth coming through. I tell you now, I want my wife arrested and brought home to be charged with neglect of a baby.’ He paused. ‘And for removing my two daughters from this country without my permission.’ He walked downstairs.

  Outside, the second detective spoke to Alex. ‘The Deputy Chief Constable’s taken an interest. It’s Barcelona, and they touch down at about half past one in the morning our time. She’ll be detained, and there’ll be an interpreter.’

  ‘The girls will be looked after?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  Pete was fastening Troy in his seat when Alex arrived at the car. ‘The Deputy Chief Con’s called in a few favours. Hopefully, your missus and the girls won’t leave Barcelona airport. You’ll have Britney and Chelsea back tomorrow or soon after – with a bit of luck and a following wind.’ He paused as he processed an idea. ‘Leave Troy with Kylie. I know he’s not a newborn, but it might give her some idea of what she’s letting herself in for.’

  ‘Good thinking, Batman.’

  From his own vehicle, Alex phoned Kate, but he didn’t get the chance to speak. ‘Is the little boy all right?’ she cried.

  ‘He’s fine. Pete’s bringing him to Kylie now. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Good. Mrs Bee’s banging about in the kitchen. She says you’re re-creating Strawberry Field orphanage, and that Monica should get life in prison.’

  ‘That sounds pretty normal, then.’

  ‘Yes. She’s her usual fierce self.’

  ‘As are you, Kate.’ He paused, aware of the importance of what he was about to say. ‘Your strength’s what made me agree to be hypnotised. After what I’ve witnessed tonight, I feel ready.’

  ‘For what?’

  He swallowed. ‘The recording. The real wedding. Children.’

  ‘Then get back here, sexy. I’ll be putty in your hands.’

  He laughed. ‘That would be a first, my love.’

  *

  Church bells rang. So it must be . . . was it Dimanche? Wasn’t that French for Sunday? Even Trev had picked up an odd word here and there – and where was he? Ah, yes. The boulangerie opened for an hour or so even on Sundays, because people wanted their croissants fresh from the oven. Trev would buy the chocolate ones, his favourites. They sold butter and jam, too, and Max hoped that his daft companion would remember to hand in the short shopping list. Max had copied the items he wanted in French from a phrase book he’d bought in the camping shop.

  He turned over in his sleeping bag. He had plenty to think about. Trev wanted to go home, so Max would need to take him as far as Paris, stick him on a train and write down the word Newhaven so that somebody could point the fool in the direction of the right ferry in Dieppe. His stomach rumbled – where was the daft sod? ‘At this rate, I’ll die of starvation and he’ll have all four croissants to himself.’

  He found some soap and a towel that had dried while hanging from a tree. According to what he’d read, this had been a great forest, but locals had used huge amounts of timber while building houses hundreds of years ago. Pity. The trees were stunning. He walked to the river, jumped in, and waited for his breath to return. The water was very cold and so clean that he could see fish darting about to escape his sudden invasion of their domain.

  After washing his hair, he dipped his head in the river and for a split second he saw . . . He straightened, shaking his head not only to rid it of water, but also to wipe out what he’d seen – what he thought he’d seen. A body? Had he just washed himself in water that contained decaying human remains? Fish shit was one thing, but . . .

  Max Alton scrambled up the bank and dried himself while sitting on a tree stump. He peered over the river’s edge, but all he could see was a shape. It could be . . . a pale stone on the river bed? Part of a tree? A very large dead fish? No, they never got to that size, surely? There were no sharks in the Loire . . . Oh, God, he and Trev had to pitch their tent elsewhere in case . . . in case it was a human corpse.

  He had to warn Trev. But as the day went on, Trev failed to appear. Max went from irritated to concerned to outright panicked. There was nobody he could trust to share his worries with. The truth was nagging at him but he didn’t want to believe it. It was too sudden, too final.

  By nightfall, however, he had to accept that the river Loire was the temporary resting place of his mate Trev, now officially Thomas Saunders. Tomorrow, he must bury his colleague somewhere in these woods. Afterwards, he would destroy their camp as best he could and double back to another part of the valley. Empty of food and devoid of all thoughts except for the memory of poor Trev, he had a bad night.

  *

  He looks so tired.

  We lie feet to feet on his large, L-shaped sofa while he tells me about the evening’s events. I say that Monica sounds as if she ought to be housed in some place for the terminally bewildered, but Alex tells me it’s probably like my OCD, but a bit worse. His opinion – never humble, not where my lover is concerned – is that Monica has probably had post-partum depression since the delivery of Kylie, and too many pregnancies and births have tipped her into a kind of psychosis.

  I accuse him of pretending to be Tim, and he just laughs and says the painting and decorating kept Monica’s mind occupied, because subconsciously she didn’t like the young creatures who had made her ill.

  ‘Does she know she’s ill, Dr Price?’ I ask.

  ‘Probably not.’

  He falls asleep, so I get down on my hands and knees and crawl to him. He looks so young while sleeping, though the beard is erupting and giving him that dark and interesting appearance. Alex is gorgeous. Without the boardroom frown and the business suit, he’s sweet. I’d better not tell him that, because sweet would sound too feminine. But yes, he’s pretty.

  One luscious brown eye opens. He tells me he’s not asleep, then proves it by assaulting me. Kylie and Pete had better stay where they are, up in the gods with little Troy. This man, my man, is an excellent kisser. I must sneak up on Mr Alex Price more often . . .

  Pete’s phone rang at about two o’clock in the morning. It was Monica, and she was hysterical.

  ‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘And are the girls all right? What the hell were you thinking of, playing a trick like that?’ He knew she wasn’t list
ening. She was too busy being upset because she’d been rumbled.

  ‘Bloody Barcelona,’ she wept. ‘How could you do this to me?’

  ‘How could you take Britney and Chelsea out of the country without letting me know? How could you leave a teething child on his own in the house? I could have been working for all you knew.’

  ‘You’ve not worked for days—’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything. And if my phone had been playing up? If I’d lost it?’

  ‘I’d have found a way of getting in touch.’

  ‘How? Pigeon post, smoke signals, telegram? Listen, you. The girls need to go to school. You’ve no right to interrupt their education – you’d get fined for that alone. Haven’t we enough on with our Kylie taking time to make her mind up? Fortunately, I’ve phoned the head teacher and explained about Kylie’s condition. Yes, I told him the whole truth.’

  She inhaled deeply. ‘The shame of it,’ she managed.

  ‘And Molly, the social worker from number sixty-two, got her boss and the police on the job for our Troy. He’s with our Kylie, and I’m with both of them. Oh yes. Everybody will know how insane you are.’

  Silence reigned. Barcelona suffered a sudden and deathly hush. Pete could almost hear the gears in Monica’s head turning, engaging, changing up as she worried about the neighbours talking about her. ‘Pig,’ she managed eventually.

  He imitated a boar by snorting twice.

  ‘I want my stuff, but I’m not going back to that house.’

  ‘Fine by me. Now, get my girls home.’ He ended the call with a flourish.

  ‘Dad?’

  Pete turned to see his lovely Kylie-Anne standing in the doorway. She looked like a frightened little kid, and she had another child inside her, God bless them both. ‘What, love?’

  ‘Can I still stop here?’

  ‘Of course you can. Alex will find somewhere for your mum, and I’ll get help in the house. You take your time, queen.’

  ‘I can think better here. And I don’t mind having our Troy if you’ll bring his clothes and toys.’

  ‘I will.’

  She settled on the sofa, knees drawn up, her outline reminiscent of Troy’s just before he was lifted from his cot bed. Pete waited before easing his daughter’s legs into a more comfortable position. He brought a duvet, covered her, then returned to the business of making himself into a barrier to prevent Troy from falling out of bed.

  So, this was his life now; he had become a full-time parent.

  Did he mind? Oh, he would find a way to cope. For a few moments, he even felt sorry for Monica. When a dad abandoned his family, the mother was expected to manage just because of her gender; but when a woman left home, she was painted blacker than hell in the minds of all who knew her. She would need somewhere to live, some sort of counselling. Alex would know; Alex Price was everyone’s fall-back go-to man.

  *

  There was something different about France when it came to beginnings and endings. It wasn’t as noticeable as it had been on the southern costas in Spain, where dawn was sudden and day turned to night with scarcely a hint of dusk, as if God had been doing paperwork instead of attending to heavenly and earthly bodies and the alignment of stars with planets.

  Max remembered those far off lazy days in the sun with Mabel and the kids. The children had buried him in sand; now, he had to inter poor Trev, whose blood he had found on a rock. The lad had probably slipped, cracked his head and fallen unconscious into the river. Trev’s clothes and towel were behind a few shrubs and bushes, his shoes were hidden under them, a clean sock shoved under the tongue and laces of each piece of footwear. There was something almost unbearably sad in Trev’s careful little arrangements made while he prepared to clean himself before going up to the boulangerie.

  In a jacket pocket, Max found the shopping list – quatre croissants, beurre, confiture fraises – all from a phrase book. Oh, God. All Trev had wanted was to get back home, and he wouldn’t be going anywhere now, would he? To approach police would be folly, so Max was up before light warmed the earth, digging with what Trev had termed the shit-shifting shovel, lifting the clods of soft, fertile earth and laying them in a mound beside the grave. Now, he had to face the worst.

  He stripped to his boxers, entered the water and heaved at the literally dead weight of a man who had accompanied him through life for twenty years. ‘I all but brought you up, lad. I thought I’d see my own end long before yours. Come on, now. We have to get you out of this bloody water.’

  Laid out on the bank, Trev looked so thin and shrivelled. He wasn’t bloated by being in the river, and rigor had long passed, so the body was malleable. ‘I’m sorry, Trev, sorry for how I treated you, how I spoke to you just because you can’t bloody read.’ Max sniffed. ‘Couldn’t read,’ he amended.

  For a reason he failed to understand, Max dressed the remains. No way could he pile soil on the frail, blue-white corpse. This was his mate, almost a son or a younger brother, so he was owed some dignity in his final resting place. It wasn’t an easy job; the encasing of an oversized doll in trousers, shirt and pullover took some doing, but Max persevered. The flesh was so cold, as if it had been covered with ice at Billingsgate market.

  After lowering the body into its grave, the older man stood. He was breathless, so he waited for his pulse to slow and for his lungs to remember what their function was before he covered Trev in the soil of a country for which he’d held no affection. ‘If I do go home and come back, Trev, I’ll fetch some British soil from Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.’

  He couldn’t mark the grave with a cross, so he shifted two flattish stones to the site. Before leaving, he would take a photograph of the grave so that he would always have proof that Trev had lived. He stood staring at the ground that concealed the remains of one of London’s best drug runners.

  Sunday school. What was that song? Max was no singer, so he spoke the words. ‘The Lord’s my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures . . .’ Defeated and utterly miserable, he allowed the tears to flow. He managed a few more words in a low and broken whisper. ‘If there is a soul, fly free now. Fly home, Trev.’

  *

  I wake, and she’s standing there in a crisp blue blouse and some jeans so tight that she may have painted them on. She has that expression on her face, the half smile, raised left eyebrow, mischief in the eyes. Is she going to jump on the bed, drag me out, pull my hair? I grin at her and cover the more delicate parts of my anatomy with her pillow. Her pillow on my bed – our bed. When she sleeps with me, I don’t get haunted by a river of blood . . .

  She grins and asks if I’m afraid of her; I reply in the negative, and she throws herself across the bed, pinning me in my place. ‘I’m going with Pete to pick up Troy’s stuff,’ she tells me.

  When I ask why, I am ordered to mind my own business, and she isn’t going to get away with that. ‘Then I’ll come, too.’

  ‘No need. Aren’t you doing audits and accounts and stuff today?’

  ‘Later. This morning, I’m in a meeting with Amber Simpson.’

  Kate frowns. ‘One of your predators? She’s the one from Chillex. When she stares at you, that one looks as if she wants a knife and fork, gravy, Yorkshire pudding and a—’

  ‘No. She’s careful with her diet. I’d be too much protein, even for her. Anyway, I’ll postpone, because I’d rather be with you. Amber and Marty make my flesh crawl. Desperation doesn’t suit a woman. Of course, being a man of good character, I’ve never been tempted by either of them.’

  I gaze at her. The real hair is growing, and she blows a shiny dark ringlet away from her eyes. ‘You are all my tomorrows,’ I tell her, but in spite of my feeble attempt at romantic courtship the eyebrow stays raised. She’s up to something. Kate has several ‘tells’, and she seems blissfully unaware of the fact that her body betrays her intentions. ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘When you’re losing an argument, you cross your legs and swing a foot.’
/>   ‘I never lose an argument.’

  ‘Then stop lying across me, sit on the chair and we’ll argue about whether you ever lose an argument.’

  ‘No.’

  See? I told you she’s argumentative. ‘I need to get out of bed.’

  ‘OK.’ She jumps up. ‘I’ve held you back for long enough, and Pete will be in the car and ready to go.’

  She moves towards the door and I throw the pillow at her.

  ‘Bull’s eye,’ she calls. ‘I’ll get you later.’

  The wonderful thing is that I know she will get me later; after her time spent living in fear, she has burst out of the chrysalis and is now newborn and colourful.

  Leaving Troy with Kylie, Pete drove to Bootle with Kate in the passenger seat. He was grateful to her and Alex, and he said so.

  ‘Well, there’ll soon be another little girl running round at Strawberry Mead,’ she told him. ‘I shall bring my daughter back from France after the summer’s over.’

  ‘You’ve just the one?’

  ‘So far. Today, I’d like to look at Monica’s work.’

  ‘Help yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘If she’d minded her children half as well as she looked after the house, we might not have reached this shitty situation.’

  Kate knew a good man when she saw one, and Pete Hargreaves filled the bill perfectly. He was hardworking, morally sound, and he adored his children. ‘So you taught them all to read?’

  ‘I did. Got some books from the Picton so that I could learn how to teach – it’s not rocket science. The doorway to arithmetic isn’t numbers; it’s sorting colours and shapes. They learn a lot from dominoes and snap games, too. Once we reached numbers, they counted anything they could lay their hands or eyes on. I’ve got four clever kids whose mother spends her time up a ladder and her money on furniture, fixtures and wallpaper. The feature wall in the main bedroom cost four hundred quid a roll. She’s a dedicated spender.’