Good Girl Gone Bad Read online

  Jez stood there, face like a slapped arse she’d bet, but she couldn’t see it clearly to know for sure. He filled the doorway, arms akimbo, fists clenched. The vibrant light from the living room to the right cast a slice of not-quite-white brilliance, creating an aura around his body, showing his shaved head dotted with the pinprick beginnings of new blond hair growth. His actual features were murky, though, his nose, mouth, and hipster beard draped in shadows that hid his spiteful expression—and there was no way it wouldn’t be spiteful.

  “Get in, you bloody slapper.”

  He stepped aside, and she almost—almost—turned away to seek safety with Kane, but she’d been conditioned, hadn’t she, to do as she was told. She hated herself for crossing the threshold, for allowing herself to be in a situation that was crap at best and wicked at worst, but cross it she did.

  His knee jabbing into her backside sent her skittering forward, her damn shoes squeezing her toes and abrading her heels. She didn’t cry out in shock—she’d expected as much from him—and instead headed for the living room, where she could hopefully take her shoes off before he got hold of her and—

  “Not in there,” he said.

  She toed her shoes off, dropped her bag beside them, then turned to face him. God, she detested the way she trembled, how she’d allowed one man—all right, one bloody scary, bully of a man—to send her back to childhood where she felt ten years old, insecure and frightened.

  “Up there.” He jerked his head towards the stairs.

  So it was going to be that sort of punishment, was it?

  Resigned to her fate, to being found out for her deception within the next few minutes, she trudged up the stairs. Why hadn’t he asked her where she’d been? Why hadn’t he slapped her so hard her head smacked against the wall like he usually did? She never visited Henry Cobbings after that sort of reprimand. He’d want to hurt Jez if he saw the evidence of a beating, and she couldn’t have that. It was bad enough she’d blurted out to him one time that Jez hit her.

  ‘Why do you stay with a bloke like that, Char? There’s a man out there for you who wouldn’t do that sort of thing, you know that, don’t you?’

  The soft carpet taunted her on her way up. If only she matched her home—well-cared for, something to be proud of, even though the expensive furnishings had been purchased with ill-gotten gains. Drug money, she reckoned, going by the battery-operated scales and the baggies she’d found under the sink the other month. Jez sniffed a lot lately, too, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he was ramming coke up his nose.

  At their bedroom door, she hesitated, dreading going in, because when she did, there was no going back. Not that she had a choice with Jez barrelling up the stairs now, his big, beefy body heavy, the landing floor creaking in protest.

  Shame he didn’t spray WD40 on that.

  “Not in that one, you silly cow, the back room.” He disappeared in there, sniffing loudly then sneezing.

  She sagged against the jamb with relief, although the darkness surrounding her seemed oppressive and threatening. She could go downstairs now, run out of the front door in her bare feet, the peppering of tarmac nuggets on the pavement digging into her soles. She’d find Kane, tell him she needed help, protection, anything, something. He’d offer her the chance at staying in a safe house like they did on TV, but who was she kidding? Jez had told her once that if she thought she’d get help from the police, she had another think coming. They didn’t dish safe houses out to just anyone, he’d said. No, she’d have to hide herself somewhere, and one day, he’d come knocking, just you wait and see.

  She shuddered, steeling herself to join him in the back bedroom. He had a gym of sorts in there, and she hoped he didn’t tie her to the sit-up bench like he had before and kick the living daylights out of her.

  “What are you hanging about for?” he groused. The strike of a match meant he was sparking up a fag. “Shit or get off the damn pot. You’re missing the good bit.”

  She frowned, yet again asking herself why he wasn’t questioning her about leaving the house. Mind you, he’d done this before, lulled her into a false sense of security, letting her think everything was hunky-bloody-dory, when it wasn’t.

  It really wasn’t.

  She didn’t answer him—past experience had taught her not to, and what with her alcohol breath… She sidled into the room, squinting in the gloom. He stood at the window and had parted the curtains a foot or so, the peach glow of the streetlight in the road to the rear of their garden peeping through the branches of a huge chestnut tree. It did her nut in come autumn, that tree, shedding its leaves all over the grass, giving her more work to do. Jez didn’t like leaves on the grass. He’d bought that fake stuff, and it reminded her of a butcher’s shop window—like anyone would really lay meat out on the bloody grass—and she hated it. Always slipped arse over tit when it was wet.

  “Look,” Jez said.

  She moved to stand beside him, her lungs tight, and she needed a wee. Fear did that, didn’t it? Sent you to the loo more often than not.

  “They’re going to put a tent up in a minute, so get your fill,” he said.

  Charlotte peeked out to where Jez pointed. A bright light, halogen if she was any judge, lit up the garden a few doors down, one like they had at football stadiums. Wasn’t it odd to light it up like that before the tent was in place? They didn’t do anything of the sort on the programmes she’d watched. All the neighbours this side of the street would be gawping like she and Jez were, seeing things they shouldn’t see, taking pictures and uploading it to social media, the whole word able to see what she assumed was the last resting place of Mrs Smithson. It had to be the old lady, didn’t it? Otherwise, why were there loads of coppers milling about down there?

  She properly took in the scene. The remnants of a bonfire sat wet and soggy in the centre of the old woman’s lawn—if the scrubby grass mixed with mud patches could be described as such.

  “You can just make out the shape of the old baggage on top if you look hard enough,” Jez said, grinning, his teeth slightly amber from the streetlight.

  I want to bash those teeth in.

  And what he’d said wasn’t fair. Mrs Smithson wasn’t an old baggage, she was kind and helpful, always there with a cup of sugar if you needed it, although her keep having bonfires had become a bit of a pest recently, especially when Charlotte had hung the washing out on the line.

  Jez didn’t like smoky-smelling laundry.

  Mrs Smithson usually set her fires during the day, though, which wasn’t on really, so why had she started one tonight?

  Charlotte imagined the woman had been burning secrets—letters from long ago, maybe written by a lover, or someone she’d confided in, and the author had mentioned the old lady’s misdemeanours, and she had to get rid of the evidence.

  Thinking stuff like that got her through most days.

  “That’ll sort the fires then. Won’t need to go round there anymore and give her what for,” Jez said, wheezing out a smoker’s laugh.

  It sent a shudder through her.

  Please, God, help me to get away from him.

  Still she didn’t respond. She couldn’t work out whether he was playing a game or genuinely wasn’t bothered she’d been out. That wouldn’t be true to form, though, so what was he planning next? She’d given up trying to read him, to gauge his behaviour. He changed his MO so often, she couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

  “Anyway,” he said. “Where’s the milk?”

  Milk?

  Her repeating that in her head reminded her of her time with Kane, where she’d mimicked his words. Why hadn’t she stayed in that hotel room, asked him to get her away? To another town, perhaps, where she could change her name by deed poll, hiding out in bliss, although she’d always be looking over her shoulder.

  “Are you having a thick-as-pig-shit moment, Char?”

  She swallowed. Nodded.

  “You went to the shop to get some milk and, like a good girl, you ta
rted yourself up to go—you know I don’t like people seeing you in your drab crap. Lounge pants, guaranteed to turn your bloke off. Why don’t you wear that launjeray stuff anymore?”

  “I…the lingerie doesn’t look nice anymore. It’s sixteen years old. Um, I…I didn’t get the milk because…” Go with it. If he’s testing you, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be walloped either way. “I heard people talking in the shop, about someone being killed in our road, and I rushed back in case—”

  “In case it was me? Dunno why you’d think that. I was out when you went, you dozy mare.” He stared out at the goings-on again, his nose twitching.

  “How did you know I went to the shop?” She spoke softly so her booze breath didn’t waft in his face.

  “Cobbings told me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he fancied you.”

  “He’s old, Jez, and just a friend.” What the hell is wrong with him?

  “Yeah, well, make sure it stays that way and all. Bet he’s a dirty pervert behind closed doors. You might want to watch yourself next time you go. He could feel you up with those wrinkly hands of his. Imagine that.”

  Jez had even managed to taint the one happy thing she had in her life—her visits to the older man, where she pretended she was someone else for the hour or so she sat beside him on his brown corduroy sofa with powder-pink velour cushions, tassels on each corner, the strands knotted from years of use.

  “Right, I’m off out. Only nipped back to get something. Forgot to take it earlier, didn’t I. Could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw the street lit up like Christmas with the police car lights. Bloody hate that colour blue.”

  Crap yourself, did you, thinking they’d come for you?

  I wish they bloody had.

  “Anyway,” he said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Oh, and next time, no milk or not, don’t go to the shops late again. There are nasty people about after nine o’clock.”

  There’s nasty people out in daylight. Like you.

  Nine o’clock, he’d said. So he’d come home around then, had he? It hadn’t been much later when she’d arrived, so the timeline fitted. Yes, she could have got to the shop and back in those twenty-odd minutes. She stopped herself from blowing out a long breath of relief. If he would just leave now, she could get into the bathroom to wash Kane off her and brush her teeth, then Jez wouldn’t be any the wiser.

  Unless he wanted sex. Then he’d know.

  Why didn’t I insist on a condom with Kane?

  “So,” Jez said, “I’ll get the milk from the late-night garage on my way back. Can’t be doing without it in my coffee of a morning.”

  He headed out, filling the doorway for a moment, and the sight suffocated her, her imagining he blocked not only that exit, but her exit out of this life.

  She didn’t ask where he was going, who he’d be meeting, and it slapped her then, the palm of realisation hard and spiteful, that she didn’t give a shit what he was up to. Why had it all gone so wrong? Why had he changed so quickly once she’d moved in? What had she done to turn him off her, turn him into the pig of a man he now was?

  She didn’t have any answers. If she did, maybe she’d have fixed this long ago.

  Waiting until the front door clicked shut, she went into their bedroom and, despite disliking herself for falling into old patterns, she peeked out through a gap in the slatted blinds to watch which direction he took.

  He crossed the street then stood beside a few other neighbours, arms folded over his chest. What, was he getting off on this or something?

  She shuddered at how she didn’t know him at all. How could he want to stand there like that? Didn’t he have some tart waiting for him in a pub? And what had he come back home for? He’d said he’d forgotten something. Whatever it was, it was easily slipped into a pocket, because he didn’t hold a bag or anything.

  Disgusted by him, she turned away, rushed downstairs to switch off the living room light, then walked into bathroom and set the shower to hot. Once under the spray, she removed the head from the holder and sluiced herself down below, hoping it would remove any evidence should Jez paw her once he got home. And she’d let him, would go through the motions, all the while tears spilling onto her pristine white pillowcase that smelt of yellow Lenor, her thinking of England, Spain, and every other country on the planet just to get herself through the ordeal.

  And she’d continue this way until she could be free.

  THREE

  She’d struggled, that Mrs Smithson. I should have known she would. All flailing arms and legs—even kicked me in the shin, she did. That pissed me off quite a bit. Who knew someone so old would have such strength?

  It’s cold out. I’m standing watching like all the others, but I really should be getting on. Thing is, I don’t want to. It’s great being here, out in the street, knowing those policemen are scurrying about in the old baggage’s garden over something I’ve done. Ants, so many ants, that’s what those PC Plods are.

  Debbie from along the way comes over, smiling at me with her brace-covered teeth, her fifteen-year-old body a joy to the eyes. If I were younger, or she were older, I’d pop her cherry whether she wanted me to or not. But I can’t be doing with being caught out like that—don’t fancy that being on my résumé, so to speak, so she’s safe. For now. Who knows what’ll happen once she hits sixteen, eh?

  “Hiya!” she says in that way she has, chirpy and bright.

  She reminds me of Charlotte all those years ago, when we first met.

  Time flickering by is such a bitch.

  “You can’t turn back the clock,” so my sister used to say, “you just have to march on.”

  My sister had rung the cancer bell, but six months later that bastard disease had come back. She hadn’t rung the bell again. If I hear them, like when I walk past the school during playtime and the teacher rings one, it brings on grief so heavy, so all-consuming, I’m fit for nothing. I told Charlotte all about it, back in the early days. She’d cried and suggested I buy a bell and ring it from time to time, to get used to it, to disassociate myself with what the sound represents.

  I tried. It didn’t work. Having the bell sitting on the mantelpiece is just about all I can cope with.

  How have sixteen years swept by so quickly, though? How has Charlotte gone from a vibrant eighteen-year-old to what she’s become? Shocking, it is, not to be bothered about yourself anymore. Still, there’s a reason for it, and I’ll get her to admit to it eventually.

  In the meantime, I’ll march on for my sister.

  “All right?” I ask Debbie. “How are you diddling?”

  She laughs, throwing her head back, and her curly auburn hair sways, the ends peeking out from either side of her in turn, a pendulum, tick, tock, tick, tock. “You are funny.” Her smile vanishes as quickly as it had arrived, her expression sober now, as though she’s just remembered why we’re out here. “Terrible, isn’t it? You know, about what’s happened to Mrs Smithson?”

  “Terrible, yes.” I could laugh, because it isn’t terrible. The old bat needed getting rid of. She was a nuisance with her bloody fires. “Sometimes life isn’t fair, is it?”

  Like how I can’t run my hands all over your skin.

  “No,” Debbie says then sticks her bottom lip out. “And she was so nice, too,” Debbie goes on, “although Mum and Dad were a bit narked about her bonfires. Someone over there said they reckoned her death was because of the bonfires. Isn’t that a bit wack?”

  Not by any means.

  “Yes,” I say. “Silly to think that.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She lifts a strand of hair to her mouth, drapes it across that gorgeous bottom lip, and sucks on it.

  Revolting habit. It’s put me off her, and maybe she needs reprimanding for that kind of behaviour. Women need to be put in their place, don’t they, and she could do with being taught the lessons sooner rather than later.

  “Shame,” she says. “I used to like going round to her house. She made me B
elgian buns with more than one cherry on top.”

  “Oh, you could come to see me, if you want.” Yes, the lessons, you could learn them then. “If your mum and dad wouldn’t mind, that is.”

  “Why would they?” She frowns, and it’s unbecoming, spoils her pretty face. “It’s not like they don’t know you, is it.”

  “Oh, I dunno. People say things, don’t they? Untrue things about other people. They could say I was a kiddie fiddler having a teenager in my house.”

  “I’m sure it’s all right to go round yours, but I won’t say anything if it makes you feel better. When can I come? Tomorrow, after school maybe?”

  I think of the daylight, and that would just mess everything up. “Oh no, I’m busy then. What about at eight o’clock? Will that do you?”

  “Great! I’ll get my homework done before that. Can you bake Belgian buns?”

  “No, but I can get some from the bakery for you. And some Coke.” I laugh.

  Coke…

  “Okay,” she says. “Well, I’m off then. Shouldn’t really be out here—got some maths I ought to be doing. See ya.”

  She saunters off, hair tick-tocking again, and the beast in my underwear perks up, but not at her body this time, or the thought of smoothing my palms over her skin.

  No, I’m thinking about the lessons.

  FOUR

  Kane stared at the remains of Mrs Smithson, the covering of the marquee thankfully shielding her from view now. Good job they’d got it up in time. It had pissed down straight after; could have wrecked the scene.

  This poor old dear—why the hell had she done this to herself? He hadn’t a clue so far. All the neighbours the uniforms had spoken to said she was a nice lady who’d do anything for anyone, so her death was strange. Why throw yourself on a fire? What was all that about?

  He sighed, blowing the air out through chicken’s arsehole lips. He felt for the woman, he really did, but her death couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time. He’d been with Charlotte Rothers for a reason—to get info on Jez so he could be put behind bars once and for all. The thing was, Jez, being a slimy bastard, had kept his true business away from his girlfriend. That’s what Kane had surmised anyway. Seemed she didn’t have a clue what her bloke got up to once the sun went down.