The Footballer's Wife (17 page)

Mac walked towards him. Swing almost laughed. Today he reminded him of the Man from Delmonte – all George Peppard hair and chinos. Mac shook his hand and sat down, ordering a beer from Mike.

‘Thought you'd be drinking G & Ts,' Swing said, taking a swipe at Mac's attire.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

‘I've had a hard week. I don't need any smartarsery from you.'

Swing didn't respond.

‘Right. There's another passport in there. I need you home on it this aft. I've got some sorting out I need you to do then you're back here as fast as your little legs can carry you. And make sure no one sees you, yeah?'

Swing nodded. That was all Swing ever seemed to do when Mac was around, nod. Nod like Mac's own personal nodding dog.

IT WAS MONDAY
morning and the press had gone into overdrive speculating on what had happened to Joel Baldy in his final minutes. Jodie was fraught. She couldn't believe she'd somehow been dragged into all of this. She'd had to switch her phone off and Leanne was fielding calls from as far afield as China and New York as the press tried to do what the police seemed to be unable to: find the person who had killed Joel Baldy. The police had issued a few statements saying that they were confident that they were getting close to the killer and that they had a number of leads, but Jodie knew first-hand that this was just flannel. They didn't have a clue. If they did they wouldn't keep contacting her and asking her to go over every minute detail of the night.

Jodie jumped out of her car and ran into Leanne's
office. A couple of photographers were waiting and snapped her as she went. She hadn't washed her hair as she was due at a photo shoot in Liverpool later that day. No doubt one of the papers would use the shot and pretend that this was her the morning after the night before in question.

Jodie fell into Leanne's office. Tony was sitting on the desk. ‘Morning. What you doing here?' she asked Tony. He didn't come to the office very often.

‘Security guard, aren't I?'

‘Have they been trying to get in?' Jodie asked, a feeling of dread crawling over her. She didn't want to be turned into the next national freak show by the press.

‘We've had every paper bidding on your story when all of this is over. Can you believe it? You can't speak to anyone yet as that's prejudicial, but after this is all sorted everyone wants to interview you,' Leanne said.

Jodie looked at her sister. Had she had a bang on the head? ‘Well, everyone can fuck off, can't they? You think I'm going to go blabbing my mouth to the papers?'

‘No, of course I don't. All I'm saying is that at the end of this the papers will make up what they want to anyway. We just need to manage how you come
out of it and maybe doing one exclusive to get your side across is the best thing to do.'

‘I thought you'd know better than anyone that doing an exclusive is madness. Then you just become someone who had a price and you know something, Leanne? I haven't got a price when it comes to seeing people stabbed through the chest. I'd rather just carry on getting my tits out for my hard-earned cash, thanks very much.'

‘Alright, Jode, I'm just giving you your options.'

‘My options are to put up and shut up, right?'

Jodie caught Leanne giving Tony a quick glance. ‘You know what I mean, don't you, Tone?'

Tony nodded. ‘She's right, Leanne, start flogging stories and it's a slippery slope. They'll be rummaging in her bins before she knows it.'

‘I know, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to tell you as your manager . . .' Leanne said, her sentence tailing off, indicating that her heart wasn't in this hard-arse manager front. Jodie smiled. Leanne was a big softy and did a great job representing her and the other girls, but sometimes she felt that she had to act how other managers acted and it didn't suit her.

‘The ball-breaker routine doesn't wash with me, sis,' Jodie said. Considering there was a good five years between the two girls and Jodie was the
younger, she had always been bossier and more confident than Leanne. ‘So, what's the plan now? Shut up, get on with my work and wait till the phone stops ringing off the hook?'

‘Pretty much. What time you in Liverpool?'

‘Two,' Jodie said, looking at her watch.

‘Tony'll take you.'

‘Get lost, I can find my way down the M62.'

‘Yes, and so can the paparazzi. Tony, tell her.'

Jodie pretended to huff sulkily but she quite liked the fact that she had her big sister looking out for her.

*

‘You seen Mac?' Tracy asked. It was Monday and she hadn't heard anything since his text saying that he'd be back ‘soon'.

‘He's away,' Markie said matter-of-factly as he leafed through his post.

‘That much I'd gathered. He's meant to be my mentor. Like they get on
X Factor
.'

Markie gave his mother an incredulous look. ‘What?'

‘You know, he's meant to be looking after me on the job.'

‘He's had this planned for months. Didn't he say?'

‘No, he didn't,' Tracy said, trying to sound as if she was enquiring after a colleague rather than ranting as to why she had been seemingly spurned by a lover. She had tried his phone a number of times but it had gone to answer machine. She was sure that she and Mac had a connection and she wasn't usually wrong about these things. She wasn't usually made a mug of, either, and she wasn't about to start now.

‘It's three years since his wife died. He always goes to Palma – they had an apartment there. It's where he scattered her ashes.'

Tracy's eyes narrowed. ‘He never said.'

‘Well, if you'd checked in with Tammy like you're meant to every week you'd know what our diaries are.'

Tracy looked around at Tammy, who was sitting on reception oblivious to the conversation. ‘That bin-head? I come straight to you when I need to know where you are.'

Markie rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus, Mum. What's the chip for? She's alright, Tammy, and she runs this place no bother, so it might be an idea to be nicer to her.'

‘Nice? I'm fucking lovely!' Tracy said without a hint of irony.

Markie laughed. ‘Course you are, Mum, sorry. Just forgot myself for a moment.'

Tracy eyeballed her son.
Sarky twat,
she thought, but decided not to air her opinion right now. ‘So Mac, when he pisses off to Palma, does he get in contact?'

‘I'm leaving him to it. I know what needs doing when he's away. And let's face it, he sorted me out for two years when I was inside, so it's not like I don't owe him one.'

‘Right, so muggins here'll just soldier on doing her own thing without Mac.'

‘Bloody hell, Mum, he's only in Majorca. He's not joined the Foreign Legion. He'll be back.'

‘Really?' Tracy said angrily, wondering if he'd been thinking of his wife's memory the other afternoon in Blackpool. Somehow she got the distinct feeling that he hadn't been.

‘So what d'you make of us all being back in the papers?' Tracy said, itching to talk about Joel Baldy.

‘Hardly “us”, is it? I've checked in with our Jode and I've got Tony round there making sure that she doesn't get too much shit from the photographers. It'll die down. These things always do.'

‘Bloody hell,' Tracy said, not quite believing that Markie didn't have more of an opinion on this story.

‘Look. The lad's dead. He was a nob, but I'm not sure he deserved it and I know our Jodie could do without being dragged in and out for questioning. OK?' Markie said, making it clear that he didn't want to discuss this further.

‘I think Len did it,' Tracy said contentiously.

Markie raised an eyebrow. ‘Len?'

‘Metcalfe.'

‘And what makes you think that?'

‘Because he's a fat little turd.' Tracy couldn't help herself. This was exactly what she thought of Len Metcalfe and she wasn't about to bite her tongue now.

Markie sighed. ‘Eloquent and reasoned as ever, Tracy.'

‘What d'you want me to say? “I think he's a lovely bloke”? You don't know the reputation he used to have around here.'

‘I've heard a few things.'

‘You have, have you? What like?'

‘The usual shit that people talk round here when they've nothing better to do.'

‘Well, anything you've heard about him is probably bob-on. Don't let him fool you with his
Mr Pillar of the Community routine. Once an arsehole always an arsehole.'

‘What've you got on today then?' Markie nodded at the stacked file of papers that Tracy had under her arm. He obviously wasn't interested in his mum's feelings about Len Metcalfe.

‘Some mouthy cows up our way. I'm quite looking forward to it. Had one the other day trying to offer me some sovereigns that she'd nicked from the warehouse where she works picking and packing.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I told her they weren't legal tender any more, that I'd be back this week and I didn't want her trying to pay me in gold coffee beans either.'

Markie smiled.

‘What you smiling at?' Tracy asked.

‘Nothing,' Markie said.

‘I'm good at this, aren't I?' Tracy said.

‘Don't fish for compliments, Mum. It's not becoming.'

*

Markie was walking along the Bradington canal; he needed some air. He had to hand it to his mother; she seemed to have found her vocation in life. She
was an asset to the business but some of her views were beginning to rankle. Until now he'd only ever had to see his mum when he chose fit. And a couple of times a year was enough to dilute Tracy's brand of honesty to something approaching palatable. Now, it was like having some deranged pundit in his face every day with her constant barrage of opinions. He'd had to draw the line when she had started on about Len Metcalfe. He didn't think for a second that he'd had anything to do with Joel's murder, but mud like that could stick and Markie felt that his mother needed to rein her opinions in.

Another thing he hadn't needed was his mother drilling down on him this morning with her sharp-as-a-tack eyes. Markie really did hope that Mac was in Palma but he couldn't be sure. He had received a voicemail from him the previous day saying that he'd had to go away; he had a lot of thinking to do. It was the anniversary of Mac's wife's death, that was for sure, but Markie couldn't one hundred per cent attest to the fact that this was why Mac was away. Markie had decided that he wasn't going to ask any questions for the time being. He had returned Mac's call, but it had gone straight to voicemail, giving no clue as to whether Mac was out of the country or not. He'd left a message saying, ‘Mac, it's Markie.
Hope everything's OK. If it's not, call me, won't you? Anyway, meantime if anyone asks I'm saying you're at the old place in Palma, yeah? See you, mate.' He could be an odd sentimental old bugger sometimes, Mac. Markie just hoped that that was all there was to it. And even if it wasn't he was going to have to deal with it. He couldn't very well pick the phone up and report him as a missing person.

The business itself was running fine; Markie couldn't complain. It was just a constant nagging stress but it would be the same whatever Markie was doing and he'd take stress over boredom any day of the week – two years in Strangeways had seen to that. For a time he'd felt that he and Mac were doing everything on their own, but now he felt as if there was a team back around him: Tony, Leanne's boyfriend, was now firmly back in his employ, and Swing, Markie's old best mate who had slept with his ex and been ostracised by Markie, had recently returned cap in hand. Markie had told him he didn't want to have anything to do with him but if Mac wanted to work with him then fine. Swing had kept an extremely low profile since. Markie knew he was doing some door duties for Mac and the occasional knocking of heads when required but other than that he wasn't interested in what Swing did as long
as he stayed out of his way. And then there was Tracy. His mother was so far doing a sterling job and seemed to be in the office bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at half eight every morning. Markie had never thought he'd see the day; Tracy had never been a reliable mother so he was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that she was turning out to be a reliable employee.

So until recently Markie had had a good feeling about everything, but today he had a sense of foreboding and he knew to trust his instincts; they had always served him well. The trouble was he could place where it was coming from, he just couldn't place quite what it was. It could be Mac, it could be his mum's increasing involvement in his affairs, or it could be any one of a number of things playing on his mind and vying for his attention. Markie decided that he needed more than a walk along the canal to clear his head, but time off was a luxury he couldn't afford at the moment. Especially not with Mac going AWOL.

*

Tracy's first port of call in Bolingbroke was near Canterbury Avenue, where the Metcalfes lived. It was
no coincidence that her rounds had brought her here. She had been following the media furore with interest since Joel's death the other night and was glad to see that speculation of her family's involvement was kept to a minimum even though everyone, including her, wanted to know exactly what Jodie had seen. The main focus had been on Len Metcalfe: everyone seemed to think that any father in his right mind would want Baldy dead if the speculation was true and he had been beating Charly.

Tracy was enjoying Len's fifteen minutes of infamy. If only there was a way for her to prove that he'd had something to do with the murder, but that was never going to happen. Her detective skills didn't stretch to much and she didn't think the local constabulary would welcome the intervention on this high-profile case from Tracy Crompton, the first person over forty to hold an ASBO in Bradington. She wouldn't have minded but she didn't think she even deserved the ASBO; it had been Kent's idea to have a party. People had got wind of it from far and wide and when Tracy found some woman rummaging through her jewellery box at three in the morning, she didn't think she could be totally held responsible for dragging her into the street and taking to her with a bin lid.