The Footballer's Wife (23 page)

‘Kent. To what do I owe this pleasure?' Markie was genuinely interested; he couldn't imagine what had brought Kent down here.

‘Where's Mac?' Kent asked angrily, his eyes narrow.

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Haven't seen him for weeks,' Markie said truthfully.

‘He's been having an affair with your mother, but
I suppose you'd know all about that,' Kent spat bitterly. Markie's eyes widened. It had been on the cards but Markie hadn't thought that anything was really going on. He shook his head.

‘I don't think he is.' Markie wanted to protect Kent, the poor sap. ‘He's still not over his wife passing away. I think someone's winding you up.'

‘Coppers just came round our house with some pictures of them in a hotel in Blackpool. All over each other they were. Day that Baldy kid was murdered. Same day I'm singing my heart out and your mother's there, cheering me on, bold as brass. She came and watched me that night like nothing had happened.'

‘Can I get you a drink?' Markie asked. He wanted to calm Kent down. He didn't need him going over the edge in the club; he knew he could be volatile where Tracy was concerned. But Markie's mind was reeling – his mum and Mac? They'd been friendly enough but he'd thought it was just two old people flirting. The thought of them actually being
at it
turned his stomach.

‘A large one of anything you've got.'

Markie waved the bartender over. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a familiar figure. It was his mother, marching towards him.

‘Nice of you to make the effort,' Markie said, looking at her shoddy attire. She wouldn't have been allowed through the door if it hadn't been for the fact that she was his mother.

Tracy glared at him and pulled at Kent's arm. ‘Kent, come home, I'll explain.'

‘How did you know I'd be here?'

‘I knew you'd come and find our Markie. What's that got to do with it? Come on, let's get off and have a talk.'

Kent turned to Tracy. Markie wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. There was something utterly tragic about seeing a man so usually buoyed up by life being serious because he knew that he had been made a fool of yet again by his other half. ‘I know you, Tracy. And I know that if you hadn't done anything you'd be screaming blue murder at the fact that anyone suggested you had. You're as guilty as sin.'

‘No, I'm bloody not. I work with him.' Tracy turned to Markie. ‘Don't I? Tell him.'

Kent turned to Markie. ‘And does she book into hotels and canoodle with everyone she works with?'

Markie held his hands in the air. ‘This is a conversation you two need to have. Alone.' He got off his stool and walked away, leaving his mum and
Kent to it. He couldn't spend a moment longer watching poor old Kent fall apart.

*

It was 4am, Kent's bags were packed and Tracy had done more pleading in one evening than she'd ever done in her life and she was now officially over it. Kent had made himself clear; he was leaving and she most definitely wasn't going to Memphis with him. She was gutted. Well, if that was the way he was playing it then fine, but she was going to tell him exactly what she thought of him.

‘You can stop clip-clopping round on your high horse now, I've heard enough,' Tracy said wearily, dragging on a cigarette.

‘I'm going.'

‘So you keep saying. Well, if you're going and you're going to be such an arsehole about it, you might as well know that yes, I was shagging Mac Jones and yes, he was a better shag than you.' She pointed at a neglected plant on the window sill and continued, ‘In fact that plant's probably a better shag than you.'

Kent looked at her, hurt burning in his eyes.
‘You're only out for yourself, aren't you? Always have been, always will be.'

Tracy stared back at him. She felt totally numb, as if she'd shut down. She knew she was being cruel but didn't care. She'd nothing to lose now; Kent was going and she was going to be on her own. She might as well stick the boot in. ‘Am I?'

‘You tell me.'

‘I've had enough of you and your
me, me, me
attitude. Elvis this, Elvis that . . .'

‘That's rich. You do what pleases you, whenever it pleases you. Paul last year – you wanted him back 'til you found out he had no money.' Kent was referring to Tracy briefly getting back with the father of her kids when she believed he'd come in to some money. As soon as she found out he hadn't she shipped Paul out and Kent back in. ‘Mac this year. I'm nothing to you, am I? Just some voice you fancied on the radio a few years ago and thought you'd try your luck with.'

‘Don't remind me,' Tracy mumbled.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.' She sighed. She couldn't be bothered with this any more. ‘If you're going, get gone.'

‘I am going, aren't I? You don't deserve anyone who cares about you,' Kent said, pulling his bags to
the door. Tracy sat down and pulled out another cigarette, lighting it as Kent struggled to get his stuff into the car. He didn't say goodbye. He simply shut the door behind him.

Tracy sat at the kitchen table drawing on the fresh cigarette. She would have liked to have cried; she quite enjoyed feeling sorry for herself. But she couldn't even muster any self-pitying tears. She was just pissed off. Pissed off with herself for having been found out, pissed off with Kent for having left before she'd had a chance to jet to Memphis with him, but most of all she was pissed off with Mac. All of her feelings towards him had soured. She now just saw him for what he was; a weak man who couldn't face the music and someone who had buggered off leaving everyone else to muddle through. Tracy didn't like being taken for a mug and that was exactly what Mac had done. Here she was, manless and holidayless.

She'd met Mac with the file that he'd requested and he'd once again gone to ground. He hadn't been interested in her at all; all he wanted was to get the contents of the file from her and be on his way. Tracy had noted all of this with malevolent interest. He didn't have a hope in hell of staying hidden once this information came to light, she knew that for
sure; the police would catch up with him sooner or later. Tracy hoped that he got just what he deserved. And she was going to do everything in her power to make sure he did.

CHARLY WAS LYING
in the bath staring at the oak-beamed ceiling. She was numb. A month had passed and she felt that nothing had changed. She woke every morning and realised that her life was now public property, her every movement was pored over and scrutinised in the papers, and she was a widow in her early twenties. She was receiving advice from everyone from Manchester Rovers' financial specialists to the bin man, but none of it made sense to her and anyway, she didn't really care about what anyone else thought. She needed someone to grab her and shake her back to life but she didn't really feel she had anything to live for. She missed Joel terribly, but even that seemed to Charly to be something she wasn't allowed to do. Everything the papers said about him was true. He had beaten her. He had
been cold and distant. He had taken his wealth and fame for granted. But she had loved him and that was hard to explain to anyone. He had chipped away at her confidence but there had been so many things that Joel had said to her that Charly believed he was right about. She could be argumentative, she hadn't known how to judge his moods and when to leave him alone and she had wound him up. He had an important and stressful job and she really could have taken that into account. Charly didn't see that her thoughts were those of someone who had been in an abusive relationship, she just thought that Joel had been right and she had been wrong. She only wished she could have him back to tell him how she felt.

Charly pulled herself out of the water and towelled herself dry. She had always been petite but her size six clothes were now falling off her skinny frame and as she pulled the towel over her ribcage she could feel every bone. It wasn't even that she wasn't eating. Every time anyone came to the house they force-fed her; she was just burning everything off with the nervous energy that also kept her awake most nights. Shirley was due around later that day. Charly had decided to start calling her mum Shirley, just for her own sanity. She hadn't acted like a mum
in Charly's opinion so she didn't deserve the title – not that she'd said as much to her. She just avoided having to address her as anything and waited until she was looking directly at her to speak. Charly couldn't quite believe that she was still around after a month. She had tried to work out what her mother's motives were, what she was hanging around for, but it had been as if the last decade hadn't happened and she had slipped back into mother mode. Charly had asked that her dad not come to the house. She knew instinctively that Shirley was lying when she said that she had been with Len on the night that Joel had been murdered. And she couldn't push from her mind the thought that her father was responsible for Joel's murder even though no DNA evidence had come back to place him there. She needed the police to find whoever was responsible and for that person to not be her father. Only then could she be sure.

Charly could hear her mobile phone ringing downstairs. She didn't rush to answer it. She slowly pulled some oversized jogging bottoms on and scraped her hair back. By the time she was descending the stairs there was a hammering at the back door.
Who the hell is that?
Anyone who was coming to see her either came in with Terry, who let
them in with his key, or had to go through Manchester Rovers' press department. Charly walked slowly down the stairs, not knowing who to expect. When she saw that it was Kim, the glamour model who had been with Joel on the night he died, Charly felt the old Metcalfe bile rising.
How dare she come to her house?
She marched to the door and pulled it open.

‘What do you want?'

‘I need to speak to you. I need to say sorry. To tell you how bad it's been for me, to tell you how bad I've been feeling.'

By now Charly's feelings of numbness had evaporated and she was filled with anger and hatred. She didn't care; she was grateful to be having any feelings at all. ‘Well, you'd better come in then, hadn't you?' Charly said, grabbing the girl by her hair extensions and pulling her into the house. She threw her across the hallway with almost supernatural force. Kim landed awkwardly against the wall. Charly flew at her, thumping her straight in the mouth.

‘Get off me! I can explain.'

‘Really?' Charly said, thumping her again.

Kim managed to struggle up the wall and, getting to her feet, ran to the other end of the large entrance
hall, holding her hands out in appeasement. ‘Charly, please. Stop. I just want to say that I'm really sorry.'

‘Me too, sorry that you ever clapped your slutty little eyes on my husband.' Charly marched towards her, but was distracted by the noise of the door opening. She turned around to see Terry with Leanne Crompton standing with him. Terry ran over and seeing the state of Kim pulled Charly away from her. Leanne stepped forward.

‘I've been calling you, Charly,' she said before turning to Kim and asking her angrily, ‘What the bloody hell did I tell you?'

‘I needed to see her to make my peace.'

‘You don't deserve any peace!' Charly screamed, bolting for Kim again. Terry locked his arms around her and pulled her back.

‘Charly, I'm sorry,' Leanne said soothingly. She turned to Terry. ‘Will you take Kim outside, I just want to have a word with Charly if that's OK.'

Charly looked at Leanne. She didn't really want to have a word with her. She knew what Leanne thought; that she was a gold-digger who had dropped her brother Scott when a far better offer in the shape of Joel had come along. Kim began to sob as Terry guided her out. ‘I don't know what you're crying for!' Charly shouted after her.

Once they were safely outside, Leanne took Charly's hand. ‘How are you?'

Charly shrugged. ‘Been better, you know how it is.' As she finished the sentence Charly laughed wryly to herself, knowing that nobody could know how it was.

‘I can't say I do totally, but I know what it's like to have the whole country talking about you over their cornflakes.' Charly looked at Leanne and half smiled. Of course she did. Charly had been so envious of Leanne when she had been going out with Scott. Leanne seemed to have everything: a glamorous life, money, a child. And then it had all come crashing down and she had come home to Bradington with the country's press hot on her tail. When speculation had become rife that Leanne's daughter Kia was the lovechild of superstar footballer Jay Leighton – an ex-colleague of Joel's – every aspect of Leanne's life had been splashed all over the papers.

Charly looked down at her right hand; her knuckles were red from where she had just hit Kim. ‘That'll give them something else to talk about, won't it?'

‘Don't worry; I'll get Kim to keep her mouth shut about this.' Leanne paused. ‘She's had a hard
time . . . I know it's not what you want to hear but she has. The police have ruled out any involvement. She's just a stupid star-struck girl but because she was there she keeps being dragged back in and questioned.'

‘My heart bleeds,' Charly said, hard-faced.

Leanne looked around as if she was unsure of what to say next. Charly couldn't help her; there wasn't much small talk to be made in view of the enormity of what had happened to Charly in the past month.

‘Scott's been asking after you,' Leanne said finally.

‘Really?' Charly said. She was genuinely touched. Scott Crompton may not have been the man of Charly's dreams but he had been kind and thoughtful to her throughout their relationship and she would have given anything to have a moment of Scott's kindness right now.