The Footballer's Wife (32 page)

‘No. She's at Charly's.'

‘Well, just so you know, Kent's waiting in the car for me, so I won't be long.' Tracy was lying. She had
tried to contact Kent a number of times but he had refused to take her calls. She had even gone to the radio station to meet him from work but he had walked straight past her, refusing to even look at her. This had enraged Tracy but there was little she could do about it. She didn't want Len thinking that she had come here on her own.

‘I wanted to talk to you, too.'

Tracy looked at him. What could Len possibly have to talk to her about? ‘Did you tell the police I'd . . .' He seemed unable to say the words that he wanted to use. ‘. . . attacked you back in the seventies? There's a note on my file.'

Tracy was amazed that that was still there. She thought that Bradington police force would have screwed that up and put it in the bin years ago. ‘Raped,' Tracy said boldly. ‘I told them you raped me but I knew they'd make me out to be the town bike so I withdrew my statement.' She was looking directly at Len, bravely staring him down. His face fell in horror.

‘I never did anything of the kind! I loved you.'

‘Ha!' Tracy laughed bitterly. She couldn't believe that he was denying it or, worse, that he obviously had no recollection of the events of that day. ‘You were pissed out of your mind and you couldn't stand
it that I'd got someone else – Paul – so you came round and wouldn't take no for an answer.'

‘That's not true,' Len said, shaking his head as if this would somehow shake the truth of that day into his consciousness. ‘You went off with Paul, rubbing my face in it, and I just had to put up and shut up.'

‘Bollocks,' Tracy said angrily. ‘Whatever you think now, or whatever rosy little picture you want to paint of yourself as jolly old Len, back in 1974 you were a mad bastard when you drank and I got the brunt of it that day.'

‘No, you didn't. That never happened,' Len said. He obviously couldn't believe it.

‘It did. And I've got our Markie to prove it.'

‘Markie?' Len said, his jaw dropping.

‘Come on, Len, even you're not that much of a numbskull. What d'you think him and Charly are all cosied up for? They worked it out. And it doesn't take Einstein once you look at our Markie side on and know the history between us.'

‘Markie?'

‘Yes, Markie,' Tracy said irritably. She couldn't believe she was having to spell it out.

‘Oh God!' Len said, sliding into a kitchen chair and holding his head in his hands. ‘I don't remember . . .'

‘It happened, Len. And then you got slung away for GBH, remember that?'

‘Course I remember that.'

‘Well, there you go. Why is it such a shock to you that you're a nasty bastard?'

‘I'm not a nasty bastard, Tracy, I'm not. You knew me better than anyone. Tell me I'm not a nasty bastard.'

‘I can't do that, can I, Len? What I'm telling you is that you are. Or at least you were.'

Oh God,' Len said again, beginning to sob. ‘I'm so, so sorry.'

Tracy looked at him. He seemed small and pathetic and as if he couldn't harm a fly. A strange feeling came over her. Tracy was a woman who could hold a grudge for years over absolutely nothing. But she didn't want to hold this against Len any longer. It was done. He knew about Markie; what he did was up to him. And as fearful as she had been about Len in the past, she knew now that she needn't have been, that he couldn't hurt her now. He wasn't the violent drinker he had been when she had known him, he was a fat little ball who ran the local club and liked to keep his nose clean and tell himself that he was a pillar of the community. She was done. She turned and walked
out of the house. As she opened the door, Len said again, ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘So you've said,' Tracy said quietly. ‘And so you should be.'

*

Charly was sitting in a curry house in Tooting with her mum, looking out at the road with its furniture shops and assortment of cut-prize frozen food emporiums. ‘So this is it. Nothing much to it, is there?' Shirley asked.

Charly shrugged. ‘I suppose not,' she said, dipping her poppadom in the mango chutney and taking a bite. ‘I've made a decision.' She looked at her mum.

‘Right . . .' Shirley said slowly, waiting uncomfortably for this to have something to do with her.

‘I need to get off my backside and do something.' She looked at her mum. ‘I've been waiting around scared to death of what's going to happen next. Scared to death of when you might leave . . .'

‘I'm not going anywhere.'

‘Maybe not, but I can't affect whether you stay or go, can I? I've just got to lighten up and start to get back on my feet. I'm sitting around worrying about
you, about when something else bad about Joel is going to come out. But what else can come out? He's dead and he's not coming back and the simple fact is, he was horrible to live with. How long would I have gone on putting up with everything he threw at me? I could be the one that's dead. And yet I'm bleating on about how much I loved him. What does that say about me? I'm pathetic.' Charly sighed, angry with herself again.

‘You're not pathetic. You need to give yourself a break. I've a feeling that if I'd met Joel he'd have got a pasting off me to beat the one he got from your dad, but that doesn't mean to say that you could have done anything other than what you did at the time.'

‘I should have stayed with Scott.'

Shirley laughed. ‘Come on, love . . .'

Charly smiled as the waiter placed her chicken tikka in front of her. She and Scott were good friends but should never have been anything more. He was a gentle, lovely guy, but he wasn't what she needed in a boyfriend. In fact, she knew that the last thing that she needed for a long time was any sort of boyfriend. She needed to be on her own and to get her life in order. ‘Maybe not,' she said. ‘Tell you what I wouldn't mind doing after this . . .' Charly
shredded some chicken and popped it into her mouth. ‘House hunting. Well, flat hunting.'

‘Here?' Shirley asked, surprised.

‘I've been thinking a lot about this and I think I need a break from the north. I can go back to modelling, get Leanne to get me work, most of it's done down here anyway. Might as well put my notorious name to some use.'

‘But what about your dad? What about Jimmy? What about your friends?'

Charly didn't want to point out to herself let alone her mother that she didn't really have any friends. ‘Well, Bradington's only two hours on the train,' she said.

Shirley pushed her hair self-consciously out of her face. Neither said anything but Charly knew exactly what her mum was thinking: she had spent ten years being only two hours away from her real life.

‘Well, I think that it's a big decision, but no one could blame you if you did decide to move. I know this might sound like a stupid question, but how are you fixed for money?'

‘I've got some. Not as much as people probably think but, you know, enough to get by for a bit.'

Charly had decided that she wasn't going to kick
up a fuss about anything that was in Joel's will. His dad was to receive the lion's share of anything that he had saved and he was welcome to it. The effort that she had gone to to make herself financially secure before Joel's death seemed shallow now. She might have a document saying that she was his wife and was entitled to half of everything but legally they hadn't been married for long enough for her to make any claim stick and she didn't want to. She had a car that was paid for, and Joel's dad had said that he would make sure that she was taken care of. Until now this had meant making sure that the house was still paid for every month, and he had promised to transfer an as yet to be agreed sum to Charly. He had mentioned thirty thousand pounds; her lawyers weren't happy. They felt there was far more money that she was due but to her that was the means to starting a new life somewhere else and worth far more than a million pounds only to be left sitting rocking in a mansion with no idea what to do next.

‘Where would you live in London?'

‘God knows. I don't know anywhere, really. I've only ever been to parties and hotels in the West End as far as I remember. But I don't think I'll be able to afford anywhere within shouting distance of there, will I?'

Shirley laughed. ‘You could always move to Tooting.'

‘I wouldn't mind being a bit nearer the action.'

‘If you want action Streatham High Street's only up the road. It's all going on there.'

Charly smiled. She wasn't sure if moving to London would make a difference to how she was feeling but at least she would be doing something. And doing something on her own. Without the help of Joel, without the help of Scott, even without the help of Markie, who had stepped into the role of Lord Protector recently. And Charly knew that if she could make a life for herself without relying on anyone else, especially a man, then that in itself was progress.

*

Tracy was standing in the office with Tammy, who was still dining out on the notoriety of her colleague Mac Jones. Every time the phone rang she assumed it was the press and took great delight in refusing to make any comment or letting them speak to Markie. Tracy was glad that she had aligned herself with Tammy. The girl was great at her job and with Mac out of the picture she was being as helpful to Tracy as she was to Markie.

Tracy was tiring of her rounds but with Mac gone she was going to talk to Markie about getting someone else in and that someone else was going to be her daughter Karina. She hadn't been having the best time of late. She spent most of her time with Gaz and was looking thinner by the day but Tracy knew that a few weeks with her mum and she'd sort her out. Karina was mouthy enough to be good at collections and skint enough to need a job. She was also, if rumours were to be believed, spending too much time with the curtains drawn watching bad daytime TV and keeping herself topped up with coke when Izzy wasn't around. Tracy didn't understand the point in getting hooked on things. She enjoyed getting wellied with the best of them but her central belief had always been that when it stops being a party and starts being just what you do to get out of bed in the morning, something's got to give. The fact that Tracy had got out of bed on some mornings in the past and had a tumbler of vodka and a line of coke the thickness of a millipede wasn't the same. She had made sure there were other people around and that the day turned into an all-day session – justifying to herself that she was just a partyer, not a drunk or a cokehead.

It was beginning to feel like a family business. ‘Who'd have thought it, Markie, eh?' she said. Markie was looking out of the window distractedly onto the street below. ‘The Cromptons. It's like
Dallas
, isn't it.'

‘What the fuck?' Markie said quietly.

‘What?'

‘The old bill.'

‘What about them?'

‘I don't know “What about them”. They seem to be heading in this direction.'

A moment later the door opened. DI Hannigan walked into the office and came towards Markie. Tracy knew that this must have something to do with the Baldy case, or at least Mac, if Hannigan was doing the arresting. He was flanked by four other police officers.

‘How many coppers does it take to change a lightbulb?'

The look that Hannigan gave Markie suggested that he wasn't in the mood for any of his smartarsed jokes. ‘Markie Crompton, we are arresting you for kidnapping and extortion. You have the right to remain silent but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used against you in a court of law.'

‘I've got something to say, alright,' Markie said as one of Hannigan's flunkies slapped the cuffs on him. ‘What the fuck are you on about?'

‘Your mate, Mac. He's not going down quietly. Seems you and him had some little sideline, lending people money and then when they couldn't pay up you sold their houses from under them and pocketed the cash. Well, when you were keeping them in a lock-up against their will and beating the living shit out of them for days on end, what did you think you were doing? Because where I come from, that's kidnapping and extortion. And thanks to your mate not wanting to see out the rest of his life in the nick, he's told us a few things about you.'

‘Fuck off, I don't believe you.'

‘What you believe doesn't really come into it, does it?' He turned to the other officers. ‘Get him in the van, lads.' Tracy and Tammy looked on, speechless.

Tracy finally found her voice. ‘You can't take him away!'

‘Why not, Tracy? Not like he's any stranger to the nick, is it, love?' Hannigan said as Markie was bundled out of the door. Tracy could hear him talking to the coppers, telling them they'd better have their story straight. But Tracy knew Mac. He
was a vindictive bastard and he might have kept things ticking over when Markie was inside, but there was no way he was going to rot himself and leave Markie a free man. Not when he could get his sentence reduced.

Tammy was staring at Tracy, waiting for her to suggest what to do next. Tracy looked back at Tammy. ‘What?'

‘What now?'

Tracy thought for a moment. Markie was her son and she loved him dearly, or so she told herself because that's what mothers were supposed to think, but recently she'd have happily seen him strung up. All that stuff with Charly Metcalfe, ducking around behind her back and wanting to find out who his real daddy was like some sad case off
Surprise Surprise.
And even when everything came out she was sure that Markie believed Len's version of events over hers. Pathetic. And then there was this all-the-lads-together thing with Mac. Markie knew that he was up to something when he was away but he protected him – well, more fool him. She looked directly at Tammy and smiled. ‘Looks like I'm in charge,' she said.