Cath Staincliffe - Looking for Trouble

Tea in hand, face washed and nose blown, I sat opposite Ray at the kitchen table. He was lecturing me, insisting I cease whatever I was doing to warrant the heavy phone call. What did he think I was going to do, go looking for trouble? Did he really think me that stupid – or that brave?

‘Of course I’ll pack it in – I’m not going to put the kids at risk, Ray! For Christ’s sake, it’s over.’ No more visits to Leanne, not even to ask if she blew the whistle, no more questions about JB Finito. ‘I just wish I could let the bastard know. Total surrender. Maybe I should put an ad in the paper, send it out on Piccadilly:

SMILEY – I QUIT. LOVE SAL.’

‘You could drape a white sheet out the window.’

‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘Bit rude though, issuing an ultimatum like that and not waiting for an answer.’

I was pulling on clean, if crinkled, clothes, getting ready to go round to Diane’s, when the phone rang again. My stomach corkscrewed. I didn’t want to answer it. Ray was downstairs and he called up, ‘For you, Sal.’

He held out the receiver and whispered, ‘A woman – American, I think.’

‘Hello, Nina?’

‘Sal.’ Her voice was gravel-thick.

‘Are you okay? You sound awful.’

‘I’m sorry, oh…’ The words were slurred.

‘Nina, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?’

She moaned, then there was a clatter as the phone was dropped. I couldn’t get an answer from her. Shit.

I raced back into my room and pulled a sweatshirt on over my jeans and T-shirt. Ray was in the shower. I called out to him that I had to go out, work, I’d leave the address downstairs. I scrawled the Zaleski’s address on the back of an envelope with a wax crayon.

‘It’s not anything to do with that nutter, is it?’ he called from the top of the stairs.

‘No way, Ray.’

There were no lights on at Nina’s. The drive had taken me fifteen minutes, during which time I’d imagined every horror under the sun to account for the aborted phone call. I parked in front of the veranda. I looked about before getting out of the car but the twilight played games with the shapes and shadows.

As I stepped up onto the veranda steps, an intruder light snapped on, flooding the porch and beyond with glaring sodium light. I fought the impulse to flee and knocked loudly with the lion’s paw. Somewhere in the back of the house, the dog Fang set up a rhythmic barking. I knocked again and again. In between the steady woofs, I listened, ears cocked for any other sounds. I heard a car on the road slowing down, slow enough to turn into the drive. I skipped down from the door and listened in the dark. The car was nearby but not coming up Nina’s drive. I heard the rattle of gravel, next door’s perhaps.

I jumped back into the limelight and made my way round the side of the house. I’d hoped to peer in through windows but elaborate shutters covered them all, except for a small frosted glass rectangle towards the back of the house, on the right-hand side.

I hesitated for a few seconds. Would it be better to go and find a phone box, try rousing Nina that way? But I was too worried to delay any longer. Nina had been distressed; she could be lying in there, bleeding to death. There were a couple of hideous wrought-iron sculptures at either side of the veranda steps. I picked one up and carried it round to the glass window. Fang was quiet.

I raised the twisted iron and brought it down hard against the window. The glass buckled rather than shattered, reinforced in some way. No bells or sirens. Fang went apeshit. He was nearby, but not in the room itself. Mixed with his deep-throated barking was the clatter of claws scrabbling against a door.

I had to hit the glass several times to break it up, like smashing toffee. I pushed lumps of it into the room with the edge of the sculpture. When I’d made a clear hole, I heaved myself up and lunged over the sill head first. It was dark and, when I was half-way in, I realised I’d no idea how far I was going to drop. I could only go forward but I didn’t relish breaking my neck. I put out my hands and flailed around, felt canvas and metal, a tent, leaning against the wall beneath me. I carried on wriggling forward, wincing at the pain as my hip-bones caught on the edge of the window frame. I was aiming to slither down the tent, to buffer my fall. My weight shifted suddenly, I pulled my hands round my head for protection and tumbled onto the carpeted floor only inches below. I felt my way across the carpet till I found the skirting board. Followed that round to the door-jamb. Felt up both edges till I got the light switch. Bingo.

A storeroom. The tent that had eased my entrance was actually a bag of golf clubs. Other leisure accessories were neatly arranged round the room; skis, a beautiful wooden toboggan, rucksacks, a massive lime green and pink snow-suit hanging up like a day-glo Michelin Man. I felt like climbing into it for protection. Instead, I selected a golf club and put my ear to the door. Fang’s barking was close but not too close. I inched the door open. No movement in the hail.

I established that Fang was behind the kitchen door to my left. He was becoming hoarse with fury. I switched on the hall light and walked along to the white lounge at the front of the house. It was disarrayed but only with the debris of ordinary life; magazines, a newspaper, empty mugs and discarded shoes. I called Nina’s name out a couple of times as I prowled. Checked behind the huge white Chesterfield. Went upstairs. Half-way up, I heard another car and froze as I listened. Again, I heard the vehicle slow and the telltale rasp of gravel. I went on up and looked out of the landing window, the one that overlooked Fraser Mackinlay’s. His porch, columns and all, was illuminated by the same sort of ghastly light. It spilled out and swept an arc over the gravel. I could see a couple of cars there. A figure was silhouetted at the door. Anonymous. The door opened, he entered. Darkness fell. Plenty of callers for a Monday night.

Nina was in the main bedroom, which ran above the lounge at the front of the house. The room was big enough to split into a boudoir and a lounging area, all done out in red and black. I saw her from the doorway, on the floor next to a chaise-longue, the phone beside her. I moved closer, my pulse speeding up in dread. I gulped in a powerful, sweet stench. Alcohol, lots of it, mingled with the acrid notes of vomit and shit.

She’d been sick where she lay, her cheek rested in it. There were patches on the crimson housecoat she wore. Her face was the colour of putty, with the same oily sheen. Eyes closed. I felt for a pulse, ignoring the frantic pace of my own. There was one. Weak but discernible. I touched her cheek and she drew a shallow breath. I

followed first-aid procedure with the narrow-minded clarity that accompanies shock; checked her mouth for obstructions; put her in the recovery position; shuffled her away from the pool of sick. As I settled her head, a thin trickle of dark bile leaked from the corner of her mouth.

I punched 999 into the handset and gritted my teeth while I answered the pro-forma questions that had to be answered before the ambulance would be dispatched. I turned back to Nina. Was she breathing, still? Oh, God. I placed my hand on her sternum and felt the slight rise and fall. That reassured me. I kept it there.

Surveying the room, I wondered who had chosen the decor, the wrought-iron headboard, the wall lights with their crown of thorns brackets, the fluffy orange carpet with its black fleur-de-lys motif. Jack or Nina? Maybe an interior designer had come up with the concept; sort of barbed wire and shag pile. Whoever it was would be better off designing the inside of aerosol cans.