Ava
“Ava!” Janice greeted me enthusiastically when her front door swung open. “Come in. Great to see you again.”
Taking my coat from me, she shook off the snow and threw it over a hook and motioned for me to follow her through to the kitchen.
“I must say I was surprised when you called. I wasn’t expecting to ever see you again.”
I frowned at that. “Of course! I thought we were friends.”
Smiling widely, she rubbed the top of my arm and told me to take a seat.
I watched her while she made tea and found myself wondering how her skinny legs held her up. She reminded me of that bank advert, the one that had the tall people with round bodies and long, thin legs.
“Did you have a good Christmas?” I asked when she settled in the chair next to me.
“Hmm. Interesting.”
“Oh?” I found myself hanging on every word that she spoke. Not because I was enthralled with her but in case, at one fortunate moment, she slipped Etta into the conversation. This time, however, I was disappointed. “I spent it with Petey.”
“Your ex?” That did shock me, and it must have shown on my face because she narrowed her eyes at me.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ava! I dunno what happened. Christmas Eve, we were in the pub, Christmas morning…”
“He was in your stocking?” I finished for her.
“Yeah.” She sighed heavily as if disappointed with herself.
“Hey, I’m not one to preach, girl. Whatever floats your boat.”
“Or fills my stocking, eh?”
“That too.” I chuckled.
We chatted about Christmas and general things for the next hour or so, and when Janice mentioned us as teenagers, I found my opening. “Hey, you’ll never guess who I saw while I was here last time?”
She shook her head, placing a plate of chocolate biscuits on the table and flicking the kettle on to make more tea.
“Vickie Scott.”
Pressing her lips together, she looked baffled for a moment. “I had a friend called Vickie at school, but her surname wasn’t Scott.”
Shit. I hadn’t thought to find out Vickie’s maiden name. “Was it not Scott? I thought it was.”
“Vickie Quinn?”
“That’s it!” Great save! I blew out a silent breath.
“Bloody hell, I haven’t seen Vic since senior school.”
“That long?”
“Hmm. I didn’t realise you knew her though.”
Laughing lightly, I looked at her as though she was daft, and lied through my teeth. “Of course. Can’t you remember? We all went out a couple of times.”
“Did we?” She shrugged and took a sip of her tea. “I’m surprised she didn’t come and see me if she was back here.”
Guilt twisted my belly, and I felt like a bitch when she looked hurt. “She was just flying through, she said.”
Sitting back, Janice snorted. “She was like that. Flying here and there all the time. That girl never sat still for two minutes.”
“So, you have no idea what happened to her?” It was on the tip of my tongue to talk about her in the past tense, and I bit my tongue. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell Janice that her best mate was dead, especially that it was me who put a bullet in her forehead.
“Nah. She left town at fifteen. There was gossip, though.”
“Oh?” I had to restrain myself from shuffling to the edge of my chair and shaking the info out of her when she inhaled slowly and appeared to disappear into her head. “Gossip?” I pressed, wincing when my teeth nipped the tip of my tongue with the pressure of my clenched jaw.
“I didn’t believe it at the time. I mean, Vic was my best friend, she’d have told me!”
“Yeah, absolutely she would.”
Janice became quiet again, reminiscing privately. Private wasn’t any good to me! I needed all the damn scandal she had on Vickie Scott! “So, the gossip?”
Blinking, remembering I was still there, she sniffed. “Yeah. She was seeing this lad, and it was all hush hush. Vic’s dad was a right arsehole, used to knock Vic about after her mum died. She wasn’t ever allowed out. Didn’t stop her though.” She laughed, clearly remembering back. “Anyway, she started seeing this lad. Can’t remember his name, but it wasn’t really anything serious.”
Attempting to look chilled, I nodded and sipped at my tea, secretly wishing she’d get to the fucking gossip before the Easter bunny did the rounds. When she went quiet again, I barked a smidgen too sternly, “And?”
Jumping, my tone startling her, she stared at me as though I’d just puked up on her dog, but finally, got to the point. “Well, she just left.”
“Just. Left?”
“Mmm. She was at school on Monday. Tuesday her and her dad had gone. Upped and fucked off. Never saw her again.” My groan of disappointment, obviously, made her frown. “What’s all the fuss for?”
I laughed, waving my hand in the air. “Ignore me. You’re such a good storyteller, I got lost in the moment.”
Scoffing, she nodded. “Petey used to say I was good at telling a tale. I always thought he meant he’d caught me lying to him!”
“Right.”
I thought she’d finished her tale, but then she gave me the gold nugget that paid in full. “Rumour was, though, that she was pregnant with this dudes’ baby.”
“Well, fuck me! At last!” Smiling awkwardly when my outburst made her jump yet again, I rolled my eyes. “See. Jack-a-fucking-nory!”
“Amen, sister.” She preened, giving me a high five.
“So, pregnant, huh?”
Shaking her head, I wanted to slap her. She was ruining the moment, taking back the juicy gossip she’d handed out. “I doubt it. It was just hearsay in a small town. She would have told me if that was the case. Hell, she was still a bloody virgin. Only one in school, mind.”
I had a feeling Vickie hadn’t been at the level of best friend status Janice had thought. “So, you have no idea who the father was?”
“No, because she couldn’t have been pregnant! And, besides, I can’t even remember the guy’s name, so he can’t have been that important in her life.”
“What was the name of the third guy you slept with?” I asked, needing to make a point for some stupid reason.
Her brow puckered, and her lips twisted. It was at least two minutes before she said, “Fuck knows.” When I quirked an eyebrow at her, she nodded reverently. “Touché, Miss Stone.”
“So, what happened to him? Is he still in Kirkingham?”
“My third boyfriend?”
Christ, she was hard work. “No, Vickie’s boyfriend.”
Another wave of disappointment made my shoulders sag when she shook her head. “No. He left town not long after her.”
“Well, if you remember his name, give me a call.” I stood up and put my empty cup in the sink.
“What are you, a journalist?” she joked as she passed me my coat.
Tutting to put her off, I nudged her with my elbow. “I told you, you’re just a great storyteller. You should be an author. You’d definitely have the knack of keeping the reader engrossed.”
She waved me off and shut her front door when I climbed into the car. I sat there for a few minutes, going over what she’d revealed. Janice didn’t realise how important her information had been. So, Vickie Scott had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend and moved away from Kirkingham. I couldn’t help but wonder if, maybe, just maybe, Frank Scott hadn’t been Etta’s biological father.
And, if that were the case, then who the hell was this mystery boyfriend?
♡
A couple of hours later, I pulled up in front of the farmhouse. Although the sky was dark, the clouds were thick and heavy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be a new layer of snow by morning.
Checking to see if Mason had locked Harry up for the night, I grimaced at the mud splattered on my car as I walked past it. We seriously needed to look at getting the driveway paved, along with the dirt on the car I was sick of having to clean my shoes every day.
“Hey, baby!” I shouted as I hung up my coat and turned the thermostat up. The house was cold, and I shivered. Mason was always hot, whatever the weather, and it was rare he felt the cold, but I could practically see ice forming on the inside of the windows.
Heading straight for the coffee machine, I smiled when I saw Mason’s cup full and waiting. It had taken him long enough to master the thing, and now he had, he was constantly making more, like he expected it to go out of fashion. Therefore, it made me pause when I picked it up and discovered it was cold.
“Baby?” I shouted but was met with silence again.
Going from room to room, I eventually gave up, deciding to text him, and made my way back to the kitchen.
Mason’s laptop was open on the table, and I tugged it towards me as I sat down with coffee. Clearly, he’d been working on something before he’d buggered off; to the pub, most likely, or to score.
The screen lit up with the movement and displayed Mason’s open inbox. There was an email from Graham Marple, and I clicked on it.
Opening the attached folder, I found various old photos and checking the email message, I was slightly impressed with Graham’s detective skills when I found several of Vickie Scott’s old class photos and yearbook images.
Even though the photos were taken a couple of decades before and were a little grainy from being scanned, I could tell which teenage girl Vickie was. Time had been kind to her, that was for certain, and it would seem the long black hair I remembered her with, had also been her trademark style at school.
Coming across one labelled ‘Year Four’, I spotted Vickie stood in the righthand row. Her hands were clasped in front of her stomach but, maybe because I was aware of her pregnancy, it was obvious she was trying to hide the very small bump.
“So, it wasn’t just gossip then!”
Enlarging the photo, I leaned back and sipped my coffee as I peered closer. The dark circles under Vickie’s eyes were as glaringly obvious as the gash to her upper lip. It appeared Janice had been right about Vickie’s father. I couldn’t help but feel for her. Yes, she’d turned into the epitome of evil, but no one really knew what the effects of one’s upbringing had on a person. Then again, I was abused and tossed from one foster home to another, and I hadn’t turned to trading kids on the black market. Yet, it did make me think of George, and how much of mine and Mason’s life choices had steered him towards becoming the man he was.
Zooming out until the whole class was back in view, I scanned the rest of Vickie’s classmates. I chuckled when I saw Janice’s massive perm a couple of rows away from Vickie, remembering back to the time I had spent three weeks with her. I had been lucky, really. In the late eighties when perms had been fashionable, I had been living on the street and didn’t have money to really have my hair styled as such, but because of my unruly curls, I, unintentionally, managed to stay with the trend. Not that I really cared anyway.
I laughed at the boy stood next to Janice. His Mullet hairstyle made me think of Danny and when I had met him at The Honey Hut, the twenty-four-hour café near Leicester square which Katie and I had inhabited most nights. We would make one cuppa last all night during the winter, so we could keep warm and stay out of the cold. Danny bought Katie and me a cup of tea, and we’d spent the duration of the night talking, and so began our short relationship. I’d ribbed him so much because he was always preening himself in the mirror, checking to see if his hair was still in place. He’d applied that much hairspray it hadn’t even dared to move in a gale-force wind!
Just about to take a sip of coffee, I froze with the rim of the cup just touching my lip. “It can’t be.”
Zooming in, I leaned forward and peered at the image.
“Shit, it really is!”
Needing to verify my suspicion, I opened a file containing the corresponding yearbook and hunted through. When I found Danny Walker and read the classification to confirm it was actually him, I clicked the pages forward until I came to the photographs the students had taken to be included in the book.
The very first picture made me drop my coffee, and it splashed down my shins. But I didn’t feel the blister forming, I was too astounded by the image of Danny and Vickie kissing. They weren’t the main feature of the picture, another girl with a short bob was posing in the very centre, yet someone had circled the entwined couple that was half hidden in the corner of the picture with a thick, red pen and printed out the photograph. It had been added to the book, with the caption, ‘Vickie Quinn and Danny Walker, sneakily getting it on while they thought no one was watching. Got ya’ guys! Don’t forget to send wedding invites to all your classmates!’
Holy shit! Danny Walker was Etta’s father! She had been in Kirkingham at the same time as Danny to visit his poorly father, her grandfather!
Snatching up my phone, I checked to see if Mason had replied. Where the hell was he?
I couldn’t sit still; my mind was working overtime, and I paced through the house, burning with the need to tell the news to my absent husband.
When there was still no reply from my text, I hit the call icon instead and stopped short when I heard Queen’s, Fat Bottomed Girls, the ringtone Mason had assigned to my number, warbling away from the lounge.
“Christ, Mason!” I grumbled as I walked through and saw his phone sat on the coffee table next to a red striped box. “What’s the point in having a mobile phone if it’s not mobile when you are!”
Slumping on the sofa, the box caught my attention. Curious as always, I picked it up and read the tag. My heart stalled when I found it was addressed to me, from Danny.
Call it women’s intuition, or just plain trepidation, but I knew that whatever was in the box wasn’t going to be a gift I would like.
Hesitantly, I lifted the lid.
At first, although disgusted, I was a little confused. It wasn’t until I saw the wedding ring, still attached to the severed finger that it made perfect sense, and I leaned over the edge of the sofa and vomited up all Janice’s nice chocolate biscuits.
On the plus side, at least I’d found my husband; well, a part of him, anyway.