Snakes and Ladders Read online

  ‘They spoke to each other, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I thought I saw Connor handing something to Matthew, but at the time I wasn’t sure. When Connor was gone, Matthew tried calling me out. He told me to stop bullshitting him and to tell him why I’d really asked him to come out here. He wasn’t afraid of me in the slightest. I don’t know for certain that he knew who I was. I think he did, but I knew I either had to run or just do it. Right there, right then. If I ran, that’d be it. Jenny’s future would be ruined and he’d be constantly on his guard. I only had one chance. I even thought for a moment he might run after me and kill me instead. I didn’t know what to think. But then he just shook his head and turned around. He was going to walk away. He thought I was that sad and pathetic, I wasn’t even worth talking to. I knew in that moment he didn’t have a care in the world for anyone but himself. So I went for him. I started punching him, hitting him. I just went berserk. I put my arm around his neck and I squeezed and squeezed until he dropped to his knees. He was gasping for breath, but I managed to get his hands behind his back and tie them tightly. Then I taped his mouth so he wouldn’t scream or yell. I turned to go and get the shovel before I changed my mind, and that’s when I saw the flick knife, half hanging out of his jacket pocket. I realised that was what Connor must have given him when I saw something handed over. By this point, I’d tied Matthew up, and I was pretty certain they both knew who I was. I know what sort of circles they’re involved in. There was only one way out. It made sense straight away. I took the flick knife out of his pocket, opened it up, then slit his throat.

  ‘I made sure I was standing behind him when I did it, so I didn’t get too much blood over me. I was amazed at how quickly he bled out. His head just sort of dropped forward and he fell onto his side. I started digging, but it took forever. The ground was hard and there were tree roots everywhere. I don’t think anyone knows how hard it is to dig a grave, especially somewhere like that. I’d dragged his body a bit further away from the main path, but I couldn’t quite manage to get it as far as I wanted. I dug as far as I could, but I couldn’t go any further. I laid him in as flat as I could, and covered him with earth, then tried shovelling leaves and all sorts of other stuff on top. I thought it’d be okay for a bit, but there was no doubt he was going to be found. I stood there for a while and made sure I’d covered all my tracks. I’d been wearing gloves the whole time. The knife wasn’t mine. I couldn’t see there’d be any forensic traces, and in any case I didn’t see how I’d be a suspect. It’s not as if I could just take it all back anyway, is it? So I changed into my other clothes, got everything together and went home.

  ‘I was awake all night, panicking, worrying about what was going to happen next. When I knew Connor hadn’t told anyone he’d seen me, the penny dropped. He’d realised Matthew had his knife, and figured out that’s what’d been used to kill him. He must’ve known I had the knife, and that his prints would be all over it, so he didn’t want to send the police my way. A few days later, I stopped him in the street and handed over a carrier bag full of notes. I told him I wouldn’t talk if he didn’t, then I walked off home. He had the cash, I had the knife, and we both had our secrets. When Connor was arrested, I panicked. Big time. But as the hours and days went on, I realised he still hadn’t told anyone it was me. I knew I had to get rid of the evidence, just in case. The night before the bins were collected, I went for a walk and put the knife in a random wheelie bin. The clothes were buried in the garden, so I thought I had a bit more time with those. I told myself that if I got away with the knife, I’d do the clothes the fortnight after, or have a bonfire in the garden and get rid of them that way. I don’t know what else to say.’

  Wendy let out a breath she’d been holding for some time. ‘Well, that’s quite a lot to take in, Clive.’

  ‘It’s a lot to get out. Trust me. I know what I did was wrong. I know I’m going to spend a lot of time in prison. But I don’t regret what I did. I’d spend a hundred years inside if it stops Jenny from being imprisoned in that life. She’s got a chance now. She can do everything she wants to do. She can be the best she can be. What other choice did I have? I was only trying to protect her.’

  Jack looked at the man in front of him, the man who’d just admitted the pre-meditated murder of a young lad, and felt an unusual and unexpected sympathy.

  Before he could speak, or even think of the words to say, he was distracted by his phone ringing in his pocket. Chrissie was calling him. He pressed to reject the call, and went back to the interview. Barely a moment later, the phone rang again. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to take this,’ he said.

  He stepped out of the interview room and answered the call. ‘Chrissie, I’m in the middle of an interview at the moment, can I call you back in a bit?’

  ‘No, Jack. Something’s happened. We need you. Emily’s been rushed into hospital.’

  52

  Jack parked his car in a side road near the hospital without even bothering to check for parking restrictions. Fines and penalties were an irrelevance right now. He desperately needed to see Emily, needed to make sure she was okay.

  Chrissie hadn’t given him much information on the phone — only that Emily had shown signs of early labour but had also begun to bleed. He didn’t need the details at that point — he’d just needed to get there, to be with her, to be there for her.

  He jogged up the road towards the maternity unit of Mildenheath Hospital, panting Emily’s name at the receptionist as he got there, trying to recapture his breath enough to explain the circumstances and find out what was going on. The receptionist called for a doctor or midwife to come down, and Jack had an arduous wait of barely a couple of minutes, but which felt like hours.

  He paced the reception area, desperate to kick the doors down and find Emily for himself, but he knew he needed to keep a level head. Emily would likely be distressed, anxious and worked up herself, and it wouldn’t do anybody any good if he joined them in the same state. If things had gone wrong, she was going to need him more than ever, and he needed to remain calm and strong for her.

  Just as he was managing to steel his nerves, the door opened and a doctor appeared, introducing herself as Claire Evans.

  ‘Mr Culverhouse, would you like to come with me?’ Dr Evans said, her tone professional and giving nothing away.

  ‘How is she?’ Jack asked. ‘Is the baby okay?’

  ‘Both are stable at the moment, but I must stress that in these sorts of situations, things can change very quickly indeed.’

  ‘What situation? What’s actually happened? I don’t know anything.’

  ‘It appears that Emily’s gone into very early labour. Dangerously early, in fact. There’s also been some bleeding, which we’re trying to find the source of via scans as we speak. The good news is the baby has a good heart rate, but we’ve administered Emily a drug called terbutaline. It’s a tocolytic; it’ll help to prevent and slow the contractions of the uterus and will delay labour.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say. At most, probably forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. She can’t give birth within forty-eight hours. She’s nowhere near ready. The baby’s nowhere near ready.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Dr Evans said, her face serious. ‘That’s precisely why it’s such a serious situation. But she’s in the best possible hands. First we need to find the source of the bleeding. Once we’ve done that, we can determine the problem and, hopefully, solve it.’

  ‘What about a c-section or something? What happens if you need to get the baby out?’

  ‘That’s a distinct possibility. If Emily’s having problems which might put the baby’s life — or hers — at risk, we’ll have to come to a decision about that. But that certainly doesn’t minimise risks. If anything, it carries risks all of its own. The chances of a foetus that young surviving outside of the mother are very slim.’

  Jack felt his heart lurch in his chest. ‘And what about the chanc
es of it surviving inside?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say right now. I hope you can appreciate that. All I can say is if the baby was happy and thriving, labour wouldn’t be happening at this extremely early stage. I’ll be completely honest with you. We’re doing everything we can, but I really don’t want to get your hopes up unnecessarily. Whichever way you look at it, it’s an extremely serious situation.’

  Jack felt a huge swell of emotion rising inside him. ‘Can I see her?’ he croaked.

  Dr Evans smiled and nodded. ‘Follow me.’

  53

  There was never any doubt in Clive’s mind as to who should be the recipient of his allowed phone call. There was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to see either of them for a while, but the very least he wanted was to ensure they understood why.

  He listened as the phone rang, and continued to ring. Just as he thought no-one might answer, the call connected.

  ‘Hello?’ came the familiar voice.

  ‘Aretha. It’s me. Listen, I don’t know how much time they’re going to give me. Is Jenny there?’

  His wife stayed silent for a moment or two before speaking, her voice soft. ‘Yes. She’s here.’

  ‘Can I—’

  ‘She doesn’t want to speak to you.’

  Those words pierced through Clive like a crossbow bolt. ‘Oh. Okay. Look, I need her to know why I did what I did. She might not be ready to hear it yet, but it’s important she knows.’

  ‘Important to who?’

  ‘To everyone.’

  ‘What, and you think it’s going to make the blindest bit of difference? Do you really think it’s going to change anything?’

  Clive tensed his jaw. ‘Probably not. But I need to—’

  ‘If you’re only doing it for yourself, then don’t bother.’

  ‘I’m not. I… How is everyone?’

  ‘How do you think?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Aretha.’

  ‘You’re sorry? Do you think that makes it all better? Clive, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks sleeping next to a killer! Did any of that ever cross your mind? The damage it would do to everybody else, just because you felt like you wanted to play bloody Superdad?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that… I did it for Jenny. To protect her.’

  ‘Oh, listen to yourself, Clive! She’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need anybody telling her what she can and can’t do, and she definitely doesn’t need what happened to… Oh for Christ’s sake, Clive. What the bloody hell have you done?’

  Clive swallowed as he listened to his wife sob. ‘I can’t change it now, Aretha. What’s happened has happened. I’m going to deal with the fallout as best I can, but I imagine that’ll take quite some time.’

  Aretha’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘You never could get out of your own head, could you? You genuinely have no idea of the effect this has had on anyone else, do you?’

  ‘Of course I do. I—’

  ‘You don’t, Clive,’ Aretha said, stopping him dead in his tracks. ‘If you did, you wouldn’t be calling here. We have nothing to say to you, and nothing we want to hear from you. You think you saved Jenny? You haven’t saved anything. You’ve destroyed her. She’ll spend the rest of her life knowing her father was a murderer, a murderer who killed her own boyfriend in cold blood. Who took him out into the woods, tied him up and slit his bloody—’

  ‘Mum!’ came Jenny’s voice in the background.

  ‘Can I speak to her? Please.’

  ‘No, Clive. You’ve ruined everything. The only person who can protect Jenny now is me, and I’m protecting her by making sure murderers don’t get in contact with her. I suggest you don’t call here again. We don’t want to hear it. We’ll be at your trial to watch you get sentenced. Until then, goodbye, Clive.’

  54

  Jack watched as the curtains slowly drew across in front of the coffin. It was, in more ways than once, closure. But how could closure ever really be achieved after all that had happened?

  He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. It was all such a waste. Such an extraordinary waste.

  The turnout had been good. It was, in many ways, heartwarming to see how many friends and colleagues had turned out to pay their respects and say goodbye. The news had, of course, come as a shock to Jack, but he’d at least had a small amount of time to prepare for it, and it hadn’t been entirely unexpected.

  In many ways, it would be the beginning of a new era, the start of a new chapter. But whichever idiom or cliché Jack put on it, nothing could persuade him that it had all been so completely unnecessary.

  They’d all got their hopes up. He certainly had. It was looking very much like the future would be filled with beaming smiles and a sense that all was right with the world, but that now couldn’t happen. At least, not for some time.

  Jack looked around at the other mourners. Everyone from the young to the old seemed to be here, and he realised yet again that the one thing that managed to unite everyone was death. It was also the great divider, of course. Everyone knew families who’d been torn apart by tragedy, or even just the banal ridiculousness of squabbling over a will or inheritance, as if it was ever right to argue over another person’s money or wishes.

  There would be no disagreement over inheritance or wills here, though. In many ways, this would be much more straightforward, even though it was no less heartbreaking and upsetting for everyone involved.

  Outside the crematorium, Wendy sidled over to him. ‘How you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yeah. Brilliant. Might come up here every day if I’ve got nothing else on. You?’

  Wendy shrugged. ‘What can I say? What can anyone say? It was a good service.’

  Jack let out a snort. ‘Why do people say that? Of course it wasn’t a good bloody service. It was a funeral. We’re only here because someone’s died, so we thought we’d chuck them in a box and set fire to them. Absolutely fucking bizarre, when you think about it. And who’s rating these things, anyway?’

  ‘There’ll be a website somewhere, I bet you. Anyway, that’s the worst bit out of the way. People only come to funerals for the fun bit afterwards. Speaking of which, do you want a lift back from the Albert later? We can run your car home now, if you like. Save you picking it up in the morning.’

  Jack thought about this for a moment. ‘Nah,’ he said, eventually. ‘I’m not really in the mood for drinking, to be honest with you. Or partying, celebrating, whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘Remembering?’

  ‘Yeah. That can get fucked, ’n all. Remembering’s the last thing I want to be doing right now.’

  ‘Okay,’ Wendy said. ‘Well, if you’re happier looking into the future, there was something I want to let you know.’

  Jack looked at her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re fucking pregnant, for Christ’s sake. We’re stretched enough as it is. If we lose another body we’ll all be up in Milton House before we can say “Up yours, Malcolm Pope”.’

  Wendy laughed. ‘No. Don’t worry. I’m not pregnant. In fact, it’ll probably make things a lot easier for you. I’ve finally put in for my inspector’s exams.’

  ‘Bloody hell. That took you long enough. When’s the next one?’

  ‘Few months, so you don’t have to worry about me nicking your office just yet. I just wanted to let you know, though… If they ask me to shuffle over to Milton House afterwards, I’ll tell them where to stick it.’

  ‘You can’t do that. You’ve got to do what’s best for you.’

  ‘I know. That’s the whole point. This is best for me. And anyway, you’re the one who said you’d be left short if I wasn’t around.’

  Jack snorted. ‘Yeah. Well, we can’t have your head swelling up too much, can we?’

  ‘Sure I can’t tempt you with a quick pint?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Nah. I’m sure. In any case, I need to get back for the girls.’

  55

  Jack carried the car seat awkwardly into the hospital, wondering ho
w on earth he was going to manage to lift it or manoeuvre it with the additional weight of a baby. He guessed one benefit was that she didn’t weigh very much at the moment, although he knew from experience how quickly that changed.

  The doctors had made it clear they should watch her weight very carefully. Although she’d thrived in the neonatal intensive care unit and they’d finally got the all-clear to take her home, the outside world was a different thing entirely, and the change of environment could cause untold stresses to such a small, delicate body.

  All in all, it would be a good day. The news that they were being discharged came just moments after Clive Blake had pleaded guilty at the dock. Sentencing was still to be decided, and he’d likely get a form of reduced sentence for pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, but he still wouldn’t be seeing the outside world for quite some time.

  It felt fitting to Jack that Clive Blake was committed to incarceration on the same day his first grandchild was finally allowed out into society. The relevance wasn’t lost on Jack that those two events had occurred not long after Frank’s funeral and the closure of that particular chapter. But, try as he might, Jack considered it not so much a closed chapter, as a bookmarked one, the corner of the page folded over as a reminder that all was not quite over.

  The multi-faceted betrayal he’d suffered at the hands of Helen and Gary McCann still cut deep, and it was one he knew was going to be rubbed in his face over and over. But it had merely bled into the background noise after everything else that’d happened over the past weeks. For now, he wasn’t going to give them the mental space or energy to bother him. That would come. He knew it would. He wasn’t naive enough to think otherwise. But it could wait. For now, he had other priorities.

  ‘We all set?’ he asked as he stepped into the room where Emily and Chrissie had been preparing to leave. ‘Feels sort of like moving house, after the amount of time we’ve spent in here. I think I know these walls better than I know my own.’