Tuesday, 20 March 2035 #2
‘Mitchell, don’t bother. You only came here today for one reason – to bend Ivy’s ear about how Claudia’s estate was being distributed.
But as I have told you, several times, Claudia’s will is none of your business.
It was none of your business the second you stepped out of my office.
Everything from that point on belonged to Ivy, legally and binding.
She will have a monthly stipend until she is eighteen and the rest will be released when she turns twenty-one.
And there’s nothing you can do about it. ’
Mitch bared his teeth and laughed. ‘Claudia died with my surname. Ivy still has my surname – they never changed it. Why do you think that is?’
Heather shrugged. ‘Because Claudia married you, in good faith, many moons ago, and it was her perfect right to keep that name after the divorce.’
‘I’m technically still his kid,’ I mewed but Heather was ruthless.
‘Ivy, don’t even think about it. You know what that man put Claudia through. And he never legally adopted you so he has no claim on you or the estate. You know what he’s like.’
‘I don’t actually,’ I said. ‘Mum just said he had an affair with a teenage girl at the school he used to teach at and—’
‘—it wasn’t “an affair”, Ivy. It was rape. A besotted teenager with a troubled home life, yes, but that’s no excuse. He has a criminal record.’
‘Yeah but—’
‘—he is a serial abuser of young women. That schoolgirl wasn’t the first and she certainly wasn’t the last. He groomed your au pair as well, and he had an affair with Claudia’s best friend—’
‘Auntie Allie?’
‘—in addition to two further affairs with PT clients – a seventeen-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old. He told Claudia he was “a red-blooded man with needs”. The man is a deviant.’
I looked at Mitch, who wasn’t denying any of it, just sort of huffing and puffing. I couldn’t afford for him to be the Big Bad Wolf though. He was still my only hope of not going to Oz. ‘He’s not on the register any more, is he?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Ivy! For goodness’ sake! Can’t you see how dangerous this is? Your mother would be turning in her urn!’
‘She’s not in her urn yet,’ I scoffed.
‘I don’t care – that man is a born sex offender.’
‘Now you hold on a minute, Wherryman, that’s libel,’ Mitch seethed.
‘—it would be slander actually, if it wasn’t utterly true and verifiable.’
Mitch paced a little across the gravel, hands on hips like if he didn’t put them there he might punch Heather in the face. At one point I thought he might.
‘I’ve been advised that I can make a claim under the—’
‘—the Inheritance Act of 1975?’ Heather sagely shook her head. ‘Successful claims are rare. Not only have you already remarried, but I advised Claudia to put a clean break clause in your paperwork, which you have signed, and this ends all future financial claims.’
‘I’ll appeal then.’
‘You’ll be wasting your time and your money. Whatever little bird has been advising you is tweeting from the wrong branch, darling.’
‘That bitch was sitting on millions. Her money, her parents’ estate in Tenerife. She’s fucking loaded.’ The ‘she’ was me in this case.
‘Don’t you think she’s entitled? The girl has no one left.’
‘—I always protected her, I never laid a finger on her – as far as I was concerned, she was my daughter then and she’s my daughter now!’
‘—then where have you been for the past six years?!’ I shouted, trying to hold back the tears caught up in my throat. ‘You left me! And you’ve never even tried to come back. Not one birthday card, nothing!’
Mitch looked daggers at Heather. ‘Cos she wouldn’t let me, would she? Her and her.’ He pointed at the house. ‘I gave her eleven years. She owes me. You should look again at the laws you know so well, Heather, because—’
‘—thank you, Mitchell, for reminding me I know the law – I’ve been practising it since my late teens and I am now in my fifties and I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that there is nothing forthcoming to you as a result of Claudia’s death.’
Mitch’s face collapsed like a detonated building.
‘So I suggest you leave Ivy alone now.’ Heather held my hand behind my back and squeezed it.
‘What if I lived with him?’ I blurted.
Heather’s face snapped towards me. ‘What?’
‘If I lived with Mitch, he could have some of the money, when the time comes. If he’s my lawful dad or whatever. My stepdad.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I can do that,’ said Mitch, stepping towards us again, the bricks rebuilding in his face. ‘You’d want that, Ivy, right?’
But Heather didn’t let me get any more words out. She stood between us again. ‘Over my dead body. NOW FUCK OFF.’
Mitch turned to me and held my arms like his hands were two vices, pinching hard. ‘Dolly, remember when I used to call you that? We could do this, we could be together again, you and me, yeah? You and my Mrs will get on like a house on fire …’
‘Yes, I’d imagine she’s almost your age, Ivy,’ sniffed Heather.
‘Well, where else am I going to go?’ I snipped. ‘Nobody else wants me.’
Heather paid my pity party no patience. ‘If you don’t leave these premises right now, Mitchell, I swear to God—’
‘—you’ll what, hmm?’ Mitch goaded, as the rain thundered down. ‘You’ll knock my bloody block off? Cos the last time you tried that we had a little police issue, I seem to recall. Just try it, babe. Let’s push that fucking button.’
‘I wouldn’t lower myself to your scum level, Silverton,’ she snipped.
‘No, but I will,’ said another voice. A man in black had walked into our unpleasant threesome, and without warning, threw a punch so fierce and poetic, none of us saw it coming.
I recognised him instantly as Mitch’s head flew back in a rainbow of blood and snot and teeth and he collapsed onto the gravel.
‘Holy shit!’ I gasped as Heather and I stood back, rooted to the spot, watching the guy lean over Mitch’s flailing body to deliver a line so deadly but so quiet we could barely hear it.
‘The lady asked you to leave.’
The man had a laser-focused stare, black eyes and an American accent and it was the hottest thing I had ever seen in my life. Heather grabbed on to me.
‘Your friend just bought himself a night in the cells,’ Mitch sniffed, scrabbling to his feet, his face running with blood. My legs went to jelly and Heather held me upright, parking me on the bonnet of Mitch’s car to stop me falling over.
‘Get off my car, you stupid little shit; that’s brand new!’
‘What did you call her?’ growled the man in black and with one hand, he grabbed Mitch by the scruff and dragged him over to the car. We stood back as he opened the door and slammed it on Mitch’s head, over and over.
‘Apologise,’ he ordered.
‘No, no, please!’ cried Mitch as the door went BOOF! BOOF! BOOF! against his head.
Heather screamed. My insides churned as the blood poured from Mitch’s ear, again and again as the door continued to BOOF! BOOF! BOOF! until she begged him to stop.
The man in black threw Mitch down onto the gravel like a crisp packet. I had to take deeper and deeper breaths to cope with the sight of Mitch’s bloody face. He was crying by this point too, cringe-inducingly.
I ran to the rose hedging to park my pancakes.
When I returned, the man in black and Heather were stood side by side, as Mitch again scrambled to his feet, his upper body like a pile of dishes his legs were struggling to balance. He tottered around to the driver’s door, his mouth and nose still bleeding profusely, and clambered inside.
But the man in black wasn’t done.
‘You contact Ivy again I will take your fucking head off.’ It was the scariest, yet sexiest threat I’d ever heard.
The accent, the black clothes, the sureness of his walk.
It was BookTok live and making me question everything I knew about my own sexuality.
But it wasn’t like I was fancying a boy; he was like a whole different entity. Genderless. Fearless. Merciless.
As Mitch drove off in a panicked flurry of gravel, Heather breathed out and turned to the man in black. ‘Thank you. I think.’
He looked at me, holding out his heavily tattooed hand. ‘You okay, Ivy?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, shaking his warm palm. He then shook Heather’s hand and walked back up the drive like nothing had happened.
‘Who the fuck was that?’ Heather gasped, her eyes wider and her pupils smaller than I’d ever seen them. ‘One of The Bad Seeds?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I’ve seen him before. I think he’s the one who killed Andrews. And I think he did it for me.’