Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
The first unusual thing that happened that morning was a phone call from my half-brother at half-five, asking me for a lift to work if he provided me with breakfast.
I was already awake because I’d talked myself into going to bed early to avoid giving Cavan a nine pm booty call, and I was still sleeping well. I had been debating a run, but curiosity and the desire to get to know the only blood relative I was in contact with won over.
The house was a building site apart from the kitchen, Nate waiting for me at the front door and walking me around the side of the house to the bifold doors at the back. “It’s a war zone in there.”
“It looks like there’s a lot going on. Shouldn’t you have some TV production filming it?”
He looked uncomfortable at just the suggestion.
“No. Not at all. Never suggest that again.” He carried on walking, skirting around bags of rubble and scaffolding poles. “Thanks for picking me up. I have a ton of crap I need to take to work – textbooks and stuff that I don’t want to keep here.”
“Good job I came in my car and not my bike then, isn’t it?”
He looked at me in horror. “You have a bike?”
“No, but that wasn’t my point. You didn’t give me much information and I’m not telepathic.” There was more anger in there that wasn’t just about the scarcity of the information he’d given me now. There was four years’ worth of hurt that he hadn’t bothered to keep in touch.
He followed me up the steps of the decking into the kitchen, which looked even grander now it was light. I opened the door with a hand that felt too sweaty.
“Ask whatever questions you have, Mia. There’s no point keeping things bottled up.”
He was right at the same time as being completely wrong. Opening the wardrobe where the bodies were buried led to postmortems and murder charges in my experience.
“How’ve you afforded this?” Anger boiled in every word.
“A bond matured, like I said. It was set up by the directors of Lucent Financial Services. Ian Kilpatrick contacted me to let me know. I used a chunk of it for the deposit, took out a mortgage for the rest, and then another chunk of it’s for the renovations.
I’ll have a decent sum left over for rainy days which I’ll invest.”
“Using Lucent Financial Services?” Which was the legitimate business front owned by Stan, although technically he had nothing to do with it anymore, so those assets hadn’t been frozen.
Stan was the money man, had a nose for an investment, and needed a front to wash clean his cash.
He’d also made a legitimate income from it, although I’d no doubt he’d ripped off a few old widows in the process.
“Maybe.” Nate clicked on his coffee machine. I noticed it was the same brand as Daniel’s new one in his office.
“Why didn’t you buy somewhere closer to your gran?”
He turned his back to me while he heated the milk. “Gran’s in a nursing home. She has rapid onset dementia and has no idea who I am anymore, but when I go and see her, it distresses her because she can’t remember who I am. The care’s she’s getting is phenomenal - ”
“Is Stan paying for that?” I interrupted, wanting to pull the words back as soon as I’d spat them out.
“Lucent is.”
“You’ve changed your tune accepting all of this. Why?”
“Because he owed me, Mia. Look, I don’t want to fight with you about his because I’ve fought enough with myself.
My gran did everything she could for me; she worked two jobs, she went without so I could have, she made sure I didn’t miss out on anything.
Things got easier when I was at secondary school – she told me three years ago it was because she finally accepted money from Stan.
I was angry at first, but then she asked me why we shouldn’t let him make it easier, why should we suffer because of our pride and miss out on things.
He’d paid for my education – I was okay with that because I was putting something right by becoming a doctor.
” He topped both coffees up with milk and handed one to me.
“There’s a saying, Mia, don’t bite your nose off to spite your face.
The bond is from legitimate income. Stan knows stock markets. ”
“I’m sorry for snapping.” I genuinely was. “I’m finding you being back harder than I thought.”
“Partly my fault, I should’ve stayed in touch. I definitely should’ve given you the head’s up I was moving here.” He opened the fridge. “Omelette?”
“What’s going in it?”
“Ham, peppers, onions, cheese.”
“Sounds good.” It did. I sat down at the kitchen island, nursing the coffee. It was only half past six yet felt later already. “I’m not used to having a family in Manchester.”
“That’s incorrect.” He broke an egg into a bowl. “You have a family. Wrigley, Vinny – although I’d quite like to punch him - Nick, Verity, Lachy. Jenna’s told me all about them and you for months. I’m envious.”
I looked up at him, watching him whisk the eggs, a pan on the stove, not sure what to say. “They’re colleagues.”
“You’ve worked with them for between five and seven years, Nick, Vinny and Wrigley at least. You spend more time with them than most people do with the person they’re married to, and you bicker with them like you’re about to celebrate your fiftieth wedding anniversary.
I think you have a home here more than you want to admit to yourself, Mia. ”
“Is that why you’ve moved here? I thought it was because of Jenna?” It was starting to make a bit more sense now.
“All of it. You, Jenna, Manchester – because it’s part of where I’m from as much as Stan was a fuck-up. I want a life, Mia and I’m allowed to have one, just like you are.” The veggies sizzled in the pan. “I get you’re annoyed with me, though.”
“I’m not annoyed with you.”
“Liar. You so are. You’re annoyed I’ve bought this house with Stan’s money. The way I see it, he didn’t provide anything for me or my mum when he should, so I’ll take it now.”
“I’m annoyed because you’ve found it so easy to do.” I’d struggled to accept him paying my tuition fees at university.
“Who said I did? But people do worse things than me accepting money off my sperm donor to help me.” He added the eggs to the pan and started to make what looked like a perfect omelette, the pan sizzling with the heat.
We’d both finished eating when my phone rang first, followed by Nate’s. A shared look across the kitchen island was followed with us both fumbling round to find where we’d left them.
Vinny’s name was on my screen, along with a photo of himself, suited and booted for a ball, looking like James Bond, or at least he thought he did. He’d set it when he was messing around with my phone a few weeks ago, and I hadn’t changed it back to Shrek yet.
“Morning.” I sounded breathless, as if he’d caught me in the middle of something much more exciting.
“We’ve reports of a missing woman. Evelyn Smith, lives in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Her boyfriend’s just got back from a week away and Evelyn’s not there. He’s worried she’s been taken by our perp.” Vinny didn’t sound particularly interested
“Is there anything to suggest that’s the case?” We’d had a few worried partners call up, or parents, only for the person they were concerned about to turn up hours later. Working through the noise was hard sometimes.
“Evelyn works in Manchester at Harvey Nicks on the cosmetics counter as a make-up artist, so location-wise it could fit. Wrigley thinks it’s worth us speaking to the boyfriend, see if we can get some more info, her handles of her social media and we can check comments.
If she was a make-up artist, she’ll have a social media presence.
” Vinny yawned, the sound making me hold my phone away from my ear. “Sorry, I was awake a lot last night.”
“I don’t wish to know. Look, I need to drop my brother off at the morgue with some of his textbooks, and then I’ll get over there. How could she afford to live in Wilmslow if she was a make-up artist?” Wilmslow prices were hardly cheap.
“Boyfriend’s a professional footballer.”
“Who for and why aren’t you doing this then?”
“Wrong team. It’s Kristian Chambers – plays for United. He scored against City in the last derby so I’d rather pass. Me and Lachy are heading out to pick up our little involuntary celibates for further questioning too, and I’ll have more fun with that.” Another yawn.
This one sounded like he was fishing for me to ask questions. I didn’t.
“Text me the address and let Mr Chambers know I’m on the way. Enjoy your time as a feminist.” I hung up, looking at my brother who was smiling down his mobile phone.
I figured it was Jenna. I didn’t ask.
“I need to get over to Wilmslow. Are you ready to dump your stuff in my car?”
He nodded, staring at his phone, love drunk. “Yeah, Jenna says she’ll give me a lift bringing it in when we get there.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the idiot. He saw, grinning like a little boy, half embarrassed, half proud.
Then we both laughed.
It felt good.
Kristian Chambers did not look like a footballer, not that I knew much about them.
He lived in a large, gated property between Prestbury and Wilmslow, on a road known as a home for footballers and TV stars.
He was smaller than I expected, just a few inches taller than me, and looked wiry.
I suspected he was a winger, a player who did a lot of running and needed to be nimble, and I seemed to remember that he was a local lad, a product of the youth system at United.
“Thanks for coming over,” he sat down on a large white leather sofa that probably cost half my annual salary. “I know the process is to go to your local station or phone up, but with me being, you know, I didn’t want the press to get hold of it.” He was nervous, worried.
“When did you last hear from Evelyn?”