The Liverpool Trilogy (26 page)

He walked away from the house, because the visitors might want to look round the grounds. Damien spat at him, and the geese chased him. So he put himself away in a large shed and hid behind stored timber. ‘Don’t talk to her, Trish,’ he whispered. ‘Please, don’t talk to her.’

Waking in the arms of a man was wonderful; waking in the embrace of Dr David Vincent was special beyond words. Lucy imagined that many folk would laugh if they knew how chaste they had remained, but she knew differently. The magnetism was there to the point where it all but crackled in the air, yet they had managed to sleep without indulging the need to be closer. Separately, they were strong people; together, they were almost unbreakable.

‘No jokes today, missus?’ he asked. ‘Nothing about unfinished business, unstarted business and my ability to lie unmoved next to a red-hot woman? No digs at my manhood? Hairy legs? Snoring?’

She awarded him a pseudo-disdainful glance. ‘Later.’

‘So you aren’t cured? Will I still have to cope with all your sillinesses?’

‘Yup. You use the bathroom first, because you’re in Bolton today, am I right?’

‘You are.’ He stayed where he was. ‘It wasn’t easy, Louisa. And it can’t be maintained. Tallows, then?’

‘Tallows. After we’ve found my beloved ex, and preferably when Moira isn’t there. I suppose I could leave her for an hour, but—’

‘It’s not enough. I want longer than an hour, my darling. A lot longer.’

She managed not to shiver. ‘I agree. There’s more to us than the merely physical. I feel as if I’ve come home after emigrating to some strange place. The thing is, where is that strange place? He can’t have gone far, not after being in hospital for so long.’

David rolled away and picked up the phone. ‘I’ll talk to Rhys, see what I can get out of him.’

‘At half past seven?’

‘He’s like me, babe. He takes the whole thing very seriously. I have to catch him before he goes into theatre at one of the hospitals. Alan was lucky to get him, because he’s definitely the best in the north when it comes to dicky tickers. For all I know, he could already be standing on a helipad waiting for a picnic box with a heart in it.’

‘Even I know that’s not his job.’

‘All right, all right.’ He dialled. Lucy listened to the banter. It was medical, vulgar and very witty. Then the questioning began. Feeling like an eavesdropper, she left him to it and went for a quick shower. When she returned, he was sitting on the edge of her bed. ‘Well?’ she asked, towelling her hair.

‘He’s possibly with the childless widow of some millionaire from Cheshire.’

Lucy dropped the hair-drying towel. ‘Possibly? And do we know the name and address of this possible person?’

‘No. Rhys said she’s had enough shocks lately. Her other half died recently in Easterly Grange – brain tumour.’

‘Isn’t she in mourning?’

‘Rhys also says she’s a good little soul who did her grieving before he died, because she lost him an inch at a time. Then she started to visit your old man. She was seen in one of the corridors just before Alan did his disappearing act. So, taking into account your husband’s need for money and his preference for stick-thin females, well, it’s not rocket science, is it? He’s with her. And you know very well what he’s capable of. But you’d be better to leave him to it.’

‘No.’ She sat next to him. ‘She has to be warned.’

‘How?’

‘Listen, sunshine. You’re the brains of this outfit – I’m here just as decoration and landlady. We need to find out who died in that place. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t talk to her.’ She was tempted, though. It would be so easy to walk away and let the world get on without her help.

He thought for several moments. ‘Let me search for a way, please. If you barge in, she’ll think you have an axe to grind.’

‘I have! And his head’s the bloody grindstone. Look – he has a date at Bolton Magistrates’ Court in a few days, because he’s going to lose his driving licence. We could hang about there.’

‘With an axe?’

Lucy dug her companion in the ribs. ‘Don’t get clever with me, son.’

He pushed her into a prone position, climbed on top of her and tickled her until she screamed. ‘That’s a deposit,’ he said. ‘Returnable if we don’t reach completion.’

‘Caveat emptor,’ she replied, trying to cover her near-nakedness. ‘Buyer beware, because you don’t know what you’re taking on.’

‘I’ve just seen most of it.’ He stood up and announced his intention to go for a shower.

‘David?’

‘What?’

‘I love you.’ There, it was said. He was adorable, intellectually sound, amusing, handsome and imperfect. She couldn’t remember when she’d last said those three precious words to Alan. Poor Alan. Poor Alan? What about the widow who’d landed herself with him? She was the one who deserved pity, surely?

David turned in the doorway. ‘I was thinking last night. Pondering the mysteries and all that stuff. And I decided that you were the second love of my life, but that’s not the truth.’

‘Oh? What am I, then?’

He smiled, and nodded knowingly. ‘You’re my second life. You’re the love of that second life and the core of it. I remember you not just from childhood, but also from the future. I read Einstein on the fabric of time – oh, years ago. I don’t know how or whether he managed to prove it, but he saw the fourth dimension as one – past, present and future all together.’

‘So there’s no such thing as time?’

‘Apparently, we made it up to give the Swiss something to do with all those wooden cuckoos. Oh, and for calendar makers, of course.’ He left the room, then popped his head back round the door. ‘Mind you, try telling that to a child waiting for Christmas. Tim used to open those doors on the Advent calendar at the crack of dawn before counting how many days he had to wait.’ He disappeared again.

Lucy sighed contentedly. He had just let Tim go, and she had been both witness and an element in the cause. Children were never replaceable, while his love for Anne had clearly been absolute. But surely it was easier to start another adult relationship than it was to say goodbye to a child? He was making strides, was more relaxed and easy in her company. Lucy quickly threw on some jeans and a blouse in order to go and help Moira finish packing.

Carol and Dee were in the main sitting room. The large woman looked up from her task of changing a cushion cover. ‘Hiya, Lucy. We heard you screaming. Is that him of long-standing what I heard talking in yonder?’ She inclined her head towards the bedroom. ‘The clue was his bloody dog shedding hairs all over me floors.’

‘It is David, yes.’

Dee giggled. ‘Has he managed to sit down yet? Because various veins and piles go hand in hand, you know.’

Lucy was learning fast that Liverpudlians had a way of abusing words and throwing them together that was deliberately double-edged and, on occasion, confusing. She raised an eyebrow at Dee. ‘I’ve got him a rubber ring,’ she said seriously. ‘We blow it up with a bike pump.’

They both studied her for a few seconds. Was she keeping up, or was she serious? ‘She’s learning,’ Dee pronounced.

Carol shook her head. ‘Ooh, I don’t know. I mean, she’s only a Woolly. They can be a bit slow. But a rubber ring? Can you see a doctor like him sat on a rubber ring?’

Dee thought about that. She still looked as if she had mumps, though a more accurate description would be a mump, since just one side of her face remained distorted. ‘No. A doctor wouldn’t sit on a rubber ring.’

Lucy tutted. ‘I’m going away with Moira for a few days. Will you come back and feed the cat in the evenings? He’ll be sulky, though I doubt he’ll commit suicide by starvation.’

Carol announced that she would stay at Stoneyhurst until Lucy returned, and that she would, if necessary, force-feed the two reprobates in the roof. ‘And if you’ll throw in that long-stood-up feller, I’ll have the time of me life.’

Lucy punched the big woman playfully. ‘He’s spoken for.’

Dee’s face lit up. ‘Told you,’ she said. ‘You owe me a fiver and a fish supper, Mam.’

‘Shoo,’ Lucy ordered. ‘Both of you. Bugger off upstairs and clean a couple of bathrooms.’

When they had gone, Lucy watched Richard retrieving something from the car against which he had committed GBH the night before. He still had a face like thunder, so she remained thoroughly determined to get Moira to Tallows for a while. What on earth was the matter with him?

David came in and followed the line of her gaze. ‘Acting like he’s lost a quid and found a penny. It’s perhaps as well you’re getting Moira away from there tonight. He looks as if he could use the services of the bomb disposal unit. Mind you, they’d need a few sandbags – he seems to be packing a fair amount of dynamite. What the hell’s up with him, Louisa?’

‘Something specific,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘And something he can’t tell her while she’s so ill.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘A woman, I’d say. He misses sex.’

‘So do I, but I don’t make a career of it.’

Lucy grinned. ‘I noticed.’

At last, David was on his favourite horse. ‘See? I knew you’d say something. I knew that clever mouth of yours wouldn’t stay shut for more than a few minutes.’ He was trying hard not to laugh. Years of misery, childcare and introspection had fallen away from the shoulders of this capable woman, and her humour was the factor that had kept her sane. ‘And I wouldn’t change a hair of your head. You carry on putting me in my place, honey, because you are my sense of proportion.’

‘Oh, get in that kitchen, pour coffee and eat your toast.’

He went into the kitchen, poured coffee, and ate his toast. She was a bossy-boots, but he would deal with her later and in another place. Einstein was wrong, because the future was going to be a very wonderful story. ‘The future is real,’ he said aloud.

‘What?’

‘Shut up and eat your toast.’

Glenys and Lucy walked for miles. The shops were nowhere near the Crown Court, though they found a decent lunch in a poshed-up cellar not too far away from where Glenys had handed over her brief. But they went for a post-prandial stroll and did some serious window-shopping in the centre of the city, finally turning back to face the Mersey as they sauntered in the direction of their parked cars.

On Hanover Street, Lucy ground to a halt. ‘There it is!’ she cried. ‘Supposed to be the best hairdresser for miles, and you need a mortgage to walk in. Do you think they’ll charge us for looking through the windows?’ But the windows were not seeable through. Clients who paid hundreds of pounds for hand-knotted extensions didn’t want the world and his wife staring at them.

As the pair turned to walk away, the door opened and a figure stepped out of the salon. Once again, Lucy ground to a halt.

‘You keep putting your brakes on,’ her companion complained. ‘Or are you running out of fuel?’

‘I know her.’ The woman was never out of the newspapers, since she ran a prize-winning business.

‘Really?’

‘Glen, go back to my house. Tell your satnav 32, Mersey View, Waterloo. Poetic, what? Go on. All you need is to follow your nose up the dock road. I have to do this by myself. Go on, shoo. I’ll be OK.’

While Glenys walked away towards her car, Lucy watched the woman who had emerged from the hallowed portals of Liverpool’s third cathedral, a building dedicated to the cause of female beauty. It was Herbert’s place. A fabulously flamboyant perfectionist, he ruled this corner of the city with a rod of iron that failed completely to conceal a heart of finer metal.

The woman outside Herbert’s of Liverpool was pushing items into the back of a van when Lucy joined her and asked if she might help.

‘Oh, ta.’ The woman did a quick double-take. ‘Erm . . . do I know you?’

‘You know my husband.’

A long pause was followed by, ‘Oh. Yes. Well. Look, if there’s going to be a fuss, can we sit in the van? Only I’ve just handed over to one of Mr Herbert’s staff, and she might be watching, and if she tells Mr Hedouin, my new boss, I could be ruined. Please? Your husband was ill, and he needed someone to talk to, and I’ve not seen him in ages, honestly . . .’

They climbed into the van. ‘Right, Miss Livesey,’ Lucy began. ‘There’ll be no row and no fuss, because I am getting a divorce from him, so calm yourself. And you’re right – he was seriously ill and might easily have died. He’s been in hospital for weeks.’

Mags Livesey nodded rapidly. ‘I know. He fell off the face of the earth again, and I went to his office in Bolton and they told me where he was. So I bought some flowers and grapes and clogged it halfway across Manchester, and they wouldn’t let me see him.’ Blushing bright pink, she looked Lucy in the face. ‘I never loved him, you know. But he looked so bloody awful when I last saw him – I could tell he was getting sicker, even though he pretended to be all right. You see, I told him to bog off, then I felt all guilty in case I’d made him worse.’

‘He’s disappeared yet again,’ said Lucy. ‘And none of it’s your fault, Miss Livesey.’

Mags smiled tentatively. ‘Just call me Mags. You’re making me sound like some godawful headmistress.’

‘All right, Mags.’

The self-made woman relaxed slightly. ‘Good job it’s a small world, eh? See, I got the franchise for this Nouvelle Reine stuff from Tête à Tête in Paris, and a right bloody mouthful that is for somebody who doesn’t know French.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, they were right pleased with me, because I worked damned hard, and they’ve made me an offer no bugger would refuse. To cut everything short, I’m selling my shops, handing over the franchises, and going to work at a health spa called Styles in Alderley Edge, all marble columns and swimming pools.’ She paused for effect. ‘Had a look round yesterday. And guess who was lurking in the hall? Yes, it was the man himself.’

Lucy shivered slightly. No one should have to put up with Alan. ‘Tell me, is the householder recently widowed?’

Mags bit her lip. ‘She is. That’s why she’s selling, and the price tag’s over five million.’

Lucy whistled.

‘Look,’ continued Mags. ‘You never got this from me.’ She rooted in the depths of her vast handbag. ‘Your Alan is at this address.’ She passed over a card. ‘That’s the name of the man who died. All kinds of folk will have his business card – you could have picked it up anywhere. You should see where they live, it’s all footballers and big business folk. She’s Trish, and she’s nice. Dead normal.’ Mags stopped and ran her eyes over the woman next to her. ‘It was all lies, wasn’t it?’