24 Hours: An intense, suspenseful psychological thriller (6 page)

I
didn’t tell
anyone about my encounter with Mal – not even Emily.

I felt deeply embarrassed by it, as if I had done something bad, something I shouldn’t have. I buried myself in work; in particular pursuing the Sudanese case. Working with refugees was fast becoming my main area of interest. I had always enjoyed the couples’ counselling, but recently it made me feel rather hopeless, and too close to home, watching as yet another relationship sailed perilously close to the rocks. I recognised these feelings were likely to be triggered by my own recent history, and I spoke to Bev, my first supervisor and my mentor, about it, and a little about Sid.

But I wasn’t ready really to delve deeper into my own marriage; it still felt too raw and painful. I knew Bev would want to talk about my father again and I couldn’t face that at the moment. Let me lick my wounds for a bit, I said, and she smiled and said
When you’re ready, Laurie. Just don’t leave it too long.
We both knew the implication was that it could affect my work badly.

The weekend after my unfortunate tea with Mal, Sid went to Paris. He didn’t tell me why, but one evening driving Polly home, the chirpy Radio One DJ told us that Jolie was playing a gig at Versailles. With a shudder and to loud protestations from my daughter, I turned over quickly to something rather less painful.

On the Saturday morning Polly and I went to collect conkers in the park, and I tried hard to ‘stay in the moment’: tried and failed. Tried
not
to think of my reconciliation with Sid last year, of the entire weekend we had spent fucking in the George V’s most lavish suite after Charles Saatchi had bought Sid’s ‘Madonna Eats Eve’ series for a cool million or three.

The truth was, Sid had slipped away from me ever faster since he’d hit the dizzy heights, winning the Turner Prize two years ago as the rank outsider, immediately generating a media frenzy. He was more bewildered than I’d ever known him, and conversely more angry and haunted, but I simply couldn’t give him my undivided attention; immersed in Polly starting nursery and a burning need to focus on my own work more, now I had some time for it.

But there were always consequences when Sid wanted something and didn’t get it. He started staying out all night with his cohorts, drinking too much Scotch, smoking too many cigarettes. His work, ever dark, became darker. His demons were chasing him, snapping at his heels; especially since one of his brothers had contacted him after seeing Sid on the news winning the Turner. Ostensibly he wanted a reunion; in reality, he was only after money.

The night after the call, I’d found Sid curled up asleep on Polly’s floor at the foot of her bed. I tried to wake him; he punched me in the face. I didn’t think he’d meant to hurt me – he wasn’t even properly awake, he’d just lashed out unconsciously – but I’d ended up with stitches in my split lip.

The next day, Sid caused the most enormous argument, accusing me of not loving him, of fancying other men, of preferring Polly to him – all provoked by his own guilt. He’d disappeared into the night, came back in the early hours when we were sleeping, packed a bag and disappeared to Paris for his opening at the Galerie Yvon Lambert.

‘
You’re better off without me
’, his note said simply.

I didn’t know what to do. I was worried about him, but I was also furious. He was behaving like a child. But he
was
a child really, I had come to understand that during our relationship; an arrested child.

In the end, my mother decided it for me. Out of the blue, she asked if she could take Polly to visit my auntie Val in Leeds. Agreeing, I delivered Polly to school on Friday morning, did my morning clinic, and then on a complete whim, bought myself a Eurostar ticket and arrived unannounced in Paris. Exhausted, mentally and physically, by the time I arrived at Sid’s hotel, I tucked myself up in the huge bed in his palatial suite and slept until he woke me around midnight, arriving back from dinner with the dreaded Randolph.

It was a little like the first weekend we’d spent together, although this time there was a sense of absolute desperation about it, an underlying urgency that had not been there when we first met. We knew so much about each other now, and we bore the scars – but Sid was happier to see me than I remembered him being in a very long time. Years, maybe.

I didn’t realise it would be one of our last weekends together.

‘You can put these with your other nature things on the fire shelf.’ She meant the mantelpiece. Depositing another load of conkers into my coat pocket, Polly brought me out of my reverie. ‘Can we go for hot chocolate now?’

Going to Robin’s on a Saturday morning had long been a family tradition, but right now it was one I felt extremely wary about.

‘Gosh, look at this one,’ I picked out the shiniest conker. ‘We can put it on a string.’

‘Why?’ Polly looked confused. ‘So, can we? Go to the café?’

‘Oh I don’t know, Pol.’ I stroked the surface so smooth it looked polished. ‘I’m not sure we’ve got time before we meet Emily.’

‘Please, Mummy. I want to see Bernard.’ Bernard was the café dachshund. ‘We haven’t been for ages. Please!’

She pleaded so fervently that in the end I gave in. Relieved to find the place half-empty, I texted Emily to meet us there and read articles about the bankers’ bonuses and what I
could
have been wearing this season if those very bankers hadn’t deprived us of half our incomes, whilst Polly, tongue firmly out in concentration, drew pictures of the little dog for Sid.

A new waitress served us, a thin-faced Spanish girl who admired Polly’s picture and the fact that she could say ‘
Cómo estás
’?’ I was less enamoured when the girl put on Jolie’s new CD – marketed as soulful folky funk by
NME
, and Jolie as an heir to Winehouse, apparently, according to the cover on the counter – and sang vigorously at the coffee machine whilst frothing the milk. I felt even worse when Polly knew the words – something along highly inappropriate and frankly awful lines like, ‘Baby I walk alone until you explode in me, then I walk amongst the stars.’

Just as I could bear no more, Robin arrived from the cash and carry. ‘I’m glad I caught you, Laurie.’ She dumped a box of frozen croissants on the table. ‘You have a fan.’

‘A fan?’ Emily had followed her in, all scarves and long velvet coat. She was in a
Doctor Who
phase, I could tell; ever the drama student, despite her sensible job at the council. She raised an eyebrow at me.

‘That nice new guy, Mal. He left his number for you.’ Robin scooped a stack of polystyrene cups up. ‘Said something about having lost yours.’

‘Oh,’ I knew I was blushing and I hated myself.

‘I’ll just find it for you. I put it somewhere sa—’

‘Oh don’t worry, Robin. I’ll get it next time.’

‘Do worry actually, thanks, Robin,’ Emily shoved me in the small of my back. ‘She’d love the number.’

‘I really wouldn’t,’ I mumbled. I’d never given him mine in the first place, anyway.

The problem was solved by Robin not being able to find the piece of paper Mal had written it on. ‘Sorry,’ she grimaced. ‘I’ll get it off him next time he comes in.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said, infinitely relieved. ‘Really.’

‘Brilliant,’ Emily said. ‘Do that, Robin.’

‘I feel sick,’ Polly said, who had somehow consumed cake and ice-cream
and
hot chocolate without me really noticing.

I shepherded my daughter out with a growing sense of unease. I had thought Mal would just disappear, and although part of me was flattered by his persistence, a bigger part was increasingly disturbed. And I wasn’t used to being ‘single’. I wasn’t single, was I – I was still married. I caught myself thinking, ‘
What will happen if Sid finds out?
’, and then remembering that what I did was no longer Sid’s business anyway.

But my instinct said that it wouldn’t be that simple. In his head, it would be fine for Sid to have a new partner, but somehow I didn’t see him accepting anyone into my life that easily … And anyway, I couldn’t see Mal again, romantically or not. It would be unethical, to say the least.

Of course, I was right about Sid. I just didn’t anticipate quite
how
violently he’d hate it.

T
he lorry veers
off at a truck stop just outside the next town, which is called Sherborne, I think, to judge from the road signs. To my huge relief, the red car that’s been behind us carries on.

I climb down without a goodbye to the driver; he doesn’t look like he cares, mutters something obviously obnoxious in what I assume is Welsh as I slam the door behind me.

I go into the rather smelly caff. I can see from the clock emblazoned with a winking pin-up girl that it’s already 2pm. If I have recalled right, I have just six hours to get to Polly before Sid does. It is of the utmost importance to me that I get there first, rational or not.

There is a policeman in leathers at the counter, drinking a cup of tea. I pause in my tracks for a moment, and then I go to him.

‘Please, sir,’ and I think of Oliver Twist; plaintive, hands extended. ‘I need your help.’

The policeman looks at me from his perch on the stool. He is quite handsome, tall and grey-haired, and I feel reassured for a moment. His radio crackles into life. ‘Hang on a sec, madam,’ he says and stands; steps away. How polite we are, even in a crisis.

I wait. My attention is diverted suddenly as I think I hear my name.

There is a television talking to itself, hung high in a corner in the café. I step nearer to it;
Sky News
is on, the ticker-tape of rolling news across the bottom bears my name. The screen is filled with an aerial shot of a partially burnt-out white building, surrounded by a park and woodland, smoke still billowing gently across the lawns. These shots are followed by stills of two men I don’t recognise, and then footage of Sid accepting his award at the Turner Prize two years ago flashes up. I am in the crowd somewhere in front, clapping my husband, but I am invisible. They have no image of me.

‘
We have just learnt that the third victim of the Forest Lodge fire is believed to be Laurie Smith, estranged wife of artist Sid Smith. Smith made his name with the
Jesus, Mary and the Sin
sculpture he so famously placed in St Peter’s Square, Rome, in 2010, causing his own arrest and an international furore. The Catholic Church took huge offence at the suggestion that Jesus and Mary might have had an incestuous relationship.

‘“It’s art, not reality,” a contemptuous Smith said at the time, although he made his name and a considerable fortune from the first in a string of controversial works. Smith is believed to have recently left his wife for the young blues singer Jolie Jones. Police are refusing to confirm reports, although we know from hotel staff that Laurie Smith was staying at the Spa with friend Emily Southern. Miss Southern is believed to have escaped with minor injuries; so far Sid Smith has been unavailable for comment. The couple have a six-year-old daughter together, Polly Blue … More news as we get it.
’

I stare at the immaculate presenter. At least I have bought myself a little time, I think. But my chest is tightening and I am verging on a panic attack, I can feel it rising in me.

The policeman is coming back. ‘Bad business,’ he indicates the screen, talking to the raddled woman behind the counter. ‘Lucky there weren’t more dead.’

‘How did it start?’ She refills his cup.

‘Not sure,’ he shrugs. ‘One of those two women didn’t put a fag out properly, I’m guessing. Pissed, they were, apparently.’

‘What women?’ She takes a desultory swipe at the grease on the stainless steel worktop.

‘The stupid bint that’s dead.’

‘Bit harsh, Mike,’ the woman’s laugh quickly descends into a terrible rattling cough. ‘Don’t speak ill of, etcetera.’

‘Well,’ he is angry, righteous with it. ‘It wasn’t just herself that she killed, was it? And if you will smoke …’ He looks at her pointedly.

‘Point taken,’ she chucks the J-Cloth back into the sink behind her. I walk back towards them.

‘So, love,’ the policeman remembers me now.
Stupid bint
, I think. ‘How can I help you?’

‘We don’t smoke,’ I want to shout, outraged. ‘Neither me or Emily smoke. We’re not to blame.’

But I don’t say that: what can I say that will make sense? ‘
I am that woman they are talking about on the news, I am not dead but I am frightened for my life?
’ I see from the speculative way he is looking at me already he will only think I am mad.

So instead, I say, ‘My car broke down. I need a lift to the train station please. I need to get to London.’

‘Broke down?’ he looks at me, still appraising me. ‘Where? Shall I take you back there? Have you not got roadside cover?’

But of course there is no car. I re-think my story. ‘Actually,’ I laugh nervously, ‘I had a row with my boyfriend. He drove off.’

‘A row?’ I can see him wondering now about the scratches on my face, my bandaged hand.

I think of Sid, of the fights with Sid.

‘Yes, it’s nothing, really, just a silly row, but I need to get home. Back to London. I have to meet my daughter.’

‘I can take you,’ the woman says, retying her straw-like ponytail with an elastic band. ‘I’m finishing in five minutes. Driving into Sherborne. Early Christmas shopping – before our Richard spends it all on the gee-gees.’ She rolls her eyes to heaven. ‘Drop you at the station if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘that’d be great.’

The policeman’s phone rings: he moves away to answer it. Something about an urgent call from a farm a few miles away. ‘Gotta go,’ he says, returning.

I wait for the woman who has disappeared into the back now, but I am thinking about Polly. I am thinking that I need to do something urgently.

‘Please,’ I follow the policeman outside. ‘I am … I haven’t been totally honest.’

‘Oh?’ he reaches for his helmet from his motorbike. ‘About what?’

‘I am …’ I take a deep breath. ‘I was at Forest Lodge. My daughter, Polly Smith … my husband Sid – he’s the … you know, the artist, and anyway – I think someone’s trying to kill me. I need to get to my daughter. She’s on the train, I think, coming back from—’

‘Stop,’ he holds up a hand. ‘You’re not making any sense. What are you on about?’

‘I’m Laurie Smith.’

He looks at me again. ‘Laurie Smith is dead.’ He points at the tea-hut. ‘They’ve just said that on the TV. She’s dead, in the fire. You were listening to it. So, sorry – but
who
are you?’

‘
I’m
Laurie Smith.’

‘So, what are you doing here?’ his face hardens. ‘Because if you
are
Laurie Smith, you’re wanted for suspected arson.’

And who is Laurie Smith anyway, I wonder. Where did that girl go? The one who fell in love with the man who had been irreparably hurt by his own past, the one who had almost been ruined by her own father’s lack of love. The one who always loved the wrong boys at school, who learnt nothing from Emily’s great confidence; who couldn’t see it was the men she picked, not her. The one who held Sid’s hand so tight at her wedding because it felt like a second chance; a new beginning. The start of something – not a descent into madness. The one who used to feel hopeful. Where is that Laurie?

It feels like I am dreaming with my eyes open. Any minute I will wake up.

The policeman’s radio crackles again; he speaks into it. ‘Six-seventy, receiving.’ He looks at me with contempt, shakes his head. ‘I’d get your story straight if I was you, love. Broken-down cars, arguments with boyfriends, famous husbands.’ He slams his visor down. ‘There’s a word for women like you.’ He kicks the bike-stand up and roars off through a puddle. Muddy water splashes my already-damp legs.

‘Sexy git, in’t he?’ the waitress is standing behind me, lighting a fag. She coughs. ‘I would, wouldn’t you? And you wouldn’t blame me if you saw my Richard in his Y-fronts.’ She pulls a face, and without waiting for an answer, heads for her car. ‘You coming then, or what?’

Or what? I follow her to a rusty maroon Capri that looks older than she does.

Laurie Smith is wanted for arson?

There is no what.