Blood Tracks (13 page)

“Listen, Gina,” Declan said urgently, sitting down on her bed. “I need your help. I need it right now. I need you to come downstairs and talk to Tom.”

“Talk to him! Are you joking? I can’t even bear to look at him.” She was still talking to the wall.

“Gina, I need you to stall him. He’s about to go home and I need to do something before he goes.”

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She looked at him.

“What do you need to do?”

“Nothing much.” His foot tapped nervously on the side of her bed. “But it’s important, Gina,
really
important and if I don’t do it now I’ll miss my chance.”

“You tell me what it is and I might do it for you.”

“No! I just need you to stall him. Keep him in the living room for two minutes, that’s all.”

“No deal.” Gina crossed her arms. “
You
keep him talking.
I’ll
do the business.”

Declan’s eyes danced manically as he considered his options. “Okay, okay. It’s his jacket. It’s on a chair in the kitchen. There’s a piece of paper; it should be in the inside pocket. I need to know what’s written on it. Don’t take it, just look at what it says, okay?”

Gina frowned. “What’s this about?”

Declan put his hands in praying position. “Please, Gina, I haven’t got time to explain.”

“Is Tom up to something?”

“He could be. That piece of paper might tell us if he is.”

“Then why didn’t you just say so? You said you’d let me know if anything happened. Did someone give it to him?”

“Yes, some big guy from the Ivory Coast. He could be a business associate. He came to the warehouse. I don’t know who he is.”

“So why do you think it’s something dodgy?”

“Call it gut instinct. I just have a bad feeling about it all and I want to see what’s on that paper.”

Gina’s face split into a grateful smile. “Thanks for doing this for me, Declan.”

“S’okay,” he mumbled to the ground. “Just hurry up!”

As Declan raced down the stairs he was relieved to see that Tom hadn’t moved from the hallway, where he was still arguing with Gina’s mum.

“Clare, she needed to be told,” Tom was saying.

“I’m not going to talk about this any more,” Gina’s mum huffed, walking away from him and passing Declan on the stairs. “Go home, Tom.”

Tom’s face was like thunder as Declan approached him, thinking fast. “Tom, I know it’s not a good time but I need to discuss something important with you.”

Tom scowled at him. “Can’t it wait, for God’s sake?”

“No, it’s about the warehouse, the stock. I meant to tell you earlier.”

“What is it?” Tom said impatiently.

“Well…” Declan began, walking into the living room, desperately hoping Tom would follow. “It’s about the air-conditioning system. I don’t think it’s working properly. The left side of the warehouse felt really humid today.”

“What? Are you sure?” Tom said, following him in.

“Yep.”

“But the beans have got to be kept cool or else they could be ruined,” Tom said.

“I know. That’s why I knew you’d want to be told,” Declan said, shutting the door behind them with relief.

Gina watched, unseen, as her frazzled-looking mum disappeared into the bathroom. She seized her moment and crept down the stairs and past the living room, where Tom’s exasperated tones cut through the closed door.

“This is all I need; that air-con system cost me a bloody fortune. It’d better not be playing up. There’s thousands of pounds’ worth of stock in that warehouse.”

As she entered the kitchen, Gina spotted the jacket straight away. Shutting the door as quietly as possible, she picked it off the chair, unzipped the inside pocket and felt around. Nothing. She delved her hand into the left-side pocket and pulled out Tom’s car and house keys and a packet of chewing gum. In the right-side pocket she found a leather wallet. Her eyes flashed to the door as she pulled out the wallet and opened it. She flicked through the rows of credit cards and an impressive array of membership cards for clubs where he entertained important clients. Gina bristled; sure, Tom was generous and, over the years, he always seemed to enjoy visiting them, but she couldn’t remember him ever taking her dad to any of his clubs. It suddenly struck her that maybe Tom had thought that a warehouse foreman wasn’t good enough to mix with his wealthy friends.

Focus, Gina, don’t get sidetracked.
She opened the wallet’s main compartment and pulled out the wad of crisp, clean notes. Placing the pile of money on the kitchen table she fanned it out and, as she swept her hand over the fifties and twenties, she spotted a white piece of paper folded amongst them.

She picked it out and opened it, revealing a set of numbers:
874351/54/208/23/10/13

What – is that it?
She turned it over to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. She rifled through all the pockets of the jacket again – there was nothing else. A creak from the living room door sent her heart jumping into her mouth.

No way will I remember those numbers,
she thought.
Pen? I need a pen.
She looked around the kitchen in a panic, as if the place was unknown to her.

Messy drawer!
She scrambled to open the drawer next to the cooker and fought through a tangle of elastic bands, batteries, and sellotape until she unearthed a pen.
Paper?

She heard Tom’s voice in the hallway. “I’ll check it out on my way home.”

“No, wait.” Declan’s voice boomed a warning. “Do you want me in extra early tomorrow, in case there’s loads of sacks to sort out?”

“Are you after a pay rise, Declan?” Tom said half impressed and half mocking. “Just let me go to the warehouse and see for myself.”

“So you’re going then!” Declan said loudly.

Hurry up! Hurry up!
Gina panicked.

She copied the numbers from the paper onto the back of her hand before frantically gathering up the money, placing the folded paper in between the notes again and stuffing them all back into the wallet.

“For God’s sake, Declan, I’m not deaf…” Tom stopped dead as he opened the kitchen door to find Gina, one hand deep inside a pocket of his jacket.

“Gina! What are you doing with my jacket?”

“Did it fall on the floor, Gina? Were you just picking it up?” Declan prompted her from behind Tom.

Tom turned his head to Declan; the look on his face silenced the boy. “I wasn’t asking you. I think it’s best you go home.”

“But—” Declan began to protest.

“Home!” Tom jabbed a finger at him, before shutting the kitchen door.

Gina felt the blood drain from her face. “I…I…was just looking to see what make it was. I reckoned it was probably Armani. I wanted to check.”

Tom eyed her suspiciously. “Come off it. Since when have you taken an interest in my clothes – in
any
clothes, for that matter?”

She cast her eyes to the floor, licking her suddenly dry lips.

He took the jacket from her and picked his wallet out of the pocket. Opening it, he ran his fingers over the top of the crumpled notes.

“How much have you taken?” His voice darkened.

Gina’s heart was beating out of her chest. “Nothing,” she whispered.

“But you’ve been through my money, Gina, you must have taken something.”

Gina swallowed hard, keeping her eyes on the floor.

“Listen, I know that you’re angry with me, but you can’t go stealing from me.”

“I wasn’t stealing, honest,” she muttered. “It was for Mum.”

“What was for your mum?”

“I was looking for money because I wanted to buy something for Mum. I’ve only got a tenner and I wanted to get her something decent.”

“It’s not her birthday for months,” he said accusingly.

“It’s not for her birthday. I wanted to get her something to show her that I’m sorry for being such a pain since Dad died. I know I’ve been a pain, Tom – what you said has made me think.”

“Really?” Tom softened on hearing her admission. “Well, that’s good to know, Gina.”

“And I would have paid you back anyway.”

“Either way, you don’t have to steal from me. If you need money then you only have to ask. You know I’d give you anything you wanted.” A smile played on his lips as he pulled a note out of the wallet.

“Here, have this, buy something nice for your mum.”

“No! I can’t take it,” she protested, seeing it was a fifty.

“Take it,” he insisted. “You don’t have to pay me back.” He grabbed her hand. She froze – the numbers she’d copied down were clearly visible. He dragged the hand towards him; she tried to maintain his gaze, willing him not to look down. She twisted against his grip, relieved to see the numbers roll out of sight as her palm appeared.

“You didn’t take much persuading,” he laughed, pressing the note into her palm and closing her moist fingers around it.

“Thanks,” she whispered, hoping he hadn’t noticed how her hand trembled.

Tom stood staring at her in baffled amusement. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Gina?”

Her mum came bustling into the kitchen. “There you are! I thought you were up in your room.” She scrutinized her guilty-looking daughter and sighed. “Have you two been having a go at each other again?”

“Not at all. Gina and I have just made up. Haven’t we, kiddo?” He put his arm around her stiff shoulders.

“Yeah.” She faked a smile.

“We’ve had a good talk. Cleared the air.” He squeezed her closer to him.

Her mum beamed with relief. “Well, that’s just great. It would make me so happy if you two could get along.” She threw her arms around them, rocking them. “You sillies. No more falling out, hey?”

“Don’t worry. Gina and me are the best of friends. We understand each other now, don’t we?” he said, with a wink that sent a shudder down Gina’s spine.

“Dive to the left, Danny!” Declan shouted as he booted the ball from the penalty spot yet again. The ball flew past Danny and into the back of the net.

“I can’t do it. I haven’t saved
any
yet. I’m so rubbish,” Danny grumbled, retrieving the ball.

“Don’t be a baby. You can. You’ve got to react faster, concentrate more.”

“Let me take a shot,” Gina said, placing the ball on the penalty spot.

“Okay, now come on, Danny, focus,” Declan coached. “Watch her as she runs up and see if you can work out where she’s going to place it. Stretch your arms out, bend your knees; get ready to dive.”

Gina took a short run-up and blasted the ball. It rocketed towards the right-hand corner of the goal. Danny dived and stretched his arms like they were made of plasticine. His fingertips just made contact with the ball, and deflected it away from the goal.

Declan sprang up into the air and did a somersault. He ran up to Gina and they threw their arms around each other, mucking around; cheering like Danny had just saved a penalty in a World Cup Final.

Danny picked himself off the AstroTurf, grinning. “Calm down, you two. It was only Gina’s shot and she’s a girl, so it doesn’t count.”

Gina released Declan but he kept his arms around her; he seemed reluctant to let her go. She smiled to herself.

“Get off the pitch,” Danny suddenly shouted. “Big Paddy and the team are here and there’s the Thunderbolts’ minibus!”

They watched apprehensively as a team of bruisers piled out of the minibus.

“Are you sure they’re under-11s?” Declan asked.

“Yep,” Danny groaned.

Gina and Declan exchanged worried looks.

“You’ll be fine,” Declan said breezily. “Just remember everything we’ve gone through.”

“Yeah, okay,” Danny said, walking to the goalmouth like a condemned man.

Gina and Declan stood on the touchline, watching the game under the glaring floodlights.

“God, I can’t watch any more,” Gina said, looking through her fingers as another ball sailed past Danny and into the net. “This is a massacre!”

Declan nudged her. “Don’t let him see you looking like that. Come on, Panthers!” he shouted at the sorry-looking team.

“I’ve been thinking about those numbers on Tom’s piece of paper,” she said in a low voice, although no one was in earshot. “Maybe they’re details of a bank account, or the code to a safety deposit box or a safe?”

“Yeah, they could be.” Declan shrugged. “We just don’t know.”

“But then, I was thinking that maybe the last three sets of numbers could be a date.” Gina got her notebook out of her bag and showed the sequence of numbers to Declan.

“Look – 874351/54/208/23/10/13. Couldn’t the 23/10/13 be a date?”

Declan nodded, impressed. “Possibly, in which case, it’s very soon.”

“So, as we haven’t got anything else to go on, I reckon we shouldn’t take our eyes off Tom on that day, and see if anything happens.”

“Okay, I can do that at the warehouse and you can take over in the evening, if he comes to your house.”

“We’ve got to be careful though. We don’t want him getting suspicious. I nearly died when he walked in on me in the kitchen. At least he didn’t realize what I was up to, but the way he was acting…he really gave me the creeps.”

“Yeah, he had a go at me this morning about the air-conditioning – said I’d wasted his time. We should definitely keep this to ourselves.”

“But what about my mum? She needs to know if he’s up to something.”

“No!” Declan seemed alarmed. “Don’t say anything. We need to suss out what’s going on first. It may be nothing and then you’ll just look like you’re making up stuff and your mum will be upset with you.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We’ll keep it to ourselves for now.” Gina turned her attention back to the game. “Ooh…come on, ref! That was a foul! Number eight just elbowed that little number six in the face!”

The final whistle blew and there was relief all round that the slaughter was over.

“I think Danny’s going to need a little more coaching,” Gina said.

“Leave it to me. I’ll make him into a Ninja goalie before the end of the season,” Declan laughed.

Gina fought back an urge to hug him. It felt so great to have him around, to know that she wasn’t alone in this any more. Declan was helping her. He believed in her.

Declan looked at his watch. “Do you fancy seeing a movie tonight? If you get Danny home and I get changed and call back for you in half an hour?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. What were you thinking of?”

“Any – your choice.” Declan shrugged.

“My choice? But what if I want to see a chick flick full of women buying shoes and complaining about men?” she teased.

“I’ll watch whatever makes you happy.” He smiled.

Gina tried to mask her excitement.
Oh my God! He’s actually willing to see a
chick flick
with me. What boy does that unless they fancy you?

“See you in half an hour then,” she trilled.

Gina made Danny rush home. Once they were in the house she ran upstairs, calling to her mum that she was getting ready to go out with Declan. Twenty minutes later, most of the contents of her wardrobe were piled on her bed. She’d changed half a dozen times, looking in the mirror and shaking her head.

The doorbell rang. She put on another coat of lipstick, slipped on her new shoes and clung onto the banister like she was walking downstairs on stilts.

She smiled when she saw the look on Declan’s face as she opened the door.

“Wow! You look nice.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Oh thanks,” she said casually, “I just threw on the first thing I saw.”

“Well come on, your chariot awaits.”

“Where?” She looked around.

“On the High Street. It’s the number six bus. We’d better run, it’s due in a minute.”

“No way, I can’t run in these heels!” she protested.

“Then I’ll give you a piggyback.” He turned round and offered his back.

“You must be joking.”

“No. We’ll miss the movie and you don’t want to sit through it with sore feet, do you? Come on, hop on.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m doing this!” She jumped up onto his back. “Giddy up then.”

He started to run up the street with Gina clinging to him, her arms around his neck, laughing so hard she thought she was going to fall off.

“Thanks for not making me watch a chick flick,” Declan whispered to her in the darkened cinema.

“It’s okay. I like thrillers better, anyway.” She lowered her hand into the cavernous tub that Declan was holding.

“Wow, you really like popcorn,” he whispered, rattling the near-empty tub.

She squirmed. “Have I eaten it all? The weird thing is that I could hardly eat after my dad died and now I can’t seem to stop. It’s since I’ve met you, you’re a bad influence on me.”

“I hope so.” He grinned. “Open up then.”

He held a piece of popcorn up to her mouth but, as she lunged for it, her lips accidentally sealed around his fingertips. Declan froze. He swallowed hard. She immediately released his fingers and nearly choked on the popcorn.

“Sorry,” she spluttered.

“No worries,” he whispered, flustered.

For the remainder of the film Declan didn’t seem to move a muscle. Every time Gina sneaked a look at him out of the corner of her eye, he was sitting with his hands on his knees, staring intently at the screen.

After the movie they jumped in a taxi home and by the time they were at her front door she was willing him so hard to kiss her that she felt sure he’d be able to read her mind. She stood up on the doorstep so that she was level with him.

“Thanks for a lovely night,” she said, looking into his languid brown eyes.

“No, thank
you
,” he said, grinning. But then his phone vibrated in his pocket, and the grin fell from his face as he answered it.

“Hi…okay…I’ll ring you back.” Declan’s voice was cold.

“Who was that?” Gina asked.

“Just a mate. I need to get back to him. I’ll see you soon,” he said, with that same tense look that she’d seen in his eyes before, and he left her standing alone on the doorstep.

Declan sat in his flowery bedroom and rang back his least favourite person. “Have you worked out what those numbers I gave you mean?” Declan asked the man.

“No, but something’s going down, lad. Cotter wouldn’t get a personal visit like that unless there were things in the pipeline.”

“Well, Gina reckons the last few digits could be a date.”

“What do you mean ‘Gina reckons’? Why the hell have you told her?”

“Because I wouldn’t have even got the information without her,” Declan replied indignantly.

“What does she know?”

“Only that I think Tom might be involved in something dodgy. She was more than willing to help. She doesn’t want him around her family, especially her mum. She thinks he knows things about her dad’s death, doesn’t she? What about the stuff in her notebook that I told you about? What about her description of the guy outside the house? It sounded like it was the same man who came to visit Tom, the man in the photo. You said you were going to look into it?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about that,” he said dismissively. “The bottom line is, I’ve asked people who know and they say that Gina Wilson is unstable. All this stuff about her dad not killing himself – it’s rubbish. She hasn’t been able to handle his suicide and she’s been taking it out on Cotter.”

“Are you sure?” Declan asked.

“Yes, I’m sure.” He sounded irritated.

Declan didn’t want to believe it. Gina was so convinced about her dad and she’d trusted Declan to help her. He felt so guilty about what he was doing. He despised the person on the phone but, on the other hand, there was no reason for the man to lie about this. If it was true, it meant that Gina wasn’t well; that all her thoughts and theories were just delusions that she’d built up to protect herself from reality.

“Poor Gina,” Declan whispered to himself.

“Just don’t get sucked into her problems. You’ve got a job to do; so keep a clear head and for God’s sake don’t tell her anything else!” he said, infuriated.

Declan gave a hollow laugh. “What could I tell her? I don’t know anything. If something’s about to go down, then maybe it’s time you told me what you’ve got me involved with.”

“I’ve told you as much as you need to know and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Your immediate problem is making sure the girl keeps her mouth shut about this. We can’t have Cotter knowing he’s being watched.”

“I’ll do my best,” Declan said quietly.

“I need better than that. There’s too much at stake here for you to cock this up.”

“I hate all this lying. It’s not something I’m good at,” Declan protested.

“Oh, don’t be so modest, Declan. I’d say you had a real talent for it,” he replied, sneeringly.