The Footballer's Wife (30 page)

‘My dad's been arrested.'

Markie pulled the car into an empty parking space and turned around to look at his mum. ‘When she says her dad she means
our
dad.'

Charly looked around to see Tracy's reaction. Her face had drained of colour and she was speechless.

MARKIE KNEW IT
was only a matter of time before he had to confront his mum about this. He'd known something wasn't right for years. He didn't look anything like Paul, his supposed dad. He wasn't anything like him in temperament either; not that that was an immediate indication of someone's paternal link but Markie had never felt like his dad was his dad. He'd never been able to put his finger on it.

When Markie was about sixteen he'd heard Tracy and Paul arguing – there was absolutely nothing new in that, they argued all the time. But as Paul was saying that he could walk away with the kids in the morning and the Social wouldn't bat an eyelid (a tired threat in their house and one that was never followed through), Tracy had snapped and told him that he couldn't take Markie because he wasn't his
to take. The conversation had become heated and Paul had screamed at Tracy that she couldn't say things like that. Rather than sticking around to listen to the outcome of the conversation, Markie had left the house and headed for the youth club that he used to go to as a kid. He had downed a bottle of cider and tried to forget that the conversation had ever taken place.

After that he'd always just assumed that what his mum had said was true. His dad wasn't Paul. He didn't look like him and he certainly didn't act like him. But at the same time Markie didn't really want to know who his dad was. His mum had always been the mouthiest woman on the estate, but she wasn't someone who had particularly played around when he was younger. Then again, he'd thought, who really knew what their parents had been up to before they were born. He could hardly think that of all the kids born to someone else other than their supposed dad he couldn't be one of them. Tracy was hardly the Virgin Mary.

So Markie had decided that he wasn't going to say anything. It was too much of a can of worms and Paul never mentioned it, so why should he. And since being a teenager he hadn't really thought about it until six months ago when he'd been
approached by Charly. She had asked to meet him in a bar and said that she didn't really know how to explain what she had to say but that she thought that they were brother and sister. Len had invited Charly to come to a night at the club and she had obliged but gone alone as she hadn't wanted the awkwardness of inviting her famous boyfriend to the grotty club where her dad had worked. Len had got smashed at the end of the night. He began to talk about how much he missed her mum, then he got onto the topic of how Charly was faring with Joel and this in turn led to him saying that he'd always liked Scott Crompton. By this time it was three in the morning and Len was falling into a drunken sleep when he said, ‘Good job he wasn't mine like the other one – I'd have had to put a stop to that.' Charly told Markie that she'd bolted up in the chair and demanded to know what her dad was talking about but Len had opened his eyes, blearily trying to focus, and had looked at her as if he didn't know why she was kneeling at his side trying to get some sense out of him.

Charly hadn't been able to broach the subject with Len in the cold light of day. She found it too hard. There were too many unanswered questions for her, she later told Markie. If her dad thought
that he had another son out there living around the corner, why hadn't he ever done anything about it? Why had he brought the twins up as his own but couldn't extend the same courtesy to his own son? Could she even be sure with such scant information that Markie was her half brother? But Markie hadn't walked away as Charly had assumed he might. He said he was in no doubt that Len was his dad. He just didn't want the hassle of unravelling it all now in his adult life. Markie looked like Len. Len was a fat shadow of his former self, but the Roman nose was there, the prominent brow. The dark hair where the rest of the Cromptons were light in colouring. Markie told Charly that he wasn't interested in building bridges with Len – suddenly going to the football with him and acting like something out of a Gillette advert. But he and Charly found a lot of common ground as they talked and Markie found himself warming to the girl that he had always had down as someone who was out for whatever she could get.

Their friendship had built up over the months and Markie found himself becoming very protective towards her when rumours began circulating about Joel's infidelities and temper. Markie tried to persuade Charly to leave Joel, but his pleas fell on
deaf ears. He had finally given up, suggesting that if she was going to put up with all that Joel threw at her, she might as well make sure she was financially stable should the volatile Mr Baldy decide that he'd had enough of her. Markie reasoned with Charly, saying that any relationship after Joel – something she refused to even think about – would always be tainted. It'd be like David and Victoria Beckham splitting up and Victoria trying to get herself a date. She would always be David Beckham's wife in the public eye and although Charly didn't think she was in any way on the level of the Beckhams, her public persona was as Joel's other half. So she had done as Markie recommended and made sure that there was some money in a bank account for her. She had told Joel it was to maintain their properties, and it was in her name. This meant that she wasn't high and dry. It also meant that the press was painting her as the black widow who had squirreled her husband's money away for herself.

Markie was sitting looking at his mum, waiting for her to say something. Tracy, it seemed, had totally shut down. Charly was staring at him; he knew she was willing him to say something else. It was as if they were all suspended in time.

‘What you on about?' Tracy said finally.

‘You know what I'm on about. Who you running from? What's going on?'

‘No, smart arse. Don't sit with Little Miss Prissy Knickers here and start saying shit to me. If you want to ask me, you can ask me on my own.'

‘I'll leave you to it,' Charly said, opening the car door.

‘You don't have to . . .' Markie began.

‘She does,' Tracy said pointedly.

Charly got out of the car. ‘I'll see you in there, Markie.' She threw a look at his mum. There was no love lost between them.

‘Happy now?' Markie said, wishing his mother for once could just rein in her temper and not let everything that was rattling around in that mad head of hers spill out of her mouth uncensored.

‘Not really. What you driving at?'

‘My dad's Len Metcalfe, isn't he?' Markie said levelly.

‘And you and her have been scheming and plotting, chatting on about this behind my back, have you?'

‘No, Mum. We haven't. We don't all approach everything like it's an episode of
Dallas
.'

‘You calling me dramatic? That's rich. You've just dropped a bombshell like that and
I'm
the dramatic one.'

Markie wasn't in the mood for his mum's diversionary tactics. ‘Is he? I'm not bothered. Paul's my dad, as bloody hopeless as he is – I just want to know what's what.'

Tracy's bottom lip began to quiver. ‘He attacked me.'

‘What?' Markie said. He could barely hear what his mum was saying.

‘He attacked me. He raped me.' Markie looked at his mum. His eyes narrowed. He knew that when she was backed into a corner she'd squirm and wriggle her way out of it, but even he didn't think that Tracy was capable of crying rape.

‘You two were going out though, weren't you?'

Tracy shook her head and looked out of the car window. ‘Not when it happened, no. I'd started seeing your dad, Paul.'

Markie knew if anyone else in the world was saying this he'd believe them without a second thought and it made him angry at himself that he didn't immediately trust what his mum was saying. But Tracy was capable of swearing that black was white so who knew what the truth of the matter was.

‘I knew when I was pregnant that you'd be his. I prayed that you'd be Paul's but you never looked like him or acted like him, did you?'

‘Fucking hell,' Markie said, taking in what Tracy was telling him. ‘Why didn't you tell anyone what had happened?'

Tracy laughed bitterly. ‘Who'd have believed me?' she asked quietly.

Markie looked at his mum sadly.
She has a point,
he thought.

*

Tracy felt awful sitting here now having to pour her heart out to Markie. She didn't want him to find out this way. She didn't want him to find out at all. She and Len had always had a volatile relationship but towards the end they had both been drinking all the time and were arguing and fighting constantly. When Tracy announced that she was leaving Len he had become psychotic. He punched the windows through at Tracy's mum's house and then lay in the middle of the road waiting for the next car to come along to run him over. It was hard to believe now but of the two of them, Tracy had been the more level-headed. But she knew how to goad him. And she couldn't have done any better in the goading stakes than going out with Paul Crompton, a good-looking hard lad from school. Len was working as an apprentice
joiner at the time and didn't know the people that Tracy was at school with. He heard about Paul second-hand and once he'd waited at the school gates for him and beaten him to a raggy pulp then headed off to look for Tracy. Even though there was only two years' age difference between Len and Paul, Len still looked like a deranged bully, beating up a school kid.

He turned up at Tracy's mum's stinking of booze and ready for a fight. He pulled Tracy upstairs and tried to get her to explain why she was determined to carry on with this no-mark Paul fella. When Tracy told him in no uncertain terms to leave, Len had forced himself on her. Trying to kiss her, telling her that no one else should have her, that she was his. Tracy tried to fight him off but Len was too strong. When Len finally finished his sordid business, he stood up and looked through her, his eyes black. Tracy remembered thinking that he looked as if he wasn't even there.

Afterwards she had gone to the police but knew that they thought she was wasting her time. Tracy got the general feeling that they thought this was a lovers' tiff. What was she complaining about? Also she'd left it far too late for them to take any physical evidence from her. So Tracy had tried to forget about it. She rarely saw Len. He tried to make
amends once or twice but the terrible thing, Tracy quickly realised, was that he didn't seem to remember what had happened.

When she found out she was pregnant she was alarmed. She didn't have the first idea how to look after a baby, and she wasn't sure she wanted to learn; what she was sure of was that the child was Len's. Tracy papered over the fact and announced to the world that she and Paul were having a child. They got a council flat together and made a go of things, but Tracy knew that they were both too young for the responsibility they had. Len found himself in Strangeways not long after Markie was born and Tracy couldn't have been happier. She'd had little to do with him or his lot until Scott announced to Tracy a few years ago that he had a new girlfriend and then presented Charly Metcalfe to her. Tracy couldn't believe it.

She explained as much as she could to Markie. She was usually prone to histrionics when it came to anything where she wanted to get people on side, but Tracy was past caring. She'd had a bad enough day as it was without having to turn the waterworks on about something that in her opinion needed no fanfare.

‘Do you think he knows what he did?' Markie asked after listening to what his mum had to say.

‘Well, you'd bloody hope so, but who knows. He always acts as if nothing happened, but that's all I think it is – an act.'

‘I don't think he does know. Charly says he was always quite nice about you.'

‘Must have been a bit of a shock for her to find out that I was horrible then, eh?' Tracy half-laughed. ‘Look, Markie,' Tracy said, being as honest as she was about anything, ‘I'm sorry you found out like this that your dad's a wanker and a fat wanker at that, but there you go. I didn't tell you when you were younger because I didn't think it'd help anyone.'

‘You're probably right,' Markie agreed.

‘Do me a favour, don't tell your dad. It'll kill him.'

‘Paul?'

‘And don't start calling him Paul like you're some lefty social worker. He's your dad, right?'

‘Jesus. Alright.' Tracy could feel Markie looking at her.

‘So, you going to tell me what the big rush was or do I have to guess?' Markie asked.

*

Charly was sitting in the grubby foyer of Bradington police station. The foam from the chair
she was perched on was exposed where someone had picked at the fabric and someone had graffitied
Derek Shags Convicts' Wives
across the cork pin board that had a host of police hotline numbers tagged to it. The policewoman behind the desk hadn't been overly helpful. Sometimes, because she was now a famous face, some people seemed to take a certain pleasure in being obstructive towards her.

The door opened and instead of the steady stream of miscreants that had trickled through as she'd been waiting, Markie and Tracy walked in. Tracy was holding a file in her hand, and marched towards the desk.

‘I believe you're holding that twat – pardon my French,' she corrected herself, ‘Len Metcalfe.'

‘Don't call my dad a twat,' Charly said, jumping to her feet.

Markie walked over and put his hand on her shoulder to calm her.

‘Steady, Princess,' Tracy said, shooting her a look.

Charly let Tracy talk, even though she sensed that she was only there to cause trouble. She spoke to the officer behind the woman at the counter. ‘I need to talk to the person leading the investigation into the murder of her boyfriend,' she said, nodding at Charly.