Welcome To Wherever You Are (26 page)

‘No, I’m good,’ he replied, eager to leave her side and reach their destination.

Aside from the occasional joint, drugs weren’t a high priority for Stuart. His social workers had informed him that his parents’ substance addiction was the reason he’d been removed from them as a toddler and placed into care. He’d since learned his mother had died of a heroin overdose some years later, and he couldn’t bear to read the self-pitying story his father had sold to the
Sunday Mirror
about how much he missed his only son – a son he hadn’t bothered to track down until fame came his way.

Stuart had dabbled with speed and cocaine recreationally with the rest of Lightning Strikes and kept a small stash in his apartment for when Zak was in town. Most of the time Stuart only indulged in stimulants with Zak, and that was only to enhance the sex. ‘Fucking on coke is like nothing else,’ Zak had told him the first night they spent together, and he wasn’t wrong.

‘Suit yourself,’ said Katie, wiping her top lip with a tissue. ‘Not much fun, are you? I don’t know why I keep agreeing to this.’

‘Because being seen with me makes you front-page news,’ Stuart snipped. ‘Without me, you’re relegated to TV guides.’

‘Well Geri had better not screw me over.’

‘Neither of us is getting screwed the rate this traffic is moving. Driver, how much longer do you reckon it’s going to take?’

As the glass partition descended, Katie passed Stuart her handbag with the two remaining lines of coke scattered across it.

‘Hold this for a minute,’ she said. Her voice wobbled as she knocked the remaining wraps into his lap.

‘Be careful!’ Stuart snapped, but when he gave Katie an angry stare, her eyes rolled back into her head and her body went into seizure.

‘We’re just pulling in now, sir,’ the driver replied as the car moved towards the hotel entrance.

A panicked Stuart knew by heart the well-rehearsed routine that was supposed to follow, but that night would be different. Because, before he had time to prevent it from happening, one of the hotel staff opened his limo door and half a dozen cameras snapped the star of Britain’s biggest boy band with two lines of cocaine balanced on his lap, three wraps of it in his hand and a convulsing teenage actress by his side.

*

TODAY – HOSTEL

‘I’m not gay, just for the record,’ Tommy told Jake firmly. ‘I mean, it doesn’t bother me that you are, but I’m not. I just wanted to clear that up.’

‘I know, I know’ Jake replied, and hitched his rucksack further up towards his shoulders. ‘I’ve booked into a hostel in West Hollywood, maybe we could catch up in a few days?’

‘You don’t have to go, nobody needs to know you’re gay if you’d prefer to keep it quiet. Not that I think anyone here would give a shit, but you can trust me,’ Tommy replied.

‘People can’t let you down if you don’t trust them.’

‘Another pearl of wisdom, eh?’

Suddenly Tommy grabbed Jake by the cheeks and kissed him, not just a peck on the lips, but a proper kiss. ‘There,’ Tommy laughed, a little surprised by his own spontaneity, ‘we’re equal now, so let’s put your rucksack back in your room and go get a Chinese.’

As the two headed back towards Jake’s room, neither noticed a camera phone pointing in their direction.

‘How do you know I’m pregnant?’ a startled Savannah asked Jane.

Jane put down the punnet of strawberries she was holding at the market stall and took both of Savannah’s hands.

‘Sweetheart, you’re in a hurry to make money in a job that doesn’t match your education. Your arms aren’t marked and your pupils aren’t dilated so you’re not spending any on drugs. I don’t see any Jimmy Choo’s under your bed so you’re not wasting your money on fashion. So what are you doing with it? Probably saving it. And what for? An endgame, of sorts. Now, it could be to move out of the hostel and to get your own apartment, but something tells me there’s more to you than meets the eye and that you’re doing this job, working these crazy hours and putting yourself in harm’s way because you know you can’t do it for much longer. So why could that be? Because you’re expecting a baby.’

Savannah was taken aback. ‘You got all that from sharing a room with me for a day?’

Jane grinned. ‘No, I got all that from the positive pregnancy testing kit you left in the bathroom bin.’

Savannah laughed for the first time that day. ‘I do one every two or three weeks just to make sure,’ she admitted. ‘I know, I know, it’s crazy considering I’m almost five months gone.’

‘Well you’re lucky you’re not showing yet. And you’re keeping the baby when it arrives?’

‘Yes, I’m saving for a deposit on an apartment, and Peyk lets me stay at the hostel for free. I’m sure I’ll start getting bigger soon, and there’s not much demand for strippers with stretch marks.’

‘I don’t know, there seems to be a fetish for just about anything these days.’

Jane picked up her strawberries, handed them to the stallholder and removed her purse from her handbag. ‘You need to keep up your vitamin C intake. We’ll get you some satsumas and iron supplements before we go home.’

Savannah was puzzled by Jane’s interest in her. Peyk and Tommy aside, it felt like a very long time since someone had offered her kindness. But she couldn’t help but feel suspicious.

‘I was about your age when I got pregnant with my first,’ Jane continued, ‘I spent nine months peeing every half hour or vomiting.’

‘I’ve only had morning sickness a handful of times.’

‘You’re lucky. Are your parents supporting you?’

‘No,’ said Savannah quietly, ‘we don’t really have a relationship.’

‘That’s a shame, you could really do with their help at a time like this.’

‘Do you mind me asking what happened to your kids?’ Savannah continued, changing the subject.

‘Not at all, my friends get this . . .
awkward
look about them when I bring them up so I don’t get to talk about them much.’

Jane paused and chose her words carefully before speaking.

‘My husband killed our children.’

DAY TEN

‘Can I ask what you’re doing here, ma’am?’

Zak aside, the private security staff who pulled up outside his address were the first people to speak to Ruth during her week-long Hollywood Hills sojourn.

‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ Ruth replied, and gave the officers a courteous smile.

‘Who exactly is your friend, ma’am?’

‘Zak Stanley. He lives here.’

‘We are aware of that. And does Mr Stanley know you’re camped outside his home?’

‘Oh yeah, we’ve spoken a bunch of times. And every now and again the camera looks right at me so I can give him a wave.’

The guards looked at each other, thinking the same thing – she was a nutjob, but a harmless one.

‘Well, ma’am, although this isn’t a private road, we do have the authority to ask you to move on if Mr Stanley makes another complaint.’

‘Oh he won’t, don’t worry,’ said Ruth, trying to convince herself that despite their last fractious meeting, there was still hope for a relationship of sorts. ‘We’re friends.’

Ruth had already made the decision before the guards’ arrival that until Zak returned and they’d had the chance to talk properly, she couldn’t risk leaving her seat outside his house to go back to the hostel. So she’d spent a second evening catnapping on the sidewalk, waking each time a car drove past or she heard a voice, and vacating her spot to traipse down the hill to stock up on sugary snacks at the convenience store or to wash in its customer restroom. Food was a necessity, but buying deodorant, a toothbrush or even cheap clothing didn’t cross Ruth’s mind, because the longer she spent away from the house, the more risk there was of missing Zak’s return.

And as the security men left and the hours rolled by, Ruth became more and more anxious about why she hadn’t seen him in almost twenty-four hours.

Nicole took quiet, deep breaths in a desperate attempt to ward off a panic attack.

She’d not suffered one in more than a decade, but she recognised the warning signs of hot flushes, trembling arms and nausea. She knew she must control her body as best she could so as not to give Eric any idea everything between them had changed.

Eric drove without a break for the 300-mile leg of their journey on the 1-10W passing through New Mexico and Arizona, and then crossing into California. And for most of it, Nicole’s head was turned towards the window as she stared at the desert landscape illuminated by an almost-full moon.

Her heart hadn’t stopped racing since she discovered Maria’s note, and her hand remained inside her pocket containing Mrs Baker’s diamonds. There had been casual and polite chit-chat between her and Eric, but during the many silences, her thoughts were dominated by what to do once they returned to the hostel.

And time and time again, she asked herself how she’d failed to realise Eric’s real identity. The answer was always the same – there had been no reason to doubt him. Eric once revealed his father had died when he was a child and that his mother had struggled to cope, so she’d packed him off to boarding school. The years had estranged them further and he’d even changed his surname to distance himself from his family.

Nicole believed he’d also failed to mention his presence to his mother at the hospital, even though he’d spent the best part of a week just feet away from her. Several times Nicole had asked if he wanted to meet Mrs Baker, but each time he declined, claiming he was too busy – a perfectly plausible excuse in an understaffed ward.

And just days earlier, Eric had even helped to scatter his mother’s ashes without so much as shedding a tear. Their two-year friendship, during which Nicole had bared her soul to him, had become rotten.

What scared her the most was where to go from here. Inside her pocket lay a potential fortune, and sitting next to her was a man who’d lied through his teeth to get hold of it. What else might he be capable of? Nicole desperately needed to talk her options through with someone, and an ocean away from home, there was only one person she trusted enough to turn to for advice – Tommy.

After their latest failed mission, it didn’t take much for Nicole to persuade him returning to Venice Beach would be a good thing for the both of them. They could relax in somewhere familiar and plan for their return to London.

‘Shall we put some music on?’ asked Eric suddenly, stretching out his hand to turn the radio on. He flicked around the dial until he found a station, and chirped along to the chorus of a thirty-year-old Fleetwood Mac song.

‘Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies,’ he sang, both of them aware of the irony of the lyrics, but neither mentioning it.

‘You’d like me to tell you what happened to my babies, wouldn’t you?’

Jane guessed that after dropping the bombshell the previous day about the death of her children at their father’s hands, Savannah might be curious as to the circumstances but wasn’t sure how to ask.

After their shopping expedition to the farmers’ market, they had discussed many topics, but nothing about the events that had altered Jane’s life for good. And, as Savannah had revealed very little about her father or why she’d escaped his grip, she knew that disclosure was a two-way street, so she had no right to ask. But if Jane wanted to offer a further explanation, Savannah would be more than happy to listen.

They were at the kitchen sink rinsing punnets of fruit under a tap when Jane stopped and rummaged around her handbag, removing a plastic wallet. She opened it to reveal a portable photo frame with space for two pictures. A pair of smiling young faces with brightly coloured ice cream covering their lips beamed from behind a protective film, frozen in time.

‘That’s Gregory,’ Jane began, pointing to a boy of no more than five, with bright red hair and freckles. ‘And that’s Ruby. She’s seven . . . she was seven . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

Ruby shared her brother’s features, and her auburn curls cascaded across her shoulders. ‘They’re beautiful,’ she replied, saddened that the two innocent souls she was staring at were no more.

‘Peter, my husband, was a very controlling, very violent man,’ Jane explained, ‘and I reached the point where finally, I couldn’t take any more. Our relationship, if you could call it that, didn’t equip us to raise a family, so when I told him I was planning to leave with the children, it was like I’d pushed a detonator and he exploded. He beat me unconscious and I don’t remember much else, only waking up on the lounge floor to find the house on fire. I tried to get upstairs to the kids’ bedrooms but the heat was too intense, so I ran to a neighbour’s house for help and they called 999. We returned with a ladder, but by then, well, it was too late. All three of them were gone.’

Savannah swallowed hard, understanding all too well the damage a domineering patriarch can cause. ‘Oh Jane, that’s awful.’

Jane offered a grateful half smile, but she couldn’t hold it for long. ‘The man I married wasn’t always bad,’ she continued. ‘I know there was some good left in him, somewhere. That’s why I stayed for so long, because I wanted to him to go back to being the man I fell in love with. At least that’s what I tell myself, because I don’t think I can bear the alternative . . . that I could have prevented this from happening by leaving years earlier and keeping my babies safe.’