‘Jessica,’ Henry murmured, putting down his own glass on the nearby coffee table and moving closer. He took several deep breaths as though trying to control himself, and I looked up at him, my pulse racing. Oh blimey, was this it? Was I finally going to have a piece of action? Finally going to have something to tell Serena down at The Dog and Duck? Henry was so near, I could see how amazingly long and dark his eyelashes were, how smooth his skin, unbroken by any shaving accident, blemish or even wrinkle. I put out a tentative hand to his face and yes, here was a man who obviously looked after himself.
The top three buttons of Henry’s navy shirt were unbuttoned and, used to Dean’s mat of dark hair on his chest, it was quite a revelation to see inches of golden, taut, smooth skin instead of the hairy little gorilla that was my husband.
‘Jessica…’ Henry moved in, his trousered knee pressing against my own, a hand moving to my leg below the hem of the beautiful cream skirt where his cool fingers stroked my bare leg. I offered up a little prayer of thanks to the God of beautifully designed skirts, relieved I’d not dressed in tight, hard to remove jeans.
Hard to remove jeans?For heaven’s sake,Jess, I berated myself.It’s not even– I took a surreptitious glance at my watch –9p.m. – and your daughter is on the floor above devouring Magnums. Why the time of evening and a box of Magnums should come between me and thislovelyman, I couldn’t quite work out, but the knowledge that Lola might see me in a state of disrepair was certainly more than enough to have me thinking twice about what I might be getting myself into.
Henry’s cool fingers moved upwards to my knee, and I automatically sucked in my stomach which, despite my losing so much weight, now harboured a mac and cheese food baby. He bent to kiss my face, my mouth and, with stirrings of lust in the area below my best skirt that had been closed for business for so long due to inactivity, I moved to kiss him back.
‘S’OK,’ Henry murmured in my ear as, after a minute of this kissing, I struggled to sit up, terrified now of where this might be taking me. ‘I’ve locked the kitchen door.’
So, that was all right then, was it? Bit presumptuous of the man, wasn’t it? One mac and cheese, a George Smith sofa and the promise of a Magnum, and I was going for it?
It appeared I was. The cool fingers continued their ascent under my skirt and I knew I was going to have a tale for Serena. I kissed Henry back, the earth beginning to move…
Jesus! The earth might have been about to move in a way I’d not experienced for a good while, but I didn’t ever recall it accompanied by the exploding racket that now rended the air. The shouting, crashing and banging at both the huge oak front door, as well as further away in the garden and at the bifold in the kitchen, had both Henry and myself off the sofa in utter panic. The locked kitchen door surrendered next, a gang of vicious-looking men streaming through both it and, simultaneously, the broken kitchen bifold.
My instant thought was Lola. Only Lola. Where was she? I had to get to her. I ran across to the splintered and ruptured kitchen door, but a black balaclavered man shot out an arm, bringing me down.
‘Get on the floor! Do it NOW! Down! Down! Down! On the FUCKING GROUND! Now! D’you hear me?’
I heard him.
‘POLICE! Get on the floor! Do it NOW! Down! Down! Down!’
Oh, thank goodness! It was the police! Thank goodness, the good guys were here.
‘Listen!’ I shouted, absolutely terrified both for myself and for Lola. ‘I’ve a…’
‘Shut it,’ the man ordered. ‘You’ll have your say later.’
‘Darren Singleton,’ another man was saying, calmly now, ‘I’m arresting you for bringing and dealing class A drugs and illegal firearms into the country; money laundering and illicit finance; the production of false documentation…’
Darren Singleton? Who the hell was Darren Singleton?
‘I assume you have a fucking search warrant,’ Henry was saying out of the corner of his mouth, his face squashed into the stone-tiled kitchen floor as his hands were forced behind his back and into cuffs.
‘Certainly have, Darren.’ Henry’s captor was smug. ‘Although, I’m sure you, better than anyone, know the police can enter and search your home without a warrant and without anyone’s consent, if they think there are reasonable grounds for suspecting they may find evidence about the offence you were arrested for, or any other offence…’
He broke off as another uniformed policeman interrupted him. ‘Boss,’ he lowered his voice, ‘there’s kids…’
‘You are fucking joking me!’ the first cop who’d ordered me to the floor roared. Actually roared. ‘She said the kid was out for the night…’
‘…not just the daughter. Another one with her…’
‘Yes,mydaughter,’ I managed to squeak. ‘Mydaughter! Here for mac and cheese, a Magnum and a sleepover.’ I struggled to sit up. ‘Let meget tomy daughter,’ I yelled.
‘I thought I told you to shut it,’ he roared again in my ear. ‘Jesus, what a fucking mess… Right, I need female PCs with training in handling traumatised children. Get social services. Now… Do it now… The magistrates would never have allowed the warrant if they knew kids were here. We are in the absolute shit if this gets out… if…’
‘Just let me up,’ I said, trying to speak calmly, but the words caught in my throat as I hyperventilated. ‘My name is… Jessica Butterworth… I’m simply… Lola… my daughter’s… mother. Here to cook mac and cheese by invitation… and… and…’
One look from the fierce roaring one, even angrier now that he knew two little girls were in the house, was enough to shut me up. For the time being anyway.
* * *
Several hours later, my obvious and overriding responsibility for my daughter’s safety and welfare appeared to sway the decision not to arrest and bundle me off in a police van in handcuffs. Probably helped by the fact that they’d been given duff information as to who was in the house. Instead, Lola and I were allowed to leave Queen’s Gardens rather than my being hauled off to Midhope Central police station along with Henry on the strict proviso that we were to be driven home and accompanied into the house by a particularly pleasant female police officer and her obviously rookie mate. There, I was to be under what I supposed amounted to virtual house arrest until I could be questioned further. This decision was only made after the powers that be had tried to contact both Dean and Mum – whom I’d put forward as named responsible adults – to take care of Lola while I was taken off in a police van. I was tempted to say Dean hadneverbeen overly responsible but, after all, he was Lola’s dad and he loved her and would of course collect her and take care of her rather than her being handed over to social services and emergency foster parents for the night. Except, despite the female police sergeant ringing his number several times, there was no response. Again, I was tempted to say he was more than likely up to no good with one of Charlie’s Angels and his phone turned off, all the better to concentrate on inveigling himself into her bed. (I didn’t think even Dean would dare bring Farrah back to Mum’s place.) Mum, I suddenly remembered, was at the theatre over in Leeds with Kamran for the evening and, before I could offer up Robyn’s contact details, the senior arresting officer relented, allowing the police to take me and Lola home.
But not before, as Lola and I walked down to the waiting blue-lighted police car that would drive us home, I saw Rob Traynor being bundled into one of the many parked-up police vans, and also took in that George’s car was no longer parked behind the flung back, battered and broken huge metal gates.
