The Waiting Game Read online

  About Hunting Shadows

  ‘Marks the entrance of a major new talent.

  Sheila Bugler delivers a chilling psychological twister of a novel, laced with homespun horrors, a compelling central character in DI Ellen Kelly and a strong contemporary resonance. Fans of Nicci French and Sophie Hannah, prick up your ears.’

  Cathi Unsworth

  ‘Truly a tour de force.

  Imagine a collaboration between Ann Tyler and AM Homes. Yes, the novel is that good. Sheila Bugler might well have altered the way we view families and the very essence of mandatory Happiness. This is great writing.’

  Ken Bruen

  Dedication

  For Seán – there’s no one I’d rather grow old disgracefully with.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would be nothing without the help of my wonderful editor, Rachel Pierce. Her honesty, patience and good humour have got me through a very painful few months. Thank you, Rachel.

  Others who helped kick this book into shape are Chris Curran, JJ Marsh, Gillian Hamer, Svetlana Pironko, Lorraine Mace. I owe a huge debt to all of you. A very special thanks to Gary Friel. Thanks also to Aidan Cunningham for the ‘crack cocaine pizza’ reference.

  My family: Seán, Luke and Ruby, my parents (aka the local sales team) and Tom.

  My friends: too many to mention, but you know who you are. I hope we’re all still having fun and misbehaving for a long time to come. There’s always a glass of wine waiting for you in Eastbourne.

  Massive thanks, as always, to the great team at The O’Brien Press. To be published under the Brandon imprint is an honour.

  Contents

  Reviews

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  August – Brighton

  October – London

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-One

  Eighty-Two

  Four Months Later

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Other Books

  August – Brighton

  She liked watching people. Liked it best when they didn’t know she was there. Watching them go about their pathetic lives, not realising how insignificant, how unimportant they really were.

  Today was different. Today she was watching because she was scared. Trying to work up the courage to cross the road. Scared of rejection. It was an irrational fear, she knew that. After all this time, her mother would be just as excited as she was.

  Maybe the house was the problem. It wasn’t what she’d expected. So often she’d pictured the life her mother had left for. A better life, with a better man than the one she’d had the misfortune to marry. A woman like that forced to endure a life with that useless loser … well, who could blame her for what she’d done?

  Dirty net curtains made it difficult to see inside, especially standing here on the other side of the road. She caught a glimpse of something, a shadow flitting across the grimy glass, but it was impossible to make out any detail.

  A trickle of sweat tickled its way down her spine. Hot, even for August. The hottest summer on record, supposedly. She stepped sideways, seeking shade under the bony branches of a half-dead tree, the only visible sign of nature on the street.

  In the house beside her mother’s, music thumped loudly through an open upstairs window. A young black man stood at the same window, staring down at her. When she returned his stare, he stuck his tongue against the side of his mouth and made a wanking gesture with his hand.

  She imagined herself crossing the road, knocking on Wank Man’s door and teaching him a lesson. The thought of it made her smile. The stupid wanker smiled back. Getting it wrong, the way men always did.

  She looked back at her mother’s house. A dirty-white terraced house in a row of identical dirty-white houses. Cheap and nasty. Not at all the sort of place she’d imagined for her mother. But maybe her mother had a perfectly good explanation for what she was doing in this dreadful, depressing place. The thought perked her up, shook her out of the dark mood that was threatening to ruin everything.

  She smoothed down her dress – black, sleeveless, classy – and adjusted the red silk scarf at her neck. Her mother’s scarf. The only thing she’d left behind. The silk was embroidered with thousands of tiny black butterflies. She could feel them now when she rubbed her thumb across the delicate threads. She anticipated her mother’s joy when she realised she’d kept the scarf for all this time.

  She’d imagined this moment so often, different variations of it playing out in her head over the years. Now here she was, about to turn all that desperate longing into a reality.

  She stepped off the pavement onto the road, never once taking her eyes off the house. Suddenly, she was there, standing at the front door, pressing the doorbell, hearing it ring inside the house. A moment later, the sound of footsteps …

  October – London

  One

  Hush little baby, don’t say a word

  Mama’s gonna buy you …

  Someone was in the house. Chloe’s eyes shot open, her mother’s voice fading, replaced by other sounds. The rustle of tissue paper. The clang of water hitting the inside of the metal kettle. The slip-slap of leather-soled shoes on the lino floor. The soft, wheezy whistle of the kettle as the water started to warm up.

  He was here again.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing happened. Her mind was awake, but her body was still asleep. She clenched and unclenched her hands, wriggled her toes, sensation coming back slowly.

  Downstairs, the water had started to boil. The noise of it loud, even up here in the bedroom. Taking her chance, she threw back the quilt, jumped from the bed, grabbed her bag and ran o
ut of the bedroom, along the corridor and into the bathroom. There was no lock, but she closed the door and pressed her body against it, as if her weight could hold off the attack.

  She was shivering, fear and cold making her teeth chatter. She clenched her jaw shut, top teeth grinding down on bottom teeth. A wooden floorboard creaked, too loud and too close. She recognised the sound. The second step on the staircase creaked like that. He was on the stairs. Moving towards her bedroom.

  Quietly, quietly, she climbed into the bath, took the edge of the shower curtain and pulled it across. She lay down in the bath, arms clasped tightly around her shivering body, breath held, waiting.

  She could hear him through the thin wall that separated the bedroom and the bathroom. Heard the shuffle-shuffle of his feet and the heavy in-out, in-out breathing that didn’t sound much like Ricky. But then she remembered what he was like when he got angry. Red-faced and the breath snorting through his nose. Angry because she wasn’t there, in her bed, where he’d been expecting her.

  She fumbled in her bag. Fingers found the phone but couldn’t hold onto it. The phone slipped deeper into the bag. She turned the bag upside-down. The contents spilled onto the bath in a discordant clatter.

  A flash of light along the corridor. Footsteps moving faster. Into the small spare bedroom and out again.

  She brushed a tube of lipstick out of the way and grabbed the phone. Finger punched 999. Seconds later, a woman’s voice: ‘Emergency services operator. Which service do you require?’

  ‘Police,’ she whispered. ‘Get me the police. There’s someone in my house.’

  The bathroom door slammed open. She put her hand over her mouth to cut off the scream. On the phone, the woman was still speaking, asking for Chloe’s address. She hit the End button, terminating the call.

  He came closer, his shadow on the shower curtain huge and distorted. He would kill her. He’d told her that’s what would happen if she ever tried to leave him.

  Fingers curled around the edge of the shower curtain.

  The scream came now, roared out of her, blocking out everything else. She dived out the other side of the curtain. She’d dropped her phone. It didn’t matter. She raced forward, bare feet slipping on the cold bathroom floor. A hand grabbed her arm. She shook it off, still screaming, and ran faster.

  She stumbled down the stairs and along the narrow corridor to the front door. The bastard had locked it. She swung around, saw the shadow of him moving down the stairs. Something not right about it, but no time to think about that. At the back door she tugged the bolt, used both hands to open it. Nearly there now.

  Something struck the back of her head. She stumbled against the door but didn’t fall. Still standing, fingers still gripping the handle. She could do it. She pulled the handle, felt the door start to open.

  Another crack across the head. She fell, face first. The black-and-white pattern of the lino floor rushed up to meet her.

  Two

  Ellen stood at her bedroom window, watching the line of trees fade to black as night moved across the Greenwich skyline. It made her sad, this gradual descent into darkness. Perverse, she knew, to want to prolong each shortening stretch of day. It was the trees, she decided. In the burning glow of autumn glory, they were at their very best at this time of the year. It seemed unfair not to be allowed to gaze at them a while longer.

  ‘M-uuu-m.’

  The voice drew her attention from the beauty of nature to another endless fascination. Eilish stood in the doorway, waiting until she knew she had her mother’s complete attention.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart,’ Ellen said. ‘What is it?’

  Eilish walked across the room and settled herself on the end of Ellen’s bed. The expression on her little face was perplexed. It was a look Ellen recognised. A frown forming, brown eyes half-closed in concentration as she tried to work out the exact way to phrase whatever question she was about to ask. Decision made, a flash of clarity behind those eyes and she was off.

  ‘Pat says babies come out of your bottom. But that can’t be right, can it? A baby’s way too big to fit through your bumhole.’

  She cocked her head to one side and waited. The look on her face challenged Ellen to come up with a satisfactory answer. When she did that, she looked so like Vinny it hurt. The pain was physical; an ache across the chest that spread down into her stomach and still had the power to consume her even now, almost five years after his death.

  ‘It’s not your bumhole,’ she said. ‘There’s a special baby hole that women have. You know that already, Eilish.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make any sense,’ Eilish said. ‘I mean, how would I get a baby out down there? And anyway, you still won’t tell me how the baby gets into the tummy in the first place.’

  Surely, at eight, Eilish was too young to be told the facts of life?

  ‘It’s the special baby kiss,’ Ellen said. ‘Just like I told you. The mummy and daddy decide to have a baby and they have a special kiss and then the baby starts growing in the mummy’s tummy.’

  ‘Are you going out tonight?’

  The sudden switch in subject would have been a relief if Ellen didn’t know what was coming next.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But just for a little bit. I won’t be late.’

  ‘With Jim?’

  Ellen nodded. ‘I sort of need to get ready, actually. Will you help me choose a top?’

  She turned from her daughter’s inquisitive stare and went over to the built-in wardrobe.

  ‘This one?’ she asked. ‘Or this shirt? Which do you prefer?’

  ‘Is he, like, your boyfriend then?’

  Ellen carried the blue linen shirt across to the bed and sat down beside Eilish.

  ‘He’s a friend, Eilish. That’s all.’

  ‘Pat says he’s your boyfriend and you’re probably going to marry him and he’ll move in here or we’ll have to move to his house. Which we’d hate because Jim’s house is way smaller than ours and this is our home and we don’t want to move. We really don’t, Mum. It’s not fair.’

  Dear God, Ellen thought, give me strength.

  ‘Eilish, listen to me.’ She took her daughter’s little hand in hers and squeezed it. ‘Jim’s a friend. Nothing more than that.’ Liar, liar. ‘And even if he did become my boyfriend – which may never happen.’ Pants on fire. ‘Then there’s no way in the world I’d ask you and Pat to move out of this house. This is your home. And it will stay your home. Do you understand?’

  Eilish smiled and some of the tension across Ellen’s shoulders disappeared.

  ‘Will you have a baby with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it’d be so cute,’ Eilish said. ‘And you could do it tonight. You know, one of those special baby kisses?’

  Ellen wasn’t sure if her daughter was taking the mick or not.

  ‘Anyway,’ Eilish continued, ‘it’s not a kiss, Mummy. Maria told me what really happens.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  Eilish nodded, face full of confidence. ‘Yeah. The daddy and the mummy have to take their clothes off and lie beside each other and make noises. That’s how babies are really made, isn’t it?’

  Sometimes, what she missed most was having someone to share these conversations with. She pictured telling Jim later that evening, but it didn’t feel right. She wasn’t sure why. He was great with the kids and seemed genuinely interested in them. But he wasn’t their father.

  After Eilish wandered off, Ellen got ready for her night out. Blue shirt over a new pair of jeans, make-up, including a new lipstick she’d bought earlier that day. It was a rich red colour and she hesitated, wondering if it was a little OTT for a casual drink.

  Except it was more than a casual drink. She was starting to really like this guy. And all the signs were that he felt the same way about her. In as much as she was capable of reading the signs. She’d been with Vinny since she was twenty-two. Which made her as out of practice with the whole dating business as it was possible to be.
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  Make-up applied, she gave her face a final once-over in the mirror. The make-up did little to hide the tiny pattern of lines at the corner of each eye, but apart from that she didn’t look too bad.

  Blue eyes, clear and bright. Dark, bobbed hair framed a face that was, possibly, a shade too pale. More blusher, perhaps? No, best not. She’d end up looking like a clown.

  Enough. Time to go. She pushed her chair away from the dressing table and stood up. As she left the bedroom, her eyes drifted, like they always did, to the family photo on the small bedside table. Her, Vinny and the children. Vinny’s arm draped over her shoulders, smiling out from the photo, like the happiest man in the world.

  She smiled back, briefly, and her eyes slid to the sheet of white paper lying beside the photo. It was folded over but she knew, by heart, what was written on it. She’d only folded it to stop herself from looking at the words over and over.

  She looked back at Vinny’s smiling face. ‘What do you think I should do?’ she asked.

  Unsurprisingly, there was no answer from her dead husband. Letting her eyes linger on his face a moment longer, she eventually turned away and left the room, closing the door behind her. As she approached the stairs, the doorbell rang. Pat ran to answer it. Goosebumps skittered across Ellen’s skin when she heard Jim O’Dwyer’s voice.

  She stood for a moment, looking down at him. He looked up, smiling when his eyes locked with hers. She walked down to meet him, giddy at the prospect of an evening with him.

  Her whole body tingled as he walked forward to greet her. She was grinning like a fool, but she didn’t care. He was grinning, too. Like a pair of besotted teenagers, instead of two middle-aged people about to head out for a quiet drink.

  He held her shoulders, leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ he said.

  She felt suddenly shy. As she searched her brain for something to say, something low-key but vaguely amusing, her phone, in the pocket of her jeans, started buzzing.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, stepping back from him. ‘I’ll just get this.’