as if she were waiting impatiently for the cake to do something. Her heart began to hammer in her chest and her ribs felt like a corset that was being tightened by the second. It was as if she was about to perpetrate a murder. The cake was unresponsive and after some more silent debate with herself, Crystal cut herself a modest slice. She ate it standing up to lessen her commitment to it. It was disgusting. She put it back in the cupboard.
‘You’re beefing up there, love, aren’t you?’ Tommy had laughed the other night. She had been brushing her teeth in the en suite when he had put his arms round her from behind and grabbed a handful of her midriff beneath her lovely La Perla nightgown. As a kid she’d never had nightclothes, she’d had to sleep in her vest and knickers in her little bunk in the caravan.
Beefing up? What the duck? (A few pounds maybe, but it was muscle, from the Wing Chun.) Cheeky bugger. Badger. Cheeky badger, she corrected herself. (That sounded worse, somehow.) ‘I don’t mind,’ Tommy said, moving his hands down to her hips. ‘I like a bit of flesh on a woman. Gives you something to grab on to so you don’t fall off. They don’t call them love handles for nothing.’
Crystal retrieved the cake from the cupboard and placed it on the breakfast bar. She unwrapped it again, cut another modest slice. She sat down to eat it this time. Cut another slice, less modest. Ate it. And then another and another, stuffing them in her mouth. It was surprising how quickly you could eat an entire cake if you put your mind to it.
When the cake was finished Crystal stared at the empty plate for a while and then went to the downstairs cloakroom and threw it all back up again. She had to flush the toilet twice to sluice it away. She scrubbed the toilet bowl with bleach. You could have eaten out of her toilet, it was so clean. She refolded the towels and smoothed them down on the rail, realigned the spare toilet rolls in the cupboard beneath the sink and sprayed J’Adore around the small room. She felt lighter, cleansed. She returned to the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher. Then she went back to the conservatory and lit up another cigarette. Up to some of your old tricks again, Christina, she thought. What brought that on? she wondered.
Saving Lives at Sea
Collier’s unit base was a couple of streets away. They’d commandeered half a municipal car park – at great cost, Jackson imagined. They were filming here all week – Julia’s ‘arc’ involved being kidnapped by a raging psychopath who had escaped from prison and was on the run. Jackson couldn’t remember why the raging psychopath had chosen to bring her to the seaside, he had stopped paying attention to the arc after a while.
It was five o’clock and Julia had said she thought she would be finishing about then. She had a day off tomorrow and Nathan was going to stay with her tonight in the Crown Spa. Jackson was looking forward to an evening of peace – living with Nathan was like living inside an argument. Jackson hadn’t realized until recently how much he relished solitude nowadays. (‘Some might call it reclusivity,’ Julia said. ‘Big word,’ Jackson said.) And there were still several weeks of the school holidays to go. His son missed his friends, he was bored. He was dying of boredom, in fact, he said. No autopsy had ever resulted in ‘boredom’ being put on a death certificate, Jackson told him.
‘Have you seen an autopsy?’ Nathan asked, perking up at the idea.
‘Plenty,’ Jackson said.
How many dead bodies had he seen? ‘Like in the whole of your life?’
‘Too many,’ Jackson said. And they all looked like they would have gladly opted for boredom rather than the slab.
As he cruised along the Esplanade looking for a parking place, Jackson peered up at the houses that lined the street. This was Savile territory – ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ had owned an apartment along here somewhere. There had been a plaque on the Esplanade railings, overlooking the sands, that said Savile’s View. Long since removed, of course. Buried with the honours befitting a Catholic saint and now rotting in an unmarked grave to prevent desecration. So it goes, Jackson thought, just a shame it took so long. Just a shame there were so many other predators still