The Under Ground (Strong Women Book 4)

by Sarah Till

  Ted predictably straightened in surprise and wiped his hands on his trousers, no doubt remembering all the times that he had shook Kevin’s had heartily.

  “You’re joking? AIDS? I thought he had lung cancer. Bloody hell, Jinny. And you spent all that time with him.”

  I stared at Ted.

  “I didn’t sleep with him, Ted. He’s gay. Was. You can’t get it through just talking to someone or touching them.”

  “I know but, well, all the same. Anyway. Sorry. I mean, you liked him didn’t you? Not in that way. I mean. Well, to cut to the chase, we still have the account, but the new marketing guy will be coming in. You won’t need to go to them anymore. So, I guess we’ll just have to find you an office here, won’t we. Jinny, I’m making you a senior!”

  It had been what I had been waiting for and should have been the best day of my life. But, tainted with the news of Kevin’s death, it wasn’t. I had just felt flat. I made a show of gratitude and happiness.

  “Oh, thanks, Ted. I won’t let you down.”

  “I’ll hold you to that. Oh, by the way, Kevin’s funeral is on Monday, and the reading of his will is next Thursday. His brief wants you to be there.”

  After it was all over, when I had received my promotion and the house, Ted summoned me again.

  “How do you do it, Jinny? How did you get through all that, the sorrow, the recrimination, the jealousy, and never flinch? Do you go home and cry, or scream?”

  I smiled slightly and tapped my nose.

  “If I told you I’d have to kill you!”

  Since then, Ted had held my ability to control myself in the highest esteem, sending me into tough meetings and having me head key negotiations.

  I smiled to myself now as I hurried towards the tube station steps and sanctuary. He didn’t know I was screaming inside.

  Expectation

  I stepped onto the escalator and my body relaxed. Alighting and walking the short distance to the platform, I swiped my Oyster card and sat, waiting. I often sat there for a while, watching as trains passed and people stared at each other. Today I would wait. Long enough for me to relocate my alignments but remembering to be home by teatime.

  I breathed in the recycled air and crossed my ankles. The day that I realised what was wrong with me and what was right with me was similar to today. I had been listening to the gossip from the canteen when I heard my name mentioned. Someone described me as frumpy. It hurt slightly but spurred me on into a slight bent of masochism, as I knew I was the subject of today’s abuse, but still had to listen. In a nutshell, they described me as a bad mother. Someone who ‘farmed’ out her children, who worked long hours, who moved her children out to move her lover in. Someone bad, not a real woman. Unnatural. I’d shied away from the wall, grabbed my bag and left the office at once. I had run to the tube, to my safety, and stood by the ticket machine as if I was waiting for someone. Tears of confusion had stung my eyes. I couldn’t believe that they’d crucified me on such superficial gossip. They hadn’t mentioned Swiss Steve’s input into my situation with the children, his contribution to the growing gap between us. Nor my mother’s acid tongue and her matronly influence. They judged me without hearing the evidence. It had hurt me deeply. With my father dead and the tatters of my horrendous marriage hanging on the washing line of my life for all to see, I considered just walking away and never coming back.

  I sat on a plastic bench on the platform and thought. Deep thought. I remembered Kevin Jakowski’s gift. Only words. Everything begins with words. I sat and worked it out. Mother. Just a word, at the end of the day. A word that dripped expectations and drooled a strictly confined perceived role. A word that was loaded with the bullets of shame and guilt, should someone pull the trigger of judgement. I realised then, as right now, it was pointing directly at my forehead with the trigger cocked. I had experimented with thoughts of my mother. If she was a person I had just met, say in a tube train carriage, the sort of person who would just start talking to me about any random thing and not stop until I walked away, would I like her? And my children. If they were strangers, someone else’s offspring whose expectations were not loaded with what I should be, fuelled by their father, would I give them the time of day?

  I had paused for a moment. I would treat my mother and my children the same way I treat other people, with courtesy, entitled to their own opinion and deserving of respect merely because they were another person. So why didn’t I do this with my mother and my children? My mind upended the word ‘mother’ from its pedestal and rotated it until it looked me in the face, a grim, resigned smile on its face, its hands raw from unpaid work and its soul tired from the constant demands of the ‘shoulds’. I held it before me and questioned the construction of the hidden artefacts, those behind the nurturing premise and the feminine joy that adorned the positivity of the role.

  The answer came to me on a waft of recycled air as a tube train sped past. I hadn’t understood. In my well-intentioned naiveté, I had assumed that I would be allowed my own style, my own good-enough fit to the care of those around me. The air hit me and became as heavy as a hammer blow. I realised that, just as my mother had struggled with her conflicts, the whisky, my father’s affairs, her dislike of me, I was at odds with my perception of what I had to do. And what I was prepared to surrender. The difference was that I was now aware of what I had to do. Try as she might, my mother never realised that she was free to opt out of the expectations of others, even out of her crucial maternal role, at any time, and instead she resorted to manipulation and trickery to escape. I was now fully aware that just as the guidelines were laid down for what I should be, I was equally sure of what I could be.

  From that day, the anomaly of my expected mothering and my actual mothering were both held at arm’s length.

  I sighed and got onto the next tube train. A small dark-haired woman began to talk to me about the terrible queues at the ticket desk and I wondered whose mother she was. Did her daughter secretly despise her, and would she cry when she died?

  Chapter Four

  I emerged from the station and blinked into the bright sunlight. From where I was standing, I could see my house, and the orange stripe of the back end of a police car parked outside. I sighed heavily and wondered if I should walk in the other direction. It was no use. I simply had to go home. Ellis would be making tea for the police and chatting amicably, fully expecting me to arrive any minute. I waited at the crossing and watched the cyclists in their lycra and helmets all speeding past, not really stopping when the lights turned red. A little bit like me, ignoring the red lights in my head and forging ahead with my thinking.

  Dodging the cyclists, I crossed the road and walked slowly home. The closer I got the more mechanical my steps became, as if a force field had been erected to repel me from my own front door. I made it eventually but felt exhausted. As I turned the key, I saw Ellis rush to open the door. We came face to face and he gave me a warning look that made me prepare myself for – something. He touched my arm gently and kissed my cheek.

  “Hello!” I heard him speak but his jolly tone didn't match his expression. I stared hard at him and frowned.

  “Hi! Did I see a police car outside?”

  “Yes, love, they're through here.”

  We walked through and DI Payne sat in Ellis' chair by the window. A young woman constable was with him.

  “Hi!”

  My voice echoed in the room a little too loudly. Ellis and I sat down. DI Payne poised himself on the edge of his seat.

  “There's been a further development in the case. We have had the forensic results back from the house and also the initial results of a post-mortem. There appeared to be no forced entry at the house and no real struggle. And very little blood. The tests we carried out show that Mrs Mason-Baxter was dead before she was stabbed. In fact, the initial tests show that she was poisoned.”

  DI Payne stared at me the whole time he spoke, and, appropriately, I gasped. He looked sated when I made a little
noise, covered my mouth and turned to Ellis, who put his arm on mine.

  “But who...?”

  My mind raced through everyone I knew and rested on John Baxter. DI Payne, accustomed as he must have been to this type of scenario, pre-empted my supposition.

  “Well, we do know that it wasn't Mr Baxter. Obviously with him claiming to be away at the time of the crime, we have investigated his whereabouts. We have him on CCTV several times during the hours the crime could have been committed, in the vicinity of his mother's home, where he claimed to be. Just to ease your suspicions, Mrs Munro.”

  I nodded and smiled weakly.

  “So really, you're no nearer finding out who killed her?”

  “No. But it's early days. We'll be at the funeral on Thursday to see if anything turns up there.”

  I laughed quite loudly at this point and Ellis coughed his acknowledgement of my ILS.

  “So, we're living in a crime thriller series, are we? One where you stand at the back of the funeral and watch for secret mourners? And let me know when my mother's funeral is before my family?”

  DI Payne shifted in his seat.

  “No, Mrs Munro. This is quite serious. And for your information, we have had a further eyewitness report of a woman visiting your mother the day before she died. Her next-door neighbour told us that this woman, someone she had seen fairly often, arrived just before two, and she didn't see what time she left. Did your mother have any close friends that you know of?”

  I snorted a further laugh.

  “Friends? You've got to be joking. She couldn't even get on with her own daughter. She had no sense of loyalty. No sense of comradeship. But then how would I know? I haven't seen her for seven years, have I?”

  DI Payne looked slightly impatient. I tapped my fingers on the edge of the chair and stared at him. He retrieved a notebook from his pocket and flicked through the pages.

  “I spoke to Mr Munro and he painted quite a different picture of your mother. Someone, and I quote, ‘warm and funny, independent, a little brusque, but a sentimental person’. He also told me that he would let you know when the funeral was. I didn't realise he hadn't. I'm sorry about that.”

  Ellis' hand quickly went to my arm as my tapping grew stronger. I seethed as Ellis suggested he make a cup of tea. DI Payne made some notes and I and my stomach frothed with a livid acid which stung almost to my backbone. Swiss Steve had good reason not to tell me when the funeral was. I was guessing that he felt slightly uncomfortable about the whole thing. It was at the last funeral, also of my parent, when our marriage had finally ended.

  At the same time I had looked up, at my father's funeral, and seen my mother standing for the first time in years, I had spotted Swiss Steve sauntering down the lane towards the church, hands in pockets. He was still quite a way in the distance but I identified him by his confident swagger. By the time I had finished with my realisation that my mother was a liar and my father's mistress was standing only feet away from me, Swiss Steve was upon us. I saw my mother's lips tighten into an excited smile as she spotted him, then she looked at me with an expression of immanent superiority.

  Swiss Steve had sauntered up and nodded at me.

  “Jinny.”

  “Steve.”

  We had been officially separated for some time now and barely spoke to each other save the blame-laying conversations he forced on me about the children. I saw his eyes search surreptitiously for my mother's face. His body turned towards her and mouth turned slightly upwards, as if he had just sipped an exquisite wine. I watched in horror as his lips slowly and delightfully formed her name. The single word dripped from his mouth like honey.

  “Sally.”

  His expression showed no surprise at seeing the former invalid, who he had wheeled to physiotherapy every Tuesday and Thursday, standing confidently in her black Dior two-piece. Despite her dead husband lying only inches away in his coffin, my mother changed her stance into that of someone who needed to look her best as she was about to be photographed. A pose that half turns the body in a sleek movement towards the item of interest, exaggerated now for Swiss Steve's benefit. She pouted slightly and pulled in her stomach. Finally, she returned his greeting. Breathlessly, she panted the words like a series of butterfly kisses that were meant to tickle his ears.

  “Steve. How lovely to see you. I wasn't sure if you would come under the circumstances.”

  Steve looked at his shoes as she turned to me with an expression of a cat who had just escaped a cream vat: satisfied but sticky and dirty from its adventure. I could not hold in my anger.

  “What circumstances, mother? The fact that he's my ex-husband or the fact that you're fucking him?”

  Several bored mourners, who barely knew my father, looked up with renewed interest. My mother stifled a laugh and Steve reddened.

  “I'm not your ex-husband yet. And how dare you accuse us of, of, that? Jinny, have some dignity.”

  He managed to drag his gaze away from my mother just long enough to glance in the direction of my father’s coffin. My anger rose.

  “OK. So, all those times when you were supposed to be taking her to physiotherapy, spending all day there, taking her to appointments here there and everywhere because she couldn’t walk, where were you really? Please don't tell me that her walking has happened overnight.”

  Steve raised his arms and turned up his palms like a used car salesman on the brink of closing a sale.

  “Jinny, be reasonable.”

  Every time I had seen the gesture and heard those words since we had married, Swiss Steve had turned out to be lying. He had followed the phrase by using various tactics to make me believe him, such as calling me hysterical and once even trying to make me see that I was insane. Each time there had been a moment of revelation sooner or later that would completely contravene everything he had sworn was true. Now he was even trying to lie after the event. He was trying to deny that he was in on my mother’s deceit and her implication in the slow suicide of my father.

  The vicar had arrived and the funeral procession began. I’d watched in disturbed silence as Swiss Steve walked with my mother behind the coffin, forcing me to walk behind them. I’d watched as they exchanged tender glances and his hand skimmed hers as they took their places in the church. Only once did Swiss Steve glance at me with a, 'well you didn't want me' look crossed with an angry look of veiled threats that I knew so well.

  Ellis returned with the tea and DI Payne finished his notes. We sat in silence for a moment, until I could not contain myself anymore. I almost vomited my disgust in a bitter tirade.

  “You do know my ex-husband had an affair with my mother, don't you?”

  It was the moment Ellis had dreaded and, if it had been appropriate to slap his hand over my mouth at that point, he would have done so. Although the room was empty and quiet save for us four, if someone had placed a giant can in the centre and opened the lid, and huge worms had exploded out in every direction, the atmosphere would resemble that situation. Or, if a large bag in the corner concealing a cat had burst open and a sabre-toothed tiger had emerged to cause chaos and havoc, the altered mood of DI Payne, the young constable, and Ellis would have been adequately described. Ellis had straightened and was no longer soft, cuddly Ellis, but Ellis-on-guard.

  “You don't know that for a fact, Jinny. They’ve never admitted it, have they?”

  “I'm not stupid, El. I know what I saw.”

  DI Payne, who had only just pocketed his notebook, whipped it out again.

  “So your mother had a relationship with your husband?”

  The young constable’s eyebrows lifted and I felt satisfied.

  “Yes. And I think it went on while we were married, when we were separated and after we were divorced. That’s why he always says nice things about her. He was infatuated with her. Probably still is.”

  DI Payne wrote down what I considered to be vital information, as if this character assassination of my mother would somehow help the enquiry.r />
  “Thank you, Mrs Munro. We have eliminated Mr Munro from our enquiries as well as he was having dinner with your daughter the evening of the incident and stayed over at her house.”

  I could see Ellis willing me with all his heart not too say, 'so he says', and I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that if I did I would be verging on appearing completely paranoid. DI Payne stood to leave.

  “I think that’s all for now. I'll be in touch. And, of course I'll see you at the funeral on Thursday.”

  I nodded and Ellis wound his arm around my waist as we escorted them to the front door. They left without another word and I felt vindicated. That was until I turned to see the disappointed look on Ellis' face.

  “Jinny, I thought we had agreed not to keep talking about Steve and your mother.”

  His beautiful eyes pierced my soul and I felt sorry I had brought it up.

  “I know, but it seemed relevant.”

  “Why?”

  Ellis folded his arms and stood his ground. I blinked and thought for a moment.

  “Well, seeing as it’s my mother who was murdered and he was having some kind of relationship with her,” I wiggled my fingers in the air to emulate quotation marks as I said the word relationship, “I thought it would be good if the police knew all about it.”

  Ellis sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “You know, Jinny, it’s time to let it drop. Maybe they did have an affair, maybe not. But it’s sure as hell not going on now, is it? Or hasn’t been for several years? She was married, for goodness’ sake, to someone else. And you live with me. Whatever happened between them, if anything, is their business. Well, Steve’s business now, because Sally won’t ever be able to defend herself, will she? And it’s not as if he had anything to do with her murder, so why keep going on about it?”

  I shivered and rubbed my arms. Ellis was right. I had just taken a pot shot at a dead woman, my mother. Somehow it had made me feel better to be able to complain about the things she did when she was alive. It made me feel like she was still alive now. As if I could reach out and touch the flirtatious looks she cast over all members of the opposite sex. The ways she ignored any accusations of wrongdoing on her part and the way she held her head when she was lying. I knew all these so well, but I would never see them again.