BEFORE I LEFT a gripping psychological thriller full of killer twists

by Daisy White

Her eyes are blank holes, and her mouth moves like a mechanical doll. It’s like she’s already gone. “But George won’t go, and he won’t let me work at the laundry. He says the other women are . . .” she stutters to a halt.

  “Sluts. He says it about every woman he meets. He’s got a problem. But we’ve got a bigger one. Come on, Mum, think hard. If he just vanished into thin air on the way home from the pub tonight, would you be okay?”

  While I talk, I’m edging my hand towards her penknife, but she pulls it away protectively, finger nails scrabbling on the floor, “Mum?”

  A tiny spark has caught right at the back of her eyes. She knows what I am saying, what I am offering. “Yes. If he was gone, I could be happy again.”

  We both know that isn’t quite true, but she’d certainly be better off. “And you’ll have the baby?”

  “I will. I promise! Oh, Ruby, I can feel the baby moving!” She takes my hand and puts it gently on her bump as something inside pokes out, an elbow or a knee, and squirms from one side to the other.

  Can I trust her? Can I do it? My own bruises are throbbing, and with time marching on, Mary and I only have a small time slot to get out of here. I can’t let my best friend down.

  * * *

  Running down the hill from Glebe House, half blinded by my tears, I’m almost surprised to find my hands are wet with sweat alone. No bloodstains or bruises today. But my arms still hurt.

  I’m sure there’s a telephone box at the end of the road but before I can reach it I turn a corner and run headlong into tall man in office clothes. He catches me by the elbows.

  “What’s wrong, love? Has someone hurt you? Do you need help?”

  After a brief moment of panic, I realise the slightly alarmed, middle- aged face staring down at me is not the watcher, or my stepdad resurrected.

  “Someone — my friend has been murdered by the Witch Stone — I need to call the police!”

  The man studies me for a second and then yells towards the house, “Angela! Come here, love. Quickly!”

  I blink rapidly, dragging an arm across my snotty, teary face. I’ve clearly ambushed this poor man outside his gate. A woman who must be Angela appears at the door and exclaims at the sight of me.

  “Girl says there’s been a murder up at the old house. She just found the body. You look after her and I’ll call the police.” He runs in while Angela —blonde with lots of makeup — storms out of the gate, and gathers me up into her arms like a child. “A murder! You poor thing. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Other curious neighbours turn up and Angela tells them there’s been a murder. I don’t see any harm in telling them, and their little community closes around me, safe and reassuring.

  “I lost my purse last night at a picnic up by the Witch Stone. Linda . . .” I struggle to say her name. Angela and the other women make sympathetic noises and push a cup of tea into my cold hands. “Linda, my friend, was there too. This morning I came up before work to look for my purse, and I saw her . . .”Fresh tears spill over and Angela puts an arm around my shoulders.

  “What a horrid thing to happen! Look, love, you’re safe now. Wait with us until the police get here. Albert and Terry have gone up to make sure nobody else goes near that poor dead girl.” An older woman with tight curls and a green apron takes charge of the neighbours.

  “This is just like what happened last year. Another poor girl was killed up there, but the man that did it is dead. He couldn’t deal with what he’d done so he hanged himself,” a young man is a brown suit tells the assembled crowd. “It was a love triangle.”

  “So who killed this poor girl, then? Did you see anyone up there?” The aproned woman has a deep whisky-and-cigarettes voice and looks a bit like an ageing movie star. She gives the young man a withering look that makes him blush.

  I blink at her in the sunlight. I can’t speak. I can’t think of anything except Linda’s blind stare and red throat.

  “That’s enough. She’s still shocked and no wonder. I’ll look after her until the police come.” Angela ushers me into her smart little house, one gentle arm still firmly around my shoulders. “What’s your name?”

  “Ruby.” Suddenly words gush out along with my tears. “I just can’t believe she’s dead. Why would anyone kill Linda? She was so sweet and funny—” Ted’s going to be devastated, I think numbly, and her lovely, naughty brothers. Her parents. I don’t know what they look like but I imagine her mum to be a freckled copy of Linda, and the dad — large and homely with a brown beard.

  “Such a terrible thing to happen. We only moved in last month when the houses were finished. This is a lovely area. To think something like this could happen right under our noses.” Angela purses her mouth. “I’ll get you some more tea, and you can use the phone if you like. Maybe call a friend, or your mum, or your work? Such a good thing we’ve got one.”

  I sit on her sofa and try hard to get my thoughts in order. First, I’m worried the watcher is responsible for Linda’s death. Should I tell the police about him? If I do, I’ll have to add my suspicions that he followed us from Croydon.

  And that leads back to George, and a nasty little blood trail. Oh God, what if they find out about George and think I killed Linda too? I can’t prove that she was dead when I got there. I start panicking again, breathing faster as my heart thunders in my chest, echoing in my ears.

  Angela returns with a mug of tea and a plate of toast on a wooden tray. She whips a white scalloped cloth out from the table drawer to pop the whole lot in front of me, and then waits expectantly.

  “Thank you, Angela,” I say, making a huge effort to smile at her. My stomach is churning, and I couldn’t possibly eat anything, but I sip the hot drink gratefully. “Do you mind if I telephone work now? They’ll be worried about me.”

  She indicates the telephone, and rather to my surprise she leaves the room tactfully while I dial the salon number.

  “Ruby! Where are you? Are you okay? Did you find your purse?” Mary fires anxious questions at me, while I try to find a way to tell her.

  “Mary, are Eve and Catherine listening?”

  “Sort of, but we’re really busy at the moment.”

  I listen to the buzz of interference on the line and wish I was there, working through the clatter and chatter of the salon on a normal day. “Mary, I went to look for my purse, but — Mary, Linda’s been murdered. She was tied to the Witch Stone. Some really sweet people in the new development at the top of Green Ridges let me call the police.” I can hear the sharp intake of breath, and really wish I didn’t have to keep shocking her like this.

  “Linda? Someone killed her?”

  Before she can start asking any more questions, I see two police cars pull up outside, and lower my voice. “Mary, this is important.” I glance round, but I can already hear Angela at the front door. “This is not to do with anything else in our lives. We are Linda’s friends and we want to help find out what happened, but I can’t think of anything that would help at the moment.” I pause for a moment, then add, “Can you?”

  There’s silence. I can almost feel Mary’s frantic thoughts through the telephone line. Eventually she whispers that she can’t think of anything either, and I sag with relief.

  “Mary, I’ve got to go, but ring Johnnie. Okay?”

  As I put the receiver down, Angela ushers the police into the room. She insists on seating us all at her polished wood table and providing never-ending supplies of tea.

  I don’t know why I’m surprised that one of them should be a woman, but I am. She is probably in her early thirties, and her uniform is very smart. The dark material of the jacket and skirt contrast with her pale face. Her white shirt and dark tie seem to highlight her authority, and the metal on her belt and buttons sparkles. When she removes her hat and sets it smartly down on the table, her hair is shiny, dark, and caught back into a severe pleat. In short, she looks amazing.

  If someone had told me I could get a job in the police force instead of teache
r-training, getting married, or being a secretary, I think I’d have signed up pretty quickly. But nobody did. In fact, of all the women I know, none of them are in the police force. I wonder if she likes her job.

  The man with her is older, broad-shouldered, and wears crumpled black trousers with a slightly less pristine shirt. His jacket is slung over the chair and his tie is askew, as though he got dressed in a hurry.

  They introduce themselves as WPC Eileen Stanton and Inspector Hammond. Even in my panic I note she gets a first name, but he is clearly too important. They drag out notebooks and settle themselves on the opposite side of the polished table — the inspector folds his big body awkwardly into the polished chair. Then they stare at me as though I’m the most spectacularly interesting person on the planet. My guilty brain scrabbles frantically. I’m squirming like an animal caught in a trap, or flailing under the gaze of a predator. We run through the basics, and I even stumble on my own name.

  “So, Ruby, can you just tell us exactly what happened this morning, and we’ll go from there?” The inspector smiles at me, but his slate-grey eyes are cold. “Don’t worry, Eileen will just be taking down what you say so we get the key details right.”

  I concentrate hard on my answers, explaining about the picnic, my purse, my worry because my house keys were in it, my horror at discovering Linda’s body, and the fact that I saw nobody else up at Glebe House this morning.

  “Did you meet anyone else on your way up from the bus stop?” he asks quietly, lighting a cigarette and pushing the packet across to me.

  Do they think I’m protecting someone, or do they suspect me after all? “No. I don’t think so. I mean, there were people on the bus, and some in the road, but nobody I really noticed.” I clear my throat, and take a gulp of tea.

  “Let me take you back to the activities of last night. Just take us through who was with you, and when you last saw Linda.”

  Eileen scribbles away, flipping onto the next page, and I try to recall the events of last night as accurately as possible. My mind scrabbles for names, facts, and even car details. Who went home with whom? Linda was with Ted most of the time. Her brothers were there too. What else?

  “Inspector, someone told me about the murder last year . . . a girl called Katie was killed at the Witch Stone, wasn’t she?”

  He studies me. I can’t read his expression. “Who told you about the case?”

  “Eve and Catherine. They work in the salon, and then Johnnie mentioned it . . .” Hell, I really hope I haven’t got him into trouble. I bite my lip. “James, he’s a reporter at the Brighton Herald, told me she was a local girl, and we talked about it — the case, I mean — last night.”

  “Did anyone seem especially knowledgeable about Katie’s case, or take care to see that you knew all the details?” Inspector Hammond leans forward, stubbing his cigarette out in Angela’s pink saucer.

  “Noooo. Not really. Everyone knows about it, but Mary and I didn’t because we only moved here a month ago.” I can’t believe I just said that, and cover my confusion by draining the last of the tea, putting the cup down with a clatter.

  “Where did you move from?” It’s an idle question. Surely it is?

  “Croydon. We were enrolled in a teacher-training course, but then we decided to move down to Brighton to try hairdressing. My cousin Pearl’s doing her nurse’s training at Brighton General,” I say. I try to speak slowly and carefully, acutely aware of the WPC taking down the details in her little notebook.

  “And you weren’t aware of the case before you moved down here?”

  “I . . . no, of course not. I told you, we’d already been here a month and nobody mentioned it. Not until we started talking about Glebe House. There was a wedding party, you see.” I go through the whole thing, emphasising that it was my idea to have the picnic at the Witch Stone. I really don’t want to land any more of our new friends in trouble.

  The shock of finding Linda is wearing off. A sort of cold horror is replacing the numbness and the tears. My fingers are icy and my limbs are heavy. What if it is the watcher and the killing is connected to me? I’m not sure I can go down that road right now. Not while Linda dances in my brain, alternating between happiness and the tragedy of her sightless stare, with her red dress neatly arranged over her bare legs.

  “Why would he do that? The killer, I mean,” I ask the police officers. “If she was dead . . . her dress was quite short, but had big pleats from the waist. Even though one shoe was missing, whoever killed her took the time to fold each one of those pleats so the skirt was laid out like a fashion page in a magazine.”

  Inspector Hammond doesn’t get it, but Eileen does, and she looks up from her notebook. She glances quickly at her superior before speaking, “You mean some care was taken on one particular element of her body? Or clothing, in this case? We haven’t been up to the scene yet. But we have officers at Glebe House already, so if you can tell us anything else that struck you as strange or different, that would be very helpful.” It’s the first time she’s spoken since they arrived. I was starting to think maybe she wasn’t allowed to take part in the interview, and was only here to take notes. Her voice is sharp and quick.

  The inspector nods at her approvingly but quickly adds, “In answer to your question, a murder will often be personal, so Linda may have known her attacker. Perhaps the red dress is of significance to both victim and perpetrator?” He ponders, rubbing his sideburns, and I see a little nick of scarlet where he has obviously shaved in a hurry. He shifts again on the hard chair, and he rubs a hand through his bushy hair.

  “I can’t think of anything else that I particularly noticed. She — well, this morning when I got to the garden, at first I thought she was just sitting there, and had maybe fallen asleep after the picnic.” I lean forward. “You know when you don’t want to admit what’s staring you in the face?”

  Eileen nods, and the inspector gives me a slight smile. “I think we have enough now, Miss Baker. We’ll come down to Johnnie’s later and have a chat with Mary, who you say was also at the party last night. If you can make a list of anyone else you remember seeing at the picnic, that would be very helpful,” His smile becomes wider, but the eyes are still wintery. “My wife spends a fortune at that salon. I just don’t understand it — ladies and their hair, bless them!”

  Eileen quickly shuts her notebook and picks up her hat. Her colleague is still smiling at me, and I decide he can’t possibly be as bumbling as he appears. His looks like one of the porters down at the market, slightly too big for his suit. But his eyes belie this genial impression.

  “My husband will run you home, Ruby love,” Angela announces, returning with a pink plate of iced biscuits. “Are you sure you won’t have more tea?”

  The police decline. I follow them to the door, catching a scratchy crackle of the radios. There are more uniformed policemen with notebooks talking to the neighbours.

  “Are you sure your husband doesn’t mind, Angela?” I ask timidly, “All this must have made him late for work. I can easily get the bus.”

  “Indeed, you will not, my love. After what you’ve been through! And don’t worry, he took the day off. They’re good like that at the bank, and I think this most definitely counts as an emergency.” She wipes away a tear and folds me into another bosomy hug. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

  Soon I’m sitting on the back seat of Albert’s slightly grubby Ford Anglia, anxiously rubbing my arms at the thought of seeing Mary and having more coded conversations. What about the others at the picnic? I can list Kenny, Ted, James, Johnnie, Victoria and Leon, but will it get them into trouble? I’m sure I’m not the only one with secrets to hide.

  As I finally bid Albert farewell, I feel a surge of affection for him and his wife. Some people are just good, just as others are just bad. Most of us are somewhere in between.

  “Oh, Ruby?” Albert leans out of the car window, subdued and a shade paler than he was when I first ran into him. “I want
you to know me and Terry — well, we stayed with her until the policemen got there. Just, you know, so she wasn’t alone.”

  Tears threaten again, and I nod, understanding, “Thank you for doing that. And please thank Angela again for me.”

  “She was happy to help. We both were. Good luck, love, and God bless!”

  I watch the little white car travel all the way back up the hill, before trudging into the salon.

  “Ruby’s back!” Catherine calls into the back room. She’s busy trimming the fringe of a tall woman with bushy black hair.

  Mary and Eve both emerge with fresh towels, and Mary dumps her towels and grabs my hand. “Come on. Eve said that when you got back we could both have a ten-minute break upstairs. Instead of a lunch break,” she adds, rolling her eyes in the direction of our colleagues.

  “Sorry to hear the news, Ruby!” Catherine calls. Eve just picks up a brush and starts sweeping.

  Mary whirls me outside, round the side and upstairs. As usual, she unlocks and relocks the door carefully. We always do.

  “Right. Tell me quickly what happened, because I can’t quite believe it. You must be sick to your stomach.” Mary folds her hands over her belly and sits up straight, like a child waiting to recite a spelling test.

  I sit right opposite her on my bed. I’m so relieved to be home that I start crying again, and Mary leans over and hugs me, scrabbling for a handkerchief and eventually producing a clean pair of knickers.

  “It was awful. Poor Linda.” I describe the scene, and Mary watches, biting her thumbnail the way she does when she’s anxious. It’s not easy for her, I can see. But having already gone through this with the police, I’m starting to get a grip on my emotions.

  “I can’t believe you found her. That’s the worst thing, Rubes, seeing her like that.” Mary snatches back the knickers and blows her own nose, wiping away tears with her fingertips. “When are they coming to see the rest of us? I don’t know anyone’s home addresses, and most of them will be working until tonight. Is Pearl still on the night shift at the hospital? Because she’s the only person I can think of who knows everyone.”