The Death of Jessica Ripley

by Andrew Barrett

  “No you’re not. I’ll tie you to the fucking sofa if I have to. Now sit down.”

  Troy kept walking.

  Eddie threw the cigarette down and reached him just as he reached the front door handle. He grabbed Troy around the neck and dragged him back into the lounge, kicking the door so hard that the bottom strip of veneer fell off. Troy was kicking and yelling all the while but Eddie paid no attention, just tightening his grip. Eventually he threw him back onto the sofa.

  “I’m gonna fucking have you for false imprisonment! You bastard!”

  Eddie pointed at him. “Can’t do that from in here, can you? Now shut up whining.”

  Troy laughed. “You are in so much shit, Collins. You’re going down for this.”

  Eddie took out another cigarette and lit it. He offered the packet to Troy, “Want one?”

  “Shove it up your arse.”

  “Fair enough. Now listen, if you make another dash for the door, I’ll turn your face into red mush, okay?”

  Troy glared at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Talking. For now.”

  “Where am I?”

  “What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine and dandy.” His face was dark, eyes untrusting slits, nostrils flaring. He sat with his legs apart, elbows on knees, fingers wrapped around each other in something like a death grip, rocking back and forth. Anger leaked from everywhere.

  “So how come you attacked me three times today?”

  “Oh I don’t really know.” Troy faked a smile. “Perhaps it’s got something to do with my employment status. What d’you think?”

  “Two things: firstly, you’re not out of a job—”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet. But rewind a bit and you’ll find that it was your drug habit that caused you – and me – all this grief. So don’t blame anyone else, even Nicki, for that.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.” Troy folded his arms and sat back.

  Eddie mimicked, “Yeah, whatever. You fucking spoilt brat. Truth knocked you off your high horse?”

  Troy looked over and snarled.

  Eddie laughed, took a drag on the cigarette. “So go on, why are you so pissed off at me?”

  He leaned forward and pointed a shaking finger at Eddie. “The drugs test—”

  “The drugs test I warned you about?”

  “—was fake.”

  “Just a minute. You’re annoyed that I knew you were on drugs, gave you ample opportunity to get off them, and then, just in case there were still traces in your system, I cut you some slack and arranged a fake one for you? That’s why you’re pissed off?”

  “You did it to scare me. You did it just to make me come off them.”

  Eddie stared at him, trying to process his incredulity into understanding.

  “I needn’t have stopped.”

  “You are fucking kidding, right? If you’d known it was a fake test, you’d have carried on using?”

  Troy shrugged. “Suppose.”

  “Then you’re a bigger prick than I gave you credit for.”

  “I’m pissed off because I lost my job for a pointless drugs test, Eddie. Pointless!”

  Eddie hissed as the cigarette end burned his fingers. He threw it to the floor, dragged a boot over it and watched the sparks turn black. “Just let me add this: if you’d carried on taking whatever it was you were taking – I’d have fired you myself. Clear?”

  “Got any water?”

  “No. No water.”

  “Kind of house is this? No water?”

  “Under renovation. No water so far as I know.”

  “Well, can you go check?”

  “Of course. Would you like my car keys as well?”

  “I only asked. Forgot I was being held prisoner for a moment.”

  “Yeah, well. Don’t let it happen again.” Eddie tapped his fingers on the armrest. “So how could it have been a pointless drugs test if it got you to stop?”

  “And I’m pissed off because she found out! How the hell did she find out?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Not a clue.” He looked at Troy, who just stared. “Why would I tell her, dummy? And Sid wouldn’t tell her, either.”

  “So how—”

  Eddie put a hand to his forehead. “She overheard me and Gibbon talking in my office afterwards, I bet. I caught her loitering.”

  Troy gave a single nod, closed his eyes. “That’d do it.” He smiled bitterly. “And then she trotted off and told Daddy. And everyone had a good old laugh about it afterwards.”

  Eddie nodded. “No one laughed at you.”

  “The pisser is… you just gave in. Just like that,” he clicked his fingers. “Like you didn’t give a toss about the office. Like you couldn’t care less about any of us.” He shook his head, consternation crushing his eyebrows into his eyes. “I just don’t get it. You were supposed to be the boss, the one people looked up to. And you bailed. Just like that.”

  “I had the head of Major Crime and his daughter bearing down on me. If I didn’t walk then, they’d have found another way. Every week they’d dredge up some shit until some of it stuck. Don’t you get it? They wanted me out, and they wanted her in irrespective of how I run my office.”

  “Ran your office.”

  Eddie nodded. “Ran my office. But they wanted her in because of the status.” He thought about that for a moment, and snorted. “My job doesn’t have any bleedin’ status! Anyway, they wanted her in for some reason, probably as a stepping stone to something better.”

  “To what? Weismann is new too.”

  “Well, maybe something better in another force. My job would look great on her resumé.”

  “Whatever.”

  “But as things stand, they have one member of staff, and no idea how to run a crime scene. That’s got to be cause for a bit of hope, wouldn’t you say? Let her see the grass isn’t so fucking green.”

  Troy said nothing. He looked at the floor with shining eyes.

  “Right now you think there’s no way to get back in. You’re a junkie and Crawford won’t have you within fifty yards of the place, huh?”

  Troy just nodded.

  “See why I did a fake test now?”

  Troy looked up.

  “It was supposed to get you off the fucking drugs, mate, without causing any fuss, and without them even knowing you were on them.”

  “Why would you do that for me?”

  Eddie looked away. He could see where this conversation was heading, and he didn’t like it. “Everyone deserves a second chance. I got a second chance; Jeffery took me on. He didn’t really want to on account of he hates me, but I was clean. He gave me a second chance. And I thought you deserved one too, and because you’re bloody good at what you do – when you stop being a penis, and when you stop trying to make yourself look good at my expense, and when you stop trying to fight me every inch of the way.”

  Troy snorted.

  “I’m not an ogre. And long before you were good at the job, I was better. Remember that. And know this – I always will be.”

  “In your dreams.”

  Eddie smiled. “Come into the kitchen. Let’s see if there’s any running water.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  There was water.

  Each man leaned against the worktop, staring at the other, coffee in hand. Eddie lit another cigarette and this time Troy accepted one.

  “So what is this place?”

  “My folks’ house. Well – my dad’s. Mum’s dead.”

  “So where is he, your dad?”

  “He’s living with me.”

  “Just till he has this redecorated?”

  “Something like that. He was burgled. They took his boiler and flooded the place. Ruined it. So he’s staying with me. He’s forgotten about this place now, I think. He never mentions it any more.”

  Troy winked. “Securing your inheritance, eh?”

  Eddie dragged on the cigarette and glared across at him.

 
“Have I hit a nerve?”

  “It’s here for him when, or if, he wants to move back in. I’m doing it up a bit at a time when I can afford to pay the builder. He’s welcome to stay with me for as long as he likes. I’ll keep this place for him, so he has an option. But I couldn’t give a shit about any inheritance. You should know I’m not bothered about stuff like that. Possessions.” He shrugged. “Can’t take ‘em with you.”

  Troy looked away, and Eddie wondered if just the tiniest bit of him was embarrassed by what he’d said.

  “I come here every now and then. Check up on progress. And I like to come here and think sometimes.”

  “So he doesn’t know about the building work, your dad?”

  Eddie shook his head. “Never mentions the place. I think he’d be scared to come back.”

  “So you’re doing all this work for someone who’ll never come back here?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s my old family home. Fond memories, you know? And he’s my dad.”

  “Proper Samaritan, aren’t you? A do-gooder.” Troy was grinning, hackles raised, hostile all over again. “You ever thought life would be easier if you just kept your fucking nose out of other people’s business?”

  “If you’re referring to you—”

  “Fucking perceptive of you!”

  “No. You couldn’t do this job when your head’s all mashed up. Don’t you get it? You were a menace at the pickaxe scene, but at Doc’s scene you were almost brilliant.”

  Troy licked his lips, and his eyes flicked away from Eddie, knocked off guard by a simple compliment.

  “You really are good at this. When you’re not using.”

  “So how did you know the drugs man? I mean, you can’t look up ‘Fake Drugs Tester’ in the Yellow Pages, can you?”

  “Gibbon? He’s become a friend of mine. Someone I trust with delicate issues.” He sipped his coffee, grimacing at how awful it was. “He was my…” Eddie searched the ceiling for the word, or for a replacement. “He was my drugs tester. A real drugs tester.”

  There, he’d said it. Another dirty secret added into the air of this place. “I was an alcoholic.”

  Troy stood still and stared at him, perhaps enjoying watching him squirm. “So… you were where I am?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “And you managed to do the job with your head all mashed up?”

  “Look, I know what you’re thinking, that a fellow sufferer should have handled it differently.”

  “Yep, that’s pretty much what I’m thinking. Like ‘left me the hell alone’ different!”

  “Not while my name’s at the top of every fucking sheet you fill out, from putting diesel in your van to submitting DNA swabs for a murder victim. Then it’s my business, and I say whether you can get by being high or not. And I say not. Clear?”

  “Two-faced bastard.”

  “They’re stimulants, Troy. And they do two things to people like us: they create a façade that no one can see in through; and they create a façade that you can’t see out through either. They are falsehoods, and while that might be fun for an evening or a weekend, they can’t remove you from reality permanently – unless that’s your intention – and while you allow them to build your façade, they’re at work rotting your body and polluting your mind. It’s their way – and eventually they win. They always win.”

  “Did you memorise that from an AA cheat sheet? It was very good. Loved the bit about polluting the mind.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you started back on them again. You’d come off them, and you were doing well.”

  “I’d lost my chance, Mr Collins. Nothing to keep me off them any more.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “God. You’re even trying to be sympathetic towards me, like you know—”

  Eddie slapped him around the face. “Don’t fucking mock me. Don’t act like you’re the only person ever to have given something up. You should use me as an example.”

  “Oh yeah, the Great and Powerful Eddie Collins. A lesson in life to us all.”

  “Come with me.”

  Troy followed Eddie through into the rear lounge – the parlour, as his mother used to call it. On the mantelpiece was a full bottle of Courvoisier VS, a layer of dust around its neck. “That is one litre of the finest brandy Tesco sells.”

  “Is it the builder’s?”

  “The builder’s? No, Jesus, it’s mine.”

  “What? Why would you have that here if you’ve quit the booze?”

  “Because I test myself. I know it’s there if I ever weaken. So each time I come here and I don’t crack the seal and guzzle it, I leave knowing that I’m still the boss. And if I can do it, Troy, so can you.”

  Troy backed up and looked at Eddie. “You really are Mr Perfect, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I mean—”

  “You make me fucking sick. I used to look up to you. But the more I’ve learned about you tonight, the more I fucking hate you.”

  Eddie stared on, confused. At first he thought Troy was just messing about, but there was steel in his eyes and hatred on his face.

  “You really think you’re something special, don’t you?”

  “That’s just my point, you thick twat. I’m you. I’m an average arsehole who was caught up in something I couldn’t handle. Why must you reinvent the wheel? Why can’t you look around you and learn from those who’ve been through it? And why must you turn all your anger in my direction? Try looking at yourself for once, and maybe you’ll realise where you’ve gone wrong.”

  “Who says I’ve gone wrong?”

  “Ah, now who’s Mr Perfect? It’s the world’s fault, is it?”

  They said nothing for ten minutes or so. Eddie lit up another cigarette, tossed the packet and the lighter to Troy.

  Eventually Troy broke the silence. “You going to open it, then? The brandy?”

  “No. I’m in control.”

  “Can I open it?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my challenge. You need to get your own.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Ten o’clock. Nicely dark, quietening down. Not many people about.

  Jess watched from the seclusion of a dark alley between two terraces, across the road from his house. Her arms were folded as she leaned against the wall, foot nudging the rucksack just to make sure it was still there. Behind her, further into the shadows, near a chain-link fence, was a canvas shopping bag.

  Her mind drifted for a moment, and thought of what Tony had said when she’d told him how Sidmouth demanded blow jobs in return for allowing her to see her son. Tony had become solemn at that point, and Jess could see the anger pulsing in him, and when he finally looked up at her, his eyes scared her. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to deal with him for you?”

  She’d given it some thought, but no matter which way she spun the options inside her head, they always came back to a ‘no, but thank you’. She had earned the right to finish Sidmouth off; she’d earned the right to pull herself up by one more increment on the road back to normality.

  Tony had already robbed her of killing Marchant; she wouldn’t allow anyone to rob her of anything ever again. She’d go and see Michael with or without a Home Office blessing; she’d get Marilyn on side, she’d work with her new probation officer, she’d do whatever it took to see Michael. Whatever it took – except blowing someone off.

  “That should be his last orgasm,” Tony had said, and any other time a remark like that would have been funny, something he could have built a thousand innuendos onto, but not now; Tony’s hunched demeanour said that he was as angry towards Sidmouth as she. Almost.

  Another car passed by and brought her from her reverie. Her eyes settled on his house again: just a standard mid-terraced stone-built house, one of thousands like it in Morley, south Leeds. She swallowed a lump of hope and a lump of fear; one was sweet and the other tasted like shit. She was sick of eating shit.

  Full
y prepared now, Jess picked up her rucksack, unzipping it halfway before shouldering it, and emerging from the darkness into the jaundiced light of the street lamps. She thought that the strength she had could be easily destroyed – a strong word or two and she’d be cowering on the floor begging for mercy. But Tony had shaken his head.

  “The power you have is real,” he’d said. “I’ve got it too, from Marchant. It’s like you’re invincible, like you’re unstoppable. And you are, but only if you believe it, Jess. Nothing is real unless you believe in it. Peter Pan was right.” He’d smiled, holding out his arms. She’d fallen into them, and let the tears come again with crushing pain. “You must believe in yourself. Don’t you see, everyone is trying to put you down, everyone wants their piece of you, and it’s easy for them because they believe in themselves or they see a weakness in you, a weakness that’s caused by your own self-doubt. Confidence is king.

  “Don’t forget, this is not a level playing field, Jessy. He’s holding the cards, he’s holding you to ransom. He’s holding the thing you value most, and he’s going to win every single time until you tip the playing field in your favour. Know what I mean?”

  She’d looked at him, studied his eyes, and he’d offered to do this for her. And she’d refused instantly, and that had made him smile. “Good,” he’d said. “I’m glad.”

  Jessica stood on the doorstep and knocked.

  * * *

  The hall light came on and her heart bucked so violently that she thought she was going to throw up. But she didn’t have the time to reconsider as the key turned and Sidmouth opened the door. Jess planted a smile on her face. She lifted her head slightly so that the shadow cast by the peaked cap she wore crept up her face and allowed the light from the hall to shine on her. She heard him gasp. “Mr Sidmouth. Or can I call you John?”

  He stood there in a pair of over-large sweat pants tied by a cord that dangled around his groin. He wore a white t-shirt with added tomato stains, and half of his belly hung out beneath it. He wore his shock well, and it only took him a moment to recognise her and say, “Ms Ripley, office hours—”

  “Please,” she said. “I just want a moment of your time.”

  “For what?”