Don't Push Me

by Ewan McGregor

  Kat let out a large breath when she got into the corridor. She needed to plan what she should do. That could have gone horribly wrong. She moved away from the toilets so she wouldn’t bump into Kirsty again. Kat knew what she had done was stupid beyond belief. She should have been staying out of Kirsty’s way, yet she had actually sought her out.

  Kat’s phone buzzed in her bag as she made her way out of the office. She lifted it out. It was a number she didn’t recognise so she let it go to voicemail. She could do without pests on the phone just now. Whoever it was had left a message though. Kat put the phone to her ear and listened.

  ‘Miss Matthews, this is PC Thomas McFarlane. I’ve been dealing with your stolen car report and I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news: I’ve located your vehicle. Bad news: I’m afraid to say that the car’s been burnt to a cinder. Can you contact me at the station or call me back on…’

  35

  Kat knew she had to deal with her ‘stolen’ car in a way that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. She was very surprised, not to say disappointed, that the Mini had been found so quickly. All she could do was pray that any evidence which might have been left had been thoroughly destroyed by the fire. Also, Kat reasoned that the police wouldn’t actively be searching the car for clues. As yet, they didn’t know anything untoward had occurred. They certainly wouldn’t be linking the car to any suspicious deaths.

  Kat returned the phone call from the young-sounding PC and arranged to go in and see him. There was no point putting it off, so she made her way from work to the police station immediately after her shift. She entered the station and tried not to look as shifty and nervous as she felt. She was sweating profusely. A lot rested on how this meeting went. She had got away with the CCTV missing everything, but if they found any incriminating evidence in the car it could see all of this come to an abrupt end.

  After giving her details at the front desk, she waited for PC McFarlane to arrive. She tried to calm herself down. This was nothing to worry about. It was merely a formality, she tried to reassure herself.

  PC Thomas McFarlane appeared after twenty minutes or so of nervous waiting. He was at least six foot five and had a shock of ginger hair and the beginnings of a ginger beard, although Kat wasn’t sure he was actually old enough to grow one. He looked as if he was on work experience from school.

  ‘Miss Matthews, thanks for coming down. If you’d like to take a seat in here, we can get started.’

  Kat was delighted that such a junior officer had been assigned to her missing car. She followed the tall policeman into a small room just off the reception area.

  ‘Take a seat. Terrible business about your car. We found your vehicle on some waste ground in the Maryhill area of the city. I’m sorry to say that someone did a right number on it – when we found the vehicle it was burnt to a cinder.’ He obviously liked that analogy; he’d used it twice now. ‘There was nothing in the car that could be saved – it’s a complete write-off.’

  Kat tried to hide her pleasure at this news; she feared the heavy rain might have put the fire out before all of the damage could be done, leaving traces of clothing or DNA.

  ‘There wasn’t even anything worth stealing in the car,’ Kat said. A nice touch, she thought.

  ‘I’m afraid it happens. Probably just youngsters taking it for a joyride and then getting rid of the evidence. We’ve had an unfortunately high number of these incidents over the past couple of months.’

  The police had, quite reasonably, assumed the car had been stolen and burnt out by joyriders. The young PC had told Kat there was nothing else that they could do and as far as they were concerned that was that. Case closed.

  This was music to Kat’s ears.

  36

  She started a conversation with me. The fat cow started a conversation. With me. I couldn’t believe it. Who the fuck does she think she is? The fat rodent cornering me in the fuckin toilets like that. I’m going to have to talk to my dad about this. This can’t be allowed to go on.

  Rachel’s still in the huff. She’s still not came into work, and she’s still not text me back. She’s not even been on Snapchat or Insta. I’ll need to see her because she’s becoming a problem I can do without. Wait til I tell her that the fat bitch spoke to me. She’ll go nuts.

  All I know is that it’s full steam ahead with the plan. We’re going to have to get our arse in gear now and just make it happen. Fat Kat’s not going to be speaking to me again in a hurry – not when she finds out what we’ve got planned for her.

  37

  Kat was pleased that her trip to the police station had turned out well and hadn’t resulted in her arrest for murder. In the back of her mind she was convinced they would have found something incriminating in the remnants of the Mini, but her fears had been unfounded. The car shouldn’t cause her any more problems. Now, Kat had to try to list all of the other ways in which she was vulnerable and think about what might lead to her getting caught or even implicated in Rachel’s death.

  She had tried to figure out how the police would approach their investigation when it inevitably started. She didn’t have any friends who were in the police or any inside knowledge whatsoever. She was also sure not to google anything that would look bad for her at a later date. She certainly wasn’t going to google ‘how to get away with murder’ or anything to do with forensics. There had been recent cases on the news which had found the defendant guilty after finding their ill-advised and frankly ridiculous internet searches.

  The only information Kat had about police procedures was gleaned from years of watching badly acted detective dramas on television and reading the odd bit of crime fiction. Hopefully they were at least a little realistic. Once the body was discovered, and Kat hoped that would be a long time hence, she knew the police would look at a timeline of events from when Rachel was last seen alive and well. That would have been around 6 p.m. in the office – although she left before then, didn’t she? Kat tried to remember. She herself left at 6 p.m. and she was pretty sure Rachel had left some time before. Then she had confronted Kat in the car park, which had led to the fatal incident. Rachel didn’t drive though. Kat knew she got the bus in – she was constantly moaning about public transport and used it as an excuse for the multiple times she was late. So had Rachel just gone down to the car park to confront and attack Kat? It was certainly looking that way. Kat knew the police would speak to her and all of her colleagues eventually. She wanted to get it clear in her mind what she would say. And what she wouldn’t.

  She had already checked to see if the CCTV had captured the two of them in the car park. Her luck had held in that regard. Where else would the cameras have caught sight of Rachel? In work, there were no cameras in the lift. It had been brought up many times before as a possible issue, but the managers had insisted the lift would be replaced soon and cameras installed then. The last sighting of Rachel would have been in the corridor when she left the office, and who knew how long the tapes or digital images from that camera were kept? Kat was reasonably sure the CCTV would not implicate her, though luck would have to play its part again. Kat didn’t like leaving her fate to such things, but there was nothing she could do about it. The CCTV might show Kat going back out of the lift and heading to the cleaner’s cupboard, but that didn’t prove anything, did it? Kat wasn’t even sure there was a camera covering the cupboard. She hoped not. There was no way she could check through every camera in the bank or surrounding areas. The only way Kat thought she could potentially get caught was through Rachel’s phone, and she was going to deal with that imminently.

  Kat had left the police station and made her way onto Union Street, where she would get a bus to visit her mother in the nursing home. It was busy with commuters making their way home after work.

  Before Kat boarded the bus, she set out to get rid of any trace of her name from the handset. She deleted her number, which had been lovingly entered as ‘Fat Kat’. She erased the numerous nasty messages which had been sent to
her and deleted the conversation between Kirsty and Rachel which talked at length about the bullying, then erased the WhatsApp application. She was sure to be mentioned on that and she wasn’t really too sure how to use it. Kat knew the police could probably retrieve the deleted items, but it was all she could do. She could destroy the phone, but she had ideas forming that absolutely needed the device.

  Kat realised as she was deleting all these items that she hadn’t checked the phone’s camera roll yet. She had been too busy with the multitude of juicy messages. She swiped through numerous pouting selfies of Rachel then nearly vomited up her lunch. Kat was stunned. She zoomed into the photo. There was no doubt about it: Rachel was posing with Kirsty and an older woman who was surely her mother and what looked like her father or stepfather. The horrifying thing was though…

  It was Stephen. Kat’s ex-husband.

  Ste was Stephen.

  38

  How could she have been so stupid?

  Ste was Stephen. Kat’s ex-husband.

  The whole sorry situation slowly came together in Kat’s mind. It had been staring her in the face the whole time. That no-good scumbag was behind all of this.

  Stephen had shacked up with Rachel’s mother. And Kirsty was involved somehow. Were Rachel and Kirsty sisters? Or stepsisters? Kat looked through the photos some more. There were various happy family snaps of Rachel with her mum, Rachel with Kirsty, Rachel with her dogs and Rachel with her stepdad/lover Ste – or as Kat knew him, Stephen.

  The bullying by Rachel and Kirsty made a little more sense now. They were being led by Stephen. He had instigated all of this. But to what end? What were they hoping to achieve? Was this purely to get back at her for chucking him out all those years ago? Were they just trying to make her life a misery as some sort of weird revenge?

  Kat flicked through some more photos. She was completely oblivious to the hustle and bustle of the busy street around her as she stood at the bus stop. A set showed Stephen’s birthday and one of them had a caption: ‘Kirsty and her lovely dad’.

  That confirmed it. Kirsty was Stephen’s daughter. Kat stared at the image on screen. She couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t take it all in.

  ‘You alright, love?’ an elderly man asked Kat. His voice immediately brought her back to the present. She had been completely lost in the phone and had blanked out her surroundings. The bus stops on Union Street were extremely busy and the old man must have noticed Kat engrossed in the mobile with a shocked look on her face. Her mouth was hanging open as she skimmed through the photo album.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Kat said. She really was anything but fine.

  ‘You don’t look fine,’ the old man continued. ‘You look like you’ve seen a bloody ghost.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m good,’ Kat replied. The old man didn’t know how right he was. Kat smiled politely at him and moved off to another bus stop. She didn’t want to be rude, but she really wasn’t in the mood for any conversation. Not after seeing all of this. She settled in at another bus stop and tried to think.

  Kat couldn’t have known Kirsty was Stephen’s daughter and Rachel his stepdaughter. She had no reason to suspect that all of the bullying stemmed from Stephen. How could she have known? She tried to piece it all together.

  The same man who had run for the hills when Kat was pregnant with Paul had a daughter of his own. The same man who had come back three times yet still didn’t want anything to do with his own son had a daughter. The same scumbag who hadn’t contributed whatsoever to his upbringing had a daughter! And that same daughter had made Kat’s life a complete and utter misery. Kat was furious now.

  It all fell into place. The whole sordid truth. Rachel and Kirsty were stepsisters and Stephen had wormed his way into their lives. He was seeing Rachel’s mum and he was having an affair with Rachel, his stepdaughter. Abusing his position in the family. A heavily messed-up family. The two girls were bullying Kat because Stephen must have been filling their heads with all sorts of nonsense. Rachel had paid the price with her life. It was senseless. She had died because of Stephen and his twisted lies and stories.

  Kat now had a plan forming in her head. Rachel’s body might be found soon… and Stephen would be getting the blame.

  Kat was damn sure of that.

  39

  Kat had never felt anger like this before in her entire life. The initial shock of seeing Stephen’s photo on Rachel’s phone had turned to red-hot anger. She couldn’t believe everything had happened because of him. Somehow though, Kat felt as if she should have known. Most of the problems in her life seemed to have stemmed from him in one way or another. Kat now had a clear focus as to what to do next. She was going to try to frame Stephen for Rachel’s murder and hopefully implicate his evil daughter Kirsty for good measure. It was the least the two of them deserved.

  The photos and messages in Rachel’s phone made it clear to anyone that she was having an illicit affair with her own stepfather. There was no way you could look at the texts and not come to that conclusion. Kat was going to help the police zone in on a prime suspect when they opened up their missing-person or murder enquiry.

  Still standing at the bus stop, she opened up the notes section of Rachel’s phone and started writing, trying to imitate Rachel’s language and style.

  It’s getting too real now. Ste shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing with me. I’m scared to stop though – he’s already threatened me and I think the next time he might go too far. I know his temper is real bad. I don’t want to be on the end of it again. I’ll need to try and get away. It’s the only option. Ste will kill me otherwise. Kirsty as well. The two of them are a horrible pair. I wish they’d never come into my life.

  Kat saved the note. The police would surely forensically examine the phone and when they did eventually see the note, it would help them along. It would plant the seed in their heads that Stephen and Kirsty could have been involved in her disappearance and subsequently her murder, once they had recovered a body. It showed that they were working together as a team. The note plus all of the messages and photos were damning evidence. Kat just hoped the officers investigating would see it that way.

  Kat gave the phone a good wipe down with a disinfectant wipe; she tried to eliminate all of her fingerprints. No one seemed to be paying her a blind bit of attention. Everyone was either too busy on their phones or eagerly looking for the bus that would take them home. She placed a wipe on top of the handset and turned the phone off. She then placed it in a small plastic zip bag and slipped it into the inside pocket of her jacket. She would get rid of it tonight, on her way back from the care home.

  Kat knew exactly where she was going to put the phone.

  40

  Even with all that was going on, Kat still had to look in on her mother. Getting away with murder could wait for an hour or two, and Kat was in dire need of a break. Plus, she was killing time before she could get rid of Rachel’s phone under the cover of darkness.

  Kat entered her mother’s room to find Maureen in her usual chair staring at the television. She was watching Emmerdale. She loved her soaps and spent hours each day watching them. It pleased her seeing the misery and chaos heaped upon the characters. She said it was an escape from her own mundane existence stuck in the care home, but Kat knew that she actually quite liked it here. There was always something going on for her mother to gossip about.

  Maureen turned to see who had entered.

  ‘Mum, you found your teeth!’ Kat said.

  ‘Aye, great. Your wee mum’s got teeth again. Get the bunting out. Never mind about everything else they’ve stolen from me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mum; no one’s stealing anything from you.’

  ‘What? I’m telling ye, that Irene Jenkins is stealing left, right and centre. She’ll steal the eyes from your heed given half a chance.’

  Kat tried not to laugh and took a seat across from her mother. They sat in silence until an advert break in her programme. Kat knew better than to
interrupt her mother’s soaps.

  ‘How’s thing’s at that work of yours?’ Maureen asked.

  ‘Things are fine. I’m going for a promotion actually. I don’t hold out much hope, but even applying is a step in the right direction.’

  ‘About bloody time you should be getting promoted. I never raised no meek mouse – you should be running that place by now.’

  ‘Did you hear Paul and Charlotte’s good news?’ Kat asked, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Aye, Paul phoned me a few times about it. I don’t think he knows what he’s let himself in for. He thinks it’s all going to be sunshine and light,’ Maureen said. Paul phoning her mother was news to Kat.

  Kat turned the conversation onto another much riskier topic – her ex-husband Stephen. She couldn’t get him and all that had gone on out of her mind.

  ‘I came across Stephen earlier. Did you ever notice anything dodgy about him?’

  ‘Dodgy? Everything about that no-good arsehole was dodgy. I told you at the beginning, I could see it clear as day. Your father could see it and he was half blind, but you just wouldn’t take a telling.’

  ‘I think he’s up to his old tricks again.’

  ‘Leopards don’t change their spots – is that not what they say? What’s the piece of shite up to now?’ Kat’s mother certainly had a way with words.

  ‘I’m not so sure, but I saw him with a younger woman. A much younger woman.’ Kat couldn’t say she had been reading the messages and looking at the photos on his dead stepdaughter’s phone. A dead stepdaughter who he had been having an affair with.

  ‘He always did like them young. You should have chinned him for all the money he took from you or for not paying a single penny to Paul. Steer well clear of him, Katherine. The last thing you want is that loser back in your life. Paul would never forgive you if you took him back again.’