Drown My Books

by Penny Freedman

  She’s not looking at me so I don’t look at her. ‘You’ve got evidence against someone else?’ I ask as casually as I can, licking a finger and mopping up crumbs from my plate.

  ‘Possibly,’ she says.

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  She doesn’t answer.

  ‘It’s Simon Gates, isn’t it? You know what’s happened to Alice.’

  She does look at me now, with something of her old malice. ‘For a bright woman you can be a fool, Gina. Nothing’s happened to Alice.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We know. And you do, too, if you think about it.’

  I don’t know what she means but I’m not going to get sidetracked.

  ‘So not Simon?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘Did you know that Matthew O’Dowd was prosecuted for GBH last year?’

  ‘No? What happened?’

  ‘He was prosecuted for an assault on his then girlfriend – not Kelly. The case came to court but, at the last minute, the girl decided not to give evidence and the case collapsed.’

  Of course, I’m not really surprised; I think again about his big hands. But still it doesn’t feel right. ‘It’s pretty circumstantial, though, isn’t it? As evidence that he killed Kelly?’ I say.

  ‘The thing is the nature of his assault on the girl,’ she says.

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He pushed her off the sea wall.’

  I experience a buzzing in my head – the sort of mental panic I can remember getting sometimes in Maths exams. I can see Matt giving a girl a shove in an adolescent rage, but not as a woman-hating serial attacker, stalking his victims one after the other and planning all the stuff with the books. And, as Paula argued, if he hates the book group and all it stands for, why hasn’t he gone for me? He comes to my house all the time and Caliban would be no protection against him. Caliban likes him – it’s some kind of male bonding thing. Matt would have no trouble dealing with him.

  ‘What do you think his motive would have been?’ I ask. ‘For killing Kelly, I mean.’

  She shrugs. ‘With some men it doesn’t take much. He assaulted the other girl because he was drunk and she didn’t like it. It could have been anything.’

  ‘But the others, Paula. Lily, Alice, Eva. What about them? And the books?’

  ‘The books.’ She cuts a square of toast into smaller squares. ‘The forensic evidence from the books isn’t clear-cut. Our working hypothesis is that he marked up Kelly’s book and left it on the beach to advertise his reason for killing her – that she was a sort of monster. And then he realised that her book could lead us to him, so he pinched as many of the other books as he could to muddy the waters, and returned one of them to the library, claiming it was Kelly’s. It would have been easy for him to pick up yours, at least. And he probably got into Alice’s house the same way you did yesterday.’ She swallows the last of her tea and stands up.

  I feel myself turn scarlet.

  ‘We had a call from Simon Gates,’ she says. ‘Someone got into his house and took Alice’s phone. And, would you believe it, you were seen in the Gates’s garden.’

  She is looking hard at me and I start to sweat. ‘So, are you here to arrest me for breaking and entering?’ I ask. ‘Is that what this is really about? Because I think I was justified. When a young woman has a furious row with her husband and then disappears, and the police decide to believe her husband’s story and not do anything about it, I think a neighbour has a duty to—’

  ‘Not for the moment,’ she says, and picks up her bag. ‘I’m not planning to arrest you right now, but you need to give that phone back to Simon Gates and I want your help. You can stop defending Farid and you can stop, for God’s sake, worrying about Alice, but —’

  ‘Why? Why not worry about Alice?’ I’m on my feet, too, not ready to let her go without an answer.

  ‘You’re not a driver, Gina,’ she says, ‘that’s your problem. Think about it.’ She takes her coat down from the hook behind the door.

  ‘You say help you,’ I say as she puts the coat on and walks down the hall. ‘What sort of help?’

  ‘You know Matt,’ she says. ‘Once you stop fixating on your serial killer theory, you may come up with something useful. Anything you think of, call me.’ She turns at the door. ‘Just don’t pursue anything yourself. I can still arrest you if I choose.’

  I stand at the door, watching her as she walks to her car.

  ‘Why, Paula?’ I call.

  ‘Why, what?’

  ‘Why did you come to tell me this?’

  She half turns, still walking away. ‘We were stuck so I called David,’ she says. ‘He told me to trust you, so I’m trying.’ She gets to her car and turns. ‘Tell me I’m not making a mistake.’

  I don’t actually answer because I’m not sure I can. Instead, I find myself making an odd gesture that is both histrionic and ambiguous. I put my hand on my heart. Then I go indoors.

  There is a lot to think about and Caliban is scratching at the back door, so I put some clothes on and take him down to the beach. The tide is out, exposing acres of wet, grey sand but, perversely, instead of revelling in the freedom, Caliban trudges along morosely at my heels. I dismiss this, at first, as mere sulking, but then I wonder if he might not be well. Could he have eaten something malign out in the garden? I bend down to look at him more closely and am hit immediately and violently in the backs of my legs. I fall, half on top of Caliban, and think, as I go, So this is it. This is my turn. I close my eyes, put my arms over my head and curl up into a ball, waiting for the next blow, but all I can hear is an odd panting noise close to my head and a voice shouting vaguely in the distance. I move an arm, open an eye and find a dog’s face very close to mine. It is not Caliban’s. This face is black and the mouth is open as though it is laughing at me. I can hear what the voice is saying now. ‘Get away, Chaka,’ it says. ‘Lie down.’ Then the dog is yanked away and I uncurl and haul myself to my feet. The owner of the voice is young, female and fulsomely apologetic.

  ‘I’m really, really sorry,’ she says. ‘He’s only young and he doesn’t mean any harm. He’s my brother’s dog and I’m looking after him while he’s away. But I don’t seem to be able…’ she tails off. ‘Will you be all right?’

  I tell her I will, though I am not so fulsomely forgiving in return. I am wet and filthy and a minute ago I thought I was about to die. Also, something about her tone tells me that she thinks I am old, and that is annoying. I put Caliban on his lead and turn for home.

  Back indoors, I strip off my clothes and consign them to the washing machine, then go upstairs for a shower, taking some time to get the sand out of my hair. Reclothed and warm, I return to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and hear an odd, regular rattle coming from the washing machine. Something in my pocket I think, and consider what it might be. My phone. My bloody phone is in the wash. I stop the machine, wait, fuming, for the regulation two minutes before I can open it, and then retrieve the phone.

  The screen is expectedly blank and nothing happens when I try switching it on. I have a vague idea that I have heard that putting a wet phone in a bowl of dry rice can work, the rice absorbing the moisture, so I find a plastic food tub, put the phone into it, pour on rice, fix on the lid and leave it in the unsure and uncertain hope of its resurrection. Then I tip away my cold coffee, pour myself a slug of cooking brandy and consider the consequences of being phoneless. I have no landline so I am cast adrift here, out of contact with the world. Normally, I would quite welcome this, but just at the moment things are too uncertain. Paula may want me, or any of the book group. I have a sudden, urgent sense that there will be an emergency for which I will be needed and found wanting. It occurs to me that, given an emergency of my own, I could summon help using Alice’s phone, but I ca
n’t be any help to anyone else. And no one can phone me a warning.

  Calmed by my brandy, I think about Paula and her suspicions about Matt. I am glad, of course, that Farid is being ruled out but I am still sure that Kelly wasn’t the only victim and the business with the books doesn’t seem like Matt at all. Matt doesn’t believe in books, really. He can’t link what books contain with his own life. That’s his problem. That’s why I’ve been asking myself for weeks why it is English A level that he’s trying to get. Then there’s Alice. Paula obviously thinks that she’s got sure-fire evidence that Alice is all right, but I think she may be being conned by Simon. Alice’s phone worries me and Simon is still top of my suspect list.

  I lean back and close my eyes and let the brandy do its work. Phones, I think. There was something else about a phone. Not mine, not Alice’s. I open my eyes and look up. Kelly’s. I remember now Matt telling me the police had turned his house upside down, looking for Kelly’s phone. Of course they were. My phone is just a pathetic little thing: you can make calls and send texts on it, you can take photos and set alarms, but that’s it. It is not a smartphone in any sense. Kelly’s was, though. I can see it now, lying beside the till in the shop. It was an iPhone or something of the sort – all-singing and all-dancing. She would have sent emails on it, wouldn’t she? And if it is missing then her killer took it. Why? Because there was stuff on it that would incriminate him. Whoever it was had some sort of relationship with Kelly that would be revealed. That could have been Matt, of course. The police didn’t find the phone at Matt’s house, but he could easily have chucked it into the sea. Except there was always the danger of its being washed up and found, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the sim card that gets ruined by the water. Much safer to hide it in a safe place. Why didn’t I think of that before I searched the Gates’s house? I was looking for signs of Alice, but I should have been searching Simon’s things. I think, with a tingling of terror, that, in spite of my half-pledge to Paula, I may have to go back in there.

  After a start like this, there is no hope for a day, really. This one dribbles along. I do odd jobs and I try to read but Notes on a Scandal unsettles me. Sheba’s wanton self-destruction gets under my skin. I start to fret about the phone calls I can’t make. I should phone my daughter Annie. She only ever rings me when something is wrong, and I suspected it was dissatisfaction with her boyfriend that was the problem last time she called. When I asked after him, she said, ‘He’s fine – when I see him,’ and then changed the subject. Jon is a junior doctor and no doubt is short of time to lavish on Annie, but I’m not the person to complain to. Privately – and I am slightly ashamed to admit this – I think Jon is too good for Annie. I love my daughter, but she is self-centred and inconsiderate and I live in fear that she will throw away a good man in a fit of pique. I wonder if my mother felt the same about Andrew. Thinking about Andrew makes me fret again. I must ring Lavender and see if he is back from Argentina or get his mobile number. I have been so stupid about Farid. Now it seems absolutely imperative to me to get Andrew on his case. Andrew’s overweening confidence and certainty, which usually annoy the hell out of me, are, I see now, exactly what Farid needs. I can picture Andrew sweeping in, bending Border Agency clerks to his will, settling the asylum claim in days and dispatching Farid back to his student life with a light heart. I could almost love this Andrew of my fantasies.

  I should really take the bus into Dover and buy myself a new phone. Phones like mine cost hardly anything, after all. Instead, though, I keep opening up my box of rice and trying to give the kiss of life to my phone, which remains stubbornly dead. The day drags on. At about three o’clock I eat some lunch, and then answer some emails. After that, I abandon one of my cardinal rules and sit down to watch daytime television. Almost instantly, it seems to me, I fall asleep.

  I am woken by a ringing at the door, which may have been going on for some time since it got itself incorporated into a dream I was having. I am completely at sea. I register the black windows, the babbling television, the ringing doorbell and – an afterthought – the silent dog. Caliban, I realise, knows who this is and trusts them. Is it Dora or Matt, I wonder, as I stumble towards the door. Should I be teaching now? I pull the door open and the person on the doorstep pushes urgently past me into the house.

  ‘Alice?’ I ask.

  ‘Hi Gina,’ she says.

  ‘Wh-?’ I say, and then ‘H-how?’ and finally, ‘You’re alive.’

  ‘Of course I’m alive,’ she says, but she doesn’t laugh at me. She looks white and tense and a bit feverish. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I thought Simon had —’

  ‘Killed me? Not this time. He did hit me, though, and I always promised myself he wouldn’t do that more than once.’ She walks through to the sitting room. ‘I walked out,’ she said. ‘And I’ve been making arrangements.’

  ‘You left your phone.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t want the police to track me in case they told Simon where I was. I drew a wad of cash at the first service station so I wouldn’t need to use my credit card.’

  ‘Service station?’ I say stupidly. ‘You took Simon’s car?’

  ‘It’s not Simon’s car, he just thinks it is. It’s our car and I paid for most of it.’ She stops and looks at me. ‘Didn’t you notice that the car had disappeared?’ she asks.

  ‘The trouble with you is, you’re not a driver.’ That was what Paula meant. And I saw Simon go off on the bus with the boys. When did I ever see Simon get on the bus? So much for me as the sleuth extraordinaire.

  ‘I don’t tend to notice cars,’ I say lamely.

  ‘I would have thought you’d have heard Simon roaring about it,’ she says. ‘He’ll definitely have missed the car more than he’s missed me.’

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ I ask.

  ‘No. I’ve got to get going, but I’ve got a massive favour to ask you.’ She is perched on the arm of a chair, as if ready to take off at any moment. ‘I’m taking the boys,’ she says. ‘I’ve rented a place near my parents and I’m signed on for supply teaching. There’s plenty at this time of year and I’ll get something permanent later. I’ve come to take the boys tonight. I don’t want to confront Simon. There’ll be a fight, he’s quite likely to hit me again and even if he doesn’t the boys will be scared.’

  ‘How can you not confront him?’

  ‘That’s where the favour comes in. I need you to distract him.’

  ‘Oh, no, Alice —’ I have a farcical picture of myself donning a plunging neckline and sashaying round to Simon’s to seduce him on the sitting room sofa while Alice creeps upstairs to steal away her boys.

  ‘I need you to get him round here,’ she says. ‘Some domestic emergency. Play the helpless little woman. Make him feel competent and manly. The boys are in bed. I’ve been watching outside for their light to go off. I’ll go and wait in the alley. You get Simon round here. I’ll slip in and pick up the boys. The car’s parked up in the shadows beyond the lamppost. Get me ten minutes, Gina. That’s all I ask.’

  Nobody, I think, has ever asked me to do something so terrifying before. ‘When he finds them gone,’ I protest weakly, ‘he’ll be beside himself. How will he know you’ve got them?’

  ‘I’ve got a note for him. I’ll leave it on one of the boys’ beds.’

  ‘And he’ll realise what I’ve done and come roaring round here and kill me. Or hit me, anyway.’

  ‘He won’t. He cares too much about his reputation and his job. Besides, you’ve got Caliban. Si’s scared stiff of him, didn’t you know that?’

  ‘Caliban hates him.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘What sort of domestic emergency? I can’t just create one of those.’

  She looks round the room. ‘Have you had anything trip the trip switch since you’ve been here?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a lamp
upstairs. I don’t use it any more because it was annoying. But I know how to deal with that. You just –‘

  ‘Act stupid!’ she says.

  ‘But Simon will think—’

  ‘For ten minutes. For ten minutes he’ll think you’re an idiot. And then he’ll realise you’ve outsmarted him.’ She gets up off her perch and comes towards me. ‘Please, Gina,’ she says.

  ‘How will I know it’s safe to let him go back home?’

  ‘I’ll give a toot as I drive away.’

  ‘Do you want your phone?’

  ‘I’ll pick it up when I get the boys. I can’t hide from Simon forever. We’ll need to sort things out properly. He’ll need to see the boys – they’ll need to see him. He’s a good father. It’s the reason I stayed with him longer than I should have. But if I leave them with him, he’ll never let me see them.’

  ‘The phone’s not at your house. It’s here.’

  For the first time, she’s the one who is nonplussed. ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘Long story,’ I say. ‘I’ll fetch it.’

  I bring her the phone. We hug and wish each other good luck. I feel sick.

  When she has gone, I go upstairs and get the dodgy lamp from the cupboard in the spare room to which it has been consigned. There is something the matter with its switch mechanism. I tried changing the plug but it still tripped the trip switch nine times out of ten. I carry it into the bedroom, put it on the dressing table, plug it in and switch on. The house is obligingly plunged into immediate darkness. I curse myself for being an idiot. I should have prepared before I did this – found a torch and my keys. Then I think that, actually, this is better. It looks more authentic if I am unprepared.

  I grope my way downstairs, stumble over Ariel, who doesn’t grasp the concept of not seeing in the dark, fumble along the hall to the front door, put it on the latch and go round to ring on Simon’s door. When he opens it, glass in hand – his reward for getting the boys to bed, I assume – the light pouring out from his house seems startlingly bright. When he sees me, he makes a move as though he would like to shut the door on me. I jump in to stop him.