Cruel as the Grave

by Meg Elizabeth Atkins

  ‘Oh, don’t you? Then I’ll tell you. I’m complaining about you poking about where you’ve no right to be. You think you’re going to drag me in and ruin everything now — well, you’re wrong, Miss Spiffing Clever Private Eye. Got that?’

  ‘No, Paula, I haven’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about and — ’

  ‘Oh, really. Well... Didn’t you detect it — even with sheep-face Melanie’s help? No? You couldn’t smell shit if you stuck your nose in it — ’

  They’d had their bad times, they’d had their quarrels, but never had Liz felt the onslaught of so much hatred. Behind Paula’s fidgeting and sneering and mockery there was a disturbing recoil of hysteria. This could be some imagined, invented wrong. Liz tried to work out what it could be.

  She had sent Hunter to Melanie... It seemed that all that had achieved was contusion and Paula’s rage. One last try — ‘Look, can we talk this over — ’

  ‘There’s no talking, there’s no talking. You’re going to do as I say, that’s all.’

  ‘In that case, Paula, bugger off out of here — ’ Something like a mental snag, catching on delayed bewilderment. ‘What did you mean? Drag you in? Ruin everything?’ But as she asked, she knew. She knew by the smugness on Paula’s face, she knew by hints and ambiguities and half-recognised thoughts. Everything coalesced into a moment of understanding that had been waiting, waiting, for her to come upon it.

  ‘It was you, you who found Beattie, and arranged for her and Reggie to meet.’

  ‘Uh... uh... uh... ’ Paula mimed a moronic inarticulateness. ‘You’re as dim as she was.’

  ‘How could you do it to him!’ Liz shouted. ‘How could you involve him with something so — ’

  ‘So sordid? Life is. Life is dirty secrets from the past and Reggie falling for any heart-rending story anyone tells him; Reggie playing the knight errant and thinking it’s such a lark, bringing her here in secret — until the stupid cow started wanting things her way, trying to take over. She was so ignorant she could scarcely even read, but she thought she could tell me what to do.’

  Liz had the surreal experience of hearing her own painstakingly constructed theory verified by Paula’s quarrel with herself — details, arrangements, added. Paula pacing angrily, ‘... nobody had ever treated her decently before — stupid old bag couldn’t recognise it for what it was — decided he’d fallen for her — making herself glamorous for him... I told her she’d frighten him off — ’

  Liz cried, ‘I just don’t know how he could be involved in anything with you.’

  ‘You still haven’t got it, have you?’ Paula stopped pacing, looked at her contemptuously. ‘He didn't know. That I was pulling Beattie’s strings. He thought she’d managed to find out on her own, working things out. He thought she was “splendid” for all her disadvantages to track him down as the only one able to help her. Good God, d’you think I’d be stupid enough to let him know I started it — he’d get cold feet, he always did, always went running to Helen; he’d have spilled the whole lot when he was questioned if he’d thought I’d bail him out.’ Paula began to range backwards and forwards again, limbs uncoordinated: she collided with a cupboard, shook herself angrily, then obviously losing track, shouted, ‘It would have worked — she ruined it — ’ A thought stopped her; her look, furtive, turned away.

  ‘Everything was ruined for her,’ Liz said harshly. ‘You brought about her death.’

  Paula shrugged. ‘Woman like that, bound to come to grief, runs in the family. The police weren’t all that bothered, were they? Went through the motions, then just dropped it. Then — then you started... Do you know how dangerous you are?’

  *

  I went after her...

  But this time Hunter and Annette accompanied her as she drove through the black, pelting night with no thought of anything but another desperate appeal, no recollection of seeing anyone until the bright lights of Miller’s Bridge. Almost like a stage set: the lonely figure glancing back, moving closer to the parapet to let the motorist past, then turning, standing transfixed...

  Because Helen had stopped, then let the car creep forward. And Beattie, with her street survival reflexes, knew that Helen had followed her, that Helen had been pushed too far, become dangerous.

  Seeing the woman with the power to do so much harm, who had abused and tormented her, terrified into stillness, brought out in Helen a rush of wildness she had never known in her life. Now she was the one with the power, and there was a hell-bent atavism in turning from prey to hunter.

  She shot forward a few feet, stopped with a screech of brakes. Beattie began to move, edging crabwise, scrambling, pressing herself against the stonework. Helen raced the engine, crashed the gears, reversed, drove forward again to within inches of Beattie, playing the dreadful game of pretending to run into her. Unable to stop herself, unable to say, ever, if she could really have done it.

  The decision was not hers. Beattie somehow got on to the parapet and then, straddling, crawling, casting one fearful look back, lost balance, threw out her arms in a toppling gesture, and was gone.

  There was only the sound of rain, the rushing water. The stage was empty, the drama had concluded — with nothing to show it had taken place. Except Beattie’s handbag lying in the road, lying there in the garish persistence of its size and cheapness, blazoning the reality of the woman, the presence of the woman in that place.

  Helen drove forward, opened the car door, scooped it up. Drove on, reversed, went home.

  By the time Reggie came home she was lying, fully dressed on her bed, shivering in the dark; the handbag — thrust into a supermarket carrier — pushed in the bottom of her wardrobe.

  She stayed awake all night, haunted by the unreality of what had happened, what she had done, what its aftermath could be. Had Beattie survived? Could she swim? As far as Helen could reconstruct it, she had fallen very close to the outer side of the bridge, where jutting stonework was a hazard... Had she smashed against it, been unconscious as she hit the water? Or with the endurance of her kind had she saved herself — to find her way back, a greater threat than ever. For hours Helen stood at her bedroom window, staring down into the driveway, straining to make out in the dark the limping, lurching progress of one who had crawled from the river.

  By dawn she had decided what she must do. She would never tell Reggie that Beattie had been here. She would behave in all ways as if nothing in the rhythm of their days had faltered, nothing been threatened. If Reggie had the least inkling she knew anything of what had been happening, he would break down completely. By maintaining the fiction of their unaltered days, she would sustain them both. She had the strength.

  And this was what she did, waiting upon events; dissembling, managing, arranging. Her nerve was strong, her desire to protect Reggie, to preserve herself and their life together, overrode every moral consideration.

  She recounted all this in a steady voice, with a restraint that spoke of profound self-knowledge. Her confession over she sat exhausted. Shriven.

  Hunter went to make tea; as he left the room he looked back at Annette: we still don’t know.

  Annette knew better than to speak — except to say something mundane. ‘I hate to think of my boss finding his way round your kitchen. He’ll probably bring all the wrong cups.’ She took Helen’s hand. Helen clung to the lifeline, after a while drew back, produced her handkerchief; the suggestion of tears there and gone. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It is better this way.’

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right. The guilt would have made me mad, I think, or ill. That’s one obstacle overcome, a relief to the spirit.’

  Hunter came in, carefully carrying a tray on which were a homely brown teapot, a carton of milk, three odd mugs and a spoon. Annette looked at it helplessly. ‘Would you prefer lemon?’

  ‘No, thank you. I must get used to doing without refinements, mustn’t I? This is very welcome, thank you.’

  Hunter sat down. ‘Her handbag. Where is it?’<
br />
  ‘Oh, goodness, I couldn’t keep it.’ She could not bear to think of it being in the house — staking some claim. She could never bring herself to look inside it, to handle the dead woman’s personal effects; but she was desperate to find a way to dispose of it. At the time, there was a great deal of publicity about its whereabouts, a search in progress for it; even if she could have cut it into pieces, she was terrified the pieces would be discovered if she took them to the tip, or tried to get rid of them in a waste bin somewhere. There were no fires in the house where she could burn it. Eventually, in great furtiveness, she did burn it — in the garden — locking the side entrance to the house to safeguard against interruption. Only to have Liz burst upon her from the back.

  Hunter listened, looking comfortable, drinking his tea. Helen could not know how carefully he was going over every word she had said, how closely he watched her when he spoke, his scrupulously chosen questions as casually placed as if they were following a conversation that had already absorbed them.

  ‘And how long have you known about Beattie’s background?’

  ‘Oh, years... ’

  Years...

  ‘... of course, I knew nothing of her, only that the woman had a daughter. How cruelly ironic. He never knew whether her mother was alive or dead when he left her... And I drove away from Miller’s Bridge not knowing... I must have inherited that special kind of wickedness from him.’

  Hunter, impassive beneath an avalanche of comprehension. Of course, it had to be. Who else?

  He glanced at Annette, who hadn’t picked it up. A moment later, a swiftly suppressed reaction indicated she had.

  ‘He was a very cruel man — never physically, with us, his family — just cruel in every other possible way. He made life wretched for everyone around him. But no one had the least idea of his other self — the man who found his satisfaction in the poverty and helplessness of young prostitutes. It went on for a long time, even when Mother was alive. In his last illness he told me all about it — about the excitement he had derived from a double life of such contrast; the comfort and respectability of life here; then the streets, the slums, the dirty rooms, the sluttish women. He went into great detail, what he did to them, his enjoyment in their degradation. His language was explicit and obscene. He told me about this young woman who had been foolish enough to make demands on him, and persist in them. He told me how he had beaten her, with his fists, on and on. Then he left her, in that poor house, for her child to find. Sometimes he became confused... once, once, he started talking to Paula about it. Fortunately, she was so taken with her own concerns she never listened — so I thought. But after he did that, I could never let him see anyone for fear of what he might say. He had never, after the event, put himself at risk by attempting to find out if he had killed the young woman. I said to you he was never physically cruel — until that act. I think the savagery of a lifetime went into that because he said — he said it satisfied him. After it he gave up his double life completely, he no longer needed it. He seemed to regard this as in some way commendable.’ She paused.

  Annette gave her a moment, asked, ‘Did he ever name her? His victim.’

  ‘No. He used filthy expressions, I told you he was explicit, but those women were not individuals to him, they were merely vehicles for his twisted needs. Of course, I was horrified. I thought of the utter shame if it ever became known, our family would never recover from such a scandal. My father, being what he was — put the burden of his crime on my conscience, deliberately, thinking I would be haunted by his guilt, by the dread of discovery, that I would know no peace for the rest of my days. But he was wrong. Quite wrong. After his death, I realised there was nothing I could do, it had all happened over twenty-five years before. I had no way of finding the woman — if she was still alive — I could make no restitution. I did the sensible thing, I put it from my mind. I really did forget it.’

  Hunter said, ‘It wasn’t your guilt, it could have stayed forgotten. If only Beattie hadn’t had a moment of idle curiosity and looked at the display on the stand at the exhibition, and seen a photograph of your father.’

  ‘Paula meddles, she makes mischief. This was to be her coup de grâce. Chance put that woman her way. She saw she could use her to cause both Reggie and myself embarrassment, hurt, the anguish of living with a shameful secret, the fear of its being found out. By planting that woman in our midst, what she was and what she knew, she could guarantee to make our lives wretched.’

  Annette said, ‘Jealousy?’

  ‘Such a destructive emotion. She was fostered when she was little more than a baby, she’s resented it all her life, being pushed out — she always saw it as my doing — I had no idea it had become a rage with her to get her own back. She to make Beattie her creature — with no thought where it might lead. A woman like that — such a pathetically dull, deprived existence — to offer her the chance to right an old wrong, a glimpse of another life, secret meetings with an attractive man — it simply didn’t occur to her that Beattie was living in the middle of a drama and would soon begin writing her own part. She was an ignorant woman, but she had a native cunning — even when she was here, scarcely controlled in her rage and insults — she never so much as mentioned Paula’s name. She wasn’t going to give away her trump card for fear, I suppose, that I might find some way of bringing Paula back into line.’

  Hunter asked, ‘How did you know, then, about Paula’s involvement, and when did you discover it?’

  ‘I didn’t discover it, Mr Hunter, she came and told me. Yesterday.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, like you, she had worked it out. After all, she had engineered their meetings — Thursday, the bus shelter, seven o’clock. Knowing that, she knew that there was only one place Beattie could be that night. It was Paula’s triumph, coming here yesterday, she had me exactly where she wanted me — at her mercy. She’s desperate for money, her business has failed, she’s taken out a second mortgage on her house. I suppose I should have read the signs — over the past year I’ve lent her money, Reggie did, too, but her demands became too much. I told her she must make some effort to arrange her affairs, then we’d think again. I told Reggie he must stop funding her. But now, by what she had brought about — everything was within her grasp. And that was what she demanded — everything.’ Expressively, a gesture encompassed the room, the house: every furnishing, every ornament, every painting and piece of china; the garden, the cars, the investments, the ease, the elegance — even the memories of the house would pass into Paula’s keeping, to do with as she wished. ‘And she was prepared to blackmail me in order to get it. I would be in her power, always, and she would take everything from me, from Liz.’ She paused, considering. ‘When I opened the door to you I knew I had lost. But then, so has Paula.’

  Hunter said, ‘You’ll have to come to the police station so we can talk to you about this in a formal manner. In the light of our investigations and what you’ve just said to me, I must tell you I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Beattie Booth. You’re not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be put into writing and given in evidence.’

  Helen nodded. ‘I understand.’ Then she stood up urgently, with none of her customary grace. ‘Excuse me — I — ’

  Annette followed her in a rush from the room, into the downstairs cloakroom, stood outside the lavatory door listening to the sound of vomiting. Eventually, Helen emerged, chalk-white, to tidy herself at the wash-basin. ‘I apologise. I’m all right now.’

  ‘It’s reaction.’ Annette took her back to the sitting room. ‘Just sit down quietly for a minute.’ She busied herself soothingly, turned off the gas fire, went to pick up the tray. This gave her a view through the side window. What she saw made her turn sharply, head tilted to Hunter. He moved next to her, saw the farther side of the house, set back, that had not been visible to them at the front door.

  ‘Miss Willoughby, where is your sister Paula?’r />
  Helen, head back against the chair, eyes closed, said wearily, ‘I have no idea.’

  Hunter said, ‘Her car is parked at the side.’

  She was vague. ‘Yes, she left it... ’

  ‘She’s left it here since yesterday?’ Annette queried. ‘Since she came to see you yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, she came again this morning. To gloat. Surprisingly briefly. Then she went off... to do something.’

  Hunter said, ‘Without her car? In this weather?’

  ‘It’s beyond me to fathom her vagaries. The rain wouldn’t get to her, she was so muffled up in waterproofs — ’

  Hunter interrupted her. ‘Where was she going? What was she going to do? Think, please, it could be important.’

  Aware of urgency, Helen collected herself. ‘She said she had something to attend to — no, somebody to attend to. I’m sorry, I — ’

  Into Hunter’s mind, an unreeling of alarm: Liz’s enquiries — rain — waterproofs — someone on foot — He spoke rapidly to Annette, ‘I’m going to Liz’s. You arrange transport from Chatfield, get Miss Willoughby over there and booked in. Before that — get hold of Hambling — tell them I want some back-up, a couple of local lads at 42 The Bellfield. Fast as they can, tell them I’ll meet them there

  — silent approach. That’s vital. Got it? Do it. Now... ’

  Twenty-Three

  ‘Dangerous?’ Liz repeated. ‘To you? Well, I'll tell you this, Paula, you’re dead right. I am. I’m not going to let you get away with your part in this. I don’t care about compassion and forgiveness and family feeling — I care that you’ve cost that woman her life, and brought about Reggie’s death, and caused Helen so much suffering I don’t know how she’s stayed sane.’

  ‘Helen,’ Paula mimicked. ‘Oh, Helen’s going to thank you.’