The Guilty Party

by Mel McGrath

  Love? If it’s that then it’s fucking twisted. If not that, then it’s something deeper. Some residual rage from the encounter with Ollie. Some urge to claw back the power, maybe? She doesn’t wish to think about what that might say about her. Doesn’t want to care. She shakes herself free of all thought. Now is the time for instinct. If there’s one thing Anna trusts, the only thing she trusts, it’s that.

  She’s working her way around the back of the church now, to the path between the wheelie bins and the outbuildings, to the scene of the crime.

  Because it was a crime. She knows that as firmly as she knows she will never admit as much.

  She’s standing by the wheelie bins and can see far enough into the path between the outbuildings to spot what looks like a mound or a heap of clothes. Her heart ticks louder. There’s a surging at her temples. She approaches cautiously. The mound stirs. She gets the impression that it is unravelling itself, like a plant brought out of the dark. Her breath catches and billows inside her. At the entrance to the path she stops.

  Can it be?

  It is. Though she’s almost unrecognisable, even from a few minutes ago. Her hair is matted and filthy, as though she’s been pressed into the dirt. As though she’s come from the dirt. She’s on her knees, with her hands braced over her head. The knuckles of the right hand are bleeding but the hands too are filthy and she’s rocking to try to comfort herself. If this were yoga, you’d say she was in the child’s pose and that would be fitting, because she looks tiny and vulnerable.

  Anna almost can’t bear it. What she’s about to do. You are strong, she tells herself. This isn’t personal. Except it is. It’s very personal. At least to Anna. She scopes around, looking for cameras, sees nothing. Most likely the church can’t afford such measures or perhaps thinks it immoral in some way. All God’s children. She takes the first steps onto the path between the outbuildings, wishes she could think more clearly, wishes she hadn’t had so much to drink. There is no turning back now. A deep breath. The woman hasn’t registered her, hasn’t looked up. She’s still curled over and rocking. In the dark she could almost be some kind of giant beetle. Anna lets out a little gulp of air, or perhaps it’s a laugh, though she’s not feeling amused. Funny when humour decides to drop by, at the oddest, least appropriate moments. She sinks down on one knee, gingerly reaches out and lays a hand on the woman’s back.

  ‘Are you OK? You look like you need help.’

  The woman continues to rock. Anna can feel her back vibrating. She may be moaning but if she is, the sound is too faint to hear. The police helicopters are overhead but their lights will not penetrate this far. Anna scoops the fingers of her right hand under the woman’s palm and with her left hand continues to stroke her back.

  ‘Let me help you,’ she says, though she intends to do quite the opposite. The woman loosens the grip of her hands on her head.

  ‘Are you hurt? Show me where you are hurt.’ There is the bloody hand, but Anna suspects that’s the least of it.

  A smell of piss drifts up. Oh Christ.

  Anna is concerned that someone else will see them now, and she’ll lose control of the situation.

  ‘Let’s get you up,’ she says, tucking each hand under the woman’s armpits. ‘What’s your name?’

  The woman says something that Anna doesn’t quite catch.

  ‘Rita?’

  The pile of clothes shifts and her hands loosen their grip of one another. The woman raises herself and sits back onto her legs. This is Anna’s first proper look at her face. God, she’s young. Her right cheek is covered in dirt. Did he grind her into the ground? How is this in any way explicable? All she knows is that it threatens to expose the Group and that she cannot have it.

  ‘Marika,’ the woman says, then adds another name Anna doesn’t get. Not that it matters. The less Anna knows about Marika, the easier it will be to betray her.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Anna says. Marika blinks back at her with haunted eyes. Anna averts her gaze. She doesn’t want to think about those eyes.

  Another smell rises up, vomit this time. Damn. If there’s one thing Anna can’t stand it’s this. Bad enough when Ralphie spits up his milk.

  ‘Let’s get you on your feet,’ she says. Marika nods then suddenly gives a huge yawn and shakes her head as if she’s trying to rid herself of a wasp. Out of it, Anna figures. Good.

  Gradually, bit by bit, Marika rises to a stand. She’s not wearing a great deal. A red dress with a flimsy fake leather jacket over the top, that blue scarf. Funny how little of her face Anna recognises, despite the fact that she’s seen it before this evening, not only at the cab, but exiting Bo’s building. The woman didn’t see her, of course, because Anna was sitting in the cab calling up to Bo’s apartment, so there’s no chance of being recognised. Naturally, she didn’t look like this then. She was wearing cycling gear for a start. But she was pretty sure this was the woman Bo had told her he’d hooked up with. His type. Enough like Anna to draw him, the dark hair a point of difference. She didn’t seem out of it then. The pills, Anna assumes, must have kicked in later. The back of the dress, though red, is stained with blood and something else, maybe shit. The front of the dress bears speckles of what she suspects is vomit.

  Anna thinks about where the nearest ladies’ toilets might be at this hour. She needs to get Marika cleaned up before anyone notices her. But where? Isn’t the police station nearby? Not there, obviously, but rather somewhere in the opposite direction. The woman is leaning on her arm. Anna slings the other around her back. Better control that way. Now, where to go? An all-night café? Ali’s is close. A pub? The Prospect of Whitby? From somewhere deep in the fog of her mind the word no emerges. Why? Then she remembers. Both Ali’s and The Prospect have cameras inside. She can’t risk that. No, what they really need is access to water.

  Marika is standing now, but she’s unsteady on her feet. They need to get going before someone sees them and decides to be a hero and call the police. Right now, Marika’s out of it and she’s in shock, which makes her malleable. But that might not last. Any moment she could become belligerent and demanding. She’s not a large woman, just the opposite, but adrenalised people are strong. People off their faces are strong. Where to go to clean her up? A memory surfaces. Visiting her grandmother’s grave with her mother, a tap round the back of the church for people to fill their graveside vases. And a wheelie bin for them to dump dead flowers and the wrapping from the fresh ones.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you some water,’ she says, taking a firmer grip on the woman.

  Marika nods and, with some encouragement from Anna, begins to stagger on jelly legs. Progress is excruciatingly slow but Anna is afraid to push her. Just get her to the tap. There are tissues in Anna’s bag. Usually there would be wet wipes (Ralphie!) but she left them in the house. The thought crosses her mind to call Isaac, but no, that’s a stupid idea. He’d take one look at the broken woman on her arm and be dialling the cops. And he’s decent, is Isaac, which is both a reason to love him and to hate him. In any case, decency is not what she needs right now. If the police get hold of Marika, they’ll want to know where she was all evening and that’ll put Bo and Anna in the frame. Dex too, since she’d seen Dex talking to Marika briefly by the main stage. Anna can’t have that. It’s like Cassie said: these people, the Group – they are all the love she has.

  They make it as far as the wheelie bins without being seen, Marika leaning on Anna, still moaning, but more softly now. And yes, there is a tap, but the tap head is missing. You’d need a wrench to turn it.

  Marika begins to cry.

  A flutter, faint as insect wings, transits Anna’s face. Christ, this is all she needs. She’s never been a woman’s woman, finds it hard to know how to react around female distress, unless it is her own.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get you cleaned up,’ she says. It’s what she might say to Ralphie at nappy changing time. But Marika is not to be consoled. She’s swaying now as if in a trance. Is this a reaction to
trauma or the pills Bo must have given her? Her hands are balled up into a single fist which she’s holding against her most vulnerable part in some furious gesture of defence. Anna reaches in and gently takes hold in an effort to loosen her grip. That’s when Anna notices the rivulets of blood, pale with urine, snaking their way down Marika’s legs. Blood setting the skin of her legs into wobbly pin-stripes.

  Oh God, this is awful.

  She grabs Marika by the arms. She’s thinking, there has to be a way to row back from this.

  ‘Is this your period?’

  Marika shakes her head.

  ‘Do you know who did this to you?’

  Marika issues a sob.

  What an animal. Not Bo, obviously, but the other one. That said, though, men were all animals, underneath, even Isaac. Anna takes a deep breath and shakes the thought clear. She can’t afford to think like that. Thinking like that will only bring trouble. Questions are spinning through her mind. Where to clean off the evidence without being interrupted or caught on CCTV? She considers giving up and calling the police, then remembers how far she herself is implicated, and not just Bo, not just the third party. Especially now. Too late. That’s when she remembers the river.

  If she can only get Marika to the water’s edge. Wash the evidence out to sea. When Marika wakes from whatever drug-induced stupor she will undoubtedly fall into, her memories of tonight will be fragmentary and hard to pin down. When she looks to her body for corroboration she won’t find any. Or none that can serve as evidence anyway. Even if she goes to the police, a young woman who cannot remember why her rectum is torn or why her vagina is bloody and sore, only that they are, is unlikely be taken seriously. And even if she is, there will remain no residue of her assailant. She will live her life in the knowledge that something happened over which she has no dominion. All that will remain of tonight will be a blank.

  ‘Put your arm around me,’ she says. Marika has crumpled again and has to be hauled to the upright. She’s moaning incoherently but Anna cannot catch her words. Since the police arrived, the churchyard has more or less emptied. They struggle a little but bit by bit manage to wend their way south towards the gates nearest to the river. To anyone witnessing their progress, they will be a couple of friends who’ve had a skinful at a music festival and are now making a wobbly journey back home. If anyone notices the blood on Marika’s legs, Anna will sheepishly mouth the single word ‘period’. Women will grimace with recognition, men will run a mile.

  They are on Wapping high street when Marika starts saying the word ‘police’. She’s pretty incoherent and softly spoken, plus she speaks with a strong accent. No one but Anna will be able to make it out. Nevertheless, the thought has clearly entered her mind and it is up to Anna to ensure it leaves.

  ‘Let’s get you cleaned up, then we’ll go to the police.’

  Naturally, Anna has no intention of alerting the cops. Marika whips her arms away and repeats the word ‘police.’

  Ignoring this and taking hold of the woman more firmly this time, Anna continues to lead her eastwards. She’s wondering whether The Prospect of Whitby will have stayed open late to accommodate the festival goers. Perhaps she can station Marika close by then nip in to the ladies’ and soak some bog roll for Marika to wipe herself with. She wonders how she’s going to persuade her to wipe her intimate parts. Reminds herself that it will be precisely those parts which feel most in need of cleansing.

  In her pocket her phone buzzes. That’ll be Cassie wondering where she is.

  Don’t answer.

  Christ, this night is turning into a horror show.

  ‘Police,’ says Marika, more insistently now.

  This is becoming dangerous.

  ‘Let’s get you to a safe place, then we’ll call the police,’ Anna repeats in what she hopes is an emollient tone. Up ahead is a police car. A couple of officers are moving on a few festival goers.

  It’ll just have to be the river. There’s no time to think of anywhere else and no chance of getting Marika there without their movements being caught on CCTV. Thankfully, Wapping Old Stairs are just there. Narrow, lightless and giving direct access to the water. Better still, it’s high tide. The river water slops right up the steps.

  ‘Let’s just sit down for a bit here,’ she says, leading Marika into the alleyway. So close now. If Anna can just persuade her to change out of her skirt and wipe herself, then Anna will wash the skirt and the job is more than half done. For once she’s glad that Bo has been up to his old tricks. The woman is infinitely less dangerous this way. Anna leans her charge up against the wall. Marika sways. Anna puts gentle pressure on her shoulders. She’s aiming to suggest without being so firm that Marika becomes alarmed. It works. Bit by bit Marika allows her body to slide down the wall until she’s sitting on the cobbles. Taking a seat beside her, Anna says, ‘Where do you live?’ Her phone buzzes again. This time she takes the phone out of her pocket and checks it. Cassie.

  Don’t answer.

  Marika has buried her face in her hands. She’s crying, which is good, because as long as she’s sobbing she’s unlikely to be calling for the police. She repeats the question. If Marika can give her an address, Anna can call an Uber and ride with her. A wash first though. The woman looks alarming, even to an Uber driver used to turning a blind eye. All that blood.

  ‘Now,’ says Anna, taking a packet of tissues from her bag. ‘Why don’t we get you cleaned up?’

  Marika nods. She’s so out of it Anna can probably do the intimate washing herself without Marika protesting. First, though, the tissues need to be moistened. Leaving Marika where she is Anna places her hand on a thin metal grab handle and edges her way carefully down the steps, using her phone torch to guide her, planting her feet firmly through the coating of river slime, to the waterline.

  41

  Cassie

  Early evening, Sunday 2 October, Isle of Portland

  In the immediate aftermath of the blow, an absolute stillness falls. The rock, actually a large carved ammonite picked up from the quarry floor, sits in his hand. Gav stares at it for a moment, at the adhesive blur of blood and sprig of dark hair, as if it were someone else who had wielded the weapon, before dropping it from his hand like a discarded sweet wrapper. Beside him the slumped body of Bo, stunned, clasps the back of his head, blood leaking between his fingers.

  Anna and I stand back, immobilised, our hands over our faces.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ says Gav.

  Anna dives over to where Bo is crouched on the ground, but he keeps her at bay with an outstretched arm.

  ‘Fuck!’ repeats Gav, startled by his own strength.

  If Anna had a weapon she would use it. But all Anna has are the rocks and the hard surfaces of her mind. Rushing at Gav, she slams into his chest. He staggers back a couple of steps before recovering himself. Anna rushes him again, pumping her fists at him, aiming for the head but because of their relative sizes, only making any real contact with his neck.

  Anna’s shriek boils up from a terrible deep. If it weren’t for that sound I might intervene.

  ‘Whaddafuck?’ Bo says. His hand is on his head and he’s struggling to stand. It’s like watching a newborn calf who has already felt the slaughterman’s bolt.

  Gav moves forward a few paces, squats beside Bo and screams into his hair, ‘You fucking fuck. Dex told me what a sick fuck you were, he said Anna had made you promise to stop.’ His arms are in silverback stance, and he is spitting and shaking, an adrenalised mess, an ageing not-so Incredible Hulk. If it weren’t so frightening it might be comical. ‘But I’m not letting him go down for you, you bastard.’ A gob of spittle sails upwards then lands splat on Bo’s T-shirt.

  Anna sidesteps in between Gav and Bo. Her hands are raised, palms up, in a gesture of surrender. She’s doing her sheepdog act, herding us all together, but it’s far too late for that.

  Gav is upright now and clutching his chest. He’s having trouble catching his breath.

  ‘What’s happ
ening?’ I’m hardly conscious of saying the words, though the sound is of my voice.

  Between gulps of air, Gav says, ‘I was driving back from my sister’s when I got the message from Dex that he was at the police station, but I didn’t actually speak to him, so I decided to come to the cottage first to find out exactly what was going on. I saw you both running up the hill so I followed you but I couldn’t keep up . . .’ His eyes sweep about, taking in me and Anna. ‘. . . I’ve been behind that rock. I overheard everything.’ He’s staring at Bo now. ‘You’re the real reason Dex is in the hole he’s in, you piece of shit.’

  Bo is on his feet. There are tears in his eyes now. A simper of self-pity. He’s still clutching and unclutching his head. There is blood on the palm of his hand where it is in contact with the wound.

  ‘I didn’t attack anyone. I had a few tokes with a woman on Friday. Maybe we had a few pills. That’s it.’

  Gav doesn’t answer. He seems as stunned by his sudden, unexpected show of strength as Bo is. No one knows what to do, how to react. This is the first time for all of us.

  ‘You stupid, shrivelled old queen. Dex was right, the chemo has turned you into a mentalist.’ His eyes are on the ammonite carving, with its slick of Bo blood and Bo hair. ‘You fucking animal.’ For a moment Gav looks like he might just go and have done with us and with Dex. Kick out and leave. Decide that he doesn’t need this shit, not the way he is right now, but some remnant of dignity rises up in him, or maybe it’s recklessness, the last stand of a dying man and, planting his feet firmly into the stone and with his hands balling into fists at his side, he says, ‘This isn’t your fight, Anna.’ Dex came across the pills in Bo’s bathroom one time, he says, Bo told him things, stuff that men only ever tell other men.