Nina Todd Has Gone

by Lesley Glaister

  Tears were racing down her face now. ‘They were eating Cheeselets and Roger poured me out a ginger wine. I was between them on the sofa and it was like it could be. Like it could have been. A sort of life I could have had. I wanted to tell them. I couldn’t tell them. I nearly ran away that night. But then I thought maybe somehow, maybe by some miracle, it would be all right. Maybe they’d get out, maybe …’

  Her voice trailed off as I put my mind back to that same night. Mum and Dad had gone to the pictures and Isobel was meant to be staying in with me, but she went out. She bribed me with a bag of chocolate limes. If Isobel had not gone out that night … if Isobel had not been such a slag … I had to stretch my tongue far out of my mouth to get away from remembering the chocolate limes. Ding dong bell, I thought, pussy in the well. Karen was watching me with her face all streaked. I had to get out of there then.

  Chapter 43

  ~

  In mid January, on the evening after her chemistry and physics mocks, she was sitting on the sofa between the doctors, eating strawberry ice-cream and watching television. There had been a programme about a family of lions in the Kalahari. The news came on. After the headlines Joan turned to her.

  ‘What’s the story with Jeffrey then?’ She smiled at her husband as if they shared the same amused but tolerant attitude to the antics of the young. But Karen didn’t answer, her attention captured by an item on the news. The bodies of two young people, Steven Spencer and Isobel Curtis, had been discovered in Felixstowe by a council workman in a disused well. There had been previous reports that these two were missing but because of their ages – both over eighteen – it had been assumed by some that they’d run off together. Their partially charred remains had been in the well for some weeks and, said the newsreader grimly, with a picture of a grinning young couple of strangers hovering on her shoulder, foul play was suspected.

  ‘Oh my Lord,’ Roger said, switching off the television. There was a long moment of clock ticking, flames flapping, sharply drawn-in breaths.

  ‘Should I ring Barbara?’ Joan said.

  Karen’s mouth was dry. She put down the cold bowl she’d been cradling in her lap. There was a roaring in her ears. Something inside her fell and fell away until it disappeared. She gathered her voice carefully to say, ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘Isobel’s parents, yes, golf club …’

  ‘They’ve got that problem boy.’

  ‘Lord above.’

  The phone rang. It was always ringing; it always does in a house of doctors. Those days it was never Jeffrey, but this time it was. His voice was almost squeaky with importance: ‘Did you see the news? Steve. He was my mate. Fucking hell.’

  She pushed the sitting-room door shut with her foot and sat on the stairs in the hall. She felt very tiny and cold and weary like someone who doesn’t belong. ‘I didn’t think anyone else went down there,’ she said.

  ‘Must have been for old times’ sake sort of thing,’ he said, ‘like us. We always said we’d take our girlfriends down there when we had them. But they never would have shut the lid! I reckon I should ring the fuzz, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t see what help you’d be,’ she said, but weakly.

  There was a pause. In the background music was playing. Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon. ‘Did you get my note?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t answer.’ She said nothing. ‘Will you be there when I get back?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said and put the phone down.

  She nearly went that night. She started to pack a bag, then unpacked it again, not sure what was hers to take. She lay awake all night and tried to cry but it’s hard to cry for people that you never knew. In the darkness she stared in the mirror. She looked young and sad and lovely and very like the girl she was trying so hard to be. The tears that did come were for herself and she clenched up against them in disgust.

  Along with the bodies, the remains of a burnt coat had been found in the well. It was initially supposed to belong to Isobel Curtis, but since she was wearing her own coat, that made no sense. It took a surprising amount of time, almost a week, until, on the day of her final mock exam – English lit. – the coat was identified by the Merriams as Karen’s and she was taken away.

  Chapter 44

  ^

  On the way to the pub I met a dog on the street that was maybe a stray looking up at me with those dog eyes. It followed me to the pub and I fed it some tortilla chips. I only had one pint then back to Peerless View.

  The look on her face when I went back in. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she said. ‘Please believe me, Mark.’

  She turned the waterworks back on, bringing the fur, already smudged with blood, up to wipe away the tears and so on.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said, ‘don’t muck them up.’ She looked scared but she held still and let me wipe her face this time, tilting it up to me like a baby’s. I looked up then and saw something I hadn’t noticed before. The corner of one of the hardboard sheets was coming away from the window.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  I went over and pulled and the nail fell out.

  ‘You’ve been mucking about,’ I said.

  ‘How could I?’ she said, holding up her cuffed hands.

  ‘Before,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Liar.’

  Shows how I’d let my guard down not to notice that before. No way it could have come loose with how I’d hammered it home.

  ‘Bitch,’ I said. ‘Your whole life is a lie.’ I went to have another drink of the tequila. I was getting quite the buzz and purple flashes in my eyes. The salt was crusting round my lips, sore in the corners. The look on her face when I went back in with the hammer!

  I swung it down on one palm, a fleshy clump of sound. It was good to see the terror in her eyes.

  ‘I need to pee,’ she said. I gave it a bit of thought and it was true it had been a long time. I know there are some who take pleasure in the toilet habits of others but I am not such a one. ‘If you don’t undo me and let me use the toilet I’ll have to wet myself,’ she said.

  I wouldn’t have put anything past her, to try to get away, to launch herself at me, but at the same time I did not want the unpleasantness, so I unlocked the cuffs, pulled her out of the door, holding tight round her wrist, and pushed her into the lav. I stood outside with the hammer; it gives a man an extra swagger about him, a heavy tool like that to hand. When I heard the flush I shoved her back along the hallway and into her room. Not surprisingly there wasn’t any fight left in her. You could see her eyeing up the hammer.

  ‘No need for the cuffs,’ she tried when we were back again.

  I laughed, giving a meaningful look to the window boards.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ she said, which continued my amusement. I cuffed her by one hand to the bed head this time to keep her away from any further mischief. I put the hammer at the other end of the bed well away from her clutches but where she could see it. We both looked at it.

  ‘Do you believe how sorry I am?’ she said, in a trembly little voice.

  I didn’t dignify her question with an answer.

  ‘Do you remember when you said about the possibility of goodness?’

  When she said that it was like remembering something from a film. Ducks quacking, champagne and broken glass.

  ‘Well I’ve been thinking about it and I do think there is a possibility,’ she said. ‘Even for people like me. Or you.’

  She was trying to lump us in together now! I laughed in the way I try not to laugh because it causes alarm but then what did it matter any more if I did cause alarm? Alarm was the effect I wanted.

  She huddled herself up and waited till I’d stopped, then she cleared her throat. ‘I know I did the most terrible thing,’ she said, ‘and I know you can never forgive me. I don’t know why I did it. If I could go back and change it … but we never can go back, Rupert, Mark.’ She picked at the cuff, fidgeting about. Her eyes looked
into mine and the blue had gone to black. ‘If there was any way I could undo it. But there isn’t. I wrecked my own life too.’

  ‘What a shame,’ I said.

  I looked down at the hammer and then at her. One swipe on her head and I could be out of there and Mexico here I come. Or I could have more fun with it first on other parts of her anatomy. Or maybe not use the hammer at all. Maybe it would be more fitting just to leave her here to rot. There were sirens, not unusual on that street, but more sirens and coming closer.

  In the kitchen there were blue lights flashing through the muck on the windows. I picked up the tequila and swigged it. In Mexico there’d be a worm in the bottle but not in good old GB. The police had stopped outside. Two cars. No way they could know I was here. No lights on, car hidden in the yard round the back, gate locked. Another siren and an ambulance. Ambulance? What did they think … And then I saw it and I laughed. I laughed and laughed. There was a crash down there, a couple of cars tangled up together, and now another siren, another ambulance. Nothing to do with me! It struck me as funny that there they were all outside and here we were. I stood and watched, drinking the tequila. It was like a God’s-eye view of a disaster, the little people scuttling about, a woman crumpling down in a faint. They covered her in a blanket. The boys in blue darted about like blue-arsed flies and that thought made me laugh. Blue, blue, blue. I stayed there riveted, watching all the time as the street lights started to come on. It was like TV. Like it was all put on for my benefit. A van came and they cut the car, sparks flying and a screech of tearing metal. The top of the car peeled open like the lid of a tin and inside was a dead mashed man. I drank away and watched.

  Chapter 45

  *

  The hammer was on the end of the bed. I stretched and stretched until my toe touched the cold head of it but all that did was nudge it further away. More and more sirens. At first I thought they were here for him, for me, for us, but it was something else going on out there, something that was making him laugh. I tried to wrench my hand from the cuff but couldn’t get it past the knuckle of my thumb. He stayed out there laughing. The door was open, first time he’d left it open. I could see into the dark hall. I pulled at the cuff but careful not to pull too hard or clank the bed. The head of the hammer was the darkest thing in the room, an iron head, clawed at one side, a pale new wooden shaft. Of course it would be new. A heavy iron head, black with two long sharp claws.

  The laugh again, scattered, like a mind falling apart or starlings startled from a tree. I brought the handcuff close to my eyes, stupid tacky silvery thing, you wouldn’t think it could hold me but it did, the lock held firm and the key was in his pocket. Warning. This is not a toy, it said in tiny letters and there was the twist in my stomach that sometimes comes before a smile but I was not smiling.

  Without the thickness of the fur, I thought, I might be able to work my hand free. I began to tear at the fur with my teeth. I pictured a fox in a trap that will chew its foot off to escape. Bits of fur came off and caught in the back of my throat and made me retch, but I gnawed and pulled at the edges until it began to come away. I spat out rubbery nubs of glue until at last the thick and wettish strip of fabric came off and my hand slid out.

  He was coming. I reached for the hammer and stuffed it under the pillow behind me and shoved my hand back in the cuff just in time. I was bleeding where the metal had scraped. I let him see me working away at it with my teeth.

  ‘It’s a crash,’ he said, ‘a crash! Police out there and here we are!’ He began to laugh again and laughed at me chewing at the cuff. ‘I ought to let you have a look.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said.

  I could smell the alcohol on him. He swayed, looking at me, then he sat on the bed. If I could only twist round I could get the hammer and then, I don’t know, he was still so much taller and stronger, I would have to take him by surprise. Stupid, stupid, to put the hammer under the pillow. He would see me turn.

  ‘It’s time to …’ he began and looked at me, then at the foot of the bed, then back at me. ‘Where is it?’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘The hammer.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Did you take it out with you?’

  He gazed at me, his eyes had a sad sozzled look. My heart was slamming against my ribs.

  ‘I’ll fetch it later,’ he said. ‘Afterwards.’

  He got up from the bed and went to the wardrobe; I couldn’t reach behind me without taking the cuff off again. I began to twist, just to make sure the hammer was completely hidden, but he turned back to me.

  ‘Pussy in the well!’ he said and giggled and started humming the tune. He opened the wardrobe door and, from the top shelf, he took a carrier bag. ‘Props,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Props.’ There was a gleam in his smile and just for a moment he looked so handsome, the slant of his dimple, the slope of his jaw. He was like an actor, a beautiful film star playing a baddie, but then he laughed again and that impression flew apart.

  ‘Ding dong bell,’ he sang, ‘pussy in the well.’ He stopped. ‘Now.’ He pulled a bundle of hair from the bag – a wig – blonde. He came towards me holding it and I let him put it on my head. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s better, that’s pretty.’

  Chapter 46

  ^

  Her eyes opened wide but she kept her mouth shut and held still while I put it on her. The hair was much too thick, her own had hung down silkier, but still it was long and blonde. The blouse she had on was white and the skirt navy. She could have been dressed for school. I pushed up her skirt and down her knicks and had a look and a feel. I’ve got her. Pussy in the well went on in my head like background music in a film while I was thinking about Karen Wild, the schoolgirl, all the headlines: Teenage Whore Turned Cold-Blooded Killer. Devil with an Angel’s Face. Evil in a Gym Slip. And always the same photo underneath with her eyes looking straight out at you like butter wouldn’t melt, long hair fair and smooth, face smooth, smooth smile but it wasn’t right, all the times I wanted to do her when I was a boy, do her and get her and make her pay, but it wasn’t right, I couldn’t get geed up properly, it wasn’t right and then I saw what it was that was wrong. I’d got it wrong all the time, it wasn’t the blonde I wanted it was the dark, the dark, the dark hair in my mouth and round her throat and I ripped off the blonde and I shoved on the dark and she was struggling now and she was a tight girl and that was better and I was hard, hard more than I’ve ever been and that dark hair in my mouth and in my hands and round her neck and she was twisting and struggling and the more she struggled the …

  Chapter 47

  *

  I did make sure it wasn’t the claws, even in the struggle with the hair in my mouth and tightening round my throat I couldn’t bear to smash the claws against his skull. It was the blunt side and not with all my strength. His eyes opened and he gave a sort of choke like surprise, almost like a laugh, and then he fell. My face was wet with spit and blood. It was mine and it was his. He fell off me, out of me and folded down, head on the bed, legs on the floor, jeans round his knees, hands dangling soft now, hairs tangled round the fingers, blonde and black.

  I took off the wig and put the hammer down. It had gone quiet outside. No more sirens. Nothing but the night. The lino was cold on my feet. I stepped over his legs and put on some trousers and a sweater. I was shaking and it was hard to get my feet into socks and shoes. I kept my eyes on him all the time and he didn’t move.

  When I was dressed I picked up the hammer and then I went to have a closer look. The sleeping bag was darkening with blood but he wasn’t dead. I could hear his breath. It sounded peaceful, almost satisfied. I lifted the hammer. One more blow. The eyes were closed, long dark fans of lashes, smooth lids. The mouth was slightly open, quirked at the corner as if in the beginning of a smile. A trail of drool ran out and soaked into the sleeping bag. His face was like an angel’s. I lifted the hammer again but I could not hit him. I didn’t
want to kill him or even hurt him any more. The hammer was heavy, the long shaft of it in my right hand, the black head resting on my left palm. Though the hammer head was painted black, the undersides of the claws were gleaming naked metal. One blow.

  But it came to me like a blast of light that I couldn’t do it. A smile broke painfully across my face but the chattering of my teeth was getting so loud I thought he’d wake. It was hard to get the key from his pocket with his trousers down. His penis dangled in space, sorry little thing now. He groaned and twitched but I was ready with the hammer if I needed it to scare him, but he didn’t wake. I got the key, picked up the dark wig, my picture of Charlie, went out of that door and locked him in, as he had done so many times to me. I left the key there in the lock.

  I found the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a sofa with his sleeping bag, a suitcase with his clothes. On the table an empty tequila bottle, Jesus on the label. The table was scattered with salt. There was the scrapbook with the pictures of Karen Wild and Isobel and Steven. There was his phone. There was his brown leather jacket on the back of a chair. Inside the jacket was his wallet with some money. Also Karen’s life licence. I looked in the suitcase, lovely clothes, hardly worn, all folded neatly, and underneath an envelope with money. I’d never seen so much money, not in cash. It was thousands, no time to count. I took the hammer, the life licence and the scrapbook and put them in a bag. I put on the dark wig and smoothed the tangles out. I picked up his phone and dialled 999 for an ambulance and then I went out and down the oily smelling stairs.

  Outside the road was closed, there were bollards, streams of orange tape. There were police around but they didn’t see me coming out. I walked smartly away from there, expecting a shout or a hand on my shoulder but there was nothing. I walked to the canal and I threw the carrier bag in. The hammer made it sink. I stood and watched the glossy night-time water until the ripples died. I looked at the picture of Charlie, the calm blue of his eyes, and then I dropped it in the water and watched him float away. The money was a thick wad in my pocket. I heard a siren, the ambulance for Mark, I hope.