A Beginner’s Guide to Murder

by Rosalind Stopps

  We all laughed at that but I think they meant it as well. Only Des didn’t join in. He was shaking his head and clasping his hands together.

  ‘Gosh,’ he said. ‘Imagine that, trapped, water rising. Shit, man, I mean, that would be the absolute worst.’

  I realised that he had become very pale, sort of washed-out-looking.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘it was a really long time ago.’

  ‘Yes but,’ he said, ‘you never know, do you? I mean, you wake up in the morning and you never know whether you’re going to make it through the day.’

  ‘Oh, Des,’ said Daphne, ‘I’d forgotten about your claustrophobia. That must be the worst story ever for you.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back to what passes for normal in a minute. Most people who’ve been inside at Her Majesty’s pleasure feel a little odd about closed spaces. I’m going to go into the garden for a moment. Quick smoke.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said after he had left. ‘Do you think I should have kept that to myself? He looks quite green.’

  They were reassuring, the others, and I realised that I was starting to lose the sense of always saying the wrong thing that had been so much a part of me when Henry was alive. I had never made any good friends, I kept myself closed off from people during my marriage. I can’t blame everything on Henry, I know that, but it does seem a shame to find out so late in life that I love being with people. That there’s more to me than meets the eye. Henry used to hate that expression.

  ‘Ninety-nine times out of a hundred,’ he used to say, ‘what meets the eye is what’s there. Especially to a trained observer like me.’

  I should have asked him why he thought he was a trained observer. There’s a lot of things I should have asked him.

  I was so busy worrying that I missed the next part of the conversation. By the time I tuned back in again, Daphne and Grace were both looking at me and I could see that they expected me to answer something.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I was miles away.’

  They looked at each other as though they had been expecting that and were just confirming it with each other, but there was no malice in the look. In fact they both smiled.

  I was just going to say something when Grace’s phone rang.

  ‘It’s him,’ she said. ‘Keep quiet.’

  She answered on loud speaker. ‘Hello,’ she said.

  He cut in immediately. ‘No need for that crap, dear,’ he said. ‘I’d like the money. We made a deal, didn’t we?’

  ‘We did,’ Grace said, ‘and it wasn’t us who got spooked.’

  I couldn’t believe how calm she sounded, scornful even. I noticed that Daphne was covering Grace’s other hand, the one not holding the phone, and for the first time I felt a little left out. It wasn’t their fault, I knew that, but I still couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have that kind of special physical contact.

  ‘Let’s try again, shall we?’ toad man said. ‘Only this time I think we’d better change the rules a little. This time I’d like to see just one of you. The other two can stay home and drink their cocoa.’

  Grace started to say something.

  ‘I said cut the crap, can you?’ toad said. ‘I’m talking. Shut up and listen to me. I’ll meet with one of you, just one. I’ll meet with the fat white one with the straggly grey hair. I’ll send the details later.’

  And he was gone, call ended. They both looked at me and I realised that it was me. Me he had said he would meet with. Me on my own. It was a cruel description but a fair one.

  ‘You don’t have to, you know,’ Daphne said. ‘We don’t have to dance to his tune.’

  Grace didn’t say anything. I could tell that she was thinking the same as me.

  ‘We do have to,’ I said. ‘If we want to help her, we do have to. And he knows it.’ Daphne started to protest but Grace stopped her.

  ‘I think Meg is right,’ she said. ‘I think we have no choice but to go along with him. If you want to, Meg.’

  I’ve never been brave. Never been the kind to volunteer, or to stick my neck out in any way. It’s why I’ve had the life I’ve had, I suppose, why things have been so quiet. It might have been different if I had kept my little daughter. I think I would have stuck my neck out for her, if I’d had the chance.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, ‘of course I’ll do it. Of course.’

  I was thinking of the stories I’d read about people doing extraordinary things for other people. Swapping places in the queue for the gas chamber to give a perfect stranger a chance, for example, or blocking the entrance to a classroom when a mad gunman walks in. Putting everyone first in a lifeboat when the ship is sinking, covering a child’s body with your own during a massacre. People have done all those things and more. People are remarkable. I needed to step up too.

  ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I said.

  It was an attempt at humour and it went down well. Both the other women burst out laughing and that was how we were when Des came back in. Laughing fit to burst.

  ‘That’s what I like to see,’ he said, ‘ladies happy in their lives. What’s the joke?’

  ‘The joke is,’ I said, ‘I’m going to meet him on my own.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘That’s not funny,’ Des said. ‘Meg, I don’t think you realise how bad this man is.’

  The others looked concerned. I could see that Des had reminded them how dangerous it was and they were ashamed that they had treated it so lightly. I knew that they were about to tell me again that I didn’t have to do it, so I jumped in.

  ‘I know it’s dangerous,’ I said, ‘I’m not daft. I know he might try and hurt me in some way, and I even know that I might not come out of it alive. That sounds dramatic but I think it’s possible. Despite all of that, you need to look at it from a different perspective, that’s the thing Henry could never do. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning Henry now and then, it’s a habit, I think.’

  They all shook their heads to show that they didn’t mind, and in a way that brought home to me more clearly than anything else what trouble I was in. I was sure they only didn’t mind because they thought I might die.

  ‘Only I’ve got a debt to pay,’ I said. ‘I had a chance once, a long time ago, to look after someone. Someone special. I was young and silly and most of all, I listened to what people said, and I didn’t step up, I didn’t do it. Doing this won’t make up for that, I know that. The world isn’t a big score sheet and there’s no one keeping tabs, but in my mind I’m keeping count and this will help, believe me, whatever happens. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do it. And do you know what? Living with Henry all those years, I’m tougher than you realise. I’ll be just fine.’

  It was a long speech and I could see that I had taken them by surprise. I’d taken myself by surprise as well. So much I’d left out, but I think I told them enough to be going on with. I’d never said anything to anyone except Henry about my little baby. And I didn’t want to say any more. I knew that if I started talking about her I’d be undone. An old-fashioned word, but it described exactly how I would feel. It’s an ordinary story, teenager has baby and gives it up for adoption. It doesn’t sound like anything amazing. People lose their entire family in house fires, their children are murdered in front of their eyes, all of those things happen. All that happened to me was that I had a baby when I was seventeen, a dear little baby with blue eyes. I signed the papers, I watched her go, I had no idea that what I was doing would stay with me every day of my life. I thought I was turning the clock back to the time before she was born, and no one explained to me that that can’t happen. No time travel. So I never knew whether she was alive, or happy, or ill, or whether she had children. I didn’t know if she was in prison or cold or dyslexic, and I didn’t know whether she ever forgave me. Those are terrible things to live with.

  ‘We need to eat,’ Daphne said, ‘keep our strength up. Maybe we’d all feel better if we did somethin
g normal, like get a meal ready.’

  I was grateful that she had changed the subject. She was so thoughtful, they both were. Real friends. Friends who tried to make things OK, who didn’t argue with me, who just got on with things. It was by far the most comfortable thing she could have done. The others took their cue from her, and although I could see they were worried for me, they didn’t say another word to try to dissuade me. I almost wished they would.

  It was well into the afternoon by the time the toad man rang again. He wanted to meet that night, before we had time to come to our senses, I suppose. He asked for more money in order to hand Nina over, which Daphne said she’d been expecting.

  ‘We have absolutely no reason to think he will stick to his word,’ Daphne said, ‘so we’re going to have the Shoe people right behind you. It’s our best chance.’

  I argued that I’d be better going it alone, trusting to luck and determination, but I knew that was mad. We’d made a decision, and we were going to stick to it. It would be comforting to have the Shoe people waiting round the corner out of sight.

  The meeting point was at the back of the shopping precinct. Toad would drive past in a car, take the money and open the back door so that Nina could get out. Any funny business, he said, and he’d speed up and wouldn’t try again.

  ‘What we need to think of,’ Grace said, ‘is whether we just want to get Nina safely, give him the money and close the chapter, move on and have happy lives, or whether we want to do what we agreed to? Whether we want to save future Ninas that he might get his nasty little hands on?’

  ‘You’re never going to stop it happening altogether,’ Des said. ‘There will always be people like him, men who exploit young women.’

  ‘There don’t have to be,’ Daphne said. She had been quiet for a long time, chopping vegetables and looking thoughtful. ‘I mean, if enough people sent messages to people like him, saying that it’s not OK, what they’re doing, then maybe they would think twice?’

  We all looked at each other and at our feet and tried to think of what to say.

  ‘OK,’ Daphne said after a minute or two, ‘that’s ridiculous, I know it is. Let’s just get Nina, that’s the important thing. We’ll ask the Shoe people to go, for back-up rather than anything else.’

  ‘You can’t change the world for everyone, sweetie, but you can change it for one person,’ Grace said.

  I pretended I agreed but as I nodded I got a sudden flash, a picture of Henry, dead. I remembered how great it had been to wake up the morning after he had died and remember that he wasn’t there. That he would never be there again, that I was free. It was the best feeling ever. Whatever happened afterwards, it would be so good to remove that toad before he did any more harm. There could be hundreds of Ninas, young women who were right now playing with dolls or doing their homework or running in the park, unaware that their future was going to contain something as horrible as Nina had described. I gave my spare keys to Grace and Daphne, in case.

  My chance to be a real hero, I thought as the violins soared. If only I was forty years younger.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Daphne

  Thursday, 28 February

  Daphne felt personally responsible for everything that was happening. It was her money, her friend who had helped them, and now Meg was going to be in terrible danger. Daphne knew it would be on her conscience if anything went wrong. This was why people chose not to get involved in helping other people, Daphne thought. They wanted to avoid the ghastliness of being responsible when things didn’t turn out the way they had hoped.

  ‘If you could go back a few days,’ she said to Grace when Meg was out of earshot, ‘see Nina coming and turn away, stay out of it, would you?’

  Grace looked as though she was thinking hard about it, but Daphne could see that she had worked out the answer already. ‘I know that one,’ she said, putting her head to one side. ‘The answer is no. We chose this, Daphne, all of us. And for the right reasons.’

  Grace looked over at Meg, who was listening as Des explained to her about learning to cook in prison, and the how he had got such a reputation that even the prison officers used to ask for his recipes.

  ‘Meg as well,’ Grace said. ‘We could have chosen to leave if we had wanted to, any of us. You know what I think, Daff? We’re all responsible for ourselves. We have to follow our instincts, like animals. It’s all we can do. None of this is your fault.’

  Daphne felt a flash of happiness and, just for a moment, she was back in Australia in the 1970s. The place she had gone to where nobody would know her. Where no one would know she had been in prison. Or on the streets, selling sex. Where she would be able to rest, and recover, and never, ever have to have sex with anyone again. Unless it was her choice, and she didn’t think that would happen.

  Daphne had found a job in a bookshop in Sydney, near the sea. The sea was restful, calming, and Daphne never took for granted the fact that it was around every corner, at the end of every street. She walked a lot, and kept herself remote from everyone, resisting all offers of friendship. She was sure that anyone who became close to her would guess straight away that she was not like them, not normal. That she had done terrible things with men, for money, and that even if she had not kept any of the money herself, she had been complicit in the obtaining of it. She was dirty. So she had lived alone in Sydney, where everything was different, where no one knew her, and it had gone to plan until Beth came to work with Daphne in the bookstore. Beth, who gave her the same kind of happiness just by being with her, in the same room, as Daphne was feeling now from Grace. Beth and Grace even looked slightly alike, Daphne thought now, tall and elegant and smiley, despite the forty-year difference in their ages.

  ‘OK,’ Daphne said, ‘you’re right as always, my friend. Onward and upwards. And Meg is doing well, isn’t she? She’s coping with this as well as any of us, I reckon.’

  ‘Imagine,’ Grace said. ‘Imagine what Henry would say.’

  Both women laughed.

  They were sitting down to dinner when Des made his announcement.

  ‘I’ve got to say it,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking you ladies need some protection. Especially Meg, if she’s going to meet that man. So I’ve got something that might help you, make you feel more safe.’

  Des put his knife and fork down and reached into his pocket. He got out a small gun and put it on the table. Daphne thought it looked like a toy.

  ‘Des,’ she said, ‘that isn’t… I mean… we wouldn’t, honestly. It’s not a thing. I can speak for everyone, I think.’

  She looked at Grace and Meg. Grace nodded back, but Meg seemed not to have heard. Daphne realised that they had all stopped eating except Meg, who seemed to be cramming more and more food into her mouth without remembering to swallow. Daphne wondered whether she should say anything.

  ‘Meg,’ Grace said, ‘I’m worried you’re going to choke.’

  Meg blinked and tried to get her food down her throat without spitting anything out.

  ‘Sorry,’ she gasped as Daphne held her water glass out to help.

  ‘I’ve been to a shooting range,’ Meg said when she had recovered herself and more or less stopped coughing. ‘I was actually quite good. But if I ever had a killer instinct, it’s long gone, honestly. It’s been gone for ages. I don’t want the gun. Honestly, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Meg,’ said Des, ‘I’m no fan of firearms, believe me. But I think there might be a case for it this time, just to carry it. It might make you feel safer, I’m not sure.’

  ‘I think carrying a weapon is a dangerous thing,’ Meg said. ‘It won’t make me feel safer at all.’

  All three women murmured agreement and looked at Des. Daphne hoped he wasn’t offended.

  ‘You meant well,’ she said, ‘and thank you for looking out for us.’

  Des shook his head. ‘You lot certainly know your own minds,’ he said.

  Daphne smiled. ‘Women do, mostly,’ she said.

  ‘One la
st thing,’ Des said. ‘Please, Meg, please, would you take it if I remove all the bullets and show you how to load it, in case? You can leave it at the bottom of your bag if you want to, but at least if you need that little bit of something extra, it’ll be there.’

  Meg shrugged. ‘I suppose it can’t hurt to take it,’ she said, ‘just to humour you, mind.’

  Daphne was worried. Meg was being sweet to humour Des, she thought, but she didn’t seem like a person who could cope with even carrying a weapon. Daphne couldn’t imagine her hurting anyone. She hoped that having it in her bag might make her feel more confident, and resolved to talk to Grace about it later.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Meg said. ‘I know I might agree with people too easily. I know I’m anxious to please. But I’ll do this right, I promise you. I won’t screw up.’

  Daphne put a hand on Meg’s arm.

  ‘We care about you, that’s all,’ Daphne said. ‘It’s a really brave thing you’re doing here. You’re doing it for Nina, and for all of us.’

  Grace nodded. ‘Are you absolutely sure you’re happy to do it?’ she said.

  ‘Stop worrying,’ Meg said. ‘I know I’m a bit stupid. But I’m happy to have the gun, even if I never use it. Maybe it will be a lucky charm. I know I’d be better off if I stopped talking about Henry, and I’m going to, but it’s a nervous habit so you’ll have to indulge me just a little. And one of the things Henry used to say, quite often, was that after a nuclear holocaust there’d be nothing left but cockroaches and Meg. It sounds horrible, doesn’t it, as if I’m some kind of creepy-crawly beast, but I think he meant it well. I think what he meant was, Meg’s a survivor. I’m going to take it that way, anyway. May as well see the sunny side.’

  ‘Here’s to Meg,’ Des said and he held up his cup of tea. ‘I can tell you now, I’ve been so worried about this. I feel much happier now that you’ve got some protection, even if it’s not loaded.’