A Beginner’s Guide to Murder

by Rosalind Stopps

  He put his fork down and mopped himself with one of Meg’s serviettes. ‘I remember when my sister was seventeen,’ he said.

  After they had eaten the time went very slowly. Twice Daphne shook her wrist, thinking that her watch must have stopped. She felt tired to her bones, and when she looked at the other two women it was obvious that they felt the same way, but she was anxious to keep their spirits up.

  ‘You can change your mind any time,’ Daphne said to Meg.

  ‘Sometimes things have to get done,’ Meg said. ‘I’ve found that, before.’

  Daphne thought about what would happen if Meg changed her mind and decided against going through with the plan. At least then Daphne would be able to step in, maybe do the thing herself, not have to risk anyone else’s safety. It wasn’t likely. Meg looked extraordinarily calm for a woman who would be meeting a very bad man in a few hours, alone and armed only with an unloaded gun that she didn’t want. Almost jaunty, Daphne would have said. She knew that Meg had her reasons. They all had their reasons. All of them with their private battle scars, their hard-wired reasons for wanting to help Nina.

  ‘Is there anything I can do, anything at all,’ Daphne asked Meg, ‘to make things go more easily tonight?’

  ‘Bless you,’ Meg said. ‘I’ll be fine, don’t you worry.’

  The three women talked a little while Des sat on the floor at their feet. They talked about what they would do next if toad man didn’t turn up, about what would happen if he tried to grab the money and run, and about what they could do if Nina was hurt. They agreed that they would only give half the money, and that they would tell him where the other half was once they had Nina. That Daphne would be standing by with her car in case Nina needed to go straight to hospital. Daphne thought they had everything covered.

  ‘Let me summarise this for you, if it helps,’ Des said. ‘Meg sticks to the script. That’s important. She offers him half the money but asks for Nina before she tells him where the other half is. If she feels threatened at any time, more threatened than is bearable, that is, she coughs three times and the Shoe people come from round the corner and it’s curtains for the toad.’

  ‘Oh hang on,’ Meg said. ‘Can you say that part again please?’

  Des looked baffled. ‘Which part?’ he said.

  ‘The curtains part, of course,’ Meg said. ‘I used to love that expression, when I first read it. I thought it was wonderful, I never thought I would get to hear anyone say it in real life. Especially not with the word “toad”.’

  Grace looked at Daphne. It was a look full of concern, and maybe some fear, too. Meg was starting to sound unstable, and certainly not up to the challenge ahead of her, that’s what Grace’s look said, and Daphne almost agreed with her. It was too late to back out, but Meg was starting to sound more and more as though she didn’t understand how serious things were.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Meg, catching the look that passed between the other two women. ‘I’m not losing my marbles or anything like that. It’s just easier, for me, I mean, if I don’t get all dramatic. You know, keep things light.’

  She took a breath as if she was going to say something else, but didn’t. Daphne guessed it was another Henry reference that Meg had decided against, and her heart went out to her.

  ‘How did Henry, I mean… Would you like to talk about what happened to him, and all that? We’ve still got an hour or so before we need to get ready.’ Daphne wasn’t sure that it was the right thing to bring up past difficulties for Meg, but she obviously liked talking about Henry and it might take her mind off the ordeal ahead.

  ‘Oh,’ said Meg, ‘oh no, let’s leave sleeping dogs where they are and let them have a rest. I’ll tell you all about it another time.’

  Daphne was sorry that she had brought it up. She could feel herself blushing and she was overwhelmed by a sense of her own awkwardness. Daphne knew that she was terrible in social situations, that she was different from everyone else and that every word she said reinforced that. When she used to go to work parties she had ended up going from group to group, trying to join in with the conversations. When it was really bad, each group seemed to turn their backs on her and exclude her as if it was a choreographed event. She often escaped to the toilets and wept. Eventually Daphne had gone only briefly to any gathering where she might have to talk to people in that way, always making sure that she had a cast-iron excuse ready so that she could leave early. Daphne knew that her colleagues had talked about her, that they had found it funny that she was so reluctant to go to anything.

  She couldn’t help it, that was all. It was part of her, this feeling of being wrong. As far back as she could remember. Being different, not having a natural group, a tribe. One of Daphne’s first memories was of slipping her hand out of her mother’s when shopping in the northern city where she had grown up. Slipping her hand out so that she could follow a man she saw in the street, a man with brown skin like Daphne and her mother, and white and grey like everyone else she knew. Daphne couldn’t remember actually thinking that he might be related to her, nothing as clear as that. She wanted to be with him, that was all, be with someone else who looked like her. No wonder her mother had been out of her mind with fear.

  ‘Daphne,’ Meg said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just…’ She tailed off.

  We should have a hug, Daphne thought. I should reach out for her. She busied herself with clearing away some teacups.

  All the women were subdued as they waited. They went over the script one more time and talked through all the things that could happen.

  ‘Remember,’ said Grace, ‘you’re no good to Nina if you’re hurt. You have to run, just run, if anything happens that you’re not comfortable with. He won’t follow you, he won’t move away from the car. That’s his safety blanket. So don’t stay still if he starts anything, just get away.’

  ‘It’s also the last thing he will expect,’ Daphne said. ‘No one thinks that old women can run.’

  ‘I was the fastest runner in the upper fourth in nineteen sixty-four,’ Meg said.

  ‘The upper fourth?’ Des said. ‘What on earth is that? Is it some kind of club?’

  The women laughed until they found it difficult to catch their breath.

  ‘It’s year nine,’ Grace said. ‘Year nine in old-fashioned speak.’

  Des threw his hands up in mock despair and pulled a face.

  ‘I’m going to wash up,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you three go and get ready?’

  The women stopped laughing, sobered up as suddenly as if Des had thrown cold water at them.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s that time already,’ Meg said.

  Grace took both of Meg’s hands in hers. ‘I guess no one would ever be ready for something as big as this,’ she said, ‘and if you want to back out now, no one would blame you. There will be another way to help Nina, there’s always another way somehow. It’s important that you don’t do more than you feel OK with. You hear?’

  Daphne thought that she would have said exactly that to Meg if she had been able to think quickly enough. It was just right, the right tone, the caring way she had said it, everything. Meg squared her shoulders.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘First night nerves, that’s all. Henry used to say that I could have been on the stage, if only I had been a bit taller. And thinner, I guess he meant. But it was these stupid nerves that held me back, not my height. Among other things. I’m going to have a quick slurp of the cooking sherry, that’ll help, and everything will be fine. What could possibly go wrong?’

  The joke didn’t work so well the second time around.

  Everything, Daphne thought. Every damn thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Meg

  Thursday, 28 February

  Des showed me how to load the gun in case I needed it and I watched and listened. It was good having something to do and I’ve always been practical. Sitting around made me nervous and I didn’t want the others to re
alise that I was absolutely terrified. There was no point in sharing and making everyone more jittery. For exactly point nought five of a second, I wished Henry was there so that I could tell him. I tried to picture how the conversation would go. Henry, I’d say, I’ve got myself into a bit of a predicament. I always spoke like that to him, played things down, made myself look stupid. It seemed to be what he liked and I thought it was no skin off my nose.

  That’s what husbands are for, he might have said, to sort out things like that for the girlies. To step in whenever there’s a little something they can do to make life easier. I used to hate the way he spoke to me but at that moment I couldn’t help wishing I could hear him speak again. Just the odd sentence. I listened hard.

  Don’t mess with our Meg, I could hear Henry say. She’ll give you what for if you’re not careful. I stopped dead between the kitchen and the living room and waited for him to say something else. Go, Meg, go, Meg, he said. I was astonished. I wished there was someone I could tell. The thing is, he utterly never would have said that. It was a landmark, a very important milestone. It was the first time in nearly fifty years that I was happy with what he had said, and the first time I had written his lines for him. I wanted to clap. The very first time I had chosen for him, told him what to say. It was more than important. I felt a current of excitement despite the anxiety and the heat of the moment. I didn’t know why it had never happened before. Henry could say whatever I wanted him to now, I realised, no need to stick to the script. No need at all. He would never argue back. Puppet Henry, this was going to be the new way. Come on, Meg, the Henry in my head said, I know you can do it. You’ve got this.

  I loved him more in that moment than I ever had before. I stood up straight, pulled my shoulders back and breathed deep. I felt less terrified and less alone, a more substantial person, a person not to mess with.

  Daphne and Grace were sitting at the kitchen table trying to look nonchalant, but I knew that they were terrified for me. They didn’t believe that I could do it, I could see it in their eyes. I needed to let them know that I was fine, that I wouldn’t let them down. I thought of Nina. She could be my daughter, I thought, forgetting for a moment that my daughter would be heading for sixty, probably with grandchildren of her own.

  ‘Am I ever ready for this,’ I said. I even smiled as I said it, and that took them by surprise. I hoped they were starting to change their minds. I buttoned up my best cardigan and girded my loins, whatever that means. I really was as ready as I would ever be.

  I felt strange going out so late, as if the natural order of things had been overturned. I caught the 484 bus to the shopping precinct as we had agreed. It was a journey I was totally familiar with from a thousand trips to the shops but it seemed different at night, like a bus in someone else’s city. I couldn’t see out of the steamed-up windows but I tried to remember where we were at every point in the journey. Park, bowling green, hill down into Ladywell, left down Lewisham High Street. I was glad Grace and Daphne weren’t there. They had wanted to come with me, but I was very firm. There was no point annoying him by not doing what he said. We might only have this one chance. It wasn’t the same for Des. He was on my bus, sitting towards the back. We all thought that he hadn’t been seen by the toad at all, so it was safe for him to be there as long as he took care not to look suspicious. I wasn’t sure that would be a thing he could carry off, but when I got to the precinct I realised that everyone hanging around outside it late at night looked suspicious, and that he would fit right in. It was a suspicious place, full of deeply suspicious people. It was me who looked totally out of place. The people gathered round the doors had blankets or sleeping bags, bits of cardboard to lie on and overflowing carrier bags. I was dressed for a shopping expedition, with a basket over my arm and my good winter coat.

  I didn’t know where Des went to at this point, I couldn’t see him. I was busy trying to look as though I had every right to be there.

  ‘What do you want, lady?’ said a man. He was suddenly so close to me that it made my neck tingle. ‘Did no one tell you that the shops are closed now?’

  Several people laughed. I had to think quickly. They didn’t seem dangerous, these people, but I imagined how I would feel if I was homeless and an old woman in a good coat turned up clutching a shopping bag which might be full of cash. It actually was full of cash, that was the thing, and although I’d rather give it to these people who had nowhere to go than to the toad, I had to think of Nina. And it wasn’t, strictly speaking, my cash to give away anyway, nice as these folk might be.

  The thing about our Meg is, my internal Henry said, she’s good in a crisis. Always knows what to do. One thing I’d say for sure is, you can depend on Meg.

  I gave my new Henry a virtual high five for being so supportive and tried to forget that the real Henry would have been furious that I was there at all.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I said to the man by my ear, hoping that the others would realise that I was including them all, ‘but I’ve come here to meet someone. I’d really like to come back another day and talk to you all. But tonight there’s stuff I have to do, I’m sorry.’

  I meant it, I really did. They looked so nice, helping each other and sharing their drinks and cigarettes. Especially when I thought of toad. I hoped they didn’t mind me standing there, crashing their gathering.

  ‘Have you got sandwiches in there?’ one of the girls said.

  She looked young and terribly thin, and I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. Of course I should have brought sandwiches. And flasks of tea and small cakes. I thought of all the nights when I had sat at home, thinking of myself and Henry and our problems and not realising that there were people out there who would have liked a sandwich. How easy it would have been to have made some and brought them down. Henry would have hated it, of course. He would have tried to convince me that it was their own fault, and that everyone would be all right if they just worked hard like he did, stayed away from drink and drugs and sex and minded their own business.

  I remembered that as well as carrying the envelope of cash for the toad, I also had my own private emergency fund in my top pocket. I’d started it in the early days of my relationship with Henry, keeping a small stash of cash on me in case. In case of what, I wasn’t sure. I suppose I imagined leaving, escaping and starting a happy life. It made me feel secure to know that it was there. I decided I’d give it away when the main business of the evening was done. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to go. Keep a cool head, I told myself, no sudden moves.

  I turned away slightly, so that only the man breathing down my neck and the very thin girl could hear me. The others seemed happy enough to go on with their plans for the night.

  ‘I’m in a spot of trouble,’ I said quietly, ‘and I really would like to help you out when it’s over. I’d be happy to come back. I’m a person who keeps her word, I can assure you. But right now, I’m meeting someone here, and handing something over, and I need to be left alone, just for as long as it takes. I’m sorry if that sounds vague.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your troubles, ma’am,’ the man said, ‘and I’m grateful, but not embarrassingly so, that you’ve taken the time to address me as a fellow human being. I’m sorry if my initial response was to scare you somewhat, that was never my intention.’

  He bowed, a proper bow like dances and actors do, swooping his hands out and hanging his head almost to the floor. It was not what I had expected. The very thin girl laughed.

  ‘He’s always doing that,’ she said. ‘He used to be on the stage, innit, Gordon?’

  Gordon shuddered. ‘I presume you mean,’ he said, ‘is that not correct, Gordon, and to that I will answer in the affirmative. Although strictly speaking, the stage was not actually my workplace. It was more the big top where I earned an honest crust.’

  I looked at him more closely. I’d picked up the American accent and now I saw that he was black with very short grey hair, and about my age. He didn’t seem to
be drunk, or off his head, or any of the things Henry would have thought synonymous with a life on the streets. The girl seemed to be more typical, although I was aware that I had no idea what was normal for street life. She was white, very white, almost transparent, and her blonde hair was scraped back in a ponytail.

  ‘I’m Susannah,’ she said, ‘and this is my dad, Gordon.’

  I did a double take on account of the huge difference in colour between the two of them and they both laughed.

  ‘Family is what you make it, ma’am,’ Gordon said. ‘Please don’t think we are mocking you. I’ve been looking out for Susannah for a while now. It helps, to make links, when the world is against you. A person on their own can get lost so easily.’

  I tried to keep a tight rein on my emotions. Of all the things to happen, I thought, this is not what I expected. I looked at my watch. Five minutes. Five minutes till handover and I didn’t want to jeopardise anything by getting caught up with Gordon and Susannah. I must have shown my agitation on my face. I’ve always been easy to read, Henry said, although I now believe that isn’t true. He never even guessed how unhappy I was. He didn’t know a thing.

  ‘I suspect from your demeanour that although you’d prefer to be on your own right now,’ Gordon said, ‘it might help you to know that Susannah and I will be close by, watching out for you. We’d be honoured.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I didn’t mean to say it, I should have sent them away, but it burst out of me before I’d had a chance to think it through.

  They melted away, the two of them, becoming part of the small bunch of people who were settling down for the night by the doors of the shopping centre. There was a small overhang by the doorway, so that most of them would be dry if it rained. I moved away from them and towards the road. I couldn’t see Des, but I knew he’d be there somewhere. I was scared. It would have been crazy not to be scared, but I wasn’t sorry that I was involved. I felt supported, on the side of the angels for at least once in my life. I moved along the road a few steps so that I was properly tucked away from the view of the doorway people. I felt in my pocket for the small gun, and wondered for the thousandth time whether it would be helpful to get it out. I don’t remember hearing the violin.