Killing The Girl

by Elizabeth Hill

  Oh, Frankie, where were you? My despair at killing you knew no end. I wandered around the house, a ghost in residence, with no meaning to my existence. Why did I do it? I asked myself. Why, why, why? I couldn’t believe that I could be so cruel and heartless. I thought: I didn’t give you time to explain, to say sorry, to make us whole again. I destroyed my life by destroying the one person who gave it meaning. Lonely years of living in this mausoleum stretched before me. Shame would follow me to my grave.

  A knocking on the door roused me. I got out of bed and looked outside – a police car. A man in a dark suit took a step back and beckoned me. Opening the door revealed a man in a tweed coat standing stony-faced before me.

  ‘Miss Cage? I’m Detective Sergeant Stewart, and this is Detective Constable Harptree.’ He indicated the other man, who took out a notebook and pen. ‘May we come in?’

  They followed me into the sitting room and sat on the green sofa. Their maleness permeated the room, leaving me unsure of my ownership of it. They declined my offer of tea with the shake of commanding heads, as though bestowing salvation from an expected task.

  ‘I can’t tell you any more about Sarah Burcher. I found her, that’s all.’ My breath came gasping, stinging my ribs.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘My friend who … died.’

  His mouth had a condescending turn. ‘We’re looking for Frankie Dewberry. Lisa Dewberry, his wife, has contacted us to report him missing.’ The word ‘wife’ forced itself through righteous teeth. ‘Did you go through a marriage ceremony with him on nineteen December last?’

  ‘Yes. I know about Lisa. She came here. He wasn’t happy …’

  ‘What happened?’ He picked at some fluff on razor-sharp trouser creases.

  ‘He had expressly forbidden her to come here. He was livid with me for letting her into “his house”, as he called it. He threw us out.’

  ‘Threw you out?’

  ‘Yes. He wouldn’t let me back in. I went to Cleave Farm.’

  ‘And why didn’t you call us to help you gain access?’

  ‘I … I didn’t want to upset him. I thought he would calm down and let me back in.’ I shifted uncomfortably under his unsympathetic gaze.

  ‘Mrs Dewberry says she’s not heard from him since twenty-seventh of December when she phoned him but he cut her off. Have you seen him since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘That was the last time.’

  ‘Where is Cleave Farm?’ He stood and walked to the window.

  ‘Half a mile south-west of here. I stayed there, with the Cutlers.’

  He looked around to check that Harptree was taking notes. ‘So if he was here and you were barred, how come you’re here now?’

  His gaze took in the opulence of the room and returned to look me up and down, scepticism tightening his mouth.

  ‘Perry – Perry Cutler – told me he’d left, so I came back.’

  ‘And how did he know Mr Dewberry had left?’

  ‘He came here to talk to Frankie, see if he could fetch some things for me. Frankie told him he was going to France on the twenty-ninth. To spend New Year with his friends in Saumur.’

  ‘How was he getting there?’

  ‘Ferry. From Portsmouth. He forgot his passport and didn’t have enough petrol to drive back so he phoned Perry to drive down with it. Perry didn’t want to, but I persuaded him to go.’

  ‘Do you have contact details for these friends?’

  Frankie’s address book was in the bureau. ‘No. Lisa will, though. He was at uni with them.’

  ‘So you’re not expecting him back?’ He stood and put his arms behind his back and rocked on his feet.

  ‘No. Not now, after everything that went on. He doesn’t want to be with me.’ Tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘Does Lisa want his things? You can take them if you want.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask her that. So it seems he’s not missing but has gone to France.’

  He looked down at his hands, digesting what I’d said, and I add, ‘Lisa has already phoned me, and I’ve told her that. A week or so ago. She knows he’s with his friends on holiday. She’s just annoyed with him, that’s all. I told her that my friend Sarah killed herself.’

  ‘Oh?’ He pulled himself up. ‘Why tell Mrs Dewberry that?’

  ‘Sarah is … was … pregnant with Frankie’s child. But he left her. Like he left me. Like he left Lisa.’

  ‘So, he’s a bigamist who has fled to France leaving yet another woman pregnant.’ The detective looked at my abdomen. ‘And your baby is his?’

  ‘Yes.’ I wrapped my arms around myself.

  ‘It’s not surprising he’s disappeared. We’ll update Mrs Dewberry. Thank you for your help.’

  He stiffened as he digested how unsavoury Frankie was. ‘If you hear from him, please call this number.’ He handed me a card.

  As I shut the door, small pains shot through my belly and liquid ran down my legs. Pain stabbed my breath away. More liquid squelched and another pain cramped. I crouched my way to the telephone to call Perry. Frankie’s baby was on its way into the world.

  Chapter 43

  Friday, 7 April 1971

  Francine was not a peaceful baby. She veered between howling and grizzling, such was her wrath about entering the world too soon. She rejected the mother who had killed her father and fretted for the comfort she’d had inside me. Pathetic attempts to assure her I was the only parent she needed didn’t console her. We endured wandering around our big house and listening to the ghosts of Francine’s forbearers. We were the survivors of the family. We had to find the strength to thrive.

  Francine whined all day and didn’t feed. My breasts were uncomfortable and milk leaked out, spoiling my blouse. She didn’t enjoy her bath and was listless. I was so tired and longed for a decent night’s sleep as I hadn’t slept for more than two or three hours at a time since her birth. As I put her to bed, I noticed that her forehead was damp. The overhead lightbulb had blown, and I couldn’t see her clearly in the light from the bedside lamp, so I brought some night-lights upstairs and lit them.

  For supper there were eggs and toast, and a piece of apple pie that Sadie has brought over. It was nice of her to call, and we spent a few hours reminiscing about my childhood and how she used to let us play in the garden of the Cleave Inn. She brought Francine a beautiful dress.

  At least Francine chased away the ghosts of Frankie and Sarah. There was no space in my head for my wants and desires or anything else except surviving in this monotonous despair. Lighting candles in our room to chase away the gloom reminded of Frankie and that special birthday. Now our bed was a place for tears.

  ***

  The luminous hands on the clock said five thirty. Turning to go back to sleep, I came even more awake with a start. Had Francine been fed during the night? Switching on the bedside lamp, I stumbled out of bed, grabbing my heavy dressing gown. The house was freezing. Lighting more candles, I reached down. She was cold and grey, flopping in my arms. Screaming her name, I rubbed her tiny chest, but she didn’t cry. Grabbing one of her blankets as I ran downstairs, I noticed small reddish-purple spots on her chest. Certain she was dead, I jiggled her softly and pressed her to me as I dialled 999 and screamed for help. A woman asked questions, and I tried to answer, but there was no point. She was dead. My precious darling had left me. They were all gone, and I was left alone.

  The smell of burning jolted me. Confused, I headed for the kitchen, but nothing was burning there. Thinking that it must be the candles in the bedroom, I rushed upstairs clutching Francine tightly. The room was ablaze; flames leapt to catch the curtains, then spread along the carpet to engulf the bookcase. Dad’s books smouldered in black curls of death, red and orange and blue destruction. My heart broke at the sight, so I darted forward to save them but my lungs filled with smoke. Back downstairs, trying to control my hacking cough, I dialled again and spluttered to the operator: ‘Oaktree House … Fi
re ...’

  There was no point in summoning help. As I dropped the handset, the coiled cord revolved and bumped against the hallstand. Suddenly it became clear to me what I must do. I had to join them now, that was the answer. In the sitting room, I laid Francine in her Moses basket and covered her with blankets. She wasn’t to burn, so I took her outside and placed her beneath the oak tree.

  Then I returned to my bedroom to welcome the end and make my way to hell.

  Chapter 44

  Thursday, 6 May 1971

  Maytree mental hospital lay to the south of the city. Constructed in the late nineteenth century, the building had the charm of a school toilet block. The construction was designed to portray an obeisance to God and sobriety. The view from my window was of barbed wire atop the perimeter wall, obscuring the countryside – the intention clearly to remind you that you had been deprived of the beauty of life outside your confinement.

  Days were spent drugged and apathetic, with no care for food or sanitary tasks. Attempts to bask in my own filth were severely admonished with an increase in various medicines or by being forced into the bath. At least volunteering to use the bathroom meant that I could sit in cold water and attempt to freeze to death. They’d warned me that doing that would force them to remove the privilege of privacy. Allowing me two minutes alone to wash in the yellow, stained bath, using the disgusting red soap, they believed proved adherence to their rules.

  Soot seeped in between strands of my hair and fluttered into the air, where it puffed gentle reminders of bad intentions. Of the unforgivable sin of termination. Those smoky wisps of pointing finger-clouds circled to remind me of my sin. Determined to keep my soot-oiled hair, I avoided shampoo and wallowed in the reminder of my failure to complete my task. That Perry had saved me vexed me, but my anger was tempered by Francine’s survival.

  There was no wish to return home. No wish to live that lonely life without Frankie. He was my dream and vision, and all dreams and the future had been wiped out, erased from my imagination. Sammy and Valerie, or maybe Mother, would care for Francine better than I could. Anyone would do a better job. I’d failed as a mother – unable to stay awake when my child needed me, and unable to assess that she was sick, not dead.

  Doctor Brindleton suggested reconnecting with my life by writing a diary. Start from a time when life was good and chart how it declined. Force myself to accept that I was the author of my destruction. He phoned my mother to ask her to bring in notebooks, but she was too traumatised by events to visit. Then Perry phoned to see how I was, and Brindleton asked him.

  Perry sat fidgeting in the visitor’s room looking nervously at the locked doors. The sight of him jarred. Numerous drugs had settled within me to normalise and define a new me: a parody of myself, irresponsible and uncensored, released from the confines of sanity. Or insanity.

  Perry looked older than his eighteen years. His thinness no longer made him child-like but bestowed the look of an elderly man. Outdoor life had weathered him and vested a toughened skin around his youthful body. The burns he’d sustained gave him the air of a champion. The scars on the left side of his face and head were still raw. I prayed that his hair would grow back. His left hand was bandaged, covering the place where his little finger should be.

  My indebtedness to him for saving Francine’s life (she also survived her bout of meningitis) sat uncomfortably in me. Being forced to face him was hard, but coping with a visit was a tick on the list paving the path out of here. I’d wavered, thinking that I didn’t want a way out, but something in Brindleton’s eye made me accept the imposition.

  Perry took the notebooks from a large paper bag and placed them on the table – six dark brown books. The smell of leather wafted through the air like expensive perfume. They sat on the table between us, too pristine, too beautiful.

  ‘Do you like them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ My answer pleased him, but I didn’t want to please him. I wanted to be obnoxious. ‘But I can’t write in these.’ I pushed them away.

  ‘Use them. It’s what they’re for. I can get you more.’ Irritation spiked his words.

  ‘How can I use these for scribbling? It’s a waste. Bring me a cheap notepad.’

  ‘Use them because when you write in them you’ll remember why you’re using them. The doctor says it’s important, Carol.’

  ‘Yes … it’s kind of you to bring them.’

  He sat appraising me and a minute went by. ‘Why do you treat me like a … a gofer? After what we’ve been through.’ He looked around. He could walk out at any time, and part of me wished he would.

  ‘It’s not that, it’s … I can’t forget what ...’

  He reached for my hand. ‘Sometimes it’s best to forget. You didn’t mean to do it. You weren’t thinking straight.’

  My squeezing his hand made him smile. ‘Yes, maybe. Didn’t mean to do it. Maybe that can be the truth.’

  ‘But that is the truth, isn’t it?’ His hand felt hot, and I itched to let it go. ‘Bad things happen, and we cope as best we can.’

  The response of severe panic about the dreadful thing I’d done to Frankie didn’t happen. A strange sense of calm surrounded me, and an understanding of why they gave me the drugs. An okay way to watch my life, instead of living it.

  ‘You weren’t nice to me when you were with Frankie. It was his influence on you and not who you are. Now you act as though I’m a visitor extending charity to you. We’ve known each other for years, for heaven’s sake. You helped nurse my mother when she was dying.’

  ‘Sorry. The drugs. Feel apart from stuff.’ No one must blame darling Frankie for my shortcomings. What I did had united us in a way that couldn’t be undone. Staying inside might enable me to avoid him – avoid his impatience and superiority.

  Perry sat back, dropped his shoulders and crossed his legs. ‘You had a visitor. Matthew Burcher was in your garden. He was pretty agitated. I asked how he got in and he walked me to the gate to show me the lock. It was broken. I reckon he broke it. I’ve replaced it.’

  ‘Matthew broke into my garden?’

  ‘Reckon so. He was shifty, spooked; something was up with him. Said he’d been to the oak tree where Sarah …’

  ‘No wonder he was spooked, Perry. How would you feel after visiting the place where your sister had killed herself. Remember how you felt when your brother drowned?’ Perry’s habit of not being able to put himself into other people’s shoes irked.

  ‘Anyway, he had a note for you. Was gonna give it to me but changed his mind and rushed off.’ Perry caught my disappointment. ‘You’ve not been out with him, have you?’

  ‘What? I love Frankie. Loved. You know that.’

  He assessed me before focusing on my raw finger: the skin around the nail was bitten and chewed.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll talk to your mum and try to reason with her. She’s a bit overwrought, but someone needs to check on what they’re doing to you here.’

  ‘Mum hasn’t forgiven me for Francine.’

  ‘I’m sure she has. You didn’t know she had meningitis.’

  ‘Should have known she was ill, though! Instead I slept, grateful that she was quiet. Grateful. Selfish. She doesn’t have to condemn me – I condemn myself.’

  ‘How can you blame yourself for sleeping when you’d no idea she was ill?’

  ‘Because I’m her mother. Don’t deserve sympathy. Should be de – …’

  Perry considers my words. ‘So I risked my life for nothing.’

  ‘No – no, Perry. This place is helping, I think it is. Just … Doctor Brindleton wants me to face failure. How? What I did to Frankie … and Francine …’

  He knelt next to me and took my hands, making me worry about hurting the raw patches on his fire-damaged body. Why hadn’t I shouted to him that Francine wasn’t in the bedroom?

  ‘You’re not alone. You have me. I’ll get you out of here. You need to be home – and I’ll help you. We know what we’ve done, but he deserved what he got. You kno
w that, don’t you, Carol? You must forgive yourself for Frankie as well as Francine. You have nothing to feel guilty about.’

  He stared at me in desperation and tightened his grip on my hands, as though pushing his will through my skin.

  ‘Can’t …’

  ‘You can and you will. You will come home.’

  ‘Home? Home where? Done so much damage … I won’t go to Mother’s, won’t live away from … him.’

  ‘You can both stay with me … us, on the farm.’

  ‘Want to go home to Oaktree. With Francine. The repairs?’

  He returned to his seat. ‘Starting soon. The surveyor says there’s no structural damage. The builders are quoting this week: three firms for three quotes, for the insurance. It will take several weeks. Then there’s the decorating, so maybe a couple of months. You can stay with us. No reason to delay leaving here.’

  ‘Don’t know how to thank you. You’re so good.’

  He blushed and I was aware that there was a way he’d like me to show my gratitude to him.

  ‘You’ll be home soon. Here’s some post.’ He handed over a letter.

  ‘Don’t want it. Open it please, Perry.’ I handed it back, too tired to deal with it.

  He laughed. ‘Are you sure? It could be private. It’s not a bill. They don’t come in thick posh envelopes.’

  ‘Don’t have anything private now. It’s probably the trust, and you know all about that.’

  He pulled out a letter: blue ink-stained, thick cream paper.

  ‘It’s from Thwaite & Hamilton.’ Perry read; his eyebrows moved up and down as he crinkled his nose. ‘Catherine Dewberry wants Francine. She’s lodging a claim for custody.’

  ‘She’s what?’

  ‘Says you’re an unfit mother and you’re mentally incapable and unstable.’

  ‘She can’t. She can’t … take Francine. Francine? My daughter. I’m her mother, her MOTHER …’

  ‘Leave it with me. Thwaite will know what to do.’