Guilty Parties

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Well,’ Frank went on, ‘let’s hope we’ve supplied her with an alibi.’

  ‘That poor, poor woman. I’ll give her a ring. At the very least I can offer to take Evan off her hands for a few hours.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ Jennifer said. ‘It just seems … unreal.’

  It was two days later and Sheila had finally managed to get through to her.

  Sheila had stopped thinking about Cluedo, but now her thoughts were returning obsessively to the broken bottle of cough mixture and the dead cat. There was something so strange – almost surreal – about finding them in that house where nothing else was out of place. Of course she couldn’t ask.

  Instead she said, ‘Have the police let you go back to the house?’

  ‘Just to collect clothes and things. My friend, Annie, the one I was out walking with, we’re staying with her. I can’t ever live there again. And we’d been looking forward so much to moving to the country, thought it would be safer than the city, a good place for Evan to grow up.’

  Perhaps Sheila had misjudged Jennifer. After all, she was just another mother, wanting to do the best for her child. The old freemasonry of motherhood was kicking in.

  ‘How is Evan?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘He thinks Barry’s away for work and keeps asking when he’s coming back. I know I’ll have to tell him soon. But he’s already so upset about Tabitha.’

  ‘Tabitha?’

  ‘Our poor little cat. She got hit by a car. We were going to bury her that afternoon. We got her for Evan when we moved in.’

  So that explained that, now there was only the cough medicine. Sheila reproved herself for her flippancy.

  Jennifer was saying, ‘I can’t help thinking … a friend rang the house around three o’clock and spoke to Barry so he was still alive then. If I’d gone straight home instead of going walking with Annie, then everything might have been different.’

  Yes, Sheila thought, you might be dead too, but she didn’t say that, just murmured a sympathetic response.

  Jennifer said, ‘The police think it was someone wanting money for drugs. That’s all they took. Just money and some of my jewellery. Our bedroom had been ransacked.’ Sheila could tell she was on the verge of tears.

  ‘Anything I can do to help,’ Sheila said. ‘If you’d like me to have Evan …?’

  ‘You’re so kind. Oh, I almost forgot to ask. I can’t find Evan’s coat anywhere. I know he had it when I dropped him off for the party. I was wondering …’

  ‘I don’t think it’s here, but let me just check.’

  Sheila put down the phone and went to look in the hall, but the coat wasn’t there.

  She returned to the phone. ‘I’m sorry, no.’

  Jennifer said, ‘The worst of it is, it had a little teddy bear in the pocket. Evan won’t go to bed without it. I’ll just have to try to get a new one from somewhere.’

  Sheila was at a party and it was for grown-ups, but they were playing ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ She didn’t know who was playing Mr Wolf, and she was afraid to find out. Yet she was compelled to move stealthily forward. She was only two steps away, when someone called out ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ and the figure began to turn. She knew that what she would see was a real wolf’s head. She wrenched herself out of the dream, and woke up, shuddering.

  She lay quietly in the dark, letting her breathing settle. Two weeks had passed since they had discovered Barry’s body, but she hadn’t recovered from the shock of it. It had shaken things loose, had brought to the surface memories that she usually managed to suppress. Was the figure Kevin? Her first marriage hadn’t been happy, and no one knew – not even Frank – quite how bad it had been.

  But that was all over. She was safe now. And how lucky she was, how amazingly lucky, to have gentle Frank asleep beside her and dear little Harry in the next room.

  She wondered how Jennifer and Evan were getting on. Jennifer had taken Evan out of the nursery and she hadn’t been in touch. Perhaps Sheila should ring her again.

  It was later that morning as she was getting ready to go out with Harry that she discovered Evan’s coat in the hall closet. Frank must have thought it was Harry’s, and put it away. The little teddy was still in the pocket. She was intending to go to Ely anyway. It wouldn’t be much of a detour to go past Jennifer’s house.

  As she drove up, she saw that a ‘for sale’ sign was already up. A car was parked outside. She tucked her own car in behind it.

  ‘Mummy,’ Harry said. ‘I want a wee.’

  She reached over and undid his seatbelt. ‘Come on then. We’ll see if anyone’s there.’

  She stepped into the porch and rang the doorbell. She was beginning to think the house was empty, when she heard footsteps, the door opened and there was Jennifer. Sheila held up Evan’s coat. ‘I found this just today, I’m so sorry—’

  Harry interrupted her. ‘Mummy, mummy.’ He was clutching his crotch and squirming.

  ‘Harry’s desperate for the loo,’ Sheila explained.

  ‘Oh, come in, come in,’ Jennifer said, ushering them through the door. ‘There’s one just here.’

  Harry darted in.

  Sheila’s eyes strayed to the brown stain on the wall. It looked almost as though the bottle had been thrown against the wall. Washing wouldn’t be enough. That would have to be painted over. Jennifer caught her looking and Sheila looked away, embarrassed. There was an awkward silence. It was broken by Evan appearing at the sitting-room door.

  ‘Is Harry here?’ he asked. ‘Can we play?’

  He looked different, more animated, and there was some colour in his cheeks. Jennifer put a hand on his shoulder and drew him close. ‘Have you got time, Sheila? Can you stay for a cup of tea?’

  Harry emerged from the loo. Without a word, the two little boys disappeared into the sitting room.

  The two women smiled at each other.

  ‘Thanks, I’d love one,’ Sheila said.

  The kitchen seemed different, not untidy exactly, but more things left out on the counter, more homely. Sheila watched Jennifer fill the kettle. She was as immaculate as ever. Her honey-coloured hair was cut in a long smooth bob and not a hair was out of place. The eyeliner had surely been copied from the Duchess of Cambridge and she must have used a lip-brush to get that outline. Was that what had delayed her coming to the door?

  Jennifer said, ‘It was lucky you caught me. I’ve just come to start packing things up.’

  As she talked, she was getting out mugs, looking for milk in the fridge.

  Sheila felt uneasy. Of course it wasn’t surprising, given what had happened the last time she was here, but it was more than that. Something wasn’t right …

  There were footsteps in the hall and a woman’s voice called, ‘Jenny!’

  Jennifer said, ‘In here! I’ve got a visitor.’ It sounded almost like a warning.

  A woman appeared in the doorway. She was slim, dressed in jeans and a sweater, with smooth hair tied back in a short pony-tail.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you so soon,’ Jennifer said. ‘This is Sheila. Sheila, this is my friend, Annie.’

  Sheila stood up and offered her hand. Annie shook it. Her grip was firm and she had a pleasant smile. Yet Sheila’s sense of discomfort was increasing. She wondered if she could make an excuse and leave.

  On the kitchen table Jennifer’s mobile began to buzz and vibrate.

  ‘That’ll be the estate agent,’ she said. ‘Can you pour the tea, Annie, when it’s brewed?’

  ‘I’ll just check on Harry,’ Sheila murmured.

  She went into the hall and put her head round the sitting-room door. When she said, ‘Five minutes, Harry,’ he didn’t even look up. He and Evan had their heads together and Lego was scattered all over the floor.

  Back in the kitchen, Jennifer was sitting at the table with her organiser open. ‘So tomorrow at three o’clock then,’ she was saying.

  She wrote down the appointment.

  That was
when Sheila knew what was wrong. Jennifer had her pen in her right hand. But when she’d dropped Evan off at the party, she’d written down her phone number with her left hand. Sheila was left-handed herself and she’d been trained to notice it in the children she taught. In her mind’s eye she could see Jennifer curling her hand round in that awkward way that some left-handers have.

  She looked at Annie, who was pouring out the tea. With her left hand. And she was wearing her watch on her right hand, just like Sheila did. That must have been what had bothered Sheila earlier. Annie glanced round and saw Sheila standing transfixed. Sheila saw her look back at the hand on the teapot and realise her mistake.

  Sheila felt giddy. She reached for a chair and lowered herself into it. She closed her eyes. Absurdly, she found herself thinking, what’s the time, Mr Wolf? Three o’clock! But it wasn’t so absurd after all, because timing was the key to it all.

  When she opened her eyes, Annie had moved to stand between her and the door. Both women were staring at her. Her thoughts flew to Harry. No one knew they were here. She got to her feet. Her mouth was dry.

  The silence was electric. It was broken by brmm-brmm noises. Out in the hall Harry and Evan were playing with cars on the tiled floor.

  Jennifer got up and closed the door. She came back and sat down at the table. ‘It’s alright,’ she said. ‘You’re quite safe, you and Harry.’

  ‘Why did you …?’ Sheila asked.

  Annie took a seat next to Jennifer. ‘Barry was a monster,’ she said. ‘A sadistic brute and a bully. Show her, Jenny.’

  Jennifer grimaced, but she pulled up her jumper to show a midriff dotted with small, round scars.

  ‘Cigarette burns,’ Annie said. ‘I’d been working abroad, wondered why I hadn’t heard from Jenny, and when I got back, I understood why. Jenny didn’t have friends any more. Barry didn’t like it. He didn’t want people getting too close in case they guessed what was going on. I told her that she had to get out. I could see what it was doing to Evan.’

  Jennifer said, ‘Barry told me he’d kill me if I tried to leave. And Evan, too.’

  Sheila didn’t say, why didn’t you go to the police? She had tried that with Kevin and it hadn’t worked. The police couldn’t lock someone away forever or protect you for the rest of your life. She remembered the relief that had flooded through her when the police broke the news that Kevin – ever the risk-taker – had died on a climbing holiday in the French Alps. It had been all she could do not to dance round the room.

  ‘But then Barry decided that we were going to move to the country, and that was when …’ Jennifer hesitated, glanced sideways at Annie.

  ‘Yes,’ Annie said. She put her hand over Jennifer’s. ‘It was my idea to pass myself off as Jenny. We used to swap clothes all the time when we were students. People thought we were sisters. But it had to happen before people got to know her, when all they really saw was the distinctive make-up and the expensive clothes and the haircut.’

  Sheila thought of what Elaine had said about Jennifer’s mousy appearance: so that had been the reason for the make-over.

  ‘I didn’t think it would work and I really didn’t think I’d be able to, well, you know, I didn’t think I could do it,’ Jennifer said. ‘The day of the party – that was supposed to be an experiment. I pretended that Harry’s party was an hour earlier than it really was. I dropped Evan off at Annie’s and came home. And when I got back—’ She put her head in her hands.

  ‘Tell her what that bastard did to the cat,’ Annie said grimly.

  ‘So she wasn’t run over,’ Sheila said.

  Jennifer shook her head. ‘He lost his temper when she got under his feet and tripped him up. He picked her up by the back legs and swung her against the wall. That was what did it, I didn’t see red or anything like that, it was more as if I was somehow standing outside myself. I saw myself going into the kitchen and getting the knife …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Annie squeezed her arm.

  Jennifer cleared her voice and went on, her voice stronger.

  ‘By the time Annie rang after she’d dropped Evan off, Barry was dead. Annie told me she thought she’d pulled it off and that you hadn’t realised.’

  ‘I wasn’t really looking for Jennifer as a separate person, I just saw Evan’s mum,’ Sheila admitted.

  ‘I don’t suppose we could leave it like that?’ Annie said. ‘That it was Evan’s mum you saw?’

  Sheila said slowly, ‘I suppose there isn’t any real evidence. At least nothing a halfway decent barrister couldn’t demolish. I was so distracted by the children and the party and everyone arriving at once. And eyewitness testimony’s notoriously unreliable. Although …’ she was struck by a thought. Was this the coat she had been wearing? Yes … She fumbled in the pocket and brought out a folded sheet of paper with the contact numbers from the party on one side and the directions to Jennifer’s house on the other. Would a handwriting expert be able to tell that it was Annie who had written the phone number? Better not risk it.

  She handed the piece of paper to Jennifer.

  ‘Here, have this,’ she said. ‘I should burn it if I were you.’

  They lingered in the garden, reluctant to say goodbye.

  ‘Where will you go?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘The States, I think,’ Jennifer said. ‘Annie’s been offered a job in Denver. We’ll go with her at least for a while.’

  ‘That’ll be best,’ Sheila agreed. ‘Send me a postcard. Let me know how Evan’s getting on.’

  ‘I will.’

  Sheila strapped Harry into his child seat and got behind the wheel.

  She had pulled away and waved goodbye when she remembered something. She braked, told Harry she’d only be a moment, and got out of the car.

  Jennifer came part of the way to meet her.

  ‘There’s just one thing I have to know,’ Sheila said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The cough medicine. How did it get on the wall?’

  ‘I found it like that when I got home. Barry had smashed it on purpose so that he could order me to clear it up.’

  Sheila nodded, satisfied. ‘I thought that was it.’

  With Kevin it had been a bottle of maple syrup.

  Even after all these years the smell of it still made her gag.

  THE WIDE OPEN SKY

  Kate Rhodes

  Kate Rhodes went to the University of Essex and completed a doctorate on the playwright Tennessee Williams. She has taught at universities in Britain and the United States, and now writes full-time. Her first books were two collections of poetry, and her novels Crossbones Yard and A Killing of Angels are both set in London, her birthplace.

  Nan’s breathing sounds like a full force gale. When I get back from school at lunchtime the mask is pressed over her face, pale blue lips gasping for air. I twist the dial on her oxygen tank to maximum, and soon she’s well enough to tell me off.

  ‘Why are you home early, Shane? What have you done this time?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Her eyes pinpoint me. ‘They’ll separate us if you get in trouble. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything, Nan.’

  ‘How long have they excluded you for?’

  I study the scuff marks on my trainers. ‘Just till Monday.’

  The look Nan gives me would kill anything within twenty miles, but she’s the reason I’ve been fighting again. Jamie Wilcox made jokes about her being a cripple, so I went at him with both fists. There’s no point in trying to explain, because she’d never believe me, so I leave her gasping into her mask and go back downstairs.

  Nan always sleeps in the afternoon, which suits me fine. From the back step I can see the fen rolling away into the sunshine, flat as a bowling green. Sometimes it feels like I could run through the parched fields, and keep going till I touch the sky. I try not to make a sound as I lift the rifle from the cupboard. Nan keeps it for shooting rabbits, and I’m not meant to touch it, but I can�
�t resist the smooth wooden carriage, the trigger’s cold metal. Sometimes I take it into the woods and shoot pine cones from the trees. I slip a cartridge into the carousel, stow a couple more in my pocket then head outside, with the rifle slung over my arm.

  Our neighbour, Barry, is working at the bottom of his garden. I always know what he’s doing, because our cottages are connected, and there are no other houses until Rawlings’ Farm, half a mile away. Nan doesn’t like Barry, but that’s not unusual. She’s not keen on the health visitor either, or any of my teachers. She says that people have lost their manners, more’s the pity. The hole he’s digging is waist deep, circles of sweat darkening his T-shirt. A smell of rain, fresh turned grass, and decay rises from the ground.

  ‘What’s that for, Barry?’ I ask.

  ‘None of your business. Why’ve you got that gun anyway?’

  I shrug at him. ‘Target practice.’

  ‘Watch your feet, kiddo. Don’t lose any toes.’

  Barry always calls me kiddo, but I’m as tall as him, even though I’m only twelve. He’s an odd looking bloke; thin arms held together by strings of muscle, always struggling to stand still, dancing from foot to foot. One of his eyes stares straight ahead while the other spins in circles, like it’s stuck in a whirlpool. Maybe that’s why he lives alone. If he had a girlfriend she wouldn’t know which eye was watching her.

  ‘That must have taken ages to dig,’ I say.

  ‘I’m planting an apple tree here.’ He rests his spade on the dry soil. ‘Listen, I’m going to town later, want to come along?’

  ‘Can’t, the health visitor’s coming.’ I’ve been out with Barry a few times, but he just drives around in his van for no reason. He stares at girls walking by, muttering things under his breath, and never talks to anyone.

  ‘See you later then, kiddo.’

  Barry scowls at me, so I leave him to his digging and run down to the canal. It’s so hot that I feel like diving in, but I haven’t brought a towel, so I throw stones instead, counting the ripples that reach the bank. I lift the gun and take a pot shot at a rat, but miss by yards. When I get tired of the water I lie on the bank and watch a blur of swallows changing shape overhead. Every way I turn, the sky goes on for miles, no buildings or tall trees to interrupt it. The last time mum visited I spotted her car, miles away − a red mark between the fields, slowly growing bigger, until she pulled up outside. She doesn’t come often anymore, just birthdays and Christmases. The last time her hair was black instead of blonde and she cried when she said goodbye. She told me to learn from her mistakes so I wouldn’t have to make any of my own.