by Frances Vick
Mum nods seriously. She pats Marie’s hand. ‘I believe you. And you know what we should do?’
‘What?’
‘We should go to the canal right now. You and me. Like detectives! See what we can find.’
‘Now?’
‘Don’t you want to be a detective with me?’
‘Yes. Of course I do, but—’
‘Right then. Let’s get up and out.’
‘It’s dark though, Mum, and I’m tired and—’
‘You’re tired? You’re the one that woke me up early, screaming and carrying on! If anyone’s tired here it’s me! Get up! Up up up!’
‘OK,’ Marie says weakly.
It’s cold by the canal, and the heavy air feels like damp cobwebs on her skin. Every now and again Mum stops, asks her where they should go, and Marie isn’t sure because she doesn’t remember her dream at all, and there’s a little falling elevator of helplessness in her throat. The idea of being a detective was exciting, but the reality is confusing. What jacket? Why did they have to come here to find some old jacket?
‘Marie-Belle! Here!’ Mum is on the other side of the bridge. A streetlight on the other side of the bank shines weakly on her hair, on her face. She looks serious. ‘I think I’ve found it.’
‘What?’ Marie runs now.
‘Keep your voice down, I said. And stay on this side of me, will you? Look…’ She points at a clump of nettles with something poking out from them. ‘Is that it? Is that what you saw in your dream?’
Marie peers at the bank obediently. ‘Yes?’
‘Well it was your dream, not mine!’ Mum says sharply. ‘So is it yes, or no?’
Marie makes her voice firm. ‘Yes.’
Mum steps forward, uses one of the stiff handles of her shopping bag to part the nettles. ‘Come here. Look.’
Marie does look, and she does recognise the coat. ‘That’s her coat! It is!’ She feels triumphant now, because this means the girl was real after all!
Under the streetlight Mum’s face looks very lined, very grim. ‘And what’s that on it? What’s that stain? Don’t get too close!’
Marie can’t see any stains without getting too close. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s blood, is what it is.’ Mum has a kind of sombre satisfaction in her voice. ‘The girl’s dead, you know that, don’t you?’
‘She’s what?’ Marie starts to cry. ‘No she’s not!’
‘Oh but she is. And you were the last person to see her, and you know where her coat was, and what do you think that means?’
‘I don’t know.’ Marie is badly scared now. All the breath has solidified in her throat, she can’t breathe.
‘It means they’ll take you away. They’ll take you away and send you to prison, that’s what it means.’
‘No!’
Mum nods. ‘Oh yes. I’ve seen it before. They’ll take you away, just like they did Uncle Mervyn, and then I’ll be all alone! Oh, Marie-Belle, what did you do? Did she hurt you, this girl? Why would you do something like that?’
Marie is choking now, shaking. ‘I didn’t!’
‘I’ll say I found it.’ Mum is talking to herself now. ‘That’s what I’ll do. But if they arrest me, what will happen to you? You might have to go to a home—’
‘No!’
‘For orphans—’
‘No! Mum!’
‘Shhh! Calm down. I’ll say I just found it while I was out for a stroll. I’ll go there now, and you have a hot chocolate in the Tiffin Bar and wait for me, OK? If I don’t come back, well, you’ll know why.’
Mum tells morose Mr Speed who owns the Tiffin Bar that Marie is sad because her pet guinea pig died and could she leave her here for a bit while she arranges to get another one? Mr Speed keeps an eye on the catatonic, tear-stained child, reflecting that if she takes a guinea pig’s death this badly she won’t find life easy. When her mother comes back, the girl bursts into tears, hugs her as if she never wants to let go. He’s so moved he brings them both another hot chocolate on the house.
‘She put herself on the line for me. That’s what she said. And over the years she’d come back to it, adding more details, hinting that she was being questioned by the police again, that someone was threatening her, trying to make her give me up. That’s why those notes worked so well on me – the notes she said you were sending her? I was primed to believe that. She told me Bryan wanted to hurt me, that Peg would hate me, that I could never get too cocky, if I wanted to stay safe. Being too cocky was Mum-speak for rebelling.’ Angela sounded bitter, for the first time. ‘She planted this little seed in me from when I was tiny – and it’s… anchored in me. I don’t know it’s there for years and then she’ll give it a tug and before I know it I’m back in the past. But not my past, hers. The one she’s concocted. She did it to you, too, didn’t she? Before you knew it, you were slap bang in the middle of the world she’d created. Tell me, how did she get you to come here today?’
‘She left me a message at work and when I called back she didn’t answer, so I came over.’ Kirsty’s voice was small as a child’s. ‘I was worried about her.’
‘And when you came over the place was trashed?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
‘Because she told me you’d trashed it, remember? When you came over and hit her with the shovel? Go on, something else must have happened to make you scared. She never does things by half.’
‘Someone in a car drove towards the house, and I was scared. I hid under the house. That wasn’t you, was it?’
‘No.’
‘When I was under the house my husband – Lee – arrived and he was angry with Sylvia about something. We… we’d had a row so I didn’t let him know I was there. Maybe it was him in the car?’
Angela shook her head. ‘It wasn’t Lee. Lee’s been at your sister’s for the last two days, worried for you. He told us that you’d been seeing a lot of Mum, that he didn’t trust her, so I knew that she must have got into your head somehow… if he went round it was to tell her to leave you alone, but not to threaten anyone. Go on.’
‘I went back home and then someone called me, saying they’d found Sylvia in the town centre. I picked her up, and she was bruised and limping and—’
‘And I’d done that, right?’
‘Yes, you. She told me you’d been there the night before looking for the box and you were violent and she’d had to play along until you calmed down and left. Then she walked into town and asked someone to call me.’
‘What time did you get the call?’
‘At about twelve thirty. I took her to my flat. She’s there now.’
Angela pursed her lips. ‘I doubt she’s still there. You picked her up in town? Whereabouts? Parliament Street?’
‘Yes, by the war memorial, how’d you know?’
‘Because my hotel is on Parliament Street.’ Angela almost chuckled. ‘She didn’t even have to walk far. She just waited until I left and got a friendly passer-by to…’ She shook her head. ‘Jesus. She’s good. She hasn’t lost her edge, has she? So, she gets both of us to come here at the same time, we’re both afraid of the other, we both think we’re defending her, and both of us will be in the same, small room with knives. If, that is, she ever expected you to get up the back stairs in one piece.’
‘But how do I know it’s not you who’s manipulating me?’ Kirsty made one last stand. ‘At Vic’s party, the first time we met, you tried to scare me away…’
‘I didn’t. I wasn’t warning you about anything either. It may have come off like that, but I genuinely, genuinely saw something in you—’
‘Oh, so you’re a real psychic?’ Kirsty said sarcastically.
‘You know I am,’ Angela answered with simple dignity. ‘I saw a loss, and I also saw a child entering your life soon. The message was very, very positive and very strong.’
‘Then why did you come to the hospital that time to threaten me?’
‘I didn’t. I came to see Peg. Peg m
ore or less raised me in my teens, after things here got… too hard to handle. Peg is the only person who’s always seen through Sylvia. She’s smart. I owe her a lot. I ran into you by accident, but, yes, I did tell you to leave Mum alone. I shouldn’t have, but I did, and for that I apologise. But, remember that everything she’d been telling you, she’d been telling me – she’d been telling me that you were frightening her, harassing her, and she showed me all those notes. I even saw you at the house that time, remember? I knew you were contacting her, and you obviously had a problem with me. That’s why I was so harsh with you, and I would’ve been harsher, too, if I didn’t know how much Peg thought of you. If you remember, when I saw you at the hospital I asked you to sit down and have a coffee with me, it was you who overreacted and started shouting. What was I meant to think after that?’
Just then Kirsty’s phone rang. Both women watched the phone vibrate on the table like a trapped wasp, ‘SYLVIA’ flashing on the illuminated screen. They watched until it stopped.
‘Wait,’ Angela said softly. ‘She’ll call me, now. She’ll want to know what’s happened. She sent us here to kill each other and she won’t care which one of us survived, but she needs to know so she knows how to play it. Shhhh… Look, here she is, right on time!’ Angela took a deep breath, looked Kirsty in the eyes, and answered her phone.
‘Oh! Marie-Belle, I’ve been so worried! What’s happening?’ Sylvia was a quavering old woman again, weak, frightened. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, Mum. I’m—’
‘Don’t tell me you’re not there yet?’ The voice changed. Now it was querulous, despairing. ‘She’ll have been and gone by now! Bloody hell, Marie!’
‘No, no, I’m here.’
‘And what about her? What’s happened?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Angela drawled.
‘No. No,’ Sylvia said hurriedly. ‘Just so long as it’s… done, that’s all. Where will you put her?’
Kirsty’s mouth was opened with shock. Angela nodded at her, pressed her hand warmly. ‘Where’s best?’
Sylvia clucked her tongue musingly. ‘Under the house? Wrap her up in lino and stick her under the house. We can move her later on if needs be. And make sure her phone’s off, will you? We don’t want her husband coming after her. He’s a tricky one. Well, you met him, didn’t you? Oooh, did you know he knew Bryan back in the day? That’s a turn-up, isn’t it?’
‘He did?’ Angela looked questioningly at Kirsty. Kirsty gave the briefest of nods. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Bryan told me he’d seen him at the hospital, with Kirsty. I sent him over there to give Laini her present, and he ran into them both there. Small world, isn’t it?’
Kirsty pushed her own phone towards Angela. On it she’d written: ‘Ask her what the present was??’
Angela nodded, closed her eyes, swallowed hard. ‘What did you give Laini?’
‘A ring. Bryan didn’t even know it was her birthday! I knew he’d forget.’ Sylvia’s voice rang with disapproval. ‘So I told him he could tell her it was from him, not me.’
‘That was nice of you.’ Angela looked questioningly at Kirsty, but kept her voice level.
‘Well, you do what you can.’ The honeyed voice was back. ‘I’ll sleep better at night now, love, knowing there won’t be any more nastiness. No more notes and calls and… all that. Not to mention the money…’
‘How much did you end up giving her?’
‘Oh, Marie-Belle, you don’t want to know.’ The old lady was back, vague, fretful, apologetic. ‘Most of my nest egg. All that money you gave me to buy a house.’
‘Well, don’t worry about money, Mum,’ Angela told her. ‘I’ll look after you, you know that.’
‘You’re a good girl. Now, how long will you be?’
‘I’ll pick you up within the hour. Are you still at the hotel?’
‘Of course. I’ve been here the whole time.’
Thirty-Six
‘What about this ring for Laini?’ Angela asked.
‘Sylvia told me that she’d had a dream, or a psychic flash or something, and she’d written down some… messages from Lisa. God, it sounds so stupid now!’
‘She’s very good at this, don’t kick yourself. What did the messages say?’
‘That I had to look out for a ring, and an old friend.’
‘And the next day your old “friend” Bryan showed up with a ring?’
‘Yes. It was shaped like an angel.’
‘Angels Times Two.’ Angela shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry she did all this to you.’
‘She had the notebook. She even showed it to me! She knew about it all along!’
‘Yes.’ Angela nodded, and made a wide gesture, encompassing the whole house. ‘She keeps everything. Even things that might make her look bad. She always finds a use for things. And the things she can’t use, she covers up.’ She inclined her head towards the bloodstained floor, got up, put on her jacket, picked up her car keys. ‘I’m going to get her.’
‘No! Call the police!’
‘And tell them what? We haven’t got anything, not yet!’
‘What about that?’ Kirsty pointed at the bloodstained concrete.
‘Shit, that needs covering.’ Angela pressed the lino back down again. ‘Help me flatten it out, will you?’
‘But that proves Lisa was here—’
‘You’re right, it does, but it doesn’t prove that Mum did anything. It could still somehow end up on me. You’ve seen how convincing she is, so don’t imagine that the police would see through her.’ Angela pressed down one errant corner of the lino with the toe of one boot. ‘I’m going to pick her up, right? Tell her I’ve… dealt with you. I’ll record everything she says in the car over here. In the meantime, you stay in the room next to the dining room – hide behind the door, you’ll be able to hear everything that way and you record it too, if you can. She can’t play us off against each other if we’re both hearing the same thing. She can’t twist her way out of it, can she? And if we have recordings too.’ She nodded, all exhausted excitement. ‘It’s our best shot.’
‘I don’t know, Angela, this is…’
‘It’s fucked-up is what it is.’ She sounded more like Peg than ever. ‘You’ve found out that this lovely old lady was playing you, and that’s shit and I feel very sorry for you, but you’ve had it for a few months; I’ve had it for years, and it stops now. You need to help me stop it now.’
‘Why has she done this though?’ Kirsty’s voice was small, child-like, full of uncomprehending hurt.
‘You haven’t figured that out yet?’ Angela asked wonderingly.
‘No, no I haven’t. It doesn’t make sense! Why ruin my life? Just for fun?’
‘Not fun. Fear. You were necessary, that’s all. You served a purpose.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Oh boy.’ Angela sat down again, took her hand gently. ‘Ask yourself, why does she live here?’
‘Because of Mervyn—’
Angela shook her head. ‘She didn’t like Mervyn, and she didn’t like looking after him when he was sick either. Listen, I’ve been sending her money every month. For years. She told me she lived in a little flat on the other side of town – I’ve been paying for this mythical flat for years! Then, Mervyn dies and leaves this place to me, and I find out there’s no flat, she’s kept the money I sent and has been here all along. She refused to even let me level this place and build her a new, decent house on the land.’
‘But why?’
‘Because she can’t leave, Kirsty.’ Her grip tightened. ‘She. Keeps. Everything. Even bad things. Even… Lisa. Lisa’s body is here, somewhere, it must be. That’s why she won’t let me sell the land, or build on it, because if that happens, there’s every chance Lisa’s body will be found. Do you get it now?’
‘She’s here? She’s been here all along?’ Kirsty cried.
‘She used you to frighten me away. I wanted to sell
the land, and she couldn’t let me do that, so when we met at the party, and she found out who you were, she resuscitated the old story that somehow, at aged five, I’d killed Lisa. She worked on me hard, before telling me that this crazy woman – you – who’d stumbled on the truth, was gunning for me. She told me that I should just leave, go back to America, forget about the will and everything else, and just get away from you. It didn’t work though, for once she overplayed her hand. She told me you were dangerous, that you’d hurt her, that you were extorting her; how could I just leave knowing that was happening? I told her I was staying longer. That’s when her plan changed, that’s when she decided to pit us against each other. She was desperate, and after all, if you killed me, she’d keep the house, the land and you’d be written off as this unbalanced stalker and put away. If I killed you, that would get me arrested and she’d still get to stay here. Whatever happened, Lisa would say buried and no-one would know what she’d done. Do you see what we’re up against now?’
Thirty-Seven
Kirsty stayed behind in the dark house in which lurked all the strange calamity of Sylvia’s mind. Kirsty felt her own mind reach to the cleanest, most decent person she knew – Lee – and the humiliation, the too-sudden knowledge of her naivety, her own cruelty, stung horribly. Lee, her partner, the other half, a kernel of good, cynical sanity, had been thrown away on Sylvia’s subterranean command. She thought of all those little hints scattered in their conversations: I thought there were problems… does he often lose his temper?… He was a little forceful. Then there was the tarot reading, which oh-so-neatly showed a man in a position of power, an inflexible, furious, scared man, a betrayer. Sylvia herself was a mother figure, kind and compassionate. A wise counsel… she protects you, and loves you… She’s on your side, come what may. And, finally, Sylvia had added Lisa into this toxic mix… a silent partner keeping the circle together, all the while knowing that she was here, rotting away, or burned, or… Kirsty had to call Lee, tell him she was OK, that she’d been wrong. Even though she was alone, she kept her voice low.
