The Friend

by Dorothy Koomson

  Winnie would appear at Trevor’s house and would never say it, but she would imply it wouldn’t do her well if anyone at school found out about them drinking together. As a result, he never told Yvonne, which is what she wanted. She needed him to have secrets, things he kept from his wife. It created an exclusion zone around them; it made them intimate and made it easy for him to take those next steps. To allow her to kiss him. To kiss her back. To allow himself to stroke her breasts. To allow her to perform oral sex on him. That had been risky. She’d purposely left it to the last minute so it had been rushed and she hadn’t had time to finish it. So when she had asked him to meet her at the school the next night, obviously he had turned up. That had been the end of meeting at their house. That had been the start of their regular liaisons at the school. That had been the start of the next phase of her plan: to rid their lives of Yvonne.

  Winnie drove Yvonne to the school. She wasn’t sure what she would do; she hadn’t planned this far ahead. It wasn’t meant to be like this. She would have liked more time to plan for every eventuality, but she knew this was the moment. The possibility, the anticipation of it, tingled on her tongue, at the back of her throat; it fluttered in her stomach. Her mind was racing ahead: she had to get Yvonne to the school, where there was no CCTV. She parked her car a few streets away; she was already hiding her face by wearing Crispin’s jogging top that he kept in the back of the car to change into after longer runs.

  She had to support Yvonne, even though she herself was walking on legs as shaky as a newborn creature’s. She was trembling and wasn’t sure why. Was it because she was scared of what she was about to do, or was it that she was excited? Or was it a swirl of both, each feeling sliding into the other like different-coloured paints bleeding into each other to create a new emotion? Winnie wasn’t someone given to extremes of emotions. Her affair with Trevor, while exciting and reconfirming in her mind that they were meant to be together, was controlled, tidy and, beyond the centre of the orgasm, did not disturb her core. Nothing really ruffled Winnie, except this. The idea of doing this. The idea of putting an end to someone.

  When Winnie had decided to rid her life of Yvonne, she had planned on it being through divorce and forcing Yvonne to move away, ideally with the children. Winnie had seen it time and time again with the parents at her school: they allowed their emotions to overcome them, they couldn’t keep themselves in check, their marriages fell apart, they made huge, rash decisions, and she was, more often than not, served with notice of a pupil being withdrawn or, even more excruciating, having a meeting where the parent begged to be released early from the contract they’d signed so they could retreat and lick their wounds. Winnie, as head teacher, never relented: this was the consequence of divorce and separation, after all. Yes, they nurtured the children, but it was a business. She would be doing a disservice to the other owners and shareholders if she allowed these people their money back. She and her business partners could not be out of pocket because of other people’s inability to keep their lives on an even track.

  To be honest, she’d thought that was what would have happened with Yvonne. Divorce, move, the way clear for her to ‘go public’ with Trevor in a year or two. But then a passing comment from an alumnus revealed what Yvonne had been up to. Winnie had befriended her rival, had given her as much support as she could to take over the Parents’ Council. She had given Yvonne keys so she could be one of the emergency contacts. All of this was done so that Yvonne would trust her and would let her guard down and allow Winnie to find out something that would hasten the end of Yvonne’s marriage. She hadn’t realised that Yvonne was doing the same. The alumnus mentioned that Yvonne had been looking into raising funds, had been talking to the other owners so she could oust Winnie. Yvonne wanted to be an owner, she wanted Winnie to be nothing more than a figurehead, to not be able to make policy, to not be involved in steering the school. This was why Yvonne had insinuated herself into the role of head of the Parents’ Council – she wanted to demonstrate to the owners that she knew the parents; she was more in touch with the fee payers than the head teacher. That was when Winnie calmly – because that was how she did most things – had decided to kill Yvonne.

  ‘Do you have your keys with you?’ Winnie asked a swaying Yvonne. ‘I obviously don’t.’

  If Yvonne didn’t have her keys, she’d have to magically find her own keys, something she didn’t want to have to do. She needed to leave as little forensic evidence as possible. No one would question why her fingerprints were on various things at the school, but it would be so much better if Yvonne’s were the last set on there.

  Yvonne was still unsteady on her feet, and needed Winnie to help her. She opened the gate, and then she opened the front door to the school. Winnie allowed Yvonne in first, allowed her to turn off the alarm, which she did almost on autopilot, Winnie realised. She’d obviously been in there before out of hours.

  ‘Come on then, Yvonne … it always feels very odd to call you that,’ Winnie said to her prey. And she was her prey. The thought of what Yvonne had tried to do had angered her. The realisation that she had been in Winnie’s school on her own was the push she needed. This was the right thing to do. She was sure of it now.

  ‘My head,’ Yvonne said, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘I know. Let’s get you to my office. You looked like you really banged your head when they pushed you.’

  ‘They’re a pack of bitches,’ Yvonne mumbled. ‘But I’ll show them. They’re going to regret taking me on.’

  Winnie stepped forwards, pulled her sleeve over her hand to push open the inner door. ‘For what it’s worth, I think they all treated you appallingly.’

  For some reason that seemed to shock Yvonne out of her stupor. She didn’t move forwards, following Winnie into the dark school – she stopped. When Winnie turned to find out why she wasn’t being followed, Yvonne was blinking at her. The light from the surrounding street lights allowed Winnie to see Yvonne’s face, and with every rapid movement of her eyelids up and down, Yvonne was becoming more sober, more lucid, more aware.

  ‘How do you know what happened with my so-called friends?’ Yvonne said, and took a step backwards. ‘How did you know they pushed me?’

  ‘Is it important?’ Winnie replied. ‘You’re injured. You need first aid.’

  Yvonne looked Winnie over again, noting the raised hood on a man’s sweatshirt, the way she had covered her hand before reaching for the door, the darkness they were about to head into, the semi-darkness around them.

  Yvonne took another step away from Winnie. She didn’t think much of the head teacher. She was an oddball. Someone who didn’t have children, who didn’t seem to like children, really. She was pleasant enough to them, but she never really seemed to connect with them. That was why Yvonne had wanted her removed as anything other than a figurehead head teacher. She wanted someone warm, who ‘got’ children, to run the school. Someone you could go to and feel that they not only knew your children’s name and academic record, but took the time to speak to them, to get to know how they ticked, found out if they liked sports or art or music or reading. Someone who gave the impression of actually giving a shit. Winnie was not that woman.

  It baffled Yvonne every time she spoke to Winnie, spent time with her, learnt more about her background, how Trevor could have been with her for so long. It seemed inconceivable that someone like Trevor would be saddled with someone as cold as Winnie. Trevor. Yvonne’s heart seemed to turn over in her chest. Trevor.

  Maxie, in full-on bitch mode, had said that thing. And she had known it was true. For a while now there’d been something furtive and detached about him. Something not quite right. And as he’d detached, she’d looked for connections elsewhere. She’d turned to her friends and they in turn had turned their backs on her. The more they’d distanced themselves, the more she’d had to show them that they couldn’t just leave her out, reject her. The only person who could make him so unengaged was …

  ‘How do you k
now what my friends did?’ Yvonne repeated and took another step away.

  ‘I saw. I was on the beach and I saw you all fighting.’

  ‘How did you see? Why were you on the beach? You don’t have a dog. You don’t live near here. Why did you drive down there?’

  ‘It’s a free country. I’m free to go wherever I wish.’ Winnie went towards Yvonne and she stepped even further back into the playground, jittery and visibly scared.

  ‘You’ve been following me, haven’t you? Stalking me because you’re sleeping with Trevor.’

  Winnie shook her head, opened her arms to show Yvonne she had nothing to fear. ‘Yvonne—’

  ‘Get away from me!’ she screamed. ‘GET AWAY!’

  Winnie ran at her then. She had to shut her up. On this side of the school there were houses a short distance away, near enough to hear screams, to not dismiss them as people messing about because that generally didn’t happen in this area. She barrelled into the slender blonde woman, her college rugby training coming to the fore. She heard Yvonne’s head crack on the soft AstroTurf of the front playground, and it was so loud, a brutal snap in the still night air that she expected Yvonne to lie still, felled by the weight of a slightly broader woman. But no, she was a squirming, fighting mass, and in seconds she had pushed Winnie off and was crawling away. She was whimpering, sobbing, her voice catching in her throat like screams strangled before they could hit the air.

  Yvonne moved like she was hurt, but Winnie, who had also been jarred by the fall, went after her. Winnie found herself panicking, something she never normally did. She couldn’t detach, step back, watch herself from a safe distance. Panic gambolled through her as she scrabbled after the woman who had stolen her life. It wasn’t as easy and simple as she’d thought it would be. What had she planned to do when she got Yvonne into the school? A shove down the central staircase, to make it look like an accident? Probably. Murder removed. She could hear Yvonne’s laboured breath, the strangled cries, the sobs of shock. Slowly she realised some of it was from her: she was breathing loudly, she was sobbing as she was as shocked as Yvonne Whidmore, but she couldn’t stop now.

  Yvonne would tell.

  Yvonne would tell everyone that Winnie had tried to kill her.

  ‘Stop, stop. Yvonne, stop,’ Winnie sobbed. ‘Please, stop.’

  She was on top of her now, but again Yvonne did not capitulate. She fought, and struggled, a many-limbed creature that would not be contained or restrained. Winnie grabbed the rock, she felt its weight in her hand. She pushed at Yvonne, trying to keep her still with only the weight of her body. Winnie wanted her to stop, to be still for a moment so she could hold her down. But Yvonne was wild; a desperate creature, trying as hard as it could to escape. Winnie had no choice: she brought the rock down on the back of Yvonne’s head to calm her down, to steady her. Yvonne was still for a moment, shocked by the sudden blow to the back of her head, almost on the original blow. Then she was fighting again, harder this time, it seemed. Terror made her stronger, more determined to get away.

  ‘Stop,’ Winnie whispered through her sobs. ‘Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.’ She just needed Yvonne to stop. Each time she spoke she brought the rock down, she tried to show Yvonne what she wanted. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

  She finally did as she was told. She finally stopped. She was finally, finally still.

  ‘I just wanted you to stop,’ Winnie told Yvonne’s still form. ‘It’s not how you think. It’s not like that at all.’

  Now she needed Yvonne to move. To acknowledge what she was saying, even in the smallest of ways. Winnie knew Yvonne wasn’t going to reply. She knew this but she continued to speak to her. She told her that it was destiny with Trevor. That he did love Yvonne, yes, but what he had with Winnie was bigger than that. Yvonne did not move, she did not respond. Winnie looked down at the mass of blonde hair, matted with a dark liquid that wasn’t truly visible as red in the darkness.

  She pushed herself off the dead body in front of her and couldn’t look as her stomach lurched at the realisation at what she had done. She threw down the rock, slick with the same oozing, dark liquid on the back of the woman’s head in front of her. Winnie struggled to her knees and stared wide-eyed. With a shaking hand she reached out and tried to turn the woman over. It wasn’t easy. She had to use both hands and her stomach lurched again when the body thumped over and just lay there. Her eyes were closed, thank goodness, her face was squashed; the same sticky liquid had poured out of her nose and smeared itself over her lips. There was a cut on her right cheek that looked like it would swell if she was alive. She looked so … messy. Winnie knew that Yvonne would hate that. No matter what, she would want to show her best face to the world.

  Power streaked through Winnie. She was in complete control of how Yvonne would look. She had finally won over Yvonne. Yes, she was sleeping with Trevor, but Yvonne had been plotting behind her back. Now she had won. Another surge of power, ultimate power, thundered through her. She had won. The sick feeling that had washed through her swept away again, like the tide receding, but this time never to return. She had only done what was necessary, what would stop this woman from taking away her future again. Winnie shoved her hands into the pockets of Crispin’s top and found a neatly folded-up tissue in the right one. Of course. That was the sort of man Crispin was: organised, neat. He would want to have a tissue to hand, always. She used the tissue to pick up the rock, then used the edge of Yvonne’s white top to wipe it down. She was meticulous, careful, exacting. If she was not careful, not diligent, a stray print could give her away. She cleaned each crevice, each crease and bump, making sure it was free of evidence.

  She was going to drag the body out of the open, but then she didn’t want to transfer any more DNA, hair, skin cells or whatever onto her. It was bad enough that they had fought, it was not ideal that in this darkness she could not see if she’d left any hairs on the body, but the longer she stayed here, the longer someone might see her. As it was, the CCTV from further down the road would probably show that Yvonne had been with someone; she did not need an eyewitness who could give more details.

  ‘I hope there are no hard feelings,’ Winnie said to Yvonne before she left her. ‘All’s fair in love and war, and all that.’

  Winnie walked a long way, in the opposite direction to her car, to give the wrong impression to the CCTV cameras. She walked and walked, with her head down, the hood hiding her face and hiding her hair, hopefully giving the impression she was a man. The air was cold on her skin, biting and cruel, in a way that didn’t seem to bother the other people she met on the way. She felt, though, like she was on fire, an inferno walking and walking, with every step replaying what had happened. On one level it surprised Winnie how unemotional she felt about it all. She wondered if she was in shock, if it would hit her at some point that she had committed the ultimate crime, but in reality Winnie knew that no such guilt or remorse would come.

  She simply wasn’t built that way. She ducked into the tavern at the end of Hove Park, packed with late-summer drinkers enjoying their pints and drinks and the company of friends. In the toilets she removed Crispin’s top. She folded it as small as she could then went to order a drink. She sat and sipped the drink, all the while what she had done running through her head. She watched the people around her carefully; no one noticed her, not even that she was a woman on her own. She waited and watched until a group of seven or eight people got up to leave together and she went with them, slipped into their group and followed them slowly until she could break away and go back for her car.

  It seemed so simple. Uncomplicated. It amazed her that people who planned this stuff would come undone so easily. She retrieved her car, put the top into a carrier bag she found in the boot and then drove out towards Brighton marina, pulled into the supermarket car park and disposed of it in one of their large bins. Then home. Home to Crispin, who’d fallen asleep in front of the television, as he usually did. He’d been practically asleep when she had left earlie
r, nodding off and then waking up. He’d probably woken up a couple of times, had thought she was off having a bath or reading in the study as she often did, then nodded off back to sleep. This was the usual map of their evenings when she wasn’t out having sex with Trevor in her office.

  Winnie showered, removed the stench of what had gone before, washed away the persona she’d had to adopt to do what she did, then she returned to the living room. She sat on the sofa she always sat on, reclined like she always did later in the evening. She put her head down and forced herself to go to sleep. Yvonne’s face kept coming to her, sure, but she pushed it aside. She had to sleep. She had to establish an alibi. She had to make sure that she got away with this because if there was one thing she knew, it was that Yvonne was not worth losing her freedom over.

  Sleep, she told herself. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

  Cece

  7:15 p.m. ‘Imagine my shock when they explained that she had survived,’ Mrs Carpenter tells me.

  She has been very calm about it all. She has told me how she did it, and why she did it, and I can see that she is talking to me like this because she doesn’t believe I’ll be telling anyone.

  ‘I actually expected to feel some relief and gratitude that I hadn’t killed someone, instead I was disappointed in myself for not doing the job properly. If any of my staff had done such an incomplete job I would have disciplined them, severely.’ Mrs Carpenter runs her hands through her hair and settles them under her chin as she leans forward on her desk and stares at me. ‘What am I going to do with you, Mrs Solarin?’