The Day She Died: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  “Gus?” I said “Are you still there? I know it’s a horrible idea, honey. I know she’s the kids’ mum. But I really think it makes sense of everything. Ros is dead and Becky couldn’t live with the guilt.”

  “Where did she dump the body?” he asked.

  “Probably in the sea,” I answered. “I bet it turns up soon. Like that guy in the river.” I could have bitten off my tongue, but how to resist it? One of the reasons for luring him here instead of calling the cops on him was that I was dying to know how Gus had the bracelet if Gary Boyes had killed Wojtek.

  “You’ve really forgiven me for all those things I called you?” he said. He was so close to biting down on the bait. Inches away.

  “Of course,” I told him. “There’s nothing you can say to me that could change how I feel. I know the real you.”

  “Okay, in that case,” he said. His voice had changed. “Who was that guy in your flat?”

  “No one!” I said “A guy from the Project I’m letting use it because I’m staying with you. No one at all. God, if you’d ever seen him, you wouldn’t worry!”

  There was another silence. And then I heard him let his breath go. “I’m on my way,” he said.

  “I’ll see you soon. Drive safely, eh?”

  “Christ,” said Becky, when I hung up. “That was brilliant. Remind me never to start a head game with you!”

  “Are we really going to do this?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” Becky said. “We really are.”

  She had a shower, with me sitting on the toilet seat, just in case. She was still pretty wobbly. And after it, she and I went to the kitchen and looked through the cupboards. We tried out a few things but both settled on the same big black frying pan. Took a length of washing rope from the junk drawer too.

  “I wish I felt stronger,” she said.

  “Nah,” I told her. “You get to see his face. That’s the first prize. And you deserve it. Seven years to seven days? No contest.”

  So she sat in the armchair facing the living room door, and I stood behind it. We closed the curtains in case he looked in. We heard the car. I gripped the pan handle and tried to breathe deeply. She managed to sit back in the chair and keep her face calm. She was amazing. She wasn’t even gripping the arms. The front door opened.

  “Hiya,” he shouted.

  “Hi,” I shouted back. Shit! I hadn’t been expecting to talk. I sounded—

  “Jess?” he said. “You sound—”

  He opened the living room door.

  “Hello, Gavin,” said Becky. She sounded perfect.

  I was too slow. I thought he’d be pole-axed, but he sprang forward, grabbed her arms, brought her down. I jumped over the coffee table, swung the pan, he took his teeth out of Becky’s neck—he’d bitten her!—and started to turn and so it was his face, not his head, that I hit. And I felt the soft collapse of a cheekbone. He grabbed the pan. He wasn’t out. He was rearing up, standing, holding Becky up beside him. I heard a sound like a sword being drawn. He spun around as she lifted the poker from the brass stand and brought it whistling through the air to his skull.

  And then he crumpled. He folded, knocking against the table and shifting the chair with a shriek of its casters on the floor as he went down. We stood over him, both of us gulping and panting. Then I blinked and peered closer at Becky’s neck.

  “He broke the skin,” I said. “You’re bleeding. I should—”

  “There’s no time,” she told me. “Tie him. Quick!” I wound the rope round his ankles and his wrists, knotted it, got the brown tape from the sideboard drawer and covered his mouth—God, he bit her!—then I took his ankles and dragged him to the door and outside, and between us we dragged him over the turf, watching his head bumping on the tufts, seeing his hair knotting and ripping.

  If he had come round before we got there, we would never have been able to stuff him through the hole. Even with just his dead weight, it was touch and go. Me inside hauling, Becky outside shoving. When he was in, I bent and looked through the opening at her.

  “Are you sure you can stand being back in here?”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” she said. “Shift over and let me through.”

  We took the tape off his mouth and propped him up on the far away side. We stayed close to the way out. Close together too.

  “If he gets free or just if he starts moving too fast,” I said, “you go first and I’m right behind you, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Becky. “Ssh—he’s stirring.”

  He coughed and groaned, then he quieted as he remembered what had happened, remembered enough to wonder what was coming now.

  “Hi, Gav,” said Becky.

  I switched on the torch I’d brought.

  “Hi Gav,” I said. “I hope your head’s clear, because I’d really like to get a few things straightened out before we leave you here, and the cement we mixed up won’t stay workable for long, so we’ll have to talk fast.”

  “You didn’t mix any cement,” said Gavin.

  “Okay, you’ve got me,” I said. “I didn’t mix any cement. And I didn’t get Becky out of here either. And I certainly didn’t keep you sweet and then take your children away. It’s all a fantasy.”

  “Gus is home, by the way,” Becky said. “So even if Jessie hadn’t sussed you, you still would have failed when he saw this place.”

  “Can I ask you what came first, Gav?” I said. “Where did it start? You don’t just one day say, ‘I know: I’ll kill my wife’s friend and pretend it’s her and brick my wife up and find someone to blame when I kill my kids and tell her I’ve done it’.”

  “Tell her?” said Gavin. “Fuck that, I was going to put their bodies in here with her. There’s a plate in the roof that lifts off. The mortar’s just skim there. I was going to drop in more supplies and two dead kids to keep her company.”

  “Why?” said Becky. Her voice was low, all the bravado gone.

  “Because you had no right to leave me and take them away,” he said.

  “And why kill Ros?” said Becky. “Why fake my suicide? Why not just say I had left you?”

  “Seemed like more fun,” he said. “Nearly went wrong though!”

  “Fun?” I said.

  “He’s lying,” said Becky. “It wasn’t for fun. He didn’t want anyone to think his wife could leave him.”

  “Ros died for that?” I asked.

  “Ros deserved it,” said Gavin. “She thought she had the right to stick her nose in and help my wife to leave me. She had it coming. It was her fault how she ended up. Her choice all the way.”

  “Did I deserve it?” I asked.

  “You humiliated me,” he spat. “You deserved everything you got.”

  “When was this?” I said. I honestly didn’t know.

  “The cake,” said Becky. “He came home and told me.”

  “And that fucking hellish guff in the living room too,” said Gus. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded … aggrieved.

  “The smell of the spilled milk?” I said. “You’re not even kidding, are you? And Wojtek. What did he do?”

  “Who?” said Gus.

  “The Polish guy they found in the river,” I said.

  “Who?” said Becky.

  “Him!” said Gus. “I didn’t kill him. He nearly did for me, though. It was all going perfectly, a-okay. The car went over, right to the bottom, out of sight. Could have sat there for days. And I got back to the side road where I’d left my car without another soul seeing me. Perfect place it was. Too perfect. Totally deserted road with a motorway junction at the top and an A-road with a bus route along the bottom. Why do you think I picked it? Turns out I wasn’t the only one. Fifty yards from my car—a body! Slit from ear to ear, dumped at the side of the road, just lying there, laughing at me. Just one of those sick things. A total
coincidence. So I moved him. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily—”

  I asked a question just to stop him singing before I threw up from the sound of it. Becky was quiet too. It had gone too far for her now. She was drifting again, exhausted, and must be in pain from the place he bit her.

  “You tore off one of his bracelets,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, he was dripping with that gay-boy shite,” said Gus. “Yeah, I burst one off. Meant to fling it in after him. Didn’t notice I’d forgotten till I was emptying my pockets.”

  “You ruined your clothes,” I said. “You went in the water.”

  “I had to,” said Gus. “But it was a coincidence. I didn’t kill him.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I said. “And you’re wrong about the coincidence. If Ros hadn’t disappeared on Saturday, he’d never had been there to get killed at all. Where was she from Saturday to Tuesday anyway?”

  “She was here,” he said. “I had to keep her alive until the drugs were out of her. But it gave her a chance to think too. About how sorry she was she’d poked her nose into my business. Should have heard her snivelling and begging. Should have heard the things she offered to do.”

  “I don’t want to hear,” Becky mumbled. “Jessie, please. I’m so tired. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Come on.”

  “See you in your dreams, girls,” said Gavin. “I know you’ll never forget me!”

  We stood. I helped Becky up and helped her through the hole in the wall too.

  “You’ll do time for this,” he shouted after us. “Gus’ll shop you. The kids’ll end up in a foster home, Becky. Ruby won’t even be twelve before she learns to give a—”

  “Shut up shut up shut up!” Becky screamed.

  And after that all we could hear was his laughing, until I had heaped up the bricks and poured the bag of dry cement all over them. Would it hold him? It would have to.

  Becky turned and started walking home.

  “The kids’ll be back soon,” she said. “I can’t wait to see … .” She stopped talking and then she stopped walking and then she sat down like someone in a frock at a picnic but kept sinking, folding over, and dropping until her face was on the grass. I sat down beside her.

  I thought about what he’d said. It was rubbish. Becky wouldn’t do time. Ruby would never be near a foster home. I thought about Gus, the real Gus. Would he go along with it once he knew? And at last I thought about Gav. Tied up and in the dark. No matter what he had done. Tied up in the dark and starving. I got my phone out and dialled.

  “Yeah. Hello? Hi, yeah,” I said when they had put me through. “Okayyyyy. Jessica Constable. It’s not my address, actually. But I’ll tell you where we are. And I know I asked for you guys, but we might need an ambulance too.”

  I lay down beside Becky, looked up at the stars, told the cops the address, told them we were in the field between the cottage and the bay.

  “Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?” I said. “Romantic? Sounds too good to be true.”

  “Are you all right, love?” asked the dispatcher.

  I started to tell her I was fine but stopped myself. “Not really, no,” I said. “Can you stay on the line, please?”

  “I’m staying right with you, my darling,” she said. “You stay here with me.”

  Postscript

  Think Sandsea’s grim in October? Try it in February, when it’s rained every day for three weeks and the beach is covered in seaweed and lumps of sodden driftwood and the odd rotting seal. My stomach lifts and turns.

  “It’s dead,” says Dillon. “It might come back, though.” It’s not a bad lesson to learn at two years old; bound to make him turn out optimistic about life in general. Ruby was the one who really bust a fuse.

  “You lied!” she screamed. “You told me Mummy was dead! Where’s my daddy? Where is he? Bring him back. Now! Now!”

  But there was no children’s visiting in the remand centre. They talked on the phone and he wrote to both of them, sent Dillon pictures and wrote Ruby poems. Becky saved everything for them.

  “He’s still their dad,” she says.

  “Don’t you worry … ” I want to ask her. It’s easiest to talk when we’re walking on the beach, when we don’t have to look at each other, when we can both watch the kids instead. “Don’t you every worry that they’ll—”

  “Turn out just like him?” says Gus, the real Gus. “Why should they? He’s not going to bring them up, and they’ve only got half his genes. I’m a clone of Gavin, Jessie, and I’m nothing like him.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I say. And I hope it’s true. Hope more than either of them could know, because I haven’t told them.

  “I’m going to miss this place,” says Becky. “I do love it here.”

  “And as soon as the conversion’s done, back you’ll come,” says Gus. He’s making a loft—like a real artist would live in—in half of the bothy, keeping the other half for a studio, adding a wee bit on. He made a lot of money selling Pram to some ghoul. So Becky and the kids will have the cottage.

  “Yeah,” says Becky. “And I need to be with my mum and dad for a bit. I need to try to explain why I cut them off like that.” She glances at me. “Think of something to say they’d believe. No point in trying to get the truth past them.” I squeeze her arm. She’s right about that. I heard the same thing from Dot. Sister Avril too. Why did she stay? Not ever Why did he take her away from her family, mess with her head, kill her friend, keep her prisoner? No, it’s always Why did she stay?, like it’s love and hope and trust that are the puzzle. Not whatever’s wrong with Gavin.

  “Evil,” said Father Tommy when I asked him. “There. A nice plain answer everyone can spell.”

  “It doesn’t explain much,” I said.

  “Neither does sociopathy,” Father Tommy pointed out. “It just gets a higher Scrabble score. Lust, sloth, gluttony, pride, envy, greed, and anger. Hit all seven and you’re evil. Gavin King’s well on his way.”

  “You could be right, Father,” I told him.

  “Ah, Jessie,” he said. “Have you thought any more about what I asked you?”

  “I have. Would it matter if I was turning Catholic partly to bug my mum? Could we ‘God’s mysterious moves’ that one away?”

  “You’re a terrible girl,” he told me.

  “Well, I’ll let you know,” I said. “You’d have to carb up for my first confession, mind.”

  “And then I could say your wedding mass.” He was chuckling, teasing me.

  “You’re quite a romantic for a celibate priest,” I said. “Dream on.”

  Kazek’s gone to Poland with Ros’s ashes. He’ll be back in Dumfries for the trial. He might stay at my place. He phones me a lot. We get on quite well—even over the phone—for two people who basically don’t share a language. I think about Gav and his silver tongue and wonder if it’s better this way.

  But I have to decide what to do. Would Kazek still be interested in me if he knew? Should that matter? Do I really believe the evil of Gavin King will come out in his children? Is it best not to chance it? But if I commit a mortal sin, can I still be a Catholic after? Or is this latest news just one more thing that’s far too good to be true? Like Jesus.

  Tell me the story of how I was born, Mum.

  Well, I was immaculately conceived, my son. And you were the child of the holy ghost. Mm? Oh, don’t worry about who he is. I’ll tell you when you’re older. And I was still a virgin and there was this census, see? And a stable, a star, and a donkey or two. Three wise men with the shittiest notion of presents for a baby. There were shepherds involved. Somehow. Just your usual boy meets girl, angels, kings, and farm workers, really.

  What would I say? Well, Mummy was a headcase and couldn’t trust herself to have a baby in case she couldn’t take care
of it and it killed its granny one day. And Daddy wanted to wipe out his other family and not have to go to jail for it.

  Yeah, right.

  But if it’s a girl I could call it Ros, and if it’s a boy I could call it Wojtek. And no matter what it was, if I gave it life then we’d be square, the universe and me.

  As every single one of those endless bloody therapists used to say.

  Facts and Fictions

  The Dumfries Free Clothing Project is based only very loosely on the Edinburgh Clothing Store and all the personnel are fictitious.

  St. Vincent’s is imaginary and not connected either to St. Michael’s or St. Joseph’s in actual Dumfries.

  It would be folly to suggest that JM Barrie House in the book has no connection to Moat Brae House in Dumfries. What I will say is that the fictional council, the fictional committee, the fictional Gary Boyes, and the goings-on in general are not in any way connected to the marvellous work of the Peter Pan Moat Brae House Trust and their blossoming vision of a children’s literature centre at the site. I took Moat Brae House down a very different path and am delighted that fact is so much better, in this instance, than fiction. Details of the real project can be found at www.peterpanmoatbrae.org.

  Shed Boat Shed in the book is closely based on the work of Turner Prize winner Simon Starling, and Gav’s imaginary House is very similar to the extraordinary and moving Semi-Detached by Michael Landry. (Thanks to Erin Mitchell, who read a proof copy and reminded me what this piece was called.) I think Pram in the story sprang from my imagination. If it didn’t and anyone recognises the idea, as Steve recognised “Gus’s” borrowings, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know at catrionamcpherson@gmail.com.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank: everyone at Midnight Ink, especially Terri Bischoff, Nicole Nugent, Amelia Narigon, and Bill Krause (look, Nicole, an Oxford comma!); my agent, Lisa Moylett; the real Jessies—Jess Lourey and Jessie Chandler; my sisters in crime, Sisters in Crime; my sisters in life—Sheila, Audrey, and Wendy; the other three—Catherine, Louise, and Nancy; the new three—Sarah, Spring, and Eileen (paging Dr. Freud!); the cast of thousands from Mystery Writers of America, Malice Domestic, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, Harrogate, Bloody Scotland, and the Crime Writers’ Association of the UK (who said writing was a lonely pursuit?); and my sister-in-law Bogusia Gruszka McRoberts, without whom Kazek would have been silent.