by K. L. Slater
‘But you’re absolutely sure that it was Grace?’
‘Oh yes. No doubt about it. I never gave it any significance until later, though. When we got back home from visiting my sister, there was a poster affixed to the lamp post at the bottom of our lane.’
The extent of what local people have done to help us suddenly hits me, and I feel so incredibly grateful. Jeffery’s face flashes into my mind and I resolve to apologise to him for my sharp manner.
‘Harold had to stop to let a car through and I caught sight of the photograph, you see. I instructed him to stop and got out of the car, and that’s when I realised I’d seen Grace with my own eyes.’ She looks down at her hands. ‘I wish I’d stopped, asked her if she was all right, but under the circumstances… I mean, with the strained relationship between myself and your husband, that was never likely to happen.’
‘No,’ I say sadly. ‘What exactly was Grace doing when you saw her?’
‘She was walking. Just walking. Not slow, not fast, just moving perfectly normally and looking straight ahead, as you would expect.’ She looks perplexed. ‘I wish I could tell you more, but I’m afraid that’s it.’
Both Blake and I had doubts about this woman’s intentions when we heard who the witness was, but I’m completely satisfied now that she had no hidden agenda in reporting the sighting. She did spot Grace and did entirely the correct thing in going to the police.
She must’ve come to the house, just wanting to tell me about seeing Grace in her own words when Blake so rudely sent her packing.
‘Thank you for coming forward,’ I say as the black kettle starts to whistle.
‘It never entered my head not to do so, despite our disagreement at the café.’ She stands, takes an oven glove and picks the kettle up. The shrill whistle stops abruptly.
I expect her to apologise for tipping tomato juice in my lap but she doesn’t. Instead, she looks pointedly at me before pouring boiling water into a teapot and replacing the kettle on its stand.
Somewhere nearby, the dogs start up in a cacophony of barking again but Barbara seems quite unfazed. The kitchen might be in dire need of an upgrade but it’s warm and comfortable and I feel my shoulders relax a little.
‘I feel like I’ve known you for a long time, Lucie. Not to speak to, of course, but I’ve become accustomed to seeing you around the area. Particularly since your husband started his political career.’
I nod as she removes the lid from the teapot and stirs the contents thoughtfully.
‘But I actually noticed you long before that. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you sometimes you get an inkling – often more than an inkling – that a person is hiding something, presenting an acceptable face to the world that is not necessarily their true persona.’
She’s talking in riddles, but that’s fine. I’ll stick with it. Then it occurs to me; could she be gearing up to tell me something about my husband? Perhaps something I’ll wish I hadn’t found out from his arch enemy…
‘And you think Blake is one of those people? Someone who’s putting on an act?’
‘I spoke out of turn at the café and I’m sorry for that. I was angry, and I cast doubt on your husband because I felt so angry and bitter. The truth is, I actually believe him to be one of the most solid and principled people I know.’
She sighs and, for the first time, smiles at me.
‘I confess I’m not a big fan of your husband, Lucie, as well you know, but no, I wasn’t talking about Blake.’ She pours tea into a Royal Albert floral china cup and pushes it gently across the table to me. ‘I was actually referring to you, dear.’
Forty-Six
Sixteen years earlier
As Lucie climbed the two flights of stairs up to Stefan’s room, she noticed all the doors of the other bedsits were closed and she couldn’t hear any noise coming from them.
Perhaps Stefan had fallen asleep. That would explain him not being downstairs to meet her in his desperation to explain the contents of his rucksack and, if Gregg was to be believed, his involvement in someone’s death.
When she got up to the top floor of the house, Lucie hesitated outside Stefan’s door.
Silence. The music track must have come to a natural end.
She thought about knocking, but if he was deep asleep he probably wouldn’t hear her. But she felt justified in walking in if it was open. He’d sent a cab to collect her for goodness’ sake.
She pushed the handle down and opened the door slowly. The main shadeless bulb was on and…
Lucie’s hand shot to her mouth as she let out a shriek.
Rhonda lay naked on the bed, a needle discarded at the side of her arm.
There was no sign of Stefan.
She rushed over to Rhonda, a shiver settling on her skin. Dribble ran from the corner of the girl’s mouth and her eyes were closed. She looked deathly pale and although Lucie could see she was breathing, the rise and fall of her bony chest seemed very shallow and irregular.
Lucie seized a grubby sheet and pulled it across for modesty. She shook Rhonda’s arm gently and called her name but there was no reaction.
‘Stefan!’ she screeched, her hand plunging into her handbag for her phone.
Rhonda groaned. Thank God!
Lucie abandoned her search, threw down her handbag and reached for the girl’s hand.
‘Rhonda, it’s me, Lucie. What have you taken?’
Lucie’s own hand shook as she squeezed Rhonda’s cool, flaccid flesh. It felt so surreal. Here was Rhonda, lying naked on Stefan’s bed… Lucie was supposed to be coming over for him to convince her of his innocence, not to be faced with this.
Lucie’s gaze was drawn to a table in the corner. Small plastic bags full of white powder and pills similar to the gear in Stefan’s rucksack were piled on top of it.
Her head whipped round at a shuffling noise at the door.
‘What are you doing?’ Lucie let Rhonda’s hand fall away as she stood up, aghast.
Stefan didn’t speak. He had a camera and was taking snaps of her.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
As she moved back over to the bed, she heard footfall on the stairs. Stefan turned and shook his head. ‘Don’t come in, we’ve got a problem in here. The girls can’t handle the gear.’
Lucie thought she heard a stifled giggle.
‘Who’s out there? What are you talking about?’ She reached for her bag and pulled out her phone. ‘I feel like I don’t know you, I…’
He sprang across the room and snatched the phone and bag from her.
‘Kind of you to bring my gear back.’ He grinned, peering in at the rucksack.
Stefan laughed as her mouth fell open.
‘Get your head out of the clouds, Lucinda. How did you think I made my money?’
‘Are you seeing Rhonda? Why is she here, in your bedroom?’ She glanced at Rhonda’s prostrate body behind her. ‘We need to call for an ambulance.’
‘Mind your own business,’ he snarled. ‘I was getting sick of you anyway.’
A wave of heat blasted through Lucie.
‘I’m going to report this to the police, and to the university too,’ she yelled.
Stefan grinned, completely unflustered. ‘We both know that’s not going to happen.’ He held the camera up. ‘I’d bet good money these photos are going to show you were helping her shoot up.’
Lucie wanted to leave, to push past him and run out of the house to ring the police. It felt as if someone had removed his mask and exposed that he was a maniac. Gregg had been right after all.
‘You bastard. I trusted you, I really thought you cared about me.’ She let out a bitter laugh. ‘You’re just a cheat. And worse, a criminal.’
Stefan exploded. ‘What do you want me to do? Get rid of her once and for all?’
In three big strides, he was at Rhonda’s bedside.
Lucie cried out as he wrenched the pillow from under Rhonda’s head and shoved it on to her face. Rhonda’s arms jerked out to the
sides in reflex as she tried to escape the smothering sensation.
Lucie ran over and tried to pull Stefan away from her.
‘You’ll kill her! You have to stop it now!’
Stefan said nothing. He stood stock still, his eyes never leaving Rhonda as he constantly shifted his body weight over the pillow to add pressure.
Lucie ran wailing to the door. ‘Help! Help! Is anyone here?’
She heard him chuckle. She held on to the wall as the room started to spin. The air felt thick and unbreathable and the room seemed somehow bigger, rendering herself smaller as her grasp of time slipped. She watched as Stefan’s hands bore down harder on the pillow, his face morphing into a crazed mask.
Then, through her brain haze, she saw Stefan leap towards her. He grabbed her by the hair, throwing her back on to the bed. She started to scream, terrible ear-splitting cries that echoed in her ears.
‘This is what you wanted, admit it!’ he yelled at Lucie. ‘You wanted me to prove I love you, no matter what it took. You made me do it. It’s your fault.’
‘Stefan, no! No!’
She knocked the pillow from Rhonda’s face with her arm. Horrified by Rhonda’s wide, staring eyes and frozen expression, she began to whimper.
‘We have to help her, Stefan. Call an ambulance, please.’
‘Don’t look if you can’t handle it. You made me do it.’ His voice sounded unconcerned. Monotone. How could he act so clinical, so disinterested?
‘There are just two truths you need to remember. You never saw anything,’ he said, his voice chillingly calm and cold. ‘And you didn’t find anything in my rucksack.’
Lucie scrambled to her feet. ‘We’ve got to go to the police. There’s no way something like this can be covered up. You… you’ve killed her!’
He gave a little smile. ‘I had no choice, but you do. You have to choose whether to walk away or take the rap, Lucinda.’ He looked coolly at the dead girl and then reached over and pulled the sheet back over her body and face.’
‘What? You killed her, not me!’
‘She’s dead now and nothing is going to bring her back. You say you’ll betray me and go to the police. But I’m telling you this…’ He stepped closer to her and she shrank back against the wall. ‘If I go to prison, I’ll make sure you do too. And when I’m out, I’ll do to your interfering father the same as I’ve done to Rhonda today.’ He pressed his face closer to Lucie. ‘He’ll die horribly and painfully. Do you love him enough to keep quiet?’
Lucie covered her face with her hands. ‘I can’t. I just can’t do it.’
‘Nobody knows she’s here, Lucinda. Her family disowned her, wanted nothing to do with her after she got a prostitution charge, working the streets for drugs money at sixteen years of age. She ran away to Nottingham and I rescued her.’
A tiny noise behind her made her jump on to the balls of her feet. She turned, thinking it may not be too late to save Rhonda, but it was just the house cat, weaving between her feet in a figure of eight.
‘I’ll just tell the other housemates she left. Why not join me? You could make so much money.’ His voice softened and he stroked her arm. His touch made her flesh crawl, and she jerked her arm away. He smiled. ‘You don’t have to love me; just cover for me and we’ll be home and dry.’
She tilted her head back and stared up at the cracked, watermarked ceiling.
‘Not interested.’ Even though her hands were shaking, she kept her voice level, just waiting for a chance to escape. She now realised that the man she thought she knew was very different to the manic, violent one in front of her and so she swallowed her threats. She had to tread carefully.
Stefan laughed and stepped aside.
‘Go then, but think carefully, Lucinda. If you shop me, I’ll tell them you killed Rhonda in a jealous rage.’
The muscles in her guts contracted and for an awful moment she thought she’d vomit right there, in front of him.
‘I won’t report you but I want nothing to do with it. With any of it,’ she said, nearly choking on her words.
‘I’ve got the photographs if the police are in any doubt of your involvement. Do you really want to ruin your life? Think hard about going to the police. It would kill your dad if he thought you were involved in this, even before I could get to him.’
And deep inside, Lucie knew that for once, he spoke the truth.
Forty-Seven
Back in her room on campus, Lucie packed a few things into an overnight bag. She grabbed her coat and went outside to wait for the cab she’d ordered.
She’d booked a small bed and breakfast on the edge of the city. She’d seen it from the bus, always thought it looked neat and friendly. She couldn’t stay here tonight; she couldn’t risk Stefan coming over to try and persuade her to work for him. She needed to think.
The taxi and the night away were costing a lot of money; more than she could afford. But that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that she had bought herself some time alone to think the whole terrible mess through properly. Once she’d considered everything and thought carefully, she wouldn’t look back again. She wouldn’t endlessly debate it in her head once she had made a firm decision. She’d promised herself that much.
The landlady of the establishment was brisk and efficient. Lucie told her she was visiting a friend and would only be staying the one night. The woman nodded and barely looked at her, which suited Lucie just fine.
When she got up to the small, impersonal room that smelled of stale cigarettes and damp, she climbed fully clothed under the cold, scratchy covers and gave in to the shaking she’d had to control up till now. She sobbed into the pillow, unable to shake the memory of Rhonda’s staring eyes and gaping mouth from her troubled mind.
So, she had two choices.
Go to the police or forget everything she had seen.
She knew the right thing to do was report the murder she’d witnessed, but either way, Rhonda would still be dead. She couldn’t put that wrong right.
Her fingers were still quivering. The look on Stefan’s face had been so focused, so devoid of emotion. Thinking about that same face, staring at her, kissing her, when they’d made love… it made her stomach tighten to the point of physical pain.
Stefan was a convincing liar and Lucie was the opposite. If she went to the police to report Rhonda’s murder, she believed, without doubt, that Stefan would carry out his threat and tell them that she was as guilty as he was.
In contrast to Stefan’s convincing line of defence, Lucie knew herself enough to know that she’d quickly dissolve into tears and become vague of details under pressure.
She’s carried Stefan’s rucksack with her in the taxi… how would she explain not reporting him immediately, upon discovering the drugs?
On top of that, she’d seen Gregg in the library and told him everything. So she couldn’t deny she had gone to Stefan’s house!
She tried to reason, to think, through the thick fog in her head.
She’d been infatuated with Stefan, maybe even loved him, and she’d certainly trusted him completely. In the space of a few hours, that trust had been utterly destroyed. Lucie was in shock at the sudden revelation that she had been sleeping with a monster.
It could easily have been her, suffocated to death in Stefan’s room. She would only have had to put a foot wrong, or anger him in some way. She shuddered, unable to process the horror of it.
Maybe, if she’d realised Rhonda’s own disturbing history, they could’ve been friends. Rhonda had seemed infatuated with Stefan, but she’d owed him. And he had betrayed her, just like her own family.
Lucie’s eyes prickled in regret.
What a sad end for poor Rhonda. A waste of a young life.
She’d realised pretty quickly that the only way she was going to get out of Stefan’s house unscathed was to play along with him, at least for the time being.
Gregg’s words echoed in her head. He’s always taking girls back there…
/> She’d been an utter fool. Naïve and stupid. And now, she’d even managed to put her own dear dad in danger.
Her overriding thought was that she just wanted it all to stop, to go away.
‘Please God, please let it be OK,’ she whispered.
She wanted to get away from this godforsaken place and go back home to live safely and predictably with her father again.
She pulled the quilt around her and buried her face in the rough, starched pillow. It offered little comfort.
She wished she’d never left Nottingham. She’d never in her entire life wanted to hear her father’s voice as much as she did right now.
An hour later, Lucie sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall, a blank expanse of cream-painted woodchip wallpaper.
She’d spoken to her father, and his response had been as expected; to say he was gutted was an understatement.
Still, the upshot of the fifteen uncomfortable minutes she’d spent on the phone was that her dad had grudgingly agreed to re-engage the man-with-the-van to collect her packed belongings the day after next.
It was hard to keep her thoughts on track. The logistics of going back to Nottingham seemed so inconsequential now, although it was of utmost importance to Lucie to get back to the safety of home as soon as possible.
A girl was dead because of Stefan O’Hara, and Lucie was the only person apart from him who knew what had happened.
How could it be that only yesterday, she’d lain in his arms in her own bed and he’d been so caring, so considerate?
Lucie felt sick and ashamed, her guilt and remorse laced heavily with worry. Stefan hadn’t told her what he intended doing with Rhonda’s body. What if he was caught disposing of it? What if the police came looking for Rhonda and Stefan told them that Lucie had killed her?
The fact that Lucie hadn’t gone to the police of her own accord made her look incredibly guilty. But if she did go to the police, Stefan would implicate her in the murder anyway and they would both go to prison.
How easy it was to judge others for the decisions they made when one wasn’t inextricably linked to them. If someone had recounted her choice to her, Lucie felt certain she would have said that the right thing to do was take her chances and report the crime.
