The Last Stage

by Louise Voss

  ‘So why did you say he was picking you up? Why not just meet him at the pub in the village, near his workshop?’

  There was a long silence. Finally, Meredith raised her eyes to Gemma’s. ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ Meredith blurted, leaning back against the kitchen counter. ‘I didn’t before, because … well, you’ll see why … but…’

  ‘What?’ Gemma was concerned that Meredith was going to pass out. Beads of sweat had popped onto her brow. ‘Sit down, Meredith. I’m worried about you. What is it?’

  Meredith paused then spoke in a gabble, as if the faster she said the words, the less impact they’d have.

  ‘I had sex with Ralph on the evening he went missing. We were both pissed. I regretted it straight away and went home, but when I got back here I realised I’d lost my key – it had fallen out of my pocket. I went back for it and he was dead on the floor. I must have been the last person to see him alive … apart from whoever killed him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I did CPR on him for ages, but nothing. I panicked. I thought he’d had a heart attack. I knew it was too late to call an ambulance so I rang Pete instead, because I was in a state. He came over – on his bike because the van was in the garage. I took him to where it happened, and we were going to ring the police then, but when I got there, the body was gone. Someone took it, and they must have dumped it in the pond that night. Then I found him the following week. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I know I should’ve said something before, but Paula … Paula’s my friend. I just couldn’t risk her thinking I had anything to do with it, because I didn’t, at least not intentionally. I think the same person killed Andrea. And whoever it was might have found out where I live and work because of that twat Iain McKinnon, and now everything’s ruined and I’m scared and I don’t know what to do….’

  Gemma just gaped at her for a moment. When she’d hoped that going in as a FLO would encourage Meredith to open up about stuff she might have been hiding, she never in a million years expected this.

  This changed everything.

  ‘Meredith … I’m sorry … I’m going to have to arrest you for withholding vital evidence. It’s unlikely you’ll be charged, but … You do understand, don’t you?’

  Meredith nodded, eyes downcast. She seemed almost relieved.

  37

  1995

  Meredith

  I’d always had a terror of being broken into at night; it stemmed from my childhood, after Mum, Dad, Pete and I once came home to a burgled house after a holiday. It was when Pete and I were about thirteen. The glass in the back door had been smashed and the lock forced, and all our stuff was strewn about the place. All Mum’s jewellery had been taken, and our television. Worst of all, the burglar had taken a huge runny shit on the carpet in Pete’s bedroom. The police told us at the time that this was not uncommon. The stress of breaking in made the intruder’s bowels loose, and opening them on the floor was their little calling card. I was secretly relieved that it hadn’t happened in my bedroom – I’d never have been able to sleep in there again. I think that was partly why I liked living in the squat – security may not have been tight, but I was never there on my own.

  After the green-paint incident and all the other threatening things that happened, that little lump of fear started growing out of control. I imagined it like a ball of elastic bands inside me, more and more individual fears being stretched over it until it felt as if it was pushing all my internal organs out of the way to accommodate it, squashing the breath out of me, compressing my heart so it could only manage wing-flutters instead of proper beats.

  I’d honestly have stayed in the squat if I could, even after we signed our record contract, but the police and property developers launched a dawn raid one day soon after our second album came out. Using police helicopters and riot gear and dogs, they evicted everyone. Fortunately we were all away on the road at the time, so we had our meagre possessions with us. It was our neighbours who bore the brunt of it. The raid made the papers: ‘Europe’s Largest Squat Evicted: Famous Residents Include Band Cohen’.

  The boys and I rented a flat together for a year or so after that, but as we amassed more royalties and had more success, one by one they drifted off to buy their own houses with their girlfriends and wives. Then, after we got our big advance, I felt I might as well do the same. Put down some roots, finally. I couldn’t count on the band being around forever.

  Things changed.

  So, a year or so after Cohen had its first million-selling single, I bought a big Georgian house in a smart London street of identical houses. Naturally, security was high on my list of priorities, and ironically, I had an appointment with a bespoke security firm to come and fit cameras and a panic button in my bedroom. I’d booked them for a date that turned out to be exactly a week after it happened. The police did later pursue that line of enquiry, because how obvious would that have been? Raid the house, knowing that it had no alarm. But every member of the security company had a solid alibi.

  And I knew who it was, anyway. It had to have been him – the personification of my nightmares; my paint-throwing tormentor. I was sure of it. I’d been waiting for him, in the sweat-soaked green-painted nightmares I’d been having ever since the album launch.

  I’d only been living in the house a month or so, coming and going via the narrow, claustrophobic, weed-choked alley that ran behind it so that nobody recognised me and realised they had a million-selling pop star living in their street. I’d only met my immediate neighbours, both elderly couples who didn’t, as far as I was aware, have a clue who I was.

  All I had at the time in the way of personal protection was a lock on the bedroom door and a rubber wedge to jam underneath it – token gestures that I’d naïvely thought would give me enough time at least to ring the police, should the worst happen.

  It had been an unremarkable evening and I’d been feeling chilled – until Iain phoned, anyway. I remembered wandering the hallways of my magnolia-painted house, holding up swatches of every grey in existence – dove, soft, dark, pewter – wondering what combination of them to paint the walls in. I could’ve employed the services of an interior designer, but I didn’t want to take the risk that word would get out. I was loving my solitude and seclusion. My own place. I’d come a long way since the squat.

  Everything had been going so well. Cohen was at number three in the UK charts, having just slipped down from number one, where we’d been for the preceding month or so. Unless I went out with a wig and dark glasses on, I was pestered for autographs wherever I went, mostly by students and hippies. So my home was my haven; I was sure I’d managed to keep my new address hidden from the world. Even at the record label, nobody knew it – apart from the accountant who sent out my royalty statements, and, at my behest, she posted them with a fake management company name on the envelope so that nobody knew they were going to me. The band didn’t have a manager – we’d never needed one. We were a collective, not a product.

  Another, less credible, reason I didn’t want anybody, specifically the press, to know where I lived was that Cohen’s ethos was firmly anti-capitalist. I dreaded to think about the field day they’d have had when they discovered I’d recently purchased a sizeable Georgian ‘mansion’. I’d struggled with the decision, but ultimately decided that I would leave it to charity in my will, if I never managed to have any children. I was still embarrassed by it, though; until that point, my terror of word getting out about the house was probably on a par with my terror at the thought of an intruder getting into it.

  Despite the capitalist guilt, I loved my new home. At that point I felt much safer mid-terrace than I would have done in an isolated house in a remote village somewhere; and, once I had moved in, it went a long way to providing me with the security I lacked in any other area of my life.

  Strange that I later ended up living in a cottage in the grounds of a huge country estate that was almost empty at nights; but by then I was in full recluse mode and cr
aved the isolation. Even at the time of the break-in I was already on my way to becoming reclusive. Mum was dead and I hadn’t spoken to Pete for more than ten years – since we had the row over Samantha, who I also never saw again after that horrible night. I had nobody except the band. But I was fine. Happy, mostly. Loving my success. I didn’t even miss Pete and Samantha any more. I didn’t need anybody.

  On the night of the break-in, I cooked myself a chickpea curry, watched something mindless on TV and drank one more glass of red than I ought to have, considering I’d been intending to have an alcohol-free day. My phone rang just before the ten o’clock news, and I glared at it. Who was calling me at this time of night?

  When I saw that it was ‘The Pointless I’, I contemplated ignoring it, but I knew that he’d just keep ringing until I picked up. It infuriated me that he knew I was unlikely to be out partying.

  ‘It’s a bit late, Iain; could it wait till the morning?’

  ‘Hello Merry, how you doing, darling?’ Just from those words I could tell he was drunk.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘In fact, let me call you back, I’m about to—’

  ‘Let me stop you there. Tomorrow’s no good. It’s tonight I’m interested in. And what I’m interested in is you and me getting together – a little nightcap, see where the mood takes us, and—’

  It was my turn to cut him off. ‘Iain. I’m sorry, you’re a…’ I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘great guy’, ‘…really good marketing manager,’ I finished instead. ‘But I’m about to go to bed. I have no intention of any sort of nightcap with you. And I don’t know why you’re asking. The answer hasn’t changed since the last time you propositioned me. Or the time before.’

  It was becoming boring, actually, and I was sure that he only tried it because he couldn’t bear the thought of any woman not wanting to sleep with him. I was pretty certain he didn’t even fancy me. He was a good-looking man but he left me cold, with his bulgy pecs in too-tight T-shirts, overpowering aftershave and thickly oiled black hair.

  ‘Well, there’s something pacif … spec … spas,’ he stumbled over the word, but I couldn’t muster even a wry smile.

  ‘Specific.’

  ‘Yah, that. I’m round the corner from you and—’

  ‘You know where I live?’

  ‘For sure, Merry, how else do you think we know where to send your royalty statements?’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, it’s supposed to be confidential!’

  The thought of Iain flirting with the record company’s accountant to coax it out of her made goosebumps of disgust skitter down my spine.

  I imagined him out there now, swaying on a bar stool in the pub on the corner of my square, possibly even staring at my house through the mullioned bar windows.

  ‘Like I said, Iain, I’m getting ready for bed now; there’s no way I’m going out.’

  ‘Well, don’t let me stop you.’ I heard the lasciviousness in his voice. Bloody men. I should’ve stayed gay; women were just so much nicer.

  But then I remembered Samantha’s behaviour, and thought, well, not all women.

  It was as if Iain read my mind, because what he said next made me want to storm round to the pub – assuming that was where he was – and punch his Afrikaaner lights out.

  ‘I just thought you should be aware that I’m doing you a massive favour here. You see, I’ve learned something about you that you’re not going to want anybody else to know, and unless we’re … careful, they will find out. They will be very interested. And believe me, it would not be good for the band’s image.’

  I tried to sound bored, but panicked butterflies were beginning to flap inside me. ‘What are you talking about, Iain?’

  ‘I’ve had a letter.’

  ‘Right. A letter from who?’

  ‘A letter from someone who used to know you very well. Samantha Applebaum.’

  At the sound of Samantha’s name, the butterflies almost carved their way out of my solar plexus, their wings tiny knives. ‘What did she want? Did she write to you?’

  ‘Not personally, but lucky for you, it landed on my desk unopened. It was a To Whom it May Concern. Pretty snarky letter, in my opinion. She’s not happy with you, is she? But more to the point … I didn’t know you were a lesbian, Merry, you sly old dog!’

  ‘I’m bisexual,’ I said, too hastily. ‘Not that it’s anybody’s business.’

  ‘Ah, but it is. Some would argue that it’s everybody’s business. And you know what all your fans would think? They’d think that you’d lied to them, by omission; that you’re a fake…’

  ‘I’m not a fake!’ I realised I was almost shouting, and had to force myself to calm down. ‘Why did she write?’

  Iain exhaled, a great smug gleeful breath. ‘She wants money. She said that unless we pay her ten grand, she’s going to the papers with the story of your relationship, and how she was the reason that you’re even in the band in the first place, how she was the obvious choice for lead singer but you pushed her out of the running for the job. She even provides a handy PO Box number for us to send the cheque to.’

  ‘Evil bitch. She never even said she wanted to be in the band! She was always away. And anyway, I was just a kid…’ I stopped abruptly. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much this was panicking me. And puzzling me, too. Surely a now-respectable university professor had better things to do?

  At the back of my mind, I’d always had a fearful thought that she might have had something to do with the paint incident – paid someone to do it, perhaps. Or, knowing Samantha, egged them on.

  I was terrified at the thought that Iain or anyone else might know about my past – my relationship with Samantha, and my shameful abandonment of Mum when she’d needed me most.

  The weird threatening letters in green ink addressed to me care of the fan club had been scary enough, and even without the paint incident we – I – had endured more stalkerish behaviour than our peers seemed to get.

  The letter from Samantha was very different.

  In a way, though, I wasn’t surprised we’d heard from her. Her silence all these years was what had been more surprising – she’d always been a terrible star-fucker, basking in the reflected glory of anybody even remotely famous.

  ‘So is Big World going to pay her off?’ I realised I was holding my breath.

  ‘Well that depends. On you,’ said Iain, and my heart sank. Surely he couldn’t mean what I feared he did? ‘We could come to a little private arrangement, you and I,’ he went on, and I thought, shit, he does.

  I looked at my bare toes and had to swallow hard not to vomit over them.

  ‘So you are actually blackmailing me into having sex with you. That’s classy.’

  ‘Oh, Merry! Don’t look at it like that. Let’s just call it a situation where you can scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.’

  ‘I’ll consider it. Don’t even think of coming over tonight though,’ I said, and hung up, shaking, before he could say anything else.

  After that I pottered about, trying to calm down, cleaning up the kitchen, making a cup of tea to drink in bed. I retired upstairs, taking deep breaths in an attempt to quell the tension and fury in my solar plexus. I took a sleeping pill and eventually managed to fall asleep, mindlessly watching some terrible film with the bedroom television on a timer, as I often did when we weren’t touring, gigging or promoting anything.

  A noise from downstairs woke me at 2.55 a.m. – a suppressed but distinct cough. I remember jerking awake, the digital clock on my bedside table imprinting the neon-green time on my bleary, drugged retinas. Foxes often came into my garden, crashing around in the shrubbery and having screaming sex sessions, both of which activities sounded scarily human. But after that cough there was no crashing or shrieking, just an ominous silence … and then, my heart swooping into my throat … a creak on the stairs.

  I must have imagined it. Surely I had! I swallowed hard, and my heart changed its mind and decided to try and hamme
r its way out of my chest instead. I switched on the bedside lamp and leaped out from under the duvet, darted across the room and carefully turned the key in the lock. And that was when I saw the door handle move, slowly and silently.

  38

  Present Day

  Gemma

  ‘Excuse me. I have to make a call – I’ll go outside.’

  Gemma left Meredith sitting in the kitchen, looking as stunned as if someone had just told her this shocking news, instead of the other way around.

  She let herself out of the back door and walked a little way from the house, her heart pounding. Shit, she thought. This changed everything. She felt simultaneously furious with and sympathetic towards Meredith, for not saying anything sooner.

  But then, if you shagged your mate’s husband, you really wouldn’t want to admit it, would you?

  ‘Boss, sorry to call you out of hours but there’s been a big development,’ she said when Lincoln picked up the phone. She could hear loud music in the background, something grungy that she would never have expected Lincoln to enjoy; the Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana or something from the nineties. He’d turned it down to a background hum before she could identify it. It could even have been Cohen.

  ‘I’m at Meredith Vincent’s cottage. She says Ralph Allerton died in an abandoned ice house in the grounds of Minstead House and that someone dumped his body in the pond later.’

  She heard a splutter. Lincoln had presumably taken a swig of whatever he was drinking at the wrong moment.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Meredith Vincent just confessed to finding his body and not saying anything.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘Because they got pissed at the office staff lunch the day his wife reported him missing, and had a sneaky shag after work. Meredith said he was fine when she left him in the ice house, but she realised she’d dropped her keys, and when she went back for them, he was lying on the floor, dead. She did mouth-to-mouth but he was definitely gone.’