by Thorne Moore
‘Serena Whinn happened. She was my terror. Was. Now she’s dead. Gone. In an ocean of blood.’ I looked at my hands. They were clean, but I could still feel gore on them.
Malcolm was silent. There wasn’t anything, really, he could say.
‘I thought the police would have come for me by now.’
‘Do you think you killed her, Karen?’ There was no disgust in his eyes. He was asking what I might be imagining, not what I had done.
‘The police will tell you. I should have called them from her house, but I just had to get away. I was covered with it. The blood. I’ve put my clothes in a bag, so they can take them away for forensic examination, or whatever they do. I ought to call them now, oughtn’t I? Can you do it? Tell them where I am. I’ll wait.’
He started to speak, stopped, sighed, then started again. ‘Look, Karen, I don’t think you need to call anyone just yet. I think you need to eat, and rest and see how you’re feeling after another good night’s sleep.’
‘Do you think? But I had your van. They’ll probably come to you first. You’ll tell me when they come, won’t you?’
‘Yes. I will. I promise.’ He gazed round my room, searching the chaos for something, anything to offer a change of subject. To wean me off this nightmare delusion I was obviously having. ‘Would you like me to sort some of your books, Karen?’
Sort my books. Yes, they needed sorting. I began to laugh.
I waited for the police to come. I waited for insanity to return. Neither seemed in a hurry. Malcolm brought me some soup for supper. He was back the next day, and the next, just to check up on me. He could see that I wasn’t having a turn, after all, despite this fantasy of bloody death I seemed to be nursing. I couldn’t bring myself to press on him the reality of Serena’s end. I was saving it for the police.
On the third day, though, he found his own clue to the truth. The bloody towel in the back of his van. He brought it in, shocked. ‘You were hurt, Karen.’
‘No. That’s Serena’s blood. I told you I was soaked. All my clothes are in a plastic bag in the bathroom.’
He had to look for confirmation and he emerged with the bag. I’d taped it shut. He pulled the tape off, opened it and looked in, then flung his head back, choking, and put a hand over his nose. The reek, when it was opened, was sickening. He shut it again, hastily, and looked at me.
‘Yes. All right. Karen.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Did you… What happened?’
‘She’s dead. I watched her die. Blood was spurting everywhere. It was a matter of minutes, seconds it seemed, and she was gone. I should have called the police right then. I don’t know why they haven’t come. I wish they’d come.’
Malcolm had his hand over his mouth. He was thinking hard.
‘She killed Janice,’ I said. ‘I remembered. I remembered everything. So I had to go back and face her. Make her answer for what she’d done. She was evil.’
‘Yes. Yes, I see.’ He couldn’t really, but he was trying to, thinking what to do next.
He didn’t have to think long, because that was when it came, at last. The knock on the door.
Malcolm started, looked nervously at me, and moved to hold me back. To protect me, maybe. ‘Let me deal with it.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m all right. I’m ready.’
I opened the door.
— 23 —
It wasn’t the police, after all. It was four middle-aged women.
Barbara, Angela, Denise and Ruth.
They stood there, huddled, four women who didn’t really want to know each other but who stuck together for protection.
I stepped back, an automatic gesture of surprise, but they took it as an invitation to enter. Barbara strode forward with a curt nod. Angela sloped in, not quite focusing on me. Denise trotted by with an anxious attempt at a smile. Ruth, oozing reluctance, pushed in without looking at me.
My flat wasn’t big, barely big enough for my books, but now it seemed like a broom cupboard. Six people. It had never held so many before. They’d never have managed to squeeze in if Malcolm hadn’t spent a couple of evenings tidying the piles and boxes of books into more compact order. The sofa was empty and a chair had come to light that I’d forgotten all about. Funny, that I was employed to tidy Malcolm’s chaotic shop and he’d employed himself tidying my chaotic flat.
He’d returned the bag of bloody clothes to the bathroom, but the smell still lingered. Noses wrinkled. Quietly, he opened the windows, which helped a little. We got a whiff of the bins outside instead.
There was an uncomfortable silence. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. I’d been psyching myself up for a different situation.
Barbara took charge. It was only reasonable; she occupied most of the room. She was blunt, no nonsense.
‘Serena is dead.’
Denise gave a gasping sob. The others said nothing. They just stood there, watching me.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Ah! As I thought.’ Barbara spoke triumphantly, as if she’d tricked me into a confession.
They looked at each other. Not at me.
‘I’m going to stay,’ said Malcolm. ‘In case you need me.’ He was warning them, I suppose, that they wouldn’t have a free hand with me.
‘Yes, please stay.’ I managed a smile. There was something so utterly sane about Malcolm. He was my lifeline, whatever precipice I was about to hurtle over.
‘All right. I’ll, um, put the kettle on, shall I?’ The standard method of lowering tension.
Barbara stared after him, suspiciously, then she turned back to me. ‘If you know she’s dead, I obviously don’t need to tell you anything.’
‘But tell me anyway. Why has no one come? Wasn’t she found till now?’
‘She was found the day before yesterday. Stabbed. She bled to death. A painter was at her house on the day before. The 11th. They’re saying that’s when she died. The painter’s not a suspect, by the way. A neighbour saw Serena waving him off. The police questioned him though. He told them she’d had a visitor that morning, someone she claimed was an old friend. Her phone records showed that she’d spoken with me the night before, so the police contacted me. I was able to prove that the visitor wasn’t me.’
‘No. It was me.’
‘Of course it was you. Denise had warned me you were on your way to see Serena.’
‘So you were able to tell the police about me. How did you know where to find me?’
‘I had someone at the office trace you, after you came up to Carlisle. You still owe for a consultation.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said Angela, flinging herself down onto the chair.
‘Sorry, yes, sit down, somewhere.’ I waved at the sofa.
Denise and Ruth looked at each other as if it were a game of musical chairs, and there was only one seat left. Then they seated themselves a foot apart. Barbara remained standing and magisterial.
‘I had to tell the others. We knew you’d been to see Serena and now she was dead. It seemed highly probable that you were involved. But the police told me the painter saw her visitor leave, and that created some uncertainty in our minds.’
‘Of course,’ said Denise.
Barbara hushed her. ‘But since you already know she’s dead, there can’t be any more doubt, can there?’
‘It would look like that,’ I agreed.
‘It’s as I thought. But we agreed we should give you the opportunity to explain yourself, before we went to the police.’
‘Yes,’ drawled Angela. ‘We thought, for once, we’d get it right before we blabbed.’
Barbara sniffed. Denise gave a whimper. Ruth continued to stare straight ahead of her, refusing to open her mouth. I wondered how they’d persuaded her to come. Barbara’s brute force, perhaps. I could just see her frogmarching little Ruthie along Farnham Drive, she’d done it before.
‘Are you going to tell us what happened?’
‘First I should tell you what happened in 1966.’ I squeez
ed back to let Malcolm in with a tray of mugs. Did I have six mugs? Apparently. He handed them round silently. It wasn’t the moment for polite enquiries about milk and sugar.
‘I went to see Serena, to learn the truth about Janice. I knew I was to blame, but I couldn’t remember why. I just wanted Serena to spell it out. And she did. She told me how I’d killed Janice, in a fight, and then invented the story of her getting into a car to cover it up.’
There was an intake of breath. Of shock only from Malcolm. From the others it was a gasp of satisfaction.
‘It’s better to confess and face up to it, Karen.’ said Denise, earnestly. ‘Believe me. Only that way can you find true redemption.’
‘Oh shut up,’ said Angela.
‘Why did you always suspect I’d killed Janice?’ I asked. ‘You did, didn’t you?’
They weren’t expecting the question. They exchanged querying glances, waiting for someone else to speak.
‘It was obvious. The car story simply didn’t add up. We believed it at first, of course. But later…’ Barbara, naturally.
‘Later, when Serena sowed doubt in your mind about it, perhaps?’
‘Well of course, she could see as well as any of us that it was simply absurd. It made far more sense that you killed her.’
‘So much sense that I believed it, too, when Serena told me so. I did drive away from her home, like the painter said. But I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to go and drown myself in a canal. Instead, I went back to Sawyer’s Lane, in Marsh Green, and when I was there, I remembered how Janice really died.’
I told them. I spelled it out in as much detail as I could bring myself to describe. I could feel my body trembling, but inside I managed to keep calm. Denise was quite right. Confession did bring a sort of redemption. I was telling them the truth, and they might be incapable of believing a word of it, but there it was, whether they believed it or not.
I stopped.
There was silence. Total silence.
‘No…’ Someone whispered it, but I don’t know who. Of course they wouldn’t believe it.
Barbara began to sway, dropping her mug. Angela was out of her chair and guided Barbara to it. Barbara sank down heavily. Angela settled on the floor, staring at the carpet, then softly, with hiccups, began to laugh.
‘Stop it!’ said Denise. ‘Stop it!’ She burst into tears.
At last, Ruth looked at me. ‘Serena said I really ought to tell the police about my father’s photographs. Because he was always taking photographs of children and he might have taken pictures of Janice and caught the murderer on film. She actually made me feel proud that I’d provide the vital clue. So I told them. They wanted to see his latest film, and he didn’t want to hand it over. But he had to, and when they saw what was on it, they came to search the house and found the whole filthy lot. She got me to inform on my father. My father, the pervert.’
Barbara was shaking her head, more in convulsion than in denial. ‘How could Serena have known he’d been hoarding kiddie porn?’
‘She knew! I saw a lot of those photographs. Of me, and all my friends. All of you, including Serena. None of us suspected he was doing it, did we? He had us all, getting undressed, or in the bath or on the toilet or in bed, but we all looked completely unaware. Except Serena. He captured her looking straight at the camera. And smiling. I could never understand why.
‘Why did I always do as she ordered? She said I had to be friends with you.’ Ruth glared at me belligerently. ‘All that pretence I had to go through. I didn’t even like you.’
‘That’s all right. I didn’t like you, either.’
Ruth scowled and then laughed. ‘Bloody performing monkeys, weren’t we?’
‘Like a puppet on a stri-ing.’ Angela’s attempt at singing ended in a croak. Or a choke.
‘She told me it was Nigel’s car,’ whispered Denise, clawing her knees. ‘She said afterwards she didn’t, but she did. Almost. Really she did. She said you’d seen Janice getting into a dark car, and then she started talking about how dark didn’t have to mean black. It could be brown or purple, like Nigel Knight’s car, and how you’d definitely mentioned something about wood, and what a pity it was that you were the only one who saw it happen, because you were being naughty and refusing to talk to the police, and if only someone else had seen it, they could describe it properly. And I thought – I thought…’
‘She knew you loved to tell tales,’ said Ruth.
‘I didn’t!’
The others said nothing, just looked at her.
‘God forgive me.’
‘She bet me I could outrun the police dogs,’ said Angela. ‘I was itching to try, too. She said even Nigel could probably outrun them, but we’d never find out, because the police had no clue where to look, and Nigel probably had a secret hiding place somewhere, which they’d never find. So I had to go and tell them, didn’t I? Where the poor innocent would be hiding like some cornered hare. I don’t know why she had to get me to give him away? They’d have found him easily enough without me. That’s what dogs are for. Why did she have to manipulate me?’
‘Because she could,’ I said. ‘I think she was addicted.’
Barbara was staring at me, broodingly.
‘She got you to propose the Ouija board at Christmas, didn’t she?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘She tried to convince me you were the one moving the glass.’
‘Good God, it wasn’t me!’
‘It was the Devil!’ said Denise. ‘If you mess with satanism—’
‘It was Serena, for Christ’s sake.’ Angela tossed a book across the room. The Snow Goose. Malcolm silently retrieved it.
‘Of course it was Serena,’ I said. ‘I knew it couldn’t have been Barbara. She had a message too. The cat.’
Barbara clamped a hand to her mouth. We waited. She swallowed hard. ‘She got me to kill a cat.’
‘Jesus.’
‘She knew I loved cats. One of her neighbours had one, a lovely thing. It used to roam along the row of gardens. She told me her other neighbour hated cats and he threatened to catch it and burn it alive if he ever found it on his vegetables. She was terrified he’d do it, so she told me we needed to frighten it off, so it would never dare go anywhere near Mr Michael. Her parents were out. And the neighbours. No one was around. She went in and fetched this gun.’
‘Gun!’
‘Yes. A revolver. It was big and heavy. She told me, later, her father had it because he was a policeman. I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe it was a relic of the war. She said it was too heavy for her, and I’d have to do it. I’d have to fire straight at the cat, so the bang would scare it and it would go home and be safe. It was just sitting there, in the sun. I suppose I thought the gun wasn’t loaded, or maybe that I couldn’t possibly hit it. But I did. I killed it. We hid it in next door’s compost heap. I killed the cat!’
Barbara sobbed, and Denise rushed out of her seat to pat her. ‘I don’t care what you say, it was the Devil. I think Serena was possessed.’
Barbara wriggled free and sniffed. Her jaw set. ‘When she reappeared in England, after all those years abroad, she contacted me. Said she’d heard I was a solicitor and she’d love to have an old friend managing her affairs. She came to see me, at my office. She pulled this… this bloody gun out of her bag, said she’d been trying to get rid of it for years, and could I take charge of it? What could I say? I thought she must have forgotten how I’d shot the cat. She never mentioned it.’
‘Like she never mentioned my father’s filthy photographs,’ spat Ruth. ‘But she turned up on my doorstep one day and said how wonderful to meet up again and wasn’t it a lovely time at school, and here was a photo to remind me of all of us. It was us, all of us, at the swimming pool, getting changed. Angie and me were still wriggling into our suits. I don’t know who took it. Maybe it was one of my father’s. She handed it to me, like it was a prize. Said how we must all keep in touch, in future.’<
br />
Denise, who had been pulling faces of abject misery, crumpled on the floor with a loud wail. ‘She came for me, said she’d take me out for a drive. Because we were old friends and she wanted us to be friends again. She came in a Morris Traveller. Maroon!’
‘Came to sympathise,’ said Angela. ‘With me being lame. After being such a good athlete. How tragic. I’d been so good, I could even out-run police dogs. Did I remember how I’d raced against them? I was just beginning to forget. After that, I couldn’t forget, ever again. Never will, now.’
There was a moment’s silence, then ‘Dear God,’ said Malcolm.
‘Why?’ asked Ruth. ‘Why did she do it?’
‘Why did we let her?’ added Angela. ‘She only had to say “dance,” and we’d dance. All except Karen. What’s your magic? How did you escape?’
‘Did I? Twice she had me set on committing suicide. The first time, I nearly succeeded.’
‘And the price of resistance was madness?’
‘So it seems.’
‘Oh.’ Ruth managed a laugh. ‘And those of us who didn’t resist remained sane?’
Barbara dabbed her eyes. ‘We were children. How were we supposed to know our best friend was a psychopath?’
Another prolonged silence. Then Denise came to me, gripping my hands, so hard she threatened to cut off the blood supply. ‘Forgive me, Karen, for having ever suspected you. I should have known you couldn’t kill Janice. You weren’t guilty like me. I killed Nigel Knight with my lies. That’s the truth! The whole truth.’
‘Not the whole,’ I said. ‘I’d like to know the rest. What happened to the Dexters?’
Another exchange of glances. ‘The council moved them,’ said Ruth.
Angela barked a laugh. ‘They caused trouble. Imagine. The nerve of these people. A couple of the boys were arrested for riot or something. So, sweep them away to another estate. Out of sight, out of mind.’
‘And Mr Knight?’
‘Mr Knight died. Heart failure. Brought about by an overdose of something, but Dr Winterton kindly ignored that. Wasn’t so much the death of Nigel as the way his good friends and loving neighbours turned on him so readily. We were a lovely bunch, weren’t we?’