by Frank Smith
Beth closed her eyes and breathed deeply, then dialled the number.
‘Yes?’ The answer was curt. A man.
‘Could I speak to Nancy, please?’ She could hear sirens in the background. He was probably watching TV.
‘Hang on a minute.’
Beth gripped the phone. Please! Please hurry, Nancy, before I lose my nerve.
‘Hello?’
Her hands were ice cold. ‘Hello, Nancy,’ she said hesitantly. ‘You probably don’t remember me, but my name is Beth Smallwood. You helped me when Lenny was in court, and you told me that…’
‘Beth? Of course I remember you. How are you?’
Beth felt tired. Almost too tired to go on, but the throbbing pain reminded her of what she must do. ‘I need your help,’ she said simply. ‘I lied in court and I have to tell someone.’
* * *
Beth lowered herself into a chair. She was exhausted. Tomorrow, Nancy had said. ‘Nine o’clock. You know where we are in Charter Lane? Right. I’ll be in the office. Ask for me and I’ll take you to someone who will take your statement.’
She’d done it! A tear slid down Beth’s cheek as she thought what it might mean. She could go to prison, but that didn’t seem to matter now. Nothing mattered any more. She had to make things right. She’d tell them everything. About Lenny; about the drugs; about embezzling the money.
She gasped as the silence of the room was shattered by the shrill ringing of the phone. Was there to be no end to the assault upon her senses? She clutched her head, covered her ears to shut out the sound, but it went on and on. She felt as if her head would burst.
Beth could stand the sound no longer. She rose and crossed the room to snatch the phone from its rest.
‘Hello!’ she answered angrily.
There was silence at the other end, and for a moment she thought the caller must have hung up. Then, ‘Is this Mrs Smallwood?’ a voice asked hesitantly.
‘Yes, it is,’ she snapped, and instantly regretted it. The side of her face pulsed with pain, her tongue was swollen and she felt as if her mouth were full of cotton wool.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve caught you at a bad time,’ the voice went on. ‘This is the Reverend Parslow, Mrs Smallwood. I wondered if…’
‘Oh! Oh, dear. I am sorry, Reverend.’ Beth stopped. She didn’t know what to say.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Smallwood? You sound, well, muffled.’
‘Sorry. I – I was eating something.’
‘Ah.’ Then in a puzzled voice: ‘You’re not having your tea, are you? It’s almost eight o’clock.’ Parslow spoke as if he thought no one should be eating at that time in the evening.
‘No. It’s just…’ Beth felt very tired and it was hard to talk with this great lump in her mouth. ‘What do you want?’ she asked wearily.
‘It’s about the wedding at St Justin’s,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I made a mistake about the date. It’s tomorrow, Tuesday, not Friday, and wondered if you could see to things this evening? I realize it’s short notice, but since you live so close I didn’t think you’d mind.’
Beth leaned her head against the wall. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t do it. Not tonight. ‘I’m sorry, Vicar…’ she began, but he cut in before she could finish.
‘There’s not a lot needs doing,’ he said. ‘Just the altar brasses and the candles. I don’t know when they were last replaced, but the candles were quite low when I was in the other week. We should have new ones for the wedding, don’t you think? You do have some, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I have some here, but…’
‘Good! Good. That’s all right, then. I do appreciate it so much. I don’t know what we’d do without people like you, Mrs Smallwood. Sorry if I interrupted your tea.’
Beth put the phone down. What was the use?
She looked toward the mantel clock. Dear God, would this day never end? The last thing she wanted to do was go out again, but she supposed she must. She went into the kitchen and splashed water on her face, then dabbed it gently with a towel. There was blood on the towel. She moved to the mirror beside the door, peered into it and groaned.
Her face was a mess! Thank goodness she was only going up the lane to the church. The swelling covered one side of her face, half closing one eye, and there was a small cut above the eyebrow. She’d meant to put a cold compress on it but there wasn’t time to stop for that now. Besides, it had stopped bleeding.
Getting dressed was painful, and when she heard the rain against the window, Beth felt like giving up. She sighed heavily. Better put her wellies on just in case.
Beth went to the sideboard and took out a pair of tapered candles. They were longer and heavier than most, and still sealed in their Cellophane wrapper. She thought of the young couple getting married tomorrow in the old church. She’d never met them, but she wished them well. At least she could start them off with fresh candles on the altar.
She was on the point of leaving when a thought occurred to her. She must phone and let them know she wouldn’t be in tomorrow. Not Gresham, though. Her face burned at the very thought. She looked down the list of numbers on the pad beneath the phone, and began to dial.
* * *
‘I’d like a word with you, Beth Smallwood.’
Startled, Beth almost dropped the bag she was carrying. She turned to face the speaker. ‘Lord! but you gave me a fright, Mrs Turvey,’ she said, clutching her chest. ‘What…?’
‘As if you didn’t know,’ the woman sniffed. ‘That boy…’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Here, what happened to your face? Did he do that?’
‘Who? Lenny? Oh, good gracious, no, Mrs Turvey. I – I fell getting off the bus.’
The woman eyed Beth suspiciously. ‘He did, you know,’ she said. ‘I heard it through the wall. Shouting and carrying on. He beat you up, didn’t he?’ Mrs Turvey peered closely at Beth’s face. ‘You’re a fool, Beth Smallwood,’ she said not unkindly. ‘He may be your son, but he’ll be the death of you if you let it go on.’
She sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Beth, but I’ve had enough. What with that bike coming and going at all hours, and that rock music in the middle of the day, it’s more than I can stand. I’m going to ring the police and let them sort him out. He’s a danger to us all.’ She turned and made as if to go back inside the house, but Beth caught her arm.
‘No! No, please, Mrs Turvey,’ she pleaded. ‘I have been on to the police – not twenty minutes ago. You’re quite right, I can’t let it go on. I realized that tonight. I’ve told Lenny he must leave, and I have an appointment to see the police first thing tomorrow morning. Really.’
Doris Turvey eyed Beth uncertainly. ‘You just see that you do, then,’ she said sternly. Her voice softened. ‘I know it must be hard, but you have to do it, Beth, or you’ll end up being one of them statistics they keep on about. I don’t know how you’ve stood it for so long.’
A gust of wind drove a spattering of rain beneath the eaves, and Beth fumbled with her umbrella. The bag she’d been carrying fell to the ground, and the candles slid out. She bent to pick it up, but gasped as a sharp pain shot through her hip. She must have hurt it when she fell, but she hadn’t noticed it until now.
Doris Turvey pursed her lips. ‘You ought to have that looked at,’ she said as she bent to pick up the candles and put them back in the bag. ‘And that mouth of yours. I can hardly understand you. You shouldn’t be going out at all.’
‘I – I’m quite all right, thank you,’ Beth said shakily. The pain was subsiding and she just wanted to get away. ‘It’s nothing, really.’ She took the bag and glanced at the sky. ‘I have to get these candles to the church. There’s a wedding there tomorrow, and they need new candles for the altar.’ She opened the umbrella and stepped out into the rain.
Doris Turvey watched as Beth set off up the lane. She shook her head and sighed. ‘I hope you’re telling me the truth, my girl,’ she muttered softly. ‘For my sake as well as yours. I can’t take much more of this.’
The sound of the lich-gate banging shut brought Tony Rudge to his feet. He moved swiftly to the window and lifted a corner of the piece of sacking covering the window. He leaned into the embrasure and pressed his face against the glass in order to see who was entering the churchyard. It had been raining, and a woman was shaking out an umbrella as she walked up the gravelled path. She had a scarf over her head and he couldn’t see her face. Probably someone wanting to look round the old church, he decided, but she’d soon leave when she found the door was locked.
He visualized her mounting the church steps and trying the door. He listened but could hear no sound. She’d soon be gone. He turned from the window and drew deeply on his cigarette.
The girl sitting on the floor with the open sleeping bag draped around her shoulders watched him through half-closed eyes. She, too, was smoking, but in the manner of someone newly introduced to it, filling her mouth with smoke, then tossing her head back and exhaling quickly. Trying to show him how grown up she was, he thought. Silly little cow.
The sleeping bag slipped from her shoulders as she reached out and butted the cigarette in the makeshift ashtray, a blue-edged saucer stolen from the guest house where she worked. The guest house owned by Tony’s father. She put her hands behind her head and arched her back. Her full, young, hard-nippled breasts thrust upward, her eyes inviting him to touch, to feel the creamy texture of her lissom body, and Tony felt a stirring in his loins again.
‘Come back to bed,’ she coaxed. ‘I’m getting cold.’
He shook his head, listening, but heard nothing. He turned back to the window and peered out. No sign of anyone down there now. The woman must have gone.
‘Bet you can’t,’ the girl teased.
Tony butted his own cigarette and moved toward her. ‘I bet I can,’ he said, standing over her.
Her eyes grew round as they travelled up his naked body. ‘I’ll bet you can, too,’ she breathed, and reached for him.
* * *
Tony felt the tremor in the floor beneath him before he heard the sound. Half dozing with his face buried in Amy’s neck, he was instantly alert. Someone was in the church. The sound could only have come from the heavy studded door below. He rolled off the sleeping bag, groping for his underpants and jeans. Amy stirred, burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag and went back to sleep.
Tony pulled on his trainers and moved swiftly to the corner of the room. He paused, watching the girl; making sure she was asleep before stepping through an opening to the stone steps leading down.
* * *
Someone was shaking her. Violently. Amy felt as if her neck would snap. She tried to speak but she couldn’t get her breath. ‘For Christ’s sake wake up!’ she heard as through a fog. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on the face in front of her.
‘Tony! What the…?’
‘Get dressed,’ he ordered, stripping away the sleeping bag. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. And make sure you take everything with you. We don’t want anyone to know we’ve been here.’
Amy scrambled to her feet. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’ she asked as she began throwing on her clothes.
Tony snatched the sleeping bag from the floor and began to roll it up. ‘There’s been an accident,’ he said. ‘We have to get out of here. Fast!’
‘Accident? What sort of accident? What happened?’ Amy stopped what she was doing. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Here, you’re having me on, aren’t you? Tony? Stop a minute.’
Tony dropped the sleeping bag and grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘For Christ’s sake, move, you stupid little cow,’ he snarled. ‘There’s a dead woman down there, and I don’t intend to hang about here to be accused of having something to do with it.’
‘Dead? Who’s dead? You said it was an accident. What happened? Why should anyone…?’ She gasped as his fingers dug into her shoulders. His eyes blazed and he raised his hand as if to strike her. He was shaking, and his face was white. She cringed and closed her eyes, waiting for the blow to fall. Abruptly, he turned away. ‘Do what you bloody well like,’ he muttered peevishly, ‘but I’m getting out of here.’ He began picking up the remains of the meal they’d had, sweeping the cartons from the take-away into a pile. He looked around for something to put them in, then unrolled the sleeping bag and dumped everything into it: cartons, cigarette butts, a couple of tattered cushions, a paperback book, and a broken candle. Last of all, he picked up the saucer with the lighted candle on it.
‘Get your coat,’ he told her roughly.
Amy snatched up her coat. She was frightened, now. Tony’s actions scared her. ‘The sack,’ she cried, and Tony paused. ‘Get it,’ he told her, and smiled grimly to himself as she dashed to the window and pulled the sacking down. That was a bit more like it.
He shielded the candle. It was almost completely dark outside, and he didn’t want anyone wondering why there was a light coming from the belfry.
She handed him the sacking and he dumped it in with everything else. He pulled the lighted candle from the bed of wax in the saucer and handed it to Amy. ‘Hold on to that,’ he instructed, ‘and don’t let it go out. I don’t want to break my neck on those stairs.’ He dumped the saucer into the sleeping bag, then twisted the corners together to form a pack.
Amy led the way down the worn stone steps, holding the candle high. Tony put a hand on her shoulder as she reached the bottom step. ‘Open the door carefully,’ he whispered. ‘No, wait!’ He reached over and doused the candle. ‘Now open it,’ he said.
The girl frowned in the darkness. What was he afraid of? Even now she only half believed there was a dead woman in the church. But he was scared shitless about something.
‘What the hell are you waiting for?’
‘All right! Keep your hair on.’ Amy opened the door and stepped out into the porch. Tony followed, setting the sleeping bag down as he transferred the key from the inside of the door to the outside and locked it.
Suddenly, Amy clutched his arm. ‘Tony! There’s someone in the church!’ she hissed. ‘There’s a light.’
He shook her off roughly. ‘I know. I know,’ he said irritably. ‘The lights were on when I came down the first time.’
‘What about the woman? I want to see…’
‘There’s nothing to see,’ he growled. ‘Now come on!’
‘I don’t believe you,’ the girl said stubbornly. ‘Nobody’s dead. They can’t be. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Tony, but I’m going to have a look.’ She moved swiftly to the open doors leading into the nave.
‘I don’t give a shit what you believe,’ he hissed. ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’
But Amy was gone.
Three dust-encrusted bulbs hung on twisted flex from the vaulted ceiling, but the light they shed seemed to barely reach the floor. Two candles flickered dimly on the altar. Amy shivered. Their presence there seemed somehow sinister.
‘There’s no one…’ she began, then caught her breath. Was that a shadow on the steps?
‘Oh, Jesus!’
She wanted to run, but her legs refused to move. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see the outline of a crumpled figure. Almost against her will, and certainly against her better judgement, she found herself tiptoeing down the aisle.
‘Amy! For Christ’s sake, what do you think you’re doing? Come on! There’s nothing you can do.’ Tony hoisted the sleeping bag and its contents on to his shoulder.
But Amy barely heard him. It was as if some external force compelled her to go on.
‘Look, I’m going. Are you coming?’
The girl ignored him. The aisle was short. An umbrella, partly open, was lodged on one of the pews to dry. Her mother had always said it was bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. Was it the same inside a church, she wondered?
The woman lay on her side as if she’d been kneeling and had fallen over. Her arms stretched out in front of her, and her pale hands lay like dead butterflies against the ancient
stone. Two short candles lay just beyond the outstretched fingers, and beside them was a strip of crumpled Cellophane. Her open mac was pulled to one side, and the dress beneath had ridden up above her knees. A few feet away, as if thrown there, a handbag lay open, its contents scattered across the floor.
The woman’s face was covered by her hair. Auburn hair. Amy reached out a timid hand to push the hair aside and touch the face. It was cold. Her exploring fingers moved the head, and it rolled over to reveal a dark, sticky mass of matted hair, its auburn strands stretched like cobwebs to the blood-soaked stone.
Amy almost fell over in her haste to pull away, and the candle she’d been holding slipped from her hand and rolled beneath a pew. For just a second there, she’d thought the woman was alive. But no one could live with their skull smashed in like that. Amy felt her stomach churn as she scrambled to her feet, and suddenly she was afraid. Wildly, she looked around for help, but only shadows moved as the candles on the altar flickered fitfully.
Tears spilled down her face. ‘Tony!’ she screamed as she ran back up the aisle. ‘Tony, wait!’
The outer door stood open, but Tony was no longer there. Amy ran to the door, calling out again, but her cries were swallowed in the gathering darkness. From behind the church came the sound of a car being started. Lights flashed beyond the churchyard wall as the car shot into the lane. Tony! The bastard was going to leave her there. She ran down the steps as the car picked up speed.
The squeal of tyres drowned out her cries as the car slid to a halt beside the gate. ‘For God’s sake shut up!’ he snarled as she scrambled in. He crashed the gears and the car leapt forward. Amy slid down in the seat and stole a glance at Tony. His face was set. Like stone. She shivered. He frightened her.
Wind whipped at her hair as the car gathered speed. ‘What about that poor woman, Tony?’ she ventured timidly. ‘We can’t just leave her.’ Amy’s voice trailed off as he looked at her.
‘What woman?’ His eyes bored into hers.