The Death of Jessica Ripley

by Andrew Barrett

  “How can I stop it? I can’t bear it eating at me like this, day in and day out. I can’t bear it!”

  He took a breath. “I could come over there and console you, which I’m pretty sure ain’t high on your wish list. Or you can get a fucking grip. Take charge of your life, Jessy.” He smiled, and winked at her.

  Her anger dissipated. “And how do I do that when I’m already in their sights?”

  “Stay in their sights. But be covert,” he said, “like Jason Bourne. Take your revenge, and you’ll sleep better, trust me. I just proved it.”

  She watched his face, the way the dirt in the wrinkles turned almost black as he smiled. “What have you done?”

  “Not read the news today?”

  “I’m depressed enough as it is.” His smug grin intrigued her. “Why, what’s happened?”

  Tony leaned forward, elbows on knees, and he whispered, “Who do you hate most for killing you? For killing us?”

  “Sebastian.”

  “No, no, no. Apart from him. Who do you blame?”

  “Marchant.”

  Tony sat back, crossed his legs, smugness personified. “He ain’t no more.”

  Jess closed her eyes, then said, “Why can’t you just speak plainly—”

  “I killed the fucker.”

  Her eyes sprang wide.

  Tony nodded, laughing. “I did him proper, Jessy. You’d’ve been proud of me.”

  “You killed Marchant?”

  He nodded again.

  She leaned back against one of the cupboards and felt the wind being kicked out of her until she couldn’t breathe any more. Collapsing like a dying balloon.

  How long before they come for me? “You fucking idiot.”

  “What?” His proud smile faded.

  “I’m on licence. They’ll come straight round here and put me in cuffs.”

  Tony slapped his leg. “No they won’t, lass. Ain’t no way you could’ve killed him the way I did. I swung a pickaxe right through his car window and through his throat.” His smile returned, loaded with more pride, and then turned to laughter. Only when he risked choking on his own euphoria did he quieten down and look across to her, sitting on the floor, her face wet with fresh tears. “Oh, come on, Jessy! I did it for you, woman! Why can’t you be happy?”

  “Because I wanted to kill him.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was Tony’s turn to be dumbfounded.

  “I dreamed about it all the time I was inside. I longed for Michael, but I dreamed of killing that bastard. He bent over so easily in court; he just accepted everything, challenged nothing, and all I needed was for him to fight for me. To do his job. He was on the take. Had to be.”

  “You ain’t no killer, Jess.” He sat forward again, a challenge on his face. “You might’ve dreamed about doing it, sure. You might’ve imagined shooting him or drowning him, setting him on fire, maybe.” His tormenting smile drifted away and he became serious. “But it’s a lot different than you might imagine. Knowing you’ve taken someone else’s life is…” he searched for the word. “Breath-taking. No. No, it’s not; it’s nauseating.”

  He cleared his throat, and used his hands to try and get the feeling across to her. Jess was mesmerised. “It’s their eyes. You see their eyes change. I ain’t talking about the dead fish-eye thing, y’know, the milkiness, cos I wasn’t around long enough to see that. I mean the fear.

  “If they see it coming, their fear is contagious. It grabs you, and your heart kicks against it. You see their fifty years of existence coming to an abrupt end like… like…” He clicked his fingers. “You ever seen one of them tower blocks being demolished, or a chimney stack? It’s like that. They’ve spent a whole lifetime building their tower, growing, getting families and networks and whatever else it is that people fucking do, and” —he clapped his hands together— “bam! It’s gone. All of it. In an instant. Their whole history.” He stared at her. “And you did it. You.”

  “I still—”

  “I thought it would be a lot easier than it turned out to be. I wasn’t sick, but I nearly was. And not because of how gruesome it was; that didn’t bother me. But I was the one who demolished his tower. It’s a big deal, Jess. It’s the biggest there is.”

  Tony began to slide from the chair, and Jess gave him a sharp look. He sat back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know. I thought I was doing you a favour. Honest I did.”

  She sobbed, hands over her face, crying like she’d lost a parent. And she was like that for ten minutes before she peered through her sticky fingers and said, “Why now?”

  “Huh?”

  “You had twelve years to kill him. Why wait till I get out?”

  Tony sniffled. He rolled a fresh cigarette, looking at her all the while. He lit up and took a long drag. “You have no idea, do you?”

  She stared, waiting.

  “While you was away, I found out where they all lived. All of them what put you behind bars when they should have released you without charge. I followed them, each of them, Jessy. And I made notes in a little book; got their addresses. Even learned their routines. Some of them, anyway.” He patted his jeans pocket. “Still got them, right here.”

  “Why, Tony?”

  He held out a hand. “Shh. Give me a chance, will you?” The smugness was dead. “I didn’t kill him while you were away because our lives was on pause. In my head, anyway. I thought when you came out, we… Well, I thought we’d pick up right where we’d left off, you know.” He stared at her but she gave away nothing, simply watched from between her fingers. He continued, “And when you did come out… Well, I could see that you was different. Of course you was; how could I be so stupid! I could see, Jessy” —his voice shrank to a whisper filled with cracks and pauses— “that they’d broke you, done some real damage. The bastards. There was no chance we could just pick up where we’d left off.

  “It was dead. We was dead.” He dropped his head, and the cigarette shook between his fingers.

  “Is that why you didn’t come to my door wearing a three-piece suit to impress me?”

  He shuffled a snort out of his nose. “Honestly, if I thought I had a chance, I would’ve.” He shrugged. “Anyway, this is my street gear, keeps me warm on cold nights.”

  “You might be a scruffy git, Tony, but I appreciate you being a gentleman.”

  “Me! Ha!”

  “It’s true. I like that you didn’t come here to get me back.” She noted the hurt in his eyes. “I mean, that wasn’t your priority. You tried to look after me first before thinking about anything like that.”

  He nodded. “That is true. But they’d taken you away from me, and I cherished you so much; I’d have done anything to keep you with me. Anything at all.” He settled a wistful gaze on her and held it there. “That’s why it hurt me,” he said. “I waited every day of those twelve years, holding on to us being together again. Eventually I needed help, you know… getting through.” He looked up, smiling, but it was a failed attempt at bravery. His tears said so. “They’d taken you away from me, see. And I knew I couldn’t let them get away with it; I knew you’d not forgiven them and decided to move on. They killed you, Jess. They killed us.

  “So as well as locking you away and crushing you; as well as splitting you up from your son, and breaking us two apart, they’d imprisoned me too, killed me. They turned me into this.” He blinked and a tear rolled into the creases of his false smile. “I killed him, selfishly, for me, not for you. He ruined my life too.”

  Jess dropped her hands away, pulled a sleeve across her damp face and stared at him. Those last few words… They sent a shiver up her back.

  Hope sparkled in his eyes. “And I did it because I wanted to get rid of all the shit in your life, Jess. I wanted to be your knight in shining armour. Do you understand me? It’s complicated, I…” His voice cracked.

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “And there’s something else, too. I found out he was up for retire
ment in a few weeks. He was moving abroad. Florida, I think. And once that bird took off, there would be no chance of nailing him. It had to be done quick. So can you forgive me for stealing your thunder?”

  The sobbing came again. “It can’t end here, though,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Why, Miss Moneypenny… you do scrub up well.” Eddie smiled at her. It wasn’t the smile he reserved for meeting new people he wasn’t allowed to be honest with – that was a fairly flimsy affair and easily dislodged. This smile, the one he pointed at Moneypenny now, was genuine, and it shone in his eyes.

  “Thank you, Eddie.” She reached her arm out awkwardly.

  Eddie tried to shake, missed her hand and masked the awkwardness by leaning in for an air kiss and bumping heads.

  She smelled good. Better than his dad did.

  She sat down opposite him, and Eddie soaked up the view. Between them was a small vase with some plastic flowers drooping over its edge, and next to it a wooden contraption with a stack of menus, the dog-eared laminated kind covered in greasy fingerprints, tomato ketchup, and old sneeze-matter. They were so large that she was hidden from him. He peered around them, and then just picked one up and dropped it on the floor

  How come he’d never seen past the cleavage while at work? How come he’d walked past her every single day?

  “How did your meeting with Mr Crawford go?”

  “Who? Oh, the new boss man.” He shrugged. “Same suit, different arsehole.”

  She nodded as though she knew what he meant.

  “Anyway, we didn’t come out to talk about work…” He rubbed his hands together and realised his palms were sweating. He felt like a youth again: clumsy, uncertain, and full of doubt.

  She obviously felt a little uncomfortable at being scrutinised so closely. “How come you call me Moneypenny? Are you suggesting you’re James Bond?”

  Eddie’s smile gave birth to a small laugh. “Me? James Bond? Nah. I’m more like Mr Bean.” He stared again.

  “So…?”

  “Oh. Well… I know your surname is Darling, or something. I’ve seen it on your lanyard.”

  “Darlington.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. But I don’t know your forename. Moneypenny suited you. I mean – it suits you.” He didn’t know it, but he was smiling again, and it made her look away. “So, what is your name, Miss Moneypenny?”

  “It’s—”

  Eddie’s mobile phone rang. It was ‘Who Are You’ by The Who.

  Her smile died, and Eddie’s heart sank. “I thought I’d left this bastard thing at home.” He read the screen, and closed his eyes.

  “Everything alright?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Work. I have to answer.”

  She nodded.

  “This is like every cop show since 1978, isn’t it?” He pressed ‘ok’ and said, “Collins.” He listened for a moment, eyes wandering around the restaurant as it grew busier. He made an effort not to look at her but his gaze was still drawn, so in the end he just stared.

  “You’re fucking kidding.” It came out louder than he’d intended.

  Moneypenny’s head disappeared into her shoulders with embarrassment, and she mouthed, “Sorry,” at those who glared and tutted at them.

  “Right. Give me twenty minutes.” Eddie put away the phone and sighed across the table at her.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Sorry. I feel really bad.”

  “It’s okay.” She stood and gathered her handbag and phone. “Perhaps we can do it again sometime? Only for a bit longer?”

  Eddie was at her side, pulling her chair out so she could stand, and he felt almost heartbroken. Five minutes. That’s all the gods could spare him for – five fucking minutes? Really? He gritted his teeth and although there was genuine anger there, he felt such remorse, such sorrow. “I would love to. And I promise not to bring my phone with me.” He found it hard to smile, but he didn’t want his anger to be the last thing she saw of him. The screaming tantrum could wait.

  “Must be serious?”

  He nodded. “Murder.”

  “I don’t know how you do your job; I couldn’t face all those bodies, all that blood.”

  “I’m not a real human. Anyway, when you’ve seen people skinned and disembowelled, you’re kind of immune to the ordinary stuff.”

  Someone nearby retched.

  He realised, too late, that there were certain things one didn’t discuss in polite company.

  He walked her back to her car and watched her drive away. “What’s your name, Miss Moneypenny?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It took her twenty minutes to walk around the block.

  The orange street lamps cast cones of putrid light, turning the raindrops to flashes of gold as they fell through it, allowing them a brief moment of beauty before they became annoying again. Just another lie.

  Cold. Jessica pulled up the collar of her coat, squinted into the rain and stared at his house.

  She saw him in the lounge, reflections from a cinema-sized television shooting flashes of coloured light around the walls.

  Tony had given her this address.

  She walked up the driveway, around some big flash car, a Jaguar maybe, confident there was no CCTV anywhere near this place. The closer she got to his front door, the more shredded her nerves became.

  To distract herself, she played images of Michael on the private screen inside her head: the show where the coppers led her from the house, cuffs out front digging into the knobbly bone on her wrists, people looking on, staring at her as some copper mumbled something about missing his meal break because of her, the selfish bitch. She thought of Michael, and strangely, she thought of the washing-up – how it needed drying and putting away. A job unfinished.

  The nerves fled; the old anger returned and settled in for the show. This, too, was a job unfinished. But this was something she could put right.

  Jessica walked up a single step and into a porch with a gentle overhead lamp that glowed through a tangle of dusty webs. She stared at the door: ornate black studs against white paint. They reminded her of the old entrance to Armley jail.

  Anger got comfy and nodded its head at her.

  She knocked and through the bay window she saw a shadow grow tall on the wall, and then fade. She saw the hall light go on, and the top of a bald head bobbed along the hallway towards her. The latch clicked and then the door opened.

  An old man peered out. The lines on his face were fissures. His watery blue eyes seemed to squint even though his lower lids drooped. He looked her up and down, then those eyes settled on hers, and eventually he smiled. “Hello.”

  His ears were longer, his hair thinner, whiter, and his nose redder, tiny veins creeping near the surface. The last time she’d seen him, he’d looked considerably larger around the waist, considerably younger. But that’s what happens to a person after twelve years of feasting on the deaths of others.

  “Hello,” she said in her friendliest voice, “I’m really sorry to bother you, but I wonder if I might use your telephone to ring the AA?” She held up her phone, and smiled an ironic smile. “Battery’s dead.”

  The old man studied her, paying no attention to her prop. “Come on in out of the rain, dear. You must be wet through.” He opened the door wide, and the opulence smacked her right in the face like a wad of cash. She marvelled at the velvet wallpaper, the oak panelling, the walls adorned with proper paintings, and a grandmother clock ticking seconds in the corner behind her like death’s metronome. She shivered.

  The door closed behind her, and she could feel him staring. “Telephone’s through here. Come on through, won’t you?”

  She followed him along the hall, watching his unstable gait, shuffling twisted feet in old man’s slippers, his back bent from leaning over stainless-steel tables all day, and he led her into a kitchen that was larger than her entire bedsit. Dazzling white lights from above, mellow LEDs set into the marble floor, central
breakfast island with leather stools placed geometrically around it. “Wow,” she said. “I bet your wife loves spending time in here. I’d live in here if I could.”

  “She did. Not now though; been dead eight years.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, no, that’s okay. Death comes to all life,” he smiled, and his long yellow teeth peered out at her, framed by wire-thin lips. “I have a very philosophical view. And anyway, despite all this,” he whispered, as though his wife might still be listening, “she couldn’t cook to save her life.” He laughed, “We spent more time unpacking takeaways in here than cooking.”

  Jessica laughed too. Anger tapped its fingers, and she felt admonished.

  “Let me take your coat; it’s wet through. You’ll catch your death.”

  She stared at him, at his unfortunate choice of words, but she allowed him to remove her coat, feeling the need to get him on side and lower his defences. Anger shook its head and shouted, “Get on with it!”

  He’d already hung it on a coat hook by the back door by the time she remembered her knife was in the inside pocket. The one she’d brought here to stab him with. He turned and stared at her again, and she wondered if her nervousness shone out.

  He wasn’t exactly subtle; his old eyes clung to her curves like a drowning man clutching a buoy.

  He didn’t recognise her, though. Why would he, after all this time? She wondered how many people he’d cut open in the last twelve years, and how many times he’d fucked up and given the wrong information to the police. How many times had he made the wrong call because he was incompetent or lazy, or both?

  Still he stared at her. Unashamedly. Eyes roaming, feasting. Anger looked on with new concern.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  And that made her heart trip. Did he recognise her, after all?

  “I really don’t mean to be rude; I know it’s jolly bad manners to stare. But I am unable to avert my eyes from beauty. I love art, you see, and you are a goddess among angels.” He smiled warmly. “I hope I don’t come across as a dirty old man, I really don’t mean to. But I don’t get many goddesses in my house these days.” He laughed, a high-pitched chortle that made her smile. “I have a cleaner who calls twice a week, Mrs Watkins. She’s more of a gargoyle than a goddess.”