by Kate Fulford
“What we need to do is find a way to ensure that she knows she can’t get the ring if anything happens to either of us.” I said. I was thinking as hard as I had ever thought before and it did actually hurt a little.
“So Mar . . . .” Meg began.
“Shhh. Don’t say her name.” I warned Meg in a hushed voice. “I know it’s not very likely, but we don’t want anyone to hear anything that might . . . well, you know. The thing is,” I continued, “we need to make sure that she needs both of us alive if she’s ever to get her ring back. And,” I continued, “that she knows that she needs both of us alive. But how . . . how . . . ?” I mused. Then suddenly it hit me. “What,” I asked Meg, “exactly did you say to Mar . . .”
“Shhh!” hissed Meg.
“Oh, oh yes.” I lowered my voice. “What exactly did you say about where the ring was?”
“I told . . . her,” Meg explained, “that it was somewhere she would never get it, not if anything happened to me, at least.”
“Good, good.” I think I might have rubbed my hands together at this point, but that might have been on account of the cold. “And where actually is it?”
“Right here,” said Meg, pulling the great rock from her pocket. “It was in my cardigan pocket the whole time!”
“Put it away.” I said, very firmly. “Right, this is what we are going to do. Are you listening carefully?” Meg nodded her assent but it still took me about half an hour to explain my relatively simple plan before she got it, and even then I wasn’t entirely sure she understood what she had to do. She assured me, however, that she did.
“But why won’t she just forget about the ring and try to kill us anyway?” Meg asked.
“Because,” I explained, “she hates to lose, so she won’t give up trying to get her ring back. She might have tried to kill . . . both of us, but my hunch is that she wants her ring back more than she wants us dead.” I very much hoped I was right or it might cost both me and Meg dear. “And in the meantime,” I continued, “we will be working on another plan to make sure that we have her trussed up like an oven ready turkey.”
“So this isn’t the end?” Meg looked rather crestfallen.
“I’m afraid not.” I said, resignedly. “We can never let our guard down, not against a foe like Mar . . . like her. And now I’d better go or I’ll be late for work.”
“What is that you do, really?” Meg asked. “You’re not an actress are you?”
“No, I’m not. I’m an estate agent, so you can see why I keep it to myself.” I’m not an estate agent, but I did once work for a letting agent so it was almost true.
CHAPTER 30
“I don’t see what possible purpose can be served by our meeting.” Marjorie said, rather haughtily, when I called her. She seemed rather taken aback to hear from me but she must have realised that I hadn’t died as Gideon might have thought to mention it to her.
“Perhaps you should come along then, and be enlightened.” I replied.
“I can’t imagine anything on which you could enlighten me,” she continued in the same haughty manner.
“Perhaps that says more about the limits of your imagination than it does about my ability to enlighten.” I replied, or at least that’s what I choose to recall that I said. I may not have been quite so eloquent in the heat of the moment. “But don’t come if you don’t want to,” I said, calling her bluff, “it really is up to you.”
She clearly knew by now that I was not only in cahoots with her husband but also with her twin (I was cahooting pretty indiscriminately by this point). She also knew, or suspected, that her twin had her precious ring so she had no choice but to meet me. This, however, didn’t prevent her from acting as if she had some agency in the situation. The upshot of all this verbal sparring was, predictably, that Marjorie did agree to meet me but insisted that she should choose the venue (an expensive hotel on Richmond Hill, and I doubted she’d be picking up the bill) and the time (when I should have been at work). So it was going to cost me on all sorts of levels to meet the hateful woman.
“So what is it that you have to say to me?” Marjorie said as we sat opposite each other, a tower (literally) of afternoon tea on the table between us. From the large window to my left I had a spectacular view of the snow covered water meadows that border the Thames at Petersham. Its beauty was not my main concern right now, however.
“In many ways, Marjorie, we want very different things.” I began. “Our desires are, one might say, diametrically opposed. I want to live . . .” I let that hang in the air for a moment, “happily ever after with you son. You would rather I did not.”
“My only concern is for the happiness of my son.” Marjorie had taken a scone from the tea tower and now proceeded to cut it in half before slathering each piece with jam and cream.
“That scone looks huge,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’d like to share.”
“No, I would not.” She cut one of the halves in half again and shoved it into her mouth. “I don’t like sharing,” she added threateningly, although her threatening tone was undercut by the fact that she was speaking with her mouth full.
“No, you don’t, do you?” I observed.
“I like to keep my things to myself,” she continued, having swallowed the scone. “Perhaps if you had had the misfortune to be born a twin you might understand.”
“I would like to live happily with someone that I love.” I replied. “Perhaps if you had had the misfortune to be orphaned at the age of six you might understand.”
“I suppose you think I should say touché. If I thought for a moment that you loved anyone but yourself I might.” Marjorie shovelled more scone into her mouth. If only it would choke her.
“But let’s not waste our time talking about the past.” I said brightly. “We’re here to talk about the future.”
“Ha!” she exclaimed with such vehemence that a little bit of scone shot from her mouth and landed on the crisp white table cloth between us.
“We are,” I said, pointedly ignoring the crumb, “going to talk about how things are going to be from now on. You see, in addition to your nasty little folder, I also have your ring.”
On such a cold winter’s day it was hardly surprising that we were the only people having afternoon tea. It was therefore only the waiting staff, all of whom were far too discreet to raise so much as an eyebrow, who witnessed Marjorie trying to grab for my bag and in the process come perilously close to toppling the tea tower.
“Not on me, obviously.” I added, having saved the tower with the loss of a single strawberry macaron. “I have put both items somewhere safe. The folder is with a solicitor friend of mine, with instructions that should anything untoward happen to me he, or she, should forward it to Gideon. It’ll give him something to read while he’s grieving my untimely . . . well, departure. And who knows? It might just shake his faith in you.”
“And the ring?” Marjorie replied.
“Ah,” I said, “the ring.”
I was quite pleased with my ruse to control Marjorie’s behaviour through the medium of the ring. It involved placing the ring in a safe deposit box which could only be opened using two keys at the same time. Each of these keys would be placed in its own safe deposit box, and each of these boxes could only be opened by two keys. I would know the whereabouts of one of these secondary boxes, Meg the whereabouts of the other. We would then each take one key from each of these boxes for safekeeping. This meant, effectively, that the ring could not be obtained without the consent, and presence, of both of us. The price for the return of the ring would be Marjorie’s good behaviour. If she was prepared to supply me with a written confession detailing her past sins, to be lodged in a safe place, then we would return the ring. But if anything happened to either of us the ring would be lost to her forever. I was pretty pleased with the plan, if I do say so myself. I had, I thought, stitched her up like a kipper.
“So how many boxes are there?” Marjorie enquired after I had explained my
plan in some detail.
“Three.” I said.
“And how many of them have keys in them?” she asked.
“Two.” I replied.
“And only you know where all are?” She looked at me quizzically.
“No,” I said slowly, “I only know where two of them are.”
“But you know where the box with the ring in is, so what stops you from taking it any time you want?” she asked.
“I can’t because Meg has the other key.” Goodness she was being as slow on the uptake as Meg.
“To the box with the ring in it?” Marjorie asked.
“No to the box with a key in it.” I said, as patiently as I could manage.
“What’s the point of locking a key in a box?” Marjorie looked puzzled.
“Look, I’ll write it all down for you.” I reached into my bag for a pen and paper. I thought perhaps a diagram might help, but I seemed to have come out without any writing implements, which was probably just as well.
“I’ve had quite enough of this nonsense,” Marjorie suddenly announced, “I’m going home.” And with that she leapt up and stalked off.
“But . . .” I called after her retreating back. I was as happy as she was to have this horrendous tea party come to an end but I wasn’t at all sure that she realised that I had, quite literally, boxed her in. As it turned out, the events of the next few hours made Marjorie’s understanding of my master plan (and on reflection it may have been a little too Moriartiesque) null and void.
Marjorie stalked out of the hotel leaving me (as I had anticipated) to pay the bill. I presumed she would be long gone by the time I was ready to leave about ten minutes later. It hadn’t taken that long to pay the bill, but my heart was beating quite fast (and not just because of the size of the bill) and so I had taken a few minutes to calm myself. I used the time to look at the beautiful view and wonder if I would ever, while Marjorie was in my life, have a moment’s real peace. Was Gideon really worth all this? Why, I pondered, didn’t I just up sticks and move on?
The truth was I couldn’t. I was far more attached to Gideon than I had imagined possible. I was also determined not to be beaten by Marjorie. And I sensed that time was increasingly against me. I couldn’t keep moving on indefinitely, and I was unsure that I would be able to settle so well with anyone else now that I had Gideon as a comparison point. All these factors conspired to bind me to the situation in which I found myself. I was, I decided, going to have to make it work, come what may. I am very much one of life’s optimists and so, my resolve strengthened, I headed out to face whatever the future might hold.
I don’t know exactly what I expected to encounter once outside, but it certainly wasn’t the sight that met me in the car park. The weather had ensured there was no one around, which was just as well because I have no idea what a spectator other than me would have made of the scene. Meg and Marjorie were locked in physical combat. Each had hold of the other’s hair, and Meg, or it might have been Marjorie, also had a grip on Marjorie’s, or it might have been Meg’s, arm. They were going round and round tugging at each other, their free arms flailing about as each tried to land a blow on the other. And the language! If words really could produce colours the air around the pair would have turned very blue indeed. I made my way over to them as quickly as I could (the car park had been gritted but it was still treacherous), and managed to pull them apart.
“Give me my ring!” the one who must have been Marjorie bellowed. They were both dressed in startlingly similar outfits and even up close it was almost impossible to tell them apart.
“I will not!” Meg screamed back.
“She hasn’t got your bloody ring,” I said, positioning myself in front of Meg and shielding her from Marjorie.
“She bloody has!” Marjorie retorted furiously.
“Oh yes I have, you bitch.” Meg replied, waving the aforementioned ring at Marjorie from behind the safety of my human shield.
“Why is that here?” I demanded to know. Meg had promised faithfully that she was going to deposit it, as per my now tattered plan, in a safe deposit box.
“I wanted to see her face when she saw I had it,” said Meg, slipping the ring on her finger and taking a moment to admire it. “Suits me doesn’t it?” It was the admiring glance that was almost her undoing as Marjorie lunged and almost grabbed Meg’s hand. All she managed to do, however, was dislodge the ring slightly. Meg pulled her hand back as hard as she could causing the dislodged ring to fly off and skitter across the ground, where it bounced off a largish piece of grit and pinged under a parked car. All three of us threw ourselves to the ground in pursuit, but it was Meg who was quickest. Grabbing the ring she leapt up with an agility I would not have expected of a woman her age, and headed off up the very steep lane that connected the hotel car park to the top of Richmond Hill. Marjorie and I set off in pursuit. Meg had the march on Marjorie, but being some years younger and much fitter than either of them it took me no time to catch up with Meg.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded to know, as I drew level. “We had a plan!”
“You had a plan, but you haven’t had a lifetime of her getting her own way in everything.” Meg was fuming.
“And how is this going to stop that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Ask her.” Meg snapped back at me.
“Ask her what?” I replied.
“Ask her . . . about . . . Teddy . . . Claus.” Meg was a little out of breath as it was a very steep hill and she was moving quite fast.
“Who?” I replied.
“Ask her!” Meg shouted again as loudly as her breathless state would allow. I dropped back to where Marjorie was struggling up the hill.
“Who’s Teddy Claus?” I asked.
“Is she still going on about him?” Marjorie managed a nasty sneer despite being short of breath.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He was her precious little teddy, and I took him for myself.” Marjorie said.
“Why?” I asked, outraged on Meg’s behalf.
“Because she loved him. So I took him.” She looked inhumanly smug as she recounted this bit of unpleasantness from their childhood.
“Why didn’t you just take him back?” I asked Meg when I caught up with her again.
“Because she destroyed him.” Meg almost shouted. “She cut him up with Mother’s dress making scissors.”
“Why on earth did you do that?” I asked once I was back by Marjorie’s side.
“I didn’t want him,” Marjorie said, almost nonchalantly, or at least as nonchalantly as an elderly woman walking very fast up a steep and icy path could manage. “I just didn’t want her to have him.”
“She really is a bitch, isn’t she?” I said once I was back with Meg. We were fast approaching the gates to Richmond Park and Meg, despite her breathlessness, was still going strong. I was pretty knackered however as I not only had to cover the ground they did, but also keep running backwards and forwards between them.
We carried on across the park, Meg striding out in the snow, Marjorie huffing and puffing along some hundred yards behind. I, meanwhile, was running as fast as I could in the conditions between the two women trading a lifetime of stories of hurt and bitterness. It was as we approached Pen Ponds that Meg finally mentioned Malcolm.
“I was actually in love with him,” she said, “you can tell her that. I never let her know before. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.”
“I know she was,” Marjorie responded when I reported what Meg had said. “That’s why I did it. It was for her own good.”
“How do you work that out?” I asked.
“If he’d loved her he wouldn’t have been so easily persuaded to marry me, would he?” Marjorie sneered.
“You told him you were going to send me to prison if he didn’t marry you.” Meg shouted her response directly at Marjorie who was now only a few feet away. We had come to a stop by Pen Ponds, not that you could see the actual pon
ds. They were presumably frozen and a thickish layer of snow covered their icy surface. To anyone unfamiliar with the topography of the park they would have been invisible.
“Oh come on, Meg.” Marjorie bellowed. “Even you can’t really believe that. He didn’t want to marry you. He wanted a career and to make a lot of money, and that’s what I gave him. What could you have done for him?”
“I wouldn’t have been a cold hearted bitch who didn’t care whether he was happy or not,” Meg bellowed back. “You’ve only ever cared about getting what you want. Like this lovely ring. But you haven’t got it now, have you? Have you?” Meg taunted Marjorie, waving the ring around above her head.
The two women had gradually moved closer to each other, leaving me unsure what I should do. I wasn’t that keen on getting embroiled in another fight between the pair of them. I am pretty strong and they were a lot older than me, but I wasn’t sure how long I could realistically keep them apart. They did outnumber me after all. They were, by now, almost toe to toe. They looked like prize fighters at a weigh in, each trying to psyche the other out.
“You’re pathetic, you really are,” said Marjorie, “if you weren’t so hopeless you wouldn’t have ended up with such a sad, pathetic life. Go on, keep the ring, I can always buy another one. With all that money I got from Daddy.”
“You . . .” Meg looked at her sister, hatred emanating from every cell of her body.
“How do you think I paid for the ring?” Marjorie continued. “It was your inheritance. Your money. Just think of what you could have done with the money I spent on that ring.” If I had thought Marjorie couldn’t get any nastier I had clearly thought wrong.
Meg made an unearthly sound which I presumed encapsulated a lifetime’s impotent fury. It was a noise of such ferocity that for a moment even Marjorie lost her equanimity. Unfortunately the moment had passed before Meg launched herself at Marjorie, who took advantage of the fact to grab the ring. I knew I had to do something so pushing myself between them I somehow managed, in the melee that ensued, to get hold of the ring myself. I have never liked jewellery, and I felt particular antipathy towards this ring, so without a moment’s thought I threw it as hard and as far as I could over the heads of both women.