Drown My Books

by Penny Freedman

  He was a long time upstairs, so long that at one point she panicked and went and banged on the bathroom door to ask if he was all right. She thought of him cutting his wrists, which was ridiculous because everyone used electric razors these days, didn’t they? But she cursed herself for not clearing Lily’s stuff out of the bathroom. They would all be there still, her bottles and oils and creams. Stupid to leave them.

  By the time he came down, she had blitzed the living room and was making coffee. ‘You look better,’ she said, although truth to tell he didn’t much. He was cleaner, certainly. He had washed his hair and shaved but that only emphasised how pale he was, how sharp the bones in his face, how red-rimmed his eyes, how dark the circles under them. They sat with their coffee in the sitting room and Emma produced a Twix which she had brought with her, and handed him a stick.

  ‘I was thinking about Lily’s books,’ she said. ‘You won’t read them, will you?

  They both looked across at the four short shelves that housed Lily’s collection of paperbacks.

  ‘They’re not doing any harm, are they?’ he said.

  ‘They’ll make you sad if they stay there.’

  He jerked back with a rough crow of laughter that sent his coffee slopping over his hand. ‘We can’t have that, can we?’ he said. ‘Can’t have me being sad. Get rid of every trace of Lily and bingo! Everything’ll be fine!’

  She felt herself flush. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said. ‘I know how hard this is for you.’

  He put his mug down on the floor and got up. ‘Actually, you don’t,’ he said. ‘You’ve got no idea. You can’t begin to imagine it. All those songs I’ve sung about losing the one you love and I didn’t come close to knowing what it’s like.’

  He walked out of the room and came back wearing a jacket. ‘I’m going to meet the guys down at the pub,’ he said. ‘Do what you like with the stuff.’

  When he had gone, she finished her coffee and ate Jack’s stick of Twix. Then she went over and looked at the books. She was no reader herself, except for magazines, and the titles didn’t mean much to her. One or two of them she thought were probably famous, and they all looked in decent condition. She went and rummaged around in the cupboard under the sink for some plastic carriers and started loading the books into them. When she got to the bottom shelf she stopped. The books there were different, hard backs, more like school books, she thought, from when Lily was doing A levels, and probably not the sort of thing that a charity shop would want. She sat back on her heels and considered. What she needed was someone who could tell her whether it was worth lugging these books into Dungate to the Oxfam shop, or whether they would turn them away. Alice, two doors down, ought to be able to tell her; she was a teacher. Emma was not all that keen on teachers. She had been a practically minded child for whom ordinary life was full of interest and what she learnt in school didn’t seem to connect to that. Teachers got disappointed with her and school had seemed one long nag. Still, she had met Alice a few times and she seemed nice. She got up and went out.

  Ringing and knocking brought no one to the door, however. She stood, shivering, on the doorstep, listening to a dog barking from next door, and it occurred to her that next door was that woman who organised the book group Lily had been so keen on. She was a bit weird, and she reminded Emma of some of her teachers, but it was worth a try.

  She rang the bell and the volume of the dog’s barking increased. She heard footsteps inside and then a voice called, ‘Who is it?’. The unfriendliness of the tone took her aback but she said, trying to keep a note of apology out of her voice, ‘I’m Emma Terry. I’m Jack’s sister.’

  The door opened a crack. The woman wasn’t old – no older than her mum, at any rate – but she opened the door like old people do, as though only an armed robber could possibly be on the doorstep. When she saw Emma, however, she opened the door wider and held onto the dog’s collar. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’m Gina.’

  From then on, it was quite straightforward, if a bit embarrassing. She agreed to come round, took a look at the shelf of books and said, ‘Ah, bless her. She’d have done well if she’d carried on with her A levels, you know.’ Then she had knelt down and gone through the books and looked at them and her face had settled into a frown. Looking up at Emma, she said, ‘I’m afraid some of these aren’t, technically speaking, yours to give away. Lily seems to have had them on “permanent loan”.’ She made a little speech marks gesture with her fingers. Then, when she saw that Emma didn’t understand, she said, ‘Lily nicked them, I’m afraid. They’ve got school labels or library labels in them.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks,’ Emma said. ‘Sorry – but what am I supposed to do with them?’

  And Gina took pity on her. She said she would take them and see if the county library and the school wanted them back. ‘Leave it to me,’ she said, as she bundled the books quickly into two bags. ‘I expect you’ve got enough on your plate. How do you think Jack’s doing?’

  ‘He’s angry,’ Emma said.

  Gina picked up her bags. ‘Wouldn’t you be?’ she said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

  Sunday 23rd February 2014

  I think I probably doze a bit in the hour before daybreak, as you often do after a sleepless night. I come to, stiff and miserable, and my stomach immediately curdles in apprehension. I look at Caliban, who has been unsettled by my apparent collapse and is eager for the reassurance of our routine morning walk. I know that I am too frightened to leave the house, though. Even with the dog beside me, I can’t face encountering Simon. ‘Sorry, Cal,’ I say. ‘You’ll have to wait a bit.’

  I make a cup of tea and sit down with it, dunking digestives into it in the hope that they will quieten my gastric churning, and berating myself for short-sighted stupidity. How could I not see that this would happen? It was all very well for Alice to tell me that Simon would be frightened off by Caliban, but I’m still living next door to a man who hates me, aren’t I? And who still might be Kelly’s killer, even though it turns out that Alice is safe. If he doesn’t move house, I shall have to, and that is ridiculous.

  I say quite a lot of this out loud and Caliban listens attentively, thinking, I suppose, that I might drop some clues about my intentions vis-à-vis our morning stroll. ‘All right,’ I say, ‘but mind you stay close by.’ I wrap myself in outdoor gear and go out to the garden to squint up at Simon’s bedroom window. The curtains are closed and my hope is that he took to the whiskey bottle last night and is now sleeping it off. We walk out into the purplish grey silence of a February dawn and walk alone and unmolested along the soggy sand. I almost enjoy it.

  Steadied by this successful foray into the outside world, I shower, wash my hair and change into decent clothes. Then I make some toast and take a look at my phone in its bed of rice. It remains resolutely dead. I consider a trip into Dover for a new one. The buses are few and far between on a Sunday, though. Tomorrow will be soon enough.

  So, how to spend the day? Domesticity seems to be the answer, so I change the bed and do some hoovering, which I haven’t done since I cleaned up for Freda’s arrival. Then I trawl the fridge and fish out ingredients for a chicken casserole, which I shall cook slowly in a low oven so that its aroma fills the house and comforts my ragged senses. Chopping and stirring with the radio on, I begin to feel almost tranquil, until a ring at the door startles me into terror all over again.

  I take my time, washing my hands and taking my apron off before I go to the door. I call out, ‘Who is it?’ in a ridiculously old-lady fashion and it turns out to be Jack Terry’s sister, whom I have met once or twice and who seems quite harmless. I open the door and let her in, hanging onto Caliban, who is as primed for danger as I am. It seems she wants help with Lily’s books, and she is looking quite frazzled so I go with her to have a look at them. The house smells powerfully of bleach and air-f
reshener and feels startlingly alien. Is this young woman consciously eradicating even the scent of Lily? Lily moved in a musky aura of aromatic oils, and she extended that to scented candles and joss sticks around the house. How does Jack feel about this new, aseptic environment? And where is he, for that matter?

  I don’t ask and I don’t comment. Emma is doing her best and I am running out of neighbours to antagonise so I turn my attention to the books. Lily’s little bookcase has been cleared except for the bottom shelf, so I get down on the floor to see what is there. They are mostly hardback classics – her A level texts, I assume: The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Cressida, Sense and Sensibility, Toni Morrison’s Beloved and a selection of Keats’ poems among them. Lily was at the grammar school and I am surprised that she would have had to buy her own texts. When I pull a couple out and look at them, though, I see that she didn’t. The school labels are still stuck into the front of them. When Lily dropped out of school she took a few trophies with her. And I’m not sure anyone else could have used them anyway. Lily was into heavy annotation – comments scrawled in any available space and lavish highlighting. There are also some History textbooks and Eric Bentley’s The Life of the Drama and David Edgar’s How Plays Work. These last two are paperbacks with the plasticised covers of library books and I see that they have county library labels in them. Oh, Lily. Pulling out the next book, Clare Tomalin’s biography of Jane Austen, I feel something tucked behind it, between the book and the wall. I pull it out and I know immediately exactly what it is. I glance round at Emma Terry, who is half watching me but not really paying attention. I slip the thing between two books and sit back on my heels, thinking, with a rising panic, about what this means and what I should do.

  I probably would have offered to take the books and restore them to their owners anyway, but as it is they make a convenient cover for spiriting away my find. I ask for a couple of carrier bags and I carry it all away. Back at home, I drop the bags, get my gloves from my coat pocket, put them on and dig out my alarming find from one of the bags. I lay it on the kitchen table and look at it. I will not, I decide, investigate it further. This time, I won’t get into trouble with Paula. I shall ring her immediately and hand it over.

  Except I don’t have a working phone. I look once more into the box of rice but the thing is obviously never going to speak again. I think about phones I might beg the use of and immediately rule out all my neighbours. Simon is out of the question, obviously; Harry, I wouldn’t ask a favour from except in direst need; and I can hardly go back and ask to use Emma’s phone, can I? I could cycle round to Lorna’s or Lesley’s but I am reluctant. It’s Sunday lunchtime and they will be spending a cosy day with their husbands – even doing family lunch, perhaps. I don’t want to turn up like a sorry petitioner on their doorsteps, single and helpless. Pride again. So there is nothing for it but to make the trip into Dover and hand this thing over to Paula myself. I run down the road to the bus stop to consult the timetable, find that the next bus is at two o’clock and scoot back, heart pounding as I pass Simon’s door.

  Back home, gloved again, I slide the thing into a plastic freezer bag and then sit down to eat some of the chicken casserole, which would have been better with another half an hour’s cooking. Then I brush my hair, put on some lipstick, dress myself in my decent coat and boots and depart for the bus stop. I notice, as I pass, that there are no lights on in Simon’s house, although it is the sort of day when you are likely to have a light or two on all the time. I worry briefly that he may have gone in pursuit of Alice and the boys but remember that he doesn’t have a car. Where is he then?

  The bus is ten minutes late, leaving me anxious and exposed on the deserted road, and when it comes it is virtually empty. An old man is dozing at the front and a young woman is struggling to control two small children at the back. I settle myself midway and devote myself to thought. I have a pretty good idea now of what my find means, and Paula will know for sure once she has had a look at it. I don’t need to work it all out but old habits die hard.

  As I am walking towards the police station, it occurs to me for the first time that Paula might not be there. It is Sunday, after all, and Paula is convinced that she is not looking for a serial killer so she won’t necessarily be working round the clock. I try to imagine Paula’s Sundays. The gym, I think, and maybe a trip to the supermarket. Perhaps a pub lunch with friends? Or with family? Is she the sort to go to her mum’s for Sunday lunch? Does she have nieces and nephews she dotes on? I really don’t know. I have never thought of her as anything other than a police officer, but she must have another life, mustn’t she? Or perhaps not.

  At the station, I ask the desk sergeant if I can speak to her and he says she is not available. That doesn’t tell me whether she is in the building or not and he won’t be pressed to elaborate.

  ‘Look,’ I say, brandishing my evidence bag, ‘this is important evidence in the Kelly Field murder case. DI Powell needs to see it right away and I need to explain to her how and where I found it. Otherwise she won’t understand the significance of —’

  He raises a hand to stop me, and then prises the bag from my fingers. ‘I’ll pass this on, Mrs…‘ he checks my name in his log ‘… Sidwell, and DI Powell will be in touch if she needs any further information. If I can just take your phone number?’

  He stops, pen poised.

  ‘I don’t have a phone,’ I say.

  He puts down his pen. ‘No phone at all?’

  ‘Not of any kind. I only have a mobile and I put that in the washing machine. Not on purpose, you understand, but because it was in a pocket and I got attacked by a dog.’

  I have, I can see, lost any credibility I ever had with him.

  ‘Address?’ he says. ‘Or haven’t you got one of those either?’

  Meekly, I give him my address, but I am not convinced that he is going to make passing the bag on to Paula any sort of priority.

  ‘It really is important that DI Powell gets that asap,’ I say, ‘and I think I ought to leave a note with it, explaining where I found it.’

  He makes a be my guest gesture but he doesn’t offer me the wherewithal to write the note, so I find an old shopping list in my bag and pick up his pen. I cross out dog biscuits, milk, washing powder, potatoes and printer ink and, on the back of the paper, I write:

  Found this among

  Lily Terry’s books.

  Have not investigated it.

  Over to you

  Gina

  I go to put it into the bag but the sergeant stops me.

  ‘Don’t want to contaminate the evidence, do we?’ he says. ‘Not if it’s so important.’

  He condescends to find a paper clip and attaches note to bag.

  That’s it then,’ he says.

  Back outside, I head for the mobile phone shop I have seen. I know what these places are like and what the expectations of their staff are, so I rehearse my manifesto before I go inside.

  ‘No bells and whistles,’ I say. ‘Something I can phone people with and they can phone me on. I like to send texts, and if I can set an alarm on it and take the occasional photo, that’s a bonus, but absolutely nothing else required.’

  I am a huge disappointment, of course, to the skinny young man in an over-large suit who is on lonely duty in an empty shop on this grim Sunday afternoon. I can see that he longs to tempt me to consider something more exciting. His eye lingers on a display of smart silver phones and he starts to explain how very simple they are to use and what a great offer they have on them at the moment, but he sees the steely glint in my eye and takes me reluctantly to a neglected corner of his emporium, where he flaps a disdainful hand at a huddle of little phones in unsmart colours. I choose a green one and say I will have it.

  And I expect that that will be pretty much that. I have had the forethought to bring my dead phone with me and assume that it will be
a matter of moments to substitute the living for the dead. I could not be more wrong. I am not just purchasing this phone, I am entering into a solemn and binding agreement, an agreement hedged about with no little ceremony and a good deal of signing. I could be adopting this phone, so complex is the procedure. We start with payment options. I say briskly that I don’t want to pay as I go, since this inevitably involves running out of call time just when you most need it, and I want the cheapest monthly tariff as I don’t talk to people much and if I want long conversations I go to people’s houses and talk to them. I think cutting to the chase like this is helpful, but I can see it is sending him into a panic. He is like an actor who finds that someone has cut several speeches in a scene so he doesn’t know where he is in the script. There is nothing for it but to let him take me through all the options, dilating on their pros and cons, until it is my cue to say I will take the cheapest monthly tariff and we can move on. I recklessly give out my bank details and sign a sheaf of documents in places marked with a cross. Then I get out my debit card in preparation for paying and departing for the three-thirty bus home.

  But we are not done yet. Now, the laundered sim card must be replaced with a new one, and a Byzantine series of operations performed in order to transfer my number to the new phone. Now the new card must be registered. Now the real interrogation starts.

  I am asked searching questions about my provenance (mother’s maiden name) and history (I am asked the name of my first pet; this is to be memorable information to support a password which I expect never to use). My salesman types the information I give him into his computer and gazes solemnly at his screen. He then moves away to make a phone call, for confirmation, comes back and does more typing. The prospect of the three-thirty bus fades and vanishes. Finally, he says that all seems to be in order and I prepare to sign again in multiple spaces. He stops me in my tracks. ‘Before we do that, he says, ‘there is the question of the disposal of the old phone,’ and he launches into a lecture on Defunct Mobile Phones, Safe Disposal of.