Drown My Books

by Penny Freedman

  ‘You could say.’

  ‘Did you ever think about how she might be feeling?’

  ‘Didn’t need to. She made sure she let me know. Phone calls, texts, emails, all the time.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, I tried talking to her at first but I just got abuse so then I just blanked her. After a while it stopped. Then I got together with Lily and it all started up again.’

  ‘And Lily knew about it?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. She was sorry for her at first. You know Lil – all heart. But then the bitch started on her – threatening her – and even she was pissed off in the end. When she read that poem, she started calling her Medusa.’

  ‘What sort of threats did Kelly make?’

  ‘All sorts. But knocking her off her ladder was favourite.’

  ‘And you think that’s what she did?’

  He has only one book left now and he stops his ripping and sits back on his heels. For the first time, he actually looks straight at me.

  ‘She was there,’ he says, ‘at the pub. When I heard the ladder crash, I had to get down my ladder and run round there. Time I got there, Kelly was beside her. Then George came out, but Kelly was there first. Said she’d been using the toilet there – the outside one at the back – and heard the noise. Bollocks she did.’

  ‘You told the police about the threats?’

  ‘No point. They were dead set on it being an accident.’

  ‘But the threats – didn’t Kelly leave any voicemails or text messages on Lily’s phone?’

  ‘She’s a good liar,’ he says, starting on destroying the last book. ‘No point.’

  ‘So you decided to keep it simple and just kill her?’

  ‘I didn’t care what the police thought. I didn’t want them charging her, to be honest. What would she get? A few years inside? That wasn’t enough for Lil. I needed her dead.’

  ‘Why leave the book on the beach? What was that for?’ I ask.

  ‘That was for Lil. It was the closest I could get to Lil being there to see it. ‘

  ‘And then you realised that if Lily’s book was missing, suspicion would be bound to fall on you, so you decided to confuse things by pinching some of the other books. And being an expert at breaking and entering, you took them from our houses, but you couldn’t get Lorna’s because it was at the library, nor Dora’s because she kept it in her briefcase. I should have seen that. It was stupid of me not to.’

  He doesn’t answer. All the book pages are burning now and he is sitting with the last cover in his hands.

  ‘Is that why you hid Kelly’s phone among Lily’s books too – keeping Lily involved?’

  ‘Not really. It was just a place where no one would look…’

  ‘Except your sister.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And why attack Eva?’ I ask. ‘What was that about?’

  Suddenly he is animated. ‘I never attacked her,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean her harm. I’d been thinking about the books and I thought suppose they look for fingerprints and there wouldn’t be one with Lil’s prints on, so best wipe them all off. Then I heard someone coming and did a runner and over she went. But I went back. I gave it a few minutes and then I went back – looked after her, called an ambulance. She was a nice old lady. I didn’t mean her harm.’

  ‘She knew it was you who knocked her over,’ I say. ‘She recognised the smell of you. It’s distinctive – a mixture of window-cleaning detergent and all those joss sticks Lily used to have around. They’re in your clothes, your hair. But she won’t say anything. You’re safe there.’

  He doesn’t respond. I’m not even sure that he has taken in what I said. I draw a deep breath. ‘The thing is, Jack,’ I say. ‘Now I know the truth, I will have to say something. I’m going to have to ring the police.’

  He turns to look at me and the firelight glints in his eyes. For the first time he actually looks malevolent.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he says, ‘cos you haven’t got a phone. I saw your phone in pieces there in that box of rice.’

  ‘But where do you think I’ve been,’ I bluff, ‘if not into Dover to buy a new phone?’

  He laughs. ‘So where is it then?’ he asks.

  I look at myself, perched here, still in my coat and so obviously without the bag and lavish packaging that accompanies a new phone. For the first time, I feel a prickle of fear. He gets up from his crouch by the fire and comes over to me. He stands looming above me and he is positioned between me and the door. His voice is wheedling but his body language is not.

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘you loved Lil, didn’t you? You wanted her to make a good life. Kelly took all that from her. All her future. You don’t really think I did wrong, do you?’

  I have a flash of déja-vu. It wouldn’t be the first time I let a murderer go free. But this is different. He had the evidence of Kelly’s obsession on his own phone. The police would have investigated, they would have found Kelly’s phone and her messages to Lily. The law would have taken its course. He might not like the outcome but grief doesn’t trump everything. And though I’ve told him Eva won’t give him away, I’m still not sure that he might not panic and want to silence her. I am really sorry the killer turns out to be him. I’d have been much happier seeing Simon go to prison, but there it is. However much I don’t want to, I am going to have to knock on somebody’s door and ask to use their phone.

  I am not at all sure, though, that he will let me. I adjust my position for flight while giving a sigh of what I hope sounds like acquiescence. ‘Well, maybe you’re right, Jack,’ I say, and I get up. ‘I’m going to make us a cup of tea – clear all this smoke out of our throats – and we can talk about it.’

  I pat his arm in a motherly sort of way and dodge past him. He follows me down to the kitchen and I fill the kettle and get down the biscuit tin. ‘Chocolate biscuit?’ I ask brightly.

  He says nothing, but stands, blocking the kitchen door. I say, ‘Do me a favour, Jack, will you? Just go and make sure there’s nothing smouldering in my hearth rug. Don’t want to have to call the fire brigade.’

  My voice sounds pretty unconvincing to me but he turns and goes. I clatter mugs for a moment, until I’m sure that he is back in the sitting room, and then I make a dash for the front door. I am, fortunately, still wearing my coat, but there is no time to pick up my bag or Caliban’s lead. He is right behind me, though, and we tumble out into the dark.

  In the short time I have been indoors, it has turned into a vile evening. There is a drenching, icy rain, which is being blown about savagely by the wind. Where do I go now? There is no chance of being given refuge by Harry or Simon and I expect Jack to come barging out of my house at any moment. Caliban has his own answer. A creature of habit, he heads across the road and down the steps to the beach and, for want of a better solution, I follow. I don’t, frankly, feel any safer down here. It is, after all, the scene of Jack’s original crime, but I do cling to a hope that, away from the house, Caliban’s more savage instincts may reassert themselves and he may protect me.

  I am not equipped for the weather, dressed as I am not in my dog-walking anorak but in my proper coat, put on for my visit to the police station. I am wet, cold, scared and – for once in my life – completely without a plan. And then the cavalry arrives. I am aware of flashing lights above me, approaching down the road from Dover. I scramble up the steps and see one – two – police cars which scream to a stop outside Jack’s house. Police officers jump out of the first car. One of them is Paula.

  ‘Hi, Paula!’ I call.

  I can see her because she is illumined by the car lights, but I am in darkness. ‘Gina?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’ I start to cross the road towards her but she holds up an arm as if to ward me off.

  ‘Go back!’ she sho
uts. ‘Keep away. And take that dog with you.’

  And thank you, Gina, for bringing me the evidence that nails our killer, I mutter almost audibly as one of the officers with her leans on Jack’s bell and calls through the letterbox.

  ‘The thing is,’ I call, ‘he’s not there. He’s actually in my house, destroying evidence.’

  ‘What?’

  She turns from looking at the house and strides across the road to me.

  ‘He’s burning the stolen books,’ I say.

  ‘You warned him? You’ve been helping him?’

  ‘No! I came home and found him there. He’d broken in.’ I am having to shout over the noise of the wind and the continued banging on Jack’s door, but I’m also shouting because I want to.

  ‘He’s trying to put suspicion on you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’

  She shouts this right into my face. She is no better equipped for the weather than I am. She is wearing her nice wool coat and her hair, like mine, is plastered to her face and head. Caliban, however, finds this no excuse for her threatening behaviour. He has been feeling for some time, I suppose, that he ought to be attacking somebody and this is his moment. He leaps up, pressing his filthy paws against her coat, and seizes her sleeve in his teeth. Startled and taken off balance, she steps back, slips and falls to the ground. I bend down to help her up but find myself grabbed from behind, my arms twisted in a most uncomfortable way.

  It is all hubbub now. The three police officers have all sprinted across the road: one to grab me. as, I suppose, the directing mind of Caliban’s attack, one to check on Paula and one to approach Caliban with something that may possibly be a taser. Caliban has now completely lost it and is snarling and barking like a beast ready to take on all comers. I take a deep breath and, in a tone I have not used since I taught trainee criminals in the D stream of a Marlbury comprehensive, I command him to lie down. I have no real confidence that he will obey, but he – glad, I suppose, of some certainty in a bewildering world – sinks instantly to the wet ground with only the merest whimper of residual defiance. If only the trainee criminals had been so easily subdued.

  ‘I’m sorry about your coat, Paula,’ I say, ‘and the answer to your question is I didn’t stop him because he’s bigger than me, and he had flaming books in his hands and this dog thinks he’s his friend.’

  Paula signals to my captor to release me. ‘You, stay!’ she says, and I’m not sure whether she is talking to me or Caliban. Then she heads off across the road. ‘Come on,’ she calls to her officers, and they push past me to cross to my front door. I stand, hesitating, and DC Aaron Green looks back and says, ‘I’d go round to a friend if I were you. This’ll be a crime scene. You won’t be able to get back in tonight.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

  He follows the others into my house. I stand outside and hope that, in it all, somebody checks my smouldering hearthrug. So, where to go? If I had my handbag I could go to a B&B for the night, but not with Caliban. In fact, I can’t think of anywhere that a wet and filthy dog would be welcome – certainly not Lesley’s or Lorna’s neat, civilised houses. If I had a phone, I could be truly pathetic and ring Ellie and ask to be rescued, but I have no phone and I’m rather glad that I don’t have to resist that temptation. There is no let-up in the rain, which is, if anything, getting sleetier. So here I am, homeless and friendless, hampered by a dog I don’t much like and without so much as a toothbrush with which to face the night ahead.

  Except. Except there is somewhere. I peer at my watch. It is not yet six o’clock. It will still be open. It has a loo, a sofa, a kettle, biscuits – even cup-a-soups in the cupboard, I believe. It has heat and light and entertainment to keep me occupied through a sleepless night, and I am confident that I can blag entry for a dog. I look at Ariel, who has come lower down the scaffolding and taken shelter under a piece of tarpaulin. She peers out and gives me another yowl. Well, when it’s all over, she’ll be able to get into the house through the cat flap, won’t she?

  ‘Sorry, cat,’ I say. ‘I can’t take you with me. I’ll be back in the morning. In the meantime I’m afraid it’s a case of Sauve qui purr’. She doesn’t show any sign of appreciating my pun, but I smile at my own wit as I loop my wet scarf through Caliban’s collar and stride off towards the library.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  STAYING ON

  Sunday 23rd March 2014

  I have not slept in my house since it was turned into a crime scene a month ago. This is not because the house burned down. Oddly, Jack did go back and stamp out smouldering sparks as I asked him to, and he was still there when Paula and her troops burst in. So once the forensics had been done I could have gone back, but I just didn’t fancy it. Hanging out there with just Simon and Harry as neighbours felt grim beyond words, so I found us other accommodation.

  Caliban and I spent a cosy couple of nights at the library but after that Lorna started to get edgy about my settling in there, living on cup-a-soups and biscuits and reading my way through the children’s section. Identifying a lack of a functioning phone rather than post-traumatic stress as the cause of my sudden inability to make plans or manage my life, she drove me into Dover and sat with me while I entered into a solemn and binding agreement to love and cherish a phone. The process was no easier or faster than it had been the previous time but at least I knew what to expect now, and Lorna damped down sparks of incipient hysteria on my part with a brisk and bracing Now, now so that we got through to the finish. She was quite right. The phone put me back in charge. Enquiries at local kennels led me to the conclusion that for hardly more than the price of housing Caliban in kennels and me in a B&B, we could both stay in comfort in a dog-friendly country house hotel. So that is where I have been. Ellie came and collected Ariel, who is adjusting to town life and to Nico, who likes to squeeze her, and Freda, who still hopes for demonstrations of her magic powers. Caliban and I, meanwhile, are at Upton Court, a charming, stone-built house, dating from the sixteenth century, about twenty miles inland from Dover. It has beams and fires and lethally uneven floors and views of the downs (but no hint of the sea) and delicious food. It took me a few days, in fact, to adjust to the richness and plenty of the food, after my period of subsistence living, but I am acclimatised now. It is not surprising, I suppose, how quickly one adjusts to spending money. That’s why it has to be all or nothing. Once I started shifting money out of my savings account, there seemed to be no reason to stop. That is what happens to embezzlers, I imagine. Anyway, I’m embezzling only my own money and I’m not sure whether I feel guilty or liberated but I have decided not to ask myself the question. And while I’m not asking, I have bought some dazzling new clothes (which won’t fit much longer if I continue eating like this) and I have had a very expensive haircut, including elaborate colouring, so that my hair has turned, like Lady Harbury’s, quite gold from grief. So this is the new me. The inhabitants of St Martins-at-Cliffe could pass me in the street without associating me for a moment with the scary dog walker who haunted their shore for a year or so.

  I did invite Lesley and Lorna over for lunch and it was fine. We talked books and they talked about their campaign to recruit new members for the book group. The original group has dwindled to a mere three – Lesley and Lorna plus Eva, who has made a stalwart recovery from her fall and is, I gather, very cross with me for shopping Jack to the police. Dora has dropped out of the group, citing too much A level work as her excuse, but really, I think, it’s because I’m no longer there to bully her into staying. So you three are the three weird sisters, I quipped when I saw Lesley and Lorna but they didn’t laugh. They’re tired of the witch joke, I gather, and are thinking of changing the group’s name. I hope they do, really. It might help to wipe out my embarrassment at being so paranoid and getting things so wrong. There was no plot against us, no deranged anti-feminist
serial killer. I was a bit miffed that Paula never thanked me for solving her case for her but, on the other hand, she never pointed out my wrong-headedness either.

  So, I’m out of the book group and I’ve given up the coaching. I felt a bit bad about abandoning Dora and Matt but, actually, Dora did well in her mocks in spite of everything else that was going on, so she doesn’t need me any more, and Matt has opted for plan B. He has taken over the village shop. It turns out that Kelly’s father didn’t own the shop, as I assumed he did, but only leased it, and Matt has persuaded his mother to lend him the money to take on the lease. Cheaper than a student loan he said when I rang him to bow out of our coaching sessions and found him full of plans. He may actually be quite good at this, and his long-term plan is to take over the pub when George is eventually felled by a lifetime of alcohol abuse. I do wonder how he will fit in his sporting activities around the job but I suppose he has thought of that.

  So, my ties with St Martin’s are almost undone. My house is up for sale though it is attracting zero interest at present. Simon, I gather, is staying put in his house but there are no new tenants in Jack’s and Lily’s house yet. They were never promising looking, Cliffe Cottages, but they must look very sad now. I wouldn’t buy a house there. I may have to give mine away.

  Jack appeared in the magistrates’ court and pleaded not guilty. I hope his lawyer can do something for him, though I can’t see it will make much difference. There is no chance of a happy ending for Jack. I wonder what the defence case will be. Manslaughter or diminished responsibility? I have tried asking Andrew about it but criminal law is not his bag. He has, however, played a blinder as far as my asylum seekers are concerned. They are another aspect of the St Martin’s life that I have had to give up since nothing short of a taxi each way would get me to Dover from my hotel and even in my current spendthrift mood that seemed to be verging on the eccentric.

  Before I left them, though, I brought Andrew to see them and he spent two hours talking with each of them in turn. The results have been startling. It is amazing what public school and Oxford confidence can achieve (and yes, all right, he is quite bright and probably knows what he is doing as well). Anyway, one of his main achievements so far is to get leave to remain for Zimbabwean Ivy, and to get her husband released from the IRC. If they are glad, it is difficult to tell; the ghosts of their dead boys are in their eyes and get in the way. With the other students, it is less a question, he tells me, of how good their case is than of how much our government minds upsetting theirs. On this basis, Soraya should be all right, since we don’t much mind upsetting the Iranians, but poor gay Hani will probably be sent back to our partners in peace in Saudi Arabia, and Jing Wei won’t get much help either, now George Osborne has his eye on China as the UK’s new best friend. For Yaema and Aminata, in flight from geriatric husbands, there is no hope and Andrew has told them so. The money they stole to fund their journey here was their own dowry money, true, but the dowries were not actually theirs, of course. So they are wanted for a crime and will be sent back for punishment. Except they won’t. Once they grasped what Andrew had to tell them, they disappeared. The others think they are in London, where the only way they will be able to make a living will be as prostitutes. Will they think that’s a better deal than the marriages they ran away from? Perhaps they will.