Cruel as the Grave

by Meg Elizabeth Atkins

  ‘Come into the office.’

  The office was a cubby hole, fanatically scrubbed clean. Through a two-way mirror Katie could see into every corner of the cafe.

  ‘You’re looking well, Katie. I called while you were away. You’ll have heard.’

  ‘Will I now? Fancy... ’

  Compliments, banter, the necessary preliminaries. He was patient, savouring his tea. Eventually, Katie told him.

  ‘Not see hide nor hair of her for a couple of years — more. Course, she’d been shifted to Causeway or wherever on that rehousing. Even so, this hadn’t been her stamping ground. Well, I’d heard her mother had died — poor old cow. But Beattie — you have to watch her with fellers, she was any bugger’s as’d have her.’

  Hunter interpreted. Beattie had attempted to poach one of Katie’s men. It could have happened years ago; grudges were long and hard around here. ‘Fallen out with her, then, had you?’ he asked blandly.

  ‘Huh, she didn’t bother me. I could sort her any time. Different story with my Vic — smarming round him — and him that good-hearted he was a fool to hisself.’

  That was not what she’d said about him when he was alive. Vic. The second husband. (God, that was years ago.) Shaft anything on two legs. Perhaps she’d caught them at it. No wonder Beattie had stayed well away; Katie must have given her hell.

  ‘So I was sat in here that night — about beginning of September — and I looks across to that corner and there she is, large as life and twice as ugly. I thought — should I clear her out? But she wasn’t doing nothing and I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Quite honestly, she wasn’t worth shit. So I just kept me eye on them.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘Woman she were with.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Just, like, ordinary. Nowt special.’

  ‘Young? Old? Tall? Short?’

  ‘Well, p’raps forty-ish, hard to tell. She’d not stick out in no crowd.’

  ‘Had you ever seen her before?’

  ‘No. I clocked her when she come up to the counter to order. I’d say she weren’t from round here. We get all sorts passing through; but you get a feeling for locals. Anyroad, she bought a good tea for the two of them. Steak and kidney, chips, pudding. She paid. Beattie never gave her no money after, not as I saw and I kept a good watch on pair of em. Course — she’s been on assistance for years so she’s never had owt.’ She used the outdated term — assistance — insultingly. All that Beattie’s circumstances meant to her was a chance to exercise her contempt.

  ‘Did they seem friendly?’

  ‘Talking all the time, heads together. Thick as thieves, I’d say. Vera served them. I did tell her to hang around clearing tables, like, see if she could hear what they was rabbiting on about. But it were a waste of bloody time asking.’ She indicated Vera, a fat, slow young woman of such bovine aspect it was obvious that if she had managed to overhear anything, she would have forgotten it by the time she got back to the counter.

  ‘Then they went in phone booth — ’ She pointed to a glassed-in cubicle in the corner of the cafe; it had looped-back curtains and a kind of frill of plastic flowers. It was a ‘facility’ and as such Katie was proud of it. ‘People come in and use it a lot. Well, it’s private, and confidential, and not wrecked like all them outside. They both went in — well, they couldn’t get in — Beattie’s half out while this woman dials, hands phone to Beattie. Didn’t say nothing herself as I could see. After that, they left. Nobody left no tip.’

  He turned this over in his mind. ‘Is that all, Katie?’

  ‘Well... Nothing to do with me, but about a couple days after, week mebbe, I was down in Kitchener Square market talking to Doris. You remember her, don’t you? Has the pot stall. Right. She says, ‘You’ll never guess who I saw the other night in the Railway. Beattie Booth. Not set eyes on her for years. Course, this was never her side of town even when she was living in Owen Street... ’

  Echo of long ago; the fiercely territorial children: what you doing in our street?

  ‘Well, I said, buggered if I know why the old slag’s started haunting us — and I told her about her being in the caff.’

  ‘Did Doris say who she was with?’

  ‘Yeah. Feller. Didn’t know him and I weren’t interested, so we left it at that.’

  Hunter finished his tea. ‘Katie, why didn’t you tell us about this before?’

  ‘No bugger asked me. Oh, George Withers come round, but I were away or summat. It were only when I got back and heard what had happened and there’d been all this asking about her. Anyroad, I’ve told you now. Does it matter? Does it mean owt?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Hunter said.

  *

  Hunter and Doris sat together under the lifted hatchback of Doris’s Volvo where they were out of the rain and Doris could keep an eye on her stall. There was little business about on such a miserable day; the wind had grown sharper, sending greasy chip papers flapping across the cobbles of Kitchener Square. It was a squalid area, the buildings run-down fifties development, flimsy and falling to bits; nobody cared about them now.

  ‘Dead odd, that. I mean, neither of us setting eyes on her for years — then we both seen her the same week.’ Doris poured from a flask. ‘Sure you won’t have a drop? Keep the cold out.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ God knew what the concoction was. ‘Had a mug of tea at Katie’s.’

  ‘Well, that’ll set you up. Not that you need any help.’ She eyed him, nostalgic lust. ‘Allus was a big bugger. Did you know Beattie?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Doris. If I did, I can’t remember.’

  ‘I don’t think as you’d forget, she’d of made a dead set at you. She were a devil when she were younger. She calmed down — well, we all has to, don’t we? Middle-aged spread, bunions, false teeth. Mind you, she were still a looker — that’s what I noticed first, not having seen her so many years. And that's what made Katie pig sick. Allus hated the sight of her. Then to find she’d worn better nor any of us. Trouble was — Beattie were a loser. Fellers taking her for a ride — and she let them. Just like her mother. But, you know what they say — where there’s life there's hope.’ Unaware of any irony, Doris continued. ‘So when I see her with this feller I thought — leave her to it.’

  ‘You didn’t speak to her?’

  ‘No. You know how quiet it is in the Railway early on... ’

  ... it was always quiet round that part of Chatfield. Once there had been a teeming sense of busy lives lived to some purpose, but with the closing of the railway, the businesses, shops and workshops that had been necessary to it and supported by it, stood abandoned, boarded up. There was no vandalism, no graffiti, not much litter. No one went there much any more; the buildings, monuments to civic pride, had taken on a certain grand, grimy melancholy. The Railway, a splendid example of brewer’s gothic, would have lost its reason for existence but for humankind’s enduring thirst.

  ‘There was hardly no one in. I were round by side of the bar with Vi — my sister-in-law, we allus has a few on a Thursday — I had me back to the door and Vi pulls a face and says summat about Lady Muck, so I looks round and there she was — Beattie Booth as I live and breathe. Turned herself out special, ever such a nice blue jacket and dead high heels. Summat told me not to let on, I says to Vi — “I knows her, but don’t say owt.” So we shift round a bit so we can both clock her. She just kind of stands there, waiting, between bar and door. And then — in he come. Walks up to her, says summat, shakes hands — honest — takes her to a table in corner — I’m not kidding — see she’s comfy, like, then comes to the bar. We could just hear him, real posh — proper, not put on. Then he takes the drinks back to their table. Vi — she’s never known Beattie — says, ‘Aren’t you going to let on?’ I said no, I’d rather watch because, honest, it were as good as telly. There she was, Lady Muck all over, and him, well... He were a real gentleman, written all over him, not one of your piss-artists. And I thought — where the
fucking hell did Beattie find him?’

  ‘Can you describe him to me, Doris?’

  ‘Fortyish. Average height. Fairish. Beautiful dresser — blazer, white shirt, tie. Nowt gaudy, just — well, proper.’

  ‘How long did they stay?’

  ‘Only the one drink. It weren’t his kind of place. I doubt Beattie had set foot there nigh on five years but she were at home all right. Him, no. He looked around, like — dignified, not sneering or owt but... not his kind of place. So they gets up and goes out and he holds door open for her — I’m not bloody kidding — and out she sails.’

  Hunter, hopelessly, began, ‘Doris, you know we’ve been asking — ’

  ‘Oh, all right. But this were months ago.’

  ‘Seven weeks.’

  ‘Well... And you know why. You know my old man. He’d kill me if he thought I’d told you the time. Don’t think you can come back to me on this — I’ll not admit I’ve said nothing.’

  ‘No,’ he said, far away. Mentally unreeling Doris’s account he had only just caught up with its significance. He had got an eyewitness to Beattie’s first meeting with Reggie Willoughby.

  Thirteen

  Miss Devere sent for Liz during afternoon break. With no premonition of disaster, Liz, making her way to the big, book-lined study-cum-sitting room, amused herself inside her head with the girls’ favourite chant. Miss Devere is severe. True. Also dignified, unfailingly kind and just. Years before, she had lived and taught in Hambling, a particular friend of Helen’s. Two of a kind. ‘Liz, come and sit here, beside me.’

  Liz looked cautiously at the big leather sofa. It was less a piece of furniture, more an emotional anchorage: for confidences, comfort, for uncounted little girls sobbing out their homesickness, their sins, their fears.

  Miss Devere’s firm, cool hand rested on hers. ‘Liz, I have some bad news for you.’

  Liz thought, clamorously, not Helen... was dumb, waiting.

  ‘It’s Reggie. I’m so sorry to have to tell you, my dear. He’s taken his own life.’

  Her immediate reaction: don’t be silly, he wouldn’t know how to, he’s too inefficient. But the only word she could articulate was, ‘No... ’

  ‘This is a terrible shock for you. I know how fond you were of one another.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Accusingly, as if Miss Devere had just make it up.

  ‘Paula telephoned.’

  ‘Oh, Paula... ’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Understanding. Miss Devere knew all about Paula. ‘But Helen is much too distressed to speak to anyone, and you had to be told straight away.’

  ‘Go on, please.’ It was, painfully, becoming real.

  ‘You know he returned from Cheltenham on Monday. It was this morning. Helen was out, one of her committees, then luncheon. When she got home the garage doors were shut — his garage — she could hear an engine running. It was fortuitous that shed almost immediately been followed down the drive by Paula. So they were both there. Helen didn’t have to find him alone.’

  ‘Only this morning? It’s Thursday.’ Why was she saying such stupid things?

  ‘Liz, listen. Go home this afternoon, then stay on after the weekend if you think it necessary. Helen will need you, and no one can help her the way you can. You’re going to have to be very brave, take a lot on your shoulders. I know you can.’ Thus the certainties of Miss Devere’s high-principled life.

  I can’t. I can’t do anything. I can’t even cry.

  ‘Now,’ Miss Devere said in her rallying voice. ‘You are going to be all right to drive, aren’t you? Sure? Yes. I shall telephone you this evening at Helen’s to see how you are. All right?’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Devere.’ For being so beautifully organised. Please continue to hold me together. I shall fall apart...

  *

  No, she didn’t fall apart. Helen needed her. There were movements to be performed, stately as a saraband; mundane matters where she displayed her organisational ability, her authority. But Helen’s face was like a mask from a Greek tragedy; her eyes empty. She stayed in her room, scarcely speaking, clutching Liz’s hand tightly. Sometimes, without warning, she would fall asleep, escaping into oblivion. Liz understood that. If only she could. Behind her grief and bewilderment — guilt. If I hadn't insisted he return home he would still be alive. Would he? Does Helen blame me?

  There was Reggie’s suicide note. Liz had not seen it, but Helen had — and, of course, Paula, who found it with her (something, for once, to thank God for, that Paula was there). The police had taken it; in their jargon they had ‘seized’ it. Not that that mattered, Helen could quote it.

  Dear Helen, Forgive me. I'm sorry about Beattie. What I’m doing will settle everything, you'll see.

  ‘... his handwriting, Liz. Awful, sliding about. Usually so neat. But he had been drinking — well, there was a glass and the whisky bottle. And all those tranquillisers he had been taking... ’

  ‘Darling, darling.’ They clung together, Liz unable to resist amazement at the conciseness of the message — when they both knew he could scarcely write a literate sentence. No, that wasn’t fair. He rambled, he said everything twice. But... There it was, unequivocally (as Paula with her talent for uncomfortable truth pointed out) an apology, an acknowledgement. ‘It says everything, Liz, doesn’t it? That he knew her, that he... And he asks Helen’s forgiveness.’ Paula was subdued, uncharacteristically sensible, and tactful enough to speak to Liz out of Helen’s presence. ‘You didn’t see him when he came back from Cheltenham. I did — only very briefly, he seemed to want to hide himself away. Understandable now. Of course, Helen said it had done him so much good being away — because that was what she needed to believe. But, Liz, he was a wreck. Completely zonked on tranquillisers, and he was drinking. We thought it was just his general weakness, but, of course, it was guilt.’

  Liz had to agree; the inner self that denied it all was quenched. She asked Paula, ‘What happened?’

  The day after he returned home, Robert invited Reggie over to Midham. He was the one person Reggie seemed to want to spend time with. As the amount of tranquillisers he was taking made it unsafe for him to drive, Helen chauffeured him there. He spent a quiet day with stout-hearted Robert, doing little jobs, doing nothing. He arranged to go again on the Thursday because Helen would be out all morning and through lunch time and he couldn’t bear to be alone in the house. Paula agreed to drive him to Midham. ‘It was just before I was about to set out, when he phoned. He said he’d changed his mind, he was very tired, he was going to stay in bed. He said he’d phoned Robert and told him not to expect him. I asked if I could do anything — go round and make his lunch, but he said no. So I left it at that. Liz, if you’d seen him, how exhausted he looked, you’d understand why I took that on trust. I know I shouldn’t have — ’ Paula, assertive, always right about everything, faltered, acknowledging error, ‘It wasn’t till early afternoon. Something, I don’t know, a niggle, a premonition. I phoned Robert — he hadn’t heard from Reggie at all, but knowing the unpredictable state he was in, just left him to do as he pleased. That started alarm bells ringing. I drove round to Woodside straight away. Just as I turned the bend at the end of the road — there was Helen’s car, turning into the drive.’

  Liz listened, helpless against an unfair thought: if only she’d had her bloody premonition an hour earlier.

  ‘I pulled up in front of the house directly behind her. As soon as we’d both switched off and got out of our cars — there it was — the sound of an engine running. From inside his garage — the doors closed — ’

  ‘I’m so sorry you had to find him. It must have been dreadful. At least, Helen wasn’t alone.’

  ‘She just went into shock, completely numb. I was on auto-pilot, doing — well — trying to do what needed to be done... ’

  Liz then performed an action for which there was no precedent in her memory. She went over to where Paula was sitting, put her arm round her shoulders and held her for a moment. ‘Thank yo
u, Paula.’

  *

  The post mortem was performed the morning following Reggie’s death and at the beginning of the next week the inquest was opened for evidence of identification, then adjourned.

  Helen demonstrated the resilience of the human spirit by making a noticeable recovery; if she was not her usual self she was exercising enough control to function with something of her customary poise. Her many friends closed round her, tactful, discreet, efficient: armour plating against the outside world. They even had enough genteel ruthlessness to cope with Paula, who quickly grew fretful, demanding attention.

  Liz, adrift in a cloud of uselessness, assessed the situation and took the opportunity to say to Helen, ‘What would you think if I said I feel I ought to go back to school?’

  ‘I’d say you are completely right, my dear. You have your work to do, and Barbara Devere has been more than generous allowing you time off to be with me.’

  ‘That’s it, you see. Strictly speaking, as I’m not an immediate relative, I’m not entitled to compassionate leave. I don’t want her thinking I’m taking advantage.’

  ‘Really, as if she would.’

  ‘And — later, I can take leave officially, when I can be of use. I mean — the inquest. Then — Reggie’s funeral — ’

  ‘Yes. I hope, darling, not to put too many burdens on you, but I will need you then.’

  Fourteen

  Hunter’s interview with Chief Superintendent Garrett was brief and at times snarling.

  ‘Christ almighty, Sheldon — we’ve got his confession in writing. What more do you want? I know all about your bulldog instincts, but you’re just going to have to get your jaws out of this one.’

  ‘He didn’t say it in so many words, did he? He hasn’t coughed pushing her off the bridge, has he?’