The Day She Died

by Catriona McPherson

  “She’d never leave the kids.”

  “But—I’m really sorry to say this about your brother—I think he might have … ”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me,” said Gus. “Jesus, wee Becky.”

  “You said he was harmless!”

  “Harmless as long as Becky stayed, and I thought she’d never leave. I knew if she walked, anything could happen. He must have totally flipped.”

  I sat down beside him. Not too close. It was frightening to see that familiar face, tanned brick-red but otherwise just the same, and to hear that nearly identical voice.

  “He didn’t flip,” I said. “He planned it for months.” I saw him turn to stare at me. “He stalked me. He built that thing in there. At least, I’m assuming he built it. It wasn’t you?”

  “What thing?” said Gus.

  “Breeze block,” I said. “A … crypt, I suppose you’d call it. I think Ros’s body’s inside.”

  “In there?” He had sprung to his feet. “Seriously? There’s a body in there?”

  “I think so,” I said. “I haven’t got a key.”

  But it only took him a minute, four or five good kicks, to burst the hasp free of the wood and get the door open. He gazed at the wall in front of his face, looked from side to side.

  “I’ve been right round,” I said. “There’s no way in.”

  Then he backed up, took a run at it, and scrambled until he had got the upper half of his body up on the top of it. He swung his legs up too and disappeared.

  “Nothing,” he called back. “Except there’s a wire, there’s a box or something. Like a … ” I heard a snapping sound and he reappeared and threw a bright blue and yellow object down towards me.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “It’s a booster—you know—a hub. It’s for a baby monitor. I think she was alive when he put her in there.”

  He landed beside me, stumbled, and then was gone. He kicked down the door of the other workshop and I could hear him crashing and banging around, dragging something heavy, small things hitting the floor, smashing.

  “Can I—”

  But he was back, trailing a flex, plugging together the extension and the … it looked like a drill. Of course it was, and he fired it up and set it against the mortar between two bricks.

  That was when the night descended to hell. The last of the glow was gone from the sky and the cold was seeping up from the ground and the noise of it, brutal and whining, the dust and the stink of the motor getting hotter and hotter and the look on his face, running with sweat and grit and I could only stand there, waiting and praying. Please God, please God, please God. Was there any chance?

  “Go through and get the claw hammer,” he shouted at me. I ran to the other workshop and stared around. A claw hammer? Where would it be? But I found it quickly enough, and a pick axe too, so I brought that with me, and when I was back by his side he threw down the drill and picked up the hammer and clawed a brick out of place, put his hand into the hole, and bellowed with rage and frustration. I shone my phone light and saw metal gleaming. He whacked it with the claw end of the hammer and grunted.

  “Zinc,” he said. “Not steel. We’re back in business.” And he was right. He got the drill through it, pulled with the hammer, pulled it into a hole, and drilled the second brick, the inner layer of this hellish thing Gus—no, Gav—Gav the bampot, Gav the black sheep, harmless Gav—had built.

  And once there was a hole right through, the work went faster. He clawed a brick out and punched and drilled and pulled the metal away and clawed out another brick, and when there were four or five gone and the space was the size of a drain, he threw down the hammer and tuned to me.

  “Go in,” he said, shoving me. “I’ll keep working. In you go.”

  Of course it made sense. I was smaller, but for a just a minute I hung back, staring my horror at him. Then I shook myself into courage. Remember your granny, I thought. Time to do good, Jessie. Time to go.

  I knelt down and put my hands through the hole into the darkness, breathing in the smell that plucked me back through time to that night on the quilt with the ropes round my wrists and the thing on the floor that wasn’t Granny anymore. Then I closed my mind and pulled until my shoulders and head together were jammed into the tiny space, scraped by the jagged edge of the zinc and the rough cobbles of mortar. I twisted, one shoulder first, my face buried in my arm, and wriggled my chest forward, breathing out, compressing my ribs, trying to shrink myself. I had to get through now. I couldn’t go back. I was stuck. I was jammed like a cork. Then I forced my arm to go behind my head, I heard my elbow pop but it made some room, and I inched myself farther and then I was through! My shoulders were through and my waist and hips and legs followed until I flopped down onto the floor. I sat up, looked back through the hole at Gus’s filthy purple face, and then clicked my phone light on and turned away.

  All I could see was bricks. Blocks and mortar and a concrete floor. I summoned the courage to roll the light around. A toilet. There were plastic bottles and bits of cardboard and packets ripped to shreds. A pile of cloth. Nothing else in there at all.

  That pile of cloth. It had to be. I walked slowly over and saw it become, in the pin of light, two halves; denim and wool and a foot in a sock and a head of dark hair curled away from me. So still. I put out my hand, expecting the wooden shock of a corpse, but when I touched her shoulder, she was soft. And she was shaking.

  I crouched.

  “Ros?” I said. “It’s all right. You’re going to be okay.”

  She moved as slow as a tree growing, turned, showed me that round face and the dark eyes.

  “Are you here?” she said. Her voice was a rasp. “Are you real? Where are they?”

  “I’m really here,” I told her. I put my hands on her cheeks and let her feel the warmth from my skin.

  “I thought I was dreaming again,” she said. “You’re really here? Are they okay?”

  “Jessie?” It was Gus’s voice.

  “She’s alive!” I called back to him. “Keep working on the hole so we can get her out. She’s very weak.” I heard the motor start up again and felt the concrete floor begin to thrum under my knees as he put the drill to the wall. She started shaking, sobbing; that noise must have terrified her when it began. I put myself close behind her, drew her to me, and spoke softly into the cup of her ear.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Ros, it’s okay. It won’t be long.”

  “I’m not Ros,” she said. “Where are my babies? Tell me you got them away.”

  Twenty-Two

  We carried her, between us, back to the cottage. Gus’s arms were jelly from the drill or he’d have taken her, but I wanted to carry my share of the weight. I had been so blind and so desperate to stay blind, hanging on to my fairytale long after I should have seen the truth. I could have saved her at least a few days of the hell she’d been in.

  She didn’t seem to know how long it had been, though. That was a good thing, in a way. We sat her down on the couch and Gus laid a fire and lit it—another shiver as I saw that same body doing that same job in exactly the same way; I kept having to look at his hair to make it stay real that he wasn’t the person I thought I knew. He was no one to fear. I was safe now.

  Except …

  “Where is he, do you think?” asked the other Gus. The real Gus. We were in the kitchen making food for Becky, making a hot bottle and a cup of sweet tea, a piece of toast with butter and honey, something easy to get her started on. I shook my head.

  “And when do we call the police?” he said. “Why are we waiting?”

  “When Becky’s stronger,” I told him. “When she can convince them she doesn’t need hospital. She needs to stay with her children now.”

  She hadn’t been able to take in what I had told her. “Where are they? Where are they?” she kept on asking. I went back through with a warm
towel to wipe her face, and I tried again to explain.

  “They’re at my flat,” I said. “They’re with a priest—Father Tommy Whelan, from St. Vincent’s? You must have heard of him.” She nodded vaguely. Of course, she had. Everyone in Dumfries knew Father Tommy, and she was a Dumfries girl. I thought of something else. But first things first. “And Kazek’s there.”

  “Who?” she said.

  “Ros’s friend from the Peter Pan project?”

  Her face clouded, she was drifting. “The roofer?” she said. “One of those migrant worker guys that Ros … where is Ros? She was there and then she was gone. I was so out of it. What did he give me?”

  I shook my head. Who knew what he gave her? As to where Ros was, she’d been cremated just that day. The Fiscal was satisfied. There’d been a note. The next of kin ID’d her. No need for a post-mortem, no need for an inquiry.

  “But they’re safe?” she said. Gus came in with her tea, perched on the edge of the sofa, held it to her lips.

  “Careful, it’s hot,” he said. How could she see him without flinching? Maybe when you really knew both of them they didn’t look anything like each other, but every time he came close to me, my skin prickled. I remembered the feeling of being close to Gus, the other Gus, that other tingling, and my stomach heaved. I had slept with him, fucked him (tell the truth and shame the devil) while his wife was in that stinking cell. He’d left me here with his kids and gone there to—to what?

  “What was the baby monitor for? Could he hear you?”

  “God, I pulled it out!” said Gus. “I should have left it. Evidence.”

  I saw Becky look at him, just a flicker. “Other way round,” she said. “I could hear him. He told me everyone thought I was dead. He told me he was going to kill the kids. He wouldn’t tell me when. I was so scared.”

  “He’d never have killed the kids,” I said.

  “Men like him kill their kids all the time,” she said. “Ros told me. They’re fine as long the wife stays, and if she tries to get away they kill the kids to torture her. It happens every day.” I nodded, Gus had said as much. The real Gus. Harmless as long as Becky stayed.

  “He might have wanted to,” I said. “But he’d never have got away with it. He’d have been caught.”

  “He’s clever,” said Becky. She had sipped half the cup of tea now and she reached out for the toast, took a bite, and chewed. “He found a … patsy. He told me. Through that wire. He’d found a girl with a history, screwed up about kids, you know. Childless but obsessed with them? He made her look weird. He made her tell people she knew him when she didn’t. He’d phoned a helpline, he told me. Said this strange woman was moving in on him and the kids and he didn’t know what to do. He’s clever. Make you believe anything if he tried. He’s clever that way.”

  I nodded, even managed to smile, but she saw through it. Her eyed flared and she shifted, spilling a bit of her tea.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  “Yep,” I replied.

  Gus looked from to the other of us. “I’m going to heat you up some soup,” he said. “If that toast’s gone down okay. And then we’re calling the cops. We can’t leave it much longer.”

  He went to the kitchen. I knew my eyes had followed him; I didn’t know why until Becky told me.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “There’s no phone in there.” I turned, caught her look, knew that she knew what I was thinking. Knew she was thinking it too. She put out her hand and I took it.

  “God, I’m filthy,” she said. “Do I stink?” I screwed my nose, said nothing, and she managed a smile. “How are they?” she asked me. “Really and truly. Are they okay?”

  “They missed you,” I said. “Dillon doesn’t really believe you’re gone. Ruby just about roared the house down when Gus—damn it!—when Gav told her. She’s been asking all sorts of questions about heaven and angels. But I’m sorry to tell you, they’ve been sort of okay. Gus—Gav is a fantastic dad. They love him, don’t they?”

  “They do,” she said. “He is. Why do you think I stayed this long? When someone sets out to fool you and they’re really good at it, it works like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t I?” I said. I could feel a huge bale of sobs unravelling deep down inside me. It was good news. It was all good news. The best there could be anyway. Dead people couldn’t come back to life, so what could be better than finding out that the dead one was single, no kids of her own, and the mum whose little ones needed her was back again, a miracle? What was wrong with me? Kazek was safe. Becky was safe. If I could be there when Ruby and Dillon saw her, I would treasure the memory all my life. So what was wrong with me?

  As if I didn’t know. What was wrong was that I’d had a week-long dream, loved and loving, feeling the fear letting go, someone to listen, little hands holding mine, laughs at the tea table, someone who thought I was wonderful. I could still hear his voice saying “bravest and best little girl.” I should have known—did know deep down—that it was all too good to be true.

  “Oh, Jessie,” said Becky, and she put her hand out to me. “What did he do to you?”

  I shook my head, sending the tears out of the corners of my eyes. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing in comparison. You shouldn’t even be thinking about anyone else except Dill and Ruby.”

  She squeezed my hand tight, shook it, made me look at her; her face was solemn, her eyes huge.

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “I’m the one you talk to. I’m the only one who’ll understand. He bricked me up in a cell for a week. Yeah, he did. But that’s easy. Tell someone that and all you get is sympathy. It’s the seven years before that really fucked me. Like the stuff he did to you. It’s the stuff you can’t tell anyone because they’ll just say you’re imagining it or it was your own look-out, or they’ll laugh and tell you you’re over-reacting.” She leaned in close, her breath metallic on my face. “It’s the stuff he made you believe you did to yourself. That’s what kills you.”

  “Cup-a-soup,” said Gus, coming back. “God bless Dave and his store cupboard. I remember this stuff from before I went away.”

  “So, Jessie,” said Becky. “Will you make the call?”

  “You’re calling the cops?” said Gus.

  Becky’s face was a shadow as she looked at me. “Course,” she said. “Gus, can I ask you a favour? Can you go to Jessie’s and get the kids? Maybe keep them there for another hour or two. Give me a chance to get clean. Then bring them home? Here, I mean. I know we’ll have to move out now you’re back, but … ”

  “You’ve got it,” he said, leaping up. Desperate to be doing something. He snatched the car keys I held out to him, repeated my address, and was gone.

  “He’s a good guy,” said Becky. “He’s the real deal.”

  “Will he work out why we wanted him to go right now if we don’t want the kids back till later?” I said.

  She shook her head. “01387 253 555,” she said. “That’s our flat at Caul View.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “That’s the only place he can be.”

  We didn’t really make a detailed plan, no synchronised watches or anything. We just both knew what had to be done and we did it. I called the number and Gav answered.

  “Gus,” I said.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “Online,” I said, crossing my fingers and hoping he’d swallow it.

  “How did you know I’d be here?” he asked. My heart sank. If he was suspicious of even that, we didn’t have a hope.

  “I thought it was worth a try,” I said, trying to sound breezy. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

  “What do you want?” he said. That seemed like a bit of progress! I tried to keep the tension out of my voice as I answered him.

  “I’m sorry about earlier. I wanted to say sorry. And ask if you’re okay.�
�� The next silence was even longer.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, at last. “I said I trusted you with the kids. If you wanted to take them to your flat and let them hang out with a friend of yours, that’s fine.” In other words, I thought, that was something else to tell the police after I’d killed them. Something else to make me sound unsafe for kids to be near.

  “I lost it today,” he said. “At the funeral. And you got the brunt of it. I can’t believe I spoke to you like that.”

  “You know what I think it was?” I said. “You’re just flexing your muscles again. You’re only human. After what Becky did to you, it’s only natural you’d see what it felt like to do it to someone else if you got the chance. But look! You’re sorry already, aren’t you? You’re a good man, Gus.” Becky was giving me thumbs up.

  “I love you,” Gus said.

  “I love you too. Come home, eh? The kids are sleeping. Come home to me.”

  I held my breath. The only thing that didn’t fit was that he shouldn’t have known where my flat was. I should be asking him how he knew where to come in Dumfries to find me. I wasn’t asking, and I didn’t want him to wonder why.

  I was wrong. There were two things that didn’t fit. And he hit me with the other one.

  “Why did you say the cops were at my place?” he said. I hesitated, and I think my face turned pale because Becky was suddenly still and alert, staring hard at me.

  “I didn’t say that,” I told him. “Or I didn’t mean to. I meant that I was going to phone them and ask them to meet me at your place. I got the kids out of the way in advance, you know?”

  “Why, though?” Gus said.

  “I was going to tell them something. But I changed my mind.”

  “Tell them what?” said Gus.

  “I think I know why Becky killed herself. Finally.”

  “Because Ros left,” said Gus.