A Beginner’s Guide to Murder

by Rosalind Stopps

  ‘Are you OK, my lovely?’ Grace said. ‘We can talk if you want. You’re doing so well, we all are. I don’t know much about you, but I’m beginning to see how difficult this is for you. Something echoes, doesn’t it – there’s something especially hard for you.’

  ‘It’s not easy for any of us,’ Daphne said, ‘honestly, nothing special about me, I’m fine. I’m just taking a moment, that’s all.’

  ‘Say no more, ladies,’ Des said. ‘A good man should never intrude on a conversation between women. I’m staying as a kind of resident bodyguard, if that’s cool with you all, but I’m going to go upstairs if that’s OK. Call me if you need me.’

  Meg bustled after him, fussing about the mess and the dust. Daphne and Grace were left alone.

  ‘Really, Daff, this is difficult stuff, don’t feel bad,’ Grace said. ‘I feel your pain, as the kids say. I need you, and I know you’re strong. You and I, we’re survivors, I recognised it in you the first time I met you. Not to mention the fact that we’re sane, more or less, and sanity seems to be in short supply around here.’

  Daphne smiled. She felt sustained. Grace’s words were nourishing, like water on a dried-up houseplant.

  ‘These are extraordinary times we are living through,’ Grace said, ‘and sometimes that brings up other extraordinary times a person has lived through, I reckon. And that’s OK. That’s what has happened to me too, I guess. I see her face, my daughter, my Eleanor, I see it more clearly now than I have done for years. I feel like I could reach out and touch her sometimes, especially at night. Just put my hand out and she’d be there. It’s the strangest thing.’

  Grace shook her head. Daphne could see that Grace was truly bewildered, and her heart went out to her. Grace settled herself on the floor at Daphne’s feet.

  ‘How old was your daughter?’ Daphne said.

  She wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say, but normal rules of conversation did not seem to apply any more.

  Grace shook her head. ‘It’s the strangest thing,’ she said, ‘she was four when I left Jamaica, four years old. She made me a good luck card, and she waved me off. I never saw her again, but even so, when I think of her she’s a teenager, like our lovely Nina, all long legs and gawky, you know how they get. It’s like that’s how my head remembers her, even though she never got to that stage.’

  Daphne realised that she had been given a gift, a valuable present that she felt she didn’t deserve. She took a deep breath.

  ‘It must be nice, to have her to think of, I mean,’ she said. ‘Oh gosh, I didn’t mean… I wasn’t saying it’s not sad. As sad as can be. It’s just…’

  ‘Hey, I get it,’ Grace said, ‘and you’re right, it is good to have her to think of, especially on the days when I don’t feel quite so sad. I’m even glad sometimes that I didn’t see her when she was ill. It means I’ve only got good pictures in my head. She got ill with measles and died in two days, so the first I knew about it was a phone call to my landlady. I had to take the call in her living room, just after the landlady’s daughter’s seventh birthday party, cake and balloons everywhere. Sometimes I dream of that party, and Eleanor is always there, laughing. Gosh,’ Grace shook her head, ‘what did I say about extraordinary times bringing things up? I haven’t talked about this for many, many years. For ever.’

  ‘How long was that after you came here?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘Two years,’ Grace said. ‘Two years of saving and planning and thinking about her all the time. I got a reputation for being standoffish at college, because I never wanted to go out. It was all about money I didn’t want to spend so that I could save it for her, but then it got to be a habit. I preferred to be apart from the others.’

  Daphne nodded.

  ‘I’m a loner too,’ she said and the two women smiled at each other. Daphne held Grace’s hand. ‘It must have been terrible,’ she said.

  ‘Did you ever have children?’ Grace said.

  Daphne could tell that she needed to change the subject.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Grace said. ‘I’m assuming no, but maybe you’ve got some tucked away somewhere? My guess is, it’s not a happy story. Am I right?’

  This was the kind of question Daphne usually dreaded, the kind of question she would walk away from whenever she could. But Grace had shared something with her, and that meant she could share back. The relief was overwhelming.

  ‘No, I couldn’t have any,’ Daphne said. Her voice felt scratchy, as though she hadn’t used it for years and it needed oiling. ‘I met a man, when I was young, a man a lot like the man we are trying to, erm, stop, right now. A man who thought it was OK to use people in a terrible…’ Daphne couldn’t go on.

  ‘You know the kind of thing,’ she said in a brighter, breezier tone. ‘It’s one of the oldest stories there is.’

  ‘No, Daphne,’ said Grace, ‘no I don’t know, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s not an exchange thing, mine for yours, I think we both know that wouldn’t work.’

  Daphne leaned forward and grabbed Grace’s hand.

  ‘I’ve never said,’ Daphne said, ‘but you know, this man, the toad man, what he’s doing to that child. That’s my story too.’

  Daphne stopped again. Meg’s front room faded and suddenly she was back there, in Andrew’s bedroom. He didn’t live in a hall of residence, because he wasn’t a student, Daphne found out later, but at the time it had seemed so very hip to live out. To have a flat with purple walls, huge speakers and drugs in a drawer marked ‘dope’. Daphne had wanted to concentrate on her studies, but Andrew had been very persuasive.

  ‘How do I know you love me, baby, if you won’t even let me make sweet love to you?’ he had said, over and over again. He brought her flowers, and records, and listened when she talked.

  I can’t believe he’s interested in little old me, Daphne had written to her friend at home the night before. Honestly, he could have any of the girls, he looks like a pop star off the TV. Everyone looks when he goes past, I can’t believe he chose me. He’s so kind. He’s the one, I know it. Don’t worry, I’m going to be careful, and I’ll tell you all about it afterwards.

  Only Daphne never did tell her friend. She never wrote to her again, hardly went home again. Her friend was a nice girl, a plain, happy girl with a nice boyfriend and a job in a bank. She wouldn’t have understood about Andrew, about his flat or his drugs or the fact that he could quote Nietzsche or the fact that he brought three men round the evening Daphne decided to let him have his way, three of them, and he left Daphne with them even though she was crying. He wasn’t interested in her at all, it seemed, or he was, but only so that he could sell her virginity to the highest bidder. It was an established practice with freshers at universities in those days. Daphne had read about it since but at the time she was sure she was the only one. The only one stupid enough, the only one bad enough to go along with it. The only one who didn’t run screaming and tell someone, who went back again and again, thinking she was good for nothing else, that the die was cast.

  ‘I got an infection,’ Daphne said. ‘He was a really evil guy. I couldn’t have children, it seemed, after that. I left uni, lost my way for a few years.’

  That must be the shortest version possible of what happened, Daphne thought. No mention of the tears, the drugs, the booze, or the men, one after another because Andrew needed more money, always more money. No mention of the shame of not finishing the studies she had longed for.

  ‘Thank you,’ Grace said. ‘Thank you for telling me but you know, it really, really wasn’t your fault. I can tell from the way you’re holding yourself that you think you did something that made this happen but you’ve got to stop thinking that, Daff. You don’t think little Nina deserves what’s happening, do you?’

  ‘God, no,’ Daphne said, ‘of course not. But I…’

  ‘You what?’ Grace said. ‘You asked for it? Is that what you were going to say? You cannot think that. You can’t. You know
what? I think you just forgot to think straight. Simple.’

  Daphne couldn’t believe that Grace had made her smile. And maybe, maybe there was something in what she had said. She felt a tiny spark of hope that life could be different, that she could maybe even, if they rescued Nina, be happy.

  ‘Hey,’ Grace said, ‘I’m so sorry that happened to you. And I’m so honoured, so proud that you chose me to tell it to. I know it’s not about me, don’t get me wrong, right time and place and all that, but still I’m proud.’

  Daphne blushed. Grace knelt up to look at her and her gaze was so direct that Daphne thought that perhaps she did understand, perhaps there had been an Andrew in Grace’s life as well. I could kiss her, she thought.

  ‘What happened after Eleanor died?’

  Grace opened her mouth to speak, but just at that moment Meg came down the stairs, phone in hand and faster than usual.

  ‘I got a text from Nina,’ Meg said, ‘on the phone they don’t know she’s got. She says things are OK, really, nothing too bad has happened. But they’re planning something for her tomorrow, she said that.’

  The three women looked at each other as they all realised what had to happen.

  ‘Who’s going to make the call?’ Meg said.

  Grace and Daphne both started speaking at once.

  ‘Do you know what?’ Meg said. ‘Maybe I should do it. I mean, I’m not very good at those sort of things, but…’

  ‘I’m not sure that any of us are very good at those sorts of things,’ Daphne said. Grace smiled.

  ‘I never stood up to Henry,’ Meg said, ‘my husband, Henry. He could be a bit of a bully, and I never really said anything. Well, not till the end. But I’d like to now, if nobody minds. I’ll do it for that lovely girl.’

  There was no way that Daphne could say no when Meg put it like that, and a glance at Grace told Daphne that she felt the same. The only thing that worried Daphne was the possibility of Meg saying the wrong thing, or spoiling their surprise advantage in some way. It would take planning, that was all, Daphne thought, but she needn’t have worried. Meg took to it like a pro. The four of them wrote it down together, Meg’s script. She was to offer the money in return for Nina, arrange the meeting but nothing else. No being drawn into conversation. Meg stuck to it like she had the lead role in the school play.

  ‘Just one of you,’ Meg said into the phone. She used her own but with the number withheld. ‘No hidden extras or we’ll just give up on the whole thing and keep the money. We’re quite tempted to do that anyway.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Daphne afterwards, ‘you really made it sound as if you didn’t care whether you got the girl back or not, that was a clever move.’

  ‘Was it?’ Meg said. ‘It’s a thing I learned with Henry: never show that something means a lot to you, or he would take it and smash it. Pretend you don’t give a damn. It’s the only way.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Meg

  Wednesday, 27 February

  I was the one who made the phone calls. I wanted to, but I was scared and I couldn’t believe they trusted me to do it. I was sure that Daphne or Grace, probably Grace, would be better at it but they said I’d be fine and I was. I didn’t completely mess up, even though I was shaking like a leaf. I gave myself a pat on the back afterwards and I tried to calm down. I wondered for a moment what else I could have done in my life, what job I might have had if things had been different. I could have been a spy, maybe, making international deals and rescuing people stuck in countries they didn’t want to be in. Or head of a big multinational corporation, flying from one city to another to negotiate with other important people. I wouldn’t have looked at a no-hoper like Henry, I’d have had a different sort of husband altogether. Someone supportive, a little taller and maybe with a moustache.

  The second phone call was way more difficult even though I was on a roll. In the first, toad man had been positively gleeful at the thought of getting one over on us, and once he realised that we were offering money he could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice. The second one, the call to the small killers with the dog called Shoe, that was a different kettle of fish. I had to think on my feet, work hard. Start as you mean to go on, Henry used to say. Not everything he said was unhelpful.

  ‘It’s tonight,’ I said.

  ‘That’s quite soon,’ Clara said, sounding for all the world as though she was consulting her diary.

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but best not to hang around. Give him time to think of—’ I was going to say more but she cut me off.

  ‘Let’s not talk about anything extraneous,’ she said.

  She pronounced each syllable of extraneous as if she was sounding it out from a book, and it was a new word to her. I caught an edge of pride in her voice and I had a flash, just a flash of how it might be to watch a child learning to talk.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  I was trying to sound as businesslike as she was but my voice may have been shaking. Everyone can read you like an open book, Henry used to say, you wear your heart on your sleeve, and all your other organs as well.

  ‘OK, there’s a road runs up the back of Hilly Fields, leads to the café. The café near the stone circle. It closes at five so there won’t be anyone there. It’s called Eastern Road. It ends in a kind of car park. He’s going to meet us there at midnight, and we’re—’

  ‘Over and out,’ Clara said. ‘I roger that completely. We’ll be there.’

  I ended the call and looked over at the others.

  ‘Was that OK?’ I said. ‘Only it’s not the kind of thing I usually do.’ All of them burst out laughing.

  ‘If you think it’s the kind of thing I normally do,’ Grace said, ‘then you’re in the wrong ball park altogether.’

  I hadn’t realised until the last few days how people can laugh at each other without it being unpleasant, or judgemental. That’s a thing I’d like to tell Henry if he ever came back to life. It buoyed me up, the laughter, made me feel OK about the phone call with the Shoe killers, as I’d come to think of them.

  ‘Does anyone else think that this suddenly feels rather dangerous?’ Daphne said. ‘And should we throw the phone away?’

  We all stopped laughing.

  ‘I think we can wait before we decide that,’ Grace said, ‘and I think I’d like to go and look at the place again later, once it’s dark. That’ll make us feel much better. Where everyone is actually placed is going to be vital. He’s younger than us, fitter than us and he’s also more used to this kind of thing.’

  ‘“This kind of thing”?’ Daphne said. ‘What, you mean like people trying to kill him?’

  I could hear the violin and it was screeching. There was snoring, too, but I knew it was in my head. I felt spooked, and I could see that the others did too. We stared at each other and I thought that I might cry if someone didn’t say something to break the spell. What about Nina? I thought. What if we fail? What if he punishes her for what we’ve tried? What if it’s even worse for her that we tried and failed, than if we had just left her alone? I was sure that the others were thinking something similar. I had a sudden urge to go to the toilet, just so that I could be alone for a moment or two.

  ‘It’s OK, ladies, calm down, calm down,’ Des said. I was reassured for a moment when he spoke. It seemed like a gentle word, ladies.

  ‘Let’s go back over Meg’s call with the toad,’ Des said. ‘Let’s go over it until we know it off by heart. Right, I’ll be toad and you be you, Meg. What did you say?’

  ‘You were all here when I was speaking,’ I said. ‘I feel silly.’

  ‘No,’ Grace said, ‘Des is right. We probably all heard something different, concentrated on a different part of it. We need to put all those parts together, so that we all know the same things. I know this from being a teacher. Sixteen per cent, I think that’s all anyone retains first time around. Even if they’re trying hard. It’s probably less for old people.’

  ‘Or people who are stressed,’
Daphne said.

  I could see the sense in what they were saying. I tried to get as near as I could to the actual words I had spoken.

  ‘We have a plan,’ I said again, ‘we’d like to meet you. We are worried about the girl and we have cash we can offer if you’ll hand her over to us.’

  We had offered twenty thousand, because it seemed the right amount to start with. I went through all that again in the repeat pretending phone call with Des, explaining where we would meet and at what time. We’d talked about it so much before I made the phone call, I knew it off by heart. Des answered as if he was toad man. He even put on a deep, menacing voice which made me want to laugh, but he was trying his best. We all were. Trying our best in a situation that was completely out of our comfort zone. Another thing I noticed was, whatever kind of criminal Des was, or might have been, he wasn’t very good at it. That much had been obvious from the beginning.

  ‘Meg,’ Daphne said, ‘are you OK? Only we need you to remember exactly what he said, toad man, at the end of the call. It could be important.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Henry always said my daydreaming would get me into trouble.’

  Daphne and Grace looked at each other.

  ‘It seems to me,’ Grace said, ‘that Henry said a lot of things.’

  ‘What Grace means,’ Daphne said, ‘is that Henry seems to have been the kind of man who put you down a lot with his sayings. Maybe remembering them makes you put yourself down, and that’s a shame. You’re doing so well.’

  It took me a minute or two to process what she was saying. I mean, I’m not completely stupid, and I was certainly aware that Henry quite often pointed out my shortcomings in a way that made me cringe. But there was a grain of truth in there somewhere, that’s what I had always believed. If Grace and Daphne were right, that could be a burden off my shoulders, a lighter way to think about my life and how things turned out.