A Beginner’s Guide to Murder

by Rosalind Stopps

  ‘Agreed,’ Grace said.

  The two women walked in silence for a while, checking their route on Grace’s phone. Neither of them knew exactly what they were going to do when they got there, but they both trusted the other, and they both knew they’d get it right. They would do what needed to be done. They didn’t need to speak to know that they were in tune.

  They were almost at the house when Grace’s phone buzzed.

  ‘It’s Nina,’ Grace said, looking at the number. ‘Hello?’

  She listened for a moment and then said, ‘OK, we’ve got it, thank you, stay where you are and don’t worry.’

  Grace turned to Daphne. They both looked towards the flowering tree, ghostly and ostentatious on the dark street.

  ‘It’s here,’ Grace said. ‘Remember Nina has got Henry’s old phone? It’s linked to Meg’s. Apparently Meg has switched on location services. She texted Nina just now, right after we left. Nina can see Meg’s location on her phone. Cliffview Road, it says, about halfway down.’

  Daphne looked up and down the road. They were almost exactly halfway down. She wished that she had some kind of faith so that she could send up a quick prayer. Grace seemed to read her thoughts.

  ‘Hey,’ Grace said, ‘we can always send a quick prayer up anyway, maybe to the tree spirit or something.’

  Daphne knew she was blushing. She felt that she had been caught out being stupid. And being scared, that was the worst thing. Grace must know that she was scared. Grace held Daphne’s shoulders and turned her slightly, so that they were facing each other.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I feel scared too. But we’re OK. Are we going to wait for Des? Or shall we go get her?’

  ‘OK,’ Daphne said, ‘we’ve got this.’

  The house was dark, no lights on and nothing moving. Daphne led Grace into the front garden and round the side of the house. There was a little path from the front to the back garden, and about halfway down was a door. There was no curtain on the window next to the door and Daphne peered in.

  ‘Kitchen,’ she whispered, ‘no one there.’

  Daphne tried the handle of the door. She moved it slowly and quietly but it was locked.

  The two women moved further around the back of the house. There were French windows, but Daphne was sure they’d be locked. No one in London leaves doors unlocked unless they’re really stupid and Daphne knew toad wasn’t that. They’d have to look for a different way in, get to toad when he wasn’t expecting it. For the first time in years, Daphne wished she was younger. More agile, able to shin her way up a drainpipe or climb a tree to get on to the roof.

  ‘If you’re thinking what I’m thinking,’ Grace said into Daphne’s ear, ‘I’d just like to say that I was never any good at breaking and entering, even when I was young. And I’m not going to take it up now.’

  ‘Good thing I’m here, ladies,’ said Des.

  He had crept up behind them without either of them noticing.

  ‘Sorry if I made you jump,’ Des whispered. ‘All fine at Meg’s. I didn’t want to make a noise. I’ve spotted a good way in, you two wait here.’

  He pointed to a shed leaning against the back wall of the house.

  ‘Easy,’ he said, ‘no problem at all.’

  Daphne could think of several very good reasons why Des’s suggestion was a terrible one. It didn’t look strong enough to hold his weight, for a start, and the noise he would make, for another. It would wake the whole house. Des seemed to pick up what Daphne was thinking.

  ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘you ain’t seen me in action. I bet you, and sorry, Daff, I know I said I wouldn’t bet, but I bet you I can get in there without anyone hearing.’

  Des blew a kiss towards Daphne and leapt onto the roof of the shed in two easy and quiet movements. He slid the window up and hopped over the sill.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Grace, ‘did you see that? What on earth do we do now?’

  Daphne didn’t know. She really didn’t know and she was tired, cold and scared. For just one moment Daphne wished she had never met Meg or Nina, never got involved, never tried to help. She could have spent her retirement planting trees or writing poems.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Grace whispered, ‘it’s for Nina and Meg, remember?’

  Daphne thought of Nina’s sweet face. So trusting even after all the bad things that had happened to her. And Meg, poor Meg with her lack of self-esteem. Grace was right. Whatever happened, they had to try. Daphne knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Meg

  Friday, 1 March

  It was the longest night ever. Even worse than when Henry died. I guess that’s what happens when a seventy-year-old person is kidnapped. It’s the opposite of time zipping by fast when you’re having fun. I wasn’t sure whether I was more scared of that toad man coming back in or poor Ronnie dying on my lap but neither of them was a pleasant prospect. I tried to keep our spirits up.

  ‘Come on, Ronnie,’ I kept saying, as if it might jolly her along, keep her going a bit longer. ‘Come on, I need some help with that toad, you know. I can’t do it all by myself.’

  She smiled sometimes, so I knew she was listening. I think she was saving her strength. I could see that she liked it when I talked so I made up some stories for her. The kind of stories I might have told a child if they couldn’t sleep. There were tales of Bingley and his great courage, and tales of babies who could lift cars off crushed parents and speak every language in the world.

  ‘You should write some of this down,’ Ronnie said.

  I had thought of that before, but I knew that Henry would have poked fun at me, and not in a friendly way. He didn’t like that sort of thing. Making up stories, showing off. I pushed him away and got out the new improved Henry instead.

  ‘My husband used to say that,’ I whispered to Ronnie, crossing my fingers where she couldn’t see. ‘He used to say, Meg, you should write those stories down. Draw little pictures too, lots of people would love them.’

  Ronnie nodded in agreement with the fictional Henry. She looked pleased, and for a silly moment I wished I could meet the not-real Henry, my not-real husband. I’d thank him for everything he’s done for me. And for Ronnie. I could introduce him to all the new people in my life.

  ‘I feel sick,’ Ronnie whispered. I had to strain to hear her.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘this is the worst part. Things are going to get better soon.’

  I had no idea whether I was right, of course. I think I was saying it to myself as much as anything, although to be honest once I took stock I couldn’t see that things could be much worse. Not when you looked at it plainly, without the rose-tinted glasses. I was being held prisoner by a vicious pimp and pinning all my hopes on a couple of women I had only known for a few days, a man with a gambling addiction and a pair of small hired killers with a dog named Shoe. I wasn’t sure where my optimism was coming from.

  ‘I’ve come through worse,’ I whispered.

  Ronnie seemed to rally. ‘Have you?’ she said. ‘Tell me about it.’

  She snuggled down into my lap for all the world like a small child waiting for another bedtime story.

  ‘Once there was a very grumpy man named Henry,’ I said. ‘He was so grumpy that the leaves on the trees turned brown when he walked past, even in spring. Small children ran away and clutched their mothers’ hands, and teenagers decided they’d rather go to their rooms and do their homework than stick around. The people who disliked him the most, though, were dogs. All dogs, any dogs. Dogs absolutely hated him. The nicest, fluffiest, quietest dogs were the worst. They barked, they yapped, they even tried to bite him if they could. They knew, you see, they knew what he was really like.’

  I wondered where the story was going, even as I said the words. I didn’t want to give Ronnie nightmares.

  ‘You can’t fool a dog,’ Ronnie whispered. ‘I bet if there was a dog here he would hate Pat.’

  ‘Pat?’ I said. I
couldn’t think for a moment who she was talking about.

  Ronnie laughed. I could see from this close that her teeth were in a terrible state. Orthodontist, I thought, if we get out of here. Ronnie and Nina both need proper dental care.

  ‘Oh, the man,’ she said, ‘the one that looks exactly like a toad.’

  It was strange to think of toad having a name. Especially a name as innocuous as Pat. I wasn’t sure what would suit him better, but Pat seemed like a name for a gentle old person. Short for Patrick or Patricia, lilting names.

  ‘Imagine his poor mother,’ I said, ‘trying to think of a nice name for him, not knowing he would turn out so badly.’

  I could feel Ronnie giggle.

  ‘If I ever have a baby,’ she said, ‘I’ll call her after you. Meg. Or maybe Greg, if it’s a boy.’

  ‘I’ve known some very nice Gregs,’ I said. ‘In fact it may be a Greg who helps to rescue us.’

  I told her a little bit about all of us. All of my gang. She loved that. She was nearly asleep by the time I’d got to Shoe. I could feel her breathing become more regular and there was longer in between each breath.

  I sat there in that cold little room and I knew that I needed a plan more than I ever had done. Even after Henry, even that night, I still only had myself to worry about. This was different. I tried to think clearly. Locked room, what was that riddle about people escaping from a locked room and leaving nothing behind? I thought dry ice was involved, and I had no idea what that even was so that wasn’t going to help. Window, I thought, go for the most obvious thing. I’ve seen lots of films where someone casually escapes out of a window as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. My eyes were accustomed to the dark, and I looked at the window. It was a Victorian sash and although I couldn’t move in case I woke Ronnie, I could see that it was painted shut, just like ours had been. We did it because otherwise they would have been too difficult to lock, but I remember being sorry because I would have liked to open them sometimes in the summer. Henry said it was best to make sure they stayed shut.

  I can’t imagine, now, why I accepted that. Looking back, I can see that I had absolutely no backbone. Henry said things were one way, and I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I wondered, there in the locked room with the locked window and the sleeping girl, whether that made him worse? Whether he hadn’t wanted to be like that at all? I stopped thinking about escape for a moment as an awful thought struck me. What if, inside, he had been more like my new improved Henry? What if I had brought out the absolute worst in him and then not allowed him to stop being as bad as he was? There was a violin screeching so hard and out of tune in my head that I couldn’t think properly. I tried to think about Bingley but there was something else, some other reason why I knew Henry was bad, why I knew it wasn’t my fault. I could not put my finger on it, that was all. It was like having a tune stuck in my head but not being able to remember what it was, that’s how I felt. I knew there was something else.

  ‘Thing is, Meg,’ I said to myself, ‘it doesn’t much matter now, about Henry and all of that stuff. You’re just being dim if you think it matters. You’ve got to stop living in the past. This is what matters – you’re in a locked room in a house with a very bad man and a sick young woman. You’re waiting for help from a bunch of oddballs and the time might have come to call the police.’

  I tried to convince myself that Nina would be OK if the police came. That they’d take Ronnie to hospital and put Nina back in school where she belonged but I couldn’t make myself believe it. All those years of making myself believe whatever Henry said must have used up my ability to trick myself. That and the fools in government around the world who are looking the other way as the world splutters to an end. I wasn’t gullible any more. I knew, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that toad would be good with the police. He knew how to speak to them, they could see him. All they would see when they looked at us was old women, stupid old women. We didn’t have a claim or a plan. Some of us dressed strangely, we associated with alleged criminals, some of us were women of colour, and I was sure that we were all invisible. Beyond the pale, that’s what my mum used to say for things that were unacceptable. That was us.

  I looked towards the window again. Moonlight poured in as though it had been switched on, and with the increased light I felt an unexpected surge of optimism. They will come, I thought, they will be here soon. They are my people.

  Ronnie woke up.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘I can feel you’ve gone all tense. Is something happening?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I do know that they’re coming, my friends, I know they won’t leave us here.’

  Ronnie looked at me the way a person might look at someone who had declared that they still believed in fairies. She wanted to believe too.

  ‘Let’s have a look at where they are, on the phone,’ she said.

  I wasn’t sure. There seemed lots of reasons why that wasn’t a good idea. Firstly, if they weren’t where I hoped they were I thought I might give up hope, and Ronnie might be disappointed too. Secondly, and most important, if toad came in suddenly, if he crept in on us, then we would lose whatever advantage we had by having a phone.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ronnie said. ‘It’s like saying, I won’t take my umbrella because it’s raining. The umbrella might get wet.’

  I could see that she had a point, and I couldn’t help being pleased that she had the strength to argue. I weighed it up for a few seconds but her hopeful little face made me reach under my skirt and into my knickers again to get out the phone. I should have known better. Stupid Meg, moon-faced Meg, that’s what he used to say, and he wasn’t always wrong. Still, I powered my phone up and I was just starting to explain that we would only have the phone out for a few seconds, when I noticed a wavering light outside the window. Not a strong light, more like the beam of a small torch or the light from a mobile phone.

  ‘Ssh,’ I said and I pointed towards the window. I wasn’t even sure of what I was seeing, whether I had wished it into being, but I realised that Ronnie could see it too. She went very quiet.

  ‘Is that your friends?’ she asked. ‘Is it Nina?’

  Ronnie was sitting close enough to me that I could feel the excitement fizz through her.

  ‘I think it is,’ I said. ‘I might be wrong, but I think it is.’

  We could hear little noises outside now. Nothing much, but we listened hard and we could make out light footsteps and some shuffling leafy sounds. Suddenly Ronnie jumped and I looked to see what she had heard. I squinted at the dark glass and there she was. Grace. I was sure it was Grace and she held her thumbs up to me. I waved like crazy. I waved as if I had been alone on a desert island for weeks, months even. Ronnie laughed and joined in too and I think we forgot where we were. Just for the smallest of moments but enough that we didn’t hear the door open. We didn’t know he had come into the room until he switched his torch on and shouted, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  He was across the room in absolutely no time and he yanked the phone out of my hand. I realised what was happening just as he got to me so I clung on to it but he was stronger and he had the advantage.

  ‘I’ll take this,’ he said.

  He lunged at me with his fist out, trying to punch me in the face, but Ronnie pushed herself up and in front of me. She blocked the punch. I could hear the thud of fist against bone as he hit Ronnie on the side of her head. She stumbled back on to the sofa holding her face. I could see there was blood. I felt furious. I remembered that old TV series, the one where the man gets so mad that he bursts out of his clothes and turns into the Incredible Hulk, and I felt as though it was happening to me. I pulled my skirt up and reached into my knickers for the gun. The weight in my hands was comforting. I didn’t want to shoot him, but I thought I might be a good enough shot to hit the wall behind his head or the window, if I needed to. Give him a scare.

  I had an underskirt on, a petticoat we used to call them, plus tights, and my s
kirt was long and full so I had a bit of a job locating the gun at first. It felt like ages anyway, although it was probably only a second or two. I stuck the gun up my sleeve. Toad was quiet while I fussed around and I wasn’t sure what he was doing. Gawping at me in my underwear, I thought, but when I looked up properly I realised that he was looking on my phone, scrolling through it.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘that’s private.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve realised quite where you are,’ he said, ‘or who you’re talking to.’ He punched me then and although I was becoming familiar with his blows to my head, this time I understood the cartoons. You know, the ones like Tom and Jerry where someone would get a blow to the head and then they’d lie there with their eyes crossed and stars floating above their heads or the symbols from a fruit machine. That’s exactly how it was. I couldn’t get up but instead of oranges and lemons lining up I had Henrys, loads of Henrys in lines of three. Over the top of the Henrys I could hear Ronnie crying.

  ‘Who’s Henry?’ toad said.

  I couldn’t understand him for a moment. It seemed very much like the wrong question to be asking.

  He stared at the phone and then asked again.

  ‘Who’s Henry?’ he said.

  I was still reeling from the punch and I couldn’t understand why he was asking me such a stupid question. He slapped me this time, a full open-hand slap to the side of the head with all the force he could muster behind it.

  ‘My husband,’ I said. ‘He’s dead.’

  I don’t know and I’ll never know, I suppose, why I gave toad more information than he asked for. I could have just said, Henry is my husband, or I could have told him any one of a vast number of lies which might have made things easier. No, not me, I had to tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and it was just enough information to allow him to understand what was really happening.

  ‘Bingo,’ he shouted. ‘Thanks for that, old lady.’