I was very quiet this time. I kept to the edge where the floorboards didn’t creak so much, and I moved slowly. Very slowly. As slowly and quietly as I would have moved if I had a baby and I was trying not to wake her up. I liked thinking of that, and it carried me down the hall until I was standing outside the room the noise had come from. The door was slightly open. I planned to throw it open like a cop, burst in and catch him at a disadvantage. Scare him to death and then… I wasn’t quite sure what else. Maybe things would develop organically, like they had before. It’ll work itself out, I thought, you can’t plan everything. Some things are best left to chance.
I got to the door, ready to go, but toad must have watched the same cop shows that I had. Just as I got to the door he pulled it open so that it crashed against the wall and he jumped out. I thought he had a mask on at first but then I realised that his face was horribly contorted. He roared at me, roared like in a horror film and it made me jump. I have never coped well with being startled. I seem to jump out of my skin much more often than other people and I really, really don’t like it. I was hyper-aware of everything round me. I could hear someone running up the stairs and Des’s voice shouted, ‘I’m here, don’t shoot,’ but I didn’t process the words.
It was a reflex, shooting the gun. I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had heard Des properly, because at that moment I was sure Nina was at least terribly harmed, and at worst, and most likely, dead. The man who had done it was in front of my face and I was pointing a gun at him which didn’t seem to scare him at all. What else would a person do?
My ears shut down from the noise. Much louder than on TV. Everything started to move in slow motion. As though someone had pressed a switch. Toad was practically on top of me so I saw everything. I saw the way he paused, looking puzzled, and then put his hand to his chest where the bullet had gone in. I saw him look at the hand and see the blood on it, and I saw that he knew how badly he was hurt. He looked at his hand, and then at me, and then at his hand again and I wanted to look away but I owed him that much at least, I needed to look him in the eye. It seemed only right.
‘Meg,’ Des shouted, ‘be careful,’ and I heard that but I was on an absolute roll now. I shot toad again and as I did I heard the bathroom door open and Nina came out.
‘Be careful,’ she shouted, ‘Fiona is in the garden.’
Des ran to the window and looked out.
‘It’s not,’ he called, ‘she’s sorted. It’s OK, it’s Clara, she’s hurt but she’s OK. The others are coming now, let’s keep them all away for a moment.’ Des motioned out of the window that they should stay away.
I was ecstatic at the sight of Nina.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I said, and she said, ‘I thought you were,’ and we both cried.
‘I’m sorry about…’ I said and I motioned to toad, lying on the floor. She shrugged and I thought that maybe we could all pay for her to have therapy, when it was all over. She was going to need it.
‘Go downstairs,’ I said, ‘this isn’t something you should see.’
‘I’ve seen so much worse, Meggie,’ she said.
I believed her and for a moment I felt pleased with myself for putting a stop to his nastiness. Toad didn’t move again, and although I tried to think about his mother, I couldn’t. I didn’t even think about people hearing the gunshot and coming running until afterwards, but they didn’t anyway. That’s south-east London for you. People turn over in their beds, pretend they think it’s a car backfiring and thank whoever it is they thank that they’re safe and sound. No one came, and I hugged my Nina until she could hardly breathe.
‘Now go on,’ I said. ‘Go and see Ronnie.’ She flew down the stairs and then there was just Des, me and the body of toad.
‘Best if we sort this out ourselves,’ I said and he agreed. I wouldn’t want anyone else to have the kind of nightmares I had, and I suspected Des had them too.
‘We’d better check,’ I said. ‘Make sure he’s, you know.’ I could see that Des wasn’t going to do it so I knelt down and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one, and I was sure that the person who had been toad no longer existed.
‘We’ve got to clean it all up quickly,’ I said. I wanted every trace of him gone as quickly as possible. ‘Maybe if we use the rug, to roll it in.’ I couldn’t bring myself to call toad ‘he’ or ‘him’.
‘Good idea,’ Des said. He didn’t move and I thought he looked green. One thing I was sure of, if he had really committed a terrible crime, the one he was convicted for, either he had a very good reason for it or there was a miscarriage of justice. That man was not a real criminal. We stared together at the body and while we were standing there, the woman who hung out with toad popped into my head. His sidekick.
‘Des,’ I said, ‘what about the woman? His partner? Where is she?’ I could feel the fear flooding through me as I imagined her going to the police and giving a full description of me.
‘I left her tied up in the house they were using as a brothel,’ he said. I could hear more than a hint of pride in his voice. ‘She’ll be fine, I left her some water. I freed all the girls from their rooms and sent them off. I reckon it won’t take her too long to get free, and she’s not going to cause any trouble. I think I can promise you that.’
Des looked positively smug for a moment and I decided not to ask any more questions. She could hardly report toad missing, after all. Sometimes you have to trust people, I thought.
I could hear talking downstairs as the others came in. It sounded as though they were all together, such a comforting sound. Des wilted as soon as he’d finished speaking and it was clear that he wasn’t going to be good for much so although I was sorry they had to see the body, I was glad when Grace and Daphne came up and sent him away.
‘I should never have given you the gun,’ Des kept saying. ‘I should have kept it myself.’
He had his head in his hands and as he went off down the stairs Daphne tried to comfort him.
‘It’s OK, Des,’ she said. ‘Meg did a good thing today, we’ll work it out.’
I did? I thought. Really? I started to feel a little bit, just a tiny smudge of pride. So different from when Henry died and I was all alone, so nice to have all these people helping and saying the right things.
‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to make a habit of it. Just this once.’ I crossed my fingers behind my back.
The three of us were alone again, to clear up. Just us, pact honoured, job done, Nina safe. It was a very special moment. We rolled him in the rug and as we did it our hands touched. We looked up and caught each other’s eyes.
‘Well done, Meg,’ Grace said. Daphne nodded and squeezed my hand. ‘So good to have you two in my life,’ she said.
We’re really friends, I thought. It made everything bearable.
By the time we’d got him decently covered up they were all standing at the bottom of the stairs. Gordon, Susannah, Des, Nina, Ronnie, Greg and even Clara, with a bump on her head but otherwise OK. Everyone tried to offer advice on what to do next and the best way to clean up. I couldn’t take it all in. Nina was talking nineteen to the dozen about the spilt cup of tea that wasn’t blood and Greg went to get salt to sprinkle on the real bloodstains, upstairs. I would have liked to be alone with my special friends for a little bit longer but there was lots to do. I wanted to try to get Ronnie to eat and I knew the cleaning up would be difficult. I was pleased when Clara spoke up.
‘I’m sorry we missed the engagement,’ she said, as if they had been late for a tea party. ‘We’d like to compensate for this in some way by assisting now.’
By the time we all went to bed the sun had risen but Nina and Ronnie were still up, lying on my bed together and looking at universities online. They had decided to phone their social workers in the morning, say they had run away for a while. I hoped I could offer them a home once they were eighteen. It wouldn’t be long to wait. Ronnie had already managed to eat a bit of porridge and N
ina had eaten everything she could find. Gordon and Susannah had gone with Des to stay in Daphne’s house. I thought they might be there for quite a while. She had loads of room, she said. Daphne and Grace stayed with me. We sat together, drinking tea. The Shoe people had done a tremendous job of clearing up, and had taken the remains of toad away with them. I never asked what they were going to do with it, with him, but I sent some chicken for Shoe.
It was Grace who said it. ‘Any regrets, ladies?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Daphne said, ‘there’s a part of me that wishes we hadn’t met Nina, hadn’t known. It will never be over for us, not really.’
I looked at my hand, the hand that had pulled the trigger, like an assassin in a film. I wanted to tell the truth.
‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘I would do it all again. They’re safe, Nina and Ronnie, and that’s what matters.’
I think they were surprised by that, but the thing about real friends is, they stick by you. They nodded and told me I was right, and that I was brave.
I tried to say the same kind of things when we all went to see Nina to say goodnight. Ronnie had fallen asleep so we spoke quietly.
‘I’ll never be able to repay you,’ Nina said. ‘I can’t believe a person would help another person like you’ve helped me.’
‘I’m so glad I could help,’ I said. ‘I’ll always be pleased, no matter what happens.’ I looked over at Grace and Daphne and I could see that they knew as well as I did that there would be long-term repercussions from this day, for the rest of all our lives.
‘Some things are worth doing,’ Grace said. Daphne nodded. ‘I hope you can put this behind you. Don’t dwell on any part of it, it doesn’t define you. Don’t let the fear and the knowledge overwhelm you.’
What she said, I thought. She smiled, my Nina, as if she had no idea what we were talking about. I hoped as hard as I’ve ever hoped anything that she never found out.
In the days that followed, Des felt the stress and the strain, I could tell he did. He felt guilty for everything. The whole world on his shoulders. He wanted some closure, which is a fashionable thing these days but it doesn’t always happen. If we had tipped off the police about Fiona, to stop her setting up shop again, it would have opened a whole new can of worms. A full can.
The only person I could talk to about everything was Henry. I talked to him a lot. I think he already knew what had happened the night he died, the sleeping pills in the soup, I think he’d always known that.
‘This tastes bitter,’ he’d said at the time. It felt right to explain it to him, how I had only meant to send him to sleep for a while, stop him from mocking me about Bingley and the little baby. It was the snoring later, that’s what did it. I had to stop the snoring. He had sleep apnoea, so no one ever questioned it. I hope he understood, my Henry. The old Henry, that is, I’m done with the new one. All that positivity and new-age stuff, it didn’t suit me. I like a man who tells it like it is. So I told him all of it, and asked what he thought. He didn’t answer. Didn’t say anything at all, but I could hear the violin if I strained. A lovely tune, it was playing, sad and lilting.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to my publisher, Manpreet, and my agent, Julia, for their hard work and support in difficult times.
Thank you also to my large and lovely family, you are all fabulous.
Lastly, I wrote this book thinking of, and being thankful for, all the women I have ever known who I would be glad to have by my side if I was planning a murder. You know who you are.
If you enjoyed A Beginner’s Guide to Murder, then don’t miss the debut novel from Rosalind Stopps, The Stranger She Knew, shortlisted for the Paul Torday Prize 2020.
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And make sure you keep on reading for an exclusive extract from The Stranger She Knew!
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Chapter One
September 2017
Lewisham
I could hear the words in my head but they wouldn’t come out.
I’m fine, I wanted to say, you can leave me here, I’ll be OK. It was the blood, that was all, I could smell blood, and I’ve always hated that. I wanted to explain to them. It makes me feel funny, but not funny ha ha, I would have said but they’ve got no sense of humour, young people. I didn’t like the way the man was looking at me. I’m not just a stupid old woman, I tried to say. I may not have been speaking very clearly but there was no need for him to look at me like that. I tried to tell him, don’t look at me like that, young man. I wanted to say it in quite a stern way but my mouth was doing that thing again of not working properly, as though I was drunk or I’d had something nasty done at the dentist. All that came out was a slur of s’s and some spit. I noticed he didn’t like the spit much, ambulance man or no ambulance man, he didn’t like that at all. I’d say he flinched, leaned back a bit, but he couldn’t go far because he was kneeling next to me on the floor.
It made me laugh that, him kneeling, it’s not a thing you see much. Reminds me of going to church when I was a kid, I tried to say, but the spitty thing was still going on. Try to relax, he said to me, try and calm down, deep breaths, we’ll get you sorted. I gave up on talking, tried to roll my eyes instead but of course that made him call his colleague over, the young woman with the thick ankles. She was wearing a skirt and I was surprised at that. I’m sure they’re allowed to wear trousers these days and if I was her I would have done. Cover up those ankles. I might have rolled my eyes again. They probably thought I was dying or something, because it was all rushing around after the eye rolling, no more of the calm down stuff, just lobbing me onto a stretcher like I was already gone and couldn’t feel anything. At least I was wearing trousers, I thought, and it made me laugh. It felt like a laugh inside. I don’t know what it looked like on the outside.
I might have gone to sleep for a moment or two after that. I’m surprised I was tired because I’d been doing nothing but lie around on the floor resting since I fell. I didn’t know how long I had been there but it must have been quite a while. Someone told me later I’d been there for two whole days and two nights. I’m not sure if that’s right or if it’s just another one of the things they say to old people to keep them in order. I’m still thinking about that one. I certainly remember watching the clock on the wall and thinking that it was going slowly, and that I might need to wind it up or put a new battery in it. I couldn’t remember which. And I can remember hearing someone push something through the letterbox. It was probably only a flyer for some kind of pizza place or a nail parlour but I tried to shout. I thought it was just a fall, you see, I’ve got big feet, clown feet I’ve been told, plus I’ve always been rather clumsy so I thought I had just fallen over the coffee table. I was wedged in between the coffee table and the sofa and the smell of blood was horrible. Turned out I’d only bashed my head a bit, no stitches needed, but at the time it smelt like an abattoir and that’s what I mainly remember.
Two days. I nodded like I agreed with them but two days, honest. I’m not sure about that. I’m going to ask some of the others when I can, I’m going to ask them how long they lay on the floor for if they had a stroke, and if just one of them says, two days, it will be obvious that it’s something they say to everyone, the two days thing, a big old lie. I’ve caught them telling lies a couple of times so I won’t be at all surprised.
I don’t remember much about the ambulance journey. There’s the smell, I remember that, the blood from the cut on my head, and another smell, a dirty smell that showed up in the ambulance. Maybe it was a smell from the person who had used the ambulance before me. They needed to work on that, clean it up a bit better. I’m sure the smell couldn’t have been coming from me. Who smelt it, dealt it, that’s what they used to say in the shop I worked in when I was a student. It reminded me of the day one of the boys in packing b
rought a stink bomb in during stocktaking. It brought tears to our eyes, but none of us girls said a word, in case we got teased.
I didn’t say anything in the ambulance. I just went to sleep and the next thing I knew, the young man who had been kneeling by me and the well-meaning woman with the thick ankles, they’d gone. It would have been nice if they had said goodbye or cheerio or something so that I’d known they were going. I’d got used to them being there and I felt lonely without them. They should have said something but they didn’t, or they didn’t do it loudly enough, so when I woke up there was a different woman. She had a badge on that said, ‘hello, my name is Agnita’.
Hello yourself, can you not speak then, I wanted to say, have you got badges for other things you want to say? I imagined a person covered in badges, all of them saying useful things like, would you like a cup of tea, or, mine’s a pint. Count me out, I thought, I’m not wearing any badges, they can’t make me. And they didn’t, but get this, what they did was even worse. They wrote it, on the wall above my bed. ‘Hello,’ it said, ‘my name is May. Please talk to me.’
I couldn’t believe it. Please talk to me, indeed. As if. I don’t need anyone to talk to me, thank you very much and if I could just untwist my mouth enough I’d tell them so in no uncertain terms. I haven’t had anyone to talk to for a long time, no one except for my daughter, Jenny, and she’s so quiet I can hardly hear her. Speak up, I always say, speak up or I’m going to read my book and ignore you. That makes her nervous, and I’m sorry about that but there’s no point mollycoddling a grown child. No point at all.
I fantasised for a while about scrubbing the words off my wall. If I could just stand up for a moment I’d make sure there wasn’t a trace of writing left. There wouldn’t be any ‘please talk to me’ then, I can assure you.
A Beginner’s Guide to Murder Page 29