Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  Zoe’s POV. Through the windscreen we see that the rain is becoming heavier. The windscreen wipers are not on. The car proceeds down a country road. There is the sound of gears crunching.

  MARCUS: Where’d you learn to drive?

  ZOE: Watching my dad. (She turns right into a narrow country lane with a high grassy bank on one side.)

  MARCUS: Where you going?

  ZOE: Short cut. Avoid the traffic in town. I don’t want to go past any coppers’ cars. (She’s jabbing at various controls, turning them on and off. She starts the windscreen wipers, but the interior is misting up.) Where the fuck’s the demister? (She takes her eyes off the road to push more switches.)

  THE CAMERA CUTS TO MARCUS’S FACE. IT REGISTERS HORROR.

  MARCUS: Zo! (He grabs at the wheel.)

  CUT TO VIEW THROUGH WINDSCREEN. ZOE’S POV.

  A girl on a cycle is directly in their path. She turns slightly to look behind her as the car ploughs into her.

  FADE TO:

  SCENE FIVE. EXT. MORNING. COUNTRY LANE. HEAVY RAIN.

  The cyclist is lying on the grass verge unconscious. Her bike and a paper sack are beside her. Zoe and Marcus are bent over her. The car doors are both open, the engine has been left running.

  ZOE: Is she dead?

  MARCUS: I don’t know.

  ZOE: Well look. (She kneels in the road and tentatively puts a hand on the girl’s neck, feeling for a pulse.) I can feel something.

  MARCUS: I’ll leg it back to the house. Call an ambulance.

  ZOE: Yeah, great plan, Marcus. We’ve got no licence, no insurance. And we’re both wasted on booze and wizz. Call an ambulance. Call the coppers at the same time why don’t you? (She glances around. The backs of a row of houses are some distance away. There is no sign of movement in that direction.) Let’s get out of here.

  MARCUS: You can’t just leave her there.

  ZOE: Someone will find her. (She starts to stand up but the girl stirs and moans. She takes a grip on Zoe’s clothing, opens her eyes and stares.)

  THE GIRL (Her voice is indistinct, mumbling): You hit me. It hurts.

  MARCUS: It was an accident.

  THE GIRL (She is still staring straight up into Zoe’s face): I know you. You were in that Grease show at the Winter Gardens. You’re Sandy. (She tries to sit and can’t. She is in pain.) You drove straight into me. You stupid bitch. I’ll get you for this. They’ll put you in jail.

  MARCUS: It was an accident.

  ZOE: Shut up, Marcus. Obviously it was a bloody accident. (Marcus kneels down too, beside the girl. He picks up a pair of spectacles from where they have fallen in the grass and hands them to the girl. Then jerks back as the girl scratches his face.)

  THE GIRL: I heard what you said. You should be locked up. For years and years. (She starts to cry.) I want my mum.

  ZOE (Zoe is taking deep breaths, as if she is hyperventilating, suddenly blood starts to pour from her nose and drip over the girl): Oh shit!

  THE GIRL: Yeah, you dirty cow. I’ll make them send you to jail, you see if I don’t.

  ZOE: Shut up! Just shut up! You shouldn’t have been riding the bike in the middle of the road anyway.

  THE GIRL: You saying it’s my fault? I’m not the one with no licence or insurance or anything. I want my mum. Get my mum. She works for solicitors. They’ll see you’re locked up. For years. (She opens her mouth as if to say something else. She coughs and retches violently. Blood fountains from her mouth.)

  ZOE: Shut up! (She puts her handkerchief over the girl’s mouth and nose. The girl is wriggling and kicking. Then she goes limp. Zoe tentatively removes her hand from the girl’s mouth.)

  MARCUS: Hell Zoe, what have you done?

  (Zoe’s nose continues to pour blood. She wipes it away with the back of her sleeve. She backs away from the girl, not quite believing what she’s just done.)

  MARCUS: We’ve got to do something. Get someone.

  ZOE: No. We can’t. (She stands up. Her front is covered with her own and the girl’s blood. She has started to cry.) Help me, Marcus.

  MARCUS: It’s okay, Zo. (He pulls her into his arms and comforts her.) It’s okay. We’ll leave her here. It’s like you say, someone will find her.

  ZOE: I can’t go home looking like this. (She steps back indicating her blood-soaked clothes. Some of the mess is now smeared down Marcus’s front too.)

  MARCUS: You had a nosebleed. You’re always getting them. No big deal.

  ZOE: I’ve got a better idea. Stick her in the car.

  MARCUS: What?

  ZOE: Put her in the car. Now.

  (Marcus lifts the girl into the back seat. Zoe bundles in the paper sack. She hesitates over the bike. It is obvious it won’t fit. Pulling her jacket sleeves down over her hands, she manoeuvres it to the ditch in the verge and pushes it in.)

  CUT TO:

  SCENE SIX. INT. CAR. MORNING. HEAVY RAIN.

  The car is approaching the front of Juanita’s house. Zoe and Marcus’s POV.

  MARCUS: What are we doing back at the gonk’s place?

  ZOE: It’s better they don’t find her. If they don’t find her, they can’t know she’s dead. She could have just run off or something. They ain’t going to ask questions. About anyone covered in blood or anything. You can see that can’t you?

  MARCUS: Yeah, but …

  ZOE: There ain’t no ‘but’ Marcus. I’ve got the interview for drama college next month and nothing is going to stop me getting that place. It can’t. (She drives into Juanita’s drive and pulls on the hand brake with a vicious jerk. Marcus’s face is still registering indecision.) You don’t get it do you? I’m not clever, Marcus. I’m smart, but I’m not passing-exams-clever. We all figured out years ago that the only way to get out of this dump and away from me dad is to earn decent money or marry it. I don’t intend to end up like me sisters. (She takes Marcus’s face between her hands and draws him towards her, speaking intensely.) I ain’t never going to be a doctor, or an architect, or a lawyer. None of those jobs that earn good money. But I can act. I’m a good actress aren’t I? (He nods, his face still held between her hands.) It’s my way out, Marcus. I’m going to be a star. I know I am. I’ll make it happen. I’m going to college in London. And I’m going to make myself so damn famous, that they’ll be throwing money at me. And nothing is going to stop me. We can have a good life, Marcus. But you have to help me with this, okay?

  MARCUS: Okay.

  (Through the windscreen we see Juanita emerge from the front door of the house and start towards the car.)

  ZOE: Leave her to me.

  CUT TO:

  SCENE SEVEN. INT. KITCHEN OF JUANITA’S HOUSE. MORNING.

  The girl’s body is lying on the tiled floor. Zoe and Juanita are facing each other.

  ZOE: You will help me, won’t you, Juanita? I couldn’t bear to go to prison, I really couldn’t. (She starts to cry.)

  JUANITA: Yes. No. (She’s wringing her hands, lost in indecision.) I mean, if it was an accident, Zoe … they won’t put you in prison. Will they?

  ZOE: Yes, they will. They do things like that. They make examples of you if you’re a teenager. It’s not fair, is it?

  JUANITA: No. I suppose not.

  ZOE: You’re my best friend, Juanita. I knew you’d help me. You will, won’t you?

  JUANITA: Am I? Really, Zoe?

  ZOE: ’Course you are. (She rubs Juanita’s arm in an affectionate gesture.) Better than that. You’re like a sister, Juanita.

  JUANITA: I always wanted a sister. Or a brother.

  ZOE: Well now you’ve got one. We’re family you and me.

  ‘So,’ a voice behind me said. ‘Now you know.’

  And then I was hit by a bolt of unbelievable pain.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I felt myself hit the floor. My arms and legs were flailing but I had no control over them. My wrists were drawn back and tied up. Gripped under the armpits, I was hauled into a sitting position, leaning against the wall while more bonds were wr
apped around my ankles. They looked like tea towels.

  ‘I used the lowest setting. It will wear off very soon,’ Clemency said. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me, calmly winding up the two thin wires with their barbed tips that had embedded themselves in my sweater. Taser devices utilize compressed nitrogen to project two small probes at a speed of over 160 feet per second. An electrical signal is transmitted through the wires to where the probes make contact with the body or clothing, resulting in an immediate loss of neuromuscular control. They can deliver up to fifty thousand volts, and I could feel every one of them.

  Clemency returned the taser to its carrying case. It was white tooled leather, with a pattern worked in gold thread around the edges. ‘Present from an admirer,’ she said. ‘Beats the hell out of champagne or perfume.’

  ‘They’re illegal.’ I was pleased to hear I was almost in control of my tongue. She was right, the stun effect was dissipating already.

  ‘Hardly a worry when you consider other offences, m’lud.’ She looked up at the computer. The script was still on the screen. I’d only read the first dozen pages, but the toolbar had indicated there were a couple of hundred. ‘What was the password? I couldn’t crack that at all.’

  ‘Loser.’

  ‘That figures. Poor Jon. He could never get over what we’d done. It was inside him, all the time, eating him alive.’

  ‘The law was laxer back then on road traffic offences. You’d probably have pulled a fine for careless driving and another for driving without a licence or insurance.’

  ‘I know that now. But I was seventeen and scared witless. I’d been working my butt off for years to get to drama college. I thought I’d be put in prison and lose everything.’

  ‘So you smothered Heidi.’

  She pushed the hair from her face. ‘She was coughing up all this blood, and I knew that meant she had bad internal injuries and she might die anyway. And I didn’t want to be arrested for murder.’ Her blue-green eyes fixed themselves on mine, willing me to understand. ‘I wish I could make you feel how terrified I was.’

  ‘Heidi had had tongue piercings the evening before. She probably bit them when she fell.’

  ‘Oh?’

  There was what appeared to be genuine distress in her eyes. But then the woman was an actress. And maybe it was important to her that I didn’t think badly of her. Although given my current position, I couldn’t see that I was going to be holding any opinion for very long. Maybe I’d misread the situation. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to get rid of you too.’

  Nope, I hadn’t misread the situation.

  ‘I’m very sorry.’

  Not half as sorry as I was, I suspected.

  ‘But I’ve put so much planning into this, I can’t fail now. I really am a good actress, you know? Shoreline is crap, but I’m better than that. And I’m not being vain. I honestly do know I can be a great actress. But I can’t go on like this any longer. It’s like being a convict with two great iron balls shackled to my ankles. And everywhere I move, I have to drag them along behind me.’

  Up until that moment there had been no other sounds from the house, now we both caught the thud of footsteps coming upstairs. Clemency knelt up and shut down the computer. ‘In here, B.’

  Bianca came in clutching a magazine. Presumably the excuse Clemency had used to send her off while she crept back here and electrocuted me.

  ‘They didn’t have the one you wanted, Clemency, so I bought this instead. Sorry.’

  Not a word about the fact that I was sitting there tied up with tea-towels. Did she think we were into a bondage session, or was zapping the help a regular occurrence around here?

  ‘Never mind the magazine. I’m afraid Grace has found out about our little secret, so we’ll have to deal with her.’

  Bianca pouted. ‘But I like Grace.’

  ‘I like you, too.’ I figured grab any straw in a crisis.

  I was no match for Clemency. Crystal tears slid from those lovely eyes.

  And Bianca was a goner. ‘It’s all right, Clemency. I won’t let you down. What should I do?’

  ‘Take a walk round the streets. Her car won’t be parked too far away. See if you can find it.’

  She lumbered out without even looking at me.

  ‘Does she know how much you hate her?’

  ‘I doubt it. There’s something missing up here.’ Clemency tapped her own skull. ‘But she does have a kind of dumb animal cunning. I’ve tried to get her to tell me where the body and clothes are, but she’s always shied away. She knows it gives her a hold over me, but I don’t think she’s ever considered how that makes me feel about her.’

  ‘Which is?’

  The jewel eyes darkened, like a storm had swept across a sunny Caribbean sea. ‘I loathe and detest her more than I ever thought it was possible to hate anyone. She just turned up at the flat with two suitcases. A couple of years after we’d started at drama college. Announced she’d let out her gran’s house and from now on she’d be living with us, since we’re family. Now she’s there when I wake up. There when I go out. She’s at the TV studios. She’s at the parties. On holiday. She’s in my head. Her smell is in my nostrils. I can actually taste her on the air when she’s been in a room. And now she expects me to breed for her.’ She’d been spitting the words out. Now she took a visible hold and breathed deeply. ‘You think I’m a slapper, don’t you? Ready to shag anything I fancy? I wasn’t always like that. Those first years with Jon, I was faithful to him. I did love him. I still do in a way. He was going to pieces even then. Half the time he was off his face on drink or drugs. Didn’t do a lot for our sex life.’

  ‘Is that when he started hitting you?’

  ‘You saw that did you? Efficient little snoop aren’t you? Oddly enough I didn’t resent the violence. I could almost understand. I’d hidden the body and brought Bianca into our lives.’ She paused, her eyes seeing back into the past. She focused them on me. ‘A few years ago I fell in love.’

  The gossip column in Jan’s showbiz articles had hinted at something. ‘With a TV cameraman?’

  ‘Aiden. When I fell for him, I realised what I’d felt for Jon had just been a shadow of what I was capable of feeling for another human being. I longed to be with Aiden. I’d never felt anything like it before — or since. He wanted me to get a divorce and marry him. And I think Jon would have agreed. We both knew our relationship would never get past that day in the car. We could have parted as friends in any other circumstances. But I couldn’t you see? I couldn’t risk leaving Jon on his own. Who knew who he’d talk to? When he’d get high and blab things that had to be kept hidden, or finally open up to some shrink who couldn’t keep his mouth shut? And even if I had dared, there was Bianca. Aiden wasn’t the first affair I’d had, but she sensed that he was different.’ Loathing twisted her mouth. ‘She explained to me that we were a family, me, Jon and her, and we always had to be. We couldn’t ever be with anyone else, because we all had the same secret we had to keep safe.’ She dashed the tears away with the back of her hand and flashed a smile. ‘So I ditched Aiden and now I just shag the pants off anything I fancy. No commitments. No heartache.’

  ‘No love.’

  ‘Yes. That too.’ She sighed and leant back against the desk leg, wrapping her arms round her knees. ‘I’m glad you found out in a way. It’s a relief to be able to talk to someone. Bianca doesn’t allow us to speak about it. She gets all moody. We have to talk about happy things; like moving to this frigging house. And having babies.’

  ‘You don’t like the house?’

  ‘I hate the frigging house. If for no other reason than it’s in Seatoun. Why the hell would I want to move back here? I spent years dreaming of leaving the dump. The only good thing about it was being able to send Bianca down here to fix it up. All that knocking down walls, plumbing in bathrooms, laying floors, has kept her occupied for months. Living in Seatoun with a family has always been Bianca’s drea
m. And what Bianca wants …’

  ‘You deliver. All that stuff about TV studios not hiring pregnant actresses, is it true?’

  ‘They don’t like it, but it wouldn’t have affected me, if I’d been planning …’ She paused and seem to weigh something. ‘Shall I tell you? Well why not, I’ve been bursting to tell someone. I’m not re-signing for Shoreline. My American agent has been negotiating for nearly a year to get me a part in a new series. It’s going to be a massive hit they think. I’ve done several auditions on tape and now they want me to fly over.’ She hugged her knees in an oddly childish excitement. ‘My agent says they love me. This is going to be it, my big break. But there’s no way they’d have considered an actress who was planning to get herself pregnant. I had to come up with some story to stop Bianca blabbing about that damn nursery to the entire bloody world.’

  ‘What about Jon?’

  ‘Oh I just told him I’d thought of a way to screw Bianca if he kept quiet about the baby-plan. He wasn’t that bothered really. Have a baby, don’t have a baby, who cares was his philosophy. Which is another excellent reason for not having one.’

  ‘Weren’t you ever afraid Jon would confess? To the police I mean. Get it off his conscience?’

  ‘No. I always knew he was capable of blurting it out when he was off his face; but he’d never betray me deliberately. He still loves me in his way.’ She gave me a small bleak smile.

  I knew I had to keep her talking. Perceived wisdom is that killers find it hard to murder someone in cold blood once they’ve established a relationship. Mind you, given that victims who’ve been murdered in cold blood rarely come back to explain they’d been talking for Britain just before the blunt instrument made contact, I wasn’t sure how reliable perceived wisdom was; but I didn’t have a whole lot of options going here. It was, however, Clemency, who spoke again.

  ‘When you first came here, I thought you were a reporter who’d managed to con an intro to Jon’s mother. I supposed you were freelancing one of those At Home with Stars type features. Inside scoop on Clemency Courtney’s home life.’

  ‘I’m not a reporter.’