The Pull of the Moon

by Diane Janes

  Once I have put the phone down the silence in the flat seems to intensify. I prowl around fidgeting with things, then retire to bed over-early to endure a restless night, while my inner demons play Join the Dots. By a trick of perspective Mrs Ivanisovic is just a helpless old lady to most people – but her power to menace depends on who you are. I eventually fall into a deep sleep at around five in the morning, which inevitably means I end up oversleeping. I make myself drive all the way to Ferrybridge without a break, as a sort of punishment.

  The service station at Ferrybridge is quite crowded. It isn’t school holidays, but there are surprising numbers of children about – presumably taken out of school by parents who think a day out at a theme park has an educational value equivalent to whatever the National Curriculum has on offer. I try to find a table well away from these screeching kids and their quarrelsome families. Pam and Marjorie pity me in my childless state – but I don’t think I ever saw motherhood as my destiny: I am not naturally the motherly type.

  If I am absolutely honest about it, I don’t think I originally chose teaching because I especially liked children or wanted to work with them. As my schooling came to an end and my lack of tangible ambition in any particular direction became ever more apparent, the options had narrowed down to Go To University or Go To College. My parents thought university signified too much freedom for an irresponsible scapegrace like me. College had the advantage of being near enough for me to live at home for another couple of years, where I could be kept an eye on. Commercial college was a bit infra dig – my mother hadn’t invested in grammar school uniforms and cheese and wine with the PTA only for her daughter to end up a shorthand typist – so teacher training college it was. This seemed okay to me. I didn’t look very far ahead in those days and being on the teacher’s side of the desk appealed more than being on the pupil’s.

  There was a blip of course. In the immediate aftermath of Danny’s death, I was returned to my parents, too traumatized to continue with my studies: a situation they accepted with a kind of grim resignation. I had always been the awkward middle child, unfavourably compared to my siblings – the one who never quite fitted in and always tended to be a bit of a nuisance. It was so like Katy to have messed up her academic career (such as it was) by getting involved with an unstable boyfriend who had killed himself. Of course they did not actually say this outright – but I knew what they were thinking. My brother and sister would never have given them all this trouble. They dated normal, sensible people who kept their names out of the papers and never gave suicide a second thought. Trust Katy to pick the weirdo.

  In the end of course I went back to college and qualified to teach. Teaching is a greedy vocation. It can gobble up your life if you let it, biting off great chunks at a time, demanding your full commitment. Fortunately I needed its total absorption. When I decided to retire early, everyone was surprised. ‘You love teaching,’ someone said, but I am not really sure if this was true. By focusing so completely on my work, I managed to exclude a great many other things I did not care to think about. Perhaps teaching was also like a mission into which a penitent throws themselves, the way sinners used to undertake work in a leper colony. Every child in every class became a special kind of mission for me – but at night they went home, and at the end of summer term they moved on. I was only a part of their lives, never the whole of it. I suppose this is the difference between me and Mrs Ivanisovic, whose energies were focused on one child alone.

  They were very close, Danny and his mother. This makes it easier to believe in the alleged deathbed communication between them. She positively adored Danny. Maybe it was the loss of that other child which forged the bond so strongly. No wonder she was devastated when Danny died. And now even Stan has deserted her – Betty Ivanisovic is the lone survivor, hanging on to life by the slenderest of threads. One snip from the cosmic scissors and she will be gone.

  I sip my latte (why can’t one just buy a straightforward cup of coffee any more?) and ponder the contents of her first letter – her demand for the truth. I must know, she says. Why must she? Why do people think it will always be better if they know? Might it occasionally be better not to know? Trudie’s mother doesn’t know. She has been spared the truth and surely it is better that way. She may even yet hold on to the hope that Trudie is still alive. She can retain her memory of a laughing, dark-haired nymph – unsullied by the truth of a mouldering forgotten corpse, lying far from home without the dignity of a proper grave.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Since I was clearly surplus to requirements in the garden I returned to the kitchen, where the smell of stale cooking made me want to retch. I flung open the windows to let in some fresh air, and also to establish some semblance of being in touch with the others – I couldn’t see or hear them, but I knew they were not far away. I began to clear the contents of the table, scraping plates, tipping out dregs, stacking everything beside the sink, every moment expecting Trudie to come strolling into the room. I knew it was impossible and yet it still seemed highly likely. Far more likely, in fact, than what had actually occurred.

  The kitchen sink stood under the window, which meant that anyone working at it necessarily had their back to the room: a position which made me deeply uneasy. I knew the house behind me was empty, but this did nothing to alleviate the sensation of hostile eyes on my back. It was even worse when I left the kitchen. The whole house seemed full of decaying memories. Desiccated cacti gathered dust on the hall table; a forgotten ancestor stared down from an almost blackened painting, watching the door for relatives long since departed. I noticed that Trudie’s jacket had vanished from the hall – I guessed that Simon must have put it in her bedroom with her other things, banished immediately the ridiculous thought that Trudie herself had picked it up a moment before, on her way out of the house for a walk. As I mounted the stairs, another thought struck me – how, when things had vanished in the past, the explanation had been provided by Murdered Agnes. Now Trudie . . . I drew back from the thought, took the rest of the stairs at a run.

  Breathing hard, I took my towel and shampoo into the bathroom and removed my shirt, ready to wash my hair. The running water seemed unnaturally loud, filling my ears, masking out any other sounds. Was that somebody moving on the landing? I turned off the taps to listen, but there was no one there. When I turned the water back on again a host of doubts came flooding into my head. Wouldn’t it have been better to leave Trudie where she was? Had we panicked and done the wrong thing? Surely we were wrong to fear the involvement of the police – they couldn’t have pinned anything on any of us without witnesses. And anyway no one knew exactly what had happened. I struggled to focus on the moments leading up to the scream. Danny had been convinced it was an accident – but suppose there really had been someone else in the wood last night. I realized that the basin was all but overflowing. I had to turn off the taps in double quick time and reduce the water level by slopping some down the overflow.

  When I bent over the basin to wet my hair, I was instantly beset by the idea that there was someone creeping up behind me. I jerked my head up, sending a cascade of water across the tiles and on to the floor, ran to the bathroom door and shot the bolt, but it didn’t help. I had merely locked my fears inside with me and they jostled around the bathroom, trying to gain the upper hand.

  It took an age to wash long hair in the hand basin. At home we had a rubber fitment which went over the bath taps – a shower spray, we called it, which made the rinsing easy: but here the operation involved emptying and refilling the sink half a dozen times, trying not to send a shower of water on to the floor every time I lifted my long hair clear of the sink. I had reached the final rinse when a series of loud bangs reverberated through the house. I leapt back from the sink, soaking everything in range, pressing a wet hand against my mouth to stifle a scream. Three loud bangs – three in swift succession. Wasn’t three always the number of significance – the harbinger of something dreadful to follow?

  F
or several seconds I stood frozen to the spot. Water trickled unchecked from my hair, damping my bra, a rash of drops standing out across my shoulders like imitation gooseflesh. It had been easy enough to blame any pseudo-supernatural occurrences on a live Trudie. Alien noises in the house could no longer be thus ascribed.

  I picked up my towel and dabbed my arms and shoulders with it, before tentatively towelling my hair, eyes fixed on the bathroom door, listening intently for any clue as to the origin of the noise. The sounds had been near at hand – somewhere in the house. I mentally calculated the distance between myself and the guys. It was unlikely that they would have heard anything and there was thus little hope that they would come to investigate. All previous attempts to open the bathroom window had ended in failure. It was assumed to have been painted shut, years before. How loudly would I need to yell . . .?

  The three bangs rang out again – and the penny finally dropped. It was the door knocker. There was someone at the front door. My fleeting sense of relief died instantly. This was no time to entertain casual callers, with Simon and Danny out in the garden presiding over the concealment of a dead body. Anyway, we never had casual callers – or indeed any callers at all. The only person who had ever visited us was Mrs Ivanisovic, and she surely wouldn’t have returned a mere forty-eight hours later. It must be someone selling something – or maybe Jehovah’s Witnesses. If I ignored them they would have to go away.

  Then again, suppose it was someone who really did want to speak to one of us – not even specifically one of us, but the occupier, the home owner. Suppose it was someone who had driven all the way out here specially and was not easily put off. Then in a flash it came to me that it must be the builders. I gave a little cry of horror. They had come a day too early and if I didn’t get down there in time they would see Simon’s car parked out front and guess we were in – maybe assume we couldn’t hear the door knocker and go round the back in search of us.

  I bundled the towel into a turban round my head and scurried down the stairs, buttoning my shirt as I went, scrambling to reach the front door. Somehow I would have to persuade them to go away.

  When I swung the door open, the two men outside did not look at all like builders. They were wearing dark trousers, pale-coloured shirts and plain navy ties. Not quite smart enough to be the Mormons. One of them was standing expectantly at the door, but the other had stepped back and was looking speculatively up at the house, as if assessing for repairs. Perhaps they were exceptionally well-dressed builders.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the man nearest the door. He flipped open a little card holder and flashed it in my direction – exactly the way I had seen them do it on the television. ‘Sergeant Mathieson, Staffordshire Police. I was hoping for a word with Simon Willis. Is he in?’

  I reeled back a step or two into the hall – my face no doubt yelling, Guilty as charged, get the cuffs on. Sergeant Mathieson and his colleague were evidently accustomed to generating this reaction and took absolutely no notice.

  ‘Simon,’ I stammered. ‘Yes, Simon’s here. He’s in the garden – working in the garden.’ Had I already said too much? Did they know what he was doing out there? Had they guessed? How the hell had they got here so quickly? I wondered if they had brought their own spades to dig Trudie up, or whether they would want to use ours.

  Sergeant Mathieson and his colleague exchanged looks. They obviously thought I was a halfwit.

  ‘Shall we walk around the back and find him?’ The other one spoke for the first time, seeming to address both me and his companion.

  ‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘Please come inside.’ I stood back, waving an encouraging arm as if in training for traffic duty. ‘If you’d like to come in and sit down, I’ll go out and get him. That would be quicker,’ I added, seeing them hesitate. ‘I know exactly where to find him.’

  They stepped inside – probably imagining from the way I’d spoken that the house stood in a vast acreage, within which a hunt for Simon might become a time-consuming jaunt through a maze of shrubbery. I showed them into the drawing room, which looked much the same as it had on the day of Mrs Ivanisovic’s visit, give or take a bit of dirty crockery. My heart was pounding so hard I thought they must be able to hear it.

  ‘I’m sorry about not answering the door,’ I said. ‘I was in the middle of washing my hair.’ I pointed up at the towel.

  Sergeant Mathieson was not interested in my hair-dressing arrangements. ‘Do you live here?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, yes – I’m staying here – for the summer – as a sort of housekeeper.’ The thought flitted through my mind as I spoke that officially I was not here at all – I was fruit picking in France. I saw his eyebrows lift as he swept a glance around the room, his eyes meeting those of his colleague at its conclusion. They were evidently unimpressed with the Katy Mayfield school of housekeeping.

  ‘It’s not – bad news, is it?’ I fished.

  ‘No, love, nothing like that. We need to speak to Mr Willis as part of routine enquiries. So if you could just pop out and fetch him . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll get him.’

  I walked out of the drawing room and across the hall with all the normality I could muster, but once out of their sight I ‘popped’ through the kitchen with the velocity of a bullet from a gun, racing across the lawn with my hands on my head in order to prevent my towel from coming adrift.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong?’ asked Danny, clambering out of the hole and advancing a few steps to meet me.

  ‘It’s the police,’ I gasped out. ‘The police are here, asking for Simon.’

  Simon stared at me. His face went so white that I thought for a moment he was going to pass out.

  Danny appeared marginally calmer. ‘Slow down, Katy.’ He placed a gentle hand on my arm. ‘What makes you think it’s the police?’

  ‘I don’t think. It is the police. They showed me a thingy – a warrant card. Sergeant Mathieson of the Staffordshire Police.’ The peculiarity of this suddenly struck me. ‘We’re not in Staffordshire,’ I said.

  Danny turned to Simon. ‘Do you think it’s something to do with the car? Are the tax and insurance up to date?’

  ‘Of course they are,’ said Simon. ‘Anyway, they wouldn’t send someone all the way from Staffordshire just for that.’

  ‘Do you suppose Trudie came from Staffordshire?’ I asked.

  ‘She didn’t,’ said Simon, abruptly. ‘Nowhere near.’

  ‘It’ll be something to do with uni,’ said Danny.

  Simon was staring at him. ‘Rachel Hewitt,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ said Danny. ‘Why would they come all the way down here about that? You’ve already made a statement.’

  ‘I don’t see how it can be anything else,’ said Simon. They were talking in low, urgent voices. I was horribly aware that Simon was still standing in the excavation. They had finished covering the bottom in a layer of sand and were working on the sides now. His feet were only a few inches from Trudie. We had put her there to avoid the attention of the Rachel Hewitt murder enquiry, but it looked as if the enquiry had caught up with us, all the same. Somewhere above our heads a young jackdaw emitted a raucous cry like laughter. I was getting to hate those bloody birds.

  ‘Whatever it is they’ve come about,’ said Danny, ‘you’d better go and talk to them.’

  ‘Yes,’ I urged. ‘Otherwise they might come out here, looking for you.’

  ‘There’s nothing for them to see,’ said Danny. ‘But she’s right – you’d better go inside. Ought I to come in as well, d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Simon clambered out of the hole and stood beside me. ‘Maybe not, if they haven’t asked for you. Anyway – we need to keep working if we’re going to have this ready for when the bloke comes tomorrow.’

  When the bloke comes tomorrow. Until a few minutes before I had half forgotten that their speed was dictated by the imminent arrival of someone whose attention was goin
g to be squarely focused on the place where we had buried Trudie. Feeling sicker than ever, I trailed after Simon as he headed towards the house. While Simon took off his boots and washed his hands at the kitchen sink, I returned to the drawing room to announce: ‘Simon’s coming now. He’s just washing his hands.’

  I had expected the two policemen to be prowling round the room, examining everything, looking for clues; but they were sitting on the sofas, perfectly docile. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I asked.

  ‘That’d be nice, love, yeah,’ said Sergeant Mathieson. ‘Milk, no sugar.’

  ‘Two sugars for me,’ said his companion.

  Simon appeared at that moment. He had regained some of his colour, found time to tidy his hair. His clothes looked scruffy – dirty even when compared to the two policemen, but then they had not been labouring outside. He approached Sergeant Mathieson (who happened to be nearest) with his hand extended: ‘Simon Willis. How can I help you?’

  That was the thing with being as well brought up as Simon, I thought. You could carry things off, whereas I was hopping about like a flea in the background, feeling as though I had to contend with some strange form of Tourette’s – only instead of shouting out swear words, it was things like She’s in the garden – she’s under the pond.

  I remembered my promise of tea. ‘I’ll just go and make the tea,’ I said. They had dealt with the introductions and Simon was about to sit down in the chair nearest the door. None of them took any notice of me.

  I decided to use the best teacups, but as I lifted them out of the kitchen cupboard I remembered who had been the last person to handle them, and this made my hands shake so hard that I almost dropped a pile of saucers. I had to stand still for a moment or two, gripping the edge of the worktop before I could carry on. I had got as far as putting the kettle on and setting out four cups and saucers on a tray, before I remembered that we had no milk. I opened and closed cupboards and explored the contents of the pantry shelves in a frantic search for a tin of Marvel – but there was nothing doing. For a desperate moment I wondered what would be the effect of whitening our tea with salad cream, but then I recalled that we hadn’t got any of that either.