by Adele Abbott
“It is true,” she said. “You had them in alphabetical order.”
“I did not.” I did—I still do. “Anyway, you were just as bad.”
“I didn’t have any beanies.”
“One word—Barbies.”
I’d hated the way that Kathy mistreated her Barbies. She’d strip some of them naked so that she could give their clothes to other dolls. ‘They need layers’ she’d say. What about the poor naked Barbies? Some of them had even lost limbs. It was a disgrace.
“I didn’t collect Barbies,” she said.
“You had almost thirty.”
“It still wasn’t a collection. I didn’t arrange them in alphabetical order or catalogue them. You did!”
“I did not!” I so did. I still had my beanies; they were in the walk-in wardrobe in my flat. Kathy thought I’d got rid of them years ago.
“Anyway, tell me more about this serial killer.” Kathy said.
“My client’s girlfriend was the latest victim. Her last name was Fox. Apparently, there have been two other murders: Mrs Lyon and Mrs Lamb.”
“So, the serial killer is supposedly murdering women who’s surname is an animal?”
“Yes, at least according to my client and the Bugle, but not as far as the police are concerned.”
“If the Bugle says it’s so, it must be.” Kathy sneered.
“I know. They’ve dubbed the killer ‘The Animal’.”
“Genius.”
“The police have dismissed the idea out of hand.”
“Why? It must be a possibility. If not, it’s one heck of a coincidence.”
“The first victim’s name was spelled L Y O N not L I O N. According to the police, that means the name connection is just a coincidence.”
“What do you think?”
“They’re probably right. It seems a little far-fetched that someone would choose his victims based on their surnames. I think my client may be clutching at straws.”
“So why did you take the case?”
“I need the money.”
“Business that bad?”
“It isn’t great. A lot of Dad’s regular clients disappeared after he died.”
“Why? You’re every bit as good as he was. Dad said so himself.”
“I don’t know. I guess they were just used to dealing with Dad.”
I knew I wasn’t half the P.I. that Dad had been, but I was no mug either. I’d had a good teacher. Dad had said that I had a natural aptitude for the work.
“Do you think it’s because they don't want to do business with a woman?” Kathy said.
“No one has actually come out and said so, but it’s a pretty safe bet.”
“That’s just stupid. Have you got any leads on this case?”
“Not yet. I’m going to start by talking to the husbands of the first two victims to try to get a feel for if there is any connection.”
“So?” Kathy had that tone in her voice again. The one she used whenever she was about to nag me—which was most of the time. “How’s your love life?”
“Pass.” I tried not to think about it—it was way too depressing.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Yes.” She knew I wasn’t.
“Who?”
“No one that you know.”
“Are you lying?”
“Yes.” I could never fool Kathy—it was pointless even to try. She could read me like a book.
“What about lover boy? That new detective.”
“Who?”
“Come on. You know who I mean. Have you spoken to him recently?”
“No.”
I’d made the fatal mistake of telling Kathy that I thought a detective, who had recently moved to the area, was pretty hot. What I hadn’t known then, but had subsequently discovered, was that he was a total and utter asshat.
“Is he single?” She was relentless as usual.
“How would I know?” I did know—he was single. Single and an utter asshat.
“Why don’t you ask him out?”
Because I’d rather poke my eye out with a sharp stick—sorry Winky—no offence intended. “I’m not interested. And anyway, I was wrong about him being hot.”
“So you don’t fancy him?”
“No.” I could feel the colour rising in my neck and cheeks. I blushed easily—I always had.
“Why are you blushing then?”
She knew just how to press my buttons. “I don’t think he’s hot.” He was. “I don’t fancy him.” I did. There’s nothing going on between Detective Maxwell and me.” There wasn’t.
“Detective Maxwell?” Kathy said. “Why so formal? His name’s Jack isn’t it? Jack and Jill. You two were obviously meant for one another. Come on Jill. Why don’t you go up the hill to see Jack?” Kathy broke into her high-pitched squeal of a laugh, just as she did every time she made the same stupid joke.
“Can we please just forget about Jack Maxwell?”
“Okay. I just don’t like the idea of you crying buckets of tears.” She was on a roll now.
“Seriously? Enough of the nursery rhyme jokes.” It was time to change the subject. “How’s Peter?”
“Pete’s Pete. He’s fine as always.”
Kathy and Peter had been school sweethearts. He’d taken her to the prom, and four years later they’d walked down the aisle together. They were very alike in many ways—except for the baldness obviously. I still couldn’t get used to seeing Peter’s bald head. At school, he’d had a head of thick, black hair. A few months after they’d married, he started to lose his hair. Within another year, he was almost completely bald, so had started to shave his head. It didn’t seem to bother him or Kathy. It did, however, provide me with plenty of ammunition to tease her that she’d been the cause.
“The kids are going to a party this weekend.” Kathy picked up a piece of Lego from under one of the chairs. That was her idea of tidying up. “You should come around and have dinner with me and Pete.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to spend an evening together—just the two of you?”
“We have plenty of time alone together when the kids are in bed. Besides, I fancy cooking something a little more adventurous than fish fingers. What do you say?”
“Sure. What time?” Unlike me, Kathy was a superb cook, and I was always happy to let someone else do the cooking.
“It’ll have to be early because the kids will be back before eight. How about six o’clock?”
“Okay. That’ll be nice.”
“It most certainly will.” Kathy grinned, and I immediately realised I’d fallen into a trap.
“Don’t you dare try to set me up with someone again.”
“Me?” She put on her ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ face, which wasn’t fooling anyone—especially not me.
“Kathy! I mean it!”
“What?”
“No more blind dates. Remember what happened last time?”
“How was I supposed to know he picked his nose?”
“And his ears.”
“It was just nerves. He’d seemed perfectly fine until then.”
“You'd only met him once. At the supermarket!”
“Twice.”
“Oh well, that makes all the difference!”
“Okay. I agree it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”
“You think?” His name was Dillon, and I could see why Kathy had noticed him. He was tall, handsome and well spoken. But the man simply couldn't keep his finger out of his nose. It still gave me the creeps just to think about it. “Promise you won’t try to set me up again.”
“I promise.”
I could tell she was lying because her lips were moving.
Chapter 3
It felt good to be back in my own flat. Although I loved Kathy to bits, spending even a few hours at her place drove me insane. I’d no idea how anyone could live with such clutter. Her home wasn’t dirty—it was just untidy and disorganised. But then, Kathy’s life was disorganised. She�
��d always been that way. She was never on time, and was always misplacing things.
My flat was on the ground floor; I had a small, private garden at the rear. There was a place for everything, and everything had to be in its place. The flat had a sixties theme. I loved that decade: the music, the clothes and the furniture. I had a vintage record player cabinet on which to play my collection of vinyl records. I had the grooviest little coffee table, which I’d bought from a charity shop—it was an absolute bargain. My two sofas were also sixties style—one yellow and the other orange. Everything in my flat reflected my personality. It was my little oasis of calm.
And Kathy hated it with a passion. She said my furniture reminded her of our late grandma’s house. Kathy wouldn’t have recognised ‘class’ if it had punched her on the nose.
My phone rang.
“Jill Gooder.”
I listened to the female voice for a few seconds before interrupting. “I’m sorry, but I think you must have the wrong person. My mother died several years ago.”
“I’m fairly sure I have the right person,” the woman insisted. “The lady who asked me to get in contact with you gave precise instructions. Her name is Darlene Millbright, and she says she's your birth mother.”
I felt the colour drain from my face, and had to sit down on the sofa before my legs gave way. When I’d tried to contact my birth mother several years earlier, she’d refused point blank to see me. I hadn’t even been able to find out where she lived.
“I—I—err.” My brain had disconnected from my mouth.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother is extremely ill. It’s unlikely that she’ll make it through the night. She really would like to see you before—”
“I’ll call you back.” I ended the call. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d spent so long trying to imagine who my mother might be, what she was like, and of course, why she’d given me up for adoption. At eighteen years of age, I’d tried to track her down, and had been devastated when she’d rejected me again. Perhaps there was still time to get answers to my questions.
I hit the ‘Call’ button.
“Jill?” Kathy said. “Missing me already?”
“Kathy, listen.”
“What’s the matter?” Her tone was now serious—she sensed that something was wrong.
“It’s my mother. My birth mother.”
“What about her?”
“I’ve had a phone call.”
“From her?”
“Yes, well kind of. She’s dying. The nursing home called. She wants to see me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have to go. Will you come with me?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll have to arrange for someone to collect the kids from school. Can you pick me up?”
“Could we go in your car? I’m not sure I'm fit to drive.” My hands were shaking.
“Sure. I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”
My heart was racing as I called the nursing home to confirm I was on my way. Why would she ask for me now—now that she was dying? What was I supposed to say to her?
It felt like an eternity until Kathy’s green VW pulled up outside my flat.
“Sorry it took me so long.” She pushed open the passenger door.
“This doesn’t seem real.” My head was still spinning as I tried to come to terms with the idea that I might be about to meet my birth mother.
“Where is the nursing home?” Kathy said.
I gave her the piece of paper on which I’d scribbled the address. She studied it for a moment, and then pulled out into traffic without even bothering to indicate. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have allowed Kathy to drive me anywhere—she was a maniac on the roads. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
“According to this, it’s only about five miles away.” Kathy glanced at me. “Do you think she might have lived around here all of this time?”
I shrugged. It was too cruel a thought to contemplate. Had she watched me growing up, but never once made contact?
“But I’m her sister,” Kathy said.
I thought for a moment she was going to deck the poor nurse.
“I’m very sorry.” The nurse stood her ground. “Only Miss Gooder is allowed in.”
“This has been a major upset for Jill,” Kathy persisted. “She needs someone with her.”
“It’s okay, Kathy,” I said. “I’m fine.” I wasn’t—I was anything but fine. “Will you wait for me here?”
“Of course. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
I nodded. This was typical of the relationship we’d always had. One moment we were fighting like cat and dog, the next we were in each other’s corner.
I followed the nurse along a seemingly never-ending series of corridors. My heart was pounding. I just hoped I wouldn’t flake out before I had the chance to meet my mother.
“This is her room.” The nurse pushed open the door, and ushered me inside. The bed was surrounded by all manner of drips and monitors. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the occupant of the bed. It felt as though my feet were glued to the floor.
“Come closer,” a weak voice said. “Jill, come and sit beside me.”
I looked up, and for the first time since I was a baby, saw the face of my mother. I’d always had a mental image of what she’d look like. It was an image that had been formed when I was a young child. Back then I’d imagined her to be relatively young—in her thirties or forties maybe. Over the intervening years, I hadn’t adjusted that image to take account of the passage of time. The woman I saw looking at me from the bed was nothing like the image I’d carried in my mind for so many years. She looked at least eighty. Her thinning hair was grey; her face was as white as a ghost. It made no sense. How could she be so old? It would have meant she was fifty-plus when she gave birth to me. Perhaps it was her illness that had taken its toll, making her look much older than her years.
“Jill.” The woman’s eyes were barely open; her voice was little more than a whisper.
“I’m here,” I said.
Her thin arm was resting on the top of the bed covers. Her frail fingers opened, and I knew she wanted me to put my hand in hers. I did, and her weak fingers closed around mine.
“Jill,” she said again. Her voice seemed to fade with every passing second.
“I’m here.” I had so many questions; there was so much I was desperate to know. But it was too late. The woman in front of me was close to death.
“Come closer,” she said.
I looked through the window that ran the full length of the room but there was no sign of the nurse. I wished Kathy could have been with me.
“Closer,” she said again.
I leaned forward in the chair, stooping so my ear was close to her face. Did she want to tell me something? Perhaps I was going to find out why she’d given me up after all.
“You’re a witch!”
The force of her words took me by surprise. From somewhere, she’d mustered the strength to speak much louder than she had previously.
No sooner had she spoken the words, than the monitor changed to one continuous beep. At precisely that moment, something that I can only liken to an electric shock pulsed through my entire body. It was so powerful that it knocked me back into the chair. I felt completely drained. I tried to stand, but my legs didn’t want to know.
The door flew open, and a doctor flanked by two nurses rushed to the bedside. It took less than five minutes for him to confirm that my mother had passed away.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” one of the nurses said, after the doctor had left.
“She said I was a—” My words trailed off.
The nurse gave me a sympathetic smile. “Is there anyone we can call?”
“My sister is in the waiting room.”
“Are you okay to walk?” The nurse held out her hand.
With her help, I managed to get back to my feet. The walk back felt like a dream.
“I want to go home.”
“I’m so sorry, Jill.” Kathy was driving back to my flat. “Did you get the chance to talk to her at all?”
“Not really. I’d only been with her for a few moments when she died. It was as though she’d been waiting for me.”
“And she didn’t say anything? Nothing at all?”
My mind went back to my mother’s last few moments. And her last words.
“Jill?”
“She said, 'You're a witch'.”
“What?”
“She called me a witch.” I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I was determined not to cry. I wouldn’t allow the woman who had abandoned me to hurt me again.
“Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“Oh yes, I’m sure. She used her last ounce of strength to make sure I heard her clearly.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she contact you now, just so she could be so unkind?”
“She must have really hated me. It wasn’t enough that she’d rejected me. She had to use her dying breath to tell me what she thought of me.” I turned to face the side window and wiped away a tear.
“What an evil cow!” Kathy put a hand on my leg. “Don’t let it get to you. She isn’t worth it. You’ve been better off without her.”
We drove in silence for a while. I could still hear my mother’s last words echoing around my head. I wished that she’d never contacted me. I wished that I’d never known who she was or what she thought of me.
“What happens to her now?” Kathy said.
“Sorry?”
“Do you know who is going to organise the funeral?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Things had happened so quickly that I hadn’t thought to ask how my mother had come to be in the nursing home or if she’d had visits from other family members.
Chapter 4
I hadn’t expected to sleep well, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. When I woke the next morning, I felt fitter than I had for months. I’m not usually a morning person, but for some reason I felt as though I could run a marathon. I made a promise to myself that I’d forget all about my birth mother. She’d done more than enough damage. No more.