A Little Bird Told Me

by Marianne Holmes

  Kit is shouting at me to keep still, and I realise that I am kicking and hitting him and screaming as I try to get to Mum. I don’t want Ray to hurt her even if she did lie, but I can’t stand up. I see Matthew running and sliding down the track from the road, his jacket flapping, like a crow.

  ‘Jemima,’ he’s shouting, ‘get away from him. The police are right behind me.’ I see him glance towards me and Kit and then at Sue standing dripping blood in the doorway. ‘For the love of God, woman, call an ambulance!’

  I can hear Kit screaming at Matthew, ‘Help Mum! Help Mum! Help Mum!’ over and over. Kit is holding his hands on my stomach, and I wish he wouldn’t because it hurts so much. He is shouting and sobbing, and Matthew turns towards Mum and Ray who are still rolling in the mud.

  Behind Kit, I can see Sue, and I don’t think she’s called an ambulance because she’s holding the large frying pan high above Kit’s head, the blood dripping down her raised arm. I grab the leg of Matthew’s suit, and he turns. He steps into her way, grabbing the handle of the pan as it swings down towards Kit and pushes her over so that she slides back against the step and holds her belly.

  Matthew starts towards Mum.

  ‘No, Matthew, help the kids’ Mum’s voice is far away and I feel so tired now, and Kit won’t stop pushing my stomach. My hands try and push his away, but they slip and can’t grip hold. Why is he doing that? I can see the soles of Ray’s boots, toes digging into the mud and the dog’s chain jerking up and down beside them.

  Matthew kneels by Kit, but Kit screams at him and shoves him away, and then Matthew is running toward Mum. I try to watch, but I can’t see clearly now, and then there is a boom that shatters everything, and I hear Ray roar.

  Kit is screaming, my name and Matthew’s, but mostly for Mum. There are sirens, and I can hear tyres slipping in the mud and another roar from the Cowboy and now there are other voices with him shouting too.

  Matthew comes back and sinks down beside Kit in the mud, and he presses his jacket on to my stomach too. I tell them to get Mum because I’m going to need her now, but I can’t make them hear me.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Kit, don’t look.’ It sounds like Matthew’s crying.

  There is rain falling into my face, and I want to close my eyes, but I try not to because I have to make them get Mum. There’s something I need to ask her, something she has to explain because it doesn’t make any sense. And I want her to make the pain in my tummy go and mostly I want to tell her sorry because I think this might be all my fault. Then Matthew picks me up, and we are running up, up, away and other hands take me. I let my eyes close.

  Chapter Twenty

  1988

  The waistband of my trousers is rubbing against my scar. When will this pain ever stop? I grab a tube of cream and rub it in while Neil and Kit look away. The cut was deep and straight, slicing straight through the skin. Jagged cuts heal better. Apparently, skin knits together more easily when the edges are raw. The line is no longer raised and red but has faded to white and is faintly fringed with a pattern of dots from the stitches like a lacy zipper.

  ‘Ray planned to set her up for Rose’s murder, didn’t he?’ Neil looks up and I smile at him because I think that’s what it is too.

  ‘The bracelet!’ He looks at Kit and explains. ‘If Rose’s body was found and there was evidence with it that pointed to Jemima, then it would clear him of suspicion.’

  ‘He would never have to worry about being charged for it.’ Kit sits back. ‘Clean slate?’

  ‘But why bother if it’s not going to be found?’ Neil taps the pen on the notepad. ‘I mean, the farm’s been searched several times now.’

  I get up and open the window, gulping at the clean air. A draught comes misting into the kitchen and I fill the kettle and turn it on. When it boils, the steam rises and then swirls in the cool air coming in from outside. Kit passes me the mugs, and we make more tea together, keeping our hands busy, while Neil paces around the kitchen again.

  ‘Well, we’re just going to stay here drinking tea until we’ve figured it out.’ I say putting the milk away. ‘Because I won’t give up now.’

  ‘That’s exactly it!’ Kit looks at me. ‘He knows Robyn’s determined to find her,’ Kit looks at Neil, this time waiting for him to catch up, ‘so he thinks it’s only a matter of time before she manages it.’

  ‘It’s always closer to home than you think,’ I read from his letter. Neil’s eyes pop open, and he stops moving.

  ‘He wants you to find her? He’s given you a clue?’

  The noises in the garden the other night sounded odd at the time and an old memory of Ray leaping out of my window surfaces. I saw him in the moonlight shutting the door of the shed before he jumped over the fence and melted away. In the morning, Matthew had to lock the padlock.

  ‘He means closer to our home, doesn’t he?’ Kit is watching me. He can see the blood draining from my face.

  ‘I thought he took the ladder out to climb up to my window, the night he came back for her bag. I thought he was putting it back and that’s why I saw him shutting the shed door.’

  Kit and Neil’s faces look as shocked as I feel.

  ‘But he might have been putting something else into the shed?’ Neil stands up and looks down the garden.

  I shiver. ‘But you’ve put a new padlock on the shed, haven’t you, Kit? You’d have noticed anything odd then?’ I calm myself, but Kit turns white. He shakes his head. He didn’t replace the padlock. Neil opens the back door to look, and a gust picks up a wayward bit of hair and lifts it as he goes.

  ‘I had bad dreams last night. I dreamt there were noises in the garden and faces at my window.’

  Kit is rigid, waiting for Neil to come back.

  ‘Yes, there’s a new padlock.’ Neil shuts the door and we stare at each other.

  Kit and I stand at the window and look out down the garden across the grass and fallen leaves. I’m holding tight on to him, so we don’t fall.

  ‘Has she been right there all along?’ I whisper. My stomach is heaving.

  ‘It explains his rush, doesn’t it? We could have opened the shed at any time.’

  The kitchen light is reflected in the window so that our image is like a film superimposed over the dark garden.

  ‘What now?’ Kit sits down heavily, ‘I suppose we should call 999 and get it over with.’

  ‘Can you bear to wait a bit longer?’ Neil is looking at me. ‘We need to work this through.’ I’m too messed up to argue. Kit shrugs.

  ‘Okay, here’s how I see it. If you find Rose’s body and the bracelet is there, it will support Ray’s case that Jemima killed her.’

  ‘So, we’ll just remove it. Then they can charge him, and we can bury her.’ It feels strange to finally say it. My stomach flips.

  ‘If they find evidence something’s been removed, you could be charged with perverting the course of justice. And there’s still no guarantee they’d be able to connect it to him anyway. She’s not where Jemima said she’d be.’

  ‘And it’s our shed. If you’d said Ray had been in it at the time …’ Kit trails off. It’s not a lie, like Mum’s about Mace, but good lawyers would use it.

  ‘Then he’ll get away with it,’ I ball my fists, ‘and he’ll be free to do whatever he wants.’ All this and we’ll be worse off than before.

  One, two.

  I have a plan. Breathe.

  ‘Maybe she’s not there anyway.’ Kit is so pale that I can see the white of his cheekbones sharp under his skin. ‘God, let’s just call the police. Tell them about the bracelet.’ He grabs my hand. ‘We can’t leave her there.’

  He looks beaten. I picture the burial service, the flowers, saying goodbye. I’ve rehearsed the words for the headstone, her words. Sit in the shade and be.

  The tears are slick on Kit’s face and Neil looks at me, waiting. Neil told me that Kit talked to him about Rose and Jemima and me and the blood just after it happened. That he didn’t know what to say t
o him, but it didn’t matter because Kit just talked and talked and then fell asleep right there, in the Cadogan’s living room. And he never talked about it again.

  Family is blood and pain, I think.

  Three, four.

  Neil’s right. If her body is in our shed, bracelet or not, and the police find her we don’t know what will happen. It will never be enough to buy Ray off with the farm. He’s settling scores. Whoever put the bracelet there could have moved her, so she wouldn’t be found.

  He’s been very careful to make it look like Jemima killed her. It was his plan at the time: it was why he wanted her stuff back so he could put it with the body. He moved Rose when I warned him that Mum knew where the bodies were buried. I pull my nails along my scar.

  Five, six.

  He could have got Mum sent to prison. He could have claimed us back then. I’m nearly sick.

  But if we don’t go and find her now, he’ll make sure she’s found anyway.

  ‘Look for it if you want, but if I was you, I’d run.’

  Seven, eight.

  I look at Kit as he sits down heavily, and I can’t see him coping with another trial, can’t see either of us coping with it, not knowing what the outcome will be. And all the time being watched by Ray in the courtroom.

  ‘There’s a chance we could get Mace to confess,’ Neil doesn’t sound convinced. There’s no benefit to Mace.

  ‘Danny, maybe, if he’s their go-between.’ Poor Danny.

  Nine.

  ‘No, never mind, leave him be. But, basically, you’re saying that if she’s found with the bracelet we’re probably screwed and, if we remove it, we’re probably screwed.’

  ‘Crafty, isn’t he?’ says Kit, he has folded his arms on the table and laid his head on top of them, so the words are muffled.

  ‘Look, maybe she’s not there anyway,’ says Neil.

  Ten.

  I move quickly; there’s only one way to be certain. I pull out the hammer and a torch from the cupboard under the sink. Neil looks awkward, he glances at the back of Kit’s head.

  ‘If I find her, I’ll have to report it straight away.’

  ‘I know,’ I push him back down into his chair. ‘Stay and look after him.’ Kit’s head is still on his arms, and it looks as though he could be asleep, checked out. I open the back door and start walking. It’s almost completely dark, and I step slowly and carefully through the damp grass and leaves.

  When I reach the shed, I hook the claw of the hammer into the padlock to lever it open, but I can’t get the angle right. I look up at the windows with lights on in the houses around and check no one is standing looking out. I slip my cardigan off and ram the end of a sleeve through the padlock to dampen the noise of metal on metal and I hit the barrel hard with the hammer. The padlock stays solid, but, eventually, I pull the clasp out of the wood, and I can pull the door open.

  I flick the torch on before stepping in. Inside, it smells of oil, and I see a tin on the floor beside an old lawnmower that looks like it’s been knocked over recently. There’s a slick across the floor at the back that glows darkly in the torchlight. Along one side of the shed is a roll of tarpaulin and on the other are the garden tools, deck chairs, Kit’s old go-cart on its side, and a deflated space hopper. I squat down with my back to the hopper and try to slow my heart down. I don’t remember seeing the tarpaulin in the shed before, but I recognise the flash of silver on the floor beside it. I pick up the bracelet and put it in my pocket.

  The tarp is stained and there are patches of mildew. I think about the hushed little graveyard by the church and the weathered stones and neat gravelled paths. I pull gently at the edge of the fabric. It feels rough and, now that I’m used to the oil, I can smell the mildew. I hold the torch between my teeth so that I can use both hands and pull more of the material away. My fingers feel weak, so it takes me a while to unwrap enough. Something slips out, and I jump back knocking a shovel that slides down the wall and bangs into the mower. I take the torch out of my mouth and set it down on the floor because my teeth are chattering too much to hold it.

  I see the bones of a hand. They are not bleached white like in the films, and although the band around the ring finger is dull and grey, I can see the little twists in the metal. I put the edge of the tarp back over and get out of the shed, gulping in the fresh air. Before I can make it back to the house, I fall on to my knees and vomit into Matthew’s vegetable patch. When I stop, Neil is beside me with a wet tea towel for my face, and he helps me back into the kitchen. Kit looks up, and I nod and put the bracelet on the table, and then we are clinging on to each other and sobbing.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Neil waits until I’m ready.

  ‘I saw her ring, the one in the photo.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says and looks at the bracelet. ‘You took it out. Do you want me to call the station?’

  ‘No,’ I take Kit’s hand, this is the only way. ‘We make sure the police don’t find her.’

  ‘What?’ Neil looks shocked. ‘Then he gets away with it, and you don’t get the funeral you wanted? It’s all been for nothing?’

  ‘Look, if his solicitors can show it’s possible it was Mum, then he’ll get away with it anyway.’ I point at the bracelet. ‘This is a gift from Rose to Jemima. We can’t risk it.’

  ‘So, we’re just going to let him come out and walk around as normal?’

  ‘Maybe not as normal. Because we’ll know where she is, and he won’t,’ I say. There’s silence for a minute. I’m asking a lot of Neil. If anyone ever found out he knew about this, it would cost him his career.

  ‘Jesus, I need a drink,’ says Kit and starts opening cupboards.

  ‘You’re going to move her somewhere else?’ Neil starts pacing. ‘I can’t help you with that — my job.’

  I nod and walk over to stop him so that we are eye to eye and he knows I’m okay. ‘No, you can’t,’ I say, ‘you have to go.’ I put on a smile and turn to Kit who has found a bottle of whiskey and is pouring three glasses.

  Neil walks out of the kitchen. My heart shrinks. He’s leaving, he can’t bear to be near me now.

  Kit looks up after him, and, amazingly, he comes back. I hold my breath.

  ‘You’ll need a car,’ Neil puts his keys on the table, like the soft idiot he is. Kit hands us each a glass and we drink it down in one. Neil turns to Kit, waiting because Kit hasn’t agreed yet. Kit is about to refill the glasses and then screws the lid back on the bottle and puts it away.

  ‘Okay then,’ he says. Neil gives Kit a bear hug.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay to do this?’ He turns to me.

  Yes. I am now. ‘Yes, I can do it.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ he says and actually winks. So I punch him, but just a little, and then he’s gone.

  Kit picks up the keys and his coat and walks towards the back door.

  ‘Wait,’ I run upstairs to my room. I pull the box out from under the bed and tip out the contents on to the floor until I find the shawl and booties and the yellowing sheets of paper. I run back down stuffing them into my bag and grab my jacket too.

  When we open the door to the shed, I place the shawl and booties inside the tarpaulin with her and wrap it up again carefully. She is light, after all these years, and we can pick her up easily between us. We walk out to Neil’s car as though we are doing the most ordinary thing in the world and lay her out across the back seat.

  ‘Where are we going, Little Bird?’

  I smooth out her letter on my legs and read it out to him. He drives us out of town and into the countryside that is green and soft. We park near the farm but climb up instead of taking the track down to the buildings below us, and we bury her in the hollowed-out mud behind a shield of pine roots that have protected the spot for at least as long as we’ve been alive. The trees break the rain that has started to fall in a mist, and we sit there looking out across the valley and the farm and that world which is a bowl of green beneath us until it is nearly light.

&n
bsp; Kit slept here in his own room when we got back. His rest was fitful and noisy. I sat on a chair at the foot of his bed, forehead resting against the window, watching the shed appear and disappear as the clouds moved across the moon. When the dreams died down, just before morning as they always do, I slipped away.

  Downstairs, I pick up a postcard from Matthew. I check the time difference first in an old school atlas and then call him. It’s a conversation we’ve both been waiting to have for a long time.

  The church square is above the High Street, and the walk up to it is steep and narrow. It’s still dark and the light from the street lamps is streaky in the damp air. My boots slip silently on the wet leaves that rain has stuck to the pavement overnight, so my progress is slow and measured.

  When I reach the square, I walk across to the memorial, sinking into the earth and flattening the grass as I go. I find the new names carved into the stone and read Michael and think about Mickey, the boy with the swinging hips and the fearsome anger he had for the person who hurt his little sister. There are fresh poppy wreathes lying at the base, the handwritten messages protected in little cellophane bags. I lay down some of the flowers I bought from the 7-Eleven on the way up.

  There’s a bench nearby, and I sit down to drink the take-away coffee I bought with the flowers. It seems right to wait for the sun to come up fully.

  I don’t remember resting here before, but, when I sit down and close my eyes, I can hear rain beating on the roof tiles, and I can see the buckle on the T-bar of my school shoes flashing as my feet swing backwards and forwards. I’m wrapped in a blanket, and I remember being lifted up into Matthew’s arms and Kit’s hand reaching up and hanging on to mine all the time. Matthew is talking, his voice low and continuous, the thrum of the rain hushing all the other voices. Then I’m back in bed with a spoonful of something sweet and a dull ache in my side.