Check Mate

by Caron Allan

  Then there was a large carton of orange juice. I put quite a bit in that. And a plastic bottle of cola—almost full, I put some in that. Milk, obviously, I couldn’t do much with. Yoghurts—various berry flavours, I managed to insinuate a little into each of those with the aid of my trusty syringe, then shook them gently to encourage a good mix.

  There was half a jar of tomato paste, the stuff you whack into pasta dishes, that was the perfect medium for my little additive, and the strong tomatoey-garlicky flavour should easily mask any weird sweetish taste of the anti-freeze. And the bottle of vodka, I put some in that. And another plastic tub, again half-full (I’m such an optimist!) this time with minestrone soup, another great food in which to conceal a healthy dose (or not!) of ethylene-glycol.

  After a quarter of an hour, I had poisoned almost everything in her fridge, and a few items not in the fridge. I felt exhausted but happy, a huge weight off my shoulders with having finally achieved my goal.

  Now I was ready to leave, and I groaned inwardly at the thought of having to get back out of the bathroom window, onto garage roof, etc. The whole rigmarole in reverse.

  I carefully put the lid back on my antifreeze and gathered up all my little bits and pieces and stashed them securely in my backpack. I noticed a slight tear in the finger of one of my gloves, so I put on the new pair, and shoved the discarded ones into the backpack along with all my other stuff.

  The kitchen clock showed the time as 2.05am. Backpack now on my back, I sneaked into the hall and paused. All was silent. My eyes quickly made sense of the deeper darkness here and I began to make my way back up the stairs.

  Then—a light snapped on in the hall above me—flooding the stair-well with light, dazzling me!

  I heard the soft sound of footsteps on carpet. I couldn’t move. No sooner had I thought to myself ‘what if she…’ than I heard the bathroom door close and the tiny bolt was pushed across. My escape route was cut off.

  I turned, knowing I wouldn’t have much time. In my imagination I could see the footprints in the sink, the items on the sill all moved up to make room, the window standing wide. I had no time!

  I bolted for the front door—it was nearest—and fumbling, I found the key and turned it. My fingers snatched at the handle and I wrenched it open, launching myself through the gap as right behind me, there came the sound of someone pounding down the stairs, screaming my name.

  I ran. I ran as I had never run, not even in the 100 metre dash at school when the honour of the Lower VI Girls was at stake.

  She screamed behind me but I didn’t dare to look back. As I ran, I rummaged in my pocket for my car keys, but as the silence of the cul-de-sac impressed itself on me and I became aware that all I could hear was my own ragged breathing, I realised she had already given up the chase.

  I fell into the car, and locked the doors, sinking back for a second or two just to collect myself, my chest heaving with the effort to breathe. No one showed. I stayed where I was, reasoning she might wait on the corner to see if a car raced off.

  If she appeared in this road, I told myself, I could drive off if I needed to, but for the moment I was safe. I struggled to get the backpack off my back and threw it on the passenger seat. My hands gripped the steering wheel and I sat there, still panting.

  She would know. I saw that now. As always, understanding came too late to be useful. It would be obvious who had been in her house. I wondered if she would call the police. Then I wondered if, instead of that, she would come looking for me again. Only now—after all those months and everything I’ve been through and experienced, I and all the other people who have been her victims—only now did I take pause to wonder if I had just made things even worse.

  I sat there for a long twenty minutes. By then I was angry with myself for my stupidity. But I reasoned that if she hadn’t appeared by now, she probably wasn’t going to. I started the engine and drove at about ten miles per hour along the road to her corner. I peered down towards her house, but I couldn’t tell if there was anyone about. I could see all her lights were on, but the front door was hidden from me behind a massive shrub, so I didn’t know if she had gone in and shut the door.

  I drove home. I felt cold then. I still feel cold now. All I can think is, what will she do now?

  Monday August 17th—10.20am

  Nothing’s happened yet. I don’t know whether to tell everyone what I’ve done, I don’t want to scare them—or make them cross with me—but neither do I want them to take any risks or be unprepared. All day I’ve been on tenterhooks waiting for a phone call or a knock at the door. I’m expecting the police to arrive at any moment to arrest me for breaking and entering, or for Monica herself to turn up on my doorstep, like she did once before, drunk and screaming revenge, a gun in her hand.

  I’ve been every kind of idiot. What was I thinking?

  As if things weren’t bad enough, when I unloaded my backpack this morning after a short and restless night punctuate by terrifying dreams, I found I had left the syringe at Monica’s! I felt like bursting into tears. I rummaged through the bag, took everything out, checked all the zip-pockets, put everything back in, and then five minutes later hauled it all out again. It is definitely not in there. And I know where it is—it’s on Monica’s kitchen drainer. I can picture it in my mind’s eye, just lying there.

  Meanwhile in her garden, I’ve left her patio table pulled up to the side of the garage, with two chairs standing on top, assorted cushions, and on the garage roof, another chair.

  I might just as well have scrawled ‘Cressida Was Here’ in lipstick across her bathroom mirror! God. I am absolutely furious with myself. And even worse, I know Matt, Sid and Lill will all be utterly disgusted with me. Not to mention that I’ve put them and the children in peril. I can’t bear to face them.

  When Matt took the children off to school this morning, I wanted to tell him to be careful, but I was too scared. Then I kept watch at the dining room window until he got back home.

  Later: 5.40pm

  Finally the call came.

  I just launched myself at the phone, much to everyone’s surprise. Matt shot me a look through narrowed eyes as I breathlessly said “yes?” So now he knows something is going on. The jig is up.

  By the time she rang, I was just relieved the wait was over. Obviously it was Monica. Who else could it have been? She said, “You weren’t your usual immaculate self this time, Cress. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed. This is not the level of stealth I’ve come to expect from you. Though I am impressed you managed to find me in the first place, kudos for that. You will have plenty of time to feel smug about that over the next few days.”

  Then she hung up. I let the receiver drop back into place, then I ran for the downstairs loo and vomited.

  Matt knocked on the door and asked me if I was all right. Stupid question, lovely thought. Oh Matt, I am most definitely not all right, I thought to myself as I rinsed the ends of my hair under the hot tap then swilled my mouth out.

  So then I had to tell him everything. He was pale and grim when I finished. He got up and went to the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with two mugs of tea.

  “When Mum and Dad come back from picking up the kids, we’ve got to tell them what you’ve done.”

  What you’ve done.

  “Come back?” I asked, suddenly fearful. I looked at my watch. “Why’ve they gone so early?”

  “Paddy and Billy are playing at Jamie’s house. Mum wanted to pop in the shop for something, so she said she’d pick them up and bring them home on her way back. So Dad went with her. And on the way, they are walking Jacqueline back to the pub.”

  I was at the door by the time he said Jacqueline’s name, and had my shoes on and the door open by the time he’d finished speaking. I ran down the drive, sobbing, “no, no, no!” to myself.

  And there on the corner were Sid and Lill, chatting with the lady from the village shop whilst Paddy and Billy patted her elderly labrador.

&nbs
p; I felt as moronic as I must have looked, odd unlaced shoes on, hair flying in all directions, wet at the ends on one side, and the whiff of vomit about me, tears pouring down my face.

  When we got home, Matt took the little ones to play in the garden for a few minutes whilst I sat in the kitchen with Lill and Sid and told them what I had done. Neither of them spoke. I felt wretched.

  Then finally Sid said, “okay, we need to all be extra careful over the next few weeks, and Cressida, you are not to leave the house day or night, is that clear?”

  I nodded, dumb with misery. His tone was such that I wouldn’t dare to defy him, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.

  Sid’s in the shed sulking now he knows that I tried to do this without his help, whilst the other two are just plain miffed. For the first time ever, Lill is not speaking to me and Matt is just plain furious.

  Have been sitting in the garden room ever since, wrapped in a blanket.

  Tuesday August 18th—10.40pm

  This morning some flowers were delivered. It was Jacqueline who went to the door.

  She came into the garden room to show me what had arrived: a lovely arrangement of white lilies. And a card, with no message, but bearing a picture of a candle and the embossed words ‘In Deepest Sympathy’.

  Matt was going to put the whole thing in the bin, but Jacqueline asked if she could take them home; apparently her mother loves lilies.

  Matt tore the card into tiny pieces and dropped them into the trash. There was a pall over the whole house all day, and Matt and Sid took the children to nursery and school and collected them again later.

  Lill is upset, and quite rightly too. I don’t know what to say. Matt is angry, Jacqueline is clearly bursting with curiosity and Sid—well, Sid just patted my arm once as he went past me. I think he sympathises with how I feel, and my motives for going to Monica’s.

  A long, dreary evening.

  Wednesday August 19th—2pm

  More flowers this morning, and a condolence card, signed by Monica, in her own hand, in her old name, none of this new, Zinnia business. And I suppose now it’s all been dragged out into the open, it means the gloves are off and there’s no longer any need for disguise or artifice.

  I must say, this is costing Monica a fortune. Really, really nice flowers. But all joking aside, how long will she keep this up? She’s made her point—that she knows I broke into her home, that I made another attempt on her life. So why keep it up?

  Lill suggested that we all go away for a while, but the rest of us vetoed that. Sid and Matt have got their work, the children have got nursery and school, we all have our lives to live. And we can’t keep running away from Monica. No, I believe Monica will tire of this stupid game eventually, we’ve just got to tough it out.

  Madison phoned me last night, ecstatic. She is having dinner with Tyrone again this evening. They’ve had about six dates now. It feels like such a long time since I sat in the pub and ‘chaperoned’ her. He is definitely the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with, she said. Ah young love! The last couple of days have seemed to last an age. It is rather weird to realise the rest of one’s friends are still out there getting on with their everyday lives as normal. We had a lovely chat and I made some excuse about not feeling well to explain why I was planning on staying home this week.

  Just as I felt as though I was beginning to recover from all the recent trauma, the doorbell rang and when I answered it, with Lill right behind me, there was yet another floral delivery agent with yet more lilies and yet another ‘In Deepest Sympathy’ card.

  I slammed the door in the guy’s face. He rang the bell again, so I opened it, and yelled at him “take them away! It’s a hoax! No one here is dead! Just take them away!”

  He bleated something about how it’s his duty to deliver the stuff the client requested to the place they said, and that’s all he’s required to do. With that he dumped them on the doorstep and left. In a rage I kicked them all over the front garden, then came inside and slammed the door.

  Later: 0.30am

  Madison rang in floods of tears. As I valiantly attempted to wring some intelligible answer from her, I wondered what on earth could have happened. And then I remembered. Oh yes, her date with Tyrone. Her soulmate.

  Gradually she pulled herself halfway together and the story emerged with a teensy bit of delicate enquiry from me. “For God’ sake Madison, stop blubbing and spit it out, I want to get to bed at some point!” I honestly intended to be sympathetic but she wore me down.

  It seems he’s been keeping some vital little thing a secret from her since they first began chatting online all those weeks ago. No, he’s not married; at least, if he is he hasn’t admitted that. Anyway, it transpires that tonight was their sixth date, and in addition to those six dates, they’ve spent so much time instantly messaging each other via the power of social media that it seems as if they’ve known each other for such a lot longer than they really have. Consequently, Tyrone felt there was a greater need for transparency in their relationship as they took things to the ‘next level’. Which, if I know Madison, probably means holding hands. Personally I think transparency is a quality relationships are largely better off without.

  Anyway. Apparently there is a bit of the Steve about him.

  “Yep,” she snuffled. “He wears dresses. And make-up. He arrived in a long blonde wig and high-heeled sandals. He asked me to call him Suzanne.”

  Reading between the lines, it sounds as if he completely outdid her in the grooming department.

  She’s mortified. She kept asking me, “What should I do?” and, “How will I ever get over him?”

  I wasn’t particularly sympathetic seeing as it was a quarter to eleven when she rang and I’d been listening to her for well over an hour. I wanted to get to bed, as I have three children who would be up at ridiculous-o’clock, and I tried to point out she only met this Tyrone/Suzanne chap a little while ago, it’s hardly Gone With The Wind. I told her to try to stop fretting and we would examine the situation together in the cold light of day when we were fresh and more objective.

  But in my mind, as I tapped ‘End’ on my phone, I was already introducing Tyrone/Suzanne to Steve.

  Poor Madison. As Lill would say, she can’t half pick them.

  Thursday August 20th—9.15pm

  Fortunately, there were no flower deliveries today, although there was another condolence card in the post. Strangely, it wasn’t even from Monica but from my old friends the Blairs.

  I rang them and said no one had died. They were rather embarrassed, and a wee bit annoyed, with me of all people, as if it was all my fault. Anyone would think I had been circulating vicious rumours about a bereavement then, having lured in their flowers and card and sympathy, I had failed to do the decent thing and produce a dead body.

  I told them it was Monica’s idea of a little joke. They seemed okay with that. Why did I ever like these people to begin with? They’re obviously idiots. What kind of friend goes around telling people ‘as a joke’ that you’ve lost a loved one?

  Jacqueline and Lill have recovered their nerves again sufficiently to do a big bake. So I can’t hang around writing in here, when there are all manner of cakes and muffins to be ‘tested’.

  So far, nothing further from Madison.

  Monday August 24th—8.10pm

  Sid’s mate has come back to us with a car make and registration. So whenever any of us go out, we now keep our eyes peeled for a black Renault Clio registration number XY58 KEF. Not seen it yet—and it’s a good thing we’ve got the reg as I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t recognise a Renault Clio unless I saw the little thingy on it that says what make it is.

  Apart from Madison, no one has bought any of the terraced houses the landlord put up for sale. The rumour mill is convinced the properties will go up for lease again very soon. It will be nice not to have empty houses in the middle of the village—I always get a bit freaked out whenever I have to walk past them. It’s a bit like g
oing over to the dark side of the moon—out of contact for those vital seconds before joining the human race again.

  More flowers this morning. I keep asking myself if there is anything we can do about this? Matt says not. He has dragged the compost bin round to the front door and left instructions with the delivery people to put all bouquets, arrangements etc directly in the bin. They seem to think we’re being very ungrateful and difficult about this whole situation; they appear to be incapable of understanding that we are not enjoying receiving all these flowers, in fact I shall probably develop a phobia of arranged flowers that will last me until I die. Or next week, whichever is the sooner.

  As it’s making money for the florist, I suppose I can see why they are reluctant to go back to Monica and tell her to stop placing her orders, and they’d hardly refuse to accept orders from her. They can’t understand it’s not merely a question of us letting Monica know her gifts are unwelcome. And it’s not exactly a normal situation, is it, so I really can’t find it in my heart to blame them for doing what they do—it’s their job, after all.

  So the flowers all go in the compost bin. I suspect Jacqueline will rescue a few now and then to take home to her mother. In her mother’ shoes, though, I’m not sure I’d want to receive flowers under these peculiar circumstances. But I suppose it’s just a nice little luxury to her and so long as not so much as a petal finds its way into my house, I don’t much care what happens to them.

  Friday August 28th—2.45pm

  It’s been a couple of days now since we’ve had any flowers at the door or cards through the post—such a relief! We are all feeling more relaxed already, and no sign of her car. I’m so glad Monica has finally given up her harassment of us and we can get back to living our lives.