A Nice Place to Die

by Jane Mcloughlin

  But once the residents of Forester Close were revealed publicly as all equally vulnerable, the fear that pervaded their lives seemed to have been set free. Kevin Miller might be gone, on remand in prison awaiting trial, but still they were all afraid. So there must be something to fear. And what made it harder to deal with was that no one now knew where the threat came from. They had to acknowledge that they were not imagining the violence and the viciousness and lack of care of the world outside. The newspaper published it, it must be true.

  Curiously, too, the residents of Forester Close began to see Kevin Miller as the victim of the historic feud between Old Catcombe and Catcombe Mead. They saw him as a martyr to the vendetta. They began to feel ashamed that they had misunderstood a young man whom they now cast as someone brave enough to keep their enemies from the old village at bay. First the vicar who had come as some sort of spy, then the traitor Alice, who had betrayed them all.

  It was the people of Old Catcombe, they thought, who were to blame for pushing Kevin over the edge into real violence. They agreed that they had always known that he killed the vicar from the old village. He must have thought that in murdering Alice, he was dealing out just punishment to a traitor.

  Jean Henson was the first to wonder if, after all, Alice hadn’t contributed to her own death. Meeting Helen Byrne with Nicky in the supermarket one morning she said in the course of conversation, ‘Don’t you think perhaps there was something about Alice that was a bit provocative to people? She was so helpless she laid herself open to abuse. It’s a recognized psychiatric argument, you know, that the victim of crime is equally responsible with the perpetrator for what happens. She must’ve contributed in some way to what the Miller boy did to her.’

  Later that day, Nicky met Jess in the alley behind the Miller house.

  ‘Heard from Kevin?’ she asked.

  Jess was still missing Mark. She’d hoped that the story in the newspaper would make him get in touch with her, but it hadn’t. She was not inclined to be sympathetic to Nicky’s schoolgirl crush on her brother.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Mum went to visit him.’

  ‘Did he mention me?’ Nicky said, oddly breathless.

  ‘You? Why should he? He said he didn’t kill the old witch, that’s all. He told her to ask you, you’d know who did it. Mum wasn’t sure he was guilty till then, but after that she knew he was, making up something as desperate as that.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t kill the old woman,’ Nicky said.

  ‘Of course he did,’ Jess said.

  Nicky was twisting her hands together in a helpless way that irritated Jess.

  ‘If someone else came forward and said they did it,’ Nicky said, ‘would you believe Kevin didn’t?’

  ‘No,’ Jess said.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was a January of drizzling winter days and damp fog, smelling sour like wet ashes from a dead fire. Fallen leaves which had not been swept up during December gales lay rotting in the gutters. They blocked the drains, and a small torrent of water flowed past the houses, leaving convoluted patterns of grit and debris strewn across the road like a dark design embroidered on grey canvas.

  Dave Byrne had given Nicky a new bike for Christmas. He dropped it round to Number Five on Christmas Eve. It was his attempt to propitiate Helen’s bitterness over the fire.

  Terri answered the door. She didn’t ask him in. Helen was out with Nicky and at first Terri wanted to tell Dave Byrne to take the bicycle away, neither Helen nor Nicky wanted his presents.

  But she couldn’t do that. It was a beautiful bike, red and shiny chrome; Nicky would love it.

  ‘Please, Terri, let her have it,’ Dave said. ‘Tell her it’s a present from me and Helen together. It’s not good for the kid for us always to be fighting over her.’

  ‘I don’t know what Helen will say to that,’ Terri said.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I was wrong to do what I did, I know that. I went too far. Helen didn’t shop me to the police, she must know I didn’t mean that to happen. It’s all got out of hand since the lawyers got involved, it was all fine till then, but it had gone too far to go back. What Nicky needs is for me and Helen not to be fighting.’

  ‘I can’t speak for Helen,’ Terri said. ‘I’ll tell her what you say.’

  ‘Tell her I mean it,’ he said. He leaned the bicycle against the wall of the house.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  Terri watched him walk away. Will I, she asked herself. Will I tell Helen about his visit?

  She felt threatened by Dave’s coming to the house, and by what he said. She was scared. She’d never allowed herself to realize that her relationship with Helen had come to depend on Dave Byrne being cast as a villain. And if that was so, what was it worth, what was between her and Helen? If Helen and Nicky would be happier with Dave than she could make them, she had no right to hold them back. She had to face that. Oh, God, she thought, what will happen to me if I lose them?

  She wheeled the bike round the back so Nicky wouldn’t see it before she’d had a chance to talk to Helen. I’ve got to have it out with her, Terri thought, I can’t go on like this, not now.

  That night, as they were getting ready for bed, she told Helen about Dave’s visit.

  ‘I didn’t know what you’d want me to say,’ she said. ‘Should I have told him to take the bike away?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Helen said. ‘Nicky needs a bike, she’ll be thrilled.’

  ‘Dave wanted you to tell her it’s from the two of you,’ Terri said. She gave Helen an agonized look, expecting her to see the implications of what Dave had said.

  But Helen simply laughed. ‘That’s great,’ she said, ‘I could never’ve afforded to give Nicky a present like that, but now she’ll think I’ve made a special effort for her.’

  She went into the bathroom. Terri got into bed and turned out the light. She heard Helen singing as she ran her bath.

  Terri lay on her back staring into the dark.

  She doesn’t want to understand, she doesn’t care, Terri told herself. Why do I love her so much? Sometimes I think I don’t really like her at all.

  It was Terri who told Nicky that the bike was a present from her father.

  ‘Wicked,’ Nicky said, ‘it’s the best present I ever had.’ Then she laughed and grinned at Terri. ‘One of the advantages of a guilty conscience, don’t you think? Worth pursuing, I’d say.’

  Terri couldn’t help laughing at Nicky’s contrived cynicism.

  ‘Don’t bank on that,’ she said. ‘But it’s nice work if you can get it. It’s a beautiful bike.’

  Since Christmas, Nicky had been trying to teach herself to ride it in the street outside the house, but Nate and Jess jeered at her and she’d stopped taking it out on the road any more. Instead she went out early in the morning by the back alley that ran behind Forester Close to practise on a patch of waste land adjoining the supermarket.

  On the Wednesday after Jess’s photo had been splashed all over the Sunday paper, Terri went upstairs to call Nicky before she left the house to go to work. During the school holidays, she did this every day so that Nicky could make Helen’s breakfast and take it up to her in bed. Terri thought Helen should have the time alone with her daughter.

  But today Nicky was not in her room.

  Terri woke Helen, but she didn’t know where Nicky was.

  ‘What are you worried about?’ Helen asked Terri. ‘She’s probably taken the bike and gone somewhere those other kids can’t tease her.’

  But Terri was worried. It wasn’t like Nicky to disappear without telling her mother where she was going; and Terri worried too that no one seemed to be concerned that the other kids could be bullying Nicky. Terri herself had been bullied at school, in spite of being a big girl well able to stand up for herself and flatten most of the boys in her class. It had been the girls who had been able to hurt her, because she had never been soft and feminine, and they made sure she knew she did not belong amongs
t them.

  So her heart bled for Nicky, who was too studious, and not pretty enough, ever to belong amongst what Terri called ‘the dolly brigade’.

  Of course it was the holidays; no one expected Nicky to stay around the house. Terri went to work as usual, but she rang Helen at lunchtime. Nicky hadn’t come home. Terri began to panic.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Helen said. ‘She’s thirteen years old, she’s off somewhere with her friends.’

  ‘She hasn’t got any friends,’ Terri said.

  ‘Not that we know of,’ Helen said, ‘that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’

  But the January days were short, and when it got dark around four o’clock and there was still no sign of the child, even Helen began to look concerned.

  Terri came home from work early in the car and drove straight off out again to search for the child.

  After about an hour, she came home. ‘It’s too dark,’ she said, ‘it’s pointless. I’ve checked all the places with street lighting. She could be anywhere.’

  ‘Should I tell Dave?’ Helen said, ‘he’s her father, he should be dealing with this.’ She was angry with Nicky; she thought the child was doing this to get attention. She added, ‘Of course, she could be with him. Perhaps he’s abducted her.’

  ‘Tell the police first,’ Terri said.

  She had to go upstairs away from Helen because she was afraid she would not be able to stop herself grabbing her and shaking her until her teeth came loose.

  Why am I taking this out on Helen, she thought, she’s Nicky’s mother, she must be in hell.

  She heard Helen’s voice on the telephone. She was calling the police, at least that was something.

  Terri went into Nicky’s bedroom. It was like a nun’s cell, completely unadorned. The narrow bed had a white duvet, and the walls were white, too. The only colour in the room was the dark red of the curtains Nicky had chosen herself after the fire for her new room.

  Terri sat on the edge of the hard little bed and picked up the single pillow. ‘Where are you, Nicky?’ she said, pressing the cool white cotton against her cheek. She could smell Nicky’s shampoo.

  She was surprised at the strength of her anxiety about the child. She’d always thought she’d tried to love Nicky for Helen’s sake, but now she was overwhelmed by her feelings. Oh God, she thought, clenching her arms around the pillow, let her be safe, let her come home.

  She saw the note as she went to replace the pillow. The envelope was addressed to her – Terri Kent printed in capitals in black ink, underlined twice.

  Terri opened it.

  ‘By the time you read this letter, I will have escaped this Vale of Tears,’ she read.

  This isn’t real, Terri thought, it’s like something out of an old novel. She wanted to weep for the child who felt so unloved she had to hide her misery behind such unreal words in order to express her deepest feelings.

  Perhaps Nicky had felt the same when she wrote it. Anyway, she’d abandoned that approach and the rest of the note was scrawled out as though written in a great hurry.

  She wrote, ‘It wasn’t Kevin who killed Alice Bates, it was me. I can’t keep it to myself any more. Kevin forced her to have him live in her house to hide from the police, and I helped him guard her because I love him. I really love him and I wanted to show him how much. You may not understand this because you have probably never read a book called Crime and Punishment which is the greatest book ever written. I love Kevin because he is the hero of the book, Raskolnikov, even if he doesn’t know it yet. He is a special person who has the right to commit murder and Alice Bates was a parasite like the pawnbroker in the book.

  ‘But Kevin didn’t kill Alice. He wanted to, but he didn’t, so I did it for him. It was late at night and he was in bed. He told me to watch Alice didn’t try to escape. Alice didn’t understand what was happening by then. She told me to get out of there while I had the chance. She said Kevin was wicked.

  ‘I hit her over the head with a lamp on the landing and pushed her so she fell down the stairs. I wanted to show Kevin that I’m not a silly little schoolgirl but worthy of him.

  ‘The noise she made falling woke Kev up, and he came to see and he said she was dead. I was scared and I told him she’d fallen by accident.

  ‘I’m sorry, Terri, but you and Mum will be better off without me. I know this will disappoint you because you wanted the best for me and I’ve let you down. Please ask Jess to say I’m sorry to Kevin, I never meant for him to get the blame. Please try to make Mum understand and not hate me.’

  The note was signed Nicky Anne Kent.

  Terri sat on the edge of the narrow bed staring at Nicky’s childish rounded handwriting for some time. Then she put the note back in the envelope and put it in her pocket.

  How am I going to tell Helen? Terri asked herself.

  Helen looked at Terri’s face and screamed at her.

  ‘My God,’ she said, ‘what’s the little idiot done now?’

  ‘Poor, poor child,’ Terri said. She started to cry.

  ‘Stop it,’ Helen shouted at her, ‘for God’s sake stop that noise. She’s my daughter, why are you crying?’

  Terri’s tears were awful, as though heavy metal started spontaneously to melt.

  Then Terri clenched her fists and ground them into the sockets of her eyes to stop herself weeping.

  ‘Where would she go?’ she said to Helen, ‘where would your daughter go to kill herself?’

  Helen gave her a terrified look and curled up on the sofa in what looked like the foetal position. She sucked her thumb and whimpered like a child.

  Terri glanced at her, then turned away and ran out of the house. She scrambled over the dividing wall between her house and Jean Henson’s.

  Jean opened her front door to the frantic knocking. Terri tried to explain that Nicky was missing.

  Jean pulled her into the hall. ‘Tell me?’ she said. ‘What’s happened?’

  Terri scarcely knew what she was doing. She thrust Nicky’s note into Jean’s hands. Then, as Jean read it, she spilled out the whole story as though the words were lava erupting from her. She was helpless to stop the flow in spite of her fear of the consequences for Helen and for Nicky of what she had to tell.

  Jean was very calm. She asked, ‘Are the police looking for her?’

  Terri nodded.

  Jean said, ‘If she took her bike, she can’t have gone far. She couldn’t ride it very well.’

  ‘But she’s been gone all day.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They looked at each other and then Terri said, ‘What are we going to do about the other thing? About Kevin Miller? And Alice? Do you think anyone would believe it? Do you think it’s true? Was she trying to protect Kevin?’

  Jean took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘Is, Terri. Is, not was. We don’t know she’s dead.’

  ‘Poor little thing,’ Terri said, ‘she doesn’t think she’s got anything to live for. That note’s so sad.’

  ‘Burn the note,’ Jean said. She handed it back to Terri. She sounded as though she had no doubts that they must do this.

  ‘But the police must see it,’ Terri said. ‘They’ve charged Kevin Miller.’

  ‘Has Helen seen the note?’

  Terri shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘Nicky wrote it to me. That means she didn’t want her mother to see it. She trusted me.’

  ‘Helen mustn’t see it,’ Jean said. ‘The police mustn’t see it, either. If they do, they’ll put her in care, and the psychiatrists will get hold of her. You’ve got to destroy it.’

  Terri hesitated.

  ‘Come on,’ Jean said, taking Terri’s arm and marching her out of the house and back next door.

  Helen was still curled on the sofa, her eyes closed. She was still sucking her thumb like an infant.

  ‘She’s out of it,’ Jean said. ‘That’s something to be thankful for.’

  There was a loud knocking at the front door. Helen started to whimper, ret
reating further into the sofa cushions.

  ‘Quick,’ Jean said. She snatched the note. ‘You answer the door.’

  She was tearing the note into shreds as she ran upstairs to the bathroom.

  She could hear Terri talking to the police in the hall. From the top of the stairs Jean recognized the voice of the female Detective Chief Inspector who had come to question her after Alice’s death.

  Damn, Jean thought, how did they get here so quickly?

  She flushed the pieces down the lavatory.

  Terri, white-faced and her forehead beaded with sweat, stood in the hallway like a fat bull terrier barking at the postman.

  ‘We’d like to speak to Mrs Byrne,’ the Chief Inspector said. ‘We need to talk to her. We’ve found her daughter.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  The light was already fading as Mark Pearson set off to check the electric fence in the fields by the river where the cows were grazing with the stud bull. While he was at it, too, he could make sure the water troughs were in working order.

  Bloody public rights of way, Mark was thinking. If the government didn’t force him to protect intruders on his own land, he could let the animals get down to the river bank to drink.

  ‘Bloody vandals,’ he muttered, ‘letting their dogs off the lead with the in-calf heifers, and their children running all over the crops. Ignorant yobs, the lot of them. And I get prosecuted if that old bull so much as looks at them.’

  Mark had been grumpy like this for days. The endless cold grey days, the gloom everywhere, the boredom of being unable to get on with work that needed to be done because of the weather, all got him down. He knew he was being absurd and unreasonable. But thinking of yobs invading his land had reminded him of meeting Jess. Mark missed her. He felt very lonely without her.

  Close to the river, where the bank curved and left a small muddy inlet in the field, he found the wire fence had come loose from one of the plastic posts. It was trailing on the grass. He could hear the crackling sound where it was shorting out.