Criss Cross

by Caron Allan

  ‘So have you got anything to give me a little buzz now? Not pills, I don’t mean. Some nice vodka or something? I just need a bit of a pick-me-up. You know,’ I asked, beaming at her. She beamed back. She thought I was pleased, and I was. She thought I was pleased because she’d literally handed me the answer to my problems, and of course she had, but then I had lied about what my problem really was.

  She went to get the booze. And I dug a pair of nail scissors out of my handbag. We drank a few glasses, got a bit tipsy, she called in at the loo on her way to the kitchen to get a bag of mini poppadums from the kitchen, and I cut open about two dozen capsules and let the powder fall into her drink, giving it a little swish to dissolve it properly. And when she came back from the little girls’ room, we toasted each other’s health and I sat back and waited.

  I had my gloves on all this time. Fifteen minutes later, I was grateful to the huge thatch of pampas and untamed hedging that concealed me as I half-carried, half-dragged Manddi out into the rental car, stuffed her in behind the wheel, and ran the garden hose from the exhaust. She smiled drunkenly as I waved goodbye then I helped her lean forward to rest her weary head on the centre of the steering wheel. The car was filling up quickly and I doubted this was going to take very long. And she looked so happy.

  I dashed inside to wash up my glass and put it away, careful not to leave any prints, obviously. The remaining capsules, the poppadums, some chocolates and the empty bottles I left on the coffee table in the sitting room. The whole time I was tidying up, I was worried about the police arriving in the middle of things. In fact to be really frank, I was almost wetting myself with nerves about it. Yet on the other hand, I couldn’t believe how long it was taking them to get round to informing Manddi of Huw’s tragic demise. But nothing and no one seemed to notice anything amiss as I slipped out the back door and down an alleyway, emerging in the street behind the one where the love-nest was. I left my gloves in the top of a rubbish bin drawn up to the kerb for the following morning’s collection. A small sacrifice, but I felt it was important to get rid of them.

  I felt remarkably chipper when I got home. I’d done all that and it was still only twenty to seven when I got in.

  Mrs H was still there, in the kitchen giving Tetley her dinner.

  ‘I’ve left you both summat in the fridge,’ she said, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was the same stuff that she was giving to the cat. I giggled a bit. She looked at me oddly.

  ‘Oh I’m so sorry, Mrs Hopkins,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid I’m a little bit tipsy. They gave me rather a large glass of wine at the beauty salon this afternoon, and I’m afraid it went straight to my head. On an empty stomach, you know.’

  ‘Oh dear, Mrs Powell, p’r’aps you ought to ‘ave a little lie down?’ she suggested. It seemed like an excellent idea, and ten minutes later I was snug as a bug. I heard the front door bang as she went out, and the house was quiet until Darling Thomas arrived home at about half past seven or so.

  He came straight upstairs and sat next to me on the bed. I woke from a short but deep sleep, and my head was pounding. I felt sick.

  ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘something terrible’s happened.’

  I sat up a bit too quickly, and clutched my head groaning. He was all concern.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just a headache. That’s why I was having a lie-down. What’s this terrible news?’

  ‘You’d better brace yourself,’ he said and I saw he looked pale, upset. I grabbed his arm.

  ‘Darling? What? What is it?’ I managed to inject quite a lot of unrehearsed alarm into those few words, as I had half-forgotten what had actually happened and the sudden memory of it rushing back was a bit of a shock.

  ‘Well, it’s—it’s Huw. He’s dead. He’s been killed in a road accident.’

  I gaped at him. Unable to believe the wonderful news.

  ‘He’s—he’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, Darling.’

  ‘Huw? Huw’s dead? Monica-and-Huw Huw is dead?’

  ‘Well technically, Manddi-with-two-Ds-and-Huw Huw, but yes, I’m afraid so, the poor chap. Monica rang me at work.’

  I continued to look at him like an idiot, my brain a whirl of excitement.

  ‘But…’ I said. Because it’s one of those things people always say and it sounds suitably inane for this kind of situation.

  ‘Yes, apparently the police called her as his next of kin. She told them about him leaving her for Manddi, so I dare say they will be going round to break it to her next.’

  ‘Poor Manddi,’ I said, ‘I mean, I didn’t much like her, and I was still far too angry with Huw, but for him to just be snuffed out like that, here one minute, hit by a car the next.’

  ‘I know.’ Thomas nodded sadly.

  ‘Poor Monica!’ I said suddenly, leaping up, ‘we should probably go to her. She’ll be in a terrible state.’

  ‘I believe the police got her sister or someone to go round. She sounded quite flat and well, numb, I suppose, when she rang me. She was worried about how you and I would take the news.’

  ‘God, what a nightmare,’ I said, and slumped down on the bed, my head on Thomas’s shoulder. We sat like that for almost five minutes, then went down to get our dinner out of the fridge.

  Thurs 2 August—4.30am

  Oh my God! This is the most incredible mess, and it’s all my fault!

  A couple of hours ago, or rather a bit more than that, it was at about two o’clock this morning, there was this terrific, apocalyptic pounding on the front door, and looking out the bedroom window, we saw Monica down there on the drive, screaming and shouting and sobbing curses. When she saw me looking down, she staggered back from the door the better to see me and with one hand was waving what looked like a gun at me and with the other, what appeared to be a bottle of vodka. And she was screaming.

  ‘Come down here, you bitch! It was you! You did this! I know it! I’ll kill you. How could you do this to me? I trusted you! You were my best friend! It wasn’t supposed to be like this! I’m going to kill you!’

  Thomas put on his dressing-gown, preparing to go downstairs—I begged him not to—she looked terrifyingly unstable, was obviously pissed out of her head, and very definitely beside herself with grief. And she was armed—God alone knew if the gun was loaded or if she had the faintest idea how to use it. This didn’t seem to be the best time to find out.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said in his astonishingly naive way, ‘we’re her friends, she needs us.’

  I ran down the hall after him, desperately afraid something would happen to him, imagining her aiming at his heart in her blind unreasoning fury.

  We reached the end of the landing where the stairs from the attic floor come down to our floor, to meet Mr and Mrs Hopkins there, both in less than truly adequate night attire. We looked at them, they looked at us somewhat sheepishly. I was confused. Thomas merely shook his head.

  ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk about this in the morning.’

  He continued down the stairs and I gaped after him, looking back at Sid and Mrs H.

  ‘What the hell?’ I began, but remembered Monica and raced off down the stairs after Thomas. He was drawing back the bottom bolt on the front door and I could still hear her screaming outside on the drive. I panicked.

  ‘Thomas, wait!’ I yelled. But he had pulled back the top bolt and was turning the knob to open the door. At the same time I was vaguely aware of Mrs H lifting the telephone receiver and pressing a few buttons. She asked for the police and ambulance and in a remarkably calm way gave our address and embarked on a brief recent history. Sid pushed his vast bulk past me and filled the frame of the door right next to Thomas. I could just see through a gap by his bent elbow.

  Monica stepped up to the door, peering through the gap between the men’s bodies to find me.

  ‘Cressida!’ Overwhelming emotion turning her mellow voice to a harsh grating roar. ‘Get out here now! I’m going to blow your fucking head off! You killed
him! You bitch, I hate you! I hate you! I want you dead—now!’

  Sid and Thomas stepped up to her and as Sid held her arm, with one simple tweak Thomas had the gun out of her hand. I didn’t have time to gasp with horror or to be afraid for him, he had done it before I had even realised his intention. When she saw she had no weapon, Monica fell on her knees and crumpled to the ground, sobbing and helpless.

  Neighbours’ lights were going on all around our little cul-de-sac, so Thomas and Mrs H pulled Monica to her feet and walked her into the house, Sid waiting outside for the police, and I went into the kitchen to make tea for everyone, but mainly to hide from Monica and her accusations and the terrifying rawness of her pain. I felt a bit stunned. I felt full of self-loathing. It was as if I had stepped back from the canvas, too late, and could finally see what I had done.

  Thomas came into the kitchen to see if I was all right, and found me half-fainting, my head down on my knees, weeping. It was perfect actually. Again! He took the tea through into the drawing room, though I doubted that anyone would want it. The police had arrived, and apart from a very brief conversation, Thomas wouldn’t let them speak to me.

  After about forty minutes, an ambulance took Monica, now quiet, away. Subdued and all too obviously exhausted by the ordeal of her outburst.

  After taking statements the police finally left too, and then it was just us and Mr and Mrs H, and the pale ghost of dawn coming across the hedges through the trees and onto the lawn.

  Thomas and I sat in the drawing room with the fresh hot cocoa Mrs H had made. The two of them hovered uncertainly in the doorway, Sid adjusting the fraying string of his aged pyjama trousers.

  ‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to wait until the morning for my resignation, Madam,’ Mrs H said softly. Never had her enunciation been so careful. Never could I recall her calling me Madam. Or at least, not meaning it. I shook my head.

  ‘What is going on?’ I asked her, baffled.

  ‘Don’t you know? Haven’t you worked it out?’ Thomas said. I shook my head, confused.

  ‘They’re living here,’ said Thomas. ‘In our attic. Like Borrowers.’

  ‘What?’ I still didn’t understand. He pointed towards the ceiling.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Sid.

  ‘Living here? In our attic?’ I said, too spent to take it all in properly.

  ‘He lost his job, got made redundant when the factory closed down,’ said Mrs H. ‘That’s why I’m always ‘ere. I don’t know ‘ow I fort we’d get away wiv it, but I just ‘oped… I mean, you’ve got a lot of room up in the attic, and not much up there. So when the bank repossessed our ‘ouse a month ago, we jus’ fort, I mean, we know it’s wrong, ‘course we do, but we were desperate. It was that or go and live with my married daughter in Milton Keynes, which would mean giving up my job ‘ere. And it’s not just that it was our only means of support, I love my job and it was only supposed to be for a short while, till Sid got another job and we got back on our feet. I sort of ‘oped you’d never notice, being as you’re both often out all day.’

  She looked at us both for a moment, biting her lip, and I felt the prickle of tears at the back of my eyes.

  Mrs Hopkins half-turned to go out of the room.

  ‘We’ll leave first thing in the morning,’ she said softly.

  ‘But…’ I said. I turned to Thomas. ‘I don’t want them to go, Darling. We can’t manage without them.’

  ‘No, of course we can’t,’ said Thomas, suddenly all brisk and in-charge, just how I love him the most. ‘Don’t be silly, Mrs H, I won’t hear of anyone leaving, of course not. You must both stay on as long as you need to. Obviously it’s a lot easier to get back on one’s feet if one has a—well—a base so to speak—from which to—er—well, you know what I mean. And really, you know, you could have said something before. I’m not an ogre, you know.’ But his eyes twinkled a little at the thought that for the first time in his life, someone, however desperate, had thought he was an ogre, even if for only a few minutes. Poor darling, he’s so soft-hearted!

  Mrs H dabbed her eyes with her nightie and I snuffled into my lacy hankie, whilst Sid pumped Thomas’ arm like real ale would come out at the wrist and told him quite gruffly that he was a top bloke.

  A trifle awkwardly we all broke up and went to our respective rooms. It felt strange knowing that they, not rats, were up there in the attic. But in a way, it was nice to know that someone else was in the house.

  When we were in bed, I half-expected Thomas to ask me what Monica had meant by her accusations, but he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘By the way, Darling, apparently Huw was deliberately run down. He was murdered, that policeman told me. By Manddi.’

  I hadn’t expected this. I sat bolt upright.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know,’ he sat up again and put an arm round me. ‘Shocking, isn’t it? Apparently the police went to the house where he’d been living with her, and it seems that she’d got herself all boozed and drugged up, then gassed herself in the same car she’d run him down in. The people at the rental company remembered her. The police found the pills and everything. They reckon he must have told her he was going back to Monica and she couldn’t handle it and did him in, then herself. Shocking tragedy.’

  ‘Yes, shocking,’ I murmured. I slipped out of bed. He looked at me, querying.

  ‘I need to get a drink and sit quietly for a little while. It’s all been a bit much,’ I told him.

  ‘Of course, Poppet. Do you want me to come down with you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No need. Get off to sleep, you’ve got work in the morning.’ I dropped a kiss on his hair and took myself off downstairs.

  I’m moving like I’m in shock.

  I can’t believe it.

  It’s as if I thought it was just some game. I’m so lucky things worked out so well. I just can’t believe how smoothly it all went, and how everything has just fallen so neatly into place. But it’s as if I’ve only just realised what I’ve done and the immensity of the achievement.

  I mean, I’m thrilled, naturally. But the sheer audacity of it takes my breath away—so many things could have gone wrong (could yet go wrong, I quickly remind myself—the fat lady ain’t singing yet!) But…

  Wow, I did it!

  And some day, Monica will thank me for it. Though that may not be for quite some day if this evening’s palaver is anything to go by.

  I popped out to the fridge and grabbed myself little glass of bubbly, even though I know I’ve already had more than is good for me these last two or three days.

  I stood in the little den at the back of the house, looking out into the garden, to where the fairy lights are still twinkling around the terrace, where someone had forgotten to turn them off when we went to bed. The garden was softly gleaming in the dawn glow, so pretty. I lifted the glass and whispered a toast before drinking the glassful down in one.

  ‘To absent friends.’

  Same day: 6.30 am

  I didn’t sleep well, once I did finally get to bed. Probably the champagne and all the excitement, but I just kept seeing them in my dreams, reproaching me.

  I saw his face as he looked at me as his body was hurled past the windscreen, the look in his eyes, the knowingness.

  I saw her face, heard her soft giggly voice with its irritating lisp, saw her dopey smile as she drifted away into unconsciousness, saw her eyes watching me through the car window as I plugged the gap around the hose with loo paper, saw the eyelids drooping closed and the smile on her face as she lay with her heavy head on the steering wheel and watched me as I turned and walked away.

  And now Monica. Monica wanting to kill me, Monica’s life ripped up by the roots because of me and now she wants me dead. She knows what I did. It was what she wanted me to do, what she was saying, showing me when we went to The Cube that night.

  Why doesn’t she get that I did it for her? For my best pal? Criss Cross, Monica.

  Same day: 11am

 
; Oh my head, it just won’t stop aching! I feel that if I make any sudden moves it’s just going to tumble down off my shoulders and roll under a chair or table and I’ll have to fish it out with a broom or something.

  I still can’t believe I pulled it off. When I think of all the things that could have gone wrong, it’s a little bit terrifying.

  The police were here again earlier, and that in itself gave me a few nasty moments, but they were just here to settle a few details, nothing much. I answered all their questions in a sad, sombre little voice, and told them of Monica’s terrible depression of the last few days following Huw’s departure. As far as I can tell, it’s all done and dusted, there wasn’t (I’m glad, even relieved, to say) the least hint of suspicion in their manner. So I live to fight another day, as it were.

  But of course the main fly-in-the-ointment, Monica, has been calling me seemingly every five minutes, leaving increasingly obscene and vicious messages. So much for her being in some kind of secure detention centre for mad peopIe. I mean, I know she’s upset and everything, but for goodness sake, what about me? No one thinks about how I feel in all of this. Well, of course, no one thinks about me because no one knows I’m involved, but you know what I mean. I’m the one who’s had all the trauma to deal with, and whose time and money and effort went into this project.

  Well, if she didn’t want me to kill her philandering, cheating, lying bastard of a husband she shouldn’t have kept going on about it. Stupid cow, how was I supposed to know she only wanted the girlfriend whacked? Why didn’t she make her meaning a bit clearer? What am I, a mind-reader? He’d only have gone off with someone else sooner or later, anyway—she should be thanking me! How is it a proper Criss Cross if I only get rid of the one person who doesn’t matter? Personally I think I did a brilliant job, setting it all up so it looked like Manddi killed Huw and then herself—It took me ages to think of that. And there was always the possibility of getting caught. She’s not thinking about what it’s cost me to do this.