‘You might get mad at my reply.’
‘I won’t. I asked you.’
That is so easy for him to say while he brandishes a cutlass at me. Actually it’s nowhere near the size of a cutlass, but I think I’m allowed to be slightly dramatic in the circumstances.
‘Your wife, Mona, told us where she was buried. She was very upset.’
He blinks at me then looks away. He believes – I see it plainly in those unguarded two seconds. This man has more complications than a quantum Rubik’s cube.
‘What do you mean? My wife’s not buried. How could she tell you she was upset if she was buried? She’d be dead. That makes no sense.’
I feel sick again. This honesty lark is a risky business.
‘She was screaming in my head. Screaming and crying, when you and your second wife came into the shop.’
He lowers his head. ‘Screaming, you say?’ He places his hands on the table, as though to compare finger sizes, then pulls himself together. ‘Carmen is not my second wife.’ His lips tighten at the corners. He gets up from the table, goes to a draw and returns with a photograph in a frame. He shows it to me.
‘This is my one and only wife.’
I bite my lip. It’s Mona, but not screaming and not in shadow. The two of them have their heads together in the picture; her eyes sparkle with life. She has expensive, shiny hair, much like Carmen’s, but her face is softer, older; she probably wasn’t as toned and provocatively dressed as Carmen, but she certainly looks prettier. And Dan? His smile seems real and happy. But then he’s a freak, so God knows what he was thinking even then.
He stands it up on the table where we can see it. ‘A year ago on holiday. Then Mona suddenly disappeared last November. It was a terrible time. She found out I was having a stupid bloody affair and she went. Took a lot of money out of our account. Took some more in France. Sent me a postcard in January, haven’t heard a word since.’
I have no idea what to say next, because that is a crock of poop and he knows it.
‘What I want to know, Tanz, is what you found down that hole you were digging?’
‘Nothing. Some old carpet.’
My eyes well up without warning. Damn them. I can’t help it, that poor woman is down a bloody hole.
He reaches into his pocket and produces a packet of paper tissues and he offers me one. He then pats my hand.
‘You are a very caring girl. Look at you. I don’t function well around cold people.’
What’s he talking about now?
‘My wife disappearing wasn’t good for me. Not good at all.’
I’m not sure what to do. Humour him?
‘So you were having an affair with Carmen? And your wife found out?’
‘She did.’
‘And she just upped and left and disappeared?’
He covers his face with his hands. ‘We used to walk in the woods. She said it was like fairyland. I don’t believe in bloody fairies, but it made her happy. She found that little place where you were today. Took me to have a look. Put a rug down and we had some of her homemade bread with cheese and a bottle of Château Margaux.’
‘She made bread?’
‘Of course. And she could bake a great cake.’
‘Could?’
‘Before she left.’
I don’t want to push this. ‘So… why have you brought us here, to your house?’
His eyes are confused. Probably deciding on his next lie. ‘What were you digging for? In Mona’s special place?’
‘She appeared to me and Sheila. That’s why Sheila couldn’t read for Carmen. She kept seeing Mona.’
He shakes his head like there’s a bee between his ears. ‘Carmen and her ideas. You’d think a cold-hearted cow like her wouldn’t be superstitious, but there you go. She wanted to hear that our new business was going to make millions, that’s what she said. Her bloody mate suggested Sheila. Made me drive all the way with her, like her chauffeur.’
‘How come you moved her in if you don’t really like her?’
He laughs a laugh with no mirth. ‘If you lose your wife over another woman you’ve got to try, haven’t you? Or it was all for nothing.’
I can feel Jemimah at my shoulder. Fuck it, I’m going to go for gold. ‘Mona said you wrapped her in a carpet and buried her. Did you know she was still alive when you put her in the ground?’
At that he’s up and out of that seat like greased lightning. It scrapes noisily over the floorboards as he jumps back, brandishing his knife and breathing heavily. I push my seat back and jump up ready to run, but he doesn’t come closer, just starts screaming.
‘Don’t you dare! Don’t you fucking dare say that! I’ll slit your fucking throat for you! What kind of monster do you think I am? I wouldn’t do that to Mona!’
He bursts into tears, but keeps waving that bloody knife.
‘I didn’t say you did it on purpose!’
He takes a step towards me and, just as he does, the most extraordinary thing happens… the photograph of him and Mona, with its heavy gilt frame and glass cover, flies off the table and lands on the wooden floor five feet away with a crash.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Evidently neither has he as he lets out a loud shriek and jumps back several feet, looking at me, then wildly around the room.
‘What the…?’
After the initial shock I want to laugh. That is the first time I’ve seen an object fly across the room like that. It has to be Mona. I shout encouragement in my head.
‘Woo hoo! Go girl!’ She must be one powerful lass now that she’s been released, to move a heavy frame like that.
Dan’s Deputy Dawg eyes are suddenly bigger than the rest of his face. Despite himself, he cries out, ‘Mona? Mona?’
I relax totally. Words are going to come and I won’t have to think about it. This is new to me, but I know what to do. A warm energy rushes through my body.
‘I knew about the women, Dandan. I knew about them all. I forgave, I forgave you all of them… you could have left Carmen, I would have forgiven you. You could have left me, I would have forgiven you.’
‘Oh my God. Mona? Is this Mona? Or are you just messing with me?’
The hand with the knife is shaking now. I keep talking. It’s my voice, but not my speech patterns. I’m intrigued.
‘I loved you, Dandan, and I would have done anything for you. Why would you hurt me? I would not have made things hard for you. You know it.’
Now he’s sobbing and holding out his hand in supplication. ‘Mona, I got bored, that’s all, but I didn’t want to leave you. She was a dirty, dirty witch. She put a spell on me. She tricked me. She got me addicted to her, then she said you’d make things hard and take all of the money. She said me and her were soulmates and we couldn’t be together with you about. She fucking messed with my head. She nagged and nagged and nagged, then one night I just couldn’t take it any more. I brought her here and we did it. I knew it was a mistake when she was bashing you over and over. I knew it was wrong when we were burying you. I knew I’d done something terrible. And I miss you so much. For her, it was all about money and going out and holidays. I just wanted you and the horses and dinner and wine in front of the telly again. Why do you think I’ve been visiting the woods every single day?’
‘You are not a good man. I always thought you were in pain and I could help you. But you were just spoilt and arrogant and now you’ve spread your nastiness again! You’re doing it now. It has to stop. You have to make it right! Make everything right, Dandan, or you will have to deal with me. Do you hear me? Make it right!’
As I stop speaking, the telly turns on. His head whips round. It’s some kind of afternoon drama. A young couple arguing. Then the radio comes on. ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ by Wham!, at full volume. Admiration, as much as bone-shaking fear, takes my breath away. Dan is screaming like a woman when three drawers pull out of the bureau all on their own and begin to rattle up and down. Then, as a final nail in the coffin (so to speak) a
huge portrait of a chestnut horse (probably Mona’s) that is mounted over the mantelpiece falls with a dramatic crash to the floor. To my absolute astonishment Dan takes in a huge breath, as if to scream to high heaven, then promptly faints. He goes down like a sack of shit.
Without a second thought, I’ve vaulted him and I’m in the hallway. I grapple with the latch to the door which Sheila is now banging frantically, and grab her arm as she tries to question the racket that she heard coming from the living room. As we reach the front door, I see a button panel.
‘The red one and the keys.’
It’s Frank. I hear him loud and clear. The red button has ‘gate’ printed on it. I press it and scoop up the keys I saw Dan throw carelessly in a wooden bowl as we came in.
As we both run out, I am scared to look back in case he’s chasing us. I press the little button to unlock the car and scramble into the driver’s seat. Sheila opens the passenger door, but the shock of what’s just gone on makes her clumsy as she tries to get in so I reach over and yank her as hard as I can.
‘Owwwwwwww.’
‘Sorry, Sheila.’
‘Forget sorry, just drive!’
The car starts immediately, but the first time I try to move it I spin the wheels. I pull the seat forward and check the rear-view mirror; and suddenly, there is Dan emerging through the front door. I yelp when I see him, causing Sheila to swivel round in her seat and wail like a banshee. Without further ado I find the biting point and roar off, straight through the now open electronic gates as Dan begins to run down the drive after us. I have never stolen a car before. I have never been held at knifepoint before. And I have never seen a spook give such a demonstration of power before. What a day! Two of those things, I never want to happen again.
My biggest thought as I bomb down the lane like a 4x4 Intercity 125, is that Dan looked so scared, I didn’t think he was chasing after us to kill us, I think he was trying to come with us.
There’s a What Buried in the Woods?
It’s strange how fate works. Sitting back in my flat at two a.m. with a giant mug of camomile tea and Milo at my side, curled up on the sofa like a sleepy puppy, I can’t help musing on the absolute fluke that was me speeding off down the road in Dan’s big car, trying valiantly not to be sick on myself, as we bemoaned my phone’s lack of signal. (I’d had my little bag hanging off me for the whole ordeal, whereas Sheila had dropped her purse in the woods.) And just as she fought an impossible battle to call 999 on my phone, those very same boys in blue emerged from a leafy little parking spot and flagged us down, lights flashing, for doing 58mph in a 40mph zone.
When I say boys in blue, I actually mean boy in blue. PC Markus. Later just Neil. Lovely, smiley, out-of-his-depth Neil. How funny. The poor lad probably thought he’d caught a middle-class boy racer getting a bit overenthusiastic in the country lane.
His first surprise was us two spilling out of the 4x4, hyperventilating and speaking in tongues, pushing our way into the back of his vehicle, basically begging him to take us to a police station. His next one, before he could even issue a ticket, was realising we were claiming we’d been kidnapped and held at knife point. The biggest surprise of all was when he caught the tail end of what Sheila was bellowing at him as I tried to apologise for being in a (as yet unreported) stolen vehicle.
‘I’m sorry, madam, could you repeat that? There’s a what buried in the woods?’
It was Neil’s second week as a traffic cop and suddenly he was looking at kidnap and murder on his patch. He seemed doubtful, to say the least. We weren’t greatly concerned with his mistrust of our credibility at that moment though; we just wanted to get to a police station and hide in it. Dan Beck could be anywhere and neither of us wanted to meet him again.
PC Markus obliged and soon we were drinking absolutely appalling coffee and giving our statements to him. It took a long time. Mostly because the statement-giving was peppered with questions like, ‘And then you heard a screaming in your head, Madam? Are you sure that’s what you want to say?’ and ‘Then the TV and radio switched themselves on independently after the picture flew across the room, you say?’
I was acutely aware of how crazy my story sounded and I kept wondering if Sheila was OK, telling her side of things in another room. I gave them a detailed description of where we had found Mona. I was sure Sheila must be doing the same. Two officers were dispatched to check it out and another two were sent to call at Dan Beck’s house. They knew who he was, it turned out. PC Markus knew him personally because his parents had bought a Beck-built house. PC Markus also knew Mona and had been as surprised as anyone when she left Dan and disappeared.
This he told us, as he drove me and Sheila back to London, his mate, Spike, following behind in my car so I wouldn’t have to retrieve it tomorrow. Never have I been more relieved at getting a lift; I was too shocked and overwhelmed to drive my car safely. Sheila and I held hands all the way.
Neil had told us plenty of other things after they released us, at just after 11.30 p.m., to go home. Sitting here now, car parked safely outside and doors securely locked, I try to arrange the information I do have into bite-sized chunks so it doesn’t overwhelm me. The whole thing is so ugly and sad, I can only cope with it in bits. It seems it runs like this:
1) The police originally thought Sheila and I were on drugs when Neil brought us in.
2) Mona was exactly where we said she’d be. The general consensus being that they’d probably find a dead dog or other such pet wrapped in that carpet. On the sly, Neil told us that an officer had vomited when they unwrapped her. Murder isn’t that common a crime on the borders of St Albans, apparently.
3) While I was sitting on a chair in Dan Beck’s TV room, trying to make reasonable conversation with a total psychopath, upstairs in a spare room Carmen was lying dead, and had been for at least twenty-four hours. Neil was not at liberty to say how she died, but the way his boyish, clean-scrubbed face crumpled disgustedly when he spoke of it made me suspect that gutting Sheila ‘like a rabbit’ was maybe not just an idle threat, but a modus operandi. This is something that will haunt me for a while.
4) Dan Beck was not in his house when the police found Carmen. They looked everywhere for him. Eventually, some bright spark thought to search the stables at ten o’clock at night and found him in there, hanging from a beam. (Now I know why I dreamt of a noose. This bit has really freaked me out.) He had a note next to him. I don’t know what was in it. Neil said he’d call me if and when he was allowed to tell me what it said. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet, I think Neil likes me a bit. I have no idea what it is with me and these young lads.
5) It turns out we won’t be charged for speeding or car theft, there were too many extenuating circumstances.
I stroke Milo’s floppy fringe. He opens an eye, then sits up. I made him a cup of tea just before he nodded off. He reaches for it.
‘You all right, Tanz?’
‘I am. Thanks to you.’
Inka has wedged herself between us and is lapping up our warmth. Milo yawns loudly, and scratches his head. ‘You seem very calm considering what happened, Tanz. I feel like I just lived a day-long episode of Tales of the Unexpected.
He gives my arm a clumsy stroke. He’s a bit like my mam when it comes to too much physical contact, but today must have been terrifying for him. I can’t believe he’s here, but thank God he is. I’m feeling so disorientated. It’s only after an event like this that you start thinking of how close you may have been to losing your life.
‘Milo, I want to thank you again for coming down. How much did the train cost? I’ll get the money back to you. I’m worried that I’ve disturbed your work.’
‘Don’t be daft. Fuck the money. And I can work here, I can work on the train back home. It’s fine.’
I kiss him on the forehead. He strokes my hand. I’ve obviously given him a fright. Apparently he tried to call me until tea time, then started freaking out and jumped on a train. On the way to London he’d ha
d the fabulous sense to think of calling police stations in the St Albans area. There’s actually only one so there weren’t many calls to make, and fortunately, the desk sergeant, Colin, told him I was there ‘helping with enquiries’. I don’t know if he should have done that, but his honesty meant that Milo elicited the promise of a phone call from me as soon as it was possible. So yay for Colin! And yay for ninety-year-old Steve who took Milo in and regaled him with stories of the war until I got home. I shall get him some whisky.
At this moment I love Milo like the truest brother. I feel blessed and shaken up and grateful and sad all at once. Everyone should have a mate as good as him.
As for Pat the Cat, I found his phone, out of juice and in my bathroom when I got home. Plus, a note through my door asking me to call him via his sister. He must have left it here after sleeping over. I’ll drop it in to Minnie’s when I can actually bear to leave the house. Probably sometime in 2057. I hate that my life has been touched by death like this.
Ironic, I know.
Look to the Skies
It’s taken me five days to be ready go into Mystery Pot again. It took Sheila no days. That woman is made of reinforced steel. She got back home after our ordeal and – always paranoid about bag-snatching – let herself in with the spare key hidden under a rock near her front door step. She then went to bed after a few stiff amarettos and went in to work next day. Reckoned it was better than sitting at home. Her only major comment about the whole nightmare was, ‘Next time we go looking for a murder victim, I’m taking a gun with me. If I ever meet another Dan Beck in the woods, I’ll blow his bloody face off.’
I think she’s still mad at him for the indignity of being locked in a cupboard, even though he’s dead now.
Neil the policeman called me on day three and asked how I was. Then he swore me to secrecy and said that Dan’s note was an admission of guilt and an explanation of how Carmen’s mum withdrew funds, pretending to be Mona in France, and also sent a forged postcard from abroad. (She’s in big trouble now.) After a few self-pitying (but still, maybe true) sentences about his own abusive childhood, he suddenly finished with an apology to me and Sheila and the bequest, to me, of his car. I mean, how random? Why would I want the car he kidnapped us in? The car that is currently evidence because there are traces of blood and rug fibres in the boot? He really thought I’d want the murder car? Bloody men.
Sex, Spooks and Sauvignon (Adventures of an Accidental Medium Book 1) Page 21