A Place to Lie

by Rebecca Griffiths

  Did Ellie drown like their father drowned? Was it an accident? How did she get that horrible gash on her neck? Why did she take her skates off? Ellie never took her skates off. But more puzzling was the idea she could have come all the way down here to swim in her best party dress when she had presents and birthday cake waiting at home.

  The silence that hovered between the sisters was worse than if they had cried. Nothing made sense. All they could be sure of was their sopping clothes and squelch of mud inside their sandals. A wood pigeon took flight; frightening as gunfire, and into the silent aftershock Joanna reached for Caroline’s icy hand. This time she didn’t shrug it off; both needed the warmth of the other. The stolen treasures forgotten, all that preoccupied them through the amplified dripping of their clothes and violent chattering of teeth was a shared recollection of Ellie from only days ago: full-stretch on roller skates, hair at half-mast, her arms and legs dusted with fine gold hairs that glinted in the sun, and the tinkle of her impulsive, joy-filled laugh – a sound that wouldn’t play out again anywhere but inside their heads. Abandoning Ellie to this lonely stretch of marshland, the balls of mist clenching like fists over the water, it was a relief to return to the woods with its melancholy boughs, and the village they were familiar with.

  Present Day

  The house telephone rings almost as soon as Joanna returns her mobile to her handbag.

  ‘Having fun?’ Mike jokes. ‘How’s the marking going?’

  ‘Okay,’ she exhales and, noticing how prematurely dark the day has become, switches on the thread of halogen ceiling lights.

  ‘I rang earlier – didn’t you hear the phone?’

  ‘Can’t have done. Sorry.’

  ‘You all right? You sound funny.’

  ‘I’m struggling to concentrate, if I’m honest.’ Sudden rain sprays the kitchen windows; she turns her back to it, strokes the dog with her slippered foot.

  ‘Oh, you’re not still fretting about your sister, are you? We know what happened to her, it was just unfortunate, nobody’s to blame. There’s no crime to investigate, is there?’ His chirpiness is pinched into a question she can tell he doesn’t want the answer to. ‘For God’s sake, Jo, you’ve got to let it go.’

  The rhyming of Jo and go was something he used to tease her about when they were first together. Jo-Go is Mike’s nickname for her when he’s larking around, but he’s not larking around today.

  ‘I can’t,’ she says simply, placing her coffee mug in the sink.

  Silence. And into it she hears him heave a sigh. Feels its perforated edge squeezed down the handset.

  ‘I discovered something, Mike. It’s really odd.’ Joanna is the first to speak.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of it really, but y’know that Kyle Norris bloke, the one—’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Mike cuts her off, not wanting the upsetting details again.

  ‘He’s the double of that Dean Fry I told you about.’

  ‘Dean Fry? Dean – what, the bloke your sister claimed was involved in the murder of your little friend, you mean?’ Mike sounds interested. ‘Huh, she really screwed his life up, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, him.’

  ‘His double, you say?’

  ‘Yes … and because of it, I’m wondering … ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know nobody’s to blame for Carrie’s death, it’s on CCTV, I’m not questioning that. But seeing this bloke’s face, and the fact the lad in the shop said Carrie shouted out Dean’s name. It was the very last word she said.’ A pause. ‘I know Dean had nothing directly to do with it, but if I could just speak to him, he might be able to … I don’t know … give me some kind of pointer as to why she reacted the way she did.’ Her doubts falling like stone petals between them.

  ‘What pointer?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? And I can hardly ask her. But whatever was going on in that head of hers, whatever she was obsessing about, it had something to do with Dean … maybe she was fearful he was going to hurt her like she saw him hurt Ellie Fry—’

  ‘Claims he did, you mean,’ Mike interrupts. ‘He was never charged with anything, it was never proven, was it? Poor sod’s probably still living with the stigma of her accusation. And anyway, you said you didn’t know what happened, that you were too little to understand what he was supposed to have done to his stepsister?’

  ‘I was, but I’ve a fair idea.’ She rotates on her heels, looks out at the continuing rain. ‘And I’m sure what happened to Carrie’s all mixed up with Witchwood. Her nurse said she was going on about it the last few times she saw her.’ Joanna focuses on the cherry trees that, like the espalier pear tree – its branches coaxed by Mike’s careful fingers into a pretty fanned effect – is poised to burst into blossom.

  ‘So, you think this Dean bloke can enlighten you, do you?’ Joanna can tell Mike stops short of telling her she’s as mad as her sister.

  ‘Yes, just go with me on this, will you, Mike?’ Joanna worries at a snag of skin on her nail. ‘Perhaps if things had gone differently – if the two of us had stayed in touch … I can’t help it, I feel dreadful she was on her own for the last ten years.’

  ‘Why? You’ve nothing to feel guilty about.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ she says despondently.

  ‘Carrie was the one who closed the door on you,’ her husband reminds her. ‘And anyway, you had us to think about – we’re your family.’

  Caroline was my family too, she thinks but doesn’t share. ‘Her nurse said that whatever was troubling her happened long before she ran out of her medication.’

  ‘How would she know?’

  ‘Carrie told her, pretty much.’

  ‘Huh, your sister was the biggest storyteller going. You don’t know what she was up to.’

  ‘That’s why I want to find out.’

  ‘You went to London to find out .’

  ‘Yes, and it’s led me here. It’s led me to Dean Fry. I can’t let it go now. I’ve got to get to the truth.’ The truth – or the little she thinks she’s uncovered – swings between them. Cold as a stalactite which, narrower and narrower, is sharpening to a lethal point. ‘If I find him, and ask him, I’ll feel better then.’

  ‘All right, but why not ring Mrs Hooper first? She’s still living there, she might know something.’

  ‘I don’t want to involve her yet. And anyway, I’ve got his parents’ address now. They’re only in Cinderglade. I don’t think Mrs Hooper’s in touch with them any more, they left the village years ago; but I bet they’ll know where Dean is. Please , Mike, let me, I’m so close now.’

  ‘I can’t go swanning off to Gloucestershire at the drop of a hat; I’ve got meetings back-to-back tomorrow.’

  ‘I thought I could go,’ she tentatively suggests. ‘And you drive the boys over after work on Friday. I’ll ring Pauline,’ she adds quickly. ‘She won’t mind looking after Freddie and Ethan until you get home.’

  ‘You’re going now?’ Mike sounds horrified.

  ‘Why not? I’ll take Buttons.’ She swills her mug out under the tap, turns it upside down on the drainer. ‘I thought I could see his parents on the way.’

  ‘And if they tell you where Dean is? I don’t want you confronting him without me.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that. But I can’t come to much harm dropping in on Liz and Ian, can I?’

  ‘Jo?’

  ‘Look, it’s only for one night. You’ll be joining me before you know it.’

  ‘You’re not seriously thinking of staying in that old cottage of Dora’s?’

  ‘Pillowell, yes. Why not?’

  ‘B-because,’ he sputters, ‘you’ve not been there for years.’

  ‘I know, but the place is ours now, isn’t it, and aren’t you the teeniest bit curious?’

  ‘Not really. God knows the state it’s in.’

  ‘Oh, come on, where’s your sense of adventure?’

  ‘You’ve changed your tu
ne. You always maintained you were too frightened to go back there – that the memories were too awful.’

  ‘Oh, it’ll be all right,’ she says, convincing herself that she isn’t the least worried about returning to Witchwood on her own – the drive to discover what might have been going on in her sister’s mind spurring her on. ‘It’s Valentine’s weekend, I can cook us a romantic meal Saturday.’

  ‘Yeah, right – on what, then? You don’t even know if it’s still got a cooker.’

  ‘It’ll have a cooker. And if not, we’ll go out, or get a takeaway … Come on, Mike, it’d be fun. If I go on ahead, it’ll give me a chance to make it cosy, get some shopping in, see what’s what. I’ll take linen and stuff. Say yes, Mike, please … The kids will love it.’

  ‘You sure about this, Jo-Go?’ Mike lowers his voice. ‘Going on your own. Can’t it wait until the weekend? We could go together then, as a family.’

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ she assures him, revealing nothing of her rumbling trepidation – she must do this, she must find Dean as soon as possible, even if it means going back to a place she thought she could never face again. ‘I think Carrie had enough bad memories for the both of us, don’t you? And isn’t it about time I faced up to my demons?’ Enough said – the events of that summer in Witchwood are a conversation these two have raked over many times. ‘And actually, funny as this sounds,’ she tells him, wanting to believe her words, ‘now the cottage is ours, I’d rather like to get to know it again. You never know, it might be nice to have as a country retreat. It’s only three hours or so from here.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ She bites her lip.

  ‘Just don’t go disappearing off-piste, okay? Text me when you get there. Let me know you’re safe.’

  Summer 1990

  As they burst into the muddle of Pillowell’s kitchen – wet clothes, muddy legs – Dora’s bulk blocked their way. She was comfortably propped against the Formica work surface, chopping onions for their evening meal, her bright blue eyes moistened by tears. Does she know? The sisters’ first thought. How can she, they’ve told no one, they came straight back here. Joanna, who up to then had been calm, began to cry; her narrow body painfully heaving in air, her ribs pumping like little bellows.

  ‘You are naughty girls,’ Dora started, sputtering, an engine warming up. ‘I’ve just been told that Gordon’s going back to Italy tomorrow.’ She directed her complaint to Caroline – for it was Caroline she held responsible. ‘You were so rude to him when he took us to Cinder-glade. So rude.’

  Caroline turned away, painfully distracted; she was trying to put what they’d just found floating in the lake into some kind of order. But all she could focus on was the small metal sign hanging on a hook beside the cooker that read Chicken Today, Feathers Tomorrow ; the letters a blur through her tears.

  ‘We’ve found Ellie.’ Joanna was the one to speak, holding her neck as if to squeeze the words free. ‘She’s … she’s … ’ But they wouldn’t come.

  Caroline gripped Dora’s hand, shiny with onion juice and still clutching the sharpened stump of a paring knife.

  ‘Ellie,’ she said, shaking it, wanting her aunt to understand the horror of what they’d seen. ‘She’s in the lake.’

  ‘Can you get that?’ Liz, on high alert for news of Ellie, was too anxious to answer the door in case of bad news. ‘Ian?’ she called through to her husband who, back after yet another search of the woods led by the indefatigable Reverend Mortmain, was finishing the bottle of Scotch he’d started at breakfast. ‘It’ll be Dean; he’s probably forgotten his key.’

  It could be true, she supposed, fear thumping in her chest; they had taken to locking up early since Ellie went missing. The flood of journalists, the fierce police presence, keeping their regulars away. Not that she was capable of opening for business, consumed by fears for her missing child.

  The front doorbell trumpeted again. ‘Ian?’ she shouted, holding her breath for his answer. But nothing came.

  Running through the darkened, empty bar, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird behind her ribs, she saw the distorted shapes of two black uniforms through the mottled glass of the pub door.

  Liz and Ian were still sitting in their numbed silence when Dean, back from seeing Amy safely home, loped along the passageway and into the living room.

  ‘Shit.’ He jumped at the unexpected sight of his father and stepmother’s silhouetted backs, indistinct in the orange glow of the electric fire that was needed since the temperatures dropped. ‘You scared the life out of me. What’s going on, what’s the matter – why you sitting in the dark?’ His fingers, agitated and fretful, twirled the curls at the nape of his neck.

  ‘Don’t .’ Liz’s voice, sharp from the shadows, prevented him from switching on the lamp. ‘Just sit down; we’ve something we need to tell you.’

  ‘Liz, you’re frightening me – what the hell’s the matter?’

  ‘Sit down, son.’ Ian now.

  ‘Dad? ’ Dean tried his father.

  ‘Do as Liz says. There’s a good lad.’

  And he did. Whipping off his leather jacket in the over-stuffy room, he pulled up a chair opposite them.

  ‘Ellie’s dead,’ Liz announced with no preamble.

  ‘Ellie? Ellie’s dead?’ Dean sprung to his feet.

  ‘The police were here,’ his stepmother’s voice, still bereft of emotion.

  ‘Ellie? What? What are you saying?’ Dean threw his arms around in panic.

  ‘The Jameson sisters found her.’

  ‘What? Where was she?’ Dean heard himself: shouting, hysterical. ‘What are you saying? For God’s sake, what are you telling me?’

  ‘She’s been murdered, son.’ Ian, his cheeks soaked with tears. ‘They found her floating in the lake.’

  ‘The lake? What the hell was she doing in there?’

  ‘We don’t know, lad.’ It’s Ian who answers.

  ‘Liz?’ Dean reached out for her through the dark. ‘Liz? ’

  But Liz couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Fighting for breath, the sound when it came was akin to the braying of a cow in nearby farmland. A raw, base, animal sound. A sound the men in her life were forced to listen to, there being nowhere to run and hide from it; nowhere to shelve their feelings and detach themselves as they usually might.

  Present Day

  Number twelve, a short step from where Joanna parks the Audi and her snoozing dog, is not like other houses in this street. The front garden is more or less wild and there are no pretty borders to turn the head of the passer-by. Seeing its rusty gate swinging open on her approach, her mood takes a dive. The lawn, nothing more than a thatch of nettles and knee-high grass, is littered with builder’s rubble and splintered glass. Conscious of the twitching curtains of neighbours, she walks down the crumbling path to stand in the porch. A space she must share with dried-out paint tins, stiffened brushes and cracked wellington boots – things no one has bothered to clear out.

  Poor Liz and Ian. This is a far cry from the pretty Tudor-fronted Boar’s Head, she thinks, assessing the squat brown, pebble-dashed façade, the greying nets hanging unevenly behind smeary windows, still unsure why she’s driven all this way, or what she hopes to gain. Then she reminds herself of the questions she wants answering – questions about Dean she’s been rehearsing with Buttons since she decided to make the journey.

  Above the incessant barking of dogs – an echoing, empty sound that reverberates around the Cinderglade estate – Joanna presses a finger to the buzzer, and is on the verge of changing her mind when Liz Fry appears, her mouth moving well before Joanna is in range of hearing it, and she knows she’s come too far to turn back.

  ‘Yes – who is it?’ Liz comes at her in a sideways scuttle, her bones creaking like rigging.

  ‘It’s me, Liz – it’s Joanna,’ she tells the opening door.

  Liz, in a jumper much too big, folds back the cuffs to use her hands. Her face blank as she looks over J
oanna’s shoulder, on to the street washed yellow in the failing afternoon.

  ‘I said I’d be here about four,’ Joanna prompts her. ‘I’ve made good time.’

  ‘Oh, darling.’ A tilt of the head and Liz registers her at last, reaching out to cup Joanna’s face in her hands. ‘Is it really you?’ Still disbelieving. ‘What a beauty you grew up to be.’

  Joanna blushes, plays with the buckle on her handbag.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Liz beckons. ‘Ian’s out – we’ve the place to ourselves.’

  In the spread of intervening years, Liz has become a woman of sixty-three and well-bedded into what was unidentifiable in her when younger. With virtually nothing of the woman Joanna remembers, the change is shocking, and when Liz turns to lead the way along the constricted hall, Joanna sees the matted hair on the back of her head, and how her signature peroxide-white hair has dulled to a battleship grey. Trying not to stare, Joanna’s eyes can’t help but be drawn to the roll of fat below her breasts, the grease spot on the seat of her skirt. This woman is a mess; the sorrow for her child has altered her beyond all recognition.

  Joanna identifies Ellie’s pink leather roller skates hanging from a peg with a rack of coats; automatically extends a hand to spin the little plastic wheels. But there isn’t time for memories of the traumatic day when she and Caroline found one among the bulrushes before discovering Ellie in the lake, because Liz turns, her eyes communicating the same wide, expectant look Joanna’s boys give when they are struggling to swallow something too big to understand. It scares Joanna; she hadn’t expected this mother’s grief to be so raw.

  ‘You go through.’ Liz’s voice, rusty, could do with an oiling. But catching a whiff of the sweet decay of booze on her breath, Joanna decides she’s lubricated enough. So, this is how she’s survived, is it? Her gaze, unjudgemental, wanders over Liz again, doubting she’s been properly sober for years.