by A J Waines
To: Peter
From: Beth
Really can’t do video at the moment…lost my voice and croaking like a toad but speak soon I promise. Your B x
I pressed send before I realised what I’d done. Why did I say I’d speak to him soon?! My little attempt to help things along has got totally out of hand. I’ve opened the floodgates and it’s too late to force them shut again. Beth has put her foot down about contacting him, so now what can I do? How long before she’s ready to speak to him again?
That isn’t the only problem. Since Beth ‘lost’ her phone, messages have been coming in left, right and centre, from Peter, friends and drama contacts. People are concerned that she isn’t getting back to them. It isn’t fair on Beth.
The only way out was to stop him using this phone and start from scratch on a new phone that had no connection to Beth. It was too dangerous otherwise.
Before I got myself totally tied up in knots, I sent another message:
To: Peter
From: Beth
I’m getting a new phone, so just to let you know I won’t be using this one anymore. I’ll send new number v soon. Your B x
After that, I had to go out and use precious money from last week’s overtime to buy a new pay-as-you-go phone. One that only I could use ‘as Beth’ to message Peter. Now I’ve started this, I must keep going. At least it means I’ll be able to monitor and respond to any contact he makes and keep Peter happy.
I know it’s for the best and I wouldn’t be going to such lengths if I didn’t believe Beth is wholeheartedly in love with him. Peter is so right for her. Her fling was just a silly irresponsible blip before she settles down.
Beth has shown no interest in speaking to anyone, so I’m keeping both phones under my bed for the time being, monitoring them every so often.
I’m also snooping on her email account in case anything comes through about auditions, since she appears to be stonewalling all means of communication.
Peter is sending emails to her, too. He talks about keeping the little bars of Dior soap for her that he gets fresh in his hotel suite every day, about an elderly woman along the corridor who is secretly keeping a poodle in her room.
Last night, he emailed photos from Central Park; a couple getting married on Bow Bridge, a famous tennis player practising on the courts. Beth could easily come across them if she uses the laptop. They refer to ‘her’ recent messages, so I have to put a stop to them:
To: Peter Roper
From: Beth Kendall
Subject: Loving you
Your emails are wonderful, but Mum often uses my laptop (now we only have the one since Russell’s crashed) and I don’t want her reading them! I hope you understand. Phone is better – much more private. Miss you loads, your B x
It’s two days since I claimed the flu was making a call impossible and this morning, I knew what was coming. Sure enough, Peter wanted to set up the dreaded video call.
I tried to fend him off, saying I had to prepare for auditions, but he said if I was able to rehearse, I should be able to speak to him. I couldn’t fob him off any longer.
I’d backed myself into a corner. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. What else could I do?
We’ve set a time. I made sure Beth would be out, searching for a new strapless bra for the wedding. I gave her a list of groceries we don’t really need, just to make sure she stays out longer.
I’ve got ten minutes to go and I’m terrified.
24
Rachel
Using the straighteners, I smooth down my hair and part it on the side just like Beth does. My hair is shorter than hers, so I pin it back with her hairclips in a style she often uses.
I borrow her make-up and copy the eye-shadow technique she uses. Scrutinising a photo of Beth on the dressing table, I realise my eyebrows are too thick, so I madly pluck at them, then do my utmost to cover the bags under my eyes and the crows’ feet at the edges.
My saving grace is going to be the light; I deliberately close one of the curtains in her room to keep it low and shadowy.
I have to ‘be’ Beth in the flesh. But what choice do I have? She can’t lose her voice forever.
I sit before the video cam and practice speaking with a higher timbre to my voice. I know Beth better than anyone, but I don’t know who she is when she’s alone with Peter. In my written messages to him, I can replicate the terms she uses, but it’s another matter altogether to convince him that it’s really my daughter sitting right in front of his eyes.
Finally, I tweak the settings on the webcam, fiddling with the brightness, contrast, sharpness and backlight composition to make the picture obscure, without going overboard.
The clock finally clicks around to 5 p.m. It must be midday in New York and there’s a bleeping ringtone to indicate an incoming call. I swallow in a loud gulp. This is it.
‘Ah, it’s so good to see you, darling,’ he says. ‘It feels like ages. How are you feeling?’
I clear my throat. ‘Oh, a lot better. My voice is still ropey as you can hear.’
‘You certainly don’t sound quite right. It’s a bit gravelly.’
I try to remember how Beth laughs and it comes to me just in time.
‘Your hair looks different,’ he says.
‘Oh, just been for a swim that’s all.’
If only Peter didn’t have such an acute eye for detail. Surely, there’s no way I can pull this off.
‘So, what have you been up to?’ he asks.
For this to work, I need to pretend I’m a little bit in love with him, but he’s such a warm, open kind of person – how hard can it be?
‘Oh, counting down the days to our incredibly special moment, mostly. Mum’s started getting lots of acceptance cards back. I can’t believe I’m going to be your wife. I can’t wait.’ Beth has a way of keeping her eyes closed a fraction longer than most people when she blinks and I do this now, as a way of bringing in a familiar mannerism.
You’re doing that blinking thing, again,’ he says.
I giggle, girlishly. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘God, it makes you look so seductive.’
‘Sshh…you mustn’t,’ I scold. ‘Mum’s around.’
I’ve got to cut this short.
‘You’re not usually this coy,’ he says.
‘Stop it, Mum’s pottering about. She might come in.’
With a sigh, he sits back and folds his arms, relenting. ‘Incidentally, you’re a bit dark,’ he says. ‘Can you brighten the picture? I can barely see you.’
‘No…I can’t…it’s the video cam; it’s been playing up. Sometimes it cuts out altogether.’
‘Oh, better not fiddle with it, then.’
Even when his face is relaxed it’s as though a smile is on the way. It’s undeniably endearing.
‘What else have you been doing?’
‘Learning lines, dance classes…hanging out with Mum, making the most of the time we’ve got left. She’s going to miss me terribly.’
He rides straight over that statement. My heart is in my mouth, terrified about what he’s going to ask me next.
‘Tell me more about the rest of the wedding preparations,’ he says. ‘Going okay?’
I let my shoulders drop. Now that I can tell him. I go on to reveal all the aspects of their big day that I know about inside out and that Beth herself should be gushing about. In turn, Peter tells me how boring his meetings are, but that they’re making progress with some deal or other.
‘You’re wearing those earrings I bought you,’ he says. ‘Remember what I said when I gave them to you?’
Oh no. I knew this moment would come. Inwardly my heart sinks. How am I going to wriggle out of this?
‘Why don’t you remind me,’ I say, seductively. ‘I’ve seen you so little these last few months, I think I might need to hear those words again.’ I twist my mouth in the coy way I’ve seen Beth do since she was about three.
‘Well…it was something like “you�
�re the most precious thing to me and I can’t believe how strong my feelings are for you after such a short time”.’
‘Aw…’ I say, my reaction genuine.
A rush of conflicting emotions descend on me all at once; joy that Beth is marrying such a terrific man, sadness that I’ll never hear sentiments like this from Russell ever again, and shame because these words aren’t meant for me. I try to stop a tear from bubbling over, but he spots it straight away.
‘Beth, what’s wrong?’
‘It’s just…so wonderful,’ I blubber.
He whispers endearments after that and I tell him I love him – the words falling out of my mouth remarkably easily. Then he tells me he has to get back to the boardroom.
‘Just one thing,’ he says, ‘you were asking about Amelia when we last spoke on the phone. Carl is still nowhere to be found. She’s convinced his absence is sinister now though, because he missed their son’s birthday and he’d never do that, apparently. She’s also found something that makes her suspect an affair.’
‘Found something? What?’
‘She didn’t say. She’s used to turning a blind eye to his various dalliances, mainly because she’s got everything she wants – her horses, the boat and all the rest, but she certainly has the feeling something was going on before he disappeared.’
‘Listen, I have to go. Mum’s calling,’ I lie, glancing over towards the door.
‘Oh, if she’s there, can I have a quick word?’
‘Er…’ White noise gathers momentum in my ears.
Think!
‘…she’s in the bathroom…they’ve been trying to start the neighbour’s car and she’ll be covered in grease…but I’ll get her to ring you.’
He blows me kisses to end the call and I reciprocate, then flop down onto the bed as soon as I disconnect him, exhausted.
My life is turning into an endless string of lies. One after another.
Seconds later, the front door slams and there’s a mad rumbling as Beth’s footsteps come thudding up the stairs. I grab the laptop, bolt out of the connecting door into the bathroom and flip out the hook-in earrings, secreting them in my hand. I don’t have time to wrench out the hair-clips before she comes bursting in on me. She’s out of breath, snatching air between loud wails.
‘They’ve found him!’
25
Rachel
Beth collides straight into me as I try not to look caught red-handed in the bathroom. I’m still wearing her frilly retro blouse.
She doesn’t appear to notice. She’s got bigger issues on her mind.
‘It’s all over, isn’t it?’ she whimpers, clinging to the edge of the basin. ‘They know he was killed. They’ll find DNA. Our DNA.’
It’s policy at St Andrew’s Church, apparently, to dig for the next burial patch very close to the last one. It’s an issue of space. I wish I’d known. A few more inches to the right and they might never have found him.
Once they started making a new hole, the grave diggers noticed a bad smell. They thought they’d hit a drain and spent a couple of days scouring the plans of the sewer system. Then someone pointed out that the ground had been disturbed since the last burial and Judy Welsh’s coffin was not as deep as it should have been.
That’s when they came across him. It’s now a murder hunt.
I reach out and take hold of her shoulders. I have to hold myself together, in spite of the pressing urge to break down. If things were different, I could see myself bolting along to the church to confess everything to Father Roland. But there’s too much at stake and I have to stand firm or Beth will fall apart.
‘We were careful. This doesn’t mean the police will trace it back to us. We just have to keep our heads.’
Beth hasn’t done a great job of doing that so far and I can’t see it getting any better after this. Unearthing Carl’s body really is a massive blow and I’m going to have to think very carefully about how we proceed.
‘There’s no reason for the police to come to us,’ I tell her, bringing her through to my room and easing her down onto the bed. She’s holding her asthma inhaler in her hand. ‘Have you used this, already?’
She nods. ‘I’m okay.’
‘Let’s get a few things straight just in case anyone does start asking questions.’ I fold my arms. ‘You touched him, but you hadn’t actually had sex that night, right?’
She nods again.
‘No proper sexual contact? No penetration? No condoms? No oral sex?’
‘No…but what about the rug?’
‘Okay. There’s no reason for them to trace the rug to the King’s Tavern, it could have come from anywhere. The CCTV wasn’t working and there are no cameras at the church, so we’re safe there. And the night you met Carl, you saw only that homeless guy on Melcham Street and Angie – and you told her you were going over to Adrian’s?’
‘Yes.’ I can see no issues with that story. Adrian won’t be a reliable alibi because of his dementia, but there’s nothing to connect Beth and Carl in the first place, so it won’t get as far as that.
Beth disappears and returns holding her jacket.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just out. I need to clear my head.’
Beth comes back as I’m putting together a stir-fry in the kitchen. I nearly scurried after her when she rushed off, tempted to follow at a distance so I could intervene if she put a foot wrong, but I can’t watch her twenty-four-seven.
To be honest, I didn’t mention it, but I am worried about the rug we wrapped around Carl’s body. Why didn’t we drag it out from under him and burn it?
Except, I know why. We both wanted to get away from there as fast as we could. Furthermore, extricating the rug when it was so tightly bound around him could have caused all kinds of problems.
Beth is wearing a baggy ribbed jumper I’ve never seen before, with sleeves that cover her fingers. It makes her look like she’s shrunk over the last few days. She flips on the TV without a word and puts her feet up on a pile of wedding magazines.
I’ve got about twenty minutes to wolf down my meal and change before heading out for my shift at the bar.
‘I’m dishing up,’ I call out to her. Wafts of ginger and hot sesame oil have seduced my stomach into feeling hungry, for a change.
‘I’ll have some later,’ she says. It’s her stock reply these days.
I take my plate upstairs, snatching forkfuls as I’m pulling on my trousers, when I see a police patrol car pull up outside.
I rush to the landing and shout down. ‘Don’t panic, but it looks like the police are here.’ I hurry downstairs, half-dressed.
‘What?’ She drops the remote and it splinters open as it hits the carpet. ‘We need to run through what we’re supposed to say again,’ she stammers. ‘I’m not ready.’ She’s frantically trying to force the batteries back into the plastic compartment.
‘There isn’t time,’ I say, buttoning up my blouse. ‘It’s okay. Calm down. It’s good we haven’t gone over and over our story. We mustn’t say exactly the same thing or else it will look like we’ve rehearsed it.’
The doorbell chimes and I waltz past Beth to open it. Two officers are standing there who introduce themselves as PC Dean and PC Atkins. PC Dean confirms both our names and writes something down on the clipboard he’s holding. He’s left handed, I notice, and has that awkward way of holding a pen that left-handed people often have which makes him look like he’s trying to write upside-down.
‘May we come in?’ asks the female officer, tilting her head on one side.
I stand back and they shuffle through the porch into the sitting room.
‘You might have heard the news that a body has been found at St Andrew’s Church,’ says PC Dean. ‘We understand from Reverend Roland that you’re a regular visitor to the graveyard, Mrs Kendall.’
‘It’s Ms. Yes, I am. My partner was buried there last year, and I often go to his grave to tidy up and leave flowers.’ I wait for my breathing to ca
lm down; they just want to ask if I saw anything.
The male officer nods. I’m poised to tell them I need to get to work, but he turns to Beth. ‘When did you last see Mr Carl Jacobson?’
‘Me?’ She grips the collar of her baggy jumper. ‘I haven’t seen him, what I mean is I know who he is…’
I step in before Beth blunders into muddy territory she can’t get herself out of.
‘Who is Carl Jacobson?’
‘He’s been identified as the victim found at the church.’
I look deliberately at Beth with a questioning look. ‘You know him..?’
‘Yes. My fiancé introduced him to me at a party a few months ago…’
I chip in. ‘Oh, I remember. But you haven’t seen him since then, I don’t think, have you?’
Beth shakes her head. ‘That’s right, I haven’t.’
‘When was this party?’
‘Oh, er…it was December sometime. I can’t remember the exact date, but I can find out.’
He nods. ‘On Tuesday evening, March 7th, Mr Jacobson was seen at Winchester station.’
It was the day before Beth met him at the pub.
PC Dean folds back the top sheet on his clipboard. He’s been doing the lion’s share of the talking so far.
I start to chew my lip, then stop myself.
‘This is a still frame from the CCTV footage at the station,’ he goes on. ‘Someone from the theatre recognised him. It shows a woman next to Mr Jacobson’s shoulder.’ He leans forward to reveal a black and white image. ‘Is that you, Miss Kendall?’
‘Er…is it? I don’t remember.’
There’s barely masked terror in her eyes as she looks over at me. I can’t rescue her, she’s on her own now. ‘I…er, bumped into someone at the station. Yes, I did. I remember now. It must have been him. We both said sorry. I didn’t recognise him at the time. I’d only met him once.’
‘Where were you going?’
‘Me?’ She looks lost. ‘Nowhere,’ she says, sounding confused.