Don't You Dare

by A J Waines

  I’m waiting for them to ask about the cellar. They’ve found something. I know it.

  ‘And all the old furniture, fixtures and fittings – they were all taken away?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where to, exactly?’

  I stare at him. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Yes. All the old chairs, picture frames, light fittings, lampshades..?’

  ‘There was a skip at the back. It went back and forth to the dump until the work was finished.’

  The casks of ale in the cellar. The flagstones in the cellar. The cellar. When is one of them going to mention it?

  Then the other detective asks how many workmen came and went from the pub during the weeks it was shut, about how secure the back was and who might have had access to the skip.

  ‘There must have been over twenty workmen who actually visited the site,’ I tell him. ‘Then we had cleaners in at the end. The car-park was left open all the time and the skip was to one side, so everyone had access. Any member of the public could have walked in, I suppose…’

  Next DI Longcroft produces an A4-sized colour photograph.

  ‘Do you recognise this, Ms Kendall?’

  It’s the dark red rug we rolled Carl up in before we buried him. The rug that used to be in front of the fireplace at the pub, but which would have been thrown out, if we hadn’t put it to an alternative use.

  I blink as if I’m facing bright headlights. ‘I think it used to be at the pub.’ I take a look from a different angle, pretending to take in the zigzag pattern. ‘Yes, I think it is.’

  ‘We found traces of candle wax, cigarette burns, splinters from logs and chewing gum,’ he says.

  I swallow hard. ‘Sounds about right. Where was it?’

  Neither of them answer the question.

  As he puts the photo away, I try to think back to when the rug was last hoovered. It would have been weeks ago. They will no doubt check for recent specks of dead skin, boot prints, saliva, sweat from fingerprints, especially on the back as it was rolled up, but thousands of traces of DNA would be present. Beth and I wore gloves the whole time we handled both the rug and Carl’s body, but we could have left hair. Although given that I worked there, would that really be a problem?

  ‘During the time you were supervising the work at the pub did you come across anything unusual? Any windows left open or broken, doors unlocked, anyone hanging around who shouldn’t have been there?’

  I stare at Longcroft’s shoes. ‘I don’t…think so,’ I say hesitantly, as though I’m lost in thought.

  ‘We’ll need the names of all the companies you used. And a list of individual workmen, if you’ve got it?’

  I nod. ‘Some of the guys are locals we’ve used before,’ I tell him.

  ‘We’ll also need the work schedule so we can see who was at Wyburn Road on which days,’ says the other detective.

  I tell them I’ll do my best and within minutes it’s all over and I’m being led back to the foyer. I can breathe again.

  They must think someone working at the pub killed Carl, or at least the killer murdered him elsewhere and pinched the old rug from the skip out the back to wrap him in.

  The officers didn’t mention the cellar, but the forensic team must have searched the pub from top to bottom, given that the rug came from there.

  I feel like punching the air. We’re in the clear. I’m merely helping the police with their enquiries.

  33

  Beth

  There was no way I could go back home after what had happened. With my cheek still stinging, I spent my last pennies on a taxi to Abbots Worthy and turned up on Grandad’s doorstep.

  He’d been asleep in front of the television and didn’t seem to register how late it was or question my incongruous fancy silver frock. He was just delighted I’d come over to see him. He seems to think we must have arranged it and keeps claiming he was expecting me.

  I made up the camp bed in the box room and we had breakfast together this morning, as though everything was hunky-dory. Thankfully, I could change out of my posh dress and slip into a couple of items from the bundle of tatty clothes we keep for cleaning, upstairs.

  Despite feeling a bit worse for wear after last night, I’ve been doing laundry for him and tidying out the shed. A proper little helper. Grandad made me cups of tea and read the Sunday paper, dropping it down below his eye-line to watch me from time to time, with a smile on his face. At least someone was delighted by my impromptu behaviour.

  Mum got last night all wrong, but it was too late to put things straight. I fended off calls and messages from about twenty people asking why I’d disappeared so suddenly. Most were along the lines of:

  Yr mum said you weren’t feeling well – r u ok? Message me.

  I went along with it, claiming a migraine had wiped me out. More lies and cover - ups.

  I managed to find a decent pair of jeans in the ‘spares’ drawer and took Grandad out to lunch at his local pub. On the way back, I picked handfuls of wild bluebells from the endless flourishes that have sprung up along the verge leading to his cottage.

  ‘I wish Vera was here to share your special day,’ he said.

  I took hold of his hand.

  ‘You are just like her, you know?’ he went on. ‘So full of spirit. You wake people up, Beth. You come into the room and you have this shimmer of magic around you that makes people want to be with you.’

  I squeezed his hand, biting my lip to stop a tear from brimming over. I didn’t know what event he was remembering to make him say this, but it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever said about me.

  ‘I wish I’d known Vera,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember her.’

  ‘She took it to her grave, you know,’

  ‘Took what, Grandad?’

  ‘The secret. She took the secret to her grave.’

  I took hold of his arm and tugged him to a stop. ‘What secret? What are you talking about?’

  I’d been too rough with him and he looked perturbed. His hand trembled as he brought it to his mouth.

  ‘Sorry, Grandad. What secret did Vera take to her grave?’ I stroked his cheek.

  He blinked and shook his head. ‘It’s gone,’ he said, walking on.

  He opened his gate and just before he reached the front step he turned to me.

  ‘They were here again…’ he said.

  ‘Who was here?’

  ‘They’ve been a few times…just watching.’

  He dropped his keys on the ledge inside the front door and strode off into the kitchen to boil the kettle.

  I caught up with him, blocking his way to make him face me. ‘Who has been watching, Grandad?’

  He blinked, then his face scrunched up in confusion. ‘Who’s watching?’ he said, ‘Watching television?’ His eyes lit up and he left the kettle he was poised to fill and went into the sitting room to switch on the TV. In a matter of seconds, I’d lost him again.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but could only assume it was another set of wires in his head that didn’t link up to reality.

  I finished clearing the shed during the afternoon, chucking out packets of seeds that were past their use-by date, emptying watering cans full of stagnant water, tipping rotting bulbs onto the compost. It was good to keep busy. Grandad tried to give me a wad of cash for my trouble, but I refused, then later on I found it stuffed inside the pocket of my spare dressing gown, so I hung on to it.

  Not once did he mention the wedding, or the fact that it’s due to take place in six days’ time.

  34

  Rachel

  Surprise, surprise – Beth isn’t answering her phone anymore and now I’ve got a string of missed calls from Peter while I’ve been at work. He says he called Beth during the party and she was decidedly ‘off’ with him. Now she’s avoiding his calls.

  Of course, he wants to know what’s going on. I ring back and invent every excuse I can think of to explain her behaviours; illness, wedding nerves, au
dition blues, but they all sound feeble and none of them hold any water with him at this stage. He must be sick and tired of not being able to get a straight answer from her about anything. Six days to go before the wedding and everything is up in the air.

  I’ve seriously considered haring over to Adrian’s, bundling Beth into a taxi and locking her in her room. Then, at least I might be able to talk some sense into her. More pressing matters, however, have kept me at the pub. I’ve been rifling through the paperwork for the refurbishment, making a list of everyone who came and went during the weeks it was closed. I felt rather smug about how many names were on it when I finally emailed it through to DI Longcroft. That should keep him busy.

  On my way home, I’m surprised to get a call from Beth.

  ‘I want to come clean about Carl,’ comes her voice, choking with emotion.

  I stop in my tracks. ‘Where are you?’ I sink down onto a nearby wall, feeling queasy.

  ‘Still at Grandad’s,’ she sniffs. ‘I can’t marry Peter like this. We’re asking him to marry a criminal!’

  The world spins. ‘Don’t be silly, of course we’re not. Peter knows that’s not who you are. It was one mistake, one slip up, an accident.’

  ‘But, how can I possibly be the same with him? This is huge. How can I not mention what we did?’

  ‘It’s still a shock, right now. It’ll get easier. You just have to be resolute and keep your head. Every family has secrets.’

  ‘It’s not right. With every breath I’m stepping further away from him. He and I should be confiding in each other, but instead I’m hiding things from him, covering up.’

  Her breathing comes through the phone like a pressure cooker about to blow.

  I need to be careful. She’s on the verge of giving everything away because it’s the ‘right thing to do’. All the same, I have to nip this in the bud.

  ‘In which case, you can say goodbye to your future. It’s not just about Peter. You’ll be locked up for concealing a crime and I’ll be charged with murder. Is that what you want?’

  ‘It’s all right for you, ordering me around. This is about the rest of my life.’

  ‘That is exactly what I’m worried about!’

  ‘And what about the affair? I can’t carry on with Peter like before with that hanging over us, as well.’

  ‘Well, you should have thought about that before you started messing around with a married man!’

  ‘I’ve got to own up. You just don’t get it, do you?’

  I blink hard. ‘If you say one single word about your affair, it’s going to link straight to Carl’s death and the outcome will be exactly the same.’ I hammer out each word to her as though she’s a young child. ‘You can’t. Say. Anything!’

  At which point, she cuts me off.

  At 8 p.m. I get another call I’ve been dreading.

  ‘My parents are coming over from New York in a day or so,’ Peter tells me. ‘They’re coming to England especially for the big day – and…well, I can’t drag them all that way, only to find that Beth doesn’t show up at the church.’

  ‘She’ll be there. I know she will.’

  I admit that Beth has still not come home, but stress that I’m expecting her to turn up any minute.

  He sounds understandably cheerless.

  ‘I need to hear that from her. I think I’ve spoken to you more times that I have to Beth in the last few weeks,’ he says with a lacklustre chuckle. His words are truer than he could ever know. ‘Is anything bothering her? Something I don’t know about?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ I say, weakly.

  ‘I’m prepared to give her whatever time she needs, if she’ll just explain herself to me. I mean, what’s the point in tying the knot if we can’t even talk to each other?’ I can’t bear the grating exasperation in his voice.

  ‘She probably doesn’t want to burden you.’ I throw my eyes up to the ceiling, patently aware of how insincere my argument is.

  ‘If she thinks that, then she really doesn’t know me at all.’

  ‘Please give her another chance,’ I say.

  I can’t believe I’m begging someone to marry my beautiful daughter.

  ‘She seems all over the place. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with her? She won’t give me a straight answer about the wedding or even about how she feels about me, anymore. She says she didn’t say certain things, she can’t remember half of the conversations we’ve had in the last few weeks.’

  I drop my head in my hand. This is my fault. I stammer a response about not noticing anything odd about her behaviour.

  ‘She seems so different. When we first got together, she told me she loved the idea of scuba diving in the Red Sea, then only last week she’s telling me she’s never thought about it. I don’t know where I am with her. She couldn’t even remember my mother’s name from just a few days ago. It’s as though she’s had some kind of blackout or breakdown or something. I don’t feel I know her at all.’

  I close my eyes.

  I’m entirely to blame. I’ve made things far worse for all of us with my ridiculous idea of pretending to be Beth. It has created a layer of inconsistency between them, as well as giving him false encouragement. I cringe as I remember I even said the words, ‘I can’t live without you’ in a recent text. What was I thinking? No wonder Peter is confused.

  ‘You say she’s staying at her grandfather’s in a village called Abbots Worthy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, hesitantly.

  ‘In that case, I think the only thing left for me to do is to come over from London tomorrow and have it out with her in person.’

  ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea.’

  There’s a hiatus and a thud, as though he’s no longer holding the phone.

  ‘Sorry…another call from Amelia is coming in. Third time today…sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much point in coming all the way to Winchester, just now.’

  He sighs. ‘Beth’s been on and off with me for weeks. I need to know what’s going on. If I can only sit down with her, just the two of us, somewhere she can’t avoid me – perhaps then at least I’ll know for certain, one way or the other.’

  No! Beth will break, I’m sure she will. She’ll tell him everything.

  For one crazy moment I consider whether I could get away with wearing a thick white veil and walking down the aisle myself, but instantly, I let the ridiculous idea go.

  In the meantime, Peter has made his mind up.

  ‘I’m really sorry to insist, but I’m going to come to see her tomorrow. Otherwise, I think we’re going to have to call the whole thing off.’

  35

  Beth

  I’m in the middle of baking a ginger cake when Grandad’s doorbell rings.

  I answer it, but turn away as she steps inside.

  ‘I’m not coming back,’ I call out, before she says a word, flinging the oven gloves over my shoulder.

  She follows me along the hall.

  ‘She’s not coming back,’ echoes Grandad from the sitting room, as if he knows what’s going on.

  I stand in the doorway as Mum goes into the room and gives him a peremptory hug that also acts as a way of pushing him back into his chair. Then she points to the kitchen and ushers me towards it.

  She pulls out a seat for me, but I remain standing, leaning against the fridge-freezer. She sits on the wobbly wooden chair herself.

  ‘Beth,’ she says, rolling her hands around together, as though they’re covered in thick moisturising cream. ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you. I didn’t sleep a wink, last night. I’m horrified at what I did. I…’

  My hand goes to my cheek, involuntarily. ‘What’s done is done,’ I say philosophically. I don’t want to let her off the hook just like that.

  ‘Well done for your callback, by the way. Maria told me.’

  I nod, but don’t say anything.

  ‘Your bridesmaids are pestering me. They want to know abo
ut rehearsals for next Saturday.’

  ‘There aren’t any rehearsals,’ I tell her in a flat tone. ‘They should know that.’

  ‘But, I thought…’ She stops.

  I fold my arms. ‘I don’t know you at all,’ I say. ‘I feel like you’re the enemy.’

  ‘Can’t you see, I’m doing this for you. You’ll thank me in time to come.’ She reaches her arms towards me, but I don’t move.

  ‘No, I won’t, I’ll hate you.’

  She looks down. ‘I can’t believe it’s come to this.’

  ‘I’m not coming back…’ I’m about to add ‘tonight’ but decide to let the statement hang open-ended instead. Let her make of it what she wants.

  She traps her thoughts behind a frown and shakes her head. It feels powerful to make her worry, to punish her for what she’s done.

  Mum’s face seems to shut down, then her chin quivers a little and her mouth puckers into a snarl.

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’ she says. ‘The sort of suffering I’ve gone through for you. I had you when I was fifteen…fifteen years old, do you know what that’s like?’

  She gets to her feet and glares at me. I back into the corner between the oven and the cupboard by the back door. I’ve learnt only too well in the last month what she’s capable of in a fit of rage.

  ‘My childhood was ripped away from me,’ she declares, throwing up her hand. ‘I had to leave school before I was ready and you became the centre of everything. I never had the chance to go to college, never lived the carefree life I wanted to. I had to get out and earn. Vera and Adrian had nothing. They couldn’t help me. She was devastated when she lost the twins, then my sister, Leyla, was stillborn. Then my mother died herself when I was twenty. Twenty. That’s three years younger than you are now.’ She reaches out and grips my arm, her nails digging into my wrist. ‘I’m still waiting to have an adolescence!’