The Face

by Ivan B

  Amy butted in, “But what she didn’t know was that I also gave Lucy a quarter of a tablet. She was really distraught and I knew that I could feed a million tablets to Bau, but if Lucy was fractious she’d wake up.”

  Bau resumed, “That night Amy and I slept together and Lucy slept behind me. As I said truthfully when I woke up she was dead. Somehow she must have rolled on her back and I was too far gone to notice.”

  “I wasn’t,” said Amy, “and I didn’t notice either.”

  Bau took another wavering breath, “Like I said I didn’t set out to kill her, but I was dreadfully dreadfully negligent and that negligence lead to her death. Once we found Lucy was dead I sent Amy home. There was no point in her getting involved. Lucy was my responsibility, and I knew that the tabloids would make a meal of a young girl choking to death while her mother and another woman lay with their arm entwined. Besides Lucy was dying and we all knew it, by rights she should have already been in a hospice so I expected the doctor just to sign her death certificate.” She paused, “But it was that damn locum. I’d crossed swords with him before when I’d called him out at night for Lucy’s incontinence. She had blood in her stools and urine, and he said he could do absolutely nothing. I guess I was overwrought.”

  She lowered her eyes; “You know the rest from there. Except that I should never have allowed Amy to go on the witness stand.”

  “You didn’t force me,” said Amy, “I volunteered.”

  Bau nodded, “You volunteered and because of what I’d done you had to lie and lie and lie in public. It wasn’t fair on you and I’m not only responsible for Lucy’s death, but also your breakdown.”

  He eyes flicked back to Brian, “That’s terrible burden Brian and that’s more of a punishment that the prison service can ever provide.”

  Amy got up and stood behind Bau, draping her arms around Bau’s neck. “You know that’s not true. There were other secrets and it was the combination, it wasn’t your fault and I will never, ever, blame you.”

  She kissed Bau on the ear and walked out. Bau turned her eyes back to Brian; they were brim full of tears. “So now you know,” she said softly, “if you want us out of here you only have to say and we’ll be gone before you can say knife.”

  Brian made a grab for her hand, but she pulled it away. “You might have been negligent, though if you were I think there were extenuating circumstances. On what you and Amy have told me there was certainly never any intent.”

  He changed seats to be next to her. “And I definitely do not want you to go.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He held her for a couple of minutes till she whispered, “I’ll have to go, I must check.”

  He released her and pointed to the ceiling, “Is she getting better?”

  “Definitely, there was a period of about six months when Harriet thought she would never return to any kind of sanity. Since then she’s been gradually getting better.”

  “Do you think she’ll keep improving?”

  Bau took in a long breath though her nose as if sniffing an unimaginable odour. “We can hope. I’m no expert, but the first five years are time for improvement, after that she’s probably gone as far as she’ll be able to go, least that’s what Harriet was told. Books in our library said three years. It also greatly depends on her circumstances, if they’re non-threatening and comfortable it’s much better for her.”

  He nodded, “Then you’d better go.”

  She turned to leave and he added, “One thing, what does she mean by ‘other secrets?’”

  Bau’s eyes wandered to Amy’s pile of tablet containers. “I’m not at liberty to say, except that you should ask yourself why a thirty something single woman, who is without any kind of man friend, is on the pill.”

  His mind clicked into gear, “You mean she’s being abused?”

  “Not now, probably as a child. Whatever, she’s still keeping a dark secret and whoever is making her keep that secret is holding her mind to ransom.”

  “You don’t know?”

  I honestly don’t know. She won’t discuss it and it’s far too distressing to her for me to probe. I could guess, but that could be to slur someone with no just cause.”

  Brian thought for a moment as to who had been around when Amy was young, there was only one answer. “One of Verity’s sons?”

  “That would be my guess, but I’m not taking it any further than that.”

  She moved and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. “You’ve no idea how much it means to me that you’re giving Amy a place of safety.”

  He let her go upstairs to Amy and wondered about Amy’s mental stability before turning his mind to Bau’s mental stability and starting to think the unthinkable.

  He laid the bedroom carpet while being entertained by Bau and Amy. They were in the room below checking over Bau’s set of guitars, while he was laying a set of old brown carpet tiles on the floor. Bau had been insistent he use them rather than fork out more money for new ones. These weren’t the large industrial size ones, instead they were made for the DIY market and only one foot square, so they took a lot of laying. He carefully laid a line along the wall, tapping them firmly next to each other with a mallet and a piece of wood, before starting a second row. That’s when the women began. Bau obviously tested her six-string acoustic guitar first as she and Amy sang We shall overcome and Some day my prince will come before embarking on what sounded like a fearsome piece of Spanish Music. Then it was the turn of the twelve-string; they sang Little Boxes before yowling their way through two country and western songs he had never heard before. She then turned to the electric guitar. They might have sung along, but the guitar was too loud for him to hear them. She finished off by using some sort of feedback distortion technique to play an horrendous piece of heavy rock. Finally, as Brian was reaching the door, the bass guitar started. As it played a few bars he could actually feel the notes through his knees. To his amazement the electric guitar started as well and he immediately recognised Layla. It took him several seconds to comprehend that Amy must be playing the bass guitar; it came as somewhat of a shock.

  A bigger, and more ominous, surprise occurred two hours later. By then he was back in the greenhouse flower bed prodding with his broomstick. While he was contemplating the mystery of the vanishing shaft a seedy looking man in a tatty brown leather jacket rounded the greenhouse. “You Mr Noames?”

  “Reverend Noames.”

  Brian took a closer look at him. Greased back hair, sallow face, yellow teeth like a set of cricket stumps and brown corduroy trousers falling over brown suede shoes that probably hadn’t seen a suede brush since the day they were purchased. Even at a distance of nine or ten feet he reeked of stale cigarette smoke. “Would I be correct in thinking that Miss Chasle also resides here?”

  The use of Bau’s original name put Brian on red alert. “And you are?”

  “Tom Chard, probation officer.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  He grimaced and pulled out a tatty photographic ID card, the photograph did him no favours. Brian handed it back, “Then you know she resides her as she phoned through to your office to tell you she’d moved.”

  He nodded, “And does Miss Amy Jones also reside here?”

  Brian began to smell a rat. “Temporarily.”

  He sighed, “Then you’d better go and get Miss Chasle, without Miss Batty, as I need to tell her that I’m going to recommend to the Home Office that they rescind her licence.”

  He might as well have kicked Brian in the groin. For a few seconds his heart raced out of control and he couldn’t breathe properly. Eventually he croaked, “Why?”

  “Attempting to pervert the course of justice. She’s out on licence pending a review of her case, but she’s also got an appeal lodged. If there is a retrial, or if there is an appeal hearing, Little Miss Batty will have to testify, so them living together is just not on.”

  Brian was almost dumbstruck, and for some reason he was grea
tly offended at Tom’s slur on Amy, fortunately his brain was racing. “Hold it a minute, how do you know?”

  He shrugged. Brian persisted, “I bet you had an anonymous tip-off from an elderly sounding woman with a clipped Oxford accent.”

  He shrugged again in a ‘so what’ manner causing Brian realise that he’d been out-manoeuvred by a strategic expert. “We’ve been had. That self-same woman actually moved Amy in on me. So it’s a set-up to get Bau put back inside. Hasn’t she suffered enough?”

  He took out a cigarette and lit it in the corner of his mouth. “My information is that Miss Chasle moved in after Miss Batty, she didn’t have to do that, she could have stayed at the cottage.”

  “Her name is Miss Jones, and it was probably part of the set-up. It was obvious that Miss Chasle would move here as soon as Miss Jones had been foisted upon me.”

  Brian frowned, “What’s was your name again?”

  “Tom Chard.”

  “Is that Tom as in Anthony?”

  “Yes.”

  Brian laughed. “Well you’re one to start throwing stones. Let me get my facts right. Prisoners out on licence are supposed to earn their living if they’re not in receipt of a job-seekers allowance. In any case they get three months housing assistance and then they’re on they’re own. Am I right?”

  “Mostly, it’s a complex multi-benefit option area.”

  Brian said smoothly, “So how would your employers like to know that you put Miss Chasle into a squalid cottage with not even basic facilities and then pocketed the housing allowance. And that once the three months are up you deliberately have her licence removed so that you can put some other poor soul in there and pocket their allowance? Sounds shifty to me.”

  Brian was now very glad that he’d taken time and trouble in the records office to see out Bau’s landlord. His original intention had been to give the landlord a piece of his mind. Tom didn’t turn a hair. “Cottage is in my wife’s name, we’ve got the same initial.”

  “Not sure that your employers would see it that way.”

  He shrugged, “I was doing her a favour, her licence conditions were very exact as to location.”

  “Bet they’d still be interested.”

  “You threatening me?”

  “Yes.”

  They stood glaring at one another like a pair of cowboys waiting for the other to draw first until Brian broke the deadlock. “Let’s be reasonable here. We’ve been stitched up by a master tactician. Amy is never ever likely to testify. As far as I know she’s been sectioned under the mental health act at least once, maybe twice. She’s still under a psychiatrist, who probably wouldn’t let her within a million miles of a courthouse let alone into a witness box. So if the aim was to pervert the course of justice exactly how was that going to be achieved?”

  Tom scratched his chin causing some ash to fall off the cigarette that was still in the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got a point.”

  “And it’s at your discretion, not our master tactician’s.”

  He dropped the cigarette on the path and ground it with his foot. “OK, but it’s not your threat, I don’t like to be manipulated.”

  “Did I threaten? I must have chosen my words incorrectly.”

  Tom turned to leave muttering, “She’ll go back anyway some time or other.”

  He looked back and pointed. “You ought to put some loam compost around that Daphne, it’s wilting.”

  He walked off and Brian looked six feet down the flower bed, surely he hadn’t been that far out?”

  He called out, “Thanks.”

  Tom paused at the corner of the greenhouse, “Just don’t go making her pregnant, I have enough paperwork as it is.”

  Brian was suddenly conscious of a great weight lifting from his shoulders. Was being with Bau always going to be like this?

  He prodded around the Daphne with the broom handle and thought he could feel something. He carefully lifted out the Daphne and a Holly bush, and started digging. Two feet down he was scooping out nothing but sand, builder’s sand. The entrance to the shaft was about three feet under the level of the flower bed. The rotten entrance doors had been designed to open outwards and had no lock. As he opened them the rusty hinges gave way and he dropped them down the shaft to get rid of them. After that he stripped the edging off of the wooden kitchen hatch and rammed it down the shaft against one of the iron rungs, stamping on it to get if firmly wedged in the shaft. Finally he mixed some more concrete and filled up the shaft before replacing the topsoil, suitable mixed with some compost, and replanted the Daphne and Holly plants. He was just raking the soil level when Amy seemingly appeared from nowhere. She wagged her finger; “You’re doing something secretive.”

  He finished raking; “Do you want to know?”

  “No, as long as it doesn’t hurt Bau.”

  “I’m doing it to protect Bau.”

  “That’s fine then.”

  She looked around, “My gran says she used to live her a long time ago when she was first married.”

  “Did she?”

  Amy laughed, “Don’t try bluffing Brian, you know she did, it’s all over your face.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “Yes.”

  She suddenly changed subjects. “Bau says that you’re a schoolteacher.”

  “Yes, physics and RE.”

  “So if Bau can’t find work you can support her.”

  Brian wondered where this was leading. “Yes.”

  “But supporting two women could be a problem, school teachers don’t get paid much do they?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  He wondered if she’d be able to tell that was a lie, he had indeed thought about it and come to a dismal conclusion. “Yes you have.” She stated.

  “All right I have. It’s not a problem, three can live a cheaply as two. Plenty of school teachers bring up families.”

  She gazed straight into his eyes. “I don’t want to be an additional burden. I want to pay my way if I can. Do they have cleaners at your school?”

  “Not many, the pupils do a lot of the minor chores, the head and governors think it’s character building.”

  “What about cooks?”

  “Some, but I don’t know of any vacancies at the moment.”

  She nodded. Brian tried to be helpful, “There is a twenty-four hour supermarket just down the road, they’re always after staff.”

  “You mean shelving and suchlike.”

  “Probably.”

  “No thanks,” she said, “probably drive me insane.”

  The words sank home and she started to giggle, within seconds they were both roaring with laughter. It was somehow cathartic, relieving the tension between them and breaking down hidden barriers.

  Brian lost Bau and Amy for the evening after dinner as there was a three-hour special on the Glastonbury Festival. He retreated to George’s study to review his e-mails and consider his strategy with Verity. He had no doubt that she would have planned forays on more than one front. He may have repelled one, but what others might be in the pipeline? While the girl’s were occupied he also printed off a couple of the pictures he had taken below. He might not need them. On the other hand perhaps they might give him some leverage, if he needed it.

  Once the programme was over, and the teeth-cleaning ritual complete, Amy went to bed and Bau found Brian watching the news. She looked at the screen. “Who’s that?”

  “Catherine Hopgood, been released from prison because the case against her has fallen apart.”

  “Expert witness?”

  “No, forensic mix-up.”

  She sat sideways on his lap and draped her arms around his neck before kissing him. “Thanks for letting Amy and me indulge ourselves today. Don’t worry I won’t neglect you.”

  “He put his arms around her. “Never thought you would.”

  She planted another kiss on his lips, “Goodnight.”

  She left and he felt vaguely disappointed,
he wanted more than just a couple of kisses, but what did he want?

  Two hours later, as he was in bed half asleep, his bedroom door opened and a figure slipped round it silhouetted by the moonlight on the landing. A silhouette he instantly recognised. He turned on the bedside lamp to reveal Amy, stark naked except for lips covered in bright pink lipstick and, bizarrely, the same colour lipstick on her nipples. She advanced towards him with her ample breasts oscillating from side to side. He tossed back the duvet and sat on the side of the bed. She gave a foolish grin, “Thought you might want some comfort.”

  “Comfort?” he managed to repeat hoping that this was a dream.

  She made a grab for his hand and held it against her breast. “Comfort,” she repeated back. “You can feel me all over if you like.”

  Nothing was further from Brian’s mind. “I’m not sure this is a good idea Amy.”

  She ignored him and held his wrist to prevent him from pulling his hand away. “You need comfort otherwise you won’t be happy and if your not happy Bau will be sad. I want us all to be happy.”

  She started to move his had in a small circular motion, “Do you like my breasts?”

  He swallowed, “They’re very nice breasts, but…”

  Bau walked into the room and took in the view. Amy stark naked and Brian with his hand on her breast. She wondered just what was going on until she saw Brian’s face; then she almost burst into laughter. “Amy,” she said sternly. “You’re not intimidating Brian with your nice breasts and wide hips are you?

  “He needs comfort,” she said seriously, “if he doesn’t get comfort he might not stay and I want him to stay.”

  Bau marched forward and took hold of Amy’s hand. “Well don’t you worry, if he needs comfort I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  “You will?”

  “I will.”

  She led Amy out of the room. As they walked down the landing he heard Bau say, “You’re not wearing lipstick on your tits again are you.”

  “It’s the same skin as lips,” Amy said defensively, “So why shouldn’t I?”