Living in Dread (Anna McColl Mystery Book 6)

by Penny Kline

  ‘Actually I thought we were supposed to have a say about the whole content of the course.’

  ‘You will have a say, Janice, but not at this stage.’

  ‘When?’

  Something in me snapped. ‘Look, there are eighteen people in the room and —’

  ‘No, there’s only sixteen this week. Some of them haven’t turned up.’

  ‘All right, sixteen. Sixteen students, each of whom has an equal right to …’ To what? I was losing the thread. ‘And it’s part of my job to make sure one or two people don’t try to monopolise …’

  I broke off, my words drowned by the sound of clapping. Janice was gathering up her files and books. Scraping her chair on the linoleum, then letting it fall to the ground, she stood up, crossed the room and left, slamming the door behind her.

  When I came back from work Eric was rubbing down a patch of rust on the side of his van. I nodded to him and he straightened up, wiping his hands on a rag, then offering to fix my doorbell. It had been broken when I moved in but since I was not expecting any visitors, I was not particularly bothered.

  ‘There’s no need,’ I said. ‘If anyone calls round they can knock.’

  He took no notice, following me into the annexe, then taking a small screwdriver from his pocket and starting to dismantle the bell prior to taking it off the wall.

  ‘Charlie’s spending the night with my father and Deborah,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how my mother’s going to take it.’

  ‘I expect it’ll be all right. For a child his age Charlie seems very sensitive to other people’s feelings.’

  ‘Does he? What makes you say that? What’s he been telling you?’

  ‘Oh, nothing in particular.’ It irritated me that he had walked into the annexe uninvited. On the other hand, it might give me a chance to find out a bit more about him.

  ‘All right then,’ he said, picking up a screw that had dropped on the carpet, ‘you’re the expert so you’ll be able to advise me how to prise him away from his computer.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  ‘Because it’s become a bloody obsession. He hardly ever does anything else.’

  ‘If you really want my opinion, I should let him do what he likes, at least for the time being.’

  He said nothing but I could tell he disliked the reference to Nikki’s death and the fact that Charlie was still grieving. How was he feeling himself? He gave so little away, apart from his frustration with the police. Perhaps it was his lack of emotion that had alerted them in the first place, even though wife-killers normally feign inconsolable grief.

  ‘Any more calls for Tanya Thurston?’ he said, bending the strip of metal that was supposed to make a connection with the battery.

  ‘Not since Saturday.’

  ‘And you say the bloke never gives his name? Could be a wrong number. Could be some kind of joke.’ He tried the bell, cursing under his breath when a low flatulent sound was the best it could manage. ‘Have to buy a new one.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ I told him. ‘Not if it’s for my benefit. Gayle Hedley mentioned something about Mrs Thurston acting as a befriender.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘To people who need support after they come out of prison or hospital.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought she was the type?’ He collected up the bits of bell and took them to the kitchen where I heard him drop them in the pedal bin. ‘I saw her occasionally with some man but she hardly ever brought anyone back to the flat, well, not as far as we knew.’

  ‘I should think it’s more likely she would have seen the people in their own homes or met up with them somewhere for a cup of coffee. Incidentally, Mrs Hedley dragged me into her house to show me her new kitchen.’

  We were standing together in the narrow hallway. ‘I did warn you,’ he said. ‘What about Peter Hedley then? He’s got this crazy way of saying “automatically” all the time, just sticks it into a sentence at random regardless of whether it has any meaning.’

  ‘It’s probably a springboard word,’ I said. ‘Helps him to control his stutter. He’s chosen a word he knows he can get out and if he thinks he’s going to stick on another word he puts “automatically” before it.’

  ‘Really? You’ve had patients like that?’

  ‘They’d be more likely to see a speech therapist.’ I squeezed past him into the kitchen and opened the fridge. ‘Like a drink? Have to be wine or beer.’

  From the look on his face I could have invited him into my bed. ‘Yes, all right then. I’ll have a beer if you’ve got some.’ The kitchen was too small to sit in. When I came back with the glasses Eric was still standing near the front door, waiting to be invited into the living room. There was an awkward silence between us. The house belonged to him but for the time being the flat was mine.

  He gave a nervous laugh, not unlike his mother’s, then entered the room ahead of me and slumped into a chair.

  ‘Why did you buy a house with an annexe?’ I said, handing him the beer and noticing how his hand shook a little.

  ‘My father’s idea. He thought the rent would help pay the mortgage. If I sell up I’ll get something smaller.’ He pulled the cushion from behind his back and dropped it on the floor. ‘Might be better for Charlie I s’pose but it would mean changing schools. Sometimes I look up and he’s scowling at me as if he hates me. I ask him what’s up but he’ll never say, never talk about what happened, he’s always so bloody angry.’

  ‘He has to take it out on someone,’ I said, aware that a single word out of place and he would jump down my throat and accuse me of talking like a psychologist. ‘You’re the obvious choice, the person he trusts the most. Does he talk about the past, when his mother was alive?’

  He shook his head. ‘Never.’

  ‘Perhaps if you did, just as a way of letting him know it’s all right to mention her name, the subject’s not taboo.’

  ‘Yes, well it’s not that simple.’ He put down his glass, splashing beer on the table, then mopping it up with his sleeve. ‘He used to help out in the workshop. I was teaching him a bit of simple wood carving, but lately he’s gone out of his way to avoid me. Anyway, he’s right, making toys is a mug’s game, trying to compete with the mass-produced stuff. Kids don’t notice the difference, why should they?’

  ‘But their parents do. Faye’s shop seems to be doing well.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘I dropped in to have a look at your horses.’

  ‘Horse. There’s only one left and I haven’t made any more. Three or four in shops scattered about the Cotswolds but no guarantee anyone’ll buy them. It’s all done on a sale or return basis. What did you think of Deborah?’

  ‘She wasn’t there.’

  ‘Oh.’ He seemed disappointed. ‘So you think it’s my fault Charlie’s the way he is.’

  ‘You know I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Not in so many words. Does the noise from the workshop disturb you? I try to keep the windows shut in the evening but —’

  ‘There’s no need, it doesn’t bother me at all.’ I was wondering whether to offer him something to eat. Charlie was away so we were both on our own. The opportunity might never arise again, but something held me back.

  ‘Right then.’ He drained his glass and stood up, replacing the cushion on the chair. ‘I’ll buy a new bell; it’ll only take a couple of minutes to wire it up. Is there anything else that needs fixing? What about the radiators?’

  ‘No, they’re fine, it was only the one in the kitchen.’

  ‘How are the repairs to your flat going? I expect you’ll be glad to move back.’

  ‘It’ll be a few weeks yet.’ I wondered if he was regretting reletting the annexe, although I suspected the rent money was important. Ever since my visit to Ronnie Cox’s house I had been trying to think of reasons why Nikki would have needed to borrow four hundred pounds. To pay back a loan shark? So she could pretend she had been working long hours at the office when in
reality she had been doing something entirely different?

  After Eric left the depression that had been coming on all day descended on me like a ton weight. I thought about Owen, asleep in his Sydney apartment, or would it be breakfast time by now? He was a hopeless letter-writer — in a couple of years time we would probably have lost touch altogether. If he found someone else, would he bother to let me know? I was getting morbid, trying to make myself feel bad about Owen, when another part of me knew the depression had nothing to do with him and the real reason was Janice Kirk. During the seminar she had seemed determined to make trouble and it had occurred to me that even the stamping out of the room had been rehearsed. Now I was not so sure. Even now she could be standing at the sink in the kitchens of some expensive restaurant, waiting for the next pile of greasy dishes with pieces of discarded food stuck between them. Later, at whatever time she arrived back in Brislington, she would have an essay to finish, or to read a chapter in one of her set books. No wonder she had a chip on her shoulder. I should have made more allowance, asked if she needed any extra help, acknowledged the effort she had made to get a place on the course. Up till now I had interpreted her hostility as the result of a general feeling of resentment towards anyone in authority, but perhaps there was more to it than that. Had she overheard another student saying he had seen me coming out of Eric’s house and assumed the two of us lived together? After she walked out of the seminar had she gone home or, and this was much more likely, had she found Steve Harrison and complained about the way I had treated her, the way she had been unfairly victimised?

  Eric was going out. I saw him leave the house, inspect the rubbed down paintwork on the side of his van, then climb into the driving seat, where he sat for several minutes before starting the engine. Looking after Charlie made it difficult for him to have any social life. Next time I saw him I would offer to babysit. It was only six months since Nikki’s murder, far too soon for him to become involved with anyone else, unless there was someone he had known before her death, someone he met up with during the day when I was at work and Charlie was at school.

  Chapter Six

  There was something wrong with the lights, they were too harsh, too bright, and Len, who was usually in charge, had bronchitis and whoever was standing in for him was going to make a balls- up of the whole bloody charade.

  She studied herself in the mirror, aware that if the lights were not dimmed her school ma’am’s outfit, with its tweed suit, thick stockings, black lace- up shoes and greying hair swept back in a bun, was going to look so tatty even the cretins in the back rows would notice.

  Wanda was smoothing down her short pleated skirt, adjusting her tie with its black and yellow diagonal stripes, clipping the pink butterfly slides into her curly blond hair.

  ‘Len’s off,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’ A shoelace had broken. If she knotted it again it would be too short, besides, schoolmistresses never had knots in their laces!

  ‘Tell the kid to dim the lights, shall I?’ said Wanda. ‘Anyway, I’m not putting more stuff on my face and that’s a fact.’

  A couple of minutes later she was back, muttering something about how the place was always too hot or too cold. ‘Oh well, never mind. Filling up as usual. I doubt if anyone’ll complain.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re right.’ The second outfit had to be laid out on the back of a chair and everything checked to make sure it was all present and correct. Navy serge skirt, white shirt, leather belt with jangling keys, same stockings and shoes as the head teacher. Did prison wardresses really dress like that, even in these enlightened days? Don’t ask. Don’t think. Just go through the motions like an automaton; that way you won’t feel anything; that way you can’t come to any harm. It was different for the girls. She called them the girls. They were younger than she was, but not that much younger, well, not Wanda or Denise.

  The music had started. Any minute now and Ron would stroll in, cigar in mouth. ‘All right, girls, no- one off sick? And remember, put a bit of life into it. No, not you, love, no complaints about you.’ Every time he said it he laughed, as if to imply he thought she enjoyed the work, got some kind of kick out of it.

  Once on stage — the lights were dimmer now, not so unkind — she slipped into gear, spoke her lines in the cold, hard voice that seemed to go down so well, then shouted at the girls to hold out their hands. The sound of the ruler smacking against skin came several seconds too late. She expected the audience to laugh, but no one did.

  ‘All right then, if that’s your attitude! Bend over. I said bend over!’

  This was the part she hated most. Suspenders holding up short white stockings. Bums in transparent briefs. Would there come a day when she enjoyed hitting other women with a long, springy cane, had fantasies about it, looked forward … Don’t think about it, don’t think about anything. In less than an hour it would be over and the girls would have to perform on their own. Perform. Did the morons in the audience think they liked what they were doing to each other? What was it that made a bunch of middle-aged and elderly men pay good money to see women touching each other up?

  The ‘girls’ were rubbing their ‘sore’ bums. Next, the prison scene, then the one where she had to dress up as a nursing sister. When God created human beings was this really what he had had in mind? When God created man She made a bit of a mistake! It was an old joke, but after a bit all jokes were old. Back in the changing room she whipped off the grey wig, replacing it with the straight brown one with the central parting. Not long now and she would be home, under the shower, then sinking in a boiling hot bath with the water up to her armpits and the evening a rapidly fading memory, apart from the cash in a metal box under the floorboards, waiting to be transferred to those nice little plastic bags the bank provided.

  Chapter Seven

  A meeting had been arranged for one o’clock. According to Steve the purpose of it was to ‘sort out a few difficulties’. I felt a mixture of anger and apprehension — anger that Steve appeared to see the problem with Janice as ‘a clash of personalities’, apprehension because I was afraid I might find it impossible not to lose my temper. When I reached Steve’s office he and Janice were chatting away like old friends.

  ‘Hi.’ Steve consulted his diary, then looked up, beaming. ‘Have a pew.’

  The room was stuffy and smelled of pencil sharpenings although, as far as I knew, Steve never wrote anything by hand if he could help it. Most of his messages were sent on e-mail which probably accounted for the fact that I had been given no information about the new student, Lianne Fraser, who had joined my seminar.

  Janice had chosen a hard chair which meant that when I sat down she had the advantage over me as far as the heights of our heads were concerned. Her face bore a suitably student-like expression, designed to convey the fact that she was there more in sorrow than in anger — a friendly, reasonable kind of a person, who was just a little mystified as to why she had been treated so badly.

  ‘Right,’ said Steve, ‘we all know why we’re here. Would you like to start, Janice, since you’re the one with the grievance.’

  Janice was staring at her feet in their clumpy black shoes. She attempted to speak, then sighed deeply, yanking up each of her socks in turn, then letting her arms fall limply by the sides of her chair.

  Steve turned to me but I shook my head. ‘I’d like Janice to tell us how she feels.’

  Janice sniffed, made a couple of false starts, then began to speak in a quiet, breathy voice. ‘She won’t let me speak. Jumps on me every time I open my mouth. She doesn’t like me, keeps criticising.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to give us an example.’ Steve’s tone of voice was infuriatingly impartial. ‘And it might be better if you referred to Anna by her name rather than calling her “she”.’

  ‘Yes, well that’s just it, isn’t it?’ Janice looked triumphant, as if Steve had played into her hands, said exactly what she was hoping he would. ‘Everything’s supposed to be so matey here,
but it’s just a con.’

  ‘How do you mean exactly?’

  Janice glanced at me. ‘Well, I thought seminars were meant for discussing things, not the lecturer telling you what you ought to think.’

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Of course seminars are there to give everyone a chance to voice their opinions,’ I said, ‘but someone has to be in charge or the discussion degenerates into a free-for-all, dominated by the same two or three students each week. Anyway at this stage in the course it’s important to stick to the subject in question. Naturally, later on, there’ll be opportunities for more general discussions based on what everyone’s read.’

  ‘You mean we’re so stupid we don’t know enough to have an opinion.’

  Steve made a conciliatory noise. ‘No, I don’t think that’s what Anna meant, Janice. Some of the younger students are sometimes a little nervous of speaking in a roomful of people. I expect Anna just wants to make sure everyone has a chance to contribute.’

  ‘Yes, well I knew you’d both gang up on me. It’s about power, isn’t it? Your power and my powerlessness.’

  I gave an involuntary laugh. ‘You don’t strike me as powerless, Janice.’

  ‘Yes, well that shows how little you know, not that you’re interested, just numbers, that’s what we are.’ She swung round, catching her elbow on my chair. ‘Got to take on as many of us as possible or you won’t keep your jobs. Once you’ve got us, couldn’t give a bugger. Set the work, mark it, some of you can’t even be bothered to learn our names.’

  I caught Steve’s eye. Against my better judgement I felt a twinge of sympathy for her. Something about the defiant, hard-done-by expression on her face, her loud rasping voice and the way her belongings took up more than her fair share of the table, had made me dislike her the first day we met. She had picked up my antagonism and retaliated.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, Janice,’ I said, ‘we seem to have got off to a bad start. Can we try again?’