Do Her No Harm

by Naomi Joy

  ‘It’s not her,’ I reply, pouring my tea.

  Kay opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out and her jaw bobs, slack.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ she asks eventually.

  ‘Five years and the body’s still fresh with maggots?’ I point out, recalling the witness statement in the paper. ‘It doesn’t add up. I think it’s a coincidence.’

  ‘No,’ Kay interjects. ‘Firstly, witnesses who speak to the media are notorious exaggerators, especially if they’ve just seen something traumatic. Trust me, I’ve met my fair share. And, look, if you read the report, the papers says the body was badly decomposed. The man probably didn’t even see any maggots.’

  I distract myself by stirring my tea, there’s no need, I haven’t added milk or sugar, but the ritual allows me a second to think.

  ‘Finally,’ Kay muses. ‘After all these years. Risen by the rainwater.’

  It occurs to me, escaped leaves swirling in my cup, that I’ve spent so long thinking about what might have happened to Tabby and where she might be, that I haven’t paid a single thought to how I’ll feel when it’s all over.

  ‘What do you know about him, the grandfather?’ Kay asks, grabbing a notepad from her bag and scribbling something in the margin.

  ‘Nothing,’ I reply. ‘Tabby didn’t often speak about her family. We didn’t like to. It was one of the things that bonded us: neither of us had particularly pleasant childhoods.’

  ‘What was it… domestic abuse? Neglect?’

  The way she asks the question, pen poised, so matter-of-fact, is somewhat callous.

  ‘Mine or hers?’ I ask.

  I watch Kay scribbling, our early years about to be confined to a few notes on her notepad, all that we went through dismissed by a couple of inadequate words: abusive upbringing. I try not to let it get to me. I remind myself I’m projecting.

  ‘Hers.’

  ‘Tabby lived with her grandfather for a while before she was put into the foster care system. She went through a few different families.’

  Kay looks up at me for a moment, her face twisted, as though what I’ve said about Tabby is a red flag.

  ‘We should go down there, figure her grandfather out, interview him, get something on tape,’ she suggests, her leg bouncing beneath the table, the edge of her bell-bottom swinging. I take a sip of tea, the heat burning the roof of my mouth.

  ‘And what’s the latest with Rick?’ she asks, leaning closer.

  ‘I did what you asked,’ I reply, part of me nervous to talk about our ‘date’. ‘I ambushed him at the gym, then he asked me to dinner.’

  Her face lights up. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘We spoke about the case – and he knows about the podcast, by the way, says we’re lazy for following the thread that he must be guilty.’

  ‘He would say that. Did you ask him about the allegation?’ Kay eyeballs me.

  ‘Yes. And it’s true, it was Tabby.’

  A bubble of tea escapes from Kay’s lips. ‘Shit,’ she says.

  ‘But I think I convinced him to keep quiet. Whether or not Tabby was in the wrong, Rick’s wary of newspaper editors – he’s right to be – so I don’t think we’re in danger of the story leaking just yet.’

  ‘I’ve got previous for having bad instincts with cases like this,’ Kay cuts in. ‘I always side with the woman, accuse the man, assume it’s the man. Maybe in this case I should keep a more open mind,’ she says, her tone changing. ‘AB, can I ask you something? Will you still want to be involved in all this if it doesn’t turn out quite as we expect?’

  I blink at her, my head full of Tabby’s memory. I can’t help but want to protect the person who isn’t here to protect herself.

  ‘Tabby’s not behind this.’

  I feel somewhat child-like in this moment, sticking up for Tabby no matter what. Putting my loyalty for her before everything.

  ‘Listen,’ Kay says, reassuring me. ‘The sensible money is still on Rick. He was seeing someone behind her back when she went missing and he’s been paying someone off for months. He could have used the allegation to exonerate himself five years ago, before the newspapers turned nasty, but he’s kept it from the police. You need to keep close to him, make sure he doesn’t have a sudden urge to get things off his chest. But first,’ she announces, ‘we need to go to the farm. We need to speak to the grandfather and, you’re my in here, he won’t talk to a journalist, he won’t understand it, he’ll turn me away.’

  ‘OK,’ I agree. ‘But I don’t know her grandfather, he doesn’t know me from anyone.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We just need enough to get us through the front door. Once we’re in, we can pump him for information: find out what kind of kid Tabby was, assess whether he has a good enough reason for sending her to foster care, or a good enough reason to bury her in his back garden.’

  I slurp up the last of my tea, poke at the leaves that escaped the strainer and sit, gloopy, at the bottom of the cup. I wonder what a tea-leaf reader would make of them; if I squint, I can just about make out a skull.

  The body in the bog.

  *

  Tabby’s grandfather’s farm is hardly in the middle of nowhere and, though the land he owns is vast, all three sides are flanked by houses. Some ramshackle, some grand, some colourful, some bland.

  Kay told me that the farm was built in the 1950s, that Tabby’s grandfather was colloquially known as the ‘King of Cabbage’ when he first set up. His actual name is Ernest – Ernie – Rice, but not many people know that. Apparently, the nickname was something of an irony: his cabbages were the only crop that didn’t fail that first year. He inherited a small fortune from his father which enabled him to buy the land, but the farm has never turned a consistent profit, so Ernie hasn’t managed to do away with his countryside clown reputation. Much to his chagrin.

  I’d wager, judging by the belligerent smirk that accompanies each newspaper article Kay’s managed to dig up about him, that he’s still not over it. I look down at one of the articles, into the old face of Ernie Rice, into his fierce eyes and petulant expression, and surmise that underneath the wrinkles he’s still just a boy trying to prove himself, desperate to show the naysayers they were wrong about him wasting his daddy’s money.

  Ernie has been notably absent in Tabby’s story up until now. I didn’t meet him at the memorial, Tabby herself never really spoke about him, the police, Chad, even Kay – no one mentioned much about him until a dead woman escaped her grave and rose to the surface, pointing a bloated finger in his direction.

  I have to confess, Kay got us here much quicker than I expected. I thought there’d be a week, at least, to prepare, but Kay Robero doesn’t hang around so, just two days after we sipped tea together, brown liquid in our cups, we’re heading to Ernest Rice’s farm, brown liquid swilling against our boots. She’d called me yesterday to fill me in on the details and hung up midway through saying goodbye. I’d forgotten that about her phone calls and it made me laugh as I’d said a serious goodbye to myself, the line dead in my hands.

  Kay and I catch the train there, rolling through the grey of East London, the even greyer bit just outside of East London, then, just as I’m expecting an explosion of green, Dartford arrives: another tinpot commuter town, same big brands lining the high street, same fast-food chains dotted between them. Kay tells me there’s a Central Park here. I’m not holding my breath.

  On the road out of the station I see something that reminds me, heart-stoppingly, of Tabby. A salon – Nice Nails – that she’d told me she had a Saturday job at when she was a young teenager. It must have been during one of the times she was staying with Ernie, waiting to find her next set of foster parents. My stomach lurches with the memory. I should go in. I should walk into that place and see if anyone remembers her. I should get my nails buffed and polished, then coloured sickeningly pink, just the way Tabby used to.

  ‘Come on,’ Kay trills. ‘We don’t have time for nails, AB.’

&nbs
p; ‘She used to work here,’ I explain, dozy with the thought of her.

  ‘Ah,’ Kay sighs, turning swiftly towards the building to take a photo on her phone. ‘Anywhere else she mentioned?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  My reflection glints back at me, rain droplets distorting my features, only one eye visible in the glass, my light hair darkened by the water it’s holding. I stare at myself but think about Tabby. She’d told me Nice Nails had been on the cutting-edge of the ‘fish-pedicure’ when she worked here. That a sweet old woman had been their first recipient, her hair in rollers when she’d arrived, a hearing aid in each ear. That should have been a warning, Tabby had said when she’d recanted the tale. When the bowl of mini piranhas – or whatever they were – came out, the lady hadn’t noticed at first, her head deep in a magazine; it was only when they started snaffling away at her heels that she’d taken a proper look, screamed, told the entire place she was going to sue them, that she didn’t expect the salon water to be contaminated with fish, and had stamped on a fair few of them before she’d left. Tabby said she was surprised the pedicure had continued to book out at the salon, what with the fact she’d spent that entire afternoon wiping fish blood from the floors, the receptionist calling each of their booked customers to make sure they understood the fish-pedicure featured actual fish.

  Kay’s hand wraps round mine and she pulls me away from myself. ‘We should keep moving,’ she says, so we do, away from the drab high-street, zigzagging through the walkways and bridle paths towards Ernie’s farm. On the way up, I can’t help but marvel at the fields surrounding us: each one is wider than the next, though the dull grass has been drenched by this winter’s never-ending downpour. I huddle closer to Kay as we squelch on together, the heavy hum of the rain unsettling as we duck under a fence and dive onto his land. It’s the kind of weather you’d expect in a jungle, not on the outskirts of London, and I can tell my black boots – apparently waterproof – will never be the same again. I formulate a plan to throw them in the bins at the front of the flats when I get back – I can’t stand the thought of this mud, thick with animal excretion and human remains, treading into the nooks of my wooden floors. It takes a monumental effort to keep going, to plough forward. I know one thing for sure: without Kay I would never have come here. Even with her by my side, I can’t shake the feeling that something bad is about to happen. What else lies beneath this rotten land?

  We climb a slight hill together and, just as we crest, a boggy field comes into view on our right side – blue and white tape taut round the exterior, a tent towards the back. The surrounding plots are yellow-green, so the brown of the field in question stands out. I’d imagined it being further away from the house, but it isn’t, it almost backs onto it. How lazy, I think. He didn’t even walk very far to bury the body, he literally dumped it in his back yard.

  Kay raises her eyebrows at me.

  ‘I still don’t think this body is Tabby,’ I say. ‘If this was where she died, I would feel it, it would infect my bones and crawl all over my skin. I would know. She would find a way, somehow, to tell me.’

  Kay draws to a halt and I feel her ribcage expand as she holds her breath.

  ‘There aren’t any police here today,’ she says, after a minute. ‘If there were, they’d have put a cordon at the foot of the property. There’d have been officers on the gates.’

  ‘They could be inside?’

  ‘No,’ she replies. ‘They’ve already searched it. And Ernie’s moved back in, I checked.’

  We press on, Kay’s waterproof anorak blowing in the breeze, the farmhouse a few hundred yards ahead. The exterior is granite, slate tiles on the roof, gutters brimming with rainwater. It’s an ancient building and sits in contrast to the much newer barns that surround its north and east corners. It could just be the weather, but even the potted plants, scattered randomly at the front of the property, look downtrodden and depressed: wilted at the stem, missing petals, pooling with watery soil, dirty puddles on the gravel. The windows are mostly covered with curtains, except two downstairs, and the front door is missing large patches of red paint. It looks like an unfit jigsaw that needs throwing away. The smell of the bog, muddy and waterlogged, floats by as Kay lifts her hand to knock.

  We stand, crinkled, and wait. Two girls playing at being detectives – at least that’s the way I feel about being here. Just as I’m imagining holding a plastic magnifying glass to the splintered front door, the way I used to as a child, I hear steps behind it, then a dog’s urgent scamper as it launches towards us, nose stuffed between the gap to the outside, pacing left to right, desperate to greet us. Oh great. As if the mud wasn’t enough dirt to deal with. The door opens and Ernest Rice emerges from the gloom within, the flash of a border collie behind.

  He’s less intimidating than I’d imagined – he’s probably only about 5’7” – and his Aran sweater is dotted with holes – just like his front door, and his mind, judging by the far-off look in his eyes. He takes us in, curls his lips into his trademark belligerent smirk and, just as Kay’s about to introduce us, he cuts over the top of her, breathing this morning’s alcohol into our faces. Whiskey, I’d guess.

  ‘I’m not interested,’ he says, then slams the door, the flash I’d seen of his dog disappearing, followed by a sad whine.

  ‘Well,’ I say to Kay, turning to go, taken aback but relieved that our run-in with Ernie had ended before it had even really begun. ‘We could try the salon,’ I suggest, before I’m interrupted by another loud knock at the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask, eyes wide, hand on her arm.

  ‘I have money,’ she calls through the door. ‘We’ll pay you for your time. Just half an hour, that’s all.’

  I look at her. ‘Bribery?’ I ask. ‘What happened to being friends of Tabby’s?’

  ‘Change of plans,’ she whispers back. ‘This is the in – he needs the money.’

  ‘You really think a few quid will make a difference to this miserable old—’

  ‘How much?’ a gruff voice calls back. I curl my lips in on themselves and stop speaking. Kay knows what she’s doing.

  ‘Three hundred?’ Kay plucks, seemingly out of thin air.

  There’s a pause, and I ride a choppy wave of nausea in anticipation of what’s next.

  The door swings open, slower this time, and Ernie’s collie pads out, nose down, sniffing at our boots. He can probably smell the blood on them. Ernie stands back and makes a come-in gesture, his smirk elongated but still every bit as nasty.

  Inside, the walls are pale-green and sparse, the furniture is wooden and chipped, and the cabinet we walk past to reach the lounge features more empty photo frames than full. I can’t speak, so I am glad that Kay is running the show in my mouth’s absence.

  ‘We’re recording a podcast into the disappearance of Tabitha Rice and we want to hear your side of the story.’

  I sit, tentatively, on the faded brown sofa, tucked into the corner of Ernie’s lounge. There’s a square television set opposite, a little wooden chair beyond, and a patterned rug underfoot. Apart from these features the room is empty. Even the lightbulb overhead hangs exposed. I can’t imagine a young girl living here, let alone Tabby. Kay stands, angular, her anorak dripping wet on to the wooden floor. Ernie’s eyes haven’t left her, a cat focused on a mouse. He doesn’t seem to mind the mess she’s making.

  ‘Very well,’ he says. ‘Half now, half later.’ He holds out his hand.

  Kay’s anorak billows as she pulls her handbag from underneath and counts out £150 in ten and twenty-pound notes. Ernie’s eyes narrow and he tucks a longish tuft of grey hair back behind his ear. He’s bald on top but the edges are unkempt, pixie-like. When they get too long, I imagine he takes a pair of sheep shears to them himself, slicing erratic chunks off his girly hair. Kay takes three small steps forward and places the money in Ernie’s hand. He studies it – makes a pointless and offensive scene about counting it out – then, satisfied, drags the woode
n chair from the edge of the room and sits. He motions for Kay to join me on the sofa and I blush, aware I sat too soon, and shuffle to the right, smiling thickly to make up for it.

  ‘Are you two lesbians or something?’ he asks, grinning. Ernie Rice takes pleasure in others’ discomfort – that much is clear – and he’s a championship prick, certainly, but I’m not sure he’s brilliant enough to be a killer.

  Kay clears her throat, his question going unanswered, and hands Ernie a small microphone to clip to his sweater. She depresses a button on the recording device in her hand.

  ‘Tell me in your own words about Tabitha Rice, your granddaughter.’

  He takes a deep breath in, then sprays spittle from his lips as he blows out in a heavy, sarcastic sigh. ‘Her mother dropped ’er on my doorstep whenever she felt like it. I was lumped with ’er – feeding ’er, getting ’er to school – and I didn’t ask for it, I couldn’t look after ’er on my own. I called the social services and got ’er a home that wanted ’er.’

  My heart pounded as he spoke so matter-of-factly at sending his granddaughter away.

  ‘Were you ever close with your daughter?’

  ‘With Marie, no.’ He shakes his head, rubs his hands in his lap.

  ‘What happened?’ Kay asks, pressing him.

  ‘Marie got pregnant at eighteen, she couldn’t keep the kid ’ere, obviously, I had enough to deal with running the farm. I told ’er if she wanted to have sex like an adult then she sure as heck could live like an adult. I told ’er she had to work it out herself.’

  ‘She moved out?’ Kay asks.

  ‘For a bit. Then kept coming back, leaving the girl with me for longer and longer. Asking for money. Track marks all over ’er arms. I never gave ’er any money, never had any to spare. Do you know how expensive it is to run a place like this?’

  I cast my eyes to the damp patch creeping up the wall behind Ernie, bleeding into the ceiling. Ernie took his vast inheritance and whittled it away into this farming passion-project, turning his back on his only daughter and only granddaughter… and for what? The place is crumbling, oozing from its foundations, his secrets literally rising from their graves.