Do Her No Harm

by Naomi Joy

  ‘What do you know about Tabitha’s missing persons investigation?’

  ‘Well,’ Ernie balks, a guttural sound erupting from him. ‘A right mess she got ’erself into. Just like her mother, I imagine. Nasty, stupid women. I doubt Marie was even mine, ’er mother was a slag too. They’re all the same.’

  Kay isn’t fazed by him, but I clear my throat in a high-pitch splutter to communicate my contempt.

  ‘Do you know where Marie lives now?’

  ‘I s’pose you’re going to tell me.’ Ernie shrugs, his back curled, his body sagging like a sack of potatoes.

  Kay moves on, her silence on the matter telling me that she hasn’t been able to locate Marie Rice yet.

  ‘Who do you think they found in your back garden?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘It’s your back garden,’ Kay fires back. ‘You have private property signs all over this place.’ I remember the red notice on the gate leading up to the farm but, where I’d largely ignored it, Kay had committed it to memory. ‘You’re very concerned with your privacy, Mr Rice so, with respect, I’m a little surprised you didn’t notice someone trudging into your back garden with a dead body.’

  Ernie laughs. ‘Didn’t stop you two trespassing, did it? And what, you expect me to have eyes in the back of my head? I was probably asleep when they did it.’

  ‘I just find it odd – that someone could sneak in overnight, dig up one of your fields, and you wouldn’t notice anything amiss the next day.’

  Ernie shrugs again.

  ‘What were you doing on the night of 21st August five years ago, Mr Rice?’ Kay asks, changing tack.

  Ernie combusts in response. ‘Ha!’ He wraps his arms round his middle and shakes with laughter. ‘How do you expect me to remember that? What were you doing on the 21st August five years ago?’

  Kay ignores him. ‘If you didn’t bury that body. Who do you think did?’

  ‘Could be anyone. Bill from Frattingham Farm, if you ask me. His wife died ten year back. He wants me shut down, probably rolled ’er out of the cemetery to put ’er there. Anything to get me out of business.’

  Kay makes a note of the rival farm on her pad. ‘Who works here, on the farm, day-to-day?’

  ‘Well, I got my Polish lads and a Romanian lad – think they pick on him for it – and me.’

  ‘Did any of them ever meet Tabitha?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘What did the police ask you when they took you in?’

  ‘Same as you, love. All about the granddaughter I haven’t seen for years.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘What I was doing the night she went missing, you know, all of that.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘That I was away.’

  There’s a silence then and I snap my neck up at Ernie. Kay presses him on it. ‘You just told me you couldn’t remember.’

  Ernie stands up. ‘Well, what does it matter? Old man like me, can’t remember what day it is let alone what I was doing any given night in August five years ago.’ He brushes his dirty hands against his jeans. ‘Half an hour,’ he says, then holds out his hand again.

  As Kay counts the rest of his money, I consider his story. Ernie has a lot stacked against him: his persistent absence from Tabby’s life, an uncaring, unresolved relationship with her mother, a couple of confused stories about the night Tabby went missing and his generally obstinate demeanour.

  And, of course, the body.

  Rick

  Fourteen Years Ago – 2006

  I pushed my way into Tabby’s bedroom and pressed my finger to her lips. I shouldn’t be here, I was breaking all the rules, but I was desperate.

  ‘Ssh,’ I whispered, touching her arms. ‘I just want to talk to you.’

  She looked frightened, but let me in, the pink of her bedroom grotesquely childlike given what we were about to discuss.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, pulling the door shut behind me. ‘You have to stop this, Tabby. It’s not right.’

  I watched her eyes fall to the floor.

  ‘You have to retract your allegation.’

  I touched her again, fixed her with a meaningful stare. ‘I’ve been suspended from college, but my parents won’t let me come home. They’re getting threats. They think I’m a pervert, my brother’s spreading rumours that I’m into little girls. The things I’m hearing about myself, reading about myself, they’re bad, they’re really bad. Only you can stop them.’

  I couldn’t figure out what to do with my limbs, or with the tears that were raging at my eyes. I turned to the right, away from her, then to the left, then sat down on the edge of her bed, flowery duvet flattening beneath me.

  ‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ she told me.

  ‘I believe you,’ I said, meaning it. ‘You have to make it right. Take back what you said.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ she told me, shuffling back, out of my reach. ‘I didn’t say yes, Rick.’

  ‘I don’t get it, since when have you ever said yes before we’ve had sex? Why this time? Why is it different? Because you were angry. Because I didn’t lie to you afterwards and tell you everything was going to go back to normal.’

  I could smell her confusion. Her foster parents and the police had a lot to answer for. Was it best to lie? Would that make this all go away?

  ‘Practically the first name out of your mouth after it happened was hers.’

  ‘Saskia’s?’

  Tabby looked at me, her anger palpable, and I could tell she wanted to scream at me for saying her name again, for acting as though I didn’t know exactly who she was talking about.

  I shuffled towards her again, tried to make her understand. ‘You know I’m crazy about you, don’t you?’

  She didn’t nod, but didn’t move away, let me cover her hands in mine.

  ‘I want you to know that hasn’t changed. But you have to understand, Oxford has been such a lonely place for me. Being with Saskia changed that… for a while.’ I paused, held her baby-blue stare in mine. ‘But it’s always been you, Tabby.’

  She shook her head. She was in an impossible situation. ‘I don’t know if I can even take it back,’ she said. ‘What would happen to me?’

  ‘They’d understand, Tabbs,’ I assured her. ‘They’d understand you were just doing the right thing. Do you really want to see me chucked out of university, sent to prison, even, for this? For what?’

  She shook out an agreement and my tears came all at once, my cheeks suddenly wet, relief running through me like a river.

  ‘Will you go down there tomorrow and take it back?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. That word. There it was, at last.

  *

  Tabby dropped the allegation the next day, the charge against me shelved, the case swept from police desks as quickly as it had arrived. The university issued a statement, designed to show they supported me staying on at Oxford due to the victim retracting her accusation, but their reluctance to do so shone through in the details. He’s guilty, everyone, but our hands are tied. Rick Priestley stays until he strikes again.

  At Oxford, no one forgot what had happened. On the outside world, though, Tabby was bearing the brunt of a furious right-wing response. Everyone had an opinion about us that fit their own agenda. The facts of the matter wouldn’t have changed anything. Coming to that realisation was a big moment for me. And for her.

  By the summer break, Tabby and I were going steady again, but our relationship turned long-distance from July, when I finished my first year and headed home. Tabby was away with her high school for a week of activities – surfing, I think, in Cornwall. Then I went to Spain with my family, the Priestley summer holiday a week-long exercise in trying not to catch E.coli from yet another dubious all-inclusive buffet. I had essays to write, reading to skim, reams and reams of preparation for second year that barely gave me a moment to myself. In between that and working at the local pub, my summer break had felt less like
a break and more like an obstacle course of relentless chores.

  When October rolled around and I moved myself into a studio flat out of the city centre, seeing Tabby wasn’t far from my thoughts. I expected to pick up where we left off, taking things slow, perhaps I’d even ask her to be my girlfriend if things were still going well come December. What I hadn’t expected when I pulled up on my push bike at her foster parents’ house was this:

  ‘First of all,’ wailed Tabby, loud enough for me to hear through the double-glazing. ‘You’re not even my real mum and dad, so you can’t tell me what to do.’

  ‘We deserve better than that,’ her foster dad replied, quieter. I pressed myself against the wall, darted fervent looks at my bike which I’d left a few metres away. I should come back another time.

  ‘Even if you could tell me what to do, it doesn’t matter, I’m nineteen now, I can do whatever the fuck I like.’

  ‘Language, Tabitha!’

  Yes, I thought, slinking away from the house. I would come back later, this wasn’t the right time.

  It was then, probably fifteen steps away from the house, that the front door opened and her voice crawled out. ‘Rick? What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t back till tomorrow?’

  I spun, about to tell her I wanted to surprise her, and then I saw it. Tabby’s surprise for me. Her belly was gently rounded, poking its way out of her cardigan like a kid playing hide and seek behind a pair of curtains. She ran towards me, flung her arms round my neck, pushed that pregnant belly right up against my crotch.

  ‘It’s yours,’ she cried. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t told you yet. They stopped me.’

  *

  Tabby’s belly was rounding by the day and I honestly didn’t know how to feel about it. Part of me was excited, part of me terrified, another part proud. My sense of duty, of purpose, of stepping up and being a dad – a man this baby could rely on – kicked in and got me through. I told Tabby I wanted to help, that I wanted to be there for the baby, and she’d kept on saying the same thing. Well, Rick, actions speak louder than words. And I agreed. In those first few weeks, I felt compelled to act the right way.

  But, before I knew it, everything was wrong.

  Five months in and Tabby moved her stuff out of her foster parents’ home – she couldn’t bear to live with them anymore. They wanted her to get an abortion. They hated me enough as it was for the rape-allegation-incident, but to find out she was pregnant with my baby was their breaking point. It’s him or us, they’d told her. And she’d chosen me. As a result, she split her time between a women’s refuge and my new studio on the outskirts of Oxford. I didn’t really get a say, but standing by her was the right thing to do, so that’s what I did. My acting speaking louder than my words.

  Soon my study-books were piled in among baby ones, and Tabby was more concerned about arrangements for the baby than my degree. She started spending the money I made at McDonald’s on cots and cotton Babygros that we didn’t need yet, and I couldn’t afford. But, rather than tell her, rather than enrage her, my autopilot brain was still in charge and told me to bury my concerns. More complicated was the fact that, because she was pregnant, it was just assumed that we were back together properly, that we were going to be mummy and daddy, boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn’t want to make things any worse than they already were, so I went along with it, outwardly telling her I was thrilled about the baby, inwardly horrified about its arrival.

  Six months in and I felt the baby kick for the first time, an alien-foot stretching Tabby’s purple-streaked stomach further still. She’d felt it before, but whenever I pressed my hand against her stomach to feel for the baby it stopped. I wondered, quietly, whether Tabby was imagining it. Whether the baby was even alive in there at all. But this confirmation of life had terrified me. This baby was real. This was actually going to happen. Things were difficult enough already… I wasn’t prepared for night after night of no sleep, night after night wondering if Tabby had planned this, night after night staring at the ceiling wondering how I could ask her to do a paternity test.

  Seven months in and Tabby’s bellybutton had been forced inside out so it stuck out in front of her like an earthworm wriggling from its hole. Thick, slimy stretch marks invaded the smooth skin that used to be there and her whole body was just… disgusting. Swollen. Sore. Tired. Animalistic. Udders swinging from her chest, fluid leaking from every orifice. She even smelt like an animal. She’d stopped wearing rose shimmer on her eyelids, they were crusty with dry skin instead, the pink-pearl of her lips replaced with snake-skin flakes. The closer we came to the due date, the more I began to find the whole thing repugnant, find her repugnant. But of course, I couldn’t tell Tabby that. Can you imagine what she’d do if I did? Can you imagine what she’d do if I left? Since she’d moved out of her foster parents’ house, she was relying on me, the baby was relying on me, she reminded me of it every day.

  Eight months in and, maybe I shouldn’t have suggested it but, somehow, I convinced her we should see her grandfather, that maybe he could help. My parents were completely useless. My dad had told me in the weeks before I left for my second year that he knew I’d fuck up my place at Oxford by doing something stupid, that he was on standby waiting to see what particular brand of stupid it would be. The baby kind, it turned out.

  ‘When this baby arrives,’ I began, ‘you need to be with someone who can support you properly.’ I watched her heart break but still I continued. ‘I can’t do that for you right now – I need to study, I need to get a good job after this, for you, and for the baby.’

  ‘If you don’t love me anymore you can just tell me,’ she wailed. ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘It’s not that, Tabbs, of course it’s not that. But I can’t be the dad you want me to be if you’re living here all the time.’

  ‘I can’t do this on my own!’

  ‘You’re not on your own. I’m here, I just need some space when the baby arrives. That’s all. You can come back for the weekends, maybe? But you can’t be here the whole time. You need to get help from someone who can actually support you: I don’t have any money, everything I earn goes to pay for this place, topped up by my student loan, with you here all the bills double and I can’t keep it up. Once I’ve graduated, once I have a good job, I’ll take care of you properly, I promise.’

  She cried, her yellow hair slathered over hot cheeks. Her hand was on her belly, protective, her boobs pushed east and west either side, framing it like dog’s ears. What had I done to her?

  ‘You said your grandfather helped you when you were in trouble before, right? And he owns that big farm… maybe he has some money?’

  *

  A few days later we arrived at Brimley Farm and, walking up the muddy footpath, I smiled for the first time since this whole saga began. This wholesome place was exactly the right environment for Tabby and the baby, she needed this, the baby needed this, I needed this – fresh air, fresh start, fresh family.

  But Ernie Rice, though he let us in, had other ideas.

  ‘Stupid girl just like her stupid mother.’

  I squirmed, tried to find the right thing to say, puffed my developing chest, widened my elbows, tried to appear protective, tried to instil values into Ernie that he was sorely missing: he had to step up and be the dad he wasn’t to his wife, his daughter, or his granddaughter, that his great-granddaughter – these Rice women didn’t hang about, did they – needed him.

  He laughed like a bulldozer and told us to get fucked.

  After that non-starter, we spoke all night about what we should do next and, while Tabby was deep into looking for night jobs for me – in addition to my restaurant shifts and Oxford degree – my phone pinged:

  when can I see u again? i miss you x

  Annabella

  Now

  The buzz of daytime plays outside my bedroom walls, the steady patter of rain as it falls against my window, dull daylight crawling through the cracks of the shutters.

  L
ast night, I’d worked late with Caroline, the final phases of her handover taking us to well past ten o’clock and, on my way home, I’d lingered outside Rick and Mandy’s, just to see them, but all I’d glanced had been fuzzy shadows against closed curtains. I’d sent a message to Kay when I was there, reminded of someone I’d rather forget.

  What if those payments I found were going to Chad? You said yourself Rick might have been paying him off to keep me from discovering anything.

  Kay and I had met earlier that day to debrief about our visit to Ernie’s farm and, though he was a revolting old man and, though we’d both left him wishing him guilty, we didn’t have any more information to go on. I’d told Kay all our efforts should resume with Rick and she’d agreed.

  I laze between sleep and wake, then grab my phone to check for messages. I open the first, it’s from Kay.

  You’re obsessed! You’re worse than me. They could well have been payments to Chad, you’re right. Let’s talk tomorrow. Get some sleep.

  She’s right. I am obsessed.

  I fling my covers from the bed, swinging my legs to the floor. I push to standing, a headrush dizzying me, blotting my vision for a few seconds, halting my progress. I stand in front of the wardrobe, staring at the rack of perfectly ordered outfits, colour-coded and occasion-categorised and pull my perfectly pressed uniform from within. I follow my routines, clean each surface before I leave, then, satisfied, pound the pavements to the clinic, pushing open the door to my room ten minutes ahead of time. I inspect my tools, make sure everything is just as I expect, and when my first patient knocks, my stomach flutters.

  In a few hours, I’m meeting Rick.

  *

  He appears, leggings under shorts, padded jacket zipped high, rucksack slung haphazardly over his shoulder. We’re here for coffee so our meeting is casual but, personally, I prefer his evening look: shorts swapped for a suit, rucksack for a briefcase, trainers for brogues. I bristle as he draws closer, pepping myself up to see him again, his hand about to make contact with the cold metal of the café door. I feel better this time, more confident, you could say I’m settling into my role.