by M B Vincent
‘Norris could kill you. You could be stone cold dead now. In grave, with worms,’ said Bogna.
‘But I’m not,’ said Jess. ‘I’m sitting here, listening to you wang on.’
‘Tonight,’ said Bogna, ‘let Moose do his widdles on the floor. Doors stay locked until the sun comes up.’
Night had blacked out the windows and glass doors of the kitchen. Jess turned her back on it, preferring the view of Bogna, Mary, the Judge, and a tower of crumpets.
‘Starting tomorrow, I’m giving you all taewkondo lesssons,’ said Mary.
‘Nah,’ scoffed Jess. She looked to her father for corroboration, but he was nodding.
‘It’s time we took this threat seriously,’ he said.
‘Dad, we’ve taken it seriously from the start,’ said Jess. ‘You’ve been the one complaining about the police presence.’
‘Patricia said,’ he began, then pulled in his chin as all three women scowled at him. ‘She worries,’ he said.
‘Nobody give monkey’s about what mayor lady say.’ Bogna held her nose up so high Jess could see up it.
‘Patricia said,’ the Judge continued, deliberately, ‘that we’re welcome to stay with her until Norris is captured.’
‘Christ no,’ said Jess. ‘I’ve been to Patricia’s house. She has ornaments and pretendy antique furniture and ruffled blinds and God, just, no!’
Mary was wry. ‘If she gets you into her boudoir, Judge, you won’t get out alive.’
‘I do not leave Harebell House.’ Bogna was disgusted. ‘This is good strong house. It protect us.’
Her old-school Nokia rang, the ringtone dragging them all back a couple of decades. ‘Hello? Ah, czesc jak sie masz!’ She turned away to have an impassioned conversation, the only sort she ever had.
Jess heard the words ‘Nic’ and ‘Lasco’, and knew Bogna was yet again bragging about how the famous chef fancied the sensible pants off her.
That was a fantasy, but Bogna was right about Harebell House. As Mary chivvied the Judge out of his chair and manhandled him into the Taekwondo Cat Stance, Jess took in the kitchen. It needed a lick of paint. The wooden chairs were the woeful shade of dark green her mother had chosen when Jess was a dot. But it had integrity. It didn’t boast, that kitchen, yet it was sure of itself. Most importantly, it invited others in.
Upstairs, Squeezers slept in a spare room.
Bogna had been unenthusiastic. ‘He bloody stinks, isn’t it.’
‘Squeezers needs somewhere to stay.’ Jess had found old pyjamas. ‘I’ve run a bath for him. Possibly he’ll drink it instead of getting in, but . . . just one night.’
‘He’ll want to stay for bloody ever.’ Even as Bogna complained, she had been pulling together the fixings for a cheese sandwich.
‘Nah. His noggin won’t let him.’
Jess looked up at the ceiling, as if she had X-ray vision and could see the strange man lying gingerly between clean sheets. It was ironic that he had found refuge in the most dangerous address in Castle Kidbury.
I’ll trust the house, thought Jess. True, it had dark corners, but it had thick walls, too.
‘Bet Rupert did his nut when you told him about Norris and his knife,’ said Mary, taking mercy on the Judge and allowing him to sit down.
‘Haven’t told him.’
‘Why?’ Mary seemed shocked. ‘He should know!’
‘Why should he know?’ Jess was working on indifference; it didn’t come naturally. ‘He’s halfway out of Castle Kidbury already.’
‘But not out of our lives.’ Mary sounded small, and young, and scared. In short, she didn’t sound like herself.
‘What could Rupert do if I told him?’ shrugged Jess.
‘He could, I dunno, what do any of us do for our friends?’ said Mary.
It didn’t matter that Jack was a girl. But it matters that Rupert didn’t mention it. Jess didn’t know what, if anything, was going on; she was concentrating hard on not wanting to know. ‘I don’t need anybody to kiss it better,’ she said, squirming under their scrutiny. ‘Like I said, I’m fine.’
A sudden memory. She was eight. She was flat out on concrete. A twelve-year-old Rupert – hair already floppy, nose already too big – was kneeling over her, saying ‘Don’t worry, you’re not dead.’
‘Abonda was right,’ said the older, here and now Jess. ‘She said my lifeline showed I’d had an accident when I was a kid and she was right! I fell off a flat roof when I was out with Rupert and Stephen.’
‘Even a stopped clock,’ said the Judge, ‘is right twice a day.’
From the Kidbury Echo, page 1:
SPECIAL EDITION
KIDBURY KANNIBAL
IN FOURTH GRUESOME ATTACK
Popular publican Edward Barnes hospitalised
Turn to page 3 for interview with victim:
‘I have nothing to say, leave me alone please’
Turn to page 9 for an in-depth analysis of the KIDBURY KANNIBAL
Could he be living next door to YOU?
CHAPTER 21
NONE OF MY BUSINESS
Saturday 14 November
Usually, Saturday equalled a lie-in.
Nobody stayed in bed that day. The daylight was too precious; they were greedy for it, now that Norris owned the night.
Having fed Squeezers and driven him back to town, Jess made for a box room beneath the eaves that was seldom visited. This was the room where her mother’s exercise bike was put out to pasture, and where the Castle photograph albums were stacked on top of a box full of Jess and Stephen’s childhood paraphernalia.
Averse to nostalgia, Jess had no idea what was in the box. She could deal with small doses; the memory of leaning back against the Judge’s legs, absorbed and happy, always made her lips curl into a small, interior smile.
She didn’t feel entirely comfortable opening the albums; what if she dislodged something from the past and it stuck to her?
That’s already happened, she thought. David lived at her elbow.
She turned creaking black pages studded with small, monotone photographs.
There he is. Not looking at the camera. As a schoolboy, as a baby, even beside his new bride, David looked away. At something nobody else saw.
You fucking weirdo, thought Jess fondly.
Enough. Her tolerance for the past tense had been reached. She noticed, as she passed it, that the window was smeared and dirty. She put out a hand to wipe at it, and looked out through the small, clean portal she’d made.
There was the garden, so innocent now. And there was Moose on the grass, having a sneaky kip.
She took the stairs two at a time. Her blood hammered in her ears.
Dogs don’t nap on frozen lawns.
As Jess flew over the terrace, Mary raced from the barn.
They almost collided over Moose, whose front paws were tied to his back paws. The plastic cord bit into his coat. He whimpered.
‘You’re alive, Moosie, you’re alive.’ Jess didn’t realise she was crying until she tried to speak. She tugged at the ties.
‘Move.’ Mary produced a Swiss Army Knife from her toolbelt and freed Moose with one deft movement.
A Personal Protection Officer in a bulletproof vest joined them. ‘How . . .’ He seemed at a loss.
Which is not how Jess needed him to be; she needed him to be in control, commanding. He was supposed to be protecting them, yet Norris came and went at will.
‘Up, boy, up.’ Mary coaxed Moose to his feet.
The dog retched, his body convulsing.
‘Oh God, has he been poisoned?’ Jess remembered the shiny seeds in Abonda’s kitchen.
‘He’s – yuk – he’s throwing something up.’ Between thumb and forefinger, Mary rescued a crumpled piece of paper from the puddle of slime. ‘It’s a note. Signed by our Viking friend.’
In perfect capitals, Norris had written, ‘Soooooo lovely to see you! I do love our chats. Tell your dad I was sorry to miss him, but I’ll be sure to catch hi
m tonight.’
He’d added a row of kisses. The long curve of Kidbury Road.
Over the bridge.
Past the medical centre.
Past the vet’s.
Rupert’s car sat alongside the liveried cop cars on Margaret Thatcher Way. When Jess got to reception and unmummified herself from scarf and jacket and hat and gloves, she asked Knott what he was doing at the station.
‘That’s for you to know,’ said Knott, ‘and me to find out.’
‘Other way round,’ said Jess. ‘Could you buzz me through? I’m here to see Eden.’
‘What about?’ Knott folded her arms.
‘About the very real death threat hanging over my father.’ Jess put her head back and made a toddler noise. ‘Come on, Karen, just let me in.’
‘Let her in,’ said Eden, his face at the porthole in the door behind the desk.
As Jess followed Eden to his office, he burped.
‘Oops, pardon you,’ smiled Jess.
‘Sorry.’ Eden put a hand to his gut. ‘My stomach’s playing up.’
Should I tell him? Jess couldn’t bear to ‘out’ the lovelorn Knott. But neither could she stand by and watch the poor man dose himself with offal tea. ‘I always cut out hot drinks when I’m feeling poorly.’
‘Really? Anyway, I’m sure you’re not here to discuss my indigestion, Jess. What’s happened?’
She told him. They discussed it. They spoke of motives and Thor and dates and psychology and good old-fashioned badness and they got nowhere.
***
Down the corridor, in Interview Room Two, Pete Moretti tapped his watchface. ‘Give me a break, Abonda. It’s been a whole hour. You can’t sit in silence indefinitely.’
The woman was resolute. ‘If Abonda don’t have a lawyer, she don’t have to speak.’
‘But you refused the duty solicitor.’ Moretti threw up his hands. ‘You’ll talk eventually,’ he said. ‘Everyone does.’
The door opened. Rupert walked in and slapped his briefcase on the table. ‘Everyone does what, DC Moretti?’ He took a seat next to Abonda.
Moretti’s poise wavered. ‘You’re Abonda’s counsel?’
‘Correct.’
Abonda’s bewilderment was fleeting. She recovered and said, ‘Only the best for Abonda.’
Rupert was brisk. ‘Would you mind telling me just what my client’s doing here?’
‘Your client,’ began Moretti, ‘faces charges of a public disorder offence and the assault of a police officer.’
‘That’s pretty serious.’ Rupert put his hand to his chin, hammily dour. ‘What are we talking? Assault and battery? ABH? Don’t tell me she pulled an automatic weapon on him!’
Moretti had rediscovered his poise. ‘DC McBride was attempting to conduct a search for Steven Norris at the Bamview Estate, when Mrs Norris aggressively referred to him as a “ginger pillock”.’
Rupert turned to Abonda. ‘Good God, woman!’ He appealed to Moretti. ‘Considering the gravity of this, I’d like time to confer.’
‘This is no time for sarcasm, Mr Lawson. I should point out that at the time of the assault, Abonda had been foraging for herbs, which we suspect were for the purposes of witchcraft.’
‘I take it you’ve tried dunking her in the village pond?’
Moretti had had enough. ‘Mr Lawson, I suggest you quit with the wisecracks and—’
‘I suggest,’ interjected Rupert, ‘that you let my client go home without wasting any more of her time. She’s experiencing a great deal of stress as the mother of your prime suspect, and McBride will survive being called a pillock.’
Moretti’s lips thinned.
‘Or we could just feed the facts of this case to the press. A serial killer prances about under your noses, so you arrest his sixty-four-year-old mother to save face.’ Rupert snatched up his briefcase. ‘I take it Mrs Norris hasn’t been charged? Excellent. Then if you’d kindly give her a ride, she’ll be home in time for lunch.’
***
Rupert escorted Abonda to the waiting car.
‘Mrs Norris,’ he said. He was gentle. Firm. ‘A mother believes the best of her son, but I recommend you leave Steven to fight his own battles. The law will crush you if you don’t take care.’
Abonda fixed Rupert with dead eyes as he held the car door open. ‘Abonda’s not interested in your law, Mr Lawson. Roma ways is what matters to me. We always know when there’s been wrongdoing. Truth is truth. The guilty are punished.’
‘This won’t end well for Stephen.’ He gave her his card. ‘In case you need me.’
As the police car pulled away, Rupert felt a tug at his sleeve.
‘Excuse me, aren’t you the famous Rupert Lawson?’ asked Jess.
‘And you’re the infamous Jessica Castle, I believe?’
‘Somebody must have crossed Abonda’s palm with a lot of silver if she can afford you.’ Jess enjoyed his tired smile. ‘Seriously, how come you’re Abonda’s lawyer?’
‘I’m not,’ said Rupert. ‘I’d been stood up by one of my shiftiest clients when I heard that Abonda was in. I assumed, rightly, that the police were picking on her because of Norris. I know you like her. So, I stepped in, got her out of trouble. For the time being.’
‘Quite the hero. You did that for me?’
Rupert seemed unwilling to admit that. ‘I hate bullying. Saw enough of it at boarding school. I was going to call. Make sure you were in one piece after the whole Norris thing.’
But you didn’t. ‘I’m fine.’ That word again. That meaningless word Jess felt duty-bound to use about her feelings. ‘I just wish they’d catch him. The incident room takes a call every five minutes from someone claiming to have spotted him, but . . . nothing.’ Jess decided to bring Rupert up to date with her doings, even though he hadn’t asked. ‘Apart from that, I’ve been hypnotised by Abonda, had a late-night confession from my dad, and I’m getting the usual snide treatment from Karen Knott.’ She left out the whole kissing Mitch strand. She left out the map in Mitch’s kitchen and all the other circumstantial stuff that had propelled her out of his front door.
‘Never a dull moment,’ said Rupert. ‘Is the Judge giving in and letting himself be protected?’
‘It took a knife at my throat to bring him to heel, but yeah, Dad’s on board.’
‘Seriously, are you all right? Or are you doing your usual I don’t need nobody schtick?’
‘Is that my schtick?’
‘You know it is.’
Jess didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
So Rupert said, ‘Hope there won’t be a corpse at our Jolly Cook. That’s the only one left now, the one where you managed to fall off the roof.’
‘If there is a corpse, it’ll be my dad.’
Rupert didn’t make placating noises or tell her not to worry. He just held her gaze.
Will Dad make it to his birthday? The nineteenth of December was only a month away. The Castles never celebrated it; the Judge was party-phobic. That seemed a shame now – why don’t we celebrate more? ‘I should get back inside,’ she said. ‘I have some intel for Eden.’ It was time to tell him about the kinks in Mitch’s behaviour. She stood back as Rupert got into his car and laughed when he swore softly because it wouldn’t start.
‘Thank you,’ said Rupert to the steering wheel, when the car finally decided to play ball. He went to pull the door shut, but Jess was in the way.
‘Jess . . . could you . . .?’ Rupert nodded down at the door. Asking her to step away.
‘Hang on!’ Jess’s outrage was only part faux. ‘Where’s my speech? The warning not to get too involved with the police?’
Rupert laughed. ‘You’re your own boss, Jess Castle. It’s none of my business.’
‘What if I like being your business?’
‘It wouldn’t last. Tomorrow you wouldn’t like it. Maybe it’d only take ten minutes for you to go off the idea. Anyway, I have to, you know, get on.’ He pulled the door shut.
‘Bye,’ said Jess.
***
For many, nine o’clock at night is too late to visit.
Not for Iris. She opened the door at any hour if she liked the look of who was on the other side. As it was Jess knocking, she had flung it open.
‘Come in, you reprobate,’ she’d said. Then, taking in Jess’s face, ‘What’s happened?’
Now, with hot sweet tea inside her and a cushion at her back, Jess said, ‘I’ve upset you. I shouldn’t have come.’
Iris stoked the log she’d just cajoled into the fireplace. The room was lit only by new golden flames. ‘If I’m upset it’s not your fault, darling. This day was always going to arrive. You need to know why I’ve lied to you.’ She straightened her back. Straightened the cardigan she’d flung on, as if Jess’s story had chilled her bones. ‘It’s you who should be angry, child.’
‘With you? Never.’
‘The truth is held up as the only thing that matters,’ said Iris. She took a seat. Not a comfortable one, but a high-backed carved piece from Africa. ‘It’s not always so. Sometimes the truth is a slow poison we can’t bear to hand on to those we love. We were all in shock when David killed himself.’
When Iris looked into the fire instead of carrying on, Jess didn’t break the silence.
‘Suicide,’ said Iris, collecting herself. ‘Such a terrible word. The ripples. They never >end.’
‘Dad blames himself.’
‘That’s one of the ripples. We all blamed ourselves to some degree. But your father . . . . they were close. James tried to bring David out of himself. All that outdoorsy Boy’s Own stuff. Hard to believe now that we put a gun in David’s hands.’
The room reeked of grief. Iris had lost a son. Jess had lost the opportunity to love somebody.
As for David, he was doomed to wander in the woods of their minds. The trees closing overhead. Leaves suffocating him.
Bloody November, thought Jess. Samhain. Blotmonap. They had death in common. The crack of gunshot. A fading of the spirit. A falling away.
The year always died. As did relationships. A prosaic thought landed on flat feet.
Rupert’s gone off me.
‘Idyllic is a word one hesitates to use.’ Iris crossed her legs and was herself again. ‘But David’s babyhood was idyllic.’