Kitabı oku: «Someone You Know», sayfa 4
Chapter 10
Edie: September 1993
Caitlin and Deanne kept their distance after the first day. And when the letter was sent, Edie and Tess managed to keep it away from Mum.
‘It wasn’t Tess’s fault,’ Edie told Dad. ‘Caitlin Powell’s a big, fat bully.’
He wasn’t quite the pushover they’d expected.
‘But fighting, it’s not like you, Tess, is it?’
‘I won’t do it again, Dad. Promise. You won’t tell Mum, will you?’
‘I think she needs to know, Tess. Have a chat with you.’
‘Please, Dad.’ Tess’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘She’ll go nuts.’
He sighed.
‘Alright then. But if it happens again …’
Edie wrote out the return letter for Dad to copy.
*
She’d been so anxious about the letter and making sure she and Tess didn’t run into Caitlin and Deanne outside school that she didn’t notice straight away that Valentina was gone. It wasn’t like they went round every day, just most days, and sometimes Valentina would go shopping or visit her sister. But she was always home in time to make Mr Vickers’ dinner. Now, Edie saw him park his car, slam the door with more force than usual and stride up the path. Valentina was nowhere to be seen. After a week, Edie and Tess started to miss her. Without Valentina, the only things to look forward to at home time were a smoke-filled house, Dad’s boring sports and gardening programmes, and nothing but toast to eat until Mum got back. Sometimes Edie would go and listen to her records. ‘The Snake’ was still her favourite. But it was ruined by Tess complaining and wanting to listen to pop music on her CD player. Coming home was rubbish if they didn’t go and see Valentina first. They couldn’t ask Mum where she was. For some reason she didn’t like them spending so much time at the Vickers’.
‘You could ask Mr Vickers,’ Tess said.
‘Why me?’ Edie said. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘You’re much better.’
‘All you have to say is, “Where’s Valentina?” It’s not a big deal, Tess.’
‘You do it then.’
Edie huffed.
‘OK, I will.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Tonight,’ Edie said.
*
A knot formed in her stomach. She had always made fun of Martin Vickers and did impressions of his rants about ‘those bloody kids’, ‘eating me out of house and home’, ‘should be taken into care if their parents can’t look after them’. Tess would laugh then check over her shoulder, as if Mr Vickers were hovering there. Edie would never admit she was actually scared of him. She’d never seen a man so angry. Raquel told them that when her dad lived with them, he sometimes hit her. Edie wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not. Their dad never so much as raised his voice. Even when one of their ball games destroyed his beloved plants, he’d just sigh and say, ‘Please be careful, girls.’ They never were. Uncle Ray laughed all the time and let them have anything they wanted. When Auntie Becca said, ‘You spoil them,’ he’d say, ‘Of course I spoil them, who wouldn’t spoil them. Look at them.’ Mr Vickers was different. He didn’t think she and Tess were ‘just so cute’ and he was angry all the time, even when he had a posh car and beautiful wife who made cakes. She didn’t understand him and that made her scared. What if he was like Raquel’s dad?
Mum came home at half past five. She asked them how their day had been, unpacked some shopping and started to chop vegetables. Just before six, Edie and Tess slipped out of the house. On cue, Mr Vickers’ car drew up. He got out and walked towards them, his face set in a scowl. Edie’s stomach tightened. She opened her mouth as he walked past but no words came out. Tess nudged her. The words still wouldn’t come. As he was about to enter the gate, Mr Vickers spun round. Edie took a step back.
‘What the hell are you two gawping at?’
‘We …’ Edie began.
‘Get lost. There’s nothing for you to scrounge today.’
He marched up the path and entered the house, slamming the door behind him.
Edie and Tess looked at each other and went back inside without speaking. Dad didn’t look up from the TV.
‘In here, you two,’ Mum called from the kitchen.
She was standing by the sink, her arms crossed.
‘Sit down.’
Edie and Tess shuffled onto the chairs under the kitchen table.
‘Was that Mr Vickers you were speaking to?’
‘No,’ Edie said. ‘Well, sort of.’
‘I’ve something to tell you,’ Mum said. ‘This is going to be difficult for you to understand, but Valentina’s gone away.’
‘We know,’ Tess said.
‘Is she at her sister’s?’ Edie asked.
‘I don’t know. The thing is, she’s not coming back.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s hard to explain.’ Mum looked down at the table. ‘Sometimes couples stop being friends.’
‘Like Raquel’s dad running off with that slag from the travel agent’s?’
‘Don’t use words like that, Edie.’
‘It’s what Raquel calls her.’
‘And Mrs McCann,’ Tess added.
‘Raquel and her mum can say what they like. I don’t want you two speaking like that and using words when you don’t understand the meaning.’
‘I do know what it means, Raquel told me.’
‘That’s enough, Edie. Don’t use those words and don’t go bothering Mr Vickers. He’s got enough to worry about without being pestered by a couple of silly ten-year-old girls, poor man.’
‘Poor, he’s not … he’s … he’s …’ Tess spread her arms.
Edie took up the sentence. ‘He’s a horrible, cross, mean and bad-tempered—’
‘I said enough.’
‘No wonder she ran away.’
‘Edie, I’m telling you once and for all to leave that man alone. You don’t understand. You’re just a little girl. One day you’ll realise …’
But Mum never told her what she’d realise. She’d turned away. When she turned back her eyes were wet. Edie hadn’t seen her mum cry since Grandpa Len died. She didn’t know what to do. Tess ran over and wrapped her arms round Mum’s waist.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tess said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Mum buried her face in Tess’s hair. She remained there a moment stroking it before standing straight again. ‘Now, go and sit down with your dad. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.’
Dad’s eyes pointed unfocused towards the TV screen as he drew on his cigarette. He didn’t notice when they slumped on the sofa, nor when Tess nudged Edie, pointed to the ceiling and they sneaked upstairs.
‘Why’s Mum so upset?’ Tess said when they reached their bedroom.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Valentina’s not come to see her. What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Edie said.
‘I think Valentina’s dead.’
Edie considered this.
‘They’d tell us and if they didn’t, Mrs McCann would.’
‘What if they don’t know for sure?’
‘How could they not know?’
‘I think…’ Tess lowered her voice to barely a whisper. ‘I think he killed her. Mr Vickers murdered Valentina and said she’s gone to her sister’s.’
Edie pulled a face.
‘I don’t think …’
‘He’s always shouting at her.’
It was a big step from shouting at someone to killing them. But maybe Tess knew more than she did. Edie remembered her attack on Caitlin. If Tess had been bigger, if Mr Everett hadn’t stopped her … On the other hand, Tess obsessively watched detective shows on TV. Miss Marple, Inspector Morse, Sherlock Holmes. Not to mention all the true crime programmes. Her imagination was running away with her.
‘I’m not sure,’ Edie said.
‘If everyone thinks she’s at her sister’s and no one’s looking for her she could be dead. On the news I saw about a man who said his wife had run off with another man and twenty years later they found her body in a lake.’
‘But what if Valentina is at her sister’s?’
‘Then why hasn’t she come back to see us?’
‘She doesn’t want to bump into him.’
‘He’s not back until six. She could come every day.’
It was true, Valentina was supposed to be fond of them and when Edie thought about it, she was a little hurt that Valentina had not come back. She still couldn’t see Mr Vickers as a murderer. Not that she was entirely sure what one looked like. On the news they had cold, hollow-eyed expressions and didn’t smile. A bit like a passport photo. If you don’t smile, if you just stare, you look like a murderer. It was true Mr Vickers never smiled.
‘That’s why Mum’s so upset. Valentina hasn’t come to see her. I don’t think she’s even rung her,’ Tess said.
‘Even if he has killed her, how could we do anything?’
‘Follow him.’
‘If he’s thrown her in a lake he won’t be going back and anyway, there aren’t any lakes round here.’
‘There’s the reservoir at Lickey and it might not be a lake, it might be a canal or something,’ Tess said.
‘The canal’s too full of shopping trolleys.’
‘Or she could be in the freezer. I saw another programme where—’
‘Tess, she’s just gone away. You watch too much TV.’
Tess looked hurt.
Edie dismissed Tess’s ramblings. She loved her TV shows too much and was so desperate for a mystery in real life she invented strange motives and secrets to the most ordinary people. When their former teacher, Mrs Edge, had left midterm, Tess linked it to a large jewellery theft she’d seen on the news. Raquel’s dad’s infrequent visits were due to his work in espionage, despite Raquel telling them he was a boiler engineer at British Gas. But unease trickled into Edie’s mind when she thought about Mum’s reaction to Valentina leaving. Something was wrong, still, she dismissed what Tess had said until the following evening. Mum was out and Dad was in the garden when Tess ran up to Edie.
‘Quick or you’ll miss them,’ she said.
‘Miss who?’ Edie said as Tess dragged her to the front window.
Tess pressed her face to the pane so that her breath left a mark on the glass.
‘I told you,’ she said.
A police car was outside, double-parked next to Mr Vickers’ Rover. Edie was just in time to see two uniformed police officers go into next door. She caught the words ‘Mrs Vickers’.
‘See,’ Tess said.
She ran to the wall and put her ear against it.
‘I can’t hear what they’re saying,’ she said.
There was no need to have her ear to the wall for what happened next.
‘I bloody will not,’ Mr Vickers shouted.
Tess jumped back.
The crash from next door was so loud it made the room shake.
Another voice.
‘You need to calm down right now, mate.’
Some more scraping, another crash. Then the front door was open.
‘They’re coming back out,’ Edie said and Tess was back at the window.
They weren’t the only ones, the two houses opposite had the whole family gaping from indoors and Mrs McCann had come outside to watch. Raquel must have gone to Roswell Park, because there was no way she’d miss out on this.
A policeman led a handcuffed Mr Vickers from the door, his eyes fixed to the ground. The second policeman came out rubbing his jaw.
‘He must have hit him,’ Tess said.
Edie hadn’t seen Tess so excited since their school trip to Tutbury Castle, the most haunted castle in England. Ghosts were a close second to criminals in Tess’s list of interests.
‘He must be scared to hit a policeman, knows they’re on to him. Why do you think he didn’t run away before now? He must have known they’d come.’
The second policeman opened the car whilst the first shoved Mr Vickers into the back.
‘Do you think they’ve found the body?’
More neighbours were spilling into the street, unashamed of their gawping. The police car drove off.
‘You didn’t believe me, Edie, but this proves it. He’s a murderer. He killed Valentina.’
*
When Mum came home, Mrs McCann rushed out of her house and accosted her before she could even get to the door, no doubt filling her in on what happened at the Vickers’.
‘Did you hear what happened?’ Tess asked as Mum came into the lounge.
‘It would be difficult not to. Eileen’s a lovely woman but …’
‘But what?’ Tess asked.
‘Never mind. Just make sure you two don’t go around constantly gossiping and making up any bits you don’t know.’
Tess pulled an innocent face as if such things had never occurred to her. Mum walked through to the kitchen and left the door open. Tess wriggled on the sofa, desperate to talk to Edie about Mr Vickers. She pointed to the ceiling and Edie followed her upstairs.
‘What do you think happened?’ Tess asked.
Tess seemed more elated than horrified at the thought of Valentina’s death and Edie wondered how much she really believed it; though Mr Vickers’ arrest did support Tess’s theory.
‘Let’s watch the news,’ Edie said.
‘Yes, he’s bound to be on it,’ Tess said.
They watched the early evening and late news, national and local, without any mention of Mr Vickers and were sent to bed, disappointed. And they were further disappointed when a car pulled up outside and Mr Vickers arrived home.
‘How could they let him go?’ Tess asked, her face pressed to the window. ‘Do you think they can’t find the body?’
‘Maybe it’s nothing to do with Valentina.’
‘What else could it be? If we could find the body we’d help the police solve it.’
‘You’ve never solved a crime, Tess. Guessing the end of Poirot doesn’t count.’
Tess scowled.
‘You can stay here listening to your records if you like. I’ll solve it on my own.’
Despite Edie’s sneer about Poirot, she’d always wanted to be a detective, though she fancied herself more like an American private investigator with a gun and a fast car. She knew it was silly and childish, but they had little else to do. Since turning eleven, Raquel considered herself a grown up and was spending most of her time at Roswell Park, hanging out with older kids. She even had a boyfriend, who was thirteen. ‘I know what he wants but he’s not getting it.’ Mum was working the whole time. Uncle Ray was ‘snowed under’ with the business and hadn’t been to see them for ages. And Dad was just Dad, as likely to leave the sofa as he was to fly. Being an investigator might be fun.
‘OK, but we’ll have to keep it from Mum,’ Edie said.
‘We’ll go undercover,’ Tess said. ‘Starting tomorrow.’
Chapter 11
Tess: June 2018
Phone calls, knocks at the door and calls through the letterbox. Flash bulbs firing, a TV camera crew outside. The day’s grace we’ve been granted by the press is up. Now, we’re under siege. Would we like to get our story out there, let the public know the real Edie, quash rumours that the family were involved, she ran off with an older man, was mixed up in drugs. The first time round I was spared this by being packed off to stay with Aunt Lola in London, while Dad had to cope with the intrusions and insinuations.
DS Craven, I can’t think of him as Tony, tries to deal with them. Dad looks grey, ill and so thin he could disappear into his armchair, where he sits smoking, tapping, missing the ashtray and finally crushing the butt before reaching for another cigarette. We can’t open the windows to lift the fug for fear of being filmed. Not by the journalists but the thrill seekers, real crime enthusiasts, men obsessed with teenage girls and their deaths. Craven says it’s normal.
‘How the hell is that normal?’ Dad says.
The whisky’s finished and I’ve started on the cooking sherry. I don’t know what normal is any more, either. It’s still light but I’ve no idea what time it is. Edie’s scrawled note on the newspaper clipping, ‘suicide’, plays on my mind. I can’t see how it’s linked to her murder and yet I can’t shake the feeling that it is. I don’t want to cause Dad any more pain right now by asking him. If Edie didn’t speak to me about it, did she tell her friends, did she tell Michaela? Would she really speak to them before me?
I must have fallen asleep, because I wake up with the sherry still in my hand, calling for Edie.
Voices are coming from the kitchen. I go in to find Max standing next to Dad, who looks apologetic, a cigarette smouldering in his hand. Max is blinking rapidly. He hates smoke.
‘You wouldn’t answer your phone,’ Max says before I can speak.
Dad looks at us.
‘I’ll go to the lounge,’ he says.
‘No need, Vince,’ Max says. ‘We can go into the garden.’
He leaves by the side door. I turn to Dad.
‘You shouldn’t have let him in. You know he finished with me.’
‘I couldn’t just leave him sitting on the step, could I?’ Dad says.
‘Why not?’ I say.
‘There’s a photographer still out there.’
I sigh, take a cigarette and follow Max. When I reach him, he stares at the cigarette and looks as if he’s going to object, then decides against it.
‘Why haven’t you been answering my calls? I had to find out from Vince that it was Edie, that’s she’s dead.’ He stops. Pain flashes across his face. ‘That she was murdered. One phone call, one, that’s all it would have taken.’
‘Do you know what it’s been like here? Police, press, I don’t even know what day of the week it is. You’ve absolutely no idea.’
‘Because you’ve not been speaking to me,’ he yells. ‘I’ve had to keep ringing Cassie.’
I check the kitchen door and hope Dad can’t hear.
‘I can’t deal with this right now, Max.’
He takes a deep breath.
‘Look, I didn’t come to argue,’ he says. ‘I came here because I’m worried about you. You shouldn’t go through this on your own.’
‘I’ve got Dad.’
‘How is he?’
I shrug. In truth, I am on my own.
‘He looks ill. Have the police interviewed him again?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What about you?’ Max asks.
‘Not properly. I have to go in sometime, go over my original statement.’
Max shifts his weight to his other foot.
‘I’ve got to speak to them tomorrow.’
‘You?’
‘They’re talking to everyone from Joseph Amberley who knew Edie, the boys’ and the girls’ schools. I’m only going to tell them what I told them before, that I knew her from the odd party. It’s just, you know…’ He shifts his weight again. ‘Going out with you, they might make a big deal about it.’
‘Why would they?’
‘I don’t know. But make sure they don’t twist it, to make our relationship seem odd. And tell them I had no reason to harm Edie. And me seeing you, it was just a chance meeting. I mean, it’s the truth.’
It’s the truth, the sort of expression people use when they’re lying, along with honestly and swear on my mother’s life, which wouldn’t count for much with Max, given that he hates his mother. I’ve never thought of our relationship as odd, imbalanced and dysfunctional, but not odd. I like that Max remembers Edie and understands when I say, ‘Edie would like this’, ‘Edie would hate that’. It’s always been something positive and held us together. Why would it be odd and why did Max just tell a lie, which I’m sure he did?
I think of another woman’s scent, lingering in his hair the night before I left.
‘Who’s the girl you’re seeing?’ I ask.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I smelt her on you, that last night I spent in London.’
‘She’s no one. And you’d just dumped me…’
‘You dumped me,’ I say. ‘You told me it was over.’
‘That’s not true. I still want to be with you.’
‘If I move back here and have seventeen babies.’
‘Two would be fine.’
His face sets into its habitual sulk.
‘Now isn’t the time, Max,’ I say.
‘It’s never the time with you, is it, Tess?’
‘Not when I’ve just found out my sister’s been murdered, no.’
‘Why do you push everyone away? I came here to be with you. I’m upset about Edie because of the pain it’s causing you and you turn it into something else. I don’t know what I can do right for you, Tess, I never have. You think you don’t need anyone, then you end up in a mess and expect me or your dad to sort you out. Well, neither of us are going to be here forever,’ he says and stamps back into the house.
*
‘Do you mind me asking who that was?’ Craven asks when I come back inside. Max has disappeared and Dad must have gone upstairs. ‘We’re supposed to keep tabs on who comes to the house. Just procedure, you understand.’
‘That was Max,’ I say.
‘Max Arnold?’ Craven looks confused. ‘Do you mind me asking what he was doing here?’
‘He came to see me.’
‘Any particular reason?’
The police contacted me through Dad and can’t have noticed that I have the same London address as Max. I think about explaining that we’re not in a relationship, only we sort of are but we’re not together, even though we still live in the same flat, then decide that’s all too complicated. And I’m saved from answering by Dad crashing back into the room, waving a notebook in front of him. Craven takes a moment to recognise it as his.
‘I have to ask for that back,’ he says sternly.
‘Are you interrogating Tess now?’
‘Just asking a few questions. And I do have to insist you hand over my notebook. That’s part of an ongoing investigation.’
‘I’ve told you to leave her alone.’
‘I’m not a child, Dad.’
‘Don’t say anything to him, Tess,’ Dad says.
Craven looks bemused.
‘Don’t you want to know, Mr Piper? If it were one of my daughters who had been murdered—’
‘It’s not one of your daughters though, is it? Tess is my daughter too and I’m not having you lot harassing her. We’ve already had journalists poking around. Don’t you think we’ve been through enough? You say you’re here to help but look what I found …’ Dad holds the notebook at arm’s length and starts to read. ‘V. Piper – detached – two question marks. T. Piper reliable witness – three question marks. Aunt and uncle hostile – exclamation mark.’ He glares at Craven as he throws the book to the floor. ‘Here to help? You’re here to set us up.’
‘I can assure you that’s not the case, Mr Piper. However painful, there has to be an investigation,’ Craven says. ‘And we need to ask questions of everyone involved from that time, including the family, if we’re to get to the truth.’
‘You lot aren’t interested in the truth. I remember from before. How had I coped since my wife died? Wasn’t it awful to be a man on my own? Didn’t I miss having a woman around the place? Did I love my daughter? Did it make me jealous, knowing she’d started getting interested in boys? I knew what they were asking. Making me ashamed to admit I loved my own daughter, twisting it into something dirty and disgusting.’
I had no idea what Dad went through back then. I was shielded and kept safe. I had been a victim, but Dad had been a suspect.
Craven picks the notebook up and starts to speak in a slow, even-toned voice, no doubt some training manual calming technique.
‘As a father myself, I can’t imagine how awful it must have been for you,’ he says.
‘No, you can’t,’ Dad says. ‘No one can ever know.’
‘And we won’t be repeating those mistakes, Mr Piper.’
Dad steps towards Craven.
‘Get out,’ he says. ‘I’ve had enough.’
‘Mr Piper, please.’
‘Out.’
Craven looks to me.
‘Perhaps you could come back another time,’ I whisper.
Dad hears.
‘No, you can’t come another time. You’re just a snoop.’
Craven has already moved to the hall. I follow him and shut the lounge door.
‘I can see your father’s upset, it’s understandable. But we’re not looking to implicate the family. DI Vilas hasn’t ruled out a stranger killing. I think the support we can provide…’
There’s a roar and a crash from the lounge.
‘Yes, but not right now.’
I virtually push Craven through the door and slam it shut, thankful the press have left for the night.
I run through the hall and back to the lounge. The coffee table lies four feet from Dad, the remains of my sherry dripping down the wall opposite, the glass smashed to pieces on the floor.
‘I can’t do this again, Tess. I can’t.’
Dad falls back onto the sofa and puts his head in his hands. I kneel down beside him.
‘We’ll get through this, Dad,’ I say.
‘No Tess, you don’t understand,’ he says. ‘This is never going to end. It’ll never be over.’
