Cath Staincliffe - Stone Cold Red Hot

Her head jerked back at this but still she kept her counsel. I kept right on. “He was shouting, her lack of decency, her shameless behaviour. Probably used a few choice words from the scriptures. There’s plenty in there isn’t there? Whores of Babylon and the like. But Jennifer had discovered something about Frank, a secret of her own. Maybe she flung that back at him. Knocked him off the moral high ground. Or was that what started the row? Did she tell you about his sins before she got onto hers? You know what I’m talking about?”

Mrs Pickering was completely still, her hands gripping each other, here mouth pressed into a line.

“He’d been having an affair with Marjorie Shuttle.”

“No. No.” Her hoarse denial rang out.

“I’ve been to see Mrs Shuttle, she told me all about it. So, he tried to silence Jennifer, to stop her saying all those vile things. Perhaps he pushed her, punched her. He was a big man.”

“No,” she began to moan, a guttural sound from deep inside.

I thought uneasily of her frail health. Was I hounding her to total collapse? But I was so near; her silence and her reactions told me that my story was close enough to the events of that fateful summer. I wanted her to own the truth.

“He killed her,” I said baldly, “and then he buried her in the garden. He put a new shed over the grave.”

“No, no,” she kept repeating, rocking forward slightly in her chair.

“The ground was hard as iron, it’d been baking for months. All that effort; the digging, building, it made him ill. That and the guilt. It broke his heart, shredded his nerves. I’m right.”

“No,” she said violently, twisting my way but avoiding my eyes.

“Why are you protecting him?” I leant forward. “He’s dead too. Nothing can hurt him now. He’s dead. Jennifer is dead and he is dead and he killed her.”

She looked then. Her face naked with emotion, her eyes wounded and the scales fell from my own. I was astonished. A shudder of realisation ran up my spine.

“You did it.”

There was no denial.

“He was protecting you, not the other way round.”

She turned to the window. “It…” she faltered.

I stayed completely still. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck prickled. I waited. It was quieter outside, playtime over. Just the to and fro of traffic and a dog barking in the distance.

“Accident,” she whispered.

Another silence. I didn’t speak, didn’t break the spell. She might clam up. I was so close. But if the silence stretched too far the moment may be lost. I counted to five.

“An accident,” I prompted.

“The things she said. Hurtful, sinful lies. He was a good man. The filth…I was ironing. I didn’t mean to…it was in my hand. I told her to stop it. Stop it. Stop it. She wouldn’t. I hit her with it. On the head, in the face. I only meant her to be quiet.” She raised her palms and pressed her fingertips to her mouth, closed her eyes. I felt some compassion for her then. The burden of her secret held for years, the loss of her daughter and then her husband. How strong she must have been to carry on, to never weaken. Never allowing herself to grieve for Jennifer, twisting her memory into that of a feckless girl who had jettisoned her family. Had she loved her? Had she ever defended her bright, young daughter to her husband? Or had Jennifer always been the cuckoo child, a reminder of hidden sin, of bad blood? Her independent spirit seen as waywardness, her presence a cross to bear not a precious gift? Had either of them ever given her a hug in those awkward teenage years, ever pulled her close with affection? Oh, Jennifer.

She straightened up, returned her hands to her lap. her eyes were dry. “She did it to spite us, you know. Going with a coloured boy. It made me feel sick.”

She pursed her lips and I was reminded of the look on Caroline Cunningham’s face when she discussed Lisa MacNeice’s lesbianism.

“My daughter in bed with a nigger, carrying his child. Dirty. Loathsome. She had to spoil everything. After all Frank had done, taking us in, giving her his name. We moved here so people wouldn’t talk. She grew up and she was a snake in the grass. He had to put up with her bad manners and her cheap ideas. She had no respect. She was a slut. And then to tell such terrible lies about him, foul-mouthed lies.”

“It was an accident,” I said. “Why didn’t you get an ambulance?”

“We couldn’t tell anyone,” she shook her head. “All the fuss. With Frank at the Church and his firm. It would have ruined him.”

It did anyway.

“And there was Roger. He doesn’t have to know?” She pleaded.

What was she asking me to do? Keep her secret? Say nothing?

“He wanted to find his sister.”

“But not this.”

“No, not this.”

“You won’t tell him?” Her voice was soft.

I couldn’t speak.

“And the police?”

She wouldn’t stand trial. She’d be dead before any case could be heard. She was no danger to anyone now. But I’d come for the truth and I couldn’t give her the assurances she demanded.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

Her face fell, fatigue pinching at it. “Please, could you get me a glass of water?” She cleared her throat.

I went along to the kitchen, fished in the cupboards for a glass and ran the water. Outside I could see the shed, Jennifer’s tomb. How could her mother have borne the memories of her death and what followed? Keeping the body hidden from Roger while they sorted out buying the shed, digging the pit, bringing her from the house, wrapped in a sheet or a rug. Burying her. Laying the floor of the shed on top. Did they pray for her? Or was she beyond redemption? Did the sin of murder mean they could no longer offer prayers? Would their God forgive or punish? How long before they’d cleared her room? Removing her posters, the troll in the window, her make-up, her diaries, her precious mementos.

Then each time a friend rang up or a neighbour inquired the gorge of fear that must have reared up. Lisa MacNeice trying to report her missing, Mrs Clerkenwell asking about her, Roger wanting to find her. Roger who was so disappointed that he never got to wave his big sister off at the train station. No chance to say goodbye. Like the Ibrahims; sudden death, no chance to say goodbye. Tiredness rolled over me, my leg was aching again. I should go. I carried the water into the hall.

Mrs Pickering stood at the end, framed in the light from the glass in the door. She was holding a gun, one with a long barrel. It was pointing straight at me. Her finger was on the trigger…

I had an inappropriate urge to giggle. Fear does that. The glass in my hand was shaking, water spilling over the side. Where the hell had she got a gun from? Did she know how to use it? I knew next to nothing about guns but whatever sort it was, she’d be bound to hit me at this range. She would barely need to aim the thing.

“You won’t tell Roger.”

“What you going to do, kill me too?” I said hoarsely. “If you shoot me it’ll all come out anyway.”

“Why should it?” She was hard now, the shutters clamped down on the memories I’d dug up. “You entered my house under false pretences. When you refused to leave I defended myself. I have a right to defend my property.”

“There are notes,” I said, “in my files. The police would have to investigate.”

“But you thought Frank did it.” She wasn’t stupid.

I reckoned there was about twenty feet between us. The gun was pointing at my middle. My mind was racing round hunting for a way out. The pain in my leg was smouldering again, diminishing my ability to think straight, act clever.

Unexpectedly her face creased, the colour drained swiftly away and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip as the onslaught of pain racked her. It was the first glimpse I had seen of the savagery of her disease. The barrel of the gun wavered and she fought to level it at me again.