Кара Хантер: In the Dark

AF: You couldn’t just get jobs, like everyone else?

VN: I would have, but Tricia said she wasn’t going to waste her time doing a crap job for rubbish pay.

AF: So how did you pick on Dr Harper?

VN: We went up to North Oxford on the bus. Everyone said that was the rich place – that there were a lot of old people living in huge houses up there. The second time we went we saw him. He was in the street on his own. He was in his PJs and he had a can of lager. Tricia said he was perfect so we followed him back to his house. We went back later after it got dark and got in. There was a broken lock round the back. He was in the front room, snoring. He’d been wanking off over this picture of a woman in a red dress. It was really disgusting.

AF: And you realized the rest of the house was empty?

VN: There was stuff in a bedroom on the first floor, but Trish said you could live up on the top floor and no one’d even notice. So we watched the house for a bit and realized the only bloke who came was the social worker and he was out of there in, like, ten minutes. It was after that I moved in.

AF: Just you – not Tricia?

VN: She stayed in the flat. But she’d visit sometimes.

AF: So when did she first see Robert Gardiner?

VN: I think it was a couple of months later. She saw him in the garden with the little boy. She was crazy about him. Rob, I mean.

AF: So she started stalking him. At the Cowley Road carnival, for example.

VN: It wasn’t hard. We knew when they were going out - we could see straight into their flat from the top floor. One day we even saw them having sex. Tricia completely lost it about that. That was when she decided to get a job being their nanny.

AF: How did she go about doing that?

VN: She arranged it so she met the wife at the market, you know ‘by accident’.

[m akes hooking g esture with her fingers]

She wanted to make the wife think the whole thing was her own idea. Tricia is really good at things like that – getting people to do what she wants without them realizing. Like I said, she can really turn it on when she wants to. Especially with blokes.

AF: [ glancing at DS Quinn ]

And was that when she started calling herself Pippa?

VN: She thought Pippa sounded more classy. She said things like that matter to people like the Gardiners. That they only like people who are like them.

AF: Was that the only reason?

VN: [ hesitates ]

No. When we were at school she went for another girl’s face with a fork. It was some stupid argument about her sitting in Tricia’s chair. It was always like that – she’d go completely off on one if anyone tried to tell her what to do. Mum stopped bothering long before. Wasn’t worth the hassle. But the school went ape-shit – she got suspended and sent to one of those counsellor people. She was afraid that if the Gardiners checked up on her and found out about it they wouldn’t have let her look after their kid.

AF: By the time she got that job you were pregnant, weren’t you? That was Tricia’s idea too, I presume?

VN: [ shifts in her chair ]

She said we’d get even more money that way. That the DNA would prove the old man raped me.

GQ: And the journal?

VN: [ pause ]

She said people would believe me more if we did that. That it’d look better in court. She told me what to say.

AF: She dictated the journal to you?

VN: She made it up and I wrote it down. Then she messed some of it up with water so it would look more real.

GQ: And that was all when you were still living on the top floor?

VN: [ nods ]

AF: But if having the baby was Tricia’s idea, why didn’t she do it? That way she’d be the one to get the money.

VN: She said I’d be a better victim.

GQ: She actually said that – that you’d be a ‘ better victim’ ?

VN: She said people were more likely to feel sorry for me than for her. That no one would believe she could have been that stupid.

AF: But they’d believe that about you?

VN: [ bites her lip but says nothing ]

AF: What about the money?

VN: She made me promise to share it with her.

[i n some distress]

She said I owed her, after everything she’d done for me.

***

‘You look fucking amazing. Just like her.’

Tricia stands back and admires her handiwork. The red dress, the lipstick, the hair. All perfect.

‘What d’you think?’

Vicky looks at herself in the mirror. And Tricia’s right. The resemblance is creepy. She shivers. She’s not sure she likes looking like someone dead.

‘Ready then?’ Tricia is by the door, holding it open. ‘Last I looked he was flat on his back. Off his face on that lager. Let’s just hope he can still get it up. Or you can.’

‘I’m not having sex with him, Tricia. Not real sex.’

Tricia makes a face. ‘How many more times – you don’t have to . Just toss him off. We’ll collect the spunk and stick it in you.’

‘And what if he remembers? What if he tells someone?’

Tricia laughs. ‘Yeah, right. He’s a spaz, Vicky. Talks fucking rubbish most of the time. No one’s going to believe him. And anyway, that’s what all this bloody get-up is for. He’ll think you’re his wife. That’s why this is such an ace idea. If he says anything, people’ll just think he’s even more of a nut-job than he already is. The more screwed up they think he is, the better it is for us . Remember?’

Vicky shivers. This bloody house is always cold.

‘Here,’ says Tricia, holding out a bottle of Smirnoff. ‘I got it down the road. Might help.’

The vodka burns down Vicky’s throat.

‘OK,’ she says.

*

Down in the front room, William Harper is on the camp bed, snoring. Vicky hesitates at the door, but Tricia pushes her forward. She stands by the bed for a moment, then pulls back the bedspread. Harper is only wearing a vest. A vest and socks. His shrivelled genitals hang against his thigh.

‘Go on,’ whispers Tricia.

‘It’s disgusting – I’m not touching that.’

‘Just get on with it, will you – he’ll probably come in a nanosecond anyway.’

Vicky reaches out and takes Harper’s cock in her hand. His eyes open at once and for a moment they’re frozen there, staring at each other. His lips move, but no sound comes.

‘For fuck’s sake, Vicky,’ hisses Tricia.

Vicky tightens her grip and Harper’s eyes widen. ‘Priscilla?’ he whispers, cowering back. ‘Don’t hurt me. I didn’t do anything. Please don’t hurt me.’

Vicky drops his cock. ‘I can’t do this.’

Tricia comes forward and pushes her roughly aside. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, do I have to do every sodding thing myself?’

Vicky retreats to the door as Tricia climbs on to the bed, straddling Harper’s knees. She has a plastic bag in one hand.

‘Right,’ she says, ‘you nasty old paedo. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

Vicky turns and goes out into the hall.

She can hear the old man crying out all the way up the stairs.

***

AF: OK, Vicky. Let’s move on to June 2015. You’re living in the house in Frampton Road, you’re pregnant, and Tricia is working as Toby’s childminder. Tell us about Hannah. How Hannah Gardiner ended up dead.

VN: It wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it.

GQ: Don’t try and bullshit us that it was some sort of accident because I’m not buying it – there were still bits of her brain on that sodding car cover –