A Nice Place to Die (20 page)

She was about to leave the house when she heard the front door open.

‘It's me, Boss,' Sergeant Reid shouted.

‘Anything to report?' she said, going out into the hall to meet him.

He shook his head. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?' he said. ‘I need cheering up.'

They went into Alice's kitchen and Jack filled the kettle while Rachel found teabags in the cupboard and milk in the fridge. She sniffed the bottle.

‘It's off,' she said. ‘It must've been sitting there since the day she died.'

‘Black tea, then.' He grimaced. ‘I've tried all the neighbours,' he said, ‘but not one can remember when they last saw her alive. They're not trying to be awkward; at least I don't think they are. She seems to have been someone people didn't register.'

‘I know,' Rachel Moody said. ‘I've found the same thing.'

‘Surely you don't still think it wasn't an accident?'

She frowned, biting her lip. ‘I wouldn't put money on it,' she said, teasing him. ‘But don't ask me why I'm so sure, Jack. I mean, who'd want to murder someone like that. What the hell was the point?'

TWENTY-FIVE

M
ark Pearson, on his way late in the afternoon to meet Jess on the road outside the supermarket in Catcombe Mead, called in at the Co-op in the village to buy cigarettes. Not for himself, but for Jess. She was always out of them because, she said, Kevin and Nate stole them if she bought them for herself.

Mark hadn't seen Jess since the night before Christmas when she'd put the phone down on him. He had tried to ring her over the holiday, and left messages, but she hadn't returned any of his calls.

Then this morning he'd sent her a text asking her to meet him that evening. He'd told her when and where he'd pick her up. He'd ended the message ‘I miss you'. Then he turned his mobile phone off. No point in giving her the chance to refuse.

He didn't know what he was going to say to her, but it would help to put her in a good mood if he bought her cigarettes and maybe chocolates as a peace offering. It crossed his mind that he should not give her chocolates, she should lose weight. She'd never speak to me again if she knew I thought that, Mark told himself.

The Co-op was unusually crowded. Mark joined the queue for the checkout. He was used to the leisurely pace of the service, but today was different. Nobody seemed to want to move forward. They were all involved in what seemed to be a single whispered conversation, all part of a sort of suppressed glee as though they were licking their lips after eating forbidden chocolates.

‘What is it?' Mark asked a young woman holding a child's hand in front of him in the queue. ‘What's happened?'

‘Another death on the new housing estate,' the woman said. ‘A poor old woman battered to death in her own home. On Christmas Day, too.'

‘He must be some sort of Satanist fiend,' said another woman with her.

An old lady looked puzzled. ‘Who, dear?'

‘The murderer of course,' said the mother's friend. ‘Wasn't his previous victim the vicar? And now this one at Christmas. Was this new poor victim a churchgoer?'

The old lady ignored this. ‘Homicide Close, my Herbie calls it,' she said. ‘Can you believe it, all that death in one place?'

A middle-aged man in front of them in the queue picked up his shopping and turned away from the counter. He tipped his tweed cap to the women. ‘They should declare that Forester Close an open prison and have done with it,' he said. ‘There's nothing but criminals and perverts living there.'

‘The poor woman who was murdered wasn't a criminal,' the old lady said.

‘That's why they killed her then,' the man said, pleased that he had proved his point. ‘You mark my words.'

‘Bullies and criminals and perverts every one of them,' the old lady said. She hesitated and then lowered her voice as though she had a secret to tell. ‘They'll all be up in arms because of the effect on the value of their houses, won't they? That's all they really care about, you know.'

‘I wouldn't live in a place like that if you paid me,' the young mother said.

‘Didn't we always say that no good would come of building those houses and bringing all those townies here?' said the man in the cap.

It's not fair, Mark thought, not everyone on the estate is like that; Jess isn't. Should I say something, he asked himself, should I stick up for her?

He knew there was no point. He didn't really believe his own argument. Jess
was
like that, he couldn't deny it; she'd never pretended she wasn't, hadn't she defended Kevin against him.

‘I've got to go,' Mark said.

He pushed his way past the people crowded round the checkout and out of the shop. Jess would have to go without cigarettes for once, he had to get away from those people and what struck him as their vicarious enjoyment of a local murder. He couldn't bear their air of expectation of disaster vindicated.

As he walked towards the pickup he thought, that's because I feel the same way, I'm like those gossips; I can't defend Jess against them.

He wondered, as he drove off towards Catcombe Mead, who had been murdered this time.

He thought, it has made a difference to me and Jess, the things that have happened. I know she didn't have anything to do with it. But then he told himself, I don't know that. I'm not sure. I don't know which side she's on. If it's that brother of hers who's killed the old woman, she'd cover up for him, I know she would.

I don't trust her, he thought, that's the trouble. I can't trust her now. But I can't tell her that, can I?

He tried to think of how it was with him and Jess when they were together. When he was with her everything else in the world was suspended and all that mattered was to make her his own.

But when he wasn't with her, it was different. We don't have anything to say to each other, he thought. I don't want to talk to her, I don't want to listen to her, there's only one thing I want and that's to fuck her.

He felt lust stirring as he thought of Jess and how hot her mouth was as she kissed him, and the damp feel of her skin and the thrust of her . . . well, he mustn't think of that, although he knew that when he saw her that was all he could think of.

He pulled off the road into a lay-by and sat with the truck window open to cool himself down. He had to think before the folds of Jess's body wrapped him round and squeezed all thought from his head.

He didn't understand how, but the news of the second murder in Forester Close had changed the way he thought of Jess. He wished now that he hadn't sent her that text, or that he was the sort of person who could stand her up. He tried to ask himself why the new murder had changed his mind. Why should it, it wasn't her fault? But he couldn't rid himself of the feeling that in some way it was.

He'd tried to believe that the differences between the two of them didn't matter, that they were created by other people who were protecting their own prejudices. What was between the two of them had nothing to do with that.

It did, though, he knew that now. Those new estate people were different, they lived worthless, depraved lives and she was part of that. Killing and crime and violence meant different things to Jess than they did to him; she was used to them, not afraid of them. And he was afraid. He was afraid of what was inside her head. He didn't like to think it, but it was true, he was afraid of Jess.

No, he told himself, no, this is Jess. Laughing, loving, lustful Jess who smothered him with her affection, who wanted him, who made his head explode with the secret things that were between them. She would never hurt him.

For the first time, Mark tried to understand how Jess experienced their love. He told himself, she can't get enough of me; she's
hungry
for me all the time. But when she's feasted, what then?

He thought, Why me? She's not interested in anything about me except sex. I make love to her, I don't just bang her and get up and go away. I try to make her happy. That's what she likes. All the rest treat her like a tart.

Mark leaned his head out of the window to feel the cold wind in his face. He wished he hadn't started this business of thinking about what was between him and Jess because now he knew too much about how he felt. I treat her like a tart, too, he told himself; those things she likes, that's just because I don't do it like those yobs like Kevin. I can't get enough of her.

He thought, it's harder having a girl in a place like this, a village, you know you can't avoid seeing her again and again, she won't let you forget it ever happened. In a big town, you don't have to bump into her all over the place. What's so great about Jess, she's not always on about getting married like one of the local girls.

That wasn't true, though, was it? Jess talked about nothing else but the two of them going away together somewhere new.

It's worse with her, Mark told himself, she thinks of me as a way for her to escape. God knows what'd happen after that.

And then he thought, I don't want to escape. Not to the kind of life Jess wants.

Mark started the truck and moved out into the flow of traffic. One more time, he thought, and then I've got to talk to Jess about us.

He saw her standing under a lamp post on the kerb. He could tell from the way she was moving on the spot that she was impatient waiting for him. The street light turned her purple hair and clownish make-up to eerie colours unknown to the palette of Windsor & Newton; colours mixed in mud by a child.

He drew up beside her and she opened the door of the pickup.

‘About time too,' she said. She slammed the passenger door as she got into the vehicle.

‘Don't you know there's a murderer on the loose?' she snapped. ‘What do you think it's like for me, waiting alone like that?'

He laughed. He wouldn't have said to her face that she'd no cause to be afraid, the murderer was probably one of her family. But she knew at once that's what he was thinking, it was why he had laughed.

‘The woman who was killed,' she said, ‘she's the one who let us hide in her house when Kevin was after you.'

‘Oh, God,' he said, ‘I didn't know. I'm sorry.'

Jess shrugged. ‘She was a weirdo,' she said, ‘she's better off dead. What did she have to live for, after all?'

They drove to a quiet track through a wood close off the road to Old Catcombe.

She turned to him, panting. ‘Put your hand here,' she whispered, taking him by the wrist.

He leaned towards her across the gear lever. He felt he was slipping into a vat of honey. He closed his eyes.

She started to moan, clutching at him.

Then suddenly he pulled his hand away and leaned back against the door away from her.

‘I can't,' he said. ‘I'm sorry, Jess, I can't. That poor old woman . . .'

‘You think it was Kevin, don't you?' she said. She sounded very sad.

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘Tell me it wasn't.'

‘Well, I know it wasn't me,' she said. ‘But you're not sure, are you?'

‘Oh, Jess . . .'

‘You'd better take me home,' she said.

‘I'm sorry, Jess,' he said. ‘I can't help it.'

They neither of them spoke. Jess stared fixedly out of the passenger window as he drove, staring ahead at the road.

He dropped her under the same lamp post near the supermarket. When he stopped under the street light, he could see oddly iridescent tears quivering in her eyes, like tiny bubbles blown by a child.

‘I'll ring you,' he said. ‘We've got to talk.'

She shrugged and turned away. He put the pickup in gear and moved off.

When he was out of her view, he reversed into a side street and then drove slowly back to make sure that she was safe. He felt ashamed, sorry for her, but also relieved. He thought, I made a stand, I made her take me seriously.

Under the street light, she was talking on her mobile phone. Shouting, really, Mark could hear her.

Within minutes, he saw a dark figure on a motorbike draw up beside her. Mark knew it was Kevin. Jess got on to the pillion seat and put her arms around Kevin's body.

Long after the bike had disappeared, Mark could hear the snarl of its engine and the squeal of brakes grow gradually faint as it raced into the darkness.

TWENTY-SIX

R
achel Moody was working late in the office. Really, she was putting on a show of having to work late because she didn't want to go home. Alone there, she knew that thinking about this case would force her to face disturbing truths about herself and the state of her own life. She could just about hold these at bay at her desk in the police station. At home, though, these questions were harder to set aside.

She wasn't usually so involved in an investigation – not on this disconcertingly personal level.

Tonight, though, two days after the discovery of Alice Bates's body, even going through the motions of working was getting her nowhere. Anyone who was still on duty in the detectives' room was either out on enquiries or in the canteen, and Rachel, looking out of her office across the empty desks, found herself remembering what she had told the Superintendent earlier in the day.

‘Our questions may be forcing everyone in Forester Close to concentrate on what they knew about Alice Bates,' she'd said, ‘but what's becoming more and more obvious is that none of the woman's neighbours really knew anything about her at all.'

The Super had grunted and told her to keep at it.