A Nice Place to Die (22 page)

‘What's it worth?' he asked. ‘Depends what you've got to tell.'

‘Give me a grand and I'll tell you plenty,' Jess said.

‘OK,' he said. He told himself that if the editor objected to the payment, by then he'd have got his story and he could run out on her and there wasn't anything she could do about it. If she had nothing to tell, he wouldn't pay anyway.

Jess let rip. She told him about the warring families from Catcombe and Catcombe Mead who would not let her and Mark be together; she told about their secret trysts behind Alice's house, and that was why Alice Bates had to die.

Jess was carried away by the drama she was creating. ‘Why not?' she said. ‘Alice helped us before. She once rescued Mark and me from my brothers. This feud, it's like
The Godfather
. She didn't obey the rules; she had to die.'

‘You're having me on?' the reporter said. ‘Aren't you?'

Jess shrugged. ‘Ask around,' she said. ‘We all knew that if Kevin found out Alice helped Mark, he'd kill her, no sweat. She knew it, too, she was terrified of Kev.'

‘It's incredible,' the reporter said.

But incredible or not, it would make a terrific story for the paper.

‘It's like we belong to rival gangs,' Jess said. ‘God knows what started it. It's to do with history. It's the way things are. It's not just Mark and me; it's the whole village against everyone on the estate. It's primordial.'

Primordial was a word Nicky used all the time, to express contempt. Jess had taken it up because she liked the way it sounded.

The reporter didn't know this. He liked the idea of a primitive local feud as a background to murder. The alleged murderer, after all, was this girl's half-brother.

‘Wonderful,' he said. ‘It's like Shakespeare.'

So Mark and Jess briefly became Romeo and Juliet. The reporter set their romance against a background of barbarian warlords and undercover violence set in a despotic no-man's-land in rural England where the forces of law and order were helpless to act.

Jess was right, the reporter told himself, it was primordial. And it all happened quite close to where, only a few hundred years before, the Monmouth Rebellion and the Bloody Assizes had ravaged backward farming families in Somerset.

The publication of his story was devastating to the residents of Forester Close.

As long as they had kept themselves to themselves, they had been able to see where lay the unspecified but nonetheless present danger which haunted all of them. As long as each family saw its neighbours as the source of that danger, they had felt that they could contain the perceived threat.

But once the residents of Forester Close were revealed publicly as all equally vulnerable, the fear that pervaded their lives seemed to have been set free. Kevin Miller might be gone, on remand in prison awaiting trial, but still they were all afraid. So there must be something to fear. And what made it harder to deal with was that no one now knew where the threat came from. They had to acknowledge that they were not imagining the violence and the viciousness and lack of care of the world outside. The newspaper published it, it must be true.

Curiously, too, the residents of Forester Close began to see Kevin Miller as the victim of the historic feud between Old Catcombe and Catcombe Mead. They saw him as a martyr to the vendetta. They began to feel ashamed that they had misunderstood a young man whom they now cast as someone brave enough to keep their enemies from the old village at bay. First the vicar who had come as some sort of spy, then the traitor Alice, who had betrayed them all.

It was the people of Old Catcombe, they thought, who were to blame for pushing Kevin over the edge into real violence. They agreed that they had always known that he killed the vicar from the old village. He must have thought that in murdering Alice, he was dealing out just punishment to a traitor.

Jean Henson was the first to wonder if, after all, Alice hadn't contributed to her own death. Meeting Helen Byrne with Nicky in the supermarket one morning she said in the course of conversation, ‘Don't you think perhaps there was something about Alice that was a bit provocative to people? She was so helpless she laid herself open to abuse. It's a recognized psychiatric argument, you know, that the victim of crime is equally responsible with the perpetrator for what happens. She must've contributed in some way to what the Miller boy did to her.'

Later that day, Nicky met Jess in the alley behind the Miller house.

‘Heard from Kevin?' she asked.

Jess was still missing Mark. She'd hoped that the story in the newspaper would make him get in touch with her, but it hadn't. She was not inclined to be sympathetic to Nicky's schoolgirl crush on her brother.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Mum went to visit him.'

‘Did he mention me?' Nicky said, oddly breathless.

‘You? Why should he? He said he didn't kill the old witch, that's all. He told her to ask you, you'd know who did it. Mum wasn't sure he was guilty till then, but after that she knew he was, making up something as desperate as that.'

‘Perhaps he didn't kill the old woman,' Nicky said.

‘Of course he did,' Jess said.

Nicky was twisting her hands together in a helpless way that irritated Jess.

‘If someone else came forward and said they did it,' Nicky said, ‘would you believe Kevin didn't?'

‘No,' Jess said.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I
t was a January of drizzling winter days and damp fog, smelling sour like wet ashes from a dead fire. Fallen leaves which had not been swept up during December gales lay rotting in the gutters. They blocked the drains, and a small torrent of water flowed past the houses, leaving convoluted patterns of grit and debris strewn across the road like a dark design embroidered on grey canvas.

Dave Byrne had given Nicky a new bike for Christmas. He dropped it round to Number Five on Christmas Eve. It was his attempt to propitiate Helen's bitterness over the fire.

Terri answered the door. She didn't ask him in. Helen was out with Nicky and at first Terri wanted to tell Dave Byrne to take the bicycle away, neither Helen nor Nicky wanted his presents.

But she couldn't do that. It was a beautiful bike, red and shiny chrome; Nicky would love it.

‘Please, Terri, let her have it,' Dave said. ‘Tell her it's a present from me and Helen together. It's not good for the kid for us always to be fighting over her.'

‘I don't know what Helen will say to that,' Terri said.

‘Look,' he said, ‘I was wrong to do what I did, I know that. I went too far. Helen didn't shop me to the police, she must know I didn't mean that to happen. It's all got out of hand since the lawyers got involved, it was all fine till then, but it had gone too far to go back. What Nicky needs is for me and Helen not to be fighting.'

‘I can't speak for Helen,' Terri said. ‘I'll tell her what you say.'

‘Tell her I mean it,' he said. He leaned the bicycle against the wall of the house.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I will.'

Terri watched him walk away. Will I, she asked herself. Will I tell Helen about his visit?

She felt threatened by Dave's coming to the house, and by what he said. She was scared. She'd never allowed herself to realize that her relationship with Helen had come to depend on Dave Byrne being cast as a villain. And if that was so, what was it worth, what was between her and Helen? If Helen and Nicky would be happier with Dave than she could make them, she had no right to hold them back. She had to face that. Oh, God, she thought, what will happen to me if I lose them?

She wheeled the bike round the back so Nicky wouldn't see it before she'd had a chance to talk to Helen. I've got to have it out with her, Terri thought, I can't go on like this, not now.

That night, as they were getting ready for bed, she told Helen about Dave's visit.

‘I didn't know what you'd want me to say,' she said. ‘Should I have told him to take the bike away?'

‘Of course not,' Helen said. ‘Nicky needs a bike, she'll be thrilled.'

‘Dave wanted you to tell her it's from the two of you,' Terri said. She gave Helen an agonized look, expecting her to see the implications of what Dave had said.

But Helen simply laughed. ‘That's great,' she said, ‘I could never've afforded to give Nicky a present like that, but now she'll think I've made a special effort for her.'

She went into the bathroom. Terri got into bed and turned out the light. She heard Helen singing as she ran her bath.

Terri lay on her back staring into the dark.

She doesn't want to understand, she doesn't care, Terri told herself. Why do I love her so much? Sometimes I think I don't really like her at all.

It was Terri who told Nicky that the bike was a present from her father.

‘Wicked,' Nicky said, ‘it's the best present I ever had.' Then she laughed and grinned at Terri. ‘One of the advantages of a guilty conscience, don't you think? Worth pursuing, I'd say.'

Terri couldn't help laughing at Nicky's contrived cynicism.

‘Don't bank on that,' she said. ‘But it's nice work if you can get it. It's a beautiful bike.'

Since Christmas, Nicky had been trying to teach herself to ride it in the street outside the house, but Nate and Jess jeered at her and she'd stopped taking it out on the road any more. Instead she went out early in the morning by the back alley that ran behind Forester Close to practise on a patch of waste land adjoining the supermarket.

On the Wednesday after Jess's photo had been splashed all over the Sunday paper, Terri went upstairs to call Nicky before she left the house to go to work. During the school holidays, she did this every day so that Nicky could make Helen's breakfast and take it up to her in bed. Terri thought Helen should have the time alone with her daughter.

But today Nicky was not in her room.

Terri woke Helen, but she didn't know where Nicky was.

‘What are you worried about?' Helen asked Terri. ‘She's probably taken the bike and gone somewhere those other kids can't tease her.'

But Terri was worried. It wasn't like Nicky to disappear without telling her mother where she was going; and Terri worried too that no one seemed to be concerned that the other kids could be bullying Nicky. Terri herself had been bullied at school, in spite of being a big girl well able to stand up for herself and flatten most of the boys in her class. It had been the girls who had been able to hurt her, because she had never been soft and feminine, and they made sure she knew she did not belong amongst them.

So her heart bled for Nicky, who was too studious, and not pretty enough, ever to belong amongst what Terri called ‘the dolly brigade'.

Of course it was the holidays; no one expected Nicky to stay around the house. Terri went to work as usual, but she rang Helen at lunchtime. Nicky hadn't come home. Terri began to panic.

‘Oh, for goodness sake,' Helen said. ‘She's thirteen years old, she's off somewhere with her friends.'

‘She hasn't got any friends,' Terri said.

‘Not that we know of,' Helen said, ‘that doesn't mean they don't exist.'

But the January days were short, and when it got dark around four o'clock and there was still no sign of the child, even Helen began to look concerned.

Terri came home from work early in the car and drove straight off out again to search for the child.

After about an hour, she came home. ‘It's too dark,' she said, ‘it's pointless. I've checked all the places with street lighting. She could be anywhere.'

‘Should I tell Dave?' Helen said, ‘he's her father, he should be dealing with this.' She was angry with Nicky; she thought the child was doing this to get attention. She added, ‘Of course, she could be with him. Perhaps he's abducted her.'

‘Tell the police first,' Terri said.

She had to go upstairs away from Helen because she was afraid she would not be able to stop herself grabbing her and shaking her until her teeth came loose.

Why am I taking this out on Helen, she thought, she's Nicky's mother, she must be in hell.

She heard Helen's voice on the telephone. She was calling the police, at least that was something.

Terri went into Nicky's bedroom. It was like a nun's cell, completely unadorned. The narrow bed had a white duvet, and the walls were white, too. The only colour in the room was the dark red of the curtains Nicky had chosen herself after the fire for her new room.

Terri sat on the edge of the hard little bed and picked up the single pillow. ‘Where are you, Nicky?' she said, pressing the cool white cotton against her cheek. She could smell Nicky's shampoo.

She was surprised at the strength of her anxiety about the child. She'd always thought she'd tried to love Nicky for Helen's sake, but now she was overwhelmed by her feelings. Oh God, she thought, clenching her arms around the pillow, let her be safe, let her come home.

She saw the note as she went to replace the pillow. The envelope was addressed to her – Terri Kent printed in capitals in black ink, underlined twice.

Terri opened it.

‘By the time you read this letter, I will have escaped this Vale of Tears,' she read.

This isn't real, Terri thought, it's like something out of an old novel. She wanted to weep for the child who felt so unloved she had to hide her misery behind such unreal words in order to express her deepest feelings.

Perhaps Nicky had felt the same when she wrote it. Anyway, she'd abandoned that approach and the rest of the note was scrawled out as though written in a great hurry.