The Day She Died

Twenty-Two

We carried her, between us, back to the cottage. Gus’s arms were jelly from the drill or he’d have taken her, but I wanted to carry my share of the weight. I had been so blind and so desperate to stay blind, hanging on to my fairytale long after I should have seen the truth. I could have saved her at least a few days of the hell she’d been in.

She didn’t seem to know how long it had been, though. That was a good thing, in a way. We sat her down on the couch and Gus laid a fire and lit it-another shiver as I saw that same body doing that same job in exactly the same way; I kept having to look at his hair to make it stay real that he wasn’t the person I thought I knew. He was no one to fear. I was safe now.

Except…

“Where is he, do you think?” asked the other Gus. The real Gus. We were in the kitchen making food for Becky, making a hot bottle and a cup of sweet tea, a piece of toast with butter and honey, something easy to get her started on. I shook my head.

“And when do we call the police?” he said. “Why are we waiting?”

“When Becky’s stronger,” I told him. “When she can convince them she doesn’t need hospital. She needs to stay with her children now.”

She hadn’t been able to take in what I had told her. “Where are they? Where are they?” she kept on asking. I went back through with a warm towel to wipe her face, and I tried again to explain.

“They’re at my flat,” I said. “They’re with a priest-Father Tommy Whelan, from St. Vincent’s? You must have heard of him.” She nodded vaguely. Of course, she had. Everyone in Dumfries knew Father Tommy, and she was a Dumfries girl. I thought of something else. But first things first. “And Kazek’s there.”

“Who?” she said.

“Ros’s friend from the Peter Pan project?”

Her face clouded, she was drifting. “The roofer?” she said. “One of those migrant worker guys that Ros… where is Ros? She was there and then she was gone. I was so out of it. What did he give me?”

I shook my head. Who knew what he gave her? As to where Ros was, she’d been cremated just that day. The Fiscal was satisfied. There’d been a note. The next of kin ID’d her. No need for a post-mortem, no need for an inquiry.

“But they’re safe?” she said. Gus came in with her tea, perched on the edge of the sofa, held it to her lips.

“Careful, it’s hot,” he said. How could she see him without flinching? Maybe when you really knew both of them they didn’t look anything like each other, but every time he came close to me, my skin prickled. I remembered the feeling of being close to Gus, the other Gus, that other tingling, and my stomach heaved. I had slept with him, fucked him (tell the truth and shame the devil) while his wife was in that stinking cell. He’d left me here with his kids and gone there to-to what?

“What was the baby monitor for? Could he hear you?”

“God, I pulled it out!” said Gus. “I should have left it. Evidence.”

I saw Becky look at him, just a flicker. “Other way round,” she said. “I could hear him. He told me everyone thought I was dead. He told me he was going to kill the kids. He wouldn’t tell me when. I was so scared.”

“He’d never have killed the kids,” I said.

“Men like him kill their kids all the time,” she said. “Ros told me. They’re fine as long the wife stays, and if she tries to get away they kill the kids to torture her. It happens every day.” I nodded, Gus had said as much. The real Gus. Harmless as long as Becky stayed.

“He might have wanted to,” I said. “But he’d never have got away with it. He’d have been caught.”

“He’s clever,” said Becky. She had sipped half the cup of tea now and she reached out for the toast, took a bite, and chewed. “He found a… patsy. He told me. Through that wire. He’d found a girl with a history, screwed up about kids, you know. Childless but obsessed with them? He made her look weird. He made her tell people she knew him when she didn’t. He’d phoned a helpline, he told me. Said this strange woman was moving in on him and the kids and he didn’t know what to do. He’s clever. Make you believe anything if he tried. He’s clever that way.”

I nodded, even managed to smile, but she saw through it. Her eyed flared and she shifted, spilling a bit of her tea.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“Yep,” I replied.

Gus looked from to the other of us. “I’m going to heat you up some soup,” he said. “If that toast’s gone down okay. And then we’re calling the cops. We can’t leave it much longer.”

He went to the kitchen. I knew my eyes had followed him; I didn’t know why until Becky told me.

“It’s okay,” she said. “There’s no phone in there.” I turned, caught her look, knew that she knew what I was thinking. Knew she was thinking it too. She put out her hand and I took it.

“God, I’m filthy,” she said. “Do I stink?” I screwed my nose, said nothing, and she managed a smile. “How are they?” she asked me. “Really and truly. Are they okay?”

“They missed you,” I said. “Dillon doesn’t really believe you’re gone. Ruby just about roared the house down when Gus-damn it!-when Gav told her. She’s been asking all sorts of questions about heaven and angels. But I’m sorry to tell you, they’ve been sort of okay. Gus-Gav is a fantastic dad. They love him, don’t they?”

“They do,” she said. “He is. Why do you think I stayed this long? When someone sets out to fool you and they’re really good at it, it works like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” I said. I could feel a huge bale of sobs unravelling deep down inside me. It was good news. It was all good news. The best there could be anyway. Dead people couldn’t come back to life, so what could be better than finding out that the dead one was single, no kids of her own, and the mum whose little ones needed her was back again, a miracle? What was wrong with me? Kazek was safe. Becky was safe. If I could be there when Ruby and Dillon saw her, I would treasure the memory all my life. So what was wrong with me?

As if I didn’t know. What was wrong was that I’d had a week-long dream, loved and loving, feeling the fear letting go, someone to listen, little hands holding mine, laughs at the tea table, someone who thought I was wonderful. I could still hear his voice saying “bravest and best little girl.” I should have known-did know deep down-that it was all too good to be true.

“Oh, Jessie,” said Becky, and she put her hand out to me. “What did he do to you?”

I shook my head, sending the tears out of the corners of my eyes. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing in comparison. You shouldn’t even be thinking about anyone else except Dill and Ruby.”

She squeezed my hand tight, shook it, made me look at her; her face was solemn, her eyes huge.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “I’m the one you talk to. I’m the only one who’ll understand. He bricked me up in a cell for a week. Yeah, he did. But that’s easy. Tell someone that and all you get is sympathy. It’s the seven years before that really fucked me. Like the stuff he did to you. It’s the stuff you can’t tell anyone because they’ll just say you’re imagining it or it was your own look-out, or they’ll laugh and tell you you’re over-reacting.” She leaned in close, her breath metallic on my face. “It’s the stuff he made you believe you did to yourself. That’s what kills you.”

“Cup-a-soup,” said Gus, coming back. “God bless Dave and his store cupboard. I remember this stuff from before I went away.”

“So, Jessie,” said Becky. “Will you make the call?”

“You’re calling the cops?” said Gus.

Becky’s face was a shadow as she looked at me. “Course,” she said. “Gus, can I ask you a favour? Can you go to Jessie’s and get the kids? Maybe keep them there for another hour or two. Give me a chance to get clean. Then bring them home? Here, I mean. I know we’ll have to move out now you’re back, but… ”

“You’ve got it,” he said, leaping up. Desperate to be doing something. He snatched the car keys I held out to him, repeated my address, and was gone.

“He’s a good guy,” said Becky. “He’s the real deal.”

“Will he work out why we wanted him to go right now if we don’t want the kids back till later?” I said.

She shook her head. “01387 253 555,” she said. “That’s our flat at Caul View.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “That’s the only place he can be.”

We didn’t really make a detailed plan, no synchronised watches or anything. We just both knew what had to be done and we did it. I called the number and Gav answered.

“Gus,” I said.

“How did you get this number?”

“Online,” I said, crossing my fingers and hoping he’d swallow it.

“How did you know I’d be here?” he asked. My heart sank. If he was suspicious of even that, we didn’t have a hope.

“I thought it was worth a try,” I said, trying to sound breezy. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

“What do you want?” he said. That seemed like a bit of progress! I tried to keep the tension out of my voice as I answered him.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I wanted to say sorry. And ask if you’re okay.” The next silence was even longer.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, at last. “I said I trusted you with the kids. If you wanted to take them to your flat and let them hang out with a friend of yours, that’s fine.” In other words, I thought, that was something else to tell the police after I’d killed them. Something else to make me sound unsafe for kids to be near.

“I lost it today,” he said. “At the funeral. And you got the brunt of it. I can’t believe I spoke to you like that.”

“You know what I think it was?” I said. “You’re just flexing your muscles again. You’re only human. After what Becky did to you, it’s only natural you’d see what it felt like to do it to someone else if you got the chance. But look! You’re sorry already, aren’t you? You’re a good man, Gus.” Becky was giving me thumbs up.

“I love you,” Gus said.

“I love you too. Come home, eh? The kids are sleeping. Come home to me.”

I held my breath. The only thing that didn’t fit was that he shouldn’t have known where my flat was. I should be asking him how he knew where to come in Dumfries to find me. I wasn’t asking, and I didn’t want him to wonder why.

I was wrong. There were two things that didn’t fit. And he hit me with the other one.

“Why did you say the cops were at my place?” he said. I hesitated, and I think my face turned pale because Becky was suddenly still and alert, staring hard at me.

“I didn’t say that,” I told him. “Or I didn’t mean to. I meant that I was going to phone them and ask them to meet me at your place. I got the kids out of the way in advance, you know?”

“Why, though?” Gus said.

“I was going to tell them something. But I changed my mind.”

“Tell them what?” said Gus.

“I think I know why Becky killed herself. Finally.”

“Because Ros left,” said Gus.

“No,” I said. “Ros didn’t leave. Becky killed her. I found Ros’s phone at your house. In the basket by the washing machine.” He was so silent now that I thought the called had dropped. He’d forgotten about the phone. And he didn’t like making mistakes and people noticing them.

“Gus?” I said “Are you still there? I know it’s a horrible idea, honey. I know she’s the kids’ mum. But I really think it makes sense of everything. Ros is dead and Becky couldn’t live with the guilt.”

“Where did she dump the body?” he asked.

“Probably in the sea,” I answered. “I bet it turns up soon. Like that guy in the river.” I could have bitten off my tongue, but how to resist it? One of the reasons for luring him here instead of calling the cops on him was that I was dying to know how Gus had the bracelet if Gary Boyes had killed Wojtek.

“You’ve really forgiven me for all those things I called you?” he said. He was so close to biting down on the bait. Inches away.

“Of course,” I told him. “There’s nothing you can say to me that could change how I feel. I know the real you.”

“Okay, in that case,” he said. His voice had changed. “Who was that guy in your flat?”

“No one!” I said “A guy from the Project I’m letting use it because I’m staying with you. No one at all. God, if you’d ever seen him, you wouldn’t worry!”

There was another silence. And then I heard him let his breath go. “I’m on my way,” he said.

“I’ll see you soon. Drive safely, eh?”

“Christ,” said Becky, when I hung up. “That was brilliant. Remind me never to start a head game with you!”

“Are we really going to do this?” I asked her.

“Yes,” Becky said. “We really are.”

She had a shower, with me sitting on the toilet seat, just in case. She was still pretty wobbly. And after it, she and I went to the kitchen and looked through the cupboards. We tried out a few things but both settled on the same big black frying pan. Took a length of washing rope from the junk drawer too.

“I wish I felt stronger,” she said.

“Nah,” I told her. “You get to see his face. That’s the first prize. And you deserve it. Seven years to seven days? No contest.”

So she sat in the armchair facing the living room door, and I stood behind it. We closed the curtains in case he looked in. We heard the car. I gripped the pan handle and tried to breathe deeply. She managed to sit back in the chair and keep her face calm. She was amazing. She wasn’t even gripping the arms. The front door opened.

“Hiya,” he shouted.

“Hi,” I shouted back. Shit! I hadn’t been expecting to talk. I sounded-

“Jess?” he said. “You sound-”

He opened the living room door.

“Hello, Gavin,” said Becky. She sounded perfect.

I was too slow. I thought he’d be pole-axed, but he sprang forward, grabbed her arms, brought her down. I jumped over the coffee table, swung the pan, he took his teeth out of Becky’s neck-he’d bitten her!-and started to turn and so it was his face, not his head, that I hit. And I felt the soft collapse of a cheekbone. He grabbed the pan. He wasn’t out. He was rearing up, standing, holding Becky up beside him. I heard a sound like a sword being drawn. He spun around as she lifted the poker from the brass stand and brought it whistling through the air to his skull.

And then he crumpled. He folded, knocking against the table and shifting the chair with a shriek of its casters on the floor as he went down. We stood over him, both of us gulping and panting. Then I blinked and peered closer at Becky’s neck.

“He broke the skin,” I said. “You’re bleeding. I should-”

“There’s no time,” she told me. “Tie him. Quick!” I wound the rope round his ankles and his wrists, knotted it, got the brown tape from the sideboard drawer and covered his mouth-God, he bit her!-then I took his ankles and dragged him to the door and outside, and between us we dragged him over the turf, watching his head bumping on the tufts, seeing his hair knotting and ripping.

If he had come round before we got there, we would never have been able to stuff him through the hole. Even with just his dead weight, it was touch and go. Me inside hauling, Becky outside shoving. When he was in, I bent and looked through the opening at her.

“Are you sure you can stand being back in here?”

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” she said. “Shift over and let me through.”

We took the tape off his mouth and propped him up on the far away side. We stayed close to the way out. Close together too.

“If he gets free or just if he starts moving too fast,” I said, “you go first and I’m right behind you, okay?”

“Okay,” said Becky. “Ssh-he’s stirring.”

He coughed and groaned, then he quieted as he remembered what had happened, remembered enough to wonder what was coming now.

“Hi, Gav,” said Becky.

I switched on the torch I’d brought.

“Hi Gav,” I said. “I hope your head’s clear, because I’d really like to get a few things straightened out before we leave you here, and the cement we mixed up won’t stay workable for long, so we’ll have to talk fast.”

“You didn’t mix any cement,” said Gavin.

“Okay, you’ve got me,” I said. “I didn’t mix any cement. And I didn’t get Becky out of here either. And I certainly didn’t keep you sweet and then take your children away. It’s all a fantasy.”

“Gus is home, by the way,” Becky said. “So even if Jessie hadn’t sussed you, you still would have failed when he saw this place.”

“Can I ask you what came first, Gav?” I said. “Where did it start? You don’t just one day say, ‘I know: I’ll kill my wife’s friend and pretend it’s her and brick my wife up and find someone to blame when I kill my kids and tell her I’ve done it’.”

“Tell her?” said Gavin. “Fuck that, I was going to put their bodies in here with her. There’s a plate in the roof that lifts off. The mortar’s just skim there. I was going to drop in more supplies and two dead kids to keep her company.”

“Why?” said Becky. Her voice was low, all the bravado gone.

“Because you had no right to leave me and take them away,” he said.

“And why kill Ros?” said Becky. “Why fake my suicide? Why not just say I had left you?”

“Seemed like more fun,” he said. “Nearly went wrong though!”

“Fun?” I said.

“He’s lying,” said Becky. “It wasn’t for fun. He didn’t want anyone to think his wife could leave him.”

“Ros died for that?” I asked.

“Ros deserved it,” said Gavin. “She thought she had the right to stick her nose in and help my wife to leave me. She had it coming. It was her fault how she ended up. Her choice all the way.”

“Did I deserve it?” I asked.

“You humiliated me,” he spat. “You deserved everything you got.”

“When was this?” I said. I honestly didn’t know.

“The cake,” said Becky. “He came home and told me.”

“And that fucking hellish guff in the living room too,” said Gus. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded… aggrieved.

“The smell of the spilled milk?” I said. “You’re not even kidding, are you? And Wojtek. What did he do?”

“Who?” said Gus.

“The Polish guy they found in the river,” I said.

“Who?” said Becky.

“Him!” said Gus. “I didn’t kill him. He nearly did for me, though. It was all going perfectly, a-okay. The car went over, right to the bottom, out of sight. Could have sat there for days. And I got back to the side road where I’d left my car without another soul seeing me. Perfect place it was. Too perfect. Totally deserted road with a motorway junction at the top and an A-road with a bus route along the bottom. Why do you think I picked it? Turns out I wasn’t the only one. Fifty yards from my car-a body! Slit from ear to ear, dumped at the side of the road, just lying there, laughing at me. Just one of those sick things. A total coincidence. So I moved him. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily-”

I asked a question just to stop him singing before I threw up from the sound of it. Becky was quiet too. It had gone too far for her now. She was drifting again, exhausted, and must be in pain from the place he bit her.

“You tore off one of his bracelets,” I said.

“Oh yeah, he was dripping with that gay-boy shite,” said Gus. “Yeah, I burst one off. Meant to fling it in after him. Didn’t notice I’d forgotten till I was emptying my pockets.”

“You ruined your clothes,” I said. “You went in the water.”

“I had to,” said Gus. “But it was a coincidence. I didn’t kill him.”

“Yeah, you did,” I said. “And you’re wrong about the coincidence. If Ros hadn’t disappeared on Saturday, he’d never had been there to get killed at all. Where was she from Saturday to Tuesday anyway?”

“She was here,” he said. “I had to keep her alive until the drugs were out of her. But it gave her a chance to think too. About how sorry she was she’d poked her nose into my business. Should have heard her snivelling and begging. Should have heard the things she offered to do.”

“I don’t want to hear,” Becky mumbled. “Jessie, please. I’m so tired. I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Come on.”

“See you in your dreams, girls,” said Gavin. “I know you’ll never forget me!”

We stood. I helped Becky up and helped her through the hole in the wall too.

“You’ll do time for this,” he shouted after us. “Gus’ll shop you. The kids’ll end up in a foster home, Becky. Ruby won’t even be twelve before she learns to give a-”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Becky screamed.

And after that all we could hear was his laughing, until I had heaped up the bricks and poured the bag of dry cement all over them. Would it hold him? It would have to.

Becky turned and started walking home.

“The kids’ll be back soon,” she said. “I can’t wait to see…” She stopped talking and then she stopped walking and then she sat down like someone in a frock at a picnic but kept sinking, folding over, and dropping until her face was on the grass. I sat down beside her.

I thought about what he’d said. It was rubbish. Becky wouldn’t do time. Ruby would never be near a foster home. I thought about Gus, the real Gus. Would he go along with it once he knew? And at last I thought about Gav. Tied up and in the dark. No matter what he had done. Tied up in the dark and starving. I got my phone out and dialled.

“Yeah. Hello? Hi, yeah,” I said when they had put me through. “Okayyyyy. Jessica Constable. It’s not my address, actually. But I’ll tell you where we are. And I know I asked for you guys, but we might need an ambulance too.”

I lay down beside Becky, looked up at the stars, told the cops the address, told them we were in the field between the cottage and the bay.

“Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?” I said. “Romantic? Sounds too good to be true.”

“Are you all right, love?” asked the dispatcher.

I started to tell her I was fine but stopped myself. “Not really, no,” I said. “Can you stay on the line, please?”

“I’m staying right with you, my darling,” she said. “You stay here with me.”