Body Found Near Local Church

I read the article but it gives little away, stating that it was found by one of the gardeners and that police are conducting enquiries into the identity of the deceased.

So little to go on. Still, it’s none of my business, is it? I barely knew the woman except for her connections to Phillip, to that damn school.

The knocking causes my skin to prickle. Not Sandra at the door. Not again. I’ve had about as much as I can take of that woman. I stumble through to answer it and am knocked sideways to see Tom standing there, his face set like stone as he watches me carefully.

‘Your sister thinks I’ve murdered you and buried you under the patio.’ I laugh and take a step forward to block his entry into the house.

‘As far as you’re concerned, anything is possible. I’ve come for my jacket. I left it here the last time I visited.’ His voice is like gravel, rumbling and bouncing through the hallway.

‘You’ll have to wait here while I get it.’ I try to close the door but he jams his boot in it, stopping it from shutting properly.

‘Look, let’s not start on the wrong foot, eh? Please, Jade. Let’s give it one more go. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for accusing you like that. I was drunk. I was upset. It’s just that I worry about you.’ He tips his head and smiles at me. ‘How are things with you at the minute? You managing okay?’

‘Wait here,’ I say, ice in my tone. ‘I’ll go and get your stuff.’

He stands there, his limbs locked solid as I reach into the cupboard and grab at his beige, cotton jacket.

‘Where have you been? Sandra said you weren’t answering your phone.’

He shrugs and stares down at the floor as I hand it over to him. ‘I just needed to get away, give myself some time to think.’

I consider Tom’s circumstances, so different from mine. He has money to keep him going, cash inherited from his parents. He is a drifter, going where the breeze takes him because life has given him the opportunity to be one. The rest of us need to work, to generate a regular income with which to pay our bills.

‘Well, you’ve had time to think and so have I. Nice seeing you again, Tom.’ I slam the door, remembering our last argument, his words lodging themselves in my head, telling me that I was unhinged, that I needed to see a shrink. That I used Phillip’s imprisonment and my subsequent shock and despair as an excuse for my deteriorating behaviour.

He was wrong. So very, very wrong. I had had a bad day, was really low, my sensitivities heightened and raw. Tom said the wrong thing at the wrong time and I flew at him, threatening to hurt him, to maim him. I recall him having to peel me off. I remember blood under my fingernails, smeared on his face, down his shirt. Everything else afterwards is a blur. He left. I didn’t see him again. And now he’s back, a face I thought I’d never see again, staring in at me as if nothing happened between us. As if we can pick up exactly where we left off. Why on earth would he ever want to be connected to me? Maybe I misjudged him. Maybe he’s as devious and damaged as me, although I very much doubt it.

I put the chain on the door and shuffle back into the living room, pushing people and recent events to the back of my mind – Phillip, Peter and Lauren and the Downeys. Jeanette. And Tom. He’s history now, another part of my life I would sooner forget.

The television is the usual stream of nonsense – game shows, reality TV repeats, re-runs of sitcoms that weren’t remotely funny the first time around. And then I spot it. An update on the local news. The police are asking for anybody who saw the deceased entering the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church on Goodramgate to help with their enquiries. The police officer stares at the camera, his look sombre and professional. ‘We are keeping an open mind but would ask that anybody who has been in the vicinity of Goodramgate in the past few days to get in touch.’

I wonder if they have CCTV cameras on that particular stretch? It doesn’t matter. Their images will be grainy. I kept my head low, desperate to escape Jeanette and her incessant hollering. Nobody is going to suspect a nanny in her late thirties of a violent crime. They will be out looking for druggies and dealers and other known offenders, scouring their records for the names that come up on their systems time and time again.

I’m not scared and I am not about to lose sleep over a woman who didn’t know when to keep her sticky beak out of my business. Besides, I don’t remember much about it. Perhaps she fell, hit her head and passed out.

I’m putting all the pieces together in my mind as I’m sitting here and it’s all so fragmented. I’m not entirely certain what happened, if I’m being honest. I thought that maybe I’d hurt Jeanette but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe she isn’t even dead and this is somebody else they are talking about.

Or maybe Phillip and Tom were both right and I’m losing my mind, slowly slipping away into a pit of total madness.

I stare down at my hands, a fleeting memory nudging at the edges of my brain – shouting and screaming. A gurgling sound, unseeing eyes staring up at me. Water. Lots of water. Then silence. No movement and no sound. Just the wild thrashing of my own heart. That wasn’t Jeanette, was it? I know it wasn’t. I’m certain of it. So who was it?

My legs are still weak as I head into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of chilled wine, sipping it at first, then tipping my head back and drinking it all in one go. It travels down my throat, icy and refreshing with a slight acidic kick. I refill it and sit at the table, drinking and reassessing the past few days, thinking about tomorrow and what it will bring. Thinking about the awful images that fill my mind. Everything seems unclear, murky and misty as if I really am losing my grip. I can’t allow that to happen. I have to stay sharp, alert. In control. No room for error. My life is a fine balancing act. I need to keep it that way.

I glance down, see that the bottle is empty and resist the temptation to open another one. A clear head for work tomorrow is a must. Facing Jack is no longer the easy, forgettable task it used to be. I have to keep my wits about me, be one step ahead. I need him to need me. And once I have his money, that need can be severed and I will be on my way. But not just yet. There is more to do. I got lucky with my chance finds in that house. Those items are a way out of that place, a way out of the daily grind. A way out of cleaning up after people who couldn’t give a shit about me. Like everybody else in my life, they trample over me and expect me to smile while they do it. But not for much longer.

The morning arrives with more of a squeak than a bang, with faint strips of amber light filtering in through the curtains. The wine had the desired affect and I slept soundly, dreaming of nothing, my mind flattened into submission by the alcohol.

I shower, dress and eat a slice of toast, swigging back a cup of tea before leaving the house, ready to make the mile and a half walk to the Downeys’ property. Our lives couldn’t be more different with their large, sprawling house compared to my average, three-bed semi. Do they know how I live now that I no longer have my husband’s income to help me get by? Do they have the faintest idea where I come from and who I really am? I think of Elizabeth at her spa, being pampered and massaged to alleviate the stress she doesn’t have to endure, and curl my fingers at my sides, my nails digging into my palms.

By the time I reach their house, fury has swollen and multiplied in my chest, a growing, spreading furnace, ready to burn everyone within its reach, to scorch and maim them. I imagine driving my fist into Jack’s face as he opens the door, kicking at his shins, telling him how much I loathe the sight of him, but that doesn’t happen. I keep it together. I maintain the illusion of being the perfect nanny and cleaner and am the person they expect me to be. With a slight edge of course. Always the edge. It’s what keeps me sane.

‘Morning, Jack,’ I say lightly, making sure my eyes reflect my measured yet pleasant tone. ‘Another day, another dollar, eh?’

I take off my shoes, smile and hold out my hand for his payment.

35LAUREN

I didn’t expect a reply. Jesus Christ, I didn’t want a reply. I should throw it away, pretend I haven’t seen it. Burn it. Do anything but open it. I did my bit, wrote the letter, kept a copy to show to anyone should they ever ask to see it.

Dad has left for work and I’ve got a later than usual start at college. I got lucky, getting to the post first. After my run-in with Alice on Sunday and the subsequent fall-out once Dad got back home after dropping her off, I don’t think him seeing this envelope would have helped matters any.

I stare at the letter, my fingers itching to open it, to grasp it tightly and tear it up into a thousand little pieces before I have chance to read his reply. I take a long breath, air concertinaed in my chest, then pick it up.

My hands are trembling as I tear open the envelope before stopping and placing it on the bed without removing its contents. My stomach is in knots, my skin prickling. I don’t know if I’ve got the nerve to do this. Writing a letter is one thing; receiving one back is another thing entirely. A whole new level of tension and terror. A reply from a convicted murderer. I’m pushing my luck here, running the risk of making a stupid mistake, ruining both mine and Dad’s lives.

I’m not ready for this. It was an impulsive, reckless idea writing it in the first place. My head is thumping. A pain travels up the back of my neck.

I swallow and tug at strands of my hair, waiting for my body to calm itself down, for my brain to start functioning properly. I focus on my breathing, telling myself that nothing bad is going to happen. The worst that could happen has already taken place. Everything else is just dust and detritus. It’s only a letter, for fuck’s sake, a message from a man I wrote to. A message from a prisoner. Somebody who is inside for killing my mother. Nothing he says is going to drastically alter the trajectory of my life. Whatever is written inside this envelope makes no difference; he’ll still be in prison, Mum will still be dead and Dad and I will still be here, me wondering how to best convince him that Alice is a toxic presence in our lives. Unwanted and a possible danger. I admit that I initially thought she was great – warm, generous and easy going but since last week, my opinion of her has altered. She has a dark side, a secretive other self that she is adept at keeping hidden. Maybe we’re just too alike, Alice and me.

I decided yesterday to do some digging around on her background – find out who she is, discover more about her dead partner. Car crashes are generally reported in newspapers, aren’t they? Especially when there’s a fatality, and the scary thing is, I found nothing. No car crashes involving somebody called Stuart. Not a bloody thing.

No news stories, no mention of any accidents around the same time Mum died. In fact, I couldn’t find anything on her at all – no Alice Godwins that match her on any of the social media sites, which isn’t so strange as many people of Alice’s age shun having an online presence, but what is odd is the fact I couldn’t find anything at all. It’s as if she doesn’t actually exist. Everyone has some sort of online footprint, yet Alice seems to be invisible. I paid to view some names and addresses on 192.com and the electoral register but again, came up with zilch. She’s a ghost, an intruder in our lives. I’ve come to the conclusion that Alice Godwin is a bloody big fat liar.

Maybe she really is some sort of gold digger? She’s onto the wrong family if that’s case. Dad doesn’t have a lot of money but we’re not exactly poor either. I know he got some insurance money after Mum died which paid off the remainder of the mortgage; the rest he split, putting some away into his pension and some in a trust account for me which will help fund me through university, so although we’re not poor, we certainly don’t have lots of cash which we can splash about. If we did, Dad would have retired from his shitty job by now and would be pottering around the garden rather than dashing up and down the motorway in his car day after day to see customers and his managers at the other end of the country.

Maybe she saw him at the grief sessions at church and thought he seemed like a catch? Handsome widower with a nice car and a hefty insurance pay-out? It’s possible, even though it sounds like some flimsy plot from some stupid, shitty, second-rate movie. And if she isn’t after his money, what exactly does she want?

I’ve tried to think of loads of ways in which I can raise it with him again but there seems like no easy option without him blowing a head gasket. After the conversation last week, everything is still too raw. He would react badly if I were to start throwing accusations around without any solid evidence to back them up. And anyway, he’s been really busy at work all week so we haven’t had chance to discuss much at all. He stayed overnight at a conference in Birmingham and has been driving to see customers in Northumberland and Sheffield so he’s been too tired to engage in any sort of conversation about anything really. It’s no big deal. I’m more than prepared to do this thing on my own. I will dig and dig and dig until I strike gold. And once I find Alice’s hidden treasure, I’ll present it to him, see what he says. Because there is definitely something disturbing going on with that woman. We all have hidden secrets and I am going to dig up hers, see what her motive is, what it is she really wants.

The envelope seems to glow hot. I pick it up again and slip the letter out, opening it and scanning the words written there. As expected, it’s a bland, non-committal reply, acknowledging my original letter but not actually saying anything at all. Except that he is innocent. A wrongly accused man. A huge miscarriage of justice. Blah, blah, blah. I set it down next to me, then read it again.

Hello Lauren,

Thank you for your letter. I don’t really have anything to add to my initial statement. I am terribly sorry about what happened to your mum but you have to believe me when I say that I did not kill her.

I admit that I was having an affair and she broke it off. I admit that I was angry but I do not admit to killing her because I didn’t. I have been wrongly imprisoned and will fight to clear my name. My being here is a huge miscarriage of justice.

You lost your mother; I have lost my freedom. We are both prisoners of fate.

Yours sincerely,

Phillip Kennedy.

I roll my eyes, tear up his reply, and then thinking better of it, pick up the pieces and place them in a drawer for safekeeping. For the future. My future.