Murder in Time (3 page)

‘We didn't have sex. I was a bit shy, being so big and awkward. And, I was scared of my father. Dan and I agreed I'd go on the pill as soon as I left school. We were going to go out for the day into the country and …' She shook her head. ‘Love's young dream. As if.'

Mikey squirmed.

Vera said, ‘Sorry, Mikey, but you have to know how it was.'

Thomas said, ‘Your boyfriend's name was Dan?'

Vera passed her hand across her eyes. ‘Dan McKenzie. His eighteenth birthday fell at the end of term, and we had a party at his house. His parents had gone out for the night. A crowd of rowdies gatecrashed, wanting drink and drugs. Dan confronted them, asked them to leave. They laughed at us. We were no match for them. They laid into us. I mean, physically. Threw us around.

‘And before you ask; no, Abdi wasn't one of the gatecrashers. He'd been invited by one of his friends who went to our school. Some of us got away through the kitchen into the back garden, which was divided by hedges into different “rooms”. The McKenzies had also bought a piece of someone else's garden off to one side, and there they'd put in a swimming pool and changing hut. We joined some of our lot in the hut, barred the door as best we could, and tried to work out what to do. Nowadays we'd all have mobile phones and be able to call the police, but very few of us had them in those days, and none of our group had one. We could hear the gang charging about and yelling, but they didn't find the pool. We were all very shaken. When I'd calmed down, I remembered there was a door in the hedge nearby leading on to an alley, from which you could reach the main road. Two of the boys volunteered to go and see if it was locked, or if we could force our way out through the hedge.

‘Someone passed me a drink. I thought it was Diet Coke. I was thirsty. I drank it … and passed out. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up in the open air. I was lying on my back on the lawn near the hut. I was alone. Everyone else had gone. I remember looking up at the moon. Half a moon. I felt most peculiar. Then I realized the state I was in. No panties, and blood all over my thighs. A lot of blood. When I tried to move, I realized I'd been raped.'

Mikey was stone-faced.

Thomas glanced at him and glanced away. He said, ‘You got help?'

She shook her head. ‘Two of my school friends came running down the garden from the house. I tried to get up, to call out to them. The girl jumped a mile and screamed. She said the police had arrived and there was all hell to pay. She said her father would kill her if she got arrested because they'd been smoking pot in one of the bedrooms. They'd got away by scrambling out of the window on to the flat roof of the kitchen and jumping down into the garden.

‘They could see what had happened to me. The girl asked if I were all right, but the boy was backing away, didn't want to get involved. He asked if I knew of another way out, and I told them about the gate on to the alley. He ran off, without waiting for us. To give the girl credit, she tried to help me. She was dying to get away, but she helped me into the changing hut so that I could wash myself. She asked who'd raped me, but I didn't know. She said she'd wait for me if I was quick, but I was too slow. She ran away, too. After a while, I took a towel to wrap around me and staggered out. I felt so weak … but all I could think of was about getting home. I walked. Resting now and then. I'd lost my purse so I hadn't any money for a taxi. Not even for the night bus.

‘My father had waited up for me. He was furious. He beat me. He said I was filth, had disgraced him, that he'd never be able to hold up his head in the community if it got out that I'd had sex in public at a party. My mother wept. She did suggest I see a doctor, but he wouldn't have it, because then everyone would have known what a slut I was.'

‘A doctor wouldn't have told on you,' said Thomas, ‘and he would have arranged for you to be seen by the police.'

Vera covered her eyes with one hand. ‘I was so ashamed. That was the last thing I wanted, believe me. Or my father. But, what with the beating he gave me and all, I don't think I was in my right mind for a while. Several days. During that time the news broke that Dan's father, the doctor, had been killed by an intruder at the party.

‘I crawled to the phone with the intention of ringing Dan, just to say … I didn't know what I was going to say, but I wanted … I hoped … I was desperate to hear his voice, but I knew we could never go back to what we'd had before. I was no longer fit for purpose. Dan was out. I left a message with his mother and she said she'd give it to him, but he didn't ring me back. He must have thought I'd cheated on him, that I'd consented to have sex with his friends. I had to accept that he didn't want to know me any more.'

‘You still didn't go to the police?'

‘My father said I must keep quiet, that no one would ever want to marry me if the news got out. He said the police would say I was drunk and asking for trouble. He said the best thing to do was to put it behind me and get down to the shop to help out. So I did. I worked at the chippy all through the holidays, evenings as well. I didn't see any of the old crowd. I read the papers for news of the murder. First they were asking for anybody who'd been at the party to come forward. I suppose some of them did. I didn't. They took in a known drug-dealer for questioning. My father said that would be it. Case solved. But the police let him go without charging him. The following week they questioned another man … and let him go, too. So far as I know, nobody has ever been charged with the murder.

‘The only thing that kept me sane was looking forward to October when I could get away to university, where nobody knew my story. And then … I discovered I was pregnant. I phoned a girl I knew from school, someone I thought might not judge me too harshly, to ask for news. She was embarrassed, said that I'd gone and done it good and proper, brazenly entertaining so many men in the open like that, and she thought I'd do best to keep my mouth shut and move away. That was the first I'd heard that there was more than one man involved. The idea that when I'd lain there, helpless, several men had used me …!'

Mikey shuddered. He lowered his head to his knees and stayed like that.

Thomas said, ‘She gave you names?'

‘I asked if one of them had been Dan, and she thought that was a hoot. She said it wasn't. She said she didn't know who it was for sure and if I were wise, I'd not ask. Forget it, she said. Every time I went out of doors I imagined people were looking at me, knowing what had happened. I tried not to look into men's faces, in case one of them might have taken part in the rape. I told myself it had to be someone who'd been invited to the party, but that didn't make sense. I couldn't imagine any of them doing … that.

‘It became easier after a while as I realized that all the old crowd had scattered to university or taken a gap year, and that I wasn't likely to meet up with any of them in the street. In the end I had to tell my parents that I was pregnant. My father …' She closed her eyes for a second. ‘I can't blame him, really. Mum had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Second time round. He was disgusted. He washed his hands of me. He sold up and moved down to the south coast. He said I was on my own, and that he didn't want me bothering them again. I did what everyone else does; I went to Social Services, they gave me a bed-sitter and finally allocated me a one-bedroom flat, really run down but at least I could shut the front door on the world. I tried to find work. My A-level results were good, but I couldn't get a proper job with a baby on the way and no parental support. I took whatever jobs I could get. Cleaning, mostly.'

She laid a hand on Mikey's shoulder. ‘When you were born I realized whose son you must be. What a shock! I'd never in a thousand years have thought that Abdi was interested in me. He'd been to one or two of our parties in the past but I don't think I'd ever even had a proper conversation with him. We had nothing in common. To think that he'd been one of the men who'd raped me! For maybe sixty seconds, Mikey, I hated you … and then you opened your eyes and looked up at me. They say babies can't focus that early, but you did. And I loved you with all my heart.

‘I tried to contact your father, of course. I looked in the phone book and there was his address. Not far away. I delivered a note to the house telling them that I'd had a baby and that he was the father. I didn't expect much. I thought he might make me some sort of allowance … but that was stupid of me, wasn't it? I'd given him my address. He came to see me there. He said I was trying to blackmail him, to force him into marriage, that it wouldn't work, that he didn't believe me, anyway. He said that if I persisted in trying to damage his reputation, he'd have me killed.'

‘Killed!' Ellie repeated.

Vera nodded. ‘He'd been spoiled. Too much money. Brought up to think he could do whatever he liked. He told me the family was moving away and warned me not to try approaching him again.'

‘But now he wants to make amends?'

‘No,' said Vera. ‘I don't think so, do you? Mikey, tell me you understand how it was.'

The boy didn't look at her. He slung the cat over his shoulder and got to his feet in one smooth movement. And removed himself.

Vera grimaced, on the point of tears. But she was a brave lass and used to bearing her troubles alone. So she ducked her head at Ellie and Thomas, and followed her son out of the room and up the stairs. Quietly.

Silence.

Thomas went to stand at the window, looking out on to the garden. ‘I'm trying to think where I was twelve years ago. July 2002. A sabbatical? Yes, that's it. All that summer, I was in a terraced house in Cambridge. Pleasant enough. I was working on that textbook, and my first wife was … That was the year in which she began to fade away. Did Dr McKenzie's death make the national papers?'

Ellie looked back into the past, too. Her first husband had still been alive, and they'd lived in a pleasant three-bedroom semi near the church where they'd both worshipped … the same church to which Thomas had been appointed after his wife had died, when he'd been told to take it easy for a while. As if Thomas ever took anything easy. Even now, in his semi-retirement, he was editing a national church magazine and filling in at local churches when the incumbent was on holiday or otherwise unable to take a service.

She said, ‘I really can't remember much about the murder. It must have been in the local papers, but I only have a hazy memory of it. My first husband was still alive then.' And kicking. Frank had considered wives ought to know their place … which was in the home. Just as Vera's father had done.

Ellie had believed him until he'd died and she'd learned to think for herself. Their only surviving child, Diana, took after him in spades. She said, ‘That was the year Diana got married, first time round. Baby Frank was born that September – and look at him now, in the football team and doing well at school.'

He grinned. ‘I shouldn't ask, but was Diana still as … demanding … then?'

Ellie gave a sad little laugh. ‘Worse. Her expectations were always high, and she gave her first husband a bad time of it. I suppose that that marriage never really had a chance. To think of it, there's you and me and Diana all happily married second time round.'

‘Well, Diana's second is a man who's up to her weight, and she's got herself a new baby whom she adores.' He grimaced. ‘I shouldn't have said that about Diana's husband.'

Ellie grinned. ‘It's unlike you to say anything bad about anyone. But yes, it's true. He
is
a better match for her than her first husband, who was inclined to give in to her at every point. A bit like me and my first husband. In the old days, I believed it was right to give him his way about everything. It's only later I realized that that comes at a price.' She went to stand beside Thomas, nudging his shoulder with hers. ‘How very fortunate we are to have met one another.'

He put his arm around her. ‘And here we are, getting along fine. Our lines have indeed fallen in pleasant places. Living in this big old house, waited on hand and foot—'

She looked at her watch, which still said three o'clock. ‘Except, oh dear, we won't have any supper unless I do something about it. Cold meat and salad do you?'

‘I'll do some chips. I don't think Vera's going to be up to cooking tonight, and Rose—'

‘You shouldn't have chips.' Thomas was supposed to be on a diet, but he wasn't serious about it. ‘Rose was going to bake a cake this afternoon, but she may not have been up to it, either.' Ellie was worried. ‘That man wants Mikey, and he's backed by wealth and power. If Abdi takes his claim to court, what chance does Vera have? She worked as a cleaner for years, and it's only this last year she's been able to go to college and study for a business degree.'

‘Mikey's a strong enough character to make his own way in the world without asking his father for favours.'

‘But will he see it that way? He's young. If he has the chance of living in a world where money is no object, if he's offered foreign travel and the latest in gadgets, if he knew he could go to university without having to work too hard, wouldn't he plump for that?'

Thomas was silent.

Ellie scrabbled around in her head for an idea. And one popped up, just when it was needed. ‘But … if … just suppose that it was Abdi who killed the doctor?'

‘What?' He dropped his arm from her shoulders. ‘Ellie, what grounds have you for thinking that?'

Her smile was innocence itself. ‘I just thought it would be a neat solution if he turned out to be the murderer.'

‘Now then …' He shook his head at her. ‘You mustn't start rumours.'

‘Er, no. But you must agree it would be a satisfactory solution.'