Baildon Moor - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Baildon Moor, October 1993

 

We drive back to the farmhouse in silence. It’s very early; the sun is still below the horizon and the moors are covered with a grey mist, as if it’s too early for landscape of any description. I want to say something but every time I open my mouth I change my mind – nothing seems to be the right thing at a time like this.  Billy is still up when we return.

‘Have you…?’ he asks as soon as we go inside.

‘Yes,’ says Sullivan. ‘In the old holding tank at the mine.’

Billy claps his hands over his ears like a child who has been given bad news and he rocks from side to side.

‘I don’t want to know!’

 ‘Billy, can I have a bath? I still feel filthy from when…from earlier.’

‘Yeah, help yourself.’

I half-fill the claw-footed tub with tepid water and strip off. I scrub every inch of my body with soap and wash my hair too, but it makes no difference. I dry myself on a faded, grubby towel and dress. I don’t think I will ever feel clean again.

Back in the kitchen, Billy and Sullivan are sitting at the kitchen table with the whisky bottle between them. They look like a pair of battle-weary soldiers; the tension has scored deep lines on their faces and darkened their eyes with blue shadows.

‘I want to go home,’ I say to Sullivan. I want to be back in our flat in Bradford, a million miles away from everything that has happened here tonight, I want to be safe my own bed and sleep for a week.

‘Don’t go. Please.’ says Billy.

‘Sullivan?’ I say. I need his support to back me up and agree that we can leave; I can’t stay in this house any longer.

‘Let’s stay a while, eh?’ he says. ‘We’re not in any hurry.’

I shrug and fill the kettle to make some tea; as I do so I notice something glint under the table.

‘We forgot about Rudy’s glasses,’ I say and reach down to pick them up but Sullivan puts a hand on my shoulder.

‘Don’t do that,’ he says. ‘You’ll leave prints.’ He goes to the drainer and picks up a tea towel, and uses that to lift up the broken glasses. He places them next to the wallet on the kitchen table and covers them with the towel.

Out of sight, out of mind. ‘Now what?’ I ask. ‘What are we going to do with those?’

‘I’ll think of something,’ says Sullivan and lapses back into a deep silence.

I make three mugs of tea which we drink, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

 

As we are finishing our tea, Marie comes downstairs. Despite the state of her last night she now looks in a better condition than the rest of us.

‘Wondered where you’d gone,’ she says to Billy, who is still slumped over the table. She sits down next to him and tries to give him a cuddle but Billy hardly stirs. She pouts.

‘I’m starving. What’s fer breakfast?’ she asks and opens the fridge but there’s nothing in there bar a tub of margarine and the pint of milk I used to make the tea. She tries the cupboard instead and picks up a packet of cornflakes, but the box is empty. I realise that I am ravenous too – the result of being awake since the small hours and dragging a body across the moors.

Marie hassles Billy to go to the shops and buy some food.

‘In a minute,’ he says. ‘I can’t face it just now,’ he mumbles.

‘Why can’t yer face it? I’m starving.’

 ‘I feel like shit. Don’t want to go out.’

‘I think he’s coming down with the flu,’ Sullivan lies. To be fair Billy looks the part, with his drawn, pale face and eye-bags.

‘I’ll go to the shop,’ I say with a brightness I do not feel. At least it will get me out of the house for a few minutes to clear my head.

‘Thanks,’ says Sullivan. ‘I’ll come with you; we’ll leave the patient with Nurse Marie.’

Marie’s shocked expression tells us that she knows she’s been found out.

 

Sullivan and I take our time – we have to drive round most of Baildon before we find a shop that’s open at that time on a Sunday morning but eventually we locate a Spar and stock up on bacon, eggs, bread, more milk and some orange juice. Sullivan adds another half-bottle of Scotch to the basket too. I nearly ask him to put it back; we can’t afford it, not really, but the normal rules no longer apply and we suddenly have much bigger things to worry about than paying this month’s bills.

 I’m convinced that the shopkeeper – a dapper, elderly man in a purple turban - can tell that there is something wrong; some sort of mark of Cain on me that singles me out as a murderer. I do my best to arrange my face into a normal expression and focus on buying the groceries but my hands begin to shake as I’m packing the shopping into a bag: Sullivan has to help me and my face burns with embarrassment. I want to shout out, tell the world what I’ve done and why, but instead I bite my lip and pay for the shopping, doing my best to act like an ordinary person. I’m still shaking so much when we leave the shop that I can barely start the Wreck.

 

When we return, Marie is arguing with Billy and we can hear her shouting from outside; Sullivan and I exchange a suspicious look and go indoors. Billy is still hunched at the table, his head in his hands, trying to blot out the raging whirlwind that is Marie.

‘What did you have ter tell them for?’ she yells from the far side of the kitchen. Billy says nothing and remains slumped in the same position.

Sullivan strides in and positions himself like a buffer between Marie and his brother.

‘Nobody told anyone anything,’ he says quietly. ‘Julianne and I figured it out for ourselves. You’re fifteen, you’re underage, and it shows.’

Defeated by logic she storms off upstairs in a huff, illustrating Sullivan’s point perfectly.

 

I scoop Rudy’s belongings into my shoulder bag for safekeeping until we can work out what to do with them.

‘Make her go away,’ groans Billy. ‘She’s doing my head in.’

I sympathise. I’m delegated to go upstairs and persuade Marie to leave; Billy remains almost catatonic at the kitchen table and Sullivan stays with him. I take the bag containing Rudy’s things; I can’t leave it lying around downstairs.

When I go upstairs Marie is lying face down on Billy’s bed and crying.

‘Come on, love’, I say, doing my best to sound sympathetic. ‘Billy’s not well, he needs to rest, get some peace and quiet. If he’s got the flu he’s not going to be very good company for the next few days, so why don’t you pop home and leave him with us? Eh?’

‘No.’ Marie is adamant and muffled.

‘Come on, what’s the matter?’

She turns over. ‘Billy’s not got the flu, has he? He just wants ter get rid of me, he’s been right weird ever since you lot turned up. Sullivan doesn’t like me so he’s going ter dump me’

Weird ever since I killed his flatmate.

I sigh. ‘No Marie, that’s not true. Billy’s ill – you saw the state he was in. Why don’t we let him go to bed and have a proper sleep, eh?’

‘Can’t go home,’

‘Why’s that?’

She sits up and looks at me with something like condescension and pity. ‘It’s Sunday, isn’t it? There’s no buses on Sunday from here, Billy’ll have to take me in ter town on his bike.’

‘I’ll give you a lift in the car, I don’t think Billy’s up to going anywhere.’

She looks at me with narrow eyes, considering my offer.

‘I’ll need some money fer the bus from town,’

‘You can have a lift the whole way home.’

Marie sticks out a pale hand. One of her false nails is missing. I fish out two pound coins from my purse and give them to her, but only when I add a third does she take the money and put it in her jeans pocket. She smiles and gets up from the bed, tears suddenly forgotten. As we go downstairs I realise I’ve been mugged by a fifteen year old.

‘I’m taking Marie home,’ I say to Sullivan.

‘Great.’