Page 18 of The Tapes

FOURTEEN

The one saving grace for the trading estate, perhaps, is the fact that a pub sits just off the roundabout on the way in and out. There’s a large play area to the side and an even larger beer garden at the back. The food is bearable but cheap and it’s packed at the weekends.

I’ve been brought to the pub as a test, of course – not that he’d ever say as much.

Kieron Parris sits across from me in the garden, partially shaded by a parasol, cradling a Guinness as I eye the lemonade he bought for me. There’s too much ice and I never really trust anywhere that dumps so much in a single glass. Might as well just order water.

‘Guinness Zero,’ Kieron says, raising his glass. ‘Tastes just like the real stuff.’

I clink his glass with mine and we each take a sip, even though I don’t want to be here.

‘Nicola talked to you then,’ I say.

Nicola’s father has another sip of the Guinness, leaving a slim line of foam on his top lip that he licks away.

This is what I feared when I was in Nicola’s kitchen after the discovery of the gun yesterday.

Possibly even from lunch today. Too many gossips in that family, even if one of them is my friend.

No.

Her dad is a retired police officer. A chief inspector at that. I don’t know all the ranks but I know he was high up.

‘She did,’ Kieron says. ‘But before any of that, I should probably apologise on behalf of my wife. I believe she was quite rude to you at lunch.’

Nicola really has been chatting.

‘Sort of,’ I say.

‘You shouldn’t worry too much about her. I’ve told her she’s a snob but she relishes it.’ He waits a second. ‘But Nicola’s worried about you.’

I should’ve known it would get back to him. I was talking about Mum, on the back of Dad’s death. It all sounds a bit depressive; all a bit like I might be considering hitting the bottle. Which is obviously why we’re here.

‘I didn’t specifically come to see you,’ Kieron adds, as if reading my mind. ‘I was visiting my storage unit, then saw you coming out. I know it’s been tough after your dad. I suppose I’m worried…’

He angles himself gently towards the pub, making the point sledgehammer-style. On the other side of the garden a group of five lads are talking loudly as they sup pints of lager. I keep reading that young people today aren’t into drink or drugs but I guess there are always exceptions.

‘Seven years and one hundred and thirty-two days,’ I say. ‘I was there last night.’

‘I’m not checking up on you.’

‘It feels like it.’

Nicola’s father takes this in his stride, sipping his drink again with barely a tilt of his square ol’ head.

‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ he asks.

I almost laugh because we’re already here and his intentions are so obvious. Kieron Parris is a man of the old-school parenting and policing. Nicola once told me that he made her smoke ten cigarettes in a row, because he found a packet in her school bag. That really does sum up his approach.

‘We’re here now,’ I say, making a point to drink the lemonade, which is already mainly water. The sun is high and the only shade is the crooked parasol that’s barely covering me at all.

‘I saw Allie Rowett earlier,’ I say, largely because I want the response. I get it, of course, as Kieron tenses, a vein appearing in his neck.

‘Why?’

‘I invited her to Dad’s funeral. We were neighbours for long enough.’

His pint is halfway to his mouth but stuck in mid-air. ‘Is that all?’

‘She told me she believed me.’

He waits a moment, sips, returns the drink to the picnic table, then nods shortly. We both know what this means. ‘People did believe you,’ he says.

‘Mum didn’t. Dad didn’t.’

Kieron bites his lip, not sure what to say. We both know my parents did believe me, but chose not to cause unnecessary trouble. The reason Kieron is aware of all this is because he was the person who interviewed me at the police station after I’d rammed a glass in Jake Rowett’s face.

Years had passed, I was drunk in town and saw him in a pub.

By that time, Mum had disappeared and Dad no longer lived next to the Rowetts.

I watched from across the bar as Jake stared at a young woman further along.

She couldn’t have been much older than eighteen or nineteen and I knew that look on his face.

That’s why Allie Rowett said he deserved it – because he did.

Except you can’t ram a beer glass in a man’s face while being filmed on CCTV – and then walk away as if nothing happened.

It’s been seven years and one hundred and thirty-two days since I last had a drink.

Seven years and one hundred and thirty-one days since I sat across from Nicola’s dad in a police cell and told him why I ground that glass deep into Jake’s skin, enjoying his screams, watching the crimson flow, only stopping because I was hauled away, drenched in blood both his and mine.

I was wild that night.

At those church hall meetings, I’ll talk about how it was my lowest moment. It was, of course, and yet there’s a tiny part of me that still relishes those few seconds of long-sought revenge. I can lie to everyone else but not myself.

Except, Faith and Shannon were already friends by then.

Nicola was in my life. Her father had been a temporary mentor to Mum after one of her arrests.

That’s why it was him. He asked why I’d done it, so I told him everything.

The way Jake had stuffed his hand up my top while pinning me to the wall on Christmas Day when I was fifteen; the way nobody stood up for me, including my parents.

The absolute fury with which I’d lived across so many years.

It was Kieron who somehow got me off with probation.

He was a respected chief inspector, and he knew me.

He got me into AA, so I was clean. There was no prison time.

I don’t know who he talked to, or the arms he twisted, but it was him – because prison would have been catastrophic.

Faith was only ten and would have been taken from me.

Both our lives would’ve been wrenched apart because of those few seconds.

It’s a small price, but having to meet with him, to have conversations like this once or twice a year, is worth it – no matter how much I hate it.

Kieron drinks and then his gaze flickers sideways to the rowdy group of men. He says nothing, not to them anyway. ‘Nic told me about the gun,’ he tells me instead. ‘Then I heard from my old colleagues about your mum’s fingerprints. I didn’t know what to make of it.’

‘Me either.’

‘Did she ever own a gun?’

‘She never showed even a tiny amount of interest in anything like that.’

‘Could she have…? With her history and all…?’

That’s the thing with being a self-diagnosed kleptomaniac. Sooner or later, that lack of impulse control is going to get a person noticed by the police. Ironically, Mum’s record is nowhere near as serious as mine – but there is that nice string of petty thefts.

‘I have no idea,’ I say, although it suddenly dawns on me that I can properly ask the question now. ‘I was reading about fingerprints. It says they can stay on something essentially forever…?’

Kieron flicks another sideways look at the group, then turns back to me. ‘Sort of. You could pick up your glass now and leave nothing, or – if nobody else interferes with it – you could leave a print that’s still there in a hundred years. It’s a lot less consistent than people might think.’

‘So Mum could’ve held that gun a long time ago?’

‘Maybe. The only certainty is that, at some point, she held it.’

I find myself clutching the glass, as if Kieron suggesting it somehow made it happen. The drink is too cold and my teeth tingle. I really want to leave.

‘I’m so confused,’ I say. I’ve been desperate to tell somebody the breadth of what’s happened in the past day or so, largely to get it out of my head.

‘It’s been tough with your dad,’ Kieron says, but he doesn’t get it.

‘I found a box of tapes,’ I say, staring at the table.

‘They were in Dad’s garage when I was clearing it.

Mum used to record herself on this old cassette player.

Sort of like a diary. I picked one at random and she said that, if someone was listening to the tape, then she had disappeared, that she’d been murdered. ’

I sense Kieron breathe in but it doesn’t feel like a good inhalation. As if he’s wondering whether I really am still clean. That Dad’s death might have got to me far deeper than I’m saying.

‘The tape quality isn’t great. It cuts in and out, plus it sounds like she’s tried to record over something but the old version is still there. Owen from work is seeing if he can fix it up.’

He waits a moment. ‘I’m not sure what you’re telling me.’

I can’t force myself to look up from the table. I’m so desperate for someone to take me seriously but Kieron is one of those people who’s had a real job, lived a real life. He seems so grown up.

‘Mum said she found a jewellery box,’ I tell him. ‘There were earrings inside – but only one of each type. No pairs…’

There’s a slight shift as Kieron straightens, then puts down his glass. It takes a few seconds. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

‘I don’t know.’

My phone is fumbled from my bag and then I lay it in front of him on the table as I press to play the voice note. There’s the crackled, fuzzy line that Mum loves me, but snippets of the rest as well. The quality sounds so much worse outside, almost drowned out by the braying men across the garden.

Kieron leans in then asks if it’s OK to pick up the phone.

He holds it to his ear at my nod. It’s then I allow myself to peer up, but his features are granite with concentration.

It’s impossible not to see that face and not think of the time seven years before when he appeared outside the police cell.

I was still caked in dried blood then, reality starting to set in that the few seconds of satisfaction was going to cost me my daughter and freedom.

Kieron eventually returns the phone to the table. ‘Did you tell Nicola?’ he asks.

‘I’d not listened to it all yesterday. And… no. I didn’t.’

I’m not sure whether we’re friends like that anyway. What kind of friend do you tell this kind of thing to?

‘I can ask my colleagues about this,’ he replies. ‘But we’d probably need the tape.’

‘My friend from work has it. He’s good with audio and is going to try to fix the quality.’

Kieron nods but I know what’s coming. ‘I’d love to believe what she’s saying here…

’ A pause. ‘OK, that’s not quite what I mean.

It’s just your mother and the truth have a complicated relationship.

I’m pretty sure I heard her say she robbed a bank.

It’s very difficult to take this seriously – especially as she isn’t around to clarify any of it. ’

It’s nothing I don’t already know, nor anything I haven’t already considered. The whole thing is fanciful, which probably sums up my mother.

‘I don’t know if it’s true,’ I say.

‘Is there any sign of this jewellery box?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Another rowdy howl goes up from the group and Kieron pushes himself up almost instantly. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he says.

He strides purposefully across the lawn, although there’s a hint of a limp as he reaches the group.

Silence clouds them suddenly and there’s something almost unworldly as they all look up to the newcomer with deference.

I can’t make out what he says but, seconds later, one of them shakes his hand.

When Kieron walks back to me, the only sound from the group is a quiet murmur.

As Nicola’s father sits across from me, I want to ask what he said. It was like a magic spell, though I suspect it was more about him as a person, than any specific words. Kieron has another mouthful of his drink, holds it, then swallows.

‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’ he asks – but I suddenly feel as if I’ve missed something.

‘Like what?’

There’s a moment of indecision before he speaks, which isn’t like him. Then I realise why. ‘The voice on your recording, it sounds a lot like you.’

He fixes me in such a stare that I’m frozen. It takes a second or two to realise what he’s actually said, because it hadn’t occurred before.

‘I, um…’

‘I know it’s hard with your dad and everything. That’s why Nicola spoke to me. We’re all worried for you.’

‘No, it’s… that’s Mum’s voice. It’s her talking. I have all the tapes.’

Kieron presses back, still examining me, and I so wish the group of men were shouting now. Instead, there’s a black hush between us.

He doesn’t believe me. At best, he thinks I found the cassette player and recorded this myself for attention.

Nicola’s dad reaches for his glass and finishes the drink. He wipes his top lip and rubs his eyes. ‘I’ll discreetly talk to a few old colleagues and see what they think,’ he says.

I want to believe him but it sounds as if he’s humouring me, seeing if I’ll break first and tell him there’s no need. That I did record the audio myself.

I was desperate to share and now I’m wondering why I couldn’t just shut up.

Kieron stands and waits for me to do the same. ‘You’ve come a really long way,’ he says. ‘I hear only fantastic things about Faith and how she’s getting on.’

It’s a compliment, I know, but it doesn’t sound like it. I mumble a ‘thanks’ but there’s a croak to my voice: the desperation at wanting to be believed. He takes a step towards the gate and the short walk back to our cars. ‘If you have any other questions, you know where I am,’ he says.

‘OK…’

‘If I don’t see you before, Lucy and I will be at the funeral.’

We pause at the gate and he looks down on me with a gentle smile that doesn’t quite suit his face. ‘It’s OK to ask for help,’ he adds.

I ball my fists, dig the nails into my palms, and just about manage to stop myself telling him to shove his concern up his arse.