Why Aren't They Screaming? Read online

  Tracey heard the despair in her voice and leaned across to crush the end of his cigarette in the ash-tray on the table.

  ‘I think you’ve had enough,’ he said, avoiding her gaze. Think you could get some sleep now? You weren’t well even before all this happened. You’re all in.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ She spoke absently, watching him toy with the cigarette end. ‘John, won’t you believe me? I know I’m right.’

  Tracey thought for a moment, his head averted. Then he looked up and finally met her gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry, Loretta,’ he said, ‘I just don’t know what to think. I really don’t.’

  She was woken by a sound that she couldn’t immediately identify; even when she’d worked out it was rain spattering on the window directly above her head, she didn’t at once remember that she was sleeping in Tracey’s spare bed. She groped on the floor for her watch, picked it up, and was astonished to discover it was five to three; she’d slept for just under twelve hours. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor, experiencing a stabbing pain above her eyes that made her wish she hadn’t tried to get out of bed. The brandy, she thought, or just the general aftermath of the previous night. She lay back on the pillows for a while, reluctant to move, but was driven to do so by her need for a glass of water. She got out of bed slowly, feeling sweaty from sleeping in her T-shirt and pants, and pulled her skirt over her head. Clean clothes, she thought, that’s what I need, then remembered with dismay that her belongings were still up in Oxfordshire. She went downstairs barefoot and headed for the kitchen at the back of the house.

  ‘John? Are you there?’ There was no reply, and it occurred to her that he had probably gone to work. Then she spotted an envelope propped against the butter dish on the kitchen table. She picked it up and found a scribbled message in Tracey’s handwriting.

  ‘Dear Loretta,’ she read, ‘I thought it was best to let you sleep. Should be back some time this afternoon. Please’ – underlined twice – ‘don’t go wandering off anywhere. Wait here for me and we’ll talk about when we can go and collect your car from Oxford – you’re in no fit state to drive. Try and have something to eat. There isn’t much food in the house, so I’m leaving some money in case you haven’t got any. Love, John. PS I am very worried about you.’

  She smiled sadly, grateful for his concern. Putting the envelope down, she saw he’d left two ten pound notes and a spare key on the table. She still didn’t feel like eating, but wandered over to the sink and filled the kettle. After a cup of tea, two glasses of water and two paracetamol, she started to feel very slightly better. But as soon as her headache receded, she was flooded with an overwhelming sense of guilt: she was sure that in some way, she wasn’t quite sure how, she should have been able to save Peggy.

  After half an hour in which she had a bath and dressed, she was able to bear her own company not a moment longer. She decided to take Tracey’s advice and go out to buy food; he might well be hungry when he returned from the Herald office, and maybe her own appetite would have revived by then. She borrowed his trench-coat from a peg in the hall, and went outside. Tracey’s house, which he had bought after the break-up of their marriage, was in a deceptively quiet square close to the heart of Brixton. Feeling like a sleep-walker, or a visitor from another planet, Loretta took the short cut to Brixton Road and found herself among crowds of Saturday afternoon shoppers. The rain had stopped, and a solitary evangelist had mounted an orange-box outside Marks & Spencer and was exhorting its customers to repent. Loretta joined the hecklers, giggling adolescents and two women with heavy shopping bags who constituted his audience, and let the tide of words wash over her, grateful just to be with other people. After a while, the audience began to drift away and Loretta got the uncomfortable feeling that the preacher’s words were being addressed directly to her. She turned away and went into the shop, heading for the food section and filling her basket with an almost random selection of things she usually liked. There were long queues at all the check-outs; eventually she paid and, with her purchases in two plastic carrier bags, set off for Tracey’s house.

  She made herself a couple of slices of toast, hoping they’d prepare her stomach for a more substantial meal on Tracey’s return. She wandered listlessly into his drawing room, suddenly realized she was rather cold, and decided to light a fire. She had just got it going and was sitting back on her heels when she heard his key in the front door.

  ‘Loretta! You there?’ His voice was anxious.

  ‘In here,’ she called, getting to her feet.

  Tracey appeared in the doorway, a bag of shopping in one hand and, to her astonishment, a cat basket in the other. Bertie looked up, caught sight of her, and purred loudly.

  ‘How on earth–’

  Tracey put down the basket and Loretta knelt to let the cat out.

  ‘I woke up this morning and thought I’d go and get your car,’ Tracey said sheepishly. ‘I thought it would upset you, going over to Hackney again. You were fast asleep, so I took your car keys out of your bag and got a taxi over there. I was going to come straight back, and then I thought – why don’t I nip up to Oxford and pick up her things? This little chap was sitting on the doorstep when I got there. He looked so bedraggled, I couldn’t really leave him... did I do the right thing?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Loretta was still on her knees, stroking the cat as he leaned against her.

  ‘I’ll just put this stuff in the fridge,’ Tracey said abruptly. ‘I got some food in case you hadn’t been out.’

  ‘Oh, so did I. Never mind, I’m beginning to feel quite hungry. I haven’t eaten properly for days.’

  Tracey turned to leave the room, hesitated in the doorway and produced something from a pocket.

  ‘Um... this had been pushed under the door,’ he said, holding out an envelope.

  Loretta got to her feet, took it, and sat down on the edge of an armchair. At her feet, the grey cat was sniffing the carpet, starting to explore. Loretta tore open the envelope and read the single sheet of paper inside it.

  ‘Dear L,’ it began, ‘I think we both made a mistake – best call it a day. No hard feelings? Yours, Robert.’

  ‘Well...’ she began, more to herself than Tracey, who was hovering in the doorway. Why hadn’t Robert gone the whole hog and put ‘yours sincerely’? she wondered.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Not in the scale of things,’ Loretta said, crumpling the paper into a ball and tossing it into the fire. Flames licked round it; it hung in the air for a few seconds, a blackened oblong, then collapsed into fine ash.

  ‘Here, Bertie,’ Loretta called, holding out her hand. The cat came to her, jumping into her lap, and Tracey left the room.

  A few minutes later he returned, dropping her car keys on the coffee table. ‘I put the keys to the cottage in an envelope and stuck it through the door of Clara’s house,’ he said, taking a seat on the sofa.

  ‘You haven’t been to the Herald?’ Loretta asked, stroking the cat.

  ‘No, I rang in before I left. Watson told me to take the day off, he’s a good bloke. Just as well, the time it’s taken me. I thought I’d be back long before now. It’s not exactly built for speed, your car.’

  ‘Have you – have you seen any papers?’ Loretta was reluctant to bring up the subject of the murders, but it was hanging in the air between them. Anyway, she couldn’t avoid it for ever. Tracey had taken that day’s papers with him, and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to buy any; she had a curious dread of knowing what was in them.

  ‘Nothing about Peggy, if that’s what you mean. Apart from the press conference yesterday morning, that is. Police are probably sitting on it till they’ve tied up all the loose ends. The BBC news is on in a minute. Want to watch it?’

  ‘All right.’

  Tracey got up and switched on his small colour television. They watched the end of a programme Loretta didn’t recognize, then she heard the familiar signature tune.

  ‘It’s just been announce
d that police have scaled down the inquiry into the murder of Mrs Clara Wolstonecroft, the well-known author of children’s books, following the discovery of a woman’s body in a flat in east London,’ the woman news-reader began in a solemn voice.

  ‘The dead woman, who is believed to have a head wound, had been staying in Mrs Wolstonecroft’s house near Oxford prior to the murder on Tuesday night. Police say they aren’t looking for anyone else in connection with either death. This report is from the scene where the second body was discovered ...’

  Loretta and Tracey watched as a young female reporter with blonde hair spoke direct to camera from the car park behind Ernie Bevin House. The camera travelled up to the window of Sharon’s flat as the reporter gave brief details of when the body had been found. It was clear that the police weren’t releasing much information at this stage.

  ‘So that’s that,’ Loretta exclaimed angrily as the reporter signed off and the newsreader reappeared with a story about a motorway pile-up. ‘Clara and Peggy are dead and the whole thing’s sorted out without the police having to ask awkward questions. What sort of world are we living in?’

  The cat wriggled and jumped down from her knee. Tracey said nothing, and she turned back from him to the television. Suddenly a smiling picture of Colin Kendall-Cole filled the screen.

  ‘The Conservative MP for Oxfordshire South-East, Mr Colin Kendall-Cole, has been appointed junior minister at the Ministry of Defence,’ the newsreader continued smoothly. ‘Mr Kendall-Cole, who entered the House of Commons in 1979, becomes a minister in the minor re-shuffle caused by the death in a car accident yesterday of a junior Trade minister. He is fifty-two, and married.’ Colin’s picture disappeared.

  ‘No! They can’t! They just can’t!’ Loretta stared at the screen in anguish. The cat padded back across the carpet towards her and jumped lightly on to her knee. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she put her arms around him and hugged him close. ‘They just can’t,’ she repeated, quietly and without conviction.

  Without speaking, Tracey got up and turned off the television.

  for Carol Baker and Jennifer Benjamin

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London

  WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Joan Smith, 1988

  First published by Faber and Faber Limited

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  ISBN: 9781448208159

  eISBN: 9781448207916

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