Lay Them To Rest: Three Murderous Novellas

Part I: Mandy

This is it. I draw in my last lungful of stale air and hold my breath.

The single step that carries me beyond the perimeter wall seems insignificant, almost weightless. It doesn’t outwardly convey the enormity of the moment my body passes from one world into the real world. Perhaps it is because I did not think this day would ever come; that I’d actually get to walk beyond the solid brick and barbed wire fortifications that contained me for more years than I thought I could possibly survive. Maybe, my senses have become so immune to taste, slowly destroyed by the wan horseshit Her Majesty’s Prison Service calls food, that it is impossible for me to savour the mind-blowing scent of freedom. Or perhaps it is because, deep down, I don't really think I deserve this day; the first day of the rest of my life.

I can’t explain exactly how I’m feeling, because I truly don’t know. It is the moment I have waited more than half a lifetime for and you’d think I’d be a bag of expectant nerves, primed to turn cabin fever on its head. You’d imagine I’d be filled with anticipation and bursting to take in everything that passes my wide, vacant-looking eyes. But I am not. I am numb.

Freedom is such an over-used word, I think. Who, in this day and age, is really free? Nobody is free from responsibility, are they? Except, of course, those who have been prised away from their peers; people who, for whatever reason, have been ripped from the aching bosom of their families or dragged, kicking and screaming, away from their piss-stained turf on dreary, rat-infested streets. These are the nobodies, the sub-humans, the immoral minority - crooks and impoverished vagabonds - who are held by force, incarcerated, in state-sponsored hellholes. What is ‘responsibility' to them? A distant goal that they never quite achieved but hope beyond hope will one day be within sniffing distance again.

On this day, the day that every tensed sinew and ounce of my sallow flesh has craved, prayed for, even begged for, I do not feel up to ‘responsibility’. Not yet. Here I am, on my way to a whole new life, the life I should have lived twenty years ago, and I’m almost ungrateful. I feel like a bird-of-paradise that has been caged for so long it is too afraid to take flight when the coop’s wire door is eventually left ajar. Fear of the unknown can betroth you to the fear of the familiar. Trust me.

‘Got someone special waiting for you, Love?’ the taxi driver harks over his shoulder in a thick Yorkshire accent. Nosy git.

I am so lost in my thoughts, I wasn’t paying much attention to where I was.

‘Just Mum and Dad,’ I reply rather reluctantly, having to accept that the abstract green and grey shapes I dare only glimpse from the corner of one eye are parts of the built environment whizzing by. I really am on my way home. I feel like punching myself full on in the face for not being thankful. Ungrateful bitch!

It was a mistake to let Margie Baker, my probation officer, organise the transport home. I would have preferred to have taken a taxi from the prison gates to her office and to then have caught a train and walked the rest of the route. I suppose I would have felt more anonymous that way. Perhaps, ‘normal’ even.

I guess, even I, a dependable ‘trustee’ for the best part of fifteen years (after the system had broken me), couldn’t be relied upon to make it from A to B (Manchester to Devon) without being tempted to abscond in an entirely different direction - lured by the stinking, sinful bright lights of King’s Cross or the pure, rural isolation of the Scottish Highlands. The thought had crossed my mind. At least that way, nobody would know who I really was or anything about my past. It wouldn’t be like that at home.

I am not sure if Mum and Dad actually want me home. That's the truth. For all I know I could be sent packing the moment I darken their doorstep. I haven't seen them for twenty years, three weeks and four days (I've been counting) - not since a stern-faced old prune of a judge at the Old Bailey sentenced me to life and as near as damn it threw away the key. They were ‘ashamed' of me, they said.

‘How could our Mandy do such a thing?’

That’s what they told me, before saying they wouldn’t be visiting me in prison again. It was ‘all too much’, I can’t quite forget Mum snivelling into a man-sized tissue.

I half expected them to relent after a month or so - especially after reading the letters I wrote them every day. But I never saw them after that first day. Not even once. They never even replied to my letters.

I’ve only got Margie’s word for it that they have agreed to let me come home. I suppose helping to heal old, deep-seated family wounds is cheaper - and easier - than having to find me my own flat, which, in all honesty, I would have preferred given I’m two months off my thirty-seventh birthday. Blimey, Margie must have clapped her hands with delight: ‘Retired former professionals with not so much as a parking ticket between them.’ She must have thought she’d hit the jackpot with me.

I obviously can’t be trusted to live on my own, even though living with my parents is going to be worse than bunking up with total strangers. Hell, they are total strangers! I can barely remember them.

I don’t even recognise where I am. I could be in a foreign country for all I know. I am used to looking at peeling paint on four walls. They seemed to slowly closed in on me before becoming my entire, safe world. Yes, safe. You may not believe it, but I felt ‘safe’ in prison. I knew what to expect there. I’d been there long enough to know the score and how to avoid trouble. I learned how to blend into my surroundings; to be invisible.

‘How far along Tucker’s Lane is your parents’ turning?’

Shit! I haven’t got a clue - I can’t remember.

‘Um, I’m not sure…’ I mumble, deliberately attempting to sound as though I’m trying to recall every inch of the route from twenty years ago.

The taxi driver flashes me a sympathetic glance in his rear-view mirror. ‘Long time, huh?’

‘How could you tell?’ I can hear myself asking, but I am not sure why. It’s none of his business.

‘Oh, you’ve got that look. I’ve seen it before.’ He sounds confident, knowledgeable - like driving lifers home from jail is an every-day occurrence. Perhaps, for him, it is.

I feel less anxious than I thought I’d be in a male’s company. When I first realised it was a man behind the wheel, I’d hesitated before shutting the cab door. I’d allowed one foot to linger on sweating Tarmac before cautiously drawing it towards me and thinking What the hell. I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure I’d be able to relax. Don’t get me wrong, I am not ‘comfortable’ now; I’m just not scared anymore.

‘Look?’ I ask.

‘Yes, you all look the same - pretty damned vacant most of the time,’ he says. ‘Some, I think, are terrified at the prospect of getting their lives back. Maybe, they don’t want the same kind of life they left behind. Others, like you, look as though they are not sure if they can start over. But you’ll be fine. Just you see.’

His voice is irrationally kind of soothing. And his deep-set brown eyes, which I can see in the mirror, look charitable and not at all judgemental. I am quite taken aback that he hasn't asked the obvious: ‘What were you ‘in' for?' Not that I'd tell him, of course. Well, not the truth. He'd be judgemental then, for sure.

He raises his head and tilts it at a forty-degree angle and, for the first time, I can see his mouth open and close as he speaks. Looking at him looking at me in the mirror, I can tell he is clean-shaven, slightly bronzed, like he's just come back from holiday, with wide, plump lips and off-white teeth. I'm guessing he is in his forties, but I could be wrong. The only men I've seen for more than half of my life have been in uniform and they all looked the same. Mean.

‘The sat nav says we are about three miles away,’ the driver says. ‘I gather from the Probation Service that your parents’ house is down a half-mile track. Sounds rather grand. I usually find myself dropping ex-prisoners off in the middle of run-down council estates or town centres. It’s not often I get to take a trip out into the countryside.’

I stifle a cough. More like the back of beyond! I want to recognise the scenery I am now tentatively glancing at, but I don’t. Fields parched by a long, hot summer and random herds of cows straying perilously close to barely-there hedgerows don’t look dissimilar to scenes I’ve seen on TV. Christ, the countryside is boring.

I hope everything is going to work out at Mum and Dad's because life's going to be pretty unbearable if we can’t rub along. The thought of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with two aged relatives who’ve probably passed me off as dead for years is dire. Margie says going home will give me a good grounding and that, in six months or so, it will have provided me with the springboard I need to move on to more independent living, perhaps in a flat somewhere. I hope so. I prefer my own company.

Not because I want to, but because I have to, I am trying to picture what ‘home’ looks like. It was so long ago that any image creeping into my mind is tinged with a layer of graininess that makes it hard to decipher. I’ve never totally forgotten my bedroom, although I can’t be sure if my memory of it today is the same as it was the day the police came and dragged me away.

I remember, as a thick-set policeman roughly cuffed my hands behind my back and Mum shouted ‘Is that really necessary?’, I glanced back. I looked over my shoulder, at the soft divan bed that just a few minutes before I had been sound asleep in and at the poster above my pink velvet headboard of the Backstreet Boys. Or was it a poster of Take That, or Westlife? I am almost certain it was the Backstreet Boys because I definitely remember having a massive crush on Brian Littrell. The infatuation was a seminal phase in my mid-teens.

Will everything be exactly as it was then, or would Mum and Dad have removed every trace of me from their world in the years that that have passed since my conviction? I guess I am about to find out. I don’t suppose this is going to be a happy reunion, although I’d like it to be. I figure, having not heard from them for so long, that they are taking me in much as an animal lover would a stray cat and out of a sense of duty. It’s their fault I exist, after all.

‘This is the turning, Love. You’re almost home,’ the driver tells me.

I am glad because I haven't got a clue where ‘home' is. I am amazed, after all this time, that it is still there. I am one of the lucky ones, I know that. I should be feeling elated, grateful from the bottom of my heart. Instead, I feel nothing - except, maybe, cheated. Why didn’t my parents stand by me? Why didn’t they believe me?

I can hear tyres scuff in baked dirt behind me as I cast my eyes adrift from their anchor on the ground and look up at ‘home’. I won’t be needing the card the taxi driver gave me with his firm’s number on, and I was going to tell him that when he stuffed it in my palm. He must have realised that I wasn’t going to take it from his outstretched hand when I didn’t even look at him. I poke it through a gap in the top of the big, clear Her Majesty’s Prison bag that contains everything I own. I’ll bin it when I unpack. Just for now, for a minute, I want to savour the sight in front of me.

With its sloping roof at a gentle twenty-five-degree angle and distinct 1970s design, ‘home' looks very much like an over-sized Swiss chalet. Not quite as quaint as a doll’s house or as grand as something colonial, but still oozing a certain charm that I am sure I marvelled at as a child. Whitewashed walls, partly concealed by rampant common ivy, and a black door flanked by pale amber rose bushes in full, abundant bloom, have taken my breath away. I close my eyes and re-open them, as if to be doubly certain that I am actually seeing what I am seeing. It is a heart-pounding moment.

I do remember it! The day we moved in, I must have been about six or seven. I thought it was a palace - it seemed enormous. I can picture myself running from room to room, shouting at the top of my voice that I am a princess. And, back then, at that moment, I really thought I was; I felt ‘special'. I could tell, just by the way they spoke about it, that my parents were hopelessly in love with the place. It was the dream house they had worked so hard for.

It doesn't look all that much like a palace now, I have to admit. The paint is peeling on the front door, the exposed wood damp and rotting, and I can see that the garden has not been tended for a long while. I guess Mum and Dad are not as young as they used to be. Mum is 70 and Dad is 73. Who knows how the years have treated them… I've been so busy thinking about myself that I haven't paused for a minute to think about how they have been doing. They could be frail or infirm. God forbid, one of them could even be dead.

I'm nervous now because I realise that today is as big a day for them as it is for me. A hard day. One that, perhaps, they never anticipated or even wanted. A day that has been thrust upon them by a creaking system that is so starved of cash that building bridges is simpler than finding a home to rent. But it is a day that could be a beginning. A fresh start for the whole family. For all of us.

Them

A flash of anticipation flickers across Daniel Jones’ bronzed face like a Mexican Wave the moment he hears the telephone ring.

‘Danielle!’ he calls out.

A slightly built woman with shoulder-length, mousy-brown hair and pointed features hurries to lift the receiver as if she has been on standby for the command. As she elevates the chunky, dated handset to an ear she’s careful not to take her eyes off Daniel. And he fixes his gaze on her mouth. Careful what you say, he’s thinking - and she can read his mind.

‘Oh, Claudia - it’s you.’ She nods at Daniel and he returns the gesture, rather solemnly.

He had been anticipating the call and, in any other circumstances, would have been delighted by it. In fact, it would have been cause for a considerable celebration. Champagne would have been on ice within minutes and tenderised rump steak ready to pop under the grill. Instead, he looks like an undertaker, grim-faced and austere. The fact that there would be no celebration was cause for concern.

‘Thank you very much, Claudia. Unfortunately, my husband and I will not be able to take the jobs after all. Slight change of plan.’ Danielle sounds genuinely sorry, her tone of voice full of remorse. But she’s not sorry. She’s relieved.

***

The Previous Day

Claudia Burton was perfect in every way; not too demanding, flamboyantly welcoming and ultimately trusting. She and husband John enjoyed a quiet life, cosseted in their country retreat like fragile Royal Doulton figurines preserved in bubble wrap. Surrounded by rolling pastures and very few near neighbours, their country pile was a real find. Although their considerable bank balance afforded them homes in London and the South of France, it was in Dorset that they preferred to spend most of their time. In fact, these days, all of their time.

Not because they necessarily needed it, but just because they could, they liked to employ staff to be at their beck and call. It gave them a sense of being pampered in old age and ensured the neatly presented grounds that flanked the driveway to their generously proportioned former manor house stayed that way. They were manicured to a standard that wouldn’t look out of place among winners at the Chelsea Flower Show. Hired help was a luxury they had promised themselves when they planned their retirement.

The Burtons were never fussy types, and this was reflected in the zero turnover of staff in their household for a considerable number of years. However, according to their advertisement in The Country Gentleman magazine, ill health had forced the departure of their long-time, live-in housekeeper and groundsman. The husband and wife team, it said, had been ‘part of the family’ and a ‘similar couple’ was being sought to replace them. One had to be a ‘good cook’ while the other ‘must be an accomplished gardener’.

Danielle had spotted the prominently displayed advertisement first but felt Dorset was outside of her comfort zone, preferring not to stray too far from her home county of Cornwall. That's why she didn't mention it to Daniel. But, just a few hours after she'd wedged the glossy monthly into the top of a filthy, overflowing pedal bin, he'd spotted it and ripped it away from the jagged clutches of tin lids and the stench of rotten fruit.

‘You didn’t tell me about this one,’ he said, flying off the handle and shoving the advertisement under her nose.

She’d tried to feign ignorance, glaring up at him with genuine-looking shock etched across her otherwise plain face and whispering, ‘I must have missed that one.’ She could tell by the way that his eyes seemed to be boring into the back of her head that he didn’t believe her and she made a mental note to be more careful next time.

Within an hour Daniel knew everything he needed to know about the Burtons to be sure they would be perfect employers.

‘They are in their early seventies. He’s a retired jeweller and she’s a rather reclusive former model. They don’t appear to entertain very often and they live in the back of beyond,’ he was saying. ‘The nearest town is Bridport - from what I can gather not the pinnacle of high society - so I can’t imagine very many friends travelling down from the big smoke for catch-ups. They are perfect for us, can’t you see? It’s easy money.’

Perfect for you, more like, Danielle had wanted to say. Instead, she held her tongue, acknowledging to herself that things had been good between them for so long that she could only just remember the bad times. She never wanted a repeat of those sickening episodes. Just the thought of them made her want to curl up in a ball and tuck herself away somewhere out of sight, somewhere she could remain hidden from his black moods and perverted, violent tantrums.

There was never any doubt that they would get an interview. With their impeccable references that nobody would ever be able to check, they knew the jobs were as good as theirs before they had even clapped eyes on the Burtons. In fact, Daniel had already started packing.

John was ‘at the doctor’s’ when Claudia interviewed them. ‘He’s got a dicky heart,’ she revealed. A model hostess, she had welcomed them in through a back door to the kitchen and immediately offered them a ‘tipple of sherry’. ‘I hope it’s not too early for you,’ she’d gushed.

Although obviously no youngster, Claudia still exhibited subtle signs of youth that often vacate women in their mid-fifties. She seemed to walk with a spring in her step and her neatly brushed bobbed hair was glossy and thick, belying her advanced age. Although clearly dyed brown, it swayed when she moved and made Daniel think that it was only that way because she made regular trips to a high-end hairdresser.

Daniel was impressed, gently swiping a glass from her hand a split second after he first clapped eyes on her beaming face. He had expected a cup of tea, if anything at all. Danielle took to her instantly too, struck by her warmth and charm - and especially the heavy-set gold chain that was sitting like a fallen halo around her neck. It was mesmerisingly dazzling.

‘Now, tell me all about yourselves,' Claudia had said, beckoning them with a pat on a cushion to join her on a large, cream-coloured leather sofa that dominated a neutral themed occasional room off the oak-finished kitchen. She wagged a Biro between two fingers and had a notepad rested on her lap, but even she knew she was very unlikely to use them. Note-taking wasn't her forte and, if truth be told, neither was interviewing. Like the chinks of twenty-four-carat wealth rested on her collarbone, they were mere props. And it was tragically obvious.

Danielle let Daniel do the talking. He knew what to say - or what not to say.

‘We’ve been ‘in service’, as it were, for as long as we’ve been married, haven’t we Darling?’ He squeezed Daniel’s hand and she was careful not to let Claudia see her almost immediately draw away from him. She thoughtfully nodded and forced a smile, cleverly detracting attention away from the flinch.

‘My wife does the laundry, cooking and cleaning. She especially enjoys preparing nutritious, home-cooked meals and tries, whenever possible, to source the ingredients locally.’ Daniel added that a ‘slap up Sunday roast is always on the menu’ and ‘a full English breakfast never a problem’. He added, ‘And, of course, we team up for special occasions - such as when our employers are entertaining.’

Claudia looked slightly embarrassed as she let out an audible titter. ‘We very rarely ‘entertain’, as you say,’ she imparted. ‘In fact, I can’t remember the last time we had guests round for dinner.’

Danielle sensed her husband’s delight. If Claudia had been blind, Daniel would be rubbing his hands with glee right in front of her. If she’d enquired about the sound, he would have passed it off as an itch. He was so inebriated by her words that his excitement was getting the better of him; he could barely sit still. His shuffling movements made Danielle feel anxious and, if she wasn’t in the situation she was in, she may have been tempted to gently nudge him.

‘My husband is the gardener among us. I’m afraid, I’m utterly useless outdoors,’ Danielle found herself saying in a bid to quell Daniel’s nervous energy. ‘He’s a genius when it comes to flowers.’

‘Have you much experience with roses?’ Claudia asked, knowing full well she was being very specific.

‘Oh, yes, definitely. In fact, roses are one of my specialties,’ Daniel told her. The fact that he couldn’t tell a Damask from a Golden Celebration was something he was certain Claudia would never discover.

‘Only my husband and I have two rose gardens, one to the left of our front lawn and the other to the right of the rear lawn. We have spent years watching them grow to their present, splendid state and are extremely fond of them. Alan, our previous gardener, worked morning, noon and night to create them. We would very much like to enlarge both the gardens using cuttings from the existing plants. Do you think you could do that?’ Claudia almost pleaded.

‘Certainly. It would be an honour,’ Daniel lied.

‘Now, I know you have both been working in Devon for many years and that, sadly, your employer, Mrs. Jacobs, recently died. How thoughtful that she wrote you such a glowing and in-depth reference in spite of her failing health. I take it, you are free to start work almost immediately?'

She’d gestured with her head towards a large picture window, adding, ‘The staff accommodation is an eco-lodge located to the far side of the rear rose garden. It's fairly comfortable with all mod cons.'

Claudia’s eyes scanned the two candidates beside her, almost imploring them to want to work for her. It was as though she couldn’t bear to do her own washing up and laundry for another day. It was as if she was telling herself I’ve found them.

‘In one week,’ Daniel assured her.

For the first time since they all sat down, Claudia appeared to write something in her notebook. Her ‘candidates’ couldn’t see what she’d written because she was holding the notepad at an angle that deliberately tilted towards her, but it was a one-word note to herself - ‘Bingo!’ After countless interviews with countless couples, she’d finally found a pair she felt comfortable with.

‘If it is all right with you, I will talk things over with my husband and give you a call tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I won’t trouble you tonight - you’ve got a long journey ahead of you.’

‘That’s fine,’ Daniel assured her, taking a sip of sherry and relishing the expensive taste it left in his arid mouth.

Their next jobs were in the bag he was thinking as Claudia showed them back through the enormous kitchen, passing a marble-topped island that ran almost the entire length of the room. Daniel could already picture himself there, making himself at home and doing as little as he could possibly get away with while charming the Burtons into heaping praise on him with cleverly constructed distractions.

Danielle, he sensed, was equally taken with the place.

It oozed the kind of rural charm that she had missed. Although not small, with probably four bedrooms, it was more of a cottage than the Swiss-style mansion they had called home for longer than she cared to remember. It was a reminder of her real home.

She’s sold on it, Daniel was sure.

It was only as they were about to leave the house from the door they came in that Claudia thought to mention it. Why she hadn’t said something sooner was a complete mystery. Ever so casually, in the middle of parting pleasantries, she had slipped it into the conversation. ‘I hope you aren’t allergic to teenagers.’

Daniel instantly flashed Danielle a black, knowing look.

‘Teenagers? You didn’t say anything about children.’

‘Oh, Mr. Jones, they aren't mine - they're our grandchildren. Didn't I tell you, they live with us?'

‘No, you didn't mention them at all.' Underneath the veneer of politeness, he was secretly seething. If the advertisement had mentioned them he would have followed Danielle's lead and stuffed the magazine back in the bin. What a waste of time. Another dead end. He begrudged the sixty pounds in fuel it had cost them to fill up the old Jag for the journey.

Before the door closed behind them, Danielle knew she would never see Claudia again while Claudia was certain she had found the perfect couple she had so desperately been looking for.

Later, when she was describing them to her husband, Claudia said, ‘John, they were heaven-sent. Salt of the earth types - just what we have been looking for. I know Judith and Alan will be hard acts to follow, and there’s something about the husband that makes me think he’s a bit of a rough diamond, but, all in all, I don’t think we can go wrong with this pair.’

John looked almost disinterested in what his wife was saying for the best part, fumbling with compartments in a white plastic pill box on a highly polished dining table, but his ears