Page 56 of The Tapes
I check the window but there’s no sign of a locksmith, so I do a bit of cleaning up in the kitchen, while listening to my voice note recording of Mum’s tape.
‘This is my second go at this. My name is Angela and I’ve been murdered…
…
…
Well, I think I’m going to be murdered.
…
…
I don’t know. It’s just… I don’t think I’m a good person. I did something. I’ve done lots of things…’
I recorded the first part of the tape to voice notes but rarely listen to it, instead skipping for the part to which I’m addicted.
‘… if this is Eve listening, I just want you to know I’m sorry. If they say I’m missing, I’m not. I’ve been killed – and I need you to know that I love you.’
I drop a pan of dust and splinters into the bin – and finally realise why I need this to be true. It’s because it’s all part of the same sentence. If Mum’s lying about being killed, then she’s lying about loving me. It’s why I can’t let it go, why I’m so desperate to prove this. I can ignore the obvious lies later on the tape but it’s this line that must be real.
And that’s when I really listen to the start and realise the obvious thing I’ve missed this entire time.
‘This is my second go at this…’
If this broken, incomplete cassette is Mum’ssecond go, then where’s the first?
KIRSTY AND SARAH
Extract fromThe Earring Killerby Vivian Mallory, © 2015.
The man in the silk waistcoat looks up at the concrete block to our side. There’s pebble-dashing across the top, then an exposed set of stairs with a metal railing at the side. Bomb shelter chic.
‘I doubt we’ll last the year,’ the man tells me. ‘It used to be full of students but they were different times. We’d offer membership discounts and some kids would spend entire afternoons in here. Two quid a pint, unlimited snooker or pool, but now they have other things.’
‘Like what?’ I ask.
Marlon has been the manager of Green’s Snooker and Pool for the past twenty-one years. It sits on the top floor of the bomb shelter building and has been resident for more than three decades. He smooths the front of his waistcoat and shakes his head. ‘Phones, I guess. No point in playing snooker for real if you can do it on your phone.’
He has a point, if not about phones then the changing times. He takes me up the stairs, which doesn’t help the appeal of theplace. He says the lift stopped working more than a year ago but that the landlord won’t pay to fix it. I’m out of breath as we reach the top step, but the inside of the snooker hall is warm and welcoming.
‘We did everything up about eighteen months ago,’ Marlon says. ‘Didn’t make a difference.’
The bar area is a wash of soft reds and blacks. Each corner has a television showing a different sport, while the bar is stocked with the usual array of drinks. A blackboard is advertising happy hour chips and gravy for £1.50.
Marlon and I sit at the bar and he picks up a beer mat that he twirls on the end of his finger.
‘I knew Kirsty fairly well,’ he says. ‘If I’m honest, it probably wasn’t a great time to be a woman here in the 2000s. Something like ninety-five per cent of our membership was men and some of them were a bit, well… laddish.’
I point out this might have been down to the two quid pints, which Marlon concedes is likely.
‘Kirsty didn’t seem bothered by any of that,’ he adds. ‘I remember asking her once why she worked here and she was baffled by the question. Her dad was a publican, so she found the work familiar and easy – except she’d seen what it was like in a pub. She said there was none of the late-night nastiness here. It was just a few clumsy advances from students. She thought it was hilarious that she was old enough to be their mum.’
It had been four years since Ophelia Baron was killed when her car broke down on the way home from hockey practice. Before that, there had been a three-year gap since Laura March disappeared on that canal bank.
Those now familiar rumblings that perhaps the police were mistaken had returned. There had been four killings in three years, then only one in the following three. Four deaths in threeyears felt like a serial killer; five in six was more like the police were reaching. During that period, the HAVE FUN messaging had broken through – but women had started to come up with their own ways of seeking safety. A movement had taken off to simply not wear jewellery, especially earrings.
Maybe that worked? Maybe that explained the single killing in seven years?
