‘I think that’s why he was killed.’
NINE
Flo loads a new film into her camera. The weight of the heavy Nikon feels reassuring in her hands. Like a shield. She’ll need a new darkroom here. Mum mentioned there was a cellar, or maybe the outhouse around the back of the cottage. She’ll check them both out later.
In their old house, the darkroom had been her refuge. Flo always felt calm and content when she was developing her photos. It was her space, even more so than her bedroom, which Mum would still enter sometimes with only the briefest of bloody knocks.
Her mum knew never to enter the darkroom without permission in case she ruined Flo’s photos. The ‘Do Not Enter’ sign slung on the door actually seemed to mean something. Sometimes, when Flo wanted to be alone, she would just stick the sign on the door and sit in the darkness, not developing. Just taking time.
She’s never told her mum this. There are plenty of things she hasn’t told her mum, like the time she smoked weed at Craig Heron’s house or the time she got wasted and let Leon finger her in the bathroom at a party, which hadn’t been much fun, in all honesty (for either of them) but at least meant they could both boast about it and not feel like total virgins. Flo is pretty sure Leon is gay, but she’s been happy to go along with it until he is ready to come out.
She doesn’t keep this stuff secret because her mum is a vicar. She keeps it secret because she’s a mum and, however much Flo loves her and however close they are, there are some things you just can’t share with your mum.
The vicar stuff is just a job. Same as any job, in Flo’s book. Like being a social worker or a doctor. Mum talks to people about their problems. She organizes youth groups and school fetes and coffee mornings and goes to meetings with people she doesn’t really like. The only difference is that she wears a different type of uniform.
But then, everyone wears uniforms, Flo thinks. Even in school, and despite the official uniform, the type of bag you carry, your jacket or shoes define who you are. Rich or poor. Cool or uncool.
Flo is glad she has always been an outlier (that’s what her friend Kayleigh christened them). One of the kids who doesn’t belong to any particular group. Not popular but not really picked on either. Mostly, just invisible.
Of course, she’s had some shit because of her mum’s job, but she usually just shrugged it off and the bullies soon got bored. The best defence against bullies is to make yourself uninteresting.
But then there had been the little girl. Ruby. Mum and the church had been splashed all over the papers. That’s when things had taken a turn for the worse. There had been graffiti on their front door, the windows in the church were smashed and someone even came to the house, calling Mum really vile names.
Flo never told her mum about the names she had been called at school or the messages she had received on Snapchat. She didn’t want to worry her more. So, Flo keeps her secrets. She’s pretty sure Mum keeps hers too.
As Flo has got older, she’s noticed stuff. Like how Mum never talks about her family. She’s always said Flo’s grandparents are dead. But there are no photos of them. Nor any of Mum when she was younger. And Mum doesn’t have any social media accounts. Not even Facebook.
‘Real friends are more important than virtual followers’, she always says. ‘One good friend is worth a dozen hangers-on.’
Flo gets that. She’s not one for measuring her life in likes on Insta. She’s always been happier on the outside, looking in. Perhaps another reason why she likes photography. But sometimes, she can’t help wondering if there’s something else. Something Mum is hiding from her. Or hiding from. Occasionally, Flo has thought about asking, prodding a little. But there’s never been a right time. And now, with the move and everything, it’s definitely not the right time.
Film loaded, Flo slings the camera around her neck and saunters out of the house. She gazes around the graveyard. The uneven headstones run almost up to their front door, which is pretty cool. The church in Nottingham didn’t have a graveyard. It was bang in the centre of the city, surrounded by narrow terraced streets, with just a tiny area of grass outside, usually covered in dog shit and used needles; the occasional drunk sleeping it off on the church’s doorstep.
The chapel is more traditional, except it isn’t. It’s not like the ones on TV, at least not British TV. It looks like something out of a painting. What was that one with the old woman and a man holding a pitchfork? She can’t remember. But that’s what it looks like, anyway. And it’s a dump, no argument. But it’s also kind of spooky and weird. It should make for some good photos, she thinks, especially in black and white. If she tints them, she can make it look really Gothic.
She wanders between the headstones, the overgrown grass brushing her legs. Most are so old the inscriptions have worn away. But there are a few where she can just make out the names and dates. People had short lives back then. So much hardship and disease. Most were lucky to hit their forties.
She snaps a few of the inscriptions. Then she walks around to the back of the chapel. The land slopes up here and there are more graves, some a little newer and better kept, but the grass is still overgrown, thick with dandelions and buttercups. She takes a few shots of the back of the chapel. The sun is high, and the building is mostly coming out in silhouette.
She wipes an arm across her forehead. The last two weeks have been humid and close. She didn’t sleep well last night. She misses her old room; it might have been a bit damp, but it had been big, and she’d got it how she liked it with posters of her favourite bands, films and TV shows on the walls.
Her room here is small and stuffy. The tiny window sticks halfway, hardly letting in any air. Worst of all, it has a sloping roof, which she keeps forgetting and bashing her head on. Still, as her mum is fond of saying: ‘It is what it is.’
And what it is, she thinks, is shit.
She swishes her way back through the long grass down to the rear of the cottage. The outhouse is a ramshackle brick building tacked on to the kitchen, probably once an outside toilet. Mum said she thought it had electricity but, looking at it now, Flo is doubtful. She pushes open the rotting wooden door. The smell of urine assaults her nostrils, swiftly followed by a shout of:
‘Shit!’
She blinks in the gloom. A lanky figure is hastily doing up his flies. Their eyes meet. He turns and tries to shove past her. But years of self-defence classes (which her mum insisted she take from the age of seven) have taught Flo to react quickly. And not to bother with the fancy stuff. She grabs his shoulders, knees him in the crotch and shoves him hard.
He hits the ground outside and rolls over, clutching his groin.
‘Owww. My balls.’
Flo folds her arms and stares down at him.
‘Who the fuck are you and what are you doing, pissing in our outhouse?’
TEN
I leave Miss Marple sipping her sherry, feeling even more out of sorts than when I set out this morning.
Of course it’s nonsense. Just the meanderings of a mind with too much time to fill. I enjoy Midsomer Murders as much as anyone but, in reality, people do not go around knocking off village vicars because ‘they know too much’.