Part One Hundred And Two
Lauren didn't reappear downstairs until the middle of Tuesday morning. She'd wanted to give her and her mother some space from each other, and to regain some of her mental equilibrium before they had the very difficult conversation that was looming on the horizon as a source of anguish and heartache for both of them. Walking in to the kitchen, Lauren realised that she hadn't eaten since Sunday morning. Her appetite seemed to have gone out of the window with other normal things like sleep and sticking to the right side of the law. Her mother was sat at the kitchen table, reading the morning paper and smoking a cigarette.
"Do you want some breakfast?" Yvonne asked, for the moment trying to stay on safer ground.
"An apple will do me fine," Said Lauren, walking over to the fruit bowl. Yvonne made no comment on the fact that Lauren hadn't eaten for two days. She had to be allowed to regain the normal things in life in her own way and in her own time. Lauren was about to pick a red apple from the bowl, but its rosiness reminded her of the blood that had flowed through Fenner's veins, until she'd halted its progress. Selecting a green one, she moved to sit opposite her mother.
"How did you sleep?" Asked Yvonne.
"I took another of your knock out pills, so not bad. You?" Yvonne merely shrugged, neither denying nor confirming that she'd had a restless night. Their conversation was stilted, both desperately trying to avoid the inevitable. Lauren was forced to admit that as it was her who'd plunged them both in to the abyss, it was her who should start.
"Where's the gun?" She asked without preamble.
"I chucked it and the spade in the Thames on Sunday night while you were asleep," Yvonne replied succinctly.
"And the car?"
"Spotless as the day it was bought." Lauren went quiet again. Now that the practicalities of what she had done had been dealt with, it was time for her to approach the incident itself.
"Tell me, Lauren?" Prompted Yvonne eventually, totally unable to let the silence go on any longer.
"It isn't quite that simple, Mum," Said Lauren, knowing the time had come, but still willing to postpone it for as long as possible.
"Lauren, please, I need to know," Yvonne said quietly.
"You might need to know," Said Lauren, feeding her apple core to a hovering Trigger. "But I don't think you really want to know, and I'm not sure I want to talk about it."
"Lauren, I am not watching you go through the same cycle of killing someone, coming down off the high with bouts of bad dreams, heavy drinking and not eating that your father did. He used to be like this, insist that I didn't want to know what he'd actually done, hide himself away because he couldn't handle what he was capable of, and come out of it more bitter and twisted every time."
"I'm not my dad," Said Lauren simply.
"No?" Said Yvonne, her fear and anger beginning to peep through, "Because I'm really beginning to wonder." Lauren reached across the table and helped herself to one of her mother's cigarettes.
"Let's not forget, Mum," She said, with all the pretence of calm, inner poise that she'd perceived in the prosecuting barrister at Ritchie's trial, "You're not exactly whiter than white yourself, now are you. Remember Renee Williams, for example?"
"She isn't relevant to this discussion."
"Don't talk crap," Said Lauren, her anger equaling her mother's. "This conversation's been waiting to happen for a very long time, and you know it. We're not just talking about Fenner, because it goes back a hell of a lot further than that. You're trying to make me talk about what I did to Fenner, when you've never once talked about engineering that cow's death by supposed nut allergy. You've buried that in the past, along with every other bad thing you'd rather not think about."
"You know why I did that," Said Yvonne quietly, loathed to admit that her daughter was right. "It was either me or her."
"And does Karen know about this little indiscretion?"
"No, of course not," Said Yvonne disgustedly. "Killing someone is a hell of a lot more than a little indiscretion, which is why she doesn't know about it. This conversation's hard enough without bringing her in to it."
"Well, tough," Said Lauren, getting up to make herself a coffee. "Because she's part of it now, or are you going to cast her feelings aside like everything else you don't want to contemplate."
"If Karen's the topic of concern here," Threw back Yvonne, "It was you who murdered her rapist, not me."
"I know that," Said Lauren, growing slightly calmer. "And when she came to see me yesterday, she didn't attempt to get answers out of me that wouldn't do her any good. She wanted to know why, not how. Most of all, she wanted to see Ritchie's letter. She had enough sense not to demand to know details that I didn't want to tell her and that she wouldn't be able to deal with. But we started with Renee Williams, so let's go back to her. You want me to own up as to how I killed Fenner, so it's only fair that you do the same about dad's old tart." Lauren dug a packet of best Brazilian out of the freezer and waved it in her mother's direction. On receiving a nod, she filled the percolator and returned to the table as the aroma of fresh coffee filled the kitchen.
"You know what I did," Said Yvonne, the words eventually dragged from her unco-operative soul.
"No, I don't," Said Lauren, "Not exactly."
"I put ground nuts in the salt cellar and made sure it was on the table she normally used." Yvonne had said this in a monotone voice that clearly showed her need to display the facts and the facts only, with her feelings about the whole thing remaining hidden.
"Where's all that feeling gone, Mum?" Lauren cajoled, "Like you're expecting me to have?"
"Watching her die," Replied Yvonne, "That haunted me for months. She might have deserved everything she got, Lauren, but that doesn't mean it was right."
"What about Dad then? Didn't he deserve what happened to him? After everything he did to you, Mum, he deserved nothing. He tried to fob you off with a million, and after the way he'd screwed you around."
"As it seems to be the day for home truths," Said Yvonne, finally seizing her opportunity to find out something she'd wondered about for a long time. "It was you who arranged Charlie's last ever pizza delivery, wasn't it." She nailed Lauren with her, by now, famous stare. Lauren might be an Atkins, but she couldn't maintain eye contact with such a look as this one.
" You know it was," Replied Lauren quietly. "What he did to you, that hurt me more than anything in my life. I couldn't bear the thought of having him at home again, trying to run his business like an old dinosaur regaining his old stomping ground. He was planning to carry on with life as if nothing had happened, as if you didn't even exist. I couldn't let him do that, Mum, I just couldn't." Yvonne put out a hand and took one of Lauren's.
"Lauren, tell me what happened with Fenner," She said gently. Knowing that the time had finally come, Lauren lit herself another cigarette.
"I stalked him," She began, "found out what he did, who he did it with. I followed him, finding out what shifts he usually did, where he bought his fags, the pubs he used. There wasn't anything I didn't know about his pathetic little life. Do you know what's funny, not in all that time did he go near a woman. Either he was still getting it on the inside, or he'd decided to turn over a new leaf. I started following him the week after the funeral. When Ritchie wrote me his letter and begged me to get rid of Fenner, he told me I wasn't Charlie Atkins' protege for nothing. So, I decided to do it properly. There wasn't one stone I left unturned. But then came the problem of where to do it. Fenner lives in a typical suburban street, full of families and nosy neighbours. I'm not going to tell you about where he is, because the less you know about anything concrete, the better. Suffice it to say that at this time of year, he'll have plenty of dead leaves for company. So, I followed him on Sunday when he went for his usual drink with the lads at his local pub. All they could talk about was fucking football. Why is it that men can spout shit for hours on end without even noticing? He didn't see me there, too interested in the match and his pint. I followed him back to his house. I did pretty much what Snowball did to Karen, when he was trying to find his door key. He wasn't stupid, he wasn't about to argue with an Atkins and a loaded gun. He kept calling me Atkins, like he did to you and probably like he did when he talked about Ritchie. The further away from the city I drove, the more rattled he became. I made him get out of the car, and I gave him the spade. I forced him to walk ahead of me in to the forest, and I stood with the gun on him as he dug his own grave. Mum, if he hadn't been so pathetically taken in by Merriman, Ritchie wouldn't now be in his own grave. That's what I kept thinking as I watched him digging. When he realised what he was digging, he kept asking me why, why was I doing this to him, what had he ever done to me. God, there's no one who sounds more innocent than the perpetual offender. You told me that, after a few weeks in Larkhall. I shot him, like Ritchie was shot, so that he couldn't move, but was still alive. I wanted to make someone suffer for what Ritchie had done to us, and I think I used Ritchie's request as an excuse. The fucking best excuse I've ever had to make someone like Fenner suffer. He looked so pathetic sat there. When I let some of the earth fall on his face, he pleaded with me. The stupid git still thought I'd let him go." Lauren suddenly became quiet. Yvonne stared at her, not quite able to believe that this was her daughter telling her all this.
"You buried him alive?" Yvonne asked, almost unable to get the words out.
"Yeah, I did," Said Lauren, "And if you're about to tell me how mad that is, and how I must have a screw loose, then yes, I agree with you. I don't know what happened to me on Sunday. I was high on Adrenaline, higher than I've ever been on any drug. I felt good about it, and that scares the shit out of me. But I can't take back what I did, any more than you can. Part of you would like to be able to put this one right for me, but you can't do that, Mum. This was my choice, something Ritchie asked me to do, and something I had to do. If there are any consequences, and going by my total stupidity at leaving the cartridge case behind, there probably will be. But if there are, they're mine, not yours, not Karen's, not anyone's. In his letter, Ritchie said that as a family, we don't do blame, but he was wrong. I killed Fenner, Mum, no one else, and it'll be my freedom on the block if and when the time comes. Mum, I don't regret killing Fenner, he had it coming."
"I don't know what's happened to you," Said Yvonne after a while.
"I've grown up," Said Lauren, "That's what's happened to me. If doing what I did on Sunday has done anything for me, it's made me grow up. I ain't a kid any more, Mum, I've got to deal with what's coming to me, like Dad did, like you did, and like Ritchie did. I'm part of this family, what's left of it, for good or bad, and one thing we Atkins women don't do, is hide from who we are."
Lauren didn't reappear downstairs until the middle of Tuesday morning. She'd wanted to give her and her mother some space from each other, and to regain some of her mental equilibrium before they had the very difficult conversation that was looming on the horizon as a source of anguish and heartache for both of them. Walking in to the kitchen, Lauren realised that she hadn't eaten since Sunday morning. Her appetite seemed to have gone out of the window with other normal things like sleep and sticking to the right side of the law. Her mother was sat at the kitchen table, reading the morning paper and smoking a cigarette.
"Do you want some breakfast?" Yvonne asked, for the moment trying to stay on safer ground.
"An apple will do me fine," Said Lauren, walking over to the fruit bowl. Yvonne made no comment on the fact that Lauren hadn't eaten for two days. She had to be allowed to regain the normal things in life in her own way and in her own time. Lauren was about to pick a red apple from the bowl, but its rosiness reminded her of the blood that had flowed through Fenner's veins, until she'd halted its progress. Selecting a green one, she moved to sit opposite her mother.
"How did you sleep?" Asked Yvonne.
"I took another of your knock out pills, so not bad. You?" Yvonne merely shrugged, neither denying nor confirming that she'd had a restless night. Their conversation was stilted, both desperately trying to avoid the inevitable. Lauren was forced to admit that as it was her who'd plunged them both in to the abyss, it was her who should start.
"Where's the gun?" She asked without preamble.
"I chucked it and the spade in the Thames on Sunday night while you were asleep," Yvonne replied succinctly.
"And the car?"
"Spotless as the day it was bought." Lauren went quiet again. Now that the practicalities of what she had done had been dealt with, it was time for her to approach the incident itself.
"Tell me, Lauren?" Prompted Yvonne eventually, totally unable to let the silence go on any longer.
"It isn't quite that simple, Mum," Said Lauren, knowing the time had come, but still willing to postpone it for as long as possible.
"Lauren, please, I need to know," Yvonne said quietly.
"You might need to know," Said Lauren, feeding her apple core to a hovering Trigger. "But I don't think you really want to know, and I'm not sure I want to talk about it."
"Lauren, I am not watching you go through the same cycle of killing someone, coming down off the high with bouts of bad dreams, heavy drinking and not eating that your father did. He used to be like this, insist that I didn't want to know what he'd actually done, hide himself away because he couldn't handle what he was capable of, and come out of it more bitter and twisted every time."
"I'm not my dad," Said Lauren simply.
"No?" Said Yvonne, her fear and anger beginning to peep through, "Because I'm really beginning to wonder." Lauren reached across the table and helped herself to one of her mother's cigarettes.
"Let's not forget, Mum," She said, with all the pretence of calm, inner poise that she'd perceived in the prosecuting barrister at Ritchie's trial, "You're not exactly whiter than white yourself, now are you. Remember Renee Williams, for example?"
"She isn't relevant to this discussion."
"Don't talk crap," Said Lauren, her anger equaling her mother's. "This conversation's been waiting to happen for a very long time, and you know it. We're not just talking about Fenner, because it goes back a hell of a lot further than that. You're trying to make me talk about what I did to Fenner, when you've never once talked about engineering that cow's death by supposed nut allergy. You've buried that in the past, along with every other bad thing you'd rather not think about."
"You know why I did that," Said Yvonne quietly, loathed to admit that her daughter was right. "It was either me or her."
"And does Karen know about this little indiscretion?"
"No, of course not," Said Yvonne disgustedly. "Killing someone is a hell of a lot more than a little indiscretion, which is why she doesn't know about it. This conversation's hard enough without bringing her in to it."
"Well, tough," Said Lauren, getting up to make herself a coffee. "Because she's part of it now, or are you going to cast her feelings aside like everything else you don't want to contemplate."
"If Karen's the topic of concern here," Threw back Yvonne, "It was you who murdered her rapist, not me."
"I know that," Said Lauren, growing slightly calmer. "And when she came to see me yesterday, she didn't attempt to get answers out of me that wouldn't do her any good. She wanted to know why, not how. Most of all, she wanted to see Ritchie's letter. She had enough sense not to demand to know details that I didn't want to tell her and that she wouldn't be able to deal with. But we started with Renee Williams, so let's go back to her. You want me to own up as to how I killed Fenner, so it's only fair that you do the same about dad's old tart." Lauren dug a packet of best Brazilian out of the freezer and waved it in her mother's direction. On receiving a nod, she filled the percolator and returned to the table as the aroma of fresh coffee filled the kitchen.
"You know what I did," Said Yvonne, the words eventually dragged from her unco-operative soul.
"No, I don't," Said Lauren, "Not exactly."
"I put ground nuts in the salt cellar and made sure it was on the table she normally used." Yvonne had said this in a monotone voice that clearly showed her need to display the facts and the facts only, with her feelings about the whole thing remaining hidden.
"Where's all that feeling gone, Mum?" Lauren cajoled, "Like you're expecting me to have?"
"Watching her die," Replied Yvonne, "That haunted me for months. She might have deserved everything she got, Lauren, but that doesn't mean it was right."
"What about Dad then? Didn't he deserve what happened to him? After everything he did to you, Mum, he deserved nothing. He tried to fob you off with a million, and after the way he'd screwed you around."
"As it seems to be the day for home truths," Said Yvonne, finally seizing her opportunity to find out something she'd wondered about for a long time. "It was you who arranged Charlie's last ever pizza delivery, wasn't it." She nailed Lauren with her, by now, famous stare. Lauren might be an Atkins, but she couldn't maintain eye contact with such a look as this one.
" You know it was," Replied Lauren quietly. "What he did to you, that hurt me more than anything in my life. I couldn't bear the thought of having him at home again, trying to run his business like an old dinosaur regaining his old stomping ground. He was planning to carry on with life as if nothing had happened, as if you didn't even exist. I couldn't let him do that, Mum, I just couldn't." Yvonne put out a hand and took one of Lauren's.
"Lauren, tell me what happened with Fenner," She said gently. Knowing that the time had finally come, Lauren lit herself another cigarette.
"I stalked him," She began, "found out what he did, who he did it with. I followed him, finding out what shifts he usually did, where he bought his fags, the pubs he used. There wasn't anything I didn't know about his pathetic little life. Do you know what's funny, not in all that time did he go near a woman. Either he was still getting it on the inside, or he'd decided to turn over a new leaf. I started following him the week after the funeral. When Ritchie wrote me his letter and begged me to get rid of Fenner, he told me I wasn't Charlie Atkins' protege for nothing. So, I decided to do it properly. There wasn't one stone I left unturned. But then came the problem of where to do it. Fenner lives in a typical suburban street, full of families and nosy neighbours. I'm not going to tell you about where he is, because the less you know about anything concrete, the better. Suffice it to say that at this time of year, he'll have plenty of dead leaves for company. So, I followed him on Sunday when he went for his usual drink with the lads at his local pub. All they could talk about was fucking football. Why is it that men can spout shit for hours on end without even noticing? He didn't see me there, too interested in the match and his pint. I followed him back to his house. I did pretty much what Snowball did to Karen, when he was trying to find his door key. He wasn't stupid, he wasn't about to argue with an Atkins and a loaded gun. He kept calling me Atkins, like he did to you and probably like he did when he talked about Ritchie. The further away from the city I drove, the more rattled he became. I made him get out of the car, and I gave him the spade. I forced him to walk ahead of me in to the forest, and I stood with the gun on him as he dug his own grave. Mum, if he hadn't been so pathetically taken in by Merriman, Ritchie wouldn't now be in his own grave. That's what I kept thinking as I watched him digging. When he realised what he was digging, he kept asking me why, why was I doing this to him, what had he ever done to me. God, there's no one who sounds more innocent than the perpetual offender. You told me that, after a few weeks in Larkhall. I shot him, like Ritchie was shot, so that he couldn't move, but was still alive. I wanted to make someone suffer for what Ritchie had done to us, and I think I used Ritchie's request as an excuse. The fucking best excuse I've ever had to make someone like Fenner suffer. He looked so pathetic sat there. When I let some of the earth fall on his face, he pleaded with me. The stupid git still thought I'd let him go." Lauren suddenly became quiet. Yvonne stared at her, not quite able to believe that this was her daughter telling her all this.
"You buried him alive?" Yvonne asked, almost unable to get the words out.
"Yeah, I did," Said Lauren, "And if you're about to tell me how mad that is, and how I must have a screw loose, then yes, I agree with you. I don't know what happened to me on Sunday. I was high on Adrenaline, higher than I've ever been on any drug. I felt good about it, and that scares the shit out of me. But I can't take back what I did, any more than you can. Part of you would like to be able to put this one right for me, but you can't do that, Mum. This was my choice, something Ritchie asked me to do, and something I had to do. If there are any consequences, and going by my total stupidity at leaving the cartridge case behind, there probably will be. But if there are, they're mine, not yours, not Karen's, not anyone's. In his letter, Ritchie said that as a family, we don't do blame, but he was wrong. I killed Fenner, Mum, no one else, and it'll be my freedom on the block if and when the time comes. Mum, I don't regret killing Fenner, he had it coming."
"I don't know what's happened to you," Said Yvonne after a while.
"I've grown up," Said Lauren, "That's what's happened to me. If doing what I did on Sunday has done anything for me, it's made me grow up. I ain't a kid any more, Mum, I've got to deal with what's coming to me, like Dad did, like you did, and like Ritchie did. I'm part of this family, what's left of it, for good or bad, and one thing we Atkins women don't do, is hide from who we are."