The first I knew of Kelly Hammond's suicide was when I was contacted by her solicitor and told I was the sole beneficiary of her will. I was shocked. Not only by her death, but because I hadn't seen or heard from her in over ten years.
"Why me?" I asked when I visited her solicitor's office. "Surely there must have been someone else?"
"Apparently not. Her father was her only relative, and he died six months ago."
"What about a boyfriend?"
He shook his head. "Miss Hammond led a very quiet life. In any case, the will is quite clear. She wanted you to have everything. The house will have to be sold, of course. There are a number of outstanding debts, largely from her father's estate. Whatever is left will belong to you, though frankly I doubt it will be very much."
He seemed to take a grim satisfaction from the fact. He slid a small padded envelope across the desk.
"There is also this. Miss Hammond left it with us shortly after her father's death, with instructions to give to you in the event of her own."
& I waited till I was outside before I opened it. Inside was a key and brief note, written in Kelly's once familiar writing.
' Dear Stephen,
This is the key to the strong-box at the bottom of my wardrobe. It will explain everything better than I can.
Love Kelly .'
I didn't know what to make of it. I had no idea what might be in the box, or why Kelly should want me to have it. I put the note away feeling more puzzled than ever.
I drove straight from the solicitor's office to the church. Kelly had donated her body to medical science, so there was no funeral, only a memorial service. I had taken the day off work to drive up from London for it, which hadn't pleased my wife. She didn't like the idea of another woman, even a dead one, being able to lay such a claim to me. Eventually I grew tired of trying to explain, and we parted badly. Not that there was anything new in that.
The town I drove through bore little resemblance to the one I'd grown up in. It had been a drab, isolated spot surrounded by hilly Yorkshire countryside. Now it had been engulfed by a sprawling new housing estate. Familiar landmarks had either disappeared or been swallowed up, and by the time I found the church the service had already started.
It was a small, sad affair. I didn't recognise any of the half-dozen or so people present. It was only when it was over that I noticed a familiar face at the back of the hall. When he saw me his face mirrored the same reluctant recognition and embarrassment that I felt. We shook hands, awkwardly.
"Hello, Stephen."
"Michael," I said.
It seemed strange calling him that. I'd always known him as Macky, but I could hardly use his old nickname now. Still even though the ginger hair was thinner, the face rounder, and the gold-rimmed glasses were new, he remained surprisingly like the boy I remembered.
"Not many people here," I said. "I wondered if Gerry Marsh would come."
Macky gave me a strange look. "Didn't you hear? He was killed. Car crash, must be three, four years ago."
The news shook me. "No, I hadn't heard."
He adjusted his glasses. "And now Kelly. She was the last person I'd have expected to... well, you know. Does anyone know why?"
I thought about the key I carried in my pocket. "Not as far as I know."
We didn't linger outside. I think he was as relieved to say goodbye as I was. From the church I went straight to Kelly's house, wanting to get this over as soon as possible. I almost drove straight past, thrown by a new shopping centre on the corner. But at least the old Victorian villa looked much as I recalled. A little more rundown perhaps, but otherwise unchanged.
I unlocked the door and went in. The house still had a lived-in feel. I wandered through the downstairs rooms, searching myself for traces of nostalgia, but there was nothing. I had only been inside a few times before, and then mainly in the hall and kitchen. And, on one memorable occasion, Kelly's bedroom.
Even that failed to strike a chord. The furniture was modern, the old wardrobe I remembered from my single visit now replaced by a cheap laminated unit. A faint scent of perfume lingered, but it wasn't one I associated with Kelly.
Feeling like a trespasser, I went to the wardrobe. There were surprisingly few clothes inside. I found the strong-box tucked away at the back. I took it out and was about to put it on the bed when I noticed the faint depression on the pillow. I set the box on a chair instead, and unlocked it.
I thought there might be another letter inside. Something more detailed than the brief note Kelly had left with the solicitor. But the strongbox was empty except for a small pile of newspaper cuttings, and a flat brown carton. I took the cuttings out. The top one had been folded to fit inside the box. I opened it, and suddenly the past rushed over me in a way even Kelly's death had failed to manage.
WOMAN FOUND MURDERED AT DUMP .
It was a front page headline from the local newspaper. I didn't have to look at the date to know how old it was. I could remember reading that same story when it first appeared, eighteen years earlier.
It had been the summer before my thirteenth birthday, and what I would later come to think of as the last of my childhood. We had just started the long school holidays, and the prospect of endless hot days stretched ahead. Macky, Gerry and I had been friends as long as we could remember. We occasionally played with other boys from school, but the three of us were usually happier by ourselves. We didn't want or need anyone else.
Then the new doctor moved into the old house. Widowed, with a young daughter. We didn't take much notice of her at first. She was the only girl our age in the neighbourhood, but any girl was beneath our twelve-year-old notice. Until the day she started following us.
At first we ignored her. But when she continued to trail behind us as we headed towards the woods, we couldn't overlook it any longer.
"Get lost!" shouted Gerry. The tallest and most athletic of us, he was also the most forthright.
"No," she shouted back.
That stumped us. We carried on walking. She continued to follow. Gerry spat into the long grass.
"Let's run." And then, to rub in our superiority, he called out a final goad. "If you can catch us you can join our gang!"
We tore gleefully through the woods, confident that we would lose her. We didn't. Gerry and I might have been able to leave her behind, but Macky wasn't built for running. Finally he collapsed wheezing onto the grass.
"Get up!" Gerry panted, trying to drag him to his feet.
"Can't," Macky gasped. "Knackered."
There was a stunned silence as the girl emerged through the trees. The look of determination on her face gave way to a grin as she slowed to a halt.
"Caught you," she panted.
So the three of us became four. Reluctantly, at first. Gerry found it especially hard to come to terms with. "She's a girl ," he insisted. But, girl or not, Kelly soon settled into our group. She played football with us, ran and climbed trees better than Macky. Soon it was as though she'd always been part of our world.
And then came the afternoon that changed everything.
The town rubbish dump was surrounded by trees and reached by a dirt track. It was isolated and smelly, but a source of endless fascination for us. We visited it regularly, scavenging broken radios and other unwanted treasures.
But that afternoon the pickings were disappointingly poor. We finally gave up and sprawled on an old sofa, listless and drugged by the heat. Mountains of rubbish rose up around us.
"I'm bored," Macky announced.
No one bothered to answer. He picked up a spade handle and began pounding on an upturned bucket. Gerry threw a stone at him.
"Pack it in."
Macky threw the handle away. "Let's do something."
"What?" I asked.
He didn't reply. He was staring wide-eyed over our shoulders. It was an old trick, but I still felt the hairs prickle on the nape of my neck as he pointed behind us.
"It moved!"
"What did?" Gerry sneered, but he still turned to look. So did Kelly and I. Macky wasn't that good an actor.
"That plastic bag!"
He was jabbing his finger at a bulky black bin-liner, tied at the top with wire. It lay a few yards away, motionless.
"Yeah, right."
"It did, honest!" Macky's voice was high in protest.
"'Course it did." Gerry stood up, unimpressed, and as he did the bin-liner crackled and shifted.
The buzzing of the flies seemed to grow louder in the sudden silence. Then the black plastic crackled again, and this time it didn't stop. Like a huge slug, it bent and flexed in a slow but unmistakeable wriggling motion. Towards us.
I was never sure who ran first. But all at once we were racing over mounds of rubbish, blundering through thorns, brambles and nettles, not daring to look back. Only when we'd reached the relative safety of the dirt track did we stop.
Gerry recovered first. "What was it?" he panted.
No one knew. But relief made us giddy.
"Did you see it?" Macky exclaimed. "I told you, didn't I?"
We re-lived the moment feverishly, too excited to notice that Kelly wasn't joining in. And when she finally spoke, it wasn't anything we wanted to hear.
"We should go back."
We stared at her, aghast. "What?" Macky looked horrified.
"There must have been something in there. We can't just leave it."
"I'm not going back," Macky declared.
"It could be an animal! It might suffocate!"
"Then why hasn't it already?"
"I don't know! There might be airholes, or something."
Gerry had been listening to them argue. "It wasn't anything," he announced. We all looked at him. His mouth was set in a firm line. "It was just the stuff in it shifting. Tins and things. That's all."
He stared at us all, defying us to argue. Only Kelly dared.
"But you saw - "
" It wasn't anything!" Gerry was white faced, his fists balled. I'd never seen him like that before. "Let's go back to town. It's crap here."
He set off down the track away from the dump. After a moment Macky followed him. I hesitated. Kelly was still standing on the track, dirt smudges on her face. She looked close to tears.
"Kelly?" I said.
She stared back at the dump. There was a strange expression on her face, as though she knew, even then, that this was a decision whose consequences she would have to live with. I almost said I'd said I'd go back with her, and if I had then everything that followed might have been very different.
But I didn't. After a moment, Kelly's shoulder's slumped in defeat.
And the four of us walked away.
As the days passed, the memory of that afternoon began to seem unreal. Even when news circulated that two women had been attacked by a man wearing a black ski-mask, we failed to make any connection. That was part of the adult world, and we had more important concerns to occupy us during the long summer days.
Then the bound and gagged body of a woman was found on the local dump. In a black bin-liner, of course.
We were enthralled. "I bet it was her!" Macky said, echoing what we all thought. "I bet she was a ghost and had come back to haunt whoever did it!"
"She couldn't have moved if she'd been dead!" Kelly said, quietly.
"She could if she was a ghost."
"Don't be stupid!" Kelly snapped, surprising us all. "She must still have been alive. If we'd gone back we might have saved her."
We liked the thought of that. "We'd have been heroes!" Macky enthused.
"Yes, but we aren't," Kelly said, her voice bleak. "We ran away instead."
We were silent at that. "Should we tell anyone?" I asked, uncomfortably.
"My dad," Kelly said at last. "He'll know what to do."
Dr Hammond had just finished evening surgery when we trooped around to the big house. He was in his office, a gaunt, austere man who seemed too old to have a young daughter.
"Yes?" he said, looking up from his desk.
The rest of us hung back in the doorway while Kelly went in. Even she seemed a little in awe of him.
"We found something the other day..."
"Oho. Sounds intriguing."
Kelly took a deep breath. "We were out at the dump, and - "
"You were where ?" His smile had vanished.
"Out at the dump."
"The dump? How many times have I told you not to go there?"
"I know, but - "
"No! No buts! It isn't safe! And I will not have a daughter of mine running round the town dump like some...some tramp! "
He turned on the rest of us. The fury in his gaze pinned us to the spot.
"I suppose you three put her up to this!"
Our mouths hung open at the injustice of it. But he hadn't finished.
"This is what I get for letting Kelly hang around with local yobs! Well, it stops here! I don't want to see any of you anywhere near my daughter again! Is that clear?"
It was Macky who found his voice. "But we haven't..."
" Is that clear?"
It was.
Despite her father's disapproval, we continued to see Kelly, though we avoided her house after that. But it wasn't the same. Back at school, our friendship began to lose its cohesion. Gerry started to hang round with an older, rougher crowd who wouldn't be a constant reminder of his cowardice, and without him Macky and I gradually drifted apart. As for Kelly...
Kelly became just another girl.
It wasn't until we both found ourselves in the school sixth form that Kelly and I became close again. She had grown into a graceful, attractive girl I barely recognised. I can still recall the stomach-twisting tension when I asked her out, and the elation I felt when she said yes.
Six weeks later, we lost our virginity to each other in Kelly's single bed. It was the only time we made love there. Her father still didn't approve of me, and when he came home unexpectedly I hid in her big old wardrobe until he left. Kelly and I laughed hysterically about it afterwards, but from then on we went to my parents house instead. For a while we were inseparable. We thought we would last forever, too young to know that nothing ever does.
Then, in our final year, Kelly's grades began to fail. Her teachers and father blamed me. We were seeing too much of each other, they said. Kelly became withdrawn and moody. It became easier to meet less often than to go through the inevitable bickering when we did. And while I won a place in university, Kelly didn't even take her exams. Instead she started working as a receptionist at her father's surgery, a choice that appalled me. But by then she barely figured in my plans.
"I'll still be home at holidays," I told her dutifully, the night before I left.
She smiled. Sadly, but without accusation. "No you won't. But it's all right."
She knew me better than I did myself. I never got in touch. And when my parents moved to another town, I no longer had any reason to go back. Over the following years I rarely even gave Kelly another thought. Not until I heard from her solicitor that she had taken a full bottle of sleeping pills, and was dead.
The other newspaper cuttings were all concerned with either the woman's murder or the other attacks. I gave them only a cursory glance, at a loss why Kelly had wanted me to see them. Then I noticed that one was different to the rest, smaller and not so brittle. When I read it I saw it was only six months old.
It was her father's death notice from the local paper, a brief eulogy to encapsulate a life. The final line was a quote from his partner. 'Dr Hammond was a fine doctor, and the cornerstone of the practice,' it said. 'He will be sorely missed.'
There was nothing to indicate why Kelly had included it with the other cuttings. I probably should have guessed then, but I didn't. I had to open the flat brown carton before I understood what Kelly had wanted to tell me.
Inside was a black ski-mask.
I put it down on the bed, reluctant to touch it. The mask was old and musty. Deep creases had formed where it had been folded, but then it hadn't been used for years. Eighteen, to be exact. The mouth and eye-holes gaped at me as past events tumbled into a new, truer perspective.
It was surprising how well they fitted.
After a while, I folded the mask and put it back into the strongbox with the newspaper cuttings. It felt surprisingly heavy as I carried it out to my car. Its weight seemed to stay with me even after I'd locked it in the boot. I didn't bother to look at anything else. I'd seen everything Kelly wanted me to.
On impulse, I drove down the street where I used to live, looking for the house I'd grown up in. But that had gone too.
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