Page 76 of The Tapes
‘The only reason to stop is because you wanted Eleanor,’ he says. ‘I was fine before you and I’d have been fine without you.’
Nicola puffs an annoyance. ‘Iliterallyjust saved you.’
I can barely see either of them. Is this a family thing? Is Lucy involved as well, or is she a clueless wife to Kieron and mother to Nicola? I strain but there’s no sign of anybody else. The tension bubbles between father and daughter. Except I recognise a name. I’ve spent large parts of the week looking for details of the Earring Killer, and Eleanor Beale was the final victim.
Suddenly, I know where I’ve heard that name before.
‘Didn’t Ethan used to be engaged to an Eleanor?’ I ask.
There’s silence but I can feel Nicola and her father staring daggers through the dark. I don’t know the full story of how Nicola and Ethan got together, but I know he was engaged to someone else when they first met. It wasn’t long after Nicola had blown up her first marriage. She told me she’d run into someone at a petrol station with whom she thought she had a connection. It was around three years later when she introduced me to her new boyfriend and I realised he was the same person.
‘You killed Eleanor because you wanted her boyfriend…?’ I say, not sure I believe it. It can’t be real.
Except: ‘He’d have picked me anyway.’ It’s a spiteful, furious retort and I know Nicola doesn’t truly believe it.
She found out who her father really was when she walked in on him with Vivian’s daughter. There was one final killing after that – Eleanor – except that wasn’t Kieron, it was his daughter. Or maybe it was both of them?
‘Who killed Owen?’ I ask.
‘Does it matter?’ Nicola replies.
‘He was going to do me a favour.’
Neither of them answers – but I suppose that’s a truth in itself. As soon as I told Kieron about the cassette, he knew he needed it. He killed Owen looking for it, and, once he failed to find it at his flat, he broke into Dad’s house to see if it was there.
‘Did you kill my mum?’ I ask. Kieron told me he didn’t and something about the way he said it made me believe him.
‘You might as well tell her,’ Nicola replies, quieter. There’s a silence, still punctuated only by the gentle scratching of my wrists scraping the bars. Neither of them tries to stop me.
‘Your parents came here,’ Kieron replies. ‘This was back when we owned the farm. Maybe a year after one of her arrests, where I’d been trying to help her. It was supposed to be a celebration of her staying out of trouble. My wife loves dinner parties but your mother… well, you know what she was. She tooksomething that wasn’t hers and I suppose we both knew what was going to happen from that.’
‘So itwasyou?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I don’t get it. How are her fingerprints on that gun?’
Nicola sighs. ‘Just tell her.’
The croak remains in Kieron’s voice, a remnant from the taser. He’s still shrouded in shadow.
‘Your mother came to me after she stole the box,’ Kieron says. ‘She made an offer: she’d keep the box and keep my secret. In return, I’d leave you, your daughter, and your father alone.’
‘You killed her anyway…?’
‘I already told you no. But there was no way I could agree to that. She’d be able to hold it over me forever. I think she knew, even as she offered it. That’s probably why she left you her backup…’
That’swhy there’s a tape with my name on it.That’swhy another was mailed to Vivian. Mum was planning her visit to Kieron and didn’t know how things would go. She needed to leave the tapes behind to tell us what she knew, because she worried it might be too late.
I wonder where mine was left. Likely not in the shoebox with the others – which means Dad probably moved it, likely by accident. Instead of being left out for me, it was hidden.
‘When your mother took that jewellery box, it wasn’t the only thing she stole. I noticed the box was missing but not the second thing.’
I already know what she must have stolen. ‘She stole your gun?’
‘At the time I was so furious she’d dare steal anything from me. Especially that jewellery box. When she came to make a deal, I couldn’t see past the betrayal. It didn’t cross my mind she’d taken more than one thing – plus she came with a plan B.I told her I couldn’t agree to her deal, and she told me it didn’t matter. That’s when she pulled my own gun on me. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.’
That explains how mum’s fingerprints ended up on a gun I knew couldn’t be hers.
