Three Things About Elsie(99)

He smiled, and the scar at the corner of his mouth disappeared. ‘Was it?’

‘The binoculars. The Battenberg. Even ordering the pizzas and the taxis. All of it was you.’

‘Don’t forget the elephant, Florence. Imagine the irony of forgetting an elephant.’

‘You killed Gabriel Price, didn’t you? You were the one who pushed him in the water.’

‘You were the last person I expected to see on that riverbank, Florence. I was waiting for Gabriel. I had it all planned. I needed an identity to borrow, a name I could steal without too much fuss being made.’ His expression never changed, even as he said the words. ‘Things were getting a little too complicated.’

‘You were waiting for him?’

‘I knew he’d take a shortcut back to his digs. Then you popped up. Perfect timing, Florence. Strangely enough, because of you, becoming someone else was so very much simpler. If anyone would have kicked up a fuss and dug around, it would have been you. But you were hardly going to say anything under the circumstances, were you? You just underestimated how easy I found it to swim back to the bank and carry on with the job I’d set out to do in the first place.’

‘And the police didn’t suspect anything.’

‘I became a missing person. A few weeks later, a body washes up. Similar build, similar age. I knew it might happen, but by then Gabriel was unrecognisable. None of this DNA identification nonsense in those days, the police just used their powers of deduction. Lucky for me they managed to deduce incorrectly.’

‘And no one missed Gabriel. No one thought it might be him?’

‘Of course not. He was a traveller. A nomad. People just assumed he’d moved on to the next town. Being missing generally relies on someone bothering to notice you’re not there any more.’

‘And you just took his place. You stole his ID card and became a whole new person.’

Ronnie simply smiled.

‘I’m going to tell them,’ I said. ‘I’m going to tell them everything. Right from the beginning.’

‘And do you really think they’ll listen?’

‘People have always listened to me. My whole life. No one has ever doubted anything I’ve said.’

‘Florence.’ He leaned forward and the words tiptoed into my ear. ‘When are you going to face up to it? You stopped being the person you used to be a long time ago.’

I could still feel the breath of his words on my face, even as I walked away.

When I got back to the flat, Elsie was sitting at the table, waiting for me.

‘Where did you get to?’ I knew I shouldn’t have shouted. ‘Why weren’t you there?’

‘Whatever’s happened, Flo?’ She shrank back in her seat and made herself very small. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘It’s Ronnie,’ I went over to the window and drew the curtains. ‘He pushed Gabriel Price in the water. He waited for him by the river, and he killed him. He confessed it to me, just now, when we were playing Scrabble.’

‘Scrabble?’

‘He swam to the side and got out. He was down there waiting, planning to drown Gabriel Price. He said me coming along just made it easier for him, because it meant I wouldn’t stir up trouble.’

When I turned back, she had gone.

‘Where are you now?’ I said. ‘Where have you got to?’

‘I’m in here. You’ve had a shock, I’m making you a sugary tea.’

I went into the kitchen and put the milk back in the fridge. ‘I don’t want any sugary tea. I just want you to listen to me.’

By the time I’d closed the refrigerator door, she was back at the table with a piece of paper.

I snatched it from her hands. ‘Will you just keep still and stop moving around. I can’t keep track of you.’

Elsie became very quiet, and she watched me from the corner of the room. ‘I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do,’ she said eventually. ‘Tell me what to do.’

‘I just need you to listen. He confessed it to me, now I need you to help me decide what’s best. Jack would know. If Jack was here, he’d have a plan.’

‘He isn’t, though, is he?’ she said. ‘It’s just you and me, and all those secrets. Who will ever believe us?’

‘Someone has to, surely? For Ruth Honeyman? For Beryl?’

She didn’t reply.

‘I don’t understand why you’re here,’ I said. ‘If you’re not going to help me.’

‘I’ve helped you already. I helped you to find out the truth. That’s exactly why I was here,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’

When I looked down, I realised my hands were shaking, and I had ripped the paper into tiny pieces.

‘I think you need to lie down, Florence. Just for half an hour. Give your mind a rest.’

I didn’t remember getting into bed. But I found myself lying there somehow, in curtained light, thinking about Ronnie.

I stood on the bridge for a while after he’d fallen. Instead of finding help, I decided to find Elsie. She was the only one who would understand. The only person I could tell. Not my father, who was too forgiving. Not Gwen, who would fashion an excuse for me, but Elsie.