Secrets

 

The letter arrived on a Monday morning.  It looked innocuous enough, sat there on the mat, a white envelope with spidery handwriting.  Jenny’s name and address crawled across the surface. Small, innocent, harmless.  The note inside held something far more disturbing.  Jenny’s heart stopped as she read the words.  Sweat beaded on her brow as panic arose from deep within her chest.  Four lines of hand written text.  Simple and to the point.  But for Jenny, they spelt the end of everything.

I Know

I Saw You

I Will Reveal All

Secrets Must be Told

How could anyone possibly know, or have seen her?  She had been so careful, surely this was a prank, a wind up by some village wise guy.  Maybe everyone had received one.  Maybe this would be the talk of the village for a few days then nothing more would come of it.  She let out the breath she realised she had been holding in.  What to do for the best.

The doorbell rang, making her jump.  She was trembling.  She took a deep breath, stuffed the note back in it’s envelope and shoved it in a drawer.  The bell rang again.  Wiping the sweat from her forehead she opened the door.  Margery Cranfield burst through grumbling and ranting, holding an envelope aloft.

‘You’ll never guess what I got this morning.  Have you heard?  Everyone has them.  Its an outrage.  Some prank no doubt.  Has your post been yet?’  She raved.

‘Err, no.  I haven’t had anything.’  Jenny lied.

‘Well, you must be the only one.  I’ve just spoken to Doreen from the Post Office and Sally Roberts.  Have a look at this.’  She thrust the envelope into Jenny’s hands.  ‘Go on, open it.  I have nothing to hide.’

Jenny pulled the note from the envelope.  The same spidery handwriting, the same four lines.

I Know

I Saw You

I Will Reveal All

Secrets Must be Told

Jenny’s heart raced.  She felt panic and relief all at once.  It was just a prank.  No one had been watching her.  She was still safe.  For now. 

‘And Doreen and Sally have the same note?’  She asked.

‘Yes, exactly the same.  Same handwriting.  Honestly, it looks like a child wrote it.  The postmark is Chipston so that’s no help.  Obviously, someone went the trouble of travelling over there and posted the whole lot.  I tell you; something has to be done about it.  I’m not standing for this.’  With that she snatched back her letter and stormed out.  Jenny stared after her.  Whoever did this picked the wrong woman to mess with.  Margery was the scourge of the WI and the village’s biggest gossip.  The prankster would regret getting Margery involved.

Tuesday brought another shock to Jenny’s world.  The doorbell rang frantically.  Margery again.

‘Have you heard?’ She asked barging past Jenny and into her kitchen.  ‘Doreen.  From the Post Office?  She’s been caught with her hands in the till.  Apparently its been going on for years.  Stealing stamps and selling them on the internet, fiddling postal orders, taking money out of envelopes.  Who knew such things went on in a small village like this?  Its outrageous. Someone should do something about it.’

 Jenny felt fear grip her heart.  So, Doreen gets a poison pen letter and the next day it turns out she has a secret.  Coincidence?

‘Didn’t you say she had one of those letters?’  She asked Margery.

‘Well yes, but that’s just a coincidence, I’m sure.  I mean I had one and I haven’t done anything.  You didn’t get one, did you?’

Jenny’s mouth went dry, she felt sick.  ‘No, I err, I didn’t get anything.’  She couldn’t tell Margery she had lied, that wouldn’t look good at all.

‘Well, I always said there was something shifty about Doreen.  Eyes too close together.  My old mum always used to say you could tell a villain by how close their eyes were.’

Jenny felt Margery’s gaze upon her.  She felt like she was staring at her eyes, assessing how close they were.  That was ridiculous.  Of course, she wasn’t doing that.  Although, she was looking at her oddly.  But what if the letters weren’t a prank.  What if someone knew.

After Margery had left, Jenny went back to the drawer in the hallway.  She took out the letter and studied it again.  Was it just a prank?  Chipston seemed to ring a bell, she was sure she had heard someone mention family there, a friend maybe.  No, she was just trying to convince herself.  It was nothing, she was safe.

On Wednesday morning Jenny sat in her kitchen drinking tea when a knock on her window startled her.  Looking up she saw Margery’s face looking at her through the glass.  She opened the back door and Margery bowled in full of more gossip.

‘Sally Roberts.  Of all the people.  Apparently she’s been seeing the milkman behind her husbands back.  She confessed to him last night.  She had to move out, I’ve just seen her, bags all packed.  I bet the milkman won’t be putting her up.’  Margery was never happier than when she had some gossip to spread.  This time though Jenny could only think of one thing.  The letters.  Sally had received one too. 

‘Anyway, I thought I’d come over and tell you on the way to see my sister.  I know you like to keep abreast of what’s going on in the village.  It’s an outrage, isn’t it.  A sleepy little village like ours, full of scandal.  As soon as these harlots move away the better for all concerned.’  Margery trotted out gleefully.

Jenny slumped down into a kitchen chair.  Her heart racing, sweat forming on her brow, she just stared straight ahead.  She felt numb.  Two of the women who had received letters had their secrets revealed.  It could all be a coincidence, but Jenny couldn’t risk it.  She had to know who sent the letters.  She had to silence them.

With her head full of questions, and her stress levels rising, Jenny left her house and walked through the village.  She wasn’t sure where she was headed, she just needed fresh air and time to think.  Where had she heard about Chipston before?  Had she seen that handwriting anywhere?  She thought back to the WI, and the church group.  Nothing came to mind.  As she turned the corner, she bumped into Sally Roberts coming the other way.

‘I suppose you’ve heard.’  Sally scowled.  ‘That bloody Margery couldn’t wait to tell you I bet.’

‘Yes, she came over this morning.  I’m really sorry.  What will you do?’

‘Well to be honest, it was probably for the best.  Me and Steve were over a long time ago, I think.  But I would have liked to have told him in my own time.  Bloody Margery and those bloody letters.’  She stormed off towards the bus stop.

Suddenly the penny dropped in Jenny’s mind.  Margery, Chipston.  Her sister was in a care home there.  But Margery got a letter too, hadn’t she?  Unless that was to throw off suspicion.  What if Margery had seen her.  She looked up from her thoughts.  Her wandering around had brought her to Margery’s cottage.  A thought occurred to her.  Margery was out.  Maybe she could take a peek inside.  She knew where the spare key was because she had offered to water her plants last summer. It wouldn’t hurt to take a peek.

The back door of Margery’s house led to the little kitchen and another door lead through to her lounge.  In the corner stood a tall bureau.  One of those old-fashioned ones you often see on antiques shows. It wasn’t locked.  Jenny pulled down the front flap revealing several drawers and cupboards, and in one of them was a stack of letters.  Those letters.  All neatly written in the spidery handwriting.  All waiting to go to their intended victims, no doubt.  There must be a list of those too somewhere.  Jenny’s heart began to race.  Her mind rushing through the past few months.  Coming home from her Zumba class early and finding Oliver in bed with her best friend.  Her best friend, of all people.  She had thought Oliver and Tina just got on well, now she knew why.  She had lost it that day, ranting and screaming.  Tina ran out in tears.  Then Oliver said how he only slept with Tina because he was bored.  The lying cheating bastard.  Their argument had taken them into the kitchen.  If only they had stayed somewhere safe.  She picked up the nearest object and hurled it at him.  Unfortunately for Oliver, that object was a carving knife.  Despite her rage, her aim had been perfect.  It struck him in the eye, burying itself deep in his frontal cortex.  He dropped like a stone.  Even after all this time Jenny still remembered how heavy he was as she carried him to the boot of her car.  She had checked everywhere.  It was dark, surely no one saw her.  How could Margery have seen what she did?  She had seen a documentary the previous week about serial killers disposing of bodies.  That night the pigs at Rendale Farm ate well.

‘Can I help you?’  The voice startled her and brought her back to the present with a jolt.  Jenny spun around and saw Margery staring at her, confusion on her face.  Then her eyes fell on the pile of unsent letters and she paled. 

‘Margery.  What have you been doing?’  Jenny asked accusingly.

Margery regained her composure and her face reddened with anger.  ‘Well, I am sick of all this scandal in my village.  This is a respectable place for respectable people.  We don’t need your sort here.  Oh yes, I know all about you Jenny Rowntree.  I know what you did.’

Panic rose in Jenny, she stepped forward towards Margery intending to explain, to try to reason with her.  But Margery wouldn’t let it go.

‘People like you should be locked up, its disgusting what you did.  I will be revealing everything I know, you wont get away with it.’

The red mist descended on Jenny, much like that evening over a year ago.  She lost control.  A round glass paperweight sat on the sideboard.  A decorative one with red streaks of paint running through it.  She threw it at Margery, hitting her square on the forehead.  Margery’s eyes rolled into her head and she crumpled to the floor, blood trickled from the wound, her body lay lifeless on the rug.  The contents of her handbag had spilled out around her as she fell.  Jenny’s eyes were drawn to a little black book.  She picked it up and began flicking through the page, it was just as she thought.  A list of names, and their crimes.  “Doreen Patterson, Fiddling the Post Office; Sally Roberts having an affair; Jenny Rowntree...”  She couldn’t believe what she read next.  It couldn’t be.  There must have been a mistake.  She read it again.  “Jenny Rowntree, cheating at cards.” 

The memory of the WI Bridge tournament from last summer came flooding back to her.  Margery and Valerie Dawson had won every year for decades.  The other women concocted a plan to cheat, to make sure Jenny and her partner Sarah won.  It had been a laugh at the time, Margery was furious she didn’t win.  No one dared tell her they cheated.  Jenny looked down at Margery’s lifeless corpse, the blood now seeping into the rug.  Remorse mixed with guilt brought tears to her eyes.  But how could she have known.  Her secret had to stay hidden at all costs.  The pigs at Rendale Farm would eat well again tonight.