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  ‘An exceptionally powerful psychological thriller’

  ROSALIND STOPPS lives in Margate and south-east London with various humans and dogs. Her short stories have been published in five anthologies and read at live literature events in London, Leeds, Hong Kong and New York.

  Her debut novel, The Stranger She Knew, was shortlisted for the Paul Torday Memorial Prize 2020. A Beginner’s Guide to Murder is her second novel.

  Also by Rosalind Stopps

  The Stranger She Knew

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021

  Copyright © Rosalind Stopps 2021

  Rosalind Stopps asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © July 2021 ISBN: 9780008302634

  Version 2021-07-07

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

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  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008302610

  For my beloved Dom

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Meg

  Chapter Two: Meg

  Chapter Three: Nina

  Chapter Four: Daphne

  Chapter Five: Grace

  Chapter Six: Meg

  Chapter Seven: Nina

  Chapter Eight: Grace

  Chapter Nine: Meg

  Chapter Ten: Nina

  Chapter Eleven: Daphne

  Chapter Twelve: Meg

  Chapter Thirteen: Nina

  Chapter Fourteen: Grace

  Chapter Fifteen: Meg

  Chapter Sixteen: Nina

  Chapter Seventeen: Daphne

  Chapter Eighteen: Meg

  Chapter Nineteen: Nina

  Chapter Twenty: Grace

  Chapter Twenty-One: Meg

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Daphne

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Meg

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Grace

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Meg

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Daphne

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Meg

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Nina

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Meg

  Acknowledgements

  Extract

  Chapter One

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Meg

  Wednesday, 27 February

  We had known him for two days when we decided to kill him. I say we, because I was there too, I was part of it, but I didn’t believe it. Not then. I didn’t think it would happen, but I couldn’t think of a better idea. I didn’t truly believe we would do it. I was so scared. So terrified. I didn’t feel safe and worse, I knew she wasn’t safe. That poor girl. I had to do something to help her, so I went along with it. I was still shaking, and I don’t think I knew which way was up. In some ways it didn’t seem real, although I wanted something terrible to happen to him, that’s for sure.

  We knew what he was like. Two days was long enough to know that. Two minutes would have been long enough if we had trusted our instincts, but we weren’t a group at the beginning. No hive mind. No consensus. No we. Just a bunch of tired old women in a coffee shop after trying to do Pilates so that we could stay alive a little longer. Trying to cheat death, that’s how Grace put it. There’s such a clarity when Grace speaks. What she says, I often want to say; I think the same as her. She puts things much better than I do.

  Grace was the first one to pull herself together and say it out loud. She was probably the first one even to think it, I’m not sure about that but I wouldn’t be surprised. I was still fussing with my face, and reliving that damn door lock, flexing my fingers as if I could manage to lock the memory, at least. I kept thinking about Nina’s face as she was pulled out of the car, and I wondered how on earth we were going to kidnap her back, get her away from him.

  I’ve always been slow, Henry used to tell me that. You’re too slow to cross the road, Meg, he’d say. If I wasn’t with you to hurry you along you’d still be dithering when the green man goes to have his tea. It was supposed to be funny, I think, only I was never sure how much of it was true. I am a ditherer, that much is certain. I think I would have been stronger if I’d had someone to look after. It would have made me a better person, I’m sure it would. I used to say that back in the days when it might have made a difference. ‘Honestly, Henry,’ I said, ‘I’m as capable as the next person.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘What would you do with a baby? You’d probably lose it down the plughole or forget to bring it home from the shops.’

  I wouldn’t, I was sure of that but after a while it’s easy to believe a person, and that’s why I understand what happened to Nina.

  We were at the end of our tether when Grace made her suggestion. I could see that Daphne wanted to cry and I knew that if she started I would too. I’ve always been like that with tears. I think I’ve got quite a lot of crying waiting inside me and most of the time I manage to keep it there but if I see someone else being sad I’m undone, just like that, I literally can’t stop it. Pull yourself together, Henry used to say, and I always wanted to say, I can’t, there’s bits of me everywhere and they won’t come together at all.

  So I was patting my sore face with a wet tissue and trying not to cry. I wanted to think in a straight line about what we could do and that’s when Grace said it.

  ‘What about we hire a hitman,’ she said, ‘or a hitwoman if that’s a thing. Has anyone got any money?’

  I wasn’t sure if she was making a joke. I mean, I didn’t really think she would make a quip at a time like that but you get used to things being a certain way and even when they’re not and the evidence is there in front of y
ou saying, excuse me, everything you believed about the world is nonsense, even then you think, really? Really? Are you sure?

  ‘I’ve got some money,’ Daphne said.

  She blushed when she said it as if it was something to be ashamed of and maybe it was, but I wasn’t going to leave her to say it on her own.

  ‘I’ve got some too,’ I said. ‘How much does it cost?’

  I felt as though I was in a play.

  We looked at each other in a baffled way and I wondered for a moment about the internet. The only thing was, anything on the internet can be traced back and presumably we didn’t want to be found out. That was almost the first time I thought like a criminal and I was quite proud. It wasn’t the last.

  ‘We can’t do any research in case it’s traced back to us,’ I said, happy to have something helpful to contribute. They both looked at me as if I was surprisingly stupid and for a moment Henry was still alive and nodding along with them.

  ‘I guess we’d better be careful about all that sort of stuff,’ Grace said. I think she was being kind.

  ‘Apparently it was about $30,000 in 1983,’ Daphne said.

  I was wondering how on earth she would know that when Grace said, ‘Way to go, girl, aren’t you clever?’

  ‘I think that’s equivalent to about $75,000 today,’ Daphne said, ‘or 56,500 in pounds sterling.’

  There was a little pause and then she added, ‘I used to work in finance,’ as if that explained everything.

  Grace and I stayed quiet. It was clear Daphne had something more to say.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘it’s a supply and demand thing. The price won’t necessarily have gone up in line with inflation, not unless demand has gone up too. It’s difficult to guess that.’

  ‘With anything else I guess we’d start low,’ Grace said, ‘but this is a job that needs to be done. How much can we afford?’

  Fifty-six thousand pounds, I was thinking, that seems like an awful lot. I knew about money. I had always been in charge of household expenses. Sometimes you have to spend money, nothing else for it.

  ‘I guess there’s nothing else,’ I said.

  I was frightened, terrified even. I have always hated violence. I did not want the police involved for lots of reasons but I wondered if we ought to consider it one more time.

  ‘Maybe we could tell the police,’ I said, ‘or make a citizen’s arrest or…’

  I couldn’t think of anything else and my words sounded very old ladyish as soon as I had said them.

  ‘It’s just that… violence,’ I said, ‘I hate violence.’

  Daphne spoke up then. Her and Grace, they always know what to do.

  ‘They’ll blame her, and he will get off and do it to some other girl while she goes to prison for it,’ she said, ‘and that’s the best case scenario. He’ll run, take her with him and hurt her, that’s the worst.’

  ‘We need to do this ourselves,’ said Grace.

  I wasn’t sure – but I’m used to that. I haven’t been sure about anything for a long time. I decided to concentrate on the practical side, think things through and note everything as if I was in a meeting at work. I’m not sure what kind of work would have meetings like this, but it helped, nonetheless.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how much it costs, then,’ I said. ‘Well, it does, of course it does to a certain extent but what else can we do? He’s nasty, that man. Nasty and rough. What are the alternatives? Things become beyond price if they are life changing.’

  I think my voice broke on the last few words. It’s embarrassing when that happens, but I was thinking of how different my life could have been if I’d acted earlier, I guess. The things I could have done, if I’d been sure of myself.

  ‘I can chip in twenty grand,’ I said, trying to get things back on a businesslike footing. I trusted them, and I didn’t want them to think I wasn’t joining in. Plus Henry had been well insured.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Daphne said. ‘I’ve got the rest, no problem. What about if we start at forty-five, see if we get any takers there?’

  And just like that, it was decided.

  I listened hard.

  What you need to listen for, my mum used to say, is a note out of tune, a beat out of rhythm. We’re funny animals, us humans, and we like to leave clues when things aren’t going well.

  I didn’t understand that when I was a child but I do now. She was a musician, my mother, and she described everything in musical terms. Voice like a bell ringing in the mountains, she said about a new teacher, you’ll love her. The strange thing was, she was usually right. My mother played the violin, and during the war she used to play in the Underground, entertaining the people who were sheltering from the bombs. If my violin hit a bad note, she said, we would know to get out of the shelter, there’d be no safety there that night. It was a shame she never met Henry.

  So I listened, as we talked, to see if I could hear a wrong note, somebody saying something they shouldn’t, anything off-key. I didn’t hear it. All three of us agreed, that was the happy thing. My wobbles were small and not worth mentioning. As far as I knew we were all law-abiding people, all over seventy but still good citizens, recycling everything and standing up for pregnant women on the bus. I hadn’t seen Grace and Daphne’s tax returns but I would have been happy to bet quite a large sum of money that they were all in order. I knew they would have voted to remain in the EU, I didn’t even need to ask. We were in tune. Together. Eat your heart out, Henry.

  ‘The thing is,’ Grace said, in a more quiet voice now as if we had crossed some kind of line, which I suppose we had. ‘The thing is, we have to remember that we are the last people anyone would suspect of anything, any kind of crime. Have either of you noticed that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Daphne, ‘I have sometimes been able to liberate items on a self-check till; not for myself, obviously, I donate them to food banks or take them to the lovely Extinction Rebellion protesters.’

  Wow, I thought. I forgot my bashed-up face for a moment. Honestly, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I would not have thought it of her. I would not have thought it possible, even. I wished I had thought of it.

  It’s only fair, she was saying. Those big multinational shops pay very low wages and they have many unethical practices.

  ‘Way to go,’ Grace said. ‘I’d high five you like the kids do if I didn’t think we’d look absolutely ridiculous. You’re an inspiration, girl. Only, I hope you both get this, there’s a big difference between nicking a pack of long-life milk or lying down on Westminster Bridge with a lot of other people and actually…’

  Grace drew her finger across her throat to make her point and we all went quiet.

  ‘Cutting his throat,’ I said when I’d recovered, ‘is that really necessary?’

  I was thinking of the mess. I couldn’t imagine the rest of it, but I knew how much mess blood makes. I didn’t think I’d said anything funny but I’ve noticed that in extreme situations humour changes tone slightly and the most serious things can seem hilarious. So I was a little embarrassed, but not surprised, when I saw that both of them were laughing so much they could hardly get their breath. Laughing in that way that’s almost crying. I thought about how ridiculous the whole thing was and before I had thought it through I’d joined in. It took a few minutes before we could all stop and then Grace said, ‘Seriously, though, how do you think they’ll do it?’

  We both looked at Daphne, I guess because she had known about the money side of things. She looked terribly uncomfortable, and I realised we should never have put her on the spot.

  ‘Could be all sorts of ways,’ I said, so that Daphne didn’t feel singled out. ‘I’ve read a lot of crime books. Poison is popular.’

  ‘Guns are more American than British,’ Grace said, ‘but some people still manage to get hold of them here.’

  ‘Knives,’ said Daphne. ‘A well-sharpened kitchen knife can be effective, I’ve heard.’

  ‘Pushing someone under
an oncoming train is very unfair on the train driver,’ I said. I was trying to join in, be as knowledgeable as the other two, but for some reason it set them off laughing again and then I joined in with that too.

  Daphne had a small laugh, a laugh that wouldn’t attract any attention which is odd given that her clothes are so strange. People do stare sometimes. The day of the decision she was wearing purple leggings and a green flowered dress topped with a pink cardigan. All perfectly acceptable items of clothing on their own, I suppose, but lethal together. I couldn’t help being a little envious. I didn’t want to look exactly like her, it wasn’t that, I just wondered what it would be like to get dressed with such gay abandon instead of sticking to the same three or four outfits in rotation hoping that I wouldn’t be noticed.

  Grace had a full, booming laugh. The kind of laugh that announced to the room that she was there; a confident laugh. She dressed in long things, long skirts, long, full linen trousers and long tunics over the top. The kind of clothes only a tall woman could wear. She wore her Extinction Rebellion patch like a badge of honour, and I was envious of that too. I couldn’t believe that they wanted to be my friend, these two amazing women. That we were a little gang, and my opinions were worth as much as the next woman’s. Even if I’d never been punched like that before and I was terrified of everything. Especially what might happen to that darling girl.

  ‘I guess we don’t need to know the actual nuts and bolts of it,’ I said, ‘as long as it’s done, that’s the main thing.’

  I couldn’t tell them how scared I was. Not when I didn’t have another plan to offer.

  ‘You’re right,’ Daphne said, ‘there’s no need for us to get too involved. We put up the money, and we can help Nina afterwards. Or make sure the right authority gets involved. That’s our job.’

  ‘We’re old women,’ Grace said, ‘what does anyone expect? We’ve got to do what we can, what’s right, do what we can to make the world a better place. Anyone would agree with us, I don’t think there’d be any argument. That poor girl.’