True Murder - Softcover

Badoe, Yaba

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099523329 ISBN 13: 9780099523321

Publisher: Vintage, 2009

Synopsis

Eleven year old Ajuba has been abandoned at a Devon boarding school by her Ghanaian father. Haunted by the circumstances of her mother's breakdown, Ajuba falls under the spell of new girl Polly Venus, and her chaotic, glamorous family. As the passionate bond between the two girls deepens, they discover what they think are the bones of dead kittens, hidden in the attic of the Venus home; but the bones are human.

The girls set out to unravel the mystery but as the summer draws to a close, three tragedies conflate, with catastrophic results.

About this title

About the Author

Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker and journalist. A graduate of King's College Cambridge, she worked as a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a General Trainee with the BBC. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and is, at present, a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, where she is completing a documentary film -The Witches of Gambaga. Her short stories have been published in Critical Quarterly and in African Love Stories: an anthology edited by Ama Ata Aidoo.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

3

From the moment she told us about Jacinth Ellberg, we were under Polly's spell. She had had contact with death; she had touched Jacinth's body. We all believed her. But of the three of us in Exe, Maria, the daughter of a journalist, was the most sceptical. And Polly dealt with her later. The day after she told us about Jacinth, Polly dragged us deeper into her world by taking us down to the Glory Hole, a cellar where the Derbys kept wood for the winter. It was a dank corner of the school filled with old chairs, desks and Mrs Derby's gardening tools. We were going to play True Murder, a game of Polly's invention. She led us down the steps: Joshua and Maria Richardson, Beth and me. I was reluctant to play, but Maria said that if I didn't, she wouldn't play either, so Polly said I had to. The cellar was pitch-black. Rather than turning on the light, Polly made us fumble our way onto the floor and sit in a circle. When we could hear nothing but the rise and fall of our shallow breathing, she ordered us to turn on our torches. 'Cards,' she said.
I handed her a stack of homemade cards she'd given me earlier. Polly shuffled the pack, dealing them
out face down. One card would determine the murderer, another the victim. Once this was established and a mode of death selected, the pair were to find a hiding place before the others hunted them down. 'Turn them over.'
We did as we were told. Everyone had blank cards except for Beth and me. My card was of a skull and crossbones, Beth's of a bleeding heart pierced by a dagger. According to Polly's rules, this meant that I was to be the murderer and Beth my victim. Beside me, Beth giggled nervously. I wanted no part of it. 'Can't Josh do it? Please, Polly?'
One look from her and I was quiescent. Polly wasn't someone to be crossed lightly. She dealt out three more cards, all of them for me. With trembling fingers, I turned over the middle card. It was a hangman's noose. Polly smiled. 'Death by hanging,' she murmured, and then, turning to
Joshua on her left, she whispered: 'Rope.'
Joshua brought out a thick coil of rope from under his sweater. He gave it to Polly, who flung it at me.
'Please, Polly, I don't want to . . .'
'We're giving you twenty minutes, then we're coming after you. Josh, set the timer.'
Flashing his torch on his wristwatch, Josh obeyed. Beth got up from the floor, taking the rope. I couldn't move. 'Scram,' Polly hissed. 'I said scram!'
Dragging me by my jumper, Beth pulled me out of the Glory Hole. Outside it was getting dark and my first thought was to run away, to lock myself in a lavatory with a book and leave them to their game. Beth could guess what I was thinking.
'It's only a game,' she said.
'But Mrs Derby said we shouldn't go out when it's getting dark.'
'If you spoil this, Ajuba Benson, Polly won't speak to you again. Nobody will.'
I was eleven years old and scared. But the prospect of being ostracised by my friends was more frightening than playing True Murder; so, against my better judgement, I capitulated. With the arrival of Polly Venus at the school, I was discovering that in life there are those who lead and those who follow; those who dominate and those who are dominated. I was too unsure of myself to do as I pleased; I simply wanted to fit in. After all, it was only a game we were playing; there was no good reason for the stab of terror I felt in my chest. I followed Beth at a steady jog. We ran alongside the classrooms, skirted the walled garden, then ran down a bridle path into the shelter of a beech wood. It was early evening and the last of the day's sunlight glinted through the leaves on the trees. The ground was damp underfoot and as I jumped over bracken and stumps of rotting wood, the thick warm smell of mulch hit my nostrils. Ahead of me, Beth stumbled on a clump of ferns. The coil of rope slung over her shoulder fell to the ground. Brushing down her jeans she picked it up again. I was ahead of her now, so she followed me. We were heading for Bouncy Town.
On one side of the mile-long drive to the school, between the tennis courts and the beech wood, was a stretch of dense rhododendron bushes we called Bouncy Town. We had created a playground within the dark interior of branches through which we leapt, slipping and sliding, any sense of danger cushioned by a thick blanket of decomposing leaves. Ploughing through the undergrowth on our bellies, I led Beth to a hiding place I had recently discovered during one
of my solitary explorations of the school grounds, on a day when Mrs Derby had forced me outside, saying my blood would go thin if I stayed by the radiator any longer. I went exploring and found this secret place, a womb-like shelter between two bushes, roofed by intertwining tendrils in flower. Petals of dying rhododendron blooms littered the ground like tired balloons at the end of a party. 'Brilliant,' Beth said when she saw it. 'They'll never find us here.'
Her eyes settled on the branch of an old oak tree jutting through the rhododendron bushes. From under her jumper, Beth produced the coil of rope, tied it loosely around her neck and started climbing.
'We're supposed to stay together,' I said.
'Imagine their faces! They'll get the shock of their lives when they see me.'
Swinging her legs up, she climbed higher into the bushes.'If I tie myself up there,' she pointed to the oak tree, 'they'll think you've really murdered me!'
She heaved herself through a tangle of rhododendrons and inched closer to her destination.
'It's not safe, Beth! This isn't part of the game.'
She laughed, giving me a daredevil grin. As she turned, her foot slipped on the moist bough of the rhododendron. She struggled to maintain her balance, but with a leg curled around the trunk while the other dangled, blindly searching for a foot hold, her shoulders twisted to one side and she slid. The thick yellow coil around her neck caught in the cleft of a branch, binding itself to it like a malevolent serpent. Beth tried to shake it loose by jerking her head, but she was unable to see how it was trapped, and her movements tightened the rope, fastening its hold on her neck and the shrub.
'Hold still!'
The panic I saw on her face was mirrored in my voice. Her legs thrashed the rhododendron branches,
bringing down twigs and petals. At any moment the branch supporting her could break. Controlling my terror as best as I could, I positioned myself beneath her feet. If the branch broke, or if she slipped, I would try to catch her. I could hear her gasping for breath. Suddenly, I heard a scream as
she lost her grip on the canopy. There was a crash of snapping branches as she fell, the rope around her throat. I fell under her weight. I clawed my way out from under her and cleared the debris of broken branches and leaves covering her body. Her face was pale, her eyes closed. I tore the rope from her neck, exposing a purple weal where it had cut into her flesh.
'Beth! Beth! Wake up!' I sobbed. She didn't stir. At last, blinded by tears, I got up and ran. What I feared most in the world was happening again.In my panic I didn't feel the leaves whipping my hands
and cheeks, the twigs and stems catching my clothes. All I was aware of was having to find an adult quickly. At last I scrambled out on to the school drive. Out of breath, I bent
double, clutching my stomach. Then, filling my lungs with air, I bellowed for help. Joshua and Polly appeared round a corner of the drive.
'She's dead!' I cried. 'Beth's killed herself.'
They followed me to where she was lying. Immediately,
Joshua took charge. He sent Polly for help and knelt beside Beth. I explained what had happened.
'She was playing. She didn't mean to. It was an accident.'
He took Beth's wrist, fumbling for a pulse.
'Do something!' I urged.
Josh's face was drained of colour; even his freckles looked pale against a lock of hair darkened by sweat. I realised that this boy, whose bullying command of the English language made me stumble over my words and whose cocky selfconfidence sapped me of mine, was as scared as I was. I
watched him pull up Beth's jumper, his jagged nails catching in the wool. He was going to listen to her heart, he said. His fingers trembled, struggling with the buttons of her shirt.
'Give her the Kiss of Life,' I shouted.
Just then a whimper escaped Beth, and tears of relief flooded my eyes. I started stroking her face. Her eyes opened. The flicker of fear that passed through them reminded me of my mother's eyes when they had opened, her head on my lap, almost a year ago. We had been living, just the two of us, in a bare London bed-sit. We'd run away from Ghana to Lewisham. For a month we had survived on next to nothing because my mother wasn't well enough to hold down a job. I stopped going to school in order to look after her. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't help her. I couldn't calm her. I couldn't distract her from faces she said she saw in the mirror. She talked to them constantly. She said they were multiplying. And as their numbers grew, the faces stepped out of the mirror into the room and Mama became incomprehensible, cursing them as they followed her back and forth, pacing the floor. She wouldn't stop walking, and occasionally I fell asleep while she walked. One morning, I awoke to find her in a deep sleep. When I tried to rouse her, her eyes wouldn't open. Her hands were cold. I rubbed them. I stroked her unkempt hair. I covered her with a blanket. I caressed her cheek, until, after what
seemed a long time, her eyes opened at last. They registered fear.
Seeing that familiar look in Beth's eyes, I remembered my helplessness in the face of my mother's suffering, and my tears of relief turned into something else. I couldn't stop crying.
'She's going to be all right,' Joshua assured me, bewildered. I jammed a hand in my mouth to stem my tears, biting hard until it bled.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099523329
• ISBN 13: 9780099523321
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272