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SEVENTEEN
‘I don’t mind what papers you read, but you need to be able to talk fluently about what’s going on in the world. Have an opinion on the news of the day,’ Mrs Coates had told us as we packed up our desks for the Christmas holidays and again while we re-loaded them with books on our return.
That’s possibly when my interest in the murders really took off. No more bodies had been found since the previous autumn, but journalists continued to talk about the Shadow as if he were still active.
Apart from the three days Mark Thatcher went missing in the Sahara, news was slow at the beginning of ’82. Speculating about the killer gave them something to fill their columns with and me something to fill my head. Whereas before I’d only caught the odd headline or feature on TV, now I could quote whole theories, dates and statistics.
‘Did you know women are three times more likely to be killed by a partner than a stranger?’ I told my mother shortly after the Mozart incident, three and a half weeks after Matty’s desertion. ‘And a third of them tried to leave their partners before they were killed.’
‘That’s terrible.’
I nodded. Yes.
‘Do you think it happens the other way round too?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Women killing their husbands.’
She pushed her porridge away.
‘Can we change the subject, Soph? It’s a bit early in the morning for all this.’
It wasn’t too early for the breakfast news though.
Police investigating the execution style murder of six women in the past seven months have confirmed there is a pattern to the crimes suggestive of a sole perpetrator. These motiveless random killings by an offender stalking victims in a series of separate attacks are known as ‘serial murder’, a new term coined by the FBI.
We heard about police upping patrols around North London, and Scotland Yard leaving ‘no stone unturned’ in their hunt for the murderer. Again, I begged my mother to change her hairstyle, wear heels to give her some height. Again, she refused to ‘humour’ me.
There’s a limit to how much you can write about something that’s no longer happening. With no new killings, the amount of newsprint devoted to the Shadow began to dwindle, other world events taking over the pages.
Erika Roe streaking across the pitch during the England–Australia rugby union match. Madness getting into the Top Ten. The Queen opening the Barbican Centre.
In other words, life fell back in line. I stopped seeing lurkers around every corner. Stopped listening to Des Banister, our creepy downstairs neighbour, coming home at all hours and running his engine under my window. Stopped wondering quite so much if there was a reason the Shadow’s victims looked so much like my mother.
The weather lifted and the snow began to thaw. The pigeon-coloured sky giving way to crystalline blue and bright winter sunshine.
‘Pathetic fallacy,’ my mother called it, her mood lifting too as she began to get used to Matty’s absence. ‘Put it in your “New Words Book”, Soph. It’ll impress the examiners.’
I secretly hated these faceless people on whose whims my future seemed to hang. And I hated having to do the 11+, was convinced I was going to crash and burn. My friends were all taking it too, but the stakes were higher for me.
To get a place at the prestigious local private high school, with its trips abroad and top of the range science labs, I’d need a bursary– a sort of scholarship where the fees were largely waived. No way we could have afforded it on what my mother earned otherwise.
‘It’s a total long shot,’ I said.
‘To give you the best shot,’ she replied.
Her education had been cut off by pregnancy. I never had the chance to make something of myself. And, in the way so many parents want for their children what they never had for themselves, she was determined I should have The best schooling possible so you can do whatever you want without having to change who you are.
‘So bright,’ my teachers told her. ‘Works so hard. A brilliant future ahead of her.’
I just had to get through the wretched tests first, every day mapped out on the revision timetable I stuck on my bedroom wall. Every day crossed off when it was done.
I didn’t want to talk about studying now though, didn’t want my mother to talk about it either. Let’s just enjoy our walk.
We were stamping about on Parliament Hill. I was trying to persuade her to get me a kite.
‘This is the perfect place to fly it,’ I said. ‘The open space. How high up we are.’
