by Joanna Baker
Veronica knew all this. ‘When did he ring you?’
‘Just now. Around nine.’
‘You don’t know where he was?’
‘I tried to find out. But you know how it is, when there’s something he doesn’t want you to know … the conversation slips around.’
‘If he’s hiding from the police, why did he ring you?’
‘Well, that’s the bizarre thing. He wants to meet.’
‘Meet you?’
‘I know. In amongst all this, he wants to see old Lesley. For a talk. He said he’d contact me again soon.’
‘But that’s good.’
‘You would think so, wouldn’t you, except that it’s not for anything helpful. He doesn’t want to tell me what he knows about the girl. He wants to work on the writing together. Of all things. My monologue. He said he had some ideas for it.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’
The monologue would have been Roland’s idea in the first place.
She should have known. All those muddled thoughts about Madame Merle and oppressed women. Who else could it have come from? Lesley said, ‘Obviously it’s going to be just a way of talking about Treen. He wants to work through his thoughts or something. He virtually admitted as much. He was very agitated – ranting, really – about women being branded evil and people not caring what happens to them. And silence. He said a lot about women not having a voice. Women dying in other people’s stories.’
‘You got a diatribe.’
‘Exactly. And you know what they’re like. Never clear. You always get the impression there’s a trick somewhere.’ Here Lesley stopped, as if she’d just thought of something, but she didn’t say what it was. ‘The point is, he wants to use my gallery opening to make a tribute to this poor Treen. He wants the monologue to be about women who are branded evil. Apparently, with his help, I’ll be able to write something insightful, because of my background.’
‘Your –?’
‘Together we’ll be the storytellers for all women who don’t have a voice. All the women in the world, past and present. So no pressure there.’ Lesley gave a dry laugh.
‘He thinks a play will change the world.’
‘Oh dear.’ It was something they had adopted as a saying between them. A condensed cry of despair and amusement.
‘“Oh dear” indeed.’
‘It gets worse. There’s what I call “the Madame Merle angle”.
We’re going to get insights by studying fictional characters. Roland will draw them and I will write what I see. And it’s not just Merle. Apparently he has a whole host of other books with oppressed women in them. So there’ll be plenty for us to draw on.’
Lesley’s voice had become leaden. Veronica could feel her exhaustion at the thought of doing the writing.
‘He’s already worked out a name for the performance.’ Lesley held up her hands to indicate that this might appear on a poster. ‘“She Must Be Wicked to Deserve Such Pain.”’
‘That’s out of the Childe Roland poem.’
‘Oh, he told me.’ Heavy sarcasm.
Veronica looked at the windscreen. Tiny droplets were catching colours from the road and the sky. On the right, each droplet had a crescent of brick red. On the left they were icy silver.
She said, ‘He’s in shock.’
‘Well, exactly. As we know, underneath all the bombast he’s completely fragile.’ Lesley slapped a hand on her jeans. ‘Of course, what he’s really asking for is companionship and comfort. So I don’t have any choice, do I? If this writing charade is going to help I’ll go along with it. He wants to spend time with me. Hopefully he’s trying to find a way of telling me what he knows about this murder.’
‘So he thinks Treen was murdered?’
‘He’s quite certain she was.’
‘And he knows who did it?’
‘Apparently.’
‘If he knows someone murdered that girl he needs to say who it is.’
Lesley nodded. ‘I tried telling him that.’
‘Can he really not see how important this is? He was seeing a lot of Treen before she died. The police will find that out very soon. There would have been phone calls and texts. And he found her on the mountain. He’s going to be some kind of … well, not a suspect, surely … Well, all right, yes, a suspect. A person of interest. And running around hiding is going to look suspicious.’
‘I said that. But he was evasive. He said he would tell, but he has to do it properly. It concerns me, us, our families.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He said it was horrible. It’s going to be hard for people to accept. The police, the town, me, you, your family, Paul, John … he said we’ll all be devastated and he wants to make sure the story’s told properly. That’s where the monologue comes in. He said that once the world understands oppressed women, then they’ll understand Treen and see why she had to die.’
‘Had to die?’
‘Anyway, I made him promise. If I go along with the writing idea he has to tell me what he knows.’
‘Did he agree?’
‘He called me Lelly, in his special husky voice. You know what he’s like.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Roland the charmer, the magical one, who, even now, could make Lesley – make any of them – do anything.
They sat in silence for a while. Veronica looked out at the gallery: the smooth grey window, a double door of dark wood, the letters beside it spare, elegant, sculptural, beginning with three simple verticals, Illumin.
Lesley said, ‘Look, hopefully this won’t go on too long. I think soon he’ll see sense and tell someone who killed her. Hopefully it will be you, after everything he’s put you through.’
‘Huh. Maybe. Or maybe I’ll find out myself.’
Veronica looked at the gallery again. Wet stone, dark interior, the clean lines of the letters. And then, simply and naturally, as if it had never been a problem, she remembered where she had seen the tiles in Treen’s photograph.
‘Veronica?’ Lesley had been saying something. ‘Vee? How are you going to do that?’
‘Well, as usual, I have no idea. So I’ll just do something. I’ll talk to Paul and I’ll talk to Treen’s friends.’
‘Who are they?’
‘I don’t know. But I’ve just worked out where to start looking.’
Chapter 12
______
There was a grey Cortina following Veronica’s car. It had caught her attention at the bottom of Argyle Street when it had lurched, unskilfully, across two lanes to avoid turning right. After that it stayed close until now, at the Augusta Road lights, when it had been forced to pull up right behind her. The driver looked small. She had wispy, feathery hair, ill-shaped and light in colour. She didn’t look threatening. It seemed best to ignore her.
New Town was where Veronica’s grandmother had lived, and she could never decide exactly how she felt about the place. It was a midway point between the city centre and the vast ugliness of the northern suburbs, a littoral zone, with graceful stone houses and pretty cottages, among horrible little concrete boxes selling office products, marine goods, alcohol.
She stopped in Elm Street. The Cortina went past, slowed, and then drove away.
She had parked outside her grandmother’s house, a blocklike place in dark brick, with a heavy arch over the door. The new owners had added a carport and a clunky path and had let the garden wither, leaving only the indestructible japonica. Across the road, the stone shed where Mr Harris had planed his pine and showed Veronica how to make picture frames had been marred with additions: two badly built dormer windows and an ill-fitting porch – things that must surely have been done not only cheaply, but by people who had never seen anything beautiful.
She allowed herself a moment of contempt, which didn’t quite erase the loneliness caused by the sight. There was a poem her mother used to say, as her grandmother aged and the suburb changed, something about the land of lost content. She could only remember
the last line … and cannot come again.
But there was no time for this. She was here to find out about Treen’s death, or to find Roland. She got out of the car.
The footpath back on New Town Road was narrow, the traffic uncomfortably close, the air thick with diesel exhaust. There had been a corner shop here, where she had once bought Quality Street toffees. She couldn’t remember why, just the glittering wrappers and the painted tin. The strongest of our childhood memories are often flavoured with sugar. She wondered if Roland remembered the Slipping Place that way, by the custard creams.
The shop she was looking for had been a haberdasher’s. Now it was empty, the display spaces behind the windows showing carpet, some painted conduit, a few exposed wires, and a discarded Bic packet. The blue tiles were still here, dulled by dirt and fumes. They went right up around the big windows and framed the central door. She inspected the broken ones, now at hip height. Yes, this was the place. Treen McShane had sat here, wishing not to be photographed, struggling with her child.
Near where Treen had sat there was a drawing stuck on the window with sticky tape. It was one of Roland’s. Veronica pulled it down.
It was done in his Tenniel style, his Victorian pastiche, but hastily. On the left side of the picture he had drawn a sharp-faced child. She stood on her toes, with her hands above her head, playful, strangely weightless. She was looking across at another figure, a woman standing beside a cairn of smooth rocks. This woman was thin and fair, dressed in a simple sleeveless dress, a nightie or a slip, and she had a strange posture, knees bent and one foot up, as if she was running on the spot. There was a wind. Her hair flew around her head, stringy and tangled. The woman was looking straight out of the picture. Roland had drawn her eyes as smudged patches of shadow, with dark slits visible within them. She had another garment, a jacket, but she had taken that off and was holding it above her head. It was swirling in the wind, hooked only on the end of a finger, so that you knew it was about to fly away. Her fingers were stained with something dark.
Underneath, carefully lettered, was the title: MOLLY. And below that, fainter and off to one side, as if he wasn’t yet sure of it, the word SILENT.
Veronica looked at the position of the woman’s legs, her stringy hair, the jacket on one finger. This was a picture of Treen. Roland had done it after he had found her. And he had come here and stuck it on the window. It was a memorial of some kind.
But why that name? Why write ‘Molly’?
Veronica had assumed the shop was empty, but as she stood there, a light went on at the back and she could see the shapes of furniture and two people. She folded the drawing, put it in her bag, and went in.
The door was wooden with a graceful curve along the bottom of the glass. It stuck slightly and made a grinding sound. Over that she heard someone say, ‘Have you given him one of your things?’
The voice was accusing, sulky. It came from a man standing to the right of the room. The woman he had been speaking to was further back, facing a corner table, lighting candles. She didn’t answer him. At the sound of Veronica’s entrance she turned and they both stared.
They were using the space as some kind of workshop. Between them, along the right-hand wall, in front of shelves that had once held knitting yarn, there was a table covered with jars. It was lit by a standard lamp. The only other light in the room came from the candles.
‘Hello.’ The woman came forwards to stand beside the man. She looked as if she was unsure of her right to be here, as if she expected a challenge. Maybe they were squatting in the shop.
The man was wearing a rugby top in stripes of pale and dark blue. He was tall and square-shouldered and he had a kind of weird latent energy that seemed to saturate the room.
They were both glaring at her. Veronica recognised the girl from the Mercury. Treen’s friend, Belle. Beautiful. And she was pretty, in a way. Her eyes were very dark. Even in a lighter room they would surely have been nearly black. The lower lids were orientally straight and the upper ones rounded, giving her a young, slightly startled appearance. But the photograph had flattered Belle. Her hair, cheaply dyed into a complete dead black, lay flat against the sides of her face, emphasising the puffiness of her cheeks and the suety texture of her skin.
Veronica wanted to ask them about Roland. But first she needed a moment to soften these hostile stares, and to do that she would have to behave as if she had come here for a reason, as if she knew what she was doing.
She walked towards the table. The candlelight flickered yellow around the jars and through the empty ones. ‘Ah,’ she said absurdly, ‘here are the jars.’
There were maybe thirty, all identical and unlabelled. Some contained white cream. The air smelt of lanolin and beeswax, a fatty, sugary smell.
‘We’re not open,’ said the man.
‘No,’ said Belle, looking at him. ‘This isn’t a shop.’
Veronica allowed herself a quick look across to the shadowed half of the room. Along the far wall there was a stack of cardboard cartons and, at the back, another table holding a gas cooker, a large aluminium boiler and some utensils.
The man said, ‘You better leave.’ Belle said, ‘Dane.’
Dane. Paul had told her the name. This was Treen’s partner, father of her child. He had a heavy pink face, strangely flat, and a small nose. His hair was a muddy colour, curling at the ends, greasy near the scalp, rising at the centre of his forehead into a sharp wave.
Belle watched him. It was a look Veronica knew, that mixture of lust and possessive pride that young girls have when they have captured the man they want.
Without speaking Dane went behind Belle and put an arm around her, high across her chest. His wrist had dark hairs and large knobby bones. He pulled her backwards into him and she smiled, looking directly at Veronica, with defiance, which was probably habitual, and also with satisfaction. Then, as he pulled her further back, Veronica saw her losing balance and becoming uncertain. She raised her arms with a giggle and, unable to struggle against him, shifted her own feet. Then she pressed back into him, as if seeking to regain the moment of pleasure.
It was unnerving. Veronica decided not to tackle things head-on. At least, not until she had managed to get rid of the man.
She said the first thing she could think of. ‘You must be Belle. I was told to ask for you.’ Then she just blathered on. ‘I’ve come to see the creams. I’m looking for something organic, low in chemicals. That’s what we’re all looking for these days, isn’t it?’ Her words sounded false and ridiculous. She reached for a jar. She had to concentrate to pick one up. In the unsteady light they seemed to be moving. ‘Is this the hand cream?’
Now the girl looked interested. ‘Body butter. Honey coconut.’ Veronica unscrewed the jar and shoved her nose into it. ‘You could almost eat it, couldn’t you?’ The arm around Belle’s shoulders was loosening. She lowered the jar, trying to think of some feminine words. ‘Something smells divine. Lily-of-the-valley?’ It did the trick. Dane let go of Belle and stood back, full of scorn. He looked as if he wanted to storm off, but also wanted to control what Belle said.
‘That’s lovely. It’s an old-fashioned scent but it’s one of my favourites.’ Veronica searched for another word that might repel him. ‘You don’t have any lilac, do you?’
That was enough. He gave Belle a tiny push and went out through a door at the back.
‘I know you make these here. Do you do it by yourself? Or with … your friend?’
‘Treen.’ Belle didn’t seem to know what to say about Treen. ‘McShane.’ Her face coloured, maybe with emotion. An extreme act of cruelty. Veronica wondered if she had really said that or if the journalist had supplied the words.
‘Yes. Treen. I saw it in the paper. I’m sorry for your loss.’
There was an error here, Veronica realised. Belle’s lack of surprise was inconsistent with the big performance she had just done. Her eyes darkened. There was no sign of grief for the loss of her friend. Instead she l
ooked suspicious, then angry and then panicked. Her gaze rolled away from Veronica’s face towards the door Dane had gone out through.
It was dizzying, this rapid flick-through of emotions with none taking hold. Now her eyes were sharp. She tried something she might have hoped was a sweet smile. ‘Have you got a shop? We were going to sell it at the market. Not Salamanca, their stalls are too expensive. The Glenorchy car park. But it would be really good to get it into a shop and I can still do that.’ Belle went behind the table, as if it was a counter. ‘No-one would mind. Treen would’ve wanted me to.’
Another flicker of calculation, self-regarding. But Veronica could see she was nervous, too. Half her attention was focused on the open door. ‘People will support it. If anyone knew about her they’d definitely support it. For her little boy.’ She picked up the jar and screwed the lid on tightly, then looked down, wondering what else to show. ‘I can give you a sample if you’re interested.’
She picked up another jar and came around the table, holding it out, as if luring Veronica away from the back door. She wore a floppy white top, the long sleeves flared at the end, and over it a singlet of silver thread, knitted into an open-weave pattern. Under the clothes, her body was plump, tubular without curves. The childish shape made her pathetic somehow, an object of sympathy.
And now Veronica realised there was a third person in the room. Near the end of the table an old chimney came out from the wall and in the small corner formed here, further shielded from view by another pile of cartons, there was a pusher, holding a child of about two. The same child. Treen’s. She noticed now that the pusher was too small for him. One arm was pressed against his side and the other lay down the slanting chrome bar of the frame. He was asleep.
