by Val McDermid
‘Fine. Do you mind if we have a look around?’
Judy looked helplessly at Jane, who nodded. ‘It’s OK, Mum. I’ll go with them.’
She led Donna and her sergeant through the house. When they got to her bedroom, Donna clocked the laptop. ‘Do you mind booting up your machine?’ she said. ‘I’d like to take a look at your email records.’
Saying nothing, Jane did as she was asked, going online to make it easier for the detective. Donna spent ten minutes checking everything obvious, including the
They trailed through the remaining rooms then Donna asked to see the farm buildings. Jane took great pleasure in taking them on the most disgusting route, making sure they had to walk through mud and sheep dung. It took more than half an hour before they were satisfied. They didn’t even notice the slaughterhouse, tucked away in the far corner of the field behind the house. But then, she’d planned their route to avoid any possibility of them catching a glimpse of it. Finally, Donna grudgingly admitted that Tenille did not appear to be on the farm.
‘Don’t get any daft idealistic notions in your head about protecting the innocent,’ she said as Jane walked them to the car. ‘If you hear from her, tell us. Like you said, we’re not monsters. If she’s innocent, she’s got nothing to fear.’
‘I will,’ Jane lied. She watched them leave, uneasy. If they’d come all the way from London to talk to her, they were taking this seriously. Would they take it seriously enough to stake out the farm? A man on the hill with a pair of night-sight binoculars would spot her late-night visits to the slaughterhouse. It was, however, a risk she was going to have to take. She couldn’t abandon Tenille now. She had to keep protecting the girl at least until the Hammer got in touch.
Our little community began to have the air of an established colony, with the marking out of gardens & animal pens. We fished & farmed & our fences made good neighbours of us. Our women gave birth to children & we explored our new home. Among the many strange discoveries were stone chisels & hatchets & four idols, crude representations of men hewn roughly from stone. These stones we took for foundations for our buildings, seeing no purpose in leaving them idle. We established a governance of sorts, with decisions of import being taken by a simple majority of the white men. I myself maintained a log of daily life, in part out of habit from shipboard life, in part so that our descendants might comprehend their own beginnings. Although we saw from time to time the unmistakable silhouette of whaling ships on the horizon, none came near enough to trouble us. In short, we seemed set comfortably on course to build a brave new world on our Prospero’s Isle.
32
In the end, Dan had been trapped in traffic on the M6 so Jimmy and Jane had set off together, arranging with Dan to meet at the restaurant. Jimmy’s company was the perfect antidote to Jane’s frustrating day. His relaxed take on life, his apparent refusal to take himself seriously and his open, humorous conversation made it impossible for her to do anything other than respond in kind.
He’d suggested an Italian restaurant in Ambleside whose owner encouraged live jazz. There was no band playing that night, but cool tenor sax spilled from the speakers as they walked in. ‘I love coming back here,’ Jimmy said. ‘I played my first paying gig here, back when I was in the Lower Sixth. Five quid each–and frankly that was overpaying us. If he likes our music, your pal Dan should enjoy it here.’
Jane smiled. ‘He’s got pretty eclectic tastes.’
‘Are you two an item?’
Jane couldn’t restrain the laugh. ‘Me and Dan? No way. Even if he was my type, it would be a waste of effort. It’s not women that set Dan’s pulse racing.’
‘He’s gay?’
‘As gay as they come,’ Jane said, picking up her menu, trying not to show her pleasure at Jimmy’s interest in her relationship status.
After they’d ordered food and wine, Jimmy grinned at her, his brown eyes twinkling with good humour. ‘It’s great to see you,’ he said. ‘I often think about those long summer days on Langmere Fell when we were kids.’
So much for Dan’s gaydar, Jane thought, happily basking in Jimmy’s attention. ‘We must have covered every square inch of this side of the fell, playing Treasure Island and hide and seek and Viking raiders,’ Jane said. ‘I always liked the way you didn’t make me be the beautiful princess who had to be rescued. That’s all Matthew ever wanted me to be. But you let me be a pirate or a Viking.’
Jimmy shrugged. ‘Anything to make up the numbers. I always thought it was a pity we grew apart after we hit our teens.’
‘It goes that way. Girls have to do their girl thing and boys have to pretend to hate us. Until we get to the point where we have to start fancying each other.’
‘But that’s not really about friendship either, it’s about the ritual dance of rites of passage,’ Jimmy said. ‘Spots and sexual insecurity, that’s about all I remember of those middle years at school.’
And they were off down the road of reminiscence. There were undercurrents in their conversation. Jane could feel them, though she was reluctant to acknowledge their existence. Jimmy wasn’t exactly handsome, but there was something undeniably attractive about him. Something to do with his obvious intelligence, but also something open and generous. The opposite of Jake, she thought. Jake, whose face was always guarded, never quite telling the whole story, always leaving her guessing as to the real agenda.
As that thought crossed her mind, Dan arrived, looking remarkably composed for a man who’d spent hours wrestling with the traffic. Jimmy jumped to his feet, a wide grin animating his face. To Jane’s surprise, the men hugged in greeting. Jimmy couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Dan as drinks were ordered. At one point, Dan flicked her a knowing look. So much for her instincts. There was nothing more to Jimmy’s behaviour with her than friendliness. Dan had been right. He was the one Jimmy was interested in. Jane smarted briefly, then saw the funny side. She didn’t even mind being exiled to the fringes of the conversation as Jimmy and Dan talked music.
They were mid-way through their main courses when Jimmy did her job for her and brought the conversation back to where she really wanted it to be. ‘So, what’s this research project you’re working on? The one you were hoping to talk to Gran about?’
‘I’m really sorry about what happened yesterday,’ Jane said. ‘Alice got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’
‘Something Alice has always had a talent for,’ Jimmy said drily. ‘I didn’t read it like she did. But she’d gone off on one before I could stop her. I’m sorry she humiliated you like that. You didn’t deserve it.’
‘I probably wasn’t being very tactful. But I genuinely didn’t know my bloody brother had already spoken to Edith.’ Jane sighed, shaking her head.
‘Matthew up to his old tricks?’
Jane’s face registered surprise. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Matthew was always trying to make you look bad. Especially when there were any grown-ups around. He’s always had issues with Jane,’ he added, turning to Dan. ‘It was always obvious to me. It made me very wary of him. I figured if he could be so vicious to his own sister, it was better to stay on his good side.’
Jane blinked back tears. Finding someone else who read the situation with Matthew from her side was a novelty for her. ‘I had no idea anybody else saw it. I’m so used to him managing to put me in the wrong. I fight back now, but I had to leave and come back before I could really take him on.’
‘So what’s Matthew trying to screw up for you this time?’
So they told him: the body in the bog, the letters, the search for Dorcas Mason, the duplicity of her brother and the scheming of Jake and Caroline. Jimmy listened, occasionally asking a question for clarification. When their recital limped to its unsatisfactory end, he whistled softly. ‘No wonder you were so interested in my gran. It sounds like the obvious place to start.’
‘She was the most likely person,’ Dan sa
id. ‘Every interview we do now takes us further from the direct line of primogeniture.’
‘I could ask around,’ Jimmy offered without a pause for thought. ‘Everybody’s going to be here for the funerals–all our side of the family and now all Auntie Tillie’s lot as well.’
Dan shook his head. ‘We don’t want you pissing off your family.’
Jimmy grinned. ‘There are quite a few in my extended family that it would be a genuine pleasure to piss off, trust me. I’ll just put a few feelers out there–the way the older generation gossip, it’ll soon have better circulation than any of them have these days.’
‘You’ve always been one of the good guys, Jimmy,’ Jane said.
He shrugged, looking embarrassed. ‘You guys deserve a break,’ he said. ‘I know that if it was some undiscovered Duke Ellington piece, I’d be desperate to hear it. I’ll do whatever I can to help you out.’
It was past midnight when Jane finally made it out to the slaughterhouse. The three-way conversation had grown hilarious as the connections between them had deepened. Jane had tried not to mind too much when it became clear that Jimmy and Dan were planning to rendezvous at Shepherd’s Cott after she’d been dropped off.
As she jumped down from Jimmy’s people carrier, she noticed a light on in the kitchen window. She walked in to find her mother pretending she hadn’t been waiting up for her chick to come home.
‘I was watching something on the TV and I fancied a hot chocolate to settle me down,’ Judy said defensively as soon as Jane walked in.
Jane grinned. ‘Nothing to do with me being out to dinner with a man you classify as one step above a dole-ite.’
‘I never said that about Jimmy.’
‘As good as. He’s very successful in his field, you know. Not many musicians make it work, but he seems to be.’
Judy harrumphed. ‘He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?’
‘Mum, you can calm down. It’s Dan he’s interested in, not me.’
It was comical watching Judy trying to act as if this were everyday conversation in Fellhead. ‘Oh,’ she said at last. ‘Well, fancy that.’
‘I’ll make myself a coffee,’ Jane said, taking pity.
‘At this time of night? You’ll never sleep,’ Judy said, relief in her voice.
‘Mother, I’m twenty-five, not twelve.’ And so it had gone on, the gentle bickering of two women who love without understanding each other. Judy had eventually gone to bed, leaving Jane sipping coffee and reading the parish magazine by the Aga. Jane gave her mother fifteen minutes to fall asleep, then she changed from her smart shoes into her wellies and tiptoed out of the house.
Jane crept along the wall, trying not to trigger the yard lights. Then, hugging the hedge, she made it into the field. She turned the key in the lock and inched inside the slaughterhouse. She sensed at once that the building was empty.
Panicking, she snapped on her torch and shone it round the room, caring less about possible discovery than proving her instincts wrong. But her gut had told her the truth. Tenille was gone.
But not gone in a permanent way. Her possessions were still here, scattered around the sleeping bag nest. She wouldn’t have gone without her MP3 player or her books. Her backpack was missing, it was true. But her change of clothes was still here. So where the hell was she? Had she gone for a late-night stroll, imagining it would be safe at this time of night? More importantly, would she be able to find her way back in the dark?
Jane considered waiting for her to return. She would be easier in her mind if she knew the girl was safely stowed back in the slaughterhouse, even if it did make her feel as if she was acting like her own mother. And she suspected Tenille’s reaction would be much the same as her own–get out of my face, leave me alone, it’s none of your business. Only Tenille wouldn’t hold back as Jane had done. She’d let rip and the thin thread of trust between them would be damaged again.
And what would happen then? What would happen if Tenille got sufficiently pissed off to disappear into the night for good? The cops would find her sooner or later. But, more significantly for Jane, she had sent a message out into the world for John Hampton. How would he react if he called, only to discover Jane had driven Tenille away? Or worse. What if he and Tenille had already made contact? What if he was on his way back here now with her? Jane shuddered at the possibilities unfolding in her head.
No, best to leave it. Best to head back to her own bed. Best to put everything in a box and leave it sealed up till morning. At least that way she might just get some sleep. Things were happening out there in the dark. But she didn’t want to know what they were or how they would affect her. Let them get on with their own thing. All she wanted was to bury the day a mile deep in sleep.
It was totally spooky how just a few days out of London had messed with her head, Tenille thought as she approached the outskirts of Keswick. Like, this was the sort of place she should feel secure. Somewhere with streets and shops instead of sheep and hedges. But it felt like this was a bad place for her, a place with people and traffic. Because both of those also meant cops. Being on these streets was weird and scary.
The worst bit was not knowing where she was going. The Ordnance Survey map was as much use here as a chocolate chip pan. And a bike without lights was asking for trouble on streets where occasional cars drove past. As the houses grew more dense around her, Tenille pushed the bike into an alley and set off on foot for the town centre, hugging the shadows, completely without a plan. She couldn’t ask anybody, not looking like she did. She almost felt homesick for London, where she could have asked a cabbie for directions, or found an all-night internet café and googled the address.
But luck was with her. As she drew close to the town centre, streets of huddled Victorian terraces branched off on either side, their names testament to the era of their construction. Those names meant nothing to Tenille; when Sebastopol Street followed Inkerman Street and Crimea Street, it came as a huge relief. All she knew was that the serendipity had made her night.
Eddie Fairfield’s house was halfway down the terrace. As she looked up at the narrow façade, her heart sank. It was way too public for a frontal assault, and she had no idea how to get round the back. She walked on to the end of the street, where she spotted a tight entryway leading between the end house and the corner shop. Tenille took a few steps into the alley and found it turned into a wide passageway running the length of the street. And, conveniently, each back gate had its wheelie bin standing sentry beside it. Enough of them had numbers painted on the sides for Tenille to figure out which house was Eddie’s.
She pushed against the gate in the brick wall, pleasantly surprised when it opened easily and silently. She found herself in a small back yard, no more than a dozen square metres of concrete enclosed by brick walls and the house itself. She crept across the yard, nearly crying out loud when a cat jumped yowling on to the wall behind her. Man, she was going to have nerves of steel by the time she’d finished sorting Jane’s research project out for her.
Even more surprisingly, the back door of the house was unlocked, swinging open as she depressed the handle. Tenille couldn’t imagine anyone she knew leaving their door unlocked after midnight. Not unless they had a serious desire to lose all their worldly goods. She stepped cautiously inside, pushing the door to behind her. A faint light gleamed from the hallway, revealing that she was in a tiny kitchen. A couple of mugs sat on the draining board and a dirty plate lay in the sink, fork and knife askew.
Tenille moved into the room off the kitchen, which contained a dining table and chairs and the sort of display cabinet she’d only ever seen through the windows of antique shops. No papers there, just horrible china shepherdesses and other car boot sale tat. The door to the hall was open and, as she drew nearer, a faint smell crept towards her. It smelled like a cat litter tray that nobody had cleaned out for a while–the dark reek of shit, the sharp bite of urine, overlaid by a bitter edge of spent tobacco. She couldn’t understand why
people had cats indoors. They were meant to be outside, not stinking up houses like this.
The stench grew worse as she gathered her courage to move out into the light of the hallway. She crept towards the other open door, almost gagging now at the smell. She peered round the door jamb and nearly added her own contribution to the smell.
Half-facing the door, mouth hanging open and eyes staring at nothing, an old man lay sprawled in an armchair. The bright overhead light revealed dark stains on his grey flannel trousers. It wasn’t the explanation for the foul air that Tenille had been expecting. For a long moment, she was frozen in place, staring at the dead body opposite, her heart thudding so loud it sounded like a drum in her head.
‘Oh shit,’ she said. What the hell was she supposed to do now?
But the same serpent that ensnared the first Adam also reared its head to strike at us. From the start, our numbers were unmatched. We were fifteen men to twelve women. It was agreed that the white men should have a woman each for their exclusive companionship & that, according to their own custom, the six native men should share the remaining three women. But soon after we made our home on Pitcairn, Williams’ wife died & he demanded the right to a wife for his exclusive use. Although I was opposed to this, I was overruled by the majority and the decision was taken that the natives must lose one of their women. It came as no surprise to me that the natives took, this to be a humiliation. But I did not expect they would take it as occasion to plot against their masters. Two natives proved to be ringleaders in this wicked connivance & we were forced to take action to protect ourselves and our families. By dint of persuasion, I arranged to have them killed by their fellow natives. Thus peace & harmony were restored to our little world. Or such was my belief, at any rate, & it was some little time before I was proved to be wrong.
