Come to Harm

by Catriona McPherson

  It took Keiko a moment to change gears, but she smiled quickly enough. “I like spinach very much,” she said. “It’s one of my favourite things.”

  “Aye? No wonder you’re the wee scrap you are then,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “I’m only asking since you’ve not touched it.” She nodded at the dish of vegetables, at the mound of pale, pale green glistening there.

  “That’s spinach?” Keiko said.

  “And a wee tate of cream just to help it on its way.”

  _____

  Stressed to his oxters, up to high doh, and crabbit as a ferret, Keiko thought to herself later. Three out of four and one to go, but she was getting nowhere with the girls’ names.

  Wednesday, 13 November

  She excused herself from her weights session the next evening and went to the Bridge Hotel. She had eaten nothing all day except two rice crackers and a tangerine, in preparation.

  “Hallo, hallo,” said Mr. Dessing as Keiko entered the bar. He was a large man, even to the eyes of someone who saw Malcolm Poole every day. An egg-shaped head with a fringe of hair around it like a ribbon. A spherical body, its equator marked by the meeting place of his shirt and trousers, which stayed up apparently by magic since they made no dent in his middle.

  “I’ve come for a little bite to eat, Mr. Dessing,” said Keiko. “I’m so busy now, I can hardly cook for myself at the end of the day.”

  “If God had meant people to live off home-cooking …” said Mr. Dessing. “And you’re nice and early.” Indeed, the place was deserted except for a couple Keiko didn’t know sitting on the love seat under the window. “Once the rugby training finishes you’ll not be able to move in here. Or breathe. Aftershave, you know.”

  “I went to the Covenanters’ last night,” said Keiko, hoping to get things moving.

  “But you’ve seen the light!” said Mr. Dessing. “I don’t mean it, of course. Margaret Ballantyne should have been a farmer’s wife and not a publican’s, if you ask me, but they’re good people.”

  “It’s lovely the way you all get along,” Keiko said, wondering if she could really pull off such a sickening act of innocence. She had hopped up onto a bar stool and clasped her hands together on the polished surface.

  He grunted absentmindedly while he searched through a muddled drawer of handsets and phone chargers. “Tell that to Sandra,” he said when he had found what he was looking for. “And Iain.”

  “Professional rivalry,” said Keiko, half to herself. Was that all it was?

  “Aye, these things can turn nasty,” Mr. Dessing said. “I’ve seen it before and I’m seeing it again. And if you ask me—” He broke off and rubbed his hand over his mouth, scrubbing the words away. “But you’re not. Now what can I tempt you with?”

  “Something very light,” said Keiko.

  Mr. Dessing gave a huge gulp of laughter that shook the shirt fabric over his middle. “I’ll bet,” he said. “After your ‘good plate of hot dinner’ yesterday.” Keiko giggled. “See what I mean? A farmer’s wife! Now over here at the Bridge, we do things differently. Presentation is key.”

  “I agree, Mr. Dessing,” said Keiko. “We think so in Japan. Eat with the eye then with the lips.”

  “Pree-cisely. I’ll bet you had a round plate over by.” Keiko nodded and Mr. Dessing shook his head. “Round plates! Everything jammed on and spilling over. I don’t know.”

  And when her supper came, the plate was no shape Keiko knew a name for: a kind of bulbous S or melted rectangle. She gazed at it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dessing,” she said, her voice rising in a question. “But I ordered tapas? From the light bite selection?”

  “Mixed meat tapas,” Mr. Dessing confirmed. “Light bite, aye. I’ll just talk you through. Mini kilties—that’s wee sausages with bacon kilts on; deep fried haggis balls—self-explanatory to an old hand like you, but we have a laugh with the tourists about them; steak and kidney puffs—the steak ones are the square and the kidney ones are the wee love-hearts there; then you’ve got your spare ribs; your belly lollies—pork belly, most like; and the specialty of the house, lamb and mince koftas—my own invention. Malcolm makes them up for me, mind.”

  “Lamb and mint?”

  “Lamb and mince. Wee bit of minced beef and pork mixture with the lamb to help them stick together. He’s always got plenty of his special mixture to spare. All served on a bed of—would you like some mint sauce, though?”

  Keiko assured him that she had everything she could want and more. “About what you were saying,” she began when she had eaten three of the so-called tapas. “What if I did ask you?”

  “Ask me what, lovey?” Mr. Dessing was engrossed in the handset for his music system, the instruction booklet open on the bar in front of him. He pushed a button, cocked his head, listened to silence, then tutted and turned a page with a licked finger.

  “About things turning nasty.” Keiko bent her head as he raised his, to avoid his eye.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her. “But if you did ask me …”

  She had, Keiko thought, waiting.

  “If somebody did ask me, I’d say there’s no way a few new signs and picnic tables have put this wasp up Sandra’s ar—uh, this bee in her bonnet. Or Jimmy McKendrick’s either. Kenny. Any of them.”

  Keiko tried very hard not to look too interested. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “I’m sorry there’s anything wrong, of course. But I’m glad it’s not the Traders initiative that’s worrying everyone. I’d feel responsible.”

  “You?” said Mr. Dessing.

  “Well, I’m part of it, aren’t I? Their pet project. Mrs. Ballantyne called me the centrepiece. The international section of the … what’s the word, like menu, but for financial things?”

  “Search me. Portfolio? And anyway, you’ve been no trouble to anyone. We’re glad to have you, and it’s a pleasure to show you a bit of hospitality. I’ve been feeling it, I can tell you; seeing you traipsing round to everybody’s houses for your tea and here we are at the end of the road, dead handy.”

  “Mr. McKendrick didn’t want me frequenting bars,” Keiko said.

  “He did not,” said Mr. Dessing. “He said the Japanese weren’t good with strong drink. He said it would ruin your liver.”

  “Mr. McKendrick was worried about my liver?” said Keiko, blinking.

  “As if you’d be getting plastered just because you’d come in for a supper!” said Mr. Dessing. “Anyway, never mind J McK. Never mind any of them and whatever’s got them all birling.”

  “He was worried about my liver?” said Keiko again, unable quite to understand why that was so troubling.

  twenty-five

  Which made the full set: oxters, high doh, crabbit, wasp up her. There were four people wound like springs with worry. Five if she counted Jimmy McKendrick. Six if Mrs. Watson’s dropping the cauliflower that day was proof of anything. Seven including Murray. Eight in total, with Mrs. Poole. The only one not anxious at all was Malcolm!

  She opened a new document and set her fingers lightly against the keys.

  Death of Mr. Poole

  Slaughterhouse

  Letter for you

  Mrs. Watson

  Committee

  Then she added another column.

  Death of Mr. PooleCrime?

  SlaughterhouseScene of Crime?

  LetterReport of Crime?

  Mrs. WatsonWitness to Crime?

  Committee

  There was only one way to fill that last slot, as far as she could see. Another word she could type but would never try to pronounce: Perpetrator. But where did that leave Malcolm—innocent bystander? And what about the missing girls—more witnesses? She leaned on the delete key until the two columns were gone.

  There was definitely a secret in this town, but was it a secret crime in the past or a secret plan fo
r the future? She was almost sure that all the worry was about something coming, something looming, not leftover guilt about something over and gone. But if that was so, then what did Mr. Poole have to do with it?

  Keiko sat back and stared across the room. Maybe he found out about it. Maybe he even threatened to stop them.

  This theory had a gaping hole, of course: she had no real evidence that Mr. Poole’s death was suspicious in any way.

  Thursday, 14 November

  “Murray’s round at the bikes,” Malcolm said as she entered the shop. He was staring at a large haunch of pale meat on his cutting block, perhaps deciding where to divide it.

  “I’m not looking for Murray,” said Keiko.

  “Not a problem upstairs, is there?”

  “None at all. I want to speak to you because you find it easy to talk about your father.” She took a deep breath. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t be asking about food and health? It occurred to me that it might be unfeeling. Because of … heart trouble … and your father.”

  “Oh, right!” said Malcolm, looking up again. “My father didn’t die of heart trouble.”

  “I beg your pardon, then. I thought someone told me so.”

  “At least not in the way you mean,” said Malcolm. He ran the flat of his hand back and forth over the haunch of meat, smiling at her. “I once heard a doctor say that heart failure is what kills everyone in the end.” Keiko couldn’t match his smile. Malcolm said nothing for a moment and then he nodded as though deciding.

  “No, you’re all right with food questions,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be cheese and chocolate and apples and kale.”

  “Oh?”

  “You should stick to this,” he said, slapping down with both his hands.

  “Why?” said Keiko, glancing at his hands and then away again.

  “If it’s why people eat what they do, meat’s best,” said Malcolm. He was absentmindedly plucking bristles from the skin of whatever animal was on the cutting surface. “Because it’s the only food that needs an explanation, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense if you think about it too long. Animal lovers who eat meat. Cruelty-free meat. That’s where the beliefs are strongest, because they have to be.”

  _____

  “Malcolm told me you were here,” she said, in answer to Murray’s look of surprise when he opened the door to her. She looked past him and saw that the covers were off all of the bikes.

  “Do you know,” she said, “you never did introduce me to the last one.” It was true; they had fallen into a pattern of warm up, work out, cool down and, except when Murray saw her passing the shop and came out to speak to her, there was nothing more. He looked behind him and stepped aside to let her enter.

  “Aerial Square Four,” he said, squatting down beside it. “A Squariel it’s called, because of how the crankshafts and cylinders are geared together. And a 1000cc engine—totally ridiculous when it was new. 1956. Beast of a bike, really, more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “Like the Golden Flash?” said Keiko.

  “No, no,” said Murray. “Not that way—this is a great bike, smooth as silk. It can overheat a bit but no, I mean the insurance and everything. There’s guys I would trust with the rest, but I wouldn’t trust them not to slip in here and make off with the Squariel if they thought they could.”

  Keiko scrutinised the machine; it was certainly beautiful, with its red painted parts gleaming like pools of silk, but it was just another motorbike to her and, glad as she was that it had got her inside and got Murray talking today, she was even gladder she wouldn’t have to try to remember the names and quirks of any more.

  “So,” he said, looking up at her from where he was crouched. “I’ll see you tonight then.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry I interrupted your …” She looked around to see what it was she might have interrupted. “But now that I’m here, can I say something to you?”

  “Okay.”

  “About what’s wrong?”

  He was silent, waiting.

  “You said one time—more than once, actually—that you couldn’t tell me anything because I wouldn’t understand and maybe I wouldn’t even believe you.”

  He nodded.

  “But you also said you thought I could help. Well, I want you to know that I’m working on it. And I’m getting somewhere—maybe not to the bottom of it—but somewhere.”

  “How?” said Murray, staring up at her.

  “The way I do,” Keiko said. “By looking at the wiring, remember?”

  His eyes shone as he nodded.

  “Also, there’s something I need to ask and you’re the only one I can trust,” she said.

  “You trust me?” he said. “You’ve no idea how much it means to hear you say that.”

  “It’s about Dina and Nicole and Tash,” she said.

  Murray blinked twice. “Who?”

  “Mrs. Watson’s niece and Craig’s cousin and Mrs. McMaster’s foster child.”

  “Who?” said Murray again.

  “Do you know their full names? I want to speak to them but unless I can find out their names, I have no hope of tracking them down. Is Dina a Watson? Is Nicole a McKendrick? And what about Tash?”

  He was shaking his head very slowly now and his eyes were wide and strained. “Don’t,” he said. “They got away safe and sound, Keiko. Don’t do anything that would drag them back here. They got away.”

  Now it was her turn to stare at him. “Are you serious?” she said.

  “Always,” he replied.

  “But … if the danger was real—is real—shouldn’t we try to speak to them? Double-check they’re okay?”

  He thought about it for a while and then shook his head. “No can do,” he said. “I don’t know their second names. You know how it is; everyone’s so friendly here—first names all the way.”

  “Who would know?” said Keiko.

  “It’s not a good idea to ask too many questions,” said Murray. “Trust me.”

  _____

  She heard Murray lock the door behind her after she left and stood staring at it—was he really that scared?—until something moving caught the corner of her eye. Mr. Byers was standing on the forecourt, smiling broadly around his chewing gum.

  “Better than the telly any day,” he said and sauntered back through his open workshop door and into the shadows. Keiko watched him go and kept watching the spot where he had disappeared, straining her eyes to see if he had turned to face her.

  “Mr. Byers,” she called. She followed him into the darkness. “Mr. Byers? I just realised I haven’t managed to rope you in to my questionnaire yet and you’d be a very interesting addition because you haven’t been here that long. Mr. Byers?” Right at the back a light was on and she thought she could hear the sound of a tap running. “Mr. Byers?” She pushed the half-open door and saw him standing with his back to her, urinating into a filthy toilet.

  “What do you want now?” he said over one shoulder, but Keiko was gone, racing back through the workshop towards the street, with the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears and a negative print of his straddled figure in the block of light etched on her eyes.

  Monday, 18 November

  “Okay then,” said Fancy, looking straight up at Keiko’s living room ceiling and breathing hard. “I worked all bleedin’ weekend and finally got two scenarios each for conformity, conscientiousness, compliance, optimism, orthodoxy—but I still think that’s a kind of toothpaste—lawfulness, discretion, compartmentalisation, and suggestibility. And I made sure and got theft, murder, rape, blackmail, incest, domestic violence, fraud, corruption—what’s the difference?—and ehh … bigamy, yeah. And you haven’t even added red meat to your shitty spinach, you lazy article.” She sighed heavily. “I thought this would be a laugh when you asked me, you know.”

&nbs
p; “It does do your head in, doesn’t it?” said Keiko. “You are an angel. Flop your arms over one way and your legs the other.”

  “Yeah, I’m the guardian angel of your English,” Fancy said. “You can’t say it does your head in.” She moved her arms and legs to opposite sides. “Man, this feels good. Those are killer crunches.”

  “I know. And I only made you do ten and now we’re having this lovely rest. Murray says fifty.”

  “Well, just say no. What would he do?”

  “He said he would put me over his knee and spank me.”

  “Way-hey! Just say no, then!” said Fancy.

  Keiko jabbed her bottom with a toe, making her wobble. Then she put her feet flat on the floor and laced her hands behind her head. “Scissors,” she said.

  “No,” groaned Fancy, “not scissors. I’ll never get up again if we do bloody scissors. I’ll take my questions back and then you’ll be sorry.”

  “I’m going to show the questionnaire to Dr. Bryant tomorrow,” said Keiko, and something inside her fluttered at the thought of it; the questions about murder, rape, and incest—everything she could think of that the problem in Painchton could possibly be—seemed to pulse on the page as though they’d been printed out in some special fluorescent ink. More than half of her expected Bryant to throw the paper down, call the servitor, and have her removed from the building, removed to the airport, stripped of her funding, stripped of her first degree, her high school diploma …

  “And if Biscuit-man says okay, you should get cracking,” Fancy was telling her. “The very next day. Everybody’s in a good mood on half-closing.” She rolled over onto all fours, stood awkwardly, and stepped up onto the coffee table to look at herself in the mirror. “Still fat. I told you it wouldn’t work.” She pulled down the waistband of her leggings and pinched a roll of skin between two fingers trying to make it waggle.

  Keiko rose to her feet with a thrill at how fluid the movement was now after all those evenings with Murray. She stretched and walked over. “Fat!” she said. Fancy’s navel, currently at eye level, lay flat on the surface of her stomach, its neat banana-slice pattern not shaded by the slightest overhang of flesh. “There’s not even enough there to pierce,” she said, then immediately put up her arms to steady Fancy as she sank down and put her head between her knees. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.