He joined the queue which had formed near the counter, welcoming every passing moment that those in front of him consumed. It was only when he was next to the glass-fronted cabinet, containing all kinds of pastries and cakes, that he noticed the woman in front of him. With tidy hair and specific tastes, she was largely unremarkable: a woman like any other in the city. Except for her hand. Fergus was startled by the small hole in the hand that rested on the supple leather of her handbag, which rested in turn on the little ledge that ran along the front of the counter. It was a small but distinct hole, a black absence, a breach in her smooth skin. There was no blood, no gore, none of the sticky inconvenience of mortality. Simply a hole; a triangular absence. His surprise turned to confusion: did she know? Did it hurt? Only slowly did it occur to him that this must be a prosthetic hand, attached to a prosthetic arm. A damaged, prosthetic arm. And then a young woman behind the counter was asking him for his order; it took Fergus a couple of tries to request the tea both because neither could understand the accent of the other, but also because of the questions swirling in his head.
He watched the woman with the hole in her hand carry her supple handbag and her huge carton of milky-sweet coffee from the shop, her hand and its hole hanging unremarkably at her side. Taking his tea, he found a seat by the window and watched her disappear into the crowds on the pavement. He wondered how the hole had been formed, how the absence had occurred; long after she had vanished into the human tide, the crisp shape of the breach stayed with him.
Most of the customers took their drinks with them. Although the café was busy, and the queue never completely vanished, only a handful of others occupied the seats set around little tables and counters. There was more life to be seen on the street, fleeting though it was. Fergus watched the faces of passers-by and wondered what it was the drove them to such urgency. Only the tourists, small family groups, took their time in making their way to wherever they were heading. The steps from the tube station discharged an endless stream of people. Many of the men were unshaven, but the beards were smaller than at home. Shorter and fussier, they sat uncomfortably on fresh faces and on less fresh faces, but none the less separate from those faces. None of the men wearing them seemed relaxed in their manicured whiskers, which they wore like new clothes, starched, still finding their owner’s curves and creases.
When the tea was gone, Fergus set off again towards the gallery. As before, Half Moon Street was empty, without the people and the vehicles that crammed the main street only few yards behind. Reaching the heavy glass façade, Fergus pressed the button by the door and waited. His stomach clenched in anticipation and he rehearsed his story as he waited to be granted entry.
The door swung open. It revealed a tall young woman, her dark hair pulled back in a loose pony tail. She wore a fine woollen sweater, turquoise, with a v-neck; the collar and neck of a white shirt opened to reveal a simple string of pearls that glowed against her skin. She greeted him by name, hesitantly, questioning, and seemed surprised when Mr Buchanan nodded. Stepping back a little, she swept him into the showroom.
‘Mr Maltravers has stepped out for a moment, but he shouldn’t keep you waiting long. Would you like to wait in the showroom?’
It was unclear what he should do if that wasn’t what he would like to do, but in any case Fergus was happy to take the time to seek out his stone among the sparse display. Unlike the showroom in Glasgow, there was no clutter. Where McAteer had crammed furniture, books, porcelain and taxidermy, Maltravers had arranged emptiness, interrupted by twenty or so pieces of stone, wood and bronze shaped into forms, human and demonic. Fergus studied each carefully, and yet it took only moments to be sure that the stone was not amongst them.
He stared into a painted face, a god or a monster, its mouth stretched in a snarl or scream, its tongue curled grotesquely between pointed incisors protruding upwards from blood red lips. But it was the malevolence of the eyes that disturbed him most: wide and startling, they pierced the soft stillness of the showroom, and drilled into his unknown fears. Fergus was relieved when the young woman returned to break its spell and to show him into the office at the back of the room.
‘Mr Buchanan, I am most terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. Trupti, some coffee, please?’
The young man had risen from his desk at Fergus’s entrance, approaching him briskly, hand outstretched. Fergus had accepted it, been surprised by its cool forcefulness; he allowed his own to be shaken as if lifeless, and was struck by the precision of Maltravers’ hair, his flawless complexion. Every feature of his face had been composed into a perfect replica of welcome. Fergus allowed himself to be ushered into a chair, while Maltravers returned to his own, to face him across the desk. His smile broadened. Fergus was as used to people smiling as he was to people scowling, but had never seen a smile so disconcerting: it wrapped around him like a noose.
They exchanged pleasantries, speculating on the weather and the arrival of spring while they waited for the coffee. Maltravers asked about his journey, about his impressions of London, about his family. Fergus was startled by how soon he found himself talking of the things he had left behind, of Shona, and he tried to mask his discomfort by joking about the insecurities of women.
‘I think she’s worried that I’m going to come home smelling of cheap perfume.’
Fergus offered a meek smile, hopeful that this small lie would convince Maltravers that he was in fact a man of the world.
‘Would she rather you came home smelling of expensive perfume? If she has any sense she’d prefer the cheap scent.’
It was not what Fergus had expected and he flushed.
‘I think she’d rather I came home smelling of neither.’
‘Oh come now, Mr Buchanan. When one goes out into the world, one always ends up smelling of something or other.’
At this point, the young woman returned carrying a tray set with two cups of coffee and a jug of milk. There was no sugar. She set down the tray on the desk, leaning past Fergus as she did so. He felt the air tingle between them and a spiral squirmed down his spine. Maltravers watched her as she left the room, following her movement with his eyes until the door clicked shut. Only then did Maltravers ask Fergus about his purpose in visiting. The story took some minutes to tell. Fergus recounted first how the cursing stone had been taken from the island, then went on to detail the history of St Columba’s landfall on Hinba, the founding of the abbey, and the historical significance of the discovery, the centuries through which the stone had been lost, undisturbed among the sedge and heather. Much of this, he summoned up from his memories of Mr Galbraith’s lessons and from his sister’s breathless enthusiasm; the rest he made up.
‘You see, Mr Maltravers, there is an opportunity here to do something truly remarkable, to reunite the stone and its bowl for the first time in over a thousand years. Think of the acclaim you’d receive, being the man who made that possible. It’s the chance to be a part of a story stretching over centuries.’
Fergus felt at first that he had delivered well the lines that Jacob had drilled into him, but there was something ominous in the mischief that played around Maltravers’ thin smile.
‘I’m not really too interested in seeing my name in the papers, to be honest. Nor in a memorial plaque on some island hundreds of miles away. I’m afraid, Mr Buchanan, I rather like your cursing stone – it looks very much at home where it is. Ordinarily, I would be open to the possibility of selling, at a profit of course, but I rather like it. It has found a suitable niche in my home and I would rather miss it, I think.’
The room fell into silence. Fergus could feel the opportunity slipping from him with every moment that passed without a word. It was the wrong thing to do, he knew, but he had to do something.
‘If you’re not interested in being the hero of the piece, Mr Maltravers, I’m sure the papers would be happy to make you the villain. You know what journalists are like for their David and Goliath stories – especially when it comes to peers of the
realm.’
‘Really? Threats, Mr Buchanan? Oh, how delicious. Thank you. Today had been rather dull up to now. But I’m afraid I have no good reputation to lose, you see. In any case, the artefact is in my possession quite legally, bought and paid for; that is all that matters really. I have the receipt of sale here.’
Maltravers hand rested lightly on the desk, although Fergus could see no piece of paper under it. For too long, he could not look away from the hand, the walnut veneer beneath it, expecting the receipt to appear. He waited for the inevitable conclusion of the interview and, when it came, he made no attempt to resist the invitation to leave.
He found himself on Half Moon Street, alone. His feet took him to Berkley Square and, feeling faint, he took a seat on a bench in the little park, to breathe out his disappointment. A young woman walked passed him with purpose, her hands clutching the hem of her hopeful dress in defiance of the lascivious wind, which had to content itself with running its fingers through the lush grass. Fergus noticed the chill edge of the day for the first time; he looked at the sky, where a fine lace of cloud stretched across the highest part.
31
Ruby pulled her cardigan around her shoulders more tightly. The kitchen was colder than it had been for several weeks and she wondered which of her housemates would suggest first that they once more switch on the heating. She could hear Jacob and Matt from the living room, their voices excited and serious. Since they had returned home to Fergus’s news, they had been eager to hatch a new plan. While their guest spoke with his family in her room, she had withdrawn, irritated by their evermore outlandish stratagems. She was glad that Fergus was out of earshot, and didn’t have to listen to the way the problem was being treated as a game. She appreciated the seriousness of the situation, even if the others saw it simply as a puzzle to be solved. It was almost quarter past seven: she should make some food for herself and Fergus.
The cat flapped into the kitchen, as if summoned by the thought of food. Pausing by the backdoor and his empty bowl, he looked up at Ruby and gave a short meow of rebuke. Without waiting for an answer he approached the bowl and ducked his head into it, to ensure he had left nothing uneaten from earlier, then looked back with unblinking eyes. With a sigh, Ruby went to the cupboard to fetch a tin of cat food. The electric can-opener ground through the kitchen’s stillness.
She was squatting beside the bowl when the door swung inwards. Over her shoulder, she shot a smile towards the entrant. Fergus mustered a weary response, then slumped into one of the chairs by the table.
‘How’re things, then? Pleased to hear from you? I bet Shona was glad…’
Her bright chatter stuttered to a halt. Fergus was simply staring at the table, oblivious to her questions. She finished spooning the sticky brownness into the bowl and crossed the floor to sit next to him, her hand on his arm.
‘Did your father take it badly, that you’ve not got the butterlump yet?’
She suspected that his father had been unreasonable in the way he had given Fergus his quest in the first place, and that that unreasonableness continued still. She felt anger and sympathy for her bullied friend. She was on the verge of admonishing his distant task-master, but saw the tear in time. It hung from his eyelash for a slow moment, then tracked across his velvety cheek. She waited, her heart breaking.
‘He’s dying. My granddad. They didn’t say it, but it was in their voices. I could hear it. They just said that he’s very ill, that the doctor’s over from Mallaig.’
Ruby stifled two or three sentences, buffeting against her closed lips, before he spoke.
‘Well, if the doctor’s there, that’s something, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sure…’
But she knew that this old man, on this remote island, would not allow the doctor in unless he was beyond objecting, and her comforting stalled.
‘Did you speak to him? Your granddad?’
‘No, he was too ill to come to the phone. Asleep, they said. My dad, he said maybe I should think about going back sooner than planned, just in case.’
But that was impossible, without the stone. If Fingal survived, the shame of his grandson’s failure would kill him anyway. The disappointment of the morning took on new proportions, and its weight pressed in on his skull. If only he had done better, been cleverer, quicker, more like the man his grandfather believed him to be. He could have been home by the weekend, with the stone, and Fingal would be sitting up in bed, glowing with pride and the will to live. But he had failed; it was better for his grandfather to die without that disappointment and shame.
He felt Ruby’s arms wrap around him, her cheek against his neck, felt her mouth move and the word ‘sorry’ prickle his skin. And he released the tears he had been holding for later, when everyone had gone to bed and he was alone in the darkness of the sitting room in the dead house. He felt Ruby tense against his sobs, containing him in his shape even as he dissolved in misery.
They sat like that for maybe fifteen minutes, until all the crying had been done and there were no tears left. Sensing that calm had returned, Ruby reached out to the counter top and pulled back the kitchen roll, handing him a sheet.
‘Here, tidy yourself up. Don’t want the others to see you like this, do we? What we need is a plan of action.’
By the time Bridget returned to the house, the conspirators were lost in their plotting. They no longer paid much regard to Lou, who had been running around the kitchen playing monsters, attempting to frighten, or at least distract, Matt and Jacob in turn; Ruby and Fergus were left unmolested, both too intimidating to a four year old ogre. Unperturbed by his neglect, Lou ran boisterously around the table, growling and yelping, breathless and giggling. At his mother’s arrival, Lou ran to her, his face now stretched into the broadest grin, rather than how he imagined an ogre’s face to feel. Arms flung wide, he launched himself into a hug, his legs swinging free of the earth. Ruby merely looked up and nodded a greeting before returning to her laptop.
She was looking for the home address of Nicholas Maltravers. Rather, she was trying to establish that his home address could not be found: Matt had decided early on that Steve was probably right, that a break-in was the most direct way to resolving the matter, especially now that they knew the stone was in his house rather than the shop. Ruby had objected to any kind of law-breaking and urged Fergus to listen to Jacob, who had suggested that before doing anything, they determine the actual legal position. But Matt, emboldened with three cans of lager, was resolute; Ruby instead wanted to show that, whatever the rights and wrongs of a break-in, it was impossible since they did not know his home address.
The discussion had become tense. When Bridget put Lou back onto his feet, she noticed that no-one was talking, except her son, whose babble was so familiar an accompaniment to life in the house that it seldom counted as noise. She looked from one face to the other, then decided that everything would be more easily interpreted with a beer. Scooping up Lou on the way back from the fridge, she sat at one end of the table, child on her lap.
‘So, who’s going to bring me up to speed here?’
‘Matt’s sulking, because no-one wants to join him on his mad burglary adventure.’
Ruby did not look up from her laptop screen, but she allowed herself a small smile. Bridget looked from Ruby to Matt, expectantly and a little aghast.
‘I do. Well, if the legal way doesn’t work.’
Even Ruby looked up. Fergus sat quietly for a few moments, with his shoulders cupped in apology, while the others watched in bemusement, vindication or disappointment. Bridget bounced Lou a couple of times to settle his squirming, and Lou in turn grasped a tiny fistful of table cloth, pulling it and several glasses and empty cans fractionally closer. Otherwise, the table was still.
Fergus had taken the duration of the debate to arrive at his decision. He did not believe that the law would help, but nor did he want to commit a crime himself, especially one that would most likely end in failure and arrest; much less to expose his new frien
ds to danger. There seemed, however, to be few other choices.
‘But you’ll still see my friend tomorrow? Before finally deciding to do something so stupid, I mean.’
Early on in the kitchen table discussion, Jacob had suggested speaking to his friend, a barrister. It had seemed unlikely to Fergus that a self-employed gardener would mix with barristers, but it had been explained that Jacob was rather more elevated than it might appear. His father, chaplain of the Tower of London, was remarkably well-connected; his mother, even more so, and independently wealthy. Jacob’s trust fund had enabled him, four year’s previously, to buy the house they shared. The simplicity of his life was a testament to his temperament rather than his means, and his social circle beyond the household included surgeons, investment bankers and lawyers. Ruby was fairly certain that, if anyone could find a legal resolution, if would be one of Jacob’s friends.
‘Of course. I don’t want to get any of you in to bother. That’s the last thing I want.’
The cat returned, sensing that sanity had re-established itself in the kitchen, and people began to shift out of their seats to make a start with feeding themselves, their children and their cats. Only Fergus and Matt remained unmoved by this return to domesticity, the one regarding the other.
‘But as a back-up. Just a back-up, maybe we should find out where the bugger lives.’
Fergus wasn’t sure if Matt was talking directly to him or to the room in general, but the groans from Jacob and Bridget suggested that his comment had been for public consumption. Ruby turned from the sink, knife and dish cloth still in hand, and smiled breezily.
‘That’s the thing though, Matt. You can’t – he’s even paid to have his details hidden on the electoral roll. And if you can’t find him, you can’t break-in. Sorry.’
Her hair swished with her turn back to the sink and, in the reflection of the window, Fergus could see her silent laugh.
The Cursing Stone: a gripping mystery and family saga Page 18
