Simeon's Bride

by Alison G. Taylor

  McKenna came to consciousness with late morning sunshine glowing through the uncurtained bedroom window, urging him to get out of bed, to pinion the hope of a new day before it fled, as such feeling, hatched in the warmth of night, was wont to do in the light of wakefulness. He reached down to stroke the cat, and had his hand bitten lazily for his trouble. As soon as he rose, she stretched, jumped off the bed, and padded downstairs after him, clawing the bottom of his pyjama trousers at each step he took. Waiting for the kettle to boil and his toast to brown, he read the newspaper and opened the post, while the cat ate her own breakfast. She shouted to be let out as the tinny chimes of the town clock struck eleven. McKenna felt much recovered, rather whole and clean and empty inside, as if his sickness had indeed purged him of more than bodily poisons. Standing by the back door, savouring the first real warmth of the year and the pleasure it brought, he wondered if hope and its twin were simply forms of energy, finite in quantity, his optimism another’s despair.

  Jack and Dewi stood among their colleagues on the pavement outside the Bible Gardens, watching the men of this great congregation of gipsies make their own assessment of the lines and groups of police officers surrounding them like so many dogs herding a flock of sheep. Hard black eyes, small within sockets perpetually narrowed to read the distances, threatened with no more than a glance. Rough-looking people, Dewi thought, their straight black hair chopped rather than trimmed, brown hands large and calloused with labour, their women no more refined and no less intimidating.

  Brilliant sunshine of an April afternoon left Jack unwarmed, his spirit overshadowed by stormclouds gathered in great swags and swathes about his family, as if they waited like some mighty tree for a shard of lightning to split asunder its rotted trunk. He sighed, drawing a questioning look from Dewi, who said, ‘I’m glad it stopped raining. Aren’t you, sir? Nobody wants their wedding rained off.’

  ‘They got married in church,’ Jack said. ‘Not likely to get rained off there unless the priest can’t afford to get his roof fixed, are they?’

  ‘I don’t see the man from Salem village. Do you, sir?’

  ‘How could I if I don’t know what he looks like?’ Jack snapped. ‘You don’t either, so I don’t know why you come out with such stupid remarks!’

  ‘Just trying to be civil, sir.’

  ‘You shouldn’t need to “try” to be civil with senior officers, Prys. It should come naturally.’ Jack glared. ‘What are you grinning at?’

  ‘I wasn’t grinning as such,’ Dewi said equably. ‘Just smiling, sir. It’s a lovely day, and gippos or not, they make a good show, don’t they?’

  Sunlight gilded the great ranks of horse chestnut trees, filtering through fresh green leaves and pink and cream candles blossoming into light, stippling faces and finery and the bright white bustled gowns of the two brides. A huge white Rolls Royce was parked at the kerb by the gates of the Gardens, a bouquet of creamy silk roses tossed on to the back seat. Two young bridesmaids broke away from the crowd, rushing past Dewi towards the car, their faces garishly enamelled, eyes too shadowed, lips too bloodied, dressed in snow-white satin, with roses of blood-red silk stitched into the folds of skirt and around fichu neck; colours symbolic of the fate in ambush for a virgin bride. He stared after them, entranced by their foreignness, the alien tongue in which they chattered. Jack’s elbow dug hard into his ribs.

  ‘Look over there,’ he said. ‘By the Town Hall. That’s Christopher Stott.’

  Tall and frail as a sapling, his face pasty-white behind the little beard, Stott leaned against a wall, watching the crowd. Beside him stood a woman, much shorter than he, much more real, dumpy and solid, as if her flesh was constrained from some rampage only by the tightness of the clothes it wore. Dewi walked slowly towards the couple, stopping when he had a clear view of her. Body half-turned, left hand resting on the rough tweed of Stott’s jacket, as if to keep him constrained from a different rampage of the flesh, she seemed of that indeterminate age which afflicts those women whose looks are unremarkable, whose hair is neither grey nor brown, whose eyes neither blue nor green, whose form neither grossly fat nor frighteningly thin. She wore a suit of some fawn-coloured fabric, the skirt exposing the back of lumpy knees, the jacket so tight he saw the bunchiness of blouse and flesh and underclothing beneath. In her right hand she held a white plastic carrier bag, Debenhams’ pastel-coloured logo on its side, and he suddenly pictured her clad in grey, skirt plain, jacket pretty with leafy strands amid roses faded and soft, not bloody crimson like those bedecking the bridesmaids’ gowns. He wondered if the rich heavy scent of carnation would come to him if he moved closer.

  ‘Have you forgotten?’ Jack demanded. ‘The investigation’s closed.’

  ‘That’s not what the superintendent actually said,’ Dewi countered, noting the peevish set to Jack’s mouth. ‘We’re supposed to follow up anything that comes along.’

  ‘You wittering on about how that suit Wil Jones found would look a treat on a woman who may or may not be shacked up with Stott is not something coming along. It’s your imagination running away with you again.’

  ‘I still say there’s no harm in asking. And something might come back on the car in the photograph.’

  ‘Asking who? Who d’you propose to ask? And you can shut up about the photograph. We shouldn’t’ve done that.’

  ‘Mrs Stott, sir.’

  ‘Oh, yes? You intend to go knocking on her door, do you, with the suit all nicely folded up in a carrier bag? Then I suppose you drag it out, like a rabbit out of a bloody hat, and say: “we have reason to believe Romy Cheney bought you this suit, and you stuffed it under the floorboards at Gallows Cottage because somebody saw you wearing it when you bumped her off”. You’re going to say that to her, are you, Prys?’

  ‘Well, you never know, sir. What her reaction might be, I mean.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what her reaction would be? She’ll invite you in, then she’ll pick up the phone, and she’ll call Councillor bloody Williams, then he’ll call the chief constable, then you’ll be sailing nice and fast up shit creek, and I’ll be in the boat with you! No, Prys, you are not going anywhere. Do you understand?’

  Dewi shrugged. ‘If you say so, sir.’

  ‘I do say so. And let that be the end of it!’

  Under the warm and careful ministrations of doctors and nurses, Trefor Prosser’s unconsciousness began to evaporate, as a morning mist over Menai Straits burnt away by the heat of the sun. Light broke through the clouds in his brain, poking prying fingers into dark corners, teasing out, from the shadows where he had hidden them, fearful secrets and secret fears. He fought to remain in darkness, to huddle beneath its safe canopy, the bleeps and blips and lines on the monitors telling of that monumental struggle. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw the face of the neurological registrar smiling gravely and assessingly down at him. He closed his eyes again, but found himself unable to close his ears to the voices and sounds which had teased like wind at the canopy of cloud long before light made the final breach.

  ‘About time,’ the registrar said, watching quivering eyelids betray the glint of iris beneath. ‘Never known anyone so anxious to stay asleep!’

  He walked away, deep in conversation with a nurse. ‘Keep him hooked up to the monitors for tonight. There’s really no need, but I don’t want him thinking he’s well enough to get out of bed. You never know what his sort is likely to do.’

  ‘The police want to talk to him. We’re supposed to call the minute he comes round.’

  ‘They can wait. I want the psychiatrist to see him first. Prosser’s a suicide risk, and I don’t intend to put my job on the line by letting the police put the frighteners on him so much he takes off and finishes what he started.’

  Jack telephoned Emma, testing the waters.

  ‘What time are you coming home?’ she asked.

  ‘Not too late. I don’t expect any problems. The gipsies seem very well behaved.’

  Emma laughed. ‘They mi
ght not be with a few drinks inside them.’

  Laughter could not precede a storm warning, he thought. ‘What are you cooking for tea?’

  ‘Nothing! I’m sick of cooking.’ Her voice was sharp.

  ‘Shall I get a takeaway, then?’

  ‘Do what you want. The girls are having fish and chips.’

  ‘What about us?’

  ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Out? Where to?’

  ‘Out! Eating out. You’ll have to see to yourself.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Somebody who wants to talk about things other than teenagers and police work and cooking.’ Jack heard the receiver placed on its cradle, then the buzzing of an empty line, and felt great cold draughts of terror sweeping over him.

  The young constable newly transferred to Traffic Division put the last file away, having managed to find the right place for nearly all the pieces of paper the inspector dropped on the sergeant’s desk, and he on the constable’s lap. A few odd sheets drifted in the breeze from an open window, homeless and unwanted, all but one apparently circulars of some description or another. For want of anything better, the constable pinned them in a bunch to the bottom right-hand corner of the notice board. The other, a sheet of flimsy off the fax machine with serrated edges top and bottom, was covered in names and dates, all listed under a car registration. The paper had travelled the office for days, passed from one to another, seeking the person who wanted the information. Apparently, no one did, but loth to destroy a piece of paper, no matter how derelict it might seem, the constable carried it along the corridor to the empty CID office, and abandoned it on a desk under an unwashed coffee mug.

  McKenna did not answer the doorbell to Jack’s persistent summons. Jack searched along the terrace front for a way around its rear, so that he might sneak a view through McKenna’s parlour window, to see if McKenna was the thief of his imagination, stealing Emma from the intellectual tedium of her marriage and robbing her husband of the love of his life.

  Standing once more on the slate doorstep, finger again on the bell, he heard the front door of the house opposite drag open. ‘You looking for Mr M?’ an old voice quavered.

  ‘D’you know where he is?’ Jack asked of the crone framed in the rotting doorway.

  ‘He went out a while back.’ The woman smiled a toothless smile, lips stretched over withered gums. ‘That lady came in her car.’

  ‘What lady?’

  ‘The one what’s always coming,’ she said. The door was returned to its frame, he left to pace the silence of the street, his footsteps echoing from the house walls. He took one last look through McKenna’s front door and saw the cat, rakish face distorted by reeded glass, staring back at him.

  Chapter 26

  Rising early, Emma prepared a cooked breakfast for her husband and children before they awoke. Her head ached slightly, a relic of the night before and reminder of pleasant and invigorating hours away from her family. True to form, the twins stayed abed as long as possible, then clattered downstairs, snatched toast from the table before leaving for school. Saying nothing to either wife or daughters, Jack doggedly ate cereal and egg and bacon and sausage and toast and marmalade, whilst Emma watched confusion pursue anxiety across his face, that barometer of his temper.

  ‘Were you called out last night?’ she asked, refilling his teacup.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had a quiet evening, I take it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good. No problems with the girls?’

  ‘No.’ He chewed another piece of toast, swallowing so hard the Adam’s apple bobbed high in his throat.

  ‘You could manage them on your own without any trouble, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ His reply preceded understanding. Head jerking up, he asked, ‘What d’you mean?’

  Naked fear shone in his eyes, pulled his mouth into a rictus. Emma sat down. ‘Denise and I are thinking of going on holiday together.’

  ‘Denise?’

  ‘Yes. Denise.’

  ‘When did you speak to her?’

  ‘Last night, of course. We spent the evening together. Who did you think I was with?’

  Embarrassment coursing into his face, he stared back.

  ‘I don’t know what you thought I was doing, but you were obviously wrong, weren’t you?’

  Unwilling to let go, the terrier intent on unearthing the last splinter of bone without appreciating that its sharpness might rip blood from flesh, Jack said, ‘I thought Denise was out with her soon-to-be ex-husband.’

  ‘She was out with me. We went for a pub meal, then a drive round Anglesey.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Where to what?’

  ‘Where did you have a meal?’

  ‘Is this how you interrogate so-called suspects, Jack? What am I suspected of doing?’

  He buttered another slice of toast, and slopped marmalade on top of the butter. ‘You’re being silly.’

  ‘I am not being silly!’ Emma snapped. ‘You’ve been moody and downright suspicious lately. What d’you think I’m doing? More pertinently, who d’you think I might be doing it with?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’ Jack slammed his knife on to the plate. It clattered off, smearing butter and marmalade on the tablecloth. ‘And you’re a fine one to talk about moods!’

  ‘I see. Well, we all know what sort of mischief wives get into, don’t we? Especially wives who have to put up with a miserable moody sod of a husband and a couple of bloody-minded teenagers day in and day out. Not to mention wives with nothing else to look forward to except more of the same and the sodding housework as well!’

  Her eyes glittering with rage and not a trace of tears, Jack thought she looked magnificent, as if she should adorn the prow of a galleon, proud breasts breaking mountainous seas, the light in her eyes brighter than any mariner’s lantern. But, he thought, Emma might steer her ship into the whirlpool of Charybdis and laugh as it foundered with all hands off the rocks of Scylla.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Say something!’

  ‘What am I supposed to say? Denise is making you discontented. She’s a bad influence on people.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Can’t you see I’m in a rut?’

  ‘We’re all in a rut. It’s what life’s about most of the time.’

  ‘Oh, is it? Everybody quietly ploughing their own little furrow until they die? It might suit you, but it certainly doesn’t satisfy me!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! That’s the sort of remark McKenna makes, and the attitude that’s wrecked his marriage. Hankering after some ideal which doesn’t exist in real life.’

  ‘Maybe Denise is beginning to see his point of view. Maybe she understands where she went wrong as well. What d’you think of that?’

  ‘I think,’ Jack said, weary and afraid and overwhelmed with a need to seek the comfort of her body, ‘we should stop fighting. I don’t understand why this is happening.’

  Emma sighed. ‘That’s half the trouble, isn’t it? There’s not much to understand. I’m fed up, the way everybody gets from time to time.’ She began clearing the table. ‘The holiday was Denise’s idea. She needs a break. She’s been through the mill in the last few weeks, and it’s not over yet by any means. It’ll be ages before she’s back to anything like normal, but at least she’s made a start, so I can stop worrying so much. When women stop caring about themselves, they go downhill faster than a runaway truck.’

  ‘Stop worrying? I thought you’d fallen out with her.’

  ‘We’re back on an even keel, even if other things have changed. But that’s how it goes, isn’t it?’

  ‘Where were you thinking of going on holiday?’

  ‘Somewhere warm and sunny. Greece or Rhodes, perhaps. It won’t be too busy at this time of the year.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Denise will be moving. She’s rented a flat on the marina in Port Dinorwic. She and Michael went to see it last night.’

  �
�I meant, what about you?’

  ‘Me? What about me?’

  ‘Will you come home? Or will you be like that Shirley Valentine character, running away from your boring life and your boring husband and family? Isn’t that what women dream about, Em? Romance and excitement under a sunny sky?’

  She dropped plates and mugs and cutlery in the washing-up bowl, squirted Fairy Liquid and ran hot water. Jack stared at her plump back and beautiful rounded buttocks. ‘Do you have to be in work soon?’ she asked.