The television blinked on, sound booming, as Barbara’s rough breath subsided to a series of small, marshy pants. ‘Just leave me alone,’ she said in a strangled kind of voice, eyes resolutely to the front.
‘But . . .’
‘You get on with your life. And I’ll get on with mine.’
Back to the box-room dungeon. Back to an invoice for services rendered just waiting to be cashed. And after that, what next? A wave of familiar melancholia had rolled over Margaret then as she stood in the living-room doorway staring at the back of her mother’s head. What was it about her life, that the only person who really needed Margaret was a dead person lying on a slab in some anonymous embalmer’s suite?
‘By the way, that girl called.’ From her armchair, Barbara heaved and puffed as she tried to get the words out over the noise of the television set. ‘Said to tell you she’s in Leith.’
Margaret was confused for a moment. ‘In Leith. Janie?’
‘Said you’d find her down there.’ Barbara twisted round in her chair.
‘Find who?’
‘Your client.’
‘Mrs Walker?’
It was only afterwards that Margaret realized her mother looked then as though some sort of ghost had waltzed right over her grave.
Margaret found what she was looking for quite by chance. Kneeling on the lino in her mother’s kitchenette, wondering where to search next. Quilted and threadbare, in a colour that had once been pink, her mother’s dressing gown shoved into the washing machine as though awaiting its annual bath. If the Brazil nut was going to be anywhere, surely this would be the place.
Margaret pulled the dressing gown from the drum, still dry, and tried to shake out all its creases and folds. Then she spread it across her mother’s kitchen table as though she were laying out a corpse. There was something forlorn about seeing the garment without her mother inside it. As though without it Barbara must be lying comatose somewhere out by the bypass, no daughter to help her as one last prayer died on her lips. Or perhaps she had just gone for a drink with Mrs Maclure to discuss the iniquities of children long absent suddenly returned. Even now, Margaret could never be sure which way her mother might fall.
The dressing gown was just as Margaret had last seen it, dried strands of mini Shredded Wheat still clinging to the front. Margaret picked them off one by one, brushing down the frills as she did so to keep everything neat. Then she dipped her fingers into each of the dressing-gown pockets to find fluff, threads and a single loose button covered in pink stretchy fabric. Then something else. Not a Brazil nut with the Ten Commandments scratched into its shell, but an empty envelope with a postmark dated sometime before Christmas. And on its flap, the imprint of a solicitor’s firm. Nye & Sons of London. Jessica Plymmet writing to an old friend with all the news.
Three weeks of cat and mouse amongst the snow and ice of Edinburgh and the black car caught Margaret the moment she stepped outside. Her only escape route was back to a box room with no emergency exits. Margaret knew that this time she was captured. Nowhere left to run.
The car made a graceful U-turn, snow crunching slowly beneath its heavy wheels, a window gliding down as it pulled up alongside. The driver leaned over to speak. ‘Margaret Penny.’
It wasn’t a question.
‘Want to go for a drink?’
A drink for Margaret meant red wine. A drink for DCI Franklin meant coffee. Being an officer of the law, the DCI prevailed. There wasn’t much preamble. In fact, the DCI didn’t even take off her coat, just squeezed herself into a seat opposite Margaret in one of the local coffee shops and began to interrogate. ‘You were at the mortuary.’
‘Yes.’ Margaret blushed slightly as though she had done something wrong.
‘I thought so.’ DCI Franklin folded the foam on top of her cappuccino, then licked the spoon clean. ‘I checked,’ she said, lifting the cup and swallowing what seemed like half of the contents in one. ‘Janie gave me the details. I like to know who’s nosing around on my patch.’
Margaret dribbled milk from a small plastic container into her black coffee, watched it swirl then sink. ‘I’m looking into Mrs Walker.’
‘Mrs Walker?’
‘The old lady from Nilstrum Street. Died alone in her flat. I’m on my way there now.’
‘Oh, yes. One of those.’ The detective spoke as though it was a commonplace occurrence. She wiped at her mouth with a paper napkin. ‘I’d have got my officers to do a bit more digging, but cuts, you know.’ She shrugged.
Margaret nodded. Austerity Britain.
‘We had to reallocate resources,’ said the DCI. ‘There’s been a murder.’
But Margaret wasn’t complaining. The combination of cuts and a suspicious death had got her the job.
‘Wouldn’t normally involve a civilian.’ DCI Franklin took another mouthful of her coffee (the whole cup almost gone now) and stared at Margaret as though expecting her to reply.
‘No.’ Margaret shifted a little in her seat, suddenly sweaty. The cafe was muggy, condensation dripping down the windows. Just like her mother, she had kept her coat buttoned to the neck. Despite her success with dead people, she wasn’t sure a dead fox was quite the right impression to give to the police.
The detective leaned forward and tapped the brown folder that lay between them. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Did you sort it?’
Mrs Walker (Clementine). Shopped at Costcutter. Always wore a red coat. Enjoyed whisky. Paid in cash. Ate morning rolls and tinned peas until she died of numerous diseases aged eighty-five. Thief.
‘Really?’ DCI Franklin looked interested at last. She put down her empty cup. ‘Maybe she’s got a record.’
Margaret put her cup down too, though it was still half full. ‘That’s been checked already. Births, Marriages and Deaths. The certificates came today.’
DCI Franklin laughed and swivelled her legs out from beneath the table, showing a quick flash of sunshine lining her navy coat. ‘Not those records. Criminal.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Margaret flushed again. ‘But won’t your officers have looked at that?’
‘Yes, probably. They’re a good unit in Edinburgh, the Enquiry Team. Suicide, drugs, accidents with cars.’ DCI Franklin waved her hand. ‘They see it all.’
Somehow Margaret got the impression DCI Franklin had seen it all too. ‘Are they your team?’
‘God no. Not for me. Death out of nowhere, no one to blame.’ DCI Franklin pulled a face. ‘I’m strictly suspicious. Murder, you know. DNA.’
Sheep stealer. Peddler of fake coins. How easy it was to be the one who caused trouble. You just had to be born to it, it seemed. ‘Is Mrs Walker likely to have a criminal record?’ Margaret asked. ‘She was only an old lady, after all.’
‘Even criminals get old, you know. At least, sometimes.’ The DCI laughed. ‘But some people have a way of avoiding the system. It’s easy to disappear if you really want to. People do it all the time.’
‘Yes.’ Margaret considered her whole life strewn across London landfill and knew that this was the truth.
DCI Franklin stood and began to pull on her gloves. ‘Shall we go then?’
‘What?’ Margaret looked up from the muddy remains of her coffee, palms suddenly damp. Her antics in London come to rest at her feet at last. ‘I thought there’d been a murder . . .’
The detective smiled. ‘Yes.’ A tired smile, as though a not-insignificant part of her wished she would never see another dead person ever again. ‘But you’ve got a body to dispose of that’s clogging our system. And a scene of crime to search first. I thought I’d help you do it thoroughly this time.’
The scene of the first crime was as cold and gloomy as it had been when Margaret visited only a few days before. The light bulb in the hall still dredged in dust. The shadows of long-vanished pictures still lingering on the walls. In the bathroom tiny corpses still huddled in the deep end of the bath. Shadows were advancing from every corner. The gloaming hour, wasn’t that what Barbara called it, wh
en the spirits came to the fore.
‘Christ,’ said the DCI as they stepped into the hall, wrapping her dark woollen coat around her legs as though for protection. ‘No wonder she’s dead. It’s like a freezer in here.’ She blew on her fingers and turned to Margaret. ‘Now where do you want to start?’
‘In the bedroom.’ Margaret was certain about that. ‘There’s something I need to collect.’
‘Right. Well, you look there and I’ll try the rest.’ DCI Franklin was nothing if not efficient with her resources. ‘One way or another we’ll close the case today.’
From the bottom of Mrs Walker’s wardrobe, Margaret retrieved what she had really come for. A party dress fit for one last celebration. The perfect alternative to a shroud. She pulled the emerald dress from its plastic bag, holding it up towards the diminishing light as it slithered to its full length, the few remaining sequins dancing once again. The dress wasn’t in great shape: a few holes here and there, patches eaten away by moth. Micky might have to add ‘seamstress’ to her list of accomplishments just to get it looking neat. Margaret laid the dress across Mrs Walker’s bed and peered at the hem. It wasn’t hard to see what she had come for. A single sequin hanging from a thread. Even in the gathering gloom of Mrs Walker’s bedroom Margaret could see that it was different from the rest. Not green like the sea, or the eyes of a witch. But red, like a single trail of blood.
Fabric slippery beneath her fingers, heart setting up a little pitter-patter beat, Margaret lifted the thread and began to follow it round the hem. It zigzagged in a haphazard line as though it had been sewn in a hurry. Or by someone who didn’t care for needlework and the time that it took. Margaret followed the thread almost all the way round and back to the start before she found what she had been certain must be there. Knobbled and lumpy, hidden away in a fold of emerald cloth. A brooch, perhaps, small and shiny, five starry points.
Except . . .
It was something much more ordinary than that.
Margaret sat back on the bed and stared down at what she had found. An orange pip, all desiccated and skeletal, just like Mrs Walker lying naked now beneath the sheet in Leith. She sighed, disappointment rattling for a moment inside her chest. What was it with Mrs Walker, that nothing about her life ever seemed to come to an end?
DCI Franklin appeared in the doorway. ‘Found anything?’ she said.
‘Nothing,’ said Margaret. ‘An orange pip. Sewn into the hem.’
DCI Franklin came over to look, two women staring down at the tiny white eye. ‘That’s not an orange pip,’ the DCI said. ‘It’s a clue.’
Under curling lino. Beneath all the pillows. In between the sheets. Margaret and the DCI searched until they had a handful of orange pips, but not much else. Inside kitchen cupboards. Between mismatched bowls. In amongst the forks and teaspoons. Down beneath the bath.
There was even a solitary seed stranded forever in one of Mrs Walker’s empty whisky bottles. The DCI was intrigued. ‘What did you say she died of, again?’
‘Everything,’ said Margaret. ‘Take your pick.’
They tried the living room last, the DCI running one finger along the edge of the mantelpiece until it came away almost black. The fireplace beneath was black too, dark and empty where once a fire would have been lit. Margaret bent to look and saw two orange pips sucked dry wedged between the irons of the grate.
‘Look at this,’ said the DCI, pointing at something on the mantelpiece, a trickle of dust drifting down to settle on the top of Margaret’s head.
‘What is it?’ Margaret stood up again, brushing at her hair. She couldn’t see anything unusual in amongst the grime. No photographs or candles imprinted with beseeching saints. No flocks of wooden animals polished to a shine. But then, as the DCI continued to point, Margaret understood. Not an orange pip this time, but a ridge of dust, thin but distinct, as though something had been propped up behind it not that long ago. The two women stared at the small line of dust for a moment. Then they turned and looked beyond it, straight into the arms of the chair in which Mrs Walker had breathed her last.
‘Did you search it before?’ the DCI said.
Margaret shook her head. ‘That’s police work, isn’t it?’
The DCI laughed then, before handing over a pair of blue latex gloves retrieved from the pocket of her coat. ‘You’re the detective now.’
Down, down, down, down. Margaret searched the armchair with a rigour she had not employed before. Attack. Best form of defence. Wasn’t that what Barbara always said? Pushing her hands between the armchair’s cushions and its ancient frame. Past fabric stained with the remains of the dead. Black hands. Black feet. Trying not to think about putrefaction as she shoved her fingers past strands of hair and tiny mangled feathers. Past bits of orange peel gone brittle and stiff. Past greasy cloth and old furniture foam that disintegrated at her touch. Past a hairpin bent out of shape and crumbs from a stale morning roll. Past nail parings and dust, dust, dust, arms almost up to the elbows in a dead person’s leftovers before she touched what she had been looking for all along.
Proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Not a brooch, but a photograph. Black-and-white and stippled with age. An imprint on the reverse. W. H. SYMMONS & Co. Est. London 1933. On the front was a picture of a woman sitting in a chair, wearing some kind of gown that didn’t quite cover her legs. She looked perplexed, as though just off camera there was something she ought to know about but couldn’t quite understand. And pinned up against the woman’s breastbone – a tiny, star-shaped brooch.
Magic, thought Margaret. Happens all the time.
She held up the photograph to show DCI Franklin. But DCI Franklin was occupied with something else. Phone pressed to ear, frowning and staring at Margaret.
‘It’s your mother,’ she said.
1970
Ruby with her eyes so bright, once a jewel of a thing, now cut all this way and that, emerged from the last of several incarcerations and opened up her admission box to find this:
A dusty Brazil nut.
A tarnished spoon.
A star-shaped brooch with a red stone at its heart.
And a ticket to America. The promised land at last.
She hummed as she lifted everything out, ‘Oh my darling,’ to accompany the hum that resided permanently now beneath the bony layer of her skull. They handed her the clothes she had been wearing when she arrived too – a jumper all worn at the elbows and a skirt with a pin to hold it together at the waist. Also a green dress with sequins dancing along the hem. Ruby laughed when she saw the dress. It reminded her of something she had lost, but was determined to get back.
‘Now, Miss Penny . . .’
‘Walker.’
‘Yes.’ The Head of the In-Patient Unit looked away as though she’d had this argument many times before (which, of course, she had). ‘I’m afraid we haven’t managed to get in touch with your sister. Barbara, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or any other relative.’
‘What about the child?’ Ruby fixed the Head of the Unit with that disconcerting stare. They were sitting in a small office partitioned from a great cavernous hall, the grey walls of the asylum looming all around.
‘Yes.’ The Head of the Unit closed the fat file in front of her and placed her hand on top. ‘I’m sorry. But you know as well as I do, Miss Penny, the child did not survive.’
‘She did.’ Ruby gazed at the Head of the Unit with those startling eyes.
The Head of the Unit turned her own gaze away. ‘But how do you know, Miss Penny?’ Ruby was still difficult to resist, despite everything that had passed.
‘Because.’ Ruby was insistent.
The Head sighed, a small despairing sound. They had worked with Ruby Penny on and off for several years now, but it never did seem to do any good. If anything it just made the patient more adamant about things that had never been. ‘Well,’ the Head said, trying to move the conversation on. ‘It would be good to get a sense of what
you plan to do next.’
Ruby blinked and jingled the few coins she’d been given to help her on her way. ‘I’ll get the bus, I suppose.’
‘Yes, but where to?’
‘Why do you need to know?’
The Head of the Unit had completed a course in how to assist a patient out into the world. But none of her training could assist her with this. ‘Have you considered the halfway house I mentioned?’ she said, as though that might make a difference.
Ruby didn’t even bother shaking her head. She wasn’t being deliberately recalcitrant. She was just being herself. ‘I shall travel into London,’ she said.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? You know what happened last time you were allowed out on day release.’
Last time Mr Nye Senior called the police. The time before that the artist had called the police too.
‘I promise I won’t go near them again.’ Ruby said this with her fingers crossed behind her back as though she were five years old again, not a grown woman of over thirty now.
‘You know it would be better if you tried to keep out of trouble.’
Ruby laughed. Wasn’t that what Mrs Penny had always said? Nothing but trouble, right from the start.
The Head of the Unit pressed a finger against the side of her skull where an insistent throbbing was just beginning to take hold. She coughed. ‘There is your medication, of course,’ she said, holding out a prescription already filled in with a scrawl. Medication was an important thing, the lever they were encouraged to wield if all else failed.
Ruby stopped stuffing the contents of her admission box into her old basket and looked up. ‘I don’t need pills any more.’
‘They’re there to help you.’
‘I thought I was better.’
‘Well, yes . . .’
‘So why would I need to take pills.’
Ruby wasn’t asking a question. And besides, the Head of the Unit didn’t have a reply. Instead she began to fiddle with a long rope of wooden beads that hung down the front of her polyester blouse, like a rosary. Counting her patients in and counting them out again once they were cured. ‘Well, if there’s anything we can do,’ and she laid the prescription on the table well within reach. She was amazed when Ruby replied, ‘Yes. There is one thing.’
The Other Mrs Walker Page 26
