Hen's Teeth

by Manda Scott

‘No.’ The rope swing stopped. ‘I want the truth.’

  So I gave her the truth. Or at least as much of it as was sane without compromising Lee. I told her everything I knew about Lee’s post-mortem and about Malcolm’s decision to donate his body to anatomy and about the odd recurrence of hens in an otherwise ill-fitting picture. I told her about the evening in the pathology block and the cleared records and what I thought of what Malcolm had done. I told her about temazepam and what it was for and what it could and couldn’t do, and how much Bridget was supposed to have taken without leaving any empties. By the time I finished, she knew almost as much as I did and if the gaps were visible, she didn’t say. She asked the obvious questions and thought her way through the obvious logical paths and, at the end, she came to the same blank wall as the rest of us.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ I asked, when we had sat together in silence for a while.

  ‘Get on with living,’ she said flatly, ‘that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? The Stewart life plan. Live. Learn. Keep living.’

  ‘Something like that.’ I’m not over-keen on having my own home-spun philosophy thrown back at me. ‘Do you still want me here?’

  ‘Mmm.’ A classic Leader non-answer. She swung for a while, staring silently into the middle distance, weighing things up. Then she stood up and flipped the backdoor key from her pocket.

  ‘Coffee?’ she asked, as if there was nothing else that mattered in the world.

  The kitchen was as pin-neat as Lee had left it, barring the three empty coffee mugs in the sink. There was a pervading smell of damp cat covering what might have been left of the blood and peat smoke.

  Caroline worked on the Rayburn and I tackled the fire. Half an hour later we were sitting in the big chairs on opposite sides of the fire, nursing mugs of fresh coffee.

  ‘So?’ I asked again. ‘You’ve had time to think. Do you want me to stay?’

  ‘Is it safe for either of us to stay?’

  ‘I think it’s probably as safe as anywhere. We need to sort out the locks and do something about the gate to the paddock.’

  ‘And find somewhere safer to put the chickens?’

  Quite.

  ‘I think it would help if we had someone else here,’ I suggested.

  ‘Janine?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  Caroline lowered her mug to her lap and cocked her head on one side, appraising again. She walked to the window, picked the portable phone off the bench and held it out to me. ‘You want Lee Adams here too. Right?’

  Right.

  Lee was out of the office and not answering her bleep, neither of which was altogether surprising on a routine Saturday. On a Saturday after a distinctly non-routine Friday night, it was tedious, largely because I had no home number and therefore no way of finding where she was, how she was or what she was doing with the disks and the eggs we had retrieved from Malcolm’s lab.

  The answer-phone in her office was polite but useless. The duty secretary at the Pathology desk had a lilting, sing-song voice that sounded as if her brain was firmly locked in the Mills and Boon alternative universe, but she did repeat my message back word perfect and promised to deliver it the moment Dr Adams set foot anywhere inside the hospital complex.

  I tried to think positive thoughts about the wider sisterhood, failed and hung up, feeling frustrated.

  Caroline watched from her chair by the fire, her features relaxing into something close to amusement. One eyebrow angled upwards and in the flickering light she looked exactly like my mother, hearing the words and listening to the meaning underneath. Only Mother didn’t always hear the meaning that was meant.

  ‘Do you need her that badly?’ she asked.

  ‘Not particularly. But she has all the available evidence and I think we’re losing time.’

  ‘We could fix the locks,’ suggested Caroline. ‘It’ll take a while. She might be in by the time we’re finished.’

  Fitting new mortise locks on the front and back doors took us into the late afternoon. Bridget was the kind of person who kept a spare set in a numbered cabinet – just in case. The tools were all in the back of the shed, clean and oiled from the last time she built a fence or fixed a loose box.

  It was relaxing work. Caroline unscrewed the old locks and measured up the new ones. I sharpened the chisels, more for the feel of smooth metal on the whetstone than because they weren’t sharp, and cut the grooves for the metal insets.

  Each lock came with comprehensive fitting instructions but we added a couple of variations I had learned from Lee in the hope of dissuading the average passing house-breaker.

  In all honesty, they were more for psychological protection than anything else. Nothing short of a minefield would keep out the real professionals for long but there seemed no harm in encouraging a siege mentality for a while.

  The cats came through, one by one, in the coffee breaks, picking their way delicately over the piles of curled wood shavings and discarded screws to check that the cat flap on the back door was still there and still worked.

  In the last hour before the light left, I dug around in the wood store and found enough spare timber to make the chicken shed at the end of the barn virtually impregnable. They could set fire to it, given enough petrol, but no one was likely to be able to break into it again.

  When I was happy with the results, I released the two bantams from their incarceration in the back of my car and returned them to their original home with enough food and water to keep them happy till the millennium.

  It felt almost like the old days.

  The smell of goulash wafted past me as I kicked my boots off outside the back door and carried me back the final few steps into the past. I walked into the kitchen with my mind full and my mouth open, ready to tell Bride that the horses were in and the chickens were fed and that what we really needed was to build another line of boxes at the back of the barn. But Tan never moved from the fireside and when the steam cleared from the space round the Rayburn, the figure was blonde, not dark and the smile was that of a friend and not of a lover.

  ‘Hi. Chickens all right?’ Caroline backed out of the haze and came round the end of the breakfast bar with a couple of glasses and a bottle. ‘I found some wine. I thought we could . . .’ The smile died on her face. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’

  ‘It’s nothing important. Don’t worry.’

  I uncorked the wine and poured two glasses without spilling anything which was a reasonable achievement under the circumstances.

  ‘Here.’ I handed her a glass. ‘What are we drinking to?’

  She thought for a moment with her eyes on mine. She doesn’t read far below the surface, but she has known me for years and she isn’t stupid.

  ‘A safe future?’ she offered.

  I hope so.

  ‘All right.’ I brought my glass up to touch hers. ‘A safe future.’

  A pan lid rattled on the Rayburn and the frown deepened slightly. ‘Does burnt goulash count as safe?’

  ‘Of course.’ I managed a smile. ‘As long as it’s not one of mine.’

  Her smile matched mine. ‘Even I wouldn’t ask you to take that kind of risk.’

  The tension cleared over the next half-hour as we set the table and dinner, when it came, was relaxed and sleepy, the way it is after a day’s hard work. We fell back gradually into the patterns of years ago, drawing back old memories and reforging old links.

  As the fire settled down into a heap of glowing peat ash, we moved on into more recent times, filling in the gaps from the past four years.

  By the time we reached the coffee, we were more or less up to date with each other’s present circumstances. I knew more of the recent details of the business than had ever come through the monthly statements from the accountant laying out my share of the profits. Caroline knew what little there was to know about the Counselling Centre and about the regular trips to larger centres in Oregon, whe
re the annual training courses were held. We still fought shy of the people in our lives – still too many unhealed wounds there – but we shared new ideas and our new ways of looking at the world and slowly talked ourselves back into the way things had been when we knew each other as friends.

  We cleared the table together and I turned on the taps to wash up. Same fair distribution of labour as ever. I hate cooking; everyone else in my life hates cleaning. I worked out the balance a long time ago. As long as everyone knows where we’re at, it works out well.

  Caroline came and sat on the stool at the end of the breakfast bar and watched me work my way through her dirty pans. There’s something about not facing each other across a table that makes things easier to deal with. And filthy saucepans give the fingers something else to do.

  There was a file in a pot on the breakfast counter. She began to shorten a set of very short nails. ‘Did Janine get a chance to talk to you this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really. I didn’t have time.’ The pan responded to a wire pad and a lot of scrubbing.

  ‘Has she gone to Rae’s?’

  ‘Apparently so.’ I dumped the pan on the rack and started on the lid.

  ‘Will she come back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you want her to?’

  ‘Pass.’ I gave up the pretence and turned round so that I could see her. ‘I was supposed to be thinking about it in Oregon. It’s one of the reasons I went away.’

  ‘And?’

  How should I know?

  ‘There’s a kind of peace in being single,’ I said. ‘I think it might be easier to go back to that for a while.’

  Caroline dropped the nailfile back in the pot, her gaze oddly focused. ‘Did it hurt that much, losing Lyn?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘No. It hurt that much losing Bridget.’ I dried my hands on a tea-towel and threw it in a crumpled heap on top of the Rayburn. ‘We all make mistakes. Just that mine tend to be more permanent than most.’ I manufactured a smile from nowhere. I don’t imagine it was very convincing. ‘Can we drop this? Please.’

  My successor-in-love put an elbow on the counter and propped her chin on her hand, watching me try to brush off the past. She looked across at me, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

  ‘How long did it last,’ she asked quietly, ‘you and Lyn?’

  ‘Six months.’ I shook my head, counting. ‘Less. We split about two days after I heard you were with Bridget.’

  ‘You should have called.’

  ‘She told me not to.’

  ‘And you believed her?’ That drew a real smile. ‘Are you really that stupid?’

  Yes.

  Caroline turned sideways to stare out of the small leaded window over the sink. One narrow hand threaded a strand of blonde hair into the gap behind her ear.

  The silence between us waited for an acknowledgement.

  ‘You should have called,’ she said and left it at that.

  We put the rest of the dishes away together, Caroline showed me the places where things were not exactly as they used to be and then brought a book down from the bedroom. I brought Malcolm’s notes through from the study and we settled down, each in our own world, while the questions lay unanswered and the dust of the past settled back, as it should, almost to where it had been before.

  Late on, the high-pitched, tinny sound of a small engine, not quite tuned, clattered through the still evening air and there was a tentative crunch on the gravel outside.

  ‘Lee?’

  ‘Should be.’ I pushed a mass of cats sideways on the Rayburn and put the kettle back on to boil.

  Caroline walked to the window and peered carefully through one side of the curtains.

  ‘If it’s Ms Psycho,’ she said, ‘she’s gone seriously downmarket. That’s a 2CV. And it’s white.’

  Lee wouldn’t drive a 2CV if it was the last car left on earth.

  ‘You sure? We don’t know anyone who drives one of those.’ I left the kettle on the hot plate and killed the lights above the mantelpiece, leaving the orange glow of the fire as the only light in the room.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ said Caroline, letting the curtain drop. ‘It’s your friendly policeman.’

  Inspector MacDonald waited patiently outside the back door while we found the right keys to the right locks and remembered which directions to turn them in.

  When we finally pulled the door open, he was huddled down on the mat with a green oiled jacket pulled round his shoulders against the wind, talking to the ground.

  ‘Inspector?’

  I knelt down to eye height and saw a scrawny black she-cat coiling itself round his fisherman’s boots, purring like a cross-cut saw.

  He stood up and the cat pushed past me into the house, leaving him on the doorstep, shifting slightly from one foot to the other.

  ‘Evening, ladies.’ He nodded to us both. ‘A lovely evening for the time of year.’

  Oh. Right.

  He wasn’t even in uniform. Back in his fisherman’s outfit, looking like a rustic version of the man from Milk Tray. I wondered for a moment whether he had completely misunderstood the relationship patterns and whether Caroline would be better at putting things straight.

  The kettle began to sing to itself on the Rayburn and I was about to invite him in for coffee when he turned back towards the car, put his fingers to his lips and whistled – a low, looping note, like a questing owl.

  Or the call to heel of a sheepdog.

  It appeared as a shadow at his heel. A scruffy, half-grown pup: white, blotched with pale red patches, like an anaemic, piebald fox with a brindled mask and a black tip to the scragged tail and big, bat-wing ears that focused like sonar cups.

  And eyes. Mesmeric, spine-tingling eyes. One glowed amber and burned like a searchlight in the fire-glow from the kitchen. Impossible to hide from.

  The other was the pale, pale blue of the sky after rain and as reflective as glass. Impossible to see what lay underneath.

  Less than a hundred years ago, they would have drowned this dog at birth for her eyes alone and, looking at her standing there in the darkness on my back porch, generations of racial memories tugged at the forefront of my mind, reminding me why. Eyes like that see straight through your soul and out the other side. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

  The Inspector twitched a finger and the dog sat, moving her haunches without moving her eyes.

  ‘You’ll be needing another dog if you’re planning on staying,’ he said, as a matter of fact and not of debate. ‘My brother’s bitch had pups half a year back and this one was left. I was going to take her on, but then I thought that maybe you would be needing her more.’

  Not this one. I prefer to keep the contents of my mind to myself.

  I shook my head. ‘We’re staying. But we couldn’t . . .’

  ‘Of course we could. Why not?’ Caroline knelt beside me on the step and the dog stretched out its nose to nudge her hand, like any normal pup. ‘It’s a really kind offer. She’s gorgeous.’

  Hardly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a bitch,’ he said, unnecessarily.

  Strangely, gender is not the issue.

  ‘No. I’m sorry. It’s too soon.’

  The dog put its chin on her knee and Caroline ran her hand over its head, pulling gently at the oversized ears.

  ‘Don’t listen to her,’ she told it. ‘I’ll take care of you.’

  ‘How?’ I resorted to basic brutality. ‘We’ve lost one dog already this week. What makes you think we can look after this one any better?’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that. She can look after herself.’ MacDonald smiled enigmatically and failed to elaborate.

  The dog lay flat at another hand command and the man played his trump card.

  ‘She’s called Tîr,’ he said. And then, in case I didn’t make the link, ‘From Tîr na’n Og.’

  Caroline made the link. She looked up, smiling, her eyes clear, and explained
it for me. ‘That’s it then. Tîr na’n Og. The Land of Youth. It’s what Bridget used to call the old grave mound with the cairn in the beech wood. It was Tan’s favourite place. We have to take her, Kellen. It’s perfect.’

  Really.

  I looked at the dog and the dog looked back and I don’t think either of us was particularly happy with the way things were moving. But we weren’t about to turn and swim against the tide either.

  Besides, not all that long ago, they would have drowned me too. If I was lucky.

  ‘Right. Thank you.’ I nodded defeat to the Inspector, who accepted with due grace. ‘As long as the cats are happy.’

  I turned on my heel and led the way back into the kitchen, just as the kettle finally blew its top.

  The cats were cool. The cats were so cool they let me rescue the screaming kettle and make three coffees around them and they stayed, riveted to the top of the Rayburn, in various postures of extreme relaxation, all of which happened to be in full sight of the uninvited incomer.

  The dog migrated by instinct to Tan’s place by the fire and lay there in dignified silence with both eyes closed, waiting.

  The Inspector followed me over to the small kitchen space behind the breakfast bar and leant against the sink with his back to the window, watching me measure out the coffee grounds and spill the milk.

  ‘I had a look at the lass’s medical records,’ he said, when I had finally produced a drinkable dose of caffeine.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She had a cervical smear test every three years. Anti-tetanus once in a while. Nothing else.’

  ‘No one prescribed any temazepam?’

  ‘If they did, they didn’t write it down.’ He held the mug cupped in both hands and blew across the top. ‘Checked the other one too,’ he said carefully, ‘nothing there either. Clean, the two of them.’

  Neither of us looked at Caroline and the woman herself, if she was listening, was very discreet about it.

  ‘So where did she get them?’

  ‘That’s the question, Dr Stewart.’ I couldn’t see his face but his voice held only the mildest curiosity. ‘Where did she get them? Why did she take them? And then where did she put the container afterwards?’

  Who knows?