‘Aye, and if that means you need to get rid of some of your designer gear, I’m your woman.’
Paula snorted. ‘Those clothes are going nowhere, darling. Soon as I’m back in the city, I’m on the quinoa and lettuce.’
‘Right,’ said Joe. ‘When did you ever have a diet that included lettuce?’
Paula reached across from her seat and patted Joe on the knee in lieu of another long hug. ‘It’s so good to see you both.’ She stood up. ‘Coffee?’
They both smiled at the offer.
‘And some scones?’
‘You made scones?’ Joe asked, mouth long. He turned to Cara. ‘She made scones.’
‘Quick, send for the Women’s Institute. We need to make sure these scones measure up,’ said Cara.
‘Oy, shut up, the pair of you,’ Paula got to her feet and made her way towards the kitchen. ‘Or I’ll spit in your clotted cream.’
Joe laughed, and Paula revelled in the sound of it. They’d had lots of late-night phone conversations since Bill’s death. One brother dying was bad enough, but two? There was a week or so when Paula was really worried that he might not recover. And he’d apologised endlessly for being posted missing in her hour of need.
‘Not sure what you would have been able to do,’ Paula had replied during one midnight call, trying to stave off his guilt. ‘You would have probably ended up dead as well.’
‘But still. I disappeared and…’
‘Why go so suddenly? I was sure something had happened to you.’
‘Everything just became so suffocating. Everyone felt suffocating…’
‘Sorry for caring.’ Paula tried to joke, but even to her ears it felt huffy.
‘I don’t know how to accept help, Paula. I can’t deal with people’s sympathy.’
‘Would you rather nobody cared?’
‘Course not. Anyway, don’t remember how it happened. I was in my car, just driving. Hours later, I was in Inverness and I found a wee bed and breakfast. Bought some clean pants from M&S, and did nothing but walk and sleep for a few days.’ She then heard another note of apology in his voice, ‘While you were…’
Cara got to her feet, thrusting Paula back into the present. ‘I’ll give you a hand. And make sure that the scones are spit free,’ she threw back at Joe as she walked towards the kitchen.
He laughed a hearty response.
In the kitchen in front of the kettle, Cara gave Paula another hug, holding her for a long moment.
‘What was that for?’ Paula asked when they separated.
‘Just because,’ Cara answered. A kind stranger had offered to pay for a headstone for Danny’s grave when they heard his mother couldn’t afford one. This was obviously Cara letting Paula know that she realised it was her.
‘So, how are you? Really?’ Cara asked.
‘Och, you know…’ Paula looked out of the window. ‘I still find myself looking down that beach, expecting to see Thomas walk along it.’ She gave a small laugh. Shook her head. ‘I even have this wee fantasy that he faked his death, you know? That he’ll turn up with a huge bouquet of roses. Beg my forgiveness and kiss my feet, carry me through to the bed and give me a good seeing-to.’
‘Nutter,’ laughed Cara.
‘You don’t know the half of it. I’ve got this whole scenario worked out. He faked his death because he couldn’t think of any other way of getting away from the big Pole.’
‘Right. So whose body did you cremate in this wee scenario?’ Cara leaned against the work surface and crossed her arms.
‘He paid somebody at the morgue for the body of some poor homeless guy.’
Cara made a face.
‘Hey, at least in my scenario the wee homeless guy got a good send-off.’
Cara laughed. ‘I repeat my earlier assertion. Crazy.’
Paula looked at the younger woman and felt her eyes tear up. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you these last few months.’ The two women had spoken often, as the ramifications of that evening hit home.
‘The island life suits you, Paula,’ Cara said eyeing her up and down, batting off Paula’s thanks by ignoring it.
‘Is that a nice way of saying I need to lose weight?’
‘No, it’s a nice way of saying you’re looking well.’ She grinned and looked at her hair. ‘Mind you, I don’t recall seeing a hedge in the garden.’
‘It’s out the back, darling. I drag myself through it every morning before elevenses.’
‘You have elevenses?’
‘Hence the scones.’
They laughed, then had a moment’s silence while Paula lifted scones from the oven and put them on a tray. Cara made herself busy arranging mugs and instant coffee.
‘It’s like we’re a wee team,’ Cara said.
Paula eyed her with what she hoped was a mysterious look.
‘What?’ asked Cara.
‘All in good time,’ Paula answered with a smile.
The kettle came to the boil and in the moment’s silence after, Paula heard an intake of breath from Cara as if she was going to say something. But nothing came. She looked over at her.
‘What?’
Cara walked over to the sink, looked out of the window, turned and leaned her back against it, crossing her feet at the ankles.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘How do you reconcile the man who stole all that money, and the man who left you this?’ She held her hands out and let them fall to slap against the side of her legs.
‘I don’t get it either, Cara. And, believe me, that’s been on my mind these last few weeks. The cottage? Guilty conscience, or did he really want to heal our relationship?’
‘It is a grand gesture right enough. Would you have fallen for it?’
‘Dunno. The money thing, I get.’ Paula shrugged. ‘He’d do anything for his brother. And I bet he didn’t trust that the Rusnak and his people would wipe out Joe’s debt. Bill said that Thomas taking ten per cent and hiding it was his commission. I’m certain it was his attempt at getting some sort of insurance. He would have returned it when he had confirmation that Joe’s debt was indeed written off.’
‘Makes sense,’ Cara offered. ‘Clever in fact.’
‘He was a clever man. Even in a situation like that, he found a way.’
There was a pause.
‘I don’t believe for a second he had any involvement in Bill and Daphne’s wee drug empire.’ Paula challenged Cara’s view on this with a look. She said nothing, but gave a little nod to show her agreement.
‘Do you think he ever found out the truth about Christopher’s death?’ Cara asked.
Paula shook her head. ‘That, he wouldn’t have been able to hide from me.’ She felt a fresh stab of pain at the thought of Christopher being hit by the car. ‘He’d have told me if he knew.’
A shout from the front room.
‘Where’s my scone?’ asked Joe. ‘If you heard that rumble it wasn’t a passing truck, it was my stomach.’
In the living room, having eaten their scones and drank their coffee, Joe sat back with a satisfied look on his face.
‘I shall be expecting this on a regular basis,’ he said.
‘That might well happen,’ replied Paula looking at them both. ‘If you agree with my plan.’
They both sat forwards with questions in their eyes.
‘Now, it all depends whether or not the money is available to us. Or whether you guys think we should give it back.’
Joe and Cara looked at each other. Then back at Paula.
‘Oh,’ said Cara, where Paula was going with this clearly dawning on her.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Joe.
‘The missing million,’ answered Paula. ‘I found out where it is.’
Joe’s mouth fell open.
The figure of nine million was what the media reported and it had been recovered. No one was talking about the missing one million. Those who knew, outside of the three in Paula’s living room, were convenie
ntly unavailable for comment.
On the morning after that fateful night before, Paula came home after what felt like days talking to a variety of policemen, slept for twenty-two hours and then, needing to distract herself, had decided to tackle the mini mountain of mail behind her front door.
Most of it, happily, she could bin. Some was for her charities, others were bills, but one piqued her curiosity. The envelope was handwritten – so rare these days – and was stamped and franked by a firm called Bloxwich, Paterson and Wright, based in Dumfries.
She had recalled the leaflet in Thomas’s suit pocket at the cottage. The clues were all there. And at that she felt a pang of guilt. If she had opened the lawyer’s letter just a day earlier, she would have known what Anton demanded from her. Would Bill still be alive today?
Then she remembered the comments between Daphne and Rusnak. Bill’s days were numbered regardless of what happened to the money. As were hers, so any guilt she might feel was a waste of energy.
The letter explained that a certain Thomas Gadd had opened an account with the sum of one million pounds and in the event of his death his wife, Mrs Paula Gadd, should be made aware of the account and the funds therein.
Paula was certain Thomas had used the same method that the crooks had asked him to use to launder their money. And she felt a quiet sense of satisfaction as that idea struck her. Using their own plan against them had a certain kind of Thomas Gadd cleverness to it.
Theretofore – the letter was filled with all kinds of strange words – Mr Gadd’s instructions were that a charitable organisation would be set up, to be called The Ettrick Enterprise Initiative, and the money should be used to encourage disadvantaged young Scots to get into business for themselves.
Now, with a mounting sense of excitement Paula explained all of this to Joe and Cara. And said how she had to drive down to Dumfries to speak to the partners and ask them to prepare the necessary papers.
Paula searched their faces as she spoke. She had a slight wiggle of worry that one of them would want the money to go to the authorities, given how it was obtained and how many people died because of it. When rehearsing what she was going to say to them she’d decided she would go with the consensus, but now the moment had come she wanted more than ever for this to happen. It would be the perfect way to honour Thomas’s memory.
As she told them all of this, they listened open-mouthed. She finished by saying, ‘And I would like each of you to be trustees in the charity with me. But…’ she held her hands out ‘…if you think the money should go to the authorities, I’ll get in touch with the police straight away.’
‘None of us can benefit from any of this money,’ said Cara.
‘I like using Ettrick in the name of the charity. Our family has a long connection with this place.’ Joe piped in.
‘So, you’re saying yes?’ asked Paula.
‘I’m saying yes,’ answered Joe.
‘It’s too late for the likes of Danny, but I’ve already thought of people we could spend it on,’ answered Cara with a giant grin.
The sea was sliding into Ettrick Bay as if on slow rollers. The breeze was a cold salty nip on her nose, cheeks and chin. The sun wintered low, as sharp in her eyes as a torch beam when she faced it, the sky a galactic arch of blue with only the occasional butter-knife smear of cloud. In the distance, the mountains of Arran looked close enough to touch. Paula would never tire of this view, no matter how often she walked the bay.
Her mind strayed to her visitors, to their immediate assent to her plan, and their excitement at something good coming from all that evil.
She had made her way to the far end of the bay, and stopped to begin her walk back. She paused at the water’s edge, allowing the slow creep of the sea to lick at her boots. Looking out towards the distant horizon, she felt a churn of hunger. She could reheat one of the scones in the oven, and imagined the butter on top melting into a golden smudge. At this thought she patted her stomach, she must have put on at least a stone in the last two months.
Thomas would barely recognise the woman she’d become. She smiled at the thought of him watching her baking, asking what had happened to the anti-sugar brigade. They’d been replaced with the ‘everything in moderation’ mob, she’d say.
She did that a lot still. Held a conversation in her head with him.
Further along, she noticed a woman walking a centre line from the tearoom to the water’s edge. She was wearing a tan-coloured puffer jacket, a red scarf and her long black hair was streaming back from her like ribbons in the stiff breeze. There was a stateliness about her movement, as if she was performing to a ceremony of her own devising.
Paula judged that at this pace, their paths would cross, and she wondered whether or not she should alter her course. But she did nothing, curious as to how this might, or might not develop. Since Thomas had died, talking to strangers was always easier than talking to friends. No expectations. No fumbled apologies. No awkward silences.
The woman was holding a large bag. A colour match for her coat. She reached into it, and, as if feeling Paula’s presence, she paused. Looking over, their eyes met and the woman lifted her empty hand from the bag and stuffed it into her pocket.
Paula would have been willing to bet that the bag held an urn. She read the loss in the woman’s eyes, in the waxen slump of her expression, and increased her pace so she could get past her and give the woman the time and space she needed.
But as she drew near, she couldn’t help but reach out, to offer the small easing that comes with a shared human experience. With a light touch on the woman’s arm, she opened her mouth as if to speak, then realised communication in this moment couldn’t be carried in vowels and consonants. Instead her offering was a smile and in that smile a promise; it may not ever ease, but it will get easier.
Acknowledgements
My huge thanks and appreciation go to…
Elaine Teenan for her generous donation to The Scarlett Fund in return for me using her name in this book. I hope you like what I’ve done with “you”, Elaine.
Sharon Bairden and her colleagues at Ceartas Advocacy in Kirkintilloch for their patience in describing their work to me. Any mistakes in the depiction of this valuable work in our society are entirely mine. (Certain changes may have been made to suit the characters and the action of the story – it’s a novel, innit.)
My first readers, Mike Craven and Douglas Skelton.
The OUTSTANDING editorial team of Karen Sullivan and West Camel.
Team Orenda – you guys rock!
And finally, to all the reviewers, bloggers, booksellers, book-festival schedulers, and most importantly, readers: none of this scribbling would be worth it without you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Malone is a prize-winning poet and author who was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country, in Ayr. He has published over two hundred poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. His career as a poet has also included a (very) brief stint as the poet-in-residence for an adult gift shop. Blood Tears, his bestselling debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize (judge: Alex Gray) from the Scottish Association of Writers. His other published work includes: Carnegie’s Call (a non-fiction work about successful modern-day Scots); A Taste for Malice; The Guillotine Choice; Beyond the Rage and The Bad Samaritan. His psychological thriller, A Suitable Lie, was a number one bestseller on AU/UK ebook charts, and House of Spines soon followed suit. Michael is a regular reviewer for the hugely popular crime fiction website www.crimesquad.com. A former Regional Sales Manager for Faber & Faber he has also worked as an IFA and a bookseller.
Follow Michael on Twitter @michaeljmalone1; on Facebook: www.facebook.com/themichaeljmalonepage, and his website: www.mjmink.wordpress.com.
Copyright
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
First published in the UK in 2018 by Orenda Books
Copyright © Michael J. Malone, 2018
Michael J. Malone has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–912374–33–5
eISBN 978–1–912374–34–2
For sales and distribution, please contact [email protected]
or visit www.orendabooks.co.uk.
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