The Comforts of Home

by Susan Hill

  Kirsty sat down opposite him with her own mug of tea. ‘Next time you come,’ she said, as if she knew what he had been thinking, knew that he was soon off, ‘you’ll have a new arm, we’ll have a new bairn and they’ll have found out who killed Sandy Murdoch.’

  ‘Who?’ Douglas came in through the back door. ‘Robbie? You’ve ten minutes.’ A shout from above.

  ‘He tied his own shoelaces.’

  Douglas looked at her and smiled. ‘That boy!’

  Simon saw the look that passed between them, a look of pride and delight. And love. He felt a chip of ice settle on him.

  ‘Morning, Simon. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I wanted a talk but you’ve to get Robbie to school. Maybe I’ll come by another day.’

  ‘Is it anything I can help with?’ Kirsty asked.

  He hesitated. He had no idea, but to stay a bit longer in the warm kitchen, with tea and bacon, was appealing.

  ‘You might. I just don’t know, if I’m frank. I’m probably flying a kite.’

  ‘Fly it. Robbie, have you your bag and your recorder and your gym shoes?’

  Robbie slipped out.

  ‘When’s the new one due?’

  ‘February. No doubt it’ll be blown in on a force eight.’

  ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘No idea. You don’t get scans every other week here. With the early one it was too soon to tell, and besides, we’d maybe just like a surprise.’

  ‘It’s a boy,’ Simon said. ‘Oh, you’re the expert, are you?’

  He laughed. But Kirsty was the mother of boys. It seemed obvious to him and he had no idea why.

  Douglas and Robbie whirled out in a chaos of bags and coats and boots and shouts and churning wheels and they heard the jeep rattle off up the track.

  ‘More tea and bacon now?’

  He leaned back in his chair. Was this what he really needed? Wanted? This life here. He could work at cold cases. Distance detective. But Kirsty would not be part of the deal and who else was there on the island? Possibly others but he hadn’t made it his business to find out.

  Perhaps he would ask her. Kirsty would know.

  She had put the kettle back on and was setting herself a plate now. ‘I can’t settle to a calm breakfast while all that’s going on.’

  ‘And now I’ve come to disturb your peace.’

  ‘Aye, but I’ll cope. So – what’s this all about?’

  ‘Sandy Murdoch.’

  ‘I thought you were off that now.’

  ‘News travels fast.’

  ‘As you should know.’

  A look. He knew what it meant. She knew.

  He explained. ‘Kirsty, I’ve been going over and over it and I know what they’ll do. Yes, it was a murder, yes, they’ll investigate as they are duty-bound to do, but they’ll take their time. Sandy had no relatives we know of, nobody has come forward, and without that, it will go slowly through due process. Of course they’ll be back over here and asking all the questions I asked but meanwhile … I barely knew her but I have an itch to get this sorted because there’s something, something … it’s either the stranger who was seen getting off the boat and then walking across the top paths, in which case –’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘Very little … remember Jill Dando’s murder – that beautiful young television presenter, gunned down at her own front door by some random man who was never found. No motive, no gun, no killer. Nothing. It’s like that, only Sandy wasn’t famous, so no one from the press is over here, there’s nothing to interest anyone. Listen. I’ll tell you what I can’t stop turning over. She was killed with a revolver. Not a rifle. And who in God’s name would have that sort of gun on Taransay?’

  She sat in silence, drinking her tea, looking out of the window. Thinking. Simon did the same. But he had no hope that they would come up with any answers.

  ‘Who would have had a gun like that for some years? Kept it?’

  ‘And ammunition.’

  ‘What kind of a person?’

  ‘A criminal. Someone who’d been part of a gang.’

  ‘A policeman?’

  ‘Impossible. If you’re an officially armed officer, the checks on taking guns out and handing them back are done for one incident at a time and one only, and on the rare occasions when a cop like me, say, has to carry one – and you have to take proficiency tests frequently – the same would apply. They don’t just hand you a gun if you ask for one.’

  ‘So who else?’

  ‘Ex-military – but again, they don’t just get to have one and put it in their back pocket.’

  ‘So when would they carry one?’

  ‘In wartime. On military ops. And in training. But then they are checked in and out.’

  ‘Isn’t that machine guns?’

  ‘Depends on who they are, their role, rank, the circumstances. Of course this only applies to the UK – you go to the Middle East, Russia … But this is Taransay, Kirsty.’

  ‘Yes.’ She got up and took the last two rashers of bacon out of the pan. Toast from the range.

  ‘One each.’

  They sat and ate in silence. Guns were in front of them. Guns and bullets. Guns and bodies. None of it seemed relevant to where they were. The sun had broken through for the first time in over a week, and the sky was suddenly blue and brilliant over the sea. The wind had dropped.

  Kirsty sighed.

  ‘Does he enjoy his school?’

  ‘Yes. But there are too few of them. It worries me. I don’t tell Douglas but Robbie needs more – more friends, more challenge.’

  ‘What will he do later?’

  ‘Off on the ferry, either every day, or Monday to Friday. They stay on the mainland – the school has no boarding itself but they stay with families, that’s not a problem.’

  ‘You’d miss him.’

  ‘Of course, but it’s what Douglas did, it’s what everyone did, and what’s the alternative for us? Mainland life? No.’

  ‘I’d better go. Thanks for …’

  Kirsty looked up at him. ‘You said war? In wartime?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I’m not talking about ancient weapons left over from 1945 or even 1918.’

  ‘I know that.’ She was frowning. ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t …’

  ‘Yes,’ Serrailler said. ‘You should.’

  ‘It might not be relevant.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that. Kirsty?’

  She stood and walked over to the window. Came back. She seemed anxious. But it was better not to push her, better to wait and let her work it out and hope she would make up her mind correctly. Whatever she had to say would not be trivial but he could not see at this point how there might be anything at all which would help him.

  Then she sat down again and said, ‘Iain.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘He’s been here twenty years near enough. He met Lorna on the mainland and brought her here. I don’t know how … we don’t see her much and I’ve never got to know her well but I sense she isn’t happy, and that she hasn’t been for a while.’

  She poured out more tea for herself. It was lukewarm now, the dregs of the pot, but she drank it anyway.

  ‘Douglas … he ought to be telling you this himself. I don’t know.’

  ‘Would you like me to ask him when he gets back?’

  ‘No. No, he won’t mind. He’s told no one else but me … Douglas keeps things to himself. On the other hand, he can’t be the only one – you know Taransay. He saw Iain with Sandy once or twice.’

  That took him by surprise. No need to ask if Douglas was sure, no need to say anything.

  ‘But I know that doesn’t mean … well, why in God’s name would he shoot her dead?’

  ‘Yes. And how?’

  ‘You said … wartime. People had those guns in wartime. Soldiers.’

  Kirsty had seen Iain and Sandy. Had they really been having an affair? Iain was always at the pub. Sandy had always been alone
. And Iain had a wife. Plenty of other people were out and about over the island but Iain never seemed to be. But if it had been true, Iain would have had to cover up his own shock and distress and he had surely done so successfully. Yes he had been upset but so had everyone. And you did not leap from vague suspicions of an affair to accusations of murder.

  There was the sound of the jeep outside. The front door banged.

  ‘I’ll make fresh tea.’ Kirsty got up without meeting Serrailler’s eye. It was clear that she was not going to carry on their conversation.

  ‘Not for me, thanks. I’ve work to do.’

  ‘When’s the arm-fitting?’ Douglas asked. ‘Robbie’s desperate to see you tie your shoelaces.’ He put his arm round Kirsty who leaned against him.

  Simon went. If he had not had so much on his mind, he would have felt excluded, for all the bacon and tea and toast and talk.

  Thirty-four

  ‘Sam, be a love and see if your grandfather wants anything, would you? Tell him I’ll be up in a minute.’

  ‘I went last time. Get Felix to go.’

  ‘Felix is doing his maths homework.’

  ‘OK, OK.’

  ‘And stop sighing.’

  Sam sighed. Cat leaned on the kitchen table and took a deep breath. It had been a difficult day. She had told the partners at the practice that she was leaving, though not until the new year. When she had explained why, both had told her she was mad and that the whole new enterprise was both unethical and doomed to failure. The surgery had been overflowing with people who could have treated themselves or gone to a pharmacist, but one small child had been brought in with a temperature of almost 104. It had measles, the mother had a new baby, and did not ‘believe in’ vaccines. The child was now critically ill in Bevham General and the baby might well have caught the disease too. With luck and appropriate, emergency treatment, both should recover, but it was not a given. And her father was at home, ill, though with what she was not sure, refusing to see any other doctor, cantankerous and difficult. Kieron, having had to let him in and make him comfortable until she had returned, had opted out. He had cheerfully, willingly, taken on Cat’s children and treated them as his own. Her father was another matter. Cat did not blame him in the least. But he was seriously ill, he had nowhere else to go, and …

  ‘Blood is thicker than water,’ she said aloud, and went to pour a glass of wine. A rack of lamb was in the fridge and the steamer was stacked with freshly prepared vegetables, a pan with peeled potatoes in water. She felt a spurt of guilt at having sent Sam upstairs, when he had already done all this, and unasked.

  ‘He wants you.’

  ‘Sam … thanks for getting all this ready.’

  ‘I can’t cook it.’

  ‘Time you learned. But for now, this is great. What did he say he wanted?’

  ‘You. Now. Kieron in tonight?’

  ‘Yes. Supper at half eight.’

  ‘That’s hours.’

  ‘Don’t start making a pile of toast to be going on with. Bag of crisps and that’s it, or you won’t want your supper. And take off your jacket or you won’t feel the benefit of it when you go out.’ He dodged the flying dishcloth and took his crisps off into the den.

  Richard was a poor colour and thin in the face, puffy under his eyes. She could hear the sandpaper sound of his breathing from the doorway,

  ‘I’m going to take your temp and listen to your chest.’

  ‘I need the lavatory but I’m not feeling steady enough on my own.’

  ‘Sam would have helped you, Dad.’

  ‘And you won’t?’

  ‘Of course I will. I just meant there was no need to send him away. Come on.’ She turned back the bedclothes.

  He was very hot, his skin dry. When he got back into bed sweat was running down his face.

  His temperature was too high, and, ignoring his arguments, she listened to his chest carefully.

  ‘Any pain?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘I’m tired. Ache a bit. It’s influenza obviously, Catherine. Get me some paracetamol and a whisky and I’ll sleep it off.’

  ‘Paracetamol yes, whisky no, and you have pneumonia, Dad. You should be in hospital.’

  ‘Rubbish. If everyone with a touch of pneumonia took up a bed …’

  ‘All the same.’

  ‘I am staying here, you’re a competent doctor, more experience than whatever junior houseman I’d be blessed with. It’ll be viral. I don’t need antibiotics.’

  ‘Hmm. I’m going to send a sputum sample off to the lab in the morning and then we’ll know. You should eat something … egg whisked in milk with a spoonful of sugar.’

  He snorted. ‘Nutritious. Easy to digest. I’ll get you a jug of iced water as well. Hopefully, your temperature will go down with the meds and you should sleep. I’ll leave your door open tonight.’

  ‘Will you kindly stop treating me like a small, mentally defective child?’

  ‘What I can’t fathom is how you drove up through France, crossed the Channel, drove here with a sky-high fever without collapsing.’

  He turned his head away.

  Kieron sent a message to say he would be very late, and Felix had taken himself to bed with his book. So she and Sam ate together, without much conversation. When she tried to bring him gently round to talking about his future he blocked her, and retreated to the den after filling the dishwasher.

  Cat slipped into Richard’s room. He was asleep, his breathing poor, but he was cooler. She touched his forehead which was clammy and put the bedclothes back over him but he threw them off again. She had never nursed him. She could rarely remember him being ill other than having the occasional cold. Her mother had been the same, and toughness gave no quarter for those less robust. As children they had been sent to school through most ailments other than a clearly infectious rash. ‘You’ll feel better when you get there and if you don’t they’ll ring me.’ In those days, though, school rarely rang. You were put on a hard camp bed with a single blanket and a bucket beside you in case you were sick, and the school secretary looked in on you with brisk, cheerful encouragement now and again.

  She smiled now, remembering the smell of Dettol and floor polish and the feel of the rough grey blanket under her chin.

  She stood for several minutes looking at Richard, listening to his breathing, feeling nothing but a detached, medical concern. He had behaved in a way that had shaken her and made her feel ashamed. She also felt that she not only did not know him, but never had.

  When Kieron came in she was asleep and he did not disturb her. What woke her was the sound of Richard coughing, retching, struggling to get his breath.

  It took forty-five minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

  Thirty-five

  ‘I’ll have the pâté again. It was very nice last time.’

  ‘I don’t know … I might go for the pickled herring.’

  ‘We always called them rollmops.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Only thing is, they can give you awful indigestion.’

  ‘That’s the onion.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And after that the chicken and mushroom pie. The pastry’s always so good.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Marion stared at the menu and nothing made sense and she didn’t want to eat any of it.

  Brenda set down her menu and put her hand on her friend’s. ‘Come on, we’re here to have a good meal and a chat and we always manage that, don’t we? Just take a deep breath.’

  ‘I don’t think I can eat.’

  ‘I know what I’m going to do. Waitress … we’d like another two glasses of the Chablis please.’

  ‘Oh no, no, Brenda. I –’

  The Chablis was the most expensive, which was why Brenda chose it, going on the principle that it had to be the best. Large glasses.

  ‘No, Brenda.’

  Brenda ignored her and went back to her menu. The wine was brought.

  The
second glass made a difference, and quite quickly. Marion relaxed.

  ‘You see? I’m enjoying this. Now then, are you sure about the herrings?’

  ‘Not really. I think I might join you in the pâté.’

  ‘You won’t regret it. And then?’

  ‘I do fancy some fish though. The plaice perhaps?’

  ‘I always think plaice is a dull sort of fish. What about pan-fried hake with chorizo and spinach?’

  Marion took another sip. The menu suddenly looked enticing. ‘I’m spoiled for choice. I’ll have the lamb shank – redcurrant gravy, carrots and peas and mashed potato.’

  They handed the menus back to the waitress. It was as usual in the restaurant, not too busy, not empty. They timed it exactly.

  ‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ Marion said. She drank again and this time it was for courage. ‘Will you come with me?’

  Brenda took off her reading glasses and set them by her side plate. But she said nothing. Their starters arrived, the toast wrapped in a napkin. They took up knives for spreading and squeezed lemon juice and ate and did not meet one another’s eye. They drank their wine almost to the last mouthful. People came in. A couple sat next to them. Four took the window table. They had to lower their voices.

  ‘Marion, I can’t come. To start with, I’m at work. I don’t have a reason to go, they wouldn’t let me in, and I’d have nothing to say to him. Besides, it’s … I think it’s wrong but you seem to feel the need to go and I won’t try and stop you any longer. But I can’t come.’

  ‘No. I see.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. He can’t do anything to you, the place will be full of guards.’

  ‘It’s not that. It doesn’t matter, Brenda. I will be fine. This pâté’s different. Not quite as nice as last time.’

  Thirty-six

  The book was The Da Vinci Code. Very popular. ‘Load of old bollocks.’

  ‘Really got into that. Didn’t believe in any of it, mind.’

  They had two copies and one was out. He put the second back on the shelf, letting his hand stay on it for a second or two.