by Susan Hill
Marion stood up. ‘We can’t have that,’ she said. ‘I’ll be five minutes.’
They went to the brasserie in the Lanes. It was quiet, and Brenda headed for a window table.
‘Could we sit at the back, Bren? Would you mind?’
‘Well, no, only in the window we can see what’s going on.’
‘There’s nothing going on at this time of night.’
‘There are people going by, the shop lights … it’s a nice table.’
Marion did not move. The waitress hovered behind them holding large menu cards.
‘Oh all right, you decide where you want to be.’
The table was in the corner, out of sight.
‘Are you OK, Marion? I was hoping it would cheer you up to come somewhere different. Thank you.’
Marion stared down helplessly at the menu. ‘Such a lot … it looks so complicated.’
‘No. Ignore all that on the right column, that’s breakfast. Ignore along the bottom, that’s the children’s menu. All right? Now, left … top block is starters, then fish, then meat, then veg dishes … puddings underneath. On the back it’s all the drinks. Nothing complicated about it, is there? … Oh, Marion.’ She put her hand out quickly. Marion’s eyes were full of tears, her face bleak and anxious.
‘What is it? I shouldn’t have pushed you into coming out. Aren’t you feeling well?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘It’s this business over the prison visit.’
Marion wiped her eyes. ‘I’m just being weak.’
‘No. That’s the last thing you’re being. Listen, shall we have our glass of wine? Would that help?’
It helped. They ordered their food and some colour came back to Marion’s face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve felt terrible, if you want to know, ever since I went to see that Russon. I’ve never been this like before, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’ve woken up feeling sick, I’ve been dizzy, I’m frightened of … of things.’
‘What things?’
‘Things that aren’t frightening. I go off to sleep and wake up with my heart pounding. I keep thinking there’s someone – something – in the house. I keep checking the door locks. ‘She paused as the waitress brought their food. ‘Am I going mad? Maybe it has nothing to do with him. Maybe I’m just going mad or getting dementia.’
‘No. You’re not. Anyway, that isn’t how dementia starts. And I don’t think this is how going mad starts either.’
Marion pushed a piece of fish around her plate. It was beautiful fish, sea bass, and she couldn’t eat a mouthful, her throat seemed to close over when she tried.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Just drink your wine and don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen.’ Brenda ate her own crab linguine. It was delicious and she felt greedy, swallowing anything in front of her distressed friend.
They left within the hour.
‘I’m sorry, I am so sorry,’ Marion repeated. ‘You won’t want to be bothered to come out with me ever again now, I’ve spoiled it all.’
‘Now listen, here’s the cab rank, you’re not struggling on buses tonight. He can drop me off first. And don’t argue.’
But she was too tired and frayed. The taxi ride was short and Brenda waved at her own front door until they had turned the corner.
‘How much do I owe you?’
But Brenda had paid for them both, thinking of everything. That was friendship and kindness and Marion felt ashamed of herself for being such a miserable companion, for wasting good food – for having gone out at all. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
The taxi drove away as she opened her own front gate and saw her house staring at her out of dark, blank windows. Those on either side and opposite all had curtains drawn tightly, with the television flicker behind a couple of them. She walked up the path. It was too quiet.
Someone had tried the front door. She could tell. The key felt odd in the lock. The door yielded too easily. It was usually a bit of a jiggle and a shove, and really, she was the only one who had no trouble with it.
She pushed it open onto the hall and stood back. A dark silence. A car went past and she half turned, thinking to flag it down, get help. Or she should go next door. The Masons were quite private but perfectly nice and she knew that John would come round and check everything for her.
She hesitated inside the hall for a moment, then backed out, and went quickly down the path.
‘There’s nothing at all, nobody here, and to be perfectly honest, Marion, it doesn’t look to me as if anyone has been inside.’ John had come at once and gone in ahead of her. ‘Nothing looks disturbed – only you know if any valuables have been taken, of course. Come and look all the way round with me, check everything.’
She did. Nothing. No one had been inside the house, nothing was missing, or even moved out of place. She sat down abruptly on the edge of the sofa.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
‘Here, don’t be daft, you did the right thing, I’m only glad to set your mind at rest. I have done that, haven’t I?’
He had, definitely, she said. Nobody had been into the house.
But he hadn’t. There had been something odd about the door lock. She should have asked him to check that, how stupid. She was stupid. She dared not go and try it again and she could not go back and ask him to return. She sat on the very edge of the sofa for a long time, still with her coat on, her heart beating too fast, knowing that no one was in the house or had been, knowing that she had been into every corner of it with John Mason ahead of her, and seen nothing unusual, heard nothing, felt, smelled, sensed nothing. No one.
She got up. Drew the curtains tightly. Put her coat on the hook. Unlocked and relocked. Bolted. Checked every window bolt.
She went upstairs and did the same, without turning on any lights and only washed quickly and then got into bed, in the dark, and lay in terror, her mind seeming to be on a roller coaster which suddenly dropped a thousand feet and then swept up again, swirled round so that she felt sick and dizzy and the dark room went round. Round and round. She kept her eyes open, then shut them, and still the room went round. Round and round.
STOP.
She sat up in bed, wide awake because she had heard someone cry out, though, coming to, she realised she had heard her own voice. She switched on the bedside lamp. Everything was quiet. A nightmare.
But then there was a sound, from somewhere downstairs, a creak or a movement, and she switched off the lamp again. It was ten past three by the illuminated travelling clock. Ten past three, when no one was awake, there would be no comforting lights on, even the street lamps were dimmed down now, for energy saving. She reached out her hand for her phone and heard the sound again, louder, and started so much she knocked the phone onto the floor. It fell beyond the carpet edge onto the wooden boards, with a crash that must surely wake them next door.
She sat shivering, though it was not cold. The sound again. Not a creak, no, a scrape or a bump, coming not from the window end of the sitting room below her, but nearer the door that led into the hall and then straight up the stairs.
She leaned over, picked up the phone and, as the face lit up, saw the list of most-used numbers, with Brenda’s at the top.
It rang for a long time before the voicemail clicked on, but as it did so, Brenda’s voice cut over it.
‘Hello? Who is that? Wait a minute, I need to switch on the light.’
‘Brenda, please …’
‘Marion? Is that you? It’s the middle of the night, what’s wrong? Are you all right?’
‘No, there’s someone downstairs, I can hear sounds, I’m quite sure.’
‘Then ring the police, don’t waste time with me. You call them on 999 now and then ring me back?’
The sound was different now. A faint bumping and tapping and somewhere at the back of the kitchen, though it was hard to be exact. She tried twice to get the phone number right. Her fingers slipped a
nd her eyesight seemed to be blurring as she looked at the screen. She took deep breaths to calm herself, but they made her more anxious so that when she came to speak, her voice wouldn’t work for several minutes. But they were patient, they kept on asking what service she required and in the end she managed, but when the police came on the line she could only give her name and address before bursting into tears.
She sat huddled in a chair, her arms tightly round herself, waiting, waiting, and there were no sounds at all now, everywhere inside and outside her house was deathly quiet. She didn’t care. She needed someone.
Fifteen minutes later, two women police officers had arrived, gone round the entire house, the garden and the houses along the row on both sides, and reported nothing at all.
‘It could have been a fox or a cat, even a badger,’ one of them said, ‘they’re everywhere round the back gardens at night, you’d be surprised, and badgers especially can make quite a noise. Anyway, there isn’t a fox or a badger out there now – we didn’t even see a cat – and there’s certainly no sign of human activity. Please don’t worry, Mrs Still, you can’t be too careful and you did right to call us.’
‘I feel such a fool.’
‘Well, please don’t … it’s the middle of the night, you’re here on your own and you heard sounds. Of course you were alarmed. Always ring us, we’ll come and do a thorough check – it’s what we’re here for, so don’t hesitate, will you?’
They would not have a hot drink, a call came for them and they were on their way. The patrol car went up the road and the house was suddenly quiet again. Quiet and still and empty.
‘Brenda?’
‘I was just going to ring you – are you all right, Marion? Have the police come yet?’
She told the story that was hardly any story at all.
‘They were very thorough. I felt so stupid.’
‘Will you stop saying things like that? Listen, would you like me to come over and stay with you? I can easily get a taxi, they work all through the night.’
‘No, no, I’m fine. I feel quite all right now they’ve been and found nothing. They said it could have been a fox in the garden bumping about and trying to find the bins. An urban fox.’
‘It isn’t that I think there was anyone outside your house, it’s that I know how bothered you get and how frightening it was. It’s this Lee Russon business, Marion, you know it is, and I’m not surprised. If it hadn’t been for that you’d never have thought twice about it. You’d have picked up the poker and gone out there yourself.’
Marion laughed. It was true. She had been unnerved by the whole prison visit and who wouldn’t be?
‘I’ve got to pull myself together. I don’t need you to come and stay, I just need to get my head straight. But thank you, Brenda, you’re a good friend and I know you meant it.’
She had locked and bolted the door after the police had left and she checked it again. Then she went back to bed, where she told herself sharply that she was perfectly safe, that nothing had happened or was going to happen, and that she was going to sleep now and stay asleep until it was fully light.
Surprisingly, she did, so that she did not hear the patrol car come back, stop as one of the officers got out and took a quick look round the outside of her house again, front and back, and then drive off.
In the morning, she went into the garden and made sure nothing had got in under or through the fence or by the side gate, and that there were no animal or human prints. And there were not. She replied to John Mason, who called out, that she was fine. ‘I must have been hearing things.’
Only the echo of a small voice in her head told her that yes, she had been hearing things. She had.
Forty-five
He opened his eyes on a chain of pink fluffy lights strung across the end of the bed and his sister standing over him holding a large steaming mug of coffee. He sat up and groaned.
‘This bed was not made for a policeman of six foot three.’
‘Bloody lucky to have a bed at all, let alone hot coffee, the state of this house. Felix fell down the stairs but he’s fine, gone to school, Dad’s complaining that it hurts when he breathes, and Kieron went off in a bad temper. Come on, take it.’
‘Thanks … you don’t have to wait on me as well.’
‘I needed to talk to someone sane and rational.’
‘Tell you what, I have to get back to the flat this morning but why not escape this evening? – I’ll take you out to supper. We can talk properly.’
‘God, that sounds good. I’ll have to check everyone out but yes, please. How’s the arm in the mornings?’
‘Not bad. There’ll probably be an appointment waiting for me to go and have the new one fitted. Only got to learn a whole new set of rules and regs for that and I’m a full functioning human being again.’
Cat looked at him sharply. ‘You’ve never been anything else. You do know that, don’t you? I’m not minimising what losing an arm means, Si, and you had a major trauma, it’s bound to have affected you in every way, mentally as well. And don’t look at me like that. But you’ve never been anything other than Simon, whole and intact.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘I’m serious.’
He pushed back the narrow duvet which was sprinkled with tiny sprigs of pink flowers.
‘Oh, and you left your phone in the kitchen and it’s been buzzing. Here.’
Not thinking there could be anything urgent, as he was not at work and unlikely to have important messages from anyone else with whom he was not already staying, he did not open it. He showered, repacked and took his bag downstairs to the kitchen before cooking himself and Cat scrambled eggs and bacon.
Then he looked at the screen. Three missed calls, all of them made this morning, between six thirty and half an hour ago. All of them from Kirsty.
He did not call back. He sat staring at the phone for a moment, then put it in his pocket as Cat came through. He knew how to set something aside, shut a mental door on it, how to leave it be and not open the door again until he was ready to give it his full attention and deal with it. He had compartmentalised things all his life. He was an expert. It was the way he had always coped with problems and complications, in his work and his personal life.
‘Thanks, bro. I owe you.’
He poured her coffee. ‘Tell me about this new project.’
Cat shook her head. ‘Tonight. I’ve got a mountain of stuff to deal with and I want a nice calm time to explain it all. You OK?’ She knew him inside out. She knew how he coped with bad news, issues that he could not address at once, things he wanted to duck. A certain blank expression came over his face and she recognised it now.
‘Sure. I need to get some supplies. Any chance of a lift over?’
‘I’ve got to see to Dad first. Sam’s still asleep. Did he sleep for three-quarters of the day when he was with you?
Simon shrugged. Sam. His visit. The island. Those things were behind the closed door.
‘Wait half an hour. Dad’s chest isn’t right yet but it’s improved a lot. He’s weak as a kitten and raging about it but I’m not worried. I’ll take him some breakfast. He’s got the paper, the radio, clean sheets, and a book called Do No Harm, about brain surgery. He’ll manage.’
‘How long before he can go home?’
Cat made a face.
‘Kieron doesn’t like him, and he doesn’t like having him here, partly because he regards him as a criminal who managed to get off on a technicality but is still guilty.’
‘Kieron’s right.’
‘I know. But his motive for wanting Dad out of the house is pretty shabby.’
‘What?’
‘It might reflect on the office of Chief Constable.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’
‘Quite.’
‘Catherine … where are you? I can’t find my spectacles.’
A couple of hours later, Cat had dropped Simon at his flat with the supermarket shopping, he had switched
on the heating and thrown out 90 per cent of the waiting mail, the unasked-for catalogues and circulars, and filled the washing machine, fiddled with the kitchen blind where it had come loose, chucked out a pair of walking boots which had served their time and should have been left behind.
In the end, unable to find any more displacement activity, he checked his phone again. Taransay was far away. But still near. Too near.
A text message.
Iain has gone missing. Can you ring me? K.
He had missed that and another voicemail as well.
Simon got up and walked to the window. It was grey, slightly misty. The mighty nave of the cathedral loomed to his right, the houses of the close looked small, a line of pretty dolls’ houses with trees spaced evenly between, well-mown grass verges on either side. He stared down. And in front of him was the bar of the pub, empty and silent, and Iain beside him, knocking back his whisky, his face seamed with distress. Iain.
He should ring Kirsty now, discover if anything more had happened, even if Iain had returned, causing concern but nothing worse, after having gone out walking to clear his head.
If he had not returned, then he had taken the late ferry and gone to the police. Simon had given him the chance, and then left, without speaking to anyone. Iain trusted him. He knew this was something he ought to do. He had killed Sandy Murdoch. Simon knew it but no one else in the world.
If he had not been personally involved he would have rung Kirsty back straight away, found out what was happening and done or said whatever he could. But he was involved. He had been the investigating officer, appointed by Police Scotland, and continued to investigate even when he had handed over the case. So far as he knew, that had been a technical offence but not a hanging one, and besides, who had known? After that, though, and once he had even had suspicions about Iain, let alone talked to him, he knew full well that he should not have kept anything connected with Sandy Murdoch to himself. For giving Iain warning, for not passing on information, for leaving the island without reporting anything about the matter – for all or any of it he could be disciplined, and even dismissed from the force. Or he thought that he could. Police Scotland was a separate authority, independent of the rest of UK policing, and he was not under their jurisdiction, though he was when he had been authorised to take charge in the early days, when Sandy had gone missing and after her body had been found.
