The Comforts of Home

by Susan Hill

  He did not feel guilty, morally, about how he had treated Iain, and Serrailler had never set much store by technicalities.

  He could ignore Kirsty’s message. Nothing would happen and it would not matter or have any consequences, other than possibly damaging their slightly uneasy friendship.

  But he had been involved and he was responsible for making Iain talk. The least he could do was follow up. At one time, he would not have thought twice about it, but he was aware that he had changed – and who knew if that was temporary?

  When his phone rang, yet again, he did not look at it. He went out for a run along the towpath, came back via the brasserie, drank two black coffees and read the papers, which they kept hanging on the wall attached to long sticks, as in Paris. He booked a table for his supper with Cat. He went shopping, bought a pair of black shoes and a pale blue cashmere sweater. The men’s shop was a few doors along from the Lafferton bookshop. There were several new titles he had stored in his mind from recent reviews, which he wanted to check out, and he was low on the sketch pads he used and which the shop had always stocked, probably especially for him. He knew full well that everything he did was a diversion but when the phone buzzed in his pocket, he still did not reach to take it out.

  The bookshop door was open but there were no other customers and he made straight for the ‘New Titles’ section.

  As he did so, someone who had been putting books on shelves approached. ‘Can I help, or are you happy to browse …’ She stopped. Stopped speaking. Stopped moving. Stood frozen, several books under one arm.

  ‘Oh.’

  And he had forgotten too, and was also frozen, head half turned towards her, shaken as he rarely was, stumbling over some phrase or other, the muscles of his mouth seemingly paralysed.

  In the end, he managed ‘Rachel …’

  She did not move. Perhaps neither of them would ever have moved or spoken again, for neither knew what to do or say, how to react, caught up in a turmoil of feelings, anxiety, confusion. Embarrassment. But two customers came in together, one wanting to exchange a book, the other asking for the cookery section, so that Rachel’s attention was taken up.

  Simon slipped quickly out of the door.

  ‘Coward,’ Cat said. They had met at the door to the brasserie, and, when she had noted that he looked bothered, Simon had told her why, as he would have told no one else at all. They were shown to what he had asked for, a quiet table, which was at the back and dark.

  ‘Is there anything nearer the window? Even in the window?’

  ‘There is, you can have table five on the left but it won’t be as quiet, and you did ask –’

  ‘It’s fine, thank you, much better.’ He gave the waitress one of his most winning smiles.

  ‘A large glass of Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand if you have it, and a large vodka and tonic. Thank you so much.’

  She brought a candle under a little domed glass, a jug of iced water and the menus, and was rewarded with another smile.

  Cat gave him a sharp look. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘I don’t like sitting over there … should have thought.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shook his head. ‘Dad been all right?’

  ‘No, he’s been a complete pain, but Kieron’s in this evening, he won’t mess him about. He always calls for Sam first but Sam’s gone to rifle club so Dad is stuffed. Si, please don’t tell me you had failed to remember that Rachel owned the bookshop.’

  ‘I sort of did, but not as I went by and thought of something I wanted. I just went in. Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Does matter.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Si …’

  ‘Listen, that’s not important, I need to ask you about something. And I mean “you” only.’

  ‘Understood. Hold on.’

  Their drinks came, the glasses ice cold. The waitress looked at Simon only as she talked through the specials of the day.

  ‘Thank you. We’re not in any hurry.’

  ‘That makes me so mad!’ Cat said. ‘Like I’m invisible. I wish you wouldn’t flirt with every damn woman in sight.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Of course you did, you always do. Right …’ She raised her glass. ‘Now. Ask.’

  ‘Tell me about this new job.’

  Cat set down her glass of wine, reached over and took his hand. ‘Si – stop this. Stop changing the subject, stop drifting off. Yes, we will talk about my job whenever, but it’s not as important as that right now you are going to talk to me.’

  He was about to put an olive into his mouth, but instead he lowered it back to his plate and stared at Cat. She read as much as she could into his expression, saw distress, even anger but also, and she had never seen it before in him, a sort of despair. A giving-in.

  ‘Have a drink. Take a deep breath, and tell me.’

  He drank. He looked out of the window. A few people walked by. The jeweller’s shop window opposite sparkled and gleamed by the light of the old-style street lamp.

  ‘Where do I start?’

  ‘Anywhere. Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘There are things I don’t need to bother with – stuff that happened on Taransay, police stuff.’

  ‘All right. I don’t think it’s police stuff that’s bothering you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Rachel?’

  He shook his head. ‘It caught me out, that’s all. If I’d known I was going to see her I’d have been OK.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It wasn’t properly resolved though, was it? You ran away.’

  His face darkened.

  ‘Yes, you did. Come on.’

  He finished his drink and asked for a glass of wine.

  ‘Listen, forget Rachel for now because I think that’s a side issue, it just added to the mix, but will you let me talk to you as a medic? Isn’t that what this is about?’

  He was silent, looking at the table. The fresh drinks came, and their food. He still did not look at her.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. You haven’t dealt with what happened to you. You had a major accident, a trauma, an awful time in hospital, and then again, you lost an arm. You’ve had to cope with a temporary prosthesis and now learn to use the permanent one. You scuttled off to Taransay and got involved in police stuff before you were fit and ready – no, this isn’t a criticism, that’s you, it’s what you would always do. But it all adds to the initial stress. And now you’re back, you’ve got some work on for Kieron but you’re not properly operational, there’s the whole business about Dad … your life is a lot of loose ends, Si … unfinished business. Not all of which can be neatly tied up and snipped off, so it’s how you sort it all out and cope with it. And it’s hit you after a bloody awful journey back. Seeing Rachel didn’t help. You are suffering from PTSD and why am I not surprised? You’re not to blame, not in any way at all, and you know that perfectly well, but you have to attend to it, because if you don’t, it will come back to bite you and it will be worse. Listen to me. I know what I’m talking about here.’

  ‘I hear you … but – I’ve had plenty of unpleasant experiences in my time … some minor, a few worse – not many cops haven’t. You learn to deal with them. When I started there was no help, no one to talk to if that’s what you needed – now there’s more. But I’ve always coped. I’ve always got through on my own and this won’t be any different.’

  ‘Tough guy, right.’

  Cat took a few slow breaths. She knew how easily she could become angry and frustrated with Simon’s attitude, how that would push him further back into his shell of denial. She took up her steak knife and carefully sliced the sirloin, looking down at her plate not up at him. There was a beef and ale pie on his, the pastry golden and with a small hole out of which savoury steam spiralled like the old advertisement for Bisto. He did not touch it.

  ‘I’m not ungrateful to you, you know. I just don’t need any sort of talk th
erapy. I can cope with it. I’ve got my own way.’

  ‘And do you feel as if your own way is working?’

  ‘Yes. Or rather, yes it will.’

  ‘Same old Simon. Always so sure of yourself.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that.’

  ‘What, like a doctor with a patient who refuses to take advice and do the best thing to help themselves get better?’

  Simon stabbed his pie, then cut a segment of pastry and set it aside.

  ‘In the absence of a waxen image,’ Cat said.

  They ate in silence for a while, Simon refusing to meet her eye, Cat trying to get her confusion of emotions under control. How much easier if her brother had indeed been only a patient, for whom she felt concern but no strong feelings.

  ‘I understand that because it’s me it’s harder,’ she said in the end. ‘When you go to the prosthesis unit they may well have someone they can refer you to.’

  ‘I don’t need referral. Can we talk about something else? Kieron maybe.’

  She sighed. Ate more. Drank more. Gave in. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Are you two all right? Seemed a bit of an atmosphere when I turned up.’

  ‘Oh, nothing, a spat. As I said – Dad doesn’t make things easy. I think Kieron’s worried I might announce that he has to live with us permanently.’

  ‘And does he?’

  ‘No, he bloody doesn’t. I don’t owe him that. No, it’s fine, we’re fine.’

  ‘You don’t wish you hadn’t married him?’

  ‘Good heavens no. What gave you that idea? Every married couple has spats, you remember how Chris and I used to blaze up every so often – far worse. And he’s good with Sam, and Felix just rolls on in his own sweet way, no matter what or who. This is great steak.’

  ‘One thing … do you see Rachel much?’

  ‘No. She isn’t in the shop full-time, she’s got a couple of staff and I don’t go in there often. I bumped into her a few weeks ago – we went for a quick coffee and promised it would be lunch next time, but there hasn’t been a next time.’

  She was not going to question him about it. Whatever his feelings still were or were not for Rachel, he was never going to tell his sister. He never did. Over the years she had become expert at guessing, but this time she doubted if even he knew what he felt for Rachel, because of everything else that had overtaken him, and because Simon dealt with such things by ignoring them. That or burying them in some deep dark pit that formed part of his inner self.

  ‘Your phone keeps buzzing.’

  ‘I know. It won’t be important, I don’t have any work on – at least not till I see the Chief tomorrow.’

  ‘Work isn’t the only thing in life. The message could be anything.’

  ‘No,’ Simon said. ‘It couldn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But he only shook his head and carried on eating.

  Half an hour later, he had put Cat in a taxi home and started to walk down the medieval lane leading to the Cathedral Close. The walls rose on either side of him and the lamps sent a buttery light up the stone. He stopped. The mobile had vibrated inside his jacket again and it suddenly seemed cowardly that he had been evading for so long whatever message Kirsty had for him. Talking to Cat had cleared his head. It usually did.

  He took out the phone.

  No luck reaching you. Did you get my messages? No sign of Iain. Police here but v stormy so no major search poss. Ring me? x K

  Shit. He went slowly down the lane holding his phone but he was not there, not in Lafferton, not beside the cathedral. He was on the island, in the pub, seeing Iain’s grey face and anxious eyes, working out in his own mind what to do. So he worked it out, he gave him a chance to turn himself in. Instead …

  Instead what?

  Shit.

  And now he would probably have to leave a message or a text and on it would go. Communications with Taransay were unpredictable in the best of weathers.

  ‘Hello?’ Douglas, loud and clear.

  ‘It’s Simon. I’ve been away, I’ve just picked up Kirsty’s message about Iain. Is she there?’

  ‘She’s upstairs with young Robbie, he’s no sleeping so well.’

  ‘She messaged me about Iain. Is there any news?’

  ‘No. I don’t know a lot about any of it, just that he hasnae been seen for a while.’

  ‘Will one of you ring me if there’s any developments? My phone’s back on now.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Thanks, Douglas. You all well?’

  ‘We’re fine.’

  Douglas was a man of few words. He rang off.

  *

  Simon was a good sleeper but that night was different. He stayed up until late, going through the Kimberley Still files again, noting down things that should have been covered by the original investigation but apparently were not, trying to work out a more careful, detailed timeline. The longer he went over it, the more small but crucial omissions he spotted. Unless there were reports missing, which was possible, things had been left undone which might have given vital information. In particular, time had elapsed when men had been deployed to chase what he thought was the SIO’s red herring, and other lines of inquiry had been left dangling.

  Simon knew that the Lafferton force had been going through a bad patch at the time, with disorganisation, personal vendettas and a weak Chief Constable who had taken early retirement. It had been his replacement, Paula Devenish, who had sorted everything out with impressive grasp and determination, but the extensive fallout had not been cleared up for some time.

  He worked until half past one, and all the time Iain was also in his mind, almost a presence in the room. He knew that if and when he turned up, Kirsty would let him know yet he dreaded the call. By now, if Iain had gone to the mainland to give himself up to the police, the news would have been out. Simon doubted if that was what he had done. He had most likely caught a train to somewhere or other unconnected with his present life – gone to old friends, or simply lost himself in a big city, perhaps Glasgow. And there, eventually, he would be found. But how long might it take? Iain was an odd, closed and now very troubled man. Simon was unable to put him or his disappearance in a mental drawer and lock it, as he usually did with matters he could not, or did not want to deal with immediately.

  He went to bed and slept fitfully, hearing the cathedral clock chime the hours – three, five … and then he crashed out, and only woke to the sound of his phone beeping insistently on the bedside table.

  Kirsty’s number.

  ‘He’s been found. Over in Kenneth Mackie’s old barn.’

  Simon’s stomach dropped down a deep shaft, to crash at the bottom when she said, ‘He hanged himself, Simon. Nobody can think straight. Nobody can understand it.’

  But he understood. He made coffee and stood at the window looking down the Close, empty for now, too early for people walking through or coming to work in the offices on either side.

  When he had decided to give Iain time to think, and not to arrest him and hand him over to Police Scotland at once, Simon had known that he was in fact offering him an escape route. He could have taken the next ferry and disappeared. He could have handed himself in but why, seriously, why would he do that when he had other, and, from his point of view, better options? The third way had been at the back of Serrailler’s mind. Had he expected Iain to take it? He closed his eyes for a moment. He could not answer his own question.

  And now, the end result was that Iain was dead and no one would ever know who had killed Sandy Murdoch unless he had left a letter of confession somewhere, had told someone else – which was unlikely – or Simon owned up to their conversation. Morally, ought he to do that? Legally? Technically, as a police officer, he supposed that he should. But what good would that do? It would bring neither Sandy nor Iain back and how would the knowledge help Iain’s wife, or any of Sandy’s relatives who might surface?

  Of course he would say nothing. He would bury the inf
ormation within himself, as he buried so much else that was painful or uncomfortable. He would have no conscience about it. If anyone could have been harmed as a result, if justice might have been served and Sandy’s murder avenged, he would not have hesitated. He would have been on a plane to Scotland.

  There was only Kirsty. She knew nothing for certain, he had told her nothing. But she had been the one to reveal that Iain had been in the military and from that everything flowed.

  Kirsty.

  If she rang, he would listen to what she said, but if she didn’t, he would leave it be and he guessed that she would ask the same question he was asking himself – what good would it do to anyone to bring it out into the open?

  Forty-six

  They had given out gale warnings, with the potential for gusts up to 80 mph. Marion Still had shut the doors and windows firmly and put the bolts across, but just as she was going upstairs, she thought of the bins and the garden bench. The bins were housed in the side passage, to which there was a gate, shared with next door, whose dog could push it open.

  She sighed, put down her mug of tea and book, and went to check. The side gate was firmly closed, so that even if the wind blew through its slats, the bins could not be blown away. But the bench was flimsy. She had switched on the outside light but the bulb had gone. She went back for her torch. The bench was pulled out from the wall, beside the flower bed. She was looking at it, wondering if perhaps she should put something on top of it and if so, what, when she heard a slight sound behind her. The wind had not yet got up to a serious extent but the trees were moving about among themselves and she heard a gate slam somewhere down the road. She stood very still, the torch beam directed down at the bench. Nothing. She waited a minute longer, then shook herself and turned to see if there was anything at all she could put on top of it to anchor the bench down. There was a pot by the kitchen door. Perhaps that.