Blood From Stone

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘What did you say? Hurt whom?’

  ‘Two questions in one sentence,’ she said, sadly. She knew she was losing the thread and losing the audience. She had got this all wrong. The contents of the carpet bag were her responsibility and hers alone. It was unfair to involve anyone else.

  One last try.

  ‘Rick Boyd can’t bear anyone knowing about him. Angel said it would never be enough for him to be acquitted. He would still know that someone knew. Had knowledge they could use. As long as Marianne Shearer was alive and kicking, I felt safe. Because someone else, a powerful someone else, knew all about him. He would never take the risk of harming me, because Marianne Shearer would know. Someone else would know it was him and would know why. Now I’m the only person who knows. Her knowledge was my insurance policy, and heaven help me, I made sure she knew. She had copies of everything in this bag.’

  Thomas interrupted.

  ‘Ms Shearer would never have revealed personal information about a client. That’s entirely against professional ethics.’

  ‘Rick Boyd wouldn’t know about that, Mr Noble. He was relying on her to subvert the rules, after all. Perhaps he hounded her for what he thought was his. That might be relevant to her death.’

  Thomas was trying to follow, not getting the full meaning, but sensing some of it. He had already decided that much as he liked her on first sight, there was absolutely no way he was going to keep that carpet bag, whatever it contained. His dramatic imagination already envisaged a desiccated fingertip and he shuddered. He could hear the door downstairs bang shut as the staff from the other offices left to run home through the rain. The building felt empty. He was not going to stay alone in this room with whatever was in that bag. A dead woman’s knowledge was worse than a dead woman’s skirt. She looked at him wisely, as if guessing his thoughts.

  ‘Only photographs,’ she said. ‘Snapshots of Boyd’s systematic debasement of my sister. She really didn’t lie during that trial, Mr Noble, whatever Marianne Shearer made her look like. I didn’t lie, either. I’ve never seen the point of it, but then I’ve never had to. I hide things, though, I keep quiet. Easier than lying.’

  Thomas was rallying himself to speak, but she held up her hand.

  ‘I know, I know, and I quite understand. I shouldn’t even have suggested it. I do apologise. I’m not your client, I’ll take the bag home where it belongs. And I know it might not seem like it, but I’m trying to protect more than me. Because Rick Boyd won’t give up. He won’t believe you don’t have what he wants. He’s a perverted con man, so he thinks everyone else is, too.’

  Thomas sighed in exasperation, not knowing quite what to think, only that he wanted the bag out of the room as much as he had wanted Peter Friel to take away Marianne’s clothes, even though it might have been a dereliction of duty. He shrugged, to hide a sense of confused shame. Remembered Peter and felt a rush of spite. These two were friends already: he could feel it in his bones. If she wanted to protect anyone, it would be him. Let fucking Peter Friel take charge.

  ‘If it worries you,’ he said as mildly as he could, ‘perhaps our mutual friend Mr Friel could take charge of it for you. He’s obviously younger and stronger than I.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what I don’t want. He’d be a bit of a red flag to Rick Boyd.’

  And I wouldn’t? Thomas thought. Not young enough, not competitive enough? Too bloody old to be involved?

  He took off his spectacles and wiped them, another ploy.

  ‘And, with respect, you are not my client. Marianne Shearer and her heir are my client. I must also answer to the Coroner. I can’t consider anyone else.’

  She gathered her whole self for departure, after what was obviously the failure of an errand. Thomas remembered his manners, and then his duties, while helping her into her coat, pausing to wonder from where she had got those artful buttons. Bone, fingers and skin were on his mind, as well as the sensation of the heavy scissors in his hand. He began to gabble, the way he did when he felt guilty, remembering only the duty towards the client that Marianne understood better than anything else.

  ‘How are your researches progressing with the skirt, Miss Joyce?’

  She paused at the door, with the carpet bag in her hand, smiling again. He wanted to go with her, not be left alone in this office with everyone else gone.

  ‘I think it’s 1930s, and rather valuable. I told Peter there must be more. Best I go home and get the blood out. I’ll send a proper report, I promise.’

  ‘I’ll pay you for anything you can find. Listen, before you go, do you think this Rick Boyd could have anything directly to do with Marianne’s death?’

  She paused, mid flight.

  ‘Like pushing her off the balcony? Blackmailing her? Hounding her to death? Something like that? No, I don’t think so, although he’s capable. He’d get someone else, if he could. But she did have deadly knowledge, didn’t she?’

  He waited until he knew she would be out of the front door and then went to the window, wanting to watch her go and see which direction she took.

  She went left, first, towards the tube station at Holborn, walked almost out of sight in that direction, hesitated and then came back slowly. Oh, God, he thought, she’s thought of something else. Maybe he should call her back, but she didn’t return to the door of the office, she paced up and down. Then she disappeared out of sight, coming up the steps towards the door. He waited for the sound of the out of office hours bell that he never answered.

  He turned off the light in time to see her cross the road diagonally, into the nearest entrance into the Fields. Her hair gleamed in the lamplight as she padded from the glow of it into relative darkness. He wondered about her route. Then he saw the man come out of the light from behind her and loop a scarf round her neck, like a lover, keeping her warm, pulling her close.

  Not so lonely, then, Thomas thought. Already spoken for.

  He turned away for a moment, turned back.

  She was falling.

  No, not like a lover. Not like a close friend.

  An enemy.

  And over there, somewhere, a man in that coat.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sticky soil, holly scratching the cold skin of her face. Blood stuck in her throat and swelling inside. Trying to cough, gasping for air, stumbling down into soil with him behind her at first, twisting something round her neck. She could feel rough wool, knitted wool, too heavy, too clumsy, man-smelling. Why? A thick rope, looped round her neck, pulling her backwards, stumbling, losing balance down into the flowerbed. Then the man astride her, face dark with fury, the light through the tree, him holding both ends of the rope thing and pulling. Her neck jerked sideways, no, no, not like this. She was trying to push herself up, hands sinking in wet soil. No breath. Save the effort, let him fall on her, roll away, twist, turn. Then the stench of dog faeces as she pulled her hands out of soil and filth, reaching towards her neck to scrabble at the scarf, she knew it was a scarf now, trying to stop it tightening. The scarf was the enemy; no, he was the enemy. She could feel the soil from her hands on her neck and smell the stink. She heard from a long way off the diesel throb of a taxi, only yards away, prayed for running footsteps and then nothing but her own breath and his words, BITCH, BITCH, BITCH. Her eyes were wide open now. He was pulling at the scarf, half kneeling with one knee on her chest, badly angled for his task. At the sight of her staring eyes, he paused to release one hand and slap her face so hard that her teeth clashed and she grunted, came back to feeling alive. Angry, so angry. The slap unbalanced him: the scarf was too thick and soft to do the work. Hen jabbed her filthy fingers into his eyes, once, twice, three times, then raked her nails down his face and then it was him who screamed. The baby.

  He fell to one side, lifting his hands away to save his own eyes with his face streaked with soil and dog dirt. The earth smelt of vomit. Thomas’s high voice was shrieking anxiety. He was kicking ineffectually at the torso of the man as the man rolled a
way, yelling at him bizarrely, YOU PIG, YOU GREAT FAT PIG, GET OFF . . . the figure rolled free, out on to the path, heaved itself upright, staggering with his face covered by his hands, and stumbled away. Someone else had stopped to watch, but no one prevented him. Lincoln’s Inn Fields had its share of drunks and addicts, better leave them alone.

  A woman’s face loomed over Hen’s. Other sounds came into focus, another taxi, Thomas twittering, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

  Are you all right down there? the woman said, and it seemed to Hen such a strange question to ask of a person sitting in a municipal flowerbed in a busy London square at a still innocent time of day. She had a great desire to giggle as well as release a long delayed scream from her burning throat. Instead she said, yes I think so and to Thomas, no, don’t touch me, you’ll get dirty. Thomas helped her to her feet, pulling her by the coat rather than touching any part of her skin. They moved into the light. He was in his shirtsleeves and shivering. The scarf was still round her neck. They moved to the nearest bench and sat apart while she unwound it. Looped, not knotted, easy to remove, even with shaking hands. The air in her lungs felt wonderful. Thomas was proffering a handkerchief. It made her want to cry.

  ‘Do you want me to call the police?’

  The instinctive answer was no. She said so. Thomas seemed relieved.

  ‘You’d better come back in,’ he said. They got up, stiffly, moved in the direction of the office. Another jogger puffed by, oblivious to another daily drama. Thomas stopped.

  ‘Where’s the bag?’ he asked.

  ‘There. Over there.’

  It was stuck in the branches of a shrub by the side of the entrance gate, looking as if it was waiting for collection. She could not imagine how it had got there, tried to remember herself trying to hit him with it. Wanted to think she had done something to resist, satisfied with the thought she might have made him bleed, but doubting that her short, practical nails had done much damage. The dog dirt was the real weapon, and oh, she must stink. Once inside, Thomas locked the door behind them, and when back in his room, he pulled the blinds down against the view. Hen spent some time in the office lavatory and came back with a cleaner face and hands, but the smell still lingered. Vomit, dog faeces, urban sewer in urban flowerbed. Above all, she wanted to go home. So did he. He was still in shock, as much as from what had actually happened in front of his very eyes as from his own response.

  ‘Thank you for saving me, Mr Noble,’ she said. ‘You were incredibly brave. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to wade in like that. Thank you for saving me.’

  Thomas preened slightly, still in shock, moved to be the subject of gratitude for doing something that had taken him by surprise. He knew he had no physical courage and he knew very well that he had hesitated for a second before running out of the office and over the road, hoping someone else would get there first. Just as he knew she had saved herself. The whisky glasses knocked together noisily as he put them on the table untidily, but yes, perhaps on the whole, he had not done too badly. Peter Friel could not have done better, surely. What a silly thought.

  ‘Shall I try and raise Peter Friel?’ he asked. ‘He has gallant instincts.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. He has plenty enough to do. And more, tomorrow.’

  She was quite irritatingly almost peaceful, as if she had merely tripped and fallen. It infuriated him. The whisky slopped from the bottle on to the desk.

  ‘For God’s sake, woman, what’s the matter with you? You’re supposed to be weeping and wailing and screaming and . . . not like you are. Did you know who that was? Why are you just so . . . together?’

  She took the glass he offered her with a steadier hand than his.

  ‘How very kind you are. I’m fine, Mr Noble, really I am. I’m fine because I know who it wasn’t. It wasn’t Rick Boyd. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘All? He tried to strangle you.’

  She nodded agreement.

  ‘Yes, I suppose he did. With a knitted wool scarf. It would never have worked. Or taken too long. Too much stretch in it, you see. Entirely the wrong material.’

  Thomas could only admire her, while remaining full of wonder for what he himself had done. Kicked a client; how often had he wanted to do that?

  Maybe later he would be brave enough to go back for the scarf.

  The wrong material. Who would have thought?

  She placed the unblemished carpet bag by the side of her chair, ready to depart.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ Thomas said, pointing towards it. ‘But I still can’t take care of it. Are you sure you’re all right to get home? I’ll come with you, get you a taxi.’

  The client needed a drink.

  ‘The bitch,’ he kept repeating. ‘The bitch.’

  ‘Yes, but,’ Rick was saying soothingly, ‘yes, but why did you do it?’

  ‘Has she poisoned me?’

  They were standing by the basins in the urinal belonging to a Fleet Street pub with an interior so old and dark that no one would notice what anyone else looked like, even less the state of their clothes. A pub favoured by builders, shapeless tourists on the history trail, clandestine lovers in the interval between work and home, no dress code to speak of. A place of authentic, centuries-old gloom, extending back as far as the gents’, the atmosphere issuing an invitation to plot and conspire. Rick Boyd dabbed at the very minor scratches on Frank Shearer’s face as if the man were his innocent son, offering words of comfort and genuine wonder.

  ‘What made you fly off the handle like that, Frank old son? I mean, like what were you doing there in the first place? We were meeting here, weren’t we?’

  Frank had been crying when he called from his mobile. Come and get me, Rick, I can’t see. Where the fuck are you? In the lav, end of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I just hit this bitch, and she, she . . . the bitch.

  No, you come here. Turn right outside, down that narrow road at the end and you’re in Fleet Street. Go left, it’s down on the left. You know where it is. No one’ll notice. Promise.

  If Frank had turned up in a state bad enough to be embarrassing and pursued by a copper, Rick would have melted away and left him to it. As it was, Frank was a bit bruised and battered and dirty and smelly, with the reek of three days’ drink on him mixed with the rest, but not as bad as a tramp. It was not anything like the pervasive scent of someone who had not washed for weeks. Frank had not been entirely sober since he met Rick and the days blurred. Took a day off work yesterday and spent it with him, getting smashed and angry, had not slept the night before, and a few extra supplements, provided by Rick, made him delusional. So terrified of being a loser again that he saw shadows in the light and despair in the shadows, fit to fight a dog and kill a ghost. Even a pretend ghost. If Rick had pity in him, he might have felt it, but since he did not know what that was like, he did not feel it now. All he felt was the sense of triumph that came when he conned someone so completely, amazement that it worked mixed with alarm when it worked as quickly and comprehensively as this. Plus caution, because things had to be worked out all over again. You could never stick to plan A when the vic was smitten. Didn’t matter what they were smitten with, whether it was with himself, or with their own insecurities or with fear of loss, with sex, with anything. It was the way they just lay down and invited you to fuck them as soon as they were filled with dreams, new fears, new insecurities and unaccustomed pleasures. Amazing. As if they had not lived before they met him. Frank was like that.

  Plan A was to persuade Frank Shearer to part with a large sum of money to eradicate all traces of Marianne Shearer’s mythical child. Such an invention. Plan B, so outrageous he had hardly contemplated it up until now, was to harness Frank, to do something he wanted done. He was shaking his head at the very idea. Frank took the gesture for something indicating compassion and he was weeping again. His eyes were like pissholes in the snow; he looked as bad as any weeping woman, although in Frank’s case supplication did not move Rick to hurt hi
m, the way it did with a silly bitch.

  ‘Start from the top,’ he said soothingly. ‘You were coming here, to meet me for a drink and a chat, where the booze is cheaper than bloody Mayfair and you went through Lincoln’s Inn Fields? Past nice Mr Noble’s. Were you going to go in?’

  ‘No, Rick, honest I wasn’t.’

  ‘Told you, Frank, you can’t trust that bloke. I said we’d go together, ask him what he was up to. You can’t believe him when he says he doesn’t know where anything is. Where your lovely sister’s hidden her stuff. He knows more than he says. Didn’t you trust me? You can’t tell him what we know. You’ll get nothing. Why did you go by his office?’

  ‘It was on the way. I did think maybe I should ask him something. No, I didn’t, it was just because it was on the way.’

  An expression of fear on his face, not wanting to admit that yes, he did want to talk to T. Noble. Rick decided to let that one go.

  ‘Anyway, I stopped outside. Other side of the railings, looking up. That’s where I went first, to hear about my “good fortune”. That’s what Thomas Noble called it. I stood inside those railings, looking up. Newspaper in my hands, thinking, yes, she’s dead. I wanted to remember what it felt like, so I did it again, and then I saw her.’

  He blew his nose on a paper towel. Rick reached for another. Harsh, blue paper, no luxuries here.

  ‘The bitch. She was walking up and down. She was like I was, first, walking up and down and thinking about going in. Carrying a bag, pacing, thinking about it. Like she didn’t know whether she should or she shouldn’t. Then she couldn’t. I watched, and I thought, it’s got to be her. Hesitating like that, ’cos she knows. It’s her, I thought, that’s Marianne’s girl. Then she went up to ring the bell. Went up there to claim everything that’s mine. Mine. Only she didn’t. She came back in through the gate where I was standing, and I thought, you bitch. Its you. You’re the bitch who wants to take it all away.’