Written in Red

by Annie Dalton

  ‘What are you baking? It smells amazing.’ Tansy said as they followed Isadora along the long corridor to the back of the house.

  ‘I’ve got cinnamon rolls already in the oven and a couple of loaves still proving,’ Isadora said over her shoulder. ‘I may have gone a little overboard.’

  Isadora wasn’t exaggerating about the warmth. The heat emanating from her range cooker was positively equatorial. Beside the cooker, two loaves had been set to rise on a wooden stool. The dough was already visibly pushing up from under the red-checked cloth Isadora had used to cover them. Tansy lifted a corner of the cloth. ‘Ooh, yum, onion seeds!’

  ‘I know this must seem like a bizarre reaction.’ Isadora suddenly sounded defensive. ‘But I suddenly had this – compulsion to do something useful and real. I’ve never really seen myself as a Jewish mother, but in extremis I seem to have a choice: either I go to pieces, or I cook and clean!’

  Tansy went to Isadora and put her arms around her. ‘You are awesome, Isadora,’ she told her fervently. ‘You’re one of the most awesome women I know.’

  ‘I don’t understand why the police came to tell you that Robert had killed himself.’ Anna had been pondering this in the car.

  Isadora threw up her hands. ‘Because the poor man named me as his next of kin! It’s insane! Until the other week we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for fifty years!’

  ‘Robert named you as next of kin?’ Anna said, astonished.

  ‘According to his solicitor. Apparently Robert changed his will a few days ago.’

  ‘He must have changed it after he saw you – after Professor Lowell’s funeral,’ Anna said.

  Isadora didn’t seem to hear. ‘I just feel so terrible for him. How lonely must he have been to name someone he hadn’t properly talked to since the sixties? It’s as if all the years since then – his family, his financial success – were just dust and ashes at the end.’

  ‘He said his kids hated him.’ Anna was leaning against the counter next to the cooker. Bonnie sprawled by her feet, eyes half closed, savouring the warmth.

  ‘There could have been a good reason for that,’ Tansy pointed out. She’d collapsed into Isadora’s wicker chair and looked as if it wouldn’t take much to make her drift back to sleep.

  ‘I realize that, Tansy. Robert was no angel and I’m sure he disappointed his family in all kinds of ways.’ Isadora’s voice was tart. ‘But ex-wives can be extremely vindictive, especially when their ex-husbands are as wealthy as Robert – and to cut him off from his children – it’s just too spiteful. Shit! I almost forgot the rolls!’

  Watching Isadora slide out the tray of soft pillowy little rolls, delicately gilded with sugar and egg, Anna wondered if Isadora would forever associate the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls with Robert’s suicide.

  Isadora transferred her rolls to a cooling rack then picked up her thread where she’d left off. ‘Men from my generation, Englishmen that is,’ she corrected quickly, ‘can find it hard to admit to uncomfortable emotions. When I think of that frightful smug persona Robert felt he had to put on, when inside he was just …’

  ‘Sorry to ask this, but how did he—?’ Tansy asked.

  ‘Carbon monoxide poisoning,’ Isadora said. ‘The housekeeper arrived for work and heard the car engine running inside the garage. The police found a note on the passenger seat. Forgive me. I just can’t bear this nightmare any—’ Breaking off, she whisked away the tea towel in a sudden panic, peering anxiously at the rising loaves underneath. She gave an apologetic laugh. ‘Sorry, I don’t seem to be doing very well at multitasking.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Tansy said. ‘Why don’t I put the kettle on and make everyone a hot drink while you get the loaves in the oven?’

  ‘First James, now Robert,’ Isadora said half to herself. ‘I can’t help feeling we’re all being punished for Hetty.’

  Hetty again, Anna thought. Was Isadora saying that James’s death and Robert’s suicide were somehow linked with the long ago murder of Isadora’s friend? ‘So as next of kin do you have to go and ID the body?’ she asked.

  ‘Technically I don’t have to. One of his colleagues or his housekeeper could do it. But I said I’d do it.’

  ‘Isadora, why?’ Tansy’s eyes were wide. ‘Why do that to yourself if you have a choice?’

  ‘Because I need to, darling,’ Isadora said. ‘I told the police I’ll go down to the John Radcliffe later this morning.’

  Anna could see Tansy steeling herself to do the right thing for Isadora, however horrifying. ‘Well, OK,’ she said bravely. ‘I still don’t think you should, but if you really have to, Anna and I will come with you, won’t we?’

  ‘What about your job at the gallery?’ Isadora said.

  ‘It’s my day off,’ Tansy said confidently, then shot an alarmed look at Anna. ‘It is my day off, isn’t it? I fell out of bed in such a hurry I’m not entirely sure which day this is!’

  ‘We both have today off,’ Anna told her. ‘So we can both come with you, Isadora. But right now I need you to show me where you keep Hero’s lead. I’m going to walk the dogs.’

  ‘Oh, you darling girl, would you?’ Isadora said at once.

  Anna kept both dogs on their leads as they made a quick tour around the streets. It was just past eight o’clock and people were emerging from their houses, to drive to work or drop their kids off at school. Every few yards Hero stopped in her tracks to look back at Anna with an affronted expression, apparently thrown by this change in her routine. Bonnie calmly kept pace with Anna, occasionally sniffing the air, clearly as relieved as Anna to be out of doors.

  Anna had experienced a sudden, urgent need to get out of the house. The violence of events, old and new, the vicious murder and then a suicide, the reappearance of Max and Dominic – had all conspired to make her feel suffocatingly hemmed in. It wasn’t exactly the run up to the season of peace and goodwill she’d been hoping for. Anna still hadn’t spoken to anyone about Tim’s visit. She hadn’t wanted to get into it with Tansy on the drive over – given the circumstances, she’d felt they should be concentrating on Isadora – and she still hadn’t been able to get hold of Jake.

  Logically she knew there could be all kinds of reasons for him not to get back to her, but her nerve endings weren’t convinced. ‘He’ll call,’ she told Bonnie, as if saying it out loud would make it true, ‘Jake always calls,’ and Anna experienced the secret pleasure of seeing Bonnie’s ears prick up at the sound of her favourite man’s name.

  She arrived back at Isadora’s as Tansy was clearing some of the clutter from the kitchen table, making space for a plate of warm cinnamon rolls. They were just sitting down when Isadora’s lodger Sabina wandered in. Today, her hair was confined under a knitted beanie, making her look more like a student from the twenty-first century and less like a romantic Heidi of the mountains. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you have visitors, Mrs Salzman,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to join us?’ Isadora suggested. ‘I’ve made far too many of these delicious little rolls, so you’d be doing me a favour.’

  Without turning round, Sabina carried on with extracting a loaf of anaemic sliced white bread from a shelf in Isadora’s fridge. ‘This morning we have an important test. I will just make my toast and eat it on the way.’

  The three women made slightly awkward conversation while Sabina toasted two slices of bread to her satisfaction, then went on her way with an airy, ‘Goodbye, ladies!’

  ‘That’s all she ever seems to eat, toast,’ Isadora said. ‘I’m starting to think she has some kind of disorder. Still, at least she comes in to use the toaster,’ she added plaintively. ‘Myung-Hee never comes in the kitchen at all except to use the washing machine, which for some reason she seems to do at dead of night. Gabriel thinks I scare them off by being too intense.’ She suddenly covered her face. ‘Oh dear, life never quite works out the way you hope, does it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t take it personally,’ Anna reassured
her. ‘Sabina and Myung-Hee are just young and self-absorbed. Things will get better, Isadora, seriously.’

  ‘And you and Tansy really don’t mind coming with me to the mortuary?’ Isadora said. ‘You don’t have to come in with me. I’d just be so grateful if you could accompany me as far as the door. For some reason I find that hospital particularly daunting.’

  The Sir John Radcliffe turned out to be not just daunting but vast. As Anna stood with her friends in the brilliantly lit foyer, staring up at the bewildering map of departments, a woman’s voice said, ‘Anna? I thought it was you! Do you need some help?’ It was Dana, who rented Anna’s top-floor flat.

  ‘My friend needs to go to the mortuary to identify a body,’ Anna said, keeping her voice low. ‘Could you point us in the right direction?’

  Non-medics might have launched into expressions of sympathy. Dana just said, ‘Why don’t I just take you there? I’ve got a clinic in thirty minutes though, so we’ll have to walk fast!’ She sped off along the gleaming corridors, exchanging greetings with passing nurses, only stopping once to allow a porter to manoeuvre a cumbersome trolley into a lift.

  Anna mainly knew Dana through her choice of break-up music – Van Morrison, played at such high volume that Anna could sometimes hear faint strains of it in her garden. Somehow she’d never really taken on board that Dana was also a real live doctor. But here she was in a dazzling white coat, stethoscope parked neatly in her top pocket, finding her way through this vast sterile maze like a female Virgil in a particularly modern hell. Dana accompanied Isadora right up to the desk, saying, ‘I believe this lady is expected.’

  ‘Suppose Isadora changes her mind and needs us to go in with her?’ Tansy whispered to Anna.

  ‘I’ll go in with her, don’t worry,’ Anna said.

  But Isadora remained adamant that she wanted to go in alone.

  Tansy and Anna took seats outside and waited. Tansy kept fidgeting with her nails. She’d painted them just the other day in her favourite Van Gogh Starry Night style, but now there seemed a real danger she might peel it all off. ‘I think I’ve seen too many procedural dramas on TV,’ she confided to Anna. ‘I’m getting horrible visuals of what’s on the other side of that door. Bodies in drawers, labels on toes, a grim-faced pathologist staring down into someone’s open skull and simultaneously eating his lunch.’

  ‘Now I’m getting horrible visuals,’ Anna told her.

  The door opened and Isadora came out, looking strained but resolute.

  Tansy jumped up. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, darling, I’m fine. Everything that wasn’t really him was completely stripped away and there was …’ Isadora tightly pressed her lips together, in an attempt to control her emotions. ‘There was just poor, dear Robert.’

  They set off back towards the enormous hospital car park. They had finally found Anna’s Land Rover when her phone began to ring. She unlocked her vehicle for Isadora and Tansy to get inside. ‘I just want to take this,’ she told them.

  ‘Hi, kid!’ said Jake’s familiar voice. ‘I hope you haven’t been trying to get hold of me? I dropped my phone in the bath,’ he explained sheepishly. ‘Totally killed it. I’ve been running around like an idiot trying to organize a new one. Are you and Bonnie both OK? And your grandfather?’

  ‘We’re all fine.’ It was a dull winter’s day with clouds lowering over the city, yet hearing Jake’s voice Anna felt as if the sun had just come out. ‘Well, I say we’re fine,’ she amended, ‘but poor Isadora’s just had to ID a dead friend at the hospital mortuary. We’re leaving the hospital now.’

  She heard Jake take a breath before he said, ‘I’m really sorry to hear that. Was it a close friend?’

  ‘More like a comrade,’ Anna said, ‘Back in the days when Isadora was a teenage spy.’

  There was another longish pause before Jake said, ‘This is going to be one of these two-cups-of-coffee stories, isn’t it?’

  ‘You should probably aim for three,’ she said. ‘Three big cups.’

  It was crazy, she thought, how the mere sound of his voice made her feel calm and safe. At some point he’d phone again and she’d tell him all about Isadora and Tim. But right now it was enough to know that she and Jake were OK.

  NINE

  ‘So that was another bizarre first,’ Tansy said, stifling a yawn. ‘Anna, Tansy and Isadora visit the morgue.’ They were in Anna’s car heading back to Park Town, having dropped Isadora off at home. Tansy leaned back against the head rest. ‘God, I’m shattered.’ She blinked as if she was trying to get the world properly into focus. ‘Hey, Isadora’s lodger is a pretty little thing, isn’t she?’

  ‘Not the warmest bunny in the world,’ Anna said.

  ‘True, but that’s probably an advantage in international business or whatever?’ Tansy shook out her ponytail and began redoing it. ‘There hasn’t been time to tell you,’ she said abruptly. ‘Liam texted to say he’s coming over after work. I hope that’s OK?’

  Anna slowed to avoid a cyclist. ‘You should know by now you don’t have to ask. Liam’s always welcome.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t want you to feel we’re taking advantage. Anyway, he’s offered to cook us all a curry,’ Tansy said.

  ‘Even better! Assuming Liam can cook?’ Anna added, belatedly registering Tansy’s doubtful expression.

  ‘He’s not a bad cook,’ Tansy said. ‘He’s just – well, you’ll see …’

  ‘OK, now you’re making me nervous!’ Anna told her.

  Liam turned up promptly at seven, wearing a pea coat over his jeans, his hair still damp from the shower, a bag of groceries in each hand. ‘Got to love the Cowley Road,’ he said, as he followed Anna down the stairs to the kitchen. ‘Almost as good as Leeds for food shopping – note the “almost”.’ He pulled three bottles of Tiger beer out of one of the bags, popped the tops, and smilingly handed one each to Anna and Tansy. ‘Now you two just chat among yourselves and I’ll get everything prepped!’

  Twenty minutes later Anna and Tansy had to retreat to stand by the open French doors. ‘Try not to look!’ Tansy hissed, as fumes of scorching chillies filled the kitchen. ‘Liam’s like the Cat in the Hat. He causes total devastation but he always gets it all cleaned up at the end!’

  Anna did her best to follow Tansy’s advice but couldn’t help an awed glance at her kitchen counters now littered with every pan, dish and kitchen implement that she owned.

  Tansy abruptly ducked out into the winter darkness, triggering the security light, and retrieved a well-gnawed tennis ball. She tossed it up the garden steps for Bonnie to chase. ‘I don’t want Liam to think we’re talking about him,’ she whispered as Bonnie raced after the ball. ‘I hate when women do that snide undermining thing when men cook. I mean, we all have to learn, right?’

  Anna suppressed a flinch as behind them Liam threw some new ingredient into a pan triggering tremendous crackling and spitting. ‘That oil is seriously too hot, though,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know. Plus, did you see how much green chilli he was putting in?’

  ‘Drop it,’ Anna told Bonnie firmly. Reclaiming the ball, she flung it into the garden. ‘Just be grateful he brought all those beers,’ she said under her breath. In the middle of taking a swig from her bottle, Tansy burst out laughing, spraying beer down her top.

  But when Tansy’s boyfriend eventually called them to the table to eat and Anna saw the colourful array of dishes covering the table, she was surprised and impressed. He might have wrecked her kitchen but he had produced a real feast. ‘This looks amazing, Liam!’

  ‘It really does,’ Tansy agreed giving Anna a grateful smile.

  ‘Hopefully everything will taste all right,’ Liam said a little anxiously. ‘Well, dive in, everyone. Help yourselves.’

  When everyone had loaded their plates, he raised his beer in a toast. ‘Well, thank God it’s Friday, eh?’

  ‘Bad week?’ Anna said.

  ‘More like frustrating,’ Liam said.

  �
��Remember how you promised you wouldn’t talk shop at the table?’ Tansy said in a warning voice.

  Liam gave her an entirely unapologetic grin. ‘I did, didn’t I. Must have slipped my mind!’

  ‘Sorry, Tansy,’ Anna said. ‘Can I just ask Liam one quick work-related question?’

  ‘So long as it’s just one,’ Tansy said sternly.

  ‘I just want to know if the police are any closer to figuring out who’s responsible for attacking Professor Lowell?’

  Liam shook his head. ‘We haven’t got any strong leads. Unfortunately our lack of progress is making the college authorities edgy, which is making the chief superintendent super-edgy, and unfortunately it all ends up at the boss’s door.’

  Seeing Anna about to help herself from one of the many dishes on offer, Tansy managed a discreet mime of fatal choking and Anna surreptitiously limited herself to a polite spoonful.

  ‘It’s been a tough few months for the inspector really, all these murders,’ Liam said. ‘Well, for all of us really; feels a bit like we’ve stumbled into an old episode of Inspector Morse!’ His eyes briefly clouded then, possibly mindful of his promise, he said in a more cheerful tone, ‘Anyway, what have you girls been up to on your day off? Something fun?’

  ‘We went to the morgue,’ Tansy told him, giving Anna a wink.

  Liam almost choked on his mouthful of paratha and took a hasty swallow of beer. Tansy solicitously patted him on the back. ‘We had to take Isadora to ID a body,’ she explained.

  Liam put down his beer. Anna could see he didn’t know whether to believe her. ‘Seriously?’