Scar Tissue

by Judith Cutler

  I didn’t like the idea of a shrink, and had no intention of enduring plastic surgery, but I didn’t argue. People like me can’t turn their noses up at the sort of payout he was talking about. Yes, I’d talk to Jan.

  His phone rang. I concentrated on my driving, of course, but strained to hear all the same. Van der Poele. They were discussing van der Poele!

  ‘So he’ll be fit to stand trial? Excellent. I want him transferred to a different hospital as soon as he’s fit to travel. An armed guard at all times. No, two officers.’

  I hummed a little tune; Gates took the hint.

  ‘Yes, he’s still alive. It’d take more than a bullet to finish him off, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if he’d died? It’d save us tax payers an awful lot of money – his trial, and then providing him with board and lodging.’ Whatever had happened to the open-minded, justice-seeking Caffy?

  ‘Possibly. But it’d mean the officer who shot him would have to be investigated, which can be very unpleasant –’

  ‘Even if the bugger was taking pot shots at him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I know your experience of the service hasn’t been ideal, but I can promise you that most of us are dedicated to seeing justice done – and if an officer shoots anyone, even in self-defence, there has to be a full investigation.’

  ‘And the poor guy would have a death on his conscience for the rest of his life,’ I mused. ‘OK. A trial, then. But what will you charge him with? Apart from money-laundering?’

  ‘Murder. Involvement in people trafficking. Drugs. All the things we spoke about earlier. A lot more maybe when Moffatt and Marsh hear he’s off the streets and it’s safer for them to turn Queen’s Evidence than not. We could throw in trespass and anything else we find. Corrupting police officers, for instance – we’ve found a young constable out here in Moffatt’s pocket and thus his.’

  ‘Would that be one with white eyelashes? He was really nasty when I wanted to wash Arthur the Postie’s blood off my hands. Or was it Simon something or other? He was out guarding Fullers.’

  ‘Yes, the one who “arrested” Dawes.’

  I sighed. ‘Apart from White Lashes there was a nice black sergeant in Streatham. Taylor. I do hope he was just a dupe.’

  ‘We’ll find out.’ He made a note. ‘You’re right, of course: the taxpayer will have to look after van der Poele – for the rest of his natural life, I’d say.’

  I drove on in silence. I might have scars but I had my life and I had my freedom. And maybe, yes, maybe I’d have a bit of compensation to buy a car. Now that would make things easier for the Pots. Obviously Paula’s insurance would come up with a new van, but another set of wheels would mean less trouble for everyone. Maybe she should ask that brother of hers. He might do a family discount. Me, with my own car!

  ‘…when this is all over,’ Gates was saying.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said, I was wondering if you might join me for dinner one evening when this is all over,’ he said in a rush.

  Why not? He’d given me my first frisson since Taz. But then, there was still the small business of Taz to clear up once and for all.

  ‘I’m a bit messed up at the moment,’ I said. And I wasn’t just referring to my hair and clothes. ‘But tell you what, ask me again when it is all over. I shall know what to say then.’ I parked neatly and handed him the keys.

  ‘Thanks. I will.’ He leant across and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

  Why the hell hadn’t I said, Sweep me off my feet tonight and I’m yours? Because I still hankered after that kind hand passing me drinking chocolate, I suppose. And I’d no idea what duvet I’d sleep under or where. The obvious place to head was back to Fullers and those twin caravans.

  The site was still seething with the police, some of them armed. But when I was delivered there in a police-car, courtesy Gates, now safely back at his desk, I was welcomed politely and handed an envelope. It was already dusk, so someone obligingly passed me a torch, not that I needed one for Jan’s huge scrawl. Mine was the right hand van, she said. She and Todd had nipped out for a meal and might be back late, but I was to make myself at home.

  Odd. I couldn’t imagine them not including me in their meal. They’d know I’d want a bit of looking after. I felt quite let down.

  And then extremely guilty. The key the officer handed me opened the door to the nicest pad I’d ever had. All this was mine! Well, mine until I had to hand it back. In the meantime, there were all the little features that had endeared their first caravan to me. And they’d had it kitted out, too – two of everything. There was a picnic hamper on the kitchen surface, champagne and wine in the fridge. In the bedroom area hung all the clothes someone had retrieved from the hotel. My bedroll from the eyrie was neatly stowed too. The bed was made up, with fresh towels nestling on it. Dubliners and Evelina lay on the bedside table.

  Back in the living room were a TV, a sound system and a whole row of the books I’d given to Jan for safekeeping what seemed like weeks ago.

  And the buggers weren’t here to thank! Perhaps they were right. They knew I’d have a damned good howl, and they’d prefer to hug me when I’d calmed down.

  But no. Even as I had my first sniff, there was a knock at the door. I bounded over to open it, holding out my arms to – to Taz?

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked stupidly.

  He shifted from one foot to another, looking as embarrassed as any man might carrying a bouquet as big as a baby.

  No point in waiting for an answer, then. ‘Come on in.’

  So in this fairy grotto now stood a handsome prince. Pity Cinderella hadn’t had time to transform herself from a hot, sweaty, scruffy lump desperately in need of not just a new hairdo but also new hair. Still, I’d been attractive enough for Gates to kiss.

  Jan – or was it Todd – had even provided a vase for the flowers. They’d set this all up, hadn’t they? Popping out for supper, indeed. Making sure the coast was clear and that we both knew it. All we had to do to oblige them was fall into a passionate clinch and become an item.

  If only we could.

  ‘Look,’ I began, ‘you couldn’t go and have a natter with your police mates, could you? Just for five minutes? Just till I’ve sluiced off the day’s dust.’ Then, trying to sound less practical and sensible, I added, winsomely, seductively, ‘If there were a bath we could share it, but –’

  He didn’t like winsome and seductive, that was for sure. He bolted, almost falling over himself in his efforts to escape. So much for the filmy negligee I found tucked under one of the pillows. I showered in next to no time and slipped into the nice skirt and top I’d bought for my London visit. And tried to tame my hair. And applied discreet make-up and a dab of a perfume sample Meg had once passed on. And unpacked the hamper and laid the table and wondered where the hell he’d got to.

  I could hardly go looking for him, could I? Shrugging, I sat on the bed and started on Dubliners: After the Race. I’d just got to the bit where the naïve young man thinks he’s living the high life just because two men are dancing together when there was another tap at the door. Damn.

  ‘This is like the one that got blown up, isn’t it?’ he said, stepping inside.

  ‘Yes, it’s very kind of them to get me my own place. I don’t know how I shall ever repay them. Which reminds me, you won’t have to pay for my hotel, will you?’

  ‘I shall be reimbursed, don’t worry.’

  And that was about as romantic as it got. We broached the champagne, largely because I thought I deserved it, to celebrate a satisfactory conclusion to the case. It went straight to my head. So we had to have some of the picnic. And more booze.

  Romance? All I wanted to do was sleep. This was fine, because although booze is supposed to provoke the desire (OK, and take away the performance) the only desire it provoked in Taz was to yawn – and not the sort of yawn shy young men give when they want to be invited into a bed.

  Retiring to the
bedroom, I emerged not in the negligee but with the bedroll. ‘The sofa turns into a bed,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you see to it while I tidy away here?’ I couldn’t bear to leave the pretty place slovenly with unwashed plates.

  He did as he was told.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caffy,’ he said, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘I really like you. You’re a great girl. But I can’t – I can’t face …’

  It was the scars, was it? Maybe I should think about that plastic surgeon.

  ‘I can’t face having sex,’ he said with a rush, ‘with someone who’s made love with so many other men.’

  I looked at him blankly. ‘You don’t understand, do you? Lots of men have had sex with me. I don’t deny that. That’s sex. But – can’t you see? – sex isn’t love. Taz, I’ve never made love to anyone, I promise you.’

  When I woke up the following morning, he’d gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It was the sort of day when decorators thank God for an indoor contract. Grey? I don’t think it had ever got light, and when it tried to, the rain that had simply been threatening started to sluice down. There was a poem about it, wasn’t there? Something about no dawn and no dusk, and finishing up with the single word, November.

  Yes, I’d moved on to poetry, something I’d never thought anyone like me would read. I’d been to see a couple of plays, too, when Jan and Todd had thought there was something interesting in London or Brighton – and loved them both. I’d managed to identify that bit about seeking the villain in hell: it was from Hamlet. Todd kept on at me to do what he’d done – an Open University course – but I was still putting off applying. He pointed out that I’d done well in my residential course in August, learning all sorts of techniques I was now applying in our renovation of Fullers. But I insisted there was a huge difference between practical stuff I already knew the basics of and real, abstract learning. I’d enjoyed that course, actually, and made several good contacts, two of whom were now working here at Fullers.

  Yes, there’d been a number of changes in Paula’s Pots. There’d had to be. Todd and Jan had been so obviously torn between their desire to let us do the work and a quite reasonable and equally strong desire to be able to move in sometime in the next decade. It wasn’t just a matter of people slapping on paint and hanging wallpaper; the whole thing had to be co-ordinated. So they’d asked Paula to become their Clerk of Works, chasing and supervising and generally doing all the things Paula does to perfection.

  ‘It’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ she’d confessed over a drink to celebrate the completion of our work on that pensioner’s bungalow, the one we’d done at cost, largely using the paint Meg had spilt. Paula had been right: Mr Green had been happy to use van der Poele’s leavings. ‘So what I’m going to suggest is this: that Meg takes over chasing new business and costing it, the work I used to do. I know that Fullers will take ages to finish, but we’ve got to keep other things ticking over too. That’s if Caffy and Helen don’t mind her being promoted.’

  Helen wriggled. ‘I’m afraid I shan’t be around all that much. You see, I’ve decided to go for that college course. Get my qualifications.’

  There was a huge cheer, a lot of hugging, and a bit of a weep, too. Was this spelling the end of Paula’s Pots? From the expression on Paula’s face, it might.

  ‘This leaves Caffy as the labourer.’ Paula looked uncomfortable, as well she might. We’d always been more a co-operative than a conventional firm. She’d been irritable for a couple of days, but this felt personal.

  Meg was already shaking her head. ‘You know we’ve got to expand. And if we take on those women from Caffy’s course we’ll have to pay them a proper rate. Todd doesn’t want sweated labour anyway.’ These days she managed to talk about him without blushing.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t suggesting we should pay her less than the others.’

  ‘I propose we promote her to forewoman,’ Meg said. ‘And since we wouldn’t have the Fullers’ work at all if it wasn’t for her, I reckon she deserves a rise to match.’

  I could breathe again. So I could afford to be generous. ‘I shan’t need it. Not if I’m going to get compensation for Granville’s scars.’

  Meg shook her head firmly. ‘The law takes forever. And we agreed right at the start, a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. And now you’re the most skilled of all of us.’

  Paula nodded. ‘Yes, she is. I suppose the business can afford a bit of a rise.’

  ‘Paula, just because you’ve broken up with whoever it was, there’s no need to take it out on us,’ Helen said, fingering a spot on her nose. ‘You should be grateful to Caffy, not bad-tempered. And you’ve got a nice new title – why shouldn’t she?’

  That was the problem, wasn’t it? Paula always liked to come first. When she’d settled into her new role, she’d be sweetness and light itself.

  And it was light we could do with this November day. Paula was in Leeds chasing a last marble fireplace, Meg was off meeting a friend of Todd’s who’d seen our transformation of Fullers and now wanted his country pad titivated, Helen was busy studying and I’d just told our new colleagues to knock off for the day. I’d stay a little longer. I liked being on my own in the place, wandering round rooms now glowing in the paint I’d helped apply and promising the same treatment to the few still scruffy ones. Nearly the same. Jan had long since decided that as the house evolved over so many periods, each room would be decorated in the style most appropriate to it. The kitchen might be as hi-tech as they came, Aga and refectory table apart, and the central heating might be state of the art, but she’d found some framed stump-work panels for a dark, Jacobean room, and elegant chinoiserie tables for the regency salon. The hall now had a particularly fine mirror in place. The silvering was past its best, but it reflected kindly back to me a young woman now with well-cut blonde hair and blue eyes.

  Some evenings, after supper, I’d start work again. This area didn’t really offer much in the way of entertainment for a young woman on her own, even one with an elderly Fiesta courtesy of an even more elderly lady who’d been told she could no long drive the three hundred miles a year she’d managed till she was ninety-one. Paula and I were again on good terms, and she’d twisted her brother’s arm to come up with bargain wheels for me. But I didn’t use them much more than the old lady. Sometimes my fellow Pots shook their heads, fearing loudly that I was going to turn into a dried-up old spinster living only through her books.

  Although Todd and Jan always welcomed me as a beloved daughter into their caravan, they weren’t there all that much now the weather had changed. Who could blame them, when the Caribbean called? Not me, any more than I’d have blamed my real parents. Real? Blood parents was nearer the term. Todd and Jan, with their unqualified, undemanding love, were my real parents now. I’d tried to ask them why they’d taken me so unquestioningly under their wing. They’d never come up with any sort of rational explanation, any more than I could have done. Love at first sight, I suppose, and not at all in the romantic sense. We’d just walked into one another’s lives and found it the best place to be. Sometimes I was uncomfortable when I considered the extent of their generosity. But it made them unhappy if I tried to refuse things they knew I needed. I had a terrible suspicion that my Christmas gift might be a replacement for the Fiesta, simply because they wanted me to have the latest in in-car protection. Mine for them? Well. The best-painted house I could manage. The most loving restoration. The warmest welcome.

  When Christmas came, and all the rooms had had their last vacuum and polish, it’d be as perfect as I could have made it. They were planning a housewarming party, a huge one: they’d already told us we must bring our friends too. Apart from anything else, Jan was desperate to see whom Paula would bring. For old times’ sake, I could always invite Taz, I suppose, but I didn’t want to embarrass him and his new girlfriend. Gates? No, he’d never asked me out again, nor had I really wanted him to. I didn’t want a man who could only do emotion when he was
shocked into it and preferred to be in control the rest of the time. Think about those cold, grey eyes. Maybe we’d have lunch or dinner when the trial of Moffatt, Marsh, van der Poele and their police minions was over, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Perhaps the Pots had been more accurate in their predictions for my future than I cared to admit. It would take a very special man to deal with my past, always assuming I ever thoroughly dealt with it myself. Maybe the therapy a friend of Jan’s had organised would help. Maybe the plastic surgery, but that was still some way down the line.

  I went down to lock the door behind the two women and stood listening to the building breathe as the old timbers settled. Like a chatelaine, I walked solemnly from room to room, making sure the shutters were fast. At least I didn’t have to worry about the tunnel any more. After the building archaeologists had photographed it from all angles, it was sealed. First of all a big steel plate was fastened under the trap door. Anyone on the canal-side managing to find and lift it would be met by something as impenetrable as a safe. Then it had been bricked up. Todd had insisted on the belt and braces, although he’d caused a purist eyebrow or two to lift.

  There was the sound of a car outside. Yes, Jan and Todd’s Range Rover. And they gave their familiar triple toot, so I’d know it was them. The security lights, promised when the troubles began, came on in greeting.

  There were their voices now.

  So, as if I owned the place, I flung open the big front door, opening my arms wide.

  ‘Welcome home,’ I said.

  We hope you enjoyed this book.