The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery)

by Valerie Laws

Too thin? Obviously used to hugely pregnant women. Erica knew Liz as a control freak, who disapproved of her and all she stood for. But that last phone call, the horrible humiliated, bullied feeling it had given her. Had she blown it up all out of proportion? Did Liz even remember it?

  ‘So, er, did you go to university?’

  Tell her you’re a lapdancer. ‘I did a maths degree.’ Why was she trying to impress Liz Seaton?

  ‘Fkn’ell!’ Stacey tuned in briefly.

  ‘Well done!’ Liz’s hands kept tightening into fists, she had to force them to hang at her sides. A tiny pure point of rage began to glow in her heart. So Erica had done what she’d nearly stopped Lucy from doing. ‘So what are you doing now?’

  Patronising cow. ‘I’m a homeopath,’ Erica said. Her eyes narrowed as if bracing themselves for a faceful of spit. From a spitting cobra.

  ‘A homeopath? With a maths degree? Surely your logical faculties must realise that there is no merit in such forms of so-called medicine…’ She pulled herself up, realising this was not the place for a lecture. So she’d gone in for some kind of hippy mumbo jumbo after all. Did Lucy know this? Alarm joined rage. This was not what Lucy needed to hear right now.

  ‘Still, Erica, you’ve got your degree to fall back on when you come to your senses.’ Which Lucy wouldn’t have, if she’d listened to you. ‘I suppose a couple of years out is a good idea after years of academic work. You always did have a leaning towards the, er, alternative lifestyle.’ She turned to Peg. ‘I remember when Erica dragged Lucy off to some commune to learn, what was it, transcendental meditation.’ A dry laugh. ‘At least it kept them quiet some of the time!’ Erica was fizzing with annoyance under this patronage. Besides, it had been Lucy’s idea to learn TM. Obviously, she was still cast as the vile seducer of innocent youth. All she’d done was support her friend’s dream. She’d been wondering about Lucy for years. All the times she’d thought of looking up Lucy on Friends Reunited. Never done it. Ask, Erica, ask, she told herself.

  Was she scared that Lucy had become boring, responsible? What did she expect, that Lucy had stayed adolescent while she’d grown up?

  She put off the question that was almost choking her. ‘Homeopathy is a profession. I’m properly trained and registered. I felt it was more useful than finance or postgrad work. I help people, especially the ones that’ve been let down by conventional doctors.’

  Liz moved her crossed arms to hide her hands. Belatedly, Erica realised she wasn’t wearing a white coat. Somehow, the white coat was there, invisible, in her stance. ‘You must know there is no basis in scientific fact for homeopathy,’ she began. ‘Naturally, the placebo effect…’

  ‘There’s no basis in scientific fact for maternal love, either. I’m sure you wouldn’t deny it exists. A lot of conditions, like the common viruses, rely on waiting for the body to heal itself … if expensive drugs can’t fix it. Not to mention the flesh-eating bacteria created and spread by hospitals due to overuse of antibiotics.’ She stopped herself. No ranting, Erica.

  ‘The girl whose Caesarian I performed yesterday would have had trouble healing herself. She and the baby would have died; I can’t imagine herbal decoctions would have helped.’

  Erica was spared a reply by Peggy’s blundering intervention.

  ‘You must be wondering about Lucy! She’s doing so well,’ gushed Peg, her whole face lighting up at the thought of her niece. ‘She’s so clever! Just like her mum! Not like poor old me!’

  ‘Too fkn right!’ muttered Stacey.

  ‘She ‘read’ medicine at university!’ Peg brought out the proper term with pride. ‘She’s just finished her exams. She’s a real star student!’

  Right. Lucy, the rebel, the gifted actress, a doctor like her mother. As inevitable as Stacey’s pregnancy.

  ‘You must be very pleased,’ Erica said to Liz. Slight emphasis on the ‘you’. ‘I hope she is too.’

  ‘She loves it! Well it’s long hours, little sleep. Worse to come, when she starts in the hospital. But she’ll get through it. Lucy’s going to be a fine doctor and do a lot of good. Real good.’ Unlike you, Erica heard. She felt about sixteen, sulky and awkward. Liz suddenly put a dry, warm hand on Erica’s bare forearm. Erica flinched, while at the same time almost wanting to let Liz win her over. It would be so much easier to be liked by a woman like this. She hardened her resolve, ashamed of her momentary weakness. What was she, needy or something?

  ‘You and I aren’t going to agree about medicine, but I applaud your wanting to do good in the world. I find it hard to think of a clever brain like yours lying unused.’ Erica had forgotten Liz’s over-precise diction and careful vowels.

  She opened her mouth to reply, but Peggy was quicker.

  ‘Having a clever brain isn’t everything,’ chipped in Peg.

  ‘I had an autograph book when I was a girl, and our mother wrote in it, ‘Do good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.’’ Peggy gazed at the baby.

  Liz shot a fond look at her sister, and her eyes then met Erica’s. Clear as words; ‘You see? People like Peg, well- meaning but dim, applaud your choice. You’re aligning yourself with her!’ Both a warning and a sly dig. Erica flushed. She felt the same intellectual superiority as Liz, much as she would have liked to deny it; she didn’t like being defended by Peg, the religious saddo, whose beliefs she, Erica, would invoke logic to refute. Shit!

  ‘Could ye’s lot naff off? Corrie’s on!’ Stacey was bored. Peg touched the baby’s fingers gently. ‘She’s a gift from God, Stacey. Take care of her.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Stacey snatched up Anoushka whose head wobbled alarmingly before finding Stacey’s huge breasts. Noosh’s head turned towards the fleshy pillows, instinctively seeking milk. Peg’s eyes filled with tears, Erica saw. So did Liz.

  Her voice softened. ‘Come on Peg, I’ll find us some coffee. And biscuits.’ She fixed Stacey with a steely teacher’s look. ‘I’m sure Stacey is grateful for your help last night. You were taking a risk yourself going down there at closing time, Peg, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, ok, thanks and that,’ muttered Stacey. ‘So f ’kn cheezy!’

  Liz escorted Peg to the door. ‘I hope to see you on your feet soon, Stacey. It’s better for you, you know. Erica, I wish you well in your chosen – er, profession.’ She began to tow Peg out of the doorway of the ward.

  Peg seemed reluctant. ‘I saved them, Liz, Stacey and the baby.’

  Erica watched them go, like a woolly sheep chivvied along by a protective, rangy sheepdog. The one with brains and teeth, though sheep did turn on collies when they had lambs. Did Peg ever show teeth to her dominating sister?

  Erica could hear Liz, clearly holding onto her patience.

  ‘Yes Peg, you did very well, but Stacey’s her parents’ responsibility, not yours.’ She speeded up, but Peg hadn’t finished. She turned back to Erica. ‘And you should see Lucy’s little boy! He’s just beautiful!’

  ‘Little boy’? Erica’s mind reeled. Lucy’d had a child? Why hadn’t Liz mentioned it? Surely in this day and age, no-one felt ashamed of an unplanned baby, if this was unplanned. Though no husband or partner had been mentioned, and in the middle of or just before the rigours of medical training was hardly an ideal time to have a child.

  Or maybe Liz was ashamed. It wouldn’t look good for the daughter of an obstetrician to slip up on the contraception front. And it didn’t fit with the go-getting, focused doctor daughter Liz wanted. Or maybe Liz didn’t want to give Erica an excuse for contacting her again?

  ‘She’s canny really, ye knaa.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Erica guiltily remembered Stacey.

  ‘That wifey. The doctor woman. Goes on like there’s a stick up her ass, but she’s allreet really. When I was, ye knaa, havin’ it. Me mam was there, moaning on as usual. Me mate was like, it’s like shitting a melon. More like a bliddy pumpkin! But Liz Seaton come in, special, and she held me other hand, hor a doctor, not just a nurse like, and I dug me nails in, I couldn’t help it, she said n
owt. Me mam says she was great with hor and all, when she was having me and me brothers. And the mess! Blood and slime and shit and all sorts, she looks like she’s never dortied her hands like, but she was cool. She’s stuck up, but she’s ok.’

  ‘Ok, too much information there. Oh, here, I saw this in the hospital shop,’ and Erica laid a little yellow babygro on the bed.

  ‘Ta.’ Stacey was looking at Noosh with a puzzled expression, as if wondering how she got there.

  Stacey’s moving testimonial to Liz was the most impassioned speech Erica’d heard her make. She remembered Liz’s face as she looked at the mother and child. She’d seemed to really care about them as people. If only more consultants were like that. Maybe she was different at work, where her family, and her deepest emotions, weren’t concerned.

  A peculiar high-pitched sound broke in on her thoughts. Stacey was singing to Anoushka. Erica could just make out some lyrics from a recent single by Eminem. Wonder what her first word will be, she thought, leaving quietly. It had been a very eventful day. Should she seek out Lucy once more, re-establish contact; or should she let the past alone? Will the real Lucy Seaton please stand up, please stand up, please stand up …

  4

  Night, Saturday 7th June

  Rina’s house, Wydsand Bay

  Rina let her in, Indian sandals on her square, handsome feet, and loose fuschia trousers with a turquoise smock top. Her dark cap of hair had a glossy sheen.

  ‘Come in, sweetie, and take your clothes off.’

  ‘Why don’t guys say that?’ Erica, a bottle of chardonnay in a carrier bag bumping her thighs, followed Rina into her bright, untidy house. She sniffed the mingled fragrances of essential oils and coffee.

  ‘Bollocks, Erica, you’ve had more hot men than a sauna in hell. Brad Pitt being unavailable, I’ll do my poor best with my magic fingers.’

  ‘I though we were getting drunk.’ The spare room was all white, with a high massage table and trolleys of oils.

  ‘Naturally. But first we’ll get rid of that tension. Your shoulders are back up round your ears.’

  ‘Lucky Dave,’ said Erica, watching Rina laying a white crusty towel along the bed, and unrolling a length of white paper on top. ‘His shoulders must be round his ankles.’

  ‘Yeah, he gets all the extras the clients don’t. Got to keep him smiling! Just pull off that dress. Use paint remover, it’s tight enough.’

  ‘The miracle of Lycra.’ Erica pulled off her short white dress, and lay on the bed in her pants.

  ‘Going in for Wimbledon?’ Rina hung up the dress. Why had she worn that dress tonight? It reminded her of one Lucy used to wear.

  ‘Lavender I think. Just lie there and imagine you’re in the south of France.’

  ‘I wish.’ Erica could see Rina’s feet moving round the table. Lavender, redolent of Provence, baked earth, red tiled roofs, blue seas, rosemary growing wild, fields of lavender like warm seas… She went into a sensual trance as Rina’s strong fingers undid the knots she hadn’t known were there.

  ‘I hope my next boyfriend has hands like yours,’ Erica mumbled.

  ‘Maybe you’ll bump into some gorgeous bloke soon…’

  ‘Don’t like them needy, don’t like them up themselves, don’t like beerguts, don’t like smokers, don’t like thin lips, bad teeth, hairy backs, don’t like carnivores…’

  ‘Lips that touch liver shall never touch mine? You’re too fussy by half. No, three-quarters at least.’

  Erica’s hidden mouth smiled ironically. Rina knew little about her occasional flings.

  ‘It’s time you had a relationship, Erica.’

  ‘Wash your mouth out! I don’t do the R-word. Rather turn celibate.’

  ‘If god had intended us to be celibate, she wouldn’t have invented George Clooney.’

  ‘Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.’

  ‘What the fuck…?’

  ‘Just quoting William Blake.’

  She stirred slightly beneath Rina’s hands. ‘Lucy – my best friend Lucy Seaton – and I used to love him. That girl in the alley last night? The woman who found her turned out to be Lucy’s aunt.’ Erica gave Rina a muffled run-down of her hospital visit, and how she and Lucy’d worked for Mickey at Stony Point.

  ‘Mickey Spence? Who started you off on that skull- collecting jag? Sounds a right weirdo. I wouldn’t fancy any daughter of mine working for him from what you’ve told me.’

  ‘He’s a bit eccentric, but a total sweetheart. Anyway, I’ve not seen or heard from Lucy in five years, not been near Mickey either, she and I were – really close, and it all ended badly.’

  ‘You’ve tensed up again.’ Rina’s oily, warm fingers homed in on the place between Erica’s shoulder blades. ‘You’ve never mentioned Lucy before. So what was so special about her?’

  ‘I met her when I was going through some really bad shit. If you think I’m fat-obsessed now … well, seven years ago, I was practically anorexic.’

  ‘You told me you were a fat kid once.’

  ‘I wasn’t morbidly obese, but fat enough to get bullied at school. Once I started losing weight, I just kept on losing. Weird thing, anorexia. You want to be thin, but you hide it. I guess on one level I wanted my mum to notice. She didn’t. Too taken up with her new husband. I couldn’t face the school holidays hanging around the house, so I got a summer job living in at Mickey’s. Lucy was there. She was brilliant, pretty, confident … she blew me away.’

  ‘Sounds almost like you were in love with her.’

  ‘Maybe I was.’ Those cheesy poems they’d written to each other! The scent of Lucy’s hair, the sun-warmed skin of her arms, as they lay on the grass …

  ‘Lucy made me see that being all skin and bone made me weak, just as being fat did, in a way. She said we had to be strong, to be in control of our lives. Just when I needed validation, she was there. And all the fresh air made me hungry, and well, I stopped starving myself. Still had issues, but I started kind of earning food through exercise, keeping myself strong and fit.’

  Just like now.

  Later, Erica and Rina had shared an Indian takeaway and most of two bottles of wine. Erica had eaten about half a portion of vegetable korma, and a scoop of aubergine bhajia. Rina had scoffed a lamb pasanda with naan bread and the rest of the aubergine and rice. They ate strawberries with the wine, Erica every now and then listing in her mind all the exercise she’d done that day and all that she would do tomorrow to justify her indulgence in having that poppadom. She lay back on Rina’s squashy couch watching the bubbles bursting in her glass. Her fingers smelled of strawberries, where she’d pinched the starry stalks from the sweet fruits, still with their ring of white petals round them.

  ‘If there’s anything better than sex, it has to be strawberries.’ Rina put a large one in her generous mouth.

  ‘If I’m not careful, alcohol will be the only vice I have left.’

  ‘You mustn’t lose it then. About Lucy. What went wrong?’

  ‘Oh, her mother thought I was a bad influence, and I couldn’t forgive Lucy for letting her split us up … and worse, giving up her dream to act, in favour of following her mother into medicine. I got this horrible snotty phonecall from Liz, saying Lucy didn’t want to see me any more, and I’d upset her by telling her she should be an actress instead of a doctor, and I should stop interfering. I just sat there shaking, with this horrible empty feeling, listening to her cold voice, sure Lucy was in the background, letting her mother do this to me, to us. ‘We feel it’s better you don’t try to see or contact Lucy again. You need professional help with your psychological problems, and Lucy needs to concentrate on her studies.’ I suppose I tended to idolise Lucy. So it was hard to take when she turned out less than perfect. That she meant so much to me, but I must have meant so little to her. How could I have been so wrong? Oh, it’s all in the past. After all, I had loads of mates at uni, and most of them I’ve lost touch with now.’

  ‘Yeah, it
’s amazing how the wildest party animals turn into accountants as soon as they’ve handed back their hired gowns on congregation day.’

  Rina looked across at Erica. ‘You’ve never mentioned any of this before, just about the skull-hunting and holiday jobs and so on.’

  ‘I know. I just shut it all off. Seeing Liz brought it all back.’

  ‘Can I say something Erica?’

  ‘Can I stop you? Ever?’

  ‘Nah. Seriously though, you’ve been resentful all this time about Lucy letting you down. But didn’t you get a lot more from her than you lost? Now if you let yourself think about it, you could say Lucy saved your life?’

  ‘Well in a way …’

  ‘Anorexia, untreated, people die of it. She helped you when you most needed it. Made you what you are now really. And she was just a kid herself.’

  ‘Yeah, I did idolise her you know.’

  ‘And what did she do that was so wrong? Decided to do medicine, maybe to please her mum, maybe because she wanted to. She might’ve been keeping her options open. I mean loads of actors and media stars used to be medics. You did maths, then became a homeopath. That phonecall from her mum, for all you know, Lucy knew nothing about it. Her mum could’ve told her you made the call saying you didn’t want to see her. Or Lucy couldn’t face you being all judgmental about her decision. You didn’t ask Lucy did you? Just vanished from her life.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Rina, you make me sound a right bitch! Thanks a lot, with friends like you …’

  ‘No, daft lass, I’m just asking you to get some perspective on it. You were young, you overreacted, that whole feet-of- clay scenario. Lucy’s obviously doing fine, you’re doing fine, have some Cointreau and give yourself a break.’

  Erica reached for the bottle. ‘Thank god alcohol has no calories.’ Another article of faith. ‘You’re right, goddam you. I was so fucked up then …’

  ‘Yeah, makes you seem almost normal now.’

  ‘I’ve been so determined not to think of it. In fact, I let Lucy down, not the other way round. I repaid her by ditching her just cause her controlling cow of a mother told me to. Fuck, how could I have been so …’