by Morag Joss
Sara nodded. She could just, just imagine not minding too much for a couple of years . . .
‘The way Adele is now, that’s taken over fifteen years. It took forever to get her diagnosed. Autism’s so much rarer in girls, for one thing. She was at a residential school until six years ago. They worked wonders with her. Things that aren’t a struggle with a normal child take years. Helping her over her irrational fears, tolerating noises, being touched, teaching her basic things like washing and dressing, never mind making coffee and so on. She can do all those, you know,’ she added proudly.
‘I’ve seen. Sometimes she seems utterly focused on one thing, sometimes she seems to be thinking of nothing at all.’
‘Oh yes, she sort of tunes out sometimes. It’s as if she can’t take too much of the world all at once. She never really knows what people will do next because she can’t imagine anyone else’s thoughts or feelings. She doesn’t understand people’s reasons for things, and that can be frightening. When too much is coming at her, she’ll either tune out or do something comforting, rocking herself or looking at something, or drawing. That’s hard for other people to understand, but it’s better than hysterics.’
‘I saw the drawing she was doing on Tuesday. Is it one of those talents that autistic people have? Like doing maths automatically, or something?’
‘Yes,’ Helene said in a tired voice. ‘Yes, just a thing she could do. She can draw a symmetrical pattern instantly. I don’t know how. It’s as if she sees everything from the middle. Mirror-imaging, in a way. She loves the way patterns do that. But don’t say what a marvellous gift, please.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
Helene smiled slightly apologetically. ‘No, you probably wouldn’t. But it’s amazing how often people do. They sometimes think an ability like that must make up for it all. They’re wrong.’
Sara nodded. Years ago, there had been a family in the same street in St John’s Wood where she and Matteo had had their flat before moving to Bath. Her nearest neighbour had told her that the son was autistic. Sara had not really known them except to nod to and could not now remember their surname, only that the distant-looking little boy had been called Theo. Once she saw him having a tantrum in the street, writhing and screaming in his mother’s one-handed grasp while she tried to keep the other on the handle of the buggy holding the younger child, a girl of about two. With one arm Theo was flailing at his mother while with the other he was clutching his ominously stained crotch. Sara, passing by in the car in a solid line of traffic, had genuinely been in no position to help. But what help, even supposing the mother did not resent the offer, would be appropriate? All Sara could see was the overwhelming difficulty of the poor, tired-looking woman. Theo, according to the neighbour, was a real whizz at train times, having memorised apparently without effort the entire Southern Region network. Well, how truly remarkable that was. But Sara had thought then that if she were in the mother’s position, she would gladly trade a little ordinary intellectual dullness for the luxury of being able to assume that her child was not going to wet himself in the street at the age of nine.
Helene smiled and nodded. ‘It doesn’t make up for it at all. She can draw any symmetrical pattern from memory, that’s all. It’s a bit the same with music, she can remember anything she’s heard. She’s what’s known as autistic savant. But there’s not always a lot she can do with her gifts, because of her other problems.’ She sighed. ‘I’m fifty-five and I have a grown-up daughter as dependent as a child. That thought depresses me sometimes. I’ll get old, won’t I? Sometimes, when you think of the future, you can feel quite desperate, quite unmotherly. Oh, look, but not for long,’ she chuckled, looking up and nodding at the mantelpiece. ‘Isn’t she funny? You’ve got to keep your sense of humour.’ The hands of the carriage clock stood at six o’clock. ‘She’s always doing it. Doesn’t like the hands actually telling the time, it’s too untidy, too uneven. She goes round and puts all the clocks in the house at six o’clock or midnight. I’ve had to get a digital clock for the kitchen, otherwise I’d never know what time it was. You have to laugh, sometimes.’
Sara would have sat on and listened, sensing that Helene wanted to tell her more. She was even a little flattered to be shown this more private, honest, but no less warm side of Helene. But traffic wardens were afoot.
In the car she rang Andrew. ‘I wondered if you’d be at home. I’m in town and I thought I’d come and see you if that’s all right. I think I owe you an apology, really. And I would bring some of last night’s community opera highlights to amuse you, only I can’t find the music. I’ve mislaid some of Herve’s too; it’s somewhere at Helene’s.’
‘Thank God,’ Andrew said happily, ‘twice over. That you’re coming to see me, and without the bloody music. Can you just get here? Right now? Valerie’s out, but she’s arranged for Poppy of all people to come round later. She’s coming to give me relief. Only with her hands, of course.’
‘What?’
‘Yep, it’s true. Full relief.’ For a moment Andrew could not go on for laughing.
‘What?’
‘Acupuncture, my suspicious friend. Acupuncture. Poppy does acupuncture, for pain relief in my case. It was her own idea. She mentioned it to Valerie and Valerie took her up and arranged it for today. I’ll try anything that might work. I’ve got to get back to that enquiry. So come now, before Poppy comes to relieve me.’
She found Andrew not nearly as better as he had sounded. He seemed a little smaller and paler, lying stretched on the sofa. Perhaps it was because of the back pain, but Sara fancied it was also because he was just in the wrong place. There was nothing actually wrong with the room or with the house. It was a roomy, pre-war, semi-detached example of Bath prosperity, and decorated Valerie-style in the kind of commercial good taste that can be bought off the peg by anyone with enough nous to find their way into a John Lewis and a Habitat. It was all so acceptable, and, like many reasonable and sensible choices, it was also pretty dull. There was just one little touch that spoke of Andrew and not of a compromise that satisfied Valerie’s desire to have things neat and nice and the same as other people: on one wall hung a set of four sepia ink drawings of a nineteenth-century string quartet, on badly foxed paper, of erratic quality and with the beading on the ebonised frames broken in places. He had got them cheap, he said, because of their condition and because the artist was unknown. But Sara could see, as he had, that whoever had sketched them had captured here and there the glancing and swaying of people feeling the almost sexual energy of playing together as one. The drawings were the only thing in the room that anyone could feel strongly about. Overall, the house didn’t seem his and didn’t suit him, but there was no point in going into all that. There were bigger things to say apart from carping about paint colours, although Sara was not quite sure how to put them.
She tried to explain. ‘I’m having a day off and I’ve been thinking. I feel stuck. I’m stuck in the wrong place with the wrong people, Andrew, and so are you. The damn opera group and bloody Herve, the whole thing. It feels like I’m working against my own nature all the time. I don’t want to play contemporary music—not this contemporary music—and I just keep pretending. You’re stuck, too, stuck in that enquiry that refuses to go anywhere, and stuck here. And it brings out the worst in us. I mean, why aren’t we allowed to say what we want? It seems to me that other people do just that, all the time. And we just fall in with it. We shouldn’t. We should have what we want.’
‘Be selfish, you mean,’ Andrew said. Sara was kneeling by him now and he gently stroked her indignant, earnest face. Her hair was full of such amazing colours, rich sparkling coppery strands among the shiny darker ones. There was the occasional white one as well. Thirty-eight now. She claimed she’d always been too busy to think of having babies. She said it had never been an issue all the time she was with Matteo, and now Matteo had been dead for over two years. So what about Sara’s babies? Something in Andrew almost physically crumpl
ed at the thought of her never having any. Almost immediately, it crumpled again at the thought that she might go off and have them with someone else who didn’t already have three of his own. Three who needed him. So how was that for being selfish?
‘Other people are. Why shouldn’t we be?’ Sara said.
‘I suppose because other people somewhere will always, always be hurt if we are,’ Andrew said hopelessly, thinking of Natalie, Benji and Dan and picturing, for some reason, not them but their silly pyjamas with cartoons and daft writing on them. How could he leave them? But how could he not be with Sara?
The doorbell rang. Sara started to move away from him to a safe public distance, but he detained her for a moment. ‘Poppy. She’s early. Stay. This won’t take long, and there’s more to talk about. Right now’—he heaved himself into a sitting position—‘we have to put up with being stuck a little longer. Literally, in my case.’
As Sara made for the door to let Poppy in, Andrew suddenly said, ‘Oh, listen, Sara, I’ve just thought of something. A police officer having acupuncture? A stuck pig. I think that’s rather good.’ He felt like weeping, but he loved it when she laughed.
Poppy laughed too, before embarking on a laborious explanation of the efficacy of acupuncture and taking notes on the location and severity of Andrew’s pain. She declared the sitting room an unsuitable place for Andrew to lie for the treatment, but the dining room would be fine. And although it was a little unorthodox, she did not mind Sara being present (since Sara explained that she had always been fascinated by acupuncture) as long as she said nothing and did not draw in her breath sharply at the sight of the needles going in. She bustled into the dining room to set up her folding table and unpack her bag, and a few minutes later bustled back in to check that Andrew’s clothes were loose enough to give access to the relevant points on his body. Between them they helped Andrew to ‘pop’ himself up onto the table. Poppy was suddenly immensely likeable, Sara thought, like a nurse who knows what she is doing and was proud and happy in her skill.
Lucky Poppy. Sara had to curl silently into a chair in one corner and keep her hands to herself while Poppy was allowed to hover close, so close to Andrew that Sara wondered how on earth she resisted the temptation to climb up on the table beside him. She was almost jealous, but at the same time Andrew’s pain was making him so unhappily fragile that she longed to see his strength return, even if it had to be under the healing hands of someone else.
An hour later Poppy tidied away her travelling acupuncture kit in a daze of happiness. Her patient was lying back now on the sofa, his eyes closed and on his face was the peaceful, exhausted expression of one hauled in from a boiling sea of pain and landed safely on a dry shore. But she could move gently around the room without having to quell inwardly the jubilation she felt. Her power warmed her as it impressed others. Sara was looking at her now with a look of intrigued admiration. Hail, Poppy, Deliverer from Pain. But she would be gracious in her majesty, bashful but delighted to be of use.
‘Oh, well, they say you’ve either got the touch for it or you haven’t. I’m just lucky. My tutor says I’ve got very good hands,’ she whispered happily to Sara. ‘Of course, he’ll need more than just one session. But he’ll sleep for hours now. I must get off. I’ve got things to do at the library and I’m on duty tonight.’ She gathered her things and gave a comfortable parting smile, like a little mother’s, in the direction of the oblivious Andrew.
Sara followed her to the hall. ‘You do work hard, Poppy. All the things you do. You should have a day off now and then.’
‘Oh, I like to keep busy. Bye!’
Andrew opened his eyes when Sara returned.
‘I’ve no intention of sleeping for hours, with you here,’ he began, as his eyelids drooped heavily. ‘Come here.’
Sara came and sat at the far end of the sofa. ‘Oh, yes, you will. You look exhausted.’
Andrew reached out and took her hand, pulling her towards him. ‘Come here.’ Sara allowed herself to be drawn closer. His fingers gently traced a line across her face and came to rest on her ear. He pulled off her jet and silver earring and his fingers returned to the naked lobe and squeezed it gently, sending warm shivers all through her. ‘You’re all velvety there,’ he murmured.
Sara raised her head slightly from his chest. ‘Andrew, you remember Dorothy Price?’
‘Shh. Shh. Don’t want to talk about Dorothy Price. Want to talk about you. Want to stroke your earlobe.’
‘Dorothy Price was at Imogen Bevan’s flat. She had the floorboards up, she said she was looking for an earring. Andrew, I don’t think she was.’
‘She should . . .’ Andrew’s voice was drifting. He yawned. ‘She should report it to the Missing Earrings Bureau.’
‘Andrew, I’m serious. There was something odd about her. Suppose it’s something to do with the case? Shouldn’t you ask her?’
Andrew smiled. His eyes closed again. ‘Ask her what? All right, I’ll look at it again. Sara?’
‘Hmmm?’ She rested her head lightly on his chest once more. He lifted a thick strand of her hair and brought it to his lips, kissing it, loving its scent. They lay quite still. After a few moments Sara could feel, from the regular rising and falling of his chest beneath her cheek, that Andrew was, indeed, asleep.
CHAPTER 18
THE NEXT DAY Adele put on her red T-shirt and struggled into the white jeans that she always wore with it. She went down to the kitchen, not for breakfast because she really did not want any, but to pick up her lunch SANDWICH BANANA BISCUITS in the Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox PERCY AND THE FAT CONTROLLER and to fetch her keys from the tin on the dresser. Adele’s own keys. Adele had a key for her own front door (KEY LABELLED NUMBER ONE) and a key for the side door into the workshop passage (KEY LABELLED NUMBER TWO) and a key for the workshop door at the end of the passage (KEY LABELLED NUMBER THREE). They were her own keys. When she had first been given them, her very own keys, she had carried them around with her for days, jangling them on the key chain. Then she had busily sought out three more key chains and linked them all together so that she had a really good long jangling key chain that caught the light and that she could clank around with, until her mother had stopped her. DON’T JANGLE THE KEYS, ADELE. New Rule: ONE KEY CHAIN ONLY, AND KEYS TO BE KEPT IN THE TIN ON THE DRESSER WHEN NOT IN USE. That was two. Two new rules, not one. Did they think she was stupid?
The keys were there. So was Helene, sitting in her bracelets and dressing-gown, looking that spongy way she did in the mornings and not talking so much. But she was doing her ‘No breakfast again? Got your keys? Goodbye, darling!’ And she was lifting one hand from the rim of her coffee mug but Adele had already turned and gone, so that her tinkling finger wave was given more to the swinging door than Adele’s purposeful, departing back.
Turn left. Rule: DO NOT WALK IN THE CRACKS. Adele has keys and goes to work. Rule: GO STRAIGHT TO JIM’S. Sixty-eight steps to Jim’s railings, through the gate down the basement steps. Jim’s out today. Unlock (KEY LABELLED NUMBER TWO), open the door, go in, close the door. Down the passage. The door at the end, always locked, precious things inside. Use KEY LABELLED NUMBER THREE, ADELE. Jim’s workshop. Jim leaves Adele’s work out on the table. Sparkly crystals. Adele will fix the crystals. Apron. Rags for cleaning with. Jim leaves cigarettes and matches out on the table. Rule: DO NOT PLAY WITH MATCHES, ADELE. Big bottle of washing-up liquid. Funny slippery stuff. Rule: THIS IS NOT FOR DRINKING, ADELE. It is for cleaning the crystals. MAKE YOURSELF SOME COFFEE, ADELE. Adele’s coffee. Wash mug, dry mug, put in coffee, dry milk. Adele white no sugar. HELP YOURSELF TO A CIGARETTE, ADELE. Fill kettle. In a minute. First get cigarette. Light cigarette, first put in mouth, get match out, strike.
CHAPTER 19
OH, FAB. FUCKING fabulous. Another? Is that what you’re telling me? What is this: Bath, the World Heritage City, renowned for its exploding basements? Is that it? Oh, yes, yes of course. Yes, all right, right away.’
Detective Serg
eant Bridger replaced the receiver and tried to stir in himself some sense of urgency. Of late he had found it more and more difficult to do, and it had been a while since he had actually bothered to do his impersonation of a committed detective for anyone other than his superiors. The call from DC Heaton was not worth that effort; he would save it for DCI Poole. But he would have to get over to the Circus where, he had just learned from Heaton, it appeared that there had been another explosion. Animal righters again?
It took Bridger less than an hour at the scene to establish, to his relief, that there was no connection between the two unfortunate cases. What had happened here was an accident. After the fire had been dealt with, the gas people had shown up and made a preliminary inspection. The only gas appliance in the room, the cooker, was an old model, about twenty years old. The explosion and fire had been caused by a build-up of gas in an unventilated room, ignited by a flame, possibly an electrical spark, possibly a match. It appeared that the gas had been left on by mistake. The householder was not registered as a service customer, they were able to verify. They had shut off the supply and no gas was present now. The fire crew confirmed that the premises appeared to be structurally safe, although a proper survey would be necessary. An elderly couple on the scene, residents of the Circus, had given them the name of the girl they had seen going into the building, but the next of kin would have to identify her formally. The police surgeon had been at it, coming up with theories as to the cause of death instead of just certifying her dead and leaving the pathologist, whose job it was, to answer the question of how. They all did it, couldn’t help themselves, but in this case the guy was actually right. The girl goes in, shuts the door and goes to light a cigarette or switch on the kettle. Combination of blast injuries and inhalation of fire gases kills her. Looks like someone left the cooker on. Incredible she didn’t smell it, but then people do do such silly things. Tragic.
