The Day She Died: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  I dropped the torn bin bag into the wheelie. I’d tied the stuff back up again in a new one and hoped he’d not have memorised the knot he’d used the first time. Then I hurried inside. The phone was ringing.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Gus,” he said. He sounded hoarse and far away.

  “Hiya,” I said.

  “Becky?” I couldn’t cope with what it might mean if he was asking what he seemed to be. So I pretended not to understand.

  “What about her? Gus, are you okay?”

  “It said in the online Standard her funeral was today. What the hell’s going on there?”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking me. What do you mean it said in the Standard? Who picked the day?”

  “What’s happening?” said Gus. “Is Becky dead, or isn’t she? Who are you?”

  “What’s this?” I said, “the start of an insanity defence? Where the hell are you anyway?”

  “I’m closer than you think, and I’m coming home,” he said. “It’s way overdue.”

  “Was that Daddy?” said Ruby. I was staring at my reflection in the mirror, thinking about Granny laughing with the feather stuck to her lips, Granny twisted on the floor with her eyes clouding.

  “It was,” I told Ruby. I looked down at both of them, hair stiff with mud, dried mud cracking off their anoraks, cheeks daubed like war paint. “What are you like?” I said. “Well, here’s the good news. You’re not going in the bath. We’re going on a trip. We’re going to visit … can you guess?”

  “Mummy?” said Dillon.

  I kicked myself. “Kazek!” I said. “Yeay!”

  “Yeay,” said Ruby. “Mr. Wet Guy. Dzieki, Jessie.”

  “Deekeeeee,” said Dillon.

  I was reeling, but I still managed to notice that there were two proper baby seats in the van. And that’s when the anger arrived at last to take over from all the fear. He’d done nothing but lie to me since the minute I met him. What was the point of that one that day? To keep me at home with the kids while he … what? Was that the day he went to the morgue or was that the day he went to the cops? Becky wasn’t pregnant and she probably wasn’t gay either, and Gus had a piece of Wojtek’s bangle in his pocket, a guy who ended up dead in a river. And Gus had river water all over his clothes. And—this filled me with such boiling rage I thought I’d have to pull over, like I wasn’t safe to drive—nobody talks back to voice-mail messages. Nobody!

  This time I got a parking space no bother, middle of the day, middle of the week, and I hustled the kids up the stairs into the flat.

  “Mr. Wet Guy,” said Ruby. “Czesc!”

  “Czesc mala,” said Kazek. He turned to Dillon. “Czesc maly. Co dzis porabiasz?”

  “Eh?” said Ruby. “Is this your house? I thought you lived at the beach.” She started wandering round looking the place over.

  “This is my house, Roobs,” I told her and was surprised to see her turn on her heel and shoot me a look of anguish.

  “You live with us!” she said. “Daddy and Dillon and me.”

  “This is my old house,” I told her. “Kazek lives here now that I live with you, sweetie.”

  This satisfied her and she went back to her poking around. Dillon had found the remote and switched the telly on. Some programme about houses in the country. He held the handset up to me, the mud cracking off his cheeks as he stretched his pleading smile as wide as it would go.

  “Cartoons, Jessie.” I got my Shrek DVD out and put it on for them.

  “I’ll bring you some crisps,” I told them, but Kazek pulled me out into the hall.

  “Why babies here? Gary! Dangerous!”

  “Gary doesn’t know I live here.”

  “Gary find out.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Well, okay, at least Gus doesn’t know I live here. Look, Kazek.” I pulled the broken bracelet out of my pocket and put it in his hand. He groaned—such pain—and two tears fell onto the little curl of orange rubber in his palm.

  “Wojtek,” he said. “Where find?”

  “Gus,” I told him. “I think … I don’t know what to think, but we have got to go to the police. We have to.”

  “No, Jessie-Pleasie,” he said. “Gary zna tego policjanta I sa dobrymi kumplami. Nic nie rozumiesz! You no understand.”

  “No kidding!” I said. “Okay, well, what about this? What about a priest? A Father? I need to tell someone. What do you think of that then?”

  Kazek blew his cheeks out and wrinkled his brow. Then he nodded. “Okay. Holy Father? Okay.”

  I dialled the number praying that it would be Father Tommy and not Sister Avril who answered.

  “Good morning,” said his voice. Was it really still morning?

  “It’s Jessie,”

  “Jessie, my child,” he said. “How are things down on the catwalk?”

  “I’m not at work, Father,” I said. “I’m at home and I’m in trouble. I need you to come. I—” I was ready to plead and cajole, but I’d forgotten who I was talking to. He might not wear a cape or his pants outside his trousers, but Father Tommy was already in the chute to the Batmobile.

  “God keep you, my child,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

  It was less than ten minutes later when the pounding came on the door.

  “Jesus, Father, cool it,” I muttered, as I trotted along the corridor. He hammered on the door again, and I was on the point of taking the chain off when something stopped me.

  “Who is it?” I said.

  “Jessie, I know you’re in there.” Gus’s voice was ragged, like he’d been running. Or crying. I could hardly hear him through the door.

  “How?” I said. “How do you know this is my flat?”

  “Just let me in and I’ll explain.”

  My hand was on the chain when he thundered his fists against the panels again. Both fists, fast as anything, like in a cartoon when they go round and round and turn blurry. It sounded like insanity.

  Kazek came out of the living room, pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Is Gary!” he whispered. “Don’t open, Jessie-Pleasie. Is Gary. He kill me. No open door.”

  “It’s Gus,” I whispered back. “Gus?” I said in a normal voice. “Please tell me what’s going on. How did you find me?”

  “Why did you run away? Where are the kids?”

  “They’re here, of course,” I said. “Where else would they be? But Gus, you need to calm down if you want me to let you in. You’re scaring me and you’ll scare them too.” Ruby had sidled round the living room door with her eyes like saucers.

  “Is that Daddy?” she said.

  He heard her. “Ruby!” he shouted. “Daddy’s here, darling. Open the door.”

  Ruby sprang forward and when I held her back, she started to scream. Gus went back to pounding.

  “Let me in or I’ll call the cops, Jessie,” he said. “You’ve no right to take my kids away.”

  He had a point. And how was he supposed to explain anything through a door?

  “Just promise me you’ll stay calm,” I said. Kazek was shaking his head. He took Ruby and lifted her up into his arms, holding her tightly. I undid the chain and had my hand on the lock to turn it before Kazek understood what I was doing.

  “No, Jessie-Pleasie!” The pounding stopped. There was silence.

  “Gus?” I said. “Are you still there?”

  I heard a whisper and put my ear close to the door.

  “What did you say?”

  “Bitch.” He hissed it at me. “Who the fuck have you got in there?”

  I felt my face drain. “Gus, no,” I said. Even then, even then, I was looking for reasons not to believe what was happening.

  “Fucking filthy bitch.”

  He was upset after the funeral.

  “Fucking filthy whe
edling whining bitch.”

  I’d taken his kids.

  “Fucking moaning stinking filthy bitch.”

  He heard a man’s voice in my flat.

  “Gus, no,” I said again.

  There was an explanation for everything else. Somehow. And I’d listen to it too. If he just passed one test. There was a bag of clothes hidden in his workshop. Either it was innocent or it wasn’t. I had to know.

  “Gus,” I said. “I’ve got something to tell you. I brought the kids here because I don’t want them to see the cops at your place.”

  And here was my answer. His footsteps hammering on the concrete close, and ringing on the stairs as he ran away until there was silence apart from Shrek and Dillon eating crisps and Ruby still softly crying.

  I went to the bathroom and got cool cloths for the children’s faces to wipe away the muck and the tears in one go. I was numb. Hands cold, lips blue, but still my head was fizzing. How did he know where I lived? A week ago he hadn’t known a thing about me. He hadn’t even known my name. And then with a click, another piece of it fell into place. He had known my name. He thought it was Jess. And at long last I knew why.

  I was coming back from the bathroom when I heard the sound of new footsteps on the stairs. Soft as it was, Kazek heard it too. And Ruby. He had put her down but he kept his arms around her.

  “Daddy?” she said.

  But I’d know those crepe soles anywhere.

  “Father?” I asked, loud enough for him to hear me through the door. “Before I open up, is there anyone hanging around? Did you see anyone out on the street?”

  “Oh, Jessie,” he said. “What manner of mess are you in now? No, there’s no one.”

  I opened the door and he took in the tableau. Kazek crouching on the floor, Ruby red-faced and sniffing, me white with shock and still shaky. It was Kazek he came back to.

  “Kazimierz Czarnecki,” he said. “We’ve all been looking for you.”

  Twenty-One

  “Are you a … what’s it called?” asked Ruby, looking at his purple surplice and dog collar. “A Santa?”

  “Close enough for rough work,” said Father Tommy. “And who’s this fine fellow?”

  “Dillon King,” said Dill, who had come to the living room door.

  “So what’s been going on here?” Tommy said. I gave one of the cloths to Kazek for Ruby and put the other one over Dillon’s hot wee face myself.

  “Mum,” he said, miserably. Father Tommy raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “How do you know Kazek?”

  “It’s another one,” said Father Tommy. “And I don’t actually know him. But I’m very pleased to meet him.” He spoke like a headmaster confiscating a catapult. His next words explained why. “Since some of that money you absconded with was mine, my son. Or St. Vincent’s anyway.”

  “Prosze ksiedza … ” said Kazek.

  “Nie tak oficjalnie,” said Father Tommy.

  “You speak Polish?” I asked him. He was as Irish as a peat bog.

  “I was a great fan of his late beloved Holiness,” he said. “I learned a bit in case I ever met him. And no, I never did. Not in this life anyway, plenty time later.”

  “Well, thank God for it,” I said. “I’m in serious need of someone who can talk to Kazek and tell me what the—what’s going on.”

  “I would dearly love to know what the—what’s going on myself, Jessie,” said Father Tommy. “But these children are out on their feet. Let’s get them settled and then we can talk, eh?”

  Which is how it came to pass that Ruby and Dill got the couch and Father Tommy, Kazek, and me sat in a row on my bed like the first line of a dirty joke.

  “Absconded from where?” I said.

  “JM Barrie House,” said Father Tommy.

  “That’s it!” I said. “That’s why he kept saying jamboree.”

  “Nie ukradlem zadnych pieniedzy,” said Kazek. “Nie jestem zlodziejem.”

  “Well you might not think taking fifty thousand pounds makes you a thief, but we’ll have to agree to differ.”

  “He’s right,” I said. “He’s not a thief. Show him, Kazek.”

  Kazek stretched over to my nightstand and took out the Morry’s bag. He untied the handles, just as he had before, and shook out the two blocks of notes.

  “Well now,” said Father Tommy. “That’s excellent news. That makes things a sight more easy.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I said. “The other one—Wojtek, Kazek’s friend?—it’s him they fished out of the Nith with his throat cut.” Father Tommy crossed himself and asked Kazek a question. Kazek nodded and wiped a tear away.

  “And we know who killed him,” I said. “Or at least, I thought we did, until, maybe it was … Okay listen, Father.” I stood and went to my dressing table, got the camera that I’d left there.

  “What do you know about this guy?”

  “Gary Boyes,” said Father Tommy. “Hey! Is that the Project?”

  “He’s a gangster,” I said. “He might have killed Wojtek. Or had him killed anyway. Oh! That’s it. Gary ordered it and Gus did it?”

  “What are you talking about, Jessie?” said Father Tommy. “Gary Boyes isn’t a gangster. He couldn’t order a killing.”

  “Father, he is.”

  “He’s a gang master,” said Father Tommy. “He’s in charge of the boys—including this one—who’re doing the roof.”

  I knew my mouth had dropped open. “A gang master,” I said. “Not a master gangster. Bloody Dot!”

  “Oh, Dot!” said Father Tommy. “I know about Monsignature Whelan, by the way.”

  Kazek spoke again then, and Father Tommy sobered and nodded.

  “Quite right, child,” he said. “It’s no time for laughter.” But Kazek wasn’t done. He opened his jacket and took out Wojtek’s rosary and Bible, the broken bracelet too. I caught Ros’s name in the stream and watched Father Tommy’s face grow more and more solemn.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said, when Kazek finally stopped talking and flopped back to lie flat on the bed.

  “What?” I asked him. “Tell me before I burst.”

  “The steering committee were told Gary Boyes was a licensed gang master. Kazek here tells me he took their passports, paid them nothing, made them sleep on the site. So they ran away.” He turned to Kazek. “Why did you take the money?” he said. Kazek answered without opening his eyes and Tommy laughed.

  “It certainly got their attention all right,” he said. He fanned the notes out from around their band. “And you haven’t spent a penny of it, eh? A good Catholic boy. The blessings of the church in your early years, Jessie, never depart from you.”

  “Yes, okay, okay,” I said. “A teachable moment, I know. But then what happened?”

  “They had a lawyer—this Ros?—who was going to fight their case,” Father Tommy said. “But she’s gone, he tells me. So they drew straws to see who would go and confront Boyes. Wojtek lost the draw and arranged to meet him.”

  “At Abington services,” I said. “Of course he did. And instead of giving him the passports back in return for the money, Boyes lured him away and killed him.”

  “Poor child, poor child. Another good Catholic boy too. And the lawyer? Where’s she? In the Nith, are we thinking?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “And here’s another thing. Why didn’t Kazek let me call the police? Ask him that.”

  “I don’t have to,” said Father Tommy. “Oh, it’s a wicked world. You know Sergeant McDowall? His wife’s name was Boyes before they were married. I married them myself. He’s Gary Boyes’s brother-in-law. Best man at the wedding.”

  “Well, he’s as bent as a boomerang,” I told him. “He told Boyes I knew something and that’s when Boyes came to the shop.” I pushed my sleeve back and showed him the
bruises, yellow but unmistakable. “No way past a bent copper. Close ranks, bury the bodies, business as usual. If Kazek spends a night in the cells, he’ll be lucky to see morning.”

  But I had underestimated the surpliced avenger. Father Tommy’s eyes flared, his nostrils flared. I think maybe even his moustache flared.

  “Jessie,” he said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past decade of pure hell and damnation, it’s this. Bugger the ranks, bugger the organisation. I don’t care who it is—the police force, the Church that I love like my mother, the Boy Scouts—bugger them. It’s not worth one hair on the head of the most miserable sinner born to save a police force or a church that’s gone bad.”

  “You’ll go with him to the cops?”

  “And stay by his side.”

  “Well, thank God for you,” I said. “Only, Father? A Catholic priest shouting ‘bugger the Boy Scouts’ is going to get some funny looks, you know.”

  “I forgive you for that, my child,” he said. “I’m in a forgiving mood today.” I flopped back, flopped right back just like Kazek, and stared up at the ceiling. Father Tommy turned and skewered me with one of his looks. “And how did you get yourself mixed up in all of this?” he said.

  “‘All of this’ is actually only half the story,” I said. “Their dad,” I nodded through towards the children, “is married to the best friend of Ros the lawyer. Only she killed herself last Tuesday. And Gus had Wojtek’s bracelet. I still don’t see how that could be.”

  “But how do you come to know them all, Jessie?” said Father Tommy. “How is it that those children are here? In the state they’re in? If it’s you who joins the two halves together, you must know.”

  “I thought it was pure chance, Father. Until I worked it out today.” I sat up, leapt to my feet. “Can I go out for a bit? I’ll take the children, if you want me to. You can’t drag them round where you’re going.”

  “Ah, I think we can all spend a quiet hour right here, until your return,” he said. “I can practice my Polish with this fine young man, and it’s been a while since I saw Shrek. I’ll sit on the couch and eat a bag of crisps very happily. On you go, child, on you go.”