He meant, even if your father exists, and is not a phantom of your own making.
‘Yes,’ she said, like someone shaking herself awake. ‘Yes, but I would like to bury my husband first. I can’t make a will until Thomas is buried. And I wish Saul would come.’
Saul, Saul, always Saul, who knew about paintings and might have much to gain. Raymond felt an unreasonable flash of jealousy. Saul, the Dealer, the Interface, a man with whom Thomas had hatched contingency plans before he died, not shared with his lawyer who ran errands.
‘I expect he’ll arrive,’ Raymond said, brusquely. ‘I’d better go, Di. Just keep a low profile, will you? They may send their own envoy. I’m liaison, but if they try a direct approach, let me know. They’ll certainly try the back door as well as the front. They have access to the London flat, they always have. We need an inventory there, too. Are you planning to check it out, or do you want me to do that?’
‘No, I’ll go, I need to. Safe journey. I’d let you out through the front door, only it’s stuck.’
Mice and rats in the basement, Raymond remembered on the train. Something rattling around among all the boxes; things covered with canvas, no smell of damp, never mind. His stomach was full and his mind was empty. Di would win, and they would have a good fight, if only she played fair and looked demure. If only there was not another lover and she didn’t blow it all sky-high. If she didn’t fill the house with undesirables; if she hadn’t killed him. En route home, he remembered with guilt the haste of his departure, his willingness to believe that she would be fine, wondered quite how lonely she must be, how tough she seemed and how soft she might be. He had failed to remark on the boarded-up window, awaiting repair, failed to embrace her and wish her well and entirely forgotten the inventory. What kind of man was this father? Why wasn’t she more afraid?
Maybe she was not afraid, because as Thomas had said, she has no malice in her, she doesn’t understand it. I don’t know why, but that’s her blind spot.
Diana Porteous was certainly afraid; temporarily fearless, because the worst had happened and Thomas had been taken away from his house. One thing she had learned long since: that the person who looked afraid was always the first target. Man kicked the animal who cowered. Her father taught her that. She counted her fears and put them in order.
Fear of locked doors and confined spaces … and alongside that, for the moment, the great fear that she would not be capable of fulfilling the enormous trust that had been placed in her. That she would not Honour Him. That she would not be able to show him how much she loved him.
After Raymond had gone, Di went back downstairs to the cellar, turning the lights on as she went, not apologising to herself for lying about the fuse. There was more to the cellar than Raymond could ever have seen, deep alcoves at the back with raised floors, snug places like berths in a ship and between them, a door to a further room. The door was rusted shut and there was a chest of drawers in front of it, raised on blocks against the now dry floor. The chest held blankets. Di peered into the first alcove, finding some small traces of occupation, not recent. She left the chocolate and the bottles of water on top of the chest of drawers. To feed the mice, or the cat, of course. To feed anyone who needed shelter here. It was a place of last resort, always had been, always would be, whatever else was here.
She went back upstairs to the best room in the house. Turned on the computer automatically. They had written to one another, Thomas and she, even when they were in the same room. The day had turned dark and the interminable rain began again. There would have been more visitors after his death, surely, if it were not for the rain. No use to blame the rain, she blamed no one. She lit the fire, sat in Thomas’s chair and dreamed.
No one had come to see her, because no one trusted her and she trusted no one even though she was known in the town; she had gone about, to Monica in the hairdresser’s. Monica knew how her hair had thinned. Di tried to predict what Gayle, Beatrice and Edward would do.
How easy it would be to undermine her if they knew how.
Not late. Keep on writing.
Goodnight, Madame de Belleroche. When can I grieve?
Not yet.
There was a banging at the door.
Raymond Forrest was on the ugly station platform, waiting for the high-speed train, watching it slink into the station. Then he heard footsteps and saw a rumpled man running towards him.
‘Listen,’ the man was yelling. ‘Fucking listen, will you? Come back, they’re going to fucking arrest her. It’ll kill her. I saw the car from the pier, someone told me.’
‘What? Can’t hear you.’
The shabby man was shouting over the peep, peep, peep of the opening train doors, and he was pointing at the mobile phone he carried in one hand, as if it was the fountain of all wisdom and explained what he was saying. He was red and sweating. He clutched Raymond’s coat sleeve; Raymond brushed him off. The man’s hands dropped to his sides, defeated. The train breathed its desire to depart. Raymond stepped inside as the doors closed. A case of mistaken identity, surely.
Jones stood on the platform. Fucking lawyers, fucking bastards, hate the cunts. Then he ran out to the taxi office. Got back to Di’s house, just as they got going. Just in time. Fucking bastards.
He remembered a screaming child he had rescued from a cellar.
And Di, behind bars.
CHAPTER SIX
Jones had the picture in his mind from many years before.
A dirty girl, huddled in the corner of a cell, with her fingers stuck in her ears against the noise. The prevailing colour is dirty yellow. Nobody arrives.
He went round the back. The car was still there. He was shouting before he burst in, even though shouting made everything worse. His fucking police contact had given him the right information about the fucking search warrant, but the wrong time. They were supposed to come tomorrow with the warrant, give him time to warn her. Not like this, with him watching from the pier with his binoculars, seeing the lawyer walk away and thinking he’d go and tell her then, until he saw the police car nosing round, unsure of the address, and he knew what they were after, and then he’d run in the wrong direction, panting up to the station to fetch back the Brief who’d have the right words, wasting time. He hated fucking lawyers.
The back of the old schoolhouse was milling with police, all of them kids and none of them old enough to be mates of his. Someone should have had the sense to ask him first, like the older ones would have done. No one used to question anyone in this town without consulting Jones. Di was as white as a sheet, standing there, holding on to a chair and looking like shit. Two uniforms stood by the door, shuffling. It was true, then, what Jones had heard on his mobile phone. Diana Porteous was not only under suspicion, she was being taken in. Fuckit. That little claustrophobic beast was being put in the frame again.
Who, fucking who? Surely it wasn’t him, telling them that she had waited for two hours? No, no, it would have been that young one who was there, and the doctor they called and the fact that it was obvious he was cooling and the fact that she looked like shit, but who the fuck had put the sting on her now?
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Jones bellowed, full of his own forgotten authority.
‘Got a warrant to search for evidence. Information received of suspicious death in this house.’
‘What? You fucking joking, boy, what information? Not at liberty to say are you? The fuck you aren’t. So an old man died here last week, is all. You search every house where someone dies with their name already on God’s waiting list, you’ll be busy in this town, I tell you.’
A search warrant, not an arrest warrant. What does it cover? Kitchen equipment, foodstuffs … are you serious? Why? You’re going to take her away without a warrant for her arrest and leave these bastards to search the house without even knowing what the hell they’re looking for?
‘Mrs Porteous has agreed to assist us with our Enquiries. She’s agreed to go with us.’
‘Has
she?’
Di nodded. Jones looked at her, listening for the sound of a cell door closing; a sound they both knew, just as she knew what she was like, ten years ago, once inside that cell, twisting and screaming, bashing herself against walls until they put on the straightjacket and then she was utterly silent. The memory scorched him. She looked at him.
‘Was it you called them, Jones? Was it you?’
‘No, on my fucking life it wasn’t.’
She nodded. She was cold and polite and yet shimmering with sweat. Silence fell in the room.
‘You don’t have to go, Di, you’re not under arrest,’ Jones said. Not Yet.
‘I have to show willing,’ she said, with a grim little smile. She was distant and unreachable, pausing before asking. ‘Will you stay and watch? They want to check out anything I might have used for poison. They may as well find out what there is.’
She laughed, a horrible, frightened laugh. ‘Make sure they do it right.’
‘You don’t have to go.’
What did she mean, they may as well find it? Find what?
‘I do. It’s a test,’ she said. ‘A test.’
‘Talk to them, Di,’ he yelled after her. ‘Use your fucking voice. You ask the fucking questions.’
She went, quietly, tucked inside the car like an ugly toy.
‘Give me that,’ Jones said, snatching the search warrant out of the hands of a young policeman who was an open-mouthed rookie, not used to this nor a place like this and definitely in need of a leader. He read it quickly. Christ Almighty, it was a fuck-up; look at it, no one but a half wit would have issued a warrant as bad as this, in such a stupid hurry, it was crazy. It confined them to the kitchen and its environs, as if obsessed by food. Jones kept them there, pointing at the words on the printout; otherwise they would have been all over the house. No, you can’t go upstairs, nor down; it doesn’t cover that. No, you fucking can’t, stop that or there’ll be trouble and by a miracle, and because they were rudderless, they obeyed him. It was dark by the time they had gone, taking away selected pots, pans, the feeding equipment, all Thomas’s survival machinery, part of the scullery and fuck all else. Enough left for her to carry on. He learned that this sorry crew had only been pulled off an aborted job and sent on this to give them something to do, thank heaven for small fucking mercies.
Fuckit. Jones waited and phoned. He sat in the hallway by the redundant front door and waited, working it out. If someone really has it in for Di, they’ve given info and some fucker’s believed it. They weren’t supposed to come until morning, at least, but these idiots needed a job. Supposing someone was supposed to come along and plant some evidence they were supposed to find? Oh shut up Jones, fucking paranoid git.
And still, he waited. He sat in the hall and waited. Used his phone for updates, waited. His contacts had gone home. He thought of Di and Thomas, the way they were. She thought no one else knew, but he did. She looked after him good; he had to say that and if she killed him it was for pity, but why did she wait? And why, he asked himself, am I waiting in the pitch dark? Thomas’s kids, they hate her. (Christ, they even tried to hire me.) And Quig’s around, I can feel it, and supposing this lot got together? As if. You are one fucking paranoid git, Jones; you really fucking are. You’ve been dreaming of bloody Quig.
He waited. And then, suddenly in the silence of the house, there was a rustling from outside the front door and there, framed against the stained glass, a figure, trying to get in. A shadowy substance leaning, turning the handle, pushing. Jones could see him, forcing his way inside, trying to plant his evidence, his little bit of filth, a little bit of dirt. That would be the plan. A little suggestion that Di had not taken care, that was all it needed. Put a bit of filth in the kitchen, plant a few germs, a single turd. What would someone plant that would incriminate her? Condoms, deadly nightshade, anything would do. Anything to suggest negligence; anything to suggest she had a vested interest in hastening the death, even the presence of another man. What would he have planted? Salmonella or porn? Or maybe the man was calling to see Di herself. And if he were Quig, he’d bring a rat; that’s what he’d bring; he’d bring vermin, dead or alive.
Someone was trying to fiddle with the disused front door and it had to be someone with out of date information, because no one had used that door in years.
Jones flung himself against the door and put his mouth to the glass, so that his lips were pressed against it. ‘Give us a kiss, you bastard! Kissy, kissy,’ he yelled. ‘Fuck off, you cunt. Don’t even think of it. It’s too late. You’re too fucking late. They’ve taken it all away. Is that you, Quig, is that you?’
The figure disappeared into the November mist like a ghost, as if he had never been. Maybe he hadn’t, maybe it was nothing but paranoia and yesterday’s hangover from dreaming of Quig. Jones stood back, trembling. Shook himself like a dog, tidied up, left a note, saying call me, hoping she would, and thinking she wouldn’t. Di wouldn’t thank him for being here. She really would not want Uncle Jones and he wished she did. He prayed for her, spoke to her. Shout at them, Di. They ain’t got nothing. Warrant’s fucked, and I’ll be raising Cain if you aren’t back in the morning.
The interview room was larger than a cell, and she could smell the cells on the way towards it. They left her waiting, behind a locked door. She was waiting while listening to the offstage sounds, breathing deeply, thinking of Thomas’s diary files, of something he had written over a year ago. Today, he wrote, we went to the bay to see the geese in flight. I’ve had to get Her Laziness out of bed to go at first light and she does need her sleep, whereas I need less, but I have never seen a creature so revived by a cup of tea. Crosspatch turns human, and so do I.
She thought of that day, and other days. She felt in the pocket of her old coat and found the outline of shells: how many hours had they spent, inspecting shells. She felt sand in her fingers, closed her mind and put herself back by the sea. The panic receded.
The interview proceeded. Two men and an older woman, who looked doubtful. Di did not meet their eyes, nor they hers.
I’m not in a cell, the door is open and I have to breathe deeply. There is no reason to be silent. Help with enquiries. Talk; be aggressive, even though the prevailing colour is a sort of sick, mustard yellow. Think of a painting … that one of the Poor House, the same coloured walls. Don’t let them smell the fear. Talk . She hid her clenched hands under a scarred desk, and said anything that came into her head.
‘My, my,’ she said. ‘You could do with a coat of paint in here as well as a few pictures. Maybe some nice, peaceful scenes with water, like they have in hospital waiting rooms. Even a bit of graffiti.’
‘Mrs Porteous, you’re helping us with our enquiries.’
‘A few watercolours, a tapestry, something bright. Curtains.’
‘Your late husband.’
‘A tablecloth,’ she gabbled. ‘That would do. My husband died, you know.Four days ago, or is it five? What kept you so long? You could do with some pictures in here.’
She looked at the contours of the corners, looked at the ceiling, looked at anything but them. She turned the room into a picture of itself, hummed manically. What was the line from the poem Thomas taught her: It is fear, little hunter, only fear.
‘Mrs Porteous. It’s for us to ask the questions.’
He was a portly man, sweating a bit in this overwarm room. She remembered sitting in a room like this, wearing a paper suit, after they had taken away her clothes. She took off her coat; then she took off the sweater beneath, slowly while they looked at her in alarm, paralysed, not moving to stop her, wondering if she was going to strip. She sat back.
‘Well, ask the questions then. Is this about the post mortem?’
‘Post mortem hasn’t happened yet. It’s not about that.’
Di shut her eyes against a sudden overpowering jolt of sheer, physical agony; a vision of his thin, wiry body lying in darkness all these days. She put her hands over her mouth. ‘I thought th
ey did it at once. I thought … ’
‘Doesn’t always work like that,’ the woman said, leaning forward, seeing the distress. ‘There’s a queue, this time of year.’
Di thought of the days they came home with feathers and shells. Ate scrambled eggs. Grief came in like a wave, coming in and going on a slipstream of sheer, redemptive anger.
‘Why am I here, then?’
‘We have information—’
‘What information? What real, concrete information?’
They looked sideways. She was tapping her foot on the floor.
‘Information that indicates you isolated your husband, neglected him, forbade his children to visit, and this alone makes his death suspicious, since you had sole care of him. Perhaps you can understand, Mrs Porteous, that we have to investigate.’
Tap, tap, tap; her foot on the floor unnerving them.
‘No, I don’t get it. If no one’s done the post mortem yet, there’s nothing to ask. What information can there be, except rumour? You really do need to do this room, you know. Pink, blue, anything but this.’
‘Not at liberty to say,’ the man said.
She looked around. It was the constant grime she had hated, the omnipresent grease, surfaces always slightly slippery to the touch. Impenetrable walls, invoking helplessness in the innocent as well as the guilty, and at the moment, she did not know which she was. Oh yes, she had loved him, and oh yes, she had wanted him to die. Because he wanted it. She closed her eyes. Reached for the old coat, to stick her hand in the pocket and feel the sand. Did it only take half an hour for the geese to fly by this time last year, or was it three? This time last year.
Di opened her eyes and glared at them.
‘No one forbade his children to visit. Quite the opposite. Is that what they say? Are they the source of the information?’
There was another uncomfortable silence. She put the sweater back on, then the coat.
‘They wouldn’t visit. Shame on you,’ she said. ‘You’ve kept me here for three hours, for nothing. Someone’s put you up to this. I’m going now.’
Gold Digger Page 9
