Keep Me Alive

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘But …’

  ‘Listen! He goes to that abattoir in his own car and parks it in full view of everyone. Then he writes a suicide note. Then he fills his pockets with anti-cruelty literature and lies down under the wheels of a lorry easily big enough to kill anyone. You can’t twist any of that to mean anything other than suicide.’

  ‘Who did he write to?’ Trish said, thinking she could easily produce a counter-argument, but then that was her training. ‘You?’

  ‘No. Jamie hadn’t communicated with me for years.’ There was a gulping sound, quickly stifled, and followed by a pause-filling cough. ‘We … we weren’t close. No, the letter was addressed to Nick Wellbeck, the news editor of the Daily Mercury, the one who came to the funeral.’

  ‘Did Jamie type it?’

  ‘Of course not. Who types a suicide note? It was handwritten in proper ink. That was typical too. Jamie made a fetish of loathing biros.’

  ‘What did the note say?’

  ‘I haven’t got it. The police probably hung on to it. It went something like: “Didn’t it occur to you that I’ve been phoning and emailing every day for weeks because I needed you, Nick? Couldn’t you have spared me two minutes? Did I imagine it, or were we once friends? Well, I’ve had enough now. You’ll regret refusing to take my calls.”’

  ‘I see what you mean about moral courage. I am so sorry, Mrs Blake.’

  There was another gulp, then a sob, as though the sympathy had cut through her defensive bitterness.

  ‘Why didn’t he tell me it was that bad? He must have known I’d help, in spite of … Sorry. I haven’t … There hasn’t been anyone to …’ Mrs Blake took a loud deep breath, then said more steadily, ‘You’re the first person who knew Jamie who’s wanted to talk about what happened. Sorry.’

  ‘Please don’t be. It’s always hard to deal with the things one did or didn’t do when someone’s dead,’ Trish said, aching for her. It seemed awful to be taking advantage of her distress. But there were questions that had to be asked. ‘And suicide must make that even worse. What happened between you to cause the split?’

  ‘The usual story. We’d been very close as children, and it went on like that for longer than with most siblings. Then I fell in love with someone he loathed.’ Mrs Blake was still fighting to get her voice in order. ‘In the early days I used to try to build bridges between them, but when I had to choose I opted for my husband. Jamie didn’t forgive me. I wish …’

  Trish couldn’t imagine doing something like that, but then she’d never had a brother anywhere near her own age.

  ‘What was the problem between them?’ she asked, forgetting the real quest.

  ‘My husband is a civil servant, so he’s constitutionally against any kind of freedom of information.’

  And presumably, Trish thought with sympathy, against any discussion of powerful feelings like yours. What else could make you share all this with a stranger?

  Mrs Blake sniffed. ‘He thinks men like him should be allowed to get on with running the country in the best interests of the people, without having journalists causing panic and upset every time something goes wrong. He says they don’t save any lives or put anything right. They just cause trouble.’

  ‘It’s a legitimate point of view, I suppose,’ Trish said, ‘but I can’t see Jamie agreeing.’

  ‘No. Where Miles sees a little disinformation as a small price to pay for public serenity, Jamie wanted every cover-up exposed and every perpetrator, however well-intentioned, vilified in the press.’

  ‘You must have had a hell of a time between them.’

  ‘By God I did.’ Suddenly Mrs Blake sounded tougher. Maybe it wasn’t only Jamie Maxden who couldn’t forgive. ‘I must go. Goodbye.’

  She cut the connection at once, leaving Trish with a lot of unanswered questions: only some were about Jamie Maxden.

  Sitting down at her desk, determined to do something to stop herself thinking about all the others, she started to search the Internet for his name. Soon she’d have to decide what, if anything, to do about the letter Ferdy had sent to Liz, and about the misery Liz had revealed when she’d come to the flat. But not yet.

  To her surprise, there wasn’t much to read about Maxden on the Net, although she was offered links to newspapers that had printed some of his old articles. Waiting for one to download, and watching the sunlight glinting on her stapler, she thought she couldn’t bear to stay indoors. She printed off all the articles and took them out to read on the Jubilee Walk beside the river.

  The tone of Jamie’s work pleased her, with its passionate anger backed up by coldly reported fact. It wasn’t only meat that obsessed him. He’d been able to produce diatribes on almost everything to do with the food trade, including farm pesticides and other chemicals. But his greatest fury had been expended on the BSE scandal. She found one article from the early 1990s, which ended:

  Sell-by dates were meant to stop us eating dangerous meat. No one told us the steak we bought might come from animals fed with exactly that. Farmers are being blamed, but it’s not their fault. There is no legislation to control feed-manufacturers or force them to list the ingredients of their mixtures on the sacks that contain it. The farmers had no chance.

  Nor did we. Even now I see trays of ‘braising steak’ in supermarkets, so cheap it can only have come from milk cows past their useful life. Is there anything on the label to warn the consumer? Of course not. No one would buy it if they knew.

  If BSE has crossed the species barrier from the sheep whose remains were ground up to make cattle feed, it can also cross the barrier to us. Why did no one in government take steps to protect us as soon as the first cow died? How many people will die now because of that failure?

  And who will pay? No one except the farmers who lose their livelihood, and the parents who have to watch their children die from this terrible disease.

  In spite of everything Trish knew about the steps taken to deal with BSE since Jamie Maxden had written his article, and the relatively small numbers of people who appeared to be at risk, she still found it frightening. George particularly liked braised steak, and he’d cooked it for her every winter since they’d met. Had they eaten the flesh of elderly cows riddled with an incurable, utterly devastating disease?

  Trish read on, becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

  On another occasion Jamie Maxden had produced a rant about the systematic closure of small local abattoirs, just like the one the Flesker family had owned.

  The result of all this will be not only poorer quality meat, more rural unemployment and more animal distress. There will also be a lot more under-the-counter slaughtering, with an inevitable rise in the supply of dangerous meat.

  This concern for food hygiene in small abattoirs is ludicrous in the light of the BSE disaster. That could have been controlled far more quickly if the officials and scientists had done the jobs we pay them to do. Instead, they fiddle about with slaughterhouse regulations that won’t save a single life.

  It was easy to see why his civil service brother-in-law had loathed him. But Trish still had doubts about the rest of what she’d heard from his sister.

  Would anyone choose to kill himself outside an abattoir for the reasons Clare Blake had offered? Could anyone as angry as the writer of these articles ever have become so demoralized and unhappy that dying seemed a better option than fighting on? There was a school of thought that held suicide to be an expression of rage rather than fear or despair. Never having felt the urge to kill herself for more than a moment or two, even when the claws of depression had been at their tightest, Trish hadn’t enough experience to help her judge. Maybe you could feel so hard done by that you believed only your death would get you the revenge you wanted, she thought.

  For her, a victory like that would have been so Pyrrhic it wouldn’t have been worth having. She’d have wanted to be alive to see her tormentors grovel in shame at what they’d done to her. Her reading of Jamie Maxden’s work suggested that would h
ave been his choice too.

  Could the note to Nick Wellbeck have been a taunt rather than an expression of despair? A suggestion that Jamie had found an explosive – and provable – story he would be offering to some other paper because Wellbeck had refused to take his calls?

  That would make sense of both the letter and the email he’d sent to Will. After all, he’d promised ‘more later’, which had never come. Would anyone write that if he were intending to kill himself in the way Clare Blake had described? Of course not.

  One of Petra Knighton’s warnings came crashing into Trish’s mind. Had there been any proof that the film or the email had come from Jamie Maxden in the first place?

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ she said aloud. ‘Why would Will bother to fake something like this? And how would he do it? I’m sure the film was real. And I’m sure it came from Jamie Maxden.’

  A man walking his dog looked curiously at her. She realized she must seem mad, sitting in the sun with a heap of paper on her lap, muttering. She gave him a blinding smile. He looked even more worried and hustled his huge Dalmatian ahead of him.

  Back in the flat, Trish searched for more information about the discovery of Jamie’s body. The local paper that must have reported it and the inquest turned out to be the Smarden Runner, and that was not available on line. She let more questions well up in her mind. Who had planted the vegetarian leaflets on Jamie’s body and why? They had proved highly successful decoys, completely misleading the police as well as his family. Jamie’s articles had shown no interest in the animals that were slaughtered for food, only in the human beings who ate them, just as Will had suggested they would. Were there perhaps some militant animal rightists, who disapproved of Jamie so much they wanted to make an example of him?

  No, Trish thought. That’s absurd, too.

  But she couldn’t get it out of her mind. After half an hour, she reached for the phone and dialled the number of Jess and Caro’s flat. The voice that answered was much slower and deeper than the one Trish expected.

  ‘Is Jess there?’

  ‘No. She’s at the hospital. Who’s speaking?’

  ‘It’s Trish Maguire.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Trish. This is Cynthia Flag.’

  ‘Hi.’ She couldn’t help the coldness of her voice. ‘You might be able to help me if Jess isn’t there.’

  ‘If I can, of course I will.’

  ‘What do you know about an industrial abattoir called Smarden Meats?’

  ‘Nothing. Why?’ Cynthia sounded quite untroubled.

  ‘I just wondered whether there have ever been any vegetarian protests there, or any kind of rioting by animal rights activists. Sabotage. That sort of thing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not a campaigner.’

  ‘Aren’t you? I thought it was you who persuaded Jess to turn vegetarian?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ The deep voice dripped with a mixture of sweetness and mockery.

  ‘She turns to you whenever anyone asks a question about her dietary habits,’ Trish said. ‘You’re practically living in the flat. She thinks you’re wonderful. And you’re a vegetarian. One doesn’t have to be Einstein to make a connection like that.’

  Cynthia laughed irritatingly. ‘Come off it, Trish. I’m only here to give the poor woman some support while Caro’s so ill. I suppose it could have been listening to me talk about what animals suffer that originally made Jess think she might prefer to stop eating them. What difference does it make?’

  Trish wasn’t sure, but she didn’t trust Cynthia enough to explain why she was asking questions.

  ‘None. I just thought if it had been you who’d done it, you might be able to explain why anyone who enjoyed food like steak tartare could change so quickly.’

  ‘I think …’ Cynthia paused, then began again, with a great deal less artifice in her voice. ‘I know you’re a good friend of Caro’s, so it’s fair to tell you. And safe. I think Jess felt in danger of being taken over by Caro’s determination to make the whole world bend to her will. Becoming vegetarian gave Jess a chance to rebuild her faith in herself as a separate person.’

  ‘That sounds a bit adolescent to me.’ And it’s not going to help unravel anything about Jamie’s death.

  ‘Only because you’re as confident as Caro,’ Cynthia said. ‘You ought to try for a bit more sympathy for people who haven’t got your advantages. Goodbye.’

  And that puts me in my place, Trish thought, dropping the receiver back on its cradle. I wonder how much Caro knows about Cynthia’s part in her life.

  With the smear of Ferdy’s odious letter to Liz Shelley still making her feel unclean, Trish knew she could never pass on any of her doubts. In any case, there was work to be done.

  What she wanted was to go straight to Will’s bedside in whichever Kentish hospital the police had deposited him and force him to tell her the truth about everything he had done since she had first told him about the contaminated sausages.

  Suddenly she forgot her own needs. If he had asked the police to phone chambers when they took him to hospital, there couldn’t have been anyone to tell his sister what was happening. She must be worried sick.

  ‘In hospital?’ Susannah said, when Trish had explained why she’d phoned. ‘What’s happened to him? He told me he was going away for twenty-four hours, and I just assumed he’d overstayed wherever it was.’

  ‘He’s OK. I mean, not too badly hurt. But it’s a bit complicated,’ Trish said, wondering how much to tell her. If Will had wanted his sister to know what had happened, he’d have asked the police to phone her, not chambers. But in her place Trish would have wanted to know everything. ‘Could we meet? I know you have young children, so this may not be the best time, but …’

  ‘Actually, my husband’s with them. You’re right, though: it would be difficult for me to get out. Could you come here? The children will need their supper soon, but we could talk while I cook it, if you don’t mind the kitchen.’

  ‘If you give me the address, I’ll get to you as soon as I can. How’s the parking at this time of day?’

  ‘Free and safe, so long as you don’t park in a residents’ bay. Or a disabled space. Meters and yellow lines are all yours.’

  Chapter 19

  The kitchen was an elegant affair of pale oak and black granite with a curved glass cooker hood, which neatly dated its last makeover to three years ago. Nothing changed as quickly as fashions in kitchen fittings. Trish sat at a beautiful old gate-legged table in the middle of the room, admiring it as much as the amazing burgundy she was drinking.

  Her first reassurance about Will’s physical state had let loose an outpouring about how difficult it was to help him when he resisted everything you tried to do for him. She waited until Susannah had got it all off her chest, then said, ‘What about his girlfriend? Can’t she help?’

  Susannah turned round from her pans on the Aga, a wooden spoon in her hand dripping tomato sauce on the white floor, like great drops of blood.

  ‘What girlfriend?’

  ‘Hasn’t there been one? A woman who lives somewhere in Kent?’

  ‘Ah,’ Susannah said on a sigh of understanding. She dropped the spoon back in the pan and fetched a cloth to mop the floor. ‘So that is why he wanted to borrow the car. I knew he was getting a bit of nooky, but I’d rather assumed it was you.’

  Trish shook her head. ‘I’m just the wig freak who may or may not help get him his damages from Furbishers.’

  ‘I think there’s a bit more to it than that.’ Susannah smiled. ‘He can’t stop talking about you, and he grins like an idiot whenever he hears your name. It didn’t occur to me you could have a rival.’

  ‘What was it that made you think he could be … what was it you said? Getting some nooky?’

  ‘Sorry. It was my father’s expression. A whole lot of things. He looked sleeker.’ Susannah turned back to her pots. ‘And he was much less use about the house.’

  ‘What?’

  Susannah loo
ked at Trish over her shoulder again. Mischievous amusement had driven out some of the anxiety from her expression.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed? When men are feeling a bit too beaten for sex, they turn all useful and caring. Then when things are going better, and the testosterone’s rising, they start dropping their dirty clothes on the floor again and waiting for you to pick them up. It’s a bloke thing.’

  I suppose it is, Trish thought, glad that the eccentric regime she and George had devised for themselves avoided all such tactics.

  Susannah tasted the contents of one pan, reached for the salt, added a bit, stirred and tasted again.

  ‘Good. That’s done. Rupert?’ She raised her voice. ‘Rupert! Could you get them to wash? Supper’s ready.’ She put the pan on a trivet beside the Aga. ‘You’re about to witness the hordes feeding. Do you mind if I lay the table round you?’

  ‘Give me the cutlery and I’ll do it.’ Trish tried to fit Susannah’s theory into what she knew of Will’s activities. She hoped with a passion that surprised her that whoever had given Will his new sleekness, she wasn’t the woman lying in some Kentish mortuary awaiting a forensic pathologist’s saws and scalpel.

  ‘Great.’ Susannah produced a big bunch of knives and forks with bright-blue plastic handles. ‘You still haven’t said what’s happened to Will to put him in hospital.’

  Trish told her about the fight and the police, but not about the dead woman, and watched the tears edge out of the corners of Susannah’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, God. Not more trouble for him. It’s so unfair. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘We’re doing our best,’ Trish said aloud, even as she thought, if he did kill that woman, nothing any of us can do will make a difference.

  ‘I know. But …’ Susannah grabbed Trish’s arm and propelled her towards a large oil painting that hung on the far wall. ‘That’s what he lost when Furbishers ruined him.’

  There was nothing grand about the painting, or about the building it portrayed. It was just an ordinary farmhouse, familiar from every county in England. Long and low, it was arranged as usual at one side of a big square yard, with barns and stables taking up most of the other three. The yard itself was filled with pale-brown Jersey cows waiting to be milked. They looked warm against the greyish stone.