The Big Chill

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘What’s your interest?’ Graham said. ‘Apart from the fact he gate-crashed your funeral, I mean.’

  ‘The police don’t have an ID.’ Her hand went out and hovered over the cut on the man’s head.

  ‘Join the club,’ Graham said. He waved at the fridge bank and over to the lift in the corner which led to a much larger cold storage underground. ‘We have an army of the unknown dead here.’

  ‘But I need to find out about this one.’

  ‘Is that his dog out front?’

  Dorothy nodded, her hand still near the man’s face.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ Graham said. He lifted the cover over the man and pushed the tray back into the fridge.

  Dorothy’s hand remained where it was, like she was blessing empty space.

  Sylvan Place was a narrow lane off the south side of the Meadows, Victorian terraces and tenements up one side, the Royal Sick Kids hospital on the other. An ambulance was parked further up outside the entrance to A&E. Dorothy remembered having Jenny in there a couple of times as a kid, once with constant vomiting, another time when she split her forehead open on a skirting board as a toddler. They never got to the bottom of the vomiting, just rehydrated her and sent her home when it stopped. For the head knock, Dorothy got thin stares from the staff, on the look-out for abuse.

  She reached number seven in the street, the sliver of garden scruffier than its neighbours, cracks in the paving stones. She looked at the digit painted on the door, the florid font making it look like an upside-down two, like they did in the old days. One of the millions of quirky things about moving to Edinburgh and building her life here, these beautiful old buildings everywhere she turned.

  Einstein snuffled around the plants at the front door, chasing a scent. Dorothy wondered what the world looked like to a dog. A dog who’d just lost his owner. Another one of us building a new life.

  She rang the bell, a brass button set into the brickwork, and heard the old fashioned ding-dong. There was a shuffle behind the door then it opened.

  Abi’s mum was short and thin, a little bird of a thing, so unlike her daughter who was already taller. She had sharp features, black hair in a bun, a twitch where she rubbed at her left wrist. Dorothy had met her a couple of times before, once at a school gig where Abi played drums for a covers band. Abi was far too good for the band but no one realised, including Abi and her mum.

  Dorothy dredged the name from somewhere, Sandra Livingstone.

  ‘Hi, Sandra.’

  The look on her face suggested she didn’t recognise Dorothy. Maybe out of context she was hard to place.

  ‘Dorothy Skelf, I teach Abi drums.’

  Sandra’s eyes went wide. ‘Of course, we met at that school thing.’

  Dorothy nodded at Einstein. ‘I was just walking this guy and remembered where Abi lived. I wanted to check she’s OK?’

  Sandra stroked at her wrist. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

  ‘She didn’t turn up for her lesson earlier, that’s all.’

  Sandra looked confused, something about her seemed off. ‘Did she have a lesson today?’

  More touching of her wrist.

  Dorothy remembered when Jenny was Abi’s age. Once teenage girls gained that bit of independence they were untraceable for swathes of the day. In Jenny’s case it was before mobile phones, of course. A flutter of panic came back to Dorothy from those days.

  ‘She did,’ she said. ‘I left a message. Is she OK?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ Sandra said. ‘She must’ve forgotten, you know teenagers.’

  ‘Of course,’ Dorothy said. But it was not what Abi was like, not at all. ‘Is she in?’

  Sandra shook her head. ‘Out with friends.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Cinema, I think.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘They went to the cinema.’

  The door opened wider and a man stood behind Sandra. This was the stepdad, Dorothy remembered. Mike?

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘This is Abi’s drum teacher,’ Sandra said. ‘We met her at that concert.’

  Mike nodded.

  Sandra went on. ‘Abi had a lesson today, she must’ve forgot.’

  Mike nodded again.

  Silence while they both looked at each other, then at Dorothy. Einstein gave a whimper at something in a hedge then came to rub against Dorothy’s leg.

  ‘When she gets in,’ Dorothy said, ‘can you tell her to message me? We can reschedule.’

  ‘Sure,’ Sandra said.

  Mike smiled as he closed the door.

  The last thing Dorothy saw was Sandra rubbing at her wrist, looking at her husband. One thing was sure, she was lying through her teeth.

  8

  HANNAH

  She couldn’t breathe, tried the relaxation exercises she’d learned when anxiety first bubbled up years ago. Closed her eyes, imagined her lungs as a mechanical pump, a perpetual-motion machine, oxygenating the blood that ran through her body, her brain, her heart.

  That heart was thumping as she stood outside the lecture theatre and listened to the chatter inside. Two students from the year below went in and noise spilled out. She looked in. It was almost full, a couple of hundred people. She didn’t think Mel was that popular, she was quiet, studious, not exactly a party animal. Or so Hannah thought until she went missing and another side of her emerged. Hannah tracked down affairs and more, painting a picture of a flatmate she hadn’t known.

  So here she was, expected to say something meaningful to a room of strangers about a woman she thought she knew, a woman she missed more than she would admit. A woman killed by Hannah’s dad. What the hell were you supposed to say about that?

  She felt a touch on her shoulder and turned. It was Xander, Mel’s boyfriend. He had just as much reason to hate all this. Hannah had suspected him at first, accused him, said terrible things.

  ‘Hey,’ Xander said. He was tall and lean, still not used to his own physical space in the world. But then the women she knew her age were the same, her and Indy, still discovering their own bodies, each other’s. When do you start to feel at home in your own skin?

  ‘Hi.’

  Xander nodded at the door. ‘This is something, eh?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Xander examined her. She saw something in his eyes, the shared loss.

  ‘Let’s get it over with,’ he said.

  Hannah had sweaty palms, rubbed her hands on her jeans.

  ‘It’s good that we’re honouring her,’ Hannah said.

  ‘You think?’

  Hannah frowned.

  Xander chewed his lip. ‘I miss her like crazy. And I’m angry as fuck that she’s gone. But all this…’ He waved at the door in disgust then looked at Hannah’s empty hands. ‘What are you going to say?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Xander pulled on the door and held it open for her.

  She walked past the rows of benches to the bottom. It was too bright in here, too loud. There was a large picture of Mel projected onto the whiteboard screen, her name underneath, 2000–2020. Hannah felt sick. Just two decades, it didn’t make sense. She knew about the randomness of life from her studies. But the physical world obeyed rules, at least on a macroscopic level, there were consequences for actions, one thing led to another. But they shouldn’t lead to a strangled body found by a dog walker in the bushes on the edge of a golf course five minutes from here.

  She looked along the front row but couldn’t see Mel’s family. Maybe this was too much, still, after six months. Hannah understood that.

  Hugh Fowler shuffled towards her. He was short and round, hands thrust in his tatty cardigan pockets, glasses sliding down his nose.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said. ‘So glad you’re here.’

  Hannah nodded at the seats. ‘No Chengs?’

  Hugh dropped his head, looked away. ‘They decided not to come.’

  Then why the hell am I here? Hannah thought. She looked at the photograph of
Mel, it was a snapshot of her in a physics society hoodie and leggings. She would’ve hated it, she had no make-up on, her hair in a messy pony. She thought about the pictures of Mel she’d discovered in a drawer, naked in a hotel, or on a date with a lecturer, signs of a different life. She thought about the baby Mel was carrying, if she had been far enough along for a scan photo.

  She looked round the room. The rows seemed steep from down here, looming over her. The people and the noise, lights overhead buzzing a secret message, the clack of a fold-down seat as someone got up to let another along the line, people wandering in as if this was a lecture on some obscure physics concept, the whole room ready to fall on top of her as she tried to breathe and couldn’t, found her hands shaking and felt Hugh’s touch on her shoulder, saying something she couldn’t hear, his lips moving, then the light at the edges of her vision was fading and she realised she was having an attack but couldn’t stop it, then she was on the floor, cheap carpet rough against her knees and her lungs filled with concrete and her vision went black and she was lost.

  She heard noises, people talking, moving, the clunk of hinged seats flipping up, the swish of doors. She liked that this was all happening around her and she didn’t have to engage with it. She waited as the sounds faded until it was just silence.

  ‘Drink this.’

  She caught the oily stink of whisky, felt the glass against her lips. Opened her mouth and drank. Alcohol was always the solution for old people. Have a shock, take a drink, feeling stressed, take a drink, passed out at a memorial, take a drink. She felt the burn, like acid killing her insides.

  She opened her eyes. She was still in the lecture hall, but it was empty. The electronic hum of the AV set-up, the buzz of the overhead lights, the taste of whisky.

  She lay along seats in the front row, Hugh next to her. A young guy, one of the building’s support staff, was sitting on the other side. He was doughy and pale, spots on his forehead. He had a first-aid kit open but looked like he didn’t have a clue what to do with it.

  She swung her legs round and sat up.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, though no one had asked.

  The young guy looked from Hannah to Hugh, but didn’t speak. Hugh gave him a nod and he swallowed and packed away the kit, left without speaking. This was obviously too much for him.

  Hugh held out a plastic cup of whisky. She noticed a hip flask and a bottle of water on the floor next to him.

  ‘Another sip?’

  She shook her head.

  He drank the whisky himself and refilled it from the flask.

  ‘Some water, please,’ Hannah said.

  He passed the bottle and she drank, looked around. The picture of Mel was still on the screen.

  ‘What about the memorial?’

  ‘Postponed,’ Hugh said. ‘We were all very worried.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He waved that away, then stared at her. ‘How do you feel?’

  Anxious, depressed, confused, overwhelmed.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  Hugh smiled. ‘Well you look terrible.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘Thanks.’

  She examined him as he took another sip. He was like a friendly wizard, hair a mess, buttons done up wrong, bare patches at his elbows and knees. She wondered if he had someone looking after him, someone to share old age. She was vaguely aware he had a reputation for a significant discovery or theory, something quantum that nudged physics forward. Not quite up there with Professor Higgs, who still sometimes wandered the halls even though he was almost ninety. But something worthwhile all the same. Must feel good.

  ‘Why did you arrange all this?’ Hannah said.

  Hugh looked uncomfortable. ‘That poor girl. What she must’ve gone through.’

  ‘But you weren’t one of her tutors.’

  Hugh shrugged. ‘No one else was doing anything. I thought her life should be celebrated.’

  ‘That’s very kind.’

  Hugh looked at her. ‘I’m not sure if it was a good idea after all.’

  ‘Why?’

  He waved a hand around the lecture theatre. ‘This was too much for you.’

  Hannah felt her chest tighten, tried to remember how to breathe. ‘Everything is too much for me.’

  Hugh smiled. ‘I feel like that too.’

  ‘Really?’ Hannah took a drink of water. ‘Don’t you have life sorted by your age?’

  He let out a loud laugh and sipped whisky. ‘If only. The one thing I guarantee, young lady, is that life makes less sense as you get older.’

  ‘Wow, that’s really cheered me up.’

  ‘It should,’ Hugh said. ‘Once you accept that, you can get on with living.’

  ‘You’re like a wise little Yoda, aren’t you?’

  ‘I prefer to think of myself as a mature Robert Redford.’ He smiled at his own joke.

  ‘And I’m Jennifer Lawrence.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is.’

  Hannah eased off the bench and stood up. Hugh’s hand wavered behind her, as if she might fall. Then he let out a breath and stood up too, with some effort.

  ‘I’m sorry about the memorial,’ Hannah said, looking at the picture of Mel. There was a smudge on the whiteboard by her head, and she thought about her dad’s hands on that neck, squeezing.

  ‘Do you think Mel’s in a better place?’ she said.

  ‘Heaven?’ He seriously considered it. ‘Maybe. People think that science and religion are incompatible, but plenty of my colleagues still believe.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Hugh pressed his dry lips together. ‘I believe there’s still a huge amount we don’t know.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  Hannah filled her chest with air. ‘I’m going to counselling.’

  ‘Is it helping?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘I did the same when my daughter died.’

  Hannah paused, took him in. Imagined the quantum field between them, changed by their presence. ‘I’m sorry. Did it help?’

  ‘No.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘You’re really encouraging.’

  ‘Is it better if I lie?’

  Hannah looked at him. ‘No, it’s not.’

  He fished something out of his pocket. ‘I’ve enjoyed speaking with you, Hannah.’

  He handed her his card, a bunch of letters after his name.

  ‘If you ever want to talk, please call.’

  Hannah touched the edge of the card, thought about Mel alive in a parallel universe. ‘I will.’

  9

  JENNY

  She put her phone and bag in a locker then went through the metal detector. Signs everywhere saying no electronic devices, metals, liquids or gases. A sniffer dog nudged against her leg. The prison guard with the dog smiled like this was routine, which it was.

  HMP Edinburgh had a new brick frontage with the name emblazoned along the top, but everyone still called it Saughton Prison. She’d gazed at the high concrete walls and cameras on poles as she approached, but now inside, the waiting room was like any office, posters on the walls, beige and cream furniture.

  She was led through corridors and heavy metal doors by a different guard, a guy Hannah’s age, brown shirt and trousers too loose, so that he kept hitching up his waistband. He looked like he was playing dress up. Jenny didn’t fancy his chances if a riot broke out.

  She followed him down more corridors, back outside through an exercise square, along a covered walkway. They passed two guards with an inmate, no handcuffs, happy and joking, just people going about their business.

  She saw a block of cells in the distance, but they turned away to a newer building, through another giant steel door into an open-plan visiting room. Cheap metal tables, arranged four by four across the room, seats either side of each. Most were occupied, prisoners in different coloured sweatshirts, all with the prison crest. She wondered what the different colours meant.
/>   The guard nodded at the far corner. There was Craig staring at the posters on the wall, warnings about drug smuggling, others trying to be motivational. Jenny imagined getting motivated in here.

  She stood still, not wanting to go to him. But he sensed her, turned and smiled apologetically, like he was late for a date or something.

  She rubbed at her stomach through her T-shirt, touching the scar he’d made there. She stopped, then didn’t know what to do with her hands, so just stood there like a robot on standby.

  He eased his chair back and stood, pointed at the seat across from him. She didn’t move. She’d known him for more than half her life, fallen in love with him, had Hannah with him. This was the man who’d killed a young pregnant woman. Smiling at her like old times, as if they were flirting in the pub, it was always the pub, their relationship steeped in booze.

  She unclenched her fists and walked to the table.

  ‘Hi,’ Craig said.

  She soaked him in. He looked good, had grown a beard that suited him, lost a little weight, maybe.

  She sat down and he eased into the seat opposite.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.

  She shook her head, jaw clenched.

  ‘You look well,’ he said.

  She couldn’t stop swallowing, suddenly too much saliva in her mouth.

  He nodded at the door. ‘You got through security all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She wasn’t sure if she’d be allowed to see him given the case, and Skelf was a memorable name, so she booked the visit through her old married name and brought her out-of-date driver’s licence. The guards didn’t bat an eye. The irony of presenting herself as Jenny McNamara was not lost on her.

  He smiled. ‘Why did you come?’