The Big Chill

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘OK,’ Jenny said. Her grip on her wine glass was too tight and she loosened it before it shattered and spilled all over the floor.

  Sophia walked back to the other room and Fiona swallowed hard over and over again. ‘Obviously I didn’t tell her.’

  ‘How is she coping?’

  Fiona shook her head. ‘She was already having nightmares about her dad being locked up, now she’ll probably have nightmares about strangers coming into our home.’

  ‘Are the police sure it was Craig?’

  Fiona gave her a hard stare. ‘Who else?’

  ‘No CCTV in the street?’

  ‘They’re asking neighbours.’

  ‘He’s fucking shameless.’

  ‘We both knew that, didn’t we?’

  Jenny nodded.

  Fiona drank. ‘At least you got to hit him.’

  ‘It didn’t do any good.’

  ‘I bet it felt great.’

  Jenny smiled. ‘It did.’

  She looked around the kitchen, full fruit bowl, lilies in a vase, knife block with half a dozen handles sticking from it. She imagined Craig climbing through the window, an invader in his own home, taking what he liked, doing what he liked. His escape was just another message from the universe that whatever he did was fine. She imagined grabbing one of those knives and plunging it into his heart.

  ‘We’re selling up,’ Fiona said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The house, the business. I don’t have any choice.’

  ‘Can’t you hold on until things settle down?’

  Fiona made a noise like she was being strangled. ‘The company is dead. All our clients have left. Even I can’t spin this shit. And we’ve already missed several mortgage payments. We’re up to our eyes in debt.’

  ‘Surely they could cut you some slack.’

  ‘We’re moving back in with my mum.’ Her face made it clear this wasn’t welcome. ‘Imagine, in my forties and moving back to Mum’s house.’

  Jenny had done exactly the same, but she kept quiet.

  ‘The worst thing is,’ Fiona said, ‘Mum always warned me about Craig. If he was willing to cheat on you, he would be willing to cheat on me.’

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t have this in mind.’

  Jenny counted her blessings with Dorothy. Through all that had happened, Dorothy always loved her on her own terms.

  Her phone pinged in her bag. She took it out, a number she didn’t recognise.

  I’m gone. Have a nice life. Cx

  She stared at the screen until the words blurred, then looked up and realised the blurriness was because of her tears.

  36

  HANNAH

  Hannah threw herself into the seat and thumped her bag on the floor. ‘Thanks for fitting me in.’

  Rita tried to keep her face calm but something under the surface hinted at fear. Hannah embraced the idea that someone was scared of her, felt herself grow stronger.

  ‘How are you?’ Rita said.

  ‘Well.’ Hannah looked around the room, imagined someone jumping out of a cupboard at her. ‘My dad has escaped from prison.’

  Rita laughed, presuming it was a joke. After a moment she covered her mouth in embarrassment. ‘Shit. Seriously?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Haven’t you seen the news?’

  She grabbed her phone from her bag and handed it over. The BBC page had Craig’s prison mugshot and an unflattering photo of the missing guard, plus a blurry shot of the prison van in an industrial estate surrounded by police tape.

  Rita scanned the story, hand still over her mouth.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Right?’

  Hannah felt something inside her, then she heard her own laughter, felt it forcing out of her, couldn’t stop it, her diaphragm expanding and contracting. She laughed as her body shook and wondered about losing control, peeing herself here on Rita’s cheap seat, her eyes welling with tears so that she bolted from the seat and pretended to look out of the window as she wiped her face.

  ‘Hannah.’

  She looked at the Meadows for a long time then eventually turned. Rita was holding her phone out.

  ‘Please sit,’ she said.

  Hannah stretched her neck, thought about her dad out there. She tried to think what she would do if she was on the run. She took her phone and sat down.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Rita said.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Hannah said. ‘We’re beyond words.’

  ‘Hopefully we’re never beyond words, my job is talking about things.’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘This is off somewhere else now.’ She mimed birds flying with her hands. ‘This is out in the ether, the fabric of the universe, the interconnected energy fields, it’s Buddhist and quantum and relativistic and it’s everywhere.’

  ‘I’m detecting anxiety,’ Rita said.

  Hannah clapped sarcastically. ‘Genius.’ She couldn’t stop herself, the clapping kept going as if someone else controlled her hands. ‘Anxiety. What else?’

  ‘A lot of anger.’

  ‘What about neutrinos?’

  Rita frowned. ‘Sorry?’

  Hannah lifted her hands above her head as if praising the sun. ‘Can’t you feel them?’

  Rita shifted in her chair. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Hannah hunched forward. ‘Do you know how many neutrinos pass through your body every second?’

  ‘I don’t know what a neutrino is.’

  ‘It’s a fundamental particle, probably the least understood.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘The sun throws them out, gazillions all the time.’

  ‘And what do they do?’

  Hannah smiled. ‘That’s just it, they barely interact. No one really understands them. They can pass right through the Earth and keep on going. They’re streaming through you right now. A hundred trillion every second.’

  Rita looked at her own body.

  ‘Can you imagine that?’ Hannah said.

  A shake of the head. ‘No.’

  Hannah put her hands out as if checking for rain. ‘Can you feel them?’

  Rita didn’t speak.

  Hannah scratched at her scalp. So much of the universe didn’t make a bit of sense and it was killing her.

  ‘Imagine being so hard to detect,’ Hannah said, moving her hands around like a hippy dancing. ‘Nature’s ghost.’

  She pictured the particles tearing the skin from her hands, her body. She pictured her dad, impossible to detect. She rubbed the invisible neutrinos against her face until her skin was sore, until she felt pain.

  She ran her fingers along the fridge doors until she came to Hugh’s one. A blast of air-conditioned coolness hit her from the vent above, made her think of a spirit leaving the body. On cheap supernatural shows they always had someone being hit by a gust of air, hair billowing, ghosts mysteriously acting like hairdryers.

  She opened the fridge and slid him out. According to the notes he’d been embalmed but not prepped yet. He was still in the white body bag, and she unzipped the top, struggling as it snagged at the corner, then peeling it away.

  She stared at his dead face forever. Looked at the bags under his eyes, the deep lines across the forehead, the wispy hair raised as if by static from his head even now. It seemed weird seeing his bare shoulders, oddly pointy given that the rest of his body was so soft and round. He had a pronounced collarbone, and she put her hand out and held it over his neck. It seemed like an intrusion to touch him, but Archie did it all the time in his job, manhandling the bodies into position, injecting them, draining arteries, massaging muscle and skin.

  She unzipped the bag further and stared at his liver-spotted hands. Those hands that had touched his wife, his lover, God knows who else. The hands that had held the acid bottle, the medal. She touched the back of his left hand, felt the loose skin, the embalmed vein underneath.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She jumped and turned to Indy behind her. She bumped
Hugh’s hand as she turned and it fell from the tray and dangled down, like he was chilling on a sun lounger by the pool. She picked it up and placed it by his side.

  ‘Just saying goodbye,’ she said, patting his hand and feeling stupid.

  Indy came into the room, arms folded. ‘Hannah.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now you’re messing with dead bodies?’

  Blood rose to Hannah’s cheeks. ‘It’s what you do for a living.’

  Indy shook her head, leaned past and zipped up Hugh’s bag.

  ‘Exactly, it’s my job. We can’t have just anyone hanging out back here, talking to the dead whenever they like.’

  ‘I’m not just anyone.’

  Indy slid the tray away and locked the door. She leaned against the body fridge. ‘You can’t come in here and muck about.’

  ‘I wasn’t mucking about.’

  Indy softened her look. ‘I know you’re going through some stuff.’

  ‘You think?’

  Indy folded her arms again. ‘I take it counselling didn’t go well.’

  ‘He’s out there, Indy.’ Hannah felt her voice break in her throat. ‘Laughing at me.’

  Indy pursed her lips. ‘Your dad is not laughing at you.’

  ‘He is and you don’t give a shit.’

  Indy stared at her for a long time and Hannah fronted it out.

  Indy pushed away from the fridge. ‘Fuck you, Han, honestly.’

  Hannah wanted to grab her, stop her walking away, but she didn’t. She wanted to hurt someone, she wanted to lash out, and Indy was here.

  Indy shook her head. ‘You don’t get to treat me like this. It doesn’t matter where your dad is, what he’s done. You don’t get to treat me like an emotional punch bag, like it’s all my fault.’

  ‘That’s not fair—’

  ‘No, it’s you who’s not fair,’ Indy said. ‘Acting like the universe is out to get you. I’ve got news for you, babes, the universe doesn’t give a shit about you, the sooner you realise it the better.’

  Hannah swallowed, thought about all the bodies in the fridges behind her, all the corpses in all the graves across the city, nothing more to worry about.

  Indy walked away, chin up, hair bouncing.

  Hannah wanted to shout after her but couldn’t think what to say.

  Indy had already left as Hannah’s phone rang in her pocket. She took it out, Wendy. She leaned against Hugh’s fridge door and took the call.

  ‘Is that the young detective lady?’ Wendy said.

  ‘Hi.’

  A pause down the line. ‘I need your help.’

  37

  DOROTHY

  The Alba Property office was shiny, neat and bland. Dorothy waited in the beige reception until her name was called by the sparkly receptionist, then walked into the fragrant office behind a property agent whose name she’d already forgotten.

  When they sat, she saw the woman’s nametag said Melanie.

  ‘So, you’re looking for a property to let?’ Melanie said.

  The tone of her voice suggested this was a waste of her time. They had web listings, for God’s sake, why not do it online? But Dorothy played the old-lady card over the phone, insisted on an appointment. She looked around the office, corporate art on the walls, blonde shelves, a discrete digital clock.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said, making her voice sound weak. She’d also walked in unsteadily, all part of the game.

  ‘What sort of area did you have in mind?’ Melanie said, typing on her computer.

  Dorothy remembered the water cooler in reception, with those little paper cones stacked up.

  ‘I’m actually looking for something quite specific,’ she said.

  A bus trundled past outside the window, down Dundas Street towards Stockbridge. The sound of thick tyres on the old setts rattled the window, so Alba couldn’t afford double glazing. Maybe the successful corporate façade was just that.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Do you have properties on Lochend Butterfly Way?’

  Melanie put on a puzzled smile. ‘That is specific, let me look.’

  She typed and Dorothy coughed loudly, made a show of swallowing, coughed again and raised a tissue to her mouth. Melanie glanced up and winced at the germs spreading across the desk towards her.

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t have anything in that street, but there are several interesting properties in that part of Leith.’

  She turned the screen to show Dorothy the listings. Dorothy leaned forward, coughed again, didn’t quite get the tissue up in time, Melanie recoiled. Dorothy dragged her finger down the screen. Took her time. Melanie was uncomfortable being this close to a sick old woman.

  ‘Are you sure about that street? I’m positive I saw one of your signs there just the other day.’

  ‘If it’s not in the system, we don’t have it,’ Melanie said, folding her arms.

  Dorothy tapped the screen. ‘Could you please check?’

  Melanie didn’t hide her sigh, turned the screen back to face her, typed some more. Paused. More typing.

  Dorothy raised the tissue to her face and coughed hard, prolonged, her shoulders shaking. Eventually she settled down, still holding the tissue, as Melanie gave her side eyes.

  ‘Ah,’ Melanie said, moving her mouse. ‘We do own a property on Lochend Butterfly Way, but I’m afraid it’s on a long-term lease.’

  ‘But I saw a sign.’

  Melanie shook her head. ‘Not recently.’

  Dorothy coughed again.

  ‘OK,’ she said, between gasps. ‘Is there something else in the area…’

  She coughed hard, forcing air out of her lungs, doubled over, kept coughing as if whatever it was would never shift, kept retching with her head near her knees, her skirt shaking with the force of it. She tried to come up for air but coughed again, put her hand on the edge of the desk to steady herself. She straightened up, tried to speak, but was overtaken by coughing again, Melanie looking worried.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Dorothy tried to nod between convulsions. ‘Fine.’

  Coughed again and again until Melanie was out of her seat and at Dorothy’s side, hovering a hand over her back.

  ‘How can I help?’ Melanie said.

  Dorothy gasped, put her head up. ‘Maybe a glass of water?’

  Melanie nodded and left the office, out to the water cooler.

  As soon as she was gone, Dorothy stopped the fake cough and turned the computer screen to face her. Checked the listings, 5 Lochend Butterfly Way was rented to a private company, one she recognised.

  Creative Talent Limited.

  She turned the screen away and began fake coughing again as Melanie came back in spilling water from a tiny paper cone.

  Jason was a smarmy sod. His office had posters for sold-out Fringe shows framed on the walls, a couple of awards on the mantel above the fireplace, which contained a phallic sculpture presumably meant to be edgy. He had a standing desk he was standing at, glugging an enormous green drink from Starbucks. Behind him was a tiny high window that looked out at bins round the back of an adjacent venue. They were in Guthrie Street, a few minutes from the city mortuary, and Dorothy thought about Jimmy X in there. She could smell stale booze and chilli sauce from the bins over the way.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, in a tone that indicated he couldn’t care less. ‘What do you want?’

  He wore huge round glasses, hair in a quiff, a polka-dot blouse, Capri pants and expensive sandals.

  Dorothy held her phone out, recording. ‘It’s just background for a piece I’m writing on the festival.’

  Jason rolled his eyes. ‘We are craaazy busy at the mo. You’re lucky you caught me.’

  ‘Right.’ Dorothy moved closer to his laptop, covered in stickers. There was a screensaver of somewhere in the Far East, a beach in Thailand maybe, somewhere he went on his gap year.

  ‘If you could just explain what Creative Talent do.’

  She listened as
he talked for a few minutes, about the shows they promoted, the famous people they brought up every year, the other stuff they got up to, musicals and dance shows, comedy, theatre, standard arts promo shtick.

  ‘Cool,’ Dorothy said.

  It clearly tickled Jason that an old lady said ‘cool’. In fact it probably tickled him that this old lady even existed and was in front of him in his crappy office. He didn’t give the impression he’d ever spoken to anyone over the age of forty.

  ‘And is that it?’ Dorothy said, her voice demure, respectful.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Jason took a long slurp of his drink. Plastic straw, the climate message clearly hadn’t got to him yet.

  ‘I heard something about property development?’

  Jason frowned. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  Dorothy put on her dumb face. ‘Must’ve read it somewhere.’

  ‘I think you’re getting us confused with someone else. We don’t own any properties.’

  ‘Not own, lease. Flats around town or something.’

  Jason narrowed his eyes. ‘At festival time, for sure.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Jason looked at her like she was stupid. ‘Have you any idea how much it costs to put on a show here in August? The city is crazy.’

  Dorothy wanted to say she’d lived here for five decades, she’d seen the festival go from nothing to everything, but she kept quiet.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So for hospitality,’ Jason said, sipping his drink. ‘It makes like a gazillion times more sense to rent flats and houses than put artists in hotels.’

  ‘And you do that?’

  ‘For sure.’

  ‘I thought artists had to sort that stuff for themselves?’

  Jason rolled his eyes again. Dorothy wanted to take those big glasses and crush them.

  ‘Well yes, but they might as well rent a place from us as someone else. That way CTL make more money.’

  Dorothy nodded, looked at her phone. ‘But you don’t do that the rest of the year?’

  ‘Like I said, we don’t own anywhere, we just rent then sublet to artists.’

  ‘So if I told you CTL were renting a place in Leith right now, that wouldn’t make any sense.’