The Society

by Karen Guyler

  It was going to make a statement, shame it was the wrong one.

  She looked like the bus had hit her and she was shuffling around as if she was older than her mother. She pulled herself upright. She should have taken the extra strong painkillers the hospital had offered.

  Should have, she should have stayed in the office.

  Tonight was so important for Every Drop, Eva wanted to scream. She’d chosen her dress with great care, shimmering blue, subtly reinforcing her message about water, and now all anyone would see, would want to know about, was the mess of her face.

  Her left knee was the most worrying. As she walked down the stairs into the kitchen diner, it felt more swollen than it was. Did it matter? She hadn’t planned on dancing tonight anyway, she only had time to schmooze and loosen bank accounts.

  “I made coffee. . .” Charles’ face was an apology. He stepped into her to hold her but his arms fell back to his sides. “Anywhere not hurt?”

  “Eyelashes, fingernails, my toes are okay.”

  “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know, it was just a stupid accident. Coffee will help.”

  He handed her a mug.

  Eva blew the drink. “What did you mean we were safer in the road?”

  He gestured at her. “Safer not running at buses and bikes.”

  “Safer staying on the pavement.” She ran a hand down his arm, an apology for her wisecrack. “How are we doing here?” She gestured at Lily, sitting at the table, half-hidden beneath her long brown hair, her cereal spoon paused mid-way to her mouth, her attention entirely on her phone.

  Charles shrugged.

  “Lily, eat, you’re going to be late.” If Eva’s every morning nag popped up on Lily’s phone screen, she might take some notice of it. “Lily,” Eva raised her voice. “Earth to Lily.”

  Lily did something on her phone and looked up. Golden brown eyes widened and her mouth formed an actual ‘o’. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks. Lesson for you, make sure you only cross the road when the green man is showing.” Eva concentrated on not looking at Charles while she put bread in the toaster. “You’re going to miss your bus.”

  “It’s good.” And Eva had lost her.

  “Do you want me to take your tux? I’m going straight to the hotel from work. Charles?” He turned back from the window when Eva repeated her question. He looked like Lily when she hadn’t done her homework. “I thought you were getting it yesterday. Tonight’s important.”

  He nodded. “I know, don’t worry, I’ll meet you there, all decked out.”

  She resisted reminding him about his beard, focussed on Lily instead. “Have you packed your bag for Anya’s?”

  “Yeah, it’s by the front door.”

  “You’ve got everything you need?”

  Lily pushed herself up from the table, tossed her long hair behind her shoulders and fussed with her school bag’s contents. “Mum, relax yourself, I’m not five.”

  “Got your phone charger, toothbrush?”

  “If I’ve forgotten anything, I can borrow it. It’s only one night.”

  “Here,” Eva held her arms out, giving Lily an ‘I’m so proud of you’ hug. So together, so confident, at only eleven. “Call me later.”

  “You’ll be busy.” Lily reminded her.

  “Not too busy I can’t talk to you but maybe make it before seven.” Eva gave her a tighter squeeze and released her to get the butter dish.

  “What do you have there?” Something beneath Charles’ tone made Eva look up, made Lily freeze, one hand in her bag. Eva’s toast popped up in the perfect silence bounded by Charles’ demand and Lily’s guilt.

  “My school bag, what else?”

  “Show me.”

  “You can’t go down my bag.”

  “As I pay for it and everything in it, I think you’ll find I can.” Eva bit back her ‘what are you doing?’ It was hard sometimes to not contradict each other over Lily’s care.

  “I’ve got rights, you know.”

  “Give it to me.” Charles held his hand out.

  “Mum.” A long drawn out wheedling do something.

  “Charles, what do you think Lily’s got that she shouldn’t have?” Surely she was too young to be trying drugs or sex. But weren’t parents the last to know? Eva was certain she’d have told her mother everything if she thought she would listen. Doubtless making up for that, she’d told Lily countless times she’d always be there for her, no matter what, so she hoped Lily would confide in her when the time came.

  Charles looked so uncomfortable at the sanitary pads he pulled out of the first side pocket he unzipped, Eva expected him to drop the bag.

  “You want to take those off me, Dad?” Lily now in full teenager strop.

  A selection of folders, a pencil case, hairbrush spilled onto the worktop. Charles rifled through screwed-up handwritten notes, a half-eaten tube of sweets, and a couple of crumpled tissues.

  “Empty your pockets.” Something in his eyes reduced Lily’s protests to a huff.

  “This will have to wait, Charles. Lily’s going to be late. Can we do this—”

  “Now.”

  Lily smacked her travel pass and house keys on the breakfast bar, her purse flew off the edge. The note its zip made as it smacked onto the floor was far too jolly a sound for whatever this was.

  “Happy now?” Her sulky outrage was turning, Eva could hear the threat of tears edging it but Charles seemed oblivious.

  Eva began repacking Lily’s bag. “Charles, this needs to wait.”

  “That pocket. I can see it’s in there, give it back.” he insisted.

  “I haven’t got anything of yours.” Lily yelled. “Want to search me?”

  “Show me.”

  “For God’s sake, you’re such a Hitler.” Lily yanked off her blazer and threw it at him.

  He dug into her pockets. “What’s this?” He held up a silver chain, peering at the pendant on it.

  “None of your business.”

  He slammed it down on the worktop. “Have you been in the loft?”

  “Are you mad?”

  “It’s a simple enough question.”

  “Up there with all the spiders? What do you think?” Lily snatched her blazer back. “I’ll miss my bus now so I’ll be late home every day this week with detention, thanks a lot. Hope you enjoy your father of the year award you’re never getting.”

  She yanked her coat off the stand, swept up her overnight backpack and slammed the front door behind her in the best soap opera style.

  “What was that about?”

  But Charles ignored Eva’s question, his feet snapping at the tiles on the hallway floor in Lily’s wake. Eva followed him. “Did you have to be so hard on her?”

  Charles snatched up his own coat and slammed the door too, with Eva’s reasonableness on the inside in the stained air, his and Lily’s anger on the outside in the frigid October day.

  Today, really? She could bang their heads together.

  Her turn to yank the door open, but her shout for Charles to remember a tux rebounded back to her from where it smacked into DI Smith and DC Truman standing on her doorstep.

  6

  “We usually have to knock.” DC Truman’s smile froze. “What happened to you?”

  It took Eva a couple of seconds to realise what she was asking about. “Run-in with a cyclist. That’s why I haven’t been in to give my statement, I spent most of the night in A and E.”

  “We have a couple more questions for you. Can we come in?”

  Eva looked beyond them, but there was no sign of Lily or Charles in the street. She let the detectives in, waited for them to begin.

  “You might want to sit.” DC Truman’s assertion made Eva’s heart jump. What now?

  She led them into the kitchen, leant against the units.

  “That looks nasty.” The woman detective gestured at Eva’s face.

  “It doesn’t feel so great from this side either.�
�

  “How did it happen?”

  “Mistimed crossing the road.”

  “We saw your husband leaving, he seemed to be in a bit of a temper.” And there it was. DC Truman let her accusation sit there.

  “It was nothing, family stuff.” It sounded weak, an excuse, but she didn’t know what it was. Eva picked up Lily’s bowl and scraped the abandoned mush into the food recycling bin. Bending to put the bowl in the dishwasher made her gasp.

  “Are you okay?” the detective persisted.

  “I’m fine. What did you want to ask me? I have to get to work.”

  DI Smith propped himself against the kitchen door frame. “Eric Hill, did he eat anything at the coffee shop?”

  “A piece of chocolate cake, I thought I told you.”

  “Did you have any?”

  Eva shook her head. “I don’t like cake.” She half-expected the usual jokey outrage that followed that admission, but this wasn’t that type of conversation.

  “You eat anything there?”

  “No, why?”

  “We believe Mr Hill was poisoned.”

  Poisoned, but that meant—Eva dropped onto the nearest chair. Keep it together, she couldn’t panic in front of the police. It was only the tiniest chance, the most unlikely of explanations. “Poisoned, are you sure? Was anyone else taken ill?”

  “Why d’you ask?” Was DI Smith testing her?

  She grasped at the distraction of the coffee maker, making them drinks to give her time to think.

  Its rumbling and the shrillness of grinding beans filled the kitchen. She let the machine blast the water, steam the milk, growl through the process again to make a cup for DI Smith, hoping they didn’t notice her shaking hands fumbling with the portafilter, mistiming locking it into the housing. Trusting they thought the screeching warning of no water in the reservoir where she forgot to check its level was a normal thing. Her insides knotted themselves tighter, tighter. She made herself an unwanted cup.

  DI Smith sipped his drink. “Good coffee. Why d’you ask if anyone else was taken ill?”

  Careful. Eva spoke slowly, weighing up each word before she said it.

  “Because that would imply a random attack, like the one yesterday, everyday terrorism or a disgruntled employee at the bakery or the coffee shop.”

  “And if not?”

  Eric, I’m so sorry.

  “It was targeted.” Eva let the words swirl around them.

  “Who would want to hurt him?” DI Smith peered at the notices on the fridge as though he might find the answer in Lily’s half-term arrangements or on their favourite pizza place’s pre-Halloween takeaway offer. “Any of his ladies not so keen on sharing?”

  Eva swallowed, grateful her breakfast was still in the toaster. More so that they were looking at this through the prism of poison usually being a woman’s weapon.

  “I don’t know who’s in his life right now.”

  “You didn’t say why he wanted to meet. Not seen each other in years and then yesterday, coffee and cake.”

  Eva’s mind was a blank. She should have made her statement last night, then they might have left her alone.

  “He wanted to pick my brains, he wanted a second opinion on something he was working on.” That much she could give them. “I told him I couldn’t spare the time right now.” Eva gabbled past the lie, warming to her imagined memory. She concentrated on keeping her face blank, nothing to see there, no secrets being kept.

  “Does he have a temper?” DC Truman asked.

  “Not that I ever saw.”

  “Your husband, does he have a temper?”

  “No more than anyone else. His background is academia, they can seem eccentric, out of sync with the rest of us, a law unto themselves almost.” She gave the usual spiel to explain Charles’ sometimes odd behaviour without thinking. DC Truman called her on it.

  “But not above the law.”

  “Charles didn’t hurt me, a cyclist did. Is there anything else, I really must get to work.”

  “We can drop you.” DI Smith said, “after you’ve made your statement.”

  A statement he didn’t appear to believe, even though he made her go over it four times. Each time under his questioning it became more difficult to keep it as contained as what she’d said yesterday.

  When she got to Every Drop, there was thankfully no worse news from Seitu township, and Dario and Vaishali had mopped up most of the hiccups. After dealing with the ‘take notice of me’ messages, Eva made the call she needed to.

  Today was the worst day possible to be ducking out, but she had no choice now.

  7

  A couple of centuries ago the side street down which Eva limped must have been a powerhouse of activity. That it looked like it hadn’t been in use since then was probably why it had been chosen.

  A white van overtook her, its brake lights tapping out a Morse code: this building, no, that one?

  Her instructions had been very clear, so no use wishing she could have got the taxi to drop her closer as she dodged puddles in the pitted pavement. Forgetting her umbrella was on her. Keeping her head down was all she could do to keep her dressing dry.

  Clunking from inside the back of the van disturbed the graveyard quiet. Black numbers showed her she’d reached her destination.

  But the delivery driver.

  Past number thirty-seven, she slowed, slower again, to not reach the dead end before he left. He re-appeared out of the back of his van. Nothing in his hands, striding in her direction.

  Maybe he was picking something up. There was one building until the end of the street. Eva crossed over. He cut diagonally to her. Younger, stronger, fitter.

  “You have signal?”

  She shook her head. “It’s a black spot here, next road over, you can get signal there.”

  “You show me.”

  “I have no signal. Out of here, take the first right, it works there.” She realised her mistake.

  So did he.

  He reached for her. She sidestepped backwards, her knee reminding her not to do that. She shuffled awkwardly away from him, her heart pounding.

  Mistake number two.

  He grabbed hold of her coat.

  “Let go.” She grasped his arm.

  He didn’t even look old enough to be driving. But Eric. Was this guy the perfect disguise?

  “Please, I have more deliveries. I no find fifty-one, I have no time to not find it. The numbers run out. Please.” His accent thickened as his voice wobbled. “You nice lady, you help me.”

  Eva summoned up the foreign syllables she hadn’t used for so long. “Leave me alone.”

  Her Russian worked. He dropped her coat as if it might poison him. His face changed and he gabbled his explanation at her so quickly she lost its meaning every few words.

  “Slow.” She gestured at him. He nodded, so eager to please.

  A simple mistake to make turning into St George’s Grove when he wanted St George’s Place. He looked so grateful when she gave him directions; she thought he might hug her, but he leapt into his van, crunching the gears in his haste to get back on his deliveries rat race.

  Eva blew out a breath into the silence. Five minutes of peripheral exposure and already she was reading too much into things. And that was before she did this. After they knew, things would change but she had to tell them.

  Time had been a hammer there. From the top left corner of the largest building in the street, thirty-seven’s façade was partway through a metamorphosis. Starburst growths of black mould pocked the white render. The windows were grimy but dark beyond not being cleaned, covered by a counter-surveillance film.

  Eva rang the bell and looked at the underside of the portico, knowing that from beyond the peeling paint someone watched her. The door looked like it would be grateful for the sniff of paint fumes, but it was solid in its frame, metal cold to the touch. She was in the right place.

  When it opened, she stepped inside and pushed it closed behind he
r. The lock engaged with a decisive clunk: no way out unless she had permission. There was no denying where she was now. She stood in an airlock, beneath another camera, the glass door in front of her firmly closed. In the current climate, it wasn’t surprising they had so much security, even in this outpost.

  A woman with salon-perfect big blonde hair bowled towards her. Grinning like Eva was her favourite person, Nora slapped a hand, still favouring a bright red manicure at the unlock button, and the interior door swished open.

  “Eva!” Her name accosted her before Nora did, enfolding her in a protocol be damned hug. “Times like this we need our people around us.” Eva winced beneath her enthusiasm.

  Nora released her, frowned. “You’ve been in the wars.”

  “It’s nothing. How are you? Your daughters and grandchildren?”

  “Eight little monkeys now keeping me busy. How’s your little lady? Let me see, picture please.”

  Eva flicked through a few photos of Lily while Nora cooed and clucked like the mother hen she was.

  “Muuuuum,” Lily hadn’t wanted Eva to film her that day, poking her tongue out, until she laughed, tossing her hair, fluttering her eyelashes, golden-brown eyes wide as she pulled exaggerated catwalk poses.

  “Look at her, she’s so grown-up.”

  Eva smiled. “Eleven going on fifteen.”

  “It’s a fun age. Come on then, I know Gordon’s chomping to see you. We can catch up afterwards.”

  Eva followed her down the dark corridor towards a utilitarian staircase at the back of the building.

  “I’m happy Gordon has his own unit.”

  “Despite himself, you might say. What do you think of our prestigious office space?”

  “This is some place.” Eva allowed. “Hiding in plain sight?”

  “Something like that,” Nora puffed up the second flight of stairs. “Got to get my 10,000 steps in.”