A Dish Served Cold

by Diney Costeloe

  “Good God, whatever happened to you?” Sylvia cried in dismay as she opened the door two hours later to an exhausted Arabella. She took in her friend’s face, battered and bruised, her eyes covered with a pair of sunglasses and pulled her indoors saying, “Arab, you look frightful!”

  Arabella smiled wearily. “Thanks Sylvia, just what I need to hear!”

  “Sorry,” Sylvia was immediately contrite, “but it was such a shock to see you like that. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No,” Arabella replied fiercely and then added with a rueful laugh, “You should have seen the other fellow!”

  “Roger?”

  “Roger.”

  “Pam…Arab, whatever happened?”

  Arabella flopped into a chair and sighing, closed her eyes. “Tell you when I wake up,” she murmured and was instantly asleep.

  She woke an hour later, stiff and uncomfortable in the chair. Sylvia brought her a cup of tea and some paracetamol and suggested that she get into bed and get some proper rest. Arabella agreed, and as she drank the tea sitting up in her bed, she told Sylvia what had happened.

  Sylvia was horrified. “You left him unconscious on the floor? Arab, are you sure he was alive?”

  “Well, he was breathing,” Arab said dismissively. Then seeing the look on her friend’s face she said, “Look, Sylvia. He had attacked me, may be even tried to murder me, there was absolutely no way I was hanging about there for him to get his second wind and have another go, OK?”

  “Yeah, OK,” Sylvia’s tone was conciliatory, but she was concerned. As soon as Arabella had snuggled down under the duvet, she went downstairs and gave the matter some thought. Suppose, just suppose, Roger had not recovered consciousness. Suppose he was still lying unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. What if there had been internal damage and he was bleeding to death?

  Sylvia knew she had to find out, and began considering ways of doing so. In the end she settled on a quick phone call. Not from here though, she thought, or from my mobile. I can’t risk the call being traced and Roger finding Pam now.

  Quickly she scrawled a note to Arabella. Had to go into town. Back soon. Love S. If Arabella queried where she had been, she would say she’d had to fetch some books from school. She got into the car and drove off down the track before she could change her mind. As she edged the car into the lane she was nearly wiped out by a boy-racer careering round the corner, engine revving, wheels squealing sideways. She pushed the heel of her hand on to the horn and was rewarded for her pains by an answering blare and two fingers. Shaken, she stopped in the lane for a moment or two waiting for her heart-rate to slow a little.

  I must ring the council, she thought angrily, and get them to cut that bloody hedge back again. It was a phone call she had to make every single year.

  When her heart had stopped racing, she drove into Belcaster and made her way to the station. She knew there was still a public call box outside and had decided that it would be safe enough to call from there.

  Roger’s number rang only twice before the answerphone cut in. “Hi, you’ve reached Roger Smith. Sorry I can’t take…..”

  The receiver was snatched off and a young woman’s voice rasped, “Yes?”

  “Hallo, can I speak to Pam please?”

  “She doesn’t live here anymore,” snapped the voice and the line went dead.

  Well, thought Sylvia, I definitely had the right number, so that must be Karen. Which means Roger can’t still be lying on the floor.

  Her mind set at rest somewhat, Sylvia collected her books from school and headed home. When she reached St Jude’s Cottage, Arabella was still asleep upstairs, so Sylvia tore up her note and binned it. There was no need for Arabella to know she had ever been to Belcaster at all.

  Chapter 12

  When Karen arrived, at Cardiff Road on Saturday morning to give her father a computer lesson, she found him sitting at the kitchen table, a brandy bottle and an empty glass beside him. He had a large lump on the side of his head, his face was bruised and there were traces of dried blood on his cheeks and chin. He looked up at her with watery and unfocused eyes.

  “Good God, Dad!” she exclaimed staring at him from the doorway, taking in his injuries and his blood-stained shirt. “Whatever happened to you? You look awful.”

  Roger groaned and reached for the bottle. He slopped some more brandy into the glass before Karen crossed the room and took it away from him.

  “That won’t do you any good,” she advised, and filling the kettle at the crowded sink, set it to boil. Roger watched her but said nothing until she had made a pot of tea and poured him a mugful. She pushed it across the table and said, “Now tell me. What on earth happened to you?”

  “Pam came home last night.”

  “Pam?” Karen sounded incredulous. “And she did this to you? Pam did?”

  “We had a fight,” groaned Roger. “At the top of the stairs. We both fell down them. I was knocked out and when I came round she’d gone.”

  Karen had reached for a tea towel and wrapping it round some ice cubes from the fridge she held it gently against the lump on Roger’s head.

  After a moment he pushed her away growling, “Too bloody cold.”

  Karen tried to replace it, saying, “Sit still, Dad, it’ll help the swelling.”

  Roger, however pushed her away again, saying aggressively, “ For fuck’s sake, leave it, Karen.”

  Karen shrugged and dropping the ice cubes into the sink said, “Suit yourself.” She poured another mug of tea for herself and sat down opposite him. “Tell me,” she demanded, “Tell me exactly what happened. What on earth was Pam doing here in the first place? Was she after more money from the safe? How did she get in? I thought you’d had the locks changed.”

  Roger took a pull at his brandy and then a sip of tea before he replied, “She said she’d come back to find her grandmother’s pearls.”

  “And had she? Where were they? In the safe?”

  “No, not in the safe,” Roger answered wearily. “For some reason she’d hidden them in the loft. I thought they were in the safety deposit box in the bank. God knows why she moved them.”

  Karen thought she knew as well. Much as she disliked her step-mother, she was under no illusion as to what sort of man her father was. “Did she find them?”

  “Yes, she was just coming down the ladder from the loft when I got in and caught her.”

  “And you had a fight and both fell down stairs.” Karen shook her head in disbelief. “And was she hurt too?”

  Roger shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I told you, she’d gone by the time I came round.” He drank more tea and went on, “I think she was bleeding. She hit her face on the banisters.” He held out his hand displaying the purple bruising in the shape of Pam’s teeth. “She bit me!”

  “Bit you!” echoed Karen. “Were you trying to take the pearls away, or what?” She was still incredulous. These were not the actions of the stepmother she remembered; that woman would not have had the nerve to do any of these things. “And how did she get in? Didn’t you have the locks changed?”

  “Of course I did,” snapped Roger, angered by his daughter’s interrogation. “I don’t know how the hell she got in.”

  Karen looked round the dirty kitchen and sighed. “Why don’t you go and have a shower, Dad, while I clear up the kitchen a bit. It’s pretty disgusting, you know.”

  Roger struggled to his feet, but as he walked to the door he was clearly unsteady; Karen moved quickly to take his arm and together they negotiated the stairs. On the landing they discovered that the ladder still extended from the loft, and Karen saw the bloodstains on the carpet.

  The exertion of climbing the stairs had drained Roger, and with his face as white as paper, he stumbled into his bedroom and collapsed onto the bed.

  Karen looked at him anxiously. “Ought you to see a doctor, Dad?”

  “No,” growled Roger, “I’m going to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

 
“But if you’re concussed, Dad,” Karen began, “I’m not sure going to sleep is good. Wouldn’t….?”

  “Karen, for Christ’s sake pack it in, will you? Just shut the fuck up!”

  It was a tone Karen had learned to fear as a child, nearly always accompanied by a slap round the face or a box on the ear. Roger no longer hit her, but she was still afraid of him when he was angry. She shut up.

  “I’ll be fine, OK?” Roger went on in a more moderate voice. “Come and wake me in an hour.” He closed his eyes, and though the world swirled round him, he didn’t open them again until he heard his daughter leave the room and close the door.

  Karen went to the loft ladder and climbed up a few rungs, poking her head through the trap door, but apart from the usual clutter that she knew had been there for years, there was nothing to see. She switched off the light and swinging the ladder upward, closed the loft door.

  As she turned to go downstairs, she caught sight of something beside the landing radiator. It was a handbag.

  It must be Pammy’s she thought, and picking it up she opened it. Inside was a purse, some make-up and a handkerchief. Karen opened the purse and abstracted the three ten pound notes and the handful of change that it contained. There was also a lipstick, a powder compact and some eye-shadow. Eye-shadow? Not the Pammy she knew, but she shrugged and stuffed both money and makeup into her pocket. Nothing else of interest, so Karen hid the bag in her bedroom. No need to tell Dad about it – the money would pay for all the slaving she was going to have to do in the kitchen.

  She went back downstairs and reluctantly began to tackle the accumulated washing up in the sink. Up to her elbows in hot suds, Karen attacked the congealed grease on the plates wishing her father had been persuaded to invest in a dishwasher. Perhaps he would now that the dishes were no longer washed for him. It was hot in the kitchen and Karen took the key from its hook to open the back door. She turned it, only to find that the door was already unlocked.

  Of course! she thought as she pulled the door open, that’s how Pammy got in. Either Dad forgot to lock the back door, or Pammy had another key to it. Well, that solves one mystery, anyway.

  Karen took more than an hour to make the kitchen presentable and when she had finished she made another pot of tea and some toast and took it up to her father. He wasn’t asleep, but was still lying in bed looking very pale, the bruise on his forehead livid against the pallor of his skin.

  “I thought you might like something to eat,” she said, setting the tray down on the bedside table.

  Roger shook his head and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Just tea,” he croaked.

  “You didn’t change the lock on the back door, did you?” Karen asked him as she handed him the tea.

  Roger looked at her uncomprehendingly for a minute and then said, “So?”

  “So that’s how she got in,” Karen said, sweeping a heap of dirty clothes onto the floor and perching on the dressing-table stool. “She must have had another key. The key was on the hook as usual, but the door was unlocked.” It was one of Roger’s many rules that the key should never be replaced on the hook unless the door was locked. “Unless she was lucky and you hadn’t locked up properly.”

  “Of course I locked up,” Roger snapped. His head still ached like fury and he didn’t care, just now, how his wife had got into the house.

  “I wonder if she’s been in before?” Karen mused, “if she has back door key.”

  “Doubt it,” Roger said. “None of her things have gone.”

  “Well,” Karen got briskly to her feet and picked up her mug. “I’ve cleared up the kitchen a bit and put a load in the washing machine for you. You really should get a dishwasher now, you know, Dad. It would save you a lot of time and effort.” She turned at the door. “I’ll be downstairs if you want me.”

  Roger saying that Pam had taken none of her things, had given Karen an idea, and as soon as she was downstairs she went into the dining room to Pam’s bureau. When she had cancelled Pam’s debit card, the bank had sent a replacement which Karen had intercepted and hidden in the back of Pam’s bureau. A quick search showed her that it was still there. If Pam had also contacted the bank and had come back to look for the replacement, she hadn’t found it. Karen replaced it and went back into the kitchen to reload the washing machine.

  Clearly she and her father weren’t going to do any work on the computer today, so Karen decided that while he was resting she’d do a supermarket shop. She had cleaned out the furry cheese, sour milk and mouldy bread from the fridge, leaving him with no fresh food. The freezer held almost nothing and there was only a brown banana in the fruit bowl. If they were to eat again this weekend she’d have to get stuff in. As she sat at the kitchen table to make a list, the phone rang. The answerphone cut in immediately and she heard Roger’s recorded message before she snatched up the receiver and said abruptly, “Yes?”

  “Hallo,” said a woman’s voice. “Can I speak to Pam please?”

  It’s that bloody woman again, Karen thought and spoke sharply. “She doesn’t bloody live here anymore,” she said and slammed the phone back into its cradle.

  Then a thought struck her. I should have found out who that was, she thought. Perhaps it was something to do with Pam being here last night.

  She picked up the phone again and dialled 1471. It was a number and code she didn’t recognise, but she made a note of it and then tried dialling back. The phone rang several times and then cut off. Karen dialled again and again. The third time she was lucky, and someone answered with a cautious, “Hallo?”

  “Who’s that, please?” Karen asked politely. “Who am I speaking to?”

  “Kerry. I’m in a phone box. I got to ring my mum. Can you get off the line.”

  “Kerry! Don’t hang up,” Karen cried urgently. “Where’s the phone box?”

  “By the station. Now get off, I got to ring my mum.” The line went dead, and Karen was no further forward. With shrug she put the phone down. It didn’t really matter who had rung for Pam. They weren’t likely to do so again.

  Karen went upstairs again to tell her father where she was going and to borrow his car. Her bike was useless for getting a big shop home.

  “Where are your car keys, Dad?” she asked, peering round his bedroom door..

  “Hall table,” he replied sleepily.

  “No they’re not,” said Karen. “I looked there.”

  “I always put them there,” muttered Roger crossly.

  “Well they aren’t there now,” said Karen firmly. “Look in your trouser pocket.”

  Roger was still dressed in the clothes he had come home in and for a moment he searched his pockets, but there was no sign of the keys.

  “Don’t worry,” Karen said resignedly, “I expect they’re in the car.” She went downstairs and opening the front door, stopped short. There was no car in the drive. The houses in Cardiff Road didn’t have garages. Some residents parked on the street while others had paved what had been their front gardens to make some off-street parking. Roger was one of these. Karen hadn’t registered the car was missing when she parked her bike earlier; now she stared at the empty space where the car should have been. Had her father left it outside the shop and walked for some reason? Perhaps he’d been too drunk to drive home. It had happened often enough before, though usually he drove himself home regardless of how much he’d had.

  Karen turned back into the house and went upstairs again. “Dad,” she said, “did you drive home last night?”

  Roger looked surprised. “Yes, of course I did.”

  “So, where’s the car?”

  “Where’s the car?”

  “Dad, the car isn’t in the drive. Where did you leave it?”

  “I left it in the bloody drive!” snapped Roger. “Where else would I leave it?”

  Karen shrugged. “Well,” she told him, “it isn’t there now.”

  Gradually what she was telling him sank into Roger’s head and he said, “She’s taken my
car. She’s taken it. Pam! That bloody woman’s stolen my car!” He heaved himself off the bed and stumbled to the stairs to look out of the landing window. The parking space was empty.

  Roger let out several oaths and then said suddenly, “I’ll report it to the police, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll tell them my car’s been stolen.”

  “Will you tell them who’s stolen it?” Karen asked. “They might say Pam using your car wasn’t stealing.”

  “It’s my car, not hers.”

  Roger spoke with the petulance of an angry child, but Karen said reasonably, “They might not look at it that way,” adding, “You’re going to look pretty silly if you have to admit your wife has made off with your car.”

  Roger considered this and had to agree. He was not a man who could endure looking foolish, and Karen’s remark struck him very forcibly. But neither was he a man who would allow his wife to make a fool of him and get away with it.

  Another thought struck him. “I shall simply report the car stolen,” he decided. “I can’t claim on the insurance unless I report it stolen.”

  “What happens if they find Pam has it?” asked Karen.

  “We prosecute her for theft,” Roger said promptly, “and at least I shall get my car back. It’s going to be bloody inconvenient without it.”

  Roger phoned the local police station and reported that his car had been stolen from the forecourt of his house during the night. Yes, he assured PC Baron who took the call, he had certainly locked it up when he had left it. No, he hadn’t left a window open. No, there was no broken glass to indicate that a window might have been broken. In Roger’s opinion who ever took it must have been a professional car thief.

  PC Baron said he would be letting Mr Smith have a crime number in due course, which he could pass on to his insurers and said that they would let him know as soon as the car was found.

  This latest piece of perfidy on Pam’s part made Roger even angrier than he had been before. He needed a car all the time.