Absolution

by Caro Ramsay

  Paula thanked them and walked back into the gym, looking happier with her lot.

  ‘Well, I’d say we had a potential murderer right there,’ Irvine said.

  ‘From the sound of what Paula says, potential murderers would have to form an orderly queue.’

  ‘Three–nil is a bit of an insult,’ said McAlpine, closing the sports page of the Evening Times and flinging the paper into the rear seat of Anderson’s Astra, where it joined a litter of empty Ribena cartons and a green Tweenie. It was late on Saturday night, and his head was thumping. He had spent all day chasing the ghost of Elizabeth Jane Fulton – a woman with few enemies and even fewer friends – and had got absolutely nowhere. He put his hand on the car-door handle but made no move to get out. ‘We’d better get a break tomorrow,’ he said to nobody in particular.

  ‘It’s early days yet.’ Anderson pulled on the handbrake and pointed at the Volvo in front. ‘Helena got friends in? LLB 11, nice plate, worth more than the car.’

  McAlpine looked at the number plate and the National Trust badge on the back bumper, vaguely recognizing the vehicle; he couldn’t recall who drove it, but he knew he didn’t like them. He just couldn’t remember who it was.

  He checked his watch. Then he began slowly and deliberately to slap his forehead with the palm of his hand. Saturday night, eleven thirty. ‘She’s having a dinner party. They’ll be well into the liqueurs by now.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Anderson with feeling. ‘Were you supposed to be there?’

  ‘Our anniversary. I am – was – indeed supposed to be there. I was at the wedding, after all.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Anderson again. Was I supposed to remind you?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s your fault.’

  ‘At least I remembered to phone my mother-in-law, least I got the kids covered …’

  ‘I didn’t phone.’ Suddenly McAlpine sounded very tired. ‘Didn’t even remember to forget. She’s been planning this for ages.’

  ‘Helena’ll understand. Brenda would go apeshit.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said McAlpine, more cheery. ‘It could be worse. I could be married to your wife.’

  ‘Cheers for that, Boss,’ Anderson muttered sourly as the DCI walked away through the dark drizzle.

  The dining-room door was open, and McAlpine was immediately assaulted by the smells of coffee and garlic, the voices of adult, clever debate. He could hear Terry Gilfillan making some tedious speech about the Scottish Parliament and the Arts Council, could hear Denise Gilfillan answering wittily in her advocate’s voice. He felt like a kid spying on grown-up fun as he sneaked past the door, hoping to get in unseen, steal ten minutes in a hot shower and then slip under a duvet for some wonderful, uninterrupted sleep. Small talk had never been one of his fortes and certainly not after a day like this. He needed to de-stress, stop the chattering in his head and think. He needed to forget Elizabeth Jane and her immaculately sterile flat, forget Lynzi and her double life. One woman with no life, the other with two.

  But the dead were not always silenced by sleep.

  A burst of laughter filled the hall, a response to some witticism, as McAlpine slipped into the sitting room and closed the door. He kicked off his shoes, slipped his jacket off and dropped it on the floor. He lay full length on the sofa, half pulling the throw over him, listening to the easy hum of conversation drifting from the dining room, punctuated with laughter, against a background of Diana Krall crying a river over somebody. The music lulled him as images of Elizabeth Jane and Lynzi chased each other across his mind, his subconscious juggling random thoughts, searching for coincidence and serendipity. Suddenly he thought of the minister, George Leask. He knew that face from somewhere. But where?

  McAlpine slipped into a dreamful sleep – the dead woman lying with arms outstretched, her thin elegant wrists, the leather strap of her watch … not Elizabeth Jane’s, not Lynzi Traill’s, but Anna’s. As she accepted his kiss with her wide sunshine smile, enveloping him with the rapturous scent of bluebells, she woke, and he heard somebody say, ‘Hello, honey.’

  ‘Hello? Hello, sleepyhead,’ Helena said. She kissed her husband on the forehead; he smelled of whisky, cigarettes and apple shampoo. More often than not she would find him unconscious on the sofa when he was on a big case; he ate nothing, drank more and slept less, living on adrenalin and fresh air.

  ‘You ruin every suit by doing this,’ she murmured, turning up the thermostat on the radiator and turning down the dimmer switch. As the light faded, she paused, studying his face, almost childlike in sleep, the handsome profile she had painted a hundred times in her mind. She kissed her fingertips and pressed them to his lips. Just as she was pulling the throw over his feet, a triangle of light ghosted across the carpet.

  She turned to find Denise Gilfillan standing at the door. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he go to bed?’

  ‘It’s a genius thing. He thinks better on the sofa.’ She pulled the door closed behind her, forcing Denise back into the hall.

  ‘Do you want me to get the coffee? The Robertsons don’t look like shifting,’ she asked. She was holding three empty wine glasses in her hand, ready for the dishwasher.

  She took them from her. ‘No, Denise, it’s fine. I have it all ready.’

  Denise followed her into the brightness of the kitchen. ‘How are you keeping?’

  ‘I’m fine. How was the cheese? It seemed very strong. I wasn’t aware there was a difference between vegetarian cheese and carnivorous cheese.’ She poured boiling water into the cafetière and, conscious of her best friend watching her back, wiped its bronze lid.

  ‘Depends on the rennet. Are you sure you don’t need a hand?’ Denise stood with her hands outstretched.

  Helena looked at her reflection, pale, a smudge of mascara under her left eye. She licked the pad of her thumb and rubbed at it. ‘You can get the cream out of the fridge if you want.’ She knew where this conversation was going.

  ‘The cheese was excellent, my favourite.’ She would say that. ‘You know what I mean – how are you? You can’t avoid the question.’

  Helena bit back her annoyance. ‘You told Terry, didn’t you? I spotted all those poor Helena looks over the goat’s cheese tartlets.’

  ‘They were lovely goat’s cheese tartlets.’ Denise patted her on the shoulder. ‘But, Helena, we think of you as part of the family. We worry about you.’

  ‘Well, don’t. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘But I saw a letter from the Beatson on the hall table. Unopened. Is that the results of the mammogram?’

  ‘If you’re that observant, you should be in the force along with him on the sofa.’

  ‘Helena, with these things you have to move quickly, you have to be – ’

  ‘Never mind what I have to be.’

  ‘But the letter is unopened, and – ’

  ‘And it will stay unopened until I’m ready. It’s just the appointment to get the results, and I have deliberately set up the appointment for after the exhibition, so it makes no difference, does it?’ Helena said sweetly, her friend’s insistence making her dig her heels in.

  Denise stopped at the door. ‘Well, I think you are wrong but give me a shout if you want anything.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’

  Helena thrust the plunger of the cafetière deep with the palm of her hand, quicker than was necessary, causing the grains to billow up the side in anger.

  Sunday, 1 October

  Helena woke from a restless sleep, caffeine fuelling her thoughts, thinking about all the things she still had to do, worrying about her little lump, worrying about the future. She had agreed with herself to put it all to the back of her mind until after the exhibition. She could cope with only so much at a time, and right at this moment she didn’t have time to be ill. Two weeks wouldn’t make any difference.

  Denise, being helpful in her confrontational way, had just robbed her of a goo
d night’s sleep, and the one thing she needed right now was sleep. But it wasn’t Denise who had the problem. She hit her head angrily into the pillow.

  But then she reached out across an expanse of cool lemon cotton sheeting and smiled to herself. She was used to hearing the front door open and close at all hours of the day and night, a pause as a jacket was slung on the stairs, feet going straight into the sitting room, the clink of glass. Alan had the ability to move around the house with ghostly silence, but she always knew he was there. Even in her deepest sleep, she always knew. He would come into the bedroom eventually, sit on his side of the bed, thinking, staring into his whisky, waiting for the day’s thoughts to disappear. She would roll over, curving her body round his back, and his hand would rest on the side of her face, his thumb caressing the tendril of hair above her ear, and she would sleep easy once he was there.

  This time she waited, her hand automatically stroking the blank sheet beside her. The clock said 3.59. She smiled again, glad he was at home, resting on the sofa in the room below, cuddling the velvet throw. Then the vague thoughts in her mind crystallized. She had already heard him come up the stairs, she had waited for him, gazing into the darkness with half-open eyes. But the footsteps had continued up the stairs to her studio. She thought she had misheard, remembered opening her eyes wide, looking at the ceiling, listening as his footfalls betrayed him. She’d heard the clunk of the ladder up to the attic being pulled down. And then nothing. She remembered lying, in silence, staring at the fronds of lace on the lampshade as they danced in the draught, wondering what he was doing in the attic. If he wasn’t in bed, he must still be up there. She slipped out of bed and out on to the landing. The downstairs light was on, casting faint shadows on the stairs. She could hear nothing apart from the occasional tick of the central heating and the odd creak of an old house waking to a new day.

  ‘Alan?’ she called, looking both up and down the stairs. ‘Alan? Are you there? Alan? Hello?’

  ‘Yeah,’ came a quiet voice from somewhere below her. She could see him, bathed in the dull light from the stairwell, sitting on the stairs like a child beneath the oriel window, looking very small and alone.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Something about his voice was unwelcoming. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. He didn’t get up, but sniffed and slipped something into its tissue-paper wrapper, then pushed it under his leg on the stair.

  ‘What have you got there?’ she asked softly, sliding on to the step above him.

  ‘Can I answer nothing much?’ He rested his head on her knees. She felt the damp on his cheek; he had been crying.

  ‘If I was a detective, I wouldn’t accept it. But as I am a mere wife, I shall.’ She kissed him on the back of his head, letting the weight of her lips rest in his hair, waiting for him to respond.

  ‘I was looking at photographs of Mum.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘So why did you ask?’

  ‘I wanted to know why you were looking,’ she asked softly.

  McAlpine didn’t answer. Helena felt his shoulders stiffen, holding back something he did not want to say. ‘Just thinking about Mum,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Your mum died, Alan, when you were young and vulnerable.’ She sighed. ‘I have far too much nagging to do ever to leave you. Come on, let’s get some sleep.’ She got up and made her way back to the bedroom, leaving her husband sitting on the stairs. She heard him sigh, and she knew she was right to leave him alone with his thoughts.

  Later that morning it was her usual post-dinner party routine: two glasses of mineral water, strong coffee, Dinah Washington on the CD and the dishwasher humming away doing all the hard work. She looked at her watch. There was plenty of time to get the kitchen squared up, and she could leave at half eleven and be at the gallery by one. She pulled on her rubber gloves ready to tackle the delicate glassware in the sink, her mind miles away. Peter Kolster was being demanding, wanting his My Brother in Palestine to have top billing in the exhibition, but he was an unknown … so far. And she had five Old Dutch paintings at Customs at Glasgow Airport, waiting to be signed for.

  The doorbell sounded, and she cursed under her breath. Terry Gilfillan back to fetch the car he had been too drunk to drive the night before, no doubt. She had enough on her plate today, and she could do without his dripping sympathy. Immediately, her hand went to her breast, feeling for the little lump that was trying not to be found. And there it was, her body betraying itself. She rolled the gloves from her hands, picked up the car keys from the hall table and opened the door.

  Colin Anderson looked at the keys in her hands and raised an eyebrow. ‘That kind of night, was it?’

  ‘It sort of turned out that way.’ She smiled, glad it was him. ‘Come in, Colin. Alan’s upstairs messing about. He’ll be down in a minute.’ Helena swung the gloves from her hands, dangling them inside out. ‘Coffee? I have some on.’

  ‘Great.’ Anderson noticed how tired she looked, paler than usual, her skin transparent under her eyes.

  ‘Is that more work for our lord and master?’ She nodded at the file he was carrying.

  ‘Yeah.’ He slumped in a chair at the breakfast bar, spanning his fingers at the heat radiating from the Aga behind him. He wished he could take his shoes off and warm his feet as well. ‘I’ve just picked up Michael Batten, Ph.D., B.Sc, BBC, GTi, etc. The effing profiler,’ he expanded. He nodded upstairs. ‘What kind of mood is he in?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Christ.’ He looked longingly at the remnants of the crème brûlée.

  ‘Have you had any breakfast?’ Helena could see flecks of grey in the blond and an insidious puffiness under the eyes. Colin needed a shave and a sleep; he was looking worse than her husband.

  ‘Those going a-begging?’ He pointed at some cold duchesse potatoes and an abandoned goat’s cheese tartlet.

  ‘Yes, help yourself. Do you want them warmed up?’

  ‘No, I’m used to eating leftovers, believe me.’

  She leaned against the worktop, watching him as he stabbed at the potato whorls with a fork. ‘Do you want to investigate some cheese and bickies while you’re at it? Or I could put on some toast for you? Or both?’ she added.

  He hesitated, then scooped a mouthful of crème brûlée with the same fork. ‘Toast would be great. Our toaster’s on the blink after hitting the wall, narrowly missing my head.’ He licked cream from the fork, his other hand reaching for the Ritz crackers. ‘This is lovely.’

  ‘You know, over the years, the amount of Alan’s food I’ve tipped into the bin would probably feed a small African nation.’

  ‘He doesn’t eat at the best of times,’ said Anderson, slicing a big piece of Caboc and sticking it awkwardly between two crackers.

  ‘How do you think he is?’ she asked, keeping her voice steady.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Colin, his voice non-committal.

  She tried a different tack, her fingers swiping imaginary crumbs from the worktop in front of the toaster. ‘Does he seem the same at work?’

  Anderson took his time to answer. ‘Maybe a bit nervy, that’s all, but it was his first day on the case. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’ Helena folded her arms, deep in thought.

  Anderson munched away at a cracker, then felt the need to break the silence. ‘Why, is he not OK?’

  ‘Oh, he’s fine.’

  Anderson noticed the slight emphasis on the he.

  ‘You know how the mind races at four in the morning.’ She started rubbing the worktop with her forefinger, erasing a mark that didn’t exist. ‘You know he was at Partickhill Station when he was a cadet? He interviewed me when my mother died … and we got married three months later. It was our anniversary yesterday.’

  Anderson paused in mid crunch. He said, ‘Congratulations. You deserve a medal, being married to him that long.’

  ‘Divorce has never crossed my mind. Murdering him is a daily thought, though.’ She smiled, then was serious aga
in. ‘His mother had died just before mine. That means he was at Partickhill when he lost his mum, and he hasn’t been back to that station since. Christ, he even drives down Byres Road rather than going up Hyndland to get to the station.’

  ‘There’s always been a bit of a rumour that he avoids the place like the plague.’

  ‘It’s true; he said it was too small a station to be effective.’

  ‘We’re all allowed to avoid our demons,’ said Anderson. ‘I should know: I married mine.’

  ‘But that’s all there is to it as far as you know?’ She folded her arms automatically, protective of the perfidious little lump.

  ‘Helena, he’d just lost his brother and his mum. Like you say, he was a cadet then,’ Anderson reminded her gently, scooping up congealed cream with another cracker. ‘Cadets answer the phone, they make the tea. He wouldn’t be allowed to get involved in anything that would affect him. So don’t worry. He’ll have his reasons; he always does.’

  Helena looked at her watch, easing the strap from her skin, running her forefinger round under the leather. She had lost weight. ‘It wasn’t like him not to come in and annoy Terry. He never misses an opportunity to wind him up.’

  ‘He was very tired, Helena. He nearly fell asleep when I was driving, and that speaks volumes.’

  But Helena was miles away, curling her hair round her finger. She was thinking back to the summer of ’84, the day of her mother’s funeral, and how kind Alan had been. He had been looking at that unmarked grave, a young, shattered, broken man, gaunt and bloodless. She had always suspected that whoever was in that grave was buried as deep in his heart as they were in the earth. But twenty-two years of marriage had taught her it was not a subject for discussion. Well, not with her. She watched as Anderson nibbled at another pyramid of potato, wondering how much he knew. She circled her toes a few times, making the tendons on her ankle snap, still thinking about the white tulips lying in their aluminium cone, about the single rose that he had added later. She knew she had intruded on his grief then; she sometimes thought she still did.