by Mairi Chong
Holly wondered if Betty had known of the tragedy at the hospital before Neil had shown her the paper. She thought that she probably had. She wished she could ask. Instead, she stood watching. Perhaps the old woman thought she was shy, or mentally deranged. Maybe Holly was both of these things. She wanted the moment to never end.
‘We need to talk. You know that, don’t you?’ Betty finally said. Her voice came like miasma through gravel. ‘I know more than you think. You’ve come looking for answers, but you’re playing a very dangerous game, young lady.’
Holly stood completely still. The thump of her heartbeat rang in her ears. Could it really be her? Betty was short for Elizabeth. Holly wasn’t sure if she voiced the words or not.
The old woman blinked slowly.
But the spell was broken. Carol reentered the shop in a flurry of anxious energy.
Holly hated Carol more than ever that day.
10
‘You’re dripping,’ Carol called after her. Holly turned to see a trail of brownish liquid exuding from the bag. She hurried through to the back, her stomach lurching.
It was the day following the staring match and Holly felt that she and Betty really must finally speak. She had come in determined to have it out with the old woman. But as yet, she hadn’t appeared.
‘Gloves for those, I think,’ Carol called through. ‘Might have been sitting in a puddle on the doorstep, and we only just bleached the floor last night. I’ll have to do it again.’
It was gone half-past nine when Carol began to express her growing concerns over Betty, who had still to appear. If Holly was honest, she too had begun to worry, not that she would have said.
‘It’s so unlike her. You know how she is. Usually, so punctual, and she’d always ring to say if she was held up. I hope it wasn’t bad news at the hospital the other day.’
Holly knew that if it did indeed turn out to be bad news, and she suspected it might, Carol would enjoy nothing more than to revel in Betty’s misfortune.
‘She’s probably slept in, for once in her life. Have you phoned?’
Carol said that she had, twice.
‘Well, go around if you’re that worried. Neil’s meant to be coming into work in an hour, isn’t he? And Alex is here. Tricia and I will manage fine with the till if that’s what’s worrying you.’
‘I don’t like to just go to the house,’ Carol said pathetically, wiping her perfectly clean hands on the front of her tabard.
Holly wondered if she was suggesting that either Tricia or she should go and check. But there was no way she was doing it.
In fact, Holly knew exactly where the old woman lived having followed her home a good number of times. She knew where most of her co-workers lived. It was a bit of a game she liked to play. It appealed to her sense of adventure, to shadow them without being seen. Betty had been her quarry on several occasions and only living five minutes away, it made for a quick and rewarding hunt.
‘How was the bag anyway?’ Carol asked a little later.
‘The wet one?’ Holly asked. ‘I barely touched it. It was soaked through, so I just re-bagged the lot and threw it in the skip out the back. It couldn’t even go in the rag bag. All filthy.’
Thomas was one of their regulars. A man in his late fifties, with a learning disability but plenty of chat. He came in frequently for ‘a news’ as he called it, and ended up hanging about the place causing trouble, more often than not. Even when he did leave the shop, he would stride up and down outside by the bus stop. Sometimes, he stopped passersby and accused them of being his uncle’s brother, or his mother’s dentist, or some such nonsense. Occasionally, if things were quiet in the shop, Holly would cast an eye outside to see if Thomas was preventing customers from entering.
On more than one occasion, Tricia or Carol had been forced to shoo him away, especially if he was in a particularly boisterous mood. Holly, against her better judgement, rather liked his resolve and ignorance of social etiquette. He had no self-awareness whatsoever and seemed impossible to demoralise.
His trips to the charity shop had become so frequent that it seemed that they were as much a part of his routine now, as any of the other social work-organised activities that filled his week. Several times, he had suggested that he also volunteer, but they all knew that that couldn’t happen.
Usually, Thomas came into the shop around lunchtime, to avoid bumping into his arch-enemy Carbolic, another troubled gentleman who frequented the shop from time to time. Carbolic was, of course, not the man’s real name. Although, it was what they all called him, and to his face too, not that he minded. Holly believed his name was Frank, but she couldn’t be sure. She had once asked Carol why they called him this, and in telling her, Carol revealed something about herself that Holly had not known.
‘I had dealings with him professionally years and years ago,’ she had said, whilst folding a donated duvet cover. As she held it up, her arms outstretched, she almost completely disappeared behind the mauve and pale-green, flowered print.
For the first time, Holly considered a different Carol, a person who had once had a life.
‘What did you do?’ Holly asked.
‘Oh, didn’t I say? Social work.’
Holly was dumbfounded, and she tried to imagine Carol in this role, but couldn’t.
‘He was one of our trickier customers,’ she went on, unaware of Holly’s surprise. ‘Although it wasn’t my area of expertise, and I was only looking after him briefly as holiday cover. I never managed to help the man much. Such a shame. Full of anger. Sometimes, I thought he’d hit one of us when we went around. He’s mellowed with age though,’ she said almost sadly. ‘Not half the man he once was.’
‘What happened?’ Holly asked, refolding a pillowcase for the third time.
‘Well, even I don’t know what made him the way he was, but he lived an almost feral life. You used to see him going up and down the street and avoid him. His house was down by the railway lines. It’s boarded up now. Goodness knows how many years he lived in that place, hoarding rubbish. His family doctor went in to find him with no heating, no running water. Rats everywhere. You could hardly move for the mountains of litter he had kept. Bag upon bag of rotting food or junk, although of course, he didn’t see it that way. He thought it was treasure.’
Holly must have looked enthralled because the other woman went on.
‘That’s when we went in, but as I say, I never managed to persuade him to allow us to clean it up. He stayed up at the old hospital for a while, I recall. A few years after I had left the job, he had another health scare, I think. Had to go into hospital again, and that’s when social work saw their chance. The neighbours, you see? Rats everywhere.’
Holly nodded.
‘So, they transferred him temporarily to The Court.’ (By this she meant the sheltered housing complex down the road. It housed a good twenty or so residents with additional needs. Thomas was one of them also. Holly supposed it was how the two of them had met.) ‘Said it was just to recuperate, I believe,’ Carol continued, ‘but he never had the option to return to his own home. It was harsh, I agree,’ she said, clearly reading her thoughts, ‘but he couldn’t be left in a rubbish tip, could he?’
‘I guess not,’ Holly said reluctantly. Goodness knows why she had sided with the man, but for some reason, she felt that justice had not been done.
‘He was in quite a state, apparently,’ Carol said. ‘His beard, his hair, even his toenails, were filthy. That’s where the name had come from, I suppose,’ she said. ‘They probably had to scrub him clean with carbolic too. He was talked about often amongst the social workers. A difficult case to get right.’
Carbolic usually came into the charity shop first thing in the morning, and although he and Carol had known one another in the past, neither of them behaved in any way that might indicate there had ever been a connection. Carol was pleasant enough, as they all were, and the strange man often brought them a packet of biscuits or at Christmas, a tin
of sweets.
Carbolic didn’t come in to see them that morning though. Perhaps, Holly wondered frivolously, he and Betty had run off together. But that lunchtime, after Betty’s desertion, they were all a little out of sorts. Carol certainly seemed to be as wound up as a freshly coiled spring and had openly shouted at a customer for trying to lift something out from the window display without asking her first.
Thomas shuffled in with the bag he always pulled behind him. He had told Holly once, that it was for helping him cross the road. A thing on wheels, the sort you might put your light luggage in, to take for a short break. Although goodness knows how it helped him get across the street. Still, he was rarely seen without it.
‘Well then?’ he asked, clapping his hands and showing her and Tricia his gapped teeth. His nasal hair twitched with excitement. It wasn’t unusual for conversations to start mid-way with Thomas, so even accompanied by his darting eyes, and his obvious delight, they weren’t unduly alarmed.
Tricia, who had more patience for individuals like Thomas, asked him what the news was.
‘Haven’t you heard then?’ he almost yelled.
‘Shh – you’ll frighten the other customers, Thomas,’ Tricia said. ‘Now, what’s the story because we have work to do.’
Thomas turned from the desk and began pacing back and forth. ‘Pigs!’ he said, cawing like some decrepit animal.
Neither Holly nor Tricia responded.
‘Pigs! Police!’ he shouted. ‘All over the bottom of the town. You’ll be wondering what they’re after, I expect.’ He looked from one of them to the other, but Holly had already run out of tolerance.
‘Thomas,’ she said calmly and quietly. ‘We couldn’t give a monkey’s shit if you want to know. But you clearly want to tell us, so do so, and then beat it.’
‘That, that, well, that one who was here,’ he said stammering and flailing his arms, obviously discouraged. He banged his fist on the desk. ‘Her who was here always. I don’t know her name. The old one. The ugly one.’
At this, Holly had to suppress a guffaw.
He met her gaze obstinately though. ‘Aye,’ he continued. ‘It’s her they’re saying. It was her time. Found down there by the railway. Blood everywhere.’
The garish, mismatched garments that surrounded Holly, seemed to suddenly pitch. She stood motionless, now unaware of the voices around her. Then, stumbling from Tricia, she pushed past. She made it just in time to vomit in the bathroom sink.
11
‘Mrs Scott’s dead,’ Michelle said, her cheeks flushed with horrified enjoyment. ‘I just heard from one of the patients. Hit by a train. Would you believe it?’
‘The old woman? The one who tried to sneak through the other week and nab one of the doctors?’ asked Julie. ‘She was only just in here again, seeing Dr Moreland the day before, wasn’t she? I remember her in her silly woollen hat and gloves.’
Michelle nodded. ‘That’s right. And I read the hospital letter that came in about her at the end of the week too. She wasn’t well. Cancer. Perhaps that’s why she jumped.’
Julie shook her head. ‘Oh God, no,’ the younger girl said. ‘There would have to be a better way to end it than that, wouldn’t there?’
‘Well, you’d have thought, but who am I to say?’ Michelle asked. ‘It would have been quick, I guess.’
‘Messy,’ Julie said and wrinkled her nose. ‘I wonder who found her. Must have been a dreadful thing to discover.’
‘Dreadful,’ Michelle agreed.
It seemed that, although Glainkirk was shocked by the news, few were unduly upset as they came into the GP’s surgery that day. Whenever the topic was mentioned, it was done in hushed, dramatic tones. Everyone agreed that it was a terrible fate to befall an elderly lady, but no one dwelt on the thing for too long. Suicide was quite unsavoury.
Cathy arrived early. She came in before her senior partner James, which wasn’t unusual. Even Michelle was not at the front reception when she crossed behind the desk to collect her letters. She returned to her room, keen to get on. It was an hour until her first patient was due in, and she might get through some of the lab results at the very least to clear time for the letters later.
She worked solidly, looking up momentarily on hearing the back door bang. Footsteps sounded on the carpeted corridor outside, as her colleagues also began their day. She listened as next to her, the door opened, and the light was switched on, indicating that her partner James was in the building also. Still, Cathy continued working, refusing to look up from her screen until there was a tap at the door.
James looked around the corner. ‘How was it?’ he asked, smiling.
Cathy leaned back in her chair now realising from her aching shoulders how long she must have sat hunched. ‘Oh James,’ she sighed, and he laughed.
‘That bad?’
‘Not really, but I’m glad to be done with reunions for another five years. All OK with you?’
He came into the room and shut the door. Cathy looked at her partner quizzically. He was still to remove his jacket, as he always did when he was consulting, even on a chilly day, and Cathy saw that his suit was creased.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve heard about the accident overnight?’ he asked. ‘I expect the police will be in later. The lady we were discussing the other day.’
Cathy was confused. She and James had discussed half a dozen patients recently, so he could have meant any one of them.
‘Elizabeth Scott,’ James said. ‘Found dead this morning it seems. Talk of the town. The girls were telling me just now at reception. I assume the police will want a word. Looks like suicide. And given what you were saying about her diagnosis, there doesn’t seem in any doubt as to why.’
Cathy was, for a moment, speechless.
‘Elizabeth Scott’s dead?’ she finally repeated.
‘Apparently so. They found her by the railway line just down from Fernibanks where she used to work. Absolutely tragic. But the police will no doubt fill us in. Thought I would give you the heads up. I assume she wasn’t voicing any suicidal thoughts when you saw her last?’
‘No. Not a thing,’ Cathy said absently. ‘James. I’m sorry, but I’m in shock.’
The senior doctor nodded. ‘Nasty, I know, but presumably, there was nothing we could have done. Re-read her notes before the police come in. Familiarise yourself with it all. Cathy, don’t start overthinking, OK? We can’t spot everything, and if she didn’t voice her desperation, then there really wasn’t much we could have done. I know there’s been enough violent death in Glainkirk to last us a lifetime, but suicides do happen.’
Cathy nodded. ‘Thanks, James,’ she said. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’
James smiled. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
Cathy felt sick. She couldn’t believe it. Of course, they were wrong. The old woman hadn’t killed herself; she was positive. She quickly opened Elizabeth Scott’s notes, and read what she had herself typed the other day. She had documented the woman’s refusal for treatment, and her own encouragement that she might change her mind at any point and that would be fine.
No, she decided. Betty Scott, for all of her eccentricities, was not of unsound mind though and certainly hadn’t hinted at suicide. But she had voiced a real concern at the end of the consultation. Something serious had been troubling her. Something in Glainkirk, she had said. She had even gone as far as to say that it was someone in the charity shop who had made her feel edgy. Cathy tried to think of the old woman’s words. Something to do with having been a psychiatric nurse and knowing when something was wrong. What had she meant? Had she been implying that she could spot when someone was becoming mentally unstable? Having worked as a matron up at Fernibanks, it seemed quite plausible. Cathy thought again of their last encounter. She pictured the fluffy, white-haired woman. She had been close to tears at one point, Cathy recalled. There was an air of desperation about her plea for help. ‘Promise me,’ she had begged. But of course, Cathy hadn’t known what she was pro
mising to do. She had been as reassuring as she could but had assumed that the old woman was exaggerating, or at least, she had hoped it was the case. Betty Scott had said that she was going to speak to the person in question first. If it didn’t go to plan and they wouldn’t agree to the old woman’s demands, she was going to get Cathy to help. Was it possible that she had done just as she had said she would? Was it melodramatic to consider then that the encounter had resulted in her death?
Come afternoon, when the police did arrive at her door, Cathy had prepared an account of her patient’s last couple of consultations. But more importantly, she told them about Mrs Scott’s concerns about something, or rather someone, in the charity shop. The policeman, a detective whom she had dealt with over an assault case some months ago, smiled.
‘I’ll be honest,’ he said. ‘We will, of course, go and talk to the other volunteers at the shop, but it seems reasonably straightforward. Especially, given what you have told us about the breast cancer and likelihood of her dying in the next couple of months.’
‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ Cathy said helplessly, ‘but I got the feeling that she knew there was danger. I had assumed, not for herself.’ She sighed and flopped back in her chair. ‘I’ll leave it with you of course,’ she said. ‘I just have a horrible feeling that there’s something more to this than suicide.’
12
It wasn’t long past two o’clock when the police finally appeared at the charity shop. After Thomas had gone, Carol had considered shutting, but as Tricia said, nothing had yet been confirmed, and their source of information could hardly be considered reliable. Holly, now that she had recovered from her initial embarrassing upset, thought that this was a little unfair. She had known Thomas for near enough four months, and although he was as repugnant a man as could be imagined, it seemed he was almost bound to speak the truth. Holly thought it was part of his disability. It must have been some weight to bear throughout his life.