A Gingerbread House

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Bloody cheek,’ I said. ‘That plus the sniffing.’

  ‘Can you still smell it?’ Renny said. ‘We’ve got an asthma hazard of Glade going on in here and I’m sure I can still smell it.’

  I shrugged. The truth was I didn’t know. Once you’ve convinced yourself there’s a smell you can’t stop. ‘Have you worked out what it is yet?’

  ‘We’ve worked out who it is,’ Renny said. ‘Or at least where it’s coming from. It’s that funny wee house with the freak sisters.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Aisling said. ‘The wee skinny one’s normal. Nearly.’

  I felt a buzz under my skin like a low-level electric shock. I wouldn’t have been able to say what it was. ‘Sisters, are they?’ I said. Then added: ‘I can see their back garden from my flat.’

  ‘Well, they need their drains seen to,’ Aisling said. ‘It smells like something died in their basement.’

  ‘I do think they might be hoarders,’ I said. ‘She – the wee one – is forever up and down with stuff.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’ Renny said. ‘We could get the council on to her.’

  I gave it a thought, going back over what I had seen. ‘Hard to say. It’s all in bags. Small stuff. Not furniture and that.’

  ‘Probably food for the fighting dogs. Seriously, Tash. There is something not right in there.’

  ‘Ignore her,’ Aisling said. ‘She’s got a basement phobia. I lived in London for six months so they’re dead normal to me, but it is weird to have one round here, right enough. And I’m telling you, it’s the drain, not the basement. Their garden shares a wall with our back bit and there’s a grating too big to cover with a bin. That’s where the guff’s coming from.’

  ‘We’re pouring bleach down it night and morning like it’s punch at a party,’ Aisling said, ‘but it’s not helping.’

  ‘I’m with you about basements, Renny,’ I said. ‘I was at a party one time with this guy and I was sure he’d gone off and left me. So I schmopped off too and broke up with him in a text. Six months later I found out he was downstairs playing snooker. I dumped him for nothing. Nice bloke too. Nice bum.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Aisling said. ‘You’re in the hungry gap. They’re all married and none of them are divorced again yet. But just wait: soon they’ll be dumping their wives and you’ll be laughing. Still got your figure and all that.’

  ‘How old do you think I am?’ I said. ‘Cheeky mare.’

  ‘Thirty,’ Aisling said. ‘You told us already. Memory problems?’

  They both cackled and I didn’t have the heart to bring them down again, dropping hints, so I just reminded them that I’d be in after lunch, prayed it was true, and left.

  How could a house look so frowsy just for being empty overnight? It wasn’t as if I cleaned every day. I filled the kettle and waited, gazing out the back window, watching the cardigan sister wipe her clothes rope with a cloth before starting to hang a load of washing.

  Quick cup of tea, I thought, change of clothes, drive to Grangemouth, pick up the signed papers and back for my massage. Because he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. And even if he wanted to, he knew he would get caught. Like I’d caught him once already, even though I was too late. Like Ty and ‘missper’ were going to catch whoever it was that tricked Ivy, Martine and Laura. Not too late. Please God, not too late for those three.

  My phone rang. Smiling, thinking of Ty on his coffee break or maybe even with news, I answered it.

  ‘Are you in?’ It was my dad.

  ‘Am I in?’ I said.

  ‘I just want to talk to you, Tashie.’

  ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Give me fifteen. Safe side.’ And hung up. Because the only way to make sense of that question was if Big Garry was outside, right now. Otherwise he’d have asked ‘Where are you’ or even ‘Are you at home?’

  I sidled along the hallway to the bedroom window, where the thick nets hid me from the street. And there was his car parked across the road outside Adim’s. His door was opening. The passenger door was opening. He had brought my mum! I let out a long shaky breath. But it wasn’t Lynne who stepped out of the passenger side. It was Wee Garry. That was a joke, of course. Wee Garry had a head and a half on my dad and surely a few stone too, none of it fat. He wasn’t dressed in his warehouse ovies today. He had on a black leather blazer over a T-shirt and a pair of bad jeans, so new and stiff the hems stuck out on either side of his blinding white trainers. He looked ridiculous, like his mum had dressed him for the part, but low in my gut I felt last night’s cheap red wine and greasy chips moving. He might well look ridiculous, but he also looked like what he was. Muscle.

  I stumbled backwards away from the window and flew to the front door. But they’d be in the close before I could get out. So I dropped the snib and put the chain on, wishing the bolts weren’t painted open, then I ran to the kitchen, to the end of the offshoot.

  I’d been kidding myself all week that he wouldn’t, but only on the surface. Underneath I’d known all along, and now that knowledge took over, sharp and smart. I jumped up on the draining board and prised up the sash, recoiling at the roll of foul air that came in. The top of the wall dividing Hollywood’s yard from the chippy’s was only five feet down at a guess. If I dangled, I could get steady on it before I had to let go with my hands.

  It looked so easy when people did it in films. But when I took hold of the taps and started to climb out I felt the cheap aluminium of the inset sink buckle and, when I lowered myself, the windowsill dug into my forearms. Plus it was miles more than five feet. I was as low as I could go, and my toes were still waving in mid-air, when I heard the fierce, drilling buzz of my entry phone. My first ever visitors. I tried to look over my shoulder. Then, at a second buzz, I let go.

  Only an acrobat could have landed on the single course of bricks that made up the top of the yard wall, but at least I hit the flat top of the chippy bin and, even though I kept moving, it slowed me enough that when I dropped to the ground, knees bent and arms out, I stayed on my feet.

  The chippy wasn’t open yet. It wouldn’t be long – this wasn’t the sort of town where the takeaways stay shut at lunchtime – but I couldn’t wait. I stacked up a stairway of fat-pails, groaning at the weight of them as I dragged them across the slabs and strained to lift them, then I pulled myself from the top one back on to the bin lid and up on to the wall.

  I was balanced there, gathering myself to slither down into Hollywood’s yard, when I glanced over into the garden of the fairytale cottage, at the washing hanging on the rope.

  Then I forgot I was standing on a narrow brick wall at head height from the hard ground. I forgot about the foul smell. I forgot everything and stared at the clothes line. It was crowded with T-shirts and blouses – all different sizes, underpants and bras – all different colours, looking like the stock for a jumble sale. And in amongst them was a peach and cream summer dress, fluttering on the line the way it had fluttered on Laura Wade as she left her flat on the last day.

  I walked along the wall, steady as a rock, then turned and scrambled down, landing in a crouch. I let my legs stretch out in front of me and settled myself, not minding the wet grass under my bum or the rough stones at my back, scratching me through my clothes. I studied the washing, putting it together into outfits. Three of them. A summer dress in May. A suit and blouse from March, and the sort of socks that you wear as boot liners. A cord skirt and complicated jumper from February, ribbed tights.

  Three different sizes. None of them a good fit for either sister.

  A skinny wee woman, Renny had said. That was what had bothered me, making echoes boom in my memory.

  One of the echoes was Carole’s voice. Not a picking on her, it said. Poor-looking wee thing.

  It smells like something’s died in their basement. That was Aisling.

  So I was too late. I felt a pain in my chest like my heart was literally breaking. I was only just too late. They had been right there, b
eing fed every day, then being left alone a couple of days to weaken, and then, on that one day of high drama I thought was maybe a gas leak, being killed. Now they were mouldering. I was too late. I was so close, but I had missed them.

  The house door was opening. I didn’t even try to move. I couldn’t have anyway. When she came out, the skinny wee woman, loaded up with more bags, we stared at each other, one frozen in the doorway, one slumped on the grass.

  ‘Myra?’ The woman’s voice was light with wonder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You came.’ I said nothing. ‘My sister’s sleeping. You’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Can I ask you a favour?’ I said. My voice surprised me with how steady it was.

  ‘Anything. I can’t believe you came. You just … came. I tried so hard to make you come. Three times I tried to make you come. I should have waited. Here you are.’

  ‘Can you have a look up at the windows of the first-floor flat there,’ I said. ‘Is there anyone in there? But do it subtly!’

  The woman pushed her hair back off her head and used the gesture to hide a sweeping glance along the top of her garden wall.

  ‘A large man,’ she said. ‘Did he try to stop you coming?’

  I was on my hands and knees now, Keeping close to the base of the wall, I made my way up to the corner. ‘Unlock the cellar door and leave it open,’ I said. ‘When you tell me no one’s watching, I’m going to run inside. OK?’ Because I had to see them. I didn’t know why, but I had to see them with my own eyes. Then I would phone nine-nine-nine. And I would phone Ty too. And Adim and the girls in the nail bar. What could this tiny little woman do? However she caught the others, she was no match for me.

  She opened the door and left it ajar. She threw another glance at the sky as if to check the weather. Then she trotted back up the steps, walked over to her washing and started working her way along the rope feeling the clothes. I had seen my mum do it a thousand times. I had done it myself: judging how dry the washing was and how certain the rain was. It was the perfect cover for looking beyond the rope to a neighbour’s windows.

  When she was halfway along, actually letting the floaty dress run through her hands, she said, ‘Now!’

  I squirted forward, covering the space in three sprinting strides, then threw myself down the steps. I grabbed the doorjamb and swung myself round into the dark, out of sight, stopping, panting in the close blackness.

  The air seethed with the smell of death.

  The last thing I saw was the woman trotting down the stone steps to lock the door behind me.

  The last thing I heard was the distant ring of my phone lying in the grass, where it had fallen, at the base of the garden wall.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I came round slowly, gagging on the air and blinking into the darkness. I’d never fainted before. I was in a tiny room, the door I’d come in locked on the other side, but another door with a key sticking out of it facing me. I knew what was behind it. I wanted to see them. Too late to save them, still I wanted to see.

  I turned the key and pushed the door. I couldn’t see much in the dimness, just a pair of silhouettes. But they were sitting up. One of them was standing up now and coming towards me. I gasped.

  ‘Martine?’

  She pulled in a sharp breath.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ I said. ‘I thought I was too late.’

  The other one stood and came forward. ‘Who are you?’ she said.

  ‘Ivy?’ I said. ‘Where’s Laura?’

  They parted then, moving to either side to let me look past them to where a figure lay stretched out on an airbed on the floor, covered in a blanket to the chest, but propped up and smiling at me.

  ‘All present and correct,’ she said. Her voice sounded weak and her face was skeletal, her eyes invisible in their deep sockets and her cheeks sharp as flint.

  ‘Who are you?’ Ivy said again.

  ‘Tash Dodd. I can’t believe you’re all here. I thought I was too late. I thought they had killed you.’

  ‘They tried,’ Ivy said. ‘My elbow’s definitely broken and Martine’s got a gash on the back of her head. But we fought them off, didn’t we?’

  ‘What happened to you?’ I asked Laura.

  ‘Urine infection,’ she said. ‘Kidney infection. But I’m doing some fighting off too, after – let me tell you – a couple of pretty hairy days. Look, never mind that. Have you got a phone?’

  I shook my head. ‘Dropped it,’ I said.

  ‘But what are you doing in here?’ Martine asked me. ‘If you knew we were in here, why did you come? Why didn’t you phone for help? I don’t understand.’

  What could I say? Arrogance, ignorance, panic? All of the above. ‘I’m sorry,’ I went for in the end. ‘But I’ve got a lot of people outside all set to kick up a stink if I go missing,’ I said. I had been leaning on both my hands but I couldn’t stand to breathe this air any longer. I lifted one and used it to hold my T-shirt hem over my nose.

  ‘Rude!’ said Laura. ‘Are you insinuating things about our housekeeping?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘You must be used to it.’

  ‘It’s worse than it was,’ Ivy said. ‘There used to be a metal plate over the drain where we squat, but then I tried to kill Kate with it and Gail took it away, so now it’s an open sewer.’

  I took my hem away from my face and sniffed, trying not to gag. ‘But that can’t be sewage,’ I said. ‘It smells like … bad meat.’

  ‘It is,’ Martine said. ‘Well, it’s blood anyway. It’s periods.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, with another sniff. ‘For real that’s just a bit of period blood?’

  ‘On old newspaper and bits of cardboard, yeah,’ Martine said.

  I let my head fall back against the wood panels of the door and watched the three of them from under my lashes. Trying to take it in. Ivy Stone had been in here for months, squatting over a drain, cleaning herself with newspaper, fed by a madwoman bringing carriers down every day. And there was nothing in here. Absolutely nothing. Just dank walls, a few flakes of old paint hanging off them, a concrete floor covered with moss and dirt, and a collection of furniture gathered under a grimy fanlight that looked so pathetic and so insane I could feel a sob in my throat. Three bright pink plastic inflatable armchairs and a coffee table made of empty water bottles and a sheet of cardboard. The sob escaped me.

  ‘Which one’s Kate?’ I said. ‘The wee twittery one or the one in the net curtain? I’ve been watching them from the window of my flat.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Laura, but she didn’t explain.

  ‘Kate’s the little one that comes inside,’ said Martine. ‘Gail’s the grey one that unlocks the door.’

  ‘We call her Caspar,’ Laura said.

  I managed a dry laugh. ‘And which one … or is it both?’

  ‘Kate’s Igor,’ Laura said. ‘She’s the minion. She does the dirty work. But Gail’s the one with the flick knife. The one with the keys.’

  ‘Stanley knife,’ said Martine in a voice that told me she’d said it many times before. ‘That’s bad enough.’

  ‘I saw her once,’ I said. ‘I thought it was a phone in her hand. But it was dark. It was the middle of the night.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Martine said. I frowned at her. ‘What do you mean you saw her “once in the night”? I thought you said you were watching Kate come and go.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘So? Well, actually I saw her in the day once too. But only once. What’s the problem?’

  ‘She unlocks the door,’ Martine said. ‘She waits for Kate outside, in the daytime. How come you’ve never seen that?’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ I said. ‘Kate comes and goes on her own, bringing stuff. What is it – food? Clothes?’

  I didn’t realize what I had done until Martine started sobbing. ‘She wasn’t there?’ she said. ‘She was never really out there? Kate had all the keys with her every time?’

  ‘All what keys?’ I said.

 
; They told me then, about the double doors, the two-lock system they’d believed in. The story that had tricked them.

  I waited a while to let the waves of truth and shame and anger settle. When they were all breathing easy again, exhausted with it maybe, I asked the big question. The real question. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Kate brought us,’ Martine said. ‘For Gail to choose one.’

  ‘One what?’ I asked.

  ‘Sister,’ said Laura. ‘One more sister. To kill or to keep. Which, is something we don’t know.’

  ‘Why?’ My voice had gone to a croak.

  ‘Because there’s something really wrong with her,’ Laura said. ‘And Kate’s completely under her thumb. Not even that. Kate’s just her little shadow.’

  ‘But none of that matters now,’ Ivy said. ‘She’s too bloody late.’ She sounded like iron filings. It made me shiver. ‘Tash,’ she went on, the smile back in her voice, ‘you look like a big strong girl. No skin breaks and two working arms?’ I stared at her. ‘Good. Because we’ve got a plan.’

  ‘It’s the happy ending of our last plan,’ Laura said. ‘The dumb one.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked them. I was still reeling, still couldn’t believe these three names had sprung to life, out of their photos and the news reports, and were right here talking to me.

  ‘I was lying in wait for Kate to come in,’ said Ivy. ‘She was going to come in, see Laura trussed up like a corpse and Martine bending over her, wringing her hands. That was going to distract her, or upset her, then I was going to whack her with the drain cover.’

  ‘What went wrong?’ I said. I was clambering to my feet now, to let them go back to their little lounge instead of kneeling on the hard floor beside me. They had nothing on their bottom halves except pants and socks. Maybe they were long past noticing, but it was bothering me.

  ‘That’s the question,’ Martine said. ‘It took us ages to work it out. Gail finally appeared for a start. With her knife. That’s quite distracting when you’re not used to it. And then we got hurt – the two of us. That knocked everything off as well. But really it was because she didn’t do what we expected. And we couldn’t see why.’