Mosaic

by Caro Ramsay

  He hugged me and told me that he hoped I loved the house as with Melissa gone, it was all coming to me. ‘Please don’t hurry back to work, I have spoken to Edward and he’s happy for you to stay here, maybe work from here. I really want you to be here.’

  He didn’t add it is your duty, but I could see it in his eyes. He’s not asking me, he’s telling me.

  ‘I think I’d rather go back to work and finish up for myself, there are a few clients I’d like to see through, people I was doing some research for.’

  ‘I’d rather you were here.’

  Cold.

  ‘I’d rather go back. I have good clients. I’m not leaving them to one of the others.’

  ‘I got you the job, Megan, and I will have it taken away from you, you have a job, a job and a duty and that is here.’ He nodded, a dip of his chin as if he was dismissing one of the lower orders.

  ‘I think that should be my decision.’

  He smiled again, blue eyes creasing. ‘Of course it will be, and you will make the correct choice, I am sure of that.’ Then he closed the door back over, and the hall went dark.

  I walked around making sure the doors were locked and the windows were closed, Molly was with me, still hyper after a day of being locked up in the stables and resentful of missing all the comings and goings. She wouldn’t sleep, she was restless, walking up and down panting. I went back downstairs and Molly ran up to the door of Dad’s study.

  I was feeling very uneasy, not really sure why. My dad had been under a lot of strain and it was very odd that this house should be so empty, like it had been cleared. Intentionally. I went back upstairs and looked round Melissa’s room. Her bed had been remade, the yellow duvet cover millpond smooth. All the equipment had gone, the porcelain jug and wash stand were back in place, all was back the way it was, as it had been for every minute of my childhood. It was as if Melissa had never existed.

  Her photograph, which usually stood on the dresser, was missing. And even in the heat trapped in that room, I felt a chill.

  I ran my hands along the top of each picture, tapping them in turn, one of Melissa was missing. Nope. It was still here but moved to the front. The one of Melissa and Beth together was gone.

  The house was empty. Just Dad and I.

  How many times had it been said to me today? Stay here.

  The carousel was moving round. I fingered the necklace, looking out the window. The estate had been measured up today. And valued?

  A sense of a house being put in order.

  I pulled out the mobile and called Drew.

  EIGHTEEN

  Megan

  Ten minutes later, dressed in jeans and a warm jumper, I was down at the Benbrae with Molly. It was dark, Drew came out from the woods, looking like he had climbed over the fence. I was going to ask him why he didn’t drive in. Where had he been to get here so quickly?

  ‘Megan, somebody has walked round the house, they might be making their way down to the Benbrae. I think it’s your dad.’

  I thought about getting up but Drew held on to me, telling me to wait to see what way they went. He didn’t seem surprised by any of this. ‘What do you know? What is he doing?’

  Drew told me to be quiet, pursing his lips and shaking his head. ‘Let’s see what he does, where he goes.’

  So he was here, but not for me. Yet some other secret of the family. ‘Do you think it’s something to do with Mum?’

  ‘Let’s wait and find out.’

  ‘He’s been very worried. Where is he going?’

  ‘Quiet.’

  I watched as Dad walked past us, hidden as we were, crouching down in the lie of the land. He didn’t keep to the road, he veered off.

  Into the Tentor Wood.

  All I heard was Drew swear under his breath and he took off, into the darkness. I had to hold tight to Molly’s collar to stop her trying to follow him.

  I tried to stand up but my legs were stuck, my feet not moving as I commanded them to, I tried to make my way slowly, pushing branches aside, my face getting scratched. Drew had seen something, under this very dark sky, twinkling stars making it seem even darker.

  Molly was beside me, shivering. Sensing my tension.

  I heard voices, shouting in the distance.

  Then they stopped.

  Drew came running past me, fast, stopping for nothing, he shouted at me to get out the way.

  So I ran in deep into the Tentor Wood, running behind Molly who had caught a scent. I almost stumbled into the clearing, just in time to see my dad lift the noose and slowly put it around his neck.

  I stopped dead.

  Someday it was all going to be mine, and that day is today. Carla died the day of Melissa’s wedding, my dad will die on the day of her funeral.

  I said nothing. I couldn’t move.

  I felt the screaming in my throat but it would not come out my mouth and I didn’t know if I was seeing what was actually going on. Or was this in the past? Was I a kid again in my lacy party dress, my fourth birthday, standing, weeping as the black noise rolled towards me and behind it was Papa dancing on his rope, his twitchy, jerky dance?

  And the hand that pushed him …

  The noise echoed around the woods, the trees on either side were shouting or laughing at me, the rooks taking off, their wings swamped by the tsunami of sound.

  But there is no noise at all.

  Carla

  Why does Megan believe what people say to her so readily? No wonder her personality fractures into tiny pieces if that is what it takes for her voice of reason to get a fair hearing.

  She’s thinking about her dad, she’s thinking about the madness and thinking about the family history of suicide, and I know that she’s scared for him. She believes he is ready to kill himself.

  I know that the minute she pulls on a pair of jeans, her big jumper, and walks down to the kitchen to pull on her outdoor boots. The great thing about only existing in someone else’s head is that where she goes, I have to go. The downside is that I can’t actually stop her from doing anything that she wants to do. I have a stinker of a feeling what this might be. It’s not often in my life that I am scared, but I am now. I am witnessing that terrible long moment before two cars crash and you are powerless to prevent it. You may see the driver put their hands up to protect themselves, an arm outstretched, an instinctual act to stop the passenger from going forward. And me, the helpless onlooker just watching the carnage unfold in front of me.

  She slips out the door, she immediately slides along the side of the house, keeping in the shadows. There is a full moon tonight, the Long Drive is open, flat on the left and right sides, but Megan is moving quickly, her dog at her heels, cutting across the front door and heading out to the right by the wall. She’s going to follow it all the way round, down to the gate where she can cross again onto the Benbrae. She’s keeping out of sight, tucked in, being secretive, waiting for Drew.

  Then Drew arrives and with his clearer head, he gets a grip on the situation quicker, and runs for the boathook.

  Megan is on the narrow path, the path Melissa made while running off her calories. She’s moving slower as if she’s less certain of herself now, and then her hand goes up to her mouth and she backs away. I can see exactly what she is seeing. And I feel that sense of fear again. I can see Ivan dangling from the tree over the dark ebony depths of the Benbrae, swinging gently in a breeze, in the dark air, a single teardrop of a hangman’s noose.

  For fuck’s sake, here we go again.

  Megan

  I turn round thinking that Drew must be close by but he’s nowhere to be seen, nowhere behind me or beside me. I am alone with my dog in the Tentor Woods and am unable to take a step forward, watching my father twitching on the end of a rope, out over the water.

  I can’t save him.

  He stops twitching.

  Still now.

  His body swaying back and forth with the slight breeze or some inner momentum, he hangs like a doll somebody had los
t and pegged out on the washing line by its neck.

  My legs have turned to stone, all I can do is watch in horror.

  Then I am thrown to the ground myself, a punch on the back. I lie there and close my eyes, the skin on my face forced into the grass. There is no point, Dad gone, Mum gone, Melissa gone and now it seems to be my turn. The dog has taken off, Drew has gone. I close my eyes.

  Why had it all come to this?

  Because it was inevitable.

  Carla

  Drew is sharp. He twigged what was going on long before Megan did, he ran back, round the north bank of the Benbrae to the boathouse where, clamped onto the wall, were the long hooks. With one of them under his arm he ran back, the path, that very narrow path, was underused and overgrown so he was really pushing his way through. It didn’t help that Megan was standing right in the middle, not hearing Drew shout to get out the way. So he shoved her.

  And she fell.

  Simple as that.

  But she couldn’t hear him. Nothing weird about that except I know she had her hearing aids in.

  Megan

  I watched, hardly breathing as Drew pulled Dad to the side using the boathook. He hauled him on to the bank, crouching low to get a grip, like a macabre tug of war. The sight of them rolling on the grass was what brought me round. The fact Dad had lost his shoes. He had attempted suicide, I was concerned his feet would be cold.

  Dad was wet, dripping with sweat, shaking and panicking. Drew had to pin him on the ground until he calmed. Then we helped him to his feet, and we stood side by side supporting Dad as we started the long slow walk out the wood, then up to the house. My ears were full of silence, I felt I was under water again.

  The Long Drive stretched for an eternity in front of us, the three of us walking slowly, we didn’t speak. We were half carrying, half dragging my dad, he was struggling to breathe. I saw Drew’s mouth open and close, but his head was moving too much for me to lip-read. We were trapped in the silent dark night with this old man, this shrunken effigy of my father, the pale wrinkled skin of his neck striping purple and pink, flecked with blood.

  Up at the front door, Dad seemed to come round, maybe the familiarity reducing his confusion. He rubbed his head as Drew took him into the study and closed the door behind him, giving me a look that said do not come in here.

  So I followed them in, angry at Drew. More angry at Dad.

  ‘How dare you. How dare you,’ I said.

  ‘Calm down, Megan. Just calm down.’

  I think that’s what Drew said as he pushed me back into the big chair.

  And I watched them talk, snug in my silence.

  Carla

  She is one drama queen, the little mare, now that Melissa has gone we seem to have found another actress in the Melvick family. I didn’t see it all, of course, but I could work out what was going on. Drew, as well as being quite good looking, has come from a family of police officers that had worked in this part of the world and knew it well. All of Dunoon and the banks of the Holy Loch are, by definition, close to water. He, and all the emergency services round here, knew the dangers of the water sinkholes and faerie pools, the bottomless, dangerous, soft, overhanging banks, once in there’s no escape.

  And he knew the people, the families, the Melvicks. The faerie pools and the hanging tree.

  What was not expected was that Ivan had lost the plot so quickly. It’s always the same with these stiff-upper-lip types, they never show any emotion until they fall apart and top themselves.

  What I was fully confident of was that Drew Murray was a good guy. I had known his uncle, a fair man. He had walked me into the school office the day I kicked Wullie Campbell in the teeth. Being older, he was the type of cop that would have taken me up a back alley and given me a stern talking to instead of reporting me to the child protection agency. But Drew Murray is younger, more dynamic.

  And much more shaggable.

  NINETEEN

  Saturday

  Megan

  Breakfast had been a trial of things unsaid. The house is empty and echoey. Dad and I didn’t exchange a word until I told him I was going out for a drive. I haven’t slept. Well, not much. I think the three of us spent the night in the study, drinking coffee and dozing. We brought Anastasia in with us, her wee heart pumping like a piston, Molly curled in the corner. I noticed, and was grateful, that Drew locked the door although I wasn’t sure if he was keeping Dad in, or keeping somebody else out. Either way, I was grateful.

  My hearing came back during the night in fits and starts.

  Dad was quiet, I don’t think he said more than a few words to me. We put a blanket round him, a good malt in his hand and tucked him in. Drew lit the log fire and pulled up the wing-backed chair.

  Despite the circumstances, it was the most homely, the warmest, I have ever felt in the Italian House.

  Drew left early, after making plans to meet. Dad said he was going to bed for a couple of hours. I went round the house, locking the doors. With keys on my mind, I starting searching for Dad’s car keys, through the drawers in the sideboard in the drawing room, the living room, down the cushions on the sofas and eventually found them in the middle drawer of the Welsh dresser. It was all coming together, I thought, as I put them back on the rack, where they should have been all along.

  We were through the worst.

  It was Drew’s idea to meet at the Benmore Gardens. It says something about my life that I put some make-up on, just in case it was a date. My car hadn’t been driven since I came home so it was full of dry, hot air and by the time I drove into the car park, my lipstick smudged down my face. Reapplying it, I caught the colour. Nude. Carla. What a laugh we had.

  I was walking among the redwoods when I heard Drew behind me, I could tune into his footfall now.

  ‘So you heard me,’ he said, lifting his sunglasses then hastily replacing them in the glare of the sun.

  ‘I did. I’m like a radio tuning in and out, but mostly in. How are you?’

  ‘Tired.’

  ‘What the hell happened last night? Did he mean it?’

  Drew shrugged. ‘I think a lot of stuff is coming home to roost.’ He dismissed my question as if he knew the answer. ‘How is he, this morning?’

  ‘Eating breakfast when I left him. He’s tired, he looks so old. He’s wearing a scarf round his neck. Debs is looking after him, I don’t think she knows. He hasn’t said anything to her, he said I’ve not to tell Heather, he’s too embarrassed.’

  ‘Not what he says though, is it? He says it’s a brave thing to do. He says it’s liberating to take your own life. You might have missed that speech last night. Unmitigated shite. He thinks there is some comfort in the act, that topping yourself is noble.’

  ‘I suppose it might be compared to dribbling incontinence in a care home. We have a choice.’

  ‘You sound just like him.’

  ‘The failure is embarrassing, you stopped him.’

  ‘He needs to get help. Try that Dr Scobie. Your family needs to get out the mindset that hanging is a good way to deal with things.’

  ‘He’ll seek help when hell freezes over.’

  ‘Aye, but he’s happy to subject you to all that psychological crap. What a bloody family. Come on, let’s get a coffee before I fall asleep.’

  The gardens were handy for coming over on the ferry, making it a destination for Glasgow day trippers for a toastie, a look at the plants and to let the kids run around.

  Drew was swithering over the brief menu, the noise in the small cafe loud and reverberating, my left ear started zinging a little. There is always peace in my retreat to the silent world but this time the noise stayed, screeching in my ears, like a nail down a blackboard. My hearing had gone from zero to hypersensitive in a matter of hours.

  ‘Get me a coffee, I’ll wait outside.’

  He nodded. It was a rare thing for me to be out with a member of the opposite gender; even in a garden cafe rapidly filling up with fat-legged ladies in a coach
party from the woman’s guild.

  ‘I decided on a sugar rush instead,’ he said, handing me a vanilla and chocolate Cornetto.

  ‘OK,’ I said, standing up, my brain juddering at the noise of the chair scraping back on the floor.

  It was a million miles away from all the crap. People being normal, a small boy feeding his cone to somebody else’s corgi. One lick to the dog, one lick to him.

  We strolled in silence with our ice cream, I walked a few paces in front of Drew. Looking at the plastic statues and the fake storks, the hundreds of potted plants lined up, then up the path to the tranquil beauty of the Japanese garden and the gentle noise of the water from the spray hose, a restful sound. I sat down on the wall at the koi pond, watching the nozzle move left then right, the jet of water giving an elegant flick, leaving a hanging moment of silence when there was no noise at all. The water and I occupying exactly the same space.

  Suddenly, I felt very tired.

  I got a nudge in the ribs. ‘Ice cream’s good.’

  ‘It’s been a long time.’

  ‘It has indeed.’

  ‘So you are a detective? What rank are you again?’

  ‘Sergeant. My uncle was a constable.’

  ‘Hairy Monkey, that’s what Carla called him.’

  ‘They called him that round the station as well,’ Drew laughed, looking over my shoulder. ‘Your dad and my uncle got to know each other quite well over the years.’

  ‘Over Carla? Is that where this story starts?’ I am watching him intently, staring right in his face. Two old ladies walk past thinking that I am arguing with him. I pull away a little, finger to my ear making an adjustment.

  ‘There was one thing in the case that always stuck with my uncle, I didn’t know if I should tell you. Your mother said to him once that if anything ever happened to her, we were to investigate it. It was a long time ago, years before she disappeared. I mean years.’

  ‘Are you serious? Nobody ever told me that.’

  ‘Why would we, could we, say anything when she went? The investigation had its hands tied. There’s still no evidence of foul play that I can take into a meeting and argue to get a budget to investigate. I’ve been looking, there’s nothing. It does look like she walked away, that was what the family said. She’s never filled out a tax return. That’s the kind of thing we notice.’