Strangers at the Gate

by Catriona McPherson

  I took the breadboard and butter dish and slid into my seat.

  ‘Done a runner as in…?’ I said.

  ‘Where does that leave you two?’ said Shannon.

  ‘That’s what made Julie suspicious,’ Paddy said. ‘They usually go to Norfolk, France at a push, so Brazil was weird to start with, you know. And then the partnership papers I signed have been amended to provide for me being left as sole partner if the other two partner positions are rendered derelict. Even the gate-lodge rent isn’t a straightforward short-assured tenancy. It’s got provision for five years with real rent, pegged to the rate of inflation, and an option to buy.’

  I was stirring my soup slowly across and back. Paddy had whirled cream onto it and I was making trails in the spiral, turning the sharp lines into a pink blur across the surface of the bowl. I didn’t understand why he was saying all this in front of a stranger.

  ‘What does “rendered derelict” mean?’ Shannon said.

  ‘Oh, just vacated by death or disbarment,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s pretty standard language. It’s the fact of it being added that’s so strange. I was supposed to serve a probationary period and then we’d revisit all that. And this house was definitely just a standard short-assured when we took it on. Right, Finnie?’

  ‘Search me,’ I said. ‘But you told me you’d read the papers before you signed them. How could he change them?’

  ‘I read PDFs,’ Paddy said. ‘It never occurred to me he’d change the draft. I just signed the lot.’ I tried hard to keep my face neutral. I was sure Paddy had said he’d read the papers Lovatt showed him up at the house.

  ‘Death or disbarment,’ Shannon said. ‘Not just taking off. Or do you get disbarred for leaving your practice?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Paddy said. ‘But that’s the other thing. Brazil, see? South America?’

  ‘No,’ Shannon said.

  ‘The great train robbery,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ said Paddy. ‘No extradition.’

  ‘You reckon Lovatt and Tuft have run away to somewhere safe because they’ve done something?’ I said. ‘Something that makes it problematic to stay here? Something that’ll get him disbarred?’

  ‘But that’s crazy,’ Shannon said. ‘They’re paragons of virtue. They raise money and do thankless work that badly needs done. Why on earth would they need to go on the lam? It’s ridiculous.’

  I nodded. It was hard to see Lovatt Dudgeon as a desperado, but then it was just as hard to see him as a player in a murdersuicide. I knew it had happened because I’d seen it with my own eyes, but it still made no sense whatsoever. ‘About the probation,’ I said. ‘Maybe you made a really good first impression. Maybe Lovatt decided to cut to the chase and miss out all the…’ Even to my ears it sounded unlikely. ‘But that doesn’t explain the tenancy changing,’ I added. I glanced at Shannon. She was sipping soup carefully from the edge of her spoon as if it was too hot to eat properly. Did people with albinism have sensitive mouths as well as sensitive skin and eyes? I didn’t know.

  I was facing the window, and as I watched Shannon, wondering if she was all right, I saw movement out there. Mr Sloan was passing on his way up the drive. I couldn’t see his feet, but I could tell by the way one arm was stretched out in front of him and the way he was walking in big steps leaning backwards, that he was being pulled along by a small dog. The first thought that crossed my mind was that I’d keep an eye on our wheelie-bin to see if he dropped his full bags in there, like those kids had dropped in their cheese rinds and sweetie wrappers.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ I said, jumping up and heading out. I grabbed a cardie on my way past the coat pegs. I knew he walked up the drive all the time and there was no reason he’d suddenly go into the house but I had to make sure, or at least find out if he was the kind of man who could cope with a sight like that.

  ‘Mr Sloan?’ I said, as I pulled the door to. He had made good progress. There were two small dogs, as it happened, tugging at him from the end of a branching red lead.

  He twisted round to see me. ‘Oh, hello!’ he said. ‘Another day off, is it?’

  I jogged to catch up with him, my hands driven down deep in my cardigan pockets.

  ‘How’s your wife?’ I said. ‘Still under the weather?’ The two little dogs had stopped tugging him onwards and started tugging him back to see if I was interesting. They were some kind of terrier, I thought, with long silky coats and brown marks in the corners of their eyes. One of them bared its teeth at me.

  ‘Tummy’s better,’ said Mr Sloan. ‘Thanks for asking. But she’s gone over on her ankle. It’s up like a melon, so she’s resting it.’

  ‘Best thing,’ I said. ‘I’ll pop in if you think she’d appreciate it. Doesn’t have to be filed under a church visit,’ I added, seeing his face fall. ‘We could call it being neighbourly. I’ve already met Shannon.’

  ‘Oh, have you?’ he said sourly. ‘Stop it, Sadie!’ One of the little dogs had her lead in her teeth and was shaking her head and growling. The poo bags tied onto it near the handle rustled and she growled harder. ‘Well, I would have spared you that.’

  ‘Spared me what? Meeting Shannon?’

  ‘She’s no better than she should be. I can see into that back room from the top of my garden, unless she’s got the curtains tight shut and pegged together.’

  I would have dismissed it as gossip if it hadn’t been for the way she’d shouted, ‘No,’ when I put my hand on the door and the way she hadn’t answered when I asked what her second business was.

  ‘So why don’t the Dudgeons just sling her out?’

  Mr Sloan staggered to the side as the two dogs started pulling up the drive again. ‘I’ll walk with you,’ I said, falling into step. ‘Why don’t they evict her?’

  ‘It’s not their way. They’ve shifted us onto a lifetime lease. We didn’t even have to ask. It just came through the post to be signed. I like to think it’s our reward for keeping the place up as nicely as we do. We’ve retiled all round the kitchen. Painted and papered upstairs.’

  ‘When?’ I asked.

  ‘When what?’ said Mr Sloan.

  When did the Dudgeons hand over a new tenancy agreement, was the answer but since he’d challenged me as boldly as all that there was no way I could keep digging. It was none of my business.

  ‘Oh, I’m just thinking they were certainly busy before they went off on their holidays. Paddy was saying Lovatt had done a lot of overdue paperwork in one big go. I just wondered if yours was some of it.’

  ‘Holiday?’ Mr Sloan said. ‘What holiday?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ I said. ‘They’ve gone off on a trip to South America.’

  ‘When was this?’ he demanded.

  I thought for a while before answering, unsure of how much I should know about their movements. I watched the rippling backs of the two little dogs. Their silk coats gleamed in the low light of the drive and their breath plumed out in front of them in quick puffs as they panted with the effort of dragging Mr Sloan at their pace.

  ‘Monday or Tuesday, I think,’ I said at last.

  ‘Lovatt and Tuft Dudgeon have never gone off to South America,’ he said. ‘Someone’s been having you on. Mrs Dudgeon stopped at my gate on Monday lunchtime while I was chipping my prunings and never said a word about any holiday.’

  ‘Would it have come up?’ I said. ‘What were you talking about?’

  ‘It did come up!’ he said. ‘She was saying for me to come and take some sacks of leaf mould for my beds. Her gardener makes more and more every year and they have no use for it now they’ve got their place so low-maintenance. But she said to mind and chap the door and she’d show me which ones were well-rotted and ready to go.’

  ‘Maybe it was a surprise,’ I said. My head was skirling with trying to keep the story afloat and the knowledge submerged. Still, I tucked away the titbit that there was a Widdershins gardener. Someone who might have a key to the kitchen door and might go in for a pee or a glass of water and end t
his waiting.

  ‘No chance,’ said Mr Sloan. ‘Lovatt knew how busy she was with her committees. He’d never whisk her off like that and cause her a lot of bother when she got back again.’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ I said. ‘You never think of it when you see grand gestures on the films, do you? It’s a lot of hassle for whoever’s getting the surprise.’

  ‘I’ll knock when I get up there,’ Mr Sloan said, setting my pulse bumping. ‘Let Mrs Dudgeon know there’s a silly tale going round. It’s the least I can do. They’ve been good to Myna and me.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. I stole a glance at him from the side of my eye. He looked hale enough, although he had to be well into his seventies. But would the sight on the kitchen floor stop his heart? Would he get as far as the kitchen, though? If he saw the front door open and got no answer to his knocking, would he even go in?

  ‘Hoo,’ I said. ‘I’m going to head back, Mr Sloan. I can’t keep up with you. You’re as fit as a flea!’

  ‘Nothing wrong with me,’ he said. ‘I’ve done the same exercises every morning since my national service. My wife doesn’t keep well, but there’s nothing amiss at my end.’

  That was as close to a guarantee as I was going to get so I left him to it and turned back, shivering and pulling my cardigan up around my ears.

  Paddy was outside the lodge, hands on hips. Shannon stood beside him, her coat back on but still wearing her indoor glasses.

  ‘Where did you go rushing off to?’ Paddy said. ‘Aren’t you freezing?’

  ‘I saw Mr Sloan,’ I said. ‘I wanted to ask after his wife. And ask if anything funny had happened with his cottage.’

  ‘And has it?’ said Shannon.

  ‘Yep,’ I told them. I shuddered. Paddy took off the fleece he was wearing and draped it round my shoulders. ‘They’ve been switched to a lifetime lease. I think Julie and Abby are right. I think the Dudgeons got you down here and signed up, got me installed to take over Tuft’s committee work, sorted all their tenants out and made a plan to leave.’

  ‘It’s just so strange,’ Paddy said. ‘I agree it looks that way, Finnie, but it’s a really strange way to go about whatever it is they were trying to do.’

  ‘I’m going to check with their gardener too,’ I said. ‘See if they paid him off. I don’t suppose you know who it is, do you, Shannon?’

  ‘It’s a van with a green lawn on the side. Striped green, you know?’

  ‘It just makes no sense,’ Paddy said. ‘What’s the point of installing a new partner in a firm he’s leaving behind? If he’s going to Brazil because he can’t be forced out again, what’s the point of hanging on to the firm at all? We can’t pay him over there.’

  I wished I could send him a signal to dial it down a bit. He was only running with what I had started, but he didn’t know the Dudgeons and he should have been able to cope with them doing something surprising. In fact, he should be annoyed with his new boss for leaving him in the lurch rather than mystified and disbelieving, like Shannon and Mr Sloan were ‒ after all, they had known Lovatt for months and years.

  ‘Maybe the choice of Brazil’s got nothing to do with extradition,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s just a good place to hide.’

  ‘Hide from what?’ Paddy said. ‘He’s a good man who does good work, like Shannon said. And Tuft’s a fairy godmother who helps him.’

  ‘Everyone’s got dark places,’ I said. ‘Paddy, I don’t know how much you know about why Lovatt specialised in adoption law, but Sonsie on the church committee didn’t hang back.’

  Paddy was nodding. ‘I heard,’ he said softly. ‘Julie told me. But that makes it even harder to believe. After all he’d suffered, he’d be the last…’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Shannon. She waited until both of us were looking at her – gazing at our reflections in her mirror shades – before she went on. ‘Finnie, you asked me if I was looking for my birth family. Well, the truth is I looked for my mother first but she had died. So now I’m looking for my brother. Or, at least, I’m trying to find out what happened to him. And I’m here in Simmerton because I think what happened to him was Lovatt Dudgeon.’

  Chapter 16

  Shannon lifted her glasses and scrubbed at her eyes. She looked at Paddy and me, her face so naked and the pain written on it so clear, I felt my eyes fill too.

  ‘Come back inside,’ I’d said. ‘Have a brandy.’

  She took her hat off as well once she’d sat down, and let her head rest against the high back of our sofa, her inky black hair stark against its pale grey. I put a glass in her hand and she smiled a faint thanks and raised it to her lips. After three long sips, she put her cap and glasses back on, leaned forward and banged the glass down on the coffee-table.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Of course I’ve got no proof. Or, at least, I didn’t think I had any proof. If they’ve scarpered that’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is it you think he did?’ I said.

  ‘We’re twins, you see,’ Shannon said, as if she was answering me. ‘Not identical twins, obviously, being a boy and a girl. But twins. Albino twins. Our mum gave us up for adoption when we were five.’

  ‘Why?’ said Paddy. ‘Do you know?’

  Shannon put her head on one side. I couldn’t see her eyes but I could imagine the look she was giving him. ‘My brother’s sight was even worse than mine,’ she said. ‘He was registered legally blind and it’s no joke bringing up a disabled child. And albinism, you know. Keeping out of the sun all the time. Never being able to go on holiday anywhere hot, never being able to go on a picnic or have a day at the beach, never being able to … And two of us.’

  ‘But you’re not blind,’ I said. I didn’t have children but I couldn’t see myself bringing a kid up until it was five, then sending it away over a bit of sunblock.

  ‘That was a kindness,’ Shannon said. ‘We were supposed to go together. To the same family. Only it didn’t work out that way. I went to my mum on my own. And my brother went somewhere else.’

  ‘Couldn’t your birth mum have stipulated?’ I said.

  ‘She did,’ said Shannon. ‘She thought she had. Like I said, she was dead before I started looking. She died not long after the adoption. In a car crash. But her sister told me Sean and me were supposed to go together.’

  ‘Sean and Shannon,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Yeah, like bloody goldfish. Anyway,’ she went on, after draining the dregs of her brandy and shaking her head as Paddy raised the bottle, ‘I thought it would be pretty easy to find him. The albino online boards, for one thing. It’s a small club, except in Tanzania. There are loads of Tanzanian albinos. Did you know that? And then there’s the RNIB too. I reckoned if I kept up to date with every little corner of the internet he’d pop up sooner or later. But he never did. I’m nearly forty now and I’ve been searching for Sean for over twenty years.’

  ‘Where does Lovatt come in?’ Paddy said gently.

  ‘I shouldn’t know this,’ Shannon said. ‘I only know it because someone made a mistake. I think because we were twins. Same birth date and same initials? At least once in the process of our birth mum giving us up and our new mums taking us on, the papers got crossed. I got a bit of Sean’s documentation that I should never have seen. It wasn’t much. Just one of the eleventy billion forms that need to be signed to give a kid to a different family. And I recognised two things. A phone number that matched the phone number on some of my papers. And a signature. I’d never have been able to decipher the signature if I hadn’t seen it somewhere else as well, this time over a typed name.’

  ‘Lovatt Dudgeon?’ I said.

  ‘Lovatt Dudgeon,’ said Shannon. ‘And the phone number was for St Angela’s. It was just starting out then and the number changed after a few years but the Mitchell Library keeps all the old phone books in the reference stacks and I found it.’

  ‘So Lovatt Dudgeon handled your brother’s adoption,’ said Paddy. ‘St Angela’s did. That’s not
really very surprising, is it? If your brother had a disability. Two disabilities? Is it two?’

  ‘Opinions differ,’ Shannon said.

  ‘But the lawyer for the adoption can’t have been the one that decided to split you up, could he?’ Paddy said. ‘Surely. He’d just have done whatever it was he had to do.’

  ‘Well, he did something,’ Shannon said. ‘He did something wrong or crooked or, at least, he didn’t want it getting out. And I know that because of what he did when I found him. Just over a year ago. I’ve changed my mind. I will take a drop more.’

  Paddy splashed a healthy measure into her glass and she put a deep dent in it before she spoke again.

  ‘I found out he’d moved to Simmerton,’ she said. ‘And I came down to confront him. I made an appointment and went into the office. I led up to it gently but in the end I asked him straight.’

  ‘And?’ I said.

  ‘And he did everything by the book. Lots of sympathy but absolutely rigid confidentiality. Wouldn’t entertain the idea of opening a file. Wouldn’t confirm or deny anything. Not even whether my brother had found a permanent place, if he had gone into the care system, nothing. By. The. Book.’

  ‘So?’ said Paddy. But I knew more was coming.

  ‘And then,’ said Shannon, ‘he started asking me about my situation and future plans. I was drifting and I didn’t lie about that. And somehow, before I knew where I was, a cottage was available at a very reasonable price. Beyond reasonable, really. And Lovatt told me he had a business opportunity tailor-made for me. He had a clinic-quality SAD light that I could have for a song.’

  ‘And you think that’s a guilty conscience?’ said Paddy.

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Shannon.

  Of course he didn’t. Or, at least, he couldn’t admit it. Because her story was our story: too good to be true.

  ‘Amends, at least,’ Shannon said. ‘Bribery, if you’re a cynic. And definitely he wanted me to be here where he could keep an eye on me. It was that cottage and that cottage alone. Bairnspairt. No cash alternative.’