Strangers at the Gate

by Catriona McPherson

  Steadying myself with my arms out, I stepped up until I was balanced on the wonky slope, feeling the hard rods of the individual railings bite into my insteps. I stretched up as tall as I could make myself. I had no doubt about what I would see.

  Mostly what I saw was brownish grass, too long and already showing the hand of winter even with the worst months still to go. I saw fallen headstones and a few weathered but still standing. I saw empty flower stands and paths so thickly overgrown they were just dents in the weeds.

  Then, at the back where the trees overhung the wall, I saw something that didn’t belong. It might have been a bundle of rags if this was the city where some poor soul spent nights in the lee of a graveyard wall and left all his stuff there during the day. But I thought I recognised the blue colour. It hadn’t looked bright in the kitchen on Monday night but it stood out here against the grey, even if the pleats were crushed and gone. And I definitely recognised the flash of white, actually rather yellow in the wet. A rigid shampoo and set that had made me think of the Queen.

  I stepped down and went to lean against the car until my legs stopped shaking. I had found them. I felt a bubble of hysteria start to rise in me. The bodies were in the graveyard. Who would ever have thought of looking for them there?

  By habit, I checked my phone but there was still no signal, no chance of summoning reinforcements. Either I had to leave them there while I went for help or I had to be brave enough to climb over that broken gate and face this alone.

  Taking the deep breaths I needed to steel myself, I thought at least there’d be no smell. And perhaps all this rain would have rinsed the blood off their skin, cleaned out the gashes on her hands, even washed away that black butterfly on Lovatt’s back, spreading the blood and rainwater mixture over the cloth until it was gone.

  Why did that thought snag at me as it passed, bringing back the memory of my own face in the driving mirror with the smudges and stains of mascara?

  I wiped the rain from my face with the sides of my hands and started to scale the gate, edging forward gingerly. I was ready for it to pivot when I got halfway and pivot it did. I skidded down the far side and landed on the wet grass, going over on my ankle but still standing.

  I couldn’t see the bright bundle from here, what with the gravestones. My impression that most of them had fallen was wrong. Now I was in here, peering around and between them, they were a pretty efficient blind. But I knew where I was headed and I set off with my face up and my shoulders back.

  Then I saw it. My steps faltered and I half turned to run. Something had moved over there. Something less than a flash but definitely more than just the smirring down of the rain. Something brown over there by the back wall had, I was sure of it, moved. Animals, was my first thought. A fox or a rat, feasting on an unexpected treat, loath to leave it but keeping an ear cocked for me coming closer.

  Even though I’m not squeamish exactly, I couldn’t face a fox or a rat busy with the bodies. I knew I couldn’t. And yet I couldn’t let it carry on, could I? If I made a loud enough noise to scare the creature off, then covered their faces – could I bear to get close enough to cover their faces? – maybe it would be frightened enough to stay away until I was back with police and an ambulance. I didn’t have to go all the way to the station. I would drive to the top of the high street where the reception kicked in, then come back and guard them.

  I flexed my muscles, ready to run up, shouting, scaring it away, whatever it was. Then I’d chuck my jacket over one face and my cardie over the other – I began wriggling out of them in preparation – and I’d leg it back to the gate, up and over—

  I froze. Half in and half out of my cardie, my jacket bunched between my knees to keep it off the wet ground, I stopped dead. That gate was up at the outside and down at the inside when I arrived. It hadn’t tipped back the other way. Whoever had got in by scaling it and waiting for it to overbalance, just like I had, was still in here.

  Sidling as quietly as I could, I edged behind a tall gravestone to my left and crouched to make sure the top of my head wasn’t showing. Still no signal on my phone. I jammed it back into my trouser pocket. The sensible thing to do was leave as quietly as I could and drive away. But then whoever it was – whoever it was! – would hear the car starting.

  My stomach rose. Whoever it was must have heard the car stopping. Whoever it was would be an idiot if they weren’t moving through this graveyard – stone to stone – right now, to get a look at me and assess the threat.

  I whipped my head up and saw nothing on either side but wet granite and dead grass blurred by the rain. One cautious step forward and I still saw nothing. Two more steps brought me close enough to the nearest fallen headstone to pick up a chunk that had broken off it; a good jagged chunk the size of a tennis ball. I gripped it tight in my right hand and selected another one. It was too big really, about the size of a cauliflower, but my left hand was useless for throwing anyway. It didn’t matter. I could make some noise with it, make them look the other way and then I had a chance with my right. I peered round the side of a tall obelisk that was blocking my view. Seeing nothing, feeling stupid, like a spy in a kids’ cartoon, but not stupid enough to make me do it differently, I advanced in a zigzag, stone to stone to stone, flitting across the open spaces and stopping to breathe whenever I was hidden. I kept shooting glances back towards the gate, in case whoever it was had circled the outside and was creeping up behind me, but I saw nothing.

  And as I drew closer and closer, into the shadow of the trees overhanging the far wall, holding my breath and moving silently through the curtain of rain, I began to hear something.

  Someone was crying, sobbing their guts out in dry, aching hitches as if they’d been at it for hours. I straightened up and walked out into the open beyond the last row of headstones.

  It wasn’t Tuft and Lovatt lying there. It wasn’t their killer, lurking. It was Shannon. She was huddled into the rain shadow of the wall, with her hands over her head, weeping helplessly. The blue was her anorak, not Tuft’s pleated skirt, and the white wasn’t Tuft’s old lady hair. It was Shannon’s white blonde. The wig was missing.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  She jerked her head up. Her sunglasses were off too, as well as her hat, and she squinted as she looked at me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get here?’

  Shannon was staring at the rocks in my hands. ‘What am I doing here?’ she said.

  I let them drop onto the grass and wiped my palms on my jeans. ‘I saw someone. I was scared. What are you doing here?’

  That just made her cry again. She rolled until she was leaning against the base of the wall and stretched her legs out in front of her.

  ‘Okay, me first,’ I said, going over and letting myself drop down at her side. The trees above us were a good umbrella. It was earthy and chilly there but we weren’t getting dripped on. ‘I wanted to see the house,’ I said. ‘I wondered if Lovatt and Tuft might have gone back there. Killed themselves there, you know? Since that was where it all started. That’s like the source of all the … Well, not really. I mean, from Denise Dudgeon’s point of view all those years ago, the source of all the misery was her, wasn’t it? Her genes.’

  ‘That’s not how it is, though,’ Shannon said. She sniffed. Snorted, really, after all that sobbing. ‘I should know.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  She heaved a big breath and blew it out again. Then she put her sunglasses on. ‘Same as how everyone thinks their baby is beautiful. Even their dog. Those yappy wee rats Mr Sloan dotes on. The thing about a genetic disorder is, if you wish it away the person you love wouldn’t be the person you love.’

  ‘I see. I think. But would that occur to anyone? I mean, apart from scientists.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Shannon said. ‘We spend a lot of time thinking about genes, people like me. I used to think all those sparks and blobs behind my eyes when I shut them were my genes. Or maybe my chr
omosomes.’

  I said nothing. I’d give anything to see the red sparks and blobs of my own eyelids whenever I closed my eyes. Her hands. His back.

  ‘That’s why I don’t believe it,’ Shannon was saying. ‘I don’t believe Denise Dudgeon, all those years ago, killed her children.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘From what Sonsie said about her. Striding around in riding boots. Stiff upper lip. Don’t frighten the horses.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Shannon. ‘That type. Living round here, you can hardly avoid them.’

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ I said.

  ‘Same as you,’ said Shannon. She wiped her eyes and put her sunglasses on. ‘Looking for the bodies. I thought they might have killed themselves here. Beside the graves.’

  ‘But how did you know Denise and her children were buried here? I know Sonsie didn’t tell you, because she doesn’t know where they’re buried or even if they’re buried. So how come you do?’

  ‘I saw them when I came on a walk after I first moved here,’ Shannon told me. ‘I always go for a walk round the graveyard when I’m in a new place. Don’t look at me like that. Loads of people do it.’

  ‘I’m not looking at you.’ She was right. It was one of my mum’s favourite outings when she still went out: a trip to a nice busy cemetery with new stones to look at, messages on wreaths to read if she was lucky. ‘But if you’ve seen them before why were you crying?’

  Shannon turned her face. I couldn’t see myself as clearly in the black lenses she wore outside, but clearly enough to know I looked like Alice Cooper. I wiped my eyes with my shirt cuff. ‘Why was I crying, looking at the graves of two murdered children?’ Shannon said. ‘What kind of question is that?’

  ‘What kind of answer is that? I’m not buying it. Two poor wee dead mites might make you shed a tear but you were honking like a hung-over goose. What gives?’

  She turned away again. ‘Just … facing facts. At last. My brother’s gone. He’s as gone as all these people who’re buried here. The letters are so faded on their stones you can’t read them any more and no one’s picked up the ones that have toppled over. There’s no flowers. It’s like you said. They’re forgotten. They’re really, really dead now that no one remembers them. And when I looked at Denise’s grave and the kids’, it was like they’re forgotten too, now that Lovatt’s gone. There’s no one.’

  ‘There’s probably cousins,’ I said. ‘Tuft’s family won’t remember them, of course, because they were dead before Tuft and Lovatt ever met, but there’s bound to be Dudgeon connections somewhere.’ I fell silent. If there were Dudgeon connections, they’d be coming out of the woodwork as soon as the police found the bodies or the fiscal decided, with or without them, that the suicide note was for real.

  No way that will in Lovatt’s shaky handwriting, with the stupid mistake about Paddy’s name and my bogus signature, would stand. When was I even supposed to have witnessed it?

  Well, Monday night, clearly. They were supposed to have been found dead in their kitchen when someone wondered where they’d got to, and then the will would be discovered with the suicide note and we’d freely admit we were round there for dinner and I’d probably say I had witnessed him signing something. Probably. If a house and four cottages and a law firm were hanging on it, I probably would have.

  But then we went back for my bag. And someone moved the bodies and sent an email saying they were in Brazil and the whole stupid plan went off the rails.

  ‘Finnie?’ Shannon said, and I could tell from her tone it wasn’t the first time. ‘Do you?’

  ‘What? Sorry, what?’

  ‘Do you want to see them?’

  I knew my eyes widened. I couldn’t see Shannon’s but her glasses shifted on her cheeks as if, behind them, her eyes had widened too. ‘See them?’ I repeated.

  ‘The gravestones.’ She paused. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And then I’ll give you a lift home,’ I said. ‘I want to speak to Mrs Sloan. She spent Sunday night with them. Not the gravestones. With Tuft and Lovatt, I mean.’

  Shannon pulled herself up and put out a hand for me. ‘Where’s your coat?’ she said.

  I didn’t want to tell her about my plan to cover the faces of two corpses with my own clothes, then frighten a fox too badly for it to nose them aside. It would sound crazy now. I just trotted over and picked it up, the graveyard feeling half the size now I wasn’t flitting about like the Pink Panther. ‘Where are you?’ I called, when I had draped it over my shoulders. It was too sodden to be worth putting it on properly. I saw her hand, in its knitted mitten, waving over the gravestones off to the north.

  The stones were as low-key as it was possible to get. No outpouring of emotion for Lovatt Dudgeon. They were just three small slabs about the size of an open book and propped up at an angle like that too. One said ‘My wife Denise, 1951‒1985’ and the other two only ‘Vanessa 1979‒1985’ and ‘Simon 1980‒1985’.

  ‘God, that’s terrible,’ I said.

  ‘She was only six,’ Shannon said. ‘Or seven, depending on her birth date. He wasn’t even that.’

  ‘Yeah, they’re pretty vague, aren’t they?’ I said. I stared at them, wondering what was bothering me. Was it the lack of any message of love? Well, maybe it was difficult to decide what to write in such strange circumstances. It wasn’t so very long since Denise Dudgeon wouldn’t have been let inside the graveyard wall, murderer that she was. Allegedly.

  ‘I know what it is!’ I said. ‘You told me you’d found them when you came for a walk here, right? How did you know who they were, from just the first names?’

  ‘I heard the story,’ Shannon said. ‘I put it together.’

  ‘You heard the story before you came for the walk?’ I said. ‘Someone got off the mark quick, didn’t they? If a walk in the graveyard’s your first stop in a new place.’ I was keeping it light-sounding, teasing her, really. But the truth was, it troubled me. Anything that seemed the least bit off was troubling me now.

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Shannon said.

  ‘Me? Nothing. Only when Sonsie told me the story yesterday it seemed like it was news to you too. And it wasn’t.’

  ‘But I always do that,’ she said. ‘I hate when I’m telling a story, or even a joke, and someone says they’ve heard it before. Don’t you?’

  We faced off for a second or two, then she turned away and headed for the gate.

  Getting over it turned us into sisters again. I balanced on it and gave her a hand up, then we clutched each other, edging forward until it tipped down and deposited us back on the verge. We didn’t actually speak until we were in the car, though, heater blasting and windows steaming from how sopping wet we both were.

  ‘That wasn’t strictly true,’ Shannon said, as I got going. ‘I didn’t hear the story before I saw the graves. I just remembered the graves. Looking for Sean all these years, more and more sure he’s gone, I suppose I just always notice when children die.’

  ‘Well, you would,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’ We were nearly out of the cut now. I could see light ahead and the whitewashed side wall of the first cottage. ‘Let me make it up to you. Paddy’s mum and my lot are coming down for lunch tomorrow. Join us! We want them all to get to know our new home and our new friends.’

  ‘I don’t want to muscle in on a family party,’ Shannon said. She leaned forward and cleared her side of the windscreen with her sleeve. I had both blowers going up my side for safety’s sake.

  ‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘this family party needs all the dilution it can get. I might ask the Sloans too. Mr Sloan and Paddy’s mum would get on like a house on fire.’

  ‘Mrs Sloan won’t come,’ said Shannon.

  ‘It’s just along the road,’ I said. ‘I’m going to try. My mum’s got a few … what would you call them? … too. So that’s something I’m good at dealing with, because I’ve had to be. Even if I suck at understanding adoption.’ Shannon was silent. ‘Or not. I’m not trying to offload
my dirty work onto you.’

  She didn’t say another word until I had the car on the verge at her garden gate and switched off the engine.

  ‘I’d love to come,’ she said. ‘Love to. I’ll be there.’

  Then she scuttled off, leaving me tingling as I watched her go.

  Saturday

  Chapter 24

  ‘Who’s the six?’ Paddy said, when I dumped the cutlery on the table for him to arrange. I always get something wrong that bugs Elayne: knives inside out or butter plates too near the wine glasses. Some crap like that.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Well, I asked Shannon.’

  ‘What? Why?’ Paddy was polishing the knives on his shirt tail. He had pulled a nice shirt out from deep in the ironing basket and pressed it himself. I was too tired to iron. The dreams were exhausting me more than sleeplessness could ever do. Last night it was a graveyard, of course. Underwater, as if a hurricane had washed a tidal wave up the valley and it had settled there. I was trying to dig someone up, someone I cared about, although I couldn’t say who it was or how I knew him. I was scrabbling at the mud of his grave, knowing that the train was coming, the train was coming, and I couldn’t leave him there.

  Paddy had left the board up and I couldn’t decide if it was a hint to me to iron a dress or if he was just too tired to put it away. He’d had a rough night too. ‘Too dark! Too dark!’ I’d heard him when I got up at four to change my sweaty nightie and wipe my face with a cold cloth. My dress was under an apron anyway, I told myself, and the kitchen was already steamed up enough to make any wrinkles drop out of it. Just because it was Saturday and not Sunday didn’t mean I could get away with a nice loaf and a trawl of the Simmerton deli counter. If Elayne was coming for lunch, that meant potatoes peeled, meat roasted and a gravy boat warming.