by Jane Renshaw
The next few articles just had details of the funeral and more eulogising quotes from locals. Even the later ones about the findings of the Procurator Fiscal’s enquiry didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know – that paint marks on the bodywork suggested that another vehicle may, after all, have been involved, the driver of which had failed to stop. But in the absence of witnesses, there could be no criminal proceedings. Case closed, basically.
◆◆◆
Karen folded another piece of chewing gum into her mouth and contemplated the contents of one of the glass-fronted bookcases, which she assumed contained the more valuable stuff. Paradise Lost by John Milton, although it seemed they spelt it Paradife Loft in 1741, like it was a story about a really fancy attic – that must be worth something. She took it from the shelf and put it in her bag. The Public and General Statutes Affecting Scotland 1895 – no thank you. Probably no one had ever read it, not even Damian. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson seemed more promising. Karen might even read that herself. Into the bag.
The next book looked really old. She had it half way into the bag when the wall lights blazed.
Damian was standing at the door, his hand on the switches. ‘Well.’
She looked down at the book in her hand. ‘Hector said I could borrow this.’
‘What?’
Dammit. The lettering on the spine was indecipherable. ‘This book.’
He came over and took it from her, opening it to the title page. ‘Receipts for the Prevention and Cure of Typhoid Fever. Okay, could potentially be useful at Kinty. Who the hell knows what’s going into that water course.’
‘Gwennie’s interested in that stuff,’ she said. ‘Traditional medicine. Old remedies.’
‘Uh huh.’ He slotted the book back into its place on the shelf, and then, before she realised what he was doing, he’d grabbed the bag out of her hand and was taking out the other books.
And six silver snuff boxes.
‘Hey – I’m not – I wasn’t –’
‘You weren’t what?’
She couldn’t think what to say.
He was turning one of the snuff boxes over in his hand. ‘Keep you in lentils for a while.’
‘I’m – I have to polish them.’
He shook his head. ‘You thought I wasn’t going to notice small portable objects going missing?’
God!
She should have factored in his fucking photographic memory.
‘But – why –’
‘Why didn’t I say anything? Maybe I wanted to see how far you’d go. Maybe I wanted to see what sort of depths you’d sink to.’
‘Depths? If we’re talking about depths – how about trying to get my boyfriend to attack you so he gets charged with assault? How about betraying me to the police?’
‘He really has got you brainwashed, hasn’t he?’
‘Um, no, actually. I think I’m seeing pretty clearly, finally. You don’t know anything about Ade. You think you do, but you don’t.’
‘Oh, come on. He’s taking your wages and he’s got you pilfering for him. What more do I need to know? You think he cares about you? You think you’re anything more to him than a naïve little idiot ripe for exploitation? He’ll chew you up and spit you out –’
She turned on her heel but he took hold of her arm and pulled her back round to face him.
‘Let go of me! You are pathetic! Just because you’ve never had a proper relationship, you don’t want anyone else to have one!’
‘You think what you’ve got with him is a proper relationship?’
‘Yeah, actually, it is – but there’s no way you’re ever going to find out what that is because you’re so hung up about getting naked with anyone! And guess what? Maybe they tell you Oh it doesn’t matter and having a weird stump and a totally mangled knee and stuff isn’t really freaky and disgusting but that’s not what they’re really thinking – Susie told me she doesn’t think she can cope with it and she’s scared she’s going to like recoil in horror when she has to look at it and touch it and stuff, so yeah, you should be hung up about it because who isn’t going to think it’s just totally gross because it is?’
Oh.
What had she just said? That wasn’t even true about Susie.
She felt hot, suddenly, a hot whoosh of Noooo! going right through her.
But he just raised his eyebrows and said, ‘The human disgust response. And yes, I’ll admit that it’s inconvenient, but I can’t argue that it doesn’t have an adaptive basis in that it protects people –’
‘Sometimes I think you’re not even human!’ she yelled, tears pouring down her face as she ran away from him, out of the room, across the hall, through the freezing vestibule to the front door. ‘I’m resigning, okay?’ she screamed. ‘Who wants to be a fucking cleaner anyway?’ Then she was grappling with the big key, wrenching it round, pulling back the bolt and heaving the door open and she was out in the snow and running.
34
When she opened the door to the kitchen at the House, Claire found Gavin and Mick at the table, heads together over what looked like architectural plans, mugs of coffee at their elbows. Gavin looked round at her, bundled up the plans and stood, smiling.
‘Sorry, we’ve invaded your domain. Thought you had the afternoon off?’
‘Karen’s done a runner, apparently.’ Damian had called her to say the girl had flounced off in a huff and seemed to have resigned, although Claire wouldn’t be surprised if she was back tomorrow as if nothing had happened. ‘I have to finish off what she was meant to be doing.’ She grimaced. ‘Teenagers.’
‘There’s aye something,’ said Mick.
‘Is Hector around, do you know?’
‘Na.’
‘Anything we can help you with?’ said Gavin.
‘Oh, no, I just wanted a word with him. What about Damian?’
Gavin inclined his head to the window. Looking out into the gathering dusk, Claire saw, in the light falling from the kitchen windows, a figure, bundled up in a big jacket, hat and gloves, attending to the bird feeders that hung from the bare branches of the shrubs on the grassy bank that rose up from the flagstones there.
So the coast was clear.
As camouflage, she got a selection of dusters and the hoover from the scullery before making her way to Hector’s study. She shut the door behind her and contemplated the room. It was icy cold in here. She touched a radiator – it was on, but turned down low. She turned it right up to max.
She could be here a while.
There were photographs all round the walls of groups of men and women, dating back to Victorian times judging by the clothing. A recent one showed Norrie and Mick and Gavin and Chris, and four or five other men, posing in front of a digger.
It wasn’t just Hector and Damian who would be affected by the success of Claire’s operation. It was a whole community.
But she knew what Phil would say:
Not our problem.
She prowled round the room, opening drawers in tables and doors in the cupboards under the glass-fronted bookcases. Just stationery and books, mainly. Medical text books. Some box files with receipts for work done on the house and its contents. She’d better look through them anyway. There might be something of interest.
She was putting the first one back when the door opened and Damian said, ‘Sorry. I thought...’ And now he was looking at the open cupboard of boxfiles. ‘What are you doing?’
Damn.
‘Finishing off what Karen started. She was meant to be cleaning in here today. She’s thrown her toys out of the pram? What brought that on?’
He just stood there. If Hector was impossible to read, this boy was no better. After a moment, he came into the room and opened one of the glass-fronted bookcases. ‘She’s been stealing stuff.’ He closed the bookcase door. ‘Mostly silver.’
‘But – Damian! Are you sure?’
The little minx.
‘As of toda
y, yes. I caught her in here with four books and several silver snuff boxes.’
‘Does Hector know?’
He shook his head. ‘If you asked Hector to name the objects on that table –’ He gestured to the table between the windows, on which the marble bust sat along with a glass vase, a blue and white ceramic dish in the shape of a leaf, and a little china bird – ‘he might get the bust of Aristotle, but that’s it. The knick-knacks aren’t really on his radar.’
‘But haven’t you told him?’
‘No. I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, and even if I had been... Hector’s been waiting for an excuse to fire Karen. It’s academic now, of course. She made it pretty clear that she won’t be coming back.’
‘Why did he want to fire her? Because she’s a bit...’
‘... rubbish? No. Hector’s theory was that the Kinty hippies would lose interest in her if she wasn’t bringing in a wage. That they’d boot her out and she’d have to go back home.’
‘I suppose that makes sense. But... you don’t agree?’
‘I agree, but don’t you think it’s a bit risky? Ade seems to be on a very short fuse, and Karen’s not exactly big on diplomacy. I don’t imagine this is going to bring them closer together. Which isn’t a bad thing, of course, only...’
‘You think he might hurt her?’ Claire’s stomach clenched.
Under the feistiness, there was a fragility about Karen that probably explained why she reminded Claire of Dawn; a vulnerability, which this awful Ade character had latched onto and was exploiting.
‘I don’t know. He certainly isn’t going to be happy. Nor is Hector, of course, when he finds out that the Kinty lot have been getting Karen to steal for them. He’s likely to go straight over there and... Well, who knows.’
‘Okay. Don’t tell Hector yet. I’ll pay her a visit tomorrow myself and try to make her see sense.’ And maybe get her to open up about where she’d really found that phone. ‘I think that might be rather more effective than Hector charging in.’
A flicker of relief. ‘Yes, definitely. Thank you.’
Impulsively, she said, ‘I’m guessing life with Hector is never dull, but can maybe be a bit stressful?’
He laughed. ‘I’ve no complaints.’
Here was the opening she’d been waiting for. She could work this round to the accident. ‘It’s an unusual arrangement, though, isn’t it? To have a sibling in loco parentis? How did it come about?’
He left a long silence in which, for the first time, she was aware of the difference in their social stations. He was looking at her as she imagined his great-grandfather might have looked at a servant who’d had the temerity to speak out of turn. Then: ‘I assumed you’d been told. I don’t imagine Karen would have held back.’
This was excruciating, but she had to push it. DCI Campbell was convinced that Hector had taken him on out of guilt, and if that was the case, she was pretty sure this boy would know it. ‘She said Hector insisted on you living with him, when your father died. Even though your aunt and uncle wanted to take you?’
He moved away from her towards the door. ‘You’ve probably noticed that Hector can’t help himself charging in to the rescue.’
Oh God.
Oh God, this poor kid.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit more likely to have been something to do with the fact that –’ She had to swallow, suddenly, the emotion. ‘That you’re his little brother and he loves you?’
His mouth relaxed in a smile. ‘Well, naturally everyone was fighting over me. To the victor the spoils. Thank you for wading in to the Karen situation.’ And he was gone.
◆◆◆
Karen cried in the bath for an hour, periodically topping up with hot water. The cows in the byre seemed to be in sympathy with her – she could hear them out there, mooing their heads off. It was like they were saying Yes, we knoooow, your life has sooooo gone to shiiiiit.
Eventually she got out and dressed and padded downstairs.
The farmhouse was almost as cold as the House of Pitfourie, but the kitchen was always nice and warm. Doffy and Rainbow were sitting at the table messing about with Wilkins. It was strange to see Wilkins here. His worried little face looked up at her as if to say What the...?
Gwennie was sitting on Baz’s knee by the range. She looked like she’d been crying too. But she smiled at Karen and said, ‘You okay, lovely?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Ade giving you grief?’ said Baz. Baz and Ade sometimes locked horns, so it wasn’t too surprising that Baz would assume Ade had done something to upset her.
‘No.’
Doffy wound Wilkins up, and he tumbled along the table and right off the end of it before Karen could catch him. Doffy and Rainbow laughed like kids.
‘Careful!’ Gwennie protested, picking Wilkins up. She returned the key to the little hole in Wilkins’s back, and shoved him into a hold-all that was sitting on the table. ‘Ade better get this lot to Benny before it’s trashed.’ Benny was their fence in Aberdeen. ‘Where is he?’
‘Probably still in the dairy,’ said Doffy.
Gwennie kind of shuddered, and Baz squeezed her against him. ‘Can you go and remind him,’ he said to Karen, ‘that he’s got an appointment with Benny at eight?’
Karen wanted to tell Doffy and Rainbow to give her Wilkins back. She hated to think of him being pawed by horrible slimy Benny.
But she didn’t. She pulled on her coat and wellies and opened the back door.
Outside, there was a light on in the old dairy, where the butchering was done. Karen hated going in there. She could see Ade through the window, moving about under the fluorescent light, dressed in the green short-sleeved waterproof coveralls they wore for the messy work. She steeled herself and opened the door.
It was like something from a nightmare.
Ade was carrying a decapitated head!
Eyes rolled up, tongue lolling. It was Carlos! Lovely Carlos, who liked you to scratch him along his spine. She recognised the white blaze on his face. And behind him in a row, like a scene from a war movie, five other corpses. The six amigos! He’d killed the six amigos!
The concrete floor was awash with their blood. The smell –
Gagging and retching, Karen staggered away. She was sick behind the byre, to the accompaniment of the cows mooing. And she realised, now, why. Their calves had been taken from them. A year old, now, so not exactly calves, but still their babies. Taken away and murdered.
‘Hello, little girl.’
She whipped round.
Ade was covered in blood. In the murdered stirks’ blood. And he was grinning, holding up his bloody hands like he was a character in a horror film. And all the time the cows mooed and cried in the byre.
‘Are you some kind of monster?’ she yelled at him.
‘What, so meat-eaters are monsters now?’
‘No! Only the ones who get a kick out of murdering baby animals!’ She went to go past him but he grabbed her arm.
‘Do – not – speak to me like that.’
‘I’ll speak to you however the fuck I want!’
And she didn’t know how it happened, but the next thing she knew he was slamming her up against the wall of the byre and pressing his body, all slick with blood, against her.
‘No,’ he said, very softly, breathing the word so she felt it warm on her face. ‘Oh no, Kaz. No.’
She tried to turn away but he had his hands, his bloody hands on either side of her head, holding it still so he could say into her face: ‘You speak to me with respect.’
What was he going to do to her?
She put up her hands to try to push him away, but he took hold of her wrists and slammed them against the wall above her head, sending pain shooting down her arms. As she opened her mouth to scream, he pressed his lips to it.
When the kiss was over, he smiled at her, released her wrists and stood back.
She was gagging again. She leant over with her mouth open as more sick shot out of her
then straightened, her back against the byre wall. She was shaking so much that if the wall hadn’t been there she’d probably have fallen over.
‘You got something you need to say to me?’
‘Sorry,’ she managed.
He smiled, shaking his head at her. ‘Not much of an apology, is it? I suppose I accept it – but, Kaz? You need to control that temper of yours. I think I already have to put up with enough of your nonsense without having to deal with tantrums on top.’
‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘Right, I’d better jump in the shower and then I’m off to Benny’s.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the dairy. ‘Get the place cleaned up. Use the hose and the broom with the stiff bristles. Then you can have a shower, although I have to warn you that I may use all the hot water.’
She nodded. When he’d gone, she made her way back across the yard, a sklyter of mud and slush and snow, so slippery she almost fell a couple of times. In the dairy, she carefully didn’t look at the six amigos but she couldn’t help seeing them in her peripheral vision, lying together under the harsh fluorescent glow.
She hosed down the walls and floor, the blood swirling through the water as it spiralled down the drain. When she’d finished, she held the hose over her head, shivering as the icy water tracked through her hair and down inside her coat, over her body. She wasn’t sure why she did it. Ade would be gone by now. She could just have gone back inside and had a shower. But it felt right, somehow, as she stood there shuddering with the cold.
She had thought it was just in cartoons that teeth chattered, but no, her jaw was shivering and her teeth were knocking together. She slipped her way across the yard to the byre where all the cows were lined up with their heads over the barriers. Two had their mouths lifted up and were mooing, and then another two joined in.
‘I’m – s-sorry!’ she said to them, going to the nearest one and stroking her head. ‘I’m so sorry!’
The cow, Betsy, a lovely brown and cream one, looked back at Karen with her big sad eyes. She was Henry’s mother. From here you could see out across the yard but you couldn’t see the dairy, so at least they hadn’t actually seen their babies being killed. But was it worse not to know? Not to know what had happened, where they had gone? To be mooing and mooing and hoping they would hear an answering moo and their little stirk would trot back up the cobbles towards them?