The Sweetest Poison

by Jane Renshaw

  Hector.

  She swung round; pushed her way back to the alcove.

  ‘Have to go. Sorry.’

  Surprised faces. ‘What? Why?’

  Why? ‘Migraine coming on, I think.’

  Martin blinked. ‘I’ll come with you?’

  He knew she hated walking anywhere alone.

  ‘No. It’s okay. Could you hand me over my bag, and my coat?’

  She didn’t stop to put the coat on. She hugged it against her as she weaved through the crush of bodies to the door. It opened as she reached it, and as she stepped back to let the people in out of the rain she couldn’t resist just glancing over her shoulder at the bar.

  He wasn’t there any more.

  He was right behind her.

  He smiled, and put a hand on her arm, and said, ‘Over here?’ and then she was standing facing him in the free bit of space behind the door, her back against the varnished panelling, and all the voices in the pub were in her ears.

  She was shaking. His hand was still holding her arm – warm through her fleece – and he had to stand close to her because of the people behind him, and she couldn’t breathe. Her face was too close to him, to the tanned skin at the open neck of his shirt.

  He took his hand away and said, ‘Sorry, Helen – your flatmate said you might be here – but if you don’t want –’

  ‘My flatmate?’ She kept her eyes focused on the lights behind the bar. ‘Steph?’

  ‘Your uncle gave me your phone number.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Still she didn’t look at him.

  But then he said, ‘You don’t want to talk to me,’ and so she had to, she had to look into his eyes and say, ‘No – yes. I’m sorry,’ at the same time as he said, ‘Of course you don’t,’ and moved back.

  She grinned frantically. ‘I thought you were in Venezuela.’

  ‘I am. Working there, I mean. Back on holiday.’ And then: ‘I wanted to say – pointless, I know, but – that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. About what happened.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  He shook his head, and moved further back, to give her room to get past him. ‘But you’re well? You look very well.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t blame you for any of it. Why should I?’

  He shook his head again.

  And the words came tumbling: ‘It was my fault, to ever think that those letters – that they were from you, how could they have been, I should have known that they weren’t. He made her write them. She kept trying to tell me – she didn’t want me to get hurt. And then when – it was because of me that he –’

  Her mouth wouldn’t go round the words.

  She pushed past him, pushed to the door and out, dragging on her coat.

  She ran.

  16

  The pavement was streaming, huge puddles, a slimy mush of newspaper, a man with his head down, and then she was at the junction with Fulham Road and she had to wait for a car to sloosh past and he was there, catching her arm again, and saying again, ‘Helen – Helen, I’m sorry.’

  What was he sorry for?

  She looked up at him, at his face in the sickly glow of the street lamps.

  In five years, she’d almost managed to convince herself that he was nothing special. That there must be plenty of other men like Hector. That she would find another man to match him, another man who would make her glad just to be Helen Clack and alive in the world, in his world, another man with whom no words would be needed when the sun suddenly slanted through a line of beech trees and across a yellow field, who would turn to her and know she would be smiling too.

  Another man who would claim her, heart and head and body and soul.

  Ian? Kenneth? Martin, sitting back in that pub wondering if he should go after her but never quite managing to detach his hand from his pint or his arse from his seat?

  Oh God.

  Hector.

  And suddenly she had to know.

  ‘That night – did you give me cocaine? Did you put it in my drink?’

  She felt the muscles in his hand tense. ‘No.’

  ‘At the hospital they did blood tests. They found cocaine.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  She said, ‘I don’t –’ at the same time as he said, ‘It wasn’t meant for general consumption.’ The rain was running down his face.

  ‘Suzanne...’ She was shivering, making his hand on her arm shiver too. ‘You didn’t see Suzanne, did you? After I left her – you and the others were off in the trees, with the torches – you didn’t see her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  He let her go; ran a hand over his wet hair. And then both his hands were on her shoulders. ‘You saw her again yourself, didn’t you? Suzanne was there – you saw Rob hit her, before you blacked out? Does it matter where she was in the interim? Does any of this matter, now?’

  She should tell him. She should tell him she lied.

  She wrenched herself away and gulped, like a child, ‘She – was –’

  He said, ‘I know,’ and the bulk of him was against her, her face against his shirt, his chest, his arms tight so she couldn’t pull away; and her hands were clinging to him, and from deep inside her something started to rise up, something that had been pressed down and down and down, and she shut her eyes.

  And he held her.

  It rose right up, the thing inside her, and she couldn’t do anything except open her mouth and let it out, disgusting, dribbles from her nose and down her chin, onto his shirt, and from her throat a mad howling, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  But when it did stop he eased her away, and she kept her eyes shut and felt his hands on her cheeks, her forehead, her closed eyelids, her mouth, her chin; his open palms gently wiping, smoothing. She stood there and let him do it, turning her face up to him like a dog, pushing her face against his hands.

  She opened her eyes.

  Rain was soaking his hair, his shirt. Running down his nose.

  She reached out and touched his face – ridiculously, the end of his nose, where the rain was dripping. His chin. It was very slightly rough, very slightly stubbly.

  She must look awful.

  She ducked her head, and he put his hands on her back and when she looked up again he brought his lips down on hers, warm and hard and tasting of beer and cigarettes, shooting sensation through her and –

  Oh God.

  Hector.

  She said his name aloud, onto his lips: ‘Hector.’

  His hands moved up her back, sending a shock all the way up her spine, all the way down it.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Where exactly is your flat?’

  17

  In the dark of her room, in her bed, when she started to stutter something he said ‘Whatever you like,’ and his hands were showing her, and his lips. At some point he said ‘You’re lovely,’ but by then she was beyond caring what he thought. She was beyond all she had ever cared about, as if everything that had tied her to the world had simply come loose and there was only this, her own self, set free.

  Her own self, and her own love.

  Later, lying against his shoulder, her thoughts already half-drifting into the dream this must surely be, she said, reaching for something, anything, that would anchor her to the world: ‘What do you do, in Venezuela?’

  ‘Oh... Grunt work for an oil company. Nothing as remotely high-powered as museum curatorship.’

  So he knew what she was doing? Had he asked someone about her, or had someone, Uncle Jim maybe, just randomly told him?

  ‘I’m only an assistant,’ she said. ‘Grunt work definitely covers what I do too. An oil company – are you involved in the engineering side of it?’

  ‘Oh God no. I’m just in the security division.’

  Her heart bumped. ‘That sounds – dangerous.’

  ‘Secretaries pilfering paper... Kids nicking hubcaps... The boss getting rat-arsed and somehow managing to lock himself in his office... Yes. It
can get pretty hairy.’

  But what about the fact that he’d been in prison? Maybe in Venezuela they weren’t too bothered about whether people had criminal records? Was that why he’d gone there? But she could hardly ask him that.

  ‘How much longer are you here for?’

  ‘Flight out’s on Monday.’

  ‘Oh.’

  So she probably wouldn’t see him again before he left. Even if he wanted to, he probably wouldn’t have time.

  ‘Have you been home? How is everyone? Your family?’

  ‘Yes. They’re very well, thanks.’

  Was this really happening? Was she really lying here in bed with Hector, Hector, talking normally, as if this was a perfectly normal everyday event?

  Well, to him, it probably was.

  OK. She could do normal.

  ‘Damian must be – almost six?’

  ‘Mm.’

  Their little Stinker. But he wouldn’t even remember Suzanne. ‘Does he still have a nanny?’

  ‘Well, they call her an au pair. Hand-picked by Zenaida, who seems to have scoured the arrondissements for the surliest girl in Paris – and that’s saying something. Although to be fair, the surliness may partly be down to having to look after Damian... No, really, he’s an au pair’s worst nightmare.’ She could hear the grin in his voice. ‘Obsessed with jumping off walls and out of trees – in fact any structure high enough to have the potential for fatal injury.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Suzanne would soon have put a stop to that.

  ‘His other main interest is skulls. Other kids bug you for plastic figures and luridly coloured ice lollies. Damian whinges on if you don’t stop the car so he can get out and scrape up maggoty roadkill.’

  No way would Suzanne have stood for that! ‘And someone then has to get the skull out? The au pair?’ She giggled. ‘Irina?’

  ‘Can you imagine? No. He’s got one of the keepers onto that. And – you might be interested in this – he’s got all the skulls displayed on tables in one of the outbuildings, complete with indecipherable labels. The Pitfourie Natural History Museum – admission charge 20p. Attractions – forty-odd skulls, mainly rabbits and deer; a desiccated bat; and a hideously deformed fungus, although that’s starting to go mouldy.’

  ‘Sounds like he needs to look at his humidity levels. A common issue with organic material.’

  ‘Really? I’m sure he’d be glad of your help with conserving the collection generally. The bat looks like something’s been having a good chew on it.’ She felt his fingers in her hair. ‘Have you been back, since you left? To Pitfourie?’

  ‘No.’

  How could she go back? Mum, Uncle Jim, Auntie Anne – they thought it was because she couldn’t face being back where it happened. But it wasn’t that. What she couldn’t face was the corner of the steading at the Mains where the dollies had had their shoppie, the shelf maybe still there where the empty packets of cornflakes and tins of pineapple and condensed milk had sat... The bit of the road to Kirkton where Norrie’s brother Craig had caught a forkytail in a jar, and chased them screaming all the way down the hill... A harvest night, leaning out of her bedroom window to smell the dust off the barley and wondering if Suzanne was doing the same, watching the lights of the combine and the tractors in the Back Park, their fathers and Sandie Cowie from Croftgloy, and over them the million stars of the constellations.

  ‘I’ve kind of lost touch with everyone. I saw Fiona a few times, but – not recently.’

  She’d even spent a weekend in Fiona’s student flat in Aberdeen – Fiona trying too hard to be cheery, as if she was someone else attempting the role of Fiona and not quite getting it right. There’d been long silences and lots of TV. They’d avoided the subjects of Pitfourie, Steve, Hector – until at the bus station Helen had blurted: ‘Is Hector still in prison?’ and Fiona had nodded.

  Hector moved his shoulder a little under her. ‘So you weren’t at the wedding?’

  ‘Wedding? She’s married?’

  ‘Doesn’t your uncle keep you up to date with the gossip?’

  ‘If it isn’t to do with either farming or someone he was at school with, it’s not really news as far as Uncle Jim’s concerned. But... who has she married?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘Not Steve?’

  ‘Why not Steve?’ He breathed out on a laugh. ‘Poor sod.’

  He had no regrets about Fiona, then. Suddenly her face was too hot. She shut her eyes, and his fingers moved to her temple, her hairline. So gentle. He was so gentle. But every touch, every little caress sent a thrumming all the way through her.

  ‘So is London where you want to be?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ She opened her eyes. ‘I hate it.’

  She felt his chest move as he laughed again. ‘Then why stay?’

  ‘Because of my job. And – this will sound daft. But if Suzanne’s anywhere, if she’s alive, I think she’ll be here.’

  His fingers stopped moving in her hair.

  Oh God. He thought she was off her trolley. He thought she was a right nutter, roaming the streets of London looking for her dead cousin. He was probably thinking Oh-oh and How do I get out of this?

  ‘I know it’s stupid! But I can’t help thinking, if there’s even just a tiny little chance... I don’t go out looking for her or anything, like Ina does.’ Well, not any more. Or not often.

  ‘Ina’s still in Glasgow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ina was in Glasgow, because that was where there’d been the most ‘sightings’ of Suzanne. She’d left Uncle Jim. He’d dropped it in at the end of a conversation with Mum one day, after they’d talked about all the important things, like how beef prices were holding up: the information that Ina had packed her things and gone.

  ‘I don’t think Ina will ever stop looking.’ And maybe she would find her yet. There was a chance, wasn’t there? Maybe Suzanne was in Glasgow?

  ‘But she must be dead, Helen. You know she must be.’

  ‘We don’t know that for certain.’

  ‘One day, Robin Beattie is going to resurface –’

  ‘I know. I know he’s going to come after me.’

  He puffed out a sigh. She felt it on the top of her hair. ‘No he’s not. I didn’t mean that. Why on earth would he come after you?’

  ‘Because he’s always hated me. He’s always wanted to hurt me. I can’t tell you why because I don’t know.’ That was true, of course, only up to a point.

  Up to the point she’d tried to kill him.

  ‘He did it because he was a little shit. He’ll be getting his sick kicks at someone else’s expense now, wherever he is – why should he risk getting caught by showing his face anywhere near you? Rob always was gutless.’

  ‘He killed Suzanne.’

  ‘A girl half his size who made the mistake of trusting him.’ A silence. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She heaved in a breath.

  He continued: ‘And then he wasted no time making himself scarce. There’s no way he’s ever going to risk coming anywhere near you. Please tell me you’re not still living in fear of that fucking little shit, Helen.’

  She shrank, inwardly, from the sudden anger in his voice. ‘No. No. Not – on a daily basis or anything.’

  ‘When I said he’s going to resurface, all I meant was… whatever stone he’s crawled under, one day he’s going to crawl back out again. Blow his cover. His luck’s going to run out. They’ll catch him.’

  This was another of her fantasies, of course – that one day she’d turn on the TV and there would be Rob in handcuffs being led to a police van. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘And maybe then we’ll find out what happened to Suzanne. But in the meantime… You’ve got your life to live.’ He took a long breath. ‘Isn’t it time to let it go? To let her go?’ He ran his fingers around the curve of her bare shoulder.

  Could it really be so simple? Was it really a choice she could make? Was it a deal that God, fate, the Universe was offering her? You ca
n have one of the things you want, but only one. Forget about Suzanne, forget about Rob, and you can have him.

  As his lips kissed her neck, the place under her ear, her mouth, she pushed away the thought: What if I could?

  But later, when he was asleep, and she was lying propped on one elbow looking at him, at the contours of his face, other-worldly in the dim yellow wash of the streetlight, she let herself admit it:

  She would do anything if she could have him.

  She would forget anything and everything. All the trappings of her mortal existence. Like Janet Duncan from Bridieswells, stolen away by the Ghillie Dhu.

  She and Suzanne used to love that story – Daft Janet and the Ghillie Dhu. Janet’s mother had told her to be home before the moon rose, but Janet dawdled on the Coynach Road, and the moon rose high in the sky, and into her shadow crept the Ghillie Dhu.

  The Dark Man.

  He wasn’t scary, like the Sith – but that was the whole problem. You didn’t want to run away. Once he started singing to you in his fine sweet voice you were powerless to resist, and Daft Janet certainly hadn’t. She’d gone dancing off with him into the pinewood of Corrachree and out of mortal ken. When eventually she came back to her family after eight long years, she was ‘nae use to naebody’, her face forever turning to Corrachree. She was deaf to all mortal sound: her mother’s wailing; her father’s scolding; the blacksmith’s hammer when the minister pushed her ear to the anvil. If it wasn’t the song of the Ghillie Dhu, Daft Janet wasn’t interested.

  It had become one of their games, but the Ghillie Dhu creeping up on Janet had soon palled, and the whole thing had taken on a more domestic quality. Daft Janet and the Ghillie Dhu had a housie in the woods, and various dollies for naughty children and/or visitors, and plastic cups and plates, and an old blue and green rug for the floor. Sometimes the Ghillie Dhu brought home a dollie he’d enchanted, and Janet would huff and puff and tell him to take her right back; she’d enough mouths to feed, thank you very much.

  Helen smiled, and with the tips of her fingers touched his hair.

  Long ago, she’d picked out their housie. The East Lodge. Gingerbread gables and little bedrooms with sloping eaves. A range fire in the kitchen. The Laird and Irina would give them furniture from the attics, and Helen wouldn’t like to refuse, and it would look ridiculous, big grand Georgian stuff squashed into the tiny rooms. And Stinker would sometimes come and stay the night, her little cushie-doo, all sweet and sleepy in his pyjamas. Irina would have a great long list of rules about what to feed him, but Helen would get in a stash of Jelly Tots and Dolly Mixtures and Smarties, and the three of them would gorge themselves silly. On Saturdays Hector would sometimes take her to the Forbes Arms for a bar lunch, and Jennifer Gordon would have to serve them.